To further add to your point, dynamite is really good at killing humans, but no one wants to outlaw that.

Why would enjoying pain that is caused to you be evil?

And yes, nostalgia is inherently a mixed feeling. It is a longing for a past that combines both positive feelings for the memory and negative feelings for the loss. The current usage of the word has drifted somewhat.

People are complicated, emotions even more so. Also, not everything is reduceable to pure good or evil.

Sadists and masochists come to mind. Or the mixed feelings of things like nostalgia. I think you are oversimplifying human emotional range.

I was not aware someone else had discovered Truth. /s

I think gun control, like many modern causes, uses good intentions to mask bad ideas.

Seems like a rather rosy and narrow interpretation of what "woke" has become.

I don't know that it's possible to discuss "woke" effectively with how much it's been used and misued over the years, but frankly I couldn't be happier it is going away. I honestly blame it, its supporters and their "end of history" nonsense for the past decade or so of political failure.

I suppose that tracks with "the least shall be the greatest among you" and whatnot. I do not have a lot of direct experience with Catholicism.

Perhaps we are arguing semantics then.



Interesting.

Does the Parable of Laborers not contradict this theory somewhat?

Is it open to a theologian to conclude that there is no god and remain a theologian?

A philosopher may do so and remain a philosopher. — Banno

I would not think that constraining philosophical beliefs to a specific framework and set of assumptions would make it not philosophy. It may not be *accurate* philosophy, but I would argue Theology is still an act of philosophy in practice, just a narrowly defined one.



Agreed; religion almost always mutates along with the culture practicing it. I would think many of the inconsistencies in long term religions often arise from trying to square beliefs from different eras cohesively.

I'm not sure I would agree. Theology is a subset of philosophy dealing specifically within religious thought, as I see it. Religion was the original philosophy, in a way, just operating with much less scientific knowledge and filling in the gaps with assumptions and pre-existing cultural ideas.

Wouldn't a god that can interact with imperfect beings, and lead them to the light, be better than a god who cannot interact with imperfect beings? — Banno

I would agree, though my understanding was that it was more our fault than his according to doctrine. It's not a requirement, but Christianity hits low self-esteem in an interesting way. Either way, if I were an all powerful god, I would do things very differently, lol.

But the higher point is the methodological one made above, that theology consists in justifying a given series of doctrines, not in their critique.

It starts with the conclusion and works through to the explanation, unable to reach an alternate conclusion. — Banno

Agree here as well. I added more of your statement than intended, I think. Although I do think your point fails to account for how often the church disagrees and schisms over those doctrines, which possibly indicates that it's not always *entirely* self-affirming. Coming to similar but different conclusions is still coming to different conclusions.

It then asks :

Why is such suffering needed at all for God to forgive or heal? — ChatGPT

Now that is a good question. Here's an issue worth considering. Chat is of course only inferring, from a huge DB of word strings, the appropriate next words in a string of words that starts with Frank's OP, and this is what it comes up with. The question follows from Frank's OP. — Banno

I think part of the post I made directly before yours has some insight there.

I have seen some interpretations of hell as being bad not as a punishment so much as the natural state of being separated from God and his love/will, and because God is perfect, he cannot interact with imperfect beings directly, hence the necessity of Jesus as a sacrificial intermediary. — MrLiminal

Perhaps a bit of a tangent, but one interpretation of Christianity I really liked both before and after losing my faith was C.S. Lewis's interpretation (Anglican, iirc) that hell is not necessarily eternal. In one of his apologetic works (I forget which one) he posits that God's power of redemption is so powerful and outside of time that if a person truly repented in hell, they could be raised up to heaven in a way that recontextualizes it as always having been purgatory instead. So in his interpretation, hell is only eternal for people who truly never repented and was shown to be almost atomically small, because evil has no real power (or some such). Imo this feels a lot more internally consistent with the Christian redemption narrative and neatly answers some of the more ethically dubious aspects of eternal damnation for non-eternal actions. Tbh from what I recall of his apologetic works, C.S. Lewis was a pretty laid back Christian and some of his insights were pretty interesting.

I also think there are some interesting parallels to draw between the idea of living God's will with other concepts like living your Tao or other forms of enlightenment. I have seen some interpretations of hell as being bad not as a punishment so much as the natural state of being separated from God and his love/will, and because God is perfect, he cannot interact with imperfect beings directly, hence the necessity of Jesus as a sacrificial intermediary. In that reading, I think it's possible to see similarities, but perhaps I'm reaching.

I tend to agree with your cyclical reading of the universe, so theoretically the only points where time would "end" would be in the infinite singularity between the formation of realities. Like how the covers of a book mark its beginning and end, but the row of books stretches on into the distance.

Thank you; it just tracks too well to not be intentional. The Holy Spirit fulfills most of the functions that people of the time would have likely associated with women, and it makes sense that a God of all creations would have both a male and feminine aspect. I have just rarely seen anyone agree with me, so this is nice to hear.

What if a person derives pleasure from suffering or suffering from pleasure? I'm not sure this is complex enough a theory to account for the human condition.

1) I mean, I agree that it is very easy to read God's actions as toxic and abusive from the outside; the Christian narrative only really works if you start at the assumption that God is good and correct. Internally though, they would likely attribute injustice and evil to people not obeying God's will.

2) That sounds like a personal preference, but I see where you're coming from. Again, it makes more sense though when you start from the assumption that God is perfect and good. It doesn't really work otherwise as written, unless you want to start getting into the more obscure stuff like gnosticism.

The argument would likely be:

1) Because he made us and loves us (he's called "the Father" very intentionally)

2) They would say love without choice is not love. Supposedly God let all that happen because he didnt want to force us to love him. Whether or not that's right or ethical is typically a foregone conclusion, because God is usually interpreted of being all good if not the actual personification of good.

The argument I was told was that without the ability to choose, humans couldn't have truly loved God. God allegedly gave us free will knowing we would fail because he wanted us to CHOOSE to love him instead of being forced to, which was why he planned for Jesus down the road.



Also sounds vaguely gnostic

I was taught that it wasn't so much rules beyond his control so much as the sin-nature makes us incompatible with his pure divinity. The distinction does seem a bit semantic though. Our particular brand also heavily suspected that God was already planning for Jesus before it happened. Supposedly the angel Jacob wrestled was an early Jesus manifestation.

Neat! Saving for later. It always made sense to me, as the Holy Spirit seems very feminine coded by the standards of the religion

Yeah, the argument is that humans were permanently tainted by the fall, which required the sacrifice of Jesus to make humans redeemable. The logic is that humanity fell through the actions of Adam and Eve and accepting Jesus is the way to use free will to get around our inherent sinful nature.

I would argue (at least some) Christians believe God would prefer no one go to hell, and the sacrifice of Jesus was the alleged evidence of that.

Glad I'm not the only person who realized the holy spirit maps to the Christian God's feminine aspect

As a former Christian, I was taught that the point was that God is perfect, and, by his nature, cannot allow imperfection/sin into heaven. The sacrifice of Jesus was supposedly the price God paid in order to make human souls redeemable. It wasn't taught like you're describing; it was sold as the sacrifice of Jesus almost acting as a sort of loophole God used in order to save humanity from its own imperfections.

The difference is we can control and monitor the number and distribution of refugees and legal immigrants. And no, I disagree about the education angle. Often those children end up disrupting education (sometimes through no fault of their own), barely passing through school, learning just enough English to get by and then continuing the cycle with the next generation that now grows up stuck between two cultures and with little to no appreciation for assimilation or education. I saw far too many classroom where the 3-6 Spanish language students were relegated to back of the class. The teachers usually either end up letting them do whatever until they have time for them, or spends the majority of class catering to them over the 20-30 other students. There are success stories, but for the most part it just seems to result in generational ghettos that, again, just makes them an easily exploitable underclass. You have still not addressed that concern.

I also disagree on your assessment of the bus campaign. It worked because northern cities got a tiny taste of the issues the south has been dealing with for decades, and it nearly broke them. The fact that they changed their tune so quickly with only a fraction of the problem coming their way should show that this IS in fact a major problem and racism is not the primary factor.

I would also argue this is fixing systemic failures, as we have allowed this to be a problem since at least the 80s. People have been trying to take the compassionate route since before I was born and it's only made it worse. I do not believe we ever have to justify deporting people who are here illegally, and the fact that you think we do means we will probably not agree on this.

Mostly when I say too far I mean they are using showy but ineffective methods by only going after individuals (and sometimes getting it wrong) instead of the ones hiring and transporting them. I'm also not crazy about giving the Feds even more power. But also, what do you want me to do, start a revolution by myself over something I'm mixed on? I may not fully agree with how it's being done, but part of me is glad *something* is being done. My feelings are ultimately somewhat conflicted, but that usually just gives people an avenue to discredit you on the internet.



I feel like I answered that already by saying I did not agree with the assessment that illegal immigration is harmless. There are many knock-on effects that aren't always apparent but are obvious to anyone that has lived with it. A good example is education: no one is being served well by having a glut of students in public school who do not speak the native language that divert already thin attention and resources. The immigrant students will almost always lag behind due to the difficulty of the language barrier, and it further increases already large classroom sizes with students who need special resources to learn. I have seen it first hand, both as a student and as an adult working alongside education. And again, if it's such a universal benefit, why was Abbott's bus campaign the most effective political stunt in decades?

It partly comes down to the problem of being separate individuals, but interconnected. — Jack Cummins

Something I have often pondered. I have thoughts on that regarding the self and the transmission of ideas. Perhaps what we experience as empathy is being receptive to the emotional ideas their words/body language/tone of voice is sending. Empathy receives and mirrors the message; Sympathy observes it was sent.

I will admit, I get a bit heated on this topic due to prior experiences, so I would like to be more fair. I don't like that racists are getting off on this, and I do think the current administration is taking things too far. I didn't vote for them either. I just don't see any good options going forward on this issue, but I am willing to hear alternative solutions. So often the alternative just feels like advocating for an underclass, which hardly seems better.

I do believe they are similar yet distinct. The way I see it, "sympathy" is recognizing someone else's situation and that it's not a situation you would want. "Empathy" is feeling their feelings with them, a kind of emotional mirroring. I think it is possible to have too little OR too much of either. I consider myself an almost pathalogically empathetic person, but if anything it's made me more cynical and less compassionate over time as high empathy can be easily exploitable. Sometimes you have to put your own oxygen mask on first.

I just do not accept your assertions, and I am beyond tired of hearing any opposition to illegal immigration as racist. The figures you are quoting are put out by the very people who stand to benefit from the system as it exists. If it's such a universal good, why was Greg Abbott able to bring the north to its knees with a few busses? It's to the point where I am forced to assume people use the accusation of racism only because there is no actual stronger argument below the surface, while they tacitly benefit from what is essentially an indentured servant class that disenfranchises local workers.

Also, "they commit fewer crimes," and "they are afraid of reporting crimes" seems contradictory.

Get old without government support or proper cultural assimilation, at that. A recipe for disaster.

It's frustrating that the only progressive issues people seem to care about anymore are strictly social instead of class or economic.

It's a difficult conclusion to come to in today's world, but I believe a necessary one. Too often the road to hell is paved with good campaign promises.

Agreed, though this seems incredibly short sighted on their part imo with the looming automation and AI revolution currently happening around us. We're headed for great depression style unemployment in the next few decades, and they're actively making the problem worse. How I wish we weren't ruled by clueless octogenarians.

The only way they could interfere with that is to control the elections and the internet - in which case we don't live in a democracy or representative republic, but an oligarchy that controls the flow of information. — Harry Hindu

I believe this to be the case.

I might have agreed before 2016, but the powers that be have shown they will do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.

Agreed. Part of my frustration and eventual break with the Democrats is that I have been pulling my hair out since 2016 trying to make them realize they are creating their own monster. Now that it has happened, I can't say I feel much sympathy. Hopefully they get their act together soon, but I highly doubt it.

Agreed again, I just don't see a realistic way forward for that to happen.