|
pidan posted:I really don't feel empathy for strangers What does he think life is for if not for living with intent to do good?
|
# ? Nov 25, 2016 23:32 |
|
|
# ? May 27, 2024 03:56 |
|
The burden of proof for the existence of magic is not on me. How does the timing and related position of the stars and planets affect your personality and choices you should make? From either a Christian tradition or scientific perspective.
|
# ? Nov 25, 2016 23:35 |
|
Pellisworth posted:The basic assumption of astrology is that your birth date dictates or suggests your personality and the outcomes of your actions. Based on the timing of your birth, you should or shouldn't do a thing on a certain date. Tarot is in Persona so it has to be good
|
# ? Nov 25, 2016 23:36 |
|
OwlFancier posted:What does he think life is for if not for living with intent to do good? Probably make your own meaning Which has nothing to do with good or evil
|
# ? Nov 25, 2016 23:36 |
|
Smoking Crow posted:Tarot is in Persona so it has to be good ummm but how many ecumenical councils has Persona attended??
|
# ? Nov 25, 2016 23:41 |
|
Pellisworth posted:ummm but how many ecumenical councils has Persona attended?? You can summon angels, so all of them
|
# ? Nov 25, 2016 23:43 |
|
Smoking Crow posted:You can summon angels, so all of them can you also summon demons they seem like they'd be a lot more useful for getting poo poo done angels would probably want union representation, non-discrimination and equal rights etc, pfft
|
# ? Nov 25, 2016 23:45 |
|
Pellisworth posted:can you also summon demons You can summon every religious and mythological creature You can have a party of Belial, Mothman, Raphael, Rangda, Ghost Rider and Susano-o if you want
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 00:03 |
|
Smoking Crow posted:You can summon every religious and mythological creature can amida and the medicine buddha join, because if not then a mobile game has better buddha tech and they're all 美少女, if you know what i mean
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 00:12 |
|
Mo Tzu posted:can amida and the medicine buddha join, because if not then a mobile game has better buddha tech and they're all 美少女, if you know what i mean I know Amida is there but im not sure about medicine buddha All of the summon designs were done by a guy in like 96 and they haven't changed yet and he has a very mechanical, weird, dead eyed style
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 00:16 |
|
i had no idea how difficult it was to search specific summons in persona but it is maybe i should have tried playing one of these 200 hour rpgs. but like that's just... that's just too much reading you know. maybe i'd do it in japanese when i get good enough, you know as practice, but for now just... god
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 01:28 |
|
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 01:29 |
|
this thread is at its best when theology discussion merges with tabletop games
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 01:31 |
|
Mo Tzu posted:i had no idea how difficult it was to search specific summons in persona but it is Just check the megami tensei wiki http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Megami_Tensei_Wiki and go down to the demons section Persona 5 just came out, so right now is the time to play it in Japanese. It doesn't come out in English for another 4 months tho :/
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 01:37 |
|
Oh, cool, I didn't know Krsnik and Kudlak were known in Japan beyond Trinity Blood.
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 01:40 |
|
Smoking Crow posted:Just check the megami tensei wiki http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Megami_Tensei_Wiki and go down to the demons section looks like Amida only exists as an item called Amida beads truly mobile is the future of gaming
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 02:15 |
|
Pellisworth posted:this thread is at its best when theology discussion merges with tabletop games Yahweh Power: All Title: God Alignment: LG Worshipers: Any Alignment Clerics: Any Alignment Symbol: Cross Domains: Air, Animal, Destiny, Destruction, Earth, Fire, Healing, Knowledge, Law, Plant, Protection, Storm, Strength, Sun, Time, Water Portfolio: Creation, good, law, the universe Favored weapon: Turning the other cheek (Unarmed Strike)
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 03:39 |
|
how much of that did you take from ilmater
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 03:43 |
|
Mo Tzu posted:how much of that did you take from ilmater Only things they have in common are LG alignment and Unarmed Strike as favored weapon. I'd look more to Lathander for comparisons, or the Silver Flame if you have good taste in campaign settings.
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 03:45 |
|
pidan posted:I agree that this can be the basis of bad ideas, but "the true nature of the world is not obvious to our senses" seems inarguably true. From where I'm sitting, I can't tell that the Earth is a sphere, I don't know that the sun is really big, I don't perceive that the electricity in my house comes from a big coal fire somewhere. Now you can say, all this information is in principle accessible to my senses if I use the correct instruments in the correct way, but isn't that the same claim that occultism is making? as a preface, i'm wondering if i was wasting my time when i wrote out a couple walls of text in response to you a few weeks back. this is because i have a hunch that you might be doing the exact same thing here that i pointed out then, which is to extract a thing from buddhism that you read about once, and then go and same it with every vaguely-similar concept you come across, regardless of whether they are actually the same or whether they function the same way within their respective origins. yes, it is true that the buddha said things about how our sensory inputs cannot be relied upon as accurate ways to experience ultimate reality; however, taking this idea and saying "hey microscopes and david icke are the same!!!" is ridiculous to answer your question as presented here: no, they are not at all the same at all. this is because natural philosophy makes no claims about the true nature of reality, nor about the ability of the human senses. if you think this is wrong, and the point of science is to make objective claims about the ultimate nature of reality, you need to stop reading r/atheism. the fact that machines and instruments are used by people when they are doing activities that employ the scientific method is irrelevant, because again, claiming that "microscopes exist, therefore david icke is on par with albert einstein" is ridiculous
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 04:16 |
|
believe it or not there's a book of christian meditations on the tarot to which von balthasar contributed an afterword, which was a thing i did not know until i was searching for christmas presents but it is very much on the list now
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 05:27 |
|
Bel_Canto posted:believe it or not there's a book of christian meditations on the tarot to which von balthasar contributed an afterword, which was a thing i did not know until i was searching for christmas presents but it is very much on the list now Meditations on the Tarot by Anonymous (scholars are pretty sure they know who wrote it), yeah it was an interesting read. The dude is clearly very Catholic but sees Hermetic philosophy as something compatible with orthodox Catholic life and thought. He's actually pretty close to making a case for it, then does stuff like say reincarnation has a place in cosmology. The writing itself can sometimes be, well, not hard to follow but a little jumbled because each meditation, focused around one Major Arcana, jumps from topic to topic like someone ruminating rather than an outlined work. Meditation is a pretty accurate description. The guys knows his stuff, though. Worth a read, especially for me because I was into Hermeticism before getting religion, but it didn't convince me to adopt it into my personal theology.
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 05:48 |
|
Pellisworth posted:can you also summon demons But do they come when you do call for them?" P. much my favorite Shakespeare quote. I haven't ever played with astrology, but HEY GAL talked about using it for introspection. I know people who use both the Tarot and the I Ching for introspection -- not to say "A red-headed woman will hit you upside the bed with an IMSAI 8080 next Tuesday" but to say "Something combining the Queen of Pentacles and the Fool will be happening soon, what does that suggest to you?" Basically, take the symbols and think about them -- use them as a seed for thought, not as an hour-by-hour prediction of the future. HEY GAL, does that come close to what you meant? I'm trying to figure out what I can do to help the oppressed. My husband's just lost his job, so money donations can't happen in the short term, and I'm disabled enough that I can't go places, or commit to do things on a schedule. I hope I can find something productive I can do online, by bits and pieces.
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 06:26 |
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:"Something combining the Queen of Pentacles and the Fool will be happening soon, what does that suggest to you?" Personally, I don't think think this is compatible with orthodox Christianity. I think it's still divination. When I think of applying the thought of the tarot or astrology to introspection it needs to be recognizing situations using the symbols and their relation to each other.
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 06:42 |
|
Here's the thing, from my point of view. When you say "divination", what's the Biblical equivalent? Because what the Witch of Endor specifically got in trouble for was talking to the spirits of the dead. It seems to me that "fortune-telling" (the modern English phrase) may not be 1:1 equivalent to "divination" as it is understood in the Old and New Testaments. I can hack around with a Tarot deck* as long as the day lasts, but that's not communing with spirits, at least not in most Tarot interpretations I'm familiar with. Ditto ditto astrology. Astrology, assuming you believe in it, is not communicating with the dead/demons/Satan; it is looking at what has already been laid down for you by the natural world. A heck of a lot of Saints have believed in astrology without ever stopping worshiping God as understood by the Church. HEY GAL can speak to this much more fluently than I can , because HEY GAL is a historian. Astrology does not mean that you think the Will of God is anything other than supreme. Astrology can mean that you seek to understand the Will of God as He has laid it out in your constellations. Me, personally, I think astrology is utter nonsense, but I am heavily on the free-will side of Christianity. * I don't because I am lazy as whoa.
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 08:06 |
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:a thing from buddhism that you read about once There's really no need To be such a dick quote:"microscopes exist, therefore david icke is on par with albert einstein" That's not the claim I'm making and you know that. We were talking about astrology and other forms of divination, not Icke or Einstein. I'm saying that occultism (not paranoid schizophrenia or con artistry) is similar to science in that it claims that you can make certain measurements of the world and come to certain conclusions. The difference is that one, occultism claims you need a certain mental training to get these results, while science will on principle have the same results for anybody. And two, the conclusions of science are reliably reproducible, while those of occultists are not. Science does not make claims about ultimate reality, as you correctly point out, but neither does astrology, no? And as the existence of r/atheism demonstrates, people who believe that science does in fact reveal ultimate reality aren't exactly hard to find. If your definition of "hidden knowledge" requires that the knowledge in question be essentially Gnosticism, then neither science nor most forms of occultism qualify. Let's make clear what I mean: when an astrologer says "tomorrow is the best day to get married, because of X celestial situation", and a meteorologist says "tomorrow is a bad day to get married because there will likely be a thunderstorm", that is not a fundamentally different claim. Both rely on sensory evidence to come to their conclusions. It's just that the meteorologist's method is well attested to and demonstrated to be workable by many years of scientific research, while the astrologer's evidence does not meet the standards of modern science. Because there is no good evidence that celestial bodies influence human lives the way astrologers claim. But the quality of evidence is not a religious problem. To stay in the world of science, if I choose to believe in some fringe theory that is not widely accepted, I may be wrong, but I dint think it's a sin. If in the nineteenth century, people had said "to claim that tiny invisible organisms can decide whether we live or die is ridiculous, only God can do that and to claim otherwise is heresy", they'd have been wrong. To be clear, I'm not saying any occultist practice is equal to science, or that any occultist theory accurately describes reality. I don't believe that. I just think that drawing the line at "does this system require initiation or special knowledge before you can apply it" is a bad place to draw the line.
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 08:12 |
|
pidan posted:There's really no need don't worry he's just posting in character as Martin Luther, renowned historical shitposting rear end in a top hat quote:Every letter of yours breathes Moabitish pride. So much can a single bull inflate a single bubble that you practically make distinguished asses into gods. quote:Think what you will, so make in your pants, hang it round your neck, then make a jelly of it and eat it like the vulgar sows and asses you are! http://ergofabulous.org/luther/ shine on Marty L, you crazy scatological anti-Semitic diamond Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Nov 26, 2016 |
# ? Nov 26, 2016 08:25 |
|
@Pellisworth: So if I understood you correctly, you have 3 main objections. 1) astrology is pseudoscience, no 2) astrology implies predestination 3) astrology assigns (semi?) divine power to the plamets. Now I agree with nr. 1, so I'll skip that one. As for nr. 2, I can see how astrology *can* imply fate/predestination, which I myself consider nonsense. So let's skip that, too. I think I understand (and agree with) these objections. It's mostly nr. 3 I have trouble understanding. Have astrologers claimed that the planets and stars have intentionality behind their influence? If not, wouldn't any hypothetical influence be solely natural, like the influence of terrain or weather and such? I mean, the planets may be though to have influence, but how would such an influence be more or less godly (if that's the word) than, say, the presence or absence of rain? I mean, if someone conflates Mars-the-planet with Mars-the-person, that seems obviously unsound theology. But if not, what then?
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 12:57 |
|
For the guy who asked: there were bursts of interest in astrology in the Byzantine period (the Alexiad mentions some) but it was consistently condemned by the Church. Other forms of divination exist of course. Seances were popular in 19th/20th century Russia. Greek grandmas like to read tea leaves and interpret dreams, and these may have been medieval customs as well.
|
# ? Nov 26, 2016 15:15 |
|
the enneagram system is a fun form of pseudoscience, and it's rome-approved! p.s. i went to the big martin luther exhibit today. i took so many pictures, it's gonna take me a while to sift through them all
|
# ? Nov 27, 2016 00:07 |
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:the enneagram system is a fun form of pseudoscience, and it's rome-approved! Just googled this, is the classification into one of the nine types based on observed behavior and traits of the individual? This one does seem more like a really early stab at something like the five factor model than outright divination.
|
# ? Nov 27, 2016 17:22 |
|
Yeah, it's basically astrology minus the fortune-telling aspect. It's a bit like Myers-Briggs but with some religious and spiritual elements tacked on, instead of the "this is totally based on psychology, we promise" bit.
|
# ? Nov 27, 2016 22:48 |
|
Rodrigo Diaz posted:For the guy who asked: there were bursts of interest in astrology in the Byzantine period (the Alexiad mentions some) but it was consistently condemned by the Church. Other forms of divination exist of course. Seances were popular in 19th/20th century Russia. Greek grandmas like to read tea leaves and interpret dreams, and these may have been medieval customs as well. I think there were generally a lot of Seances I think they were usually associated with the Theosphcial societies around the middle of the 19th Century. Though I believe at least one of their big leaders had come from Russia, so maybe there was a bit of cross over. As a quick question, and pardon my ignorance, but are we allowed to talk about specific aspects of Faith in this thread, like Atheism and so on? I don't mean to intrude, and I certainly don't know as much about Chrsitianity as I should (raised without any faith) but I wanted to ask some questions. Thanks guys, and sorry to bother you!
|
# ? Nov 27, 2016 23:48 |
|
Ask away. Our only rules are to be thoughtful and respectful, which apply to everyone on any topic.
|
# ? Nov 27, 2016 23:49 |
|
Okay then, just as a quick thing, but how do you deal with people who do not have Faith. Capitialised here to mean faith in any sort of direct divinity. A personal God/salvation thingamajig. Second of all, is it just me or does C.S. Lewis come across as a bit of an arse in a some of his works? Thirdly, "Job" and the big problem within that, the problem of evil and the problem of a divinity that is partially malevolent? Sorry I know these are somewhat short but I don't want to start blithering about "heres what I think about this " without getting other peoples ideas.
|
# ? Nov 28, 2016 00:03 |
|
1) Faith is a personal issue. I pray that people without faith will find it eventually, both for the sake of their salvation in the next life and because they'll be happier in this life for it. It is a gift, however, and must be found by each of us individually. It cannot be forced or chosen on someone else's behalf. 2) I've always thought C. S. Lewis was a bit of a poseur. He makes some good points here and there but I was never all that impressed with him. 3) The fundamental lesson of Job is that God is God and humans are incapable of comprehending the universe from his standpoint. We have every right to feel indignant when bad things happen, but ultimately it doesn't matter. i.e. God ultimately praised Job for getting angry and yelling at him for the bad stuff that happened, but told Job to get bent anyway. My own $0.02. Others can offer their own ideas.
|
# ? Nov 28, 2016 00:13 |
|
Deteriorata posted:1) Faith is a personal issue. I pray that people without faith will find it eventually, both for the sake of their salvation in the next life and because they'll be happier in this life for it. It is a gift, however, and must be found by each of us individually. It cannot be forced or chosen on someone else's behalf. 1) Secondary question, if you do good works and yet don't believe in an afterlife, what happens? 2) Agreed. I liked the lowerarchy idea in hell but there were lots of bits that just made me somewhat irritated. 3) See this doesn't really seem to be possible if God incarnates themselves. I mean they clearly can understand things from a mortal perspective, so why not do that?
|
# ? Nov 28, 2016 00:32 |
|
Josef bugman posted:I think there were generally a lot of Seances I think they were usually associated with the Theosphcial societies around the middle of the 19th Century. Though I believe at least one of their big leaders had come from Russia, so maybe there was a bit of cross over. You're probably thinking about Roerichs and Blavatskaya. They had a seances period, but they've also tried a whole lot of weird poo poo. Like trying to incorporate Lenin's communism into Buddhism, even going so far as calling Lenin a Mahatma. Then there was a period of pseudo-scientific yoga that had very little in common with the real thing. Basically, it was new age before new age was even a term. There are still small Roerich centres all over Eastern Europe.
|
# ? Nov 28, 2016 00:41 |
|
Paladinus posted:You're probably thinking about Roerichs and Blavatskaya. They had a seances period, but they've also tried a whole lot of weird poo poo. Like trying to incorporate Lenin's communism into Buddhism, even going so far as calling Lenin a Mahatma. Then there was a period of pseudo-scientific yoga that had very little in common with the real thing. Basically, it was new age before new age was even a term. Incredible. I love these weird things that are coming out at a time when the middle class just goes barmy and starts trying to jam all the ideology into a blender and see what comes out. The whole Victorian New Age thing has always been rather fun, could it be a bit of a reaction to the same impulse that had Nietzsche write "Thus spake Zarathustra".
|
# ? Nov 28, 2016 00:44 |
|
|
# ? May 27, 2024 03:56 |
|
Josef bugman posted:Incredible. I love these weird things that are coming out at a time when the middle class just goes barmy and starts trying to jam all the ideology into a blender and see what comes out. The whole Victorian New Age thing has always been rather fun, could it be a bit of a reaction to the same impulse that had Nietzsche write "Thus spake Zarathustra". I personally blame Schopenhauer for introducing the Upanishads as the best philosophical writing from the ~Exotic Orient~. He literally thought that every Indian farmer was so enlightened, they weren't even afraid to die, whereas filthy peasants of the West were just grasping at life like idiots all the time with their stupid Christianity that is just depressing.
|
# ? Nov 28, 2016 00:52 |