thread: 2006-08-31 : I think my expectations are screwed
On 2006-09-08, Charles S wrote:
Sydney,
All that follows is (excessively snippy) side notes and retorts. If you have any interest in engaging with me, please don't do it over this stuff. I already wrote my big piece comment 93), and am still interested in your answer to my question there (not any of the here and now stuff, that is just profession of faith, not an argument or a question).
I repeat it here for your convenience:
What do you mean by Scripture?
Is it just well established first principles, or is it more?
Is it only well established first principles that correspond to what you think first principles should be (the ones that will help you jump across the chasm when God pulls out the infinite value trust game)?
That's my real question, the one I would be helped by your response to.
What follows is snark and witticism(or my best effort thereat) which you or others may find amusing, thought provoking, irritating or tedious. Like the professions of faith, they probably don't need or deserve an answer.
On Cthulhu worshiping Chaos magicians, the one somewhat Cthulhu worshiping somewhat Chaos magician I know (I think she worships Azathoth more than Cthulhu, but she does like tentacles...) definitely derives a good deal of strength and functionality from her practice. What you imagine that it will do to people is not necessarily what it will do to people. Your pronouncements are heavily trumped for me by her lived reality.
I see that I'm going to have to explain salvation, damnation, and "justification through faith"—which makes the whole multiplying infinities thing look simple and straightforward.
If you are going to start talking about salvation and damnation and all that (particularly the part about the chasm and the leap of faith), kindly admit that your religion is basically a Hellenistic mystery cult that uses the old testament as a talisman. Judaism is not concerned with salvation in the hereafter. Judaism is concerned with the here and the now. Judaism is concerned with how you best live your life for the rewards it gives us all in the here and now. A religion that is overwhelmingly concerned with the fate of the immortal soul may be (and obviously is) an historical descendant of Judaism, but it is not an extension or a continuation of Judaism. Nothing wrong with being a follower of a Hellenistic mystery cult, but claiming your religion is an extension of Judaism with a topping of Hellenism, when it isn't, is irksome.
But really-
Please, God, no.
Do you really not understand that it isn't that we haven't heard the Good News yet, but rather that your multiplying by infinities still looks like algebra on crack, even though we get salvation and damnation and the entire sick system of punishment and reward that you imagine God to operate by. I am no Christian, I was not raised as one, but rather to distrust the religion, child to a parent proud to be an atheist from a long line of atheists, but do you think that means I haven't heard of salvation and damnation, that I have not contemplated the infinite soul. Do you think that Vincent, raised a devout Mormon is unfamiliar with salvation and damnation? Do you not realize that this is our culture you are trying to teach us?
Don't answer, please, as this truly is rhetorical. Instead, look again at my question
What is Scripture?
-if it pleases you to address anything I have written.
