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Senju Kannon
Apr 9, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo

Smoking Crow posted:

Please direct all anime metaphors to me

Patrick would go ssj

says the guy who doesn't have an anime avatar

i'd say george myself, but then i suppose dragon slaying and dragon wish asking would mix the metaphors a bit

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thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

Deteriorata posted:

"Earthly powers" as in the Roman Empire and its emperors - wielders of power. Not like laser beam eyes and stuff.

yeah I know, though how does that factor in now that Christians are more mainstream exactly? Or is it that revelations happened already, and it was when the roman empire fell, and what happens now is anyone's guess? I mean that sounds like something one could argue is that case, is that we live in a post-apocalyptic world. Well okay that is probably actually true just by the post Rome thing at least for Europe, but you know what I mean.

pidan
Nov 6, 2012


Deteriorata posted:

The "satan" mentioned in Job is more of an office than a specific being. The Satan was sort of the prosecutor in the heavenly court who brought charges against the dead, who then had to defend themselves.

The snake in the Garden of Eden was most likely just supposed to be a snake. In the folk tales of the area, snakes were the tricksters who often convinced people to do dumb things - sort of like the monkey in Indian and Chinese folk tales or coyote in Native American ones.

The beast in Revelation was symbolic of earthly powers, not supernatural ones. People have tried to weave disparate characters from 1,000 years apart into a single figure that doesn't actually fit any of them.

But if there is no Satan, who rules in hell?

I'm just saying, the devil seems really important to some Christians. So the whole idea that he was made up by Dante never quite say right with me. I mean, seeing the devil as a personification of "things that move you away from God" suits me fine, but many people, including some people quite high up in the religious hierarchy, seen to think he's literally some intelligent being plotting for each human's downfall.

So whether or not he's in the bible, he's definitely a part of some Christians' belief system by now.

Deteriorata
Feb 6, 2005

thechosenone posted:

yeah I know, though how does that factor in now that Christians are more mainstream exactly? Or is it that revelations happened already, and it was when the roman empire fell, and what happens now is anyone's guess? I mean that sounds like something one could argue is that case, is that we live in a post-apocalyptic world. Well okay that is probably actually true just by the post Rome thing at least for Europe, but you know what I mean.

Apocalyptic literature used its own code that is mostly lost to us today, so we're left guessing as to just what it meant. It probably describes events that happened during the reign of Domitian c. 95 AD. It seems prophetic because that's the way apocalypticism was written. It was deliberately crazy sounding so that authorities would dismiss it as the rantings of a madman and no on would get in trouble for it.

Domitian was a zealot for traditional Roman religion and seems to have persecuted Christians rather severely. The message of Revelation seems to be telling people to hang on and remain true to the faith however bad things seemed at that moment, as Christ would win in the end and they would be rewarded for their faithfulness.

Revelation so wild and hard to understand has made it ripe fodder for all sorts of speculation and fanciful mythology through the centuries. It's possible the mainstream understanding of the book is wrong and some of these others are more accurate, but it seems unlikely.

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009
Huh. So what forms the hardpoints of this threads Christian thought? explicit rules by holy men, especially Jesus, and reflection on secular morality and how it relates to those rules/can be used with them to extrapolate further ideas?

Senju Kannon
Apr 9, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
this thread doesn't have a unified "christian" thought, it's a collection of people's opinions based on their faith, lived experience, and education which often (but not always) reflects the teachings of the churches posters are a part of. or in my case i'm a buddhist but i have a master's in theological studies so i have Opinions even though i'm not actually christian anymore

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

Mo Tzu posted:

this thread doesn't have a unified "christian" thought, it's a collection of people's opinions based on their faith, lived experience, and education which often (but not always) reflects the teachings of the churches posters are a part of. or in my case i'm a buddhist but i have a master's in theological studies so i have Opinions even though i'm not actually christian anymore

Well since your Buddhist I guess I can ask you is it sort of nihilist in how the goal is to sort of just stop being at all? Or am I misreading things and it is actually becoming the One or unplugging yourself from the matrix and entering the real world?

And yeah I meant that as in like where do people here tend to draw their separate opinions from but yeah personal consideration, experience, and upbringing combined with formal education on theological texts sounds pretty reasonable. Though I guess I just wanted to know how how much was book and how much was your own ideas.

thechosenone fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Dec 1, 2016

Senju Kannon
Apr 9, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
okay first of all that movie is about plato's allegory of the cave and has nothing to do with buddhism. second of all, you are completely wrong about the goal of buddhism. my goal is to rely on amida buddha's perfect grace in order to be reborn in the pure land and do the difficult work of becoming a buddha, which would allow me to read minds, fly, move between all realms of reality, and know all my previous lives

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

Mo Tzu posted:

okay first of all that movie is about plato's allegory of the cave and has nothing to do with buddhism. second of all, you are completely wrong about the goal of buddhism. my goal is to rely on amida buddha's perfect grace in order to be reborn in the pure land and do the difficult work of becoming a buddha, which would allow me to read minds, fly, move between all realms of reality, and know all my previous lives

Okay so like Killsixbilliondemons (jk that makes a lot more sense then what I thought, the Buddhist thread seemed pretty confusing about the subject Like I couldn't tell if it was saying you got permadead or you became permaliving or what)

thechosenone fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Dec 1, 2016

Pellisworth
Jun 20, 2005

thechosenone posted:

Huh. So what forms the hardpoints of this threads Christian thought? explicit rules by holy men, especially Jesus, and reflection on secular morality and how it relates to those rules/can be used with them to extrapolate further ideas?

There aren't any, the heart of this thread is it's a ton of diverse and conflicting Christian (and non-Christian) beliefs but we're all civil and respectful of each other. It isn't about being a correct Christian or forming some kind of consensus, it's about learning from others' perspectives.

The old thread was somewhat more serious and had a long, detailed OP. This new thread is more relaxed because lurkers need to :justpost:. Serious discussion and questions are great but so are funny hats, tabletop game analogies, and Luther shitposting.

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009
Also the Nicene Creed seems pretty vague and lenient so long as you weren't filthy Arians. How the hell did Mormons manage to screw that up? was it something about Jesus being native american or something?

pidan
Nov 6, 2012


thechosenone posted:

Okay so like Killsixbilliondemons (jk that makes a lot more sense then what I thought, the Buddhist thread seemed pretty confusing about the subject Like I couldn't tell if it was saying you got permadead or you became permaliving or what)

There's different varieties of Buddhism, Mo Tzu belongs to a pure land group. What the goal of Buddhist practice is varies by different denominations, in pure land schools the goal in this life is to get to the pure land, where you can then achieve enlightenment.

Also the Buddha said the question of "alive or not alive" does not apply to the enlightened being.

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

pidan posted:

There's different varieties of Buddhism, Mo Tzu belongs to a pure land group. What the goal of Buddhist practice is varies by different denominations, in pure land schools the goal in this life is to get to the pure land, where you can then achieve enlightenment.

Also the Buddha said the question of "alive or not alive" does not apply to the enlightened being.

Cool. How did Mormons manage to not comply with the Nicene Creed? Seems pretty easy if you aren't an Arien. btw are those guys still around, and has anyone in thread talked to one?

pidan
Nov 6, 2012


thechosenone posted:

And yeah I meant that as in like where do people here tend to draw their separate opinions from but yeah personal consideration, experience, and upbringing combined with formal education on theological texts sounds pretty reasonable. Though I guess I just wanted to know how how much was book and how much was your own ideas.

How much is book and how much is your own ideas is a hard question to ask. How much of, for example, your idea of attractiveness is your own ideas, and how much comes from media? How much of your religious position comes from things you've read, as compared to pure thought?
Ultimately our mind is formed by the things we expose it to, but that doesn't somehow mean it's not our mind.

There are some protestant groups who claim that 100% of their religious views come straight from the bible (sola scriptura), but obviously any reading of the bible is already an interpretation that is informed by other things. And the bible itself is already a collection of books put together by people who felt that's a good basis for relating to God.

There's this expectation in some quarters that people in "book religions" should just turn of their brain and parrot what it says in their holy book, but that's not how it works 99% of the time.

StashAugustine
Mar 24, 2013

Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Pellisworth posted:

The old thread was somewhat more serious and had a long, detailed OP. This new thread is more relaxed because lurkers need to :justpost:. Serious discussion and questions are great but so are funny hats, tabletop game analogies, and Luther shitposting.

Christianity Nite Crew

StashAugustine fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Dec 1, 2016

Pellisworth
Jun 20, 2005

thechosenone posted:

Cool. How did Mormons manage to not comply with the Nicene Creed? Seems pretty easy if you aren't an Arien. btw are those guys still around, and has anyone in thread talked to one?

Probably the most obvious thing is they're not Trinitarian. For orthodox Christians, God is the triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which are together one God in three persons. Yes, that's loving weird and really hard to wrap your head around... I thought Christianity was strictly monotheistic?? It's up there with the question of evil in terms of tricky questions in Christianity.

Mormons believe God the Father and Jesus are distinct divine beings, each having physical bodies. God has many children, Jesus is just one of them. If you do everything right, when you die you and your family can join God's family and be just like Jesus and have your own world to save and stuff. Also, a bunch of Jews came to the Americas and did a bunch of poo poo for which there is no physical evidence.

I'm not a Mormon and I'm being glib here, not trying to seriously attack Mormons. Their beliefs really are extremely separate from the rest of Christianity, but if they want to call themselves Christian that's fine. It is not my place to judge.

Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Dec 1, 2016

Pellisworth
Jun 20, 2005

StashAugustine posted:

Christianity Nite Crew

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "I must shitpost!"

e: is this too long of a thread title?

I saw the tomb was open and said, "I must shitpost!"

Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Dec 1, 2016

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Josef bugman posted:

It's no problem!

Can you recommend any good books on the history of Mesoamerica? ::bambi eyes::

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009
what does this thread think about my mayor making the town splash park closed on sundays? I figure it doesn't make sense, as a day of rest wouldn't having some fun at the splash park make sense? Not that it is a replacement for the pool they filled in...because they didn't want to shell out for a life guard. Apparently he thinks folks should be in church or what not, but I don't see why you couldn't do one then the other, or even both!

so like scale of one to six hundred and sixty six on the jerk scale.

Bonus question, most commonly disliked person in Christianity that was actually alright in your opinion. includes historical dislike, and the goal is to find a person who is hated by as many people who are considered christian by you as possible.

Sorry, I just like asking people questions.

thechosenone fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Dec 1, 2016

StashAugustine
Mar 24, 2013

Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

The worst part of Mike Pence's legacy is that I still can't buy booze on Sunday

Deteriorata
Feb 6, 2005

thechosenone posted:

what does this thread think about my mayor making the town splash park closed on sundays? I figure it doesn't make sense, as a day of rest wouldn't having some fun at the splash park make sense? Not that it is a replacement for the pool they filled in...

so like scale of one to six hundred and sixty six on the jerk scale.

Bonus question, most commonly disliked person in Christianity that was actually alright in your opinion. includes historical dislike, and the goal is to find a person who is hated by as many people who are considered christian by you as possible.

Sorry, I just like asking people questions.

Your mayor is an idiot and blue laws should be unconstitutional. My holy day is not necessarily your holy day and I have no business forcing you to observe mine.

As for your other, I find it unanswerable because my opinion of someone's Christian bona fides is irrelevant. I've never really thought about historical figures in those terms. Most people who've been widely hated were so for legitimate reasons.

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

StashAugustine posted:

The worst part of Mike Pence's legacy is that I still can't buy booze on Sunday

well, That and everything else he's done to Indiana. And everything he is going to do it alongside the other states. I guess everyone else will now know the Hoosier's pain.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


thechosenone posted:

what does this thread think about my mayor making the town splash park closed on sundays? I figure it doesn't make sense, as a day of rest wouldn't having some fun at the splash park make sense? Not that it is a replacement for the pool they filled in...
Historically, a lot of Protestant Christians believed you shouldn't have any fun at all on Sunday. I've read several 19th-century memoirs -- most notably Laura Ingalls Wilder's -- about children having to sit and look at their toys, because you shouldn't play on Sundays. In Scotland until quite recently the trains didn't run on Sunday. 2014 article on the Sabbath in the Scottish Isle of Lewes.

In the places I've lived in the USA, the objection to Sunday openings were generally couched as "if the stores are open on Sunday (sometimes just Sunday morning), then employees won't be free to go to church." The formulation of "nobody should be working on Sunday, because it's the Sabbath" seems to have mostly died out. Anyway, blue laws are weird. When I visited my grandmother in Texas, some aisles of the grocery store would be taped off because they contained things you couldn't legally sell on Sunday. Not alcohol, because you certainly couldn't buy liquor at the grocery store in Texas, but "non-essentials", and I forget what those were. In Massachusetts, and I think this has changed, you could buy groceries before noon on Sunday, but not beer, wine, or hard liquor.

I don't believe in compulsory Sabbath because hey, state establishment of religion, with bonus "Sunday isn't everybody's Sabbath". I do respect individual businesses, like Chik-Fil-A and various kosher delis, that close on their holy days because their employees shouldn't be required to work.

I loathe Chik-Fil-A for their anti-gay bias, admire them for their Sunday closing, and am shamefully attracted to them for their excellent chicken sandwiches and waffle fries.

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

Deteriorata posted:

Your mayor is an idiot and blue laws should be unconstitutional. My holy day is not necessarily your holy day and I have no business forcing you to observe mine.

As for your other, I find it unanswerable because my opinion of someone's Christian bona fides is irrelevant. I've never really thought about historical figures in those terms. Most people who've been widely hated were so for legitimate reasons.

Fair enough. how about favorite goof by god? like the platypus, or dick shaped rocks? (btw if god made the platypus, it was to see if he could combine all the cuteness of a duck, a bever, and a poisonous hammerhead shark into one being :3:).

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


thechosenone posted:

Fair enough. how about favorite goof by god? like the platypus, or dick shaped rocks? (btw if god made the platypus, it was to see if he could combine all the cuteness of a duck, a bever, and a poisonous hammerhead shark into one being :3:).

Hyenas giving birth through their clits. OH GOD WHY. (note that a significant number of pregnant hyenas don't survive their first birth.)

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Historically, a lot of Protestant Christians believed you shouldn't have any fun at all on Sunday. I've read several 19th-century memoirs -- most notably Laura Ingalls Wilder's -- about children having to sit and look at their toys, because you shouldn't play on Sundays. In Scotland until quite recently the trains didn't run on Sunday. 2014 article on the Sabbath in the Scottish Isle of Lewes.

In the places I've lived in the USA, the objection to Sunday openings were generally couched as "if the stores are open on Sunday (sometimes just Sunday morning), then employees won't be free to go to church." The formulation of "nobody should be working on Sunday, because it's the Sabbath" seems to have mostly died out. Anyway, blue laws are weird. When I visited my grandmother in Texas, some aisles of the grocery store would be taped off because they contained things you couldn't legally sell on Sunday. Not alcohol, because you certainly couldn't buy liquor at the grocery store in Texas, but "non-essentials", and I forget what those were. In Massachusetts, and I think this has changed, you could buy groceries before noon on Sunday, but not beer, wine, or hard liquor.

I don't believe in compulsory Sabbath because hey, state establishment of religion, with bonus "Sunday isn't everybody's Sabbath". I do respect individual businesses, like Chik-Fil-A and various kosher delis, that close on their holy days because their employees shouldn't be required to work.

I loathe Chik-Fil-A for their anti-gay bias, admire them for their Sunday closing, and am shamefully attracted to them for their excellent chicken sandwiches and waffle fries.
The thing about chick fil a is that I prefer their nuggets. I had one of their sandwiches once and it offended my tastes. I also figure that if they really wanted to be accomodating, they could offer people a little bonus to work sunday, and let them have some other day off. and I'll tell ya what, a weekday off is worth two in the bush, or something like that. would let someone earn a little more which would help out, and allow them to do some stuff they need to, and even attend a non sunday mass if they want to.

This would be at the employee's discretion that is. This would have the benefit of being able to have sunday off, or have some other day off, which could be very useful to someone who might not have opportunities to get to places that only open on weekdays, and would give them a little extra for their help. All this while allowing both people who have someplace to be on sunday get there, and allow people to have chicken sandwiches, and allow folks who could use a little extra/need a week day the time they need to get some important stuff done.

thechosenone fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Dec 1, 2016

Pellisworth
Jun 20, 2005

thechosenone posted:

Fair enough. how about favorite goof by god?
do you mean theologically or in the natural world? because I can put on my PhD scientist hat if that's where you're aiming

Martin Luther was a total goonlord who trolled the Catholic Church into a schism because his shitposting went viral through the printing press.

As a proper Protestant I find saints to be a weird concept, but I truly believe our good friend / hated enemy Martin Luther is the patron saint of this thread.

Drunken shitposting anti-papal screeds, but maybe we can avoid Marty L's anti-Semitism, ok?

Martin Luther posted:

Were you against the heathen Priapus, he would probably pass wind in the face of such well-aimed terror.

Take that, Papist scum!!

http://ergofabulous.org/luther/ push button for gooniest Christianity quips

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

Pellisworth posted:

do you mean theologically or in the natural world? because I can put on my PhD scientist hat if that's where you're aiming

Martin Luther was a total goonlord who trolled the Catholic Church into a schism because his shitposting went viral through the printing press.

As a proper Protestant I find saints to be a weird concept, but I truly believe our good friend / hated enemy Martin Luther is the patron saint of this thread.

Drunken shitposting anti-papal screeds, but maybe we can avoid Marty L's anti-Semitism, ok?


Take that, Papist scum!!

http://ergofabulous.org/luther/ push button for gooniest Christianity quips

bio-brolyogical* (natural, biblical, anything you would ascribe to god's doing)

*:note, I have never seen the broly movies, and know nothing of bio-broly beyond that he is green

also if Jesus is god and also the holy ghost, does that mean god was dead for three days? Or when Jesus speaks to god, is that like trinity playing hand puppets for us?

thechosenone fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Dec 1, 2016

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


thechosenone posted:

The thing about chick fil a is that I prefer their nuggets. I had one of their sandwiches once and it offended my tastes. I also figure that if they really wanted to be accomodating, they could offer people a little bonus to work sunday, and let them have some other day off. and I'll tell ya what, a weekday off is worth two in the bush, or something like that. would let someone earn a little more which would help out, and allow them to do some stuff they need to, and even attend a non sunday mass if they want to.
Thing is, Chik-Fil-A is not in any way interested in people's opportunities to relax. They want to be closed on the Christian Sunday, because it's against their Christian principles to hire people to work on Sunday. Sunday isn't "a day off", it's God's day.

For those of you who, like me, feel guilty when you eat at Chik-Fil-A, marinating boned chicken in pickle juice really does work. My son tried it, and it was magnificently tender. (My lesbian daughter sometimes gives us permission to eat Chik-Fil-A because she misses it, too. I figure this is like the Pope saying "Oh, go ahead, have another serving of the capybara.")

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Thing is, Chik-Fil-A is not in any way interested in people's opportunities to relax. They want to be closed on the Christian Sunday, because it's against their Christian principles to hire people to work on Sunday. Sunday isn't "a day off", it's God's day.

For those of you who, like me, feel guilty when you eat at Chik-Fil-A, marinating boned chicken in pickle juice really does work. My son tried it, and it was magnificently tender. (My lesbian daughter sometimes gives us permission to eat Chik-Fil-A because she misses it, too. I figure this is like the Pope saying "Oh, go ahead, have another serving of the capybara.")

So, like, what do you think god's day should be used for? Like, for Christians, and for non-Christians who are affected by it?

thechosenone fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Dec 1, 2016

Pellisworth
Jun 20, 2005

thechosenone posted:

So, like, what do you think god's day should be used for? Like, for Christians, and for non-Christians who are affected by it?

For me personally, you should make a serious effort to devote time toward worship on Sunday, whether it's attending church or meditation, reading, and prayer if you can't.

I don't care what non-Christians do, and want to live in a society that feels the same way. Again, it is not our place to judge.

Valiantman
Jun 25, 2011

Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

pidan posted:

There are some protestant groups who claim that 100% of their religious views come straight from the bible (sola scriptura)

That's not what sola scriptura means. :colbert:

All it means is that in case of a conflict, the Bible wins - that there can't be no authority higher than it or equal to it in religious matters.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


thechosenone posted:

So, like, what do you think god's day should be used for? Like, for Christians, and for non-Christians who are affected by it?
I think everybody should go to Hell in their own way.

For Christians who think the Sabbath is still binding -- note that some of these consider Saturday the Sabbath --, sure, go ahead, close your business, take the day off. For Christians who don't, go to church, go to meeting, go to the park, whatever. For non-Christians working for Christians, there should be fair employment laws whose details I am not competent to describe.

Fundamentally? People ought to get to observe holy days. Details to be worked out handwave handwave. The government and government institutions should not favor one holy day over another. For instance, public universities holding exams over Yom Kippur, something that has happened more than once? Right Out. It's fine to have Christmas break, because December vacation is pretty much ingrained into American society at this point, but if people want to work Christmas in exchange for getting [insert your favorite holiday] off, that should be a possibility.

Also I want a pony.

Apocron
Dec 5, 2005
By the way Bugman, if you are interested in learning more about Christianity but trip up on the problem of evil/suffering then I would encourage you to try approaching God/faith from a different tack for a while. I'm not saying give up on your sense of injustice but if you demand an answer to that before you will move on I think you will be stuck on that point forever. However if you will put it to the side and try reading a gospel or another book of the Bible you might find God speaks to you through it in a different way or even speaks to you about suffering through an unexpected verse.

thechosenone
Mar 21, 2009

Apocron posted:

By the way Bugman, if you are interested in learning more about Christianity but trip up on the problem of evil/suffering then I would encourage you to try approaching God/faith from a different tack for a while. I'm not saying give up on your sense of injustice but if you demand an answer to that before you will move on I think you will be stuck on that point forever. However if you will put it to the side and try reading a gospel or another book of the Bible you might find God speaks to you through it in a different way or even speaks to you about suffering through an unexpected verse.

Are you referring to me? If so, no can do. If I can't make a good case for myself without having to also worship god then I don't think it was mean't to be. If god exists, and is worth worshiping, I'll make it through, even if I look back on things and think it would have been so much easier if I had believed.

I haven't seen a Bugman around here, so I assume it means something? Maybe not?

thechosenone fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Dec 1, 2016

Apocron
Dec 5, 2005
Josef Bugman is a poster who has been active in the thread recently.

System Metternich
Feb 28, 2010

But what did he mean by that?

Arsenic Lupin posted:

I think everybody should go to Hell in their own way.

For Christians who think the Sabbath is still binding -- note that some of these consider Saturday the Sabbath --, sure, go ahead, close your business, take the day off. For Christians who don't, go to church, go to meeting, go to the park, whatever. For non-Christians working for Christians, there should be fair employment laws whose details I am not competent to describe.

Fundamentally? People ought to get to observe holy days. Details to be worked out handwave handwave. The government and government institutions should not favor one holy day over another. For instance, public universities holding exams over Yom Kippur, something that has happened more than once? Right Out. It's fine to have Christmas break, because December vacation is pretty much ingrained into American society at this point, but if people want to work Christmas in exchange for getting [insert your favorite holiday] off, that should be a possibility.

Also I want a pony.

At least in Germany and Austria (I'm not sure about other countries), not working on Sunday is something that is more the result of unions fighting for it than the churches influencing state policy (though unions and the churches actually did/do closely cooperate on this). Everybody should have the guarantee of a work-free day per week, so why not make it Sunday, which is the holy day of the vast majority of people anyhow? This excludes essential services as well as those whose business model directly revolves around people having more free time during the weekend like movie theatres, of course. People of other faiths have the legal right to additional holidays. My old parish priest in Vienna used to joke that to get the most holidays in Austria you should be a Protestant (who get some more holidays in addition to the Catholic holiday calendar of Austria, like Reformation Day) working for the Jewish community (which would observe Jewish holidays as well, of course) in Carinthia (which is the state with the most holidays)

I think it's a pretty great rule, all things considered. Yes, sometimes it's annoying that you can't buy (some) stuff on Sundays, but otoh it's good that families have at least one day in the week where everybody is guaranteed to have time and not be working (well, at least if nobody's a paramedic or a gas station cashier or something). Also I think that our lives already revolve around work and consumption enough; a state-mandated, regular break from that does nobody ill.

But then again, I live in a country that bans people from dancing on Good Friday and other “sombre“ holidays, so this attitude might be super strange to you Americans, who knows :v:

pidan
Nov 6, 2012


Re: Sundays in Germany:

Just this week it was decided that in the future, Bavarian cities will need to permit open-to-the-public non-somber events in closed venues on Good Friday, as long as it's guaranteed not to disturb any neighbour's religious feelings by, e.g., public dancing.

Remember that this whole separation of church and state thing is somewhat US specific.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Can you recommend any good books on the history of Mesoamerica? ::bambi eyes::

Not especially I am afraid. I got most of my info from going to the British Museum and spending a couple of hours looking at Steles of a king by the name of "Bird jaguar" run a knotted rope through his own tongue and penis. Meso-American religion is proper weird.

I did have a good read of the conquest of the Americas and what happened to the native faiths however. The outcome is... poor. The sacrificing people thing was bad and nasty. The actual genocide, rape as a weapon of war and the fact that the Dominicans (the same people who ran the inquisition) were horrified by what they saw the Spanish doing kind of sets the tone for much of the rest of the "conversion" of the native peoples.

Apocron posted:

By the way Bugman, if you are interested in learning more about Christianity but trip up on the problem of evil/suffering then I would encourage you to try approaching God/faith from a different tack for a while. I'm not saying give up on your sense of injustice but if you demand an answer to that before you will move on I think you will be stuck on that point forever. However if you will put it to the side and try reading a gospel or another book of the Bible you might find God speaks to you through it in a different way or even speaks to you about suffering through an unexpected verse.

Sorry, to not reply to this earlier. Whilst a worthwhile suggestion I am, in truth, content to believe there is nothing in the hereafter and no divinity. I will try and have a read of some bits of the bible, I generally have a flick through every so often, but I am more interested in the idea of what other people believe as much as what I myself do.

Plus I think a lot of the bible can be pretty deathly dull. I mean four of the books are just repeating the same blokes life over and over. I am being sarcastic here.

thechosenone posted:

I haven't seen a Bugman around here, so I assume it means something? Maybe not?

Apocron posted:

Josef Bugman is a poster who has been active in the thread recently.

Hello!

I did find a rather interesting book, not a scholarly one and really only good as an introduction, called "Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms", it was about a collection of the smaller religions of the Middle east and that area. People like the Yazidis, Copts and Druze. It was very interesting, though a bit of the American POV came through.

Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Dec 1, 2016

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Caufman
May 7, 2007

Josef bugman posted:

Sir or Madam. I appreciate what you are most likely trying to do. However I would very much appreciate it if you did not include me in your prayers. If you wish to do something then donate to a charity of your choosing. I will discuss the rest of the content of your message later. I do apologise if I have given offence.

No offense taken, because it is quite special to me that you mean to give no offense!

Though it is a bit of a mental challenge for me to specifically not include any particular someone in prayer. I am a believer in two great truths, one that the universe and each part of it behave in accordance to laws of nature, and two that the unfolding of these laws can be called Good, in a way that is meaningful even to us regular people. The first truth is most fruitfully exercised with science, and the second with spirituality. Prayer is part of my spiritual exercise to acknowledge the goodness I can see and act with respect to it, especially in moments when it is not easy for me to do so. In his stoic Meditations, Marcus Aurelius put it this way:

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me; not [only] of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in [the same] intelligence and [the same] portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.[1] To act against one another, then, is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.

I also try to start my day with a meditation that is very similar, though I am explicitly a Christian and Marcus Aurelius is not. So, our emphasis are a little different. I want to also acknowledge that I will fail to be grateful, humble, honest, kind and social, and that when I do bad or others do bad, it is not a lethal failure of goodness, because a powerful, healing mercy also exists, which triumphs enough to prevent anyone's existence or existence as a whole from sliding into meaninglessness or goodlessness.

So if any of that makes sense, it is not easy for me to not include a particular person or part of existence from my prayer, but I also do not want to give offense, and so I apologize if I do, too! I will most definitely donate to a charity in your honor.

I also want to say that it is personally very gratifying to me to hear your critique of God with the problem of evil. Because it is heartening to hear that, if one is given power (and especially if one is all-powerful), one should not be an rear end in a top hat. This is a very important moral quality to have, and it is not a given that powerful people will have this! It is more encouraging to hear you say something like that than it would be to hear a pope or a president say that they've read Job and don't find anything troubling about God's behavior.

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