Oh, yeah, the other thing that gets my goat - every time I get the fear that God is an utter bastard out of my head, someone *always* comes along to argue that he is.
So perhaps he is, and he's sending them to tell me. If so, he can still fuck off.
I'm not sure I argued that he is, but I'd be happy to take the rap if I have done so or am perceived to have done so.
I'm trying to make sense of all this stuff the same as everyone else. My daughters aren't believers. Nor are plenty of other people I care about.
I pray for them, as I pray for other people I care about, living or dead. I pray for people I don't know. Heck, one of the Church Fathers, I forget which one, even said hyperbolically that we should pray for the demons ...
I struggle with all this stuff too and try to make sense of it the best I can. For me, where I'm sitting now, the overly juridical and hyper-Scholastic view doesn't cut it.
Sin is a disease that needs healing. Any 'punishment' must be restorative. If that makes me a universalist, fine.
On the thing about 'projecting our own values onto God.' Anthropomorphism.
Yes. We all do it.
But whatever else we can say, for all the whackiness of Revelation and the tough passages in the Gospels we can still see a Christ who is the embodiment of Love.
I know that doesn't satisfy those who would rather not have the whacky stuff and the tough passages in the first place, but we do have them and it's up to us - in community and dialogue - how we deal with them.
FWIW I can currently deal with them through a hopeful universalism. That doesn't mean everyone else can.
I can see that Universalism solves one problem (for example that one might have to believe otherwise that friends and family were destined to eternal punishment) but I don't see how it solves another. Namely that if there is Universal Salvation, why bother with all the boring church stuff.
I can see and agree that there is virtue in behaving morally in and of itself. That doing the right thing has value to the individual.
But I don't see why it then follows that one would get wrapped up in the minute details of a religion or engaged in doing the boring stuff.
Universalism makes more sense to me from a position of deism rather than theism. Theism requires ongoing care and attention to things that deism does not. But if a deity wound up all of this and then just let it go (which most often seems the case to me), it's entirely plausible that universalism is the one-off blanket covering all.
I can see that Universalism solves one problem (for example that one might have to believe otherwise that friends and family were destined to eternal punishment) but I don't see how it solves another. Namely that if there is Universal Salvation, why bother with all the boring church stuff.
Speaking as one who has never understood salvation to be about getting a ticket to heaven or as being predicated on “bothering with all the boring church stuff”—and leaving aside that “boring” is in the idea of the beholder, and describing involvement in church that way could be interpreted as reflecting a less-than-objective-or-informed bias—some of us bother with it out of gratitude, and because we find deep meaning and joy in it.
Hard though that may be for some others to comprehend.
Not at all, I perfectly understand that there are aspects of any community that an individual might value. I'm just saying that if one was a universalist, it seems tough to understand why one would continue with a form of tough religious observance.
Some people like the minute detail, I get that. Most would likely see it as a waste of effort, I'd suggest.
Not at all, I perfectly understand that there are aspects of any community that an individual might value. I'm just saying that if one was a universalist, it seems tough to understand why one would continue with a form of tough religious observance.
Some people like the minute detail, I get that. Most would likely see it as a waste of effort, I'd suggest.
Oh, yeah, the other thing that gets my goat - every time I get the fear that God is an utter bastard out of my head, someone *always* comes along to argue that he is.
So perhaps he is, and he's sending them to tell me. If so, he can still fuck off.
You can't go on like this - putting your peace of mind in the hands of other people.
Oh, yeah, the other thing that gets my goat - every time I get the fear that God is an utter bastard out of my head, someone *always* comes along to argue that he is.
So perhaps he is, and he's sending them to tell me. If so, he can still fuck off.
You can't go on like this - putting your peace of mind in the hands of other people.
Oh, yeah, the other thing that gets my goat - every time I get the fear that God is an utter bastard out of my head, someone *always* comes along to argue that he is.
So perhaps he is, and he's sending them to tell me. If so, he can still fuck off.
You can't go on like this - putting your peace of mind in the hands of other people.
It's more like having to make constant defences against other people who try to take it than me placing it anywhere.
It's more like having to make constant defences against other people who try to take it than me placing it anywhere.
There are thousands of religions with many contradictory beliefs. What in particular is it about these particular beliefs that you can't avoid?
Why not simply focus on something else? As these discussions show, there are various other Christian flavours that don't require you to engage with the things you hate.
I'm sure there are many who think I'm destined to hell. I don't give them the satisfaction of attempting to think through their position. They can believe whatever they like, it has no impact on me.
Fellas, please forgive my intervention but I think you are doing @KarlLB a disservice.
Let's be glib for a moment and I'm only using my own case as an example to illustrate a point.
I'll be honest. Sometimes when I read Karl's posts I find myself thinking, 'Hey, that's not an issue in my particular tradition. Perhaps I ought to suggest ...?'
But if I were to do so I might be guilty of proselytising for one thing or else overlooking other aspects that Karl might have issues with.
Also, these things run deep. I used to be involved with Christian expressions that could become quite manipulative and guilt-inducing. Thirty years later I'm still dealing with that.
If I understand Karl correctly it is more a case that some posters appear to be recommending attitudes or courses of action that he now finds abhorrent. Or at least posting things that show that the issues he finds distasteful are still very much in currency.
I can understand his reaction, even though I may contribute to it myself at times.
Fellas, please forgive my intervention but I think you are doing @KarlLB a disservice.
...
If I understand Karl correctly it is more a case that some posters appear to be recommending attitudes or courses of action that he now finds abhorrent. Or at least posting things that show that the issues he finds distasteful are still very much in currency.
I can understand his reaction, even though I may contribute to it myself at times.
I have no problem at all with KarlLB's reaction. It seems entirely reasonable, given the strategy he is pursuing of continuing to engage in discussion on issues which involve arguments to which he has a visceral reaction.
This is the chief problem of universalism, I think. If everyone is saved regardless then why would they have to bother doing (or not doing) anything they don’t want to do (or not do)?
I don't believe it is a question of being "saved regardless" and I've quoted before, in discussions on universalism, this paragraph from Noel Moules' book Fingerprints of Fire, Footprints of Peace:
"Universalism is popularly dismissed by mainstream Christians as a soft option in the light of the traditional view of judgement and punishment. However, properly understood it is by far the toughest option. It takes evil and its consequences seriously and does not cease working until every broken relationship is put right."
I can think of a large number of people I know of (the Hitlers and Fred Wests of this world) that I can't begin to imagine being in "right relationship" with, nor what that even looks like, and the idea that I might have to work at it until I am is frankly pretty terrifying.
You won't have to Nenya. That's Love's job. And we'll all have new names, new identities won't we? The universalism story comes before the Christiano-Jewish one in coherence, in sense.
This is the chief problem of universalism, I think. If everyone is saved regardless then why would they have to bother doing (or not doing) anything they don’t want to do (or not do)?
I don't believe it is a question of being "saved regardless" and I've quoted before, in discussions on universalism, this paragraph from Noel Moules' book Fingerprints of Fire, Footprints of Peace:
"Universalism is popularly dismissed by mainstream Christians as a soft option in the light of the traditional view of judgement and punishment. However, properly understood it is by far the toughest option. It takes evil and its consequences seriously and does not cease working until every broken relationship is put right."
I can think of a large number of people I know of (the Hitlers and Fred Wests of this world) that I can't begin to imagine being in "right relationship" with, nor what that even looks like, and the idea that I might have to work at it until I am is frankly pretty terrifying.
I would think that it is the Hitlers and Fred Wests who have the harder job. Truly understanding the enormity of their actions once they have come to fully care about them would be a very difficult thing.
This is the chief problem of universalism, I think. If everyone is saved regardless then why would they have to bother doing (or not doing) anything they don’t want to do (or not do)?
I don't believe it is a question of being "saved regardless" and I've quoted before, in discussions on universalism, this paragraph from Noel Moules' book Fingerprints of Fire, Footprints of Peace:
"Universalism is popularly dismissed by mainstream Christians as a soft option in the light of the traditional view of judgement and punishment. However, properly understood it is by far the toughest option. It takes evil and its consequences seriously and does not cease working until every broken relationship is put right."
I can think of a large number of people I know of (the Hitlers and Fred Wests of this world) that I can't begin to imagine being in "right relationship" with, nor what that even looks like, and the idea that I might have to work at it until I am is frankly pretty terrifying.
I would think that it is the Hitlers and Fred Wests who have the harder job. Truly understanding the enormity of their actions once they have come to fully care about them would be a very difficult thing.
In my Heaven, they and their victims will be treated with nothing but unconditional positive regard; kindness. In going forward to eternity (my Heaven has that) we will be reconditioned. I am incredibly fucked up and so is everyone I know. If I lived another hundred, thousand years, with age reversal, cognitive incline, and the best Rogerian therapy money can buy, I'll never be right. In Love I trust. In transcendence. Resurrection from death is the beginning of ultimate truth and reconciliation in the light of eternity. There will be a lot of clear blue water between our end and that beginning. We won't come to as if nothing had happened. Not in my Heaven. It will be from deepest sleep to a full, beautiful day that never ends. This I know. Or
this paragraph from Noel Moules' book Fingerprints of Fire, Footprints of Peace:
"Universalism is popularly dismissed by mainstream Christians as a soft option in the light of the traditional view of judgement and punishment. However, properly understood it is by far the toughest option. It takes evil and its consequences seriously and does not cease working until every broken relationship is put right."
I can see the point, but I do wonder what is wrong with something being a soft option or why it is a good thing for an option to be tough. There's an underlying machismo there that I'm wary of.
Certainly, often in our world there aren't easy answers, and we do have to be careful of answers that flatter our pride or our fear; but ultimately what matters is whether something is true.
Furthermore, if God exists, then the Platonic triad truth, goodness, and beauty are in the end one. The option with the greatest joy and bliss in the end is the one that is true.
How are you so sure that 'your' heaven is any different from other people's?
Serious question.
What makes 'your' heaven more special than mine, say, or any one else's here?
I'm sure others have similar ones, who am I? Such a heaven is best, which is only, case. Where a trillion different species of flowers will bloom, a trillion different species of butterflies sup from them. Us. Just in our Earth infinitesimal local patch of infinite heaven. And that's just the former humans.
Why not simply focus on something else? As these discussions show, there are various other Christian flavours that don't require you to engage with the things you hate.
I had no idea. How interesting, and how fun. Just smorgasbord this thing. Self-style your Christianity so it suits you. It's not so important what your Christianity includes, as much as whatever is included is simply labeled "Christian." Because as long as you don't focus on something, it isn't there, or if it somehow is, it's somebody else's problem! Simple indeed!
I don't think that's a fair reflection of what @KoF was saying, nor anyone else on this thread for that matter. I'm a card-carrying adherent of a particular tradition - or Tradition big T big Topol style voice. Certain things are non-negotiable. Particular Creedal formularies, for instance. That doesn't mean there isn't room for a range of views within those broad parameters.
I can't speak for anyone else's tradition but as I've stated already, within my own, full-blown dogmatic universalism would possibly be seen as a 'no-no' but the hope that universal salvation was possible certain wouldn't be seen as beyond the pale.
An unorthodox or Un-Orthodox view of the Trinity or the Deity of Christ would be, of course.
Setting boundaries and markers doesn't mean there is no leeway or scope for widely differing beliefs within that framework.
You're beginning to sound like a fundamentalist @The_Riv ...
I think that's a reasonable paraphrase of the appeal to textual coherence.
Is it? Is saying, for example, that the text accurately describes and tells us about God the same as saying God is bound by the text? I wouldn’t think so. You might get to the same or a similar place—God will not act inconsistently with what the text tells us about God—but not necessarily for the same reason.
I don't think that's a fair reflection of what @KoF was saying, nor anyone else on this thread for that matter. I'm a card-carrying adherent of a particular tradition - or Tradition big T big Topol style voice. Certain things are non-negotiable. Particular Creedal formularies, for instance. That doesn't mean there isn't room for a range of views within those broad parameters.
I can't speak for anyone else's tradition but as I've stated already, within my own, full-blown dogmatic universalism would possibly be seen as a 'no-no' but the hope that universal salvation was possible certain wouldn't be seen as beyond the pale.
An unorthodox or Un-Orthodox view of the Trinity or the Deity of Christ would be, of course.
Setting boundaries and markers doesn't mean there is no leeway or scope for widely differing beliefs within that framework.
You're beginning to sound like a fundamentalist @The_Riv ...
I don't think that's a fair reflection of what @KoF was saying, nor anyone else on this thread for that matter. I'm a card-carrying adherent of a particular tradition - or Tradition big T big Topol style voice. Certain things are non-negotiable. Particular Creedal formularies, for instance. That doesn't mean there isn't room for a range of views within those broad parameters.
I can't speak for anyone else's tradition but as I've stated already, within my own, full-blown dogmatic universalism would possibly be seen as a 'no-no' but the hope that universal salvation was possible certain wouldn't be seen as beyond the pale.
An unorthodox or Un-Orthodox view of the Trinity or the Deity of Christ would be, of course.
Setting boundaries and markers doesn't mean there is no leeway or scope for widely differing beliefs within that framework.
You're beginning to sound like a fundamentalist @The_Riv ...
I just think that @KoF's reply was too cavalier. Just pick a different Christianity?! And that kind of comment always opens a can of worms for me. I just don't understand how a single religion can be as broad a spectrum as is often described here. And I suppose it's not actually to be explained.
I think that's a reasonable paraphrase of the appeal to textual coherence.
Is it? Is saying, for example, that the text accurately describes and tells us about God the same as saying God is bound by the text? I wouldn’t think so. You might get to the same or a similar place—God will not act inconsistently with what the text tells us about God—but not necessarily for the same reason.
Seems like a distinction without a difference to me.
I think that's a reasonable paraphrase of the appeal to textual coherence.
Is it? Is saying, for example, that the text accurately describes and tells us about God the same as saying God is bound by the text? I wouldn’t think so. You might get to the same or a similar place—God will not act inconsistently with what the text tells us about God—but not necessarily for the same reason.
Seems like a distinction without a difference to me.
It doesn’t to me. If I accurately describe you and your nature, such that I accurately predict how you will act and respond in certain situations, are you bound by my description? Are you required to act in the way that I have described because of how I have described you. That’s what “bound by the text” suggests to me.
I’d say, rather, you’re bound—to the degree, if any, that you’re bound at all—by your character, which it happens I have accurately described.
I can see what you are getting at but whilst some Shipmates would be 'broader' than I am in their understanding of certain aspects, others might be 'narrower'.
Heck, there are whopping big debates and differences of opinion in Judaism as well as Christianity. I'm sure there are in Hinduism and other world faiths too.
I really don't see how differing views on the scope and extent of salvation - or even what we mean by 'salvation' - should make the Christian faith incoherent and unworkable, as it were.
I'd be more worried if everybody had exactly the same views on these matters. The Christian faith isn't a join-the-dots puzzle or a simple set of propositions to which we all give intellectual assent.
At the heart of it is a Divine Mystery - and I use the term in its Orthodox sense. The Mystery of the Incarnation.
The scriptures and Church Tradition / tradition bear witness to that. But it's more than that of course. It's a Mystery we can enter into ourselves - not in terms of 'annihilation' or 'absorption' into the Godhead, but in union with Christ, with the Holy Trinity through 'theosis' - but that's for another thread at some point.
I'm not saying that the divisions and schisms within Christianity are a 'good thing' but what I am saying is that there can be scope for a widely divergent range of views before the elastic snaps.
Yes, I found @Kof's comment glib but that doesn’t mean I don't believe there are different options and ways of understanding things.
I just don't understand how a single religion can be as broad a spectrum as is often described here.
That rather depends on what you think a religion is, or ought to be like. If your expectations of what a religion ought to be like don't match up with the reality, then maybe you should revise your expectations?
The breadth of the spectrum a religion covers can rather depend on where one draws the boundaries, and the boundaries are not given by nature. You can treat Hinduism as one religion, or as several. Tibetan Buddhism, Thai Theravada Buddhism, and Pure Land Buddhism are one religion despite the differences (as substantial as any between major Christian denominations as far as I understand it).
I just don't understand how a single religion can be as broad a spectrum as is often described here.
It’s quite simple to me. All denominations are right about some things and wrong about others - no doubt to greater or lesser extents, but they’re all ultimately pointing toward the same Truth.
Hell, on my better days I even think that of all religions.
It doesn’t to me. If I accurately describe you and your nature, such that I accurately predict how you will act and respond in certain situations, are you bound by my description? Are you required to act in the way that I have described because of how I have described you. That’s what “bound by the text” suggests to me.
I’d say, rather, you’re bound—to the degree, if any, that you’re bound at all—by your character, which it happens I have accurately described.
From where does the information come that allows you to describe so accurately that character?
I just don't understand how a single religion can be as broad a spectrum as is often described here.
That rather depends on what you think a religion is, or ought to be like. If your expectations of what a religion ought to be like don't match up with the reality, then maybe you should revise your expectations?
The breadth of the spectrum a religion covers can rather depend on where one draws the boundaries, and the boundaries are not given by nature. You can treat Hinduism as one religion, or as several. Tibetan Buddhism, Thai Theravada Buddhism, and Pure Land Buddhism are one religion despite the differences (as substantial as any between major Christian denominations as far as I understand it).
I'm sorry. I just have more questions. How was this reality -- that doesn't match my expectations -- determined? By what/whom are the boundaries given? To what degree/by what authority are successive generations bound by them? How much redrawing is possible?
It doesn’t to me. If I accurately describe you and your nature, such that I accurately predict how you will act and respond in certain situations, are you bound by my description? Are you required to act in the way that I have described because of how I have described you. That’s what “bound by the text” suggests to me.
I’d say, rather, you’re bound—to the degree, if any, that you’re bound at all—by your character, which it happens I have accurately described.
From where does the information come that allows you to describe so accurately that character?
Even if it comes from/through the Holy Spirit, which I believe it does, I don’t see how that equates to being “bound by the text.” I read “bound by the text” as implying the text has authority over God.
Or to put it a different way, even if the result is the same, the mechanism is being incorrectly described, it seems to me.
I just don't understand how a single religion can be as broad a spectrum as is often described here.
That rather depends on what you think a religion is, or ought to be like. If your expectations of what a religion ought to be like don't match up with the reality, then maybe you should revise your expectations?
The breadth of the spectrum a religion covers can rather depend on where one draws the boundaries, and the boundaries are not given by nature. You can treat Hinduism as one religion, or as several. Tibetan Buddhism, Thai Theravada Buddhism, and Pure Land Buddhism are one religion despite the differences (as substantial as any between major Christian denominations as far as I understand it).
I'm sorry. I just have more questions. How was this reality -- that doesn't match my expectations -- determined? By what/whom are the boundaries given? To what degree/by what authority are successive generations bound by them? How much redrawing is possible? [/quote]There are some assumptions behind these questions that I just don't get or understand, and as a result these questions just seem completely weird to me.
People do and believe stuff and then they and/or outside observers try to describe what they're doing and believing. And then how they or outside observers describe what they're doing and believing affects what they do and believe.
I mean, take the differences between neoclassical economics and Keynesian economics or Marxist economics. The reality is determined by the fact that different economists take different approaches to analysing the economy. Well, no, it's not determined by that fact. It is that fact.
By what/whom are the boundaries given? Well, I mean presumably people who are talking about the differences between economic theories describe what they're talking about, but there is no authority saying that a Keynesian economist may cite Marx once in the course of a book, but if they cite him more than once every twenty pages they're officially a Marxist.
Hinduism is a term invented by Western observers - it basically means Indian religion - because they thought that for their purposes all the varieties of religious practice and belief in the Indian subcontinent minus Jainism and Buddhism and Sikhism were sufficiently similar to be described together. Whether they were justified in so doing is a judgement call.
Now they've done so Hindu Nationalists can appeal to Hinduism as opposed to Islam.
Future generations may or may not find this helpful - whether they can get a new usage to catch on isn't something any individual can decide.
For the past thirty or forty years scholars of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries have been trying to replace the term Renaissance with Early Modern. They haven't had more than limited success.
'Bound by the text: Your attitude will tepend on whether you believe Holy Writ is God dictating to human scribes (@The Bible is the Word of Goc') or whether you think it is the record of what human beings have believed about the nature and interactions with mankind of God ('Christ is the Word of God').I believe the latter, like, I suspect, most shipmates. Others may differ.
The notion of hell is one of many historic Christian concepts I can't be doing with. The idea that we act morally to avoid hell is one I find repugnant. I know precisely nobody who is motivated by that.
Anyone here ever heard hell mentioned in a sermon? I haven't.
'Bound by the text: Your attitude will tepend on whether you believe Holy Writ is God dictating to human scribes (@The Bible is the Word of Goc') or whether you think it is the record of what human beings have believed about the nature and interactions with mankind of God ('Christ is the Word of God').I believe the latter, like, I suspect, most shipmates. Others may differ.
Hmmmm. I’m not sure those are the only options. I don’t believe God dictated to humans, and I’d use a description similar to @Lamb Chopped’s “divine and human.” Or there’s the understanding that I think @Gramps49 has provided from time to time—the Bible contains the word of God.
I have no trouble using “the word of God” to describe Scripture, and I’d argue that doing so is firmly grounded in Christian tradition and history.
Which is not to say Christ isn’t the Word of God. The church, I think, has used the term to refer to both, with different shades of meaning. In my experience it’s not unusual to see that difference reflected by capitalization—“the word of God” (Scripture) vs. “the Word of God” (Christ).
And even with an understanding of dictation, “bound by the text” still seems off to me.
Indeed. I once attended a two-day presentation by the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware on the Orthodox approach to the scriptures and it wasn't that different to yours as you have articulated it here, @Nick Tamen.
That is, assuming I have understood you correctly.
Some Orthodox Christians have an issue with referring to the Bible as 'the word of God', but Bishop Kallistos didn't, provided we didn't confuse it with 'God the Word', Christ.
I just don't understand how a single religion can be as broad a spectrum as is often described here.
That rather depends on what you think a religion is, or ought to be like. If your expectations of what a religion ought to be like don't match up with the reality, then maybe you should revise your expectations?
The breadth of the spectrum a religion covers can rather depend on where one draws the boundaries, and the boundaries are not given by nature. You can treat Hinduism as one religion, or as several. Tibetan Buddhism, Thai Theravada Buddhism, and Pure Land Buddhism are one religion despite the differences (as substantial as any between major Christian denominations as far as I understand it).
I'm sorry. I just have more questions. How was this reality -- that doesn't match my expectations -- determined? By what/whom are the boundaries given? To what degree/by what authority are successive generations bound by them? How much redrawing is possible?
There are some assumptions behind these questions that I just don't get or understand, and as a result these questions just seem completely weird to me.
My assumptions are that religion is manmade, that it was made in contexts, that those contexts are limited, and that while it might attempt to portray the supernatural, religion in itself, it isn't. So, reformations can and do happen, because one man can make as well as another, and contexts change and new contexts emerge. I'm just asking about the dynamics of those phenomenon.
I'm sorry. I just have more questions. How was this reality -- that doesn't match my expectations -- determined? By what/whom are the boundaries given? To what degree/by what authority are successive generations bound by them? How much redrawing is possible?
There are some assumptions behind these questions that I just don't get or understand, and as a result these questions just seem completely weird to me.
My assumptions are that religion is manmade, that it was made in contexts, that those contexts are limited, and that while it might attempt to portray the supernatural, religion in itself, it isn't. So, reformations can and do happen, because one man can make as well as another, and contexts change and new contexts emerge. I'm just asking about the dynamics of those phenomenon.
Those would be the assumptions I was working with.
But given those assumptions why would there be a what or who that gives the boundaries between religions, any more than gives the boundaries between other aspects of culture or philosophies?
Why would successive generations be even bound (*), let alone why would there be an authority that binds them?
Why would drawing or not redrawing be more or less possible in the case of religion than in the case of any other aspect of culture?
There are a few special cases: Roman Catholicism is arguably the set of people that the Pope recognises as Roman Catholics. (Although even in the case of Roman Catholicism there are ultra-conservative sedevacantist groups who neither recognise nor are recognised by the Pope, whose inclusion under the umbrella term is ambiguous.) But for the most part labels are used by communities of language users with no governing authority to try and make manageable a reality that is more messy than the labels can reflect. Why should labels for religious beliefs be a special case? Especially if we assume no (overt) non-secular involvement?
(*) Apart from the general difficulty in getting a whole mass of people to change the way they use language.
The idea that we act morally to avoid hell is one I find repugnant. I know precisely nobody who is motivated by that.
*waves*
Why “repugnant”?
I wouldn’t necessarily call it repugnant, except to the extent that fear of hell is used/abused to try prompt or compel moral behavior. But I think it’s an approach that distorts the Gospel. (Okay, maybe that does mean I think it’s somewhat repugnant.)
It’s an idea that doesn’t resonate at all with me, and that has never been part of my own experience of church.
And yet - I refer back to my "wrong religion" thread. Christianity has to find a way to work for people with no innate desire to do good and/or refrain from evil.
If sin is seen as a disease, could that not be seen as one presentation of it? If so, we cannot address it simply by seeing "you must feel differently!"
I'm sorry but I don't think it does, because I don't think it can. It's so fundamentally opposed to any conception of God I am capable of. So if that has to happen, then it will have to be someone else. Logically, if God is truly infinite then God will have many aspects my finite mind is incapable of understanding, and if so, this is definitely one of them.
And yet - I refer back to my "wrong religion" thread. Christianity has to find a way to work for people with no innate desire to do good and/or refrain from evil.
If sin is seen as a disease, could that not be seen as one presentation of it? If so, we cannot address it simply by seeing "you must feel differently!"
I'm not sure I follow your argument here. If you asked most people whether they would rather do good and refrain from evil ' however defined - they'd probably say 'Yes.'
I'm not sure it's about 'feeling differently'. Ideally, we should act differently.
And yet - I refer back to my "wrong religion" thread. Christianity has to find a way to work for people with no innate desire to do good and/or refrain from evil.
If sin is seen as a disease, could that not be seen as one presentation of it? If so, we cannot address it simply by seeing "you must feel differently!"
I'm not sure I follow your argument here. If you asked most people whether they would rather do good and refrain from evil ' however defined - they'd probably say 'Yes.'
I'm not sure it's about 'feeling differently'. Ideally, we should act differently.
At risk of misrepresenting him, I was attempting to refer back to Marvin's self-description earlier.
Sin is a disease that needs healing. Any 'punishment' must be restorative. If that makes me a universalist, fine.
Sin is a theological category of human action. It doesn't exist for the atheist, except as jargon.
Not true, because it's a psychological phenomenon fundamentally - especially the subspecies called original sin. It's a way of explaining why human beings do bad things - and in the latter case why we do them in spite of our intentions. The association with the divine is indeed theological, but sin itself, to my mind, is fundamentally human. As is goodness, of course.
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So perhaps he is, and he's sending them to tell me. If so, he can still fuck off.
I'm trying to make sense of all this stuff the same as everyone else. My daughters aren't believers. Nor are plenty of other people I care about.
I pray for them, as I pray for other people I care about, living or dead. I pray for people I don't know. Heck, one of the Church Fathers, I forget which one, even said hyperbolically that we should pray for the demons ...
I struggle with all this stuff too and try to make sense of it the best I can. For me, where I'm sitting now, the overly juridical and hyper-Scholastic view doesn't cut it.
Sin is a disease that needs healing. Any 'punishment' must be restorative. If that makes me a universalist, fine.
Yes. We all do it.
But whatever else we can say, for all the whackiness of Revelation and the tough passages in the Gospels we can still see a Christ who is the embodiment of Love.
I know that doesn't satisfy those who would rather not have the whacky stuff and the tough passages in the first place, but we do have them and it's up to us - in community and dialogue - how we deal with them.
FWIW I can currently deal with them through a hopeful universalism. That doesn't mean everyone else can.
I can see and agree that there is virtue in behaving morally in and of itself. That doing the right thing has value to the individual.
But I don't see why it then follows that one would get wrapped up in the minute details of a religion or engaged in doing the boring stuff.
Hard though that may be for some others to comprehend.
Some people like the minute detail, I get that. Most would likely see it as a waste of effort, I'd suggest.
Wow. Just wow. That is absolutely amazing.
You have misread the situation so a
It's more like having to make constant defences against other people who try to take it than me placing it anywhere.
There are thousands of religions with many contradictory beliefs. What in particular is it about these particular beliefs that you can't avoid?
Why not simply focus on something else? As these discussions show, there are various other Christian flavours that don't require you to engage with the things you hate.
I'm sure there are many who think I'm destined to hell. I don't give them the satisfaction of attempting to think through their position. They can believe whatever they like, it has no impact on me.
Let's be glib for a moment and I'm only using my own case as an example to illustrate a point.
I'll be honest. Sometimes when I read Karl's posts I find myself thinking, 'Hey, that's not an issue in my particular tradition. Perhaps I ought to suggest ...?'
But if I were to do so I might be guilty of proselytising for one thing or else overlooking other aspects that Karl might have issues with.
Also, these things run deep. I used to be involved with Christian expressions that could become quite manipulative and guilt-inducing. Thirty years later I'm still dealing with that.
If I understand Karl correctly it is more a case that some posters appear to be recommending attitudes or courses of action that he now finds abhorrent. Or at least posting things that show that the issues he finds distasteful are still very much in currency.
I can understand his reaction, even though I may contribute to it myself at times.
As he said earlier: I only have a dim understanding of how excruciating a position that is to be in.
I don't believe it is a question of being "saved regardless" and I've quoted before, in discussions on universalism, this paragraph from Noel Moules' book Fingerprints of Fire, Footprints of Peace:
"Universalism is popularly dismissed by mainstream Christians as a soft option in the light of the traditional view of judgement and punishment. However, properly understood it is by far the toughest option. It takes evil and its consequences seriously and does not cease working until every broken relationship is put right."
I can think of a large number of people I know of (the Hitlers and Fred Wests of this world) that I can't begin to imagine being in "right relationship" with, nor what that even looks like, and the idea that I might have to work at it until I am is frankly pretty terrifying.
I would think that it is the Hitlers and Fred Wests who have the harder job. Truly understanding the enormity of their actions once they have come to fully care about them would be a very difficult thing.
In my Heaven, they and their victims will be treated with nothing but unconditional positive regard; kindness. In going forward to eternity (my Heaven has that) we will be reconditioned. I am incredibly fucked up and so is everyone I know. If I lived another hundred, thousand years, with age reversal, cognitive incline, and the best Rogerian therapy money can buy, I'll never be right. In Love I trust. In transcendence. Resurrection from death is the beginning of ultimate truth and reconciliation in the light of eternity. There will be a lot of clear blue water between our end and that beginning. We won't come to as if nothing had happened. Not in my Heaven. It will be from deepest sleep to a full, beautiful day that never ends. This I know. Or
Certainly, often in our world there aren't easy answers, and we do have to be careful of answers that flatter our pride or our fear; but ultimately what matters is whether something is true.
Furthermore, if God exists, then the Platonic triad truth, goodness, and beauty are in the end one. The option with the greatest joy and bliss in the end is the one that is true.
Serious question.
What makes 'your' heaven more special than mine, say, or any one else's here?
I'm sure others have similar ones, who am I? Such a heaven is best, which is only, case. Where a trillion different species of flowers will bloom, a trillion different species of butterflies sup from them. Us. Just in our Earth infinitesimal local patch of infinite heaven. And that's just the former humans.
I had no idea. How interesting, and how fun. Just smorgasbord this thing. Self-style your Christianity so it suits you. It's not so important what your Christianity includes, as much as whatever is included is simply labeled "Christian." Because as long as you don't focus on something, it isn't there, or if it somehow is, it's somebody else's problem! Simple indeed!
I can't speak for anyone else's tradition but as I've stated already, within my own, full-blown dogmatic universalism would possibly be seen as a 'no-no' but the hope that universal salvation was possible certain wouldn't be seen as beyond the pale.
An unorthodox or Un-Orthodox view of the Trinity or the Deity of Christ would be, of course.
Setting boundaries and markers doesn't mean there is no leeway or scope for widely differing beliefs within that framework.
You're beginning to sound like a fundamentalist @The_Riv ...
I think that's a reasonable paraphrase of the appeal to textual coherence.
I just think that @KoF's reply was too cavalier. Just pick a different Christianity?! And that kind of comment always opens a can of worms for me. I just don't understand how a single religion can be as broad a spectrum as is often described here. And I suppose it's not actually to be explained.
Seems like a distinction without a difference to me.
I’d say, rather, you’re bound—to the degree, if any, that you’re bound at all—by your character, which it happens I have accurately described.
Heck, there are whopping big debates and differences of opinion in Judaism as well as Christianity. I'm sure there are in Hinduism and other world faiths too.
I really don't see how differing views on the scope and extent of salvation - or even what we mean by 'salvation' - should make the Christian faith incoherent and unworkable, as it were.
I'd be more worried if everybody had exactly the same views on these matters. The Christian faith isn't a join-the-dots puzzle or a simple set of propositions to which we all give intellectual assent.
At the heart of it is a Divine Mystery - and I use the term in its Orthodox sense. The Mystery of the Incarnation.
The scriptures and Church Tradition / tradition bear witness to that. But it's more than that of course. It's a Mystery we can enter into ourselves - not in terms of 'annihilation' or 'absorption' into the Godhead, but in union with Christ, with the Holy Trinity through 'theosis' - but that's for another thread at some point.
I'm not saying that the divisions and schisms within Christianity are a 'good thing' but what I am saying is that there can be scope for a widely divergent range of views before the elastic snaps.
Yes, I found @Kof's comment glib but that doesn’t mean I don't believe there are different options and ways of understanding things.
The breadth of the spectrum a religion covers can rather depend on where one draws the boundaries, and the boundaries are not given by nature. You can treat Hinduism as one religion, or as several. Tibetan Buddhism, Thai Theravada Buddhism, and Pure Land Buddhism are one religion despite the differences (as substantial as any between major Christian denominations as far as I understand it).
It’s quite simple to me. All denominations are right about some things and wrong about others - no doubt to greater or lesser extents, but they’re all ultimately pointing toward the same Truth.
Hell, on my better days I even think that of all religions.
I'm sorry. I just have more questions. How was this reality -- that doesn't match my expectations -- determined? By what/whom are the boundaries given? To what degree/by what authority are successive generations bound by them? How much redrawing is possible?
Or to put it a different way, even if the result is the same, the mechanism is being incorrectly described, it seems to me.
People do and believe stuff and then they and/or outside observers try to describe what they're doing and believing. And then how they or outside observers describe what they're doing and believing affects what they do and believe.
I mean, take the differences between neoclassical economics and Keynesian economics or Marxist economics. The reality is determined by the fact that different economists take different approaches to analysing the economy. Well, no, it's not determined by that fact. It is that fact.
By what/whom are the boundaries given? Well, I mean presumably people who are talking about the differences between economic theories describe what they're talking about, but there is no authority saying that a Keynesian economist may cite Marx once in the course of a book, but if they cite him more than once every twenty pages they're officially a Marxist.
Hinduism is a term invented by Western observers - it basically means Indian religion - because they thought that for their purposes all the varieties of religious practice and belief in the Indian subcontinent minus Jainism and Buddhism and Sikhism were sufficiently similar to be described together. Whether they were justified in so doing is a judgement call.
Now they've done so Hindu Nationalists can appeal to Hinduism as opposed to Islam.
Future generations may or may not find this helpful - whether they can get a new usage to catch on isn't something any individual can decide.
For the past thirty or forty years scholars of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries have been trying to replace the term Renaissance with Early Modern. They haven't had more than limited success.
Anyone here ever heard hell mentioned in a sermon? I haven't.
I have no trouble using “the word of God” to describe Scripture, and I’d argue that doing so is firmly grounded in Christian tradition and history.
Which is not to say Christ isn’t the Word of God. The church, I think, has used the term to refer to both, with different shades of meaning. In my experience it’s not unusual to see that difference reflected by capitalization—“the word of God” (Scripture) vs. “the Word of God” (Christ).
And even with an understanding of dictation, “bound by the text” still seems off to me.
That is, assuming I have understood you correctly.
Some Orthodox Christians have an issue with referring to the Bible as 'the word of God', but Bishop Kallistos didn't, provided we didn't confuse it with 'God the Word', Christ.
My assumptions are that religion is manmade, that it was made in contexts, that those contexts are limited, and that while it might attempt to portray the supernatural, religion in itself, it isn't. So, reformations can and do happen, because one man can make as well as another, and contexts change and new contexts emerge. I'm just asking about the dynamics of those phenomenon.
*waves*
Why “repugnant”?
But given those assumptions why would there be a what or who that gives the boundaries between religions, any more than gives the boundaries between other aspects of culture or philosophies?
Why would successive generations be even bound (*), let alone why would there be an authority that binds them?
Why would drawing or not redrawing be more or less possible in the case of religion than in the case of any other aspect of culture?
There are a few special cases: Roman Catholicism is arguably the set of people that the Pope recognises as Roman Catholics. (Although even in the case of Roman Catholicism there are ultra-conservative sedevacantist groups who neither recognise nor are recognised by the Pope, whose inclusion under the umbrella term is ambiguous.) But for the most part labels are used by communities of language users with no governing authority to try and make manageable a reality that is more messy than the labels can reflect. Why should labels for religious beliefs be a special case? Especially if we assume no (overt) non-secular involvement?
(*) Apart from the general difficulty in getting a whole mass of people to change the way they use language.
It’s an idea that doesn’t resonate at all with me, and that has never been part of my own experience of church.
If sin is seen as a disease, could that not be seen as one presentation of it? If so, we cannot address it simply by seeing "you must feel differently!"
I'm not sure I follow your argument here. If you asked most people whether they would rather do good and refrain from evil ' however defined - they'd probably say 'Yes.'
I'm not sure it's about 'feeling differently'. Ideally, we should act differently.
At risk of misrepresenting him, I was attempting to refer back to Marvin's self-description earlier.
Not true, because it's a psychological phenomenon fundamentally - especially the subspecies called original sin. It's a way of explaining why human beings do bad things - and in the latter case why we do them in spite of our intentions. The association with the divine is indeed theological, but sin itself, to my mind, is fundamentally human. As is goodness, of course.