my dad posted:

Why, whyyyyy do so many Paradox games players believe that the mechanics of Paradox games are how the world actually works?

SirPhoebos posted:

Hello Christian goons! This is an excellent thread. I am a lapsed Jew, and I have a bunch of questions. I'll start with the simplest.

Regarding the Trinity, "Father" and "Son" is pretty self explanatory, but what is "Holy Spirit" supposed to be?

Bollock Monkey posted:

I saw a thing saying that lurkers should just post, and whilst I'm not much of a lurker here I haven't seen this broached in my skim-reads of this thread. I have always wondered how people know they've picked the right religion/the right version of a religion and I'm interested to hear some thoughts on that, if anyone's happy to tell me any. Whilst I appreciate that not all religious institutions/individuals have the same "If you don't believe exactly what I do then you're going to Hell!" thing, as I understand it there is usually some degree of feeling that your version is the 'correct' one to some degree or another and I find that interesting because it's something I just don't have context to understand. So... How do you know you picked correctly?

Paramemetic posted:

Well the historical leap is not a leap to them at the time of writing, because they weren't several thousand years removed. Though the Gospels weren't written by direct apostles they were written by guys who knew the apostles, probably, or at least were written in a timely enough fashion such that they could identify the guy.

I mean, I would say probably the historical accuracy of which middle Eastern dude 2000 years ago was the Messiah is much less important than the lessons being taught but that's probably a minority opinion, though I'd say that historicity is less important than one's personal relation with God right now, and I imagine that's agreeable.

Worthleast posted:

This is why I love Aquinas, because for how academic and goony he really was, the man had a prayer life that anchored everything in reality. Look at the office he composed for Corpus Christi. It's all super doctrinal, yet full of obvious love.

quote:

On the cross Thy Godhead
Made no sign to men;
Here Thy very manhood
Steals from human ken:
Both are my confession,
Both are my belief;
And I pray the prayer
Of the dying thief.

I am not like Thomas,
Wounds I cannot see,
But I plainly call Thee
Lord and God as he;
This faith each day deeper
Be my holding of,
Daily make me harder
Hope and dearer love.

pidan posted:

Basically what happened is, I read some Bible to find some sort of relationship with Jesus, and it turns out maybe I don't like him that much, even though his friends talk really highly of him. Or maybe it's that the sermons of Jesus read like a commentary on first century Israeli politics, and not so much a guide on things that are relevant today. It has lots of texts like these:

Tias posted:

I'm back from a seminar, and was told that( direct quote) "my God is not big enough". It translates badly, but essentially the teacher thought I had found faith but not trust in the divine, because I was still caught up too much with worry and regret over my life. I tend to agree, and have shifted my prayers to ask for the ability to trust in God.

If anyone itt could tell me about their personal level of trust in God, and how they came to have it, I would be very grateful. I find that I can believe in God just fine, but I still find myself wanting to control life and unable to trust that whatever has to happen, will happen.

Tias posted:

Thanks, this is really good stuff I guess I meant that I try to control the universe: other people, institutions, uncontrollable entities - because I cannot bear the universe as it is.

Cythereal posted:

Just spent about ten minutes broken down and praying. I just don't understand how this could have happened. The next four to eight years are going to be awful, plus the long-lasting damage the GOP-controlled supreme court and congress will do. And the inevitable wars Trump will get us into, which have a real risk of going nuclear.

I just don't understand.

Tias posted:

Hillary would probably have started a couple more wars, so I'm not really convinced we ended worse off, but he's definitely going down as the worst prez in history.

Jedi Knight Luigi posted:

I suppose if that were to happen to you, you would "turn the other cheek"?

Jedi Knight Luigi posted:

I don't disagree, but are you basically advocating for a Christianized Weather Underground?

Deteriorata posted:

For the sake of the country and its citizens, I hope Trump does a superb job.

There's just nothing in his CV that suggests he will be in the slightest bit competent, however.

His supporters supposedly wanted change. I don't think they're going to like the change he brings.

Mr Enderby posted:

What do you do when you can't love your enemy?

(if you're into trigger warnings, then consider one from here on out. Also let me say I know how self-absorbed it is to make a horrible crime all about my own angst.)

What prompted me to ask this is a case that's currently being tried in Hong Kong, where a banker tortured and killed two women (the facts aren't in contention, the trial is over whether he was fully responsible, given his alcohol and drug use). The perpetrator was someone I knew, quite a few years ago (no internet detectiving please). He wasn't someone I was close with, and I can't actually remember a single conversation I ever had with him, but for a period I was frequently in a group that included him. I honestly have no memory of thinking anything positive or negative about him.

When I first read about the crime, I was horrified, but was also able to summon up some vague distant compassion for him, as a clearly very disturbed and unhappy person. Then I forgot about it until today, when I read some details from the court case. These were in a very explicit article in a UK tabloid. I really don't advise anyone to look for it, as they were very disturbing. Other news sources skimmed over or skipped some of the most macabre details. Basically one of the people killed was tortured, in multiple ways specifically designed to sexually humiliate her and remove her dignity as a human. The other was killed quicker, but not before she sent some gut-wrenchingly sad texts for help.

It seems impossible to feel any compassion for the killer. I don't want to hurt him, but I hope he gets removed from society, and dropped down a hole so nobody ever has to think about his face or name again. But I'm horribly aware that that same instinct, to see other humans as objects that can be got rid of when they get inconvenient, is exactly how he treated both his victims. He's not going to vanish when he gets convicted, but will go on being a human, who is presumably just as in need of Jesus' love as everyone else.

And yet to feel pity for him seems incredibly disrespectful to the people he hurt so badly. Particularly as he was enormously privileged, and the two people he killed were migrant sex workers, a type of person who have often been treated as somehow less worthy of dignity and compassion.

tl;dr I've somehow managed to live my life so far without noticing that "love thy neighbour" is a hard command to follow.

twerking on the railroad posted:

I think that we as Christians have dropped the ball on this one. Any possible association of Trump with Jesus needed to be shot down, and maybe I personally didn't just because I didn't think anyone seriously believed it. Or maybe I didn't feel like I was a good enough Christian to go seeking out that conversation. Well they do and that needs to be fixed. And you don't need to be a good Christian or even a Christian at all to go to the Jesus wikiquote page.

Lutha Mahtin posted:

as with much in religion, it is not primarily the thing itself which has significance, rather it is the meaning behind the gesture. and i think you are right to question what the heck is going on in a country where its citizens overwhelmingly claim to be christian, yet millions and millions of these people did not react in laughter to the ham-handed religious appeals made by an orange man

Cythereal posted:

The only people here I know who voted Trump out of anything pertaining to religious reasons said they don't like Trump himself but voted GOP due to the Supreme Court - they believed they had an obligation to vote for the party that opposes abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc. There was a nice old lady at church who said she adored Hillary and thought she'd be a much better president, but she had to vote against Hillary because a Hillary presidency would mean expanded LGBT and abortion support.

Deteriorata posted:

God didn't change, the culture did. The perception of God and how he's described is what is different between the two testaments.

Thirteen Orphans posted:

I'm not unsympathetic, just acutely aware of the fragility of this thread in this area.

HEY GAL posted:

since the last thread; until the next one, probably. we should all remain friends in here

Samuel Clemens posted:

There are plenty of good Christian films. The Vatican even has an official list.

Sadly, it appears to be missing Jesus Christ Superstar, but then, nobody is perfect.

pidan posted:

Thank you
I think I'm a bit sheltered, because the idea that a person wouldn't agree that, in principle, being good is desirable and important was really foreign to me. I can't imagine rejecting the concept of the Good is a widespread opinion. Is it?

Samuel Clemens posted:

Calvary has already been mentioned in this thread, and is an essential watch, imo. Larrain's The Club is another a great film dealing with a difficult topic. So is the 2008 adaptation of Doubt.

Or, if you want something more light-hearted, go watch Man of Steel and marvel at all the Christian imagery.

CountFosco posted:

Read the Man Who Was Thursday.

Lutha Mahtin posted:

the enneagram system is a fun form of pseudoscience, and it's rome-approved!

p.s. i went to the big martin luther exhibit today. i took so many pictures, it's gonna take me a while to sift through them all

Josef bugman posted:

Thirdly, "Job" and the big problem within that, the problem of evil and the problem of a divinity that is partially malevolent?

Josef bugman posted:

Sir or Madam. I appreciate what you are most likely trying to do. However I would very much appreciate it if you did not include me in your prayers. If you wish to do something then donate to a charity of your choosing. I will discuss the rest of the content of your message later. I do apologise if I have given offence.

my dad posted:

Who shat in your cereal?

Deteriorata posted:

The Phlegmatist posted:

excuse me, as a traditionalist I know every word that comes out of His Holiness' mouth is rank heresy so give me a few moments to invent a reason why fake news is actually good or maybe I'll just start screaming about liberals and never stop


Peter Kreeft is an ex-Calvinist convert and I generally agree with him regarding the existence of an absolute morality, but wow a lot of his supporters are just plain awful people who don't understand philosophical arguments and see the devil of moral relativism in every shadow (hint: it's Mussolini and von Mises, not Martin Luther King.)

SirPhoebos posted:

Question for Catholics: What is the theological basis that gives Cardinals the power to elect a new Pope?

Josef bugman posted:

Also, is moral relativism bad, as a thing? I know this isn't the "philosophy 101" thread, but I am curious.

Josef bugman posted:

I assumed it meant "there is no fully agreed on moral standpoint for all people, therefore it is best to assume that your morals are not always the best". However I would also say that it is hard/ nigh on impossible for there to be a universal "source" for moral behaviour.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

This mindset is so alien to me. I'm perversely motivated by the expectation that selfishness and tyranny have the advantage in nearly every respect and that being a good person is alike to spiting the universe for working the way it does.

Josef bugman posted:

Because you can simply decide that God meant this to be something you need to do to further His divine plan. I mean otherwise He'd have stopped you, right? Plus then you bury the people who you've oppressed and don't need to think about them, because you won and have been forgiven.

quote:

Even if there is a heaven and it's perfect and you don't get to go I doubt that is much good for the oppressed. Especially if they don't even believe in a heaven and would actually just prefer to not be being oppressed thank you.

The Phlegmatist posted:

Can I use the word sin yet in the Christianity thread yet.

The Phlegmatist posted:

Actually I think in a lot of cases the more pressing question is why be morally good when happiness is more accessible? Why would self-deprivation be a good thing? And that's the thing that modern society struggles with.

The four cardinal virtues; prudence, justice, temperance, courage. That's fuckin' Plato. They're not new ideas.

CountFosco posted:

Being morally good is happiness. The happiness of our millenia-old consumerist culture pursues is chasing after the wind.

Those for cardinal virtues speak NOTHING of the telos. A demon could be prudent. A complete monster could act in a just way. How many demons show temperance? What could be more courageous than to rebel against God?

Samuel Clemens posted:

Despite his fondness for quoting Aquinas, Bob Page is really more into transhumanism.

Though, come to think of it, I guess there's nothing preventing someone from becoming a Christian transhumanist.

Josef bugman posted:

Are sins just those things that you "know it when you see it".

quote:

I don't know what believers you've met, but mine have been made miserable by the fact that their families do not believe and think that therefore the people who raised them are going to hell. All of them. I find that not simply distasteful and sorrowful, but deeply and patently infuriating.

Josef bugman posted:

But conscience is born out of our cultural expectations, or at least appears to be. Most people inherit (to a greater or lesser extent) the beliefs of their culture as regards good and evil. Does a conscience exist outside of that?

quote:

Perhaps, but part of me does want to get very cross with the believers who cut out members of their own family for not being pious, and are so afriad of the loving God is going to send the family they love to hell. What kind of God would do that? What kind of person would think that someone they love would do that?

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

That's a rather unpleasant dichotomy.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

If the human experience isn't spiritual, why are we even here? If the spiritual experience isn't human, then in what sense are we saved?

Josef bugman posted:

Mainly. Take a child from now back to ancient Greece and he'd wax poetic on the joys of slave ownership. Do the same and take her back to the 1700's and she'd probably believe women shouldn't have the franchise. The only other option is to either construct a conscience based on what seems like a good idea, again informed by ones cultural ideas, or in active opposition to the cultural ideas. Even the latter would still be informed by the ideas, they'd simply be based on rejection. Active personal choice would mean being able to work from first principles and even most of those are constructs to a greater or lesser extent.

quote:

We've had talks about it. I am not a close friend, though I was at one point. I agree it would be best to approach in humility. But part of me really does want to ask why she believes a God that loves her would hate her family so much. It wouldn't go anywhere good I know that. But I would still like to know.

CountFosco posted:

From the clips I've seen of this, the character of the young pope himself is a completely Satanistic figure.

Josef bugman posted:

That's the thing, from my own limited perspective, it is not broken. Her mum and dad are married for a very long time, her mum a successful writer and her dad with a job in land surveying. Her brother and her get along well, and they often seem to play articulate together and have fun. But she still sees them as going to hell because they do not believe in God. Her family is none religious, to the point of Atheism, but she was very into Church during school and it continued on to university when there was a huge break up with her boyfriend etc. Now she believes that God will not accept her family at all because of their lack of direct belief.

I find it very sad.

CountFosco posted:

I've only seen clips from the later episodes, not full episodes, so I can't say for sure, but that isn't the impression I had of how it ended.

In episode 10 he talks about how to humiliate someone effectively, and how effective it is. Then he's called diabolical and it's just laughed off. He's a complete egotist. You can see his inability to think outside of his own desires in how he literally makes little children cry.

Just because he's working to remove a corrupt sister in Africa or exile a paedophile Bishop to Alaska doesn't mean he's doing God's work. He's Satan, he knows his own, and he hates them just as much as he hates everyone else.

Another example. He says that Gutierrez has transformed fear into anger. He congratulates growing anger in Gutierrez, stokes that flame. Does that seem Christian to you?

pidan posted:

He already played an Italian in Sleuth so I guess someone out there thinks he looks Italian.

I'd watch young pope if I knew where to find it, and also if I had the time to watch TV serials.

... as things stand I just watch the regular old Pope.