TitaniumButterfly
Blank and pitiless as the sun
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User ID: 2854
TitaniumButterfly
Blank and pitiless as the sun
1d ago
It's also currently a steal at 70% off.
TitaniumButterfly
Blank and pitiless as the sun
2d ago
Ancient book written by ancient Near Easterners for ancient Near Easterners, or inspired, incorrupt and infallible guide for all men of all times and places?
Well, I'd say neither. The NT at least was written by the Church for the Church and meant to be interpreted within the Church and its living tradition. C.f. 2 Thessalonians 2:15.
Re: the rest, I don't think it's fundamentally possible to write any text such that e.g. someone from a culture which intentionally raises people to be hostile towards and incapable of understanding that text, can be expected to receive it well and understand it. I think it would make sense to say that, even if the Bible were 'inspired, incorrupt, and infallible' (it's clearly not; indeed there is no one 'Bible' in the first place), it would be reasonable to expect some degree of contextual literacy and adoption of the mindset of its authors to be intelligible. Otherwise the claim is that someone raised to believe 'down' means 'up' should instantly be able to understand that the text means what it means.
And at that point you're essentially arguing that the text on the page should flow or shift around to become intelligible to people who don't even speak the language; who perhaps can't even read; who perhaps are blind and deaf and can't even hear it spoken.
That this seems like a tall order isn't pertinent in the context of (alleged) divine action. We even see something like that described at Pentecost! But I think it more appropriate, and instructive, to notice that Christians throughout history have never held such expectations for the Bible, up until the Reformation at least, which is indeed a point against that movement.
See also Acts 8:26-35. And in that light, the only thing crazier than a non-Christian who insists the Bible fails on its merits because it's not immediately-intelligible to the uninitiated, is a Protestant who insists that it is, actually.
Yes. It would be terrible to find ourselves in the position of trying to figure out how to live Christian lives by interpreting the Bible from this extremely-removed modern perspective.
I am the kind of person who struggles to believe in the supernatural given the world now makes sense without it.
You might be interested to know, then, that the distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural' is fairly recent, artificial, and peculiarly Western. In Orthodox Christian theology we see the whole concept as a tragic, and frankly idiotic, mistake.
But also I've gotta disagree. The world makes no sense no matter how I look at it. The concept of The God is great for filling in gaps, such as how the material universe exists at all or how we're conscious, but opens up a lot more questions. Take that away though and I'm fairly puzzled by those things, plus why there are physical laws, etc. in the first place.
I think an important question is whether there is such a thing as objective 'good' and, if so, what that is and how we might know. 'Natural' explanations obviously can't touch this, and I don't see how life can be lived without it.
TitaniumButterfly
Blank and pitiless as the sun
2d ago
Well, what does 'follow Jesus Christ' mean, then? Ignore everything he said but think fondly of the nicer parts?
TitaniumButterfly
Blank and pitiless as the sun
5d ago
The political hit from having been caught lying about this would be high (well for Republicans, anyway)
I'm not a Republican but from where I'm sitting it looks like their opponents already uniformly assume the worst about them. I don't think there's much difference between being accused of this and getting caught doing it. The disgust is already priced in.
Decided to take a break from Twitter for a while and for some reason thought I'd do better on reddit. Opened up a thread full of thousands of people raging about and mocking Elon over something he allegedly said. Looked it up and found out he never said it at all. Pointed this out to a few people. Universally downvoted of course, but one of them bothered to respond and tell me that "It doesn't matter. This is exactly the kind of thing he would say."
TitaniumButterfly
Blank and pitiless as the sun
5d ago
I remember spending a lot of time in the orbit of Eric S. Raymond (ESR).
TitaniumButterfly
Blank and pitiless as the sun
5d ago
Can you not run it through an AI for cleanup?
TitaniumButterfly
Blank and pitiless as the sun
6d ago
I'm gonna go ahead and maintain my stance against a hundred million dollars spent on black girl magic.
TitaniumButterfly
Blank and pitiless as the sun
6d ago
Has nobody ever called you on that?
No, look -- I have friends in the Bohemian Club and the Family (which split off) and have spent some time on campus. There are many interesting things I could tell you, but nothing like that. They're just summer camps for extremely successful men who want to goof off with each other without dealing with the public. They're more interested in forming cover bands and putting on silly stage plays than conspiring about anything. I mean, I'm sure they do plenty of that elsewhere, but not at the Club. That's just not what it's for. And they don't even seem to get any slack on regulations. For example, a little creek wandering through the woods got designated a 'navigable waterway' (absurd) and so they can't rebuild a cabin that slid down into it.
The food is very nice though and the best part about it is that it's an extremely high-trust environment. You can just walk up to anybody and he's gonna be very interesting and capable of a great conversation and happy to talk to you because if you're there you're pre-filtered for talent, success, and urbanity. Politics vary much more widely than you'd think, though due to the average age most people are fairly boomerish and mainstream. From my perspective they mostly come off as naive neolibs and have the same sensibilities (re: race and sex) you'd find anywhere.
Anyway the instinct to mistrust the elites is good and right, but they go to the Club to re-live being teenagers at boy scout camp and have a good time, not to discuss work or, uh, kill people? Yeah I'm pretty sure that never happened. It's all much, much more normal, and even boring, than I expect you to believe.
ETA: Something that might help illustrate the vibe is that if a member has his cell phone out in public he's kicked out of the club for two years. If he brings a guest and the guest has his phone out in public the member is still kicked out for two years! This has nothing to do with secrecy. It's about creating a pleasant, relaxing in-person social setting away from the world. Scrolling or taking work calls there would be totally contrary to the point of the place and they're serious about maintaining the vibe.
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