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Valiantman posted:A moral center of evil sounds like an exaggaration or, if it weren't the exact opposite, flattery. Yeah, I do believe that the Devil exists and works in various ways. I don't think the Bible is ambiguous in that. I think it's more of a God's (already resolved) problem than our's though, so on purpose I don't think of it much. I would personally disagree. The devil, based on my own limited understanding, doesn't appear a lot in the bible. I mean it does appear but not as it is often conceived in more modern terms. And how would the Devil be a "resolved" problem by God, if you don't mind me asking? HEY GAL posted:Demons and spirits exist, sure, but a center of evil? I doubt it. Evil is in the choices of each of us, or good is. How do demons make choices, could they choose to do good therefore?
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Jan 11, 2017 08:54
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Let's talk about Job. I mean it's odd to constantly use fictional references to refer to the biblical stuff but, eh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPHi-8DSJbo Somehow I feel like one of you nerds has a better answer
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Jan 11, 2017 09:27
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syscall girl posted:Let's talk about Job. Job is a good story that I like to go back to regularly. Whenever I mention Job, I also like to mention Viktor Frankl, because I really believe he, among this era's undiscovered prophets, is most like Job and most instructive of the Job story. He himself did not spend a lot of time in angst about why he had to live through the holocaust. During his suffering, he realized that his life always challenged him to respond with meaning, and that "love is the highest goal to which a man can aspire," and "the salvation of man is through love and in love." I highly recommend Man's Search for Meaning for anyone who is mystified by the Job story. It is important that a human life asks itself important questions beyond "Why me?" Josef bugman posted:As a secondary question I had to ask something quickly, as it's something I was wondering about. I read a book on satan recently, I think it was called "The devil: A biography", and I was wondering what peoples thoughts are on the idea of the devil? Do you believe in it? Is there really a moral centre of evil? In the language of spiritual warfare, I think of the Devil as the accuser of the brother, and so the believers are the defenders of the brother. At the level of my daily existence, this looks like the struggle to fully value one another. I struggle with the Devil to not write people off, to not overreact, to not be neglectful. I believe in the Devil in that I am alert to how easy it would be for me to devalue my brother if I was not aware of an accuser. Caufman fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 10:58
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syscall girl posted:Let's talk about Job. To which I respond, "If but some vengeful god would call to me" 
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Jan 11, 2017 15:10
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Josef bugman posted:To me the spoiler sounds like a literal Deus Ex Machina since when has that actually happened/ when is it ever a good story telling choice? Personally, no. There is God and the absence of God. There is no other. The Devil is a personification of our natural instincts for self-preservation. The "little voice" urging us to act self-centeredly at the expense of others is just our evolutionary heritage to act as animals. People can call that The Devil or demons tempting them to sin if they want to - the net result is the same. God has given me free will to act as I choose. I'm not bound by my animal ancestry. I do good by acting as God would have me - showing love for him and my neighbors, rather than putting myself first. I like this formulation as it ends up in the same place theologically, and is far simpler. Ockham's razor and all that. Others here vehemently disagree with me, though.
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Jan 11, 2017 15:21
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syscall girl posted:
TBF Larouchism is a pretty vicious cult. They used to harass people leaving positions of trust into suicide, like scientology  Deteriorata posted:Personally, no. There is God and the absence of God. There is no other. The Devil is a personification of our natural instincts for self-preservation. The "little voice" urging us to act self-centeredly at the expense of others is just our evolutionary heritage to act as animals. People can call that The Devil or demons tempting them to sin if they want to - the net result is the same. What do you think about animals cooperating, then? It's a pretty well-documented phenomenon, after all, and may have led to the evolution of homo sapiens. Josef bugman posted:How do demons make choices, could they choose to do good therefore? In my tradition, this varies. Most people get possessed by the souls of the dead, whose resentment and regret makes them latch onto people disposed towards similar feelings instead of moving on. There are also.. entitites, for a lack of a better term( I'd say spirits, but that's in a primordial or shamanist sense, not the spirits of humans), who will do the same, but often have completely incomprehensible motives. Tias fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 15:31
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Tias posted:
That doesn't really change anything. I oversimplified for the sake of brevity, of course. Cooperation due to self-centered motivation is still self-centered. Acting in love means serving others without regard for what I get out of it.
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Jan 11, 2017 15:39
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Josef bugman posted:How do demons make choices, could they choose to do good therefore? If we go back to the early church and the first-century Judaism it grew up in, demons were essentially equivalent to fallen angelic beings. Since they're supernatural, they had at least some sort of foreknowledge of what would happen if they rebelled against God, but they did it anyway. So when you're talking about demons being able to choose to do good, no they actually can't. The opportunity passed for them long ago; they were capable of only doing evil and that's...still all they're capable of doing. I personally have a belief in the demonic and in the existence of true evil based on people I've met in my life, even though it's entirely likely that this is coming from my upbringing as a Christian.
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Jan 11, 2017 15:55
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Josef bugman posted:I would personally disagree. The devil, based on my own limited understanding, doesn't appear a lot in the bible. I mean it does appear but not as it is often conceived in more modern terms. And how would the Devil be a "resolved" problem by God, if you don't mind me asking? That's kind of what I meant. The Devil tempts Jesus, it is spoken of as a person by several others and it appears in a role or another in various books. I think that's plenty of backup for it's existence. What the Devil's like, then? Well obviously trouble and not a in a good way. That's enough for me, I don't wanna speculate in style of Dante or Milton or Gaiman. (Not that I don't like Sandman.) As for dealing with the Devil, we believe that Jesus already won. It's often repeated that the three losers on the Calvary were Sin, Death and Satan. They're all still here but they cannot win anymore. Paul is pretty clear about it in Romans. The Revelation of John, to offer some more backing, is a confusing mess of visionary images words obviously cannot really describe but one thing it's very consistent of is that the days of those three are numbered. Valiantman fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 16:23
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Deteriorata posted:That doesn't really change anything. I oversimplified for the sake of brevity, of course. Cooperation due to self-centered motivation is still self-centered. That assumes that is indeed what is happening. The care of an animal mother for her young, the harmonious service to flock or herd, these are all expressions of a loving, divine order to me.
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Jan 11, 2017 17:06
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I wonder what the Devil feels like when he gets up in the morning. It must be hard to go on each day knowing that all of your struggles are futile and that no matter how hard you try, you will never win.
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Jan 11, 2017 17:55
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Similarly to a McDonald's employee, I guess. I doubt the Devil needs to sleep or a McDonald's employee can.
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Jan 11, 2017 18:04
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Samuel Clemens posted:I wonder what the Devil feels like when he gets up in the morning. It must be hard to go on each day knowing that all of your struggles are futile and that no matter how hard you try, you will never win. Sounds pretty relatable, honestly. e: That is to say, there's a certain paradox at the heart of making an all-powerful being the ultimate symbol of hope and salvation for the powerless. A powerless savior would not avail you, but an all-powerful one is unimaginably distant from your own experience. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 18:33
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Samuel Clemens posted:I wonder what the Devil feels like when he gets up in the morning. It must be hard to go on each day knowing that all of your struggles are futile and that no matter how hard you try, you will never win. yeah but you can make trump getting sex workers to piss on obama's bed a national news story and i'm sure that's it's own reward
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Jan 11, 2017 19:08
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Isn't that a hoax?
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Jan 11, 2017 19:14
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JcDent posted:Isn't that a hoax? it's not a hoax that it's national news
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Jan 11, 2017 19:16
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JcDent posted:Isn't that a hoax? it's not a hoax although it may not be true i want to believe
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Jan 11, 2017 19:25
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Samuel Clemens posted:I wonder what the Devil feels like when he gets up in the morning. It must be hard to go on each day knowing that all of your struggles are futile and that no matter how hard you try, you will never win. He's just an advocate for things, he brushes his face straightens his tie and gets ready to do the necessary As i understand it
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Jan 11, 2017 19:27
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Think long and hard enough about infinitude, free will, and Satan and you get to Origenism, apokastasis, the redemption of all things. An empty hell. We as humans are deluded when we think that we enjoy that which is bad, perhaps it is possible that to lose free will is to have that delusion become hardened, calcified, so that one genuinely feels pleasure in evil. Speculation of course.
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Jan 11, 2017 19:37
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CountFosco posted:Think long and hard enough about infinitude, free will, and Satan and you get to Origenism, apokastasis, the redemption of all things. An empty hell.  quote:We as humans are deluded when we think that we enjoy that which is bad, perhaps it is possible that to lose free will is to have that delusion become hardened, calcified, so that one genuinely feels pleasure in evil. Speculation of course. Tias posted:That assumes that is indeed what is happening. The care of an animal mother for her young, the harmonious service to flock or herd, these are all expressions of a loving, divine order to me.
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Jan 11, 2017 20:22
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If the order isn't loving, in what sense is it divine?
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Jan 11, 2017 20:31
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:If the order isn't loving, in what sense is it divine?
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Jan 11, 2017 20:36
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The bond of one molecule to another is divinely ordered but not an expression of the love one molecule has for another.
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Jan 11, 2017 20:39
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WerrWaaa posted:The bond of one molecule to another is divinely ordered but not an expression of the love one molecule has for another. https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Renaissance-Chicago-Original-Paperback/dp/0226123162
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Jan 11, 2017 20:41
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HEY GAL posted:it produces and sustains all things. we might experience it as "loving", but we might experience it as whatever the hell pops into our heads; of itself, it's beyond descriptions like that. I can imagine worshipping a God whose being is Love, whatever personal difficulties I have in believing or perceiving. But why on Earth would you take the attitude of worship towards a being / substrate / state of affairs whose nature begins and ends with "I AM." Without something more, that's just an expression of power. WerrWaaa posted:The bond of one molecule to another is divinely ordered but not an expression of the love one molecule has for another. My interest is more in whether it's an expression of the order's love of molecules, of whether it's good that molecules exist, if the molecules have a purpose in being. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 20:50
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I can imagine worshipping a God whose being is Love, whatever personal difficulties I have in believing or perceiving. But why on Earth would you take the attitude of worship towards a being / substrate / state of affairs whose nature begins and ends with "I AM." Without something more, that's just an expression of power.
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Jan 11, 2017 20:52
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HEY GAL posted:because this substrate/state of affairs has given rise to a universe which is beautiful and i want to thank it So divinity is aesthetic? e: I don't ask this quite as dismissively as it might sound; the idea of artistry operating on the same subject matter as religion is a big thing for Wallace Stevens, who I respect even if I'm not sure yet whether I agree. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 20:53
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HEY GAL posted:because this substrate/state of affairs has given rise to a universe which is beautiful and i want to thank it This is the same thing I've talked about before regarding science as something beautiful and spiritual. I don't understand how you can look at the universe and all its wondrous complexity, from the photographs taken by the Hubble to the fascinating details of how protein strands work to create living beings, and say there was no hand in making all of that.
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Jan 11, 2017 21:16
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Cythereal posted:This is the same thing I've talked about before regarding science as something beautiful and spiritual. I don't understand how you can look at the universe and all its wondrous complexity, from the photographs taken by the Hubble to the fascinating details of how protein strands work to create living beings, and say there was no hand in making all of that. I don't want to believe in the hand that built a universe where life must feed on life to survive, just for starters. Fortunately platypi, genitals, skunk cabbage, and general relativity make a pretty good case for capital-A Accident.
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Jan 11, 2017 21:27
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I don't want to believe in the hand that built a universe where life must feed on life to survive, just for starters. Platypi and genitals are great though I think the universe just developed necessarily out of the divine order, and what we think of as God and religion is a natural outgrowth of that. Evil comes about when you act in a way that is contrary to truth, such as the truth that you are safe in God, and that all people are of equal worth in the most basic sense. When I watch some nature documentary where a lion eats a gazelle, I empathize with the victim but I actually think I'm wrong about that. Lions don't choose to hurt gazelles, it's just that eating them is what they have evolved to do. In other words, it's not wrong for a lion to kill a gazelle, in the order of nature it's actually right. People have the capacity to think about what is right and wrong, so that gives us the opportunity to make mistakes.
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Jan 11, 2017 22:16
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Personally, studying more science brought me closer to my faith. I was raised generic liturgical Protestant, I was baptized Episcopalian but have attended Methodist and Lutheran churches for large chunks of my life and now consider myself a Lutheran. But I have no problem going to most mainstream Protestant services because they're all very similar. I wasn't religious at all in college and was more agnostic/deist but returned to my faith when I entered grad school and started drowning myself in science. The natural world is loving weird and we don't understand most of it.
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Jan 11, 2017 22:43
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pidan posted:When I watch some nature documentary where a lion eats a gazelle, I empathize with the victim but I actually think I'm wrong about that. Lions don't choose to hurt gazelles, it's just that eating them is what they have evolved to do. In other words, it's not wrong for a lion to kill a gazelle, in the order of nature it's actually right. That seems tantamount to saying that if you don't reflect morally on your decisions, they can't be wrong. Plus, the experience of the gazelle seems at least as significant. Its life ends in agony and terror, and while I agree that a lion probably doesn't question whether it's ethical for it to eat, I'm not nearly as confident in the reverse; that any creature with even the most rudimentary self-awareness doesn't wordlessly think "this is wrong!" when it suffers. If anything, human beings seem to be one of very few creatures capable of suffering without objection.
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Jan 11, 2017 22:43
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:That seems tantamount to saying that if you don't reflect morally on your decisions, they can't be wrong. One of my absolute favorite quotes is from Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac. To roughly paraphrase, since my ex still has my physical copy of the book (blargh): quote:There is a grave spiritual danger in not owning a farm. One might be led to believe heat comes from the stove, and meat from the grocer. e: I am super into environmental philosophy like Leopold and Wendell Berry and how they relate to religion. I can rant about that if anyone's interested. The gazelle has evolved as a prey animal, so it's entirely natural and normal for them to get eaten. One simple distinction between prey and predators is placement of the eyes. If your eyes are close together, you're more of a predator; you have evolved binocular (depth perception) vision to be able to better spot and grab prey. Prey animals, on the other hand, have wide-set eyes because they need to spot and respond to predators quickly and having good depth perception is not as important. That doesn't make one more noble or ethical than the other, that's just the natural order. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 22:47
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There was a wonderful essay I read in some upper-level English course in my undergrad where the author makes the argument that we uncritically imagine that anything natural is beautiful, and traces the historical origins of that conceit (spoilers, it's the Romantics' fault) and attempts a half-serious explanation of why a certain species of songbird is actually hideous and absurd. I wish I could find it again, but I can't remember enough of the particulars to put together good search terms.
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Jan 11, 2017 22:57
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Basically, if it's "natural for (you) to be eaten," then you should revolt against nature. The tragedy of a gazelle is that it is not equipped to do so. Man is.
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Jan 11, 2017 22:59
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I was just gifted a Leopoldo book and am excited to read it. Ellen Davis is also an excellent writer on the topic, see: Scripture and Agriculture. As for death it's clearly a sticking point in the life of faith. We also have to recon with the billions of years of galactic upheaval before Earth, and the billions of dead ends in the evolutionary development of species, when we ask questions about the purpose of death in creation. Given that the Eden narrative is a religious fiction (not untrue! Just not fact), we have to assume that death is baked into creation. Jesus, as human, is an evolved animal, and therefore also Animal Prime. His death and resurrection are a microcosm of the death and life cycle of all creation, hence he can redeem all creation. Re: molecular love, the system can be built by love and not require each individual element to express love. I think the phrase used that the bond is the evidence of the Creator's love hits the nail on the head. If God is love, and God's transcendence can be conceived of as God's infinite imminence, in-finitely present in all instances and moments, then I can say that love is present in all matter, whether or not molecules love each other.
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Jan 11, 2017 23:05
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Basically, if it's "natural for (you) to be eaten," then you should revolt against nature. The tragedy of a gazelle is that it is not equipped to do so. Man is. This, to me at least, is the essence of a lot of things. Also, I may dislike the Enlightenment but mother of God do the Romantics ruin a tonne of things. Pellisworth posted:That doesn't make one more noble or ethical than the other, that's just the natural order. If the natural order is death and pain then is every attempt to lessen that against nature?
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Jan 12, 2017 00:06
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pidan posted:When I watch some nature documentary where a lion eats a gazelle, I empathize with the victim but I actually think I'm wrong about that. Lions don't choose to hurt gazelles, it's just that eating them is what they have evolved to do. In other words, it's not wrong for a lion to kill a gazelle, in the order of nature it's actually right. Is it morally right for humans to eat animals? You could argue that it's in our nature, but at the same, we are clearly capable of living on a vegetarian diet.
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Jan 12, 2017 00:44
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Pellisworth posted:One of my absolute favorite quotes is from Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac. There was a great book about cheetahs an the evolutionary bottleneck I got taught in some bio class. People kept keeping them as pets and they got all inbred as hell because there weren't enough in the wild. And then there's Tasmanian devils. Who are so inbred somehow they can and will transmit cancer through their faces during rough sex. Tom Waits' "God's Away on Business" keeps running through my head but the Cookie Monster version.
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Jan 12, 2017 00:52
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syscall girl posted:And then there's Tasmanian devils. Who are so inbred somehow they can and will transmit cancer through their faces during rough sex. No wonder he was always in a foul mood.
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Jan 12, 2017 00:56
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