The Upper Room

11:10 AM

2

Q: Does the “Lord's Prayer” increases corruption?

Let's remember a part of it: "and forgive (1) us our debts, as we also have forgiven (2) our debtors" ("perdoai (1) as nossas ofensas assim como nós perdoamos (2) a quem nos tem ofendido" in Portuguese, as I remember it) If someone has debtors (it means somebody offended him/her), he/she need...

What a question!

When I visit some sites I really appreciate this site's on-topic strictness.

LCIII

3:17 PM

@curiousdannii What's wrong with that question? .....

fredsbend

3:44 PM

@curiousdannii The top voted answer has this summary:

> It is favourable for oppressors, but it was well meant counsel.

I think it can be argued that all such ethics are favorable for oppressors. A society of mercy, tolerance and understanding will put up with a lot before doing something about it.

Seeing that question, I'm not sure I see it as useful. It kind of cherry picks one little part of a very big Christian topic: Forgiveness.

Certainly wouldn't stand on C.SE because it is general philosophy.

@Caleb Is there an autobot posting to this room from Phil.SE? Would be nice to have one.

Or is the volume of questions that mention Christianity too much?

Feeds

El'endia Starman has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

Feeds 1376

0

Q: What is the proper term for "a secondary knowledge that reinforces a primary belief"?

Let us say that someone believes in God, and acts in accordance with this belief. Ordinarily, one thinks of this as "blind faith". However, in my case, the belief is reinforced by what I call "secondary knowledge", such as feelings of peace, joy and an "awareness" of God's presence. I may not kno...

epistemology christianity

0

Q: Viewed through Christianity, do all 'ideas' reflect a heavenly body via Plato's the Forms?

Plato felt, in his theory of the Forms, that everything on Earth reflects a perfect, heavenly version (the original, if you like). Many Christians follow a similiar belief. A spoke to Justin Welby's secetary and he felt that all things of God were revealed through the person of Jesus and that any...

plato christianity

2

Q: Is the depth of our desire considered proof of an ultimate desirable in theology?

There is a word (sehnsucht) that describes a deep and ineffable longing for something beyond description, joyous and enjoyable beyond anything in this World, that 'haunts' many people: like CS Lewis for example. I myself feel it so strongly that I feel joy and ecstasy is rendered tiny next to my ...

theology christianity

-2

Q: Assuming God is real, can the level of joy we desire exceed the amount He desires/can create?

Can we, in our best attempts, desire for a level of happiness above what an infinite God can provide us with in Heaven?

christianity

8

Q: Is God either immoral or not omnipotent?

The usual (Christian) justification for suffering/evil in the world created by a benevolent God is freedom of the will. However, the more interesting question is not about the source of evil (which the free will may very well be) but why God chose to create the world such as it is. Why not create...

logic ethics theology good-and-evil christianity

El'endia Starman

4:02 PM

@fredsbend Ta-daaah!

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman Sweet!

That last one in interesting.

I will read it later.

Is that all of them in the last year?

El'endia Starman

Yup. Not many.

fredsbend

Oh well. I think the bot name should be Elisha the Thinker. Or something similar.

El'endia Starman

Oooh, how about "Elisha thinks."?

Or "Elisha ponders".

fredsbend

4:19 PM

Yeah, that.

I first had pondering Elisha, but that is grammatically incorrect.

El'endia Starman

bing! The bot's name is now "Elisha ponders..."!

fredsbend

Too bad we'll only see it about five times a year.

El'endia Starman

Yeah...

Wow. They've been in Beta for almost 3.5 years now.

fredsbend

Yeah, some sites are just not going to make it. They are good enough to keep in beta, but they just cannot pass the metric to graduate.

I wonder how long SE will wait for such cases to make exceptions or shut them down. I doubt Phil.SE is a resource drain, but it's probably not much of a producer either.

El'endia Starman

Yeesh. Just took a look at their October 2014 site self-evaluation and only three of ten have a positive score.

Dan Andrews

5:07 PM

How come when I attempt to flag a post for migration, it only allows Meta? Why isn't hermeneutics.stackexchange.com an option?

El'endia Starman

@DanAndrews Because BH is still in Beta.

Dan Andrews

blah

thanks

El'endia Starman

Also, I don't remember clearly right now, but it may be the case that only mods can migrate directly to another site anyway.

That doesn't sound right though. Is Mi Yodeya (Judaism.SE) an option for you?

Dan Andrews

I'm just trying to flag for migration. Instead I have to flag for offtopic, which... eh... falls into a big bucket of posts.

TRiG

> “Forbidden” and “not forbidden” are supposed to be the conclusions derived from ethical work, not the starting point.

Fred Clark, slacktivist, “Here’s that ‘Anything Goes’ rant about evangelical sexual ethics”

El'endia Starman

5:20 PM

> First is that the standard of sufficiency prevents consideration of whether or not the mutual-consent and loving-relationship arguments may be necessary.

Must be the mathematician in me, but I don't see this as true.

It is entirely possible, and often does happen, that a condition is necessary and yet not sufficient.

Take, for example, the conditions necessary to be elected President of the United States:

TRiG

@El'endiaStarman I think he's saying that it prevents such consideration in practise. That is to say, people don't consider it.

El'endia Starman

> The person must be a natural-born citizen of the United States and must have been a permanent resident of the United States of America for at least 14 years. Additionally, a candidate must not have been impeached by the Senate, and not have participated in a rebellion against the United States. Each candidate must be at least 35 years of age.

Obviously, fulfilling these conditions is not sufficient...

@TRiG Hmmm. Yeah, I can see that.

His statement would've been clearer if he had used "discouraged" instead of "prevents".

TRiG

6:24 PM

@El'endiaStarman There, you may have a point.

fredsbend

7:34 PM

@TRiG I'm not sure what "white evangelical sexual ethic" is compared to say, black.

LCIII

Reopen it!!!!

1

Q: Is there a biblical basis for Satan being omnipresent?

Many Christians pray and act as if Satan is right next to them all the time, tempting them to turn away from God, attacking them, etc... Is there a Biblical basis for Satan's omnipresence?

biblical-basis satan omniprescence

:D

I had never even thought about that before

fredsbend

@LCIII I already vtr'd

LCIII

I wonder how Satan feels knowing I want to reopen a question about his ability to know that I want to reopen a question about him.

fredsbend

@TRiG I suppose it is juxtaposed against Black evangelical subculture. Is the author saying that sexual activity is less restrictive in those churches?

I would like to see some stats to back that up. Not just that there are more black children born out of wedlock, but that of those children, how many are from parents that are active members in an evangelical church that can be categorized as "predominantly black in subculture."

I think these terms are very hard to define without there being gobs of exceptions.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend Where's Demographics.SE when we need it?

fredsbend

7:39 PM

ha!

@El'endiaStarman I supported a USA.SE on area 51 and proposed that it be about the culture and people of the USA, but it was closed eventually. This is the kind of question I would love to see on that.

Do these boxes accurately describe how sexual ethics are approached by your typical evangelical?

I think it comes close. The issue here is that in what is allowed is implicitly only vaginal sex between two married persons.

El'endia Starman

For me, from what I've seen, I'd say that diagram is fairly accurate.

fredsbend

Sex and sexual activity are two related but different things.

Kissing, for example, can be quite benign, but can certainly be sexual in the minds of those engaging in it. The same for other benign activities such as dancing or flirting.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend That's definitely Catholic. However, I'm not sure exactly how forbidden sexual activities such as anal sex (within marriage) are across Protestantism.

fredsbend

The diagram labels these things as "everything else" but I don't not believe that most evangelicals believe that (though I concede that some do).

El'endia Starman

There are definitely denominations that forbid it, but I don't know if the major ones ever made such an explicit statement.

fredsbend

7:46 PM

@El'endiaStarman That's my point.

TRiG

@fredsbend Fred talks quite a lot about white evangelicals (he's one himself). It is, to his mind, very much a cultural designation. In many political and social contexts, white evangelicals are a distinct group.

fredsbend

@TRiG Yes, I think I've heard it used, but I fail to see it as a distinct religious group. I can buy subculture, but that is a squirrely word that keeps changing definitions, so it's easy to label just about any group as a "subculture."

TRiG

How distinctive white evangelicals are in terms of their sexual ethics I really couldn't say. I suspect that Fred wasn't really attempting to draw an explicit distinction here: he wasn't saying that black evangelicals have a different sexual ethic. Maybe, in this specific context, they're the same. Maybe they're not. I don't know.

fredsbend

That's what I'm wondering. It seems like he did exactly that, whether intentional or not.

I would say that I was raised evangelical, for the most part (with a splash of Catholic). I also happen to be white, but I'm not sure I can personally identify with a subculture labeled "white evangelical."

Reminds me of the old, out-of-vogue WASP designation. White anglo-saxon protestant. I'm not sure if that is actually supposed to mean anything.

Anything useful anyway.

> this Two Boxes system is woefully inadequate and can’t account for many of the ideas they’ve been trying to cram into it or to draw out of it.

Maybe I should read more before I critique it again.

TRiG

@fredsbend There is, of course, the fact that those of us in a majority are less likely to be aware that certain things are aspects of our culture, and not just The Way Things Are™.

fredsbend

8:08 PM

@TRiG That's a good point. But sociology, as a science, only points to "what is" in the first place, just like the other sciences. I think "black" as a subculture in the USA means more than "white" largely because of this numbers disparity that you mention. As an effect, I think we often see what might be labeled as "white" subculture simply labeled "american" when other subcultures, such as "black" are not necessarily accurately described by it.

But then again that is what the word describes. Culture is a description of the majority in the first place. The idea is that if you randomly select an american he will fit well into the "american" culture type. Conversely, that randomly selected individual is unlikely to fit into a specific sub-culture.

fredsbend

8:29 PM

@TRiG Not if your ethics are authoritarian, which many Christian ethics are. They do start with "this is right and this is wrong, now here's why" instead of "here's what we know, so we should label this as right and this as wrong." That is the nature of authoritarian ethics. It is the idea that most people are morally incompetent or corrupt and need a morally competent authority to obey. This is very close the the doctrine of total depravity and its close relatives.

You are incapable of making morally sound decisions. That is at the heart of the Christian gospel. You are a sinner. Now that you know, you need a savior.

> [The] clumsy Two Boxes approach that says all married sex is good because it occurs within marriage.

This is a good point that I think is overlooked by a lot of Christians. I've even heard it in sermons and from preachers before that Christians should be having the best sex of anybody. But reality is that, just like in most everything else, they look just like the rest of the population.

This thought precedes the question "How come Christians don't look all that different or better?"

Monica Cellio

@El'endiaStarman only mods can migrate. Mods can choose any site on the network. Regular users can choose from a small set, by default only a site's meta (but if the target has graduated and there's enough affinity, it can be added as an option). There is a general desire to keep the list short. I don't imagine that y'all would have enough questions that really belong on Mi Yodeya to make that option worthwhile. (Goes back to lurking.)

El'endia Starman

8:47 PM

@MonicaCellio Ahhh, so migration targets have to be added manually?

Monica Cellio

@El'endiaStarman that's my understanding. I think you ask a CM to do it. (I haven't actually done that; I just remember seeing discussion of this sometime in the past.)

fredsbend

If we were to migrate to anybody, it is almost always BH.

Though I have seen times where Judaism, skeptics, Philosophy, and islam were all possibly migration points.

Not not too often. I don't think often enough to justify a close option.

Monica Cellio

Often enough to allocate a "slot", though? That's the real question. I seem to recall a suggestion that BH be able to migrate to you guys and being told there'd only ever been something like 9 migrations in that direction and that wasn't enough. (Vague, distant memories, sorry.)

Ah, typing at the same time I see. :-)

Jon Ericson

9:13 PM

3

A: Can C.SE be added as a migration target in the close/off-topic dialogue?

According to our history, there have been only 9 migrations away from Biblical Hermeneutics all time. Certainly 8 of those were to Christianity1, so if there is a migration path, that's the best choice. In order to establish a bridge between Hermeneutics and Christianity, we need evidence that ...

curiousdannii

@LCIII How it goes from the prayer to colonialism, and how answers can go from there anywhere they like at all

El'endia Starman

> And one of the migrations to Christianity was remigrated to SciFi!?!

That was hilarious. BH -> C -> SciFi.

curiousdannii

@LCIII Why did you edit out the OP's Job passage? Not saying it was wrong, just it was a bigger change than was necessary.

Bruce Alderman

9:36 PM

13

Q: Cross breeding of men and orcs in Lord of the Rings

A question was asked: Why is breeding men and orcs considered evil? Specifically it's described as Saruman's greatest evil, and since Saruman committed many appalling acts the questioner wondered why it was his "greatest evil". My suggestion was that Tolkien was looking at this from a Christian ...

lord-of-the-rings religion

I don't understand why that wasn't on topic here.

Jon Ericson

@BruceAlderman Not sure. You, me, and Jack thought that was where it belonged: hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/1303/…

curiousdannii

10:03 PM

@bruisedreed Jumping in in the middle of the debate not having read it all, the way I'd explain this aspect of it is that both we and God all have real wills. For the Armininian human wills are decisive and for Calvinists God's will is decisive. Both are choosing for real, but only one is ultimate.

And "limited" atonement is the most confusing term of all. Except for universalists I would think that everyone thinks some aspects of what Christ accomplished on the cross are unlimited and other aspects are limited. Whenever people talk about limited atonement they end up talking past each other.

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