Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

[5mn_Major]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

Better said - Kepler.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

You aren't flawed. You're just turning to fairy tales to explain the parts of the world that can't be explained (yet). Some of those fairy tales are good advice, which people rarely follow. That hardly means they were "divinely inspired", or whatever you believe. Just written by regular blokes of above-average intelligence to try and control the mongrels, by instilling fear of a torturous, fiery afterlife.

[Kepler]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

You appear to be missing the point.

No, I didn't miss the point at all, I'm just not going where you are. The author and you have an agenda. I think that agenda is ridiculous and that it debases you because you are devaluing your faith by pretending it is veridical. The whole value of your faith is that it transcends reality.

If religion wants to compete with mere fact then religion loses because it's made up. But religion should be competing with the other made up stuff that makes life worth living: philosophy, law, aesthetics. That's your wheelhouse. Don't throw it away for a lump of mere reality. Reality is boring.

It is the great irony of the apologists for religion that they cling to the supernatural as if it were real. The whole point is exactly the opposite: by being a human extension of reality, by being the wish fulfillment that is the ground state of humans at our most primitive, religion is one of the greatest human inventions. It is not logical, it is in parallel with logic. But if you pretend it is logical you have to use slipshod reasoning, and logic will slice up your faith until it is just a little boy's sad, sordid lie.

Revel in the transcendence of faith. It is a spaceship to take us places where logic can't follow. That's its purpose. It will always be necessary for a variety of human purposes. "Salvation" is exactly that -- the salving of wounds that are human, and not actual phenomena.

[Kepler]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

You aren't flawed. You're just turning to fairy tales to explain the parts of the world that can't be explained (yet). Some of those fairy tales are good advice, which people rarely follow. That hardly means they were "divinely inspired", or whatever you believe. Just written by regular blokes of above-average intelligence to try and control the mongrels, by instilling fear of a torturous, fiery afterlife.

That's what religion is on the day-to-day level with the orcs, yes. But religion also has its high brow components. There is always a gap between our aspiration and our reach ("or what's a heaven for?") and that is how faith can also fill an Emily Dickenson with wonder.

I don't mind the dummies thinking it's real. They're dummies. They weren't going anywhere anyway -- they have been on a quick road from birth to making more dummies to death for ten million years. But the smart people should stop tying themselves in knots. It's just a story, but it's a great story. It's interesting precisely because it is made up. We -- human beings -- made this. Without our imaginary worlds of fiction, including religion, we would be as boring as a tree or a rock. Our ability to bullsh-t is what makes us unique. No other animal just makes sh-t up.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

That's what religion is on the day-to-day level with the orcs, yes. But religion also has its high brow components. There is always a gap between our aspiration and our reach ("or what's a heaven for?") and that is how faith can also fill an Emily Dickenson with wonder.

I don't mind the dummies thinking it's real. They're dummies. They weren't going anywhere anyway -- they have been on a quick road from birth to making more dummies to death for ten million years. But the smart people should stop tying themselves in knots. It's just a story, but it's a great story. It's interesting precisely because it is made up. We -- human beings -- made this. Without our imaginary worlds of fiction, including religion, we would be as boring as a tree or a rock. Our ability to bullsh-t is what makes us unique. No other animal just makes sh-t up.

It's a Tolkien novel in which Jesus is the "boy of destiny" character.

[5mn_Major]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

No, I didn't miss the point at all, I'm just not going where you are.

You said that faith 'pretends to be rational'. I didn't claim that, the author didn't claim that. The author mentioned that many seeking to attack faith claim that its 'not rational' but say nothing about their own beliefs being 'not rational'. Not at all the same as claiming 'faith is rational'.

The author and you have an agenda. I think that agenda is ridiculous and that it debases you because you are devaluing your faith by pretending it is veridical. The whole value of your faith is that it transcends reality.

If religion wants to compete with mere fact then religion loses because it's made up. But religion should be competing with the other made up stuff that makes life worth living: philosophy, law, aesthetics. That's your wheelhouse. Don't throw it away for a lump of mere reality. Reality is boring.

It is the great irony of the apologists for religion that they cling to the supernatural as if it were real. The whole point is exactly the opposite: by being a human extension of reality, by being the wish fulfillment that is the ground state of humans at our most primitive, religion is one of the greatest human inventions. It is not logical, it is in parallel with logic. But if you pretend it is logical you have to use slipshod reasoning, and logic will slice up your faith until it is just a little boy's sad, sordid lie.

Revel in the transcendence of faith. It is a spaceship to take us places where logic can't follow. That's its purpose. It will always be necessary for a variety of human purposes. "Salvation" is exactly that -- the salving of wounds that are human, and not actual phenomena.

You truly miss the point of faith.

I haven't seen any believer here say that faith is logical. Much of humanness is illogical. Faith doesn't compete with fact. They are very different - serve different purposes. The only people I've ever met who put faith as the centerpiece in their lives...spend zero percent of their day focused on belief, they spend all day doing good for others. Its like your definition of faith is borrowed from the 1940s or something.

[Kepler]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

It's a Tolkien novel in which Jesus is the "boy of destiny" character.

Nah. Frodo didn't turn out to be God. Tolkein is just boilerplate* Heroes' Journey.

Jesus is a million other eastern mystical God incarnate myths that go back to well before the Bible. Every element of the story was stolen from other sources. But Jesus isn't what's interesting about Christianity. Jesus, as has often been pointed out, isn't a Christian and really has nothing to do with Christianity. He's a minor Jewish reformer who didn't even really catch on among the Jews all that much.

Christianity is the huge bat guano accretion of the Patristic Generations: Peter, Paul, Clement (I forget which one there are like 8 of them), Iraneous, Origen, Augustine, Gregory (the cool one, not the as-shole pope), Anselm, Francis, Aquinas. All that mountain of crap. That's what's interesting. I'm told there are similar mountains of crap in Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism. Those are the great human inventions. They're as important as the law summary of Hammurabi and Justinian and Blackstone, or the lifeworks of Homer and Sophocles and Plato and Shakespeare and Milton.

* By boilerpate I mean the best anyone has ever done it so stop hyperventilating pimply Peter Jackson fanboys.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

For all the "peace, tolerance, self-improvement" stuff that makes Buddhism trendy among yuppies, it's amazing how sexist that faith is, when you start looking into it.

[Kepler]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

For all the "peace, tolerance, self-improvement" stuff that makes Buddhism trendy among yuppies, it's amazing how sexist that faith is, when you start looking into it.

Everybody treats women like sh-t until about 1500. After that there's only a few voices -- as in like a dozen alive at any given moment -- until 1800.

We're really only a hundred years removed from women being subhuman slaves. Republicans shouldn't shock us -- that's everybody on Earth from Aristotle to Jefferson.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

The anti faith crowd is big on saying faith is irrational (just channeling their inner Rush Limbaugh to get there). New science shows that's not true.

Science???????

ROTFLMAO

[elbojpb]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

If you keep sinning and are Christian, deep down you know its wrong and in all likelihood, you will feel pain/guilt - the pain resulting from knowing you did wrong - and in essence, you won't be forgiven until you stop sinning. Its pretty straightforward.

Actually not quite that straightforward. Many Christians reject the widely-accepted notion that humans can actually "stop sinning," or ultimately do anything to merit forgiveness. If you instead interpret forgiveness according to St Paul's letter to the Romans as an unearned "gift," it removes the "pain/guilt" that accompanies the theology that you so aptly described. However; Jewish law did differentiate between presumptuous and less intentional sins (similar to your kid that occasionally screws up, and the one that repeatedly and consciously defies you)

[5mn_Major]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

Actually not quite that straightforward. Many Christians reject the widely-accepted notion that humans can actually "stop sinning," or ultimately do anything to merit forgiveness. If you instead interpret forgiveness according to St Paul's letter to the Romans as an unearned "gift," it removes the "pain/guilt" that accompanies the theology that you so aptly described. However; Jewish law did differentiate between presumptuous and less intentional sins (similar to your kid that occasionally screws up, and the one that repeatedly and consciously defies you)

Hey welcome. I was describing a real world phenomenon of tying guilt to sin and showing a real world outcome of sinning for Christians. But to your point...

One of the most clear messages in the Bible is that sin is bad and has negative consequences. “Your iniquities (sin) have made a separation between you and your God". “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin." etc. Yet at the end of the day, there needs to be some way of taking action to improve, thereby sinning less...rather than brooding over past sins. This is accomplished by returning to God. The purpose of Romans here is to allow for this return to God rather than a green light to sin without ramifications.

Christians have believed many things - many of which came from personal motivations rather than scripture. Hence for centuries, there were indulgences. Taking a single line of Paul's work without the context of the Jesus' Word (i.e., God) doesn't appear to me to be in the spirit of Christianity - def. as basing oneself on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

[elbojpb]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

... Yet at the end of the day, there needs to be some way of taking action to improve, thereby sinning less...rather than brooding over past sins. This is accomplished by returning to God. The purpose of Romans here is to allow for this return to God rather than a green light to sin without ramifications ...

I agree wholeheartedly. I believe St Paul covered that mindset in the first two verses of the same chapter. My interpretation is that a Christian ebbs toward a "sin-less" life out of thanksgiving and gratification for the fait accompli gift of grace; rather than from a motivation of guilt. Unfortunately, most of Christendom seems rooted in a sin-guilt-pain-indulgence-goodworks cycle.

[5mn_Major]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

I agree wholeheartedly. I believe St Paul covered that mindset in the first two verses of the same chapter. My interpretation is that a Christian ebbs toward a "sin-less" life out of thanksgiving and gratification for the fait accompli gift of grace; rather than from a motivation of guilt. Unfortunately, most of Christendom seems rooted in a sin-guilt-pain-indulgence-goodworks cycle.

Yep. I might edit your comment to say 'a healthy Christian does so out of thanksgiving and gratification' rather than all do. Having said that, I think the cycle you describe sin -> good works has merits.

Soo...first, its important to know what is important - which is why a Biblical understanding is foundational. But next...one has to recognize one's own missteps (sins) as they happen. Recently, I've noticed a reoccurring theme in talking to Christians that they are striving to be more perceptive. I believe a modest amount of guilt plays a key role in this. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if guilt in this capacity has historically done significant good and might even be built into our DNA for just that reason.

Its just that guilt is a negative emotion...and if as God you're trying to improve folk's lives, its better to fill it with positive motivators rather than those that are negative.

[unofan]

Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar

This could go in any number of threads on here, but since it involves the Catholic Church, I'm putting it here. A long, tough, but highly worthwhile read.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/interacti...gtype=Homepage