Karen

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  • What @Lamb Chopped said—particularly the part about “who among us” are not screwed up.

    Twilight wrote: »
    Jesus was kind and respectful to the woman who had "had five husbands" but he also told her to go and sin no more.
    With regard to the Samaritan woman at the well, my understanding is that it is wrong to read the part about five husbands as a comment on her morals. Women could not initiate divorce, and the idea that she could have been divorced and remarried five times is pretty much an impossibility in that culture. To read this as a comment on morality is to divorce the story from its cultural context, the context the original headers of the story would have been familiar with, and to impose our cultural assumptions on it.

    It is much more likely that the woman had been involved in 5 leverite marriage, where on the death of a husband, his brother is required to marry his wife. (There may also be echoes of the story of Sarah in the book of Tobit—part of the Biblical canon for Catholics and the Orthodox, part of the Apocrypha for Protestants. A demon kills each of Sarah’s seven husbands on their wedding nights, before the marriage can be consummated, and Sarah prays for death as a result. The original audience would likely have known the story.)

    Regardless, Jesus’s remark that the woman had had five husbands isn’t a comment on loose morals. It’s an acknowledgement of her life and hardships, of her vulnerability, and possibly of the general perception among those in her community that she was cursed.

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Speaking as a missionary, the man has the exact right approach to people whose lives are screwed up (and who among us is not that?). You start by listening, caring, developing a relationship, meeting needs. You love those people. As they come closer to you, they may very well ask your opinions, feelings, advice on messy areas of their lives--and what's more, they'll listen, because you've proved you care for them, and are not just running around handing out judgement (which they already know, thanks).

    Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner!

    Seriously, anyone who's ever spent real time helping people will tell you that you don't start with telling them how fucked up they are. In the first century BCE people didn't make their lives better and then start following Jesus; they followed Jesus and that changed their lives. It works the same way now, whether people start following Jesus or get connected with folks doing outreach ministry from their local church or other non-profit. The outreach group where I work does zero preaching while they help people get off the streets.
  • First of all I didn't say anything about the woman at the well. It was the woman with five husbands and yes I thought he was talking adultery, why else would he have told her to go and sin no more?

    I never suggested this preacher should yell at anyone or tell them how fucked up they are, in fact I thought I was suggesting the same thing LC just mentioned. Get to know them then help them find safer, work.

    I can't see this whole twitter thing, just a tiny segment, but it looked like this preacher was joking about porn and sex workers and some woman thought he was wrong and suddenly every one was having a good time hating that woman. Because boy do we love to hate in the name of not being judgmental.
  • Twilight wrote: »
    I can't see this whole twitter thing, just a tiny segment, but it looked like this preacher was joking about porn and sex workers and some woman thought he was wrong and suddenly every one was having a good time hating that woman. Because boy do we love to hate in the name of not being judgmental.

    Seriously, where the fuck do you get that idea? Where's the joking about porn?
  • Twilight wrote: »
    First of all I didn't say anything about the woman at the well. It was the woman with five husbands . . . .
    The woman with five husbands was the woman at the well.


  • When I clicked on the link that's what someone said. Maybe it's all different today.
  • ...... He first of all slowed down the cycle of events that was leading mighty quick to a stoning, then provoked second thoughts through his question about being without sin, and essentially stood or stooped by her (writing) the whole time--which gave her the protection of his body. He then got rid of the embarrassing crowd, and only THEN did he deal (quite gently) with her sin. "Go and sin no more" sounds hugely different when it's coming from the man who saved your life.

    That was beautiful. Thank you, Lamb Chopped.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Twilight wrote: »
    First of all I didn't say anything about the woman at the well. It was the woman with five husbands . . . .
    The woman with five husbands was the woman at the well.


    Ahhhh. I thought it was the woman LC is talking about. Sorry. At least he told someone to go and sin no more and that's what I was talking about. Yes, he had saved her life first, but he often told crowds of people some pretty firm stuff. This morning I read Matthew 19, which is what started me thinking about this thread:
    16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

    17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

    18 “Which ones?” he inquired.

    Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[c] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”

    The young man he's talking to is the young rich man and I always went away from this sermon thinking about him and how I'm not rich so no worries -- but I realized, today, I should back up and think about the part that if I don't keep the commandments I may not "enter life."

    Hence the worry about prostitutes who we're all so busy not judging we might actually be letting down.
  • Twilight wrote: »
    Wiki quotes says it's Lamott:
    You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

    I don't think Jesus hates anyone, but I wouldn't say that some of his followers were prostitutes: ex-prostitutes yes, just like ex-thieves and even ex- murderers, but I doubt if the Jesus who preached against fornication or even lust, would have had sex-workers plying their trade among the disciples. Jesus was kind and respectful to the woman who had "had five husbands" but he also told her to go and sin no more.

    The minister sounds like a nice man, approaching sex workers with love, buying them cakes, etc, but if he pretends that Jesus thought their lifestyle was fine then he himself is following the current mood of society and is in danger of creating God in his own image.

    I agree we should never judge the person as anything other than a worthy child of God, but we're letting them down if we never mention the things Jesus taught us for our own good. I've never known a happy prostitute, they were quite often sexually abused as children and grew up thinking their bodies were all they had to offer, all they were worth. Helping them out of that life isn't judging, it's setting them free.

    Where did Jesus preach against fornication? Please use "preach" in the standard meaning of "spoke before a group of people" not "said it to one guy". Thanks.

  • How about you finding a place where he said, or implied, that sex outside marriage was cool. You're the one who started this, bragging about how much you loved the sex workers, while happily assuming everyone else hates them because it makes you feel so superior.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    What @Lamb Chopped said—particularly the part about “who among us” are not screwed up.

    Twilight wrote: »
    Jesus was kind and respectful to the woman who had "had five husbands" but he also told her to go and sin no more.
    With regard to the Samaritan woman at the well, my understanding is that it is wrong to read the part about five husbands as a comment on her morals. Women could not initiate divorce, and the idea that she could have been divorced and remarried five times is pretty much an impossibility in that culture. To read this as a comment on morality is to divorce the story from its cultural context, the context the original headers of the story would have been familiar with, and to impose our cultural assumptions on it.

    It is much more likely that the woman had been involved in 5 leverite marriage, where on the death of a husband, his brother is required to marry his wife. (There may also be echoes of the story of Sarah in the book of Tobit—part of the Biblical canon for Catholics and the Orthodox, part of the Apocrypha for Protestants. A demon kills each of Sarah’s seven husbands on their wedding nights, before the marriage can be consummated, and Sarah prays for death as a result. The original audience would likely have known the story.)

    Regardless, Jesus’s remark that the woman had had five husbands isn’t a comment on loose morals. It’s an acknowledgement of her life and hardships, of her vulnerability, and possibly of the general perception among those in her community that she was cursed.

    Forgive me if I differ a little on this. It is not the being married five times that is a sin per se--she could have been widowed five times, or in one of those volatile marriages where the guy divorces her on a whim, she remarries (because what else is she going to do to support herself?) and then he changes his mind and wants her back again, etc. only to redivorce a few months later...

    But the problematic bit is "the man you have now is not your husband." In a world where setting up housekeeping together was sufficient to establish a marriage, what could this possibly mean? As far as I can make out, it means that she "has" a man who belongs to somebody else already, whether he is still living with that woman or not. There's the faint chance that she is not eligible to marry him because he is too close kin to her, but I think that less likely.

    So yes, her home life is a mess and there are some aspects of immorality to it (if polygamy was an option in Samaria at that date, the man is apparently unwilling to avail himself of it, or he would have been her husband).

    But it's clear that Jesus is not focusing primarily on morality in this conversation, so we don't need to determine the precise percentage of sin--and we aren't given the data to do it with. He is focusing on brokenness--on areas in her life that are crying out for help, that force her to "realize she needs a Savior" in the old phrase. He is oh so gently touching a tender wound. And when she shies like a frightened horse, he lets her change the subject (he is nothing if not courteous) and comes at his ultimate point a different way (I mean "I who speak to you am he", that is, the Messiah). He is inviting her into new life, and he'll do it whatever way will get her there. For some people that's through the traditional explicit sin/forgiveness paradigm, with all the stuff about "morality" and "breaking God's laws." For others, it comes through a sense of brokenness, of being not enough, of needing help and hope. There are probably even a few who do it through a purely intellectual route, though I think that a less-traveled path.

    I think in her case he gently pointed out the hurt bit (incidentally underlining his supernatural knowledge), and then allowed her to lead the conversation to the point that he could make his self-declaration--which gave her (almost certainly a low-status near-pariah in her village) the scoop of all scoops to announce to everybody! Which would go some distance toward healing her social problems, as well as making her the more likely to cling to him in faith. Basically, whatever (ethical) works, in evangelism.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    Picking up on something else of Twilight's post (if you don't mind, Twilight)--

    Here I'm about to get all Lutheran. Telling people "you are a sinner" is what we Lutherans call "announcing the Law"--that is, you are diagnosing a dangerous situation, you are giving the bad news, you are trying to wake people up to a sense of the danger they stand in. Telling people "there is hope for you in Jesus Christ" is what we call the Gospel, announcing the good news. Figuring out when to do Law and when to do Gospel is one of the hardest things out there.

    The Law is intended for the hard-hearted--the complacent, the obdurate, the ones who think "everything's fine with me, I don't need any help." Its purpose is to act as an alarm, a wake-up call. Once it has done that, you can (and should!) safely lay it aside. To the hurting, the broken, and the lost you can and should preach the Gospel. They already know and feel the Law. An overdose of Law only turns people to despair.

    Note that keeping the Law and Commandments is never going to get anybody into everlasting life, but for a tricky reason--because none of us can do it, no matter how hard we try. When Jesus said "Do this, and you will have life" he spoke truth; but the unfinished bit of that sentence might well read "...if you can!" In the case of the rich young man, he was very obviously breaking the first and foremost commandment, to have no gods before the real God. His god was money and possessions, and he could not lay it aside even when Jesus called him to be a disciple.

    What will get us into life? Jesus will. Nobody and nothing else. That's what the cross and the resurrection are about. If we could do it as a self-improvement project ("Better commandment keeping in thirty days!") we wouldn't have needed the cross. THAT is the Gospel--that Jesus has already done everything, and will share it with us if we trust him to do so.

    And that is what makes me nervous, Twilight, when you talk of trying to keep the commandments better in order to earn life--or when you think that the thing to do with prostitutes etc. is to lecture them about morality. Morality will get neither of you into the Kingdom. Jesus will.

    But what about change of life? That is a wholly different matter. That is a natural result of having Christ living in you, of being a remade creature. It has nothing to do with hard work and earning one's way, or measuring up to a standard. It is much more akin to a grapevine bearing grapes--we consider that the normal course of things, and find the opposite (barrenness) unnatural. A prostitute who becomes a Christian is likely to find his or her life change in major and surprising ways--just as mine did, just as everyone's does. Though some are more visible on the outside than others.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    What @Lamb Chopped said—particularly the part about “who among us” are not screwed up.

    Twilight wrote: »
    Jesus was kind and respectful to the woman who had "had five husbands" but he also told her to go and sin no more.
    With regard to the Samaritan woman at the well, my understanding is that it is wrong to read the part about five husbands as a comment on her morals. Women could not initiate divorce, and the idea that she could have been divorced and remarried five times is pretty much an impossibility in that culture. To read this as a comment on morality is to divorce the story from its cultural context, the context the original headers of the story would have been familiar with, and to impose our cultural assumptions on it.

    It is much more likely that the woman had been involved in 5 leverite marriage, where on the death of a husband, his brother is required to marry his wife. (There may also be echoes of the story of Sarah in the book of Tobit—part of the Biblical canon for Catholics and the Orthodox, part of the Apocrypha for Protestants. A demon kills each of Sarah’s seven husbands on their wedding nights, before the marriage can be consummated, and Sarah prays for death as a result. The original audience would likely have known the story.)

    Regardless, Jesus’s remark that the woman had had five husbands isn’t a comment on loose morals. It’s an acknowledgement of her life and hardships, of her vulnerability, and possibly of the general perception among those in her community that she was cursed.

    Forgive me if I differ a little on this. . . . .
    Always forgiven for differing with me, @Lamb Chopped. Hope I’ll be forgiven in turn if I differ just a little bit back. :wink:

    Yes, the man she’s with when Jesus meets her may be married to someone else. The story doesn’t say, though we can fill in the possibilities. What I think is safe to say is that she is likely acting out of necessity survival-wise, not indifference to moral norms. She is, it seems to me, in a position where the culture has boxed her in and left her with few options. There’s no indication that she has chosen her situation, or that Jesus judges her for it, nor does she say anything that suggests shame at being “caught.” To the contrary, she responds to Jesus’s observation that the man she’s with now is not her husband by saying he must be a prophet, and asking about who is right, the Jews or the Samaritans, regarding the proper place to worship.

    The bottom line, it seems to me, is that her marital status or morality is not really the point of the story, and not what we’re to focus on. That said, marriage is very much front and center in the story. Every time a man from “away” meets a woman at a well in the Hebrew Scriptures, a wedding results. That includes Jacob and Rachel, who met at midday at the very well where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at midday. So the story is setting up a situation that resonates with the marriages of Isaac and Jacob and Moses.

    And right before this story, we have John the Baptist describing Jesus as a bridegroom:
    “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

    So it seems to me it’s not the woman’s marriages or arrangements we’re supposed to be paying attention to. It’s the arrival of the bridegroom and the kingdom he is bringing we’re supposed to focus on. That and how the woman and others in the village—outside the people of Israek—welcomed him.

  • Interesting!
  • Twilight wrote: »
    How about you finding a place where he said, or implied, that sex outside marriage was cool. You're the one who started this, bragging about how much you loved the sex workers, while happily assuming everyone else hates them because it makes you feel so superior.

    You make a claim, you back it up, or you admit that it's wrong, or everyone knows you for what you are.

    I never said anything about sex workers. Try to get the right person.
  • Picking up on something else of Twilight's post (if you don't mind, Twilight)--

    Here I'm about to get all Lutheran.

    I am a Lutheran so I'm used to the weekly sermon starting with the Law and ending with the Gospel . You can hear us sniffling during the law part, and you can feel the relief when we're reminded that we're all forgiven through Christ when we hear the gospel part.

    I certainly was not suggesting anyone yell at sex workers, but people read my posts a certain way and I'm used to that. I also realize that it is only through Christ that we can be saved but simply having faith hasn't made me automatically keep the commandments as seems to work for some people so I need reminders. When you're old and in poor health and have had a very eventful past, it all becomes more of a worry and we are a little less likely to read the Bible and tell ourselves, "Oh it's not really about that it's about this other thing."
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Twilight wrote: »
    How about you finding a place where he said, or implied, that sex outside marriage was cool. You're the one who started this, bragging about how much you loved the sex workers, while happily assuming everyone else hates them because it makes you feel so superior.

    You make a claim, you back it up, or you admit that it's wrong, or everyone knows you for what you are.

    I never said anything about sex workers. Try to get the right person.

    You quoted a post about a preacher's dealing with prostitutes and said you had experience with that, what else was I supposed to think you were talking about?

    MARK 7 20:23 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

    Matthew 19:9 "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

    Mousethief : "or everyone knows you for what you are."
    There's that judgmental part that keeps popping up. It's not enough for you to say I'm wrong about an issue, you have to judge my whole person and call "everyone" to come point the finger with you at "what I am."
  • Twilight, you might consider the way you post, if people are consistently misreading you. for example, I just got my feathers a bit ruffled by " When you're old and in poor health and have had a very eventful past, it all becomes more of a worry and we are a little less likely to read the Bible and tell ourselves, "Oh it's not really about that it's about this other thing."
    That looks remarkably like an indirect putdown of me. Pray tell, how exactly do you know my age or physical status or what my past may be? I have a grown son, I am disabled, and we'll just leave my past out of it on the Internet, shall we?
    It's also pretty rude to suggest that I'm reading the Bible in bad faith, twisting it to mean what I want it to mean. If you see me making a mistake, by all means point it out; but stop describing me as a willing twister of Scripture.
  • I was describing myself as old, bad health, bad past and tempted to look for easy interpretations of the Bible. I certainly was not asking any personal questions about you.

    I would never suggest you were reading the Bible in bad faith or twisting any part, but you were very quick to tell me that I had "the wrong end of the stick," and present your interpretation as indisputable as did @ Nick Tamen. Many times I've heard my pastor tell us that what we always believed about passage X really doesn't mean that once you take it in context of the culture as we understand it today. She then ends up with a passage that has no point at all and we wonder why Jesus ever mentioned it.

    There's no doubt you're both far more educated on the subject than I am, but when it comes to things like what tone of voice Jesus might have used, soft and gentle or a bit stern in a kindly father way, for instance, or which part of a parable was "the point" and which part doesn't matter at all -- well I don't think anyone can be completely sure about that and it's in those areas we are (all) in danger of creating God in our own image.

    You want Jesus to be about nothing but love and forgiveness and that is surely the most wonderful part, but I have also looked to him for actual guidelines and rules to live by. Things I really never had from anyone else.

    I attended church all my life and never heard a single word about sex. My Presbyterian minister would never have lowered his high brow tone to such a tacky subject and neither would my parents. It's all well and good to be forgiven one's mistakes after they've been made, but I think it would also be very nice to avoid some mistakes in the first place. Such help from Jesus is there, in the Bible, but it always seems to be downplayed and skirted past.

    Fundamentalist churches may be very different and might err in the opposite direction. I don't know.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    edited August 2020
    IIRC Jesus says nothing at all about sex per se.

    He does have things to say about marriage, divorce and adultery.
  • Having just given a theological disquisition on the topic of masturbation (yesterday noon, as it happens), your idea of what I expect to find in Jesus' discourse, or at church, is decidedly off-base.

    I don't care if you present your interpretation as absolutely correct. That's the nature of debate, and is personal in no way. I expect you to believe that you are right, and I expect it to take some doing to convince you otherwise. That is debate.

    It is also the nature of debate for someone to come right back at you with a contradiction, preferably supported by evidence. Are you expecting people to add a lot of weasel words to soften their stance? Because that's the nature of social conversation, not debate. The expectations for the two kinds of conversation are very different.

    What is NOT proper in debate is to say or imply personal things about your interlocutor--the old "Oh, you just say that because you're not old/ disabled/ a twister of Scripture." (and if you were not talking about me in any way, shape, or form, you'll want to start being a bit more careful about your use of the word "you.")



  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I don't have a dog in this fight, but I read it as @Twilight referring to herself.

    Anyway, back to your Bible study and I'll back to leaving saucers of milk out for the faeries.
  • Twilight wrote: »
    I would never suggest you were reading the Bible in bad faith or twisting any part, but you were very quick to tell me that I had "the wrong end of the stick," and present your interpretation as indisputable as did @ Nick Tamen.
    I began what I said with "my understanding is . . . ." That's presenting it as indisuptable?

    Twilight, it seems to me that perhaps you get the kinds of responses you do because your responses seem out of proportion to what others say. It's like you try to read them with an extreme spin. For example, when you say
    You want Jesus to be about nothing but love and forgiveness and that is surely the most wonderful part, but I have also looked to him for actual guidelines and rules to live by.
    that strikes me as a pretty inaccurate characterization of what others have said. I'm pretty sure it doesn't accurately describe me, and from what I've seen on the Ship, I don't think it describes @Lamb Chopped either.

    And when @mousethief said
    Hey I have some experience with this, although I don't claim to be in this guy's league. I'd rather be condemned for loving people Jesus hates than for hating people Jesus loves. (Personally of course I don't think he hates anyone. Which is a problem for some people who claim to follow him.)
    you responded with what seems to me to be a pretty massive distortion of what he said:
    You're the one who started this, bragging about how much you loved the sex workers, while happily assuming everyone else hates them because it makes you feel so superior.

    To be honest, it seems as if your responses assume the worst of those to whom you're responding. And to be fair and to be clear, I am not discounting at all the possibility that past experience on the Ship has given you reason to assume the worst of people who disagree with you.
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    (Stoping by to say that the way @Twilight uses “you” is a style of speaking.

    Mr Alba does it All The Time.

    And All The Time I end up sounding like @Lamb Chopped just has in reply...
    .
    I ‘got’ @Twilight ’s point first time, but screwed up my eyes just waiting for a car crash scenario.....

    In my experience this was formally taught as the correct way to speak)
  • Twilight--

    NOTE: I just skimmed through the posts that have happened while I was slowly writing this. So have edited what I was going to post, and added to it.

    {{{{{{{Twilight}}}}}}} I'm sorry about what you went through. I'm glad you've found Jesus' rules for living helpful.

    FWIW: lots of people have never been taught about various things, stumbled into trouble, and had to figure things out for themselves. Lots of people wind up raising them themselves. I did, in some areas. NOT minimizing what you went through. Just the opposite.

    I started the sex worker topic, without intending to, because I shared a link to a story about a pastor who shows compassion and great good sense, and is loved by some folks on social media for it.

    "Karen Asks Priest Why He Tolerates ‘Prostitutes’ Following Him, Gets Shut Down" (Bored Panda).

    I shared it because a) it's about someone labeled a "Karen"; and b) the title is straight out of the gospels. I found it funny, and the pastor refreshing.
    :)

    mt mentioned he has some minor-league experience with what the pastor is doing.

    Lyda told a great story about a pastor who bought a birthday cake for a sex worker he overheard talking at a restaurant. He surprised her with it. She was grateful--she'd never had a birthday cake of her own before. It wasn't about any supposed sin on her part, or saying that sex work is a great way to make a living. The pastor just treated her like a person.

    Twilight, I'm neither a therapist nor a spiritual director. But I don't think Jesus hates you (or anyone). Whatever you did or stumbled into doing isn't the main thing. ISTM what he cares about is *you*. Not in a judgey way. More like helping heal you.

    IMHO: God doesn't give up on anyone. Please don't give up on yourself.

    You matter.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    Firenze wrote: »
    I don't have a dog in this fight, but I read it as @Twilight referring to herself.

    Anyway, back to your Bible study and I'll back to leaving saucers of milk out for the faeries.

    I read it that way, too.

    Cool re faeries. :)
  • Twilight wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Twilight wrote: »
    How about you finding a place where he said, or implied, that sex outside marriage was cool. You're the one who started this, bragging about how much you loved the sex workers, while happily assuming everyone else hates them because it makes you feel so superior.

    You make a claim, you back it up, or you admit that it's wrong, or everyone knows you for what you are.

    I never said anything about sex workers. Try to get the right person.

    You quoted a post about a preacher's dealing with prostitutes and said you had experience with that, what else was I supposed to think you were talking about?

    MARK 7 20:23 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

    Matthew 19:9 "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

    Mousethief : "or everyone knows you for what you are."
    There's that judgmental part that keeps popping up. It's not enough for you to say I'm wrong about an issue, you have to judge my whole person and call "everyone" to come point the finger with you at "what I am."

    You might want to consider what I say in context with my whole post, and the way in which it is interacting with the posts I quote.

    It seems to me that if one makes a claim and refuses to either back it up or renounce it, one is being dishonest or worse. On the ship this course of action is pretty obvious because we are all, or at least most of us in Purg, capable of working out what's going on in that respect. Thus everyone knows it.

    Your two quotes above do not in the least imply that sex outside of marriage is immoral. They don't speak about it at all.
  • Twilight wrote: »

    You want Jesus to be about nothing but love and forgiveness and that is surely the most wonderful part, but I have also looked to him for actual guidelines and rules to live by. Things I really never had from anyone else.

    Just to say, Twilight, I found your whole post interesting, and well expressed.

    It's probably a difference in emphasis of understanding the gospel; but I always think that the 'guidelines and rules' that Jesus so radically tried to teach his followers were all about love and forgiveness. 'Love God and Love neighbour - on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.' 'A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you.'

    So it seems Jesus says 'everything should have its root in the kind of love I have for you'. So not so much a case of our lives following God's rules. But of Christ's Golden Rule or Law of Love ruling our lives.

  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Some interesting, well-considered exegesis there, @Lamb Chopped and @Nick Tamen. (I’m not sure I entirely agree with the Lutheran view, but...) Thank you.
  • Well, given all the exegensis, or despite it, I looked up Saint Karen. Brief look suggests there are at least Saints Karen of Washerwomen, and Karen of Love, Sex and Intimate Relationships. There does not appear to be a Saint Karen of Entitled, Over-Bearing and Fussy Middle Aged White Women.
  • Well, given all the exegensis, or despite it, I looked up Saint Karen. Brief look suggests there are at least Saints Karen of Washerwomen, and Karen of Love, Sex and Intimate Relationships. There does not appear to be a Saint Karen of Entitled, Over-Bearing and Fussy Middle Aged White Women.

    Now THAT is funny ...

  • Well, given all the exegensis, or despite it, I looked up Saint Karen. Brief look suggests there are at least Saints Karen of Washerwomen, and Karen of Love, Sex and Intimate Relationships. There does not appear to be a Saint Karen of Entitled, Over-Bearing and Fussy Middle Aged White Women.

    I wonder if there will some*day be a Saint Snowflake ...
  • Well, given all the exegensis, or despite it, I looked up Saint Karen. Brief look suggests there are at least Saints Karen of Washerwomen, and Karen of Love, Sex and Intimate Relationships. There does not appear to be a Saint Karen of Entitled, Over-Bearing and Fussy Middle Aged White Women.

    I wonder if there will some*day be a Saint Snowflake ...

    Donald Trump
  • He said "saint," not patron demon.
  • He said "saint," not patron demon.

    He also said "snowflake" so I was confused. The biggest snowflakes I know of are Trumpite Republicans.
  • Would snowflakes melt in Hell?
  • Not if it froze over.
  • You guys have lost me. I'll be over here feeling bewildered.
  • {Throws volley of snowballs at all on thread.}
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    {Throws volley of snowballs at all on thread.}

    Balls of manually compressed snowflakes ...
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    {Throws volley of snowballs at all on thread.}

    I want to talk to your manager.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I have a feeling that you don't qualify as a Karen, Mousethief, being as how you're a bloke ... :confused:
  • Piglet wrote: »
    I have a feeling that you don't qualify as a Karen, Mousethief, being as how you're a bloke ... :confused:

    I'll throw in a flaming snowball here ...

    (Forgive me for speaking ill of a deceased person, but ...)
    I always found Karen Carpenter to be ... boring ...
    Her voice was too smooth, all of her renditions sounded alike,
    and ... well especially her Christmas songs were ... treacly ...
    Sorry ... May she Rest in Peace ...
  • Karen Carpenter was killer on the drums though.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    To the rest of you, you realise that this thread was only revived because Fr Teilhard, being sufficiently perturbed by me to go look at my profile, decided to post on the only thread he could find with my name associated with it?

    Don't feed the troll.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Karen Carpenter was killer on the drums though.

    I thought that was her brother, Richard ...
  • orfeo wrote: »
    To the rest of you, you realise that this thread was only revived because Fr Teilhard, being sufficiently perturbed by me to go look at my profile, decided to post on the only thread he could find with my name associated with it?

    Don't feed the troll.

    Ummm ... Get over yourself, brother ...

    I was Absent Without Leave from "the Ship" for a number of months,
    and since my return I have *plunged* back into shipboard stuff ...

    The "Karen" thread attracted my attention because the whole "Karen" thing
    remains a bit of a cultural puzzle for me ...

    But, brother "O," by all means you are ever *free*
    to ignore anything I post, as you wish ... (duh) ...
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited January 6
    Bullshit. The thread was well and truly buried. It did not attract your attention until you were interacting with me elsewhere. I know you've been here for weeks because that's how long you were misnaming a country elsewhere.

    And could you fucking learn how to use punctuation like a normal person? All that time you spend typing extra dots you could put towards thinking.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    Bullshit. The thread was well and truly buried. It did not attract your attention until you were interacting with me elsewhere. I know you've been here for weeks because that's how long you were misnaming a country elsewhere.

    And could you fucking learn how to use punctuation like a normal person? All that time you spend typing extra dots you could put towards thinking.

    LOL ...

    Thank you, Brother ................ !!!!!
    ............. for your obviously kind .............. !!!!!!!
    suggestions .............

    But, no ... I was/am actually interested in the "Karen" thing
    and that is why I noticed it and began commenting .....................
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Karen Carpenter was killer on the drums though.

    I thought that was her brother, Richard ...

    You thought wrong.
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