Comment Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score 1) 2242
I understand what you're saying. I'm normally very reluctant to get into discussions like this, especially on Slashdot. But I felt that there were a lot of misunderstandings about Christianity being presented, and I was trying to address your questions from that paradigm. I'm sorry if I came across as wanting to convince you. As I've said, we're all free to choose which door we will take. And I won't deride you for picking a different door: but since people have asked about my door, I've been trying to explain what's inside.
Yes, there's a lot of thorny issues, especially in interpreting the actions of the Old Testament in the context of the New. I'm up through Acts and certainly have much more to learn, and I've tried to avoid mentoining the speck in another's eye for I certainly have a plank in my own. There's a lot of death and destruction in the Old Testament. In all honesty, I don't know how to address that yet. I know that the point of Christ in Christianity is to transmute the old and establish the New Israel. I apologize that I can't address all your examples, and they are good examples that I will pose to my priest.
We talked today about your question of eternal damnation. I asked him about a passage in Acts where a husband and wife who voluntariliy give their land to the early Church hold back some of the proceeds and through their lie experience death. I asked him, "If God is loving, why didn't they have a chance to repent?" He responded to me along these lines: The two made a great show of their donation, yet lied to the community and to God. They threatened the community and their actions had consequences. Yet how many might be saved through their deaths (it is said that all the people were afraid)? What if their death was their repentance? How can we know what conversation they have with Christ in the afterlife? We cannot know if they are condemned or saved, we can only be called to repentance. We always ask for great signs, and when we are given a great sign we complain because it necessarily is judgment or an unscientific miracle. Yet we don't feel the subtle signs, the manifestations of God in our daily lives, either. So what do we really expect from God? I admit, it's a tough call. But if we have been empowered to make a choice, we will have to face the consequences. If the only possibility in Christianity for eternal life means accepting God and thus allowing ourselves to be reconciled, reunited, and saved by God, we have to understand and trust in that. Just as if the only possibility in Buddhism is the cessation of suffering by the Four Noble Truths into the annihilation of Nirvana (in its oldest sense, as "extinction"), we have to understand and trust in that. Will you complain because your only choice is between experiencing eternal rebirths of suffering or of working towards cessation and annihilation? (and, if you interpret Samsara in the sense of the ups and downs of life, a life of happiness and suffering vs a life of dispassion and equanimity? -- Well who wouldn't want dispassion and equanimity? Well who wouldn't want eternal joy in Heaven?)
Yes, there's a lot of atrocities in Church history. And I will say this: you can look to Rome for its source. Rome sacked Constantinople during the Crusades. They turned against the rest of their Christian brethren and had many run-ins with worldliness, and certainly did not comprehend the point of free will in forcing people to convert. Of course, religion was used as a coverup for political and worldly motives. As the state fused with the Church (not something that is done in Orthodoxy) those who wanted to succeed in the state had to succeed in the Church. It ended up terribly and all of Western Christianity has suffered from it since then. Persecution had kept Christianity strong, and the acceptance of Christianity by Constantine ended up being both a blessing and a curse. That's why I'm fully for total seperation between Church and State. It threatens the proper functioning of each institution. There have been efforts made towards reconciliation between the Church of Rome and the decentralized Churches of Orthodoxy, but its been coming along slowly because of various doctrinal differences that the West created through papal infallibility.
Christianity doesn't really explain much about the world, and not in any reasonable or sensible way. It tells us that we constantly miss the mark and calls us to change. It offers no placid acceptance of our lives or direction, but challanges us with repentance, forgiveness, and love in a world where we do not know good and evil. Genesis was written during the period of Exodus; it wasn't the basis of the rest of the Bible. Karen Armstrong's "A History of God" takes an excellent look at the history of the development of the three monotheist religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's an insightful overview of the history of monotheist thought and the evolution of Biblical interpretation. The author was once a nun but is now just a wanderer. I think that you might find it interesting if you'd like to learn more about why the followers of those three religions believe what they believe across the various differing sects and interpretations. The Greeks were aware that they were creating myths. They weren't claiming to have revelation. Karen Armstrong goes into this throughout her book, and how revelation distinguishes the monotheist religions of the Axial age from prior and contemporary forms of conceiving of our role in the universe. As I've said before, I chose Christianity because it has manifested in my experience, in too many bizzare situations and experiences that I simply can't accept as being random. To me, the meaning is very present in my experience, and I don't think that it's unreasonable to trust my life experience. If we can't trust that, what can we possibly trust? (for more on this you can play with Hume and Kant and Wittgenstein) And I trust in the testimony of the apostles and early Christians, who got nothing of any real worldly use out of Christianity but rather willingly received poverty and martyrdom.
Orthodoxy does encourage individual cultures, though. While we all generally use one type of liturgy, the manifestion of that liturgy varies between culture: in Antiochian Orthodoxy we sing Byzantine style chant in Arabic, in African Orthodoxy there is dancing and drumming. There's even Western Rite Orthodoxy, which is Orthodoxy expressed in an Anglican liturgical form. Perhaps Rome has sought to annihilate cultures, but Orthodoxy, governed by a decentralized system of geographical Bishops, has no single culture to press, and no desire to do such a thing. The Orthodox conception is that each one of us is a unique manifestation of the Image of God, and what is important is not how we express that Image, but that we are able to express it.
I can accept the possibility that I am wrong. That's fine with me. I think we've just misunderstood the purpose that we both set out in this discussion to have. And I mean this sincerely: if I have disrespected you in this discussion, I'm sorry. I just wanted to try and clear up what I saw as some basic misunderstandings about Christian thought. I don't see where the hubris is in my responses, because I've said _time and time again that I cannot offer you any convincing evidence_. I never expected you to post on Slashdot a conversion experience! I just wanted to explain to people what Christianity means. If that's too much for people to handle, I'm sorry for offending them with my explanations!
I hope that you haven't felt that I've been attacking Buddhism. I have great respect for Buddhism, and I was using Buddhist thought because I felt that it we shared its language and terminology and that it would expedite our discussion. I did my best to live and understand Buddhism, and dedicated my undergraduate career to a useless degree so that I might acquire opportunities to better understand it. Of course, I ended up in Christianity, just as you've picked another path. I can live with that, and it is my duty not to hold it against you. Have you read "Buddhism Without Beliefs" by Stephen Bachleor? I've heard a bit about it (mostly controversy) but it would probably be something you'd like if you haven't read it yet. I don't recall if it's Zen specific or not, though.
Yes, there's a lot of thorny issues, especially in interpreting the actions of the Old Testament in the context of the New. I'm up through Acts and certainly have much more to learn, and I've tried to avoid mentoining the speck in another's eye for I certainly have a plank in my own. There's a lot of death and destruction in the Old Testament. In all honesty, I don't know how to address that yet. I know that the point of Christ in Christianity is to transmute the old and establish the New Israel. I apologize that I can't address all your examples, and they are good examples that I will pose to my priest.
We talked today about your question of eternal damnation. I asked him about a passage in Acts where a husband and wife who voluntariliy give their land to the early Church hold back some of the proceeds and through their lie experience death. I asked him, "If God is loving, why didn't they have a chance to repent?" He responded to me along these lines: The two made a great show of their donation, yet lied to the community and to God. They threatened the community and their actions had consequences. Yet how many might be saved through their deaths (it is said that all the people were afraid)? What if their death was their repentance? How can we know what conversation they have with Christ in the afterlife? We cannot know if they are condemned or saved, we can only be called to repentance. We always ask for great signs, and when we are given a great sign we complain because it necessarily is judgment or an unscientific miracle. Yet we don't feel the subtle signs, the manifestations of God in our daily lives, either. So what do we really expect from God? I admit, it's a tough call. But if we have been empowered to make a choice, we will have to face the consequences. If the only possibility in Christianity for eternal life means accepting God and thus allowing ourselves to be reconciled, reunited, and saved by God, we have to understand and trust in that. Just as if the only possibility in Buddhism is the cessation of suffering by the Four Noble Truths into the annihilation of Nirvana (in its oldest sense, as "extinction"), we have to understand and trust in that. Will you complain because your only choice is between experiencing eternal rebirths of suffering or of working towards cessation and annihilation? (and, if you interpret Samsara in the sense of the ups and downs of life, a life of happiness and suffering vs a life of dispassion and equanimity? -- Well who wouldn't want dispassion and equanimity? Well who wouldn't want eternal joy in Heaven?)
Yes, there's a lot of atrocities in Church history. And I will say this: you can look to Rome for its source. Rome sacked Constantinople during the Crusades. They turned against the rest of their Christian brethren and had many run-ins with worldliness, and certainly did not comprehend the point of free will in forcing people to convert. Of course, religion was used as a coverup for political and worldly motives. As the state fused with the Church (not something that is done in Orthodoxy) those who wanted to succeed in the state had to succeed in the Church. It ended up terribly and all of Western Christianity has suffered from it since then. Persecution had kept Christianity strong, and the acceptance of Christianity by Constantine ended up being both a blessing and a curse. That's why I'm fully for total seperation between Church and State. It threatens the proper functioning of each institution. There have been efforts made towards reconciliation between the Church of Rome and the decentralized Churches of Orthodoxy, but its been coming along slowly because of various doctrinal differences that the West created through papal infallibility.
Christianity doesn't really explain much about the world, and not in any reasonable or sensible way. It tells us that we constantly miss the mark and calls us to change. It offers no placid acceptance of our lives or direction, but challanges us with repentance, forgiveness, and love in a world where we do not know good and evil. Genesis was written during the period of Exodus; it wasn't the basis of the rest of the Bible. Karen Armstrong's "A History of God" takes an excellent look at the history of the development of the three monotheist religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's an insightful overview of the history of monotheist thought and the evolution of Biblical interpretation. The author was once a nun but is now just a wanderer. I think that you might find it interesting if you'd like to learn more about why the followers of those three religions believe what they believe across the various differing sects and interpretations. The Greeks were aware that they were creating myths. They weren't claiming to have revelation. Karen Armstrong goes into this throughout her book, and how revelation distinguishes the monotheist religions of the Axial age from prior and contemporary forms of conceiving of our role in the universe. As I've said before, I chose Christianity because it has manifested in my experience, in too many bizzare situations and experiences that I simply can't accept as being random. To me, the meaning is very present in my experience, and I don't think that it's unreasonable to trust my life experience. If we can't trust that, what can we possibly trust? (for more on this you can play with Hume and Kant and Wittgenstein) And I trust in the testimony of the apostles and early Christians, who got nothing of any real worldly use out of Christianity but rather willingly received poverty and martyrdom.
Orthodoxy does encourage individual cultures, though. While we all generally use one type of liturgy, the manifestion of that liturgy varies between culture: in Antiochian Orthodoxy we sing Byzantine style chant in Arabic, in African Orthodoxy there is dancing and drumming. There's even Western Rite Orthodoxy, which is Orthodoxy expressed in an Anglican liturgical form. Perhaps Rome has sought to annihilate cultures, but Orthodoxy, governed by a decentralized system of geographical Bishops, has no single culture to press, and no desire to do such a thing. The Orthodox conception is that each one of us is a unique manifestation of the Image of God, and what is important is not how we express that Image, but that we are able to express it.
I can accept the possibility that I am wrong. That's fine with me. I think we've just misunderstood the purpose that we both set out in this discussion to have. And I mean this sincerely: if I have disrespected you in this discussion, I'm sorry. I just wanted to try and clear up what I saw as some basic misunderstandings about Christian thought. I don't see where the hubris is in my responses, because I've said _time and time again that I cannot offer you any convincing evidence_. I never expected you to post on Slashdot a conversion experience! I just wanted to explain to people what Christianity means. If that's too much for people to handle, I'm sorry for offending them with my explanations!
I hope that you haven't felt that I've been attacking Buddhism. I have great respect for Buddhism, and I was using Buddhist thought because I felt that it we shared its language and terminology and that it would expedite our discussion. I did my best to live and understand Buddhism, and dedicated my undergraduate career to a useless degree so that I might acquire opportunities to better understand it. Of course, I ended up in Christianity, just as you've picked another path. I can live with that, and it is my duty not to hold it against you. Have you read "Buddhism Without Beliefs" by Stephen Bachleor? I've heard a bit about it (mostly controversy) but it would probably be something you'd like if you haven't read it yet. I don't recall if it's Zen specific or not, though.
