Felagund
12d ago
Though he could have put that better, I definitely agree that being able to see posting history is nicer. Occasionally I'll really like someone's post and look to see what else they've said, or what their top comments are, or what other things they might care about, so it's not just used in order to attack someone.
Felagund
12d ago
It seems very sensible for God to be a utility monster (assuming God exists, of course)? Like, I'd be kind of surprised if that were not the case.
I think this is pretty common among religious people? Or, at least, among those who have thought it through. Do you think the average religious person thinks hell is unjust?
Felagund
12d ago
Well, I don't think I was born a pathological misanthrope, nor am one, so…
By becoming convinced that sin is bad, actually. That we are guilty when we sin not only for the harms we inflict on others, but for the transgression against God's law, against his infinite majesty.
To quote Isaiah, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
This is not the only such passage.
Felagund
12d ago
Jesus dude. This is crazy talk, even by my low expectations regarding religious thinkers.
I think this is pretty mainstream, among some (large) segments of Christianity?
It follows pretty quickly that we deserve hell if you just take sin seriously. When all sin is in some respect against God's infinite majesty, that makes sin pretty bad, even if it's something that we might ordinarily think of as minor. (I could cite some passages of scripture, but I get that you might not care.)
This makes salvation more breathtaking.
I'm here if you want to message or talk to someone.
If this is due to concern that I'm unwell, I'm not. I like to think I'm pretty well adjusted, I have friends, etc.
Felagund
13d ago
which is growing
Yeah, I certainly got that impression.
and also tends to be the most moderate on hot-button issues
Huh, I would have expected the FSSP to be more moderate in general. Is that not the case?
Felagund
13d ago
Hell isn't unfair. We deserve it.
If anything, it's heaven that's unfair.
There's no way to reconcile that fate with any of the rest of the New Testament claiming God to be extremely loving.
Why not?
Felagund
14d ago
And, of course, there's the question of, what if the world becomes Amish?
When the correctness of an idea is measured by what the final opinion of it is, well, that's rather hard to evaluate when there's still time to go. It seems entirely possible that history might not be moving always in one direction, Yarvin notwithstanding.
Felagund
14d ago
Huh, no one really has answered your questions.
Some possibilities for the right:
Have a coup, or otherwise radically alter the governance structure. (many, including on the right would resist)
Hunker down and wait a generation until the left birth-rates itself into nothing. (requires: keeping kids from being convinced by the propaganda)
Attempt to secede. (See: 1861-1865)
Import voters with similar values (MAGA, famously enthusiastic supporters of immigration).
Win in the national public discourse, in ways that are sufficient to convince people.
Get someone who is sufficiently non-polarizing and extremely convincing into office?
It's looking like we'll get something of a reprieve in the near term by the fact that black and hispanic voters are increasing their republican support. I also don't know what effects Musk's twitter will have on political views and polarization.
Some of this may depend on what policies you care about. Different people care about different things, and you might be able to get some sorts of bills through if you can get them bundled with things that they would want to pass anyway. Do whatever you can to make them either unlikely to be polarized, or easy to pass and easy to forget. Attempt to encourage state-level governance, as then you can get reasonable laws in at least some states (unfortunately, this is already right-coded).
Felagund
14d ago
- This is the only one that's at all pressing, I think. Old earth creationism is also a view that you'll see around, as is theistic evolution. There's some intratextual reasons to think that you can't just add the years up anyway, which makes it a bit less problematic. And the word "day" is notoriously ambiguous, and that whole passage is weird. Currently, the part I'm most concerned about is the table of nations in Genesis 10, though I'm also not entirely sure what to do with the flood. I know William Lane Craig thinks that the whole first 11 chapters are a different genre, and shouldn't be interpreted literally; I'm not sure that I'm convinced.
- Job is pretty clear that "the adversary" is subordinate to God. I don't know that I see enormous lines between there being angelic or demonic powers and there being pagan-style deities anyway, so I don't think this is much of a problem.
- I don't think misunderstanding the bible in itself means that they would be damned. That said, I don't actually have a problem with people being damned for trivial things, so this isn't at all a pressing objection. See the following, as well.
People on the ground witnessing the miracles would have had such a huge leg up in their redemption.
Yes. And? It's all of grace anyway, a gift that we utterly don't deserve, so I don't really see the issue. See also: Romans 9.
What kind of justice is this? Infinite pain for a life with finite sin?
Ah, you misunderstand. Your sin is against the infinite majesty of God.
And if you take the classical view of what gets you damned (disbelief in the redemption), how can you really hold it against someone?
This isn't the reason that they're damned (or at least, certainly not all of it), they're damned for their sin in general.
Felagund
14d ago
There are less isolationist, committed, conservative varieties of protestantism out there as well…
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, or I'm sure some Lutheran denominations (WELS?) aren't going to be abandoning their teaching anytime soon, for example, and they don't have especially high barriers to joining. It won't be as tightly knit as the Amish, but it might be comparable to tradcaths.
Felagund
15d ago
I switch a bunch: several chairs throughout the house, in which I can sit in various positions, lying down on my side on the ground, walking around, lying sideways across the bed with my feet on a footrest and the book on the floor…
Felagund
16d ago
They might, but it tends to be significantly less important. In general, Protestants tend not to assert that their denomination is the One True Church, preferring a communion of believers across denominations. In interpersonal compromises, this will obviously lend itself towards the one who cares less about a specific church being more willing to compromise on that. This is augmented by the fact that evangelicals are often more minimalistic with regards to doctrine.
This is a shame; Protestantism is worth fighting for.
Felagund
16d ago
It's not just that we Jews are basically breeding ourselves of existence
The link appears to be talking about secular Jews. I get that that's quite common, but religious Judaism is still also a thing, and isn't ultra-orthodox Judaism decently sized and growing? But I suppose that might not matter to those who are only really ethnically Jewish.
Felagund
16d ago
AI regulation is obviously not going to be helpful, as Maxwell Tabarrok argues.
The biggest threat for "this will kill us all" is plainly the US government making automated weaponry, and there's no chance any regulation that would stop that passes. I suppose AI-designed diseases are a second way to wipe out humanity. But any regulation will just seek to lock out competition and put power solely in the hands of Sam Altman and co, and will treat the government entirely as a trustworthy actor.
Felagund
17d ago
Of course, hence the reference to "intentionally or explicitly racist."
Hence, things like Jim Crow or Apartheid, where laws are being passed for the explicit purpose of maintaining racial division and hierarchy isn't great.
I don't really care about disparate impact, unless that's the intent.
Felagund
18d ago
I figured for the first two, but I would have expected Ottoman ancestry in the Balkans. Huh. Yeah, I don't think it matters too much, hence why I figured they didn't count.
Felagund
18d ago
It pushes Christianity as a multi-ethnic and cross-ethnic community. This can be seen from the speaking in tongues in Acts 2, to the salvation of the gentiles, to some more specific quotes speaking against divisions for being Jew or Greek, barbarian or Scythian. (And, as it was pointed out, male or female, which should indicate that there's a limit to this: it's not like distinctions should be ignored, just that they shouldn't divide, I think) Do I think that means anything like modern leftism? Certainly not. But I do think that it means that our primary unit of identity should not be with our ethnic group, and that there should be cross-group community, at the very least in religious settings.
This would at least make me reluctant to adopt any explicitly or intentionally racist policies.
Felagund
18d ago
Yeah, I agree that it isn't saying that there are no differences. But I do think that it is against setting up social divisions, at least, within the Christian community. We're
Felagund
19d ago
"Here there is not Jew and Greek, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all."
I don't think Christianity has anything to say about racial differences, but it definitely does seem like it has something to say about racial barriers.
we have pretty clear data that when Europe was Christian (and America), there was almost 0 non-white immigration to Europe.
I assume Mongols, Magyars, Turks, and so on don't count?
Anyway, the New Testament does speak against racial divisions.
Felagund
19d ago
I would assume taste is much easier than smell, as there is only a handful of things tastebuds can detect. But then you need to combine that with smell…
I would guess that smell would have to be embedded within a higher-dimensional space than sight or sound? But I'm not certain.
There are languages that have fairly developed abilities to describe smell, just English isn't one of them.
Felagund
24d ago
Not to be rude, but this feels like an ad, with that last sentence an attempt to make it fit this thread.
It also had silly and dumb rules. I'm pretty sure speech codes were explicitly racist, for example.
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