The Upper Room - 2013-09-05

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12:06 AM

I have an impression that becoming a Christian or Muslim is a piece of cake. In order to become Muslim, one just has to announce that there is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet. In order to become Christian, one just has to announce that Jesus Christ is lord and savior. (Funny how it's lord and savior rather than "master". )

I find it hard to imagine that Christianity stemmed from Judaism. Although Christianity certainly includes the Torah in its own holy book, the two religions just seem to contradict each other. It makes me wonder how they started in the first place. :P

I also wonder how Christianity became so big. Seriously, there are Christian hospitals, Christian schools, Christian seminaries, Christian orphanages, Christian iconography.

Christian icons of Mary, Mother of Jesus, usually make Mary so plump and cute, sometimes holding Jesus as an infant.

If I were a Christian, then I would probably attend a church with lots of pretty icons. :)

12:46 AM

@Anonymous I'd invite you to heck out just about any church to find out why its so popular :) You can learn a lot from your books, but as John himself said "I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete." It's not a head thing. It's a whole new heart

1:03 AM

@AffableGeek I think the secret is to not be the first to VTC. That just makes it show up for other reviewers. That, and keep the Review page open and check it every 5 minutes. ;-)

1:13 AM

You were WAYYYY ahead of me on the progress toward that badge until I figured that out.

1:32 AM

@DavidStratton So, what was your Catholic lifestyle like? :)

@DavidStratton I wonder what it must be like to have a Catholic grandmother. I have heard that there is a Catholic mother stereotype... or wait, is that the Jewish mother stereotype?

@DavidStratton How Catholic was your upbringing?

@DavidStratton Was your Catholic grandmother on your mother's side or your father's side of the family?

2:12 AM

1

Q: Can you go to heaven if you believe in the wrong God or Religion?

I'm 16 years old and am terrified of death only because I've always worried what's on the other side if there is one. And I've gone my whole life wondering what religion to believe in, what if it's the wrong one, what if there is no heaven at all? I just need an answer please? Just so I can liv...

heaven existance

This question looks like it's asking for pastoral advice. So, I rated it down.

I would probably recommend that the user (1) visits a counselor, (2) visits a psychiatrist, (3) visits a local pastor, or (4) consults the issue with parents and friends about the issue.

It sounds like a person who has a phobia of going to hell or heaven.

2:35 AM

-18

Q: At what point will we have to close Christianity.StackExchange.com for being too localized?

Fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I have a deep concern in the future of our beloved Christianity.SE. As many of you know, Christianity has been losing steadily to reason and logic, and even to some degree those who identify with it: we call them apostates, but they prefer the term atheists....

I really don't understand some people. If I had that many downvotes, then I would delete the question. Plus, this person uses his real name. Apparently, some people have no sense of shame.

I also don't see the point of identifying as Christian when you are not. Personally, I think the term "Christian" has a lot of negative cultural baggage that I don't want to be affiliated with. :P

@Anonymous for one, he actually can't. Once it has an upvoted answer he can't do anything about it. Secondly, his intent is to stir up trouble, he doesn't really care.

@Anonymous there was a time, and there are still plenty of places where identifying as a Christian provides a great many social benefits

note that we've never had a President who didn't claim to be a Christian. We've only had one who wasn't a protestant

@waxeagle Name one. :)

2:51 AM

@Anonymous sure, there are places here in the South, especially in very rural areas where you'd be ostracized for being an atheist.

@waxeagle In the Chinese language, there is a phrase, 不要脸, which means chinese.yabla.com/…. Literally translated, it means "does not want face". For more information, please check out the Wikipedia article on the sociological concept of the "face".

@Anonymous I understand the general concept of face (wrt saving face)

@waxeagle The concept, as Wikipedia suggests, is actually Chinese in origin.

@Anonymous I'm not surprised, though the general concept is present in several other cultures

(we spent a good bit of time discussing the concept and how it relates to cultural practices in a couple of different college courses I took)

ok, I've gotta go to bed. g'night

@waxeagle There have been rumors that Barack Obama is Muslim, even though he has confessed that he is Christian and has formed a closeknit bond with the Black Christian community.

2:57 AM

@Anonymous yeah...I mean his dad is muslim IIRC, but he's not, doesn't claim to be, never has claimed to be

and as far as that goes, I'll take him at his word, not his opposition's

considering he'd be the one most qualified to talk about his religious state

@waxeagle I lived in New Orleans, Louisiana in the '90s. I guess New Orleans don't count, maybe because it's urban, and my family and I were already immigrants.

@waxeagle I wonder if Obama raises his children Christian. Hmmm...

@waxeagle There are also several places where it is just unsafe and life-threatening to identify as Christian, because in certain areas of the globe today you can be persecuted as a Christian either by extreme Hindu nationalists or extreme radical Muslims.

3:29 AM

0

Q: I feel guilty, when I pray

Anytime I have a problem such as money, weight, being judgemental, martial problems...etc... Friends tell me to pray about it but I feel extremely guilty to pray about any personal problema b/c everything seems so petty compared to bigger problems such as children being raped and killed all over ...

This is yet another pastoral advice question. Sigh.

But this time, I expressed myself in a friendly, helpful voice.

I still flagged it, though.

However, I think this question can be made better by my question proposal:

Since the questioner is Catholic (there is a catholicism tag), the question can be thus: "Why do Catholics pray for other people?"

And the answer will probably be about Catholic intercessory prayer and the reason for it.

I don't mind praying for people. I think it's an affectionate means to show someone you care. However, when people claim that "prayer heals" and really don't do anything like offering medicines or seeking professional medical advice, that's when I think religion gets a bit crazy.

Then again, I suppose the doing part is covered by Catholic works. I suppose that's one reason to go Catholic, whereas Protestants seem to prioritize faith over works.

If I understand Sola Fide correctly, it seems to be saying that *By faith alone in Christ, you are saved," and works are somehow not required in salvation. I think the Catholic response is that works is the necessary and required result of faith in Christ. Therefore, good works is a must and can help you achieve salvation. I wonder if good works include actually giving medicines and not just "praying the illness away".

2

Q: What is a "child of God" from a scholarly perspective?

What is a "child of God" from a scholarly perspective? According to Dr. Donald Fairbairn's book Grace and Christology in the Early Church, it describes "To be a child of God is to remain a finite, mortal creature by nature but to share by grace in that very fellowship and life that characterize ...

Behold the question that needs no answer!

'Cuz I already answered it in the "question"!

4:27 AM

I am not sure if the following question would be qualified as a pastoral advice question. Here goes:

Good evening, friends

"How should you carry a conversation with a pastor about converting to Christianity?"

@Anonymous Was that posted in the forum?

@RSW That question is derived from my mind. :)

Ahh..so are you asking "How would a person approach a pastor if they wanted to convert to Christianity?"

4:30 AM

@RSW Yes.

Do you know someone facing this dilemma?

@RSW Just asking out of curiosity.

Interesting. I would guess most people wouldn't necessarily approach a pastor if they were interested in converting. Most people in that situation probably are outside of the church setting. But if they are inside the church fellowship, I suppose it could seem pretty intimidating to try to approach the pastor.

Maybe the answer will pinpoint exactly which questions will be expected in the conversation, like "Why did you choose to become a Christian?" and et cetera. A prospective convert would probably prepare ahead of time on how to respond!

Oh, so you are considering posting this (or some flavor of it) as an actual question on the site

Does Elisha speak?

4:34 AM

1

Q: Is a little warmth too much to expect?

In reference to this question, a person, maybe because of the security of anonymity, came to this resource to seek an answer to a spiritual question that thousands, if not millions of people wrestle with all the time. And yet, instead of offering even a modicum of support or comfort, we are goin...

discussion pastoral-advice-questions

I have heard that rabbis are particularly trained in handling this type of situation, and Judaism discourages conversions. They are more about quality than quantity.

What does it mean when someone posts a link to a forum post...like "Does Elisha Speak" did above? (I'm new here!)

@RSW That's the "Community" account. it was renamed for this site for fun. It's an automated account that performs certain automatic tasks, such as posting links on new posts in Meta to this chat room.

@Anonymous I would think any follower of Jesus (pastor or not) would be thrilled to have someone approach them with this kind of question. As far as being trained to respond...the Holy Spirit gives just the right words for each occasion

@DavidStratton Cool, thanks! (would never have figure that out!)

I have been thinking recently about something a friend of mine told me years ago...

He said "Pride is like spiritual body odor"

Pretty simple statement, but pretty profound, I think

Prospective Convert: Excuse me, Your Eminence. May I speak to you?
Pastor: Yes?
Prospective Convert: (twiddling thumbs) How do I become a member?

4:43 AM

@Anonymous No...Pastor's reply should be "I ain't no Eminence!"

And membership ain't the thing

Unless we are talking about membership in the body of Christ

@RSW I think it would be different, if you were speaking to a cardinal, a type of high-ranking bishop.

I spoke to a blue jay the other day but I don't think he was listening!

No, seriously, I have no experience with pastor's who would be "high ranking" or anything

@RSW In reality, people may subscribe to a local church.

I figure as the child of God and joint-heir (brother) with Jesus that I'm about as high-ranking as it gets in God's family

And so is every other brother and sister

@RSW You do realize that priests are supposed to be the mediators between God and laity, right?

4:48 AM

No, I didn't realize that. Actually, I would say quite the contrary.

Especially since the veil symbolizing any separation of access has been completely torn from top to bottom

@RSW In Christianity, specifically in the Roman Catholic tradition, people are expected to confess their sins to a priest, and only the priest can absolve sins.

Yeah, I've heard things like that. I probably wouldn't fit in too well in the Roman Catholic church.

Though it wouldn't be for lack of loving my brothers and sisters there

I just don't think I'd make a "good" Roman Catholic

@RSW Then, which denomination are you affiliated with?

What with confessing my sins directly to God and all, plus to other believers who aren't necessarily "priests" in the Roman Catholic kind of way

@RSW Yep. That sounds like Protestant.

4:52 AM

None currently. Been affiliated with Baptist, Assemblies of God, Presbyterian, Calvary Chapel, and even the Shepherding Movement (before it went bad) back when I was a kid

So yeah...more of the Protestant leaning

Shepherding Movement

The Shepherding Movement (sometimes called the "Discipleship Movement") was an influential and controversial movement within some British and American charismatic churches, emerging in the 1970s and early 1980s. The doctrine of the movement emphasized the "one another" passages of the New Testament, and the mentoring relationship described in 2 Timothy. History It began when four well-known Charismatic teachers, Bob Mumford, Derek Prince, Charles Simpson, and Don Basham, responded to what they saw as a moral failure in a charismatic ministry in South Florida. Witnessing this failure, the...

But really, the denomination part isn't key to me. I'm comfortable anywhere as long as I can discuss doctrinal differences as the Spirit leads

The controversies imply that the Shepherding Movement is dangerous.

Yeah, I don't know where the Shepherding Movement is today, but when I was a kid, it was where my family got saved, basically, and I remember some of the most powerful presence of the Holy Spirit there even though I was just a small kid

And even though I didn't even know what following God was all about (we never set foot in church before that point)

I'm truly thankful for what it was at the beginning...again, just from a simple kid's perspective...but it did get bad at the end when they were telling my parent's which house to buy and what time my mom had to come clean the leader's house

@Anonymous So @Anonymous, are you Roman Catholic?

5:15 AM

Good evening, Mr. Ericson!

@RSW Howdy.

3 hours later…

8:33 AM

@Anonymous Do you mean in terms of how the God of the bible regards that?

1 hour later…

9:57 AM

@Anonymous New Orleans is an odd bird for a bunch of reasons, it's a very different city from the rest of the south

@Anonymous Can't say, I'm not in his house.

@Anonymous yes, there certainly are.

2 hours later…

11:57 AM

@RSW No.

@RSW However, I admire the Roman Catholic Church, just because of its affiliations with the Middle Ages and scribes illuminating manuscripts all day long.

And I admire the Eastern Orthodox churches for their iconography. (Again, they make me think of the Middle Ages.)

@JackDouglas Yes.

12:51 PM

@Anonymous This link lists a series of Bible verses that give a flavour of God's definition of 'accepting Jesus': Biblically that would require more than just regarding him favourably (but that is a good thing too imo), particularly that you believe the testimony about Jesus rising from death.

That's the crucial pivot around which everything else revolves: for me deciding whether the new testament resurrection accounts had any integrity was so important

1:52 PM

@Theodore not sure if you got my message earlier, but I responded to your message in here

@JackDouglas I think the NT Resurrection is a mystery. The most eerie feature is that somehow this resurrection is believed to be real. One explanation is that Jesus was resurrected, as many Christians believe; another explanation is that Jesus was never crucified in the first place, as many Muslims believe.

@Anonymous a third possibility sometimes mooted is that the body was stolen: this one is mentioned in the Bible. Do Muslims believe there was no crucifixion or that Jesus survived one?

Islamic view of Jesus' death

The issue of the crucifixion and death of Jesus (Isa) is important to Muslims as they believe that Jesus will return before the end of time. Muslims believe Jesus was not crucified, but was raised bodily to heaven by God, a belief also found in the Gospel of Basilides [citation needed]. However, this view is disregarded by Christians, who accept only the four gospels contained in the New Testament as genuine. Depending on the interpretation of the following verse, Muslim scholars have abstracted different opinions. Some believe that in the Biblical account, Jesus' crucifixion did not la...

@JackDouglas I recall that the counter-argument for the stolen body is that it is an early apologetic claim of Christianity.

interesting, thanks.

One thing I'd never buy is that the Romans somehow didn't kill him properly: they were far too good at killing people for that to be true

But the supernatural stuff is hard to dismiss even if it sounds made up

"…but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them…"

that's a kind of 'the evidence is irrelevant' reasoning that leaves me cold: I want evidence!

@JackDouglas I think Christianity is based on an unsolved mystery.

2:04 PM

@Anonymous ha, no I, I'm a scientist :)

eye-witness accounts are only evidence if they are credible sources: which gets back to the question: "are they credible?"

@JackDouglas What type of scientist?

@Anonymous well, I exaggerated, I have a Physics degree, I'm not actually a scientist, I'm a DBA :)

@JackDouglas What's a DBA?

But the point remains, I refuse point blank to believe in anything without evidence.

@Anonymous I work with databases, Oracle and postgres in particular if you've heard of them?

@JackDouglas I think I've heard about them, especially Oracle.

2:07 PM

Oracle is the biggest name in databases alongside Microsoft and SQL Server

What do you do for a living?

@JackDouglas Are you a computer programmer, computer scientist, or software engineer?

(if that won't compromise your anonymity :p)

@JackDouglas I am a full-time student, majoring in Neuroscience and intending to graduate in the coming May.

@Anonymous database work is semi-orthogonal to those categories: my job combines administration and 'programming' using SQL. Set-based languages are very different to algorithm-based languages though.

So my programming is not like most of what goes on on Stack Overflow

@Anonymous wow, that's impressive

We aren't one of your experiments are we?

@JackDouglas No.

2:10 PM

I was just kidding ;)

Does programming come in to your course? Did you find this site via SO?

I still think the resurrection of Jesus is an unsolved mystery that may never be solved. In order to accept the resurrection of Jesus, I think one must reject the philosophy of naturalism.

Plus, modern-day Western atheism is based on naturalism, rationalism, and humanism.

@Anonymous naturalism is just the sum of our normal observations: that does not (scientifically) preclude events that don't fit the normal model

but of course you'd want proper evidence before believing any such claim

The Biblical point of the resurrection is that it is provided as evidence of the veracity of Jesus claims: he said 'I will prove my ministry is from God by doing something impossible'

in other words it had to be something extra-naturalistic or it wouldn't be evidence of his association with a supernatural power

(none of that means it actually happened, just that it needed to happen to fit into the plot of the Bible)

@JackDouglas No, programming doesn't come with the major. However, my academic advisor has told me that learning how to program can greatly make me more marketable, as some neuroscientists may construct computer models of the brain. I found this website through a Google search, led by my side interest in biblical studies and theology.

@Anonymous Are you going to learn programming then? If you are starting from scratch I thoroughly recommend Code Academy…

2:29 PM

@JackDouglas It seems to me that Wikipedia is associating naturalism (philosophy) to Irreligion, whereas the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy seems to portray a neutral view of naturalism, giving me an impression that the authors of the Wikipedia article may be biasing naturalism in order to favor Irreligion rather than taking an approach that people - nonreligious or religious can all use naturalism, because it works best to explain the causality in the universe.

Interesting

@JackDouglas The freaky thing is that the unsolved mystery of the resurrection narrative makes itself appear to be that expected supernatural event.

@JackDouglas I think I am going to teach myself Microsoft Excel VBA; doing so may elevate myself into an Excel Power User.

I think VBA would be classified as object-oriented programming like Java or C++.

@Anonymous funnily enough I do a lot of VBA, I'm working on some right now

it is an utterly ghastly programming language but it is the right tool for certain jobs ;)

@JackDouglas What's 'utterly ghastly'?

Sorry 'really bad on so many levels'

horrible to program in

7

A: Why do people say that VB gives you bad programming habits?

In its old incarnations (VB6 and prior), Visual Basic was a melting pot of different calling conventions, bolted on features, and incomplete class structures and error handling. With the advent of VB.NET, most (if not all) of those objections are gone. VB.NET is a pretty good language, and it...

3:13 PM

@Anonymous Not many , all Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified a staggering 1.3 billion people believe that Jesus was not crucified and soon in a few decades this number is God willingly to become majority view

1

Q: Islam and christianity in Lebanon

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/08/lebanons-syrian-war.html In this article was the following. And the bold line surprised me quite a bit because here it says that some christian factions are for both Sunni and Shiite parties. Am I mistaken in my understanding? But why is ...

Just an interesting question on politics people might enjoy

3:50 PM

I was suspended from chat for a year without giving any reasons, I had to contact the SE support , May I know who suspended me and why?

@Islam as best we can figure you suspended yourself. It seems you changed your chat parent to this site following your suspension. If you didn't then it was a bug and you were correct to contact SE to have it fixed. No one changed your chat parent for you.

@waxeagle How was I even suspended?

I have been suspended many times before , I always get a link to the reason of suspension but this time It was a blank suspension of 364 days

@Islam if your chat parent account is suspended then you are suspended from chat. Best we can tell something happened and your chat account was associated with your C.SE account which is suspended.

I am suspended from JSE account too , but that does not suspend my chat privileges on Vidibarta bam

@Islam your chat account is associated with a single site (currently the Islam site). Somehow that was changed, and changed back. We're as puzzled as you are on this one.

@JonEricson any insight here?

3:58 PM

@waxeagle Me to guessed it as a bug\hack , coz I saw my "Jesus Bought Islam" Id in Islam chatroom without me being inside the chatroom before suspension

@waxeagle I believe one of the members of the CM team fixed the issue (which is an unusual edge case) when @Islam mailed team@stackoverflow.

@Islam there have been bugs before with chat parents randomly changing. I've had it happen to me several times where I've lost my mod privileges in chat.

@JonEricson does it only manifest itself when a user is suspended from multiple main sites simultaneously?

@JackDouglas TBH: I didn't follow what exactly happened. I don't have dev access.

@JonEricson does the entire SE team know about me? It seems they know what is going in chatrooms, besides the revocation they also comment something like "please dont antagonize other religion sites...."

4:03 PM

@Islam My suggestion would be "stop getting yourself suspended from any site" rather than allowing yourself to get indignant about the injustice of a bug that got you a chat-ban. Do you see my point?

2

@Islam I don't know if everyone does (I doubt it) but moderator messages are sent to the Community Managers (such as myself).

Do I appear to be hostile? I dont know how a person who wants to convey can be hostile?

@JonEricson How many community managers SE has?>

@Islam The point of a site ban is to get someone to change their behaviour: I don't know the details but this would have been explained in the suspension messages you received. I presume the year ban on C.SE wasn't your first ban there?

32

A: Who are the Community Managers, and what do they do?

Who are the Community Managers? There are currently eight community managers. They are: Robert Cartaino Shog9 Grace Note Anna Lear Tim Post Jon Ericson Gabe Popular Demand What do they do? They help you out. No, really. But yeah, that's about the most generic non-answe...

@JonEricson Is this a paid job?

4:08 PM

@Islam Yes.

I guess you would be receiving 1000s of messages each day?

No, but I bet Shog9 does. ;-)

@JonEricson Is it an online Job ? Physical presence is required?

@Islam It's remote for me. But others work in Stack Exchange HQ.

@JonEricson Thats great , congrats to have got such an oppurtunity

4:12 PM

@Islam Thank you. It has it's days.

@JonEricson It has its freedom

True.

@JonEricson May I know how you developed your writing skills?

@Islam 10,000 hours of practice? And reading. Lots and lots of reading.

@JonEricson Have you written a book or so?

and you just begin writing or you plan before writing?

4:17 PM

@Islam More like hundreds of essays and thousands of letters.

@JonEricson What motivates you to write so much?

Excuse me for a moment. I have some things I need to take care of here.

4:33 PM

user image

7

This is now my official mantra. If I didn't love my boy so much, it would be a solid contender for my new profile pic...

6 hours later…

11:01 PM

There are way too many Daniels here. There are Daniel Stratton, the other Daniel, Dan the Orthodox, the other Daniel that is not the aforementioned "other Daniel". Sigh. We need to do something about repetitive names.

@AffableGeek That sounds like me. Whatever I do, I almost always use academic scholarly journals, because they are usually written by professionals who study specific areas of expertise all day long for a living.

@AffableGeek Using academic journals, I think, also makes people look smarter, because readers may think, "Ooooh, look here! Anonymous has read a publication by the well-known author and expert, Dr. Blank!" In the academic world, credentials are everything. o_o

@AffableGeek Are you really really really a pastor? Did you really really really go to seminary? What seminary or divinity school did you attend? What was your favorite subject in seminary/divinity school? Did you score all A's and graduate with honors? Did the school require you to apply for a research thesis before you graduate? Do you have a Master's or PhD in Divinity?

@AffableGeek I have taken a look at your resume, and your resume looks so very impressive. You seem to be a very well-rounded person, supplying both computer programming service and pastoral service. Wow.

@waxeagle Never mind. Delete the sentence.

11:23 PM

done

and I should really make sure my hands are properly positioned before I start typing

@waxeagle Now, can you delete yours? It really doesn't make sense and can get a bit misleading. ;)

@Anonymous yep

@waxeagle Now, can you delete the last five messages, plus this one? :D

@waxeagle Do you think you-know-who will get a notification about it, or is it deleted?

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Sep '135

The Upper Room

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