Christianity was an apocalyptic prophetic cult that expected Jesus to come back within a few months or so. His message was to reject anything that might lead you away from belief in him as the son of God and messenger for the immediate apocalypse. So there are like 200 parables about denying earthly desires to instead focus on belief in Jesus as Prophet and proselytizing.
When Jesus never came back, they invented the field of Christian apologetics, grew in numbers, and became a state religion, something in explicit opposition to the Gospels. Now there is an intentionally opaque and roundabout justification for everything the Euro ruling class wanted to do for about 2000 years.
Reading the New Testament chronologically in the order it was written (not the chronology of its internal events) really hits this home. Paul’s undisputed letters are the oldest, and Paul is talking about not even having sex, not as a matter of self denial, but as a matter of “Jesus is coming like, tomorrow, so why even bother with sex. I mean if you really got to ok but the end is so near it’s a waste of time really”.
Paul’s stufg is also kind of fun to read because he was an OG weirdo. Fanboy supreme, picking fights and judging everyone, having crashouts, getting kicked out of places for being annoying…
Christianity was an apocalyptic prophetic cult that expected Jesus to come back within a few months or so. His message was to reject anything that might lead you away from belief in him as the son of God and messenger for the immediate apocalypse. So there are like 200 parables about denying earthly desires to instead focus on belief in Jesus as Prophet and proselytizing.
When Jesus never came back, they invented the field of Christian apologetics, grew in numbers, and became a state religion, something in explicit opposition to the Gospels. Now there is an intentionally opaque and roundabout justification for everything the Euro ruling class wanted to do for about 2000 years.
This comrade gets it.
Reading the New Testament chronologically in the order it was written (not the chronology of its internal events) really hits this home. Paul’s undisputed letters are the oldest, and Paul is talking about not even having sex, not as a matter of self denial, but as a matter of “Jesus is coming like, tomorrow, so why even bother with sex. I mean if you really got to ok but the end is so near it’s a waste of time really”.
So save it up for when he gets here - Paul
Paul’s stufg is also kind of fun to read because he was an OG weirdo. Fanboy supreme, picking fights and judging everyone, having crashouts, getting kicked out of places for being annoying…
crashing out so hard you genocide/colonize most of the world