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The Phlegmatist posted:I still wish I had that book that was basically "Chinese legends about dogs" drat, I'm only septuple-possessed.
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Jan 6, 2017 10:41
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Tias posted:What would your denomination think of asking God to take complete control of your life for the day? I think there's two ways to look at it (at least): In the Lord's Prayer Jesus tells us to prey for God's will to happen. That's the same thing. A pop song I like has a line that goes roughly like "I can plan my whole life; the wife, the career, the house - but everything goes differently. Someone is better at planning than me." It's a humble prayer to pray and one that is not always easy. On the other hand, technically we don't own ourselves to begin with, in the sense that God has created everything and despite other claims of ownership, ultimately everything is his. Asking him to take control is sort of acknowledging him as the creator and lord of the universe.
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Jan 8, 2017 14:08
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Josef bugman posted:I was wondering what peoples thoughts are on the idea of the devil? Do you believe in it? Is there really a moral centre of evil? A moral center of evil sounds like an exaggaration or, if it weren't the exact opposite, flattery. Yeah, I do believe that the Devil exists and works in various ways. I don't think the Bible is ambiguous in that. I think it's more of a God's (already resolved) problem than our's though, so on purpose I don't think of it much.
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Jan 11, 2017 08:36
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Josef bugman posted:I would personally disagree. The devil, based on my own limited understanding, doesn't appear a lot in the bible. I mean it does appear but not as it is often conceived in more modern terms. And how would the Devil be a "resolved" problem by God, if you don't mind me asking? That's kind of what I meant. The Devil tempts Jesus, it is spoken of as a person by several others and it appears in a role or another in various books. I think that's plenty of backup for it's existence. What the Devil's like, then? Well obviously trouble and not a in a good way. That's enough for me, I don't wanna speculate in style of Dante or Milton or Gaiman. (Not that I don't like Sandman.) As for dealing with the Devil, we believe that Jesus already won. It's often repeated that the three losers on the Calvary were Sin, Death and Satan. They're all still here but they cannot win anymore. Paul is pretty clear about it in Romans. The Revelation of John, to offer some more backing, is a confusing mess of visionary images words obviously cannot really describe but one thing it's very consistent of is that the days of those three are numbered. Valiantman fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 16:23
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Mr Enderby posted:The verb "queering," as used in Queer Theory, means reinterpreting texts or historical periods through the lens of said theory. The gerund "queering", as used by wrestler and motivational speaker Ultimate Warrior, is a colloquial term for a performative act of homosexuality, presumable that of male sodomy.  Well done. My English isn't nearly sufficent to understand almost any of that. Higher education proven. (No need to clear it up even more, I just stopped to marvel at the post.  )
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Jan 13, 2017 13:11
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Jan 14, 2017 00:19
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Not to bring politics into this too much but I figured this is better thread than USPol, which I don't even want to look inside of: Cracked did an article today about Trump's religiousness or lack of it. Now, I've read Cracked for years and I know it's a mixed bag of poorly researched lists and actually researched articles (to simplify). Does this article have any merit? I can't tell since on one hand it reads like those untrustworthy lists but on the other hand it's facts seem interesting in the Chinese curse way.
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Jan 19, 2017 20:06
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Words of absolution. No contest.
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Jan 26, 2017 00:25
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cerror posted:Christianity thread, I am sorry to divert from the depressing reality of modern politics, but I'd like to ask a rather basic Lutheranism noob question. I have never read the Book of Concord, so I figured I should. Is there any recommended way of studying this book, or is a cover-to-cover reading the way to go? Thanks! I've only read the Finnish translation of the Book of Concord and only once in full but my personal recommendation would be to most of all take your time. The language is at, times, old and complicated. Like 13 orphans typed earlier, the book is also written largely as a reply for various issues in Europe 500 years ago so much of it is not very relevant or even useful for today's Christian. That caveat out of the way, do read the Catechism and the Augsburg Confession for some really solid stuff. Personally I would recommend skimming a history book about that period of history before delving into most of the other books, just to get into the context. E: By taking your time I mean chewing on what you've read, not rushing to read too much on one go. Valiantman fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Feb 18, 2017 |
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Feb 18, 2017 20:40
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pidan posted:I can't really think of a situation where I'd be forced to use violence to protect a person, A defensive war A messed-up person attacking someone (A do agree with you, just pitching in here.)
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Feb 20, 2017 08:32
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cerror posted:Humans! I got my copy of the Book of Concord in the mail today. Surprisingly, it is more huge than the Catechism of the Catholic Church (though, that might just be the font size). I'm just gonna do a straight-through read 'cause I don't know how the gently caress to study this. I'll give you a trip report if it makes me a Lutheran. Tell us when you get to the pope parts. 
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Feb 24, 2017 08:59
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achillesforever6 posted:Who's having pancakes for Tuesday for Mardi Gras this week? Laskiainen is the name of the day: meaty pea soup and buns filled with jam/almond paste + whipped cream. Also sledding or otherwise sliding downhill.
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Feb 27, 2017 00:44
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The Phlegmatist posted:As far as I know, the academic consensus is that the nativity narratives are completely fabricated. Matthew was going for Jesus as the second Moses and Luke is trying to ham-fistedly make Jesus born in Bethlehem to fulfill Messianic expectations. The likely actual history is that Jesus was born in Nazareth and pretty much lived in that area His whole life until He started His ministry. So trying to glean historical cues from the nativity narratives is kinda weird for a professor to be doing. I really have to make a note here and say that this is the historian's answer, one that treats the Bible as a source material the same as any other book. I don't think any church (or me personally) is willing to allow such a large portion of the Bible to be dismissed entirely as a fabrication.
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Feb 27, 2017 20:59
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Paladinus posted:I think it was some Orthodox priest who said that if archaeologists found Jesus's skull, Christianity would only be more triumphant, because it'd be a proof that Jesus existed, even if our understanding of his ascension wasn't on point. Frankly, if there was a way to assure me that said skull truly was his, I'd probably go Jewish/Muslim at that point. Basically I'm 100% with this attitude: Pellisworth posted:You seem to be contrasting "true" vs "false" and that's not really what I meant here. but there are limits.
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Feb 28, 2017 18:13
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AmyL posted:The Whores of Rome? The Whore of Babylon?
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Mar 6, 2017 07:19
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Tias posted:You can't say that and not elaborate Think REALLY hard what you just said. 
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Mar 10, 2017 00:23
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System Metternich posted:http://www.liturgicalinstitute.org/liturgy-quiz Didn't ge tthe site to work. Would have been neat to try to answer on foreign language and about a denomination I've never encountered outside this thread.
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Mar 15, 2017 13:33
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pidan posted:Try it on mobile What a world we live in now. Didn't work on Firefox, almost worked on Lumia. Luckily my work phone is an Android one so that succeeded. 7/10 One pure guess and one educated guess, three things that are exactly the same in the Lutheran church here and two things that this thread has taught me in the past. Good thread, this. Good thread.
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Mar 16, 2017 08:35
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cis autodrag posted:It won't run in any of my browsers. It must detect the magnitude of my sacrilege. A new Android phone eventually worked for me, nothing else. (No idea about Apple stuff.)
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Mar 16, 2017 18:12
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JcDent posted:What if an Amazon drone runs away with the Eucharist? I confess, I giggled at the image.
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Mar 31, 2017 09:49
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Numerical Anxiety posted:I think that my view is more or less in accord with yours. I personally wouldn't hesitate to call them fictions - but then I don't mean to imply that they are anything lesser by the label. They're true insofar as they can move us, probably moreso than whatever factual events they may (or may not) have been based on. This is uncomfortable to me. I would have real trouble with for example the flood and the Exodus and other smaller incidents not being historical. We can know from research how ancient myths can and will change and how historicity didn't always mean what we think it does and so on. However, if I can't trust the Bible in the historicity of such major events ever even taking place, why would I trusts promises of peace and Heaven and salvation and guidance?
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Apr 6, 2017 06:10
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Pellisworth posted:I was always taught to read scripture "for Truth," that is it contains some underlying meaning and everything is God-inspired, though not necessarily literally true. That's pretty precisely what I was taught and how I approach it, too. I can buy that there was no global flood or that the entirety of the Hebrew people might not have fled Egypt but, personally, if there never was a major flood that God saved Noah's (or whoever's) family and a bunch of animals from or if the Red Sea never parted to let a sizeable group of refugees through on their way the Canaan... No, not going to fly with me. The reasons are twofold: first, because I honestly do believe and have experienced that God of the Bible is real so I'm convinced that the core message is of the scriptures is true. Second, the core message is found in the stories and sometimes in the pretty detailed ways those happen and how things are spoken. Saying they didn't take place at all undermines the whole. Basically, to use another story from the OT: maybe he wasn't called Moses and maybe it wasn't Mount Sinai and maybe it wasn't two tablets of stone but if it was just a human who independently wrote down guidelines for good life without any clear divine dictation, then the Ten Commandments aren't worth much as a basis for morality.
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Apr 6, 2017 12:02
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I LIKE COOKIE posted:Like... who wrote the Bible? I certainly hope you're not expecting a simple answer. The oldest texts in the Old Testament are roughly a thousand years older than the newest ones, then there was a gap of about 450 years and then "they" started writing the New Testament. Of course, none of the authors probably thought they would be writing the Bible. The books of the Bible include history, prophecies, poetry, letters and wisdom literature (like, sayings and ancient philosophy before it was called that) and the cast of authors varies from literal kings to lowly fishermen. Each of them probably had different motivations for writing their stuff. Some were writing down ancient tales that had been retold for ages but not written down, some were writing as historians (the concept of recording history wasn't necessarily the same as it is for us), some just wanted to praise the Lord or wanted to write a great love song or lament the unfairness of life, some were writing down their divine revelations and so on. That's not exactly what you asked but I felt it should be mentioned. Now, the Bible is not exactly the same across different Christian denominations either, but enough so that I'm not going to go there since I don't really know about that. The common belief is that God has guided the people who composed the Bible so that it fulfills it's purpose. Depending on who you ask, this guidance might have been literal dictation of "these books are the only important ones" or like "it seems I can use that collection of books they're compiling there" or anything in between. And sure enough, there are some Christians who treat the Bible like muslims treat the Quran and those who don't think there's anything divine in there. As for how and by whom the Bible was compiled, or canonized, I'll just link this since it's complicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Christian_biblical_canon
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Apr 13, 2017 20:35
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Ha-haa, death! Ha-haa!
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Apr 16, 2017 13:46
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That Thursday (which name in Finnish somehow derives from a malicious folk lore spirit, no idea why) is actually 3rd most popular church-going day in Finland. The first two on the list are the the Christmas Eve and the 1st Advent.
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Apr 17, 2017 15:05
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JcDent posted:Alternate take: nobody should tell people about their fuckin'. Especially if they discovered a new kink, which is, like, the best and the only way to have sex. 
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Apr 21, 2017 06:26
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Public Serpent posted:Thank you! And I don't mind at all. The Church of Sweden, which is Evangelical Lutheran. When I was born it was still the state church, so I would have been a member already if my parents hadn't both left the church before then. Hej och välkommen! Nice to have a member of the largest Lutheran church on board, unless Ethiopia went and surpassed you guys already, in which case nice to have you on board anyway.
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Apr 22, 2017 10:31
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Tias posted:Ethiopia is lutheran Wow, I actually hadn't checked the numbers. Mekane Yesus, Ethiopian Evangelical (Lutheran) Church is easily the largest in the world, with 8.3 million members. Sweden comes second with 6.1 million. Ethiopia is huge though, so it's only about 9% of the estimated population.
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Apr 22, 2017 13:08
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It's not a perfect metaphor by any means but for me a helpful comparison is a kid asking something from their parents. The parents know what's best but they sure like to hear what the kid has to say about it and also it's not out of question that the parents change their minds about something. e: Senju Kannon has a good point, too, up there earlier
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Apr 24, 2017 15:01
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The Witcher books are probably the best fantasy/sci-fi I've read in years if not in a decade. Especially the first books that are world-building novels instead of an epic. I'm so glad the games continued the story in the same spirit. At least 2 and 3 did it drat well. 1 is acceptable as long as you look somewhere outside your screen when the people are talking to each other because the lack of animation is horrible.
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May 19, 2017 12:01
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Senju Kannon posted:i never interacted with any of the witcher games someone relate it to All of the peasant superstitions, theological nuances of them and the scientifical explanations for them are simultaneously true, as are the plague, inquisition, 30-years-war and other fun pastimes. You can also kill/have sex with most of the items on the previous list and if anything good comes out of that, you likely just got lucky. Plus 1st Corinthians 13
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May 19, 2017 17:29
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Cugel the Clever posted:? Phone posting, so excuse me for not attempting to actually reply (at least yet), but I wish I could show that question to your average New Atheist. Because that's a drat well constructed one.
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May 21, 2017 04:44
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Bel_Canto posted:happy Ascension to all of us, whether western or eastern! celebrating movable feasts on the same days throughout the universal church is awesome and we should do it more often The annual "ha-ha" post: National Ascension Day holiday.  I had a full work day because I work for the church and of course.
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May 25, 2017 20:22
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Very shortly put, Satan is already dealt with. Because we're living constrained by time, it gets fuzzy when trying to talk about, nevermind think of, the divine perspective. However, in the same way that death and sin are already conquered, so has Satan lost. The Book of Revelation is often a confusing mess of images, allegories, prophecies and more, and at least I haven't gotten enough education to tell which part talks about what exactly. It's pretty clear, however, that the book agrees with both the existence of and the eventual, inevitable demise of the devil. I'm firmly in the camp that talking about Satan isn't too necessary (and might even be counter-productive for reaching out to people) in our culture and time but I would probably have to re-examine that stance if I suddenly found myself living in central Africa or something.
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May 26, 2017 18:56
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HEY GAIL posted:because we don't embalm our dead. Wait, hold on. Are you implying that it is common somewhere to embalm dead people still? I've never heard of such a thing outside of history lessons concerning mostly of antiquity. Plus Lenin I guess.
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Jun 12, 2017 16:50
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I'm fascinated. We just store our dead in cold rooms to prevent decay. Funerals are usually held, barring special cases, within like two weeks of the death. If the dead person is in poor condition, then there would be a closed casket with some odor eaters strategically based inside. I started googling and learned that the dead receive a heavy make-up in the states, too. That's familiar to me too, though in smaller scale. Maybe some colour on the lips, perhaps some powder to cover post-mortem bruises. This will start a Wikipedia bender for tonight. E: The casket is closed in the church pretty much always. It's usually at the hospital chapel or the church cold room or just before the funeral service when it's optionally open for a while. In my experience it usually is but I might have a skewed sample here. Valiantman fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Jun 12, 2017 |
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Jun 12, 2017 17:41
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Midsummer, wohooo! Roasted some sausages on open fire, went to sauna (lacked a vihta though), drank some beverages (non-alcoholic kind since I don't drink but I'm sure my countrymen will keep up the consumption of the other kind through the night) and will stay up as long as I want since it's holiday tomorrow. I also have this summer's early potatoes and some fish to go with them so I'm set for the whole weekend.  How's stuff in Denmark, Tias?
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Jun 23, 2017 17:56
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Tias posted:Currently at Copenhell, a large metal open air festival, and I'm sick because I drowned in a loving monsoon trying to get home Sounds like Midsummer weather.
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Jun 23, 2017 22:51
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Numerical Anxiety posted:Non-Trinitarian Christians, as far as I'm concerned, are just those who lack the courage to see their convictions through, which would entail converting to Judaism or, more likely, Islam. More often, I'd argue, it's just that theology isn't very important to that individual or group. For groups it would be a problem in itself but for individuals not so much.
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Jun 24, 2017 17:35
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Going to a Confirmation School Camp tomorrow. Don't know yet if there's anything there worth posting this time but I felt like telling that. Ten days teaching teens about the faith they're been babtized to. It's such an adventure and I'm so thankful that an institution like this is so popular. We had a meeting between the priest, myself and another camp worker as well as the bunch of slightly older teens that will work as group leaders today and I'm pretty hyped up. 
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Jul 4, 2017 21:48
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