AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
As for architecture, mine looks like this.
◊ They were very much going for a nature feel when they built it. The interior is kind of nice in its relative simplicity, but unfortunately all the pictures seem to have been taken from the altar. For some reason.
edited 12th Jun '12 3:35:59 PM by Pykrete
This
◊ is the church where I had my First Communion and my Confirmation, and where I go whenever possible: it is certainly nothing special or artistic, but I find that it has some balance that these glass constructions lack.
This
◊ is an older church in the same zone, in a place in which in the 1500s Mary appeared to two shepherds (one of the two was dumb, and started speaking after the vision), and this
◊ is yet another church in the same town which was built to thank Saint Roch for saving that mountain town from the Black Death. Did I mention that that is the town my ancestors come from?
EDIT:
As an aside, I really like Saint Roch. In brief, he was a Frenchman (the legend says that he was the son of the governor of Montpellier) who decided to go to Rome in pilgrimage. It was the time of the Black Death, so along the way he spent time trying to help out the diseased, until he got ill himself. He got thrown out, and returned back to Montpellier, where he was arrested as a spy by his uncle and died in prison. Then, some 700 years later, Italian people who hear his name snigger because that's also the name that a famous socialite/porn actor took for himself.
Dude just cannot get a break
edited 12th Jun '12 10:06:17 PM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.The wat I go to.
◊ It is a small little house. The interior is rather small. In particular the meditation hall. Due to us not using chairs -chairs are pretty much a foreign concept in temples in general- it isn't that bad...We also don't get too many visitors regularly. On holidays it becomes...a gaggle of people crammed into one room.
◊ Said gaggle is also bowing their heads to the floor at regular intervals!
edited 12th Jun '12 10:06:22 PM by Aondeug
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan ChahOh, that thing I mentioned on the other thread about Lutherans and Catholics building their stuff right next to each other, if that picture I showed panned 90 degrees right you'd see the Lutheran church not even across the street.
When I was in Corvallis, St. Mary's and the Lutheran church were both across the street from my house on opposite sides.
My church actually has a pretty cool story; We were in a really, really small rented out building, look for a new place to go. There was a church nearby that owns a large property with multiple church buildings, which it then rents out/sells to church's that wouldn't have the money to buy a full property. (It's always fun to listen to the Haitian church across the street) We got them to offer us the redone gym across the street, and now have a huge church building to use.
Go play Kentucky Route Zero. Now.This
◊ is the church in my home village, if anyone's interested. I find the architecture an interesting contrast with Carc's pictures of the older Italian churches, because the churches would have likely been built in roughly the same time period.
edited 13th Jun '12 2:02:22 PM by pagad
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.Hello all. I'm a Christian Troper. I just thought I should introduce myself I guess. I don't really know what y'all talk about here.
Also, hi, Aon, I, uh, didn't really expect to see you here.
That's cool. It's nice to see someone open minded.
edited 14th Jun '12 12:14:54 AM by Bluespade
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.I like mingling with people of other faiths and learning about them through observation, questioning, or discussion. I hang out in the Pagan thread too. Sadly the Buddhism thread remains largely dead, but eh. If it's dead for the most part it is dead for the most part.
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan ChahNot a Christian but just wanting to ask something.
The question is, what is so bad about death itself? I understand the part about not being able to worship God as ordained anymore but death itself is part of human nature. So what is the thing I'm missing here?
Edit - Correct some punctuation.
edited 16th Jun '12 5:11:32 AM by Blurring
If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?I don't know if this is something about which there is agreement within Christianity. So I'll give my answer; but other people might have other answers, or they might deny altogether than death, in itself, is bad.
The thing is, death is not, I believe, part of human nature as it should be. It is a consequence of the Fall. It is possible that there was something "before" the Fall (my ideas about the Fall are rather complicated; suffice to say, I do not believe that it was a historical event in the same sense in which Caesar conquering Gallia was a historical event, but I do believe that it happened — it is not just a metaphor, although it is also a metaphor) that had a superficial similarity to death and that was twisted into death after the Fall; but ultimately, death and mortality as we know them are something that Should Never Have Been. They were not part of God's original plan for humankind: for what loving God would support them?
Rather, as the Book of Wisdom says,
Death, ultimately, is an enemy, like sin. It is, Paul suggests, the last enemy that will be defeated; but it will be defeated.
Our liturgy for Easter attests this defiance:
edited 16th Jun '12 4:25:40 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Essentially, yes. Although it was also the responsibility of Adam and Eve, that is, of humankind. If Adam and Eve had stood fast, the devil would have failed.
This said, on this topic, I am curious about the Muslim conception of the devil. I don't know if I should ask this in the Muslim thread; but if I understand things correctly, you call it Iblis, right? And it is not a fallen angel, but a Djinn, that is, some sort of fire spirit?
edited 16th Jun '12 5:19:07 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Iblis is a jinn, creatures made from smokeless fire. Also another of God's creation, like man, who have free will. I don't think it is as powerful as the Christians depiction of the Devil. It never get independent from God and will never get to claim any soul.
If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?I don't know if I would describe the Christian depiction of the devil as "powerful". Essentially, its only power is to lie; but of course, it being an entity older than time itself and many orders of magnitude more intelligent than any human being, it can use that capability with terrifying effectiveness.
And I don't know if I would say that it would ever "claim" any soul; rather, I would say that it aims to bring human souls to the same level of ultimate, irredeemable wretchedness at which its own soul is.
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.That I could agree with. I will change my previous perception about what Christians think about Devil at once.
edited 16th Jun '12 6:21:17 AM by Blurring
If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?Yeah: for example, there are Christians who say that the devil does not exist, except as a metaphor for the temptation that every sapient being has to face. I cannot say that I agree with them on this; but they are unquestionably Christian.
edited 16th Jun '12 8:47:06 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.I agree with what Carciofus said about the devil, which, given that he is Catholic and I am a non-denominational evangelical, should tell you that that doctrine has fairly broad acceptance within Christianity.
As regards death, I'm actually inclined to think of it as a merciful thing, which is not bad in itself but which is a symptom of a depraved world: without death, a human could continue to grow more and more evil and would essentially create hell on earth for themselves and everyone else. Because everyone dies, the damage they can do both to others and to their own soul is limited.
However, I fully admit that this is coming more from Tolkien's influence on me than from a very clear theological study.
<><
Saint Francis praises God for "sister bodily death". This said, he was more than a little fond of paradoxes; and he took the Gospel's idea of loving one's enemies to the extreme consequences and then some.
edited 16th Jun '12 1:15:12 PM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
