The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

I obviously disagree.

Sending people to Hell is neither "moral" nor "perfect" if you ask me, but... each to their own, I guess?

And how could something so "perfect" allow for such a blatant example of Loop Hole Abuse anyway?

Can you have some joy without eternal suffering as punishment for thought crimes? If not, I'd rather have neither, thank you very much.

I've said this before, but I'm pretty convinced the problem with the perfection of God isn't that we can't comprehend it, but rather that we've defined it in such a way that it doesn't actually mean anything. There's simply nothing to comprehend.

You might as well say that God is Fnargle.

edited 13th Feb '17 6:41:36 AM by Elfive

For once, I am in agreement with Elfive. The apocalypse is coming.

Then I remember how this sort of revelation felt, back when I took the Ninenty Nine names of God for granted.

Reality-shattering.

Most people in the planet have not thought hard enough about this for this revelation to emerge.

In the most respectful way possible, I would suggest that most people have also not put as much thought into the perfection of God as you had, either. For most people, thinking about God being perfect is a bit like "The American Way". They believe in it, but most of them dont know what it means.

'Course, from here our opinions differ a bit because I don't think there's a God to comprehend either...

There's an idea, at any rate. Which, as defined, is ultimately inconceivable.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's not "belief", it's "endorsement".

I can count in the fingers of one hand the Catholics I've met who actually knew their Cathechism, how it differed from Protestant doctrines, and why they identified as Catholics specifically as opposed to any other kind of Christian, or even just generically Christian.

I find this very weird. A phenomenal amount of people died in Europe's wars of religion! This is a big deal! National identities are built around national churches! Also, your immortal soul may be at stake! This too used to be a huge deal, the biggest deal of all, to the point that damning someone's soul was considered far worse than murder, and that stake burnings were considered a kindness.

My experience is that a lot of people don't think very deeply about a lot of things that are actually quite important. Some denominations actually seem to oppose people asking questions.

It stopped being a big deal.

How? Why?

Sometime in the 18th or 19th century, because uh capitalism

Too much arguing over it.Made a lot of people discover that truth prematurely ?

I suspect the sole reason is that knowing the doctrine had more practical significance in the past.
A Spanish traveler noted that everyone in medieval Constantinople knew their book and would all engage you in a sermon if given half a chance. Behind this though, the very second part of Justinian's code makes you a criminal if you didn't practice the right (extremely specific) Christian beliefs.
Around the twentieth century it was know your Marx/Haylek or explain yourself to the Red Guards/HUAC.
Currently its know what's in style/the best football team or be ridiculed (and possibly even held back in your career).
Religious knowledge no longer gets you perks in life.

God is dead, and we have killed him

And he remains dead. None of that three-day latency period nonsense.

Actually kind of a schism in American Catholicism between relaxed moderate-to-liberal, Catholics from birth and converts who tend to be arch-reactionaries. Hardline conservatives love converting to Catholicism for some reason.

I suspect certain aspects of religion stopped being Serious Business to reduce competition and in-fighting within ultimately like-minded faiths. It's ultimately unproductive to create internal conflict over minor details of theology-it's much wiser to spend those resources actually practicing your religion and spreading its fundamentals.

Or, at least, this is my opinion on interdenominational conflicts, I can't say if it's the majority opinion. I take it a step further and wish there was more cooperation between Islam and Christianity, but I suppose I can see why this doesn't happen.

The advent of nationalism had a big impact, you stopped hating others for being protastent and started hating them for being German.

Women don't have a say there and it's highly hierarchical. Both things arch conservatives everywhere love.

Some good news: despite a lot of media stuff about rising anti-semitism, when polled Americans feel the warmest toward Jews out of all religious groups.

Muslims and atheists are climbing up a bit from the bottom, as well.

Religious differences, for most people, no longer inspire the same fear and violence that they did in the past. This is a bad thing?

To be fair, it's actually canon that in Xianity, you only have to know one commandment. The one about loving God above all things, and your neighbor before yourself. And yes, I know who actually said that first.

I don't think it's being argued that it's a bad thing, just odd.

Personally, my opinion is that the religious violence (generally) counts as a severe case of carrying God's name in vain, and is therefore evil. More specifically, religious hatred is evil, since it attaches God to a cardinal sin.

Though in the other hand, I'd argue all good deeds serve God, so all just wars are "for God"

edited 15th Feb '17 3:42:23 PM by Protagonist506

I think this part is way more interesting than all the stuff about religious violence and whatnot. If you believe that the way you'll spend the rest of eternity can be influenced by your actions on Earth, how is this not the single most important thing in your life?

Since you cannot really know, whether you've done good. Takes away the motivation.

This is something Calvinism tried to fix, by saying that if good things happen to you as you labour (i.e. you're successful) it means you are chosen. However, Calvinism falls into severe issues when it comes to predestination. To be completely fair to the guy he did do it when he was young, and tried to modify it later as he realised his mistakes, but that lead to whole different slew of problems.

edited 16th Feb '17 7:21:29 AM by TerminusEst

I hear Calvinism, and I think "But Trump". I also hear that their heirs, the Presbyterians, are among the most progressive and liberal Christians in the US.

But then there's the Prosperity Gospel. What's the genealogy of those degenerates?

edited 16th Feb '17 8:13:15 AM by TheHandle