He did, in fact, know something.
And it was quite important.
Who in history (either present or in the past) do you think has had the biggest positive impact on humanity?
3 years ago by Aurelius to c/asklemmy
Transporter_Room_3 23 points 3 years ago
VinesNFluff 4 points 3 years ago
(almost like the fictional character was named that for a reason--)
cerulean_blue 1 point 3 years ago
And killing the last of the dragons and stuff
Che_Donkey 68 points 3 years ago
Louis Pasteur?
Che_Donkey 2 points 3 years ago
But you need a subscription for it :p
CanadaPlus 20 points 3 years ago
I suspect that one is overrated, actually. He did one step in a long, gradual process. He gets credit mainly because it was big for Europe, who right at that moment in history invented proper seafaring and spread themselves and his name all over the place.
CanadaPlus 1 point 3 years ago
I don't think that was related to Gutenberg at all. Or, at the very least, they would have industrialised just a bit later without him. The initial wave was all about boats that allowed them to reach and enslave less advanced people.
gapbetweenus 9 points 3 years ago
But if you think the internet and social media as the continuation of that tradition - maybe that was a mistake after all. /s
thepreciousboar 53 points 3 years ago
Fritz Haber, the Veritasium video about him is fascinating (The Man who Killed Milioms and Saved Bilions). He developed the chemical process to efficiently synthesize ammonia, one of the key discoveries that allowed mass adoption of fertilizers and the incredibly rapid growth of the human population in the 20th century (you could say that thanks to him, bilions of people could live and be fed by modern agriculture).
Tragically, he also had a fundamental role in developing chemical weapons during WWI, although he belived their use would reduce the number of deaths as army would simply avoid gassed zones, so who knows if he really intended and believed in the milions of deaths he caused. Ironically, he also helped developing Zyklon B during the rise of nazism (while it was still used as a pesticide), but was quickly forced to flee from Germany because of jewish origin. Later, his last invention would be used to kill even more people.
state_electrician 8 points 3 years ago
There's also a Sabaton song, "Father", about him.
anon6789 8 points 3 years ago
That's where I first heard about him. Thanks, Spotify. I've learned more about European history from Sabaton and Iron Maiden than I have from school.
Someone else mention Borlaug in this thread, and it shows how no single person necessarily changed anything on their own, and how it's difficult to put all the success as the result of a single person. Borlaug's success was only possible by building on Haber's work, just like Haber worked with Carl Bosch to accomplish what he did, and so on.
Seven Billion Humans: The World Fritz Haber Made
Haber therefore revolutionized the entire course of world history. The transformation of Asia and the emergence of China and India as giant, modern 21st-century global economies would never have been possible without Norman Borlaug’s miracle rice strains. But they could never have been grown had Haber not “extracted bread from air,” as his fellow Nobel laureate Max von Laue put it. Borlaug’s “miracle” strains of rice and grain require exceptionally vast inputs of the nitrate fertilizer that is still made from the process Fritz Haber discovered.
These fertilizers also require enormous inputs of oil. This means the dream of an oil-free world can never happen. Even if eternal, ever-renewable free energy could be harnessed from the sun or the cosmic currents of space, a world of seven billion people would still be desperately dependent on oil to make the nitrate fertilizer to grow the crops those people need to survive. The 21st century, like the 20th century, therefore, will still be Fritz Haber’s world.
xkforce 39 points 3 years ago
Norman borlaug and Fritz Haber. The first was basically the father of modern agriculture helping feed over a billion people. The latter known as the man that saved billions and killed millions, helped develop the haber bosch process that produces ammonia used in fertillizers that are responsible for feeding half the world's population. It was also used in explosives hence the "killed millions" part.
xkforce 18 points 3 years ago
Zyklon b was used as a fumigant before it was used in the holocaust. It was also called Prussic acid and would be known as Hydrogen Cyanide today. It was discovered by Carl Scheele back in the 1700s. It is also what gives poisonous (bitter) almonds their characteristic scent and toxicity.
Haber did however, suggest the use of Chlorine gas as a chemical weapon which his wife was so horrified by that she committed suicide. Haber was also partially responsible for the development of the Born Haber cycle which is a theoretical tool used to estimate the thermodynamic stability of salts.
Haber is only listed here because ultimately billions would have starved to death without the Haber process. And regardless of his intentions and the other things he did, that particular invention arguably saved more lives than anyone else that has ever lived.
Notyou 2 points 3 years ago
Thank you for providing context. I did not mean to blame (or make people think that) Haber for any deaths, he was a smart person that made a great impact on all of us. It isn't his fault people think of other ways to use his work for death. It most have been hard on him to have his wife commit suicide over it though. That's rough.
xkforce 9 points 3 years ago
Haber did not develop the Haber process to produce fertillizer. He did it precisely because German access to saltpeter from South America had been cut off and that threatened to severely compromise the German capacity for war. This was not a case where Haber's work was meant for benign peaceful purposes and misappropriated for use in war. It was used exactly the way he intended it to be. It just happened to also be useful for keeping half the planet from starving to death. His wife did not kill herself because his work was misused. She killed herself because it was used exactly how Haber wanted it to be. And he can't advocate for the use of Chlorine as a chemical weapon and have clean hands by definition.
Which is why I said that the only reason he was mentioned is because the Haber process ultimately saved the lives of billions of people arguably outweighing the harm that process was developed to enable. Haber wasn't a good guy by any stretch of the imagination but without the Haber process, we would have had famine and death on a scale never seen in all of human history on this planet.
lightnsfw -1 points 3 years ago
Even the fertilizer thing is arguably bad. It's allowed the population of the world to explode at an exponential rate and burn through resources even faster rather than be capped at a much more manageable level.
theywilleatthestars 35 points 3 years ago
Louis Pasteur
CanadaPlus 33 points 3 years ago
Politicians and kings rarely do something they weren't forced to, and inventors are rarely without competition, so I take issue with most of the responses here.
Instead, I'll go with naval officer Vasily Arkhipov, who, if he had decided to agree with the normal officers of the submarine he happened to be on, would have started a hot Cold War on 27 October, 1962.
Then again, there was a separate, slightly less severe close call the same day, so if you butterfly that who knows what else happens. It was a crazy time where few understood nuclear diplomacy and cold warfare, but nukes were ubiquitous, and were being treated like normal weapons. We got lucky.
Canary9341 17 points 3 years ago
There was another noteworthy case with Stanislav Petrov.
CanadaPlus 5 points 3 years ago
Yup. That one had a bit more wiggle room, though, because his superiors might have just come to the same conclusion he did. The other incident marked likely on the Wikipedia list is actually from France, which is almost funny to me. Can you imagine France doing a first strike out of nowhere?
retrieval4558 2 points 3 years ago
Yeah my answer was "our Most Recent Common Ancestor"
Gabu 1 point 3 years ago
Dumont was a prolific Brazilian-French inventor. Among his most famous achievements are several lighter-than-air flights and flying machines (blimps), as well as a potential claim as the inventor of the first airplane.
OsrsNeedsF2P 6 points 3 years ago
Yes. That Stallman is arguably one of the top few people why we have the internet as it is, at all today.
Most other people could be "replaced". If it wasn't X, it would be Y. But only Stallman pushed the copyleft license onto Linux. Only Stallman's organization popularized it.
So yes, that sexist, neurodivergent, bigoted Stallman, is one of the most positively influential people of our time.
HobbitFoot 21 points 3 years ago
Norman Borlaug helped develop a lot of techniques used by developing nations to gain food self-sufficency.
gapbetweenus 21 points 3 years ago
Who ever started the whole enlightenment thing, with the idea that there is no god and we are responsible for our self.
gapbetweenus 6 points 3 years ago
Sultan Mehmed II
That's the dude who fought Dracula? Didn't know he was involved with enlightenment any sources to read up on it?
Zagorath 14 points 3 years ago
The argument is (though it's certainly not a universally-agreed view) that the fall of Constantinople lead a lot of artists and scientists to flee from the city heading west, along with old texts. Which lead to an increased interest in their knowledge from the west, which is what triggered the Renaissance.
Mehmed II was the Sultan responsible for the invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire and the siege of Constantinople. Hence, he's the guy responsible for it, under this model.
gapbetweenus 4 points 3 years ago
That is a funny perspective, I somehow like it.
CanadaPlus 3 points 3 years ago
You know, from what I've read about it, it wasn't one specific person, and it seems highly likely there were others doing the same thing earlier, but they just couldn't take root for whatever reason.
gapbetweenus 0 points 3 years ago
What do you mean? It's always a specific person or a specific small group that comes up with ideas that are later popularized. Like you can pinpoint evolution theory to a small group of biologists with Darwin and Huxley at their forefront.
CanadaPlus 2 points 3 years ago
So as you might be aware, you've actually chosen an example with 2 simultaneous inventors. Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the same idea at the same time, actually sent Darwin a letter about it before anything was published, and was credited for it. To be fair, they had similar backgrounds, and like you say were a small group. However, there's plenty of inventions of the same thing separated across lots of time and space. Writing was invented several times is fairly isolated civilisations, and Gaussian elimination bears a German man's name, and was thought to be fairly new, but can be found in ancient Chinese works as well.
Who started the enlightenment? Voltaire is often on people's lips, but if it wasn't for the French revolution in his area just a few decades after his death, and which made him a sort of saint, he would have a much smaller profile. Meanwhile, if you go back further there's someone advocating some enlightenment-ish idea recorded from probably every century. Famous names taper off towards the middle ages in Europe, but then so does the record in general, and Arabs like Avicenna or Al-Ma'ari pick up the slack.
gapbetweenus 1 point 3 years ago
But every time writing was invented it had to be invented by a specific dude or a small group of dudes. It did not just come to be out of thin air, someone had to invent it and someone had to popularize it. And so with enlightenment - someone (maybe we don't even know her name) has to come up with an idea and others, whose names we know have to popularize it.
I get that you are saying that it might have been another person (or small group), sure - but in the end it has to be someone.
muntedcrocodile -2 points 3 years ago
Religion died the day they invented the scientific method.
gapbetweenus 10 points 3 years ago
Someone forgot to tell that to religions.
muntedcrocodile 1 point 3 years ago
Ahh they are withering a slow and painfull death not our problem.
gapbetweenus 0 points 3 years ago
I would very much disagree. They are our problem and we should put them out of their misery.
frightful_hobgoblin -5 points 3 years ago
The enlightenment is overrated. History is driven by contestst of groups not contests of ideas.
gapbetweenus 5 points 3 years ago
And people are often governed or motivated by ideas.
frightful_hobgoblin -6 points 3 years ago
People are governed/motivated by self-interest.
gapbetweenus 3 points 3 years ago
So you don't have ideas in your head about the world that affect how you interact with the world? Might be true for you, but I would say it's not an universal experience. Also I don't say it's juts ideas but ideas are part of our psychology.
Kindness 20 points 3 years ago
Mathematicians, Physicists, Scientists, and Astronomers: Good effort everyone. The foundation of a rational world.
Very Notable Mentions:
Chemist: Fritz Haber. 1/3 of world food production today can be attributed to his discovery. Also an enormous negative impact, see German Chemical Warfare.
Biologist: Gregor Mendel. Monk who discovered the basis for genetics.
Ecologist: Charles Darwin. Discovered the theory of evolution.
Philosopher: Socrates. Critical Thinking.
Computers: Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, and Alan Turing. See empowerment of computation and relegating ridiculously complex math and data collection to machines.
Computer Networking: J. C. R. Licklider, DARPA, and Tim Berners-Lee. See Internet and I/O on a global scale. Both positive and negative.
Finally, the largest net positive of all: Artists. Yes, artists. Popularity as the prime determinant by nature of their work. For inspiration, desire, meaning, peace, community, and emotion. The language of all, an instinctive form of communication.
My visual pick is Leonardo da Vinci as both a practical and artistic contributor. As for classical, it's nearly impossible to pick, but I'd say Beethoven and then Bach.
kromem 4 points 3 years ago
Eh, kind of 'rediscovered' more.
Biologist: Gregor Mendel. Monk who discovered the basis for genetics.
Sometimes children take after their grandparents instead, Or great-grandparents, bringing back the features of the dead. This is since parents carry elemental seeds inside – Many and various, mingled many ways – their bodies hide Seeds that are handed, parent to child, all down the family tree. Venus draws features from these out of her shifting lottery – Bringing back an ancestor’s look or voice or hair.
Indeed These characteristics are just as much the result of certain seed As are our faces, limbs and bodies. Females can arise From the paternal seed, just as the male offspring, likewise, Can be created from the mother’s flesh.
For to comprise A child requires a doubled seed – from father and from mother. And if the child resembles one more closely than the other, That parent gave the greater share – which you can plainly see Whichever gender – male or female – that the child may be."
- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 4.1217-1232 (50 BCE)
Ecologist: Charles Darwin. Discovered the theory of evolution.
In the beginning, there were many freaks. Earth undertook Experiments - bizarrely put together, weird of look Hermaphrodites, partaking of both sexes, but neither; some Bereft of feet, or orphaned of their hands, and others dumb, Being devoid of mouth; and others yet, with no eyes, blind. Some had their limbs stuck to the body, tightly in a bind, And couldn't do anything, or move, and so could not evade Harm, or forage for bare necessities. And the Earth made Other kinds of monsters too, but in vain, since with each, Nature frowned upon their growth; they were not able to reach The flowering of adulthood, nor find food on which to feed, Nor be joined in the act of Venus.
For all creatures need Many different things, we realize, to multiply And to forge out the links of generations: a supply Of food, first, and a means for the engendering seed to flow Throughout the body and out of the lax limbs; and also so The female and the male can mate, a means they can employ In order to impart and to receive their mutual joy.
Then, many kinds of creatures must have vanished with no trace Because they could not reproduce or hammer out their race. For any beast you look upon that drinks life-giving air, Has either wits, or bravery, or fleetness of foot to spare, Ensuring its survival from its genesis to now.
- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 5.837-859
Certainly the more modern versions of these ideas had the benefit of the scientific method to help flesh them out and gain traction as opposed to being rejected and forgotten by dogma.
But let's not be like the ancient Greeks in claiming Pythagoras invented ideas that we now know predated him by millennia. We owe a great deal to the giants on whose shoulders we stand on, but let us not forget the giants who tread the ground well before them and simply didn't get taken up on the offer of their shoulders.
Kindness 1 point 3 years ago
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
It appreciate the knowledge and poetry. Thank you.
let us not forget the giants who tread the ground well before them and simply didn’t get taken up on the offer of their shoulders.
Rather, let us not forget the people whose ideas reflected reality. Data and science are not speculation, "must haves", or attributions of unknown mechanisms to the favor of deities.
Many people speculated on gravity, astronomy, and falling things long before someone put it into a mathematical formula. That is, quantitative and qualitative assertions outweigh ideological ones. I speculated with a sibling about black-holes being potential wormholes or portals several years before I read a news article saying Stephen Hawking speculated the same. Yet I provide no supporting evidence, written and dated or not, thus I am no giant.
kromem 1 point 3 years ago
Yet I provide no supporting evidence, written and dated or not, thus I am no giant.
Much of Einstein's work we recognize as monumental were things that could not be proven in his time and were only validated decades later.
The Epicureans may not have had the scientific method available to them, but their focus on observation driven speculation was literally one of the factors that fed into its creation (see the Pulizer winning The Swerve).
Kindness 1 point 3 years ago
Much of Einstein’s work [...] only validated decades later.
You mean Einstein's equations? The maths that were solid enough to develop advanced destructive mechanisms and form entirely new theories equations?
the Pulizer winning The Swerve
To be clear, the prize for... art, and not journalism.
I'm not arguing that philosophy had no role in shaping history positively. Shaped history, yes. Came up with bright ideas, yes. Proved the atoms were arrangements of the four elements, not so much. Hedonism being the point of life, also not so much. Gave evidence for their claims? Very little more than speculation.
They gave contributions, yes. My point is they are contributors, but not giants in science. Having not had the method available to join the scientific revolution is core to this assertion.
thebardingreen 16 points 3 years ago
Theory doesn't mean what people think it means.
Culturally, we misunderstand theory to be equivalent to "hypothesis," meaning "We have an idea, now we need to prove or disprove it."
But accurately, theory means "We have a framework of interrelated ideas that fit the observable evidence." In that sense, evolution is an EXTREMELY well supported theory.
Gravity is also a theory. So are general and special relativity. So is all of quantum physics.
emergencyfood 4 points 3 years ago
In addition to what The Bard In Green said, while we know that evolution does happen, there is a lot of debate over what is its main driving force. Darwin argued that the main force was natural selection, and most biologists agree with him. But there are also other schools, such as Kimura's neutral theory (evolution is caused primarily by luck) and Margulis's symbiosis theory (evolution is caused primarily by mutualism).
MeetInPotatoes 1 point 3 years ago
Kinda settin the bar a little high here for Lemmy posts, ain'tcha?
Kindness 1 point 3 years ago
We're all here trying to make the place nicer. I think we're all contributing what we can to make the place what we want it to be.
For me, I want a psychologically safe place where I can have fun, share my ideas, and learn something new. Especially learning interesting tidbits that can lead me down a rabbit hole of knowledge. So that's what I'm doing. Here's hoping a snagged a few people off to wonderland.
shinigamiookamiryuu 19 points 3 years ago
Whoever first domesticated fire. Whatever his name was, I forgot.
superduperenigma 14 points 3 years ago
That was Ug. Really cool guy. His golf swing was immaculate, too.
Buddahriffic 6 points 3 years ago
I'd bet fire was involved in his/her name. Either fire was named after the inventor or the inventor was named after fire.
CanadaPlus 4 points 3 years ago
I mean, that could actually be many people for all we know. Back that far it's hard to even pin down the millennia something happened.
dangblingus 13 points 3 years ago
-Sir Alexander Fleming (guy who discovered the anti-biotic properties of penicillin)
-Sir Isaac Newton or alternatively, Gottfried Leibniz (they both independently of one another invented Calculus roughly around the same time)
-Bill Watterson
wargreymon2023 1 point 3 years ago
He is not the one and only great physicist in history tho.
wuphysics87 12 points 3 years ago
Dolly Parton
frightful_hobgoblin 8 points 3 years ago
my mother
SharkEatingBreakfast 7 points 3 years ago
I'm glad you were born, my dear. You are such a blessing!
BestBouclettes 7 points 3 years ago
The person who figured out how to make fire
Katrisia 6 points 3 years ago
I believe many great human beings have existed throughout history, but the impact they cause is often limited by their circumstances. For example, there have been thinkers defending compassion towards human beings and animals in possibly every culture, but those sages live and die admired yet misunderstood. Their lives are seen as "extraordinary", and thus, not attainable for normal people like us. We give up on following them since the start, instead of trying to achieve their wisdom or understanding...
Anyway, by mere impact, I guess Socrates, Plato, and Immanuel Kant are on the top for me. The first ones were influential in the development of many branches of knowledge, and solidified a tradition of critical thinking since antiquity. Immanuel Kant is kind of recent, but I'd say his works were really important for discussions around philosophy, science, arts, religion, and more. I admire Immanuel Kant greatly. I was recently reading a little text he wrote about psychiatric disorders and he was predicting modern paradigms in the 18th century. He was such a brilliant and knowledgeable person.
There are also incredible inventions and discoveries that have helped us all, but often those are the results of collective efforts. Still, as I said before, amazing human beings the ones that gave and still give these things for free. Getting personal again, I wouldn't be alive without many of those advances (vaccines, medications, etc.). On the technological side, the founder of that website that unlocks academic papers has had an impact that is yet to be analyzed.
Sorry! So many people...!
jeremyparker 4 points 3 years ago
Did you know that Kant used to criticize people who drank more than one cup of coffee per day. Also, he would refill his own coffee cup before it was empty, so he never had more than one cup.
Katrisia 1 point 3 years ago
That's hilarious! I guess he was a normal man with normal blunders in his daily life. I've heard about his meticulousness, that we had strict rules for his routines and reunions, but never details (and never the cup of coffee thing). Thanks for sharing.
jeremyparker 2 points 3 years ago
I intended to write that just as an intro paragraph to a critique of enlightenment philosophy, since I feel like, while the goal of objectifying the human experience was the natural predecessor to the eventual subjectification of the exterior universe, their confidence in their interpretations of their experience -- or maybe just in the universality of their interpretations -- makes their entire project a bit sus
But then life happened and I just said the thing about coffee.
Diplomjodler 8 points 3 years ago
I suspect the couple of hundred thousand that died in his wars would disagree.
frightful_hobgoblin 3 points 3 years ago
path: 0 8180531 8180658, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
schmorpel -3 points 3 years ago
Nobody, I think this is an insane question.
So many different people had small impacts on humanity, most of it somewhat regional. Most of the heroes I could think of in Western countries will have had a very limited impact on Eastern history, and vice versa. Also, I am very sure nobody had only positive impact.
Another problem: not everybody will rate a certain impact equally as positive.
I'd suggest to remove focus and attention from god- or hero-like figures and shift it towards improvements won by community action.
CanadaPlus 1 point 3 years ago
It would be a reasonable segue in any case. Myths and heroes are big in every society, and sometimes we don't realise ours count.
gapbetweenus 0 points 3 years ago
Edgy.
CanadaPlus 4 points 3 years ago
How? I think it's pretty accurate for OP to say it takes a team.
gapbetweenus 1 point 3 years ago
Dude it's a fun question from the sorts of who is stronger Superman or Goku. But even outside of that - it's hard to deny that some individuals had more impact on the course of our society than others.
CanadaPlus 0 points 3 years ago
Yeah, there's some variance, but I'd argue it's actually pretty small. I'm trying to figure out who I'd choose, but it's hard, because usually there's a lot of redundancy even when it comes to kings and generals, and nothings lasts more than a couple centuries or so on pure momentum. When archeologists excavate a place like Rome, without writing it's hard to even distinguish leaders. Rather, you can see trends smoothly changing over time, usually in response to something obvious like supply chain issues.
You can also see this if you look at the stories of today's great successes, and then compare them to the stories of people they would have started alongside. There was a lot of online stores in 2000, and one was bound to become Amazon. Amazon itself apparently was the first to allow negative book reviews on it's storefront, and that helped it through the lean years. That meeting could easily have gone a different way, and then it would have been someone else.
wargreymon2023 -7 points 3 years ago
Taylor Swift ❤️
wargreymon2023 -3 points 3 years ago
No one changes me more than my girlfriend Taylor Swift 💖💖💖
Anticorp -9 points 3 years ago
Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, and The Buddha all had profound impacts on the way that humans relate to each other, and the world around them. Each promoted non-violence and/or pacifism in a world ruled by ruthlessness and cruelty. I don't think we would be anywhere close to where we are now with human rights without their contributions to human understanding of empathy.
CanadaPlus 8 points 3 years ago
One of these is not like the others. Gandhi is polarising at best in India, and just kind of a nice brown guy strawman in the West.
CanadaPlus 7 points 3 years ago
As I understand it: Too tolerant and Westernised for Hindutva people, too mystical and obscure for progressives. When they made the biggest statue in the world, it was chosen to be of his colleague Vallabhbhai Patel.
As for why he's not the cartoonified nice guy he's often made out to be, well, I could talk about a number of issues, but this quote on how far he would take pacifism is pretty shocking:
Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany.... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.
Anticorp 3 points 3 years ago
I figured that was the answer. Thanks for sharing. As for the quote on the Holocaust, that's rough man. I guess I see his perspective, since what he did worked for him and India, but it sounds so ridiculous and callous to those of us who do not share the perspective.
I have never been a pacifist, but I understand its value and respect those with the strength to utilize it. It does take strength too. I can't imagine enduring what pacifists have endured throughout history. Even here in the United States, I love MLKJ's message, but I identify with Malcom X's perspective more personally.
cyberpunk007 3 points 3 years ago
Inventor or investor? 😂
Apollo2323 5 points 3 years ago path: 0 8202593 8203016 8211457, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
corsicanguppy 1 point 3 years ago
Yes of course. Probably a typo.
VanHalbgott -13 points 3 years ago path: 0 8201102, hotness: undefined, score: -13, children: 3
corsicanguppy 0 points 3 years ago
His brother started it.
Robotunicorn -42 points 3 years ago
Mother Teresa
LucasWaffyWaf 24 points 3 years ago
I sure did feel the love and embrace of the son of God as his proud followers directly contributed to various traumatic experiences and abuses growing up that fucked me up as a child and led to me being an emotionally and mentally stunted adult. If this is God's love, I ain't impressed, and don't gimme that shit about having my faith tested cause the sadistic bastard that sees global suffering en masse and explicitly allows it is not deserving of my faith.
Cool that your religion brings ya peace and joy mate, genuinely happy for ya. Shit sucks in the world and we all need some form of comfort, but my advice? Keep it to yourself.
Flax_vert -17 points 3 years ago
I'm so sorry to hear that. Satan does infiltrate places where God is meant to be. What I am sharing is more than a religion. It's a relationship with and eternal security in Christ. I stress this enough, the things that happened to you when you were younger WERE NOT okay in any way, shape or form. Bad things happen in schools as well, and other places that are supposed to be a sanctuary. Please don't allow your bad experience to reflect poorly on Christ. I think it was Gandhi who said "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
LucasWaffyWaf 8 points 3 years ago
I'll pass.
Flax_vert -4 points 3 years ago
Romans 3:10-12 ESV [10] as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; [11] no one understands; no one seeks for God. [12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
John 3:16 ESV [16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
1 Timothy 1:15 ESV [15] The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
Acts 16:31 ESV [31] And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Romans 8:1-2 ESV [1] There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
On relationship:
Matthew 18:19-20 ESV [19] Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. [20] For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Romans 8:26-27 ESV [26] Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. [27] And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:34-35 ESV [34] Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. [35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
CosmicTurtle 17 points 3 years ago
Yeah...if only his teachings would have survived...
superduperenigma 12 points 3 years ago
"Now just ignore all those instructions to implement socialism and go hate gay people!"
kromem 1 point 3 years ago
They did, it's just that you have two billion people ignoring them because they aren't in the compilation Rome put together and everyone else ignores them because of exhaustion hearing about the Rome version their entire life.
Super interesting stuff and way ahead of its time, understandably opposed by conservative Judaism at that period, and extremely different from what most people think was being discussed (nearly the opposite one might even say).
But it's one of those rabbit holes that's only worth going down for personal discovery, as nearly nobody gives a crap about it for varying reasons.
gapbetweenus 16 points 3 years ago
Thanks for existing, you are great advertisement for atheism, keep up the good work.
RIPandTERROR 7 points 3 years ago
Oh you dumb motherfucker
Flax_vert -2 points 3 years ago
We chose hell. Hell was made for satan and his angels. Heaven is prepared for us. And whether we don't like something or not doesn't dictate it's truth. I don't like Trump but he still exists.
Mojo 4 points 3 years ago
Um, speak for yourself, I didn't choose anything.
However, you dodged my point. Do you honestly think a "loving God" should torture his creations for eternity for not worshipping him? That doesn't sound evil to you? Also, are the people from other cultures that were around before Christianity in hell?
CableMonster -1 points 3 years ago
Its great how people hate Jesus as an answer, but then love Stalin.
CableMonster -1 points 3 years ago
Its great how people hate Jesus as an answer, but then love Stalin.
CableMonster -1 points 3 years ago
They would not admit that objectively Jesus and christianity is one the key factors of success of the west, and you dont even need to be a believer in God or a god to admit it.
brain_in_a_box 3 points 3 years ago path: 0 8185670 8214932 8216918 8219874 8235497, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
Flax_vert 1 point 3 years ago
Some even speculate that protestantism itself within Christianity helped grow literacy rates by encouraging Bible reading, however the Roman Catholic church has done a lot for science as well.
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asklemmy
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A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
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John Snow
For finally convincing westerners that microbes exist. Which got the ball rolling on like, actual medicine.
That's all.
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