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Keromaru5 posted:I'd never deny that Scripture is open to interpretation, but I really don't know how someone, let alone a pastor, can engage in a plain reading the New Testament, in which God's greatest victory comes from His suffering and death, which he expects his followers to imitate, which many do, and come away thinking only Bad people suffer, unless they're reading through a very specific lens. I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you. I do not think he was a very good man. I suspect he also may not have been a very good Christian. Ohtori Akio posted:I think one of the greatest dangers of bad religion is that it will convince you it can prevent adversity from reaching you, and one of the greatest blessings of religion is that it provides method and community for managing adversity and even growing from it. I strongly agree with this. 
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Aug 1, 2023 21:12
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Ohtori Akio posted:I think one of the greatest dangers of bad religion is that it will convince you it can prevent adversity from reaching you, Bad religion will also convince you to reject joy when it comes into your life. My wife has been dealing with a lot of religious trauma from her fundamentalist upbringing, and one of the most damaging aspects to face has been when something positive happened, when she had enjoyment, or something just felt good, she had to worry either that it was a temptation, or that she wasn't praising God well enough, or that she enjoyed it just a little too much and began to sin. killer crane fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Aug 1, 2023 |
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Aug 1, 2023 21:40
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Squizzle posted:;you have come to a neopythaworld called neopythagor [whip sound]”, lol
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Aug 1, 2023 21:40
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I think I've said all together too much on Job too many times in this thread and it's predecessors, but it's cool how other people see the story.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:09
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mainstream christianity should never have gotten away from apokatastasis imo. conditionalism is incoherent garbage. and not unrelatedly, i think that book o revelation shouldve been left out of the biblical canon but shepherd of hermas should have been included
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Aug 1, 2023 22:40
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Squizzle posted:mainstream christianity should never have gotten away from apokatastasis imo. conditionalism is incoherent garbage. and not unrelatedly, i think that book o revelation shouldve been left out of the biblical canon but shepherd of hermas should have been included When did that happen, the transition away from "everyone may eventually be saved?" I think Islam still holds that to be a potential end result, at least in Hanbali jurisprudence?
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Aug 1, 2023 22:46
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When they said no to Origenism at Nicea. Personally I believe in apokatastasis.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:54
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get a piece of paper, and a dark-colored pen. draw a line, horizontal. label the left side 0, and draw a lemniscate to label the other. under the zero, write “verbally expressing thanks or praise to a spiritual or supernatural entity (understood broadly), in speech or song”. this line is to chart how many hoops you need to jump thru to explain a Religion Thing. mark the approximate midpoint, as a reference. put a dot on the line at what you think is the appropriate location for “a model of christian salvation that accounts for both god’s love and the existence of hell, and which is more coherent than origen’s” now get out a red marker. if you placed yr dot anywhere to the left of the midpoint of that line, use the marker to inscribe a large F near the top of the paper. if yr dot is past the midpoint but is not at least two-thirds of the way toward the rightmost end of the line, use the marker to draw a large C instead. now write “see me after class” at the bottom of the paper, using the red marker
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Aug 1, 2023 22:56
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Revelations inclusion in the canon makes sense once one realizes everything in the NT (gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters) is apocalyptic literature.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:57
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Keromaru5 posted:I'd never deny that Scripture is open to interpretation, but I really don't know how someone, let alone a pastor, can engage in a plain reading the New Testament, in which God's greatest victory comes from His suffering and death, which he expects his followers to imitate, which many do, and come away thinking only Bad people suffer, unless they're reading through a very specific lens. I don't either but it's basically the underlying thesis of the Prosperity Gospel that God rewards the faithful with earthly success because of their faith and thus if someone is undergoing hardship, it is because God is withholding something from them because they're bad Christians because if they were good Christians then God would be rewarding them. Obviously no one really claims to be preaching the Prosperity Gospel, in the same way that no one really calls themselves fundamentalist, but it's a useful shorthand because it's a common enough belief with certain segments of American evangelicalism. Squizzle posted:mainstream christianity should never have gotten away from apokatastasis imo. conditionalism is incoherent garbage. and not unrelatedly, i think that book o revelation shouldve been left out of the biblical canon but shepherd of hermas should have been included 
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Aug 1, 2023 22:57
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Squizzle posted:get a piece of paper, and a dark-colored pen. draw a line, horizontal. label the left side 0, and draw a lemniscate to label the other. under the zero, write “verbally expressing thanks or praise to a spiritual or supernatural entity (understood broadly), in speech or song”. this line is to chart how many hoops you need to jump thru to explain a Religion Thing. mark the approximate midpoint, as a reference. put a dot on the line at what you think is the appropriate location for “a model of christian salvation that accounts for both god’s love and the existence of hell, and which is more coherent than origen’s” lmao
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Aug 1, 2023 22:59
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Existing is a simpler hoop than expressing praise or thanks.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:59
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Existing is a simpler hoop than expressing praise or thanks. easier to do, way more difficult to explain
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Aug 1, 2023 23:04
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I really think gratitude is an underrated feeling in modern life.Bar Ran Dun posted:When they said no to Origenism at Nicea. Personally I believe in apokatastasis.
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Aug 1, 2023 23:19
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It depends on if one sees “for us men, and for our salvation” as a rejection of Origen and apokatastasis.
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Aug 1, 2023 23:30
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I think Akio's comment about Job expressing that bad religion is marked by an unreasonable promise that nothing bad can happen to you if you perform the correct practices is quite interesting and perceptive. I was trying to quote them but must have hit the wrong button. This reminds me of the concept of "spiritual bypassing."
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Aug 2, 2023 09:46
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Prurient Squid posted:This reminds me of the concept of "spiritual bypassing." I'm glad to have learned this term. It reminds me of something that still bothers me a lot about the actual act of practicing religion. There's a natural tendency for religious groups to show their members at their absolute most blissful, or even for some members to maintain a sort of blissful saccharine presence during religious practice. A lot of it is clearly genuine! But it's rarely what I need. I derive the most benefit from religion when it's there with me during the parts that are hard and painful and don't have neat answers, or when I'm not sure what to do and need to figure that out. My favorite religious feeling is a clear sense of purpose, not a sense of bliss. If I'm blissful, I often quickly get the feeling that I may be overlooking something important. If I have a strong sense of purpose - in Christian terms, if I feel led by the Spirit - that's something I can really fill my tank with.
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Aug 2, 2023 10:09
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RdwqGNRV_U Lol at "I can't do the dishes because I don't exist, you're projecting."
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Aug 2, 2023 14:15
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Ohtori Akio posted:My favorite religious feeling is a clear sense of purpose, not a sense of bliss. If I'm blissful, I often quickly get the feeling that I may be overlooking something important. If I have a strong sense of purpose - in Christian terms, if I feel led by the Spirit - that's something I can really fill my tank with. I also tend to get by a little better in life when I feel as though I am working with, or even simply toward, purpose. My current mission to be able to organize and adequately express my beliefs and relationship with religion became more driving when late in the year before last my coworker asked what set my faith apart from others that too considered themselves wrought from a search for truth, justice, or harmony. I was taken by surprise by the conversation and did not have an answer that fully satisfied me and correctly conveyed how it feels for me to be religious (see: my first post in this thread). So I have been working on that since then: being able to articulate and communicate not just my specific faith, but also being able to discuss faith in general comfortably and eloquently. Since a strong element of ma'at itself is the ability to use good rhetoric and wise speech, it feels rather more integral than it might have otherwise. Ma'at itself is perceived as unchanging; as fully developed and essentially true. But because our world, the layer of human existence, can and does change, moment to moment, year to year, our relationship to it changes as well. If the force and tide of ma'at is the sea, and human existence a boat upon it, we cannot always stand rigid on deck and expect not to be tossed about by the motion and velocity of our environment. We must learn to adjust the perspective of our understanding, to accompany and compensate and even, when we can, to predict its motion, so that when it arrives to affect us we are not thrown off course. You borrow the Christian term of being led by the Spirit. The way the Spirit has been discussed in here recently, as a source of Divine motivation and inspiration, led to me perceiving similarities between it and my own source of Divine inspiration. I thought this interesting -- they seemed similar, as I say, potentially analogous, but not direct mirrors of one another. I noted the similarity of sensation again with your phrase use here, but then it reminded me of something else within Christianity with which I am far less familiar, but have encountered in several papers recently in passing on the author's way to other points. "Logos." It of course appears in the famous verses In the beginning was [the Word], and [the Word] was with God, and [the Word] was God. I borrow a Wikipedia quotation pertaining to the translation of Logos in Christianity here: quote:„Grammatically, John 1:1 is not a difficult verse to translate. It follows familiar, ordinary structures of Greek expression. A lexical ("interlinear") translation of the controversial clause would read: "And a god was the Word." A minimal literal ("formal equivalence") translation would rearrange the word order to match proper English expression: "And the Word was a god." The preponderance of evidence, from Greek grammar, from literary context, and from cultural environment, supports this translation, of which "the Word was divine" would be a slightly more polished variant carrying the same basic meaning. Both of these renderings are superior to the traditional translation which goes against these three key factors that guide accurate translation. The NASB, NIV, NRSV, and NAB follow the translation concocted by the KJV translators. This translation awaits a proper defense, since no obvious one emerges from Greek grammar, the literary context of John, or the cultural environment in which John is writing...” (Jason BeDuhn – Truth in translation) The translation difference here seems at once minor and potentially vast. As I say, while I sensed a kinship between ma'at and the Holy Spirit, it is the Logos which a number of academics seem to believe can trace a lineage to philosophers of ma'at. More than one paper or article I have come across has noted parallels between the divinity expressed through ma'at and "the Logos in the Gospel of John." In the interest of not offending any devout Christians any more than some of my theological inferences may already have, I won't produce a bunch of links and quotes here. Instead I would just like to ask, from those of you who have been aware of the verses in question and studied them for much longer than I have: What is Logos? To you, the faithful reader? Do you perceive it as of God, or as a God, an individual Divine force syncretized with the Christian Divine? I see what Wikipedia has to say about it, such as it was indoctrinated as a name or title of Christ. Is that also the popular understanding? I see a section discussing how Catholicism perceives the Logos as being "written on a man's heart"; while such phrasing would be impossible to definitively attribute to a single originating source or another, it does stand out to me: ma'at being understood as conceived of within and expressed from a person's heart is a particular Egyptian philosophical motif. It began in, I believe, the Middle Kingdom, but has endured for the lifespan of the concept itself. I should add that I do not think that I am conflating the Aristotelian logos with the Johannine Logos here. While I have seen papers comparing ma'at to the former as well, the fact that the Greek logos is specifically distinct from "pathos" and "ethos" means it cannot be truly analogous to ma'at, which is conceptualized through logic and emotion and morality. LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Aug 2, 2023 |
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Aug 2, 2023 17:14
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Ohtori Akio posted:I'm glad to have learned this term.
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Aug 2, 2023 17:43
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Azathoth posted:Something to bear in mind when reading Exodus 21 and many of the other law passages is what those laws looked like relative to the existing laws of the time. That is that they tended to be significantly less harsh and guaranteed more rights than previously were available. Exodus 21:7-11, as an example, looks pretty monstrous if we take it as a list of things we're allowed to do today but when you remember that at the time what the law allowed, that section gives a significant amount of protection to female slaves that they didn't have before. I have a tendency to remove myself some number of steps further from that lens and wonder what the point of needing a lens like that is, or the point of designing a world and time like that was, and what might be going on in the mind of a deity that created such a moral system. There were enough directives I didn't agree with and enough hangups that I was willing to take the wager and risk salvation because the life I wanted to live and things I wanted to do didn't align with the moral framework I had been raised in, and I didn't feel like it offered me anything positive or worthwhile. I have heard plenty rationalizations of the passages directing slave ownership and they've all made me think "maybe it would just be better if we didn't own slaves and just treated people respectfully" and "instead of balancing big problem with smaller problems over time, maybe we just balance big problem with big solution in the first place." Everything still has a cost and I'm not arrogant enough to think I have all of the solutions, I would just prefer to be more compassionate and intent about my actions rather than letting a deity I don't agree with tell me what to do through the communications of someone I also don't agree with.
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Aug 2, 2023 17:54
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Squizzle posted:get a piece of paper, and a dark-colored pen. draw a line, horizontal. label the left side 0, and draw a lemniscate to label the other. under the zero, write “verbally expressing thanks or praise to a spiritual or supernatural entity (understood broadly), in speech or song”. this line is to chart how many hoops you need to jump thru to explain a Religion Thing. mark the approximate midpoint, as a reference. put a dot on the line at what you think is the appropriate location for “a model of christian salvation that accounts for both god’s love and the existence of hell, and which is more coherent than origen’s” Zybourne Clock works the same way.
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Aug 2, 2023 18:08
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:I also tend to get by a little better in life when I feel as though I am working with, or even simply toward, purpose. My current mission to be able to organize and adequately express my beliefs and relationship with religion became more driving when late in the year before last my coworker asked what set my faith apart from others that too considered themselves wrought from a search for truth, justice, or harmony. I was taken by surprise by the conversation and did not have an answer that fully satisfied me and correctly conveyed how it feels for me to be religious (see: my first post in this thread). So I have been working on that since then: being able to articulate and communicate not just my specific faith, but also being able to discuss faith in general comfortably and eloquently. Since a strong element of ma'at itself is the ability to use good rhetoric and wise speech, it feels rather more integral than it might have otherwise. Ma'at itself is perceived as unchanging; as fully developed and essentially true. But because our world, the layer of human existence, can and does change, moment to moment, year to year, our relationship to it changes as well. If the force and tide of ma'at is the sea, and human existence a boat upon it, we cannot always stand rigid on deck and expect not to be tossed about by the motion and velocity of our environment. We must learn to adjust the perspective of our understanding, to accompany and compensate and even, when we can, to predict its motion, so that when it arrives to affect us we are not thrown off course. So to be clear, I'm not borrowing, this is me describing my Christian practice. A while back in this thread I asked for perspectives on what Logos meant, or how it is translated in the various traditions represented here. Maybe you would gain something by digging it up. A thread I had been teasing on at that time is the idea that Logos implies truth. A reasonable translation I have seen in print is "true account". So when we speak of Christ as the Incarnate Word of God, what we are saying is that God spoke His Truth into the world by way of giving us a perfect example of how to live life. This is exposited more clearly later on in John as well. So, to take a step back and address the interfaith points you are making, I think we agree that there is transcendent truth out there, and we mortals hold it somewhere deep inside us. But it's not always easy to listen for it, and often even harder to follow its call. From a Christian perspective, that is where the Spirit becomes necessary, and in my opinion, the actual leadings of the Spirit will vary wildly from person to person and from era to era, even as the underlying truth is the same.
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Aug 2, 2023 18:36
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Ohtori Akio posted:So to be clear, I'm not borrowing, this is me describing my Christian practice. Ah, I apologize for the misunderstanding and am going to go look for that discourse as soon as I finish making this post -- thank you! That sounds like exactly the thread I am on right now and digging it up will be more than worth my while. I think there is a fair amount of religious ground that Christianity (the Christianity you and others here practice, that is, rather than the version I grew up with) and members of a faith like mine have in common. I have been developing a suspicion that the more shared elements of individual faiths I can uncover, the clearer my perception of that call of truth and justice which you highlight may become. Hearing and listening to it has always been important to me, but has developed over time into, yes, my sense of purpose and ultimate concern. Therefore, if understanding other theologies and their history with mine helps me achieve that clarity, then understanding other theologies is what I need to do.
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Aug 2, 2023 19:17
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Ah, I apologize for the misunderstanding and am going to go look for that discourse as soon as I finish making this post -- thank you! That sounds like exactly the thread I am on right now and digging it up will be more than worth my while. It's about two faiths you do not practice, but Living Buddha, Living Christ by famous Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh is one of my favorite books and speaks directly to that common thread of faiths which suppose an underlying and accessible truth, while thankfully not attempting the syncretism you see from New Age type writing. Give it a look if you have a chance.
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Aug 2, 2023 19:29
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:What is Logos? To you, the faithful reader? Do you perceive it as of God, or as a God, an individual Divine force syncretized with the Christian Divine? I see what Wikipedia has to say about it, such as it was indoctrinated as a name or title of Christ. Is that also the popular understanding? I see a section discussing how Catholicism perceives the Logos as being "written on a man's heart"; while such phrasing would be impossible to definitively attribute to a single originating source or another, it does stand out to me: ma'at being understood as conceived of within and expressed from a person's heart is a particular Egyptian philosophical motif. It began in, I believe, the Middle Kingdom, but has endured for the lifespan of the concept itself. I'm also happy to see that this part about the Hebrew "dabhar" made it into the article: Wikipedia on "Logos" posted:The question of how to translate Logos is also treated in Goethe's Faust, with lead character Heinrich Faust finally opting for die Tat, ("deed/action"). This interpretation owes itself to the Hebrew דָּבָר (dabhar), which not only means "word", but can also be understood as a deed or thing accomplished: that is, "the word is the highest and noblest function of man and is, for that reason, identical with his action. 'Word' and 'Deed' are thus not two different meanings of dabhar, but the 'deed' is the consequence of the basic meaning inherent in dabhar."
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Aug 2, 2023 19:35
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Ohtori Akio posted:It's about two faiths you do not practice, but Living Buddha, Living Christ by famous Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh is one of my favorite books and speaks directly to that common thread of faiths which suppose an underlying and accessible truth, while thankfully not attempting the syncretism you see from New Age type writing. Give it a look if you have a chance. I absolutely will, thank you. A/T has been on point with the book recommendations for me since I've come back Also, lol at this from last year's Logos discussion. Worthleast posted:In the beginning was the word, and the word was not the bird, but the bird was of the word. Word. Keromaru5 posted:The Logos is the eternal Son of God, through whom all things were made, and who became incarnate as Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of John, it's described as "the true light that enlightens every man," which would seem to overlap with what you're saying. Since God is omnipresent, and since Christianity teaches we're made in the image of God, it would make sense for the Logos to have at least some presence in everybody. As the WP article points out, the word can also mean "reason," and reason is one of the ways we're made in the image of God. In that sense, I also sometimes think of the Logos as the internal logic of Creation. To put it another way, If the Father's the programmer, the Son is the source code, and the Spirit is the UI. I see the reason (hee) behind the Logos being perceived as the Christ when you phrase it in these ways, thank you! The physical manifestation of the intangible essential, if I am parsing correctly. And yet, am I very incorrect in also perceiving elements of the Logos concept in that of the Holy Spirit? Particularly if we understand the Spirit as being that which we hear and understand within us while striving to comprehend Divine will, I am surprised that Logos, the voice, the word, is defined entirely as the manifest Son and not as the manifest Spirit within us as well.
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Aug 2, 2023 20:07
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:I see the reason (hee) behind the Logos being perceived as the Christ when you phrase it in these ways, thank you! The physical manifestation of the intangible essential, if I am parsing correctly. And yet, am I very incorrect in also perceiving elements of the Logos concept in that of the Holy Spirit? Particularly if we understand the Spirit as being that which we hear and understand within us while striving to comprehend Divine will, I am surprised that Logos, the voice, the word, is defined entirely as the manifest Son and not as the manifest Spirit within us as well. Well, they're distinct and also the same. There is also a Father in there. Still wrapping my head around this but it seems to be very important.
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Aug 2, 2023 20:11
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:What is Logos? To you, the faithful reader? Do you perceive it as of God, or as a God, an individual Divine force syncretized with the Christian Divine? I see what Wikipedia has to say about it, such as it was indoctrinated as a name or title of Christ. Is that also the popular understanding? There are several extremely important versions of “Logos”. And since you started posting ma’at I have been wondering if there was a connection and it’s extremely cool to find out there is. Anyway the big three ancient version of Logos you will see are the Jewish / Greek version (think Philo), the Stoic Logos, and the Christian Logos. There are some sections from History of Christian Thought I can post later for you on these. There are really important differences particularly between the stoic and Christian. Something else to have in mind is that Reason in the enlightenment is also mostly just Logos too.
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Aug 2, 2023 20:21
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Ohtori Akio posted:Well, they're distinct and also the same. There is also a Father in there. Still wrapping my head around this but it seems to be very important.  I have, for my own purposes, set the matter of the Father aside for now. I perceive that figure as pretty directly analogous to the deity figures within the structure of my own faith -- this is at once simple and self-evident to me, and probably so incorrect from the perspective of many that worship (H)im that not much good would come from trying to throw it into discussion. But the relationship of the Father and the Spirit to humanity has tantalized me with echoes of how I perceive my relationship with my Gods and Ma'at, and now the element of Logos is adding an entire new direction by which to investigate these connections.Bar Ran Dun posted:There are several extremely important versions of “Logos”. And since you started posting ma’at I have been wondering if there was a connection and it’s extremely cool to find out there is. Oh, it's really pleasing to me that you saw a connection there before I even did -- thank you for mentioning that And if you have time to find and post those sections later I would really appreciate that as well, thank you! I find Wikipedia helpful in establishing a framework for new concepts, but actual human discussion and input is what can make it come into real focus.
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Aug 2, 2023 20:31
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Something you’re going to encounter digging into Logod in Christianity eventually is Justin Martyr asserting : all the truth is ours. In a Logocentric Christianity Jesus isn’t a syncretized figure. It’s beyond that. He is the Logos fully. It’s not a mix or amalgamation. Like the cross and glory (and this is related!) there are two potential possible sides to that. One is chauvinistic and vain and pridefull. The other way is that Christians where ever we encounter God’s Logos cannot turn away or deny it, because we deny Jesus if we do so.
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Aug 2, 2023 20:36
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Ohtori Akio posted:It's about two faiths you do not practice, but Living Buddha, Living Christ by famous Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh is one of my favorite books and speaks directly to that common thread of faiths which suppose an underlying and accessible truth, while thankfully not attempting the syncretism you see from New Age type writing. Give it a look if you have a chance. There are some deep similarities between Sikhism and Mahayana Buddhism, despite a huge gap in culture and the whole monotheism thing. Some Sikh writers have noticed this and think that it is a matter of perspective. The emphasis in Mahayana is letting go of things to realize Buddha-nature and to work on the ability to act strenuously (but in an important sense effortlessly) in a compassionate way. The emphasis in Sikhism is on letting God in during prayer, meditation, and with all actions of daily life. If someone is deeply sincere with either, they are on a similar if not identical trajectory.
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Aug 2, 2023 21:18
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nice obelisk idiot posted:I've been thinking about comparative religion a bit, and the biggest differences between most seem to emerge mostly when people are being ugly, either outwardly or inwardly. I feel this deeply, but I take issue with the idea that the biggest differences are usually exposed during conflict. For example, it's incredibly important for any interfaith discussions between Christians and Jews to start from the ground that they are different religions. The book I mention starts with the fundamental differences between the two compared religions, then goes on to describe what can be found that is similar. Recognizing difference is fundamental to respect, I feel.
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Aug 2, 2023 21:21
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Yeah I have this come up with an Orthodox friend when we chat about the curious similarities between some Orthodox ideas and Mahayana or Tibetan Buddhism.
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Aug 2, 2023 21:26
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Ohtori Akio posted:I feel this deeply, but I take issue with the idea that the biggest differences are usually exposed during conflict. For example, it's incredibly important for any interfaith discussions between Christians and Jews to start from the ground that they are different religions. The book I mention starts with the fundamental differences between the two compared religions, then goes on to describe what can be found that is similar.
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Aug 2, 2023 21:28
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:And yet, am I very incorrect in also perceiving elements of the Logos concept in that of the Holy Spirit? Particularly if we understand the Spirit as being that which we hear and understand within us while striving to comprehend Divine will, I am surprised that Logos, the voice, the word, is defined entirely as the manifest Son and not as the manifest Spirit within us as well. Relatedly to that part about the "animating principle," the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are often described not just as redemption for mankind, but an "eighth day" of creation--in one sense, that through this event God has begun re-creating the world, and in another, that the creation of the old one is finally complete. LITERALLY A BIRD posted:I perceive that figure as pretty directly analogous to the deity figures within the structure of my own faith -- this is at once simple and self-evident to me, and probably so incorrect from the perspective of many that worship (H)im that not much good would come from trying to throw it into discussion.
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Aug 2, 2023 22:10
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This transcendent truth has a love for humanity and creation. What if one takes that understanding, this true account, and tells it repeatedly to go away? Yet continue to behave in the way we all understand it wants: loving others, etc. I would assume it understands intent and keeps on shovelings the love into the heart? Or does it stop, and let the monkey be in its contrarianism? Atheism? What about those who do not feel this truth? The folks who don't listen, who don't understand what the frick people are talking about when they speak of it, etc. Yet through reverse osmosis, adopt its morality and try to behave righteously (in regards to relations toward other people)? Would they simply be lying to themselves, or toward it? Would it take offense? I don't think it can be offended, imo, in spite of scripture. I understand it to be utterly merciful, as in, it has a fount or depth of mercy I cannot fathom but it's so crystal clear you can kind of *get* the impression of a bottom (which is basically, doing everything in conscious, conscientious means and ways to harm other people for the sake of harm [I don't know if its mercy is cut off for the deranged]). I've heard in Christianity and other abrahamic faiths that there is a belief in a cut-off, a mortal sin, or whatever. In those cases, do the folks who practice those faiths think the divine does actually cut itself away from that person? Could the person return, or is that bottom laid clear in the waters infinite just like...a hard bottom you tend to break on, willingly destroying yourself on the bedrock of hate and like Humpty Dumpty, unrecoverable?
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Aug 2, 2023 22:29
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The idea of mortal sin is very very specifically Catholic. There are some scriptural notions of sin which places one beyond the work of redemption, but they are not straightforward to interpret. Generally, in lay Christian practice, I see people celebrating the work of redemption in just about everyone, and celebrating the fountain of guidance the conscience has to offer to even those who reflect its spiritual nature.
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Aug 2, 2023 22:35
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The discussion on Job too, I really enjoyed reading the book in snippets and learning that early writings on this attempt to put a pin on the divine was all, "Yeah, the divine has this advocate who prosecutes humanity for its dickishness, and he has God's ear and such." Also the discussions in this thread were really interesting! Yet I remain unconvinced in my own personal journey that this divine goes around and punishes sin directly. I have this internal impression that sin punishes people through the consequences of their actions, or the polluting of their soul or karma or id or brain. The fact that one of his friends goes and blames the kids, what the hell. Blames Jobs behavior, oh my god. All of these folks are stand ins for real life Karens. I mean, wow. Ten thousand years from the past, speaking now. Job calls them worthless doctors, and (hey -- it's ME!) he says he cannot comprehend God, that he's just some ape, etc, that evil done by him is his alone, etc, that wisdom is beyond him but he needs to strive for it anyways. Near the end of his monologue, some idiot comes in and suggests God talks to us by hurting us, nice -- another example of assholes in the modern time. THEN GOD COMES IN, breaks the wall, tells them all to back off of Job. Tells them to btfo, you cannot comprehend my plans, you just need to chill out and stop telling Job this human "wisdom," that the true wisdom is the divine and Job's understanding of this will restore him. Anyways, I like the assigned reading, give it five stars.
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Aug 2, 2023 22:47
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A Bad King posted:Atheism? The person on the forums who I think has beliefs that are closest to my own is a very serious strong atheist. I find he has been rather literally been out doing what we are asked to do : He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. 4Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. 5If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” 6So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.
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Aug 2, 2023 22:56
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