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Hokon
Hokon
02:10
@Tsundoku Prior hominid species survived without God, in fact aside from cats (who think they are gods) it seems most animals live just fine without even the idea of God.
 
3 hours later…
Rusi
Rusi
05:36
@GratefulDisciple I looked at your answer. Generally good and even worth upvoting even though I am not a frequenter of Christianity-SE. But then I noticed: “Nation of Israel”. Now in earlier centuries many people had the good sense to understand scriptural directions like this spiritually/metaphorically. But today its a different matter. See my answer philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/117015/37256 and all the rest
@Hokon Thats a bit of a vacuously true statement given that animals are not usually taken to have IDEAS
@Tsundoku The Jordan Peterson will cost you a minute and it just makes my point more strongly and with a universal quantification — everyone lives with God (though he may not call it "god")
Carl Sagan is expounding on the Vedic Hymn "Nasadiya Sukta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasadiya_Sukta. Since vedic hymns customarily get their name from the first word its called nasadliya "It is or it is not..." If it were to take its name from the last words it would be "I dont know"

IOW one of the most sacred hymns in the oldest Veda is a hymn to agnosticism
This is why when you conflate "God" with "Abrahamic God" it comes across as a silly attempt at strawman
Rusi
Rusi
06:05
@GratefulDisciple : You say “I'm more worried about Christianity facing the secular culture”
It's important to distinguish carefully two meanings of secular that tend to get confused and cause misunderstanding.

The origial meaning of “secular” just meant the separation of church and state — the fact that the state must not push (some) church as its state/official-church.

At that point secularism was intended to address a logistical, administrative, organizational problem with corresponding solutions. So if a muslim is religiously supposed to eat meat on a certain festival, and a Jain considers meat eating the ultimate sin, how can they get along??
But the anti-religionists have instead exploited secularism dishonestly, made these kinds of logictical problems into fundamental ones and have unilaterally decreed that since (for example) a muslim and a jain cannot agree so ALL RELIGION MUST BE BANNED AND THE STATE FORCES DOWN ATHEISM AS A STATE RELIGION, as it did in Soviet Union and communist China but more Orwellian

IOW today secularism has come to mean something v v v different and opposite from the original French laicite viz. that as long as you believe anything (any nonsense) it's your issue. But in all matters of common life — a…
GratefulDisciple
GratefulDisciple
06:38
@Rusi Yes, we have to be very careful not to confuse today's modern nation of Israel from the concept of "nation" that the OT writers use, including in Genesis & Exodus you cited. Still studying ANE (ancient near east), but roughly "nation" back then was primarily cultural / ethnic identity which was usually unified by their worship of their nation's god.
I think it's safe to read OT as ancient Israel's national-founding document, thus in Jesus's time they characterized themselves as "children of Abraham" and one key theme of Paul's letters was that Jesus fulfilled Israel's primary purpose as "light unto the [other] nations" to unite Israel with Gentile nations under Christ. So in continuity, the mission of the church today is to be light of the world, which has a checkered history even today, when there are a lot of scandals in the church :-( .
@Rusi Re: "separation of church and state" that's true, that was the original US constitution meaning, keeping in mind that wars of religion that ended with a truce in 1648 was still fresh in their memory. It was more to prevent an institution like the Roman Catholic church to exert their undue influence to the government, BUT not the absence of religion in public life / schools.
@Rusi Re: how do they get along regarding food laws, that's precisely what Paul addressed in the New Testament, between non-pork Jews and pork-loving Gentiles. Following Paul, Christians have been solving it as dietary regulation CAN still be followed but subjected to love. Thus if necessary, one should sacrifice their food preference for the sake of Christ's mission, with Paul's saying 1 Cor 9:21-23.
@Rusi Re: a country's banning religion, although of course I advocate the freedom of exercise of any (good) religion, not just Christianity, my concern vis a vis secular culture is more to do with people not believing in any kind of religion, nor even an objective morality. I'm concerned that they are more prone to psychological ailment, philosophical unhappiness, or how their mistaken notions of happiness doesn't lead to families and communities thriving.
I'm actually quite happy working with secular humanists who are friendly with religious communities, helping those who are suffering and advocating culture that leads to compassion, life, and love. So although there is that word "secular" in "secular humanists", that's not the kind of secularism I'm worried about. I strongly believe that in any hierarchy of values that place love near the top, that's already one step closer to Christianity.
How does that look in practice? If a secular humanist agree with my definition of "perfect love" in my answer, (the 3 elements in my point #1) I consider him/her my brother/sister.
Rusi
Rusi
07:22
@GratefulDisciple "Children of Abraham" is CRUCIALLY DIFFERENT from children of Jacob. Children (descendants) of Abraham inherently must include children of Isaac and Ishmael.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmaelites
GratefulDisciple
GratefulDisciple
07:40
@Rusi Yes, I'm aware that "children of Jacob" is more precise, and that Israel is another name for Jacob. But it's curious why the Jews used that phrase for themselves as it appeared in the New Testament such as in John 8, Galatian 3:7, etc.

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