Christianity

[Gary Childress]

Heck, I've heard it professed by some that the saintly halos as depicted on Christ and prophets of the day were actually caricatures of mind-altering mushrooms of the day. So I guess if Jesus hung out and did shrooms, then it must be OK, right?

https://youtu.be/_Wx0AJ2qIj4

[Gary Childress]

With all due respect, IC. You must surely be familiar with a lot of contemporary biblical scholarship. For example, December 25th may not even be Christ's birthday but rather a holiday picked up from Pagan traditions by Christianity in order to blend in with the social norms of the day. I mean, come on. Do you really believe the Bible can be interpreted literally any more than the Egyptian book of the dead or any other religious beliefs floating around the middle east prior could?

Then let's go back to evidence for two major stories in the bible (creation and the flood). I believe you stated there was plenty of evidence for those things. Where is all this evidence? Almost nothing in the Bible is backed by contemporary science, last I heard. Everything from the fossil record to the speed of light contradicts the Biblical account. And if it doesn't contradict it, it MOST CERTAINLY doesn't SUPPORT anything in the Bible. What in the bible is substantiated by modern science? I want your words not a bunch of links to go spend all my precious spare time reading. If you know your stuff, then you should be able to explain it in your own words. Just as I have almost always used my own words of understanding in discussing things rather than labor people with unsummarized links and references.

[Lacewing]

Heck, I've heard it professed by some that the saintly halos as depicted on Christ and prophets of the day were actually caricatures of mind-altering mushrooms of the day. So I guess if Jesus hung out and did shrooms, then it must be OK, right?

https://youtu.be/_Wx0AJ2qIj4

Drinking wine, tripping, hanging out with prostitutes, and flipping over tables at the church... divine!

[Gary Childress]

Heck, I've heard it professed by some that the saintly halos as depicted on Christ and prophets of the day were actually caricatures of mind-altering mushrooms of the day. So I guess if Jesus hung out and did shrooms, then it must be OK, right?

https://youtu.be/_Wx0AJ2qIj4

Drinking wine, tripping, hanging out with prostitutes, and flipping over tables at the church... divine!

Apparently, there were no decent people in the world at the time for God to associate with so he summoned genocidal maniacs, murderers, adulterers and such to represent him. Seriously, there were no timid or non-violent people at the time that he could have found to spread his words???

[Gary Childress]

I just don't understand how anyone can buy into a literal interpretation of Christianity after all the facades like the borrowing of Pagan holidays, and having the Emperor of Rome appoint some religious people to form the Council of Nicaea to found the new Church of the "holy" Roman Empire. Could you imagine if Joe Biden (or any politician of the "holy American empire" today) appointed a panel of "specialists" to come up with the official "new" religion of the US??? What a scandal it would undoubtedly be. I mean, they'd be sifting through Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman et al for the official story of Americanism. Either that or we'd see "wokeism" codified. Oh, wait...

[Gary Childress]

I can see it now...The Council of Davos (headed up by Saint Bezos, Saint Musk, et al.) submits to us the new holy text of "The Great Reset." IC would shit a brick. And yet it's literally, probably the same thing that happened at Nicaea, a bunch of elites coming together to deliver their prejudices to the masses. I mean, the council apparently threw out a LOT of contemporary biblical accounts and texts to come up with the volume we now call the Bible.

[Gary Childress]

Literally, a bunch of (probably then very influential) humans who themselves were not witnesses to any of God's words sat down and sifted through all types of contradictory and conflicting material to come up with THEIR version of what God 'really' said. Would IC buy into it if something like that happened today? I would assume not. So why does he buy into what happened back then?

[Gary Childress]

Maybe (for all we know) God is rolling over in the grave Nietzsche dug for him as we speak--just at the thought of what the Council of Nicaea did to his words!

PS. I'm just poking fun with the Nietzsche reference. I don't take Nietzsche that seriously either.

[Will Bouwman]

I don't prefer to believe, I just, as I say, recognize.

Maybe that's the point. We don't choose what we find beautiful, if we are lucky, we find things, music, art, people that we recognise.

It may be simply good luck, but it is usually formally learning the idiom, whatever that may be.
You can't recognise a lot until someone has taught you how to read, and see linear perspective, and hear musical forms and harmonies.
Ask Henry who taught him to read. It was not down to luck he learned to read, it was down to someone who made the effort to teach him.

It's not for me to say what henry quirk means by 'recognize' in a particular context, but I took him to mean that there are some things which are clear signs of order in the universe. This usually boils down to the fact that if you repeat the conditions, you get the same outcome. Some people will take this as evidence that there is a guiding hand ensuring that nature behaves itself, but why if a brick were dropped down a well, for instance, would anyone expect a second brick to behave differently? As Hume pointed out, until you do the experiment, you don't know what will happen, but once you have done it a few times, with consistent results, you can start to think you have discovered a pattern. It's a bit of a stretch to claim you have uncovered the mind of God. You might contrast that view with the opinion that it is exceptions to the expected behaviour, miracles, that prove God. It's head I win, tails you lose.
I take your point about recognising the quality of a piece of work within a given idiom, and how that takes an appreciation of the particular art form, but I was thinking more of the 'recognition' that something pleases us - something is orderly or beautiful to one individual, but not to others.

[henry quirk]

It's not for me to say what henry quirk means by 'recognize' in a particular context, but I took him to mean that there are some things which are clear signs of order in the universe.

Yep. Further, there are some things which are clear signs of a Mind bein' behind, or bein' responsible for, that order.

As I say...

We can take a gander at what is (includin' ourselves) and make some minimal guesses as to the nature of a creator god and what it might want. Reality is, and Reality has rules of operation, so we might say this is a purposeful creator god with an eye toward sumthin'. Our universe doesn't seem to be a Jackson Pollock affair. There's consistency and coherence, symmetry and elegance to Reality apart from what we say. That is: the whole thing is beautiful.

Doesn't seem to me I've uncovered the mind of God. Really, all I'm sayin' is: if there's a Creator, we can make some educated guesses as to what He's about.

[Lacewing]

there are some things which are clear signs of a Mind bein' behind, or bein' responsible for, that order.

This is an interesting thing to consider and question. The concept of a 'mind' is surely based on a human. Many things we see in nature cooperate and work together as groups... trees, bees, ants, birds, fish, etc... without possessing or using 'minds' as imagined or defined by humans. Rather, they function and flow and grow through their connectivity. Why do we apply a human idea onto the 'order behind things' rather than reassessing ourselves based on the connection and order we see in nature?

if there's a Creator, we can make some educated guesses as to what He's about.

Based on our human education and understanding? How does that even come close to understanding the workings of our Universe and beyond? Throughout our brief human history on Earth and in the cosmos we continually explore our known world/understanding to discover new levels of connectivity and expansiveness that we previously had no clue of. Yet, we think we can accurately guess (at any point in time) what's behind it all?

Why do we need to do this? Instead of guessing about such a thing, why don't we notice and respect how nature works, and strive to be more in-tune with it as a part of it? We often disrespect and work against it, aiming to control it and rule over it with our own ideas of a personified 'master controller', who we are uniquely in association with. We are at odds with that which we are naturally part of and that doesn't seem to concern us. We're more focused on 'knowing' better.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I didn't think it was but I've been here long enough. Time to vacate.

Oh?

[Immanuel Can]

Fornication can be very pleasurable.

Sure. Why else would people do it? And why else would people steal, use drugs, seize power, or just gloat and gossip? There are always "pleasures" from sin. In fact, "do the right thing" invariably means, "do the thing you don't want to do," or "don't do the thing you most feel like doing."

Morality's like that.

What's wrong with having it with someone who isn't married?

Because even if she isn't somebody's wife now, she's going to be. Now or later, it's the same defilement. You're saying to the woman, "You're not worth marrying; I can use you and discard you. You are not valuable to me, except for this momentary encounter. And I care nothing for your durable happiness or well-being, or for the rights of your future husband."

Think about yourself being on the other end of that equation, too, if you want to think unselfishly. Imagine yourself having culminated the relationship with your own beloved, the woman who you love above all others, and her saying, "You know, you're the fifth best I've had." Would you do that to yourself?

Then do unto others what you'd have them do unto you.

Why would I go to hell for it?

Are you seeing the bigger problem yet, Gary? It's not just one act of fornication: it's the kind of person who thinks that way. He's callous, selfish, indifferent to others, greedy for his own pleasure, uncaring about long-term consequences, self-satisfied, arrogant, a user...Does a person like that, in your view, deserve the gift of eternal life?

What does God care if we pleasure ourselves or not?

Masturbation, you mean? So far as I know, there's no mention of it in Scripture, outside of the case of Onan, whose sin was treating a woman in exactly the way I described above, and violation of the duties of levirate marriage, rather than simply that lone act.

But lustful thinking about women to whom you have no relationship or commitment, and for whom you have no love...that is "lust." It is also a problem: and even a person who "pleasures himself" is indulging in thoughts that are greedy and exploitative. It's always the mind problem that is the most serious one -- the actions are merely the manifestations of a dark heart.

Or, to put it in the words of Jesus, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks..." And out of such a heart, the limbs also act.

So long as no one is hurt, I don't see a problem with it.

Look at the above. Isn't "I don't see a problem with it" part of the real problem? You've got a person who is not merely using women, but who is also arrogantly indifferent to the moral status of what he is doing. Again, does such a character deserve eternal life? What kind of "just" God would reward such a person in that way, and would permanently institutionalize his greed, selfishness, cruelty and so on, making them part of the great Forever?

Does God dislike when we have pleasure?

Not at all. In fact, God invented pleasure. But pleasure needs a context: there are good pleasures and, unfortunately for us, bad pleasures too. There are some people who even, in fact, derive real pleasure from seeing others suffer. If wickedness had no charms, it would never be a temptation. But we are drawn often to the selfish and mean pleasures, rather than the right ones.

To commit to a woman, to give her the appreciation, security, loyalty, pleasure, protection and provision for which she longs, is to aim at the right pleasure; to use her and abandon her is to demean her in aid of one's own selfish satisfaction.

Is that hard to imagine? That God would validate committed relationships over uncommitted ones? That he would value pleasures surrounded by values of caring and nurture to pleasures obtained by impulsiveness, selfishness, debasement and fraud? That he would value marriage and children over mere self-gratification at the expense of others? That he would value love rather than contempt?

[Immanuel Can]

Maybe (for all we know) God is rolling over in the grave Nietzsche dug for him as we speak-

Nietzsche's rolling over in the grave he dug for himself.

But he won't get to keep it, anyway. "No rest for the wicked," says the Lord.

[promethean75]

That quote is given significance becuz Ozzy said it, not the Lord.