- GorfZaplen
- Jan 20, 2012
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A. https://www.iowaharmreductioncoalition.org/ This is Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition, I volunteered with them until the pandemic hit and life circumstances and health meant I couldn't help out anymore. They make sure to connect drug users with clean supplies and healthcare connections. They've been really struggling during the pandemic and the majority of the demographic they serve are extremely high risk for the virus! So it's important stuff especially in these times.
B. I post in the mecha thread sometimes https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3742843
C. I really like manga and anime!
D. I enjoy drawing comics, writing and cooking! I have a very heavy class load this semester so please go easy on me for my challenge!
E. I also enjoy comics from all countries, ancient poetry and literature, and really love hiking and biking. I'm also into 80s post-punk, prog jazz, and new wave music.
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Nov 4, 2020 00:15
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May 9, 2024 21:32
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- GorfZaplen
- Jan 20, 2012
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If for whatever reason you're not comfortable donating to my charity I'll pick a different one for you, just let crow know
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Nov 4, 2020 00:18
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- GorfZaplen
- Jan 20, 2012
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- nm, plz donate to the endangered language fund
- https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3946474
- wrestle (especially women's), video gam (usually fighting), literature, some music and such
- history, fighting games, wrestle, writing giant posts about history, fighting games, wrestle
- big fan of history especially late roman/early medieval europe, non-japan wrestle, general martial arts and fighting. also a big fan of jazz, experimental electronic and general weird music
I challenge you to write a giant post about your favorite late Roman leader. I'm leaving this word intentionally vague in case you want to write about a general or some other non-Imperial figure.
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Nov 27, 2020 22:36
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- GorfZaplen
- Jan 20, 2012
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k
I'm gonna right about this guy: 
This is Basil of Caesarea: bishop, monk, writer, all around dude. He was born in Cappadocia in what is now Turkey in 330 AD. His family was extremely important to early Christianity; both of his grandparents, both of his parents and 4 of his brothers and sisters are now saints. He grew up wealthy in a noble family, which will be important later.
As a young man, Basil wasn't that religious despite everyone else in his family being saints. He liked to hunt and ride horses and other frivolous Roman things instead. He went off to school in Athens to study rhetoric (which will be important later), where two huge things happened. Firstly, he met a guy from his hometown named Gregory (known to history as Gregory of Nazianzus) who would become his best friend and also a saint. Both of them were extremely dissatisfied with life and thought secular life was hollow and unfulfilling. Secondly, they decided to become Christian.
This may sound weird to all of us in 2020, but when people became Christian in those days, you did not generally get baptized. Baptism would wash all your sins away, but what about all the sins you commit after that? A system of penance was not standardized across the Christian world. Basil, on the other hand, made the bold choice to get baptized right away, showing that he was deadly serious about his decision. Just as baptism symbolizes the death and rebirth of a person, so too did Basil decide to make a complete break from his old life as a dumb rich kid to his new life as a serious Christian man.
He graduated in 356 and returned home to become a lawyer and teacher. Again, he found this hollow. After an encounter with a charismatic bishop named Eustathius of Sebaste, he decided to give up his old life and travel the world to figure out how to live. After distributing all of his possessions to the poor, he traveled all over the Middle East studying with groups of men who were the forerunners of what we now consider Christian monks. These monks all lived alone, outside of a community. Basil liked the idea of getting away from the world, but thought that it would be better if a group of men lived together. Taking this idea, he returned to Cappadocia and opened up an experimental community based on his idea. His teaching about monasticism would inspire his students to create the Rule of St. Basil, the set of rules used by Orthodox monks to this day.
Outside of the monastery, a huge controversy was brewing. The question of Jesus's nature was coming to a head. Was Jesus just a guy with God powers? Was He all God? Was He something in between? They really didn't know. At this time, various councils were called, ending with the Council of Nicaea, the council that propelled best friend Gregory into theological superstardom and an event so incredibly important that I cannot go into what happened there without writing another giant post. Basil was well known as a writer about general theology, so he was called to a council in the capital, Constantinople (360).
Basil didn't really contribute that much to the council, but what did matter was that he saw what the world was like outside of his community during his trip. Both on his journey and in the capital, Basil saw nothing but injustice. He saw a land where the poor had no protections. Rich people could do anything they wanted with no recourse. He saw mothers selling their children into slavery so she could feed her other kids. What he knew as the richest and most powerful country in the world had people starving to death while the rich spent incredible sums of money dying their clothes. This was the moment where Basil knew he could not live out of the world anymore. In 362, he left his community to became an itinerant preacher, and in 370 became a bishop in Caesarea.
Basil was bishop for 9 years, from his ordination in 370 to his death from what was probably liver failure in 379. At various points in this time, he was the sole leader of the city. He produced a ton of theology during this time. Most famously, his teaching on the liturgy became the basis for what is now called the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil which is the service celebrated by Oriental Orthodox every Sunday and by Eastern Orthodox and Greek Catholics on Sundays during Lent. He also defended Trinitarian Christianity from heretics, and helped out best friend Gregory by backing him in public rhetoric duels with theologians who didn't think Jesus and God were made of the same stuff (basically). All this stuff is really nice, but what people remember him for is his writings on wealth and he poor.
While Basil was bishop, there was a major drought. This drought became a famine. This famine became a plague. Death was everywhere. During this time, Basil began a series of speeches that are collected in a book called On Social Justice. This is what Basil is remembered for.
Basil's basic theology about this comes from his reading of Jesus's encounter with the rich ruler (Mark 10:17-22). In this episode, a rich man asks Jesus how he can go to Heaven. He tells Jesus that he has followed all the laws Jews must follow. Jesus tells him that the only way for him to be truly pious is for him to sell everything he has and follow Jesus. This is one of the most studied and quoted parts of Mark, and is the set up to the famous "Eye of the Needle" quote that people get wrong a lot for some reason. The most common interpretation of this passage come from Clement of Alexandria who interpreted Jesus's message to sell everything to be because the man cared too much about wealth and stuff to the detriment of his faith. So, it isn't the wealth itself that's bad, it's how you use it. Basil interpreted this passage to be that the rich man was sinning in a social sense; the owning of a bunch of stuff is inherently sinful.
Basil's social theory comes from the idea that wealth and surplus are inherently evil. He claimed that there was enough supplies on Earth to sustain everyone, but it was the accumulation of it that led to inequality. In his eyes, the most just community was one where everything was held in common and was distributed to each person according to what they needed. Wealth to Basil was not just gold. Nothing could be in surplus. Why do you have 2 pairs of shoes? You only have two feet. Why do you have two shirts? You can wash the one you're wearing before bed. In fact, Basil would go so far as to accuse people who save money or buy a lot of clothes of stealing from the poor.
Not only did he go after people hording wealth, Basil also had an incredible hatred for moneylenders. He thought that charging interest was one of the worst sins someone could commit. Basil's recommendation for lenders were to forgive all their debts so they wouldn't burn eternally in Hell. As I said before, Basil grew up rich so he knew how the rich thought and how they would rationalize this. He had much vitriol for them. He even went so far as to say that if in times of crisis, you have money but choose not to help someone, you have committed murder, which at the time was considered the worst possible sin you could commit.
This doctrine on the poor was complimented by Basil's writing style. Basil studied rhetoric. He knew speeches, and his theology concerned topics everyone had to deal with. Therefore, all of his major theological writings are sermons given to the regular faithful on Sundays. To contrast this, one of Basil's saint brothers, Gregory (of Nyssa). He wrote mostly about man's relationship to God and what that entails. While Gregory was writing high concept platonic dialogues asking how a loving God could sentence someone to Hell for eternity (spoiler alert: Gregory thinks he doesn't), Basil is calling out people in his parish almost by name for being a greedy rear end in a top hat who is definitely going to Hell in front of the whole city.
At the end of his life, Basil devoted himself to one last cause: creating the Basiliad. The Basiliad was to be Basil's greatest achievement: an all-in-one food pantry, hospice, free clinic, church and homeless shelter. When it was completed, Basil moved on to what was going to be his final act. The creation of a total all-in-one monastic city. At the time of his death, he was telling monks to learn individual trades so they could live in the cities together, with the laity, so that every person could be their own form of monastic. Sadly, we don't know what this would have looked like since he died in 379 at the age of 49.
Basil's an interesting guy! I think he's pretty cool. I'm sad that he's passed over in studies of the roots of socialism. i hope you enjoyed by post, god bless, merry christmas
I really like Basil as well! I read On Social Justice at your recommendation last year I think. Thank you for this post!
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Nov 30, 2020 15:40
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