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Kyrie eleison posted:God regularly condemns entire peoples and uses other peoples to wipe them out. This scenario effectively plays out in reverse later when the Kingdom of Israel is totally destroyed by neighboring kingdoms, who are believed to be acting as agents of God to punish Israel. There's methods people use to hand-wave this stuff, but it's there and it's a recurring theme throughout the OT, so I'll just tell you the truth about it. Kyrie what is the context of the four Gospels? By that I mean in direct response to what event were the four gospels written. Why does that context make what you're doing here problematic?
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Nov 17, 2014 19:23
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SedanChair posted:Pilate said "what is truth?" and Jesus couldn't think of poo poo to say That gospel starts by answering that question explicitly and has Jesus answer that question explicitly.
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Nov 17, 2014 19:30
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SedanChair posted:Which is like when you're playing the dozens and think of a comeback 20 minutes later. Doesn't count The author of John is saying something about Rome and the ability of Imperial Romans (ie. Pilate) to "hear the voice of" the Truth when directly confronted with it in the flesh. It's a criticism of Rome. The context of the gospels in the new testament is the destroyed Jewish Temple (and thus hope of a renewed Jewish Kingdom). The Romans had destroyed the dream of a renewal of the Kingdom of Israel, by destroying the temple. Which is what Kyrie is missing when he goes on about God destroying nations in the old testament, the gospels are written only down after Rome goes about destroying poo poo (and they get written down at different points in that process). Maybe his interpretation should take into account the New Testament gospels and their context? The story of Jesus on the cross is written down in response to the horrifically violent suppression of the Jews by the Romans. I think the lack of a given response to Pilates question is an intentional statement about that. John's Jesus is very Jewish and it was probably written for a Jewish audience. (Which is odd to most people given that John is often seen as antisemitic, but this is because John is taking sides in a split between different Jewish groups.)
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Nov 17, 2014 21:48
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SedanChair posted:That's just coming up with stuff. Bacon said Pilate would not stay for an answer, but maybe he did. The mystical, insubstantial truth as represented by what Jesus said to the apostles wouldn't have made any sense to Pilate, and not because he was inured to it, because it's mystical hogwash in contrast to anything the dimly seen Master of the earliest texts would have said. There is a gap between the way you're thinking about it and how I'm thinking about it. Nearly everything in the bible is political. Take the OT genocide stuff, it's not really God killed group of people X. It's more like the author of that particular section place lives in a time and place where the Jews are at war with the people he's writing about God smiting/ helping the Jews kick the rear end of in the past. The historical story the author is writing is also commentary on the political situation he lives in. Think of it like propaganda. It's just the way the texts were used and written and it was even understood in the time they were written. The gospels are no different. They are constructed stories meant to convey a specific messages to specific audiences. Many things in them probably didn't happen. Why are each of the accounts in the gospels of the meeting with Pilate different? Jesus meeting Pilate probably didn't happen. Because only nobodies got crucified, important people were dealt with in other ways. Why would Pilate (who didn't seem to like or think much of Jews and there are examples of this I can provide) meet a Jewish nobody and talk about truth or care what a Jewish crowd thought? So the real question is what is the intent of whoever wrote John why does he present this interaction between Jesus and Pilate in this way. What is the author of John saying and why might it be important? I would ask the same type of questions about the OT interpretation Kyrie does. Being able to do this involves recognizing that the stories in the bible are myths: stories told by humans to communicate meaning with each other. Parts are definitely not factual. That should not be threatening to Christians. It should be especially nonthreatening to anyone who thinks Jesus is the Logos. It is a factual statement to say that the bible was written by people with agendas who occasionally made things up to try to influence the world and the people around them. Interpreting the bible as if it is perfect and directly from God is to deny a truth standing right in front of oneself. Logos-centric Christians (Kyrie) should not do that. Which is why I'm arguing with you about the interpretation of the Pilate story. Unrelated: This what passes for atheism.  FFRF foundation ad. An appeal to Reason (Logos), reality, with a universalized humanism. And the cherry is the use of the word "salvation". CommieGIR posted:Not that I really care, but they worship Christ as the son of god and recognize the trinity. Pretty sure that makes them Christian. Their trinity is not a trinity in the sense trinity is usually used in Christianity. But they are Christians in that they call themselves Christian and follow Jesus. They are not Christian in that they depart in fundamental ways from the rest of Christianity about things that most denominations agree define Christianity. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Nov 18, 2014 |
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Nov 18, 2014 16:33
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CommieGIR posted:The FFRF does a lot of good work. Yes but they aren't arguing for no God. They are arguing for an alternative understanding of God, while being utterly unaware that they are doing so. Atheists making soteriological statements is ironic. The craziest thing, their arguments are fantastically similiar to the arguments the apologists had to respond to (that religion undermines the state and is harmful superstitious mumbo jumbo nonsense). The same arguments that early Christians responded to with Logocentrism. CommieGIR posted:True, got me there. I looked it up and its defined as a Restorationist Christianity, which includes the Puritans and the Anabaptists. It comes out of the burnt over district (think mostly New York State along the Erie canal). But first wave feminism (eg. Stanton), many of the abolitionists, and a rather large chunk of the roots of progressivism come from there too. Ninjasaurus posted:Why can't we all just agree to embrace sweet sweet nihilism and hope (lol) that all of existence is negated sooner rather than later? Meh, that doesn't work either. It's a negation behind. There is a lot of theology already on the other side of that one, negation of the negation type stuff. Seriously don't get me started.
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Nov 18, 2014 17:39
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DrProsek posted:This is like the Christian equivalent of "Humans act, ergo Libertarianism is best, if you disagree you need to act in order to do so and therefore are agreeing with me". That praxeology business came from somewhere.
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Nov 18, 2014 18:23
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Who What Now posted:Being the religious equivalent of libertarianism is not something to be proud of, you know. The difference is in that broad understanding of God thing. Look at the Libertarian example: Freedom, Human-action, will and choice, those are all very defined and specific terms Compare that to: Unconditioned, Absolute, abyssal, transcendent, those words are that indicate something not specific, not firmly defined in, or across, or underlying all things. And then even those words are too limiting and restraining and are only used because language is necessary. So there are these structures to think about and talk about the unconditioned and undefined that is the foundation of reality (that broad very understanding of God the Father), well those have been taken and are being used to talk about a very specific and very defined idea as the foundation of reality. That's a bad thing to do and monotheism is uniquely suited to respond to it with: Cut that idol poo poo out. And that's actually what's becoming my main problem with the FFRF type stuff. The we don't believe in "gods" business. That's statement about a limited category of gods! Ruling out supernatural, old man in the sky types gods, that's easy. It's the gods that don't fit into that limited category like: freedom, money, wisdom, self, natural laws, etc. Those non-supernatural idols, they are much, much, nastier and very real. Defined and specific things seen as foundation of reality that we might have faith in, those gods need gone after too.
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Nov 19, 2014 16:34
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Kyrie eleison posted:The context of the Gospels is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, who redeemed mankind of its sin and offered it forgiveness and eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven. I don't understand your last question. Why did the individuals who wrote down the gospels write down the gospels? A very long period time passed between the crucifixion of Jesus and the gospels getting written down. A very specific thing happened and the communities of the Jesus movement went from orally passing on the story of Christ (with only some sayings written down) to writing it down. What was going on between 65 and 110? (65 being the earliest good date for Mark and 110 the latest good date for John) More specifically what happened between 66 and 73. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish%E2%80%93Roman_War The writing down of the gospels is isn't just about one cross, it's about lots of crosses. Furthermore what was happening before that, leading up to it. What did Paul do, how does his delivery of the Jerusalem collection go (you won't find that in Acts other than his arrest, it didn't go well)? The Romans crucified a gently caress load of people, and they smashed that temple Paul delivered that collection to. These are the events that the people writing down our gospels are responding to, that shape how they tell the story of Jesus' life and death. Understanding those events alters any good interpretation of the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, which alters interpretation of the old testament. As Christian how do we know about God? By far the most important way is the story of Jesus as the Christ found in the gospels. God incarnate, Christ, suffers in that story, and is a symbol of all the others crucified by Romans in that story. You've got it backwards. God does not order genocide, He suffered it with us, as one of us. Where does your interpretation of the old testament put you in relationship to the cross? Does it put you with the man and all of the others on the cross? Or does it put you with those those would would justify putting people on the cross?
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Nov 19, 2014 17:35
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VitalSigns posted:Okay sure it's easy to rule out belief in Gods. But what if I redefine "Gods" to mean "literally anything and everything in the universe"? You can't rule out belief in that, checkmate atheists you worship Gods too, and oh hay as long as you're worshiping Gods you may as well just start worshiping mine no big deal. Let's make this easy and straight forward. Atheists seem to love arguing against the ideas of Schleiermacher (and to ignore that Barth happened), so let go with that. "Absolute dependance upon" ie. religious feeling Can you with a straight face tell me that "IN REASON WE TRUST" is not an expression of religious feeling? CommieGIR posted:The people Noah left during the (fictional) world flood would like a word with you. Who wrote the bible? Who wrote the Pentateuch? Why is your point a non-sequitor to someone who thinks the documentary hypothesis is correct and who thinks that theodicy is bullshit? SedanChair posted:This is just accusing humanism of nihilism framed in a different way. Actually they aren't being nihilistic. I am. I'm the one being destructive of created values and meaning. mdemone posted:What I've always wanted someone to address is why the 1st-century Nazorians apparently thought Jesus lived and died during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE), as the Christian scholar Epiphanius reports in his 4th-century compilation of "heresies". There were Jewish groups that had messiahs well before and well after Jesus. That at isn't something that has stopped either. There are a lot of Jewish messiah claimants (even recent ones, like within our lifetime). Vespasian might have even been one! http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah/messianic_claimants13.html
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Nov 19, 2014 18:57
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McDowell posted:Brandor you are so close to recognizing Do's message: all Earthly things are idolatry, especially the material church organizations. Christians affirm creation as good. There's a reason for that. Those off shoot groups who thought the material world was evil and the secret spiritual world was good, that all ways goes to weird (and harmful) places. I will say yes to God's earth and Do can keep his comet. SedanChair posted:You shouldn't though, because humanistic values are backed by evidence. If you're gonna label "doing what works and lets people get along and have good brain feelings and food to eat" as "created values" as a way to liken it to flogging yourself on Ashura, I would argue that you're being insincere. I have a different foundation for my humanism. We all are children of the Father and brothers and sisters of Christ. My humanism is a revealed value. But you're right they derive their humanism from evidence. From evidence, from sense perception, that's the epistemology they start with to reach a conclusion of humanism. Thing is epistemologies rest on ontologies. One has to make assumptions about what is and is not before one goes about thinking how do I know about things. "Knowledge knows nothing save that it knows nothing; it must take refuge in faith." We should be honest about our foundations, about our ground, about what the things we believe are dependent upon and the necessary (but usually hidden) leaps we take to have those beliefs. But yes humanism is a created value unless it's a discovered or revealed value. Maybe I can say this more simply. What came up with humanism? We either created it, discovered it, or it was revealed. mdemone posted:I wholeheartedly agree that Paul was multiple people writing at different times. It's pretty clear that about half of the letters are one person, and it's generally agreed to be Paul, and that person calls himself Paul.
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Nov 19, 2014 20:20
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CommieGIR posted:God of the gaps argument, right here. Any leaps we must have taken MUST have been based on faith, therefore god. I'm not doing a proof. All proofs of God are nonsense. I'm saying we all have something our beliefs are fundamentally dependent upon that we accept by faith, those assumptions are idols, gods ("gods" are not God) CommieGIR posted:Humanism has nothing to do with god, and shows you have a distinct lack of ability to grasp 'divinity' versus 'sociology' Talk about Jesus as the Christ, is talk about humanity. In Jesus Christ there is no isolation of man from God or of God from man. Rather, in Him we encounter the history, the dialogue, in which God and man meet together and are together, the reality of the covenant MUTUALLY contracted, preserved, and fulfilled by them.- The Humanity of God Karl Barth A good book very much worth reading http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Humanity_of_God.html?id=ualdKvF5cdoC
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Nov 19, 2014 20:50
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McDowell posted:Has anyone pointed out how the classic Catholic imagery of Mary is very clearly Yonic? I can't believe I missed this earlier. A lot of the earliest imagery for Jesus is Yonic too. Turn the fish vertical. A vulva with little butt cheeks below it (the tail). Why because Sophia - God's feminine wisdom. They took fish from another cult, that I can't remember the name of right now. I've read that the ΙΧΘΥΣ stuff is after the fact justification for the symbol (dammit I don't remember where). Anyway some icons are hilarious with that in mind the haloed head of Christ, very much looks like a clitoris. Even images of saints: http://imgur.com/nTfzcbH Vulvas everywhere in Christian imagery. Often multiples in a single image! VitalSigns posted:Well of course it is. This is Rationalism and it might as well be religion. No one is a Rationalist anymore though (well okay praxeologists) so who gives a poo poo. That's actually why I give a poo poo that FFRF is using it as an ad line actually. I think that's where it's coming from.
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Nov 19, 2014 21:21
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Panzeh posted:What's funny is, other gods as you say actually offer something real. Money is power, reason gives you knowledge about the real world, fame is recognition, but God offers nothing. You can pray all you like but you will receive nothing. Might as well worship the gods that offer tangible rewards, the ones closer to D&D than the bible. Oh it's worse than that even. I think that if one is really exceptional at following the example of Christ, loving and accepting all others, mocking power and authority, overturning tables of hypocrisy, well people tend to get killed for that. Kyrie eleison posted:Of course I doubt these things, but when it comes down to it, one has to accept Scripture. There isn't much point of reading the Bible if you aren't going to accept that it means what it says. I'm curious about how you interpret the conquest of Canaan. You're Catholic, you've got scholasticism in your tradition. Texts have multiple meanings. As for Joshua, it's probably not factual historically. Any good intro to understanding the bible textbook will tell you that too. It's a book about faithfulness, monarchy, and God's mercy, and it's from well after (700-800 years after, events 1300 BCE writing probably 600 BCE ish) the events it writes about. What are the Deuteronomists (the group the author was probably from) trying to do in 630-622. Judea is vassal state of Assyria, Assyria is losing power, and the D group wants an independent state. What does the Book of Joshua look like in light of that? It's an state origin myth. How/why origin myths are used and formed, I personally think that's much more interesting and useful to understanding the world right now. mdemone posted:I'm certainly aware that this is the prevailing theory. Mostly I just find it suspicious that Paul never sees fit to refer to Jesus as having really existed, if just in an offhand manner, not even once. You know Paul is in Acts right? "And within an hour he was preaching in the synagogue of the Jews about Yeshua, that he is The Son of God." (Aramaic in Plain English) ShadowCatboy posted:One of these influences was Platonic idealism. Here's the thing. Christian does mesh with neo-platonism quite well. But then again it meshes with Aristotelianism quite well (see the Catholics). But then again it meshes with existentialism quite well. It's content is independent of the philosophical vehicle. Hell there are even examples of positivism meshed with Christianity. And again the early Greek influence is a reaction. The more Jewish group being dead combined with having to respond to Roman stoic critique (Eg. Celsus) then later getting drawn back being restricted by responses to the heretical groups. What ever language is the most adequate expression of living life as a Christian at the moment Christianity can/does/has use(d). And if you're going down the route I think you are, that Jesus fellow lots of partying, eating and drinking with fishermen, whores, and tax collectors not particularly ascetic. John the Baptist now that's an ascetic. Jesus not so much.
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Nov 20, 2014 16:48
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What reason would the author of acts have to say Paul was talking to Jews about Jesus if he wasn't? What would fabricating that accomplish? Why would Paul take the the collection to the Jesus Movement in Jerusalem not knowing who Jesus was? And of course Luke/Acts is cribbing from Greek/ Roman myths. The birth narrative is more of that too. They had to have a birth narrative because Roman emperors had one. Edit: Who, Miltank saw your posts probably won't respond until at least tomorrow. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 18:45
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Look I'm just saying it's a pretty extraordinary claim to say Paul didn't know about Jesus. Luke/Acts having sections being derived from Roman / Greek myths is pretty well known (but it's debatable if Luke/Acts is apology or a subversion and personally I lean towards subversion). Seriously though. This guy traveling between all those Jesus movement churches, really didn't know about Jesus? Come on.
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Nov 20, 2014 19:05
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ShadowCatboy posted:As for asceticism, by "asceticism" I'm not saying that Jesus himself is ascetic. I'm saying that unlike Judaism, Christians (under the influence of Platonism) adopted a disdain for material reality with preferred emphasis on the ideal or divine. While this is now a defining feature of Christianity, it is not something originated with Christianity nor can it be credited to Christianity. The idea of Catholicism or Christianity being a unique, unadulterated, special-snowflake, one-true-religion religion is absolutely false. And you are wrong to say that! At least in terms of Christian doctrine. Christians affirm God's creation. They say "Yes to God's Earth" and Christian doctrine rejects dualism. WE said no to the Gnostics, with the whole secret spitural world is good, material world is bad creation of a demiurge business. Now some Christians definitely have gnostic leanings are anti-material and dualistic. But Christianity isn't, at-least all the denominations that matter aren't. ShadowCatboy posted:So yes, technically Christianity CAN mesh with Aristotelianism well, but it took a while of butting heads with the Aristotelian philosophers before this happened. And when you look at how Americans treated it, Christianity can also mesh really well with slavery, capitalism, and preemptive warfare. Christianity isn't a solely top-down force in affecting the world. Politics, philosophy, and culture have influenced Christianity drastically over the centuries and now has only very tenuous links with its roots, despite the multiple reformations that attempted to purge it of its foreign elements and get back to its roots. A more detailed response to this is at the end of the post. But The most important theological thing that happened in the 20th century, is a "NO" to Christianity tying itself to any of these things. But, I'll get to that. mdemone posted:My position is that Paul didn't think Jesus walked the earth, and that his letters bear that out. Then why was he trying to bring him back. And I'm not kidding with that statement. Paul risks everything on parousia, a return of Jesus. There aren't letters after Romans, because Paul delivers the Jerusalem collection during Pentecost. Money from all those churches, that all his letters were addressed to, delivered to the temple. Paul’s act looks patterned on something else to me, the triumphant entry palm Sunday, and Paul's letters show him obsessed with collecting this money over a long period of time. Paul rolls in and shitstorm ensues. The Jerusalem Jesus movement rejects the money (the opposite of what is in Acts). Paul pisses so many people off they take him back to Rome to kill him. Importantly I also cannot ignore the most important interpretation of Paul’s last letter Romans, this all has to do with the subtext of Romans. A paraphrasing of that commentary is: God revealed in Jesus on the Cross opposes and defeats all efforts to identify God with human culture, achievements, possessions, or governments. What Paul is saying in Roman hinges on the cross! On Jesus having been a real person who was crucified by Rome! And there is the root. Shadowcatboy do you see what's going on now. All those things Christianity gets meshed with our root, the cross, denies, opposes, defeats, any final synthesis with any of those things. I've told you this before but it's a drat shame philosophy of religion classes never get past Schleiermacher, never past liberal theology, never past the perfect word of God business. Barth smashes liberal theology to pieces, he denies the attempt to have final synthesis of the root of Christianity with philosophy, because any of those synthesis put the Son of Man on the Cross. He does this with Paul's last letter. And Paul's last letter depends on the death of Jesus on the Cross (and general speaking one has walk on the earth, to get crucified on it). Summarized, Paul thought Jesus was crucified, that's pretty strong evidence that he thought he was a person. It's also a big loving deal, because it's what Barth's NO is based on. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 19:50
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Buckwheat Sings posted:It's good to know that as long as I say I think someone is crucified then they are real. Want to really be confused? It's not in that post, but the whole point of crucifying someone was to deny them existence, it's a statement of: you are nothing and won't even leave a corpse.
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Nov 21, 2014 20:18
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Miltank posted:Brandor is your argument that religion is ideology and ideology is an inescapable cultural constant? Or is it something more complex than that? It's back to Barth's Commentary on Romans. No synthesis between God and human ideas / culture is possible, all potential synthesis crucify. If I think of God in terms of Being-itself, reality, truth; and of religion as dealing with those topics; where does that go? It goes to I should object to any ideology that claims to have truth or that claims to really let us know anything about reality. Then it get more complicated, that guy I'm obsessed with, Tillich, he's a reaction to Barth. He's trying to pick up the all pieces of what Barth smashes. See Shadowcatboy isn't wrong, there is all that history of Christianity being meshed with other ideas. That can't be denied either. Maybe there is or can be correlation (which is not a synthesis). See this Jacobeus posted:If God is beyond judgement then so are his teachings and Christian morality, and thus our acceptance of them can only come from a belief in God's supreme authority, nowhere else. isn't wrong. Barth's "No" leaves only Kerygma, proclamation of revelation, throwing stones at heads. Unless correlation is possible and it (correlation) has it's problems too. Edit: Who does my response to Miltank address why we might not communicate? Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 20:22
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CommieGIR posted:....what? No, the point of crucifixion was to publicly shame and demonstrate your suffering to others as a warning and to dissuade criminals, especially with crimes against the state. and to destroy your corpse (generally eaten by dogs and crow, see Crossan) so as to prevent a burial. What does that mean in Jewish context of that time period?
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Nov 21, 2014 20:25
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CommieGIR posted:I'd point out that more often than not, after dead the corpse was returned or could be claimed. If it was not claimed or asked for, yep, you'd be scavenged. Again going with Crossan here, no they didn't generally return the corpses. Some people had money and could bribe people to get one, but generally they were left up to disintegrate. (Edit; and generally people with money, important people, were executed in other ways) And the evidence is the lack crucified bodies. There is like one, or at most handful (depending on who you read). There are accounts of ranging from lot's to assloads of crucifixions. That's really odd the lack of crucified bodies in culture where the burial of the dead was so important, isn't it?
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Nov 21, 2014 20:41
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CommieGIR posted:Still doesn't really stand up to what you think crucifixion is about. While the rotting of the body on the cross might have been an end result, it was not the purpose of crucifixion as you imply it was. It was just an end result. The crucified are the lowest, the poo poo, the dregs, the nothings. The asses up on crosses.  Who What Now posted:Are we swimming in excavated Jewish corpses or something? There are basically none. But there are lots and lots of documents talking about lots and lots of crucified Jews. Low end is lots. High end is holy gently caress me they crucified a lot of Jews!
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Nov 21, 2014 21:19
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Who What Now posted:That is legit something someone scribbled down while high on mescaline, you mean. It's the Alexamenos graffito, also called the graffito blasfemo.
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Nov 21, 2014 21:34
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ShadowCatboy posted:So how exactly does your conception of God mesh with Christianity? Is it something unique to Christianity, or can that logic be also applied to bolster other religious traditions? Like, arguing that Allah is "being itself, not A being"? No that's a good question. Can my logocentrism really be compatible with my universalism? Do I have argue that Christianity is fundamentally superior to other religious traditions because of this? I don't know. I do know that I'm starting to think that particular I argue is a religion is using method of correlation in a really harmful way. rkajdi posted:The Romans greatly exaggerated the sizes of the armies they fought against, why would you assume they wouldn't do the same with the number of dissidents they murdered? That's why physical evidence is important. Othewise, we'd be stuck with piles of counter-factual history. Again the low end is a lot of people. And where did the more Jewish, less Greek-Jewish Jesus movement groups suddenly disappear to? It's almost like something happened to a lot of them all at once during the Roman-Jewish war.
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Nov 21, 2014 21:55
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Here's another question I've had. That's penal substitution and it's Calvinist. There were ransom type, substitutionary type, conceptualizations of salvation in the early church but those are different beasts from penal substitution. And in many of the earlier substitutionary ideas the death of Jesus does redeem the whole of existence/creation. GAINING WEIGHT... posted:It's also been explained to me that all sin is equal in God's eye. That is, whether we think one impure thought or murder 10 people, we've still sinned, and sin is unacceptable however it manifests. You cannot be in God's presence if you're soiled by sin. What is sin? Is it specific actions? Is it a state? It depends on what denomination you ask. For the Catholics it's more like a list of harmful action, that move one away from God. On the Protestant side, sin can be more of a state, like a statement that we are separate from God and each other and ourselves. And in that understanding that we are separate is that we are in sin! It's not a: well you'll try to behave well and eventually gently caress up type situation. It's: We are separate and that is a consequence of having existence type situation. GAINING WEIGHT... posted:So my question is, why strive not to sin? Hell, why not strive to "Sin Boldly". To be ourselves fully, utterly unafraid of breaking some arbitrary rules list.
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Nov 24, 2014 15:21
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Who What Now posted:I feel like this may be a sticking point for why you and I have such difficulty communicating. I think I might have a way to crack this nut. Here's a song, that's a story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnJVkEX8O4 That's: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. Let's look at the problem of interpreting that song. The first way we can interpret that song is literal. Is the song literally true or not? Is it a broken myth (not literally true) or an unbroken myth (literally true). Well that's complicated. The events as described aren't something that really happened, but they are roughly based on something that really happened (The Ribbon Creek Incident). So it's broken but has parts inside of it that might be unbroken. In a conversation about religion, why does this broken/unbroken stuff matter? Well monotheism, or at least simplistic monotheism, only tolerates unbroken myths. Everything that isn't true is a false idol. So that situation is: X is literally true or it is not. And then X's validity as a belief is dependent on it's literal truth. This is the way a lot of you look at religion. This is the way many evangelicals look at the bible. The question at this level of interpretation is "Is this literally true or not?" If one is asking that question, again that's monotheistic (not necessarily Christian monotheistic, but definitely monotheistic). Because it presumes one reality or truth. When Kyrie treats the bible as literally true, I think this is why. When anti-theists (thank you Reza Aslan http://www.salon.com/2014/11/21/reza_aslan_sam_harris_and_new_atheists_arent_new_arent_even_atheists/ I like that distinction and will use that word) are worried about the literal truth of the bible, I think this is why. But there are other ways to interpret that song. It's definitely metaphor/symbol. It's pretty clearly about Vietnam and Johnson's escalation of Vietnam. It's drat prescient (written 67) and damned true in that context. But, in order to be true in this metaphorical way, the song has to be broken in a literal way. Because then it's actually about something other than what it's literally about. This is broken myth affirming a metaphorical, symbol, (existential) truth. When I can openly say "Part of Luke is fabricated" but then still go on to use it anyway, that's this type of interpretation. Now within Christianity these things butt heads. On one side you've got the literalists, the fundamentalists, the "Christianity is unbroken truth!" crowd. On the other side, there are the de-mythologizers, the Historical Jesus Scholars, etc, breaking the myth. Well I don't think I have to be on one side or the other! But I think that a preoccupation with the literal truth, a conversation of, discussion of: is this or that text or this or that idea literally true? That is a very monotheistic conversation, a very religious conversation. A discussion of if one can know about reality by evidence or testing vs a revealed text, that is a very monotheistic conversation. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Nov 24, 2014 |
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Nov 24, 2014 18:56
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Kyrie eleison posted:To doubt his words on Joshua is to doubt his words on everything else. Doubt is function of reason, of thought, and skeptism, skeptomai, - to look at, is an act of love! Critical examination of our texts does not threaten faith! I don't believe the Logos can be threatened by logos. And even if we doubt, to doubt is not to lose our faith! But what can happen if we don't doubt? And if we don't doubt we don't think. We can have scales on our eyes and hard hearts and miss truth right in front of us. Kyrie eleison posted:Let us look at our brother and sister and neighbor and see ourselves, in a spirit of love And this, I think is the only way forward. Trent posted:I can't believe we're still stuck on "atheists have faith too"  This month's FFRF ad. "Let's reinvent a reverence for our real creator Nature", even capitalized "Nature." If they aren't anthropomorphized can they still be put in a pantheon? And since Zizek got posted, some Hegel: "After its battle with religion the best reason could manage was to take a look at itself and come to self-awareness. Reason, having in this way become mere intellect, acknowledges its own nothingness by placing that which is better than it in a faith outside and above itself, as a Beyond to be believed in. This is what has happened in the philosophies of Kant, Jacobi and Fichte. Philosophy has made itself the handmaiden of a faith once more. " Black Bones posted:I mean what kind of goofball would knowingly choose to be a pathetic loser if they could also choose to be cool and righteous?? I mean who wouldn't choose all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor right? Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Nov 25, 2014 |
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Nov 25, 2014 16:04
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paragon1 posted:I'll give you great blessings and eternal life if you give yourself and all you have wholly over to me, but only after you're dead. It would be. But new life, new being in Christ Jesus, is a right here and right now, an immediate sort of thing, fortunately.
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Nov 25, 2014 16:27
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Who What Now posted:The Freedom From Religion Foundation is not the church of atheism and does not represent all or even a majority of atheists, HTH. I know and what I'm doing with it is probably not entirely fair, and not necessarily only about the the arguments of the thread. But it is illustrative of that the meta issues often blamed on "religion" are more universal (which I respond to by thinking about all of it as religion) and are problems that any group centered around any ideology have to deal with and confront. CommieGIR posted:
Then they should stop appealing to Reason, Nature, etc. Then they shouldn't run public advertisements talking about salvation? The problem is not my framing, it's the actual things they are doing. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Nov 25, 2014 |
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Nov 25, 2014 16:36
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FFRF is not a church, and your attempts to frame them as such is really annoying.
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Who What Now posted:So you admit that it's unfair but you aren't going to stop. Fantastic, good to know that you care more about the meta-narrative of your posting career than with being intellectually honest. You were doing so well for awhile, I'm disappointed in you. Oh I am definitely being honest, but I'm not being fair. rudatron posted:Talking about 'salvation' is really dodgy (and even the christian idea of salvation is iffy), but it's necessary to appeal to something if you're trying to convince someone else, right? Right, and one is always, always, offering an alternative. Sometimes those alternatives are obvious eg. Nature, Reason, etc. But the whole line of well we aren't like that, we don't believe in gods, it's nonsense because there is always an alternative (accepted by faith) being offered. GAINING WEIGHT... posted:my general trust in the accuracy of the scientific method are not both "religions". What is an alternative being offered here? Gaining weight trusts in something concrete and specifically defined. This is what consistently bothers me. A profession of faith in X, paired with an assertion that the profession of faith in X is not religious. This is where I'm not being fair. An alternative is always being offered. The FFRF ads I'm posting, the offered alternative is transparent in those ads. It's easy to see. It's not as easy to see in the posters in this thread. But it's there, because it's always there. Because "it's it's necessary to appeal to something if you're trying to convince someone else. There is always an object of faith, there is always something being presented as you should trust in this as opposed to trusting in that. I'm posting a case (the FFRF ads) where it is drat easy to see, illustrative of this point, and I'm being pretty harsh about it. Am I'm being less harsh to Christians? ( I think not) Thing is, what I'm saying is can be simplified to: It's ok and necessary to doubt whatever we trust in! And it is ironic for atheists to not acknowledge that.
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Nov 25, 2014 18:33
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CommieGIR posted:Once again, confusing 'Faith' meaning 'Trust' versus 'Faith' meaning 'Religious' There is trust in a set of beliefs relating humanity to an order of existence or being. And don't give me that well it's just an epistemology crap, epistemologies always imply ontologies. Bitterandtwisted, I'm usually (but not always) taking my understanding of faith and what religion is from here: http://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Faith-Perennial-Classics-Tillich/dp/0060937130). My the whole justification of thinking of things "as religion" is taken from "On a theology of culture" an essay in this book http://www.amazon.com/Theology-Culture-Galaxy-Books-Tillich/dp/0195007115. I also often use ideas from Christ in Culture: http://www.amazon.com/Christ-Culture-Torchbooks-Richard-Niebuhr/dp/0061300039. A good explanation of some of these ways of analyzing culture can be found in "Film as Religion" http://www.amazon.com/Film-Religion-Myths-Morals-Rituals/dp/0814751814. This is a good book in so far as it describes it's methodology at the start in a excellent way, but it then goes on to do very forgettable film analysis.
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Nov 25, 2014 18:54
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VitalSigns posted:What is the point of posting this poo poo? Ever solve complicated engineering or physics problems? Sometimes looking at a problem in two dimensions and setting the frame of reference in way that simplifies everything, eventually makes solving the problem in three dimensions with a problematic frame of reference easier. One can work out methodology, how the problem can be addressed in the simpler case and then apply that to the real problem. It's real easy to see what I'm talking about in those FFRF ads, it's a simplified version of the problem. rudatron posted:But you're assuming that that alternative must also be grounded in faith, and that seems kind of misguided. It is possible to be irreligious and retain 'faith', but your claiming it is necessary - I don't agree with that. Then we have faith communities, groups of people that identify with by a common professed faith in, trust in X (whatever X is). Now that's not an organized religion, it doesn't have a hierarchy or and organizational structure, but it's definitely religion using most definitions of religion. rudatron posted:You're right that the logic of faith is similar, but I don't think that that logic must always apply. I think applies if we think, or have an ideology, our communicate with language. In the case it doesn't apply all we have is left is "feeling" and but that's usually understood as religious too.
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Nov 25, 2014 19:16
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Who What Now posted:however, intentionally misrepresenting what the FRFF is saying and attempting to mislead your audience by doing a bait-and-switch where you start by just referring to the FFRF I am in no way misrepresenting what they have to say, just pointing at it. It speaks for itself. Thing is nobody is unbiased. No one can escape having their ideology affect their beliefs and arguments and how they present facts. Edit: and that's part of the point I'm making. Who What Now posted:Sorry, but you don't get to dictate what other people do or do not believe. And I'm not, fortunately. Edit: I'm commenting on how they believe. CommieGIR posted:Please define the word religion, and present in context the root Latin it comes from. Well, if you insist on the literal. I like that which relates humanity to reality or meaning or truth. re- again, or to go over again (and this prefix might originate with this word, apparently) lego to choose or ligo to bind connect, link, join It's probably sloppy of me to like both lego and ligo. But to go over again and again the choices we make binding and connecting things, well that's pretty good description of religious dialogue, both internal and ecumenical. In my personal context that usually refers to a "set of beliefs relating humanity to an order of existence or being"
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Nov 25, 2014 19:41
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Who What Now posted:You also don't get to dictate to people how they believe. No but I can look at it, think about it, and argue that it has this characteristic or that characteristic, and relate and compare it to how other people believe. And come on now. You're going to tell me these ads are satire? It's well targeted evangelization aimed at a very specific audience, they run them in Scientific American.
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Nov 25, 2014 20:08
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The in reason we trust business yes. But you're ignoring the quotations, Donald Johnson's and Goldstein's words. That salvation business, that nature business, these people actually say these things!
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Nov 25, 2014 20:15
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VitalSigns posted:Christianity and all Christians are irredeemably evil though. As ironclad proof of this, I present a single Christian saying a thing My point is that all people need to doubt the things they have faith in! Why might this image be supportive of my point?
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Nov 25, 2014 20:30
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VitalSigns posted:Oh well doubt is pretty central to the scientific method, as all theories must be verified, experimental results must be repeatable, and all theories are in principle subject to falsification by future observations. I see: our ability to know is absolutely dependent upon this specific methodology which is a thing we came up with. Potato Potato Tomato Tomato. CommieGIR posted:Regardless, the difference between doubting science and reality versus doubting the divine and revered in religion is immense. Yeah the religious folk have a much longer documented history of doing peer review.
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Nov 25, 2014 20:55
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CommieGIR posted:Either you are troll or this is literally one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Yo the Catholics just did some of this poo poo. Didn't go the way I would want it to. They get together in a council and they talk at length about the things they believe, people make arguments for and against, then they vote and say we will go this way and not that way, will affirm these arguments and not those ones. Sometimes this happens between denominations, they come together go through a similiar process and then yeah we agree about enough to take communion at each others churches. There is close to two thousand of years of what is community, peer, review in Christianity and it's really well documented. Edit: and sometimes this happens at a really local level. The Lutheran Pietists would be a good example. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Nov 25, 2014 |
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Nov 25, 2014 21:04
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My God it's almost like I put in a basic effort to check and make sure I'm not being an idiot before I post. I have my initial reactions, but I eventually look up almost everything. This ranges in seriousness. From as low effort as browsing a wiki before I post, to reading textbooks or scholarly works, to slogging through every single Koch industries internal corporate newsletter ever written. On the other hand I'm arguing with people who don't even bother to Google image search.
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Nov 25, 2014 21:16
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Science is a process, not a belief system. Faith is a process too. We should doubt our processes.
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Nov 25, 2014 21:42
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paragon1 posted:A thing isn't new just because you or someone else said it is new, hth. Bible and most Christian dogma makes it quite clear that the rewards of following the Word comes in the next life, not this one. In fact, following Jesus's teachings is supposed to catch you a world of poo poo and be super hard, hope this helps. I would argue that much of early Christianity was mortalist. And mortalist largely because of the greek influence. "The Greeks called themselves "the mortals" because they experienced that which is immortal." What is athanatos gnosis? What is immortality? What do people copying sections of Greek and Roman stories to put into their own account of a deity (as previously discussed happens in Luke), in what way do they think? Probably like Greeks. What is immortality for Achilles? The people that the whole concept of Word is taken from (the Stoics), what do they think is immortality? When the first death in Jesus movement happens and the resurrection of the body doesn't happen immediately happen what types of conclusions is that going to lead people to. The concept of an immortal soul independent of a body is a more recent thing! Another explaination of this from A History of Christian Thought, lecture on the Apostolic Fathers Clement. Ignatius. http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=2310&C=2310 Emphasis mine: "This identity of truth and being mediates the other side. namely life. Christ gives immortal knowledge, the knowledge which gives immortality. He is the saviour and leader of immortality. He is in His being our imperishable life, He gives both the knowledge of immortality and the drug of immortality. which is the sacrament. Ignatius calls the Lord's Supper the antidotonto me apothanein . the remedy against our having to die, This idea that the sacramental materials of the Lord's Supper are, so to speak, drugs or remedies which produce immortality, has a very profound meaning. It shows. first of all, one thing: these Apostolic Fathers did not believe in the immortality of the soul, There is no natural immortality. otherwise it would be meaningless for them to speak about immortal life. appearing and given to us in Christ, But they believed that man is natural..–..mortal, exactly as the Old Testament believes; that in Paradise man was able to participate in the food of the gods, called the "tree of life", and to keep alive by participating in this Divine power. In the same way the Apostolic Fathers said that with the coming of Christ the situation of Paradise is reestablished. Now we again participate in the food of eternity, which is the body and the blood of Christ, and in doing so we build in ourselves the counter-balance against the natural having to die. Death is the wages of sin only insofar as sin is the separation from God, and therefore God's power to overcome our natural having to die – from dust to dust, as the Old Testament says,. – does hot work any more: and now it works again, in Christ. and it is seen in a sacramentally realistic way in the materials of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Now if you see this, then you can at least say one thing -- that our traditional speaking of the immortality of the soul is not classically Christian tradition, but is a distortion of it, not in a genuine but in a pseudo-Platonic sense." ShadowCatboy posted:I only know a little about BrandorKP's favored author, Paul Tillich, who from what I gather tried to reinterpret Christianity in a more postmodern/existential manner. Whereas traditional theologians defined God as a being which is presumed to exist, Tillich instead works from a definition of "God" that is very... esoteric. Right and where does doing that come from, because it has a long history in Christianity. It comes from the first Christian apology. It's reaction. It comes from responding to: "1) that Christianity is a danger to the Roman Empire. This was the political accusation, that it undermines the structure of this empire. 2) that, philosophically speaking, Christianity is nonsense, a superstition mixed with philosophical fragments. " It's reasonable to expect the same reaction if the same critique is presented. And unless there is a new critique, it's reasonable to expect the same same resolution of the argument. ShadowCatboy posted:Yes, both atheists and theists express some form of "trust" or "dedication" in their beliefs, and they are similar in that respect. Right, and that's the point I've been harping on. Some people in this thread trust in a particular methodology, one that is an idea that people came up with, the scientific method. Some people in this thread trust in a particular story, one that people came up with, but that probably has elements of a real event. I'm an rear end in a top hat that trusts in unknowable Being-itself revealed in Christ Jesus that we encounter in others via the Spirit, which is also an idea that people came up with! But the whole point is, the conversation is between the different choices regarding what each of us has faith in. It's not a conversation between we have faith in and we don't. And you're right, you get to the end of it and it starts over, it just repeats, endlessly, circularly. A repeating conversation about our choices regarding how we relate or link or connect things together. Who What Now posted:I cannot picture Brandor out in the world functioning like an actual adult. What must it be like working with him? Do the people around him live in constant dread of saying something to set him off on another rant? Quiet, reserved, confident, thorough, and excessively professional. You all get an unfiltered almost stream of consciousness fire hose here. Honestly it's because I like most of you (hmmm, maybe I am crazy) and I enjoy arguing with you. In real life, not a goddamn word, nobody knows what my internal beliefs and thoughts are (outside of my wife). Which is weird, considering that I think every single thing posted here is utterly public. Ogmius815 posted:Look up some of the rejected gospels that include infancy narratives. They're pretty entertaining. Or look up some of the rejected gospels that expand on the "beloved" disciple. Beloved is a loaded concept, that implies sex. The images of the beloved disciple are often of a beardless youth, that Greek ideal boy image, meaning it was pretty clearly thought of in the greek sense of "beloved". Great deal of variety in the stories about who Jesus was boning. But most of them are really late 2-3-400's which means it's right they are rejected and marginal. Rejected acts stories are even better. Shark tank self baptisms! Mr Magoo-esc comic relief versions of Paul! CommieGIR posted:The PROCESS is not the issue in the scientific process, the hypothesis being verified or disproved is the part being verified. Right the current hypothesis supported by data and testing changes all the time as new data a new tests happen. That makes it very problematic to live based on beliefs derived in that way. The process isn't absolute it's not universally applicable, they're are other process to reach beliefs that are more appropriate in certain situations. Doubting not placing all of ones trust , in any particular epistemological process, affords one the freedom of being able to choose between them as appropriate situation-ally. Science great for knowing I should use antibiotic to treat this bacterial infection, not great at "What does it mean to be?" Turning to community or tradition great for thinking about "Who am I and where am I from?" Terrible for knowing should I vaccinate my child? Doubt in any one of these things as an absolute, allows for the use of all of them.
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Nov 26, 2014 17:24
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