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Valiantman posted:Are you sure? Don't they (or many of them at least) predate Judean hellenism?
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Dec 2, 2018 14:01
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Continuing my religious history. I got married. It was a quick marriage, for various red tape reasons. And it was a horrible mistake. My husband turned out to be extremely abusive. Started out with small things, ended up with broken teeth, fingers, getting slashed up with a knife so I was left with scars, and horrific sexual abuse. As in I am now identifying as asexual, since I cannot feel any kind of arousal and nothing but pain from any kind of genital area touch. Anyway.... Incredible as it might sound, the spiritual abuse was the worst. My husband didn't tell me before we married, but he had grown up in a tiny, batshit insane cult calling itself Christian. He was no longer a part of "The Elected Ones", but he obviously had internalised a lot of their teachings. Their main idea is roughly as follows: "Eve was created for Adam, not Adam for Eve. So women have to serve and respect their husbands, but not the other way around. Had Adam kept Eve in her place, The Fall would never have happened. Eve was the first sinner. When she ate the apple of sin, she sold her soul, and the soul of all her daughters for eternity. When a girl gets her first period it is a sign she has been tainted by Eve's sin. She has literally lost her soul to Satan. God no longer hear her prayers. The only way for a woman to regain her soul and be welcomed back by God is to bear a son. When she painfully bears a male child, part of her son's soul will pass into her as reward. So only women who have born sons are worthy of respect. Bearing at least one son is a guaranteed ticket to Heaven. Also, sex before marriage is of course a sin, but only for women. If God wanted men to stay abstinent before marriage, he would have given them a visible virginity sign. In Heaven there will be no men and women, because women will become as men in Heaven, through the intervention of their sons." So as a woman who was already 30, not a virgin on my wedding day, and no sons to show off, my ex-mother-in-law considered me to be a demon sent to drag her first born to Hell. And she was vocal about her beliefs. She herself had born FOUR sons, so she held a lot of respect in their cult. She was also proud of the fact that she had never felt any kind of menstrual pain, another sign she was elected, and had had less Sin of Eve to shed. Anyway, I was saved when I came into the office one day and my boss was all "Nope, you are coming to the Casualty Ward with me." Where the whole story broke, and I ended up going straight into a shelter for battered women. There I got fantastic help, ranging from patching up what could be patched up, an amazing therapist, a great lawyer, and several other practical things. But I was now 100% sure I wanted nothing more to do with organised religion. No more "elected ones" being better than others. No more priests speaking for God. No more "Only priests may do X, the rest of you are not allowed through the door to the Holy (figuratively speaking)." No more Men and Women have different roles. No more rattling off strings of words without thinking about their meaning. No more Going through the motions out of duty. I still believed in God. I just could not see Jesus message of "everyone is welcome. Including small children. Including Mary who wanted to listen to Jesus teach rather than do housework with her sister" in church. Also, I never really liked the whole rattle off words you have memorised, but never really analysed, very fulfilling. My prayers, if I can call them that, was more "Find a quiet place, often in nature. Read a passage from the Gospels that speak to me that day. Concentrate on the message. Or on the thing I want to pray about without words. And just be silent. Give God a chance to speak to my mind. Try to open myself and be one with things. Feeling and thinking, not to be put into words." (OK, can't really explain this at all. Just trust me when I say this was working for me and was how I felt most spiritual and closest to God) However, one of the other women at the shelter was a Quaker. She took me to a silent meeting. It made me cry and I loved it. The whole Here everyone is equal. No leaders. No one closer to God than others. The circle around the altar instead of an altar you needed to be special to approach. The men and women are equal, gays are welcome because love is love, and God is love, genitals do not come into it. The strong message of having a social conscience. The unending message of Peace above all. The silence to give God a chance to speak. It is OK to cry, or laugh, or take in God in your own way. The whole EVERYONE is welcome here, you can pray to your God in your own way (so long as you don't disturb others of course), because God hears every prayer, in every language. No one cares how you dress, what you look like. I still think traditional churches are beautiful. So are many mosques, and temples. I respect that a lot of people need rituals and find them meaningful. I prefer to find my own rituals, light a candle all alone and use it as a focus. Kneel if I feel like it is what I need that day. But organised rituals do not do anything for me. It feels like going through the motions, with no spiritual release. Was it perfect? Of course not. Nothing can ever be perfect on Earth. But this was still my way of worship. So I kept going back. Not every week. But often enough. It felt like a "coming home" in many ways. If that makes any sense? These days I live in a secret location (ex-husband is still trying to find me and punish me for sending him to prison). There are no Friends around as far as I can make out. So I have to make due with my own silent worship. I do miss the fellowship. But I can meet God sitting silent and alone watching the sea at dusk too. Or set off 30 minutes to read and "pray" in my own way. Hope this rambling post makes some sense?
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Dec 2, 2018 14:05
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BattyKiara posted:Continuing my religious history. May God shine His face upon you. Thank you for sharing your story. It’s advent time! Anyone have any favorite readings? My church gave us all some, but it’s pretty unimaginative.
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Dec 2, 2018 15:40
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HEY GUNS posted:teh greek part is a joke Oh, my bad, didn't catch that. Also thank you for sharing your story, BattyKiara. It makes sense, horribly so. I'm hesitant to write the following but I hope I can express myself well enough: You have your own way of worship/religiousness/expression/whatever you wish to call it and it is perfectly fine and okay and even more than that. It's great. You have a past that has poisoned some ways of worship (not to mention all the other scarring, mental or physical but I won't go there) and yet you have found or have been guided to another way. It would not have been any kind of a wonder if you'd cut all religiousness from your life forever but I'm happy that it hasn't happened. I sincerely believe that God is the best doctor and comfort we can ever know. From your previous posts I got the impression that you might think that your way of praying and being close to God might be frowned upon. I'm sorry if I completely misread that. Anyway, I want to say that at least from my moderately experienced and educated point of view, I can see nothing wrong in how you act. In fact I find remarkable similarities to how I try to educate children and young people (and adults when I happen to work with them) to express themselves and what kind of a relationship they might wish to have with God. What works for some, doesn't necessarily work for others.
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Dec 2, 2018 16:11
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ThePopeOfFun posted:
Not a reading, but according to my Granny, the start of Advent is supposed to be a day of joy. And anything you do today that causes joy for others will come back to you fourfold next year. Which is a nice thing to think about, right?
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Dec 2, 2018 17:14
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BattyKiara posted:Not a reading, but according to my Granny, the start of Advent is supposed to be a day of joy. And anything you do today that causes joy for others will come back to you fourfold next year. Which is a nice thing to think about, right? Thats awesome and fun.
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Dec 2, 2018 18:03
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Thanks for posting here, BattyKiara. I love to hear the stories of other people, even if the stories are painful and difficult. You're very welcome here.
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Dec 2, 2018 18:12
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yo hopperuk, freaking pm me and we'll go get coffee or beer or sth battykiara, lord have mercy! i'm glad you feel able to share this story
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Dec 2, 2018 19:14
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BattyKiara posted:These days I live in a secret location (ex-husband is still trying to find me and punish me for sending him to prison). There are no Friends around as far as I can make out. So I have to make due with my own silent worship. I do miss the fellowship. But I can meet God sitting silent and alone watching the sea at dusk too. Or set off 30 minutes to read and "pray" in my own way. Hope this rambling post makes some sense? Yes. May peace be with you, dear friend in the Christ. If we contemplate the question, "Where is the divine presence?", we may see that it is everywhere we are: next to the sea, atop a hill, in a crowded train, in community and in solitude, always waiting to be recognized.
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Dec 2, 2018 21:54
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ThePopeOfFun posted:It’s advent time! Anyone have any favorite readings? My church gave us all some, but it’s pretty unimaginative. I've just been to an Advent Sunday service at my local parish church. Quite a lot of good readings and music. I was surprised by this poem by Dorothy Perkins. Turns out that she went to Catholic school. Edit: I meant Dorothy Parker obviously. The things she knew, let her forget again- The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold, The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold. Let her have laughter with her little one; Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing, Grant her her right to whisper to her son The foolish names one dare not call a king. Keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd, The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red, The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud That wraps the strange new body of the dead. Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go And boast his pretty words and ways, and plan The proud and happy years that they shall know Together, when her son is grown a man. Mr Enderby fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Dec 3, 2018 |
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Dec 2, 2018 21:59
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ThePopeOfFun posted:May God shine His face upon you. Thank you for sharing your story. We had the festival of Christ the King the Sunday immediately preceding the first Sunday of advent. Also I get to spend a month performing handels messiah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS3vpAWW2Zc Isaiah 9:6 posted:For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
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Dec 3, 2018 01:06
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NikkolasKing posted:Yeah I was a bit worried about that. But I thought the official policy of churches in the Communion was LGBT acceptance. That's why there are a bunch of Anglican Churches pointedly not in Communion with...Canterbury or something? I even found a Canadian priest who said he left the Communion after they started allowing gay marriage. Hi, I've been meaning to write an effortpost about this, but the insane complexities of Anglican politics are getting in the way, and the last thing I want to do is put someone off seeking a church because of intricate internal disputes. Very short answer: as far as there is an official Anglican Communion policy, it is against gay marriage and "active" gay clergy, while simultaneously affirming the existence of LGBT people and their value within the Church. But this being Anglicanism, that policy has no binding power, and there are (many) churches that perform gay marriage, and others that are openly homophobic. Statistically, if you walk into an Episcopal church in the US, or any Anglican Church in England, you are almost certain to find it is somewhere between tolerant and affirming of gay people, but I don't want to promise that you will find that in your nearest parish. There's probably never going to be a clear Anglican position on these issues. It's been 500 years and we haven't even decided what we think about transubstantiation. If the Catholic Church is like a spiritual empire, Anglicanism is like a family that loves each other, but has constant arguments and long running feuds. So like a family, when we get together we tend to sweep the big issue under the rug, and bicker about trivialities. Thanks for posting this. For what it's worth, I think that often God comes to find us where we are, rather than asking us to make the journey.
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Dec 3, 2018 01:11
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Mr Enderby posted:Hi, I've been meaning to write an effortpost about this, but the insane complexities of Anglican politics are getting in the way, and the last thing I want to do is put someone off seeking a church because of intricate internal disputes. If you are in the US, it gets even more complicated. The Episcopal Church is just as Mr Enderby described, but there are also “Anglican” churches who split from the Episcopal Church between the 70s and 00s over issues ranging from the ordination of women to prayer book revision to same-sex marriage. All of them temporarily transitioned their episcopal oversight to conservative official Anglican Provinces like Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Southeast Asia so as to preserve Apostolic succession. Ten years later, most of them have been given independence from their former Anglican overlords and now are seeking to undermine the Episcopal Church by having the Archbishop of Canterbury expel them from the Anglican Communion. Funny thing is, the Archbishop of Canterbury still refuses to recognize ACNA (the Anglican Church in North America— the big tent organization for most of these “Anglican” breakaway groups) as Anglican. TL;DR if you are looking for an affirming Anglican Church in the US, don’t look for an Anglican Church
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Dec 3, 2018 02:15
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Cnidario posted:All of them temporarily transitioned their episcopal oversight to conservative official Anglican Provinces like Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Southeast Asia so as to preserve Apostolic succession. Don't tell them about Gafcon vs Lambeth! That's private family business.
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Dec 3, 2018 02:37
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Mr Enderby posted:Don't tell them about Gafcon vs Lambeth! That's private family business. Lol GAFCON is a farce.
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Dec 3, 2018 03:22
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An interesting note from the other side of my family, apparently the rift over how inclusive to be towards LGBT individuals in the United Methodists has gotten wide enough that their Council of Bishops has called a special session for next year to decide how they go forward, with splitting the ministry seemingly on the table as the result of an impasse between traditionalist and progressive factions. http://www.umc.org/topics/general-conference-2019-special-session
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Dec 3, 2018 03:39
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Liquid Communism posted:An interesting note from the other side of my family, apparently the rift over how inclusive to be towards LGBT individuals in the United Methodists has gotten wide enough that their Council of Bishops has called a special session for next year to decide how they go forward, with splitting the ministry seemingly on the table as the result of an impasse between traditionalist and progressive factions. My parents went Methodist, largely based on the local parish having a much better Sunday School / after-school program for kids. From what I understand it's largely the same divide as in other mainline Protestant denominations: Europe and North America are pretty chill about LGBT stuff, Africa and Asia are extremely not but that's where most of the growth is. Due to the structure of the United Methodist Church it will unfortunately lead to a schism (probably). Unlike other mainline Protestant bodies in the US such as the ELCA (Lutheranism) and Episcopalianism (Anglicanism), the Methodists/Wesleyans have one international governing body. BattyKiara posted:Continuing my religious history. I am bad at emotional stuff, but I feel confident in speaking for the thread: you are loved, and we welcome you here! I wish nothing but peace and happiness upon you and your family and will be including you in my prayers. totally unrelated but my current Episcopalian pastor's license plate is -MOMMA L- and she's great 
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Dec 3, 2018 05:01
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Pellisworth posted:My parents went Methodist, largely based on the local parish having a much better Sunday School / after-school program for kids. From what I understand it's largely the same divide as in other mainline Protestant denominations: Europe and North America are pretty chill about LGBT stuff, Africa and Asia are extremely not but that's where most of the growth is. Due to the structure of the United Methodist Church it will unfortunately lead to a schism (probably). Unlike other mainline Protestant bodies in the US such as the ELCA (Lutheranism) and Episcopalianism (Anglicanism), the Methodists/Wesleyans have one international governing body. This is accurate, but I'm also told that a big part of the problem is that Europe and North America are also where most of the church's money comes from. The Global South and Asia are much poorer than the Western world, at least in this respect, and African and Asian church leaders are very wary of the LGBT-friendly Western churches trying to use their wealth as leverage. 
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Dec 3, 2018 05:15
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For any techies in this thread, you know that big family tree-like picture of Linux distributions? I need that for Christianity.
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Dec 3, 2018 11:05
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BattyKiara posted:Words of :woe: I'm so sorry for your experiences. I wish Lilith, mother of beasts, will teach them a thing or two about the true power of women. quote:Was it perfect? Of course not. Nothing can ever be perfect on Earth. But this was still my way of worship. So I kept going back. Not every week. But often enough. It felt like a "coming home" in many ways. If that makes any sense? This makes all the sense in the world to me. I too found connection to the divine in a non-traditional setting, via AA/12-steps, which is non-denominational but heavily influenced by personal experience of faith like the quakers and other sects practice.
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Dec 3, 2018 11:19
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Thank you, everyone! 
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Dec 3, 2018 13:04
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Ynglaur posted:For any techies in this thread, you know that big family tree-like picture of Linux distributions? I need that for Christianity.
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Dec 3, 2018 13:27
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BattyKiara posted:Hope this rambling post makes some sense? It makes a lot of sense, and I'll join others in the thread in saying thank you for sharing, and I'm sorry you went through all that but I'm glad you came out the other side. A good friend of mine from college ended up with the Friends church, and she seemed very happy there, last I heard from her.
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Dec 3, 2018 15:12
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Ynglaur posted:For any techies in this thread, you know that big family tree-like picture of Linux distributions? I need that for Christianity. Branch theory is a heresy.
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Dec 3, 2018 16:50
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CountFosco posted:Branch theory is a heresy. also wb friend
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Dec 3, 2018 16:52
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Ynglaur posted:For any techies in this thread, you know that big family tree-like picture of Linux distributions? I need that for Christianity. Why limit yourself to Christianity? https://000024.org/religions_tree/religions_tree_8.html (head over to the right side) I'm sure there's plenty of bickering to be had in the details, but a decent general view. If you want to take a (U.S) church and work its distribution backwards, The Handbook of Denominations is a really good source.
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Dec 3, 2018 17:55
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HEY GUNS posted:the venn diagram overlap of "jokes religion nerds will get" and "jokes linux nerds will get" is surprisingly large I just popped in to see how things were developing, I'm heading back out. I still hold views that, were I to express them, I would be seen by this community as evil. I think it's pretty remarkable that what was a thread ostensibly about Christianity is now "religionthread." "Religionthread" is exactly the sort of blandification of society that is the logical end-game of globalization and neoliberalism. Not wanting to upset the peace and order of the thread, I'll now show myself the door.
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Dec 3, 2018 18:40
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BattyKiara posted:In Heaven there will be no men and women, because women will become as men in Heaven, That sure doesn't sound like heaven to me.
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Dec 3, 2018 18:50
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what if it was heavmen, and it was just for the fellas
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Dec 3, 2018 19:01
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CountFosco posted:the logical end-game of globalization and neoliberalism. we orthodox christians have benefited many times from people who chose to be OK with minorities in their midst, but could have chosen not to. now i'm choosing to give that same gift to others. (i'd also be out of a job without easy rapid travel, and forcibly seperated from my partner without mixing of the ethnicities.) i'm not blandly becoming like members of other religions: i'm hanging out with them and trying to make friends, you doofus i'm sorry to see that you haven't repented of your heresy and you are always welcome back whenever you do. i'll miss you. 
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Dec 3, 2018 |
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Dec 3, 2018 19:50
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Cessna posted:That sure doesn't sound like heaven to me. also i think he said something about eyelashes, either we won't have any or they'll be...different somehow...idk
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Dec 3, 2018 20:10
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HEY GUNS posted:according to origen we'll all become genderless spheres Genderless spheres, also known as bland globalisation.
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Dec 3, 2018 20:22
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Freudian posted:Genderless spheres, also known as bland globalisation.
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Dec 3, 2018 20:23
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HEY GUNS posted:bland globes more like We already have those in the Midwest.
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Dec 3, 2018 21:03
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So... like empyrean doughnut holes? Sounds great.
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Dec 3, 2018 22:09
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:So... like empyrean doughnut holes? Sounds great. the only dude itt who has read all of origen took a sacred vow to Mary to get off social media so we can't get the verdict on whether he thought we will become empyrean doughnut holes when we die
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Dec 3, 2018 22:15
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HEY GUNS posted:the only dude itt who has read all of origen... that sounds like a challenge wikipedia posted:He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and biblical hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. gently caress
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Dec 3, 2018 22:54
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That is some impressive passion for the topic.
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Dec 4, 2018 00:31
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Liquid Communism posted:That is some impressive passion for the topic.
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Dec 4, 2018 00:42
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HEY GUNS posted:the only dude itt who has read all of origen took a sacred vow to Mary to get off social media so we can't get the verdict on whether he thought we will become empyrean doughnut holes when we die This might be the most niche topic I’ve ever come across.
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Dec 4, 2018 02:16
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