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It's heartbreaking. But what about it even suggests anything from Revelation ?
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May 19, 2021 10:37
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Revelation was an allegory for the Roman Empire, in my book. Israel has become a genocidal apartheid state that's authoritarian if not downright fascist. https://i.imgur.com/13Y93XH.mp4
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May 19, 2021 12:35
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Cythereal posted:Revelation was an allegory for the Roman Empire, in my book. Agreed. Cythereal posted:Israel has become a genocidal apartheid state that's authoritarian if not downright fascist. Disagreed.
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May 19, 2021 17:11
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Not sure litigating the Israel/Palestine conflict is something that we should be doing in the Religion Thread.
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May 19, 2021 19:06
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You're right. I'm sure present day oppression of the weak is a topic of no interest to any religious person or organization, especially in a locale revered as the "Holy Land" by more than %50 of the Earth's population.
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May 19, 2021 23:35
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It's not that's not of interest, any more than abortion wasn't of interest when it was a completely forbidden topic rather than a "please don't and if you do anyway be careful" topic. It's that it's just going to get people yelling at each other unhelpfully. Less unhelpfully, Spacegrass posted:Could this be part of the bibles chapters of revelation? Reading that as written, rather than as meant, of course this is part of what was revealed in the Bible: namely, Mt 24:6-8 "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs." "Is this a sign that the seven years of tribulation has started?" is what you're trying to ask, and, well, I think this thread is mostly "it was all allegory", "it was talking about the Romans", or "well, God knows what it means, but I sure don't" in terms of interpretations of Revelation. I wouldn't be surprised if the final seven years before the end of time are especially bad, but because I believe and profess everything the Catholic Church teaches and professes, I believe that we are currently living in the millennium described in Revelation, which, if I recall correctly, is said to begin after those seven years of tribulation.
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May 20, 2021 00:06
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I believe in all that stuff but I'm also intensely skeptical of people saying the end is near given the track record of such things.
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May 20, 2021 00:23
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zonohedron posted:I wouldn't be surprised if the final seven years before the end of time are especially bad, but because I believe and profess everything the Catholic Church teaches and professes, I believe that we are currently living in the millennium described in Revelation, which, if I recall correctly, is said to begin after those seven years of tribulation. wait hold on, I did not realize Catholicism was millennialist.
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May 20, 2021 00:36
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Spacewolf posted:wait hold on, I did not realize Catholicism was millennialist. Wikipedia says that the Catholic Church "strongly condemns millennialism" quote:The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.
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May 20, 2021 00:41
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When it comes to war, I have this to say: Make sure your cupboard has enough food, and your house enough safe beds, to welcome those who flee from war. Welcome them all, those who can no longer walk, those who can no longer see, those so far gone they can no longer tell their story.
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May 20, 2021 00:57
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Spacegrass posted:What do you guys think about the new Israel war? Could this be part of the bibles chapters of revelation?  with this troll garbage plz
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May 20, 2021 01:14
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Spacewolf posted:wait hold on, I did not realize Catholicism was millennialist. We're amillennialist, meaning "we're in the millennium now, and no, it's not going to be a literal thousand years". Millennialists expect a future millennium. Post-millennialists believe they have to institute a thousand-year period of peace before Christ will return, pre-millennialists expect that Christ will return and then there'll be the thousand-year period of peace.
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May 20, 2021 01:34
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zonohedron posted:We're amillennialist, meaning "we're in the millennium now, and no, it's not going to be a literal thousand years". Millennialists expect a future millennium. Post-millennialists believe they have to institute a thousand-year period of peace before Christ will return, pre-millennialists expect that Christ will return and then there'll be the thousand-year period of peace. THANK YOU. I keep getting the terminology confused; this is so precise.
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May 20, 2021 02:43
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zonohedron posted:We're amillennialist, meaning "we're in the millennium now, and no, it's not going to be a literal thousand years". Millennialists expect a future millennium. Post-millennialists believe they have to institute a thousand-year period of peace before Christ will return, pre-millennialists expect that Christ will return and then there'll be the thousand-year period of peace.
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May 20, 2021 02:50
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Thirteen Orphans posted:THANK YOU. I keep getting the terminology confused; this is so precise. Oh, is that the "please, give me more details" light, illuminating on the console? It is??? So post-millennialists might believe in a Rapture, where all the believers are snatched away into the sky by Jesus before he judges the sinners. Pre-millennialists pretty much always do, but when that Rapture is going to happen differs: Pre-tribulationists believe that it will happen before the seven years of tribulation (that will happen before the millennium). Mid-tribulationists believe that it will happen exactly at the midpoint. Post-tribulationists believe that it will happen after the tribulation is over, exactly as Jesus is returning to institute the millennium. Catholics typically interpret "two women will be at the mill; one will be taken, one will be left" and similar passages as suggesting that the one who is "taken" is kidnapped or murdered or something - that in the period(s?) of persecution Jesus is describing, nobody's going to be teleported to safety, but, rather, there'll be all kinds of awful, seemingly random violence, and you could be grinding grain with your next-door neighbor when suddenly she's slain and you're traumatized. (Or you're slain and she's traumatized.) Some Catholics are going to live to see the end of everything, but we don't know when, and shouldn't plan to be around for the heavens and the earth dissolving in fire, because the Four Last Things await us all: death, judgement, and Heaven and Hell. We will all die, we will all be judged by God, and then we will all end up either in Heaven (possibly with a pit stop in Purgatory on the way) or not in Heaven. From that perspective it doesn't matter if we die because a truck hits us, because we're martyred for being Christians, or because everything in existence has suddenly been reduced to its constituent quarks - judgement and either Heaven or Hell are awaiting us anyway. Nessus posted:Then what was the stuff in Revelations? Entirely metaphorical, stuff from the end of the western Roman empire? A little of column A, a little of column B, some things that are yet to happen, and some things that have already happened - the woman whose son was caught up to Heaven, who fled into the desert, was Mary (and is the Church), for example.
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May 20, 2021 03:01
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Nessus posted:Then what was the stuff in Revelations? Entirely metaphorical, stuff from the end of the western Roman empire? Earlier Nero or Vespasian or Domitian. City of God is about the of the empire.
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May 20, 2021 03:05
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zonohedron posted:Oh, is that the "please, give me more details" light, illuminating on the console? It is???  That's the good stuff.
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May 20, 2021 04:19
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zonohedron posted:Oh, is that the "please, give me more details" light, illuminating on the console? It is??? I don't believe in hell, I think that's parts of the devils plans to make us confused. I believe God will give us time to repent. He will punish us for making mistakes, but it's all part of growing up.
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May 20, 2021 04:22
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Personally, I am rather inclined towards the viewpoint of Luther and a number of the early church fathers on Revelation. I think it should largely be disregarded.
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May 20, 2021 07:18
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Jaramin posted:You're right. I'm sure present day oppression of the weak is a topic of no interest to any religious person or organization, especially in a locale revered as the "Holy Land" by more than %50 of the Earth's population. Do Muslims regard Palestine as "holy land?" Obviously there are sacred sites (Al-Aqsa Mosque, David's tomb etc) but I don't think Muslims see that region the same way Jews see it, where every parcel of land is metaphysically loaded with spiritual energy and acts as the anchor of the covenant between Jew and G-d. This shouldn't be taken as any kind of Zionist apologia - people have the right to keep their houses regardless of who does or does not view that land as "holy" - but I would be very surprised to hear that Islam sees Palestine/Israel (or any other region of the world) in the way Jews see it. Basically, I think Hegel was right when he said: "In Mohammedanism the limited principle of the Jews is expanded into universality and thereby overcome. Here, God is no longer, as with the Asiatics, contemplated as existent in immediately sensuous mode but is apprehended as the one infinite sublime Power beyond all the multiplicity of the world. Mohammedanism is, therefore, in the strictest sense of the world, the religion of sublimity." So, although I'm not a Muslim and I'd like to know more, I react skeptically to the idea that Muslims replicate the Jewish obsession with the land where Jews happened to live when we first became Jews - that's the kind of "limited principle" Hegel's referencing, right? I also don't understand why exactly Christians see Israel as "Holy Land." Is it because Jesus lived and died there, or because G-d's covenant with the Jews is in some sense still active, or both or neither? Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 13:59 on May 20, 2021 |
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May 20, 2021 13:53
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Do Muslims regard Palestine as "holy land?" Obviously there are sacred sites (Al-Aqsa Mosque, David's tomb etc) but I don't think Muslims see that region the same way Jews see it, where every parcel of land is metaphysically loaded with spiritual energy and acts as the anchor of the covenant between Jew and G-d. Something you have to also recognize is the difference between the finely articulated belief and philosophy of a religious scholar and the every day faith of your typical believer. I can't speak on the theological importance of Israel and Palestine in Islam, but even if the kinds of people who think deep thoughts professionally might come to the conclusion that it's ultimately not all that important, the simple fact is that there are millions of believers who consider them holy sites and feel strongly about them because of that. An example from Christian history might be pilgrimage sites. Someplace like Compostela isn't going to be seen by even the medieval papacy as critical to the core of Christian belief, but it was still revered by millions of believers and there would be a lot of cultural and political fallout from someone pillaging it.
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May 20, 2021 15:11
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And, while I"m here:zonohedron posted:It's not that's not of interest, any more than abortion wasn't of interest when it was a completely forbidden topic rather than a "please don't and if you do anyway be careful" topic. It's that it's just going to get people yelling at each other unhelpfully. This is more or less my take. This thread, in its most recent incarnation, has an amazing ability to have reasonable conversations about some incredibly fraught topics. Not too long ago there was a productive discussion about abortion, for example. This is 100% down to the community of posters we have in here, and the way that you all choose to be respectful to one another, even when you're disagreeing on things that you have very, very strong opinions and convictions about. If you all want to discuss something that's really touchy, I'm fine with that, just keep up your usual high standard of mutual respect and civility. If things drag out or bog down I might come in and say "hey, this topic's a bit dead, let's draw a line under it and move on for now" and that's fine. The one thing I'd add is that this is a thread about religion and religious belief. I don't think we need to get into the weeds on Israeli and Palestinian elections, for example, or broad discussions of the relative morality of rocket attacks and fighter strikes. Just because a thing is happening under the pretext of confessional differences doesn't make it appropriate for this thread. So focus on that aspect. The recent discussion of millennialism and how it relates to the way people view conflict and crisis in Israel/Palestine is a great example of that. That's a firmly religious topic that's well within this thread's wheelhouse, and it gives a religion-thread lens through which to look at an aspect of the current tragedy unfolding over there.
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May 20, 2021 15:17
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zonohedron posted:A little of column A, a little of column B, some things that are yet to happen, and some things that have already happened - the woman whose son was caught up to Heaven, who fled into the desert, was Mary (and is the Church), for example. My favorite way to deliberately misinterpret Revelation is asserting that the woman with "with the moon under her feet" is obviously an astronaut on the lunar surface, so we don't need to worry about any of these events coming to pass until we have a good-sized moon base and someone gives birth up there.
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May 20, 2021 16:11
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Civilized Fishbot posted:I also don't understand why exactly Christians see Israel as "Holy Land." Is it because Jesus lived and died there, or because G-d's covenant with the Jews is in some sense still active, or both or neither? "Yes", because there's so many different views of Israel among different kinds of Christian. I would say that mostly we say that because that's the land God gave to His people, which is why that's where Jesus lived and died, but there are Christians who think that non-Christ-following Jewish people need to rebuild the temple so that various prophecies can come true (generally in tediously literal form), and there are Christians who think that Jewish people don't 'have' to become Christian because they already know God. (The Catholic church does not profess either of these ideas.)
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May 20, 2021 16:30
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CrypticFox posted:Personally, I am rather inclined towards the viewpoint of Luther and a number of the early church fathers on Revelation. I think it should largely be disregarded. I don't think Revelation should just be "disregarded", but I agree it's worth going back and learning what scholars and thinkers throughout history have thought of it. It can be a big lightbulb moment to see that it was not always a super popular or influential book, compared to the popularity it has had among English speaking Protestants of the past few decades. I will also mention that another way to interpret Revelation is to just apply the good old historical-critical method. A lot of people who look at this text through that lens come to the conclusion that the author was most likely speaking in metaphor about issues of the day. For example, some scholars have argued that the whole thing is just John being pissed off at the Romans for exiling him to Patmos. In my opinion this is one of the more simple and straightforward interpretations 
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May 20, 2021 18:44
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When it comes to eschatology, I just remind myself that Jesus said that no one can know the day or hour of the end. As far as I'm concerned, anyone claiming that such and such is a sign of the end times is by definition bunk and can be safely disregarded. https://i.imgur.com/ZRDdq4O.mp4
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May 20, 2021 20:08
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Lutha Mahtin posted:I don't think Revelation should just be "disregarded", but I agree it's worth going back and learning what scholars and thinkers throughout history have thought of it. It can be a big lightbulb moment to see that it was not always a super popular or influential book, compared to the popularity it has had among English speaking Protestants of the past few decades. Disregarded may have been an overly strong word. I don't think we should ignore it, but at the same time, I think any attempt to use it to divine clues about the end times is pointless.
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May 20, 2021 20:17
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I think of all the NT as eschatology and revelation. It’s all in response to the death of Jesus, the Jewish wars, and communities being ended by the Romans. It’s all different ways we can respond to the end. We can face the shaking of the foundations like the example we see in the Gospels or we can face it like the example we see in Revelation . Throwing it out is to throw out the anger and rage some people feel when the world changes and the foundations shake. It’s : This poo poo is hosed. This hosed poo poo has to and will end. That’s a real reaction people have and one we have to wrestle with. Throwing out Revelation is to try to avoid that question rather than dealing with it.
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May 20, 2021 21:12
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zonohedron posted:So post-millennialists might believe in a Rapture, where all the believers are snatched away into the sky by Jesus before he judges the sinners. Pre-millennialists pretty much always do, but when that Rapture is going to happen differs: I grew up in a Southern Baptist church that taught what they called the literal interpretation. As a kid I thought it all sounded really cool (as apocalypses often do) and would read Tim LaHaye books and whatnot about all of it, and I noticed that honestly the stuff in those books didn't really match what was in the bible all that well. But I figured it was just over my head. Eventually I realized the following important thing about the literal interpretation: it's not literal. It claims to be literal in totally random places. "Ok, so what's up with the demonic locusts who torture people but won't let them die?" "They're demonic locusts who torture people but won't let them die." "Ok, so what's up with the ten-horned beast rising out of the sea?" "That's obviously the European Union." Meanwhile, the rapture isn't in Revelation at all. It's not even in the bible. There are references to Jesus returning of course, but the elaborate tribulation chronology is simply not there. It was mostly made up by Cyrus Scofield in the early 1900s. What I believe these days is that Jesus will return, in a time and manner of his choosing, and however he does it is ok with me.
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May 21, 2021 01:28
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I just wish it would be speciifc about the number of horns on each head because it frets me trying to figure it out.
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May 21, 2021 04:14
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HopperUK posted:I just wish it would be speciifc about the number of horns on each head because it frets me trying to figure it out.
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May 21, 2021 04:36
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More of a history question than anything Of the Abrahamic religions, how did Judaism and Islam decide chicken is good and pork is bad and why did Christianity not get this memo?
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May 21, 2021 21:42
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:More of a history question than anything Christianity got a superseding memo in Acts 11.
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May 21, 2021 21:52
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:More of a history question than anything I've heard two different stories about where the ancient Near Eastern religions that became Judaism got the idea: one, pork was a food for poor Egyptians (something the wealthy wouldn't 'have to' eat), so to make sure that the People of Israel didn't want to live like Egyptians, the meat that they'd probably had the most of was now forbidden. Two, piglets were sacrificed in numerous surrounding religions, and if something's a good gift for one of those other gods, it must be a bad gift for our God, and if our God doesn't want it we shouldn't want it either. (The concept of "it has cloven hooves, but doesn't chew the cud, so it's deceptive" either came later, or was the pretext God provided Moses, take your pick.) Islam probably kept the pork prohibition because early Islam was heavily influenced by Jewish traditions. Christianity rejected the prohibition either for symbolic reasons ("all food is okay!") or to win over converts from religions other than Judaism. (Or both. Take your pick.)
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May 21, 2021 22:05
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Important context for Christianity's decision to abandon the pork prohibition, they did this at the same time they decided to abandon most of Jewish Law. It wasn't that early Christians uniquely concerned with the pork prohibition, they stopped following that rule because of the broader decision to break with Jewish Law, which also involved getting rid of rules on circumcision and other matters. The pork prohibition does not seem to have been the largest concern in the debates that early Christian had about what to do about Jewish Law. Circumcision was a far more controversial topic then pork, as we can see from Paul's treatment of the matter in letters such as Galatians. (Circumcision was also used as a proxy for the Law in general sometimes, so it could refer to other matters too, but the fact that it was used as a proxy for the Law as a whole still shows that circumcision, and not pork, was the most important issue at stake in the debate.)
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May 21, 2021 22:40
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Of the Abrahamic religions, how did Judaism and Islam decide chicken is good and pork is bad and why did Christianity not get this memo? My comment to this framing of the question is to say that the pork prohibitions in Judaism and Islam are not identical. The rule developed at different times and for different reasons and means different things in each religion. Even if you just consider (my hazy memory of) the source texts, you get the Jewish prohibition because pigs fall into a banned class of animals, while you get the Muslim prohibition because they are dirty animals that roll in filth all day. And since you mention the Abrahamic religions in general, I think it's worth noting that a lot of Christian groups throughout history have had dietary laws and customs too, even if (in my opinion) they aren't talked about much compared to kosher/halal.
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May 21, 2021 23:08
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If you eat vegetarian, kosher and halal are mostly handled... just saying This got me reading about something which rarely comes up, which is the specific school of Islamic jurisprudence a particular group falls under... the one which seems to encompass most of the territories we in America might habitually think of as 'Muslim,' that is to say Iraq, Syria, Palestine, much of Egypt, etc. would fall under the Hanafi school of Sunni practice, which allows all 'fish' but not just whatever you want from the sea. However, the other three schools, Maliki, Shafi and Hanbali, are all down with whatever you like, including shrimps. Shia meanwhile seems to allow all fish, and shrimp for some reason, but no other mollusks. This would be important if you're going into the shellfish trade, I imagine.
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May 21, 2021 23:28
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CrypticFox posted:Important context for Christianity's decision to abandon the pork prohibition, they did this at the same time they decided to abandon most of Jewish Law. It wasn't that early Christians uniquely concerned with the pork prohibition, they stopped following that rule because of the broader decision to break with Jewish Law, which also involved getting rid of rules on circumcision and other matters. The pork prohibition does not seem to have been the largest concern in the debates that early Christian had about what to do about Jewish Law. Circumcision was a far more controversial topic then pork, as we can see from Paul's treatment of the matter in letters such as Galatians. (Circumcision was also used as a proxy for the Law in general sometimes, so it could refer to other matters too, but the fact that it was used as a proxy for the Law as a whole still shows that circumcision, and not pork, was the most important issue at stake in the debate.) In Acts and some other places in the New Testament, you can see the early Christians hashing out the question of "When Gentiles follow Jesus, are they becoming Jews in some sense or are they following a new thing that God is doing for them?" After all, if you talk to a Jewish person today (and I think throughout history) and ask them if non-Jews are obligated to follow Jewish law, they'll tell you no. Much of Jewish Law is not universal or intended to be universal. So obviously if you're Bob the Galatian, it's a pretty important question. Do you need to stop eating pork and get some of your junk cut off, or not? I can't really say the question has ever been settled with zero disagreement, but in general the consensus both in the NT and later has been that Gentile Christians (which is of course almost all Christians throughout history) do not become Jews and do not have to follow the specifically Jewish rules. Now for Jewish converts to Christianity the story is less clear - Jesus very explicitly did not come to do away with the Law. But the details of how his sacrifice might obviate some of the old practices is an interesting question, complicated by the fact that Jewish Christians are considered by many people to be a logical impossibility - being one revokes the other.
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May 21, 2021 23:55
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Another thing I was taught was that pork meat has to be cooked just right or it’s inedible or literally lethal so it’s best not mess with it.
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May 22, 2021 01:33
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Yeah, pork historically has a bad reputation for harboring food-borne parasites, particularly trichinosis; this is also why older recipes for pork will call for cooking it to within an inch of its life. I've heard that as the practical explanation of pork prohibition, but I have no idea if that's accurate to the real history.
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May 22, 2021 03:02
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