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Hello and welcome to Religionthread 2021! You are welcome and valued no matter your creed or where you're at in your life/faith journey. This is above all a tolerant space in that we encourage posters of any and all faiths (or none!) to  This is a thread for talking about religion. Historically this was a Liturgical Christianity thread but in the last couple iterations we decided to just brand it as "religion" broadly because we have a bunch of cool folks who aren't Christian. This thread will still be mostly Christian but that's not because we exclude others, that simply happens to be a majority of regulars here. We are people that care deeply about our faith traditions. We agree to disagree and enjoy learning from each other. Posting of silly hats and thicc houses of worship is encouraged! Some basic thread rules: 1) Don't be a jerk. Respect the fact that everyone here has different faith traditions and opinions than you do. This is not a place for evangelizing. 2) Just... be considered and empathetic in your posting on abortion and other hot-button issues. I think we are probably okay to discuss abortion/right-to-life/choice issues so long as it adheres to rule 1) Don't be a jerk. Some examples of things we post about : -Prayer requests -Silly hats and other cool images of religious stuff -Serious and well-intentioned theological/philosophical discussion -Current events related to religion -Prosperity gospel is very bad and probably evil Some examples of things you ought to avoid: -Calling other faith traditions wrong/heretical/schismatic -Personal attacks -Being overly political  mod edit: The old thread is here
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Jan 13, 2021 06:56
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Hello I'm Fritz, a horse. Lutheran/Episcopalian, feel pretty at home in most mainstream Protestant churches.
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Jan 13, 2021 18:28
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what even is hinduism anyway (I am led to believe this is a genuine non-shitpost theological question within hinduism writ large) Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Jan 14, 2021 |
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Jan 14, 2021 05:41
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Liquid Communism posted:hotdish casserole edit: exhibit A: green bean casserole exhibit B: tater tot casserole and whatever lil' smokeys sausages are, they've been the new hotness in church basement food since I dunno, the 90s Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Jan 14, 2021 |
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Jan 14, 2021 06:17
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Our differences in fairly terrible Midwestern US after-church potluck terminology are irreconcilable. I propose we schism.
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Jan 14, 2021 06:24
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I believe now is the point I remind the thread that the Lutheran Insulter exists and is extremely fun: https://ergofabulous.org/luther/quote:You are like the frogs of old who could not put up with a log for lord; instead they got a stork that pecked their heads and devoured them. You are a desperate, accursed thing. Liquid Communism posted:I mean we could, but you know it's going to take forty-five minutes and another cup of coffee before anyone can talk themselves around to trying to leave. Okay but, who gets the organist? There is only one person in town who can play our organ. My recipes are obviously superior and I claim the organist. (my dad does an awesome Reuben casserole, all homemade. homemade corned beef, saeurkraut, dill pickles, etc) edit: a large proportion of Religionthread posters are from the upper midwest. I do not have a good explanation for this phenomenon other than green-bean and tater-tot casseroles when well-executed are actually quite good. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Jan 14, 2021 |
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Jan 14, 2021 06:31
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Liquid Communism posted:Ground beef, sliced potatoes, cream of mushroom soup, carrots, celery, onion, and sour cream was the thing here. With biscuits on top. Think what you will, so make in your pants, hang it round your neck, then make a jelly of it and eat it like the vulgar sows and asses you are! From Against Hanswurst, pg. 187 of Luther's Works, Vol. 41
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Jan 14, 2021 06:46
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Slimy Hog posted:This reminds me of an article I read about how the Church isn't trying to answer questions like "How old is the universe" since that's a science question and the Church isn't really a body of scientists. Bilirubin posted:Steven J Gould also promulgated the idea of the Two Magisteria from the science side hello I have strong opinions on the relationship between science and religion (I teach college science and assign Gould's "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" essay at the beginning of several of my courses)
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Jan 15, 2021 18:47
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I regret not having been able to attend an Armenian or Ethiopian Orthodox service. But, the Armenian liturgy is really really cool. Give this a listen sometime, it's sort of a fusion of Western and Eastern liturgical and musical traditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtPfE6mHA_s
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Jan 17, 2021 06:31
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HopperUK posted:It's basically traditional at this point. 
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Jan 18, 2021 05:00
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Thirteen Orphans posted:That’s one crazy looking cat. I'm posting selfies don't doxx me thx
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Jan 18, 2021 05:15
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Does anyone have recommendations for places to purchase Catholic religious items? Like Etsy stores or something? I'd rather patronize artists than big stores. Specifically I'm looking for a St. Francis of Assisi medallion for my brother and his girlfriend who recently got a big golden retriever (gf is very Catholic). edit: I'd also welcome other suggestions for Catholic gifts related to Big Friendly Dogs. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Jan 19, 2021 |
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Jan 19, 2021 01:19
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Glutes Are Great posted:doctoral student praying for u What area of philosophy, broadly? If you don't mind my asking. Not that I know much about philosophy.
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Jan 23, 2021 01:33
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That sounds pretty cool and very relevant to religion. The only philosophy I've dabbled in is environmental philosophy and philosophy of science (especially how science and religion interact) and both of those at a pretty amateurish level. In the Before Times I gave talks to middle and high schoolers about climate change a couple times a year. One of my favorite gimmicks was asking the auditorium "do you believe in climate change?" and getting a roaring YES. Then I'd say NOOOO and the looks on kids faces are priceless. Varying mixtures of confused and indignant etc. "Science is not a belief system!" Then I'd talk for a bit about how science works. edit: a couple of times I've noticed some of the teachers get an alarmed look for a few seconds. "wait why the gently caress did we invite this climate denialist??" Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Jan 23, 2021 |
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Jan 23, 2021 02:00
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Glutes Are Great posted:That's really cool! I always felt like scientific theory as a philosophical branch is extraordinarily important, especially nowadays where science is both either put into question by misunderstanding its structure, or used as a belief system just like you said. Religion being something else from that and, as easy as it sounds, the difference between a religious question, a philosophical question and a scientific question, is something that nowadays gets forgotten or ignored so easily. Not even just from a political perspective, but in a very fundamental way. It's scary. Nth Doctor posted:I love everything about this That "gimmick" is kind of a rhetorical device to shock the audience and get them engaged and interested. The (very loose) definition of science I usually give is that science is "a tool for understanding the natural (physical) world." It's a lens through which we can study and understand the physical (knocks on the table), material world. Science ain't got poo poo to say about human culture, philosophy, morality, religion, spirituality, etc. I live and teach on a Native American reservation, so a large part of my job is being culturally conscious and relevant. Spirituality and traditional beliefs are super important and I want to recognize and validate them while also boosting confidence in (Western) science. To get somewhat more into philosophy and science, most claims regarding religion and spirituality are not falsifiable. That is, it's not possible to prove them wrong. "A Creator exists." Well, I can't disprove the existence of a Creator entity. And that's very much outside the realm of the natural (physical) world of science. Karl Popper is a good reference for a lot of this stuff though again, I'm really a novice on the philosophy end. I'm a lab scientist by training, I just care about this stuff. I've linked this before but I think Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria is a good starting point for discussion of the relationship between religion and science: http://www.blc.arizona.edu/courses/schaffer/449/Gould%20Nonoverlapping%20Magisteria.htm quote:If religion can no longer dictate the nature of factual conclusions properly under the magisterium of science, then scientists cannot claim higher insight into moral truth from any superior knowledge of the world's empirical constitution. This mutual humility has important practical consequences in a world of such diverse passions. Note that Gould is an evolutionary biologist, not a philosopher or theologian.
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Jan 23, 2021 06:00
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sb hermit posted:Hello. I am a non-church-going christian still looking for the right church. I still give tithes to my parents' church since it's gotta go somewhere. I PM'd you a fresh link. Apparently they expire after one day, so it's not really productive to post them in the thread. ProperGanderPusher posted:We're already a couple pages in, but here's my reintro. I've been around since the original liturgigoon megathread. I was raised atheist, spent a few years in Rome (in a radtrad bubble) in my early adult years, and finally became Orthodox about eleven years ago. I mostly lurk around these parts since like a few other posters I lean heavily traditional and conservative and I'm careful about when to reveal my power level. I see a lot of people posting about their political leanings. As I'm sure you know as a longtime reader in these threads, things sometimes get a little heated around political/doctrinal issues but mostly the thread is chill. I think the key is this is not a debate thread, we're not going to change each other's minds on abortion/right-to-life and such but we can learn from the discussion. Personally I thought the IVF discussion last fall was interesting and not something I'd really given much thought previous to then.
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Jan 23, 2021 20:35
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Yeah we do a lot of wild-rear end induction in my field (earth science broadly, oceanography/limnology specifically) because falsifying hypotheses about regional/global scale systems is uh not terribly feasible. We end up doing a lot of laboratory ("bottle") experiments and trying to extrapolate that to large-scale natural phenomena which requires a ton of hand-waving. My absolute favorite thing about my and related fields is the underlying assumption of "assuming equilibrium / steady-state..." because lol that the real world is ever in equilibrium. It's just a necessary assumption to make a lot of modeling and extrapolation work. But like, religion and spirituality are examples of things that are definitely not falsifiable (mostly) and definitely outside the scope of science. At some point I should reprise my rant on uniformitarianism vs. catastrophism which is very relevant to the historical interaction between religion and science. edit: I should also add my field involves processes that occur on geologic timescales which again, not falsifiable in any reasonable sense. Like I can confidently state that the cooler climate of the Cenozoic era we live in is largely due to silicate weathering of the Himalaya uplift which started ~60-70 million years ago. Just lol falsifying things which occur on a timescale of "tens of millions of years" Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Jan 24, 2021 |
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Jan 24, 2021 09:37
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White Coke posted:I'd also like to hear more conservative peoples' opinions on matters of theology out of curiosities sake, but I know that for some people there are opinions that given even a chance to be heard are very hurtful and alienating so I don't know how free ranging such discussions could be. Captain von Trapp posted:Fundamental disagreements about the deepest parts of the human experience are likely to be hurtful and alienating from time to time. This thread has been able to handle those disagreements in a pretty genial live-and-let-live way. Why not continue? If it's too intense for some, there's always every other thread on the forums. I may be wrong here, but I think the thread can handle things like "my faith tradition believes that marriage is only between a man and a woman" or "I believe reproductive matters are up to the individual choice of a woman." Many of us will disagree, but that's OK. imo the problem has been posters pairing statements like the above with support of applying those to society or people that don't share their beliefs. It's one thing to hold sincere beliefs based on your religious tradition, it's another to post here that you think those beliefs should be imposed on people who don't agree with you. Does that make sense? "I support X" is probably not going to offend people unless you make it personal by also saying "X should be law" or "I support a theocracy enforcing X." edit: Also I am neither a mod nor an arbiter of what is/isn't acceptable in this thread. We have a pretty great community of posters and lurkers who understand the bounds of what's accepted in this thread vs. liable to cause drama. I'm confident we can self-police just fine. That said, there are several mods and an admin watching this thread and I'm sure you could PM them and get a quick response if someone is trying to cause trouble. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Jan 25, 2021 |
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Jan 25, 2021 05:15
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GreyjoyBastard posted:So, being a reasonable, level-headed dude like most of the pantheon, Shiva chops his head off and continues on. "Hey wife, good to see you!" "Hey husband, great to see you too! I assume you met our son on the way in, were you impressed with his bravery?" "Our... uh... excuse me, I forgot to wash the cat. Be right back." post/av text combo
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Jan 25, 2021 05:30
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Bilirubin posted:I'm a paleontologist. There are ways to frame the work in a falsificationist framework, mostly stemming from establishing the inferential validity. vertebrate or inveterbrate? I went to grad school with a bunch of invert paleontologists. no need to answer if it'd doxx you too much  I'm a biogeochemist. all the paleontologist friends I had were wizards with sed-strat which is totally outside my area of expertise
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Jan 25, 2021 06:48
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By popular demand posted:I can confirm, Commandment #11 is "Fritz is the best horse" ThePopeOfFun posted:I agree with Fritz. Talking about how our beliefs affect how we live is super important. Arguing that beliefs, especially regarding one's behavior, should be enshrined in law is way beyond the purview of our thread. Nth Doctor posted:No but you're the bestest horse in these here parts, and that counts for a lot. Thanks guys :S Here is me enjoying my dinner, I hope you all are enjoying a similarly high-fiber diet:  ThePopeOfFun posted:I agree with Fritz. Talking about how our beliefs affect how we live is super important. Arguing that beliefs, especially regarding one's behavior, should be enshrined in law is way beyond the purview of our thread. What I was trying to get at is expressing your personal beliefs is fine. Suggesting the religious beliefs/doctrine you adhere to should apply to others is going to ruffle some feathers. Just to use a personal example: I'm a gay horse. I'm not offended if someone here posts along the lines of "my religious tradition believes marriage is between a male horse and female horse and does not recognize same-sex horse unions." I respect your beliefs and tradition even if I disagree. Where I would get prickly is if you suggest your tradition or personal beliefs should be applied to society as a whole. There's a difference between "I personally or my tradition believes X" and "I would like a society where X applies to you" because that makes it personal. edit: Bilirubin posted:Cool hi! Biochem is something I missed but am getting via a current student in spades. I'm vert but my undergrad was in geology so I know both invert and sed-strat (and structure) pretty well. sweet! we went fossil hunting all the time as kids, I have a large collection of Cenozoic mammal fossils. lots of ?camel? and ?toed horse? teeth, bone fragments, petrified wood etc. I'm in South Dakota, we have lots of fossil beds 'round here Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Jan 25, 2021 |
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Jan 25, 2021 07:03
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docbeard posted:(partly because of what happened the last time Anabaptists tried that) Hmm what happened??
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Jan 25, 2021 16:28
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Yeah I'm familiar with the Munster rebellion in general terms, just wondered if docbeard had a favorite telling of that history.
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Jan 25, 2021 18:00
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There are a lot of Hutterite colonies in the Dakotas and yes they do communal ownership. They have little self-sustained communities out in the middle of nowhere. They don't entirely shun modern technology and enthusiastically make use of modern agricultural/industrial machinery. My uncle did a lot of electrical work for Hutterite colonies, they have big poultry and meatpacking shops. They sell a lot of produce to local grocery stores. You'll run into groups of Hutterites at like Walmart all the time. A family of people in traditional clothes, talking in German, then they take their Walmart stuff out to the car. edit: the historical background of the Hutterites and others on the northern Plains is they're largely Germans from Russia. Catherine the Great (German herself) invited German settlers to farm the Volga region with guarantees they wouldn't be conscripted into the army and would have freedom of religion. Quite a few Anabaptist groups took that offer, they were often not welcome in much of Europe because they refused to serve in the military or pay taxes that would fund the military. The exemption from conscription and freedom of religion didn't last and most of them emigrated starting in the 1860s. Many settled in the northern Plains because they were experienced in dryland agriculture and familiar with steppe climates. German Russians have a reputation for being more conservative/traditional than other German immigrant groups. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Jan 26, 2021 |
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Jan 26, 2021 18:35
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Paladinus posted:There is also a sizeable community of Russian-speaking Germans in Kazakhstan, mostly Protestants, and some Catholics. They established some villages there back in the 19th century, and then later many ethnic Germans were deported there from all over USSR. yup those are the remnants that didn't bail My great-grandmother (everyone refers to her as grossmutter) was still alive when I was a toddler, she grew up speaking German and taught herself English by doing her children's grade-school homework. That side of the family were part owners/editors of Dakota Freie Presse which was the major newspaper for German Russians globally. An interesting thing I did not know, quote:In 1924, the DFP became the first paper published in the United States to be allowed re-entry into the Soviet Union. It's an important ethnic group in the region but doesn't have much cachet in the broader culture. I think a lot of that is because of the World Wars, German language and identity in America got very unpopular. (for whatever reason an unusually large proportion of the posters in this thread are from the Upper Midwest)
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Jan 27, 2021 02:20
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Antivehicular posted:Apologies if this is straying too far off-topic, but can anyone recommend any good books on the topic of German immigration to the US, particularly the Upper Midwest? My mother's family is German Catholics in Minnesota (and my grandfather spoke German as his first/home language, which I only learned a few years ago). I'm going to ask my mom about what family history she knows and if anyone on that side has done any genealogical work, but a general book on the history of those immigrants would be really interesting. Well, related to my previous post, one of the owner/editors of Dakota Freie Presse wrote a book on migration of the Volga Germans. There are a couple copies that are family heirlooms. It just so happens to be completely digitized and free! A son of Colonia the forgotten by Gustav Gottlieb Wenzlaff https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b28459&view=1up&seq=9 That might be more specific than what you're looking for if what you want is a more general text. This is about the history of the Russian Germans and one family's migration to the Dakotas.
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Jan 27, 2021 02:41
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Also up on skimming some of that book, I should note it has some pretty gross glorification of The German Race and talks about how Russian Germans were purer than those back in the German Empire. It was published in 1937. So, y'know.
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Jan 27, 2021 04:30
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That's a weird take on inductive reasoning, I guess. As someone who has significant experience with psychedelics I really don't consider it similar to religious experiences. That's just me though.
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Jan 27, 2021 05:36
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me, catching up on religionthread: a Satanist? oh no me, a few posts later: not bad
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Feb 24, 2021 04:40
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Bourricot posted:I self-identify as a Reformed Protestant, but more due to heritage/cultural inertia than theological grounds (to be honest, I often struggle with some parts of Reformed theology). This is probably overly reductive but the mainstream Protestant take is usually that faith and accepting God's grace is what grants us salvation, but if we truly have saving faith then good works are a natural outgrowth of it. The good works don't "earn" you salvation, but if you're not doing good works your faith isn't very genuine. Something like: faith -> God's grace -> salvation -> good works as a natural consequence of that saving faith Salvation is a product of faith alone, but good works are a necessary product of genuine faith. What comes first, the saving faith or the good works? edit: to try and match this with the boat analogy - you're in a life raft with a paddle and emergency rations. You're not going to get to shore by paddling, it doesn't make a difference against the vast ocean (of sin). But you want to survive, so you paddle anyway and eat/drink the rations because of your desire to live and reach safety. It's the right thing to do. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Mar 4, 2021 22:09
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Keromaru5 posted:Also, the Orthodox likes boat metaphors as well--the Church is the new Noah's Ark, Christ is the captain, who helps the Saints with steering, and the canons are the Rudder. first read this as "cannons" and was trying to figure out what Orthoboat is shooting at, maybe demons or something??
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Mar 4, 2021 23:45
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Lutha Mahtin posted:gregorian calendars load the cannons with righteous shot and prepare to fire a broadside volley at the Filioque and also instrumental church music
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Mar 5, 2021 00:57
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Zazz Razzamatazz posted:So what are the differences between the Orthodox churches? If someone was going to take Hey Guns' advice and become Orthodox how do they choose? from what I recall, They're supposed to be national churches (Russian, Greek, Romanian, Serbian, etc) but the patriarchs fight over who gets jurisdiction in the US. The differences between them are more political than theological. Each church is going to use its specific language and mostly be attended by members of that nationality/ethnicity. Greek churches are more likely to have
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Mar 5, 2021 01:49
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CarpenterWalrus posted:Keeping an entire human being around as humble-drip is some next-level Buddhist smug game. I just wanna say your (chill, measured) Satanism and sincere posting is an interesting and appreciated (imo) contribution to the thread. In my opinion. In local news,  COMPUTER. ENHANCE  oh deer
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Mar 15, 2021 04:42
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Christ is risen indeed!
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Apr 5, 2021 01:04
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docbeard posted:One of the ways Menno Simons described what he called "true evangelical faith" (speaking of loaded religious terms!) was that it "becomes all things to all people". I'm not a hundred percent sure what that was intended to mean but this discussion has made me think of it a lot. how would the history of Anabaptism have gone differently if it was Womenno Simons??
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Apr 15, 2021 23:52
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Oh boy um er this is certainly A Take https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/teenage-pregnancy-vs-the-success-sequence/ quote:The Conservative Case For Teen Pregnancy The writing is also terrible. Someone ate two whole thesauruses for breakfast. (I am not at all a fan of Walther, to put it lightly)
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May 7, 2021 02:54
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NikkolasKing posted:What is sex if not sexual intercourse...?  You're making some pretty extreme (and kinda gross tbh) exaggerations and assumptions here. I think you could just stop at "people looking for casual sex are probably not looking for deep, spiritual connections from those interactions" and leave it there.
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May 10, 2021 01:49
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TIL apparently Buddha prescribed cow urine as a medicine for most/all diseases and ailments. It's one of the Buddha's most ignored teachings. http://www.meditation2.net/htdocs/Books9/Bhikkhu_Dhammajiva_The_Buddha_Medicine.htm I don't have a better link, was just told this offhand
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May 10, 2021 19:06
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2024 02:07 |
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CarpenterWalrus posted:I've always understood Carnaval and celebrations like it to be sort of release-valves for otherwise pent-up and repressed urges. They typically come just before or after periods of abstinence like Lent, right? On a smaller scale, evangelicals hold revivals in the same tents, on the same grounds, with the same organ player and audience as carnivals. Anton LaVey was inspired to write the Satanic Bible in part because he played organ for both the carnivals and preachers and saw the same people going to both events: first to get freaky, then to repent. And, just because the Church allows carnival, carnivale, carnaval, etc. to exist, doesn't mean that they condone the typically promiscuous activity that happens there. I still see carnaval/carnival as part of the cycle of guilt/forgiveness that is Christianity's bread and butter. guilt: butter forgiveness: bread grace: toaster??
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May 10, 2021 20:14
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