domain:papyrusrampant.substack.com
FistfullOfCrows
3m ago
It's just that for me the whole papering over the other Elohim when Judaism went from worshiping El to YHWH and the purging of the other gods is fishy as hell, we're supposed to ignore the history of the religion? It just never sat right with me, same with the focus on Jesus himself.
sun_the_second
4m ago
If immortality is possible, why assume heat death will happen?
Gaashk
13m ago
It's more that it stresses my husband out than that other people are actually judging us. He's very much a walk up a hill, light a candle, walk around it three times kind of churchgoer, as were many of the men in Georgia. He's spent some time in Muslim areas, and liked the part where he would get up on the middle of the night to eat dates for Ramadan, or go to a cow slaughtering or something.
FarmReadyElephants
14m ago
How many normie churchgoers actually understand that orthodox Christianity requires them to believe that Jesus is literally God, as well as being the son of God? I honestly don't think it's that many.
The prayers of the church help inform the people. In the liturgy, we are constantly praying to God in the name of "The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit". If you attend vespers, you will hear the hymn Gladsome Light: "having come upon the setting of the sun, having seen the light of the evening, / we praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: God."
This is one reason why it is important to have most worship in the vernacular language
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
16m ago
Illegal immigrants are generally not eligible for welfare
No, they totally are, at least in many blue states. Medicaid is often open to illegal immigrants and many of them qualify because they don't report their taxes. I don't want to self-dox, but I literally see people who can't speak English interacting with state welfare systems on a daily basis.
ArtVandelay
18m ago
That's probably a tiny minority of very academically-minded converts. As a recent convert in the US in a parish full of recent converts and catechumens and I can tell you that for most of us, the draw was something that is at once utterly at the core of our civilization but at the same time outside of the mainstream enough to not be corrupted by the various forces that pushed us into the Church from wherever we were before.
We have young people coming from broken/divorced families realizing that we have no cultural infrastructure left to build our own families on. We are disillusioned with political solutions to problems. This tends to start with a disgust with the excesses of the left, but I find that most of the "political refugees" that come into the church seeking solely a spiritual justification for their right-wing politics either end up leaving, or in the better case, they find that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church transcends the political squabbles of 2025 America (though the Church is undeniably traditionalist on many social issues). The scientific enterprise is utterly unable to offer meaning, point ways to build community, and show ways to walk with the divine. Of course, any honest scientist must admit that these are domains outside of the scientific purview. But, especially after COVID, it became obvious to many of us that even in its own domain, the scientific institutions are all too fragile and corrupt -- all too fallen and sinful we come to find out. Perennial problems, but perhaps acutely so in the decadent, post-enlightenment, post-liberal west.
In the face of this, where are we to seek stability, truth, and life more abundant? Protestantism is seen as either dominated by the religion of liberalism (Episcopalian churches with rainbow flags on the outside, and no one inside) or otherwise by fundamentalist young earth creationist types, who cannot be taken seriously by many with even a little bit of curiosity. Relative to the High Church traditions of the Latin Catholics and Orthodoxy, Protestants are also seen as utterly devoid of ritual, which is something I think most Western people are starving for without realizing it. It's hard to get a sense of the Divine without embodying and acting out the symbols and metaphors which point to our ability to the relate to God. Without embodied metaphors (ie rituals), it's hard to focus the mind and find the weightiness of certain moments and places compared to others. Without this weightiness, there is nothing set aside (ie sacred). Every place and moment is fungible, profane. The wet dream of economism.
Why not Catholicism? It's a close second for sure, especially in its traditionalist dispensations, but I think it gets rightly associated with many of the utilitarian/rationalistic excesses of the contemporary West. If the mainstream itself has grown decadent, it's only right to find fault with the largest religious institution of the West. There is a whole new conversation to have here about the Eastern vs Western churches, but suffice it to say that, especially post Vatican II, the Latin Catholic Church has itself become a part of the profane decadent mainstream which it is supposed to be a bulwark against (I recently attended a Catholic Mass which had stadium seating -- with the altar on a stage below the people -- and PowerPoint-style projections of song lyrics and pictures related to the service. Hard to imagine something less otherworldly than that experience). And there are also the sex scandals.
Not to say there are no flaws in Orthodoxy as currently practiced in the West. The earthly Church is not the Heavenly Church. Not fully. Not yet...
It's only after some time in Orthodoxy do we learn about the history and the arguments that it is the original Church. But I think the results speak louder than any history lesson.
FarmReadyElephants
20m ago
I think what holds back Orthodoxy spreading in the West is the ethnic churches.
Is this based on your own experience? Because I received a warm and personal welcome in Orthodoxy, despite the presence of ethnic diasporas.
HereAndGone
20m ago
What, you mean we're not already a mystery cult? Dang, that takes all the fun out of it!
HereAndGone
21m ago
That's the kind of "a djinn grants you three wishes" ending, because we all know the genies put a twist in the tale. Sure, you'll be immortal - which means you will exist after the destruction of the earth and the heat death of the universe, just floating in emptiness slowly going insane, have fun with that!
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
21m ago
Or this:
In addition to being one of the top celebs confronting age with confidence, Oprah Winfrey made the personal decision to not have or adopt children, but has still expressed her admiration for those who choose to become parents. "Throughout my years, I have had the highest regard for women who choose to be at home [with] their kids, because I don't know how you do that all day long," she told People.
All of these are precisely framed in the sense of being a reaction to a society that generally expects women to have children at some point. I don't get why this would be much of an argument.
2rafa
22m ago
Interesting how much “Imaginal Christianity” resembles an Islamic-Buddhist hybrid with some Christian characteristics.
SkoomaDentist
23m ago
0-3-5 has entered the chat
HereAndGone
24m ago
HereAndGone
29m ago
He's not at all enthusiastic about standing still and getting small children to be still for three hours
That is tough, and I think nowadays whatever denomination, people are more prickly about kids being kids. In my day, crying babies were normal (and unless they kept howling and wouldn't stop crying, there was no taking them out) as well as small kids climbing around the pews because they were bored. You just kept them from running amok - though there was always going to be one kid who escaped corralling and made it up onto the altar 😁
How else are they going to learn, if they're shut away in a separate room while services are going on? Mind you, three hours is a lot longer than Catholicism's "an hour tops and if you get a fast priest it's only half an hour". Is there the Orthodox equivalent of "eh, as long as you make it in the door before the Gospel, you're fine"?
HereAndGone
34m ago
I think what holds back Orthodoxy spreading in the West is the ethnic churches. You have the church for the Greeks, the church for the Bulgarians, the church for the Russians, and so on. It's bound up with particular cultures as much as faith and that makes it harder for a Western guy to walk in and understand what's going on.
Catholicism, while it does devolve into "all the Irish live in this parish and this is their church, that parish over there is the Italians, and the black Catholics are way over there doing their own thing" is much more universal. The Mass is the Mass is the Mass, while it might now be in the vernacular there's nothing stopping you from going to a Spanish parish if that's your first experience and seeing that what goes on is the same as the Vietnamese church is the same as the Irish or the Germans or the Italians.
I do get a kick out of the Diocese of Orange, which bought the former Crystal Cathedral, being majority Vietnamese now because that's the natural progression of the changes in immigrants coming along; it's still the Universal Church even if it shifts from white Europeans to Hispanic to East Asian. I don't think a comparable Orthodox diocese could transition like that.
The Diocese of Orange was erected in 1976, then grew rapidly with immigrants from Asia and Latin America.
The current diocesan bishop is Kevin Vann, who was installed on December 10, 2012. Diocesan offices are situated at the Christ Cathedral campus in Garden Grove. The diocesan patron saints are Our Lady of Guadalupe and Andrew Dũng-Lạc.
WhateverHappenedToNorman
40m ago
This doesn't sound like a an advocate for childlessness:
In a 2022 interview with Allure, Jennifer Aniston explained why she did not have kids and how it wasn't entirely by choice.
“I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” she said. “All the years and years and years of speculation... It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it. I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.’ You just don’t think about it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”
HereAndGone
44m ago
Honestly, if we could invent a time machine I'd go back and kick the stuffing out of the Second Vatican Council. Yes, there were stodgy abuses that needed correcting. Yes, people had no idea what was going on at Mass and just prayed the rosary. Yes, yes, yes. Reform was needed, a refreshing of catechesis so people understood and didn't just learn off by rote and then forget. Urging people to a living faith and piety. All that was indeed true.
But we threw not alone the baby out with the bathwater, but the bath, the fittings, the plumbing, and demolished the bathroom along with it. The brave pioneers decided that emulating Protestantism was where it was at, and whatever architects persuaded bishops that "what the modern congregation wants is a church that looks like a warehouse", yeah they're number two on the list for the kicking.
We had mysticism. We had folk piety. We scrapped it all in the name of relevance or some damn thing, and this is what we ended up with.
HereAndGone
49m ago
I truly truly do not understand why these people don't just go be Catholic.
Well, mostly because "aw nah you're telling me all my fun stuff I can't do that anymore? I have to go to confession? I have to believe - or at least say I believe - that stuff for real?" Even if the majority of average Catholics don't know, don't believe, and don't live the religion, and even if you get a liberal priest who will tell you during RCIA "look, just cross your fingers and say 'yeah I believe this' but I don't expect you to really do so", you still have to sign up to "yes, Transubstantiation" and the rest of it. There are still The Rules. The pope is still the boss of you. You can't go wandering through the aisles putting a bit of this, a pinch of that, oh and let's have this thing here from the ranks of world religions to suit your tastes.
I've seen some examples of pick'n'mix taking the shiny mystical 'ooh look icons' part from other traditions within a particular Protestant denomination and it annoyed the heck out of me, because it was taking Serious Theology and playing dress-up with it. I'm not going to name any names because I'm not a member of that denomination but I'm not even Orthodox and I think you cannot just go "oh this is so mystic and foreign and quaint and not like traditional Western Christianity in its forms" and play dress-up with it.
georgioz
56m ago
The dynamic is that someone (like JD Vance) attacks the childless cat women as destroyers of society, then others defend them, and that defence appears to some as if the childless cat women are being elevated into heroes.
This is weird - are we not arguing that childless cat women by choice are destroyers of society? This was argued since time immemorial, the only difference is that nowadays the defense of this lifestyle has more success.
georgioz
59m ago
You have number of adcovates for childlesness: Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Aniston, Helen Mirren and many more. You have people promoting DINK lifestyle, there is large number of feminist journals and magazines promoting childlessness.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1hr ago
Right, he was using a women's strategy and women's strategies don't work for men. Maybe that would have worked if he'd seen her reaction, decided he wouldn't get stabbed (or "HELP, AUTHORITY, REMOVE THIS CREEP"), and then asked directly.
But the direct methods of trying are forbidden for men (see above in all caps) unless they succeed, and the penalties have done nothing but increase.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1hr ago
Don't worry, it's in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that if you can get through the opening chords of "Smoke on the Water", you can buy any guitar you can afford.
georgioz
1hr ago
No, 40 year old childless cat ladies are not viewed positively.
Yes, if you did not notice the childless career woman was the latest democratic candidate for presidency. There is growing acceptance or removing of stigma for number of topics related to child rearing, marriage and other traditional duties of women during last few decades - be it acceptance of childlessness, popularity of DINK movement, acceptance of single mothers or growing support for abortion. It is all wrapped up as celebration of personal freedom, autonomy and individualism.
SSCReader
1hr ago
Inferential distance is nothing to do with this. We're supposed to both say what we mean and assume that people are saying what they mean here. You inferred something from what I wrote, that I did not say, which says more about you than me I think. I take very seriously that we are supposed to try and communicate openly and charitably here. So perhaps reflect on that. Especially as you also did the same for the OP.
In any case (and again without assuming motivations of the OP being coy, just taking what he said at face value), it is unlikely that people did not intervene because the attacker was black. Because some people did intervene and because many of the witnesses only heard things, and therefore weren't aware in there was an attack at all let alone that the attacker was black.
There's plenty of men who are up for marriage in the giant "unattractive" bucket. They can't offer ressources on par with pimps, however.
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