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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[smjjames]

Not sure if you actually meant to do that, but the link just goes to an attempt to post on the thread.

[wierd]

I fixed the link.

It was only mentioned in passing as background color; Arthur Weesely mentions to his wife that they were "No closer to catching Sirius Black than to inventing self-spelling wands", with a slight exposition to explain the statement to the reader. (The ministry had been doing experimental research on the subject to assist squibs, who could perceive the magical world, but could not use magic.)

[Frumple]

Would never be a problem if magic were fucking real. )

You'd hope, but even with fiction I've seen people touch on how wrong that could be. Imagine bugfixing and typos when errors could turn you into a chicken, or self-animate and walk off with whatever you're doing. Misplace a semicolon and letter golems jump out and try to shank you. In some ways it'd probably be pretty rad but in others things would probably be much, much worse than we deal with the our own tech base.

[TD1]

Imagine the poetry though. You could have a poem about ducks, for instance, and have the first letter of each sentence spell a word. Saying this word would then summon a duck.

I think rad is how to describe it

[Trekkin]

If I had to guess, if we actually had magic that its study would be very similar to current studies in mathematics.

Which is to say, impenetrable to anyone other than an expert, using a bunch of terms that just sound horribly contrived and made-up (ultrafilters, surreal numbers, symplectic group, univalence) to say nothing of the symbols, and 99% of it being created for its own sake with practical consequences being happy accidents.

Or science, in the sense that it's presumably going to spend a long time as a bunch of discrete facts given a quasi-mystical ad hoc explanation before being more rigorously systematized into something with predictive value. That is, in the loosest possible sense, what happened to alchemy.

[TD1]

If I had to guess, if we actually had magic that its study would be very similar to current studies in mathematics.

Which is to say, impenetrable to anyone other than an expert, using a bunch of terms that just sound horribly contrived and made-up (ultrafilters, surreal numbers, symplectic group, univalence) to say nothing of the symbols, and 99% of it being created for its own sake with practical consequences being happy accidents.

That's part of why I liked Rothfuss' system. On one hand, the laws governing sympathetic bonds and energy transferal had been established and were taught in much the same way as one would a science - namely, at university and with some effort.

On the other hand, Names lay ineffable and somehow present, completely ungoverned and explicitly defying the understanding of the conscious human mind.

Rothfuss used both forms of Sanderson's magic-definition here - hard and soft.

[Rose]

Hot take: "Magic" and "Technology" are actually two incompatible forms of magic in the harry potter universe and people typically only have affinity for one of them.

[Magistrum]

Not at all. He says "Do not punish him, and forgive his debts, because you owe me this one."

Tn the letter: 17 "If you think of me as a true friend, take him back as you would take me. 18 If he has done anything wrong or owes you anything, send me the bill." - sounds good.
 19 I will pay it. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will not talk about how much you owe me because you owe me your life. " - sounds not good. "I won't talk about it, but I am talking about it right now, in case you don't remember it."

20 "Yes, Christian brother, I want you to be of use to me as a Christian. Give my heart new joy in Christ. 21 I write this letter knowing you will do what I ask and even more." - Sounds like a mob boss. "I'm writing this because I need you to be useful somehow. Do me a solid. I trust won't make a fuss and mess this up."

Firstly, he literally uses those words. I'm not paraphrasing. "16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.

I know. He is saying Onesimus is a swell guy and would be more useful helping out the congregation than serving as someone's slave. The bible is very clear in saying that a slave os unable to serve god thoroughly.

Second, that is the NLT translation. It's unsuitable for study, and honestly for any kind of reference. It's is openly a translation of a paraphrasing of the Bible. I believe it is also used by *ahem* modern Evangelicals, likely due to it's dumbed-down phrasing of basically everything.

Yeah, sorry for that one, I just copied the text from the first search result. What do you recommend? NIV is the usual go-to, do you use anything else?

There is no context in the more detailed texts that Philemon actually owed Paul anything in terms of debt. He specifically came to him as a friend. The only "debt" that can be inferred, and this is very speculatively, is that of Paul converting Philemon. In that sense, there is no debt, and the phrase is reduced to a simple banter. He also had no real authority whatsoever for Philemon to be afraid of, he was hardly a King. He was sitting in a Roman Prison. His supposed "authority" was wholly born of a perception of wisdom and morality.

I mean, he ordered people around and they they followed his orders. That's authority. For reference, check every cult leader ever. He was literally sending people around the whole time he was imprisoned.

Philemon has no debt to Paul. Paul is saying that he is going to forgive the debt. Paul isn't going to pay either. That's why he is saying Philemon owns him his life. The debt is surely smaller than his life, so forgive it for Paul's sake.
[/quote]

Believe what you want about God and the meaning of our existence, but there is no case for Christianity as a religion of slavery.

It is not. It is just not against it. At least not enough to eliminate it inside it's own ranks.
It does make sense, since slavery is basically second only to sacrificial law in detail, so it is natural that the people of Israel would not be too bothered about a brother owning slaves.

[Rolan7]

And also from WTF thread:

Christianity is totally the Religion of Love, nevermind that it was founded on genocide, hatred and bigotry.

Dunamisdeos already commented at length on this but... WTF? Are we having a miscommunication on what 'founded' means?  I feel like there is a major fundamental disconnect - taking it all the way to WTF levels.

Probably.  I generally think of Christianity as founded on the Old Testament, since it's the same God and the prophecies and stories of that time were supposed to be leading up to the climax, Jesus.

I was initially confused when Dun spoke of The Founder of Christianity.  I would have said Jesus, but from context it was Paul.  And fair enough, Paul did found the Church.  Was just somewhat confusing, maybe my Baptist family background.

So yeah, miscommunication looks like.

[Rolan7]

And shoot, since I'm here, I do find it hard to see the Old Testament as much other than "genocide, hatred and bigotry".  With some decent adventures and aesops, even love stories.  But overall I have serious problems with it as a guidebook.

I guess to put it simply: God's chosen ethnic group is commanded to take slaves.  Young women that is, while murdering the boys.

Mysteriously changing course once Jesus arrives doesn't explain why God commanded all that previous stuff.
I wonder what Christianity would be like if it wasn't tied to that tribal conqueror god?  Could have been truly great.

well, there's always Catharism ha

[smjjames]

It may be the same god, but behaviorally they're pretty different. Old Testament god is pretty much indistinguishable from the usual 'fear me or eat thunderbolts!' type found in innumerable pantheons and could pass for a war god (or had origins as a fire god, as I've heard some theories say. Which would certainly fit Moses's volcano summit) while New Testament god doesn't appear to have the 'FEAR ME!' quality of the Old Testament god, kind of like night and day almost.

And shoot, since I'm here, I do find it hard to see the Old Testament as much other than "genocide, hatred and bigotry".  With some decent adventures and aesops, even love stories.  But overall I have serious problems with it as a guidebook.

I guess to put it simply: God's chosen ethnic group is commanded to take slaves.  Young women that is, while murdering the boys.

Mysteriously changing course once Jesus arrives doesn't explain why God commanded all that previous stuff.
I wonder what Christianity would be like if it wasn't tied to that tribal conqueror god?  Could have been truly great.

well, there's always Catharism ha

Wouldn't stop people from conquering under the name of religion. Even Buddhism which seems like the most anti-violence of the major world religions has been used as a pretext or as a backing for violence.

[Rolan7]

Buddhism isn't as pacifist as Jainism was.  And there are truly pacifist sects of Christianity as well, which for interesting reasons have survived despite the seeming handicap... if barely.

[Magistrum]

Yeah, religion is always secondary. Even back with the old testament, it's clear to see that a lot of the information in it wasn't that important from a theological viewpoint, but very important for a small late bronze age/early iron age power trying to justify it's political goals.

[smjjames]

I did think of Jainism after I posted, but I did say 'major' religions. Point is that if people want to conquer under the name of x religion, they'll find a rationale for it.

fakeedit: Kinda ninja'd by magistrum.

[scourge728]

ptw