|
A Bad King posted:Is there any commentary from the church on the theory of why Jesus asked us to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood? Why practice ritualistic cannibalism to have God enter you physically? It's one of those things that makes Christianity extremely fascinating but also, again, cannibalizing of the eternal godhead because it asked you to do so may be one of those things in Judaism where you do it because you're told to do it or it could be one of those things with deeper meaning that I am missing through the cursory understanding from an information diet. I'd recommend For the Life of the World by Fr. Alexander Schmemann on this. As for the first question, I don't really have a definite answer. I can only offer my theories. One of the primary purposes of the Eucharist, laid out in the Gospels, is commemoration of Christ's passion; or really, direct--but nonviolent--participation in it. So just as he gave his body and blood on the Cross, he also offers his body and blood directly to his believers. I also think it's related to theosis: by ingesting his body and blood directly, we not only invite God in spiritually, but physically, and invite the Holy Spirit to ideally work through us to make us conform more to the divine image and unite with Christ. To put it another way, just as we eat normal food to nourish our bodies, and medicine to heal them, we eat God to nourish and heal our souls, as visibly and tangibly as regular food.
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 19:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 15:07 |
|
|
Keromaru5 posted:To answer the second question: salvation in Orthodoxy is put in terms of theosis--God making us divine ourselves, or "partakers of the divine nature," as II Peter puts it. Everything we do in the Church is geared towards uniting us to God--prayer, sacraments, charity, etc. Part of what the sacraments do is play particular roles in this process. The Episcopal Church actually has a great definition for this in their prayer book: outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. So in the case of Baptism, the grace is remission of sin and initiation into the Church, which is the Body of Christ. The outward sign is immersion in water. In another sense, they're concrete acts of faith that open the participant to the work of the Holy Spirit. Each sacrament can be seen as an act of humbling oneself or softening one's heart so the Spirit can accomplish what he needs to accomplish. Keromaru5 posted:To answer the second question: salvation in Orthodoxy is put in terms of theosis--God making us divine ourselves, or "partakers of the divine nature," as II Peter puts it. Why would we even want divinity? That's terrifying! I can't even cook a lobster bisque consistently. How to comprehend divinity from this vantage point, it's impossible beyond, "okay, this presence loves me," and you can't even look straight at it because it's just beyond you. Utterly and totally beyond. It's asking a 3 year old to trying zero out the math equation behind nuclear fission with lead, it would give up at the suggestion because it wouldn't even understand the question. Does theosis mean, we join this divinity in union, or is it giving us a spot on the beach to shape the sand? Like, it's still overwhelming. Oh, I am given the capacity to comprehend it, meet it "face-to-face," and get to the point where I can work this whole thing out myself because I can be trusted to be loving toward others just as it is loving toward us -- making living a test? You know that if so many people were told, hey you got this capacity to interface with creation in a way where you can affect others, they would use it like a looking glass on ants in the sunlight right? That's kinda irresponsible. Typing this out helps me understand a lot of this a bit better, so pardon the mess. quote:so the Spirit can accomplish what he needs to accomplish. I see the he and think, so Christianity posits there are three persons. Why the division in divinity? How does it even work? Jesus is fully human, got it. He experienced being a man born in the bog standard median life outcome (tradesman right?) in that era of history from birth to death, the human experience and the human test laid out for all of us, he has that experience built into his whole sense of self -- this creates a person, that nurtured aspect anyways; he's also divinity, so omnipotent and omnipresent and also perfect. Notched. But humans are fallible and stupid, his divinity cannot share in its personhood, right? Or is that a ruse -- human can be fully divine, and that's where theosis comes in? God what a tangent. Back to the track. Anyways that's one personhood. What differentiates him from the Holy Spirit (I'm going to go on a limb and guess this is what I feel in its love), and Father? Above in the thread, this was explained, but I still don't get it. Father is that paternal aspect, and also the daddio of divinity for Jesus (a just-some-guy)? So why is the holy spirit a paternal love, given freely without asking and selfless? Holy Spirit is not the Father, they're separate persons. I mean, I get the whole "They're not the same person but the same god," thing, because something about it tells me that it is what it is, but I don't know what kind of "persons," the holy spirit and Father are, differentiated. Or even why it would have three separate persons instead of just two. I get why the divine can't just come down in its glory, be a person, and then go back "upstairs," because I understand the nature of the divine is far beyond from this Creation business - ocean to a drop, bit. If I'm to join theosis in its divinity, do I become three separate people, or was that just this entity's special status to get what it wanted to do in this whole CREATION thing done. I'm going to pause here. Eerk. A Bad King fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jul 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 20:28
|
|
|
Here’s how I think of the Trinity. Being itself is God the Father. The “I am that I am” or “I am the existing one” Jesus is God’s Word made flesh. If we ask the question: What does it mean to be?, or What does it mean to be human? The answer spoken by God was a human person, Jesus. The Spirit is God in us. That in us that has Being that allows our becoming. I think of theosis in terms of becoming. So all parts of the Trinity are Being itself, but we are seeing it in different places. Being itself, a specific person, Jesus, who fully was Being itself, and Being itself that works in all of us.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 20:47
|
|
|
Keromaru5 posted:As for the first question, I don't really have a definite answer. I can only offer my theories. One of the primary purposes of the Eucharist, laid out in the Gospels, is commemoration of Christ's passion; or really, direct--but nonviolent--participation in it. So just as he gave his body and blood on the Cross, he also offers his body and blood directly to his believers. I also think it's related to theosis: by ingesting his body and blood directly, we not only invite God in spiritually, but physically, and invite the Holy Spirit to ideally work through us to make us conform more to the divine image and unite with Christ. To put it another way, just as we eat normal food to nourish our bodies, and medicine to heal them, we eat God to nourish and heal our souls, as visibly and tangibly as regular food. I like the idea that the eucharist is related to theosis. Ancient Judeans did believe whatever you ate became a part of you, not only bodily, but spiritually. I just want to throw my two cents in about communion- I think, for me, it's less a spiritual communion with God, but more to me as a literal communion with other people, and in doing so sharing in the divine. We usually share meals with love, and love is an expression of the divine. We say "the body of Christ" to mean both the bread of the eucharist, and also the church he founded. When we break bread we are within the body of Christ with other people, sharing and loving. So the last supper was the creation of a community intended to be shared with love. But the eucharist is constantly referred to as a mystery, because no single explanation is sufficient for everyone, and we just have to accept we're not going to understand this either.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 21:25
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:Why would we even want divinity? That's terrifying! I can't even cook a lobster bisque consistently. How to comprehend divinity from this vantage point, it's impossible beyond, "okay, this presence loves me," and you can't even look straight at it because it's just beyond you. Utterly and totally beyond. It's asking a 3 year old to trying zero out the math equation behind nuclear fission with lead, it would give up at the suggestion because it wouldn't even understand the question. quote:Does theosis mean, we join this divinity in union, or is it giving us a spot on the beach to shape the sand? quote:I see the he and think, so Christianity posits there are three persons. Why the division in divinity? quote:How does it even work? quote:Jesus is fully human, got it. He experienced being a man born in the bog standard median life outcome (tradesman right?) in that era of history from birth to death, the human experience and the human test laid out for all of us, he has that experience built into his whole sense of self -- this creates a person, that nurtured aspect anyways; he's also divinity, so omnipotent and omnipresent and also perfect. Notched. But humans are fallible and stupid, his divinity cannot share in its personhood, right? Or is that a ruse -- human can be fully divine, and that's where theosis comes in? God what a tangent. Back to the track. But we can't achieve theosis on our own. It's only with Christ's help. quote:I get why the divine can't just come down in its glory, be a person, and then go back "upstairs," quote:If I'm to join theosis in its divinity, do I become three separate people, or was that just this entity's special status to get what it wanted to do in this whole CREATION thing done.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 21:30
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:Why would we even want divinity? I think it's the participation in divinity that we seek, or in other words we desire to participate in creation. The desire to not only BE, but to participate in BEING. Like the desire to have kids; you brought someone into the world who will be, where you could have not done that, and that existence wouldn't be. I think theosis isn't the drive for attainment of godhood, but it's the drive to utilize those aspects of God that are within human grasp.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 21:34
|
|
|
Keromaru5 posted:But he did! That's the entire gospel! The gospel is so weird academically I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. Wikipedia mentions it was agreed upon by folks meeting in committees after the texts were written, combined together across multiple sources, and it sounds like a lot of "mechanically separated chicken," work. Idk much about it. But the FATHER did not! That's my point. The personhood that is the source or creator or big dad to creation, the one that is Father to the Son, as I'm reading here, could not pour an ocean onto the planet and say, "yehha I'm here. oh, this is limiting." Or maybe it did and that's just Jesus. Jesus being the prepared divinity and aspect of god that just was rdy to roll out the door and do the whole human thing. Was the Holy Spirit always with humanity. Keromaru5 posted:The Trinity is God's nature, even without taking the Creation into consideration. God simply is Father, Son, and Spirit. We remain singular human beings as saints; there aren't three Virgin Maries now that she's in heaven. Some theologians do, however, teach that we, being made in the image of God, already have a trinitarian nature, in our union of Mind, Body, and Soul. I get it. One Mary. She doesn't have her body, though, right, I mean...~2000 years past its expiration date there. I get it, nice thought on the trinitarian aspect of living. Becoming Jesus through grace is interesting, I'm assuming you mean by action and such, and through knowing of God and finding the strength to do the whole three steps toward forgiveness cycle of recognizing problem/taking responsibility/promising to not do the problem again (alternatively: fixing what you can), you come out better. Yet the Jesus thing is selfless love. Love everyone unconditionally as you would your own babies. That's sad. That's super sad. Kind of impossible with the limits of the human condition. We all have a mentally limited set of fucks to give in our day-to-day...did Jesus the Human Blob have this issue in any scripture? Orthodoxy tries to expand the reservoir of givable fucks with prayer and religion and ritual and sacraments. killer crane posted:I like the idea that the eucharist is related to theosis. Ancient Judeans did believe whatever you ate became a part of you, not only bodily, but spiritually. I understand this 100%, regarding communion being a social act. I can see religion being a great way for like-minded folks to get together. killer crane posted:I think it's the participation in divinity that we seek, or in other words we desire to participate in creation. The desire to not only BE, but to participate in BEING. Like the desire to have kids; you brought someone into the world who will be, where you could have not done that, and that existence wouldn't be. ah. So, in participating in and doing what is wanted of us (love and more), we are sharing the bit we can in that divinity. Clicks. ------------------------------------- So where the heck did this idea of theosis, unity with God, become "In Heaven you get to see your dogs again, also bad people go to Hell, so your aunt isn't going to be there. We know you loved her but she was mean and lied a lot to others. Eternal punishment, nbd." ????????????????????????????????????????????? If you get that message as a child, instead of being trusted with this concept of theosis, you're not going to pursue tapping the Would You Like To Learn More, button shortly after in life as soon as life confronts you with injustice or pain that makes zero sense within your limited window. That happens more often than not, early. I like theosis! It means, the God wants, and you can achieve, a state of being that is close to perfect in action to the baseline good, and loving toward others, and to be an instrument of love on creation, the creation you live in. We can end homelessness! It's a good message. A Bad King fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jul 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 22:22
|
|
|
The culture in which Christianity arose was very familiar with a tradition of animal sacrifice in which part of the sacrificial animal would be eaten. That aspect may also be relevant.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 22:57
|
|
|
there's an interesting article that came out on public orthodoxy on Peter Heers, antivax/mask, and orthobro culture that I thought folks would be interested in The Conspiratorial Cleric publicorthodoxy.org posted:
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2023 23:46
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:But the FATHER did not! That's my point. The personhood that is the source or creator or big dad to creation, the one that is Father to the Son, as I'm reading here, could not pour an ocean onto the planet and say, "yehha I'm here. oh, this is limiting." Or maybe it did and that's just Jesus. Jesus being the prepared divinity and aspect of god that just was rdy to roll out the door and do the whole human thing. But I also refer to Jesus as the Word very literally: the word God spoke in the beginning to make the world, and still speaks now to sustain it. The Son has purpose beyond simply the Incarnation. quote:Was the Holy Spirit always with humanity. quote:I get it. One Mary. She doesn't have her body, though, right, I mean...~2000 years past its expiration date there. I get it, nice thought on the trinitarian aspect of living. quote:Becoming Jesus through grace is interesting, I'm assuming you mean by action and such, and through knowing of God and finding the strength to do the whole three steps toward forgiveness cycle of recognizing problem/taking responsibility/promising to not do the problem again (alternatively: fixing what you can), you come out better. quote:Yet the Jesus thing is selfless love. Love everyone unconditionally as you would your own babies. That's sad. That's super sad. Kind of impossible with the limits of the human condition. We all have a mentally limited set of fucks to give in our day-to-day...did Jesus the Human Blob have this issue in any scripture? Orthodoxy tries to expand the reservoir of givable fucks with prayer and religion and ritual and sacraments. But that kind of all-encompassing love is the goal, and the ascetics of the Church often become known for praying for the whole world, living and dead. St. Silouan is a good example of this, as is St. Isaac the Syrian. quote:So where the heck did this idea of theosis, unity with God, become "In Heaven you get to see your dogs again, also bad people go to Hell, so your aunt isn't going to be there. We know you loved her but she was mean and lied a lot to others. Eternal punishment, nbd." ????????????????????????????????????????????? If you get that message as a child, instead of being trusted with this concept of theosis, you're not going to pursue tapping the Would You Like To Learn More, button shortly after in life as soon as life confronts you with injustice or pain that makes zero sense within your limited window. That happens more often than not, early. So my theory: Over the centuries what I described developed into the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, where those already destined for heaven go to be purified. Hell is for the truly reprobate and damnable. The Reformation rejected Purgatory, but that left them with heaven and an inescapable hell as the only alternatives. This also involves the rejection of the concept of venial sins, which aren't severe enough to fully drat a person. Somewhere in the last few centuries the doctrine of "faith alone" makes it to the *only* criterion for heaven is assenting to the right ideas about Jesus, including salvation by faith alone. From there you get to Jack Chick-style theology where even the slightest sin can put you in hell next to Hitler for all eternity, but if you say the Sinner's Prayer, you're all good. quote:I like theosis! It means, the God wants, and you can achieve, a state of being that is close to perfect in action to the baseline good, and loving toward others, and to be an instrument of love on creation, the creation you live in. We can end homelessness! It's a good message. Other than that, yes!
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 03:29
|
|
|
Bongo Bill posted:The culture in which Christianity arose was very familiar with a tradition of animal sacrifice in which part of the sacrificial animal would be eaten. That aspect may also be relevant. quote:Fr. Peter Heers
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 03:37
|
|
|
Keromaru5 posted:Oy, that guy. And of course, since it's Sarah Riccardi-Swarz and Public Orthodoxy, Fr. Peter's critics are going to dismiss this all as more Fordhamite subterfuge. I don't really follow this stuff all that much but have PO on my news reader, having found it when I was looking for info on antivax in the church. What's the drama here with Fordham?
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 03:45
|
|
|
mawarannahr posted:I don't really follow this stuff all that much but have PO on my news reader, having found it when I was looking for info on antivax in the church. What's the drama here with Fordham?
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 03:51
|
|
|
Faith alone. How the heck do you get off by just saying, hi thanks for the love! I Divine: loves perfectly the stupid idiot human Human: I respect that. I cherish that. Thanks. Fin? I think I got the faith thing down. It's recognizing it's there, and I can see what I can do to reciprocate. There's the rub. You can't just stop at the knowing part, that's why I have these questions So Heaven/Hell, isn't a place. It's a state of being, and that state depends on theosis..whether you lived a life of loving, and God's pure presence is not debilitating because you readied yourself for it (in a sense) through working toward it, or exposed to your own total and inescapable inferiority/guilt for wrongs against creation, in a sense? Yet they are places? Or not? When we die, we drop into that ocean and sink or swim depending on whether we learned to swim or we rejected the concept water is wet/exists. Why do the whole Hades thing then as hell is under our feet with the devils poking the groin? Culturally that's just weird. Imo. Idk.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 04:00
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:Faith alone. How the heck do you get off by just saying, hi thanks for the love! I You will be astounded to learn how much of the pop culture conception of hell is just poo poo Dante memed into existence
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 04:17
|
|
|
For the trinity. You mentioned in short how each act through creation. Jesus is the motive force within creation? He keeps the lights on, the maths keeping entropy clicking forward and the dark matter questions a mystery to solve??? The spirit is the power of the divine within us, sharing its love to us if we were just opening our ears and taking the time to feel it. So the spirit is what I am experiencing when trying to put a peg on this divinity of love I comprehend beyond my comprehension. The father must then be the person beyond it all, the creation wrought by this divinity? The Word of the father being Jesus. All the same divine, whole from one another. Jesus isn't a piece of the Father and the Holy Spirit isn't like, Father taking a walk down from beyond creation to talk to us. They're all godhead, all that impossible beyond us, except the human side of Jesus which understood what it meant to get drunk with the guys and how that could be an enjoyable evening. Did that human side, after his death, become a component of that divinity after the fact, or was it always there and time is just an illusion for us bottom feeders? You are going to confuse a lot of people with this. I mean, if I wasn't doing some serious hamster spinning I would get lost in it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 04:27
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:Faith alone. How the heck do you get off by just saying, hi thanks for the love! I (Wall of text, sorry.) Speaking as a representative of "faith only" faith: I think I agree with you, with both the "is thanks and bye really it?" and with "I'll keep asking questions" part. Asking questions is great and I hope it never stops. I would like to back up a bit, though. There's a passage in the Bible (or several with the same idea actually, but I'm quoting just one) which teaches that faith without action is dead. You yourself seem to want to act on your faith as a way to reciprocate or to show thankfulness or simply because loving each other brings us joy. Great! Innate motivation for loving each other is indeed one of the fruits of faith. "Faith only" is not about that, it is about what comes or came before. It is both a response to a historical situation and about what there is to be done about the gap between humans and God. It was born in the context where the church (the only one available since religious freedom was not a thing, really) was being both disturbingly corrupt and also in practice taught that humans and God cannot have a relationship, except through that church. Normal people did not usually have access to Bibles but an increasing number of priests and monks who did, most famously a German monk named Martin Luther, noticed that this was not how they understood the Bible at all. The complete phrase is not actually "faith only". It is three-part: Faith only, Grace only, through Christ only. Luther and the others were painfully aware of how big God is and how small they were. More importantly, they also were painfully aware how it was impossible for anyone to live like God wished people would live. How could anyone ever unite with God and get to Heaven (or whichever metaphor you wish to use)? Reading the Bible and some ancient theologians, they came into conclusions: A) You can unite with God only through Jesus. No other mediator, not even the church, is required. Christ only. B) God's love cannot be earned or bought and he cannot be bargained with. He wants to unite with us. Grace only. C) Jesus has already done everything there is to do to bridge the gap between humans and God. We can only receive. He does not demand action for acceptance. Faith only. There's a huge amount of awesome theology written for us who struggle with feelings of guilt, inadequacy, shame and whatever else you might feel when faced with how big God is and how small you are but I won't go there. Just wanted to try to explain what "faith only" is mostly about. E: now that one below, that's good stuff Valiantman fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Jul 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 05:42
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:Faith alone. How the heck do you get off by just saying, hi thanks for the love! I “Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!" If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.”
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 05:51
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:They're all godhead, all that impossible beyond us, except the human side of Jesus which understood what it meant to get drunk with the guys and how that could be an enjoyable evening. Did that human side, after his death, become a component of that divinity after the fact, or was it always there and time is just an illusion for us bottom feeders? A Bad King posted:So Heaven/Hell, isn't a place. It's a state of being, and that state depends on theosis..whether you lived a life of loving, and God's pure presence is not debilitating because you readied yourself for it (in a sense) through working toward it, or exposed to your own total and inescapable inferiority/guilt for wrongs against creation, in a sense? Yet they are places? Or not? When we die, we drop into that ocean and sink or swim depending on whether we learned to swim or we rejected the concept water is wet/exists. The imagery is to some extent at least Biblical: the Hebrew Bible often mentions "sheol" - the underworld, a generic realm of the dead where your shade has nothing to really do besides exist - and the Greek Bible translates it as "hades." Jesus himself describes the afterlife in terms of places in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. We also describe Jesus as descending into Hades after his death to liberate any of the dead who'll follow him out--the "Harrowing of Hell" as it's usually called in English. As for the devils poking the groin... Yeah, I think that's largely Dante. In fact, Gehenna is described in the Bible as being primarily for the devil and his angels--it's their punishment.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 06:46
|
|
|
Oh, by the way, your long posts are very informative, Bird! It's curious how much in common there is with what you desbribe and Christian ethics.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 14:35
|
|
|
Bar Ran Dun posted:“Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!" If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.” WALL OF TEXT TIME! This is a nice sentiment. I think it's the default position, though? I mean, the divinity I recognize is kind of like a cognizant paternal/maternal/creator love, at least as to how I understand it. I don't think I needed to accept Jesus into my heart to feel that acceptance this is talking about. I just know it's there. Yet that acceptance doesn't mean much, it's just a presence that makes me post these questions. I mean, again it's extremely humbling (the most humbling) and I don't know why I deserve it, etc., but what I do with that acceptance does matter I think? I don't think I could go about my day saying, "cool." I can understand religion being an attempt to codify a response, brought down to its most basic explanation? idk, do we need to codify a reply? So grace conquers sin, sin being the bullshit humans default to without love in their lives (essentially all errors are from regressing on that we should be kind toward one another). Its love for me forgives me for all the bullshit I do being a stupid human. That's a nice sentiment, but part of atoning for being a dipshit is moving forward and fixing your errors when you can or learning from them so that you don't make the same error again in the future. If I break my own diet and drink a coke, hurting my body as an example, (a venial sin I'm sure), I can atone by busting my butt on the stair stepper later, but that doesn't mean I should just go drink a coke again because I have the stair stepper to fix it later. I should try to not drink coke to begin with, and though I will probably do it again (because I'm a stupid human), I shouldn't like...accept that this divine's love for me regardless of my coke habit is enough to forgive myself for making my fatty-fat-handles worse in the long term. It is kind of like a balm for my soul, "stop beating yourself up, your stupid human. I love you regardless of your coke habit." It isn't enough to grow as a person. Then you have religion, codified into a book, saying "hey, coke is bad and that's obvious, but diet coke is also poo poo and you shouldn't replace one poo poo with something that is also lovely. Also, avoid drinking fruit juice except in moderation." The coke is small, but it leads to prediabetes, which will impact my relationship with my kids when I cannot take them on a 4 day journey on Italy's Alta Via 1 some day. Small poo poo matters, even if it only hurts ourselves at the initial point! Keromaru5 posted:As for the devils poking the groin... Yeah, I think that's largely Dante. In fact, Gehenna is described in the Bible as being primarily for the devil and his angels--it's their punishment. A Bad King fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Jul 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 14:53
|
|
|
It was, like, a really cool poem
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 15:17
|
|
|
Keromaru5 posted:Basically. The Fathers are careful to avoid implying any actual change in the divine nature as a result of the Incarnation--it's part of what led to the Council of Chalcedon--but relative to us, it does make a difference. It's also a large part of the central meaning of the Ascension: Christ taking our human nature up to heaven, ensuring that we have a right to it. The Fathers being the "Church Fathers," had to read about that. So folks back in the day were killing each other about this whole Trinity thing until it got settled by a bunch of folks sitting with a Roman Emperor. A few times. Read about that just a bit ago... This Bishop Arian was kinda nonsensible but we don't have his actual arguments, just his critics talking about how he was wrong? I get that Arianism sounds very incorrect if you're coming from the initial supposition that Jesus was a human with divinity. If you believe at the beginning in one divinity you cannot have divinity divisible from divinity in a set time scale. Divinity is beyond creation, that's kind of one of the items in its portfolio, it affects creation but it is above it in scale and I guess you could say its wholeness is more than creation. Divine makes creation; if it was a product of or within creation, we would call it a superhero or an angel or natural motive force or whatever. So if Jesus is divine, but a product of the Father, and started its divinity after taking that first scream out of the mama, that is not super logical if you think of divinity being not-of-our-universe-but-maker-of. That divinity is deffo just getting started, and it got started within creation. Which makes it wholly different from the divinity that makes it, which is beyond creation, or worse -- Jesus wasn't divine, he was just a really swell guy with the 411 to Big Papa. Which if your coming at this with Jesus is Divine, makes no sense. Make sense? I think Arianism was a mess. So if you divide a divinity in half, it would be a separate divinity. Like, divinity isn't a zooist colony. The divine has to be eternally outside of the everything we experience, so the divine persons must be equal and must have shared an origin (which is a whole other bag). Which makes sense, given divine must be outside of creation, and time is literally just a product of creation that we experience -- subatomic particles don't exist in time, for example. So another point tangible to this idea that Jesus's humanity opens us to "share divinity." If Jesus is eternal, which makes sense if you come to the conclusion Jesus is divine, he was eternally human -- it was in the cards from the very beginning of our time here. He's going to take us on, from the very bang, and love us in spite of the fact that we are killer apes. If he's the motive force keeping the lights on, bringing people to this understanding, that is an extremely interesting proposition -- we were always destined to be saved from the absence of this divinity's love, as long as we learn to swim with it. That's a revelation that makes me happy. This papa gets it. Eerk. Keromaru5 posted:At a certain point, especially with eschatology, there's only so much we can do to describe the full reality. It takes humanity to overthink this poo poo with a whole field of study. Why not just keep it simple, not worry about the end of the world, live in the now and try to emulate the divine's love? Because Jesus said he's coming soon, we need to spend a few centuries of manhours talking about that? Is the whole end times thing supposed to bring people to work on bringing the divine down here? Because the end-times Christians seem blasé on wrecking this world with the certainty the next is waiting for them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 15:23
|
|
|
Shinran Shonin said “do not cultivate a taste for poison just because you have an antidote.” Seems wise to me.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 15:23
|
|
|
Killingyouguy! posted:It was, like, a really cool poem lmao I haven't read a stanza. I remember reading that it's mostly a very beautifully written in its original language hit job against the people he didn't like?
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 15:27
|
|
|
Valiantman posted:Oh, by the way, your long posts are very informative, Bird! It's curious how much in common there is with what you desbribe and Christian ethics.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 15:28
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:lmao I haven't read a stanza. I remember reading that it's mostly a very beautifully written in its original language hit job against the people he didn't like? It's a self-insert version of one of those dumb isekai animes where Dante gets to clown on people he thought were his enemies, and somehow people nowadays think this is what Christianity Actually Believes.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 16:03
|
|
|
This is the dream every true fanfiction author strives for
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 16:06
|
|
|
Mad Hamish posted:It's a self-insert version of one of those dumb isekai animes where Dante gets to clown on people he thought were his enemies, and somehow people nowadays think this is what Christianity Actually Believes. fucken 
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 16:24
|
|
|
Mad Hamish posted:It's a self-insert version of one of those dumb isekai animes where Dante gets to clown on people he thought were his enemies, and somehow people nowadays think this is what Christianity Actually Believes. Reading this kind of thing just makes me shake my head. What exactly is it that people feel the need to denigrate works they so clearly lack understanding on.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:01
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:Reading this kind of thing just makes me shake my head. What exactly is it that people feel the need to denigrate works they so clearly lack understanding on.  Dante’s conceptions do seem to loom large in popular representation.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:07
|
|
|
Valiantman posted:Oh, by the way, your long posts are very informative, Bird! It's curious how much in common there is with what you desbribe and Christian ethics. Oh, thank you so much for saying that, Valiant! As I’ve mentioned a few times previously, my beliefs are ones I was fortunate enough to find an outlet for very early in life. They were formative and they have remained central for me since. But — since they happen to be beliefs rooted in something with a very “pop culture” understanding that cannot be ignored in modern day, I have always been very reluctant to discuss them openly with — anyone, really. I am very appreciative of ABK’s questions allowing me to practice frank discussion of something so important to me with the language I have been learning here and elsewhere, and I am additionally appreciative of people taking the time to provide a little input or feedback on it.  Further impacting my confidence/ability is the fact that, especially recently, there are a lot of people who have been finding a sense of identity within Egyptian contexts, who might easily see my relationship with the religion as something it’s not if I do not grow comfortable discussing it with care and honesty. So yes, thank you!Nessus posted:I think a lot of basic truths aren’t that different even if your ultimate theories are. I believe this is a lot of how the RCC ingests so much of the Greek philosophy they do. And to your second point, I think Nessus has much of the right of it here. As I was reading discussion of the Holy Spirit I was thinking about how it being presented as “the Divine being a part of/moving through you” maps to my understanding ma’at as the universal energy of the Divine, with which we can participate and by which we can feel moved, and the figure of God Himself (I mean no disrespect by the immediately following comparison) maps to my understanding of all my individual polytheistic Gods/figures of divinity as being made of, but separate from, that energy. Jesus is of course his own thing, he is all you guys.  But I think a lot of different faiths rooted in a search for truth have arrived at the same wellspring from which to drink, we all simply have different implements and came in from different angles with different levels of thirst and willingness to share.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:09
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:Reading this kind of thing just makes me shake my head. What exactly is it that people feel the need to denigrate works they so clearly lack understanding on. Is modern culture misunderstanding Dante’s Hell as the Christian Hell, the Christian version of modern culture misunderstanding Egyptian funerary texts as being the body of the religion? Because I don’t think Hamish meant their comment as harshly as you may have perceived it, but man have I felt what you seem to be feeling here, within a different context 
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:11
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:lmao I haven't read a stanza. I remember reading that it's mostly a very beautifully written in its original language hit job against the people he didn't like? It's also got enough fart and poop jokes to make Chaucer proud. The important thing to remember is, Dante wasn't a theologian, and to my knowledge never claimed to be. He was a well-educated Florentine writing an extended meditation on the Catholic afterlife. I recommend John Ciardi's translation. A Bad King posted:It takes humanity to overthink this poo poo with a whole field of study. Why not just keep it simple, not worry about the end of the world, live in the now and try to emulate the divine's love? Because Jesus said he's coming soon, we need to spend a few centuries of manhours talking about that? Well, the Second Coming simply is a clear promise of the New Testament. One of those things there's no getting around. In fact, what you're saying is the correct response to it. Jesus is coming back soon, and he there will be a new heaven and new earth, and he will judge how you behaved in the old one, so your earthly desires don't matter; live as if he's already here. That's kind of what monks are especially trying to do; it's why they call it "the angelic life." In fact, in Orthodoxy, it's taught that every Divine Liturgy is the Kingdom of God already come; I think Catholicism teaches the same thing about the Mass. There's even a prayer in the Liturgy that refers to the Last Judgment in the past tense. After all, Jesus is physically present there. We also get the parable of the Sheep and the Goats shortly before Lent, as a reminder of what the main criteria for our judgment will actually be. The big risk with end-times Christianity is that if anything, it draws attention away from Christ, and onto the evils that are supposed to precede his arrival. That's what we're seeing with Fr. Heers and his ilk. The attention is on Christ's alleged enemies, which just happen to be Fr. Heers' enemies, and followers get the pride of pushing against the grain. Even saints aren't completely immune--St. Paisios has a set of bizarre prophecies that seem to be strongly influenced by some Evangelical pamphlets he'd read at some point. But St. Porphyrios (whose book Wounded by Love I highly recommend) told him to stop, and he did. And that was from someone who experienced the same visions as St. John during a trip to Patmos. Now, modern American end-times theology has a few of its own errors. First is treating the Bible as a clear roadmap for future events, where you can accurately map (x) news story onto (y) Bible passage. So literally every calamity that happens in the world is potentially a sign that the end is nigh. It also feeds the impression that the end of the world is on a checklist, and distracts people with speculation on when the antichrist will appear or when the Jews will rebuild the Temple and some such. And second is the Rapture, which turns everything way more esoteric, and is built on the idea that, while Jesus clearly promises his disciples they'll be persecuted and martyred for him, and tells them to endure it with faith, what the Bible is really trying to say is that, just before the End Times kick off, he'll do a partial Second Coming and snatch all the truly faithful Christians up to heaven so they won't have to deal with any of it. And so you get what you're talking about : the rest of the world can go to hell, Jesus is coming for us.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:16
|
|
|
I feel like a lot of these religions in the west, especially the ones I've been exposed to, have cross-pollinated ideas and precepts to explain something we all feel. What matters is that we arrive at the same place: an understanding that this something, which is all encompassing, loves us unconditionally and wants us to do that love thing toward others and would prefer we not do the opposite of that. Kind of how we all want to raise kind, generous children who do good things for others in the world we all share; and, through doing so, find their own happiness. But it can be a very good and serious mental exercise trying to peg it all down. I want to do some work on this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:22
|
|
|
A few people use that all-encompassing love we experience beyond our periphery and in this world, and take the words that attempt to put a peg of human understanding on something so vast, and hurt others with it. Sometimes unintentionally, sometimes using it to establish conformity or hierarchies where they sit in power over others. Maybe even intentionally, in order to do good. So I need to take those folks' actions and segregate that from religion itself, which when I was younger felt was generally abhorrent because of the abhorrent behaviors of the few who draped them in the religious cloth. Then, I need to research what might help me build some discipline in order to act out that love the deity has for me, into the world, and not just with my family. Got my to-do list. edit: I never understood hell as a concept. How could this eternal love just condemn its beloved to literal eternal pain -- literal hellfire. Now I have a more thorough understanding of this concept in Christianity, and it's allayed a lot of that confusion. Thanks, thread.
A Bad King fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jul 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:28
|
|
|
A Bad King posted:A few people use that all-encompassing love we experience beyond our periphery and in this world, and take the words that attempt to put a peg of human understanding on something so vast, and hurt others with it. Sometimes unintentionally, sometimes using it to establish conformity or hierarchies where they sit in power over others. Maybe even intentionally, in order to do good. Not that you need a stranger’s approval here, but I think this is a fantastic takeaway from the current rhetoric and a great to-do list. Thank you for coming in and prompting so much discussion!
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:31
|
|
|
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Is modern culture misunderstanding Dante’s Hell as the Christian Hell, the Christian version of modern culture misunderstanding Egyptian funerary texts as being the body of the religion? Because I don’t think Hamish meant their comment as harshly as you may have perceived it, but man have I felt what you seem to be feeling here, within a different context It's this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:36
|
|
|
Keromaru5 posted:words Thank you for this. I'm going to make a reading list, and I am extremely interested in the Eastern church's teachings. The Day of Judgement being past tense really leans into the beyond time thing. It affirms that it is beyond creation, it is the maker of creation after all, so it's best to get in on it while the getting is hot. Bring the divine into your heart, emulate its love, now, and celebrate. jfc we really have the answers right there, waiting to be grabbed, if we do some spinning hamster wheel magic in the brain. A Bad King fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Jul 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 15:07 |
|
|
Also, while I'm thinking of it, while I can kind of understand people thinking that the ancient Egyptians were death-obsessed merely because most common knowledge of them comes from their funerary monuments and writings, it's very funny to contrast this grim and dour mental image with a society whose festival in honour of the goddess Bast was sufficiently scandalous that Greek writers were horrified at how loose and carefree the Egyptians were. Basically the festival of Bast involved a bunch of women boarding a party barge that travelled to Bubastis while they drank and sang and danced, and every time the boat passed through a town the ladies on board would try and cajole other women to join them on their alcoholic pilgrimage, mostly by screaming at them while flashing their tits. 'Death-obsessed society' indeed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2023 17:43
|
|