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The problem is that the issue isn't really with God, it's with us. A solution that God enacts unilaterally isn't gonna fix humanity without humanity's participation, and for reasons we can only speculate upon, God decided that the best way to get humanity to change was to do what Jesus did. Did it work? Well, it's pretty hard to argue that no one in history changed the world more than Jesus did, albeit through his followers. It's so massively changed that I don't even know how to begin describing what the world would look like if he hadn't lived. Going further I suspect would basically just devolve into the question of good and evil.
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Jun 14, 2023 21:12
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Keromaru5 posted:I think it's related to why we Catholics and Orthodox venerate the Virgin Mary: she herself is a special revelation of God. God didn't just become man--the designer of atoms and galaxies let himself be confined to her body for 9 months and let her feed him and clothe him. For me, the smallness, the extent to which God is willing to shrink himself down, is part of the whole beauty of it. I must admit I cannot see it, but this is why I am not a Christian. NikkolasKing posted:I'm inclined to agree. I don't see any Buddhas any time soon. But, as a book I really like said, maybe that's just egotism - our refusal to believe sanctity and holiness could occur in our midst. Holiness and sanctity can exist but they are very personal things and are often created in direct contrast to what other people believe to be holy or sacred. Deteriorata posted:Without his death and resurrection, Jesus is just a good guy with nice things to say, like thousands of others in history. Yes. That is rather the point isn't it. A_Bluenoser posted:Without Christ no-one can fully enter the life of God in the Kingdom of God (go to heaven crudly put) because there is a fundamental breach between God and man. God-become-man takes humanity into the Godhead and thus opens the path for humanity to fully enter into the Kingdom of God. This is a change in the very nature of reality. And who did that? Who has the power in this relationship? Who caused that breach? Like if you don't believe in Adam and Eve as literal truth, who is to blame for this? How so? Nessus posted:There are many glaring obvious problems with people. If God made people then I would say some part of this is “on God,” but even if everything in the Bible is literal truth, God is obviously an entity beyond easy human comprehension. Exactly. Don't make something wrong on purpose and then moan about it. Even if God is an entity that cannot be comprehended directly there has to be a way of interpreting it, otherwise God doesn't exist. A_Bluenoser posted:The teachings of Christ are in no way disposable, perish the thought! "If ye love me then keep my commandments" etc. But they are important because of who Christ was and because Christ gave them we must heed them as best we are able (and confess when we cannot rather than try to justify ourselves). If Christ did not die for you then there's still a lot of good in the sayings. Does someone have to die in order for us to listen to good things they say. Azathoth posted:The problem is that the issue isn't really with God, it's with us. A solution that God enacts unilaterally isn't gonna fix humanity without humanity's participation, and for reasons we can only speculate upon, God decided that the best way to get humanity to change was to do what Jesus did. And who made us like this? There is no getting around it that if you believe that God has a hand in the creation of all life then, ultimately, they bare some level of culpability for it as well.
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Jun 14, 2023 22:16
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Josef bugman posted:And who made us like this? There is no getting around it that if you believe that God has a hand in the creation of all life then, ultimately, they bare some level of culpability for it as well.
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Jun 14, 2023 23:49
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Josef bugman posted:I must admit I cannot see it, but this is why I am not a Christian. in contrast if anyone in my calvinist youth had explained it so well as that I probably still would be
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Jun 15, 2023 00:30
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Josef bugman posted:And who did that? Who has the power in this relationship? Who caused that breach? Like if you don't believe in Adam and Eve as literal truth, who is to blame for this? The breach seems to have something to do with humans having consciousness and the knowledge of good and evil without necessarily having the power to do good and avoid doing evil - basically having some of the knowledge of God but not actually being God and therefore not able to actually use that knowledge well. We don't know the exact mechanics of how this occurred and much ink has been spilled over the issue. Some Biblical literalists claim that the story of Adam and Eve actually happened exactly as it is written but for most of its history the Church has viewed that story as allegorical rather than factual and that is the tradition that I follow. As for blame: I don't think that is the correct way to view the issue. I tend to look at it more as God completing his creation and making us whole rather than in terms of punishment and reward. Why God chose to do it this way I don't know: I trust in his providence and that all will be well. To me that trust is what faith is all about. As to who has the power in the relationship: that depends a lot on your theology. If you are a double predestination reformed Calvinist then God has all the power: he alone chooses those who are his elect to be saved and those who are not. My theology is probably closer to Armenianism in which God basically freely offers us salvation that we ourselves can individually accept or reject so it is a bit more of a negotiation. The Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches have different doctrines that I am sure others here can address if they want. Again, a lot of ink has been spilled over this issue with no universally accepted answer. In the end I think most Christians would agree that we hope salvation is universal, that it is our duty to pray that it is, and many of us probably expect that it is but it is not our doctrine to teach that it is. Josef bugman posted:How so? Eden is earthly human life made perfect and looks a lot like some of the classical ideas of an afterlife where things are pleasant, the weather is always good, the crops never fail, you don't have to work hard, etc. Full participation in the life of God is to know God as God knows you and to some degree to exist as God exists and to bask and swim in his perfect infinity. We don't know exactly what it will look like and will probably be very strange. I personally expect that time and space as we know them will not have the same meaning when we live as God lives - the end and the beginning will both be equally available to us. It is hard to imagine what that might be like. We do know it won't be a completely disembodied existence since we do believe in the resurrection of the body at least in some form. We also know that there won't be marriage there because that is one of Christ's teachings. Josef bugman posted:If Christ did not die for you then there's still a lot of good in the sayings. Does someone have to die in order for us to listen to good things they say. No, plenty of people have teachings that we should heed (although of course they are human and so they will die at some point) and that is exactly the point: what makes Christ special for Christians is not that he was a man with good teachings but the fact that he was God incarnate, fully human, died, and rose again from the dead to become the first fruits of them that slept. In dying he destroyed death and by rising to life again he brings us life forevermore. He is the union of man and the Godhead. There is far more to Christ from a Christian perspective than just his teachings. Perhaps another way to look at it: I can follow a good teacher and perhaps become a good teacher myself. Perhaps I can even become the Buddha by following the Buddha's teaching well enough (Buddhists please correct me here if I am wrong). From a Christian perspective by his very nature Christ is unique - I can follow his teaching, become fully reconciled with God, and live in eternity with him but I will never actually become Christ (although I think the line does get a bit fuzzy for some branches of Christianity).
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Jun 15, 2023 02:19
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Whether or not you can become a Buddha depends somewhat on your sect. The core pitch of the Buddha dharma is liberation from suffering, which is a universal (unless they dropped it in Navayana for some reason) although the nuances vary. The main idea of Buddhism in the west tends to come from Mahayana schools; Zen is pretty widely represented but nowhere near universal. (Plum Village, Thich Nhit Hanh's tradition, is descended from Vietnamese Chien, which is, to my understanding, cognate to Zen.) In these, you can become a buddha, eventually - and you can become a bodhisattva, which is just a step before the fulfillment of a buddha, and work for the liberation of all sentient beings. Details vary, terms and conditioned arising apply. Paramemetic's OP in the Buddhism thread outlines the summarized ideas better, this is sort of the equivalent of "Jesus died so you could go to heaven." "Not wrong, but surely not complete." But you can't literally become "the" Buddha, Shakyamuni; however, in principle you can (and in some readings, are, by nature, already so) the same kind of awakened being as Shakyamuni of old.
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Jun 15, 2023 02:52
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A_Bluenoser posted:No, plenty of people have teachings that we should heed (although of course they are human and so they will die at some point) and that is exactly the point: what makes Christ special for Christians is not that he was a man with good teachings but the fact that he was God incarnate, fully human, died, and rose again from the dead to become the first fruits of them that slept. In dying he destroyed death and by rising to life again he brings us life forevermore. He is the union of man and the Godhead. There is far more to Christ from a Christian perspective than just his teachings. Plus--and I may be wrong on this, and it may not be relevant to the discussion at all--but I'm not aware of any first-millennium Christological controversy where his moral teachings were in question.
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Jun 15, 2023 04:22
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Bar Ran Dun posted:This is pretty close to the idea of: the event of Jesus as the Christ as the ground of being. the stone that the builders rejected has become the &c
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Jun 15, 2023 04:53
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Tias posted:Well, some faiths (heathenry, hinduism) says we ARE in the age of poo poo going wrong, but that it will eventually resolve itself for good, or at least balance. hi can i hear more about this plz
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Jun 15, 2023 04:53
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sinnesloeschen posted:hi can i hear more about this plz I don't know much about the Hindu perspective, but the term "Kali Yuga" would be the relevant phrase to start research from. The ancient Greek poet Hesiod once outlined a similar history of the cosmos, which was later repeated by the Roman poet Ovid, called the Myth of the Ages, which goes a little something like this: Although the titan Cronus was cruel to his children, he was kind to humans, and in the earliest age of mankind, called the Golden Age, they lived freely with the gods who created them. Nature provided abundantly for them with no need for toil, they lived immensely long lives and died peacefully, and, living with wisdom and piety, it was an age of peace and justice. When Zeus overthrew Cronus and reordered the universe, he introduced the seasons, obliging the humans of what is called the Silver Age to learn the art of agriculture, so that they were forced to work for their livelihood. The humans of this period practiced impiety, but the punishment of the gods soon rectified that. The human lifespan shrank during this period to about a century. Perhaps in response to the hardship and toil of the prior age, humans invented warfare, giving way to what is called the Bronze Age (which, however, has no particular relation to its archaeological namesake). During this third age, although pious, mankind was also violent, and destroyed each other with their warlike ways. The survivors of the Bronze Age had a worse lot still, for while they continued the violence of their ancestors, they also abandoned piety, inaugurating the Iron Age. In this worst of the ages, which Hesiod and Ovid considered themselves to inhabit, wickedness and shamelessness predominate, and there is strife even between siblings, between parents and children, between guests and hosts. The gods in this age have forsaken humanity, who have no help against evil. Unlike the Hindu perspective, these writers did not view this as a cyclical history in which the good times would eventually return, merely a narrative of continuous decline (possibly punctuated by the occasional generation of heroes). Hesiod in particular expressed what modern readers would consider a rather pessimistic and resigned outlook. His work includes the very first almanac, so I see him as attempting to answer two of the most pressing questions facing an ancient farmer: "Why does life suck?" and "When should I plant my crops?"
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Jun 15, 2023 05:23
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Azathoth posted:I'm not exactly sure why you're so fired up, but as I said in the paragraph of my post you cut out, we're now at theodicy. If you're gonna demand answers to that one in the same fashion, I think I'll bow out of the discussion here. In answer to the fired up part, I don't like it when people say that "humanity is to blame" mainly because it feels unfair? I mean if you build galaxies, start the very process of life and can do anything within the universe it feels churlish to go "this is your fault" to people who cannot do that. I know about theodicy in this instance, but I don't want to come across as angry, more just... I'm trying to think about this sort of thing in a way that I can articulate and not be a dick about it. Sorry.
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Jun 15, 2023 06:00
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Once again proof that Catholics aren't Christian!  Bongo Bill posted:I don't know much about the Hindu perspective, but the term "Kali Yuga" would be the relevant phrase to start research from. Kali Yuga is also a term some weird chuds love using, so don't be surprised if your YouTube recommends become poison! Josef bugman posted:I know about theodicy in this instance, but I don't want to come across as angry, more just... I'm trying to think about this sort of thing in a way that I can articulate and not be a dick about it. Sorry. You're just righteously frustrated, JB, and you're a good bean! Unrelated to anything, but I have a somewhat odd question: Chapo recently described Episcopalianism as religion for people who don't believe/hate religion and God, where does that come from? Is it just a joke, or is there some background to it like with "CATHOLICS DON'T READ THE BIBLE!!!"?
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Jun 15, 2023 12:39
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I know very little about Chapo Trap House, but I imagine the joke is that a lot of Episcopalians and Anglicans do not behave in what has become accepted as a vision of "religious behavior." Their leaders probably say relatively moderate things. Perhaps even liberal things. We have seen ourselves in this thread and its previous rebirths how many people assume that the angriest, nastiest, cruelest, most extreme advocate of a religion is taken as the guy who "REALLY" believes. "If you guys REALLY believed, you'd be trying to kill gay people too!" etc. e: A more accurate representation here might be that the loudest, cruelest, and most televised version of a religious faith is taken as somehow being "truer" than other forms. For instance, there are vast swathes of the Muslim world which are certainly Muslim and follow the traditions, and may not exactly have enlightened general opinions about LGBT people, but do not behave as do Wahabi clerics in Saudi Arabia. There are an abundance of Christians, even of mainstream Protestants, who do not engage in conservative political activism as a major religious activity. Despite great efforts at increasing their numbers by the Haredim and Hasidim, their practice of Judaism is not somehow the "real, true" version. etc. Leaving aside being sour about popular opinion about religion, I think there is also a tendency to look towards the oldest form of something, or the superficially simplest, as being the "truest." This has come up in the Buddhist space at times, although it has usually been to the advantage of the Theravada sects. Nessus fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Jun 15, 2023 |
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Jun 15, 2023 13:45
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re episcopalians (also only my perspective, im heinously leftist, dont listen to what i say, etc) so rn in ECUSA theres been huge shifts in their social and religious thinking, mostly w/r/t social justice, inequity, the fact that lots of episcopalians can be hilariously racist and/or maintain the racist power structures that have benefitted them and their parishioners for long and long meanwhile there's a shitload of us working with no money, no power, guarding migrant borderland groups, leavin gallon jugs of water behind fences, and feeding folks (i just served 100 meals last night) i was talkin to a beloved buddhist friend of mine about why people dont come to our particular parish church and he was like 'because they think they're better than other people' and i was just fuckin floored; i'm having to really pray and reflect on that lately i dont think we hate god. i personally know that i fuckin hate what we've done to god. for a not-insignificant number of people membership in an episcopal church can be seen as something of a status symbol (although in 2023 this is vestigial at best). i know a lot of episcopalians do look down upon charismatic and evangelical churches for their typically odious social views (but privately parishioners share with me their longing for a more joyful, energetic, and charismatic episcopal church, which i largely agree with tbh). there's also something sort of like but not quite what the UMC is going through at the moment within ECUSA, although it's been mostly done and dusted it seems everything is being relitigated these days. we've also got our presiding bishop in hospital with severe heart trouble so everything might change if he pops it
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Jun 15, 2023 14:08
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It's mostly unfair--there are plenty of pious, faithful Episcopalians--but the Episcopal Church did bring us Bishops Pike and Spong. When I was in it, it wasn't unusual to run into the idea of saying the Creeds "with your fingers crossed." And yeah, I've seen some of that condescension, too. It's hardly unusual for a preacher to compare churches in a sermon, but I've heard some that were basically "Thank God we're not like those Christians." My current priest is usually more like "We don't do things that way; here's why." The Episcopal churches I belonged to also tended to have very affluent parishioners. But at the same time, for me one of the most distasteful conversations at Orthodox coffee hour is what's wrong with our old churches. And my local TEC included a monk who lived at the community kitchen and dedicated his life to washing the feet of the homeless. So there was real faith, I just felt like I needed to go further.
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Jun 15, 2023 14:37
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Keromaru5 posted:It's mostly unfair--there are plenty of pious, faithful Episcopalians--but the Episcopal Church did bring us Bishops Pike and Spong. When I was in it, it wasn't unusual to run into the idea of saying the Creeds "with your fingers crossed." A few Sundays ago during church service, the pastor told us that what he loves about the church is that we are divided, just as there are so many different kinds of people with different talents and characteristics. You can visit someone from another church for coffee, have endless discussions about all kinds of topics, but when it comes down to it, there is one thing that unites us: faith in God and the messiah. Another neat example was the division highlighted in the story of the Tower of Babel: sometimes divisiveness is a way to get to a certain goal. I should add that I am not American and the growth of christian fascism/hate culture is less prevalent in my country. You do notice that the opinions of secular people are strongly influenced by it. I'm not sure what the equivalent is within the various denominations in America, but I am part of the Dutch Reformed Church.
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Jun 15, 2023 14:57
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Josef bugman posted:In answer to the fired up part, I don't like it when people say that "humanity is to blame" mainly because it feels unfair? I mean if you build galaxies, start the very process of life and can do anything within the universe it feels churlish to go "this is your fault" to people who cannot do that. A_Bluenoser posted:The breach seems to have something to do with humans having consciousness and the knowledge of good and evil without necessarily having the power to do good and avoid doing evil - basically having some of the knowledge of God but not actually being God and therefore not able to actually use that knowledge well. Keromaru5 posted:Also, the Word of God through whom all things were made. His divinity--and his death and resurrection--lend his teachings their authority. I wonder if a non-Christian perspective on this discussion might offer another lens with which to examine it, Josef? I have been exploring my own beliefs lately in a way that has had me doing a lot of reading and studying of concepts of divine jurisdiction -- something more relevant in polytheism than monotheism, since the latter tends to equate divinity with omnipotence much more freely than the former. If a Christian needs a favor in any given domain, they have but one guy to ask. Some other folks need to sort through and identify a divinity that has power in that field, will exercise power in that field, and might be reasonably assumed willing to exert that power for the person petitioning. Different religions, different understandings of "the rules" and different jurisdictional divisions. I would argue, however, that from either direction -- polytheism, where different Gods have different specialties, or monotheism, where one God does it all -- the human world, realm, reality is one where Divinity does not have natural jurisdiction. By its very nature, our existence is separate from a God's. For polytheism, separations of domains and influences is part of the design; but for monotheism (specifically, of course, we discuss Christianity) the God relinquished direct divine authority over humanity's realm when he allowed for free will. However, one can give up authority and then later regain it by establishing and exercising a valid claim. God(s) enjoy an ability of their station to exert influence (to varying degrees of efficacy) anywhere they can validate as their own. In polytheism, for example, the Egyptian pharaohs were considered at once human and also the incarnation of (usually) Heru, the rightful heir to Divine power, on earth. Thereby, at that place and during that time, the Divine had established and could exert influence in the human realm, through that station of clearly recognized shared authority. The Christian God incarnating within a mortal man, conceived, birthed, and then eventually experiencing a version of death, follows those rules of divine jurisdiction. The monotheistic God had relinquished direct influence over the human daily life, and then discovered maybe a little interference or direction was not only warranted, but to his followers' betterment: living mortals need roadmaps, sometimes, at the very least, because we have a thousand weaknesses and short sightednesses that most divine beings forget about or don't need to worry about working around -- especially if they are a monotheistic God and thereby understood as omnipotent. Jesus as Man and God was (is), literally, his God setting his foot back in our world and re-establishing authority that he had previously surrendered, in order to help correct the course we had begun taking. But, on account of him utilizing a piece of polytheistic logic to do so, the influence is much more diluted than it once was. The importance of Jesus as man -- as understood by a polytheist, but again, perhaps my logic chains are ones that you can follow as well, Josef -- is it makes that God, whom Jesus also is, "one of us", and so dwells within the human reality and may influence and exert authority over it, but imperfectly and still forced to try and make a balance with our chaotic manifestations of individual will. LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jun 15, 2023 |
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Jun 15, 2023 16:06
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I like the idea that mythology is reflection of the questions being asked in a certain period. e: This is like in the Matrix as well. The first simulation was a paradise, it was a disaster. Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Jun 16, 2023 |
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Jun 16, 2023 09:38
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Prurient Squid posted:I like the idea that mythology is reflection of the questions being asked in a certain period.  btw, thank you for that post Bill!
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Jun 16, 2023 18:04
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:
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Jun 17, 2023 02:04
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shame on an IGA posted:in contrast if anyone in my calvinist youth had explained it so well as that I probably still would be That's fair, it's more just that I cannot see it. I can appreciate the little things in life but I do not think that it's okay for the creator of all to decide that they want a part of it. Let us have this with the people we choose to share it with. A_Bluenoser posted:As for blame: I don't think that is the correct way to view the issue. I tend to look at it more as God completing his creation and making us whole rather than in terms of punishment and reward. Why God chose to do it this way I don't know: I trust in his providence and that all will be well. To me that trust is what faith is all about. Then if it is something that was required for "completion" and yet it lead to our separation why was it done? And that is fair for those who have Faith. I'm not sure how it is supposed to be resolved for those of us without, but it might just have to be hope. Does it? How far can we choose something that was built for us. I suppose this is where Free Will comes into things in this instance. Thank you for the perspectives. A_Bluenoser posted:Full participation in the life of God is to know God as God knows you and to some degree to exist as God exists and to bask and swim in his perfect infinity. Got to say I'd prefer the former to the latter. I like my own subjectivity and, whilst knowing and being conected to everyone would be cool, I'd prefer to keep my own subjective appraisal rather than to surrender to one ness. A_Bluenoser posted:No, plenty of people have teachings that we should heed (although of course they are human and so they will die at some point) and that is exactly the point: what makes Christ special for Christians is not that he was a man with good teachings but the fact that he was God incarnate, fully human, died, and rose again from the dead to become the first fruits of them that slept. In dying he destroyed death and by rising to life again he brings us life forevermore. He is the union of man and the Godhead. There is far more to Christ from a Christian perspective than just his teachings. But this is the thing a lot of Christians don't even seem to believe that. I think there was a study done that said "Jesus had good teachings but was not God" got a fair old amount of support among some denominations. But this is the thing if you are already part of everything then how are you different from that thing? How is there a difference between self and other if everything is one? LITERALLY A BIRD posted:The Christian God incarnating within a mortal man, conceived, birthed, and then eventually experiencing a version of death, follows those rules of divine jurisdiction. The monotheistic God had relinquished direct influence over the human daily life, and then discovered maybe a little interference or direction was not only warranted, but to his followers' betterment: living mortals need roadmaps, sometimes, at the very least, because we have a thousand weaknesses and short sightednesses that most divine beings forget about or don't need to worry about working around -- especially if they are a monotheistic God and thereby understood as omnipotent. Jesus as Man and God was (is), literally, his God setting his foot back in our world and re-establishing authority that he had previously surrendered, in order to help correct the course we had begun taking. But, on account of him utilizing a piece of polytheistic logic to do so, the influence is much more diluted than it once was. The importance of Jesus as man -- as understood by a polytheist, but again, perhaps my logic chains are ones that you can follow as well, Josef -- is it makes that God, whom Jesus also is, "one of us", and so dwells within the human reality and may influence and exert authority over it, but imperfectly and still forced to try and make a balance with our chaotic manifestations of individual will. Thank you for the perspective, and I do appreciate everyone's thoughts but I want to poke at some bits of this. I am not sure that in Monotheistic God relinquishes Divine Authority at any point. God says he allows for free will, but such a thing is incompatible with divinity that can do anything. Gods as an a abstraction or an understanding of forces that can try to be reasoned with via propitiating makes sense because, ultimately, it just makes them a very powerful form of a being. But to claim Omnipotence and Omni-benevolence seems a bridge too far with most divinities that humanity worships. Often they know that they have a huge amount of power but not enough to resolve every problem and are more concerned with other things. It is only when one is expected to not only obey but to love the divinity that I find I have problems with it. But it doesn't. Does the rich person who lives for 10 years in poverty experience things in the same way that someone who grows up in poverty and has no option but to experience it? I am very grateful to all the thoughtful responses and I am very much aware that I may be being crass with my responses, but I am trying to communicate emotions and my ideas about divinity as best I can, I'm just hopeful I have done so with a measure of respect. I also want to say thank you to everyone who has responded to me, it is appreciated.
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Jun 17, 2023 18:50
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Josef bugman posted:I am very grateful to all the thoughtful responses and I am very much aware that I may be being crass with my responses, but I am trying to communicate emotions and my ideas about divinity as best I can, I'm just hopeful I have done so with a measure of respect. I also want to say thank you to everyone who has responded to me, it is appreciated. I chose not to respond to you because your response to me was angry and disrespectful. Getting angry about something is your business and I won't tell you not to be angry but then venting your spleen at a random person just trying to have a conversation is inappropriate and not conducive to fruitful discussion. The regulars here seem to like you and tell you that you're a good person while you do that, but I will provide a dissenting opinion and tell you that if that's how you treat strangers, you reevaluate how you conduct yourself because all that will do is drive people away who don't like being yelled at for no reason.
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Jun 17, 2023 18:59
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Azathoth posted:I chose not to respond to you because your response to me was angry and disrespectful. Getting angry about something is your business and I won't tell you not to be angry but then venting your spleen at a random person just trying to have a conversation is inappropriate and not conducive to fruitful discussion. Well okay. Thank you for telling me. Is there any bit in particular you think I should alter when talking about stuff like this in the future? If not that is fine.
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Jun 17, 2023 19:49
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Josef bugman posted:Thank you for the perspective, and I do appreciate everyone's thoughts but I want to poke at some bits of this. As a matter of full disclosure, I do not believe a, or the, monotheistic God is actually omnipotent. I agree with you that while Gods as we believe in them are extraordinary, omnipotence is a different concept altogether. The Christian God being omnipotent is, however, a central tenet of that faith system, so to engage in good faith (pun intended) I feel as though I must accept the quality of omnipotence, at least, as understood as fact. In the language of his religion, he is constrained by a gentleman's agreement in the name of free will; I tend to personally understand this as the manifest (mythological, if you will, with thanks to Bongo Bill) explanation behind why he cannot interfere, rather than the actual reason e.g. simply that, without people actively believing and enacting his prophet's teachings to give him the doorway through which to enter and be present: he can't. He is powerful but not omnipotent, and he has rules to follow just like all of the other manifestations of Divinity, but he has spent a long time obfuscating them as much as possible while being and staying Top
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Jun 17, 2023 19:53
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:The Christian God being omnipotent is, however, a central tenet of that faith system, so to engage in good faith (pun intended) I feel as though I must accept the quality of omnipotence, at least, as understood as fact. It doesn’t have to be at all. Look at it a different way, omnipotence is an idea, a symbol we came up with to point at a reality. Our constructed symbol isn’t the central tenet of the religion. The revelation of the religion was Jesus. Everything that isn’t the event of Jesus is our talk about Jesus. So that turns the question into participation in particular denominations that use particular symbols (omnipotence) to talk about God and how literally the symbol is interpreted in the denominations that use it.
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Jun 17, 2023 20:02
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:As a matter of full disclosure, I do not believe a, or the, monotheistic God is actually omnipotent. I agree with you that while Gods as we believe in them are extraordinary, omnipotence is a different concept altogether. The Christian God being omnipotent is, however, a central tenet of that faith system, so to engage in good faith (pun intended) I feel as though I must accept the quality of omnipotence, at least, as understood as fact. In the language of his religion, he is constrained by a gentleman's agreement in the name of free will; I tend to personally understand this as the manifest (mythological, if you will, with thanks to Bongo Bill) explanation behind why he cannot interfere, rather than the actual reason e.g. simply that, without people actively believing and enacting his prophet's teachings to give him the doorway through which to enter and be present: he can't. He is powerful but not omnipotent, and he has rules to follow just like all of the other manifestations of Divinity, but he has spent a long time obfuscating them as much as possible while being and staying Top That's a fair old perspective. Not one I share, but I can see where you are coming from. Thank you! Personally I am doubtful about Divinity or even the idea of the supernatural but I do appreciate being shown how others think about it. Its very syncretic and that's something I truly love about the world.
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Jun 17, 2023 20:04
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Bar Ran Dun posted:It doesn’t have to be at all. Look at it a different way, omnipotence is an idea, a symbol we came up with to point at a reality. Our constructed symbol isn’t the central tenet of the religion. The revelation of the religion was Jesus. Everything that isn’t the event of Jesus is our talk about Jesus. So that turns the question into participation in particular denominations that use particular symbols (omnipotence) to talk about God and how literally the symbol is interpreted in the denominations that use it. That is a really interesting point, thank you! I was raised in a conservative Baptist family, and my pre-high school years were spent in a very small Baptist school, so my impression of Christian lore is shaped strongly by the faith and belief expressions I encountered within that denomination. They were very literal, and doubt or skepticism was tantamount to heretical disbelief. I very much wanted to believe the things they did but I never could convincingly enough. When I finally (I say finally, but I was ten... maybe twelve? it had felt like a very long time.) finally did recognize real Belief in myself it was for a different God in a different faith system altogether. Whoops.  Josef bugman posted:That's a fair old perspective. Not one I share, but I can see where you are coming from. Thank you! Thank you for responding! Recently I have been trying to sort my understanding of belief, faith, religion into something I can really understand within myself and articulate, and so I appreciated the exercise. I had never considered myself "religious" because "religious" has always been synonymous to me with "Christian", but it's been made exceptionally clear to me of late I need to start thinking of religion, and being religious, in vastly different terms. Like I mentioned to BRD above, I sort of stumbled into an unshakable sense of "belief" well before I actually understood what belief and religion even are. So now I am doing some remedial work 
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Jun 17, 2023 21:11
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:As a matter of full disclosure, I do not believe a, or the, monotheistic God is actually omnipotent. I agree with you that while Gods as we believe in them are extraordinary, omnipotence is a different concept altogether. The Christian God being omnipotent is, however, a central tenet of that faith system, so to engage in good faith (pun intended) I feel as though I must accept the quality of omnipotence, at least, as understood as fact. In the language of his religion, he is constrained by a gentleman's agreement in the name of free will; I tend to personally understand this as the manifest (mythological, if you will, with thanks to Bongo Bill) explanation behind why he cannot interfere, rather than the actual reason e.g. simply that, without people actively believing and enacting his prophet's teachings to give him the doorway through which to enter and be present: he can't. He is powerful but not omnipotent, and he has rules to follow just like all of the other manifestations of Divinity, but he has spent a long time obfuscating them as much as possible while being and staying Top If you had $100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (and that $ was equivalent to one US dollar, not simply a denominator of a hyper-inflated or ultra-granular currency) you would have an unthinkable level of wealth and could buy the entire world a thousand times over, at retail price. But you wouldn't have infinite money, and you couldn't "buy everything," because there is no financial transaction that exists beyond Earth and, maybe, its orbit.
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Jun 17, 2023 21:24
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Nessus posted:My own, wholly personal take is that God or an entity which corresponds to the Christian idea of God exists, and may have astounding power over things on a planetary scale, but that this Person is not necessarily the creator of the universe and all things within it. But as with a lot of religious things, you run into some problems in between "unthinkably high but finite" and "infinite". This is much of how I see it too, thank you for putting it all to words! I think as well that a lot of the gulf between "unthinkably high but finite" and "infinite" exists in accordance with human perspective. There are things that we might call miracles or answered prayers or acts of God, and we recognize them by their efficacy and improbability, but we don't really know where any of the things we consider magical or miraculous actually rank on the potent Divine ability scale -- nor what that scale's bounds might be. Perspective is tricky. My pigeon was really impressed the first couple times I used a light switch. LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jun 17, 2023 |
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Jun 17, 2023 22:38
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:This is much of how I see it too, thank you for putting it all to words! I think as well that a lot of the gulf between "unthinkably high but finite" and "infinite" exists in accordance with human perspective. There are things that we might call miracles or answered prayers or acts of God, and we recognize them by their efficacy and improbability, but we don't really know where any of the things we consider magical or miraculous actually rank as far as potent Divine ability goes. Perspective is tricky. My pigeon was really impressed the first couple times I used a light switch. The main thing is that Buddhism says these things are real but that God, too, may be trapped in the same loop as us. I think there's even a hypothetical sequence in one sutra about how a being of great power might get slightly bollixed and think 'aha, yes, I am the creator of all of this.'
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Jun 17, 2023 23:01
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Buddhism derived gnosticism. Unique
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Jun 17, 2023 23:06
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Like I mentioned to BRD above, I sort of stumbled into an unshakable sense of "belief" well before I actually understood what belief and religion even are. So now I am doing some remedial work Ahhh see that's super cool, I've never had that feeling myself, but I am still glad to hear it!
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Jun 17, 2023 23:14
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Gaius Marius posted:Buddhism derived gnosticism. Unique There are interesting parallels between some aspects of Orthodox Christianity and Buddhism which honestly isn't too shocking given that they're closer geographically than you might think.
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Jun 17, 2023 23:22
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Spinoza's interpretartion of omnipotence isn't that God can do anything and could choose to do things differently. It's God is cranking it up to 11 and blasting out 100% of his omnipotence all the time and what we get is all there is.
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Jun 18, 2023 13:51
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Josef bugman posted:Ahhh see that's super cool, I've never had that feeling myself, but I am still glad to hear it! The Christians I grew up around spoke intensely of the love and safety they felt from God, but also of a sense of terrifying awe that made it clear it was not the kind of love I had ever yet experienced, being an actual child. But they were equally intense in their disapproval of me not experiencing the "right" emotions for God, in a way that made me extremely conscious of the fact I loved God wrong, or just not enough maybe. I felt the absence of feeling the kind of Belief all the adults and seemingly other children around me felt too. Eventually, something began happening in my life that necessitated my prayers and praying to my family's God continued to leave me feeling alone and wrong. I prayed instead to a God from an ancient history book I had read and I felt it -- that love and safety and then immediately behind that a little bit of terror that I had felt so heard. Religion was from then on a very confusing thing for me, but I have always been able to center back on Belief, because I felt it when I needed it and knew it by its name. Prurient Squid posted:Spinoza's interpretartion of omnipotence isn't that God can do anything and could choose to do things differently. It's God is cranking it up to 11 and blasting out 100% of his omnipotence all the time and what we get is all there is. This is extremely interesting, thank you! I suspect this is one of those posts that will float back to mind at an opportune time -- this thread is very good for that, I appreciate everyone who shares their thoughts here.
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Jun 18, 2023 16:56
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So, I have a more historical question about Christianity and sex w/r/t this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8UAi68qKX0 You don't have to watch the video, but it recounts tales of a Conservative Christian couple who opened up about (the awful way they) learned what a clitoris is very late in life. And this is like... you couldn't check a book? Fairly certain they had books on biology 30 years ago. With drawings of genitals if you're squeamish about photos. That goes in the background of absolutely not having any decent sex education (as in, being educated about doing the deed, and such) and thus experiencing a lot of issues. And it's like... were we Christians always so uptight about sex, to the point where even learning about it seems to be like a metaphysically tainting knowledge, or is it a more recent (~200 years) phenomenon?
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Jun 18, 2023 19:14
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Prurient Squid posted:Spinoza's interpretartion of omnipotence isn't that God can do anything and could choose to do things differently. It's God is cranking it up to 11 and blasting out 100% of his omnipotence all the time and what we get is all there is. JcDent posted:So, I have a more historical question about Christianity and sex w/r/t this:
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Jun 18, 2023 20:02
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JcDent posted:So, I have a more historical question about Christianity and sex w/r/t this: It's not a specific characteristic of Christianity as a whole, it's a characteristic of particular denominations/sects based on local cultural issues. IMO, you're mischaracterizing the source of the problem. Their problems come more from being conservatives than being Christians.
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Jun 18, 2023 20:06
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JcDent posted:And it's like... were we Christians always so uptight about sex, to the point where even learning about it seems to be like a metaphysically tainting knowledge, or is it a more recent (~200 years) phenomenon? It varies wildly. Take the puritans. They were extremely pro sex but only within a marriage. There are recorded court cases ]where Puritan wives divorce their husbands for not uh preforming adequately. Honestly I think it’s more often culture outside religion about sex that religion is being used as a post hoc justification for.
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Jun 18, 2023 20:25
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JcDent posted:And it's like... were we Christians always so uptight about sex, to the point where even learning about it seems to be like a metaphysically tainting knowledge, or is it a more recent (~200 years) phenomenon? In the 19th century, when these texts were translated under Philip Schaff's Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers collection--the only public domain translation, and the one most readily available online--they left those chapters untranslated. So yes, it has to be a post-Enlightenment thing. That translation could only come from people so terrified of lust that even books on resisting lust are too much.
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Jun 18, 2023 20:56
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