|
Rodrigo Diaz posted:For the guy who asked: there were bursts of interest in astrology in the Byzantine period (the Alexiad mentions some) but it was consistently condemned by the Church. Other forms of divination exist of course. Seances were popular in 19th/20th century Russia. Greek grandmas like to read tea leaves and interpret dreams, and these may have been medieval customs as well. I think there were generally a lot of Seances I think they were usually associated with the Theosphcial societies around the middle of the 19th Century. Though I believe at least one of their big leaders had come from Russia, so maybe there was a bit of cross over. As a quick question, and pardon my ignorance, but are we allowed to talk about specific aspects of Faith in this thread, like Atheism and so on? I don't mean to intrude, and I certainly don't know as much about Chrsitianity as I should (raised without any faith) but I wanted to ask some questions. Thanks guys, and sorry to bother you!
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2016 23:48
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 04:42 |
|
|
Okay then, just as a quick thing, but how do you deal with people who do not have Faith. Capitialised here to mean faith in any sort of direct divinity. A personal God/salvation thingamajig. Second of all, is it just me or does C.S. Lewis come across as a bit of an arse in a some of his works? Thirdly, "Job" and the big problem within that, the problem of evil and the problem of a divinity that is partially malevolent? Sorry I know these are somewhat short but I don't want to start blithering about "heres what I think about this  " without getting other peoples ideas.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 00:03
|
|
|
Deteriorata posted:1) Faith is a personal issue. I pray that people without faith will find it eventually, both for the sake of their salvation in the next life and because they'll be happier in this life for it. It is a gift, however, and must be found by each of us individually. It cannot be forced or chosen on someone else's behalf. 1) Secondary question, if you do good works and yet don't believe in an afterlife, what happens? 2) Agreed. I liked the lowerarchy idea in hell but there were lots of bits that just made me somewhat irritated. 3) See this doesn't really seem to be possible if God incarnates themselves. I mean they clearly can understand things from a mortal perspective, so why not do that?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 00:32
|
|
|
Paladinus posted:You're probably thinking about Roerichs and Blavatskaya. They had a seances period, but they've also tried a whole lot of weird poo poo. Like trying to incorporate Lenin's communism into Buddhism, even going so far as calling Lenin a Mahatma. Then there was a period of pseudo-scientific yoga that had very little in common with the real thing. Basically, it was new age before new age was even a term. Incredible. I love these weird things that are coming out at a time when the middle class just goes barmy and starts trying to jam all the ideology into a blender and see what comes out. The whole Victorian New Age thing has always been rather fun, could it be a bit of a reaction to the same impulse that had Nietzsche write "Thus spake Zarathustra".
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 00:44
|
|
|
Paladinus posted:I personally blame Schopenhauer for introducing the Upanishads as the best philosophical writing from the ~Exotic Orient~. He literally thought that every Indian farmer was so enlightened, they weren't even afraid to die, whereas filthy peasants of the West were just grasping at life like idiots all the time with their stupid Christianity that is just depressing. Eh, to be fair quite a few aspects of Christianity as it was taught, and still is unfortunately in many places, are depressing.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 00:59
|
|
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:1) Not sure what you mean exactly by these Faith-less people. If you mean how do I interact with such people in my personal life, I don't really treat someone differently if I find out they don't have beliefs in the categories you list here. Oh no I more meant if someone was born without the capacity for Faith, in a divine entity etc, would that be a philosophically difficult thing? That and, if someone didn't have Faith would you attempt to talk them into it? (Not in terms of shouting on street corners etc, just wondering in general) Agreed on that. I mean I don't expect much from mid 20th Century Oxford, but I can't help but think a rather worrying amount of modern Christians I have dealt with take a lot more out of his play book than I would assume is healthy. No, but His actions do seem remarkable (as in requiring remarks). I don't say that they need to explain it. Faith is Faith and all that . But the "problem of evil" has always been a sticking block for myself when it comes to divinity of a personal sort. It doesn't objectively prove anything to put a label on it, of course, but saying that we simply "can't understand it" raises further questions. As a quick question, but would you ascribe most of the Old Testament as allegory and most of the New (bar the.. is it Psalms the one where Jesus talks in metaphor?) none allegory? Just as a personal thing I mean.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 01:26
|
|
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:If someone is born without the capacity for religious belief, or if they choose not to adopt it, this is not a big issue for me. Personally, I am wandering in the desert right now in my journey of what I ultimately believe, but I find it hard to accept a worldview in which I assert that I know completely how a higher power works. What I mean by this, and I'll make an example in the Christian context here because I'm most familiar with it, is that I am skeptical that I or any other mortal human has the capacity to fully understand God. It then follows from this that I am skeptical that I can fully understand the entirety of how God works in terms of salvation. So, while I can say what I believe to be true about salvation, this does not say that I know the whole story. Even in the case where I come around to believe (for example) that a specific Christian conception of salvation is the only one that is correct, or that it is the one I believe to be closest to being correct, and that all other belief systems are either flawed or outright incorrect, it is still possible that even a person who has never heard of Christianity can achieve salvation; this is because perhaps God has some other way of doing things in cases where the person doesn't believe the same thing I do. That is an interesting point of view. Does this mean that God may be working off of a kind of divine utilitarianism? The idea of a God that is beyond approach is something that seems very interesting, but one who is beyond reproach always seemed a little strange to me. "Exclusivism" sounds like an interesting idea, I don't suppose you know any good articles or books on the subject? Lutha Mahtin posted:I didn't say that we can't understand anything, nor do I agree with the idea that people don't need to explain something because "faith is faith". What I was trying to say is that your reading of the text is not in line with how most Christians approach it, and even for those who would approach it the way that you do, they would do so within a larger framework of other texts and beliefs built upon those texts. I can't say I have any words of wisdom for you on the Problem of Evil, though. It's a big issue and I'm not super well-read in it. Job is certainly a humdinger of a story, that's for sure. Oh I more meant that convincing people Faith is "incorrect" is impossible through trying to argue the toss because, at the end of it all Faith does not require evidence. Or it does not require it necessarily, I imagine that it helps an individuals Faith if they perceive or experience evidence for it. It's a good story, I think the old testement has a large collection of them in my opinion, but I never understood how it didn't go in the apocrypha once the council of Nicea came along. And approaching it more as tales/helpful holiness is interesting, I'll have a look in to that. Thank you! CountFosco posted:Read the Man Who Was Thursday. I'd rather not, I may spend an inordinate amount of time on S.A. But I'd sooner not have to put up with the proto-goon G.K Chesterton if I can really help it. I read his "defence of Job" thing a while back and I just could not see it.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 11:12
|
|
|
CountFosco posted:Yes, I agree, disagreeing with an author on one particular book is reason enough to dismiss his entire oeuvre. Yes? If you don't like an authors writing you are unlikely to like the rest of his writing. It's not impossible, and I may well give it a try, but from what I have read of the man G.K. seems very much like the sort of person I might like in person, but despise written down. It wasn't the disagreement, though I won't be so arrogant as to say that my disagreement didn't affect my enjoyment, but just the style of argument and the writing style. I also didn't especially like what little I read of "Orthodoxy" either. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Nov 28, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 11:56
|
|
|
Paladinus posted:If that was the case, people would never convert from one religion to another. I always assumed people did that based on the belief that the Faith they felt did not fit as well with the physical aspect of worship/the community to which they were part of. That or to, take a rather crass tone, it doesn't matter what I worship as long as I worship something and the current overlord of the local area believes this and I can get my family ahead/not murdered if I convert. Tias posted:This, I don't get. I came to faith through empirical evidence that God saved me personally. It is metaphysical evidence of metaphysical facts, but I would call it evidence still. Others I know had their faith confirmed by experiencing miracles. I guess it's sad that we need proof( Jesus said something to this effect), but I am fervently grateful it happened because the alternatives are too grim. I need to read up on these concepts more before commenting fully but from a brief reading I didn't think you could get empirical evidence of metaphysical things? And the alternatives being "too grim" is an interesting idea, could I ask you more about it?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 12:44
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:I find the proposition that the universe was made like this on purpose immensely more depressing than the thought that it was an accident. Agreed on that score. If everything is designed then there are some serious design issues. Arsenic Lupin posted:Chesterton annoys me a lot in other contexts, but The Man Who Was Thursday is just plain fun. Fair enough, I may well have a quick leaf through. I liked screwtape when I heard a bit of it on the radio, but I preferred Old Harrys Game myself (which was a bbc comedy that is really recent). Chesterton always struck me as one of these people who does seem like they genuinelly believed the middle ages was better. Which even I, someone who thinks that the Celtic tribes might be fun to live with for a little bit, would think is a tad ridiculous. You have all of the problems of the Late Classical era, liability of getting set on fire by raiders, constant diseases, and none of the advantages, "Church" gives away meat and you don't pay too many taxes! The Phlegmatist posted:It's kinda funny that atheists rail against evil fundamentalist Christians influencing society when the true danger to society, moral relativism, seems to have been a natural outgrowth of these atheistic philosophies. Also, lol what? I don't think going "Morality is not neccesarily universal" is a danger to society. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Nov 28, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 19:39
|
|
|
Mo Tzu posted:what if god is a programmer and all the problems in the world are bugs god is trying to phase out with software and firmware updates periodically In which case that takes care of the old "Omnipotence" question.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 20:14
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:It's occurred to me that the best explanation for Christ's sacrifice is that the only option available to a being of infinite power and infinite goodness is to commit suicide, because what could be more inimical to the interests of slaves than an eternal master upon whom they are inescapably dependent? In which case why'd he come back?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 20:58
|
|
|
Pellisworth posted:I posted this a couple times in the last thread, but I think SJ Gould's NOMA article is a must-read on the topic of how to reconcile religious belief and empirical evidence (science): http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html As a none scientist I cannot comment all that much about how actual people involved in the field view it, but I always thought that Science need not neccesarily argue against religion. A whole heaping helping of philosophical questions does argue against certain aspects of specific Religions, even though it has helped to inform much of the morality doing the criticising.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 22:05
|
|
|
Pellisworth posted:I get triggered by the New Atheist types who claim, essentially, that modern science disproves religion and denigrates it as silly. The Dawkins crowd. I could see that in terms of it informing how we make decisions but yeah morality is its own separate thing.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 22:11
|
|
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:I'm not sure if your first and second sentences are supposed to be connected here. Regarding the first sentence, if I were to (hypothetically) become a Christian with an exclusivist view toward other beliefs, I don't think I would ascribe a reason, motive, philosophy, etc., as to why or how God may or may not work in ways other than my chosen one. This is because it would invalidate the method by which I got to this point in the first place, that being the belief that us mortals cannot fully conceive of or understand how God works. I don't think it would work for step one of my argument to be "God might have some other way to save people in ABC situations, because my puny mortal brain cannot comprehend God fully", and then for step two of my argument to say "oh by the way that other way of saving people is because God ascribes to XYZ philosophy, because SIKE my puny mortal brain can totally comprehend and describe God fully using my fallible human language". The very first sentence was meant more in a "huh, that's interesting" kind of way, like verbal chaff but trying to make it obvious I am listening/reading your stuff. But if you ascribe to the concept of "God might have some other way to save people in ABC situations" then you are already putting a different idea of God forward. In this He is capable of being things you comprehend, yeah? Also doesn't the very idea of "doing" imply a more personal God than one that is unapproachable? Lutha Mahtin posted:Regarding your second sentence, I'm not sure if you're trying to say that my idea is an attempt to create a God that is "beyond reproach". If so, I can't say I'm familiar with this concept so I'd like to know more about it, in case some of the things I've been posting fall into that sphere. If not, I don't really understand what you're trying to say. Oh "beyond reproach" means above criticism, "beyond approach" means something that cannot be grasped or looked at. I would personally hold that any divinity that takes an active hand in the Universe should be criticised and asked questions. Lutha Mahtin posted:
That sounds really interesting! Will have a look, and thank you. Lutha Mahtin posted:You've got a lot of stuff going on here. One is that you are asserting that "Faith" does not require evidence. I would honestly suggest you mentally poo poo-can everything you have ever heard from idiots like Richard Dawkins. This entire false dichotomy where people believe we have "faith" on one side and "evidence" on the other is really very frustrating for people me, a scientist-type who also thinks religion is cool. It's frustrating because it often assumes the erasure of my lived experience of having these two major things that I have found to be sources of wonder in my life, and which I have not ever really considered to be in conflict. Now obviously, Internet shitlords erasing my experience through their misunderstanding of philosophy and religion is not anywhere close to some of the stuff in that article, but it's still a drag. I said it doesn't "necessarily" require evidence. You said yourself that if God works in ways that are so mysterious that your "Puny mortal brain cannot comprehend it", why then would it require evidence to have Faith? If God is working in "mysterious ways" then clearly it could do as it liked in that regard. But the evidence that is often provided for faith is inherently personal. It cannot be experienced as evidence by others for the simple reason that it is often a metaphysical thing. And I am not saying that there is necessarily "conflict" Gregor Mendel would heartily disagree if there was, but I am saying that the evidence is not always as obvious to others. I; possibly due to upbringing, possibly due to what I have seen as my friend unhappiness when they are Christian, possibly due to other factors, do not see the evidence for it. I've had a quick skim and yes, I got the dating of the council very wrong, almost 1200 years eesh, but the main "blocks" of the bible are in place by the early 500's unless I am reading it wrong? Also, what wanted to say was something along the lines of "I still don't know how this particular story is not left out of the bible". I would have thought that however good it is you wouldn't want it placed in because it shows God in a very different light to how you may want to present Him to people post the whole "God is all forgiving" thingamajig. Also, is it offensive to say that "I am surprised this story isn't in the apocrypha?" if so I am sorry. I understood that the Apocyrpha were books that were not in the biblical Cannon but that differentiated them from purely "none canonical" ones by being considered or part of existing creeds. Am I wrong in this? Also, Church councils seem to be based on matters of doctrinal importance and appear to be brought together either based on a shared wish to hammer out some point of doctrine or based on some temporal authority deciding "We really need to stop everyone condemning everyone, lets all get together and hammer it out". But seeing "where it's pointing to" is an inherently subjective thing, the context that surrounds it (if the person writing it had experience, the translator, the facts of the story) is imperative to the idea of giving people a hopefully more accurate reading of where the story is actually based. You could make someone read some tales and have them come up with a completely different read to someone who knows about the persons other views and their life at the time of writing. Bel_Canto posted:Two major obstacles that weren't insuperable in themselves but together made a pretty high barrier to entry. The first was monotheism: Judaism is REALLY BIG on there being only one God, and that offering anything approaching worship to anyone or anything other than God is a grave sin. Monotheism and polytheism interact in very weird ways when they meet one another, but they really are fundamentally incompatible. Secondly, Judaism was and is heavily tied up in ethnic identity, and the path to conversion was (and in some denominations still is) extremely stringent. Plus, as others have said, Judaism didn't and doesn't evangelize, whereas Christianity is entirely focused on spreading the good news for the salvation of the world. Being explicitly multiethnic while evangelizing and having a relatively easy initiation process goes a long way toward contributing to the spread of a religion. Also because in a lot of places initially the local faiths were allowed to continue if the Gods got a shave, then they were brought quickly into the rest of the church later. Or, in some later cases, the local ways were simply exterminated, along with the people that practised them.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 29, 2016 21:08
|
|
about comparative Religious works
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:
I'm sorry, I thought I was being too glib. Lutha Mahtin posted:For you question "why is the book of Job in there", I would again say that it is you who is making a very bold claim here. You say "it shows God in a very different light to how you may want to present Him" but really this is just, like, your assertion, man. You are asserting a very large claim here IMO because you are effectively saying (at least) the following things: In answer to the above points 1) I assume that the people who worship God would like God to be shown in the best possible way. If this is not true I apologise. 2) I should have phrased that better. I was partially wondering how a God that "is love" would be able to do horrible, petty, cruel things to someone. 3) I would be more than welcome to ask someone how God comes out looking good out of Job. I mean, measured from modern morality? I wouldn't mind trying to hear the argument. Lutha Mahtin posted:However, the reality is that if you walked up to a random Jew or Christian who is at least moderately well-read in their religion, and you stated these things to them, they would probably just make the The purpose of different parts of the Bible and Tanakah are designed to show different things. This I agree on. However I would assume that a holy document would want to show its subject, in this case God. In the best possible light in order to recommend remaining within the faith or to encourage others to take part in it. I can do the argument about the last bit, if you'd like, because to boil it down: "Sometimes you will fail and that will be due to no fault or bad action on your part, you are being tested, but it cannot be questioned or reasoned with, it will simply happen" Never struck me as a particularly reasonable sentiment from a being of infinite power. Lutha Mahtin posted:Congratulations, you have discovered the Judeo-Christian form of scholarship known as Historical criticism Oh, more reading. Okay. Sorry if I am coming across as cross. I do hope I am not saying anything too foolish. Thank you.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 00:03
|
|
for the first half of your post, i think we either are reaching or have passed the point where this is a workable forums discussion, at least with my semi-shitposting style and lack of deep knowledge of some (most) of this stuff. i certainly appreciate your thoughtfulness in how you're trying to fit all these puzzle pieces together tho
face at you. This is because these people would know that the Bible/Tanakh is not some kind of spiritual cheat code manual, but rather a collection of writings that covers a wide range of things and which were written in order to express different things. And further, if they didn't just make the 
|
HopperUK posted:I would have thought the purpose of a holy document is to tell the truth about God in the best way possible. I mean, in that it makes sense to talk about documents having a purpose at all, in this simplistic way. Okay I want to highlight "best possible way". I mean the whole "Messiah yells at tree" thing could be argued as a fun anecdote to prove His presence and fallibility as a human being who is also divine. And we are talking about a document compiled over centuries through various debates about truth and the overall implication of things and so on. I am surprised that people would see and read Job and not only go "This is someone we want to worship" but also "This is a specific episode marking out something that the person we worship did and we need to keep it for other people to read". I mean as a Truth about God I cannot possibly comment. But as the best way to present the Truth about God?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 00:24
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:Mithraism coulda been a contender, but bulls are way more expensive than bread and wine. Part of me is still sad that Christianity "won". I wish we could see other worlds where things had developed differently, just for things like that.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 00:42
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:i have an excerpt from the book of job tattooed on my body What is the quote, if you don't mind me asking?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 00:46
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:The purpose of most (small-s) scriptures is not to sell the religion to outsiders. The purpose of a scripture is to inform, and sometimes entertain, the people who follow the religion. Hardly anybody out there is reading Deuteronomy for fun; you're reading it for scholarship, or you're reading it as part of the Torah. Deuteronomy isn't "Whoa, Judaism is awesome!" it's "This is what Jews have [had] to do to keep holy." To ask a quick question about the first paragraph even if it is something which will "put off outsiders" it still doesn't seem a ringing endorsement of your own side either. I do get your point though. Arsenic Lupin posted:Job's rage says things we'd like to say, and the ambiguous ending affirms that while alive, we never get an answer to the Problem of Evil. To say "your rage is justified, but I will change nothing" is a monstrosity. I understand what you are saying, I hope, but I cannot truly fathom it. The idea that we never get an answer on this side of the grave may well be accurate, but the implications of this tale is that the answer beyond it isn't much to hope for either. HEY GAL posted:job knows that everything is hosed up, god agrees with him (and his response is "deal") and he still doesn't give up. everything that arsenic lupin said is true, but job still does not give up. I'm surprised Job doesn't spit on Him.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 01:09
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:and god would have been ok with it, that's the point. Then why does this poo poo keep happening? If God is the universe and he cannot alter Himself, then what on earth good is He? Apocron posted:Job is also an important book because of its demonstration of innocent suffering. Some people naturally correlate all suffering with wrongdoing (ie. whatever happens to you is because you deserve it) while Job demonstrates how Job was blameless before God yet God permitted suffering in his life. In fact Job's comforters spend a lot of effort trying to get Job to concede that he is not perfect and probably slipped up somewhere along the way. This is important in the New Testament because there would be people who would point to Jesus' ignominious death and say that he couldn't possibly have lived a sinless life yet suffered in such a gruesome and horrible way. This may point to it's inclusion. Though it is interesting to see that the old "just world" fallacy is really old.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 01:17
|
|
|
Deteriorata posted:If you're unwilling to concede that God is God and humans are not, there's not much to talk about here. You keep insisting that God should be constrained to humans' sense of justice, and the whole point of Job is that he isn't. Humans are incapable of understanding God's perspective. This is a thing I just don't get, this is a being of infinite ability and infinite power. Why on earth wouldn't he be just from our perspective? If He is not expected to hold to laws that He sets for humanity then he is, at best, a hypocrite. At worst He is malevolent. To say simply "Have Faith that He is just" does not work when He allows injustice. HEY GAL posted:uh Why does existence require suffering? Why does a being of infinite power and benevolence allow these problems to occur and still be called "good"? This is the problem, existence does not require it, and yet God allows it. Arsenic Lupin posted:You're talking about theodicy, the Problem of Evil. The Problem of Evil seems like the only problem worth working on. And that seems wholly unsatisfactory to have no answer to that. I mean from an outsider perspective it is easily "solved" by going "nogodlol" but even that is unsatisfactory. Paladinus posted:It is not 'a fun anecdote'. It's a very obvious parallel of seeking fruits of faith and charity among those who Jesus preached to, and finding none. Cf. also Matthew 25:34-46. I was meaning something along the lines of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment Apocron posted:Personally I like Alvin Plantinga's Free Will Defense as a possible explanation of the problem of Evil. However in a sense it does boil down to "just because you can't understand why there is evil doesn't mean there isn't a good reason for it" (and I think Plantinga's proposition that it is necessary for free will is as good a reason as human's are liable to reach) so if you don't think it's reasonable to accept that God is able to have reasons beyond our capacity to understand then I don't think any human will have a reason good enough to fit within our capacity to understand. Pretty much. I am sorry to get so cross about this, but I kind of like a lot of people in this thread, but I simply cannot understand this. Part of me wishes I could. zonohedron posted:So it isn't simply a question of "How do you not hate this passage?", it's also, "How do you read this passage?" Whether you see God as like humanity, but more so, or as fundamentally unlike the created universe, or as the created universe changes what you expect of God: if God is "basically my grandfather except entirely good and without any restrictions", it's not unrealistic to wonder "then why is my grandfather less cruel?" (even if that still might not be a question that has a satisfying answer), but if God is existence, the source of all existence, Justice Itself, Job's sudden shift from "this sucks and you suck" to "and now I repent" is a little less incomprehensible. To me it really doesn't. If He is the source of Justice then why is He allowed to act like an arsehole? I will try and have a re-read when I get the chance but I still can't wrap my head around it.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 09:13
|
|
|
Valiantman posted:Now, relationship between me and my imaginary dog is fairly certainly nothing like the relationship between God and mankind but in both relationships one is able to comprehend and see and experience things the other cannot even begin to imagine. Yes, but if you were to beat the dog based on it's actions when you trained it then it is your fault that the dog is like that. It's a perspective certainly, but I am unsure as to how much it can be considered. There is a difference between something that does no active harm and something that does good and something that seems to have no good part of it. You come back to the dog at the end of the 8 hours. God does not come back. Lutha Mahtin posted:again, the reason you have this problem in the first place is because you yourself have decided that it is axiomatic the text describes God acting "like an arsehole". in reality this is not axiomatic, but is in fact simply your interpretation of, and/or projection onto the text. multiple people have been telling you this for pages now, so im not sure what else there is to be said really Well if we are going to start saying that what's the point of arguing anything. I am wondering how people justify something that seems clear to me in a particular way and people are explaining how I might be wrong. Wether we find areas of agreement or disagreement is a matter of the argument itself. I am still shocked that people can basically go He may act like this and act in this particular way but He isn't bad because we can't understand him. its something to think and talk through, if it does get boring replying to me do tell me. Deteriorata posted:And my point is, that is what Job is all about. You may not like it, but that's the book of Job's perspective. Do you share that perspective? Because that seems like something worth discussing. I mean a "you" as a collective, not just yourself. Do you believe that the book of Job shows God being Unjust? If it does and you still worship him I would like to debate that more. The problem of evil is solved if there is no "Problem", when I said "nogodlol" I meant it in the style of many internet atheists who presuppose that anything cna be solved by removing religion from it. I personally disagree with that sentiment, but the problem of evil genuinelly is one of those ones where if you simply remove a particular sort of God from the equasion then the problem is already solved. Evil happens because its just stuff happening, it happens because someone did something that started it off. Valiantman posted:I like a lot (a lot!) how one preacher I heard as a teenager first framed the problem of evil and then, paraphrasing, told the listeners that it's fine and good to be interested in theory and dogma but the real question you should be asking is "what am I going to do about it?". That's the best solution I've heard. Go on and do something about that evil that obviously is a huge problem! Don't stay in the sidelines, be a part of the solution! I am not sure that is what is meant by the problem of evil, but I would say that why does doing "good deeds" require a belief in divinity? I mean I know thats probably not what was meant, but its an interesting side discussion. Arsenic Lupin posted:Theodicy is a central problem of Christian theology and philosophy. If God is infinitely powerful and infinitely benevolent, how can there be evil? It's right there in the foundation of the religion: those three things are incompatible, if you boil them down to a sentence. I mean I am not going to claim to go "but I solved it" I had always thought that the problem of evil seems more of a philosophical question only if one believes in a personal god that is all of the "Omnis". If you believe in, say, a finite God or a lack of a divinity the answer seems easy enough. Well, I mean usually. Working out what an "evil" deed is then comes up for discussion, but that would be a whole separate thing I thought. Maybe I am getting it backwards and being smug, I do apologise. I agree whole heartedly with Arsneic Lupin's views on the subject I am afraid. Cancers and so on are not caused by the fall of man. Tuxedo Catfish posted:That doesn't really hold up, though. Creation as-is without human intervention is even crueler and uglier than we are, even with all of our many flaws. Romanticism is bullshit. Also this. 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.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 21:25
|
|
|
SirPhoebos posted:So how come there aren't any contemporary writings on Jesus' life? I may be overestimating the prevalence of literacy in the early Roman Empire, but I find it odd that none of His followers ever thought "hey maybe we should write some of these things down." Different time period. I think most of them came from professions that didn't have literacy. It was still a skilled, or semi-skilled, thing to be able to write. It is always strange to imagine that it has only been relatively recently that a huge number have been able to write the language that they speak, nevermind another language. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Nov 30, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 22:55
|
|
|
Valiantman posted:Despite my double-disclaimer you read too much into that metaphor. Yeah, sorry I should have read that more closely. My apologise. I still don't agree on that. We may all have our own ideas of what perfection is, but God would clearly no what is required from each person and would be able to do so. At least from my reading of it, which is probably wrong. Also do you mean can or can't in that last sentence?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 23:28
|
|
|
thechosenone posted:How are those religions doing so far? Are you arguing "Vae Victis" as a moral argument?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2016 23:57
|
|
|
thechosenone posted:I dunno, I was thinking from how it was explained to me that there were lots of religions that did so, and that there were ones that were rather extremely so. I figure it would be hard to do something one thinks is wrong just because one's god(s) say(s) so, and that if one did, one would not be particularly happy about it, and it would probably be the kind of contentious thing with would either schism or other such things if it were really bad. The catholic church managed it (sort of) from Greg the great right the way through to Luther and Huss. Though, to be fair, most people ignored the stricture and just chose to sleep around.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2016 00:22
|
|
|
thechosenone posted:As far as Islam goes, I think they just have the disadvantage of not starting out as early as Christians did. Christians have had more time to schism and pluralize their belief systems than Islam if I recall correctly, though I'm sure Islam has already chilled out a lot from what it once was. You do realise that the "big" split in Islam happened immediately after Muhammad's death, right?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2016 00:27
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:Before you say "Well, nobody does that now", the custom seems to have lasted around 1900 years, and to have been stopped by a foreign invasion rather than by any sort of internal weakness. I think there were differing types of human sacrifice in what we would now call Central America. I think calling it the same thing is a bit different. It still continued of course.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2016 00:48
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:I was talking specifically about Aztec human sacrifice, not any other society's. There's a heck of a lot of archaeological and witness evidence for that one. Oh absolutely, but the "Aztecs" weren't around for that length of time. The Aztecs (or Mexica) were only around for about 300 years and formed more of a tribute empire. The mass human sacifice though was a common thing throughout the history of Central America.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2016 01:00
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:Hey, you gotta do something while waiting for American football to be invented. It's no problem!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2016 01:21
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:Can you recommend any good books on the history of Mesoamerica? ::bambi eyes:: Not especially I am afraid. I got most of my info from going to the British Museum and spending a couple of hours looking at Steles of a king by the name of "Bird jaguar" run a knotted rope through his own tongue and penis. Meso-American religion is proper weird. I did have a good read of the conquest of the Americas and what happened to the native faiths however. The outcome is... poor. The sacrificing people thing was bad and nasty. The actual genocide, rape as a weapon of war and the fact that the Dominicans (the same people who ran the inquisition) were horrified by what they saw the Spanish doing kind of sets the tone for much of the rest of the "conversion" of the native peoples. Apocron posted:By the way Bugman, if you are interested in learning more about Christianity but trip up on the problem of evil/suffering then I would encourage you to try approaching God/faith from a different tack for a while. I'm not saying give up on your sense of injustice but if you demand an answer to that before you will move on I think you will be stuck on that point forever. However if you will put it to the side and try reading a gospel or another book of the Bible you might find God speaks to you through it in a different way or even speaks to you about suffering through an unexpected verse. Sorry, to not reply to this earlier. Whilst a worthwhile suggestion I am, in truth, content to believe there is nothing in the hereafter and no divinity. I will try and have a read of some bits of the bible, I generally have a flick through every so often, but I am more interested in the idea of what other people believe as much as what I myself do. Plus I think a lot of the bible can be pretty deathly dull. I mean four of the books are just repeating the same blokes life over and over. I am being sarcastic here. thechosenone posted:I haven't seen a Bugman around here, so I assume it means something? Maybe not? Apocron posted:Josef Bugman is a poster who has been active in the thread recently. Hello! I did find a rather interesting book, not a scholarly one and really only good as an introduction, called "Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms", it was about a collection of the smaller religions of the Middle east and that area. People like the Yazidis, Copts and Druze. It was very interesting, though a bit of the American POV came through. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Dec 1, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2016 09:03
|
|
|
SirPhoebos posted:So if Satan isn't as prominent in the Bible as most people think, then who was tempting Jesus in the desert? Was that just Him personifying the internal debate He was having at the time? Yeah the "biography" of Satan is very different dependent on which tradition you take from. In Judaism he's just a, literal, "devils advocate". He's there to point out all the bad stuff and to accuse humanity of things. In the Christian tradition he used to be the same thing. Others have mentioned how there were "demons" and stuff but they are closer to spirits and things that people couldn't understand but God can deal with. But over time it has shifted a fair amount. Some of it towards a more Islamic understanding of who Satan is. And although it may be heretical to say some aspects of Evangelical Christianity may be based on an actively Dualist sense of things. Dualism holds that there is a "Good God" who made spiritual things and a "Bad God" or "Demiruge" who made physical things. A fair old amount of Christian Fundamentalism places a great deal more emphasis, and grants so much more power, to Satan that you'd think they were on his side. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Dec 1, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2016 20:23
|
|
|
Deteriorata posted:This goes back to Dante and Milton being the source of most Western mythology about Satan. They, of course, drew on other sources which are now obscure. The Bible itself is not the source, which is often problematic with some Sola Scriptura Satan-obsessed Protestant denominations. As mentioned, these people are usually believers in the Demiruge.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2016 20:31
|
|
|
Tias posted:Aw man! Usually anti-semitism. Also too much emphasis on the bible
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2016 01:36
|
|
|
Pellisworth posted:beer, neckbeards, and shitposting Eh, that too. Luthor ain't my favourite of the many and varied people who tried to start new stuff in the Church.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2016 10:33
|
|
|
System Metternich posted:Now that's a plot to take down Superman that I hadn't heard of before! FFS, you spend a few hours watching Justice League and this is where it gets you. Though a cross-over might be cool.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2016 15:27
|
|
|
I do love the little hold outs of Paganism we still have in places, like how it's a point of pride for some of the Lithuanian colleagues at work with that they were the last people to convert to Christianity in Europe.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2016 01:30
|
|
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:your previous post to this one indicated you are completely unfamiliar with indulgences, so i am definitely going to pay attention to your opinion about church reformers I did do a brief parts on the end of a course about indulgences. They're the thing where people basically "pay to win" but with the afterlife. Though in truth it had always kind of existed, look at all the monasteries that are still supposed to be singing about Charlemagne, but you were only really supposed to get indulgences for doing something important to the Church like crusading. Then it turns out that people are kind of crappy and the church can just sell them because the man in the fancy hat needs a new chapel. Obviously people didn't like that because of pre-existing tensions around how much they are paying and not getting into heaven guaranteed, the weakening of the Holy Roman Empire and the strengthening of the Dukes, philosophical concerns as regards papal rule and so forth.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2016 10:05
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 04:42 |
|
|
System Metternich posted:People always forget that indulgences still exist Well considering I walked through the gates of mercy a few months ago and 2016 still continues to happen I think the indulgences need strengthening.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2016 11:03
|
|
After the Reformation they became strictly non-monetary in nature and are given out for doing specific things like entering a confraternity, visiting a certain church on a certain day and receive Communion there, walking through a Gate of Mercy during a Year of Mercy and so on. These indulgences were huuuuuge in the Baroque and continued to be important for many Catholics well into the 20th century. Nowadays they are more of a niche thing, but the principle of the Church giving out indulgences is still very much alive.