Religion Thread: I never metaphysics I didn't like

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Religion Thread: I never metaphysics I didn't like

nice obelisk idiot: May 18, 2023; funerary linens looking like dishrags

A_Bluenoser posted:

following the two great commandments "to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and to love thy neighbour as thyself" and now experience the final result of those priorities.

Thanks for posting that. I think that a lot of what you said is found in Buddhism as well, although not articulated as a personal God who has willed specific phenomena into being.

In Buddhism it's more like letting go in the first case, or finding what's inherent. I think that surrendering is the ultimate act of love and acceptance, and requires basically: whatever you've got. Realizing the first may be possible to a degree without the second being fully developed, but it's half-baked. Hence the Buddha saying that noble friendship is the whole of the path in Theravada, and in the Mahayana there's passages like this:

Sutra of Vimalakirti posted:

When all the disciples (sravakas, those practicing for themselves) hear this teaching of inconceivable liberation, the sound of their wail will shake the universe. All bodhisattvas will joyfully accept this teaching.

Apologies if that is disrespecting or twisting the intention of what you were saying. I think that dialogue is super important, and can help others understand their own religion from within their own religion better. I get a lot out of insightful understandings of Christian teachings.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 06:20

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 14:51

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

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A_Bluenoser posted:

Taking off any analytical hat and just speaking from the heart here.

This plays into another point: our journey with God does not end with love, acceptance, and forgiveness but rather it starts with them. As our Chaplin puts it: you don't need to do anything to earn God's forgiveness or God's love: you are already forgiven, you are already loved, you just need to accept that love. Certainly you do penance, try and improve, live more like Christ but that comes as a consequence of a journey that starts with mercy and love, not a journey that ends with them.

If I may respond in a similar manner, i.e. from the heart a bit.

In regards to the italicized point I am... unsure on that. Not least because, ultimately, do you believe that love should be unconditional? To respond in the same emotional way I don't think that feels correct. Love should be conditional on feeling it back and also on not being mistreated by someone. I don't think that we should continue to love someone who does wrong action or hurts people in exchange for power/wealth for instance. There should be some level of understanding of that person as a person and an attempt to ensure that they are not treated with cruelty, but to just forgive and to love without some level of discernment is just allowing people to mistreat you and make the world, the material one we interact with and can observe, worse.

I do not have such trust, but I am glad that you do.

Liquid Communism posted:

Yep, and the Problem of Evil rears its head. If damnation is eternal, and some people are destined to it, what does that say about the one who set up every detail?

Yep. Ultimately there isn't a solution to the PoE.

Nessus posted:

What do you mean? You can do whatever you want in life.

I mean, I don't believe in a specific creator. I was created by my parents getting it on oh so many years ago. This trails back to the origin of life on this planet. I have no agency to blame here, it just happened.

If there was a creator, I might want an explanation for some things if I was speaking to them. Having received that explanation, I imagine that I could forgive them, considering the constraints of a situation where I was having a comprehensible conversation with them and they were answering my inquiries (not any kind of guarantee). After all, there's plenty of good out there, too.

You can't though. You, as a person, have wants and desires and feelings and they are set, in part, by what you interact with and who. We cannot choose to be something we cannot name and do not know. Would I have been happier or a better person if I were a late Bronze age Gallic tribal member or adopted that lifestyle that no longer exists? That's the problem as it is. All we can be is ourselves, and who is responsible for that?

I think that, ultimately, we should be able to see all of it and still say "this was still wrong, even if it had a reason" and not have to deal with it.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 10:16

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Josef bugman posted:

You can't though. You, as a person, have wants and desires and feelings and they are set, in part, by what you interact with and who. We cannot choose to be something we cannot name and do not know. Would I have been happier or a better person if I were a late Bronze age Gallic tribal member or adopted that lifestyle that no longer exists? That's the problem as it is. All we can be is ourselves, and who is responsible for that?

I think that, ultimately, we should be able to see all of it and still say "this was still wrong, even if it had a reason" and not have to deal with it.

My choices are finite and bound, but in my opinion, meaningful. I may change my behavior in accordance with my will, even if sometimes it may emerge in strange ways. (Just recently I had the sudden urge to deep clean the kitchen. I had no particular motivating incident.)

I could not choose to be a Gallic tribesman in the Bronze Age, but I could choose, for instance, to enter a monastery or resign from my job and seek a new one. (Better to do that the other way around.) I could choose to renounce meat eating. I could choose to murder my housemate. Now, it's very unlikely I would do the first thing or the last thing, but the second and third things are quite achievable and many people have done so.

I would say my answer to responsibility is: Nobody is. No blame (on the cosmic level). Now what?

# ? Feb 10, 2024 10:34

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

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Nessus posted:

My choices are finite and bound, but in my opinion, meaningful. I may change my behavior in accordance with my will, even if sometimes it may emerge in strange ways. (Just recently I had the sudden urge to deep clean the kitchen. I had no particular motivating incident.)

I could not choose to be a Gallic tribesman in the Bronze Age, but I could choose, for instance, to enter a monastery or resign from my job and seek a new one. (Better to do that the other way around.) I could choose to renounce meat eating. I could choose to murder my housemate. Now, it's very unlikely I would do the first thing or the last thing, but the second and third things are quite achievable and many people have done so.

I would say my answer to responsibility is: Nobody is. No blame (on the cosmic level). Now what?

That's a fair opinion to hold.

Of course, but how much are those desires simply what we have based on where we are? Any choice we make is, ultimately, bound up and cannot be what we may need to do.

I'd say that if nobody is then we all are. We all have to bear some level of responsibility for everything, what to do with that is a bit more of a struggle, and how far it applies.

Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Feb 10, 2024

# ? Feb 10, 2024 10:39

zhar: May 3, 2019

Josef bugman posted:

In regards to the italicized point I am... unsure on that. Not least because, ultimately, do you believe that love should be unconditional? To respond in the same emotional way I don't think that feels correct. Love should be conditional on feeling it back and also on not being mistreated by someone. I don't think that we should continue to love someone who does wrong action or hurts people in exchange for power/wealth for instance. There should be some level of understanding of that person as a person and an attempt to ensure that they are not treated with cruelty, but to just forgive and to love without some level of discernment is just allowing people to mistreat you and make the world, the material one we interact with and can observe, worse.

Should a parent cease loving their child if it acts like a little poo poo?

# ? Feb 10, 2024 10:42

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

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zhar posted:

Should a parent cease loving their child if it acts like a little poo poo?

Dependent on how bad a poo poo, Yes. It's important to note I am not talking about an actual child child because brain development and I also don't think it's possible for an infant to commit a bad enough thing to cause people to stop loving them. But if I found out that someone I'd brought up went on to commit war crimes I'd probably end up telling them I don't love them anymore.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 10:45

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Josef bugman posted:

That's a fair opinion to hold.

Of course, but how much are those desires simply what we have based on where we are? Any choice we make is, ultimately, bound up and cannot be what we may need to do.

I'd say that if nobody is then we all are. We all have to bear some level of responsibility for everything.

For everything, or just the bad things?

As for desires, it's true that they're mediated by our current situation. An ancient Gallic tribesman would probably not long for a new season of Leverage. However, I mean in the sense that we do have some control - however conditional and often variable - over the actions of our self. I guess I think of it in terms of control rather than 'free will' because the latter seems to be a very absolutist view and as you say, is it really free if there are boundary conditions of any kind?

At the same time, however, there have been repeated and common calls to change your behavior (as well as your heart, your thoughts, etc.) throughout a ton of different religious and cultural movements. If this wasn't, on some pragmatic level, possible, I do not think it would be such a common call.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 10:57

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

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Nessus posted:

For everything, or just the bad things?

As for desires, it's true that they're mediated by our current situation. An ancient Gallic tribesman would probably not long for a new season of Leverage. However, I mean in the sense that we do have some control - however conditional and often variable - over the actions of our self. I guess I think of it in terms of control rather than 'free will' because the latter seems to be a very absolutist view and as you say, is it really free if there are boundary conditions of any kind?

At the same time, however, there have been repeated and common calls to change your behavior (as well as your heart, your thoughts, etc.) throughout a ton of different religious and cultural movements. If this wasn't, on some pragmatic level, possible, I do not think it would be such a common call.

Everything probably it's just that the world is, for the most part, quite bad.

That is, once again, a very fair way of seeing it.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 11:01

nice obelisk idiot: May 18, 2023; funerary linens looking like dishrags

Bugman: re: unconditional love. the condition of evil people is very pitiable, and in the absence of praise or blame it looks like the accumulation of a huge number of wounds. Firstly the primary wound: from a Christian perspective that would be original sin. In Buddhism it's ignorance.

Love with wisdom can guide people through situations that are otherwise not navigable. At some point it becomes continuous. The idea of shutting off love due to a difficult person becomes akin to dropping one's baby because there's a breeze. It's not something that occurs to one. I'm not there at all, but there are plenty of people who are like that.

Josef bugman posted:

We cannot choose to be something we cannot name and do not know.

I think that we already are.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 11:03

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

nice obelisk idiot posted:

I think that we already are.

There are probably entire avenues of experience we are totally used to and consider trite and boring which would be completely mindblowing to non-human but human-realm intelligences. And that's just the physical reality of human existence, before you get into the mental life.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 11:10

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

nice obelisk idiot posted:

Bugman: re: unconditional love. the condition of evil people is very pitiable, and in the absence of praise or blame it looks like the accumulation of a huge number of wounds. Firstly the primary wound: from a Christian perspective that would be original sin. In Buddhism it's ignorance.

Love with wisdom can guide people through situations that are otherwise not navigable. At some point it becomes continuous. The idea of shutting off love due to a difficult person becomes akin to dropping one's baby because there's a breeze. It's not something that occurs to one. I'm not there at all, but there are plenty of people who are like that.

Evil does not seem to be worth pity.

Could you elaborate on the second paragraph please, I don't quite understand.

nice obelisk idiot posted:

I think that we already are.

Again, I don't think we are. If something cannot be named, or seen or interacted with then it is not. It is not something we can be. Becoming has to be built and comes from Being, but we cannot name it if we cannot know what we are Being and Becoming.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 12:00

Blurred: Aug 26, 2004; WELL I WONNER WHAT IT'S LIIIIIKE TO BE A GOOD POSTER

Honestly, I think the issue of divine love is an issue that's under-explored in the philosophy of religion, given its centrality to so many traditions (particularly Christianity). I think a lot of people have a very casual or complacent understanding of what divine love must entail, but it's one of those theological issues where if you scratch the surface a bit, then some pretty complex and disconcerting issues arise which can cut to the very heart of personal faith.

On the assumption that God is a perfect being, for example, then are we to assume that 'being loving' is one of God's perfections? If yes, then what does 'perfect love' actually entail? If it entails (i) unconditionality (i.e. that God's love is not affected by contingent factors), (ii) universality (i.e. God loves all equally), and (iii) maximality (i.e. God loves all to the utmost) then we end up with what appears to me to be a very mechanistic and impersonal form of love: God just radiates love into existence in accordance with his nature, as the sun radiates light and warmth, and all of us bask equally in its glow, completely irrespective of who we are and what we do. The nature of that love cannot change or evolve (since it must remain 'perfect'), meaning that while God's love can never fail us, neither can it blossom or mature. We end up with a form of 'love' which bares little correspondence with creaturely love; that is, a form of love which demands partiality (e.g. to love my child means to show a greater concern for her over others) and change (e.g. I may always love my child with equal intensity, but the love I feel for her when she is an adult will surely be different from the love I felt for her as an infant). God on this view doesn't love us as individual people, so much as he loves us as indistinct tokens of a universal human essence - I don't find that particularly comforting.

If we are prepared to sacrifice the perfection of God's love, freeing it to be a more personal and dynamic process, then we're left with the equally disconcerting proposition that God can love some people more than others, or that his love for us could either wither or be withdrawn. If I am reading Aquinas correctly, he appears to suggest that God's love is entwined with his perfect goodness, and his perfect goodness compels him to love some things (i.e. 'the good') more than other things (i.e. 'the not-so-good'), implying that he ought to love those who do good more than those who do not. (Attempting to separate God's love for people and his hatred of their deeds - e.g. 'God loves the sinner but hates the sin' - leads us once more to the issues of impersonal love discussed above, where we have to accept that God's love for us is utterly indifferent to who we actually are as people.) I think Calvin was also fairly open about his belief that God loves 'the elect' more than he does ordinary people, and the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an are fairly explicit about the fact that God does not love those who are unfaithful to him. I believe that divine love in bhakti Hinduism is also conditional upon human reciprocity. Given that we are not always in a position to know exactly what God wants - much less in a position to actually satisfy what God wants - this conditional and partial form of love also strikes me as rather unpleasant.

There are other issues too - is God changed by our love for us, for example (i.e. is he mutable)? If not, what does this say about his perfections given that I - a humble, lowly creature - can alter what the ground of all being is actually like? If he is not changed by our love for us, then what a cold and bleak form of love this must be! What would we make of the 'love' of a person who tells another, 'I love you, but I would be exactly the same person had you never existed'? And how is God's love for us actually manifested? It can't be something that is purely dispositional (i.e. a sort of 'feeling' that God has) or something destined to only be fully realised in the future (e.g. when we are drawn into proper communion with God in the afterlife) because it necessitates some aspect of God existing only in potentiality, as something that does not yet exist. But if God is a perfect being, then he must be pure actuality - so how is God's love actualised in the here and now? How, concretely, does God's love affect the cold, cruel machinations of this universe, filled as it is to the brim with suffering, death and despair? If this is what God's love looks like 'in actuality' then what becomes of our hopes for a greater tomorrow? Must we not face the possibility that perhaps this is the best that God can do and that our hopes for salvation might therefore be beyond even God's great powers?

I'm not saying that there aren't answers to such questions, merely that it's hard to find a lot of quality work being done addressing them. If anyone can point me in the direction of any books which address these philosophical issues around God's love with the same attention to detail as works exploring the nature of the Trinity or God's attributes, say, I'd much appreciate it.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 12:09

zhar: May 3, 2019

Josef bugman posted:

Dependent on how bad a poo poo, Yes. It's important to note I am not talking about an actual child child because brain development and I also don't think it's possible for an infant to commit a bad enough thing to cause people to stop loving them. But if I found out that someone I'd brought up went on to commit war crimes I'd probably end up telling them I don't love them anymore.

From the perspective of a buddha, we only act badly due to a lack of mental development.

But back to love, the proximate cause of experiencing love is to see a lovable quality. I wouldn't be able to speak from personal experience but my understanding is that for at least some mothers, the quality of 'my child' is enough for them to love their child while it's still in the womb and maybe even before that when it might be more of a concept (and even if all their unborn child does is die in the womb which is not terribly endearing), and if they sustain that perspective they will love their own child even if they do a war crime. But it doesn't mean they let their child walk all over them etc even in adulthood.

I think the only way to have universal unconditional love is if their is some universal quality of goodness that lies below any disagreeable behaviour. It's conceivable that there a lot of these that I can't see due to my limitations. Something that I hold as an axiom, because it explains all my own behaviour when analyzed and makes sense of others behaviour, is that at core people desire more happiness and less suffering. This is one lovable quality I can at least try to see.

I don't know what happens after death but I do think there is a non zero chance that there are moral consequences to actions. And I might stroke out in the next moment but there is 100% chance I lose everything obtained in this life in the next few decades, which kind of skews the expected values of certain kinds of actions. obviously the best actions are ones that have the best chance of increasing happiness in this life and anything that happens after, but it seems kind of foolish to me act in ways that make this short life a little more comfortable at the expense of anything after (not that that has always stopped me). in all too many cases people seem to be hastening after their own misery in this life too. This helps me have some compassion for those who appear to be bad actors.

Anyway I guess there are multiple perspectives and ways to relate to people to choose from and I don't believe doing so on the level of some lovable quality means you have to allow them mistreat you, in fact this might not be the compassionate thing to do for them either. Perhaps at a certain level of mental development one realizes the most realistic perspective.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 12:11

Killingyouguy!: Sep 8, 2014

"God already loves you and God has already forgiven you" feels so weird and not at all comforting because I haven't done anything

# ? Feb 10, 2024 15:06

Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

Killingyouguy! posted:

"God already loves you and God has already forgiven you" feels so weird and not at all comforting because I haven't done anything

You know, this us another example of this thread being great.

Isn't it weird that my experience is almost completely the opposite? As far as I know, I've always not really even needed the ten commandments or other clearly spelled out laws to see that I fall terribly short of even my own standards. If I wasn't already forgiven, I'd have no chance whatsoever.

If anything, learning more about how high a bar God has for us people has freed me to live better. Less stress about myself, more focus on how to live for others.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 15:15

Prurient Squid: Jul 21, 2008; Tiddy cat Buddha improving your day.

Random diversion.

In those William Gibson novels where a character has the power to see patterns in vast quantities of data and see when things are about to shift. He was describing Hegel's law of the conversion of quantity into quality without knowing that he was. Asimov was probably doing something similar in Foundation except that was the dialectic between freedom and necessity.

Edit:

I can remember somone on social media arguing that there's a tacit Stalinism to Asimov's view of history in the foundation series. Given his reliance on a secret cabal of planners manipulating the flow of events behind the scenes. I've always wanted to argue against this but I never bothered.

Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Feb 10, 2024

# ? Feb 10, 2024 15:48

Worthleast: Nov 25, 2012; Possibly the only speedboat jumps I've planned

sinnesloeschen posted:

A challenge great - as I recall
Our orders said to love them all

I like this a lot.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 15:56

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

Killingyouguy! posted:

"God already loves you and God has already forgiven you" feels so weird and not at all comforting because I haven't done anything

My perspective on this has shifted as my understanding of sin has shifted. I don't pretend to have a theologically rigorous understanding of sin, but the more that I understand it as acts that bring our relationships out of proper alignment with God, with each other, and with the whole of creation, the more I find this view to be comforting.

I can live a good life, try not to hurt anyone, help as much as I can, etc. but I'm still gonna mess up occasionally. Maybe it's getting unreasonably angry and snapping at someone who doesn't deserve it, maybe it's doing something environmentally unfriendly, it's all things that drive a wedge between me and those around me. That is a sin against another person or against the environment, but also a sin against God who wants us to have right relationships.

Not to get political, but just as there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, there's no way to avoid sin in this world. The world was broken long before we arrived and it is set up in such a way that we can't help but sin at some point. And when that inevitably happens, God forgives us if we repent and try to do better.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 16:14

Killingyouguy!: Sep 8, 2014

If I was set up from the start then I dont really feel the need to apologize tbh

Maybe don't set me up instead

# ? Feb 10, 2024 17:05

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

So if I have a bad day at work because that's the world and I snap at my wife when I get home because of it, I shouldn't apologize to her? The world set me up for that, doesn't mean I didn't do a bad thing I need to make amends for. Don't need to apologize to God for it, it's her I gotta get right with.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 17:14

Killingyouguy!: Sep 8, 2014

Azathoth posted:

So if I have a bad day at work because that's the world and I snap at my wife when I get home because of it, I shouldn't apologize to her? The world set me up for that, doesn't mean I didn't do a bad thing I need to make amends for. Don't need to apologize to God for it, it's her I gotta get right with.

Yeah I mean absolutely apologize to your wife, but:

Azathoth posted:

God forgives us if we repent and try to do better.

you just said we also need to apologize to god so i am confused

# ? Feb 10, 2024 17:17

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

You repent of your actions, which involves making amends as best you can and trying to do better, that's the apology. You don't need to utter some magic phrase to God because actions are what matter, and, to be clear, God has already forgiven you because you repented. If you don't repent of your sin and keep being lovely then God can't forgive you because you're wilfully being lovely. Thinking some magic phrase you say on Sunday or in a quickie prayer makes everything right and you can keep on being lovely is how you get modern evangelicals.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 17:25

Killingyouguy!: Sep 8, 2014

Azathoth posted:

You don't need to utter some magic phrase to God because actions are what matter

Isn't this called 'trusting in good works'? I thought assuming human forgiveness is sufficient as opposed to additionally explicitly seeking divine forgiveness, or assuming you have automatically have god's forgiveness Just Because, is a bad thing from most christian perspectives?

# ? Feb 10, 2024 17:44

sinnesloeschen: Jun 4, 2011; fiiiiiiinnnne

Blurred posted:

On the assumption that God is a perfect being, for example, then are we to assume that 'being loving' is one of God's perfections? If yes, then what does 'perfect love' actually entail? If it entails (i) unconditionality (i.e. that God's love is not affected by contingent factors), (ii) universality (i.e. God loves all equally), and (iii) maximality (i.e. God loves all to the utmost) then we end up with what appears to me to be a very mechanistic and impersonal form of love: God just radiates love into existence in accordance with his nature, as the sun radiates light and warmth, and all of us bask equally in its glow, completely irrespective of who we are and what we do.

this whole post was cool and good but this stood out to me. in my current, limited perspective it seems that while ''loving god'' possesses all three of your criteria the idea that god's love and our experience of it as universal, the same, for every person, i'd disagree that this is the case simply because that love is filtered and perceived through our individual lived experience and internal life. not quite the ''nonlocalized phenomenon'' explanation from like babylon 5 or w/e but more like because we are specific, diverse, individual creatures, that perfect divine love is experienced by us in a myriad of ways, and i'd also argue that because it is perfect love the manifestation of that is tailored to you as a thinking, free-will-having person over the entirety of your life.

this is definitely something that i'd like to learn more about, so i'm cosigning the request for books or other sources about this

# ? Feb 10, 2024 17:55

sinnesloeschen: Jun 4, 2011; fiiiiiiinnnne

Worthleast posted:

I like this a lot.

bruce cockburn owns

# ? Feb 10, 2024 17:58

Killingyouguy!: Sep 8, 2014

I'm just interested in where the all loving God narrative came from bc it doesn't seem to square with the Christianity I've known irl which seems to follow this logic:

* we are all sinning in our thoughts constantly and God hates all sin equally so just existing is as bad as actively committing war crimes
* therefore we are basically committing war crimes constantly in our minds and so are worse than trash and deserve eternal hell
* gods "love" is that he might forgive us for being war criminals even though we totally don't deserve it
* however bc he is NOT all loving you must beg him for forgiveness and hope that's good enough

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:20

sinnesloeschen: Jun 4, 2011; fiiiiiiinnnne

Killingyouguy! posted:

I'm just interested in where the all loving God narrative came from bc it doesn't seem to square with the Christianity I've known irl which seems to follow this logic:

* we are all sinning in our thoughts constantly and God hates all sin equally so just existing is as bad as actively committing war crimes
* therefore we are basically committing war crimes constantly in our minds and so are worse than trash and deserve eternal hell
* gods "love" is that he might forgive us for being war criminals even though we totally don't deserve it
* however bc he is NOT all loving you must beg him for forgiveness and hope that's good enough

i fuckin hate that you got churched by complete assholes (sorry i dont have anything conclusive to add, im just pissed off because this is literally what millions and millions of younger people know as church, ugh)

lmao im so mad rn lol

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:28

A_Bluenoser: Jan 13, 2008; ...oh where could that fish be?...; Nap Ghost

Killingyouguy! posted:

* however bc he is NOT all loving you must beg him for forgiveness and hope that's good enough

This is incorrect: God loves you no matter what but you have the freedom to respond to that love or reject it. God will not force you. The father never stops loving the prodigal son but the son needs to choose to return to the father and accept that love; without the son making that choice the father can only watch and weep with a broken heart.

There is much more to say of course but this thread moves to fast for me at times like this and I cannot really keep up with it.

A_Bluenoser fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Feb 10, 2024

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:28

Killingyouguy!: Sep 8, 2014

sinnesloeschen posted:

i fuckin hate that you got churched by complete assholes (sorry i dont have anything conclusive to add, im just pissed off because this is literally what millions and millions of younger people know as church, ugh)

lmao im so mad rn lol

Sorry for making you mad! To be clear I was raised atheist at home, this is what I got from my local Christian peers and like, being around Church Adults over the course of my life, with minimal paraphrasing

So the effect was mostly just "huh, that's a strange thing to think" rather than anything that really affected me

Killingyouguy! fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Feb 10, 2024

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:29

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Killingyouguy! posted:

I'm just interested in where the all loving God narrative came from bc it doesn't seem to square with the Christianity

So think about it this way. Sin is a state before it�s an act. We each are separate from each other as a consequence of existing, and being separate, to exist, means we hurt each other.

apolytrōsis - redemption, literally it means to pay the price of to free.

apo from of separation of

λύτρον to liberate, ransom or free (specifically to free a slave)

So if we say love redeems us from sin. We are saying love liberates us from the state of separation that is a consequence of existence that leads us to hurt each other.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:33

Killingyouguy!: Sep 8, 2014

Bar Ran Dun posted:

We each are separate from each other as a consequence of existing, and being separate, to exist, means we hurt each other.

Why does it mean that?

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:36

Ohtori Akio: Jul 15, 2022

Killingyouguy! posted:

I'm just interested in where the all loving God narrative came from bc it doesn't seem to square with the Christianity I've known irl which seems to follow this logic:

* we are all sinning in our thoughts constantly and God hates all sin equally so just existing is as bad as actively committing war crimes
* therefore we are basically committing war crimes constantly in our minds and so are worse than trash and deserve eternal hell
* gods "love" is that he might forgive us for being war criminals even though we totally don't deserve it
* however bc he is NOT all loving you must beg him for forgiveness and hope that's good enough

i can think of some sermons i've sat through along those lines. christianity, in this case you're likely talking about protestant christianity, is internally diverse, to include schools of theology which are total aids.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:50

Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

Killingyouguy! posted:

I'm just interested in where the all loving God narrative came from bc it doesn't seem to square with the Christianity I've known irl which seems to follow this logic:

* we are all sinning in our thoughts constantly and God hates all sin equally so just existing is as bad as actively committing war crimes
* therefore we are basically committing war crimes constantly in our minds and so are worse than trash and deserve eternal hell
* gods "love" is that he might forgive us for being war criminals even though we totally don't deserve it
* however bc he is NOT all loving you must beg him for forgiveness and hope that's good enough

I'll try to reply to each of your points from my Lutheran understanding. Sorry for lack of editing. Phoneposting.

*Technically the first one is correct if you really want to put it that way but also it's not really the crux of the problem. God and sin is an incombatible combination. I'd say that existing is a super great gift since it would be so much worse to not exists. Or, well, it would not since you wouldn't exist but anyhow.

God taking offense in what we do is how the Bible often describes sin but I would argue, using Paul's Letter for Romans for support, that sin actually separates us from God. Besides it being in the Bible, sin as an offense against God is a really useful metaphor though, so for that reason I'd rather not discard it.

* We are emphatically not worse than trash. Our value to God is equal and immeasurable. I could quote several phrases but Psalm 139 is probably the clearest one. Also the fact that God actually sacrificed his Son for our sake.

So hm, to return to point 1, I guess God does take offense when we treat each other poorly. I know I would if someone treated my loved ones like we do each other much of the time. So asking for forgiveness is probably the proper thing to do, even out of sheer decency.

I'm not touching the question about the nature of hell here.

* God's love is, among other things, identifiable in how he created this world, created us and saves us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is not a conditional, it is certainity and as such really, really hard to believe to be so easy. John 3:16 is deservedly one of the most famous pieces of text from the Bible. I'd really recommend 1. John (the letter) for a condenced piece of theology about love. Or Love.

* Hope is a really good thing to exists.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:52

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

sinnesloeschen posted:

i fuckin hate that you got churched by complete assholes (sorry i dont have anything conclusive to add, im just pissed off because this is literally what millions and millions of younger people know as church, ugh)

lmao im so mad rn lol

Yeah, gonna second this.

I'm happy to keep talking but yeah, you've absorbed some specific ideas about God which I do not share, so we're gonna need to talk through the confusion.

Killingyouguy! posted:

Isn't this called 'trusting in good works'? I thought assuming human forgiveness is sufficient as opposed to additionally explicitly seeking divine forgiveness, or assuming you have automatically have god's forgiveness Just Because, is a bad thing from most christian perspectives?

You still need that God's forgiveness, that's why Jesus died for us after all. God also provides the means by which we can do good works via the Holy Spirit. Doing good works and being able to make amends is only possible because of God. Making amends and going good is an outward sign of our inner repentance.

Works righteousness, in the sense I think you understand it, would mean that God's forgiveness is unnecessary because it is possible on one's own to live a perfect life and achieve salvation. At some point even the best of us (excluding Jesus) slip up and need forgiveness. It removes God from the salvation equation and that's bad. Note for my non-sola fide siblings in Christ, I am not subtweeting the Roman Catholic or Orthodox churches with this.

There is no amount of good things someone can do to earn salvation and while I don't think that good works are strictly necessary, if someone is not doing good works (and to be clear, making amends is part of good works) that is an outward sign of an inner issue.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:57

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Killingyouguy! posted:

Why does it mean that?

Well there�s a whole bunch ways to answer that question. But for me the simplest way to say it is that to continue to exist one has to exist for oneself above existing for others.

Basically, I got bills to pay, I got months to feed ain�t nothing in this world for free.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:57

Ohtori Akio: Jul 15, 2022

zhar posted:

But back to love, the proximate cause of experiencing love is to see a lovable quality. I wouldn't be able to speak from personal experience but my understanding is that for at least some mothers, the quality of 'my child' is enough for them to love their child while it's still in the womb and maybe even before that when it might be more of a concept (and even if all their unborn child does is die in the womb which is not terribly endearing), and if they sustain that perspective they will love their own child even if they do a war crime. But it doesn't mean they let their child walk all over them etc even in adulthood.

This is a good avenue to understanding God's love.

In the Christian understanding, God is the Father of all: he created us, and the world we live in. In earthly parental love, we see the closest reflection of that relationship. God wants us to do better, but that doesn't mean he somehow loves us less when we gently caress up. Sin creates distance, but the love is still there to pull us back towards God.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 18:59

sinnesloeschen: Jun 4, 2011; fiiiiiiinnnne

Ohtori Akio posted:

This is a good avenue to understanding God's love.

In the Christian understanding, God is the Father of all: he created us, and the world we live in. In earthly parental love, we see the closest reflection of that relationship. God wants us to do better, but that doesn't mean he somehow loves us less when we gently caress up. Sin creates distance, but the love is still there to pull us back towards God.

by this logic (which for the most part i dont disagree) those of us who did not have anything even remotely like the ''standard'' experience of parental love all of this is completely foreign and also loving terrifying, because what we got from our parents was the poo poo beat out of us for minor or even nonexistent transgressions. its really hard to trust anyone or anything, even god, when your only understanding of parenting is that anything can become a massive fuckup and little you has no control over it.

if im honest i dont know how to circle the square here -- it took four decades of absolute misery and bullshit for me to be able to be like ''yeah god is not has never and will never be my lovely methed out mom trying to pimp me to her gas station coworker friends''

# ? Feb 10, 2024 19:09

Ohtori Akio: Jul 15, 2022

sinnesloeschen posted:

by this logic (which for the most part i dont disagree) those of us who did not have anything even remotely like the ''standard'' experience of parental love all of this is completely foreign and also loving terrifying, because what we got from our parents was the poo poo beat out of us for minor or even nonexistent transgressions. its really hard to trust anyone or anything, even god, when your only understanding of parenting is that anything can become a massive fuckup and little you has no control over it.

if im honest i dont know how to circle the square here -- it took four decades of absolute misery and bullshit for me to be able to be like ''yeah god is not has never and will never be my lovely methed out mom trying to pimp me to her gas station coworker friends''

jesus. yeah there's a gap between even functioning parental love and god's love: it's at best a reflection, not the same thing. and absolutely many parents fall way shorter

# ? Feb 10, 2024 19:12

Valiantman: Jun 25, 2011; Ways to circumvent the Compact #6: Find a dreaming god and affect his dreams so that they become reality. Hey, it's not like it's you who's affecting the world. Blame the other guy for irresponsibly falling asleep.

Oh, I do want to bring up the concept of guilt versus the lack of guilt! How do people feel about this idea that I've been brewing?

How you talk about God's love, about salvation and about heaven and hell really depends how you feel about guilt. For some reason in the old days religious guilt or just plain interpersonal/community-relates guilt seemed to be much more common. As such, I assume, talk of justice, punishments and rewards as well as repentance and atonement was generally much more understandable to an average person.

Now, in more individual times and in societies with less pervasive religiousness, we should probably focus talking more about how salvation and God's love in general is also about unity, having a purpose in life and having a hope that goes beyond our screwed up world. Feelings of guilt will probably follow for those of us (like me) who experience their personal failures to live as we should and are called to. It might just be that purpose and unity is what most lost sheep seek right now.

# ? Feb 10, 2024 19:16

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 14:51

sinnesloeschen: Jun 4, 2011; fiiiiiiinnnne

Valiantman posted:

Oh, I do want to bring up the concept of guilt versus the lack of guilt! How do people feel about this idea that I've been brewing?

How you talk about God's love, about salvation and about heaven and hell really depends how you feel about guilt. For some reason in the old days religious guilt or just plain interpersonal/community-relates guilt seemed to be much more common. As such, I assume, talk of justice, punishments and rewards as well as repentance and atonement was generally much more understandable to an average person.

Now, in more individual times and in societies with less pervasive religiousness, we should probably focus talking more about how salvation and God's love in general is also about unity, having a purpose in life and having a hope that goes beyond our screwed up world. Feelings of guilt will probably follow for those of us (like me) who experience their personal failures to live as we should and are called to. It might just be that purpose and unity is what most lost sheep seek right now.

ding ding ding ding ding

also

# ? Feb 10, 2024 19:18

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Religion Thread: I never metaphysics I didn't like

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