It's supposed to be a legendary metal or ore or something, used by the supposedly disappeared Atlantians. Anyway, that's how I got to know it by means of Blake and Mortimer, where in reality it came out to be a radioactive mineral. I'm not sure I wrote it correctly though. It was a good comic (wikipedia link), a very good comic, and a highpoint in Belgian Comic book History, which is to say something, since comics were invented by Belgians :)
Ah, some research shows that I misspelled it: it's 'Orichalcum' (Wikipedia again), but I like Orachlium, that how I read it when I was twelve anyway :)
As to their assertion that the theological answer also says to leave the switch alone because of providence, that's probably a very Calvinist theology, and I would object to it.
MJ, with this, you just proved to me that the Bible is flawed. It's supposed to be the inspired, inerrant word of God, correct? So, how can you get hundreds of different theologies from it? If it were the perfect, inerrant word of God, there would be only one theology which could possibly be derived from it. Or do you think God intended to confuse us? Man made a mistake or two with it somewhere, I'm sure.
Which of course leads me to the on-topic point. What are the religions of an evil society? Do they make virgin sacrifices to Cthulu? Is there a sect of "Righteous" folks trying desperately to do battle with them? What kind of religions are there in this world?
It was an episode of Star Trek Enterprise. Two religious factions had been at war for centuries. One side believed Creation took 9 days, the other side believed Creation took 10 days. Pretty good reason to slaughter millions of people, don't you agree? I'd say that's a pretty evil concept. Both believing themselves to be righteous, massacring millions of innocent people. Evil unknown to the perpetrator.
(Doing Therapy)
in most fantasy applications, orihalcum is a hard metal with magical properties of some sort or another; somewhat similar to mythril, for purposes of discrimination.
MJ,
Dances with Smurfs had...
1. This is the easiest mineral to get too. The next one is 200 miles away.......So we've just travelled through interstellar space, but we're not willing to go an extra couple hundred miles?
2. An awful lot of indigenous people would be very happy to sell out. After all, who really enjoys eating bugs? Ask the people themselves, not the propagandists who use those people for their own purposes.
3. Or you could dig a hole about a few hundred feet deep, cover it over, and camoflage it extensively a hundred miles away from the Tree. Then you dig a slant tunnel and remove the mineral with no one up top the wiser. We've been doing slant drilling for oil for some years now.
4. Or, you could say....hmmm, you guys keep the agrav mineral, what we really want are biological samples of everything on this planet. Most particularly of this tree which has more computing power than all of 2010's Earth put together. It has the ability to copy a human mind, and sustain the mind as a program. Arguably, it may be a means of continuing life if the soul transfers with the brain patterns.
Mind and information are more important, more valuable than matter.
You can have your floaty rock. I'll take a packet of seeds from a tree which a single branch of one of my trees in my orchard can outcompute the NSA.
Avatar was a profoundly bad movie.
Second post....
John,
Let's look at the meaning behind the monster. Cthulu, according to MJ, was primarily about the horror of a mechanistic universe. A universe in which one could say 'I looked into the sky, and the sky looked back, and it did not care'.
Now there are a few people like that nowadays. Of course, it can be fun to kick a dead horse. And in fact, it might be a good idea. I'm getting a bit interested here.
One of our current chief problems is China with their many many boys and few few girls. Also, I've heard testimony that many of the young folk in China don't have a real sense of morals, of why not do this thing that pleases me. Products of a Communist atheist society.
So the Servants of Cthulu don't believe in anything, but they believe that its Good to be the King. One works for Cthulu for the benefits one hopes to get out of it which range from sadism, to using the Brethren to terrorize your business competitors, to magic powers, and if you really hit the jackpot to becoming an immortal superbeing.
They live in a nation which did the One Child policy and so the young guys are aggressive....and many are amoral....and so when the Servants came and preached 'Power and domination are yours if you only sacrifice souls to the Dread One' it found a receptive audience.
MJ, with this, you just proved to me that the Bible is flawed. It's supposed to be the inspired, inerrant word of God, correct? So, how can you get hundreds of different theologies from it?
"If this roadmap was accurate, how come I got lost?"
I'm not a believer in an inspired, inerrant Bible, but this particular argument is flawed.
Third post....
We could have a Good Guy Nation with faults, that is being oppressed and tormented by some nearby bad guy nations. Perhaps there's one Obvious Scum Nation that the GG want to stop, and the Others want to stop as well, but the Others if given a choice would stop the GG first, although they don't want to say that.
Glantri's Goblins are one nation.
Tarkanite Dynasty is another.
The Servants taking over another very powerful nation is another threat.
I've read The Spellsong Sorceress series and it had the queen of one country having to get all the nations around her to play nice with her country. This tended to involve things like slaughtering small armies and burning traitors to ash. Its a bit of a 'if you deal harsh with these guys, then these other guys are going to come after you.' Her eventual solution was to deal harshly with pretty much all of them.
I'm thinking something like that here. There's a lion circled by jackals. The lion is being driven off, its lawful prey, perhaps Orichalum, and then the Torchthrower's Project Marines show up, and help the lion ...and things at first seem to go from bad to worse as stopping the 'smugglers' who are really armed sailors workng for another power is a big international incident with threats of war.
Eventually, the GG do have to go to war because all the other powers are greedy, lazy, and think they can steal and get away with it. And there's some internal fighting too inside the GG because some elements of the GG are more 'sympathetic' to the thieves than is proper.
The Cthulu we're talking about here is it Lovecraft's Cthulhu or is this something that just has a very similar spelling or is it a MV variant that I haven't seen yet?
On Lovecraft's Cthulhu the followers are pretty much uniformly seeking power, and to seek that power they give up part of themselves (sanity), and if they are paying such a high personal price what's the price of a few extra lives?
Lovecraft's Cthulhu worshipers don't draw power from Cthulhu directly, or even indirectly. They draw power from magical rituals, and they are attempting to raise Cthulhu from the depths of R'yleigh (sp?) in an attempt to bring about a new world, or just destroy this one.
Cthulu was just the first evil god to come to mind. Apparently Eric ran with it.
I'm starting to think organized religion is one of the most evil things that the world can create. How many millions of people have died just because they read a different holy book, or because they interpreted the same holy book in a different way? Religion is the root of all evil. Find God on your own. You don't need a book or a church.
John, you are going to get even more different opinions then, so that does not make sense.
Bump
Glantri,
I actually wrote a fairly large Multiverser setting 'The Odd Case of Miss Charity Lanton' without actually reading a complete Lovecraftian story. As to how true to the source material, well, considering that I'm attempting to do subversive art, perhaps its not totally important?
I hope this answers your question.
Niko,
The cyberpunk novel 'Snow Crash' had that idea you just put out. It was not quite clear, seeming to say two different things, or maybe I didn't pay too much attention.
Anyhoo...
Humans are biobots for the god-kings temples. Enki of Sumeria writes a program that frees us to be wholly human. Written down religion is a tamed form of a mental virus that would be much more virulent potentially, and might lead us back to being biobots if the wrong variation were rediscovered.
No, I don't believe this.
John wrote:
MJ, with this, you just proved to me that the Bible is flawed. It's supposed to be the inspired, inerrant word of God, correct? So, how can you get hundreds of different theologies from it? If it were the perfect, inerrant word of God, there would be only one theology which could possibly be derived from it. Or do you think God intended to confuse us? Man made a mistake or two with it somewhere, I'm sure.
Thanks and kudos to Scott for his excellent answer to this. Let me take it a bit deeper.
No matter how perfect the written material is, it is still composed of words used in a particular time and place. Words, unfortunately, frequently have multiple meanings, even in the same time and place; and when we stretch through time and place a bit, we get even more meanings.
Let's take one example. In Genesis, we are told that God formed man out of the dust of the earth. Then we are told that He "breathed" into him the "breath" of life. We have a problem here with the Hebrew, though, because the Hebrew word "breath" also means "spirit"--an easy connection to grasp when you recognize that both objects are insubstantial, invisible, non-corporeal objects, and both are related to living creatures. And what is true of the noun is also true of the verb, and so this might say that God "spirited" into him the "spirit" of life. So maybe man has a spirit, or maybe he just has breath. Then we are told that man "became a living soul". This word, too, is difficult. Sometimes it's rendered "being", but it means a "being" in the sense of a creature or person or personality (e.g., angels would be beings in that sense).
Now we're going to complicate the story. See, several hundred years before Jesus was born, Hebrew was rapidly becoming a dead language. Jews mostly spoke Aramaic, which was like Hebrew but usually written with a different alphabet; and sometimes when they read the Hebrew they pronounced it as Aramaic. But Alexander the Great wanted to know what the Hebrew books said, so he ordered a translation, which we call the Septuagint (and abbreviate LXX) for reasons that don't matter here. What matters is that when they translated from the Hebrew to the Greek, they had to find Greek words which had the same sense as the Hebrew words--and really, it's never quite true that words are interchangeable between languages. They mean something very like each other, but the nuances of meaning they have are going to vary significantly. So our translators came to the word for "breath" or "spirit", and they said, oh, we have a word like that, we'll call that "pneuma". You might recognize that that word is the root for our word "pneumatic", because it has to do with air, although specifically with breath. But the nuances of the Greek word are such that a pneuma is more connected with the spirit than with the breath, so when you read the Septuagint translation you're going to think that God put a spirit into man, while if you read the Hebrew you would probably think it was breath. Both versions have both meanings, but which is intended is not necessarily clear; and the fact that the Septuagint became the King James Version of the Greek and Roman Empires gave it a great deal of influence on thought.
They also looked at the word for "soul" and they said that their word "psyche" had that meaning--and it does. It does mean a person, or a being, or a personality. It also means the internal thought-person. But before the Septuagint was translated there was a guy named Plato, and he used this word to mean something much more like "spirit". In Plato's work, the psyche or soul is the insubstantial part of the person which for him was the real person trapped in the material body.
So now the New Testament writers, most of whom were Jewish, pick up the word "psyche" or "soul" and use it fairly frequently in their books. But what do they mean by it? Are they getting their definition from the Septuagint version of Genesis, where it appears that the psyche is the total person? Or indeed, are we misreading the Septuagint as well, and the psyche is that incorporeal internal person? This then leads to the question of whether man is tripartite--a spirit and a soul and a body--or bipartite--a spirit in a body which together form a soul.
Now, I'm pretty sure I know what the New Testament writers meant by the word; but if you'd asked me forty years ago what they meant I'd have given an entirely different answer. The answer I'd have given forty years ago was a heavily Platonist answer, and my current answer is a heavily Hebraic answer, but both are answers that Christian theologians over the centuries have given--and you can't really fault them. After all, if I don't speak Greek and I want to understand what the New Testament writers meant by certain words, what better way is there to find out than by reading the works of Greek writers before and since, such as Plato? Or if I want to understand Paul's theology, what better way is there than to read the works of the Hebrew scholars he must have studied in his Rabbinic training? And these two lines lead us to different answers on the nature of man.
But is the nature of man important? Does it matter whether man is bipartite or tripartite? For that matter, does it matter whether God is one in essence or one in substance? Does being both God and Man mean that Christ has a dual nature, or does the word "dual" express something false about Christ, who has only one nature? And does this matter?
And as C. S. Lewis very wisely observed, what divides us is not that we disagree on the important issues, but that we disagree as to what the important issues are. For most of the Christians I know, whether I believe that man is bipartite or tripartite is so far from being a question they wouldn't understand the answer; for most of the theologically educated I know, it's a significant question but not one that makes you a heretic if you disagree. Yet for some believers in some places and times, that was a very important question, and the wrong answer meant you believed something erroneous that could cost you your eternal salvation--and that if you were permitted to teach it to others, it could cost them theirs as well.
I have come to think that the core of the Christian faith is very small indeed--that is, what is necessary to believe is something less than the content of the Apostles Creed (the shortest of all the ancient statements of faith) and certainly shorter than the statements of faith of most modern churches. The rest of it is peripheral. Getting it wrong can mean that you don't rightly understand some important aspects of the whole truth, but God didn't say we had to understand the whole truth. The essence of the message is much simpler than that: it is simply that God loves us enough that He was willing to suffer and die so that we would learn to trust him and to love him and each other as much as he loves us. God wants children who are like Him, and this is how he's getting them. The rest of it is good and useful to know, but it's not essential to the message.
At least, that's my perception--and I am one who wants to understand it all, and indeed who is still working toward doing so. But of course, others will disagree, will think that certain "doctrines" are critical, and that to believe otherwise than what they have concluded on these excludes you from the true faith. I can perceive their understanding. It's one thing for me to day that the core of the gospel is that you have to trust that God loves you and wants to adopt you as His child, but if you believe that God is some sort of cosmic muffin or the chief of the alien space fleet, you're probably not trusting God but someone or something else. How well do you have to understand in order to trust? That I can't answer. I would wager it's very little; but then, a wrong understanding may be worse than none at all.
Again John wrote:
What are the religions of an evil society? Do they make virgin sacrifices to Cthulu? Is there a sect of "Righteous" folks trying desperately to do battle with them? What kind of religions are there in this world?
Religions that promote evil do so in essence by telling the worshipers they can have what they want and/or do what they want. Those who made their children walk through the fire in sacrifice to Molech did so to get favorable growing conditions for their crops and flocks. Those who engaged in orgies at certain idols did so for the same reasons--using sexual acts to get fertile soil. There are also gods who promise victory in battle, which leads to wealth because you have more land and slaves to work it.
The personal evil religions generally offer the individual power to exalt himself above others--make himself rich, or influential, to get whatever he wants and do whatever he wants. It's pretty obvious that personal evil religions require an "us" versus "them" mentality, that the core worshipers aren't interested in proselytizing but in enslaving those who do not have as much power.
Concerning Cthulu, I've read the seminal story Call of Cthulu and read a smattering of other Lovecraft stuff, most of which just bored me. The essence of it seems to be that there are alien beings far advanced beyond human imagining whose interest in humans is mostly that they're tasty. The supernaturalism in them tends to be of the Clarke's Law sort, that rituals unlock machines whose operation is beyond our understanding. Also, their minds have such great power that they can influence the minds of others remotely, and so at least some of their worshipers have been deceived into working for their release from ancient prisons on the expectation that they will get something more than merely first on line for dinner. But the fanbase has expanded it into a kind of supernatural horror in which there is a spirit dimension to it--they really are gods in Dungeons & Dragons' original Deities and Demigods book. I don't know what they are in the Call of Cthulu game system.
John wrote
Religion is the root of all evil. Find God on your own. You don't need a book or a church.
Kudos to Nikolaj for the on-target answer for that one.
Let's suppose for a moment that there really is a spiritual world, a world of unseen beings who have powers we humans can only imagine, and maybe some that we can't. (That does not necessarily mean that they are all or even most more powerful than we are--it might be that we have powers they don't understand.) Let us further suppose that one of these spirit beings is The God who made all the others and who also made the material world. I recognize that there are religions that do not accept these premises. (Gnosticism holds that the devil made the material world, that spirit beings are not created but "emanate" from the God (who is not the creator in any sense), and that some humans are spirits trapped in bodies and others are just bodies. Some eastern mysticism holds that the material world does not exist but is an illusion, like a dream The God is having, and that we don't have independent existence but are simply parts of His imagination. It is not the point to debate the possibilities of those positions.) For our purposes we will suppose that there are spirits, one of whom is The God. Let us suppose that we know little beyond that about any of them.
If indeed The God created us, it might have been for a reason. After all, it seems unlikely that The God created us accidentally; nor is it likely that He was playing with the dirt and left his unfinished toys while He went away to do something else. Whatever that reason is, that's why we exist. Philosophers will tell you that any object is "happiest" when it fits, that is, when it is used for its intended purpose. It thus makes sense that if we understand why we were created, we can only find happiness in being that. It also makes sense that The God who created us is the one who knows why and can explain that to us.
But now we have a problem. How do we know which one of those spirits is The God? After all, it is likely that there are as many spirit beings as there are living creatures, indeed that there are as many kinds of spirit beings as there are kinds of living creatures. We can't see them. Yet there are those who claim to have been in contact with them. How do we assess those claims? And if we are in contact with one of those spirits, how do we determine whether the spirit with whom we are in contact is The God? Perhaps even more importantly, how do we know that the spirit with whom we are in contact has our best interests in view? We know nothing of spirits. It might well be (as C. S. Lewis suggests in his fictional Screwtape Letters) that there is some part of us they eat, and so it is in their interest to gather flocks of human sheep to be led to the slaughter to feed them. It might be that they're collecting slaves to serve them after death. There might be reasons for spirits to deceive us into serving them now that we cannot even imagine.
A good part of the story of the Bible amounts to God saying, "Hi, I am The God, the Creator, but I don't expect you to believe that simply because I say so, so I'm going to prove it to you, and then I'm going to try to explain to you why I made people--but this is going to take a while, so don't expect to get it all at once." And indeed, the people who got the first part of that directly seemed to get it, but those who got it second and third hand seemed to muddle it all into something else. Part of that is because people are fearful and selfish, and want security and power, and so they want to believe that God will give it to them, and when He says something that could be taken to mean what they want it to mean, they take it to mean that. Part of it is simply that what God wanted was so surprising that it can take years for anyone to say, "Is that really what it's all about? Is it really as simple as that?" Maybe like in Short Circuit 2 when Ben Jahvri was trying to be friendly with Sandy Banatoni, and she thought he was still trying to get her to buy the robot toys he was making when he was trying to ask for out on a date--she was surprised when she realized that quite apart from doing business with her, he liked her and wanted to get to know her better. But his efforts to get her to understand that were thwarted by her expectations.
And that happens to us. We already have preconceived notions of what the Bible is trying to tell us, and so when we read it we see what we expect. "I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I'm not certain you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." That's often our situation.
But getting back to the core problem, if we're going to communicate with a spirit, we're going to have to have some way of determining whether the spirit with whom we are communicating is one we can trust. That's what God set out to prove in the Bible, that He was the Creator and that we could trust Him.
So I trust the God of the Bible.
And if some other spirit were to present itself to me and tell me to trust it, I would have to ask for proof that I can trust it; and I think it would take generations for a spirit to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt (after all, it might have ulterior motives I cannot imagine).
So if you're going to trust a god, you ought to have some way of knowing that the god you are trusting is trustworthy. The God has demonstrated that He is to my satisfaction. No other spirit has done so satisfactorily.
--M. J. Young
The first paragraph just explained in detail how the Bible is flawed. You said yourself, the languages don't translate. You just explained how badly it was flawed in trying to explain to me how it wasn't flawed. Try harder next time.
As far as the rest of it, I do know that I feel closer to God than I ever did reading the Bible. I've found God in my own way. It's reassuring to me. I have conversations with God. I'll ask a question, and get a feeling back which explains it all, without saying a word. It's like you couldn't imagine. Either that, or it's a psychotic hallucination......
The one that gets me are the people who insist that it's a sin to play musical instruments in church. That God is so petty that He's going to send millions of people to Hell because they liked having a piano playing with the choir. Give me a break......
(Doing Therapy)
Mark, I'm tempted to quote a scripture verse to you pertaining pearls and certain pinkish mammals.
John, if your not even intending to listen and only want to argue it would be better for us to talk to a wall. Mark is limited in time as it is, so please think about what he wrote before answering and try to do so with respect. I'm sorry for being so frank, but I need to say it as clear as possible.
I had an answer ready for you, but it seems to me that you only want to argue, so it would be a wasted effort to even give it. I don't like to argue, certainly not for the sake of arguing.
Most of the villains I create are so terribly villainous they are easy to look at and say, "Yeah, that's the villain." Most of the heroes I create are so inherently flawed, it's hard to look at them and say, "Yeah, that's definitely the hero." It kind of turns out to be the kind of bad who do what they do because they feel they have to, thieves, vigilantes, prostitutes, against the really evil who choose to do what they do in spite of the effect on others, sadists, sodomizers, politicians.
I guess I have a jaded viewpoint in morality, but really good characters bore me to an extent. I should make a world with a true utopian society where everyone gets along perfectly, is honest to a fault, shares all responsibility and material possessions, and the verser gets to come as the supernatural evil.
Evil tends to be boring as a player character choice. The worst sin of a player, boring the gm.
John, if your not even intending to listen and only want to argue it would be better for us to talk to a wall. Mark is limited in time as it is, so please think about what he wrote before answering and try to do so with respect. I'm sorry for being so frank, but I need to say it as clear as possible.
Is this the "Create evil characters for Multiverser" thread, or is this the "Convert John Cross to Christianity" thread? I made side comments about religion, along with comments pertaining to the topic at hand. MJ attacked my side comments, and didn't say a word about the salient matter of the thread. MJ told me recently that "You are certainly permitted to believe what you like." Apparently not if it conflicts with what he believes. This thread is about creating evil characters for Multiverser. Not about converting me back to a flawed religion. MJ is the one who derailed the thread, and he has no one to blame for the wasted time than the person he sees in the mirror.
@ Eric, that maybe the second worst sin to you, but the worst is a three or four word response to one you put a lot of time into that is three to four paragraphs, and I've seen the results :P. Evil is probably a close second. I don't know how evil Jhiaxi are, it's hard to tell for me without external stimuli.
Now I need to post again to keep the thread on topic. Oh well. More of my time spent in pursuit of a subject I love.
The wrathful villain archetype carries a chip on his shoulder and uses violence to settle disputes. In the extreme the wrathful villain is always angry and violently attacks anyone who crosses his path.
The proudful villain archetype is frequently outwardly attractive (or at least believes they are) and takes personal affronts very, well, personally. In the extreme such a person loses contact with reality as more of their attention is focused on how lovely their self is.
The lustful villain takes perverse sexuality to a new level, frequently not above using sodomy or rape to get what they want. Probably they have several sexually transmitted infections. In the extreme many fetishes and perversions are thrown into the mix.
The greedy archetype steals and hoards, wanting everything but not wanting to give up anything in exchange. In the extreme the greedy archetype will attack anyone who tries to take what is his.
The envious archetype also steals but does not hoard; once the object is in the character's possession, it loses value and can be disposed of. In the extreme they may try to destroy things or people they cannot have.
The gluttonous archetype is not frequently obese; rather they do that which they enjoy to excess, frequently at the expense of themselves and others. As C. S. Lewis implied, the woman who sends back her food to the kitchen because there is too much on the plate is every bit as gluttonous as the man eating or drinking himself to death. In the extreme, cannibalism or vampirism.
The sloth villain archetype has minions to do practically everything for him, from issuing orders to performing them. In the extreme his very living functions may be performed for him by some external means.
Hopefully that gets us back on track here decisively.
In the extreme, cannibalism or vampirism.
I've read that the human body actually has natural defenses against diseases which can only be transmitted by eating the brains of another human being. Let that muddle around in your mind for a few minutes......
The first paragraph just explained in detail how the Bible is flawed. You said yourself, the languages don't translate. You just explained how badly it was flawed in trying to explain to me how it wasn't flawed.
No, I explained how languages and people are flawed. It's just that they're the best we've got, because the world is imperfect.
Let's suppose that I explain a problem in temporal mechanics here on the forum, and everyone gets it except Sergiy Koshkin, who thinks that my theory is flawed and wants to promote his own. Does the fact that Mr. Koshkin does not understand my explanation prove that my explanation is flawed? I would say not. The flaw might be with Mr. Koshkin.
Indeed, even if no one understood the explanation, the explanation itself might not be flawed; it could well be that the people trying to understand it are unable to do so because it is beyond their ability to comprehend.
If we fail to understand what the Bible is communicating, the flaw is quite likely with us.
As far as the rest of it, I do know that I feel closer to God than I ever did reading the Bible. I've found God in my own way. It's reassuring to me. I have conversations with God. I'll ask a question, and get a feeling back which explains it all, without saying a word. It's like you couldn't imagine. Either that, or it's a psychotic hallucination......
Except that a subjective approach to knowing God leads to all kinds of mistakes. In fact--
The one that gets me are the people who insist that it's a sin to play musical instruments in church. That God is so petty that He's going to send millions of people to Hell because they liked having a piano playing with the choir. Give me a break......
Those people got that opinion by a subjective approach to knowing God: they believe that they asked God about this and got an answer, exactly like you do.
That's why your way of knowing God is so dubious: millions of people who think they are communicating with God the way you are have reached conclusions concerning what he wants ranging from destroying musical instruments to burning books to leading armies across continents to pillage and burn and destroy the infidels.
Or just to drink the Kool-Aid.
That's the outcome of subjective knowledge of God without an objective foundation.
Kyler:
...really good characters bore me to an extent.
Gee, now I don't know whether I should hope I am or am not boring....
John:
MJ told me recently that "You are certainly permitted to believe what you like." Apparently not if it conflicts with what he believes. This thread is about creating evil characters for Multiverser. Not about converting me back to a flawed religion. MJ is the one who derailed the thread, and he has no one to blame for the wasted time than the person he sees in the mirror.
You are certainly permitted to believe whatever you like. When you promote it publicly on a web site where I post, I am going to point out your errors in the hope of preventing others from accepting them. The fact that I as a Baptist (we invented freedom of religion as one of our religious doctrines) will defend your right to believe whatever you want does not mean I as a Baptist will not argue with you when you express it.
I'm not going to argue about who derailed the thread if you made a comment about religion and I answered it.
Kyler:
In the extreme the greedy archetype will attack anyone who tries to take what is his.
I would say that in the extreme the greedy archetype will attack anyone who has something he wants that is not his.
--M. J. Young
It's a fact that avarice and envy are tied so tightly together that I have difficulty unentwining them.
If we fail to understand what the Bible is communicating, the flaw is quite likely with us.
Yeah, that's what I think you're missing. WE messed it up. Not God. You don't really think these frail minds of humans could comprehend something as vast and complex as the Word of God, do you? It wouldn't matter if it was 2 words or 2 million words, we wouldn't get it right. It's too complex for us to handle. I doubt any created species ever gets the Bible right.
Those people got that opinion by a subjective approach to knowing God: they believe that they asked God about this and got an answer, exactly like you do.
That's why your way of knowing God is so dubious: millions of people who think they are communicating with God the way you are have reached conclusions concerning what he wants ranging from destroying musical instruments to burning books to leading armies across continents to pillage and burn and destroy the infidels.
Or just to drink the Kool-Aid.
I've never been told to do anything strange, and if I did, I probably wouldn't act on it. I've had visions of things which happened the next day. I've had visions of what Heaven looks like. At least in a way that my mind could comprehend. I've learned a lot about the nature of God. He has a wonderful sense of humor. Not easily offended. The Bible doesn't really do justice to how wonderful God really is. Either that, or it's a psychotic hallucination.
I'm not going to argue about who derailed the thread if you made a comment about religion and I answered it.
I know how you feel. I feel the same way when I see "Psychotic" used as a synonym for insane.
One thing God has told me though is that part of the reason I'm psychotic is because, by nature of my psychosis, no one, including myself, would completely believe it. He doesn't need another Jim Jones or Joseph Smith who claims to speak for Him. I get to have a great relationship with God, I understand things in a way I never did before, and I find it comforting. Either that, or it's a psychotic hallucination. It can't be all bad, now can it?
(Doing Therapy)
Eureka! A world in which all intellectual pursuits are stymied by constant interrupting debates about religion!
Dropping it works both ways.
(Doing Therapy)
Two
Another thing. Stop thinking that you have a crummy existence. I used to think I had a crummy existence. Crummy childhood, anyway. Feeling sorry for myself and whatnot. Not anymore. My life wasn't that bad. I didn't get beaten up nearly as often as I deserved to be. When I did deserve it, I usually didn't get it, and it was the good graces of the other person that spared me from it. I know grace, although I didn't realize it at the time. If you really knew in The Grand Scheme of Things how insignificant everything really is, you would never again feel sorry for yourself.
(Doing Therapy)
Umm...
Wouldn't that be the other way around?
If you really knew how significant all this was, how every single move you make is part of a bigger, all-encompassing web of moves, a fantastic plan that has required and will require specific events to occur in your life, then what is there to feel sorry for? You've done everything according to the Grand Scheme, and one day, hopefully, you'll have some chance at an inkling of understanding as to that which made the Scheme so Grand.
If it IS all so insignificant, you should feel sorry for your very existence; and what, then, is the point of bringing more people in to suffer in this miserable existence? What even is the point of bothering the energy to feel sorry for yourself, or to feel or do anything at all? You might be able to name a few reasons, but they're all as insignificant as your existence.
Everything you do, from sleeping to waking, from breathing to talking, from nothing to everything, has been planned for. When you make the wrong choices, you learn from them and grow; when you make the right choices, you grow and learn from them.
As in the first Karate Kid movie, one day, you will understand what it is you have been learning.
That didn't come out right when I wrote it, and I don't think I could write it to sound correct. Life's problems are insignificant.
Rule 1 "Don't sweat the small stuff."
Rule 2 "It's all small stuff."
I didn't know what that meant until just recently.