The Upper Room - 2011-08-25 (page 2 of 4)

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12:13 PM

@waxeagle good afternoon to you, too :)

I've seen "Armenian" mentioned a couple of times, which doesn't make any sense because Armenia is a country

I do find Arminianism (which is foreign to me)

so is "Armenian" a typo that should be corrected?

@dancek Arminian is to Arminianism as to Calvanist is to Calvanism. A spelling with an 'e' is probably just a typo.

ok

See the disambiguation header at the top:

Arminianism is a school of soteriological thought within Protestant Christianity based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) and his historic followers, the Remonstrants. The doctrine's acceptance stretches through much of Christianity from the early arguments between Athanasius and Origen, to Augustine of Hippo's defense of "original sin." Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the Remonstrance (1610), a theological statement signed by 45 ministers and submitted to the Dutch states general. The Synod of Dort (1618–19) was cal...

I've met more Christians who have never heard of Armenia than of Arminius, although they tend to be foggy on both.

12:30 PM

@dancek yes it should be.

@Caleb I can imagine. Wesley and Methodism are familiar to me, so Arminianism turns out not to be as foreign as I thought...

12:47 PM

Anybody think this could be reconsiderd now: christianity.stackexchange.com/q/41/30

Yes? Vote to re-open. No? Maybe you can lend a suggestion. The OP is trying to work it out but all the other comments are now out-dated and I'm out of ideas.

@Caleb I think he is on to the right track to get it reopened.

There is one glaring typo, but I will cast a reopen vote.

@Caleb I've also flagged the comments for cleanup.

@Caleb I'm also all for re-opening. That's an important question historically, and I think (with that formulation of the question) way more fact than speculation/opinion.

@dancek yeah..did anyone actually answer my history meta question? Heck did anyone even see it?

@waxeagle don't remember seeing it, looking at meta now...

@dancek It does have one answer...but only 11 views

12:54 PM

@waxeagle I see... I do agree with the one answer.

There probably could be a better answer, but I can't really come up with anything better right now.

@dancek Right, but whats the line? I don't think anyone's approached it yet so my examples were on the on-topic side of the line. But its going to be a much more important question next week

@waxeagle I can't really say. Can't think of a history question that someone would consider on-topic that I wouldn't, but my imagination is the probable problem here.

Hey y'all, what do you think about near-duplicating answers as I did with christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/456/… and christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/15/…

@dancek Right obviously off topic should be pretty clear, but the question is about borderline stuff.

It felt a little wrong, but the answer was almost suitable for both and the questions themselves weren't duplicates.

They are really dupes, we should vote to close and ask @HedgeMage to merge them :)

First question. Which one was posted first. Second question Which one is better?

1:03 PM

@waxeagle but they have slightly different answers. To "what laws should we obey" one answer is that what Jesus said doesn't apply to Christians whereas what Paul etc said does. The other question is only about the law of Moses.

@dancek Then the narrower one should be closed.

if you can post the same answer to both questions then they are dupes.

@waxeagle that would be christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/456/…

@dancek VTC'd.

I'm just not quite sure. They're not at all exact duplicates.

@dancek given, but "exact" is perhaps too exact a word :)

1:06 PM

Also note that I did give different answers. Every subsection has slight modifications.

@dancek Right, but honestly the moses question is just a subset of the laws of the bible question. A good answer to the laws of the Bible question should cover the laws of moses. Which reminds, the question with my best answer should probably be closed too...

basically if we have one foundational question on the NT interpretation of the law the others ones probably don't need to exist...

although I am starting to waver a bit on that...doesn't hurt to throw a close vote and see if others agree :)

@waxeagle well, maybe so. In practice very specific questions seem better to me than very general ones.

@dancek this is true. It provides a quick easy reference. Which is going to lead me to refrain from casting a close vote on the leviticus question...

@wax eagle: I got the typo you mentioned.

@compman thanks.

1:12 PM

@dancek I saw it, but since I agreed with the answer I upvoted that and moved on. I don't think you can divorce Christianity from history and still have much to talk about.

@dancek The broader one could probably be split into two questions so that the major part isn't duplicated. That's a big question that will garner a lot of research and input, it would be a bad one to have spread across duplicates.

1:26 PM

@waxeagle oh, that one... I think it's different because the cited Bible passages have a specific answer (yours) that doesn't rely on a larger doctrinal framework. The question phrasing could be changed to a more specific one, though.

@dancek yeah I think the leviticus question stays. I haven't VTC'd it. The other two I was talking about though are dupes IMO...

@Caleb you make good points.

Anyone awake in here? I need help with some Biblical references for a meta post.

@HedgeMage here!

Yay! I knew you guys wouldn't let me down.

I need examples of Jesus being nice to / hanging out with folks that others might disapprove of. I know there are several, but my box of religious books is stil...somewhere...packed in the basement.

1:43 PM

@HedgeMage well, Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) would be the most prominent example IMO

and where does one look these things up online so I can read it and then link to it?

I'm writing a post about all the "are such-and-such-denomination really Christian?" nonsense.

biblegateway.com/passage/… for example

And is it too much to say, "You can spend your time glorifying yourself by shouting at everyone about how right you think you are, or you can spend your time glorifying God... which do you think He would prefer?"

@HedgeMage don't say that if you're unsure

I don't quite grok the whole "glorifying God" thing (does he care what we think? Does he have self-esteem issues that are somehow helped by our mortal worship?) but it seems to be a pretty powerful meme, and I always try to address a site's community on its own terms.

1:48 PM

@HedgeMage Frankly, I for one saw through that on the first night this site was online.

@dancek Sadly, some people didn't:

The way you SE employees have reacted to questions of debate makes it clear to me that you have no personal experience of cooperation between Christians.

The fact is that where you have two Christians you have two opinions.

@ElendiaStarman I'm aware of what a theory is on both ends ya know ;)

0

Q: Is the Wayseers Movement a Christian movement?

The Wayseers uses a lot of spiritual and Christian terminology, including the phrase "The Way", and in their manifesto, they refer to the Will of God, as well as many other phrases from other world religions. Is this some sort of new-age mumbo-jumbo? Or is there something of value to a Christian...

theology movements

But we can be brothers and sisters regardless.

1:50 PM

<--- was going to be a microbiologist once

@Hedge BURNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN :D

@dancek Then explain it to me, please. I admit that my experience with Christians as a community is mostly just with Catholics -- I know other individual Christians but have not dealt with them on a large-group scale.

user image

@HedgeMage I've yet to meet any Christian that I wouldn't disagree with on something, but we all also agree on something.

(sorry, in a slightly overly bubbly mood this morning)

@RolandTaylor I appreciate the levity.

1:52 PM

@HedgeMage To me, a lot of the most fruitful conversations have been the ones where we all disagreed on some major point and went through the trouble of explaining each view.

@dancek Tell that to the users trying to vote entire groups off the island! I mean, are we looking to revoke prayer licenses? Get restraining orders against Jesus? Ban the sale of Bibles to the "wrong" people? How is this productive?

@HedgeMage Well, I am trying to tell that to the community (see my posts)

@dancek We spent most of the A51 process dealing with demands that some Christians (or people deemed by an elite group to not be "Christian enough") be banned from the site or at least moderator-hood.

@dancek I know you aren't doing it... I'm writing the meta post for the people who are.

@HedgeMage please just delete anything asking "Is x Christian" they aren't constructive and should be burninated

For the most part, I've found the people I met in this chat to be quite open-minded and reasonable.

1:56 PM

@HedgeMage have we met?

Frankly, the only trouble I've seen so far was when discussing LDS, which in actual fact no one else but themselves consider Christian. It looks to me that we can't get a consensus on this one so we'll assume that they (and JWs) are Christian whenever we have to.

@waxeagle I have been closing and deleting, but they keep coming, so we need a meta post.

Hi, my name is... :P

lol

@dancek The JW question was a problem, but for different reasons: it was asked without context. I need to finish the related meta.Parenting.SE post so I can link to it in one on Christianity's meta about that.

@HedgeMage yeah....

1:58 PM

hi wax, comp & jrista

@RolandTaylor Good morning.

@waxeagle persecution.org/2011/08/24/… :(

@dancek and you haven't seen the other trouble because I have a feed of new questions and an itchy Delete finger :P

@HedgeMage ok, I believe that :)

@dancek Look I don't believe they are Christians either. But its not going to be constructive to the site to not take questions from them. The best we can do is present the truth as we see it. We can't stomp on their beliefs here even if we disagree...

3

1:59 PM

@RolandTaylor Was it an actual church or a mission?

@waxeagle++

@HedgeMage I didn't read the full thing yet. I think it was an actual church though to my understanding.

nods

In that case, I have the deepest sympathy for those who lost their church.

@waxeagle I agree now. I still think it could be on-topic to discuss the reasons why they're not regarded as Christians, but I'll keep my mouth shut for some time :)

+1 wax

@dancek I think that "what is the source of conflict/disagreement between $group and mainstream Christianity?" could be on topic -- but for the sake of my sanity please don't post it until we've got more of your users trained to behave themselves.

2:02 PM

I don't like their beliefs, but I don't hate on them. Ofc if we were to stick to the fundamentals of what Paul said we wouldn't give them the time of day, but in a case like this we'll have to allow for some tolerance :)

@dancek better questions are questions directly related to their belief system. See the reformation of the Luther vs. Catholic question.

@waxeagle Yes, but I for one don't want to ask LDS/JW questions here though I could ask quite a bunch of hard ones.

Maybe if they gain enough visibility I won't care anymore.

This is strangely parallel to other pagans' feelings toward High Church Wicca.

@HedgeMage ?

@dancek you are a...?

2:05 PM

ack, phone call... brb

Okay, I'm back.

@RolandTaylor I'm mostly active in an interdenominational campus organization

Okay

I don't really like to categorize myself as my beliefs are perhaps a cross of Pentecostal, Lutheran and Catholic. Or something.

lol

that's.... wow...

@dancek that's...diverse...

2:07 PM

interesting?

Also, there are a lot of questions I don't really, really know the answer to.

As I mentioned yesterday, "paganism" refers to all the religions that are unrelated to the Abrahamic storyline (everything other than Christianity/Judaism/Islam/Satanism)... it's a big and diverse group, and while we don't all respect/like one another's beliefs/practices, we usually get along okay at least in the US.

The exception is known as High Church Wicca.

@HedgeMage I think I get it. they take Pagan and give it new meaning and get attention, perverting the public understanding of pagan?

in my definition, Muslims and Satanists are pagan as well actually...

@RolandTaylor I won't argue with your religious beliefs, but etymologically speaking, that is incorrect.

@waxeagle Something like that. They are very loud and "One Right Way"-ish. They've tried hard to become the public face of all paganism, and in some places succeeded. They are the ones that the Goddess rituals with knives and naked dancing stereotype is based on.

2:12 PM

@HedgeMage gotcha.

well for me it's a matter of a simple definition based on what I know, but I could always be wrong...

@waxeagle And they are the only American pagan group I know who actively proselytize.

@waxeagle The most irritating part is...

@waxeagle According to their official scriptures, the reason they are "right" is that their traditions are older than other surviving religions. Too bad their religion was invented in the mid-20th century by two guys named Gardener and Alexander (who opposed one another), and drew more heavily on Christianity (mostly Catholicism) than any other faith in creating their tradition.

rofl

@HedgeMage hilarious.

Yep.

2:15 PM

@HedgeMage what they seem to practice sounds more like Animism than Paganism and if they trace those roots its very very old :). But that is also rather meaningless

yeah it is

Time to pull out my fav passage :).

@waxeagle Well, I don't buy that how long your religion has been around validates it, but even if I posited that for the sake of argument -- their religion is younger than my parents.

16 He burns part of it in the fire.
With part of it, he eats meat.
He roasts a roast, and is satisfied.

Yes, he warms himself,
and says, “Aha! I am warm. I have seen the fire.”

17 The rest of it he makes into a god,
even his engraved image.

He bows down to it and worships,
and prays to it, and says, “Deliver me; for you are my god!”

@HedgeMage Yeah. I win because my religion is the oldest is at best a poor argument. its like saying you should use this home remedy instead of this new medical treatment because its older.

@waxeagle Yep.

2:18 PM

By that kind of thinking, cya guys... gonna go jump off the edge of the (flat) earth and see if I can get to heaven faster :).

lol @RolandTaylor

@RolandTaylor careful you might actually land in hades :)

if some old art is to be believed

So... just out of curiosity, has anyone here read Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett?

Hey, is there any way to communicate why I rollback someone's edit? I got this christianity.stackexchange.com/posts/502/revisions and seriously think the original was way better for many reasons.

@HedgeMage no, but I love Pratchett

2:21 PM

I have not.

@dancek click edit and then in the dropdown select your version

@waxeagle It's quite hilarious if you are willing to take religion in a non-serious way. It's the story of an angel and devil who are secretly best friends, and they lose the antichrist and screw up armageddon.

@HedgeMage nice, sounds hilarious. His humor is awesome. Is it set in Discworld or is it seperate?

It is separate.

let me find a link...

@HedgeMage will check it out/convince wife to get it for the kindle

2:22 PM

@waxeagle my point was, I would've liked to inform the person why I thought their edit wasn't a good one

or just buy the cheaper paperback...grr

@dancek you can use the comment on the edit, leave a comment on the question or ping them in chat.

else there is no way to contact a user directly

@waxeagle It appears to be available for Kindle:

amazon.com/Good-Omens-Accurate-Prophecies-Nutter/dp/0060853972/…

@waxeagle thanks, thought so

@HedgeMage my complaint is that the kindle edition is more expensive than the paper back...

@waxeagle the kindle is 9.99 the paperback 10.19 (unless you get it other than through amazon and, I assume, pay shipping)

2:24 PM

@HedgeMage mass market paperback 7.99...

and 4 for 3...hmm I feel an order coming on...

Ahh, I had missed that one, you're right

already has too many books

Either way, if you are willing to have a sense of humor, it's hilarious.

@HedgeMage cool

Though there are a few jokes you may miss if you don't know Catholic doctrine (not many).

2:26 PM

@HedgeMage gotcha.

Anyhow, it's an excellent read.

Cool, my reading queue is getting too long. Currently working my way through Something Wicked this way comes, then its Clash of Kings, then Fahrenheit 451...

and I'm a slow reader so Clash will take me months....

@HedgeMage can [Good Subjective, Bad subjective] automagically point to the blog article of the same name? If find myself having to go find it all the time...

also [Just you] pointing to the image would be nice.

user image

(image in question)

@waxeagle That's up to the dev team, but if you suggest a shorthand for referencing blog posts in our "reference" category on meta I will point it out to them.

@HedgeMage can I do it here/on Gardening/RPG or should I do it in the den of iniquity that is MSO?

@waxeagle Current policy is "pick a meta of your choice and the Community Team will make sure the right eyes see it"

2:39 PM

@HedgeMage excellent.

@waxeagle I find it interesting that you are both an RPG fan and Christian -- every church I know of where it has come up has spoken strongly against RPGs (tabletop gets more attention than video games and such), though I've never been able to figure out what their issue is.

@waxeagle Have you any insight into why it is so ofter discouraged/forbidden?

@HedgeMage Its a couple of common misconceptions. I have run into some folks who won't touch Sci-Fi or fantasy at all because they believe it violates a Biblical proviso against magic.

However, D&D specifically and by extension RPGs (because D&D is by far the best known one) got a bad rap in the 80s partly because of some lascivious pictures in the books and also partly because they were wrongly blamed for a suicide and at least one criminal case

from at least one source I read the officers involved were looking for a reason and D&D was an easy scape goat

Again the whole magic thing plays into it too

rolls her eyes

So it's another case of "this is strange and we don't know what it is, so ban it just in case it is $bad_thing_vagely_similar_to_this" ?

@HedgeMage pretty much.

@HedgeMage exactly. If its looked at critically there is nothing wrong with it. ITS ROLE-PLAY.

its the same as acting. Christian actors are often asked to portray things that are against their beliefs, they typically don't balk, they play the role. It also doesn't or shouldn't change what they believe

Just because I play and evil necromancer robot doesn't mean I am one. Some Christians don't seem to be able to separate the two.

2:48 PM

that makes much more sense than the typical position.

@HedgeMage yes. Christian nerds everywhere are trying to battle against the typical position.

@HedgeMage meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/129/…

the same problem with computer games, heavy metal etc.

used to be that the accordion was considered sinful.

By the way, @waxeagle have you tried the auto-comment script yet? I have a bunch of pre-defined comment templates that I use for common stuff

Here's the only one I had to write custom for CHristianity:

@HedgeMage no I haven't but I may. Thankfully we don't run into too many mod comment situations on Gardening, but we do get the occasional auto-close...

Christianity is not a game show. We aren't here to vote people off the island. For the purpose of this site, please assume that the answer to "is X Christian?" is always the same as "does X self-identify as Christian?" It's the only way a group with such diverse cultures and beliefs can get along and do something productive.

I'll phrase it better and link to the meta post once the meta post is written.

2:51 PM

@HedgeMage that's excellently written btw.

whoa. does a close vote auto comment with the dupe link for me?

cuz it just did on meta :)

It just might :)

@HedgeMage is that new today?

@waxeagle I have no idea, TBH.

tries to decide his voting strategy for the day

decides to hand out nice question badges

@waxeagle as in, who should be voted off the island?

3:04 PM

@dancek Exactly :)

hmm, I guess it would be a good idea to take the time to upvote everything worthy until my votes for the day are up

@dancek voting is really important. I can't stress it enough.

don't forget to vote on questions -- 10 of your votes are only good for questions :)

@HedgeMage I'm aiming to be the first to get Electorate :)

yep... I do vote while reading, but I haven't taken the habit of specifically searching for stuff to vote

3:08 PM

@dancek I like to hit the 9s on the sort by votes page :) always feels good to give out badges

@waxeagle :)

"Vote limit reached, You can vote again in 8 hours"

hehe

gah! too...many...tabs

Where did I leave the meta post I was writing?

@HedgeMage no clue, but I feel for you, at home I browse on a bitty netbook...going between that an my 23" behemoth at work is an adjustment

That would make me nuts -- the small keyboard as much as the small screen.

My 8yo has a netbook, but I stick with 14" laptops or bigger, and work gave me a docking station with a nifty 30" widescreen.

Have I mentioned that I <3 Stack Exchange?

3:15 PM

@HedgeMage they do seem to be excellent...

I have to say that I dreamed about working for Fog Creek in college

did you ever actually apply?

@HedgeMage nah. I needed a job in the area (my wife got pregnant during my senior year of college) and I got hooked up with a pretty nice programming job right here in Chattanooga.

Ahh.

Yeah, Fog Creek people are all on-site IIRC.

Stack people are all over.

Except for Chaos Team -- they all work in the office I think

@HedgeMage Thats what I thought. And half the reason to drool is that incredible office they seem to have (if the pics on Joel's blog are to be believed) :)

I've never been there, but I'm pretty sure the pictures are accurate. We have a robot that drives around the office so we remote workers can see what's up.

it has a webcam, but afaict the mic isn't great

3:19 PM

@HedgeMage lol I saw the blog post about that :)...

:)

Ooh @HedgeMage I forgot to mention something significant in our RP discussion. The concept of Common Grace. (How i managed to forget it after it was pounded into my head for 5 years of college I have no clue).

Common Grace is a theological concept in Protestant Christianity, primarily in Reformed and Calvinistic circles, referring to the grace of God that is either common to all humankind, or common to everyone within a particular sphere of influence (limited only by unnecessary cultural factors). It is “common” because its benefits are experienced by, or intended for, the whole human race without distinction between one person and another. It is "grace" because it is undeserved and sovereignly bestowed by God. In this sense, it is distinguished from the Calvinistic understanding of "special" ...

Namely this

> Providential blessings to mankind - Human advancements that come through the unredeemed are seen as outcomes of God's common grace. For example, medical and other technological advancements that improve the lives of both the redeemed and unredeemed are seen as initiated by common grace.

Its sort of tangential to RP, but its strong justification for Christian's participating in culture at large

nods

Out of curiosity, are there any Christian sects that don't practice proselytization?

@HedgeMage I don't think so, its pretty clearly mandated.

That's what I thought.

3:28 PM

However methods vary pretty widely

From "in your face beat the devil out of you" To St Francis' "Preach the gospel use words where necessary"

I had an interesting discussion with @RolandTaylor regarding my tradition, and how it is not in conflict with belief in or worship of the Christian God in particular, but that it is incompatible on a social level due to the social practices of many/most/all? Christians.

I was wondering if there were any sects that weren't so incompatible.

While Christianity has a narrower definition of "family" and some social restrictions that my tradition lacks, there's nothing in my tradition saying you can't practice only a subset of what's "allowed". The first big bone of contention I could think of was proselytizing.

It's absolutely forbidden in our tradition. You cannot even do it to your own children.

@HedgeMage yeah most(probably all) Christians would have a strong issue with this. We really want our kids to grow up to be Christians. However, in my tradition we trust the spirit to work, we teach our kids what we believe and its up to them in the end.

Ours is much more strict than that. I described in on Parenting.SE let me see if I can find the post

@HedgeMage - true confession time for me. My parents are missionaries, their job is to proselytize. However, their methods are primarily twofold, through planting churches and doing social good (my mom recently got her masters in community development) by helping people use their money wisely and access capital. They present the gospel alongside it, but accepting the gospel is by no means a requirement of anything they do.

@waxeagle Here's the post:

31

A: How do you teach a child religious views?

I agree with Tim H insofar as requiring a child to pray when he is too young to have any idea what he's doing, besides folding his hands and repeating after you, is pointless. As to the second part of your question, how to raise a child without forcing your religious beliefs on him... I come fr...

@waxeagle Most (though not all) missionaries do serious cultural damage, and cause economic and political oppression even if it is not their intention. For example:

3:40 PM

@HedgeMage absolutely agreed.

@waxeagle My answer below

-1

A: How do you teach a child religious views?

As a Christian I think it's fairly clear both from church doctrine (of all the churches I've been a part of) and from the Biblethat we are supposed to "indoctrinate" our children. Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let the...

In order to promote the church they are trying to form in an impoverished village, the missionaries bring in food supplies to give away. It's very hard for locals to afford food, so they flock to the church. Local food sellers can no longer get a good price for their crops/livestock because there is a free alternative, so they move to another village or change jobs. Now the church controls the only food supply.

Assuming the church isn't going to give away food forever, and give it away regardless of whether or not the person asking for it has converted, while preventing new converts from trying to force conversion, they've doomed a lot of people to starve.

@HedgeMage yeah. this is not useful. my parents help folks use their own resources better. Its by no means perfect, but its a lot better than some of the efforts of the past. For example, they will gather a group of small business owners and have them participate in a savings and loan group. They put in a small amount of money a week (as little as a dollar),

they can then take loans out on the money the group has contributed to buy things for their business, they pay them back with interest. At the end of the agreed upon term for the group they all withdraw their money and split the interest income. it allows them access to capital without going through loan sharks.

Proselytizing is dangerous by its very nature. It can be done in a harmless way, but it usually isn't. Doing it without causing harm is way harder than most people think.

@HedgeMage agreed

3:45 PM

That makes a lot more sense that making the church a source of resources (the usual method) which the community then becomes dependent on for survival.

@HedgeMage yeah. thankfully some of these more modern theories are starting to infiltrate missions work.

@waxeagle If your parents can help that happen, good for them!

@waxeagle slow though ...

@CRoss agreed, its unfortunate.

@CRoss are you familiar with the Chalmer's Center?

@waxeagle nope

3:48 PM

@CRoss chalmers.org

it was started by some folks from Covenant College (where I went to school) and its where my folks got their first set of training in Com Dev

cool

my mom also does some adjunct teaching work for them...

btw, @waxeagle I'd really appreciate your opinion on my answer to that parenting question

@CRoss I think its a good one. We are called to teach our kids. Indoctrination has a bad connotation. The point about modeling the behavior we want to see in our kids is the meat of it. If we want our kids to grow up to be Christians we have to show them what a Christian looks like. We are called to teach them the truth, but modeling it is a much stronger lesson than anything we will ever say

@waxeagle yeah ... did I take that scripture out of context as was commented?

3:56 PM

@CRoss I don't think so. Like I said "indoctrinate" has a poor connotation.

but the first definition is "instruct in doctrine"

dictionary.reference.com/browse/indoctrinate

yeah, I wonder how often we struggle with our words having different connotations

> 1. to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., especially to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.
> 2. to teach or inculcate.
> 3. to imbue with learning.

as opposed to

> 1. to teach (a person or group of people) systematically to accept doctrines, esp uncritically

that last #1 is the one I'm used to, and in my (limited) experience with Christianity seems to be required.

the first definition reflects what I want to be doing to my child. I want to teach him what I believe. However I want him to think about it for himself and analyze it and decide for himself what he believes

My parents didn't, but most Christian parents I know whose children chose a different path stopped speaking to them and stopped letting them have contact with younger siblings, etc.

Also, if the children chose to believe something else (or like me, before I left the church, questioned too much or pointed out where the church contradicted the Bible or itself), the parents faced serious social consequences from the church and the community at large.

4:02 PM

@HedgeMage Yikes. This is a failure of the church at large as far as I'm concerned. I fear you have encountered some of the worst of us.

For example, the argument I mentioned to @RolandTaylor earlier... when I was 8 or so I called a priest an anti-intellectualist hypocrite and walked out because he said Jesus didn't want to hear from kids. They told my Grandma on me, and she did a lot of playing interference so my parents wouldn't be treated too badly because of it.

In my mind, I had Biblical passages to back me up, so the church had no right getting angry about it. When grandma took me to apologize I said "I don't apologize to heretics."

I feel kind of bad for my parents, and for my grandmother. They got in trouble over me a lot.

@HedgeMage lol it sounds like you had it straight here. I'm disappointed in your priest as well. Its a direct contradiction of scripture.

@waxeagle I was right, but I learned a long time ago that church (the institution) isn't about being right or about God, it's about compliance, regardless of what the Church (meaning Christ's community) is supposed to be.

@HedgeMage What was your parents tradition?

@CRoss Roman Catholic.

4:06 PM

nods

Tradition is a dangerous thing

Not every church is anti-intellectual. I grew up in a reformed tradition which can be accused of being overly intellectual

For the record, i was right and the priest wrong according to Catholic doctrine, too, but the Chicago archdiocese tends to ignore Catholic doctrine when they see fit.

@HedgeMage that has been known to happen ...

@waxeagle I'm sure they aren't... my point wasn't so much about the (clueless, arrogant) priest as about the fact that my parents and grandparents were given a really hard time whenever I "acted up" for not teaching me well enough to be the kind of Christian they wanted me to be.

It seems to be a cultural constant in Christianity -- parents must make their children believe as they are told, or else.

@HedgeMage I understand that. I remember rumblings about some of our pastors growing up because their children didn't behave in the "way they should go" so to speak....But anyone with their own kids should know that ultimately its their choice and you can't do anything about it.

4:13 PM

nods

Here's something I've always wondered (if you don't mind me randomly using the channel like an "ask the Christians" column)...

@HedgeMage sure. shoot.

Regarding the people who want the government to regulate who can live/have sex with/marry whom, who can raise children (with regard to whether it can be an interracial couple, a Christian/non-Christian religious person/athiest, etc), try to outlaw the use of contraception, try to outlaw vaccines against diseases that can be transmitted sexually, and so on:

1) are they really mainstream Christianity at work like they claim, or just a belligerent minority?

2) Is it just me, or is the Bible not spending nearly as much time worrying about sex as these people?

3) On what Biblical basis are they supporting things like jailing people who buy sex toys, trying to ban single parent or interracial adoption, banning vaccines, etc?

I mean, I've never heard of Jesus commanding anyone to imprison anyone -- I should think that mortal law would be considered by Christians to be a secular endeavor.

El'endia Starman

@HedgeMage On 2), well, the Bible DOES have this verse: 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 (NLT) - "18 Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body."

I don't quite have the support I want for this statement in my mind yet, but I'll go ahead and say it. I think that that verse shows that sexual sins are the "worst" as they corrupt the "temple of the Holy Spirit" whereas things like drugs and alcohol aren't quite so sinful (see 1 Corinthians 6 for kinda what I mean).

@ElendiaStarman Right, but that's a small portion of a very large text. My point is that there's no Christian political movement to, for example, expand Good Samaritan laws to states that don't have them, which seems to be a lot more like the sort of thing Jesus spent the bulk of his time on.

El'endia Starman

[nods]

4:23 PM

@HedgeMage what you're getting at is that Christianity at many times, including now is covered up in legalism. Yes.

@HedgeMage For a lot of this you have a belligerent minority. For some issues there is mass support. Its a case by case thing, but by and large belligerent minority is the answer here.

@HedgeMage true, but I am inclined to agree with @ElendiaStarman. The bible does come down pretty hard on sexual sin.

@HedgeMage None. There is some solid biblical backing for banning homosexuality and other deviant (to some) sexual practices. But the specific examples you mention here have no biblical basis.

nods

El'endia Starman

@HedgeMage: I read a quote from The Language of God that went along the lines of "People are rusty jars with clean water in them." So, like I've said before, there are bad (and not-so-bad) people of every stripe (= religion here) but that doesn't mean that the "water" is bad.

@HedgeMage we would be much better served spending out time advocating for laws like this than laws that enforce the negative parts of our world view on others.

@waxeagle I thought so, which made me wonder why I never see it happening. :/

But, I can't say that there's any large group that never sees a vocal minority driving them off course from time to time.

4:33 PM

@HedgeMage I wish I knew. I can say that part of it has to do with money...as in its hard to get people to give money to something they are for, its easy to get them to give money to something they are against

@waxeagle That's true in all politics.

@HedgeMage right. And honestly everyone does a poor job of representing their group in the political arena. I wish I could say we did it better, but I think we honestly do it worse than most other groups. We should present a better image of ourselves, but I think we often fall flat on our faces as a faith

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle And groups like the Westboro Baptist Church sure don't help...

@waxeagle I'm not sure how a worship-based faith can not do so... I mean, Jesus, like most objects of worship, sets a pretty high standard. I think some people think if they can't quite meet it they may as well do whatever is easy/expeditious/interesting at the moment instead.

@ElendiaStarman amen.

4:37 PM

(I could be missing something, of course)

@HedgeMage nope you hit the nail on the head. Its people that miss the point. We can't be good enough, we offer "filthy rags" to Christ and he cleans them up and makes them $10k linens before God. We can only do what we can and its not good enough without Christ

Our tradition is based on having a decent understanding of the world, and understanding how to grow spiritually despite the fact that one can't generally sit back and contemplate, ignoring the physical world for years at a time while you seek heaven/enlightenment/whatever. It doesn't try to live up to any gods.

I'm not saying it's better, just that on its face at least I think it feels more possible when you are starting out.

@HedgeMage I understand that. I have no desire to sit back and ignore the physical world while I am seeking heaven. I believe its a free gift given to me. I can't live up to the standard set by Christ. But because his righteousness is imbued to me I don't have to try.

wow wow wow....

I just say the @'s I had and kept reading...

Hedge AND gosh... wax my gosh...

please understand the purpose of giving away food and such before discussing it in an open chat like this

the Bible even said "when you are doing your "alms" (good deeds so to speak) do not blow a trumpet before you" in other words, don't do it for the recognition, or for the sake of winning others over

@RolandTaylor please understand the endless damage people doing missions/aid poorly has caused.

4:50 PM

that's the whole point of the concept of loving your enemies, taking care of orphans and widows, and in Acts, the point of everyone having everything in common

@waxeagle I understand that...

@RolandTaylor right, but if you are disrupting the economy to do it you aren't helping anyone

but just because some people do it wrong, doesn't mean that it should be referred to as "proselytizing" and using food to gain people's trust...

@waxeagle what?!

forget it

clearly you profess christianity but hold to tradition more than anything? or am I just reading you wrong?

I'd rather not argue on this...

good bye.

your reading me wrong.

@RolandTaylor amazon.com/Walking-Poor-Principles-Transformational-Development/…

@RolandTaylor I think you are misunderstanding my point. I didn't say that giving out food is bad. I said that it can cause harm that people who don't think beyond "it would be nice if these people had more food" don't see.

Hello guys

El'endia Starman

4:53 PM

Hello @JonathonByrd...you missed a lot of interesting stuff. :P

lol first time i've ever joined chat

it will probably get me in trouble by eating up my work time :)

@RolandTaylor Proselytizing is seeking to spread a religion through any overt means. We know missionaries are there to promote their religion (whatever it is), so that seems overt to me.

@RolandTaylor for whenever you come back. There is a distinction between relief and aid.
Relief - meeting an immediate need. Should be short term
Aid - meeting long term needs. Should be done with an eye for long term goals.
if I understand correctly @HedgeMage was complaining about people giving Relief when Aid was the more suitable solution.

El'endia Starman

@JonathonByrd: ...really? Oh boy...you would (probably) not believe the amount of discussion that has happened over the last three days... :P

I joined chat so that I could say how much I'm enjoying conversing with everybody here.

4:55 PM

@RolandTaylor I have been stating things in a similar way as @HedgeMage from a "tradition" perspective. Have I said anything you feel is clearly contrary to scripture?

@JonathonByrd its been a good time :)

El'endia Starman

@waxeagle and QUITE interesting, eh? :P

@waxeagle Essentially. Trying to use relief strategies in a long-term way only prevents real long-term resources from existing, like in that food example. Giving away free food sounds nice, until the food producers who can no longer make a living leave, so that "free food" is the only source of food, and it can't keep coming forever without strings.

@ElendiaStarman absolutely. I can tell that some of my views are already rubbing some folks the wrong way :)

@HedgeMage THIS!

As horrible as it sounds I keep looking at my reputation score and battling for first place hahah

lol

4:58 PM

so what's the topic here?

I missed the intro, you guys seem to be deep into a debate

@JonathonByrd I think we were between subjects actually :)

ok, no wonder im lost

@JonathonByrd we finished one debate, then recapped parts of a previous one that someone had missed.

May I propose a topic?

El'endia Starman

@JonathonByrd Hedge and wax had a loooong conversation about all sorts of things, with interspersions every now and then by other people.

4:59 PM

@JonathonByrd Go for it.

El'endia Starman

@JonathonByrd Sure!

Love

and our final judgement

I've been doing a ton of research on this topic

I proposed the question and then answered it because I really want to chat about this

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