Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bobboau on October 02, 2005, 04:25:16 am
-
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1176365
it's even got a eh... ehiem, "faithful traveling partner" Gabrielle.
so this is how the solar system is going to colapse into a singularity of stupid.
-
I can just see Lucy Lawless reading this and thinking; "...Hmmm, I wonder if i'll get Royalties for this..."
-
As long as the planet doesn't have a planet-sized version of that throwing-disc-blade-thingy, I'm happy.
Though they could have named it Hercules, after Xena's muscle-bound daytime TV brother. At least it could have been consistant in the naming scheme of things.
-
They'll probably name it after a Roman god, the others were, Mars, Neptune etc.
-
was gonna post this but i felt kinda..... wierd if i started the thread lol...
-
It'll be changed. If it's changed to Heracles, though, I'm going to laugh.
-
I wished they would give it the same as one of the FS ships, Perseus, Lucifer or somethign cool
-
It needs to be a Roman god. I'd say Olympic god, but Saturn and Uranus are actually exceptions to that. Hercules wouldn't be totally out of the question, though it would indeed be a strange choice. The current name is just retarded though.
What will be interesting is whether this discovery forces the scientific community's hand on exactly what is classified a planet. In a lot of ways Ceres should be a planet if Pluto is as it exhibits more similarities to a rocky planet than the iceball that Pluto is. And this Kuiper belt object they just found is pretty similar to Pluto in a lot of respects.
EDIT: And :lol: at naming a 2000km-wide ball of ice "Lucifer"
-
I believe Carna, Roman Spirit of the Underworld, who protected internal organs, used white magic and protected the exterior of houses (?) is front runner, so was Terminus, God of Boundaries, but was discounted, since they are saving that one for a planet they are sure is beyond Pluto.
Another interesting fact is that in Ancient Roman Poetry, Lucifer was the name of the morning star (Lux = Light, Feri = To bring, the bringer of light). And was the name the Romans frequently applied to the planet we now know as 'Venus'.
-
Many of the Devil's names refer to natural imagery from earlier mythologies, such as "lord of this earth", which is the same as the pagan "Spiritus Mundi". It goes back to Christianity's ontological dualism, viewing the physical world as an obstacle to the transcendence of one's soul.
-
They should really start using some ancient Greek names.
I think they sound cooler :p
-
greek myth names > stupid roman ripoffs
-
We only think that because we tend to learn the Roman names as planets before we do as mythological figures. Think about it; if the Greek names had been used instead of their Roman counterparts, which would seem more mythical and exotic?
-
could be worse, they coulda called it "buffy"
-
Originally posted by Liberator
greek myth names > stupid roman ripoffs
Maybe so, but Greeks < Romans :p
-
Byzantine Empire > Holy Roman Empire.
Wait, wrong millenia...
-
There are some figures in classical mythology who are known as much or more by their Roman names, the chief example being Bacchus.
-
I always preferred Dionysus :p
-
Originally posted by StratComm
It needs to be a Roman god. I'd say Olympic god, but Saturn and Uranus are actually exceptions to that
...what?
-
Originally posted by Flipside
(Lux = Light, Feri = To bring, the bringer of light).
Offtopic, but:
This is how you can see that your Latin teacher managed to drill you right, when I saw lux, I thought at once
"Lux, luc-is, f"
and
"Ferre, fero"
(Yes, I follow Latin...)
-
Originally posted by Carl
...what?
Saturn and Uranus were Titans, not Olympian gods.
-
iirc Saturn was Chronos in Greek mythology, Zeus' father, who was indeed a Titan, and also had his nads cut off my Zeus, when they landed in the Sea, they formed Aphrodite, goddess of love.
I think drugs were better back then...
-
Originally posted by Fragrag
Offtopic, but:
This is how you can see that your Latin teacher managed to drill you right, when I saw lux, I thought at once
"Lux, luc-is, f"
and
"Ferre, fero"
(Yes, I follow Latin...)
And this is how I know I have some studying to do.....
(Seen the bit in Monty Python's Life of Brian with 'Romanus eunt domus'?)
-
Originally posted by Flipside
iirc Saturn was Chronos in Greek mythology, Zeus' father, who was indeed a Titan, and also had his nads cut off my Zeus, when they landed in the Sea, they formed Aphrodite, goddess of love.
I think drugs were better back then...
Indeed, and even funnier because Chronos, in turn, came to power by castrating his father, Uranus, (also the only planet in the solar system to be called by the Greek name.)
It was just one big Freudian festival.
-
LOL Makes Alexanders bisexuality seem a strangely silly thing to worry about ;)
-
Originally posted by Flipside
iirc Saturn was Chronos in Greek mythology, Zeus' father, who was indeed a Titan, and also had his nads cut off my Zeus, when they landed in the Sea, they formed Aphrodite, goddess of love.
I think drugs were better back then...
What's really Freudian is that the Goddess of Love, the momost beautiful woman in the world and cosmos (etc), was born from a pair of testicles.
-
Proving that romance is just a load of bollocks?
-
Originally posted by Ford Prefect
...It goes back to Christianity's ontological dualism, viewing the physical world as an obstacle to the transcendence of one's soul.
:wtf: That idea was condemned as heresy by Christianity. In specific, it is part of the heresy (or rather, group of heresies) called Gnosticism.
Christianity teaches that God is going to transform and perfect the world, and that we are going to be resurrected to everlasting life in physical bodies in this transformed universe, not that the world is something to ditch at the first available opportunity.
-
If Christianity is monistic, then why the obsession over the idea of wordly temptations? Why the multiple references to Satan as "Lord of This World"? Why even have a concept of heaven? I would argue, in fact, that all religions, no matter what their doctrines claim, are dualistic to some degree. They all speak of some variation on the concept of the seperation between body and soul.
In addition, Gnosticism, as far as I know, was condemned by Christian institutions because of the specific portion of its creed which states that only a select few have the mystical inner knowledge referred to as "gnosis", a statement which is actually less Platonic than Christianity.
-
Sorry, forgot to come back to this.
Worldly temptations, etc., uses world in the sense of
4. The inhabitants of the earth; the human race.
5.
1. Humankind considered as social beings; human society: turned her back on the world.
2. People as a whole; the public: The event amazed the world.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=world)
The idea here is that people are messed up, and evil is commonplace in human society. It is the evil of human society (lying, envy, hatred, etc., etc. etc.) that is supposed to be overcome. Being physical is declared good by God.
It is also true that Christian doctrine regards the physical world as also damaged by the effects of evil (in the same way human beings and human society are), but that is why God wants to fix it.
The Hebraic (and therefore biblical) understanding of human beings sees us more as integrated beings than as a comglomeration of parts. The "soul" in Hebrew is nephesh which really just means "life" (or by extension, "a living being"). Nephesh is created by ruach, which means "breath" or "wind," which in Latin is translated as spiritus and thus leads to English's "spirit." So, to the Hebrew mind, what we call "having a soul" to them meant simply "being alive and breathing."
Now, at death, the Hebrews though that we are essentially ripped apart: ruach leaves us, and we cease to be a nephesh, but only maintain a sort of sleeping half-existence in Sheol, the "grave" or the "pit." The biblically presented solution to this problem is resurrection: being made alive by having ruach put back into our (glorious, transformed) bodies so that we are once again living beings.
This all fits within a larger understanding of the world that sees all creation, both material and spiritual, as part of one whole. This isn't exactly monism, because there are many things and they don't all have the same "substance" or "essence," but rather is the idea that it all happens in the same arena, or on the same plane of existence, or whatever terminology you want to use.
It was more common in Greek culture to consider souls and bodies as separate entities that happened to be joined together. Death simply dissolved a temporary association. This fits into a larger view of the world as consisting of two (or more) separate planes existence.
(As a historical sidenote, the spread of Christianity in Greek culture caused a collision of these two ideas. Sometimes people would beleive in both concepts without recognising the inconsistency, while others would choose one or the other. Since our own culture derives so much from Greek culture, it is common to find the inconsistent mixing of the two ideas in the minds of many people. This is, however, rare among theologians and teachers of Christian doctrine.)
Anyway, that was a long post to answer a profound question. Hope it helped. :nod:
EDIT: Oh, and there is a lot more variety than you might think in ideas about the soul and the afterlife, and so on. Shinto, for example, has no such concepts. The Old Kingdom Egyptians believed only that the Pharoah was a god and ascended to them after he died, whereas the Middle Kingdom Egyptians beleived everyone had a soul and the possibility of an afterlife. Buddhism and most forms of Hinduism see the soul as very separate from the body (as did Plato).
As for the Gnostics, their claims regarding special knowledge were the capstone of an entire system of thought, and the whole lot of it was considered heretical.
-
The whole dualistic nature of body/soul is pretty much summed up by the Stoic humanism of the Renaissance. The Augustinian humanism made no distinction between body or soul.
Which of course points to the utter and complete hilarity of modern fundies hating "secular humanists" when they themselves (even the most uneducated) are holding 15th century humanist views.
-
Gotta love the twists of history, eh? ;) (Of course, there are also a lot of distinctives about secular humanism that explicitly run against Renaissance humanism, and especially Christian humanism, so it is not entirely silly.)
However, for fundamentalist Christians to hate anybody is even more ironic (and saddening).
-
I think I failed to convey my argument. I'm looking at religion from a psychological standpoint, with the understanding that the writings of a particular religion are the aggregate of many people's interpretations of it, and that all people are inclined towards some common beliefs. What about Eucherius's De Contemptu Mundi, or John 2:15-17 in the Bible? (As follows.)
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
Now, I'm sure that there's evidence that completely contradicts this, because, as I said before, a religion cannot really be one whole; it is a composite of interpretations. So what we're left to work with are our own conclusions about human nature. I am inclined to believe that human beings naturally chase a mirage of purity beyond the physical, so I see the aforementioned works as the most relevant to the question of what Christianity is.
So I'm inclinded to agree with Nietzsche: Christianity is Platonism for the masses.
-
Allwo me to reiterate: John uses "the world" in these sort of verses to refer to fallen human society and its ways, not to matter. You are reading the wrong sense of the word "world" if you understand it to mean the physical world of dirt and plants and air and animals and hamburgers and sailboats and such.
It seems to me that you are compounding ethical dualism (belief in good and evil) with ontological dualism (belief in two "planes of existence"). When you say "purity beyond the physical," you are describing an idea that makes good=spiritual and evil=physical. But that isn't the idea presented in any of the texts that Christianity considers authoritative. There, the consistent idea is ethical dualism that affects both the material and the spiritual. There is no idea that spiritual somehow automatically equals good, or physical is automatically bad.
Since this is the consistent teaching of the authoritative writings of Christianity (and therefore Judaism), that would seem to undermine your thesis that all people tend towards a common belief in ontological dualism re: body and soul. There is an entire religious tradition that simply doesn't follow that model.
And using the plurality of interpretations as a reason to abandon pursuit of an actual external truth is fallicious. Postmodern philosophers are correct that none of us can claim to know the whole truth about the world, but it is entirely wrongheaded to leap from there to the conclusion that none of us can claim to know anything, and thus that all interpretations are equally valid, so one may as well use one's own and leave it at that. And it seems to me that that is exactly what you are doing: you make the a priori assumption that people compound ethical and ontological dualism, and thus try to force all religions into that framework, even if we completely object.
-
Did anyone ask John?
-
I'm arguing that a religion's texts cannot define that single, external truth, because what an intelligent minority has written has little bearing on what most people actually believe. People shape a religion, and since people are more alike than different, as a religion becomes larger, its followers begin to sound more and more like the followers of other religions.
Now, as for the definition of "the world", John makes reference to "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life". Lust is a primal force that we associate with the state of nature, or at least with a more primitive form of human existence, (a band or a tribe, as opposed to a state.) To me, this suggests that sin is drawn from nature-- the physical world in the most literal sense of the term-- because humans as members of civilization associate nature with a kind of "dirtiness". Yes, yes, it's all God's artful creation, but I still don't think that idea holds water against people's more basic mental associations. Thus the Devil is a representation of the path back to nature, as opposed to forwards toward a higher level of existence. So my assertion is not that people compound ethical and ontological dualism, only that the spiritual world is always seen as superior to the physical world, for the reason that the spiritual can endure beyond the decay of the physical. That doesn't preclude the practice of ethics on earth, especially since moral behavior is usually viewed as the key to spiritual transcendence.
-
In the biblical usage, "lust" refers not to sheer desire or passion, but the misdirection of that passion. The goodness of sex and sexual desire is repeatly affirmed (and encouraged!) throughout the Bible, even as we are warned not to misuse it in evil ways. To describe it concretely: If I notice some girl on the street has nice curves and think "Wow, she's hot," that's fine and healthy and not lusting. But if I decide to start indulging in fantasies about her, imagining what I would do with her given a chance, then I have begun to lust. However, when I notice how nice my wife's curves are, it is a positively good thing for me to not only get ideas, but to act on them, and none of that is considered the sin of lust.
Anyway, if you simply want to assert that this is what you think, well, you can assert whatever you want. Just don't call it an argument or expect anyone to find it convincing. Because any of us who believe in any of the different religions know that they are really fundamentally different. You'll have to do a lot more than make bare assertions to convince a Buddhist that good is best expressed in the Cross, or to convince a Christian that complete detachment and an end to all desire are the best expression of good.
-
Originally posted by aldo_14
Did anyone ask John?
Well, he's dead, but 1) the tradition tracing all the way back to the beginning is pretty consistent, and 2) there are whole bunch of people who have dedicated their entire lives to understanding this as best as possible, from as many angles as they can think of. The results are quite clear and consistent, so we can't ask him, but this is pretty close.
-
If I notice some girl on the street has nice curves and think "Wow, she's hot," that's fine and healthy and not lusting. But if I decide to start indulging in fantasies about her, imagining what I would do with her given a chance, then I have begun to lust. However, when I notice how nice my wife's curves are, it is a positively good thing for me to not only get ideas, but to act on them, and none of that is considered the sin of lust.
But nature is still telling you to lust after that other girl. The part of you that has not changed since the beginning of life itself does not recognize marriage as even existent, and that is the psychological basis of sin: The part of us that does not see man-made ethical systems, only basic desires and emotions.
The cross is a symbol; religions don't have to have similar symbols for them to be alike. And as for the end to all desire, that seems to be only a matter of degree. Buddhism says, "No desire at all", while Christianity says, "Okay, if you have to desire, do it under the following conditions," and proceeds to list some rather specific conditions. Neither one regards desire in a truly favorable light, which is what I'm getting at. I think the closest humanity has ever come to having a desire-friendly religion would be ancient Greece, which was sort of an anomaly in the course of human events.
Besides, if you want more evidence that religions aren't really that different from each other, look at their holy men. They all live in spartan conditions, pursuing lives of contemplation of whatever they call god, and singing together. (Of course, lots of people want to be holy but don't want to retire their genitalia, so inevitably these standards become relaxed as civilization becomes larger.) Everyone associates the same basic things with this concept of holiness, which points to a universal set of concepts beneath all the variations.
Although I suppose you're right. It would be a waste of everyone's time for me to try and make this case to a religious person. I just sort of thrive on pointlessness, which is why I chose philosophy.
-
Originally posted by Ford Prefect
But nature is still telling you to lust after that other girl...
As I said, disorder and brokenness are to be repaired. The issue with lust, like gluttony, is that a good thing is misused. That doesn't make it evil, or dirty, or a problem to overcome, or something that drags you down. If you re-read what I wrote, noticing and appreciating the attractiveness of a pretty woman is fine and good. Even before we and our world were broken by evil, that was the way God intended it. Lust comes up when we move beyond that into what fallen human beings do now. Finding a woman attractive is one thing; moving into deliberate imaginings about her is another. In that case, it is no longer simple instinctive attraction, but expressly chosen action. Sex is good, as is food, but like food it can be abused. I mean really, the way you construe things, next you'll be saying that Christianity teaches that emotions are evil!
The cross is a symbol; religions don't have to have similar symbols for them to be alike.
A symbol is a symbol of something. And what they symbolise in this case are totally incompatible at the most fundamental level. The crosses we Christians hang on our walls, wear on on clothes, etc., symbolise this: God himself loved the world so much that he became human, suffered immensely and died horribly, and then was raised to a glorious new physical human existence, so that all the suffering and dying world could likewise be transformed and given the same new life. That means the world is worth dying for, that it is unspeakably valuable, that the highest good is to sacrifice oneself for the earthly, this-world life and well-being of another, that trees and rocks and art and society and sharing a good meal with friends all matter in the utmost. Buddhists have their images of Buddha meditating, usually with a mysterious half-smile on his face. It symbolises transcendence, Enlightenment, the end of all desire. Compassion, for the Buddhist, is always a dispassionate compassion, the sort of simple willingness to let go of things that comes when one doesn't care about things any more. Buddhists teach pacifism because neither land nor art nor society nor relationships with others matter enough to risk one's progress toward Enlightenment y getting involved in the mess of the world. The image of the meditating Buddha symbolises that the world doesn't matter in the slightest.
And as for the end to all desire, that seems to be only a matter of degree. Buddhism says, "No desire at all", while Christianity says, "Okay, if you have to desire, do it under the following conditions," and proceeds to list some rather specific conditions. Neither one regards desire in a truly favorable light, which is what I'm getting at. I think the closest humanity has ever come to having a desire-friendly religion would be ancient Greece, which was sort of an anomaly in the course of human events.
For Christianity, desire is good. Misusing and abusing it is bad. Again refering your to the difference between desire and lust/greed/selfishness/etc. (it's all the same thing, really), I reiterate that desire is seen in a very favourable light, with full divine sanction and outright command, whereas twisting it into something it was not meant to be is seen in a very unfavourable light indeed.
(Oh, and ancient Greece was not anomalous. It is quite common.)
Besides, if you want more evidence that religions aren't really that different from each other, look at their holy men. They all live in spartan conditions, pursuing lives of contemplation of whatever they call god, and singing together. (Of course, lots of people want to be holy but don't want to retire their genitalia, so inevitably these standards become relaxed as civilization becomes larger.) Everyone associates the same basic things with this concept of holiness, which points to a universal set of concepts beneath all the variations.
Jesus was unmarried, as was Paul (simply because he to be a full-time travelling missionary, which can't be done well with a wife and kids in tow), but all the rest of the twelve original apostles were married with kids. The Roman Catholic church didn't make celibacy a requirement for the priesthood until centuries later, and they are still the only ones to do so. The Eastern Orthodox Churches (Greek, Russian, etc.) have never required celibate priests, nor do the Protestants, nor did the Nestorian churches (who had churches spread from Baghdad to Bejing before Tamerlane killed them all), nor do the ancient Thomas Christians of India, nor the ancient Coptic and Ethiopian Churches. Likewise, celibate monks didn't exist in Christianity for centuries--it was only when they borrowed the idea from other religions that that even started. So that would seem to contradict your thesis (which was a pretty weak argument even if it were true ;):)).
Although I suppose you're right. It would be a waste of everyone's time for me to try and make this case to a religious person. I just sort of thrive on pointlessness, which is why I chose philosophy.
Well, it is a waste of time to talk to anyone who disagrees with you on anything if you just make assertions. In this last post you started to argue a bit more, trying to demonstrate your assertions, and that made a meaningful conversation.
-
Actually on the whole Jesus/Paul without kids thing:
Something as such as an unmarried Rabbi (Jesus) would warrant attention and mention.
Similarly with the discovered "Book of Thecla" Paul did have a female travelling companion who was rather close to him.
Since early Christianity based on his teachings didn't object to priests having such marital ties, it's not too much of a stretch to see that there was likely a relationship between them.
Nothing to directly prove either case, but nothing to directly disprove either. Plus it's the subject 'o tons of conspiracy theories ;)
-
Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
:wtf: That idea was condemned as heresy by Christianity. In specific, it is part of the heresy (or rather, group of heresies) called Gnosticism.
Christianity teaches that God is going to transform and perfect the world, and that we are going to be resurrected to everlasting life in physical bodies in this transformed universe, not that the world is something to ditch at the first available opportunity.
Where the hell do you get this from?:wtf:
-
Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Finding a woman attractive is one thing; moving into deliberate imaginings about her is another. In that case, it is no longer simple instinctive attraction, but expressly chosen action. Sex is good, as is food, but like food it can be abused. I mean really, the way you construe things, next you'll be saying that Christianity teaches that emotions are evil!
I'm saying that religion expects the impossible of the human being. Saying that extramarital sexual fantasies are expressly chosen is a major leap of faith, considering what we've observed about behavioral patterns in sexuality, (the Coolidge Effect, etc.), which tells us that humans, (especially males), are more sexually attracted to strangers than to people with whom they are familiar. (This is why we naturally avoid incest.) So unless there's a religion that says, "Go ahead and fantasize about other women/men", they're all telling people to suppress something very, very powerful.
Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
A symbol is a symbol of something. And what they symbolise in this case are totally incompatible at the most fundamental level. The crosses we Christians hang on our walls, wear on on clothes, etc., symbolise this: God himself loved the world so much that he became human, suffered immensely and died horribly, and then was raised to a glorious new physical human existence, so that all the suffering and dying world could likewise be transformed and given the same new life. That means the world is worth dying for, that it is unspeakably valuable, that the highest good is to sacrifice oneself for the earthly, this-world life and well-being of another, that trees and rocks and art and society and sharing a good meal with friends all matter in the utmost.
Yes, but "good" is teleological, and what is the ultimate goal of doing good on this earth? Isn't it spiritual transcendence? That makes the physical world significant, but still the rung on a ladder to higher places. Now, by the same token, while Buddhism views Enlightenment as the ultimate goal, there is a path that all people must follow in order to reach it. (We tend only to regard things as worthy if we have to work for them.) That path to Enlightenment is through the physical world. So Enlightenment is superior to physical existence, but still depends on the corporeal in order to be seen as beautiful and worthy of attainment. So in both these religions, the physical world is a means to an end, but still an obstruction in the sense that it is a trial that the individual must face.
Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Jesus was unmarried, as was Paul (simply because he to be a full-time travelling missionary, which can't be done well with a wife and kids in tow), but all the rest of the twelve original apostles were married with kids. The Roman Catholic church didn't make celibacy a requirement for the priesthood until centuries later, and they are still the only ones to do so. The Eastern Orthodox Churches (Greek, Russian, etc.) have never required celibate priests, nor do the Protestants, nor did the Nestorian churches (who had churches spread from Baghdad to Bejing before Tamerlane killed them all), nor do the ancient Thomas Christians of India, nor the ancient Coptic and Ethiopian Churches. Likewise, celibate monks didn't exist in Christianity for centuries--it was only when they borrowed the idea from other religions that that even started. So that would seem to contradict your thesis (which was a pretty weak argument even if it were true ).
But I wasn't just talking about celibacy. I described a general lifestyle associated with people fully devoted to their religion, and celibacy wasn't the only thing I mentioned. That's probably my fault for poorly writing the paragraph. Anyway, do any religions associate opulence with their most devoted followers? It strikes me that holding in great esteem those who give up a comfortable way of life in pursuit of deeper faith is quite universal. It sounds like a "duh" argument, but it does illustrate a shared view of religion's purpose, (even if the ideal is rarely in sync with the practice.)
-
Just a bit off-topic, aren't you? Wasn't this thread on the stupidity of the scientists giving a planet the temporary name of Xena?
-
I have no idea what's going on and frankly it scares me.
-
They seem to have taken a discussion on the eccentricities of scientists and changed it to a discussion on religion, a phenomenon that, unfortunately, is all to common on this forum.
-
I must admit, I thought I'd clicked on the 'One more time' thread by accident.
-
If we can find the pattern where everything changed, perhaps we can prevent the horrors the next time.
For great Justice!
-
Ford mentioned dualism within christianity while talking about names for satan after someone mentioned that the planet venus was once worshiped as the morning star and the name lucifer is in fact a reference to this.
-
It was me! :nervous: I was just pointing out something interesting :(
-
:rolleyes:
Burn the heretic!
-
Can't you give us any credit for making it a civil debate? I mean come on, "A" for effort, right?
-
We could, but abuse is more fun.
Sorry.
-
You know you all wanna take sides and have a go. You're just itching for it. Give in to your burning desires!
-
No. We've had enough religion debates on this forum for its entire existence. Just give up the fight.
-
No, we've had enough religion flamewars, as in, "OMFGBBQ UR WRONG SO STFU KTHX." I don't understand what's so bothersome about a real discussion.
-
As done in this forum, they never last as discussion. Ultimately, it descends to either flamewars or two groups repetitively stating the same position.
-
The HLP is a massive soap opera!
:nervous:
*runs away*
-
Sadly, at times, you're not too far off.
-
Originally posted by Ford Prefect
I'm saying that religion expects the impossible of the human being. Saying that extramarital sexual fantasies are expressly chosen is a major leap of faith, considering what we've observed about behavioral patterns in sexuality, (the Coolidge Effect, etc.), which tells us that humans, (especially males), are more sexually attracted to strangers than to people with whom they are familiar. (This is why we naturally avoid incest.) So unless there's a religion that says, "Go ahead and fantasize about other women/men", they're all telling people to suppress something very, very powerful.
Being attracted to people is one thing, engaging in fantasies is another. I can quite easily choose what I think about. I do it all the time. This includes when I notice that a woman is attractive, start thinking about that, and then say to myself "...but, anyway,..." and start thinking about something else. It's really quite easy.
The situation is similar to being angry at someone, for example. I have an emotional response, and that is fine. There's nothing sinful about anger. Jesus got quite pissed off at people sometimes. The issue is what you do with your feelings, not how you feel. There are right ways and wrong ways to deal with them. It's the same with attraction. Maybe some concrete examples will help you see the sistinction I am drawing.
A 16-year-old boy really likes some girl. His heart beats faster and he even gets a bit aroused every time she is near. In his head, he is thinking "Wow, she is so fantastic!" (or possibly just going "Buh, buh, buh..." because he has little ability to think at all when around her). So far, all is great. God has a little smile on, because this is the way he made things to be and he likes it. Eventually, the boy gets his thoughts together and decides to ask her out, because in his head he is thinking "Wow, I just want to be around her, she is so great!" So he does, and she agrees. They go out a few times, and really enjoy each other's company, and the boy continually finds her really attractive and still often finds himself aroused by her presence. All is great. One day the desire to be near her and bask in her wonder starts to change in him, and (perhaps subtly at first) becomes a desire to possess her. He begins not just to find her attractive, but starts visuallising scenarios where he manages to get into her pants. He doesn't necessarily think things will work out the way he imagines, but he is still hoping that something like one of these scenarios will. Now he has moved from attraction to lust: he may never actually try anything, but now he has half-assed plans about what he'll do if the opportunity arises. If he decides to repent and throw off this possessiveness and the schemes it produces, he has moved away from lust back into right relationship with the girl. If not, then he remains in sin.
Another scenario, this time with a married man. He has met, dated, and married the girl he liked (probably falling into lust a few times along the way). He is now in the situation where it is appropriate for him to get into his wife's pants on a regular basis, and he does so. But he still sees other women and is attracted to them. Again, he is not lusting at that point. If he starts imagining himself sleeping with those other women, then he is lusting. But if, instead of putting the energy aroused by seeing those other women into fantasies about them, he decides to use that energy to go home and make love to his wife, he is not lusting.
Did that help clarify?
Oh, and as far as religion asking the impossible goes: Christianity, at least, specifically says that on our own it is completely impossible for us to free ourselves from sin. Sin is, stricly speaking, an underlying condition of not being like God made us to be. Individual actions that violate particular commands are symptoms of the underlying problem. Even if we kept all the commands, we'd still be in need of help, because we are part of an entire world that is broken and needs to be fixed, and we can't make ourselves whole. It will only be when the whole world is restored that we will be entirely set free. In the meantime, we already have some measure (a downpayment, if you will) of the power of God that will accomplish this one day in the future, which allows us a certain amount of freedom and healing from our brokenness in the present. It is this power that allows us to grow in strength to be more like Jesus, and thereby to violate God's intended order less.
Yes, but "good" is teleological, and what is the ultimate goal of doing good on this earth? Isn't it spiritual transcendence? That makes the physical world significant, but still the rung on a ladder to higher places. Now, by the same token, while Buddhism views Enlightenment as the ultimate goal, there is a path that all people must follow in order to reach it. (We tend only to regard things as worthy if we have to work for them.) That path to Enlightenment is through the physical world. So Enlightenment is superior to physical existence, but still depends on the corporeal in order to be seen as beautiful and worthy of attainment. So in both these religions, the physical world is a means to an end, but still an obstruction in the sense that it is a trial that the individual must face.
From the Christian perspective, the telos of doing good is not spiritual transcendence. It is seeing this world made good again. If you read Romans chapter 8, for example, you'll read that all the created world is going to be "released from its bondage to decay," which also includes us human beings getting our physical bodies back so that we can live forever in this repaired world. This world is the one God cares about and is ultimately going to fix entirely, and therefore is the one Christians are to care about and with God's help, make better as much as we can today. In my part of Vancouver, there are a lot of people trapped in poverty and drug abuse. Christians here run shelters and rehab centres, and feed the hungry on an regular, ongoing basis because we want to see their lives better than they are now. We consider that an intrinic good in itself, even if no one decides to follwo Christ. And if people do decide to become followers of Jesus, that is great because it means that they are stepping into the path of life that will ulitmately lead to endless abundant life in the future when God restores the world, and that already provides fuller life in the present while we await the complete repair of the world that is to come.
But I wasn't just talking about celibacy. I described a general lifestyle associated with people fully devoted to their religion, and celibacy wasn't the only thing I mentioned. That's probably my fault for poorly writing the paragraph. Anyway, do any religions associate opulence with their most devoted followers? It strikes me that holding in great esteem those who give up a comfortable way of life in pursuit of deeper faith is quite universal. It sounds like a "duh" argument, but it does illustrate a shared view of religion's purpose, (even if the ideal is rarely in sync with the practice.)
I assumed celibacy was what you had in mind based on the context. Apparently you mean asceticism in general. Anyway, there is a spectrum of responses to be found in this regard, both across religions and within any one of them. Christianity and Buddhism both aim in general at moderation (though for very different reasons), Shinto leans towards opulence, while many (but not all) of the Hindu religions tend towards asceticism.
Within Christianity, devotion to God is what is important, and the form that takes will vary depending on circumstances. Generosity is the primary concern as far as relating to comfortable living goes, and loving generosity is what we Christians especially esteem as holiness. In pursuit of generous love, some people may need to take a more ascetic stance regarding money, comfort, food, etc. in their own lives in order to counter their paticular imbalances. Other people have different issues and need to take just the opposite stance. (So for example, my wife has to impose a bit of asceticism on herself in regard to going to the mall: she denies herself trips to the mall because she is always tempted to spend money on stuff she doesn't need and would never have thought of getting at all if she weren't there, instead of using it for better purposes. I, on the other hand, tend to be a miser, and have to learn to be more free with money, because I find that when I am unwilling to spend on myself, I am unwilling to spend on others.) But in either case, generosity is the goal. A more extreme ascetic might be admired simply for his strength of will, but not because asceticism is holy.
-
As for the rest of you good-hearted jokers, if you are worried about another flamewar starting, go away! ;) Ford and I are having a great little conversation as we hide in this off-topic thread, and we'd appreciate it if you didn't call attention to us!
Originally posted by TrashMan
Where the hell do you get this from?:wtf:
...From spending the last eight years of my life studying Christian doctrine and history. ;)
-
But I'm saying that this tendency for the 16-year-old to continually fantacize about getting into that girls pants is just as natural as a more "innocent" form of attraction, (if there even is such a thing.) The difference is that we can control our actions, but not the existence of the urges. A boy can't help but want to have sex with a girl, but he can make the choice not to do it unless they're both comfortable with it. I am quite certain that you would be hard-pressed to find an attached man in this entire world who has not had sexual fantasies about other women.
Anyway, as a side note: The way I see it, for a man to have a sexual fantasy about another woman has no bearing on the love he feels for his wife. If two people love each other, it means they're together for more than simply the pleasure of sex, and if their emotional bond is strong, neither one of them is going to act on those natural sexual fantasies.
Now, no Christians I know have ever expressed such an interpretation of humanity's ultimate fate, (then again, none of them are as educated on the subject as you are), but I think it still makes sense in the context of my argument. A world freed from all evil and suffering, in which everyone lives forever, strikes me as psychologically the same as spiritual transcendence, which makes the logical relationship the same whether we're talking about a purified world or an ascension from the corporeal to the spiritual. And this actually raises an interesting point: You believe in this religion, so to you, there is a difference between spiritual transcendence and a perfect physical world. I, however, do not believe in this or any concept of spirituality, so to me, the only thing that matters is the psychological basis behind the belief, which is what I am arguing is the same in all religions. So perhaps we simply suffer from having irreconcilable perspectives on the matter.
Your examples regarding religious asceticism are noted. My argument here was weak and tangential, and just generally a mistake.
-
Originally posted by Ford Prefect
...A boy can't help but want to have sex with a girl...
No one said wanting sex was lust. There is a certain crossover point from instinctive attraction to chosen actions, and lust, as meant in biblical parlance, is the second. Like I said above, I am often attracted to other women, which is fine, but when I become aware of myself, then I have a choice: to continue staring at her, or to stop. In my experience, merely instinctive attraction doesn't involve mind-pictures. It is only when I have chosen to continue that visualisation of specific circumstances ever begins.
To be honest, I really think the "it's just our animal nature" argument is a cop-out. Trying to make instinctive attraction into a carte-blanche for whatever degree of unethical sexual activity is fallacious. We can chose what to think about, and when an idea comes into our heads, we can chose to dwell on it or to turn it out. Trying to claim a chosen action as a merely instinctive response is really just making excuses.
Now, no Christians I know have ever expressed such an interpretation of humanity's ultimate fate
That's probably because I've been trying to be very clear and explicit, and to avoid "Christianese" terms that are easily misunderstood, in order to help correct any misunderstandings you had.
A world freed from all evil and suffering, in which everyone lives forever, strikes me as psychologically the same as spiritual transcendence, which makes the logical relationship the same whether we're talking about a purified world or an ascension from the corporeal to the spiritual.
If so, then why the vastly different sorts of responses to the world, such as what I mentioned above?
And this actually raises an interesting point: You believe in this religion, so to you, there is a difference between spiritual transcendence and a perfect physical world. I, however, do not believe in this or any concept of spirituality, so to me, the only thing that matters is the psychological basis behind the belief, which is what I am arguing is the same in all religions.
Allow me to ask you, what precisely do you mean with the phrase "psychological basis of belief"?
So perhaps we simply suffer from having irreconcilable perspectives on the matter.
No doubt, but I see no need to stop yet. :)
-
Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
No one said wanting sex was lust. There is a certain crossover point from instinctive attraction to chosen actions, and lust, as meant in biblical parlance, is the second. Like I said above, I am often attracted to other women, which is fine, but when I become aware of myself, then I have a choice: to continue staring at her, or to stop. In my experience, merely instinctive attraction doesn't involve mind-pictures. It is only when I have chosen to continue that visualisation of specific circumstances ever begins.
To be honest, I really think the "it's just our animal nature" argument is a cop-out. Trying to make instinctive attraction into a carte-blanche for whatever degree of unethical sexual activity is fallacious.
I'm curious. Define 'unethical'.