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euphronius posted:You worship Jesus ? Jesus was simply a skinsuit for YHWH similar to the Space-Roach dressed in a farmer from the hit comedy Men in Black (1997)
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Mar 19, 2024 16:29
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I understand and have in mind history but I’m mostly talking about how Christianity is practiced now in the various churches and tents across the world. No one is talking about the Holy Spirit (except maybe as mentioned those learned doctors of divinity)
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Mar 19, 2024 16:30
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euphronius posted:I understand and have in mind history but I’m mostly talking about how Christianity is practiced now in the various churches and tents across the world. No one is talking about the Holy Spirit (except maybe as mentioned those learned doctors of divinity) As someone who grew up evangelical, you don't know what you're talking about. Pentecostalism is the fastest growing denomination in the world and they center the Holy Spirit.
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Mar 19, 2024 16:33
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euphronius posted:I understand and have in mind history but I’m mostly talking about how Christianity is practiced now in the various churches and tents across the world. No one is talking about the Holy Spirit (except maybe as mentioned those learned doctors of divinity) The Pentecostals would beg to differ.
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Mar 19, 2024 16:35
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The success of Christianity and Islam comes down to a more efficient structure. People got to keep most of their old paganic ways, but only had to pay to priests of one temple to get blessings. It's like getting the contents of all streaming services from one site.
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Mar 19, 2024 16:40
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CommunityEdition posted:The Pentecostals would beg to differ. Yea I did forget them Sorry
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Mar 19, 2024 16:40
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I think the big difference was the missionary impulse. A little witnessing goes a long way. As does having your western outlying territories colonize and expropriate several large continents
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Mar 19, 2024 16:43
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euphronius posted:I understand and have in mind history but I’m mostly talking about how Christianity is practiced now in the various churches and tents across the world. No one is talking about the Holy Spirit (except maybe as mentioned those learned doctors of divinity) something like 1.3 billion Catholics disagree
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Mar 19, 2024 16:45
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Like if somehow the Americas were conquered by China, Vietnam and Japan we’d have a conversation about why Buddhism and Islam were the top dogs, despite the Frankish religion having so many similarities to Islam. Might blame it on Frankish drunkenness 
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Mar 19, 2024 16:46
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euphronius posted:I understand and have in mind history but I’m mostly talking about how Christianity is practiced now in the various churches and tents across the world. No one is talking about the Holy Spirit (except maybe as mentioned those learned doctors of divinity) Have you ever been to a church?
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Mar 19, 2024 16:46
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Ok I’m sorry I forgot the Holy Spirit Mea culpa Still not Abraham’s god by definition
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Mar 19, 2024 16:47
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Nessus posted:I think the big difference was the missionary impulse. A little witnessing goes a long way. As does having your western outlying territories colonize and expropriate several large continents The structure of mono- vs. polytheism would point to it, if you're part of a polytheistic tradition, and those guys over there say they worship a different god, your worldview allows for that. If you believe in one and only one God, well, those guys are worshipping demons. I just think it's weird that you don't have competing non-Abrahamic monotheistic religions, you don't see a lot of other monotheistic religions through history, period. I guess the memetic strength of the Abrahamic religions are just that strong.
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Mar 19, 2024 16:48
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Nessus posted:I think the big difference was the missionary impulse. A little witnessing goes a long way. As does having your western outlying territories colonize and expropriate several large continents There is actually a lot of scholarship about the Abrahamic god's/other religions' historical places in the world. It's just hard to find sometimes, especially in places where such research might offend deep believers. I will try to dig some up for the thread though when I have time, if no one else has references on hand.
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Mar 19, 2024 16:51
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And the same thing with Islam
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Mar 19, 2024 16:53
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Gaius Marius posted:And the same thing with Islam
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Mar 19, 2024 16:55
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rome declared for centuries that it had never and would never fight an offensive war, neither. that's more of an instance of the general tendency for states to baldfacedly lie
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Mar 19, 2024 16:58
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Orbs posted:Exactly. Although Islam is an interesting special case, in that much of its imperialism seems to have been for a long time, a sort of quasi-anti-imperialism, centered around opposing what were viewed as the evil parts of Rome.
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Mar 19, 2024 17:08
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bob dobbs is dead posted:rome declared for centuries that it had never and would never fight an offensive war, neither. that's more of an instance of the general tendency for states to baldfacedly lie It's a bit like the "I'm not touching you" of imperialism. Go wherever you want with huge aggressive armies, purely to help the local population/your allies of course. Then if any of the locals resent that (and your taxes), and try to resist or fight back, then you have all the reason you need to conquer them all and take their stuff, whenever you have the time and ability. Nessus posted:How’d that hold up once they got east of Afghanistan (everyone forgets about the huge numbers of Malaysian and Indonesian Muslims)
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Mar 19, 2024 17:11
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That’s legit. No faith so pure that it can’t end up serving an emperor after all
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Mar 19, 2024 17:15
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Regardless of whatever your theistic opinions on the nature of the divine and how all people who don't share the exact same interpretations have gone off on some kind of wild and crazy devil-worshipping heresy and probably should be burnt alive for their transgressions or at least be excluded from the big religion club that never actually has meetings, 55% of the world follows religions that all have their roots in the same traditions, whether you're Anglica, Maronite, Hasidic, Baptist, Anabaptist, Alawite, Latter Day Saint, Salafi, Cathar, Haymanot, Ibadi, Jacobite, Ismaili, Rocor, Sunni, or Karaite, you're part of a big huge long history of a series of traditions that usually share some scripture somewhere along the line. I don't really know if anyone has really put together big theories for why specifically all that sprung forth from a relatively small place and group of people. Maybe being centrally located helped, or being in one of the most populated regions of the ancient era, but there were a lot of different groups there. Also the nature of religion and ideas means that it can be disseminated in a weird way totally different from geneology. Nothing so simple as just tracking bloodlines. People convert all over, ideas can lie dormant and get revived, groups can combine or split or recombine as time goes on.
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Mar 19, 2024 17:31
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zoux posted:As someone who grew up evangelical, you don't know what you're talking about. That's a legitimate reaction to every euphronius post.
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Mar 19, 2024 17:38
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euphronius posted:Every Christian I have met in the USA 100% does not worship the god of Abraham. At all. First of all, with God, all things are possible, so jot that down
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Mar 19, 2024 17:41
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I grew up in a state Lutheran church where every priest is required by law to have a Master's in theology before they can land the gig. I don't think I ever heard much about the Holy Ghost, just vague platitudes about God's love. Not that I went often, most people belong to the church but only really old people go more than once or twice per year.
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Mar 19, 2024 17:42
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Lots of “YHWH loves you “ bumper stickers in the USA
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Mar 19, 2024 17:44
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SlothfulCobra posted:
Personally I blame Constantine
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Mar 19, 2024 17:45
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Personally I blame Constantine
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Mar 19, 2024 17:47
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Personally I blame Constantine He saw the sign, and it opened up his eyes
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Mar 19, 2024 17:47
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We should bring back the Chi Rho
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Mar 19, 2024 17:48
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I think there's a good parallel in the comparison of Zeus and Jupiter. All three Abrahamic religions are just putting their particular flavor on the Sky Father. They're worshipping the same figure even if they're coming at it from different perspectives.
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Mar 19, 2024 17:56
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euphronius posted:We should bring back the Chi Rho Catholics still use it all the time you really do not seem to know much about any type of Christianity
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Mar 19, 2024 17:56
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Yeah if you’re basing your whole critique of Christianity on American right wing evangelicals, you’re sort of backhandedly endorsing their claim to be the one true faith, not an obnoxious sub variant with undue influence due to historical contingencies
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Mar 19, 2024 17:58
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Nessus posted:Yeah if you’re basing your whole critique of Christianity on American right wing evangelicals, you’re sort of backhandedly endorsing their claim to be the one true faith, not an obnoxious sub variant with undue influence due to historical contingencies Nearly all forms of Christianity do suck though, i guess the unitarians are ok, if silly.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:02
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Unitarian is the last church I went to and that is not even Christian in the way it was practiced at all. Very vaguely Edit UU to be clear euphronius fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Mar 19, 2024 |
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Mar 19, 2024 18:04
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There’s Unitarian Christianity but the UUs in America are basically the Church for Leftish Folks Who Enjoy The Church Experience (Or Are Real Darn Small, But Need Some Folks)
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Mar 19, 2024 18:06
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zoux posted:Is this just a byproduct of monotheism vs polytheism? yes quote:Other than Zoroastrianism, were there other monotheistic non-Abrahamic religions? not really no. Orbs posted:Not just the missionary impulse, but also the imperialist impulse, I think. Christianity getting wrapped up as the official state religion of Rome was one of the best (in terms of recruitment) and worst (in terms of the actual intended message and work) things that ever happened to Christianity historically. yes SlothfulCobra posted:I don't really know if anyone has really put together big theories for why specifically all that sprung forth from a relatively small place and group of people. I have actually been reading a lot about the big perspective shift humans had w/r/t religion over the last several months, but haven't been posting about it as much as I have been thinking about it because a lot of it does come down to things that would offend practicing monotheists if not aired politely and with a full bibliography. Most of the articles I have found interesting enough to put them somewhere others might see have ended up in the witchcraft thread in C-SPAM, since a lot of my posting in there has been of the "hey did you guys know 'magic' is actually just different ways of practicing 'religion'???" varieties. zoux posted:The structure of mono- vs. polytheism would point to it, if you're part of a polytheistic tradition, and those guys over there say they worship a different god, your worldview allows for that. If you believe in one and only one God, well, those guys are worshipping demons. I just think it's weird that you don't have competing non-Abrahamic monotheistic religions, you don't see a lot of other monotheistic religions through history, period. A combination of what Orbs points out, which is that Rome adopted Christianity as its state religion, and what zoux observes here, that the very structure of monotheism invalidates any rival belief structure, are two of the key factors. Before the rise of Christianity the majority of recorded human belief was polytheist. The Hebrew tribes are included in this; you can see in the old testament evidence of the struggle in getting the Israelites to stop worshipping other Gods like Tammuz and Asherah. I'm more phone post-y than usual today so I don't have a bunch of sources here but the book of Jeremiah for example has people complaining that they don't want to stop worshipping the Queen of Heaven but Jeremiah goes Well that's too bad you gotta, God damnit. Yahweh made a covenant with the nation/people of Israel that they would have no God before him in exchange for his blessings and getting the people to obey the rules of this covenant was apparently quite a challenge at times. So the solution to this from the Yahwists was to invent monotheism. Arguably, monotheism had been invented once before, by some guy named Akhen-Aten none of us have ever heard of. Historians like drawing throughlines from the only briefly imposed Atenism (really more monolatry or henotheism than monotheism) to the figure of Moses and the development of Biblical monotheism. The thing is that polytheism is by nature inclusive. It allows for the belief in other Gods whom you do not acknowledge or worship. A polytheist can believe in a monotheist's God, they just know the monotheist is wrong about whether or not there are more Gods than just that one. A monotheist cannot believe in a polytheist's Gods, or by definition they are no longer a monotheist. The reason you don't see other monotheist religions rising and falling through the ages is that it is a model specific to Abrahamic religion, shaped by narratives intended to keep worship focused on the single entity that the leaders of the people of the time wanted their people to be worshipping. Therefore also the aggressive scouring for and punishment of people who worship other Gods throughout the ages: it is against the monotheist religion to allow polytheism, the acknowledgement of any God outside of Yahweh, to exist. The Council of Nicea then worked some rhetorical magic to make Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit all the same entity, as bob dobbs observed. The Trinity trick is actually extremely common in polytheism (tripartite Goddesses, anyone?) but when Christians do it it's still monotheism, because words are magic and belief is reality.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:24
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Re: missionary instincts, I thought Islam (or at least early Islam) was notably different from Christianity in that this was way less of a deal for them? Like there is a sort of imperialist bent to it (this area should be ruled by proper Muslims, like all areas), but then there didn't seem to be much focus at all on the religion of the conquered people. Christianity remained the majority religion in areas conquered by the initial Arab expansion wave for a looong time, and of course there's the Ottomans where almost all of the European areas remained Christian right up to the end of the Empire.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:39
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:good stuff I guess my question is "since monotheism is so successful as a religion, it's odd that it only got invented one time" but I suppose if there were other monotheistic religions the Abrahamic derived ones would look less impressive.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:45
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zoux posted:I guess my question is "since monotheism is so successful as a religion, it's odd that it only got invented one time" but I suppose if there were other monotheistic religions the Abrahamic derived ones would look less impressive. Christianity and Islam have also existed for a very short time and both could have been strangled in their cradles. 2000 years is such a short period in the history of religion, it could be a fad.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:49
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The Egyptians invented it. The Persians invented it. Celtic beliefs were erased who knows. There are monotheistic interpretations of Hinduism. Sikhism is arguably monotheistic. I don’t know about Chinese religions. And I still argue Christianity is not monotheistic. If it monotheistic is then Hinduism is too Edit Forgot Rastafarianism
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Mar 19, 2024 18:53
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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/monotheism/#MonOri Just read this if you guys are interested. It's clear that this thread is totally out of it's depth on this.
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Mar 19, 2024 18:57
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