Cool, at least in a small class you can really dig in and ask hard questions. And if you feel like it, ask hard questions. Press them, you deserve to know.
1 Like
Right of Christian Initiation for Adults.
Thanks, sounds kind of like a catechism type class. Hopefully you learn a lot @BrickHead.
1 Like
We discussed Paul a bit and then shared what we thought about something written by him. Being he was a Jewish convert, I was interested in speaking about him.
What I canāt wrap my head around, and which might not be important for religious education, is the contempt some saints and other Christians had for Jews when Iām told Christianity has a base in Jewish teaching. St. Gregory of Nyssa and his Brother St. Basil both had scathing things to say about us. So did Martin Luther. Considering this is the religion thread maybe some can chime in on this. Gregory said we are a race of vipers and dark minded people. Luther wrote a book called Jews and Their Lies.
Some people blame all Jews for Jesus being crucified, and Talmudic Judaism is a continuation of the same Pharisees he spoke against. You would have to read what some of the people you mention actually said if you want more detail, but I hear that in the olden days in Europe the Jews were known for dealing in things like moneylending, prostitution, sorcery, etc. I donāt blame all Jews for the actions of a few and every group has some bad apples, but not everyone sees it that way.
2 Likes
Iāve only recently started reading the new testament. So naturally Iāve started with the Book of Mathew.
I have a close family member who is a born again Christian which was my main motivation for reading the new testament. Fuel for discourse.
Anyways I told them it took me only 20 pages to have a bit of an insight. It all made sense. 2000 years of persecution of the Jews by Christians. The new testament does not paint them in favorable light. There is a recurring negative undertone any time they are brought up in any context. Which was multiple times in Mathew alone. So no wonder Jews were/are ostracized in any society they set up shop in. The principle text with which the moral/social fabric of that society had been woven in was at the very least quasi anti Semitic to start with.
2 Likes
Impossibleā¦
The problem with the dude was he was clearly pushing an agenda and parroting literally anything he could find online to support his points even though he didnāt even understand half of what he was parroting rather than engaging in a proper discussion.
He could post an entire chunk of nonsense in which I could agree with HALF of what was in it because it was regurgitated from a legit source somewhere, with the other half being his own warped interpretation of it that I took issue with.
@polo77j, @usmds, myself and others in those threads all have different views regarding the subjects in contention but it was his blatant intellectual dishonesty that put us off.
Iām pretty sure sure none of us are post modernist progressives nor pro 5th wave feminists or whatever they call themselves nowadays. Actually, I like post modernist art but thatās a different thing altogether lol.
2 Likes
I think it can turn out well. It can also turn out horrible so Iām on the fence regarding this.
My grandparents had an arranged marriage. It wasnāt good at all, to say the least, but they stayed together because of extremely traditional social conventions at the time and by their 40s they werenāt even sleeping in the same rooms. I suspect my father hated my grandfather to the core but traditional Chinese people generally donāt display their feelings at home unless weāre having a really big argument.
My grandfatherās brother, and Iām writing this from what people have told me since Iāve only met him and his family once at my grandfatherās funeral, had 2 arranged marriages. The first one ended with him brandishing a gun(theyāre illegal where he lives but he was a cop) and throwing his wife and all her belongings out of their home one night.
Also, relationships between external family members can change drastically over time so what appears to be great now can turn out to be a nightmare later on. Iām NOT saying this will happen to you, and I genuinely hope everything remains happy for you, but it did happen to mine so Iām just throwing this out there as a kind of warning to be both prepared and look out for certain warning signs and knowing what not to get involved in when shit happens. Iāve managed to keep my ass clean by knowing when, and what to not get involved in myself while relationships between others have fractured beyond repair.
For reference, I have a LARGE extended family and most are now Catholics. My mother has 8 siblings and my great grandmother on my fatherās side gave birth to around the same number, with each one having at least 2 children. Shit, my grreat grandmother had my grandmother at 18 and gave birth and her last kid at 40 so whenever my grandmother took her kid sister out eveyone thought she was her daugher lol.
And I have to address almost half of my grand uncle and grand auntiesās kids as āuncleā or āauntieā even though they are younger than me, with the youngest being an infant when when I was 20 lol.
1 Like
@dt79 thatās correct. Religion is not all about faith in gods or a god. For example, Buddhism has no god.
Religions have shared moral codes amongst its adherents. This has it so that people donāt have to figure out what the next man or woman condemns or condones. Unfortunately in the USA Today, there are few opportunities to fulfill the communitarian philosophy, particularly in urban areas, and there is no freedom of association, I choose to do what I can and work with what I have.
1 Like
Actually, it does in Asia. Think of that gigantic statue of Buddah constructed with gold in Thailand. They wouldnāt do that for a secular religion. Almost everything has a god. The moon, the earth, the kitchen(not kidding). Just pointing all these out cos I thought it would be interesting.
2 Likes
Theravada Buddhism doesnāt tho, right?
You might have to go all the way out to the few monasteries in the mountains to see it in practice, it did and does still exist, right?
Is that from Buddhism itself, or an accepted mixing of Mahayana Buddhism with other stuff?
I moved my post and response, to the āThe Push to 2020ā¦ā threadā¦
Well you donāt have to worry much about Martin Luther, he was the architect of the Protestant Revolution.
And it just goes to show you that saints arenāt\ werenāt perfect people. Many early saints became saints as martyrs and not necessarily for their works or contribution.
It does go to show how far back Jewish persecution goes. Historically, there was a lot of tit for tat and Jews were the earliest persecutors of the Church. So they certainly didnāt win āmost favored statusā once Christianity broke free and became itās own thing.
As you well know history is far more nuanced and complex than most of us understand it to be. Itās hard to be in someoneās shoes or sandals or wooden clogs many centuries ago. We know their has been various points of tension between Judaism and Christianity through out history. The good news, save for some extremists on both sides, is we finally reconciled and recognize each other as we always should have, as Brothers and Sisters who both love the Living God.
1 Like
āThe Jewsā arenāt the antagonists in the NT per se as much as the ruling class, the establishment, as we would call them today, in the Pharisees and the Sadducees (who were considered Jews at the time). Keep in mind, that Jesus, His family and the Apostles were all Jewish and by in large practiced Judaism.
After all, I believe it is in Matthew where Jesus says he came for the ālost sheep if Israelā, first.
As you read the NT, this will become clearer when you get into The Letters. Paul always makes the distinction, āJew first, then the Gentileā.
Lolā¦ I think your right. It ended up with women have more sex and men having less. Which means that a small portion of men have most of the sex with gaggles of different women and regular dudes are left out in the cold.
I wouldnāt really know either way, I am a chick repellent. Whatever it is that women like, I am not it.
1 Like
Iāve never heard of it. Secular versions of Buddhism certainly do exist, but theyāre not common. People usually end up worshipping the gurus preaching to them anyway lol.
Think about this. People all around the world are the same. If they embrace religion, they generally want to worship some form of all-powerful divine entity or entities watching over them with the promise of a wonderful afterlife or reincarnation into a better life etc - free from the misery and spiritual emptiness of this life.
I mean, seriously, think about it. Youāre living in China or India a couple of hundred years ago. or even in one of the shittiest slums in India today. You have lots of kids because you know at least half of them are going die during infancy. Youāre already considered middle-aged when youāre in your 20s and you probably wonāt live past 50. Thereās famine, droughts and wars and no Netflix.
Someone comes and introduces something like āmindfulnessā to you. Youād probably tell him to āfuck offā right lol?
Buddhists didnāt start slaughtering Muslims in Myanmar just a couple of years ago because of secularism.
The first time I heard of the term āsecular Buddhismā was actually from someone from the West.
I honestly donāt know the history of Buddhism right from the beginning so when you talk about āMahayanaā and stuff like that, I canāt give you an answer.
All I know is that whatever itās original form was, whether it was secular or otherwise, people inevitably turned it into deism, and Buddhists in Asia generally go to temples for the purpose of worship just like in Christianity and Islam. Holy wars were fought in India. The emperors of China were āsonsā of the ācelestial emperorā or something like that.
Itās been used to consolidate political power and keep the people subservient(what could possibly be worse than rebelling against a direct representative of, and appointed by a divine entity?), just like other religions.
There are 9 Circles of Hell in Danteās Inferno, and thatās only considered fiction. In Chinese beliefs, there are 18 levels lol.
In fact, the āSeventh Monthā, a.k.a āThe Hungry Ghost Festivalā according to the Chinese calendar and beliefs just passed and people were burning paper money and joss sticks everywhere and I was getting asthma attacks almost every other day.
1 Like
Maybe all of that is true.
But they for sure are painted in an unfavorable light in the book of Mathew. Perhaps it changes throughout the rest Iāll have to read it to comment on that.
But purely based on what Iāve read so far it makes since why Christians might intrinsically harbor some anti Semitic sentiment.
A quick google search actually shows that this is a subject of much discussion. I am not the only one to make this connection and it is not a new connection.
Here is some academics thesis on the subject. Bit long only read the first chapter but it gets the point across.
Many think the book of Mathew to be the most anti-Jewish of all the gospels.
https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2622&context=etd
It is interesting to me because I often wondered why the Jewish people have been the perrenial scapegoat. This makes sense. Much more than anti Semitism being a response to thwart the nefarious plots of some elitist Jewish cabal pulling the geopolitical strings and drinking the blood of Christian children on Passover.
2 Likes
I looked up Theravada Buddhism and this is what I found.
Itās what Iāve been telling you guys. Not separating religion and the State is a recipe for disaster. Buddhists are like vegan girly men compared to Christians. Look at the shit theyāre getting up to. Now imagine a bunch of bible thumpers in power.
2 Likes