John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.
But ⌠why?
The core tenet of Christianity from the git-go has been that Christ died to atone for our sins, which satisfies both justice and mercy.
But ⌠how?
I have never been quite clear how the torture and murder of a completely innocent man does anything at all for justice or mercy.
Once upon a time when I was a wee lass, about 8 or so, I was getting ready to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Eight is the age of accountability, when a person knows wrong from right. One thing we do is to make sure our 8-year-olds have a good understanding of the Atonement of Christ. Well, we try. Iâm not sure that is possible with every 8-year-old, but it sure worked a treat on me.
Did I know? Did I understand? Oh, hell by golly, yes, I did. And I didnât like it. Not one bit. Though I could not articulate it and I wasnât nearly as willing to be shocking as I am now, I knew exactly what it meant:
8-year-old me: Every time I sin, Jesus can feel all the pain of his crucifixion again.
51-year-old me: Every time I sin, I am contributing to the torture and murder of an innocent man.
Narrator: Then she went to a Southern Baptist private school for 9 years.
8-year-old me listening to âŚ
Mormons: Weâre all going to one of 3 levels of heaven and the worst one is totally awesome. But you donât want that; you want the best heaven, so forget those other two. Youâre better than that. You donât want to be with those trashy losers in the lowest of heavens, so you need to work for it. Hard. âBe ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.â â Matthew 5:48
Baptists: All you have to do to go to heaven is accept Christ into your heart as your personal savior. How big your mansion is on your street of gold and how many jewels you have in your crown depend upon your works, but you donât have to work at all if you donât want to. But if you donât accept Christ as your personal savior, youâll burn in an eternal lake of fire. âBut what about murderers?â If they say the prayer to be saved, theyâre good. âBut what about the kids in Africa who never heard of Jesus?â Collateral damage, sorry.
Yet I have been assured from the cradle by both Mormons and Baptists that God loves me. Yay me. I have the privilege of being loved by a Deity who is so cruel that he set up mutually exclusive commandments: Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and you must also be fruitful and multiply.
Oh, yeah, I got dunked understanding all this and I followed the logic all the way to its end and it was way too painful to contemplate, so I towed the party lion for years and years and years.
I hated Baptist theology for leaving all those poor ignorant bastards out in the cold with no mercy, while murderers could say a little prayer and go to heaven.
I hadnât yet been able to articulate what I hated about Mormon theology that required perfect behavior (from people whose very purpose is to fail and learn) with no mercy, and the people who didnât swear, didnât smoke, didnât drink, and followed ALL the rules, got to go to the finest of heavens no matter how good in heart they were.
Mormons: God loves you enough to bless you when you obey his commandments. By the way, hereâs a list of the rules. Be perfect and you will get ALL the blessings. Bonus! You wonât have to go to that trashy heaven where all the trashy people are, which might as well be hell.
Baptists: God loves you no matter what you do, as long as youâre saved. Sorry to all the murder victims out there who wonât see their murderers punished. You wonât care once youâre dead and living in a nicer mansion than your murderer. Sorry to all you folks who never heard of Jesus. Weâll feel sorry for your eternal suffering from above.
Mormons have no mercy.
Baptists have no justice.
Narrator: And the little girl stomped her foot and screamed, âITâS JUST NOT FAIR!â
So here we go âŚ
Over the years I have grown in my faith in the Heavenly Parents [hereinafter referred to as Deity] and their love for us, no matter how many times I fall prey to the âIâm being punished for not following ALL the rulesâ mindset. I have grown in my faith that the Deity are all powerful, all seeing, and all knowing.
But thereâs the rub. Why would an all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing Deity need to send their only begotten son to atone for our sins? Why would an all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing Deity need their only begotten son to judge us in the last day to decide our eternal fate?
I was thirty-something before I could bring myself to ask this question, though it had been simmering in my mind since I was 8. It was a very painful question to approach, even as delicately as I did. It was an even harder question to form into words to myself. And it was hard as hell all get-out to actually say it out loud and explain my reasoning to somebody. Half my literary oeuvre is dedicated to pondering this topic. By the time I asked the question so baldly in a book, it just made me angry.
This is the question I canât answer and havenât been able to get a satisfactory answer from any Christian of any stripe:
Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present Deity need an intercessor between them and their children to administer justice or grant mercy?
Comments
379 responses to “Christianity 101”
Mojeaux is going to h, e, double hockey sticks. Mojeaux is going to h, e, double hockey sticks.
This is why I believe in faith, and not religion. Religion is a human construct.
This is why I believe in faith, and not religion. Religion is a human construct.-
Iâm pretty comfortable ignoring all religions because of what you say. Iâm not 100 percent comfortable saying there is no creator.
We don’t believe in a place of eternal torment. ?
Not even the DMV?
Totally online.
That’s purgatory.
Excuse me. The EPA.
Third level.
Damn. Last try. IRS?
Now you’re getting into the bowels of hell.
You (LDS) also believe we are all larval Jesuses in training.
Not Jesus. God the Father.
“Gods in embryo.”
“As man is, God once was. As God is, man can become.”
Whatever world I become god of should be trembling once Iâm off my leash.
John 3:16:
I’m surprised you don’t prefer Ezekiel 23:20. đ
And the typeface on that book….
Say what again!
On the bright side, at least you didn’t get warped by the Catholics, too.
Some of us turned out OK.
Everyone needs a hero.
This lady doesn’t.
Maybe we all are.
Maybe not.
I guess you could be my hero.
Guilty (guiltiest?) pleasure.
You’re just turned on by those cowboys with the neon lariats, aren’t you? :-p
There are cowboys? Never watched the video. I just think it’s a great pop tune.
My main beef with most of the great movements is rejection of materialism.
I’m not a lily of the field; I do lay up treasures on earth. I’m more inspired by the reality of my son’s physical well-being than any risk of spiritual eternity.
I won’t be taking up a tent; I can read, but I won’t be doing it: I’ll be cramming myself through the eye of the needle right after the camel and the other fat, rich guys get through, and if they doesn’t work out, oh well.
Sorta.
It’s not spoken of in my church, but wealth is “felt” as a virtue.
The prosperity Gospel is utter crap, it is a deliberate missreading of various verses that re clearly referring to spiritual rewards and it uses those verses, and some badly warped logic, to argue first that God is running a heavenly Ponzi scheme whereby if you toss a beggar a buck you’ll get $10 back, and then as a corollary that wealth is a sign of virtue. On the other hand the idea of poverty as virtue is actually older and argued in a similarly dishonest way using various verses exhorting charity and love to argue that possession of wealth is evidence that one has been insufficiently charitable and lacks love.
The Mormon faith borrowed this from the Puritans, who after watching first hand the failure of communism in their first year went hardcore in the other direction.
On the other hand the idea of poverty as virtue is actually older and argued in a similarly dishonest way using various verses exhorting charity and love to argue that possession of wealth is evidence that one has been insufficiently charitable and lacks love.
Which is especially funny given all the wealth building advice in proverbs and the many wealthy people who are protagonists in the parables.
Folks who like to point to the rich young ruler seem to miss the point, which isn’t that being wealthy is a sin.
My understanding is the abrahamic god has a deal with the Jews that they needed a sacrifice to atone for sin, then he altered the deal to save more people, but the sacrifice for all sins needed to be paid. The only animal big enough to sacrifice for all sin was god itself, but god canât kill him self so he became human in Jesus, completing the contract.
Yes.
But WHY did the Jews need a sacrifice to atone for their sins?
So that Jewish mothers could guilt their children.
0.02
A personal moral code requires the presence of a conscience to recognize when you have done wrong. The essence of conscience is suffering. Perhaps G-d requires a physical manifestation of conscience to recognize atonement of sin?
My guess is it evolved from pagan traditions of sacrifice. If youâre looking for an internally consistent answer, the only thing I have is, the rules were broken and someone has to pay. Sacrificing a food animal 2 thousand years ago was a big deal and so was probably a good deterrent from breaking the rules. Why does anyone need to be punished? Why have rules if they arenât enforced?
If you know that a lamb is going to be punished for your sins instead of you paying for your own, why would you care about not sinning?
My point is, why cannot mercy and justice be bestowed upon and extracted from each person himself?
The Christian response is that we are too flawed to ever earn salvation on our merits, and that justice for any of us would be damnation. The doctrine of grace has nothing to do with purity and good works, it is God’s freely given gift, his grace to the fallen world offering us salvation if we just ask for it sincerely.
How do I find myself arguing the fine points of a faith I haven’t accepted in almost 40 years?
How do I find myself arguing the fine points of a faith I havenât accepted in almost 40 years?-
Because its fun? Or at least it is for me.
That’s my question: Why cannot God just grant it himself without a sacrifice?
Because he made a proclamation that sin had a blood price. If he said never mind, then he wouldnât be infallible. So to keep his word, he paid the blood price himself. Now, no one needs to pay in blood.
Here we get into theology I have not studied carefully so I hope our believing Glibs will join in (although I suspect some of them may stay away out of respect for Mojeaux/desire to avoid internal conflict as most denominations are deeply at odds with Mormons). The arguments I know of are two:
1. God is in some fashion bound by his own laws (possibly necessary in some way to the continuance of creation, possibly by virtue of his benevolence) and while he could take the burden of sin on himself he could not simply eliminate that burden.
2. Without the dramatic sacrifice there would be no impetus to faith.
I know I am misstating at least answer 2 in some regards, but as I said I am not well versed in this area.
It would make me sad, but I totally understand. I don’t participate in many discussions because I simply don’t have anything to say.
From the baptist point of view, everyone is responsible as an individual. Once youâre baptized youâre expected to try to live like Christ, with the understanding it isnât possible. Your punishment is your own conscience and your mercy is asking forgiveness. A murdering nutbag most likely doesnât have a conscience and wonât ask for forgiveness and gaming the system wonât really work, because if you truly believed you wouldnât be gaming the system.
gaming the system wonât really work, because if you truly believed you wouldnât be gaming the system.
^This, taking Pascal’s wager wouldn’t work because asking for Grace must be done sincerely, with belief, and in repentance of your sins. It’s not an incantation you utter to open the pearly gates.
Bup bup bup. I already submitted an article on Pascalâs Wager. Iâm not sure if it is scheduled yet.
If youâre looking for an internally consistent answer, the only thing I have is, the rules were broken and someone has to pay.
My babbling, probably heretical understanding: The wages of sin is death. Why? Because God, being perfect goodness, obliterates evil merely by His presence. Think Nazi face melting from Indiana Jones. This is shown in various examples through the OT, and a bit in the NT.
OK, but death? Why death? Death means two things. First is the traditional dying. Second is a spiritual death, meaning the required separation from God. Physical death is a consequence of the evil that inhabits us. It is only God’s mercy that allows us to substitute something (or somebody) else for the extermination of the species that God’s justice requires.
Spiritual death is because we would be obliterated if God were to be present with us. I think of sinfulness like a pile of leaves. When a gale (sanctification) comes along, the leaves blow away. If you’re all leaves, you cease to exist. If there’s something more substantial under the leaves, it stays around but the leaves blow away.
In my view, Hell is either that blowing away of the entirety of a person or its a reprieve from that fate.
I like Cs Lewis’ take (I know it isn’t his originally, but his writings are where I encountered it). Hell is not place of torment ordained by God. Hell is a self imposed sentence of eternity cut off from God, that can be avoided simply by not cutting oneself off from God. In other words Hell is basically eternity as a recluse who has made himself unable to ask for contact.
‘Hell is basically eternity as a recluse who has made himself unable to ask for contact.’
*gulp*
Thatâs a beautiful way to phrase it, Trashy.
Crap, I just thought of this and you’re not gonna read it because it’s late and it’s way upthread!
Well, just in case. It occurs to me that there are belief systems where badness, bad luck, disease, curses, sins, whatever, are ritually transferred to an animal, and the animal is then sacrificed in order to take on the badness of the person in question. That could be behind some of the Jewish sacrificial tradition. Also, lots of cultures interact with the spiritual world by taking physical things and burning them, say, in order to transmit them to the ephemeral. When burnt offerings are made it could be to pay a spiritual debt with the things valuable to a wandering herding culture.
That is an excellent observation and I never in my life thought about that.
Here in NYC, wifey’s relations have a thing called Kapparot, wherein they do exactly that. One’s sins are transferred to the chickens which are then swung around over one’s head a few times before heading to the stew-pot for a giant free meal for the community. This photo is from a couple years ago when some of the newer residents (yuppie/hipster gentrification) tried to get the practice banned by the city. Cuz everybody knows the best way to insure neighborhood cohesion and friendly tolerance amongst some pretty disparate demographics is to barge in and start making demands that residents disregard their traditions. https://images.app.goo.gl/jzVoas4gi3mE69M56
A religious article…*slowly backs out*
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/esxZO19EQrS4JuEzuqO2Wg.m0AKBomleFnAMCiNv2Obv8
My Dogma inaction figures on my shelf in my home office. I’m pretty sure I have the Golgathon and the angels somewhere around here…
Yeah, I’d be way in over my head trying to weigh in on this one.
I â¤ď¸ skeeball.
Skeeball was created in Capitola, CA. One of my older sisters lived there. As a kid, she would drop me off at the arcade, and I would play skeeball for a couple of hours.
I had this until it was stolen.
https://www.amazon.com/Graphitti-Designs-Christ-Dashboard-Statue/dp/B000AP5974/ref=asc_df_B000AP5974/?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid={creative}&hvpos={adposition}&hvnetw=o&hvrand={random}&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl={devicemodel}&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584413735838618&psc=1
Great movie BTW.
I thought it was gonna be one of these
I think we have one from Comic-con way back in the day in storage.
“âBut what about the kids in Africa who never heard of Jesus?â Collateral damage, sorry.”
That’s the one that bugged me as a kid, and lead me towards agnosticism, and ultimately atheism.
Hence the need to spread the gospel.
Yeah, that part bugs me too.
Thatâs why theyâre evangelicals. I donât know if itâs cannon, but in Danteâs inferno there was a non-hell after life for Greeks that predated Christianity.
Yep – the “Virtuous Pagans”. Socrates, Plato, and a host of other famous Greeks and Romans were there.
Although I’m not religious, I enjoyed The Inferno when I recently read it as part of my “get acquainted with famous/influential works of literature” quest.
There is something called a state of Grace. If you havenât heard the word, you arenât responsible and get saved. If youâve heard the word and rejected you go to hell.
That is exactly opposite of what I was taught.
I can only speak to the church In which I grew up. I was taught you had to choose to be baptized, however if an infant dies, it never had the opportunity to choose, so automatically goes to heaven. The door is shut to most adults now, because there is hardly anyone on the earth that hasnât heard of Jesus Christ.
*Sticks fingers in ears* The don’t fucking tell me!
There’s also predestination, which says that everybody who is going to Heaven has already been decided, and you can’t do shit about it.
My wife’s grandparents were Presbyterians (parents converted to Baptism, but thankfully not until after she was grown up). I explained predestination to her once, and she was horrified.
It actually makes sense if you believe in an all-powerful, omnipotent god.
Or world lines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_line
That’s even worse, because then that just proves what a complete asshole He is.
Not liking it doesn’t make it untrue. But, you’re right.
Really? It’s doctrine in the Calvinist churches still I think.
Well, her parents weren’t big churchgoers until her Mom started to become an evangelist, and that was around the time we started dating. So she wasn’t exactly steeped in doctrine. She just knew her grandparents went to a nice local church with nice people. Quite a shock to find out that those nice people believed that God had already decided that much of humanity was going to Hell before they were even born.
It’s probably more accurate to say her mom’s an evangelical, not evangelist.
In my Primitive Baptist youth, there were no official interpretations of the KJV, but a Calvinist cloud of expectation and condemnation hung in the air, and a belief in pre-determinism was not rare (due to one verse that has nothing to do with pre-determinism in any way that I ever confirmed). There are just a few of the ways “we” were not very close to the American Baptist movement.
Half of these same people doubted the moon landings, and pretty much all of them were sure Kennedy was working the Vatican’s will.
Ah, the Frozen Chosen. Sinners can’t help but sin, and the faithful can’t help but be faithful, and all the shit that happens between the cradle and the grave is just sort of color and detail.
Calvin was an unpleasant person, who crafted an utterly unforgiving and cruel doctrine. If his doctrines had not carried into the Christianity I was raised in I might still be a believer. My rebellion against Christianity was violent and it took me many years to be able to approach it without serious hostility. CS Lewis deserves most of the credit for my current respectful skepticism.
I envision talks with Calvin going like:
“Wait, so it doesn’t matter what I do? I’m going to Hell?”
“You? Yeah, probably.”
“But I don’t do bad things! I go to church! I pray! I help people!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t make the rules.”
“Well that’s stupid! Why don’t I just go around sinnin’ my ass off then, since it doesn’t matter?”
“Just the kind of thing a sinner would say. Sinner.”
#metoo Religion played no part whatsoever in my upbringing. My family has been atheist/agnostic going back to (at least) my great-great grandparents (dad’s side of the family were Huguenots fleeing Catholic oppression and mom’s side were English ne’er-do-wells looking to turn a profit in the New World) so I only got the stuff by osmosis from the culture around us. I was very much in the “I Hate Christfags!” camp until about a decade ago when I grew disgusted by the way ‘atheist community’ treats those who disagree. I have found, through hanging out with Orthodox Ashkenazim and, quite frankly, listening to the faithful here and back at ToS, that I prefer the company of intelligent tolerant folk regardless of their belief in what I previously referred to as a Big, invisible sky-friend. Thank you for sharing this Mojeaux; I would love to read more like this.
I was told that the ‘bird is the word’.
Who told you? This guy:
https://youtu.be/zUi5xKQXG6I
I had cheap wine in mind.
*slaps forehead*
Of course!
“There are no atheists in foxholes”
Well, OK, maybe one. I use non-believer as opposed to atheist in my self description. Maybe a cop out but since I won’t be punished I don’t care. What someone else believes is not my concern.
Pretty much where I am. And as long as that someone else doesn’t try to make it my concern, I’m good.
#MeToo. I used to read Richard Dawkins and other radical atheist writers, but I’ve distanced myself from them over the years and realized that making a whole lifestyle and worldview out of non-belief is kind of stupid. I’ve actually gained quite a measure of respect for religion and the traditions of thought that go along with it (scholasticism) not the least from discussions on this site.
I’m in a weird place right now where I don’t believe in supreme being(s) and don’t see how that could change, but I think it’s ultimately better if most of the world is religious. I don’t know how to square those two things.
Make and maintain some good friends. Take care of your family (normally. I’m no fan of blind filial piety). Do something useful to society. Laugh. Drink beer. Realize that you are the king of the inside of your own head. Study. Kick the neighbor’s cat if you have too much stress. Other than that, I got nothin.
Does the NAP apply when the stressed-out neighbor kicks your cat ?
Darnit. *Goes back to drawing board*
Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present Deity need an intercessor between them and their children to administer justice or grant mercy?
The Deity wouldn’t need an intercessor, because if he did, he wouldn’t be all powerful.
I’m reminded of something that happened during high school senior year Theology class. One girl asked the priest that taught the class why a marriage license was necessary to show you love someone. “Well, it shows a public commitment.” “But why a license? Why not have a public ceremony where you sign a contract to support each other?” “Well, it shows a public commitment!” It drug out a bit too long and I zoned out after a while.
The girl was never a libertarian by the way. She is currently a raging Marxist from what I’ve heard through the grapevine.
I probably shouldn’t have posted as I’m tired and heading to bed. ‘Night folks.
You get back here and engage in hours of debate, young man!
The only Christian justification for marriage licenses that I know of is “render unto Caesar”. The take on the actual institution (sacrament) is that it is a 3 way covenant between man, wife and God.
raging Marxist
I think #resist is the standard way we learn: we know what we don’t like. But, like in the Dem/Rep paradigm, the other side can be pretty hairy. Marxist was just her way of #resist.
My own mom is fairly socialist, so I ended up hating both parties: resisting leftist and conservatives.
The notion of first principles and building a base comes later; until her ego stops throbbing from her childhood like a hammered thumb, it won’t be possible for her to cool down and start to amass (steal) good ideas.
(steal) good ideas.
Can you really steal a philosophical idea? Doesn’t the act of teaching or writing your insight effectively offer it to the world? You engineers and your IP.
oh, I’m pretty free and loose here; the best way to read me is as awkward self-deprecation: not many lines in the sand
so “steal” is more a hat-tip to Ecclesiastes: no new thing under the sun
The best way to read me varies. I have three modes in posting. Usually I’m making some sort of joke (as here). If I am interested in a point or feel deeply about it I tend to lecture. The last mode is me at my worst. If I am in an especially bad mood, or I feel someone is behaving badly (or some mix of the two) I sometimes get a bit mean. I usually regret that last one unless the person I was jumping on was really behaving badly.
Since I don’t believe in God, I make due with the “Golden Rule”, which to me consolidates everything that I spent years studying regarding ethics in both the wisdom literature (various religious texts) and ethics philosophy into something I can justify as a morality. I think choosing treating others as one expects to be treated as my “moral” code also pushed me toward Libertarianism since the way I want to be treated is to be left the hell alone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Commandment
But is it really morality or just social lubricant? I consider it a rationale choice. Go around looking out for numero uno only is going to bring you into conflict with even a stateless society.
The problem with the social lubricant theory is that doing horrible things and not getting caught is no different than not doing horrible* things.
*horrible meaning socially repugnant
Absolutely. I never said anything about justice.
What were the 10 Commandments? Stop stealing each others shit and coveting each others wives. How much of Deuteronomy consisted of the Hebrews acting like a bunch of monkeys, and Moses giving them rules to stop the mayhem. Morality is just social control. Is my decision my morality or a rational choice. I certainly ascribe no metaphysical revelation to it. I went through what I considered a rational process. So call it what you will.
The first commandment is “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The first four all have to do with religious practices, not taking the Lord’s name in vain, stuff like that. Then you get “Honor thy father and mother” around 5 depending on the numbering. That’s before, “Thou shalt not kill”, by the way, so while they’re all equally important they wanted to make sure that anybody who had to leave early heard the bit about listening to their parents before, you know, not murdering people.
It was actually, “thou shalt not murder”.
“Some people just need killing.”
-Clint Eastwood
Moses: “I have brought to you the FIFTEEN –”
*one tablet crashes to the ground and breaks*
“– the TEN COMMANDMENTS!”
My morality is innate. I can’t say where it comes from or if everyone has similar. I tried to deny it for the first 16 years of my life and life as if it was adjustable to any situation. It was immutable and would likely have killed me, had I continued to deny it’s basic tenets. That’s the main thing I got from my time being sober, the ability to manage and coexist with my morality. Once you understand it, it works in your favor. I’ve never perfectly adhered to what my soul wants for me, but I always strive to. As long as I’m trying, I get better. It’s only when I intentionally avoid living up to my own standards that I do harm and suffer.
I don’t think the question is where does morality come from, that’s like asking what god want’s us to do. The answer is unknowable and irrelevant. Morality exists within me and I need to use it to further myself and avoid self destruction. I don’t give a flying fuck why it’s this way, just the knowledge that it is and how I have to interact with it to preserve myself.
And a fish doesnât know itâs in the water. Would your innate morality exist if you grew up the son of a prominent North Korean? Would Kim Jong Blackjack open up hos country and cede his throne? Or were you raised in a western liberal democracy surrounded by Jude Christianity and ideas about fair play?
I believe it would exist regardless. I also believe that I have freewill to conform or deviate from it’s dictates. I know that deviating from it causes me to suffer. If I lived in another world, I might be more inclined to deviate and therefore suffer in my soul, but the struggle to learn and adhere to the dictates of my soul would be omnipresent, regardless. I don’t think it’s possible to train the humanity out of man. Maybe we do evil to fit into an evil world and disregard the consequences because it seems expected, but the basic condition of humanness supercedes all the social pressures and when I see people doing these things, I gotta believe they are paying the same kind of price I would.
“Since I donât believe in God”
like you said, not an excuse for becoming a leftist, IOW, without morals or principles. I’m just very agnostic. I definitely believe that there could be a God, or many Gods. But by God, I’m taking about a techno superior being. Because magic does not exist. Or in case, we do live in a simulation, magic still does not exist, someone just did a better job of making it look like magic.
If one posits a being that creates a Universe and writes its laws, then what that being does is not magic, but rather invention. It is not science, because science is a process of discovering those laws, and it is not magic because His actions by definition create the laws of nature.
Of course it’s science. With enough science, you write you own laws and create your own universe. Magic is make believe.
I have often toyed with the idea that this mortality IS hell.
Well as the intelligent ones, it seems designed to torment us most of all:)
No, not morality itself. The knowledge of morality is hell. Sentience is hell, blissful ignorance is heaven.
Damnit, mortality.
I pretty much boil it down to, “don’t be a dick”.
Everybody gets to have their own opinion, but I decided many years ago that I wasn’t so arrogant as to think I had all the answers.
Maybe you’re wrong and you do have all the answers.
Maybe there is only one answer and he has it.
Mind. Blown.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/09/43/93/094393cf1759c12b2812e4c0f6e6ba63.gif
*snicker*
Imma say that he does, in fact have all the answers. They’re not always obvious and it takes a certain mindset to seek them out and care about them, but they are there.
But disputation is fun! and honestly discussing these beliefs helps (for me at least) to understand my own beliefs and to accept that others have beliefs just as strong and just as deeply held, and not necessarily consistent with my own.
Here is about the only place I discuss politics or religion. You canât do it face to face with too many people.
You can, but you end up a martyr. So agnostics like myself tend not to do it lol.
I’m fine with discussion. That’s mandatory to increasing knowledge. It’s pure, black and white proclamations on the issue that make me shake my head.
“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”
-Thomas Jefferson
OT: LOL they’re saying that the “whistleblower” used to work for Biden.
In 48 hours this will be the best timeline ever.
Oh my God. This is gonna be good.
Really? Bet the people who should change their minds don’t.
Yeah, but the gymnastics they have to do will be fascinating.
I guarandamntee you theyâll stridently argue that itâs the content of the info, not the source, thatâs important and theyâll argue that with no sense of irony or shame.
Which Biden? lol
That just proves heâs a patriot who loves his country.
Why, glad you asked!
/kidding
I don’t like not knowing things, so I’ve spent a lot of mental horsepower trying to work through stuff like this. Also, and this will sound strange, I think best in terms of systems–which is why I like history, stories that make sense, mysteries, and programming–and the biggest system going is, you know, Everything. The whole Jesus bit is the central part of Christianity, so it came up often and continues to do so. Here, then, are a few thoughts.
Ok, so sin. Sin is bad because sin creates distance between the sinner and God. That’s why sin is sin. Sometimes the thing itself doesn’t seem like that big a deal–graven images, for instance–and that’s partly because the sin is pride (believing you know better than God) manifested in a specific way and partly because there’s some aspect of the sinful behavior that makes sense from the right context. In the latter case, one way of interpreting the Old Testament is that it’s the story of how God made Himself known to the world by picking a people and guiding them through history such that they arrive largely intact as a culture in the largest empire going that will best spread the story of His Son (which we’ll get to in a sec), which he accomplishes without negating their free will but nevertheless knowing exactly how it will all play out. And also by doing things like having them kill all of the admittedly friendly pagans in a region because there’s a chance his chosen people might get some funny ideas, marry pagan ladies, and become slightly less Jewish.
Now, God created Man in his image, and God is everything, which means that everyone is in some sense a tiny piece of God and has in that way some aspect of God’s nature. This is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and this is why we have free will. God still runs the show, and God could force us to do things his way, but then we wouldn’t be choosing, and in that way we would lose our Godliness and it would be kind of pointless. It only works if we submit our will to the part of us that is like God, choose to follow God, and in so doing become fully part of God again. In other words, if God forces our hand, we leave God forever; we have to choose. Problem is, God is perfect, and humans aren’t, so we are inherently sinful, i.e. separated from God, and cannot redeem ourselves.
Now Jesus. So, Jesus does a few things. In one sense, Jesus as the Son of God is also God, but as the Son of Man is also human, and so by joining the two Jesus sanctifies humanity. Where humans cannot bridge the final gap to God, God can climb down to us, so to speak. Another thing that Jesus does (maybe) is allow God to demonstrate the perfect human life by being human. Recall that throughout the Bible even good, faithful people coming into contact with God even indirectly are so overwhelmed by Him that they die or burst into flames or whatever. Very, very few people can actually be in God’s presence, and they’re real weird and even they have to wear special protective clothing. By living as a mortal man, God demonstrates the holy life. Because the world is sinful, He’s crucified, but that wasn’t the important part. That wasn’t His purpose, in other words, just the inevitable outcome of His being here. That He died on the cross as the martyr of all martyrs, having turned down much, much better deals repeatedly, is the ultimate demonstration of both Christ’s holiness and the love God has for humanity, being as He suffered as well, being Jesus. It’s also a lesson about the relative importance of holding to the Biblical ideals even in the face of death, knowing that death is not the end.
Earlier I referenced the Old Testament as kind of a story about God essentially using every trick in the book to guide a group of people along a particular historical path while not infringing on their freedom. Another way of looking at Jesus is as the ultimate conversation-starter, the most viral of memes. The crucifixion of Jesus goes on to spread what had been a local, albeit popular, tribal faith into a multi-ethnic religion observed on every continent of the planet.
I don’t know. Like I say, I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve read a lot. Karen Armstrong’s “A History of God” has some stuff to say about it. C.S. Lewis of course gets into it. It’s a tough one, for sure. It could be that the point is to not understand it. The willingness to go along without understanding the mechanics behind it or anything else is the ultimate expression of faith.
Thank you! That is what I was stumbling to express with my answer number 2 above.
I am not ignoring you. I am digesting.
That’s a wall of text. I felt a twinge of guilt as I clicked the button, to be honest. I assume people with stuff to do will just see the length and scroll on past.
I usually check out on walls of text, but this is a topic that interests me (obviously!) so I need to read slowly when I’m not doing something else at the same time (and I am).
Of course, on the other hand, it could just all be a case of, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”
That would be the simplest explanation đ
hmmphmm
I usually skip the short stuff. There’s nothing wrong with grunts, and there’s nothing wrong with being predictable or even pleasantly trite, but I just skip the shorter stuff hoping to save time for paragraphs where ideas are complete, elements laced together, and the rebuttal complete. UCS is kind of my value point: the right amount of thinking and humor for the space; but I’m glad to read twice as much for just a little more content, so Naptown Bill’s stuff is usually read thoroughly and often re-read.
I really like thoughtful comments on a decent article like tonight, much more than our standard curb-stomping of derp (NTTAWWI).
Walls of text are necessary when you are expressing complex ideas. This Twitter world is really harmful to people’s ability to think.
I agree. I used to blog very regularly, then I started tweeting and had to condense my ideas down to 120 characters and suddenly, I couldn’t form any sort of thesis and back it up with my reasoning.
As I have said before, I think about two things: theology and sex. I have a lot of fun with both. Sometimes in the same stories. No, always in the same stories. Here’s some weird shit I cooked up when I was baked on…something? I don’t know. I don’t get baked. So I don’t know how this happened. I wish I could find that stuff again because I need to get baked.
God is a Terrible Matchmaker
Liked your story, Mo. Just as a matter of personal opinion, I think we are none of us completely baked. That’s part of the fun.
Thanks!
When I said baked, I meant, stoned. Or drunk. Or something. Because I don’t do that stuff, but whatever I did before I wrote that story was powerful.
Trump is doing an impression of Chuck Todd interviewing Hunter Biden. A Trump rally for me would be like seeing Led Zeppelin live playing their biggest hits with Ah-Ha songs mixed in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HE9OQ4FnkQ
âdonât be a dickâ.
Its OK when you’re dealing with bureaucrats though, right? Exception to the rule, sort of
I think that falls under the same rules as self defense.
We’re all flawed, Fourscore. We’re all flawed. đ
I did not realize that was the case with CoJC/LDS. That’s one thing they have in common with the Universalists (the ones that merged with the Unitarians in ’60-’61.) Of course, the Universalists (and even more so the post-merger UUs) don’t have quite the plethora of behavioral restrictions. (No way they’re giving up coffee. Of course, these days it probably has to be “fair trade” cruelty-free coffee.)
From the linked Britannica entry:
As a kid coming up in the Presbyterian church – and the quintessential Good Little Girl (barf) – I bought it all during my brief, rather perfunctory preparation for confirmation. As I grew a little older though, I began to think that the whole idea of damnation for not towing the right lion – not to mention the smattering of predestination dogma I was taught – was no way to run a universe.
I’ve read some UU sermons online from a local church. They sure don’t shy away from politics. It seems like just another way to manifest their social signaling.
I’ve not been active for more than twenty years, and when I considered checking out the only congregation in my area, I got the distinct impression that these days, they’re much less tolerant of diversity in political/economic thought than they are of diversity of religious/theological belief. I’ll stick to my Emily Dickinson model of Sabbath observance.
NIce:)
I really get confused on who would make all this Is there a God in Heaven Everybody says join our religion get to Heaven I say no thanks why bless my soul I’m already there!
My favorite religious song.
A long, long time ago I was dating the guy whom I call “the one that got away” and freaked out when he wanted to take me to a UU service. I thought I was done with all that after my mom’s (and therefore, my) on-again, off-again relationship with Catholicism. He cajoled me into going and I was like, what the heck is this?!
Different, n’est-ce pas? At its best, it’s a good context in which to explore your personal religious beliefs and interact with others doing the same – and you can change your beliefs to a great extent without changing your church. Lots of “recovering” Catholics, Evangelicals, etc. in their midst.
I was raised in a UU community. So I’ve never been pushed into believing anything in particular. At least not in a church sense. I ended up a Buddhist partly from my own path and partly at the request of my in-laws.
Did your UU religious education include exposure to Buddhism and other world religions? I’d be surprised if it didn’t, depending on your community’s RE program (size, resources used, etc.)
Yes, Sunday presentations (can’t remember what we called them) drew from any number of religions. One of the members had spent a few years in India in the Peace Corps back in the 1960’s so he knew a bit about religions of the area
BTW, Moje, I think I’ve mentioned to you that of all your novels (and I’ve read ALL but the latter part of the latest,) Magdalene resonates the most with me because the depiction of behind-the-scenes church life/politics rings true with what I witnessed in my “past life” as a UU minister’s wife. Kinda like seeing sausage made. (Plus Mitch is sexy AF.)
Thank you! I consider that my best work forever and ever amen. It was important to me to put our culture out there to be seen and not just assumed from scant, scared glimpses.
Isn’t there a denomination that believes the three days Jesus spent dead in the cave was him going to Hell to redeem the damned? I seem to remember hearing something like that. Sort of like there’s a sect in Africa that believes Lucifer ultimately saw the light and asked for God’s forgiveness, and then got it, so they see him as a holy figure. Kind of the ultimate example of the contrite sinner receiving God’s grace.
I thought that was standard Christian doctrine? He went down, cast down the gates and redeemed the virtuous pagans and the repentant damned.
Right, but there’s a denomination that believes that He did it in such a way that Hell is like remedial school rather than a life sentence in Sing Sing, and Satan’s job is to torture you until you get it together. Sort of like the movie “Jacob’s Ladder”.
I wouldn’t call it an “orthodox” doctrine, but, there are a LOT of Christians who believe this.
That was for Jarflax, btw.
I have ALSO pondered the idea that Lucifer is the ultimate prodigal son.
Milton beat you to that Iâm afraid! I have never been able to finish Paradise Lost although I find it an impressive work of art. Butâs just such a slog to get through!
The Hitch on vicarious redemption. He’s not a fan, but I personally don’t care if you want to lay all your guilt at God’s feet. Guilt is for losers.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/511016-i-find-something-repulsive-about-the-idea-of-vicarious-redemption
Trump:
“Biden was only a good Vice President because he knew how to kiss Obama’s ass.”
Daammnn.
This is why I am a Buddhist. Because our central message is “Every man for himself!”
Seriously, Mo, thanks for writing this. I was raised Catholic and was pretty indifferent to the whole thing until I left the Church in the early 00s. The scandals really soured me on a centralized, imperious approach to spirituality.
I’ve never gotten past it, really. I’ve got friends who are believers and I can’t talk with them. I’ve got friends who are atheists and I can’t talk with them. Certainty about these matters drives me nuts. It feels lazy and intellectually weak.
I have no idea if God exists and, if he does, why his kid had to die. I suspect it has something to do with staying power. If he had a long life full of happiness, my guess is we wouldn’t know his name.
I have to admit, though, sacrifice and love are pretty important parts of a meaningful existence. Maybe even as a story, Jesus provides an important and valuable reminder.
Regardless, how can it hurt to hedge your bet? Being a moral person is just more pleasant here and now.
Thanks for reading and considering!
I admire Buddhism, what little I know of it. If I ever decided to leave Christianity (because I wouldn’t be leaving my church; I’d be leaving Christianity), I’d be attracted to Buddhism.
I’m not a Buddhist đ
Okay, it took me a while to put all the pieces together, since I have never seen that movie, but I finally did. Heh.
Oh my God.
Run, don’t walk, to your nearest DVD player or streaming device!
I think you mean:
Corri, non camminare, verso il tuo lettore DVD o dispositivo di streaming piĂš vicino!
SAY IT AGAIN!
ĐĐ´ŃавŃŃвŃĐšŃĐľ! ĐĐž ŃвиданиŃ!
^^This^^
This may be the thing that brings everything into focus for you!
(Ok, probably not, but it’s a really, really good movie chock full of really, really good actors)
Look! It’s K-K-K-Ken! He’s come to K-K-K-Kill me!
Have you ever watched a fish called Wanda?
Err…or watch the clip.
I needed the clip. It’s not like I haven’t seen the thing a couple dozen times or anything.
Since Buddhists don’t worship Buddha, nor do they really worship much of anything, it is possible to be both Buddhist and Christian. There are just a lot of Christian denominations that would have a problem with it.
Also, all kidding aside. I think you would really like A Fish Called Wanda.
Christians tell you what to think. Atheists tell you what not to think. Buddhists tell you not to think.
Asatru tell you to grab an axe!
There are worse 9 religious principles.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/7a/ae/f2/7aaef2c75fb0e17444aff340c40ea1f4.jpg
I find Asatru very appealing in some ways. The only problem I have with it is that there is a strain of, if not racism, then at least ethnic identitarianism in at least one big portion of the religion. And as someone half Jewish I don’t especially enjoy that strain, nor think I’d be welcome.
Somebody didn’t get enough Easter eggs growing up.
Rabbits don’t lay eggs.
But they do leave jelly beans.
No matter what those jelly beans look like they don’t taste like chocolate
No, but Muppets punch potatoes out.
– Joseph Campbell, “The Hero’s Journey”
“The problem with the experience of encountering the Almighty is that it’s ineffable – you literally have no words for the experience. It’s why He/She/It is always spoken of in poetry, or music, hymns, parables, and analogies.” ~ Close friend of mine who is a shaman in a native American tradition.
Imagine if you can that “God” – The Infinite, the Universe, the Singularity, the Self, Brahmin, Yahweh, Nirvana, whatever – is like a mountain. If you’re approaching a mountain from the North and you’re trying to describe it to others, you might describe the lay of the land, the terrain, where other landmarks are along the way, etc. The problem is that if I’m approaching from the South and I try to follow your directions literally, the description may do worse than simply not help me, it may lead me in the completely wrong direction.
“The Truth is One, though the Sages know it by many Names” is from the RigVeda, among the oldest human spiritual texts. The path home, back to The One, is as multi-varied as there are souls, and a lot of different traditions all contain the same message. “Love One Another” really isn’t complicated, nor are the many variations of the “Golden Rule” found throughout human history. Maybe the point is to learn how to transcend all of the evil that people – including sometimes even ourselves – put into the world with Love.
Every man for himself!
I think you may be doing it wrong.
Call me Otto.
I knew that was a quote and could not remember where from. Interesting note, my Civ Pro Professor (who was a smokeshow with a Texas accent) showed us Repo Man in class. I forget what her supposed reason was, but she admitted the real reason was she loved that movie.
d’oh wrong Otto
I think I’m a member of the Mechanicus. I spend my nights and weekends making ritual obeysence to the machine god and praying this time something different happens.
/ave machina.
/not serious, but I spend a lot of time at it.
You’re a good man, UCS. You get jostled a little by the Glibnation and always are there with a repartee that is right on.
God: “Because fuck you that’s why. I do what I want. Just worship me. Assholes.”
/Rufus kneels.
“I ain’t messing around with this dude ‘in case’.”
This badboy should be here by tomorrow. Not looking forward to it.
Yikes! You’ll be in the prayers (such as they are) of this agnostic. (“To Whom It May Concern:”)
Srsly, please stay safe.
Stay safe! Or throw caution to the winds and let your Flag fly!
Goddamn Canadiantourists with Maple Leaves plastered all over themselves has left me unable to do that. “I’m not American, eh.” Nope. Just an asshole.
Am I an asshole? Eh? Hmmmm?
I don’t see the Maple Leaf on your shirt. You’re fine. I don’t hate Canadians by any stretch. Just Canadians that are proud of being Canadian only because it means they aren’t American.
They’re called Ontarians.
Yikes! Stay safe.
Damn. Seems like the service cancellations are earlier and more severe than usual.
My derp well has dried up.
Never heard of it before this year but yeah the derp was strong with them. Maybe they can merge with Jacobin or something.
I believe on a visceral level that silencing any voice no matter how wrong diminishes us. That said losing Splinter doesn’t diminish us much.
#MeToo
meet fire with fire: the answer for a bad guy with a bad idea is a good guy with a good idea
The timing of this couldn’t be better. I’m driving my four-year-old home from swimming lessons, and in the middle of her stream-of-consciousness rambling–interspersed with songs she’s making up to the tune of stuff like Camptown Races–she stops and says, “Dad, somebody made all this world.” I wasn’t sure about the last word, so I was like, “Did you say ‘world’?” “Yeah, dad. Somebody made all this world.” And the last bit she said with that absolute certainty that has an implied, “duh” at the end. Flummoxed. Then we got back on to singing songs about what squirrels are doing in our yard right now and I was on surer footing.
I enjoyed the article, Mo. And I’d love to comment on it but many others here have already expressed the evangelical, Calvinist, and other Protestant denominations’s beliefs as I understand them far more eloquently than I can. And while I now ascribe to something similar to Hyperion’s view, I still believe that Christianity has instilled some virtuous characteristics about me. However, it’s a burden I’m glad to be rid of, and though I’m not exactly hostile towards my Christian upbringing, I am still slightly resentful. I can’t be objective, so that’s all I have to say.
I feel tremendously lucky that I don’t feel traumatized by my Protestant Christian upbringing, though I’ve chosen to leave the religion of my rearing. I appreciate what I learned, and I don’t believe you can fully appreciate huge swaths of Western civilization and culture without a firm grounding in Judeo-Christianity. I don’t have the “allergy” to religion that I’ve often seen in other agnostics and in atheists, many of whom HAVE been scarred by their religious past. Am I doing this right?
I agree with you. I’m not angry or resentful and I definitely benefitted from the learning.
But now I’m done with it. I want to find some answers without human oversight.
No, you’re supposed to militantly hate a diety that you don’t even believe exists. Jeez, didn’t you read the memo?
I’m somewhere between hate and dislike on that spectrum.
But, I will say I have moved more towards dislike as the Religious right has started moving from being giant assholes.
Most of my resentment towards Christianity is just misplaced daddy-issues. God the Father spoke though my Father. All churches we attempted to attend were not interpreting the scriptures to my father’s satisfaction, so home became church, his church, all the fucking time.
Fun fact: years after my parents were divorced and I was grown, my dad was prescribed antipsychotics.
Yeah, that’ll do it.
This place is incredible. From SNP to the Foundations of Christianity to Wannafud. All with snark, humor, profanity and intellligence as appropriate.
Like Mo. I never understood the crucifiction, Unlike her I’ve never given it much thought.
My view of church is more like this:
https://youtu.be/n2OrBhVMKrk
Well, the full Atonement of Christ is more than the crucifixion. It is his time of suffering in Gethsemane, the crucifixion, and the resurrection all working together to form a complete sacrifice.
Gethsemane – taking on the sins of the world.
Crucifixion – destroying the sin.
Resurrection – rising from the dead without sin and the sin still destroyed.
I’ve always loved that one! Thanks! : D
I’ve never heard Lyle Lovett (yes, yes, I know).
I’ll see your Lyle Lovett and raise you Elmer Gantry.
!!!!! Required listening, young lady!
David Rodriguez’s Ballad of the Snow Leopard and the Tanqueray Cowboy is pretty much my favorite song. Lovett is the most tasteful guy going for two decades now, and I’d guess this cover must have stunned Rodriguez.
I hated Baptist theology for leaving all those poor ignorant bastards out in the cold with no mercy, while murderers could say a little prayer and go to heaven.
Something something developing countries something something carbon offsets.
As you can tell Mojeaux, I’ve taken the easy, lazy, smart ass route around this.
Jesus is my boy. That’s all. Does it matter if he was *technically* the son of God or is God himself?
Just enjoy the mystery ride I say.
I could beg for nothing less!
Every time I repose my trust in a Christian to answer a question about faith, all I get is more questions back.
Sounds like you’re bi-polar or schizo. You should see someone about that.
Can I get it looked at while I’m getting my teeth worked on? I’m already in the chair.
âYou come out here and thump your Bible and quote John 3:16. Well I read Austin 3:16 and it says I JUST WHUPPED YOUR ASS!â
Stone Cold had it right.
I believe that there must be a creator. I don’t think it necessary (nor possible) to know all there is to know about him. I believe he imbued in us the basics we need to live a moral and just life. It’s not immediately apparent how to do that, but it is imminently learnable. One has to merely seek it and conform to it’s dictates. When I have lived in a manner against my soul/spirit’s dictates, I suffer, almost precisely to the extent. When I even just try and listen to my soul, I thrive. It’s not a coincidence. Whatever you want to call it, that’s how it works for me. It seems like the mere fact of me trying to be good, and not anyone’s idea of good, but my own personal idea of it, makes my whole being respond with positivity. Conversely, denying my sense of right and wrong results in ever increasing damage to my mind, body and soul, likely all the way up until the ultimate damage of death.
This understanding allows my supra-rational mind the most acceptable path forward. I don’t have to believe in resurrection or virgin births or parting of a sea or any of that. It also prevents me from having to adhere to odd dictates, like swearing off sugar, alcohol, coffee, sex, etc. and living a lie by sticking to some code that’s been relayed to me by another human. People will send you to some crazy places when you let them tell you what’s right and wrong. I found a way to decide what’s right or wrong and suffer or get rewards based on my adherence to it. I can’t say if I subliminally learned my moral code, and now am just accessing it, or I started out with it. I really don’t care. I have a moral code and only by acknowledging it and living up to it’s demands, do I find freedom and prosperity. No ghosts involved.
Goodnight and good luck with your existential crisis, Mo.
Kant stay up a little later?
!!!!
Thanks, FM. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Some musical words of religious wisdom from the second best – nah, the BEST, as far as I’m concerned – singer to come out of Tupelo, Mississippi: You might be wrong.
The feeling in this song is moving even for this non-believer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAEJKg0lSPk
It is early for the stolen Saturnalia festival the Christians practice, but hey.
Beautiful. Brilliant juxtaposition.
Minor rant. Conversations like this presume the Catholic Church answers don’t exist or are “muh, because Pope Soandso XIV said so.” It’s a bit more thought out than that, and there’s actually a fair amount of writing (as in enough to fill libraries) on the holy mysteries. here are 2:
http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/
and
Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy.
Rant over.
Or, could be because somebody doesn’t know anything about Catholicism. Like me.
That said, I do attend Midnight Christmas Mass on occasion because the music is glorious.
I watch it on TV every year for the same reason.
I don’t think it was meant to be dismissive towards Catholicism, I think she was just sharing her personal experiences and a lot of us happen to have similar protestant upbringings. Sorry, I’m not a white knight and can’t read minds, I’ll shut up.
I have found the most theological clarity when reading Catholic thinkers. This is actually the foundation for the article I’ll be writing in the same vein as this one from Mo about the weakness of the modern western church. Modern Protestant Christian literature by and large sucks. The fact that we’re so ignorant of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into hammering out the orthodoxy is a stain on our time.
I can’t wait to read that!
I don’t seek out what other faiths believe. I go with what I was taught. Christianity, which includes Catholicism, believes that Christ died on the cross for our sins, which is my starting point.
Christianity, which includes Catholicism
From a Mormon, this made me chuckle a little. đ
LOL
The crucifix in the apse is kind of a big clue.
Yeah, I had a similar thought.
As a Lutheran, that was probably my favorite phrase.
I think the dismissiveness is in the eye of the beholder. I was raised in a hellfire and damnation, young Earth creationist, fundamentalist Protestantism which regarded Catholicism as the fallen Church, the Whore of Babylon. I rebelled hard against that. I have sought answers in a variety of places, but have never found belief. Along the way I have learned a great deal of respect for the thinkers of the Catholic Church, (including studying the (history of the Reformation and Renaissance under a devout Catholic professor, and let me tell you that learning the pro Bellarmine version of Galileo was a mind blowing experience for someone raised hard Protestant) and learned that even the hyper Protestant churches of my youth accept the vast majority of that Catechism (although most of their ministers are hopelessly ignorant of the sources of their doctrines.) I have opinions about the relative merits of the various sects of Christianity, but except for a rant above about the Calvinist lineage (sorry even after decades there are wounds that don’t fully heal) I’m trying to keep that out of this discussion. I’ll say this, Aquinas is in the pantheon of my intellectual heroes right next to Aristotle, and on a level above Newton, Jefferson, Locke, Smith and Von Mises, all of whom built on that tradition.
I bet you’re a Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Friends subscriber, too.
Only I don’t get all the Catholic stuff.
I wish I’d been born to Christian parents. I wish I had the background. I don’t think atheism was in any way additive to my upbringing. If nothing else, it isolated my siblings and me from a greater community, and probably fed my mother’s sense of grandiosity.
That’s truly unfortunate. Have you explored religion as an adult?
I’m truly sorry to hear that.
This is deeply saddening. I’m sorry.
Episcopalian here. I very much ascribe to the old stereotype that the two things an Episcopalian will never discuss in polite company are politics and religion. WASP aversion to conflict FTW!
But, in essence, I believe that free will is the greatest gift of God to us little folk. We are free to make up our own minds and choose our own paths. I donât know if Iâm right or not but, if I am wrong and there is no God, I donât feel that Iâve lost anything by exercising my free will in believing in it. It has been a source of comfort to me over the years and I havenât been a dick to anyone else over their belief or lack thereof so, in essence, its at the very worst simply been a good intentioned waste of my own time.
This, right here, is the attitude I can respect and appreciate in folks with a more theistic faith than my own. Thank you!
I was raised Episcopalian, but I always thought the “no politics or religion in mixed company” was a southern thing. The Episcopalian thing is “whenever you see four Episcopalians there’s always a fifth”.
This is basically the way I’ve always heard it.
âLive a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.â
â Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius. Without a doubt one of the most enlightened, educated, and interesting people to ever obtain world power. An intellectual giant who wrote one of the great philosophical works of all time while simultaneously running the known world.
This man, who was probably an actual genius, then goes off and royally fucks it all up by picking literally the worst possible person (his crazy-ass son) to succeed him on the throne, thus leading to civil war, despotism, and the fall of the Roman Empire.
We all have flaws I suppose.
He married poorly. It is not true that behind every Great Man is a good woman. Marcus Aurelius is a prime counter example.
Good point! Intellectual titan but with blinders for his personal relationships all the way around, come to think of it.
To alter the question slightly, I wonder what the ratio of failed personal relationships to evil dictators is? Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and many others all had fucked up love-lives.
And Augustus the shrewdest.
Caesar, Cicero, Cato, Augustus, Marcus Aurelius….quite the civilization.
Scipio Africanus
He understood that before he could defeat Hannibal and force him off the Italian peninsula, he must first subvert his naval supplies from Carthage, use espionage, diplomacy, and bribery to undercut Hannibal’s support at home, and avoid pitched battle until the sheer amount of troops and resources available could be used at the most advantageous moment.
As much as he’s remembered for defeating Hannibal in battle, I think what he did to destabilize Carthage before the battle was more impressive.
Him too. Absolutely.
I didn’t know hummingbirds migrate. I figured they all die in the winter like the other insects.
True dat. The SPQR had a string of great leaders culminating in many ways with MA. Then MA sets up a historic disaster of succession that brings a string of crap leadership that last for a 100 years. (Except for Septimus Severus, who makes the same mistakes in succession.)
Plus “Meditations” is short and to the point. An easy read on any kindle/book etc. (Hundreds of free translations are available.) From there you can branch into Seneca. Seneca has an author you has a short series of book (free pdf) called “Tao of Seneca”
I’m partial to the vulgarity of Juvenal myself.
How about Petronius Arbiter? lol
This, this, this, and um let’s see – THIS.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that Meditations is the closest thing I have to a Bible. I have literally turned to it in my darkest times, and it hasn’t let me down.
I’m finding similar merit in Seneca’s Letters.
Define “a good life.”
Eudaimonia.
Iâll drink to that!
Cheers. Comment #10 was my clunky way of inserting it. (Cat kicking aside).
Unknown Hinson (Stuart Baker, the voice of Early Cuyler) = not Lyle Lovett, but I’m getting hammered and going to see him again tomorrow night.
Here’s some of his sexist fun, and
here’s a totally competent cover of Voodoo Child
and I’ll be the only one there who has listened to a hundred hours of Joseph Campbell lectures
Joseph Campbell was an interesting fucking dude. Use him a lot in my mythology class.
::applause:: I recall when a small UU group just getting started in a smallish Midwestern city had a series of programs on Friday evenings showing the Bill Moyers interviews with Campbell. I rilly rilly tried to stay awake on that comfy sofa…
I don’t do Friday evenings well.
My youngest daughter is in college and reading Aristotle’s “Metaphysics” right now. The Greeks gave considerable thought to the subject of what the “Good Life” is and consists of. I find great comfort and solace in the Stoic tradition, but I also find it in the Bible, the Upanishads, the Tao, Buddhism, and even more “secular” writers like Eckhart Tolle. Hell, if you really want to hear something brilliant on religion that is modern and intellectual, listen to Jordan Peterson’s lecture series on “The Idea of God.”
You will not be sorry you listened. You will be eminently better off for having done so.
That James Stockdale will be remembered, when he is remembered at all, for what most people will recall as a senile appearance in the 92 VP debates is a great shame.
Concur. My recollection is that he was treated terribly by the media, but I was 22 or so then. Lotta years ago.
I don’t know how James Stockdale relates to Ozy’s comment, but I didn’t remember him at all, so I did a quikiWiki and wow.
Looks like Pascal’s wager isn’t dead. But, are you sure the house is playing by the same rules?
ethnic identitarianism
I spent an hour learning how to hate-listen to Bari Weiss. She destroys a dozen straw men and refers to zero first principles. oy
Thanks Mojeaux.
I’m going to respond to your steam of consciousness with one of my own. Again, I recommend Adam Miller and especially his book “Grace is not God’s Backup Plan.” Granted, its been a while since I’ve read it, so I don’t know if it even approaches your questions here or not. And if this has been going on for a long while, then I might lean towards not.
I think first, I don’t know if i believe in the “all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing” Deity. Compared to our limited human understanding, I think said Deity gives the appearance of being all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing, but is ultimately limited and must obey universal laws. Those laws exist and in order to be able to make it to the CK. While I’ve moved from a literal belief in the fall to a figurative belief, I think there is still a gap between us and Deity, and that gap can only be filled by an intercessor, mostly because we aren’t able to abide in their presence for a whole host of reasons. 2nd Nephi 2:25-27 lays it out to me, particularly “And because they are redeemed from the fall, they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon…” I think Elders Holland, Uchtdorf, and Bednar portray my feelings on the atonement most accurately. While I don’t know all the particulars, I do know that it is there fore us to draw closer to the heavens.
So, I don’t really have any answer.
Speaking Mormon to Mormon here:
I have had the same musings, but that is a function of our particular belief that we can become gods. If so, then the one we worship has his own Deity and so forth on back. (8-year-old me: MIND. BLOWN.) It also means he is not perfected as a god. I totally get that.
However, is providing an intercessor to atone for our sins a universal law our God is constrained by?
Shooting from the hip and being more orthodox than I like to think that I am, I would say yes. Sin is violation of those universal laws that must be satisfied. D&C 19:16-19.
Again, why? I don’t know for sure.
is ultimately limited and must obey universal laws
I had a very interesting conversation with a Catholic friend about this a few years ago. I’ll not do it justice, so I’ll just sum up his point to the best of my ability. Is the fact that God cannot do evil a limitation on God? No. God is omnipotent to do what is in God’s character, which is the utmost good. Evidently free will and its concomitant evil is a greater good than perfected automatons. Just because we can imagine utopia doesn’t mean that it’s a viable choice for masses of free-thinking rational creatures.
“Sen. Harris: “My pronouns are she, her and hers.”
Chris Cuomo: “Mine too.””
https://twitter.com/jeneps/status/1182468957002813440
I enjoyed your article Mo. I don’t know which level of heaven you’ll go to but I do know you are a Saint
*blush* Thank you! đ
Wow, you guys! Thanks for the great discussion and hardly no OT at all, which I feel very flattered by.
Glibs are the best.
Well your topic was the All, so it was hard to go OT. đ
Well, I read and appreciated your article, but I wasn’t going to argue it. Not only because that wouldn’t be Catholic, but because I was busy watching the Giants.
My evangelical mom explained this to me thus: someone who has never heard the gospel can’t be punished for not receiving to it. So, unlike Caesar’s laws, ignorance is a defense.
BTW, thanks for the artcile, Mo’.
One more question: Do
MormonsLatter Day Saints have Deacons?Awwwww you DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO love me!!!
Well, let’s just say I’m getting soft in my old-ish age.
Dammit, I f’d up that link! It was supposed to be:
One more for my favorite LDS
LOL
Giving me Steely Dan links WAS dirty work for you!
Romans 2
Yes. I should clarify; she said someone with a good heart who has never heard the gospel canât be punished for not receiving to it.
^^THIS!!^^
Man, I have really got to be paying more attention to that refresh button….
…or quit acting like a troglodyte and get Monocle.
I’ve had it for quite a while now, TYVM. ?
It doesn’t automatically refresh the screen every time someone posts, or, predict where the next comment(s) will be, you know…hmmmph!
But it refreshes what? Every…3 minutes? SLOW DOWN.
đ
I have never had my browser, or, Glibs, auto-refresh. On any device.
Are you yankin’ my chain, Mike?
Mine refreshes every time there’s a new post, as far as I can tell. What occasionally frustrates me is that the “Unread Comments” count resets to “1” every time I comment, so I can’t automatically go read any I missed right before I posted.
(Hi, Diggy!)
Mine does not refresh, nor do I want it to. It’s in OPTIONS.
Hi, GT!! (heheheheh….Diggy)
Yeah, I get that. Of course, if others are posting in-between refreshes, I will inevitably reply behind another reply that wasn’t there when I
unleashed my clevernessget cutesy or feel that I must chime in.For the most part, I don’t have nay issue with the Unread Comments counter.
Sorry, no. No refresh. But new comments show up once every few minutes.
MikeS is obviously not here overnights…
/couldn’t resist
SOME OF US WORK!!!!
…4 days a week…
When I was but a young lad, they made us work FIVE days a week, for EIGHT hours each day.
But, try telling that to the younger generation…
Good evening, Diggy.
Howdy, ma’am!
/heheheh…Diggy
*St. Peter leafing through the book of words, thoughts, and deeds of your life*
“Oh, dear…you did…how can you fit that into such a small…!!!…you can’t even pay to see that in Bangkok!!!…I’m sorry, but..”
“Mens rea.”
“..Shit…okay, get your ass inside.”
See my correction.
Oh, I wasn’t being snarky, just having a little fun. Sorry if it came off that way.
No, not at all. I just wasn’t sure if you saw my “addendum”.
I saw. I hope we can all agree that serial chicken-fuckers don’t get to plead ignorance at the Pearly Gates. Ha!
African or European chickens?
Also, LOL at the mens rea.
If St Peter actually guards the gates, how many times do you think he has had “deny Me three times before the cock crows” thrown in his face by people he turned away?
Please don’t force me to look up the death rates for extremely isolated people living in non-Christian nations.
đ
LOL! That’s true. I never thought of that.
I see a Python skit.
Peter: Welcome to heaven.
Person: No your not!
Peter: I’m not what?
Person: what you said right then.
Peter: what?
…..
and it goes around three times and then a cock crows and Paul gives a *you scoundrel* look.
Oh shit, Judas reference,
*woosh*
No, Peter reference.
Not that kind of peter!
Ahhhhhhh, damn, yeah. I try not to look shit up before I post if I’m pretty sure I know the reference. If I’m wrong, screw it, save to posterity. Obviously after a couple jibbers and two tallboys my memory is jumbled, sorry. I think that’s my cue to sign off for the evening. See ya!
Shit, dude, no worries. Your posterior is fine.
Oh…posterity…? Yeah, that’s fine, too!
but that’s when the content in the comments just starts to get good!
H-jibbers?
B-juibbers?
This IS an episode of The League, right?
“California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill that bans hotels from supplying travel-size bottles of shampoo and lotion in an effort to reduce the number of plastic containers being thrown away by hotels and guests”
https://twitter.com/CNNBusiness/status/1182379043804635136
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/shampoo-plastic-bottles-ban-trnd/index.html
His mind is Tiffany-twisted.
Just like plastic straws, it’s not enough that these fucksticks can’t just choose for themselves to forgo, they must force everyone else to conform as well.
A graduate from his particular “school of thought: https://www.theblaze.com/news/you-stop-it-you-are-a-white-male-unhinged-trustee-shouts-down-colleagues-for-weighing-in-on-towns-equity-diversity-and-inclusion-statement
In my ‘John McAfee should be President’ mindset, I say, “Go for it, dude!”
I already called that shot.
Oh…well, then “Great minds think alike”.
That’s the h/t you’re getting. đ
When you have a name that sounds like you’re one of Skeletor’s minions, can the mindset be far behind?
Nighty-night, Moje et al! Thank you for a lovely evening!
G’Night!
Night! I’m going to bed also.
Thanks all! You really made my evening.
Good night ladies, and have a pleasant tomorrow.
https://tinyurl.com/y3myue7o
NSFW.
https://i.imgur.com/WjqwNqh.jpg
NSFW.
https://tinyurl.com/y5hjbf3v
NSFW.
https://archive.li/w4eEr/a786275e3fd0636536ec26253f41740b339b27c1.jpg
NSFW.
That’s some…”tight” timing, there, Q.
He just goes about his business. One track mind that one.
Maybe a two track mind?
Maybe a two
track mind?a two
track mind…/you know what I mean!
HAHA!
UGGGH!
You see, Mike? This is what I have to deal with!!
/Good on ya, C. Great minds….you know.
Tracks.
https://archive.li/wLvz5/a99646bf1eb99c5d801591436317655440cd6075.jpg
NSFW.
Praise the Lord!
Sorry, this is a bit long and apparently, weâve moved on to tits. This is my take.
Justice is for those wronged by a sin/sinner. The sinner must receive punishment for the damage they caused for the harmed person to receive justice. Christ took the punishment (in place of the sinner), so those who are wronged receive justice. Mercy goes to the sinner because they do not pay the (ultimate) price/punishment for their sin. Christ took the âjustâ punishment that we deserve; we receive mercy. Justice and mercy work in tandem, you donât get one without the other.
Christ, out of love, volunteered to take our punishment. I think that is the whole point; itâs not logic, itâs love. Itâs you taking the hit, so someone you love doesnât have to.
Why did it happen that way? We are Godâs creation, His children. Sometimes when you communicate with children, you get down to their level, you kneel, you get on the floor so that you can look them in the eye. You tell stories in ways they understand. We live in this world (a world we barely understand); to speak with us, God got on our level. Sent His Son to live in our world, to die in our world. He gave us a human story.
My understanding is that the crucifixion was a fixed moment, a one-time sacrifice. We are not constantly torturing and crucifying Christ by our sins.
God doesnât punish us. God doesnât reward us (on earth). We live in a fallen world. Bad stuff happens, even if you are âgood,â even if you follow all the rules. We donât know what is in the hearts of others. Maybe the murder goes to heaven, maybe a moral person who follows the rules life goes to hell. We donât know the totality of them, God does. Christ died for everyoneâs sins; He took the punishment. And people who never had a chance at belief, they get mercy.
Are you iodized?
Don’t be salty.
I can be whatever you need.
(Sorry, was that too weird? Too much? Too Winston’s mom?)
It’s just, it’s very authoritarian to think you know what I want….Nah, saul goodman.
That was very well said. I mean that.
In at the end!
That IS very well said.
thanks
Just. Wow.
/actual ordained minister
/slackers/ Guy who thought about becoming a priest.
“Iâm pretty sure I have the Golgathon and the angels somewhere around here⌔
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/3BJZnaP3RkqyLjBPXqpAjw.BpFyK39w88iYt73Ftnqb5y
Found them.
The more I read of religion, the more comfortable I am in my atheism.
Now, I’m not an evangelical atheist. I don’t care if other folks believe. If it brings some meaning, comfort or anything else of value to your life, great. I won’t try to convince you of the rightness of my atheism, as long as you don’t try to recruit me into your faith.
“Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present Deity need an intercessor between them and their children to administer justice or grant mercy?”
The Deity doesn’t need it – YOU need it.
It’s not because you are stupid or lazy or anything of the sort. It’s because you are a human, stuck with other humans like Hilary Clinton who are so adept at fooling other people into believing that doing evil deeds is somehow righteous. The most power-mad government ALWAYS tells you they are doing God’s work, which is the surest sign they are doing the devil’s work.
Why did Jesus H Christ get killed? He dared to forgive whores and tax collectors alike – probably because they ARE alike which in a sense pisses off the tax collectors even more since they are always in denial that are doing anything but God’s work and therefore never forgive anyone.
Ask yourself what pisses off bureaucrats more than anything. It’s a poor person that asks government to leave them alone. Government has an authority hard-on and avoiding them just gives them blue balls and makes them angry.
I look at the Bible as this. The Old Testament is the government giving you all their justifications for doing what they do, and the New Testament as Jesus saying “Not true, Slaver.” (I don’t think Jesus would be so angry as to say “Fuck off” but I could be wrong.) Preet Pilate even knew Jesus wronged no-one, but had sworn allegiance to government over allegiance to goodness and so, like Eichmann, followed orders of the government rather than his own conscience.