Admitting You're a Sinner

[The Grand Nudger]

Shot, Hai, just stop, lol.

...but if you insist...I think that you might want to consider how it's come to pass that you, a magic book believer, find yourself in the position of being taken to task for abject ignorance of magic books by a godless fucking unbeliever like me. Why is it that I understand where "sin" comes from and what it's supposed to be...while you are making silly noises about left-handed weirdos and "autographed" this or thats?

[Haipule]

Shot, Hai, just stop, lol.

...but if you insist...I think that you might want to consider how it's come to pass that you, a magic book believer, find yourself in the position of being taken to task for abject ignorance of magic books by a godless fucking unbeliever like me.  Why is it that I understand where "sin" comes from and what it's supposed to be...while you are making silly noises about left-handed weirdos and "autographed" this or thats?

As I already said, "Sin is whatever you say it means and to as many people whom are dumb enough to listen to you".

Where did you get that shit: from the clergy? You know their all totally whack right?

[The Grand Nudger]

As I already said, "Sin is whatever you say it means and to as many people whom are dumb enough to listen to you".

-and I can't imagine anyone who would be dumb enough to listen to you, when you share your opinion on sin.

Where did you get that shit: from the clergy?  You know their all totally whack right?

That may be, but that doesn't prevent a person from identifying and accurately communicating what it is they are talking about.  Many absurd things, at least, have an internal logic.  As an example;

A person who believes that aliens routinely visit this planet might also believe that the government is engaged in a massive cover up.  This could account for the relative lack of concrete evidence of alien visitations - chiefly in that as soon as some saucer hits the dirt it gets swarmed by un-marked helicopters and teams in hazmats suits scrubbing the area and whisking the craft off to an undisclosed black site.  This is an absurd belief, it's entirely untrue..but's internally consistent and very specific. Aliens, helicopters, black sites, ergo cover-up.   

So, too..is the notion of religious taboo or sin and it's attendant apparatus.  If there -were- a sin setting entity or force and it -did- have a shitlist and it -could- effect retribution upon transgressors then it -would- be an issue of grave concern.  To say that the entirety of normative religious beliefs fundamentally hinges upon this idea is to understate the reality of the matter.  Not only is it foundational..religious narratives serve no other purpose but as an exposition on that internally logical..if ultimately absurd, belief.  They are morality plays in which taboo subs in for ethics.  They are parables which seek to expand upon the consequence of taboo and how a person may, if they commit taboo, discharge their responsibility for the offense of having done so.  

Yes, they sometimes present an origin story, but this is a just so story.  A trivial prelude to the meat of the narrative..generally put forward only as it relates to the authority of the taboo setting force or entity and mans relationship to it.  Magic book..for example..gets the entirety of the history of the universe up to the fall of man out of the way breathleesly, in no more than a few paragraphs, sparse of any specific detail that might provide a compelling and true account of our origins.  It only exists to set the stage for the first disagreement between man and the divine. To assert that there is sin, that we are sinful, and that because of this there will be consequences.

They may even reference something overtly absurd as a way, by metaphor, of establishing the theological truth which the narrative is meant to convey.  These, we commonly call "miracles".  Jumping forward in magic book to one of the most illustrative examples...consider the loaves and the fishes.  Are we to believe that this is a news report from galillean shorefront...wherein a magic man made the absurd a reality, splitting a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish to the point where it could feed a multiude?  Or is this..instead, an exposition of the ability of magic mans theology to satisfy many with very little?  Of being a redemptive chalice which is not only running over...but which cannot be drained no matter how many drink from it?  

It may be apropos of nothing, in reality, but it is an exploration of the notion that the offer being made is for everyone, and is unlimited.   That no matter how many people cleanse themselves of the responsibility of their taboos there will always be some left for the next guy.  That the story, as told...and even as a belief is absurd is not, in any way, a criticism of it's internal logic, and so..saying "yeah, but those priests who wrote that shit were batshit crazy" is true, but wholly unimportant when discussing the meaning of the beliefs or narrative.  Batshit crazy clergy wrote the entirety of magic book, so what..it still says what it says, it still has an intelligible meaning.

But tell me more about lefties and how you're great a reading greek and that this makes you, somehow, an authority...compared to some -other- nutter...or in fact an authority over all other nutters who..in two thousand years, have never been so inconsistent or downright stupid as to imply or state that sin is a non-entity, rather than central to the new testament narrative. You could float, and I could accept...that it doesn;t mean much to you and your nutter beliefs...but you do not have the ability to excise it from the narrative by fiat of having banished it from whatever passes for a mind with you.

[vulcanlogician]

They may even reference something overtly absurd as a way, by metaphor, of establishing the theological truth which the narrative is meant to convey.  These, we commonly call "miracles".  Jumping forward in magic book to one of the most illustrative examples...consider the loaves and the fishes.  Are we to believe that this is a news report from galillean shorefront...wherein a magic man made the absurd a reality, splitting a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish to the point where it could feed a multiude?  Or is this..instead, an exposition of the ability of magic mans theology to satisfy many with very little?  Of being a redemptive chalice which is not only running over...but which cannot be drained no matter how many drink from it?  

This has been addressed on the forums before I'm sure, but the miracles obviously represent allegory. Take the fig tree example. Jesus cursed it for not providing fruit, even though the fruit was out of season. Why would he do this? It makes more sense to view the whole account as a metaphor for the temple being destroyed.

And yet, Christians are told to treat the miracles as literal events. Does this mean The Actual Jesus™ actually went through the motions of cursing the fig tree just so it could be written down later and its symbollic meaning thus transmitted? That just doesn't make sense.

"You're lucky, bitch. The only reason I cured your kid's leprosy is cuz it fits into some grand metaphor."

But if the accounts are meant to simply portray events, its a bit presumptuous to go assigning allegorical meaning to them. One may even say sacreligious. Then again, if one takes all the allegory out of the NT, it becomes a truly meaningless and nihilistic document.

[The Grand Nudger]

Jesus™, you see...rebuked the devil not to establish his unassailable sanctity......but because it was hot out there in the desert, he was confused..and didn't realize he was was being offered such a good deal.  

Had it rained that day...things would have been different.

/sarcasm. Obviously, miraculous stores were (and still are) a storytellers way of not only holding our attention...but also of denoting that what they are about to say requires our attention. We could say "stop fucking up"...but somehow that doesn;t sound quite as compelling as the combined mythology of the world.

[Cyberman]

Sin is human nature, criminalised.

[The Grand Nudger]

Rgr that, and that's where christian myths diverge from their equivalents.  For the most part, taboos described the boundaries of our lives.  Stay inside the lines and you'll be fine.  Step out, and you'll get fucked.  Leviticus is a prime example of that.  The set of taboos had become incredibly diverse, it's a long list...but, still a list.  A roadmap for life.  Some of it certainly the product of human experience rather than divine revelation, and useful in the context of the society from which it came...but some of it whatever happened to be the ticks and abnormalities of the various people who kept the list and passed it on.

This exhaustive list not being sufficiently damming....... christians imagine that there is no life "inside the lines".  That we break taboo by nature, that our very nature -is- taboo.

[RoadRunner79]

Strange, I have -precisely- the same thoughts about hyper literal interpretations of magic book, where people think some "god" created stuff and then made a shitlist.

That doesn't surprise me.  However I'm not just taking a jab at someone, but replying about the context of what was said.  You just appear to be proof-texting to changing the subject.

The difference, is that I was reading from the text, and if asked how I came to that conclusion I'm going to go to the text, look at the context, and do my best to reach the intentions of the author and explain why I think that a hyper-literal interpretation is missing the point. 

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you are reading into the text, and if one where to ask how you came to that conclusion, you wouldn't have much more than an argument from incredulity and begging the question.  And the funny thing is.... you seem to be proud of this!

[The Grand Nudger]

I also think that hyper literal interpretations miss the point.  You maintain a few of them, I dismiss all of them, including "god". If you take "god"..for example..entirely out of exodus...will you lose any valuable part of the meaning of that story as it relates to human existence? It will still be a story of an enslaved people escaping to freedom..and that's what it is..even though it never happened.

Similarly, the story of a person who upends the social norms to bring just a smidgeon more justice into the world..whose aims are completed rather than stymied by being martyred, is not more or less true or more or less powerful for that person having not been Christ - which..ofc... he wasn't, because there is no such thing. Notice, even in the narrative, jesus explanation for some position or nugget of wisdom was never "because I'm god, bitch!"

[RoadRunner79]

I also think that hyper literal interpretations miss the point.  You maintain a few of them, I dismiss all of them, including "god".  If you take "god"..for example..entirely out of exodus...will you lose any valuable part of the meaning of that story as it relates to human existence?  It will still be a story of an enslaved people escaping to freedom..and that's what it is..even though it never happened.

Similarly, the story of a person who upends the social norms to bring just a smidgeon more justice into the world..whose aims are completed rather than stymied by being martyred, is not more or less true or more or less powerful for that person having not been Christ - which..ofc... he wasn't, because there is no such thing.  Notice, even in the narrative, jesus explanation for some position or nugget of wisdom was never "because I'm god, bitch!"

You have no clue what I was talking about... just keep going and going.   Your proof texting is funny.