coffee_enjoyer
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User ID: 541
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
That’s a parable, which is interpreted non-literally. A lot of what Jesus says is non-literal, like “if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out”, and “go into your closet to pray”.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
This is a bizarre problem I’ve noticed with ChatGPT. It will literally just make up links and quotations sometimes. I will ask it for authoritative quotations from so and so regarding such topic, and a lot of the quotations would be made up. Maybe because I’m using the free version? But it shouldn’t be hard to force the AI to specifically only trawl through academic works, peer reviewed papers, etc.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Well, regarding Trump, Christianity is not a religion of “living up to an ideal”, but finding yourself continually dying to one. Trump banged his favorite porn star, but 90% to 99% of Americans have spent more hours than that watching porn, and this is the selfsame sin of lust according to the Lord. The secular charges of religious hypocrisy were always, well, hypocritical. They have no understanding of the religion, which is all about man’s inability to live up to ideals. Hypocrisy for a Christian is only when you harshly judge someone [by way of exclusion / social punishment / consequent] for committing an infraction the same significance of which you commit. Hypocrisy is when someone criticizes Trump for having money when they themselves would never give theirs away, or when they tweet about his privilege from a cush cubicle at their parent’s company. Hypocrisy is not saying “this ideal is good”, but saying “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,” while nurturing equal sins in your heart.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
They might like Aphex Twin, particularly Richard D James album.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
So what if my example were instead colorful LGBT people in sackcloth and ashes, begging repentance from a nun on their knees, and then it finally being granted? This is the traditional liturgy of Catholicism, much like the liturgy of transvestites is dancing with a lot of colorful clothing. The above liturgy is “nuns -> actually dancing transvestites”. What if we did “transvestites -> actually repentant sinners”? If it leaves an inexplicable bad taste in your mouth, then there is probably a moral residue, based around such nebulous (yet significant) concepts like “respecting a group’s symbology and name”.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Sisters of […] Perpetual
This is a phrase used to describe Catholic Nuns, because of the Roman Catholic title “lady of perpetual hope”
Indulgence
This is a play on the Catholic practice of indulgence. Combined together this is sufficient to prove their malice, but to add another:
Wearing Nun-like vestments
I suppose an inverse example would be if I called myself “the LGBT Queer Alliance”, and my public spectacle was actually St George defeating a rainbow dragon which just happens to be prancing around in rainbow colors. Clearly my intent would be malicious against the LGBT theme.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Even so, would you prefer a woman who speaks like ChatGPT (functional) or with a sonorous voice/heart (form)? When we talk about our loved one’s personalities do we say they are convenient and quite functional and does the job, or do we express what matters — the beauty of the inner person?
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
IMO the “functional over form” position is predicated on a misconception of human needs. Humans actually need beauty and order to thrive. We need these things as much as we need a roof. Beauty and order in a building boosts your mood and aids your mind. Preferring function over form is like preferring an ugly, easy girl over a beautiful but somewhat expensive girl, because she is “functional”. Or it’s traveling to an ugly beach instead of a beautiful beach because they both have sand. Or it’s like playing a guitar with really shitty strings made out of shitty wood because you can hear the same notes even though the tone is bad. The ubiquity of beautification in human history proves without question the importance of form for the functioning of the human being.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
The Bible is simply veiled moral allegory. In some cases of the Old Testament it’s also history, but the rest is entirely allegory. Even the books which read as not allegorical are, in fact, allegory, and even beyond the fist layer of allegory reads another allegory. In a book like Job, nearly every noun in every sentence is an allegory. In the Gospel, most of the scenes are also expertly concealed allegories. Virgin birth? Dead in a tomb? Allegory.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
That sounds lovely.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Which singular social or nature-oriented experiences filled you with the greatest enthusiasm and rejuvenation? I have noticed many people in my life pick “music festival”.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
I suppose I believe in a God of justice who does not privilege certain groups with the right to evade the objectivity of justice without recourse. I would have to consult the Pentateuch for further lessons.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
That’s a valid point, I totally concede that. But I’d say that perhaps the ultra orthodox + conservative ascendancy is going to bring some issues, not soon but within 40 years, given birth rates.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
As long as everyone follows the standard, I think we could go either way. We should either remind everyone of the sacrifices and oppressions of their forefathers and the unity of their ancestral spirit, of ensure no one believes such a creative fiction. Evil can almost be defined as the violation of a fair standard. An eye for an eye is the oldest law we know, and approximately the spirit of the law today.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
I pray that the Jews one day “defy their peer group and free their mind”, as you put it. Do you do the same?
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Do you think it’s important to tell the Jews that their nation and peoplehood is not real? This would reduce their in-group practices considerably. What do you think would be their response if you told them that Jews are not a culture or people or identity?
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
The President is a figurehead and serves his cabinet + staff + party + donors. Ethnic/Cultural representation is considered to be important by many which is why it is pushed by those in power on the Left. Jews are more likely to have certain political and social views than non-Jewish Whites going by available data. People do not spontaneously generate but have attitudes and views shaped by their culture. The reason “are Jews white” is even a topic written about by Jews over decades is because they understand that there are unique cultural and ideological elements among Jews which differentiates them from their Christian-ancestry cousins.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
If you mean instead, that the singular parent-influence that led to a 14x exaggerated hiring rate and that also leads to Biden policy decisions was replaced by a Catholic one, then of course this would be in my interests. Do you think Jews are just burning their money by spending millions of dollars on advocacy groups, lobbying, and so on? Or do they perhaps benefit? Well, of course they benefit, otherwise the money would not be spent. Whether there’s a direct connection between Jewish lobbying and a 14x over-representation is not something I know, because it hasn’t been investigated (neither reported), because I don’t have the lobbyists to order the investigation. The Black lobby of course gets a special video call with Biden’s team, seen in my link above.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Those with influence get to decide popular culture, and I live in a country that runs off popular culture, which means my life and those whom I love are affected by the culture of those in power. If Catholics were so over-represented, Biden would likely not speak about transphobia when Christian children were gunned down by a Transgender activist. Well, if Catholics were so over-represented they would actually comprise the entire White House staff, and then they would build two more White Houses and fill each one with the same amount (all Catholics), and there would still be roughly 100 Catholics left over to fiddle with their rosary beads. Do you think Jews would be content if 30% of the staff were Muslim? This is a good way to think about it. Why not 90% Muslim? Jews would have nothing to fear if Muslims hypothetically comprised the entire political apparatus, right? And atheists nothing to fear if every leader were a Mormon from Utah?
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
I’m not 100% sure what point you’re making. European nationalities have had a shared culture for over a thousand years (nota bene: this is not mutually exclusive to unique culture). This is thanks first to Christendom, then to the proliferation of philosophy and music and art and literature. This is obvious when studying history. They are also genetically similar, due to prehistory but also due to genetic proliferation of Celts and Germanics. While Europeans did not define themselves like the Ashkenazi in premodernity as based on bloodline, it is quite silly to allege that European Americans have no shared genetics or culture. So, why would we single our Jewish Americans? Four reasons. (1) They are the group over-represented, and I would be as perturbed if the Irish were as over represented. (2) Absolutely every group but whites put themselves into larger groups, which includes Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. (3) They have their own unique religion, historical culture, (important in their minds) bloodlines, and intensive advocacy networks. (4) When people talk about white privilege, they may mean Jews if going by data, so a cultural correction is in order.
Let me know what you think. I see no argument for why it isn’t justifiable to mention Jewish over-representation when they are obviously their own unique cultural group within a large cultural tent, which any Rabbi would tell you.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Default White is a regrettable term, but “non-Jewish” is even more regrettable, and saying the word gentile in this context seems off. Similarly, “plain” comes with negative baggage. I also don’t want to say European, because the majority of Jewish Americans very much have European heritage. There really aren’t too many options, and I think if I said Christian-ancestry I’d also find disagreement.
Douglas Emhoff, husband of Kamala Harris, posted a photo on Twitter celebrating the Jewish American Heritage Month.
Met with Jewish White House staff in celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month. Our Administration is proud to recognize the Jewish staffers who help carry our nation forward each day and are helping create a more inclusive tomorrow.
I counted, give or take, 155 Jewish Staff Members. There are 474 White House Staff Members in total, meaning that Jews comprise 32% of all staff members. This is a radical over-representation of 1400%, or 14x what should be expected given the population of 2.2%. As everyone pictured is White, presumably this really is a photo with all the Jewish staff members who wanted to participate in the event (otherwise: why no black staffers present?). There may be some not pictured for various work-related or personal reasons, and perhaps some with Jewish spouses pictured. I had difficulty finding the figures on other demographics. According to an authoritative source, 14% of the staff are Black (this just happens to be the same number and is not a typo). I could find nothing on Asian members, but perusing the total list of White House Staff names I calculated give or take 50 with exclusively Asian names; this should be construed as a minimum because of high exogamy rates and names not always being obviously Asian. That puts Asians at 10.5%. Given that Black people sit at 14%, I would go out on a limb and say that the Latino constituents also comprise roughly their makeup in America; let’s peg it at a slightly lower 15% (if someone wants to check from the list of staffers’ names be my guest).
All of this puts the non-Jewish White percent at 28.5%, counting the Turkish and Arab names as White (and ignoring the probably ~2% Native American that Joe slipped in there). And so, among White House staffers, Whites are quite under-represented and Jews are enormously over-represented. This is problematic IMO, because the domestic founding population of a nation shouldn’t be so under-represented, and a single ethnic cluster with a strong activism network and their own influential nation state probably shouldn’t be 14x over-represented among White House staffers without anyone in established media criticizing or noticing. Alas, such topics have been posted frequently, but in previous cases the over-representation was among Cabinet Members and Supreme Court Justices and so on. This shows that even in a large sample size such as 474, the over-representation remains. If I could put my position into as few words as possible, I would steal from a random tweet on the subject: “Half of the White House staff is Jewish, but we get told that ‘White Supremacists’ run America lol.” What pains me is that while the default white Americans are so under-represented, they are the ones who face the most ruthless black propaganda against their demographic. It’s important to educate others on the problem of representation, I suppose.
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Nope, outdated view
For over 200 years, Gibbon's model and its expanded explanatory versions—the conflict model and the legislative model—have provided the major narrative. The conflict model asserts that Christianity rose in conflict with paganism, defeating it only after emperors became Christian and were willing to use their power to require conversion through coercion. The legislative model is based on the Theodosian Code published in AD 438.
In the last decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty–first century, multiple new discoveries of texts and documents, along with new research (such as modern archaeology and numismatics), combined with new fields of study (such as sociology and anthropology) and modern mathematical modeling, have undermined much of this traditional view. According to modern theories, Christianity became established in the third century, before Constantine, paganism did not end in the fourth century, and imperial legislation had only limited effect before the era of the eastern emperor Justinian I (reign 527 to 565).[1][2][3][4] In the twenty-first century, the conflict model has become marginalized, while a grassroots theory has developed.[5][6]
According to Stark, the rate of Christianity's growth under its first Christian emperor in the 4th century did not alter (more than normal regional fluctuations) from its rate of growth in the first three centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_Christianization_of_the_Roman_Empire
Also a poor argument from common sense. Rome was already very diverse, and already had many diverse gods which usually got together fine. State-sponsored Christianity would have caused considerable and significant division in the Empire, like it would in America today, whereas tolerance and a pantheon and appropriation would have kept the Pax Romana. So the argument doesn’t even require evidence to disprove
coffee_enjoyer
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2yr ago
Should post this in main thread btw if the questions thread was a misclick
I think with this same set of facts we can actually assert that morality is intrinsically objective, natural, and more foundational than many people believe. If morality and its evolutionary antecedents are what permits human civilization to thrive and progeny to continue, then it’s a remarkably important tool for guiding your group. This could also reinforce the importance of the death penalty, because if our instincts demand it then our instincts are probably correct for what matters most (the proliferation of our culture, community, progeny, and so on).
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