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Azathoth posted:I'm skeptical that the nascent Jesus movement was anything more than bystanders regarding the war but I'd love to know more about this argument. I’ll see if I can find that book.
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Mar 24, 2024 21:34
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I mean, it's a reasonable guess if the prophet knows anything about the Romans. "Oh you're gonna go toe to toe with the Romans? Yeah, you're gonna get roflstomped, let's get out of here"
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Mar 24, 2024 21:36
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Yeah after 146 BC it was pretty clear to everyone in the Mediterranean that if you tried to escape from Roman rule in any meaningful way (or even in non-meaningful ways) that they could and would annihilate or displace your entire society. Baptism update: It's Holy Week and today I was the narrator in the passion reading, which was fun. Getting baptized on Saturday during the vigil. The old folks are church are mega hyped.
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Mar 24, 2024 22:21
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Good answers on my question on the Sadducees and Pharisees. Thank you.
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Mar 25, 2024 00:48
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I've started reading the Bible again. I'm at Deuteronomy 7. Oh, more genocide. Goody. edit: Here are the ten commandments. Do not murder. Also do murder. Do all the murder. Show no mercy. Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 10:16 on Mar 25, 2024 |
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Mar 25, 2024 10:08
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Euthyphro dilemma, we meet again
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Mar 25, 2024 10:50
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Prurient Squid posted:I've started reading the Bible again. I'm at Deuteronomy 7. Note that in most cases where it reads, "God said 'Do X'," there's no voice booming from the sky. Priests would cast lots (roll dice) and interpret the result as the will of God. So they'd roll a 6, and their interpretation book would say that means that God wants them to attack on the left flank (or whatever). That sort of thing went on routinely. There's usually a lot going on in the background like that that they didn't write down because they assumed the reader would know. Thousands of years later, we don't know and taking it at face value can lead to a lot of weird conclusions.
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Mar 25, 2024 13:38
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Deteriorata posted:Note that in most cases where it reads, "God said 'Do X'," there's no voice booming from the sky. Priests would cast lots (roll dice) and interpret the result as the will of God. So they'd roll a 6, and their interpretation book would say that means that God wants them to attack on the left flank (or whatever). That sort of thing went on routinely.
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Mar 25, 2024 13:58
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Nat 20 is the will of God
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Mar 25, 2024 13:58
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Nessus posted:I thought divination was ungodly and forboden Here's a very commonly referenced method: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urim_and_Thummim It's not clear exactly what they were, but their purpose was divination.
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Mar 25, 2024 14:07
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Nessus posted:I thought divination was ungodly and forboden This is a good example of why it's dangerous to prooftext, especially when it's not in the original language. Not calling you out, to be clear, just pointing out that a lot of nuance gets lost when taking passages out of context and that goes triple for Deuteronomy. To elaborate, divination outside of the Temple cult was ungodly and forbidden, but there's a bunch of Temple practices that fall under our modern definition of divination. A frame that you should put on much of the Hebrew Bible is a struggle between the Temple cult and religious leaders in other cities or the countryside. Many of the practices that the Hebrew Bible condemns either as worshipping other gods or as just straight up forbidden were originally part of the accepted worship of YHVH but which were later condemned by the Temple cult as inappropriate. Divination was inappropriate specifically because it accessed YHVH outside of the approved ways at the Temple.
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Mar 25, 2024 15:28
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Azathoth posted:This is a good example of why it's dangerous to prooftext, especially when it's not in the original language. Not calling you out, to be clear, just pointing out that a lot of nuance gets lost when taking passages out of context and that goes triple for Deuteronomy. To elaborate, divination outside of the Temple cult was ungodly and forbidden, but there's a bunch of Temple practices that fall under our modern definition of divination.
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Mar 25, 2024 17:10
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Nessus posted:Yet that message continues forward, keeping Christians from the solace of the I Ching 
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Mar 25, 2024 17:38
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Nessus posted:Yet that message continues forward, keeping Christians from the solace of the I Ching My World Religions professor asked me to demonstrate how to consult the Yi Jing to the class. So I got my book and coins and did a public consultation on the question “Should I peruse that one young lady I like?” I cast the coins, read the passages, and provided an interpretation. I made it very clear this a demo, I am not asking anyone or anything to offer me insight into my question, nor was I going to implement any passages that called for action or inaction. Despite doing this, my Jewish friend who was in the same class was LIVID with me. She said “You’re Catholic, you know better than to use divination.” I reminded her I don’t actually consult the text as an oracle, but she was mad at me for the rest of the week!
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Mar 25, 2024 17:41
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Ironically enough the first religious or spiritual lesson I can recall, other than some kind of illustrated Bible stories book that I had for some reason, was learning to read the coins from my dad.
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Mar 25, 2024 17:47
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You know how you if you repeat affirmations enough your brain starts to believe them. I figure the Course in Miracles Workbook must be having an effect on me! I didn't realise going in how intensive it actually is. After the first 50 lessons the next 10 are review lessons. You repeat the first five lessons on the first day for 2m each throughout the day. Then the next five. So it works out to a pretty thorough discipline.
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Mar 25, 2024 17:51
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Putting the "divine" in "divination"
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Mar 25, 2024 17:54
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I learned dowsing with a pendulum out of one my mom's books as a kid, but purely as a demonstration of the ideomotor effect, I had no idea anyone associated anything spiritual with it until way later
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Mar 25, 2024 18:03
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Thirteen Orphans posted:My World Religions professor asked me to demonstrate how to consult the Yi Jing to the class. So I got my book and coins and did a public consultation on the question “Should I peruse that one young lady I like?” I cast the coins, read the passages, and provided an interpretation. I made it very clear this a demo, I am not asking anyone or anything to offer me insight into my question, nor was I going to implement any passages that called for action or inaction. Despite doing this, my Jewish friend who was in the same class was LIVID with me. She said “You’re Catholic, you know better than to use divination.” I reminded her I don’t actually consult the text as an oracle, but she was mad at me for the rest of the week! My mother's granny wouldn't let her play with a set of playing cards on a Sunday because that was gambling!
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Mar 25, 2024 18:04
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It is also worth noting that the opposition to various types of divination in Christianity historically comes as much from Aristotelian ethics and the idea of the proper and natural use of things as it does from scripture. There are also different kinds of divination and fortune-telling some of which might be acceptable and others not. For example divination based on necromancy might be forbidden because talking to the dead violates the natural order. Casting a horoscope based on the stars and planets, however, might be fine because you are simply interpreting the signs that God has left. There was certainly a lot of this up through the Middle Ages and Early Modern period: providing data to cast better horoscopes was what both Brahe and Kepler were actually paid to do.
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Mar 25, 2024 18:07
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I also had no idea until really recently that tarot is a card game! I had associated the cards strictly with fortune telling lol
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Mar 25, 2024 18:08
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Killingyouguy! posted:I also had no idea until really recently that tarot is a card game! I had associated the cards strictly with fortune telling lol Huh. Same until now.
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Mar 25, 2024 18:27
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Nessus posted:Yet that message continues forward, keeping Christians from the solace of the I Ching  Rough Translation (top to bottom): To undo the seal of 2000 years of Christianity The Bible and Divination One shocking book that interprets from the I Ching! Once Western elites learn the contents of this book, they will something something (too low res to translate reliably). A_Bluenoser posted:For example divination based on necromancy might be forbidden because talking to the dead violates the natural order. Casting a horoscope based on the stars and planets, however, might be fine because you are simply interpreting the signs that God has left. There was certainly a lot of this up through the Middle Ages and Early Modern period: providing data to cast better horoscopes was what both Brahe and Kepler were actually paid to do. Cleromancy is, on the other hand, still occasionally used in Christianity, probably specifically because of its Biblical pedigree: Wikipedia posted:The Eastern Orthodox Church still occasionally uses this method of selection. In 1917, Metropolitan Tikhon became Patriarch of Moscow by the drawing of lots. The Coptic Orthodox Church uses drawing lots to choose the Coptic pope, most recently done in November 2012 to choose Pope Tawadros II. German Pietist Christians in the 18th century often followed the New Testament precedent of drawing lots to determine the will of God. They often[quantify] did so by selecting a random Bible passage. The most extensive use of drawing of lots in the Pietist tradition may have come with Count von Zinzendorf and the Moravian Brethren of Herrnhut, who drew lots for many purposes, including selection of church sites, approval of missionaries, the election of bishops, and many others. This practice was greatly curtailed after the General Synod of the worldwide Moravian Unity in 1818[citation needed] and finally discontinued in the 1880s. Many Amish customarily select ordinary preachers by lot. (Note that the Greek word for "lot" (kleros) serves as the etymological root for English words like "cleric" and "clergy" as well as for "cleromancy".)[4]
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Mar 25, 2024 18:35
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Killingyouguy! posted:I also had no idea until really recently that tarot is a card game! I had associated the cards strictly with fortune telling lol Steven Wright posted:Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.
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Mar 25, 2024 18:50
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A_Bluenoser posted:It is also worth noting that the opposition to various types of divination in Christianity historically comes as much from Aristotelian ethics and the idea of the proper and natural use of things as it does from scripture. There are also different kinds of divination and fortune-telling some of which might be acceptable and others not. Aristotelian ethics, sure maybe, but imperial persecution of pagan practice, which has a strong emphasis on divination as means to communicate with their God(s), definitely. quote:The Christianization of the Roman world occurred gradually over several centuries. quote:It was under the reign of emperor Theodosius I (r. 379-395) that Christianity became the official state religion. Theodosius instituted severe legislation against paganism in the empire which saw practices like public and private sacrifice, the decoration of sacred trees, and the creating of turf altars made treasonable crimes. Pagan holidays dedicated to the gods were made normal working days. Despite this, the old Roman pagan religions continued to be practiced by the urban elite and the rural common people. Even by the time of Theodosius’s death, roughly half of the Roman population, it has been estimated, was still pagan. It was becoming clear, however, that being pagan seemed unprofitable in career terms as Theodosius’s successors continued to institute laws against paganism. For instance Emperor Leo I banned pagans from the legal profession around 468 CE. There did remain some religious toleration in the Byzantine Empire during the fifth and early sixth centuries, especially under the reign of Anastasius (r. 491-518). Various cities and towns, including Athens, Alexandria, Gaza, and others, remained centers of Hellenic pagan thought and practice. https://jamesbishopblog.com/2020/11/20/paganisms-suppression-and-retreat-under-the-christianization-of-rome/ There is a difference between Christian and pagan divination to the practitioner, absolutely, but if people are being prosecuted and imprisoned for the "wrong kind" of divination a whole lot of folks are going to just take the note that it's unsafe to practice at all. This suppression reinforces the idea of divination being a non-normative, aberrant, or forbidden practice, even if the root of the problem at the time was not that people were performing rites of divination at all, but they were performing these religious rites for proscribed Gods.
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Mar 25, 2024 19:01
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Keromaru5 posted:Not according to this book I found in Tokyo: On a practical level, how do you know it's God controlling the outcome and not something else? I don't see how the dice or whatever is being used is divinely protected.
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Mar 25, 2024 19:15
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I have a book called "Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Greco-Roman World" and the chapter on divination includes this:quote:All forms of divination in the ancient Greco-Roman world seek special information from the divine to deal with some kind of extra-ordinary crisis, but the actual means could differ widely, from reading meaning in a chance sneeze or twitch of the eye to receiving the information directly from a god. There are various ways in which this range of methods may be categorized, and there is an unusual amount of evidence from antiquity about the ways the kinds of divination were imagined to work. All of the major philosophical schools propounded theories about divination, abstracting and systematizing the principles by which the unphilosophical practiced divination. Some divination is understood on the model of speech as interpersonal communication between deity and mortal, while other kinds are seen on the model of writing as impersonal communication that involves the decipherment of signs. In the Phaedrus, Plato draws the fundamental distinction between inspired prophecy and other forms of divination through signs, and this dichotomy remains basic to all subsequent discussions, whether described as direct and indirect, natural and technical, interpersonal and textual, or otherwise. Plato connects the art of the mantis with mania, madness, arguing that the inspired diviners of the oracular shrines at Delphi and Dodona do their divinatory work while out of their minds.21 By contrast, those who read the signs of birds or other omens work rationally to interpret the meanings.22 which I find somewhat at odds with the idea an opposition to divination would arise based on practicing divination not being a part of "the natural use of things." Divination is performed through bearing witness to and interpreting signs of the natural order. But since it was so central to Hellenistic religion, smothering the practice completely gels with the motivations of a Christian Roman Empire.
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Mar 25, 2024 19:18
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Azathoth posted:On a practical level, how do you know it's God controlling the outcome and not something else? I don't see how the dice or whatever is being used is divinely protected. The problem is imperfect people asking discordant questions, then interpreting them imperfectly. People are possessed rather than coins or yarrow stalks imo.
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Mar 25, 2024 19:51
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I had an in-person conversation for the first time since 2017 with the vocation director at a nearby monastery yesterday and enjoyed the conversation a lot! He told me my ex-fiance who asked me to marry her last November and who I broke up with earlier this month is a gift from God and I should get back together with her and marry her. He said I will never be a monk and told me I'm a confused person whose confusion is a condition that can't be changed. The thought of getting back together with my ex-fiance would seem more palatable to me if she were better-looking and younger and more successful in life. In any case, I am grateful because I think I have it good and enjoy my life. Thanks be to God!!!
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Mar 25, 2024 20:28
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Killingyouguy! posted:I also had no idea until really recently that tarot is a card game! I had associated the cards strictly with fortune telling lol
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Mar 26, 2024 00:09
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Orbs posted:They can be used for many things if you approach with an open mind. But nobody in the modern world does. tarot cards considered harmful as building materials
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Mar 26, 2024 00:59
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LAB can’t remember if I brought it up or not, Elaine Pagels is somebody I think you should read. If you haven’t already.
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Mar 26, 2024 01:17
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Oh dang her stuff does look interesting. I will, thank you!
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Mar 26, 2024 01:51
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Killingyouguy! posted:tarot cards considered harmful as building materials
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Mar 26, 2024 07:52
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Bit of a vibe change in Deuteronomy. "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. 20 Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. 21 He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. 22 Your ancestors who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky." Glad to see God has calmed down a bit. He's had his snickers and his morning coffee and is live, laugh loving. edit: "29 The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, 30 and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” 31 You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods." Ah, partly this is about opposing human sacrifice. I still think genocide is a bit of a severe remedy. I'd try talking to them first. "Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk." Weirdly specific. Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 11:21
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Orbs posted:By whom? They can build lots of beautiful things. carpenters, mostly
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Mar 26, 2024 12:59
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Killingyouguy! posted:carpenters, mostly  My dad is a carpenter and he said Tarot can be used to build stuff, especially if the card backings are solid enough.
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Mar 26, 2024 13:04
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Prurient Squid posted:"Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk." Your translation might've obscured this but it's the precise re-iteration of a prohibition that appeared twice in Exodus. But in Exodus the context implies it's a rule for sacrifices only, while it's it to everyday life. So while the Deuteronomist doesn't know it, he's laying the foundation for a key way that Jewish religious practice and identity will survive in exile: it will soon become a general prohibition on mixing meat and milk in any form. Here's a good article about it: quote:The Deuteronomist transforms the cultic prohibition in Exodus into a general dietary law: From this perspective, a suckling animal is as forbidden for eating as an animal that was found dead. This generalization of the prohibition in Deuteronomy corresponds to Deuteronomy’s tendency towards “secularization,” i.e., the centralization of the sanctuary and the creation of a general and public profane sphere, which finds also expression in the expansion of profane legislation. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 14:01
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As I soldier towards the end of Deuteronomy I think I'm going to return to Carl Jung's Answer to Job. Where he puts the Old Testament deity on the psychiatrists couch.
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Mar 26, 2024 17:24
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Orbs posted:lol, but My dad says you couldn't, so I guess we're gonna have to have our dads fight
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Mar 26, 2024 19:33
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