Are we like so insecure that we need these birds circling around all the time? Every national intelligence agency has some hawk in it in the US. — Shawn

Well, the best explanation I think Ive heard is that its the best way to contain them. Its better than prison. It doesnt need to be hawks and doves. Thats just what he chose to call them.

There is another thing. On which one bases ratoinal hope! The hawks cannot outnumber the doves, or the community in which they are hiding collapses from self destruction. Because there are always more doves in total, the total community always advances slowly, albeit not linearly. Two steps forward, one step back )

The US is in love with hawks and eagles. — Shawn

Yeah!

Luckily, we still are homo sapiens, despite such variance in psychology and sociological traits. — Shawn

Well, not necessariily, havng studied psychology at Oxford, I can say having talked with Professor Richard Dawkins, author of "the selfish gene." There does APPEAR to be one speciies, even down to physiological structure; but there are differences in neural activity that divide Homo Sapiens into two main subspecies. Dawkins called them hawks and doves.

• In order to function successfully as predators, the hawks mimic the behavior and appearance of doves, but have no compassion, empathy, or any capacity for experiencing higher emotion beyond physical and sexual gratification. Hawks are usually solitary, although sometimes they hunt in packs
• The doves, on whom the hawks prey, have developed far more sophisticated mechanisms for even more than just higher emotions, because they enable more advanced ideas such as community support, knowledge sharing, and even training of hawks they have caught to work in packs and use in military conflicts.

The problem is, the two subspecies are not clearly separated by biochemical genetics alone. The theory is that there is a higher-order "social gene" that exists within the subconscious constructs of our minds, rather than the purely "biochemical gene" that exists in physical mechanics. And he wrote a book about it. Its pretty interesting )

Yeah, people are repugnant. Some... — Shawn

Well here's how I deal with it. I think there are several species that look exactly the same and can interbreed. I dont know if its genetic, or environmental, or what, but I just dont think of them as the same species as me any more. It did work, thinking that way. I started feeling good about being a human being again. That's the extent I had to go to it, personally, on this problem.

I'm not talking about killing pet cats, fuck that shit. — Shawn

ok.

I used to be totally against the death penalty. Well as you guess I like animals and anture and stuff. So when I read that some people broke into a zoo and killed two white rhinos so they could take their horns, I changed my mind. I wrote the state attorney general saying they should enforce the death penalty for that. And guess what, they put a sign up at the local zoo saying that the state considered poaching wild animals in a zoo so heinous a crime it could resultin any punishment up to and including the death penalty. I guess I spoke for the state on that one.

I think there's one of those white rhinos left in the entire world. One.

Yet, the problem persists, and continues to persist. Should we just delve into some thought therapy, or hippocampus memory insertion? — Shawn

Should we? omg! After a black gang shot my cat, and living in a very poor area at the time, the police just thought it funny. I have to say, I really wanted those kids in jail for life. Shooting at my house windows, that was another thing entirely. Thats up to me to defend myself. But shooting a pet cat, which has no defenses at all against it, that is beyond my ability to comprehend. Shock therapy, brain surgery, I dont know. Prison for life, definitely. What could a person do next after shooting my pet?

Im hoping you'll be aqble to tell me that with all the opinions you're learning, lol

Irrationality in the extreme if I may be so bold! — Shawn

maybe so. on the other hand, 'protection of the herd,' when it is as large as ours is now, does not lead to definitive, rational solutions either. I think it is fair to believe that society continually tries for something better, in a two-steps-forward, one-step-back sort of way. It doesnt seem a hopeless situation.

Then why do we still struggle with it so badly? Is there any room for progress? — Shawn

If you excuse me taking a step back for a moment, yesterday I was watching David Attenborough's amazing nature commentaries, this one about two musk oxen, a ton each, running at each other's heads at 15mph. That is like falling off a bicycle and hitting your head on the ground at 30mph. After each head-on assault, the two beasts stood dazed for a moment, and one could not help but wonder why they continued at all. Then Mr. Attenborough quietly explained, if they did not carry on keeping their heads pointed at each other, then one would run into the other's flank and rip it open, possibly lethally.

I thought about that quite a bit. It seems to me a biological explanation is not as simple as most make out. Taking that weve not shown ourselves much more evolved than musk oxen, despite advanced intellect, one reaches a new conclusion. It is protection from *future abuse of the herd* that is the DRIVE for the emotion of revenge. However, we perceive it as a direct personal need for revenge for oneself, because our brains are wired for extreme egocentrism.

Regarding justification for revenge, it's been rather clear from more advanced scientific research that current remedial systems often do NOT work as well as outright fear of of future reprisal. Not that fear of future of future reprisal works that well either, considering the high recidivism rate in this country. On the other hand, remedial systems SHOULD, theoretically, work best in the long term, if sufficient investment is put in them. So really it's the expense of making a remedial system thats the hurdle. Frequently stated is that the USA has more people in prison than anywhere else in the world, and more than in the Soviet Union during the height of its 'repression.' Together with other social factors, one is led to wonder whether the all-out commitment to freedom as a primary principal is actually that good for a society in total. However the worship of Goddess Liberty has been shown to produce more economic success, which means, however much the current system of punishment in the USA may not be as fair or as corrective as in other cultures, such as the Netherlands for example, its here to stay and we have to accept it for what it is, despite innumerable irratoinalities.

Im sorry. You got as far as reading my first sentence. Thank you very much, and please excuse me for being so lazy as to answering both your questions on one line instead of separating them. If you would like to read the rest of what I wrote, by extapolation, you would have 4,000 or so questions, so please excuse me also for writing such brief answers.

politicians make use of whatever they can to control the world
— ernestm
Which?
delusional fantasy, sometimes bordering on psychosis
— ernestm
What? — Zophie

All of them. It varies.

Well all these questions can be answered with a concept of the Holy Spirit. The idea is that thè Spirit will lead us in the right direction. One alone may be deceived but it harder for the entire congregation to be deceive and when we here the truth the Holy Spirit will help us recognize it. Of course this only works if you believe in God before hand. — hachit

ALL of my questions cannot be answered that way, because ALL the OTHER churches that WERE EXCLUDED by the Nicene council ALSO said they were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and there is no way to tell WHICH OF YOU ARE HAVING TOTAL FANTASIES BORDERING ON PSYCHOSIS.

For the fourth time, all churches except some modern ones and the quakers BASE

>BASE< = ARE FOUNDED ON, DRAW ON, REST ON, RELY ON

THE HOLY COVENANT AS FIRST DEFINED IN THE NICENE CREED. THAT MEANS THEY ARE >BASED ON< the Nicene Creed. It does not mean they have adopted the Nicene creed themselves. It means they are FOUNDED ON, DRAW ON, REST ON, or RELY ON the holy covenant. The holy covenant is the idea that sacrifice used to work for cleansing sin. But from the moment Crhist died, salvation is ONLY POSSIBLE through asking Christ, and only Christ, for forgiveness in prayer. According to this doctrine, even if you dont know, and never had a chance to learn who Christ is, thats the only way to get into heaven. Thats what it says, and thats what virtually all churches are based on.

So you don't understand me AT ALL. NOT EVEN your one sentence criticism after I asked to repeat what I wrote was correct. My advice to you is to STOP TALKING LIKE YOU KNOW EVERYTHING PERFECTLY because as per first point you could end up on psychiatric drugs. Thats what usually happens to people who talk like you. Ive seen it more times than you want to imagine.

Good luck.

The biggest problem they realised was that there was no unified doctrine and so the nicene creed along with a few other was put into affect to be that unified doctrine. — hachit

That’s what they say, isn’t it. Why is that necessarily true? Who said it was necessarily true?

Why is John 3:16 so much more important than any other of Jesus teachings on how to find the kingdom of heaven? Who said it was more important? God? What does God do about people who never heard of Jesus? According to the doctrine they all go to hell. Is that the right thing for a benign, loving God to do to His children>

Have you noticed, despite almost all denominations accepting the primary doctrine of the Holy Covenant, many worshipping it in communion every week, it does NOT unify them? Why can virtually no one go to a church of different denomination at all? Or if they do, they have major arguments about secondary doctrines and cant just accept each other as they are? Why is that exactly? That's clearly a violation of the primary creed of the holy covenant. Why do all the churches claim their own creeds are mutually exclusive, if they are all saved by the doctrine of God killing himself for the salvation of all?

Hence, does it not strike you as odd that a committee attempting to define a state religion would deliberately make a creed which excluded many churches at THAT time? Even when it was first written, this creed caused much disruption between different denominations. Why would a committee with the charter to make Christiantity a state religion DELIBERATELY define a creed which caused distuption to the state religion in the first place? Obviously they were not unintelligent people. Why did they NOT write a more inclusive creed at the beginning, then refine its theological principals later?

Didn't strike you as odd before, did it? Maybe it should?

However because the creed said nothing about castration the debate was not over. — hachit

The FIRST LAW of the CANON was no castration. CANON, not creed. The CANON was much more important to churches at the time. It was written FIRST. Then 25 YEARS LATER they finally got a creed together. As I said, there were alot of things in it, but the two most significant primitive and savage ideas to note here are

(1) It was deliberately written so as not to exclude OTHER Gods. The covenant is named as exclusive. But it does not say the Trinity is exclusive. And this is important, because it allowed Constantine to continue saying he was a human God. They had to do that because Constantine was hiring him. It was never rewritten. None of the new versions say the Trinity is exclusive either. Even after the popes stopped calling themselves gods, papal infallibility has been claimed since 1870. Human gods continued to run Roman and Byzantine empires up to 1453 AD.

(2) The second primitive and savage concept is that a God's blood must be shed for all sin to be washed away. Now this does remain a matter of opinion, unlike the God Emperor thing that finally stopped 1200 years later.

To me, this covenant thing of 'only one way to afterlife through Christ' is JUST AS INSANE as the Mayans blood letting of its kings to get good crops. To me, its voodoo or something, frankly. To me, it just seems uncanny to me people continue to follow it without ever thinking they are behaving like Neanderthals. Currently, there are many such Neanderthals saying the creed was written to unify them.

But the historical evidence, given that the Nicene creed SHOULD have been more inclusive of other interpretations to make a unfired state religion, is that castration continued to be a problem, even after the canons were issued. The council discussed less exclusive versions of the creed. Origen and others said, the less exclusive versions did not mandate the first canon forbidding self castration. So they rewrote it until we have the current extremely restrictive version. Now, church authorities do not want to undermine their own authority. That is the ONLY reason the primary condition in the Nicene creed has not been changed.

And they do not even want anyone EVEN TO THINK about how the creed was written the way it was to stop self castration. So it continues to be the basis of almost all churches even in the current day.

As I’ve repeated this two or three times now, I have to ask you repeat back to me what I am saying, first, in your own words, before telling me its wrong again. thank you.

Personally, I just noticed one day it said 'Baptist' on the sign. One time I asked the pastor 'what is Baptist? What makes this a Baptist church?'. He said something along the lines of 'oh it's from John the Baptist.' Maybe I didn't pay much attention but I don't ever remember him speaking about him once. — Outlander

LOL!

Well Ive only been to a 'good baptist' service, that is, 'white baptist,' once, and I was as much perplexed as you about the point of the thing, But I did go to several 'bad 'baptist' churches: Russian baptist, and "omg I am the only white person in here" baptist.

They were both REALLY nice to me, and both tried to find me a girfriend to marry. Unlike the white baptist one where I was 50 and the youngest person there, there were a huge number of young adults in the russian and sourthern ones. The first fact I could not help noticing was the enormous size of the families. In the Russian one, they were even arranged in lines, sets next to each other in each pew, from tallest to smallest, sort of like duks with ducklings, and many had five or more children, with two VERY proud parents.

Both the bad baptist churches asked me to baptism services, during which about half a dozen people were dunked entirely underwater. The Russian one was in a river, and the Southern one, it had an arch over the altar with a jacuzzi thing on it.

I like jesus' baptism. Its one of the few times in the whole bible someone was nice to him. When talking about his life rather than death, its almost entirely about people chasing him wanting this, wanting that, asking to heal this, asking to heal that, saying to explain this, syaing to explain that, poor guy! One he keeps talking about loving one another, but do people want to think about the nice things that happened to him much? No, that doesnt happen very often in the bible.

So they really liked me saying that, and after only 3-4 services, I found myself standing in front of a future wife elect. The Russian girl was REALLY HOT. We dated a couple of years while she was single, but I was 30 years older, and I said she really should marry someone her own age. Her father was kind of confused, almost insulted, because I clearly loved her very much, and he didnt understand why I said paying the $25,000 dowry he wanted was backwards, and he should be paying me, and I would have paid actually, but then I die way before her and she's alone, so I couldn't. The African American girl was nice, not as sexy, but I couldnt date her, I was living in a mixed neigborhood and the black gangs do not take kindly to white people taking their own.

After I was set up with a girlfriend, they kind of just left me alone, and other families besides those of the girlfriend didnt even want to talk much, except about business. I did notice, outside the churches, the baptist families really did not seem that 'religious,' and did not discuss the sermons or any theological issues, it was all taken rather much for granted or ignored. Except for the baptisms, which were really important. Were you baptised with the dunking thing, and how old were you? That seemed to be the landmark feature: adult baptism.

Well, I appreciate your faith. I do. I think its good you stand on something good. I could quibble with the ratoinalism of believing that Christ actually had to die and be reborn. I could assert that he 'just' went into a coma and came to again. So what if he did. What if he did? You're a baptist, so you'll understood this. He came to wrapped in bandages. He could have just lain there, cleaned up, scent of myrhh around him, but he didnt. He got up. He culdnt walk on those feet. He had to tie splints on his legs to stand on those feet, splits held with bandages wrapped around by hands like sticks, with usuable fingers. He stood up, pushed a boulder aside, and walked out, without complaining. That's enough for me. Without complaining. Not a word of anything bad to anyone, even doubting Thomas, love all around. That's enough for me. He was dead enough as it was, and dead enough was dead enough already.

So they want to say his blood was shed because God had to shed his own blood, to keep the laws of sacrifice. They want to say that, fine. If that what pleases them, fine. Thats what the nicene creed says. Fine. It's only the exclusivity of it that I find difficult. Why do I even have to believe he actually died? Hadnt he suffered enough to make his point? Wouldnt it be even more amazing if God's son saved the world without actually needing to break the scientific laws of His Father's Creation?

Personally the whole death of God being necessary for redemption thing is, sorry to say, um,. well, barbaric to me. We are told to look to a benign, loving God in the afterlife. Well, I cant imagine a benign, loving God creates a Universe where blood sacrifice is necessary for forgiveness. Its like some tribal, voodoo thing that just exceeds my bounds of rational acceptance so much, I would have to reduce myself to an imbecile with an IQ of 70 to accept it.

But what would a baptist church say to that, I wonder? Its not as if I havent been excommunicated by other churches already.

I'm not sure I'm following here. I mean I might have to go do something else but everything I was doing before having to do something else was still what I was doing, regardless. The verb still has meaning. — Moliere

So yoiu're saying you were listening, then stopped, then started listening again? Well that makes sense to me, sure. It was your thing about 'was I listening to the whole piece of music or not' that didnt make sense to me. Maybe thats too much of a false dichotomy, lol. Anyway its an interesting thought even so )

After looking at the wickapeta article I see that you misread, that was there reason the council was called it had nothing to do with the Nicene Creed. Wich I'm assume you did actually read. — hachit

Im sorry I have no idea what you are talking about here. At all. the council addressed many other issues, but the biggest problem they had with church behavior at the time was castration. Its often drawn as being an Atis faith, but frankly, theres no way that could have suddenly made it all the way to the far end of the roman empire from Phrygia. Thats ridiculous. Its mostly from biblical verses, frequently quote Matthew 19:12 now, but the far more common one is 'if your hand offends you cut if off,' and yes people were cutting off their hands too.

As I wrote, and I didnt want to go into that level of detail, they tried to stop it, and the people who were doing it carried on, and argued with them. So they made a creed and kept revising it unti it was strict enough to stop it, a generation later, which finally brought the self mutilation almost entirely to an end, for which we can only be grateful that humanity did not decide it was a good thing. There is only a few cases of extreme masochism cited in William James Varieties of Religous Experience later. Its not a pleasant subject, and if you wish to argue about it, thats the current book to read, and please find a sadist to do argue with you, not me.

Regarding your other statements, the problem is, many people isolate particular phrases, sometimes deliberately out of context, to make a point. The practice is called 'cherry picking' and its particularly popular in church sermons and eulogies of all denominations. Exactly the same practice is used for promoting Islamic terrorism. That is a philosophical point.

All the examples you give derive from different interpretations of the Nicene creed. If you ask the churches, they will say so. There are a small number that have even more oddball or different assertions that arose around the turn of the last century, at which time a very large number of churches split off and most have disappeared.

The remaining ones to my knowledge are the 7th day adventists, mormons, and Jehoavahs' withnesses. The shakers are gone but the memonites are still around in small numbers. Also there is the Unitarians, but due to internal conflicts they now dont even consider themselves necessariiy Christian. Other fringe beliefs include the quakers, which were christians but now are even divided on theism. Other than that, all Christian churches are founded on the Nicene creed. the main branch of churches points to the 'fall' of quakers and unitarians to uphold the necessity of keeping to traditional principals. There are splits regarding iconery, succession of saints, etc, and some have winnowed to a more fundamentalist position, but they still all are based on the Nicene creed's statement of the Holy Covenant, that shedding of blood is necessary for God to grant redemption, and as I say, that is an extremely primitve, and almost savage, concept.

But, the issue seems to me to become one of a desire for self-annihilation. Why is that? — Shawn

As you are considering desire, and its value, perhaps you could also look to the buddhist monks who are immolating themselves to death in Tibet. After all, one's personal reaction to desire is a fundament of Buddhist philosophy.

castration was handled by the the power of the church (at the time the council of apostles) not the nicene creed. — hachit

To resolve this diffrence of opinion, submit your change to the wikipedia and see if others agree with you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea#Promulgation_of_canon_law

The nicene creed made because people were questioned the divinity of Jesus and\or God. This was a problem because the sacrifice means nothing if he was less then God then he was not the perfect sacrifice. — hachit

Your deductoin relies on acceptance of the Holy Covenant, and frankly, it is a savage and primitive concept that sacrifice is necessary to correct a human fault in the first place. You are asserting your creed as if you have divine authority to know it. You don't. See:

The differences between creeds, both within and across religions, are human inventions, not God's invention. — ernestm

There is no rational reason, in terms of philoosphy, why God would need to sacrifice his own son in order to fuflifll some kind of law which apparently you insist even God must obey. See statement above:

Then there were others that believed in two Gods one that was evil (the God that the Christian belief now) and another that was trying to save us from him. — hachit

Irrelevant.

Lastly the Christians are stll debates salvation, i believe in by faith, others the book of life, and others good works (there the ones I know but there could be more). — hachit

nonsensical. Pelase revise to indicate your meaning.

And I believe this is true, because I've seen evidence. — neonspectraltoast

Sadly though such experience is unprovable to others, so its not actually something that is helpful philosophically.

There's a lot of pssible answers to that question, from feelings of despair, though philosophical nihilism, to psychosis causing illogical thought processes.

Part of it is a person's internal value system. People just don't find continued physical exisience worthwhile. This extends beyond suicide itself to, for example, martyrs voluntarily letting themselves be fed alive to Nero's lions.

I was deeply religious for many years before I started to learn to ask the right questions. — Qu King

Well welcome aboard. As introductory advice, you may want to click 'reply' at the bottom of a comment when you write something in response, so that the board sends a notification to the commenter. Maybe it takes a couple of tries to get right )

You might find that philosophy is often about discovering there are better questions than the ones you thought were right to ask in the firust place. I hope you discover some nice friends here.

Thank you for your reply. I take it you are rather disinterested in considering whether the Nicene creed should not contain statements of exclusive rights to redemption through belief in it alone?

I should mention that I do try to update the original post to include any valid comments, and I just did so, from some comments on another board.

Why does it matter if you die? You won't be here to have any feelings about it. — Cidat

Well, that's not necessarily true, but it's certainly a fair deduction from the material. Maybe the problem you have is that you are right, and there is no reason for anything to matter from a material sense. Science is cold, and philosophy does have alot of trouble trying to state what meaning should be in a purely objective manner, to such an extent, any attempts to state meaning objectively are frequently meaningless to the inquirer, no matter how rational the attempts are.

That means one ends up looking to the subjective for meaning, rather than the objective, so it becomes a matter of belief. The philoosphy of belief has been unable to resolve differences of opinion on subjective meaning, and it ends up becoming religion. I do find myself repeating that alot here, lol.

There is no religion, it’s a lie — Qu King

I did come back to this forum because I remembered a large number of people having problems with nihilism, solipsism, and other such depressions. I did start a thread on this topic here presenting a more academic and rational interpretation of Christianity, in one case, without requiring any acceptance of supernatural events.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8180/how-much-is-christs-life-miracles-and-resurrection-a-fraudulent-myth
Due to various objections the first post in the thread is now very long. But if you find any of the questions it addresses interesting, starting with the fact that the life of Jesus was not made up, and onwards from there, I would be glad to discuss it with you on your own thread.

First, this is more of an errant thought on my part -- a musing. — Moliere

I did get drawn into your thread, but on reflection, it seems rather a contrivance to me now. Why should the word 'listening' actually have meaning at all if we interrupt a piece of music to do something seeming more important at the time?

This thing about the desire of the Nicence council to assert religious authority over the state has gone on long enough, and is almost entirely OT. I'm starting a new thread on it here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8256/of-christianity-dominating-the-secular-world

revisions complete for the day, may 8, 10.30 am pst.

Call me cynical if you like, but I think the Councils and the eventual establishment of an orthodoxy were to be expected as a religion which sought to regulate so extensively the lives and beliefs of all persons and forbid any contrary thought and conduct took hold of the apparatus of the Empire. — Ciceronianus the White

Call me cynical, but the Nicene council had little to do with the power of religious authority. They were a minor set of clerks on the edge of things, not considered to be that important at the time. In fact, at the time, not even Constantie took them that seriously and continued to do his Sun God thing,

Call me cycnical, but I think it rather irrefutable the domination of thought and conduct arose from Augustine, not the Nicence council. As a side point, his Apologetics is the first major attack on Arianism. But far more importantly one can find the first major atttack on denial of secular law in Augustine;s City of God, which states secuar law (and therefore secular authority) is insignificant compared to the needs of personal salvation. That was siezed upon by those thirsting for power as a legitimate excuse to depose the Roman empire and place religious authority in its stead.

Nothing the Nicene council said directly challenged secular authority. the council only chalenged the divinity of secular authority, which was ignored by both the Romans AND the Christian church. Call me cynical, but the Byzantine empire and even the catholic church for large portions of its history, continued to claim divinity in the head of state--Just as the Egyptians did, for thousands of years previously. Their claim to Godhead for a human being totally ignored the creed's statement of there being only three Gods and one at the same time.

I think it's pretty well established that the (first) Council of Nicea was called by Constatine at the urging of a synod of bishops primarily in an effort to address, and condemn, the claims of Arius and his followers and establish a set of rules and doctrine to govern the Church. — Ciceronianus the White

And it is clear, given the above, that their primary concern, in establishing a set of rules. was to stop castration Instead the council mandated salvation as possible ONLY through personal prayer. That was the central point of the Nicene creed, and the first law in the Nicene canon. FIRST RULE. The first rule was not about authority or doctine on the number of Gods. The first ruel in the canon was to stop castration.

Nonetheless, Constantine's successor emperors Constantius and Valens were Arians, and Arianism thrived for a time, so other Councils were held at which other controversies were also addressed. — Ciceronianus the White

Because, whatever an academic thinks, the control of power deemed by most people as the only reason for religious authority was actually still not important to Christian academics, all of whom were at the time more concerned with the dismaying behavior of people abusing their bodies than with who should run the world how. They couldn't even really have an opinion on it. They were hired by Constantine.

I doubt very much that the Council of Nicea was held primarily to address self-mutilation or castration, certainly one of the less enchanting aspects of ecstatic Christianity and of the worship of Attis, consort of the Great Mother, and Dionysus, which preceded it. — Ciceronianus the White

A minor finge sect from Phrygia that had little to do with it. There are about a dozen vierses in the NT cited as supporting self mutiliation. My thesis, that the Romans had no prior experience of an emotion arising from taking personal responsibility for one's own faults, would be much more likely given the epicenter of the problem was Egypt, not Turkey. I would account that to [1] the dilution of the original message in Mark's gospel which was written there by conflation with new notions on the Holy Covenant from the Old Testament, which was previously rather unknown there due to political conflict between Egypt and Judaea, and [2] to some extent ideas from the Atis cult but not very much, as it had never been particularly dominant, and [3] Egyptian myth, which had many forms beyond reckoning during the start and evolution of the Byzantine empire, and not one single interpretation as popularly held in modern culture.

That's beautiful )

Thank you for asking ) It took me 57 years to figure out what to say, during the last decade of which I made a fool of myself quite a bit on this and the prior forum.

When I suddenly figured it out, it took me about 3 weeks to write 45,000 words on it, and three years virutally comatose to recover from that. Now I'm fixing it, and I came back here to share bits of it.

This time, I dont feel like such a fool any more. I see people suffering or in trouble. Often I identify with it and can say something to help. And there are still solipsists, nihilists, and evangelicals alienating themselves from other people. Mostly they think other people alienate them, but its really the other way around in my opinion.

"Heaven starts right now. Maybe it continues in the afterlife, or maybe not. We'll only know for sure after we pass away. Meanwhile, heaven starts right now. Heaven always starts right now.'

Thats called lateral thinking. If you practice it well you will never be want of anything. Best wishes )

No really Im serious. I first saw it on a cube wall in LSI Logic in 1985. It never occured to me it could apply to philosophy, lol, that's brilliant.

Part of my position is that other people are entitled to their own beliefs.
— ernestm

I see Gnostic Christianity as having two mandates. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

But I wrote in exactly the next sentence, lol, I dont accept mandates on doctrine from other people.

What exactly do you think you are doing? Had it occurred to you, that level of TOTAL oblivion to what other people are saying is not going to help you, after you made other people want to bash their heads against a wall? I told you this before. You are not doing Gnosticism any kind of favor with the way you are talking. You told me to bite you, I did, and now you are doing exactly the same thing again. I guess next I will have to get the Monty Python 4-ton iron weight to drop on your head or something.

Gee lol what a brilliant idea to apply that to philosophy! I don't know who invented that triangle thing, but it's been around quite a while, at least since the mid 1980s.

Have you thought of any OTHER things like that to apply, like the pyramid of needs for example?

Well, I am sad to hear you have so negative a view, but I do understand it has become very popular to be cynical of the history of the church, a favorite pastime of many, and quite a fad. It used to not be like that very much at all until the 1960s, so maybe its part of an ongoing correction that hasnt leveled out.

It seems to me, the single fact that the very first rule in the Nicene canon makes castration wrong is enough evidence that the council really did have a specoific reason to write the Nicene creed, at the time they did, with a specific goal to stop even more spread of the self mutilation. I dont see how castration could ever be a particular 'nuisance' to people in power, nor why it should be.

However, since the creed was formalized, it has been grossly abused by a large number of people as cynical as yourself but on the other side of the religious divide, which is frequently used to dismiss the entire idea of Jesus actually having anything valid to say too, because if people in power abused their power by whatever means they could, in this case the distortion of a divine message, then it means the divine message is also wrongfully labeled as evil.

Part of the problem I have personally with this problem is that I can't tell the difference between the people at each extreme, besides where both sides stand on their beliefs, the attitudes just seem to be exactly the same, except pointed in the other direction at each other. Both sides, and you too, use vast generalizations that lump everything and everybody into a religious or anti-religious weapon, to the complete exclusion of any other motivation that does not fall in line with a rigid, one-size-fits-all condemnation.

I think the Nicene council had very good reason to want to do something good, and tried to do good. Not everything they did was perfect, but one thing's for sure. They stopped the castration. Later on, various weird monks would masochize themselves as described with disgusted relish in William James 'variety of religous experience,' but I also do not generalize that to be the overall state of how Christians want to treat themselves, despite many times being told that real Christians are always masochists, I just dont find that to be true.

I already am a gnostic christian. Im not particularly concerned with what others say I should believe. I spent several decades figuring out my current theological position. I know its unique, and I am not particularly concerned if other people disagree with it. Part of my position is that other people are entitled to their own beliefs. I may state corrections on fact. But I dont really have anything to say about your position, except I will not respond to mandates on doctrine at all.

Actually she fell off her bicycle while bicycling and hurt her knee. She exercises every day and has a body that doesnt quit, lol, but I am old and fat and ugly. Sometimes I think I am the luckiest man in the world. So saying, I do have some other things to do for a while. I hope you have a nice day )

You know I thought about it, and frankly saying the first law of the Nicene canon prohibits castration really is enough.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea#Promulgation_of_canon_law

Sorry to ask you to do such a horrid thing, lol.

A billion years is a billion years sleeping. — ztaziz

yeah!

BTW it's not 43 billion years but 13.8 billion years which I have heard, but if God is eternal then the universe always existed even before the big bang. — MathematicalPhysicist

thank you fo rthe correction. Numbers and names dont stick in my mind as well as they used to, and I tend to over-rely on my memory. thank you very much!

Well I can share my own experience, which actually has worked out fine for me in the end. I'm 60, and Ive had alot of problems with greed, vanity, and in fact also, promsicuity, even with my wife, for which reason we are divorced. But I do take marriage vows seriously, so she may have she left me for a man with more money, but I shall not marry again. Before I married someone I'd dormed with at Oxford, I dated a girl who was half Japanese and half Mexican, who had already had a child, and my problem was, she made all the decisions for the child, so I never felt I was really part of her family.

After divorce I was really confused what to do, and as I had been in a Buddhist monastery for a while after leaving Oxford, I asked a Tibetan monk what to do. He said welcome to Thailand. Well it took me a while to figure out, lol, but now I have a very beautiful and amazingly intelligent Thai girlfriend. Currently she is saving money for university, and with my help she plans to start in the fall. Im very happy with her and could ask for nothing more. I feel like I am the luckiest man alive sometimes )

I should caution you, there are girls not so good in Bangkok, but some richer ones who are very nice but you'd really have to go to Thailand to meet them yourself before they'd want to date you at all. They dont have the silly thing about older people being stupid that seems so predominant in this country. The rural girls are fantastic, its almost unbelievable such people still exist in the modern world. They dont speak English as well as you might expect, but before judging it, its worth trying to understand how they think, because being Buddhist they are not prone to long dialogs in the first place. In general, they are not greedy, they are not vain at all, and they are perfectly open to considering whatever kind of exclusive relationship or not you want. As my girlfriend is much younger than me, and would need to marry again when I die, I encourage her to have a boyfriend her own age too, so she can marry him and have babies, by which time I will be too old to want sex anyway. So it took a while to figure out, but now I am very happy, and if you want to talk with some thai girls, there is a board call thaifriendly where you can find out what they are like )