If such being does exist, then how could it possibly not matter? If there's an architect and we are the architect's creation, then how could our belief alone be the important thing?
That's immaterial to the discussion. The comment I replied to simply stated: "Displacing God as the center of life." They aren't arguing that god matters, it's our displacement of them.
So, on the existence of god, we have two possiblities: God does exist, god doesn't exist.
1. If god doesn't exist, then we're unhappy because we're displacing a false god as the center of life.
2. If god does exist, then we're unhappy because we're displacing a real god as the center of life.
In that discussion, god's existence in fact doesn't matter, it leads to the same outcome.
If God does exist and is our creator, then we're designed to recognize him (at least to strive to, or have some innate need to); failing to do so or radically abdicating from this need would lead to disaster.
In other words, in the God-exists scenario, we are not merely observers of a phenomenon who can be detached from it.
But that framing only really works if we assume a Abrahamic world view.
Other cultures don't and didn't relate to their deities in the same way. Do we then have to assume they all suffered lower life satisfaction than a 11th century German peasant because of their detachment from a singular god the creator? Why didn't they strive for the relationship you're describing?
Trying to put God with a capital G at the center of our lives as some innate need doesn't make sense from a historical context.
I don’t know about religions in the general sense, and you’re right to point out that I very much have the “Abrahamic world view”, though my case is much much more specific than that but that’s not relevant here.
What we might more safely assume is that the Creator is revealed through history and a group to whom it he’s not revealed might pursue him more ignorantly (I appreciate the language might sound offensive or condescending but that’s not the intention) but in that pursuit they’re still better off than someone who willfully rejects him.
This I believe is relevant to the post, as these societies have not gone from one god to another, but to none.
That's a lot of assumptions, and really only make sense if you're trying to put your own beliefs as the "correct" choice. Somehow, all these other cultures got it wrong, but the ones who believe one single god, they got it right.
> This I believe is relevant to the post, as these societies have not gone from one god to another, but to none.
I don't know what you mean by this. Particular God's importance rose and fell out of fashion in ancient societies.
How did you reach the conclusion that the author specifically meant this part of Gregory of Nyssa's religious thinking? It could just as likely be that the author has come to realise that Gregory of Nyssa was correct in his arguments for the Christian Trinity...? I am just wondering. The author's statements are very entertaining, but they do not seem to be articulated as objects for detailed scrutiny...
I’ll bite. I’ve been reading about the first two hundred years of christianity for the past couple of years. Here’s my canned take that I got tired of retyping:
Jesus is an ahistorical figure who was originally crucified in the firmament above the earth. Notice no mention of an earthly ministry in the Pailine epistles; Paul is arguing for salvation from a heavenly figure. In his letters, Jesus is still to be revealed, rather than returning. Only decades later did the stories about a human man get written.
The Didache was most likely part of the letter written by the "pillars in Jerusalem" (James the Just, Peter, and John) after their meeting with Paul. This was the meeting to discuss the matter of preaching to gentiles and whether circumcision ought to be required for christian converts. It contains many of the tenets later ascribed to Jesus, but doesn't associate him with teaching them.
The reason the earthly story was embraced by the church was to stop people like Paul from having visions of Christ that the church couldn’t control. By pointing to a real guy on earth, they could control the message. Otherwise, any yokel on the street could teach that Jesus revealed new teachings and the church risked being undermined.
Marcion was probably the first to create a collection of writings associated with christianity: he collected some of Paul's letters and had his own gospel. It was thought that he had a shortened version of Luke (as testified by Eusebius and Tertullian). Marcion, however, claimed that his gospel had been "judaized"; this suggests that his shorter version was the original gospel before others modified it.
Acts was written as a direct response to Marcion’s scripture. It was written to harmonize Paul’s high-jacking of the religion by making he and Peter appear to be in alignment when actually he was at odds with the leaders in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem pillars (James, Peter, John), were strict adherents of Judaism, whereas Paul taught that Jesus made the Law / Torah unnecessary. They were almost certainly Essenes, one of the three flavors of Judaism at the time (the other two were the Pharisees and Sadducees mentioned in the new testament). John the Baptist was clearly also an Essene. He's said to wear camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and honey. His practice of baptism also aligns with daily ritual water immersion believed to be a core practice of the Essenes.
This is a very long way of saying that Jesus first appeared in visions and spoke to the early leaders without walking on earth. It's a fringe belief about which I was quite skeptical, but damn if the evidence doesn't line up. See Robert Price, Earl Doherty, and Elbe Spurling for more info. Elbe's online book is free and contains a huge amount of historical information about the region at the.
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So, I’ll ask you this: which of us has spent more time earnestly trying to understand the faith? I know I read more actual research (as opposed to dogma) than most USA christians, especially evangelicals.
But how did the Church's claim that it was a real guy on Earth stop anyone from claiming visions of Christ?
edit: I'm not sure we're talking about the same things here. Your claims are all from a history/historicity point of view, but you ask me about faith, and claim to reject dogma.
edit 2: The OP was criticizing the claim that Jesus loves you (Claim 1) and criticizing Reconciliation. You took a historicity approach that included disputing Jesus's existence, that's one way to address Claim 1, but other than that I'm still not sure we're talking about the same thing.
There's an old heresy, Docetism, that would agree with your take on Jesus not having lived, but even they wouldn't reject the claim that "Jesus loves you".
Docetism says he didn’t suffer on the cross. There’s a bit about him laughing at the crucifiers. I don’t remember the whole text, but it doesn’t say “love” to me. It doesn’t say he didn’t live. It says he wasn’t human. You can find this searching about Gnosticism.
Many churches were in construction for over a century. Very typical and, although obviously people were elated when one was finished, getting there fast was not a source of anxiety.
Many churches were in construction for over a century, yes. Today? I’m not familiar with any examples other than Sagrada Familia, and even that one is almost finished. These multi-generation building projects seem to be a thing of the past.
Imagine trying to get funding today for a building project that is scheduled to be completed long after everyone alive today would be dead. I can’t imagine that being possible. It’s a pity: I wonder what wonders we could have built using modern technology over such a long timescale.
Hram Svetog Save (Church of Saint Sava) in Belgrade/Serbia started construction in 1935 and the exterior was finished in 2017. I haven’t been there in several years, but my understanding is that the interior is still being worked on and will continue for some years to come…
So not quite “over a century” but getting close. :)
I think the more optimistic interpretation would be that companies eliminating bullshit jobs would provide signal on which jobs aren’t bullshit, and then individuals and the job prep/education systems could align to this.
That’s very optimistic! I don’t fully agree with it, but I certainly know some very intelligent people that I wish were contributing more to the world than they do as a pawn in a game of corporate chess.
I think the issue at play here is the quickly changing job descriptions, RSU's and the higher paid bunch benefiting from very unequal pay across a job category.
Seems like they're happy to start cutting limbs to lose weight. It's hard to keep cutting fat if you've been aggressively cutting fat for so long. If the last CEO did their job there shouldn't be much fat left
I never thought to extend the analogy like that, but I like it. It's showing. I mean look how people think my comments imply I don't know what triage is. Not knowing that would be counter to everything I'm saying, which is that a lot of these value numbers are poor guestimates at best. Happens every time I bring this up. It's absurd to think we could measure everything in terms of money. Even economists will tell you that's silly
Let's make the laptops thinner. This way we can clean the oil off of the keyboard, putting it on the screen.
At this point I'm not sure it's lack of independent thought so much as lack of thought. I'm even beginning to question if people even use the products they work on. Shouldn't there be more pressure from engineers at this point? Is it yes men from top to bottom? Even CEOs seem to be yes men in response to share holders but that's like being a yes man to the wind.
When I bring this stuff up I'm called negative, a perfectionist, or told I'm out of touch with customers and or understand "value". Idk, maybe they're right. But I'm an engineer. My job is to find problems and fix them. I'm not negative, I'm trying to make the product better. And they're right, I don't understand value. I'm an engineer, it's not my job to make up a number about how valuable some bug fix is or isn't. What is this, "Whose Line Is It Anyways?" If you want made up dollar values go ask the business monkeys, I'm a code monkey
No, of course not. That would be laughably absurd. So do you think I'm trolling or you're misunderstanding? Because who isn't familiar with triage?
Do you think every bug's monetary value is perfectly aligned with user impact?
Certainly that isn't true. If it were we'd be much better at security and would be more concerned with data privacy. There's no perfect metric for anything, and it would similarly be naïve to think you could place a dollar value on everything, let alone accurately. That's what I'm talking about.
My main concern as an engineer is making the best product I can.
The main concern of the manager is to make the best business.
Don't get confused and think those are the same things. Hopefully they align, but they don't always.
Maybe it’s rising more than other areas in the U.S. at the moment and that is the news?
From my anecdata, homes in many suburban areas of southern states are up 70% from 2020 whereas in NYC the rise is about 20% (co-ops) resales (existing housing inventory).
There is no national id (other than passports; but most people don't carry theirs on themselves in their own country) because driver's licenses (issued by states) serve the same purpose. We don't have a non-DL id (that's popular at least).
Anyway, this is sort of by-the-by. Most adults have driver's licenses, and no one in Alaska is going to reject your Tennessee-issued DL so it is a de-facto national id.
91% of adults have a driver's license, leaving 9% of potential voters without a DL.
In a properly functioning democracy barring 9% of your voting population from voting because they lack an unrelated document (why should a driver's license be linked to ability to vote?) would be considered a major flaw.
You may elect to have your DL as a voting document as a convenience. It doesn't mean you have to have one in order to vote. A state's Board of Elections will issue you a voting document.
>>why should a driver's license be linked to ability to vote?
It's not, it's just one of many acceptable forms of id - along with a passport, birth certificate, and probably few others.
>>In a properly functioning democracy barring 9% of your voting population
Unless they are stopped from obtaining any document then they aren't barred from anything. Most Americans don't have a passport either but no one would argue that they are barred from travelling internationally, they just have to go and get a passport issued.
> Unless they are stopped from obtaining any document then they aren't barred from anything. Most Americans don't have a passport either but no one would argue that they are barred from travelling internationally, they just have to go and get a passport issued.
Making it difficult (as the article states, this 9% do not have ready access to documents proving their citizenship) is essentially barring with extra steps.
I hate this semantics/loophole game Americans like to play, seems to be quite common in your society to use the "akshually, technically" and going completely against the spirit of something. The spirit is: this makes it more difficult to vote, it will inevitably bar some people from voting, it's just salami-slicing...
I'm not American and I don't know why you'd assume I am - to me the fact that americans don't have ID requirements to vote is insane.
>>as the article states, this 9% do not have ready access to documents proving their citizenship
Again, do they simply not have them because they never bothered to get them, or are they unable to obtain them? That's quite a big difference.
I also hope we're not saying that if someone turned 18 and just simply never bothered to obtain any kind of acceptable ID(and there are usually many) then it's somehow unfair to not let them vote - because I really struggle to see how that would be true.
A lot of people seem to just assume that other countries have less friction (or no friction at all?) for people to vote, than the United States. My friends from other countries would find that amusing.
I get it that some states try to disenfranchise people and obviously that's wrong but the answer to that cannot be "voter id requirements are bad".
40% of the eligible voters sit out every election. No one who wants to vote is being barred from anything. They don’t lack an unrelated document, they lack the proof that they are allowed to vote. We have freedom of expression and yet to purchase alcohol you must be able to prove you are allowed to buy it. We have the freedom to bear arms and yet in many states you must prove you aren’t a nut job to own and carry a gun.
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