The Upper Room

8:11 PM

@ThomasShields Presumably they're trying to achieve something. Dunno what, though.

@Ullallulloo. Hi! Not seen you around before.

@TRiG Howdy.

@Ullallulloo Come to watch the bear pit?

Quiet here at the moment, but it's quite good fun sometimes.

@TRiG I try to idle in here often and see if anybody's talking.

I'm usually in Gaming's though.

@Ullallulloo It was your name that grabbed my attention. Impressive.

I'm a lurker myself fairly often. Either that or I'm needling people. To be honest, sometimes I'm just this side of trolling. But I try to restrain myself.

@Ullallulloo So most of your posts are in The Bridge?

@TRiG :P It was supposed to be an indian war cry thing.

8:16 PM

The Bridge

General Arqade Chat. We tried to leave once, but the door lock...

7

@TRiG yep

@Ullallulloo So, what brings you here?

@TRiG Nothing special, I just thought that this would be a good chat room to hang out in too.

@Ullallulloo It can be interesting at times.

I've been doing it for a while. Whenever I remember to click Rejoin All.

8:18 PM

I have practically no interest in theology myself, but the intersection of religion, society, politics, and social policy is certainly interesting.

Also, for some reason I seem to talk about Paganism a lot.

I think my best couple of answers on the site have been about the intersection of Christianity and Paganism.

@TRiG I am a Christian, so that has something to do with it, yeah. :P

Q: We need a name for our chat room

Dunno why, as I've never been a Pagan.

@Ullallulloo I was a Christian. Not any more.

Wikis

8:51 PM

@GregMcNulty: to answer your question, no I have accepted Him here so that I can be good there...

Stack Exchange

9:33 PM

0

So we have a chat room. Other sites have cool names for their chat rooms. Isn't it time we named ours? Please add your suggestions below: one suggestion per answer. Then the mods can make a decision based on the votes. If you don't want to name the chat room, please vote this question down. And...

10:29 PM

Is there any interest in having Article of the Week reopened?

Article of the Week

A place where the members of Christianity.SE can post interest...

Q: Literature.SE is closing - would you like any of our questions?

@TRiG I would if I actually read articles (and they were about Christianity, and they were interesting, and they were online) frequently enough..

Stack Exchange

0

Regrettably, Literature.SE is closing down next week due to inactivity. Consequently, we're looking to move as many questions as we can to new homes, so please consider heading over there, browsing the questions and flagging any that you think might be appropriate for the site here!

discussion migration

@ThomasShields The thing is, I live on the Internet, and I have an entire blog devoted to "links to things I find interesting".

So that room was a perfect fit for me.

I was holding back, not wanting to flood it myself, waiting for someone else to post an article, and then it went and closed for inactivity!

@TRiG ahh, well, if we don't get it reopened, you might consider starting a similar room on Philosophy - you could expand it to more than just Christianity related stuff

Anyway, in other news, soon a new outlet for those of us who have an unhealthy obsession with telephones.

@ThomasShields Now that's an idea. I don't hang out on the Philosophy site. Perhaps I should.

10:45 PM

@TRiG yeah it's really interesting, on there. I just can't participate without using Christianity as my premise (not to say I can't argue philosophy with a non-christian, but it's arguing)

@ThomasShields "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle I don't have a good source for this quote.

In other words, you should be able to discuss philosophy from any premise (or, at least, from any premise you can understand).

@TRiG oh, I can (to a degree) entertain a thought without accepting it. I just mean that if I were to try to make a reasonable argument I wouldn't be able to help myself from slipping into an apology for Christianity

@TRiG that's a good point. I could always just answer with a "So and so says" or "X philosophy says"

@ThomasShields You need to get out more.

(Perhaps I do too.)

@TRiG I consider myself decently exposed to historical philosophy, actually, if that's what you mean

@ThomasShields Quite likely more than I am.

10:50 PM

decently != any sort of degree of competency, just pseudo-familiarity.

To be honest, though, I don't see what Christianity has to do with the set of all sets which don't contain themselves, etc.

I suppose it has more of a bearing on the more real-world philosophy questions.

@TRiG they ask the theoretical technical stuff on there? More than just "what is the meaning of life?" ? awesome

@ThomasShields I dunno. I spend very little time there. But that question would surely be on topic, wouldn't it?

yes, it would

I just sort of overlooked that possibilty

adds to summer todo list: gain at least 1k rep on Philosophy.SE

@ThomasShields Now there's a goal I can applaud. I may adopt it myself.

10:53 PM

@TRiG -_- lol

@TRiG I'm actually really excited about this.

Slacktivist is where I go to remind myself that Christians are not necessarily evil, but most of his recent posts have been long lists of links I don't have time to read. If he's getting back to the regular swing of things with the return of Left Behind Friday, that has to be good news.

Has anyone here read Left Behind? Just asking.

@TRiG I regard it with the heavy cynicism and skepticism of one who disagrees with the theology and hasn't yet read it.

@ThomasShields I'm just reading it by proxy through Fred Clark's posts, which are excellent. My favourite has to be Donny. Or read the complete index.

@ThomasShields Fred eviscerates both the theology and the writing.

@TRiG cool; might have to check that out

now's kind of a bad time for me to get interested in something, lol... graduation and such

@ThomasShields Exams?

11:05 PM

@TRiG 3 exams, 1 test, 2 papers, a memorization project, senior thesis, and all the graduation stuff and college stuff

@ThomasShields Hang on. What are you graduating from (not that I'm familiar with the US education system)?

@TRiG Veritas Press Scholars Academy (online school) and homeschool.

@ThomasShields So ... trying to translate this into terms I understand ... Second level?

@TRiG "second level"?

@ThomasShields Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary education. That's the model in Ireland.

Prinary: from roughly the ages six to twelve. Secondary for a further six years (or five, as one of those years is optional).

11:08 PM

@TRiG ah, yes. Highschool.

@ThomasShields Right. And Veritas? I assume that has no relationship to the Catholic Truth Society?

One presumes it's a different Veritas.

@TRiG right, no relation lol.

it's funny because there's "Veritas Press", a publishing company which has a school offshoot, and then there's "Veritas Classical Schools", which my parents are starting a branch of this fall, but not the same thing i'm attending. it's all quite complicated.

user19161

@TRiG Same for me. I forgot your status and was about to ask you.

@ThomasShields I once worked in a school library cataloguing books. The school was formed from an amalgamation of two schools, one of which was run by nuns. There were loads of Catholic Truth Society books in the library. The publisher was Veritas.

@TRiG ...people like to use "Truth" in their name, apparently. :)

11:10 PM

@ThomasShields So it seems.

@JasperLoy I'll call myself ex-Christian. Admittedly, the branch of Christianity was one which many others would not accept as Christian, but still, the label seems to fit.

user19161

@TRiG But I believe Jesus exists as a god being.

@JasperLoy Ah. But you're not a Christian? A "god being"? I'm not familiar with that terminology. I'm guessing you're a synchrenist of some kind?

@TRiG out of curiosity, do people like you (not necessarily all atheists, but the ones who willingly interact with Christians) get offended at "I'll pray for you."?

@ThomasShields That very much depends on the context.

As a general rule of thumb, ask the person if they want prayers.

user19161

@TRiG Well, just like there are humans in the human realm, there can also be gods in the god realm.

11:14 PM

@ThomasShields Praying to change someone's mind is almost never cool.

user19161

@ThomasShields I actually like to hear that. It comforts me that people care.

@JasperLoy Pantheism? Polytheism? Henotheism? Admittedly these are all simple labels for complex beliefs, and the categories have fuzzy edges.

@TRiG yeah, thought so. gotta go eat dinner now, later all :)

user19161

@TRiG Well, I don't really know what those terms you wrote mean so I can't answer. But it's exactly as I have written. Animals would be another realm. So it's sort of a Buddhist view of things.

@JasperLoy Well, yes. If you're having trouble, and someone says "thinking of you" or "praying for you", both mean roughly the same thing and both can be nice to hear. But if you're having a theological disagreement with someone and they say "I'll pray for you" it means something quite different. It's condescending, arrogant, and quite nasty. @ThomasShields.

user19161

11:18 PM

@TRiG So you seem to hang out in this room a lot. Any reason why?

@JasperLoy Pantheism: everything is God (this can be a sort of "sexed up" atheism, but it can also be something a bit more complicated and harder to define). Polytheism: there are many gods. Henotheism: there is one absolute God, but many lesser deities.

@JasperLoy I like arguments?

user19161

@TRiG Oh, I don't like arguments. I prefer to think in terms of discussions and not debates or arguments.

@JasperLoy I used to spend most time in EL&U. I've been trying, recently, to head back there. But this keeps drawing me in.

user19161

@TRiG Hmm, the people there can be quite sarcastic! You may need to get used to it! I think I have.

I used to consider myself part of the Christianity StackExchange community. After a couple of ... incidents, I don't really anymore. This is just somewhere I hang out from time to time.

user19161

11:20 PM

@TRiG An argument gone wrong?

user19161

What would the Christians here say to someone who really wants to believe but just can't because he just does not think it is the truth?

@JasperLoy I don't know why, but I'd always ignored chat before. Never saw the point of it. But here on Christianity SE I was almost forced into the chat a couple of times. I think that had the side-effect of making the site more "sticky" for me. Also, I got to know the regular users as individuals more here than on most other sites, because it's still a small site and I was here from quite early.

because it's still a small site and I was here from quite early and, of course, because I spend more time in chat here.

@JasperLoy A long story.

user19161

Many of my friends have converted. Many of them are very intellectual. But I just don't think I'll ever really be a Christian again.

@JasperLoy I'd be sympathetic to that. There are certain versions of Christianity I think are rather nice.

user19161

I am quite the opposite of a religion basher. Those exist mostly in the ELU room.

user19161

11:24 PM

Usually I try to offer them another perspective. They can be quite critical of religion.

A: Is it possible to be Christian but not interpret the religion as fact?

@JasperLoy One thing I've become more aware of recently is religions which focus more on praxis than belief. So you can be an atheist Wiccan, for example. If you follow the rites, you're a Wiccan, whatever you believe. Some Wiccans think there are many gods. Some think there are many aspects of one or two gods. And some think the gods are just useful metaphors, or Jungian archetypes.

And there are praxis-centric versions of Christianity. So you can similarly be a Christian without believing it. These are in the minority, but they do exist.

2

There are two answers to this question. One is the general type of "Cultural Christianity" to which other answers alude. A person can be non-religious, but still operate in a largely Christian context, clebrating some Christian-flavoured festivals (notably Christmas), and thinking of "God" in a C...

@JasperLoy To be honest, this would make a nice question for the site. But I'm not sure how you'd scope it. Perhaps knock it around in chat a bit first.

("Scoping" is important because otherwise there's no framework for judging an answer's quality. So you specify in your question which perspectives you're interested in.)

user19161

@TRiG And then there are also different definitions of Christianity. I would like to define it as one who receives Jesus as Saviour in his heart.

The idea of "scoping" grew out of many interesting and very long debates in chat and on meta.

@JasperLoy And I wouldn't.

user19161

@TRiG How would you define it?

@JasperLoy That's why questions here are scoped.

user19161

11:30 PM

What? I did not know Lit was closing?

Blog - Stack Exchange: When a Site Grows Quiet

@JasperLoy I would say the word Christian is context-dependent. In the context of a census report, or interreligious dialogue, or this site, a Christian is defined as anyone who considers zirself to be a Christian. That's a sensible definition in this context. In other contexts, different definitions make more sense.

And frankly, I think it would be very rude for me, as an atheist, to try to tell someone that they weren't a "true" Christian.

Shog9 on April 25, 2012

In the lifecycle of a Stack Exchange site, we’ve long held the philosophy that “it takes as long as it takes” to build a sustainable community:

The simple answer is, it takes as long as it takes. We’ll wait. If a site needs more activity, go out and evangelize it. As long as your site shows steady progress and continues to make the Internet a better place to get expert answers to your questions, it will march on.

But when a site struggles to maintain any semblance of steady progress — when it’s struggling to garner an audience, a healthy core of experts, and a steady stre …

Six sites are closing.

user19161

@TRiG I'm most surprised at Literature closing, since people read books.

user19161

Well, ELU will never close, since people speak English!

user19161

@TRiG That definition leaves me nothing to say.

@JasperLoy As an example of what I mean by "fuzzy edges": Jehovah's Witnesses would call themselves monotheists, and would argue that they are stricter monotheists than most Christians, as they reject the pluralistic notion of the Trinity. Fair enough. And yet, at the same time, it would not be entirely inaccurate to call them henotheists.

@JasperLoy EL&U seems to be quite healthy, I'm glad to say.

user19161

11:35 PM

@TRiG But there are too many ESL questions.

@JasperLoy Yeah. Well, perhaps it's a somewhat self-referential definition, but it seems to be working. As for me, I was brought up with a different theological framework and language. Witnesses didn't talk much about "receiving Jesus as Saviour in their hearts". The concept does exist in Witness theology, but not with quite the same emphasis or language.

@JasperLoy Right. On the other hand, all the other language sites are full of second-language learners too, aren't they?

user19161

@TRiG Anyway there seems to be a lot of interconversion between Islam and Christianity.

@JasperLoy Is there? I must admit I know little about Islam.

user19161

@TRiG At least that's the impression I get from watching many youtube vids!

user19161

People attend talks, get into arguments and eventually end up converting.

11:41 PM

@JasperLoy Well, they do have a common theological basis. (Both are heresies of Judaism.)

user19161

@TRiG And now abide the three: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But the greatest of these is _______.

@JasperLoy I like that!

user19161

@TRiG Just one of those verses that get stuck in me!

@JasperLoy Faith, hope, love. By the way, I have a short list of words (faith, spiritual, evil as applied to people, and a couple of others) which I never use, because they're too confusing and always lead to talking at cross purposes.

user19161

@TRiG Yeah I remember the KJV uses charity instead of love. I don't really read the Bible but I like the NASB. It is supposed to be the most literal translation.

11:48 PM

@JasperLoy "Literal" is a loaded word, and doesn't have any clear definition when applied to a translation. And, depending on your purpose for reading the text, literal may or may not be a good thing.

A translation with decent footnotes (linguistic, not theological) is probably best.

user19161

@TRiG Bye! You should be sleeping soon!