Christian Discussion Thread XI: Anicetus’ Revenge

[Punished UMN]

Why do you assume that something can only be morally wrong if it is actively harmful? Doesn't this imply that harm is the only thing that is wrong?

Well I am not sure of an example of something that is either beneficial to someone, or neutral to everyone, that is morally objectionable.

My point was more that if harm is the only thing that is wrong, then how can harming someone be justified? How can there be mitigating factors to the only thing that is intrinsically wrong?

Also, and this can be a philosophical question, but I would say violation of consent is often a moral wrong, but that in many cases it does not cause harm.

[Sundiata]

The prayer I've done recently put into perspective what motivated the murder of Jesus Christ.

When things aren't going your way it's tempting to want a target for that aggression, an outlet. It's easy to take all of that anger and hate you feel about your life and just bully someone with it. That's what happened to Jesus Christ, he was an easy target for hateful people.

The people who persecuted him, who threw the book at him without mercy just wanted an easy target. That's why they accused him of crime, slandered him to no end, and finally brutalized him.

Unfortunately, these hateful people were oppressed themselves. They felt weak. To feel a sense of control, if only for a moment, they tortured an innocent man to death.

All it takes is hatred in your heart to be capable of killing your Messiah, killing your best friend. Our Messiah was a sitting duck. And the worst part about it is that we're not any better than these people.

Even as Christians, we're no better than the people who willingly tortured our Lord to death.

[Jedi Council]

Well I am not sure of an example of something that is either beneficial to someone, or neutral to everyone, that is morally objectionable.

My point was more that if harm is the only thing that is wrong, then how can harming someone be justified? How can there be mitigating factors to the only thing that is intrinsically wrong?

Also, and this can be a philosophical question, but I would say violation of consent is often a moral wrong, but that in many cases it does not cause harm.

Harming someone can be justified if the harm is necessary to ensure that less overall harm is caused, like prison.

I would say violation of consent usually causes harm, just in varying degrees.

My point here really is that if one is engaged in an activity that is not harming anyone else, then they should not be condemned, judged, or otherwise held as sinful for it. For example, its is my understanding that masturbation is commonly considered a sin or sinful behavior, when in reality it is a normal, natural, and quite benign behavior that impacts no one but the practitioner. The same argument can be said for homosexuality, and a host of other issues.

[Sundiata]

The prayer I've done recently put into perspective what motivated the murder of Jesus Christ.

When things aren't going your way it's tempting to want a target for that aggression, an outlet. It's easy to take all of that anger and hate you feel about your life and just bully someone with it. That's what happened to Jesus Christ, he was an easy target for hateful people.

The people who persecuted him, who threw the book at him without mercy just wanted an easy target. That's why they accused him of crime, slandered him to no end, and finally brutalized him.

Unfortunately, these hateful people were oppressed themselves. They felt weak. To feel a sense of control, if only for a moment, they tortured an innocent man to death.

All it takes is hatred in your heart to be capable of killing your Messiah, killing your best friend. Our Messiah was a sitting duck. And the worst part about it is that we're not any better than these people.

Even as Christians, we're no better than the people who willingly tortured our Lord to death.

Furthermore, I think that most of us would have gleefully killed him or been willing to kill him.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

The prayer I've done recently put into perspective what motivated the murder of Jesus Christ.

When things aren't going your way it's tempting to want a target for that aggression, an outlet. It's easy to take all of that anger and hate you feel about your life and just bully someone with it. That's what happened to Jesus Christ, he was an easy target for hateful people.

The people who persecuted him, who threw the book at him without mercy just wanted an easy target. That's why they accused him of crime, slandered him to no end, and finally brutalized him.

Unfortunately, these hateful people were oppressed themselves. They felt weak. To feel a sense of control, if only for a moment, they tortured an innocent man to death.

All it takes is hatred in your heart to be capable of killing your Messiah, killing your best friend. Our Messiah was a sitting duck. And the worst part about it is that we're not any better than these people.

Even as Christians, we're no better than the people who willingly tortured our Lord to death.

Furthermore, I think that most of us would have gleefully killed him or been willing to kill him.

Ease up there, Sunny.

[Dogmeat]

Well, as Jesus pointed out, God can produce descendants of Abraham from rocks, so I don't see why He can't make a Son of David from Mary.

Not to mention that God the Father is both the Father, as it were, of both Jesus and David.

Also the rest of society considered him to be the son of Joseph and that he was accepted as such "Isn't this the carpenter's son?" etc.

Generally we call people the children of the folks who raise them. I expect people would do the same if he were adopted, so I'm not sure that it proves anything.

If it does prove anything it probably suggests that people did not take claims of divine parentage seriously, or (more likely) considered it polite not to bring up his questionable parentage at all.

[Punished UMN]

My point was more that if harm is the only thing that is wrong, then how can harming someone be justified? How can there be mitigating factors to the only thing that is intrinsically wrong?

Also, and this can be a philosophical question, but I would say violation of consent is often a moral wrong, but that in many cases it does not cause harm.

Harming someone can be justified if the harm is necessary to ensure that less overall harm is caused, like prison.

I would say violation of consent usually causes harm, just in varying degrees.

My point here really is that if one is engaged in an activity that is not harming anyone else, then they should not be condemned, judged, or otherwise held as sinful for it. For example, its is my understanding that masturbation is commonly considered a sin or sinful behavior, when in reality it is a normal, natural, and quite benign behavior that impacts no one but the practitioner. The same argument can be said for homosexuality, and a host of other issues.

This isn't consistent though, if harming someone is justified to create less overall harm, then it's not harming anyone that's wrong, it's increasing the net-harm in the world. Leaving aside that harm cannot be measured and that the idea isn't even coherent for a moment, you could theoretically commit horrific atrocities on the premise that it decreases the overall amount of harm in the world.

And again, I don't know what argument you're trying to make, you say you're not trying to make an argument within Christianity, but you use terms like sin, which are explicitly religious in nature.

[Salus Maior]

Ease up there, Sunny.

Well, I think he makes a decent point.

People in the present often look at the past and laugh, or think that they're better than those who came before. The truth is that we're really not, we continue to make the same mistakes.

I imagine if Christ was here today, we probably wouldn't be a huge fan of Him tearing down our egos in the same way people back then didn't.

[Kowani]

Pope Francis changes Code of Canon Law to formally allow women to serve as readers at liturgies, altar servers and distributors of communion.

[Sundiata]

Pope Francis changes Code of Canon Law to formally allow women to serve as readers at liturgies, altar servers and distributors of communion.

My parish has already been doing this for years now.

[Lost Memories]

And again, I don't know what argument you're trying to make, you say you're not trying to make an argument within Christianity, but you use terms like sin, which are explicitly religious in nature.

You said what I was thinking.

The issue Jedi Council seems to have, is that he is reasoning from an egoistical point of view, he is only looking at himself, and deriving everything else from that. He doesn't really care if others are hurt, that's just a justification for doing whatever for himself.

An easy way to check that, is:
How would you react if you saw two people fighting, or someone assaulting someone. Would you intervene to stop them or not?
(regardless of being a coward or not, what would be the intention, to stop them hurting themselves, or not)
All the silly and superficial talk about the greater good, by quantities of harm, and the concurrent talk about consent, falls apart then.


The worrying part is from where this talk started.
Trollzyn made public his intention to fight what he understands to be a sin, which is afflicting him, and asked for cheer and support, and Jedi Council tried to downplay the effort and commitment of Trollzyn.

[Lost Memories]

Pope Francis changes Code of Canon Law to formally allow women to serve as readers at liturgies, altar servers and distributors of communion.

It's really a non-news. It's been ages now since it's common to see lectors and helpers during mass both male and female.


Some seem to argue that having those roles not exclusively for males, did negatively influence the rate of new priest vocations. But if there was an influence, it was minimal.
The main reason for less priests in the west, is the lower birthrate and the smaller families. Now in the west it's more hard to see families with more than 2 or 3 kids. While usually most priests did come from big families.

[Sundiata]

Pope Francis changes Code of Canon Law to formally allow women to serve as readers at liturgies, altar servers and distributors of communion.

It's really a non-news. It's been ages now since it's common to see lectors and helpers during mass both male and female.


Some seem to argue that having those roles not exclusively for males, did negatively influence the rate of new priest vocations. But if there was an influence, it was minimal.
The main reason for less priests in the west, is the lower birthrate and the smaller families. Now in the west it's more hard to see families with more than 2 or 3 kids. While usually most priests did come from big families.

If the church had its way big families would be more commonplace.

[Lost Memories]

I know this isn't an enjoyable topic, but I've found this research based on 2010 German data about sexual abuses, and wanted to comment on a piece of it.

Our analyses looked at the victim data only (N = 4208). Of that group, 1050 (25%) individuals indicated that the abuse had taken place within an institutional context.
We further categorized this subset according to what type of institution was involved: Roman Catholic (N = 404), Protestant (N = 130), or non-religious (N = 516)

Meaning 75% of the abuses happened outside any institution. That's a figure which is hardly ever seen reported in the news.

In the original figure, the original sums and % for only the catholic group were messed up, the percentages did sum up to more than 100% for males, and less than 100% for females, and the sums didn't match up, while the sums do align perfectly for the protestant and secular group.
So I've taken for good the detailed self-reports, and recalculated the sums from those, and the % based on the sums. Though, it's a correction done on a table which was likely incorrectly typed to start with, it's possible some detailed fields were also wrong (catholic female on male, possibly lower).
(Table 4 has other data about the offenders, which could help to filter out some of the mistakes in Table 5, there were definitely less catholic female offenders)



edit. I've solved the mistake on Table 5, in the catholic group: the 21 male on female figure and the 88 female on male figure, were mistakenly swapped. The sums make more sense that way, and align with other data from Table 4. Though while the female offenders figure fits Table 4, the male offenders figure is still missing something.
It was 88 male abusers on female victims, and 21 female abusers on male victims. The sums were 231 male victims, and 103 female victims.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3995507/

As noted, the numbers and data comes from anonymous self-reports.

Even then, the datas from protestant institutions and secular institutions seem to align in proportion, to some degree, while the datas for the catholic institutions are weird and all over the place in many ways, when compared to the other two groups.

In both protestant and secular institutions, the vast majority of all abuses were caused by males. 83% 88% 73% 86% it's uncertain if because of over-reporting for male offenders or under-reporting for female abusers, inside protestant and secular groups. In the catholic group, the percentages of the abuses being caused by males was lower: 66% 58% Similarly in the catholic group (now with the more correct data)
In both protestant and secular institutions, the victims who anonymously self-reported their aggressors, were evenly split among males and females. In the catholic group, the victims who self-reported were mostly males.

Which brings up the oddity, that from these anonymous reports, the catholic group has the highest number of self-reported male victims, but at the same time, the lowest number of self-reported female victims.
The male abusers in the catholic group also had a bigger share of their victims being male, where instead for the protestant and secular groups the victims of male abusers were again evenly split among males and females. Makes one think about the infamous gay lobby of priests.

The data for female abusers is also inconsistent. The catholic and secular groups have female abusers mainly offending males, with the rate being overly high in the catholic group. (likely because of errors in writing the table, see Table 4)
While in the protestant group, no female abuser at all was reported from male victims as single abuser, female abusers were reported by males only when the abuse also involved an other male.
(protestant group: female on male victim: 0%, both on male victim: 16%)


Both by taking the data at face value, or by criticizing the reliability of the data because of the anonymous nature of the reports.
The results are quite curious.

I personally suspect there was an abuse of the anonymous reporting, with an over-reporting of male victims in the catholic group. And an under-reporting of female abusers in the protestant group. By taking the secular group as baseline for both.
Or if taken at face value, that explains the priestly gay lobby.

[Salus Maior]

Pope Francis changes Code of Canon Law to formally allow women to serve as readers at liturgies, altar servers and distributors of communion.

I mean, they already do those things.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Ease up there, Sunny.

Well, I think he makes a decent point.

People in the present often look at the past and laugh, or think that they're better than those who came before. The truth is that we're really not, we continue to make the same mistakes.

I imagine if Christ was here today, we probably wouldn't be a huge fan of Him tearing down our egos in the same way people back then didn't.

Speak for yourself, please.

[Sundiata]

I confessed my sins and feel a lot less heavy. The weight of my sins was having a huge effect on my ability to love and express love.

[Esheaun Stroakuss]

The prayer I've done recently put into perspective what motivated the murder of Jesus Christ.

When things aren't going your way it's tempting to want a target for that aggression, an outlet. It's easy to take all of that anger and hate you feel about your life and just bully someone with it. That's what happened to Jesus Christ, he was an easy target for hateful people.

The people who persecuted him, who threw the book at him without mercy just wanted an easy target. That's why they accused him of crime, slandered him to no end, and finally brutalized him.

Unfortunately, these hateful people were oppressed themselves. They felt weak. To feel a sense of control, if only for a moment, they tortured an innocent man to death.

All it takes is hatred in your heart to be capable of killing your Messiah, killing your best friend. Our Messiah was a sitting duck. And the worst part about it is that we're not any better than these people.

Even as Christians, we're no better than the people who willingly tortured our Lord to death.

Furthermore, I think that most of us would have gleefully killed him or been willing to kill him.

Bruh.

Personally, if Jesus were alive today, he would likely be one of those street preachers in GTA IV. I would just laugh and go about my day, not kill him??? You have a deeply nihilistic view of humanity, and especially followers of your own religion.

How do you deal with the fact that you are "no better"? Do you think you would have killed Christ?

[Lost Memories]

The prayer I've done recently put into perspective what motivated the murder of Jesus Christ.

When things aren't going your way it's tempting to want a target for that aggression, an outlet. It's easy to take all of that anger and hate you feel about your life and just bully someone with it. That's what happened to Jesus Christ, he was an easy target for hateful people.

The people who persecuted him, who threw the book at him without mercy just wanted an easy target. That's why they accused him of crime, slandered him to no end, and finally brutalized him.

Unfortunately, these hateful people were oppressed themselves. They felt weak. To feel a sense of control, if only for a moment, they tortured an innocent man to death.

All it takes is hatred in your heart to be capable of killing your Messiah, killing your best friend. Our Messiah was a sitting duck. And the worst part about it is that we're not any better than these people.

Even as Christians, we're no better than the people who willingly tortured our Lord to death.

How do you deal with the fact that you are "no better"? Do you think you would have killed Christ?

If you read the post of Sundiata in its wholeness, it's clearly a statement about humility. Maybe overdone, but still humility.

Humility is the opposite of pridefulness, or superbia.

Pridefulness
The quality of being arrogant: arrogance, haughtiness, hauteur, insolence, loftiness, lordliness, overbearingness, presumption, pride, proudness, superciliousness, superiority

Having humility is in part about having foundations based on truth, stable foundations because truth is unchanging.
Having humility is also about being able to look and listen to others. (because who is prideful only listens to themselves)

[Sundiata]

Furthermore, I think that most of us would have gleefully killed him or been willing to kill him.

Bruh.

Personally, if Jesus were alive today, he would likely be one of those street preachers in GTA IV. I would just laugh and go about my day, not kill him??? You have a deeply nihilistic view of humanity, and especially followers of your own religion.

How do you deal with the fact that you are "no better"? Do you think you would have killed Christ?

Do I think I could have easily killed Christ if I didn't learn to love him? Yes.

I am no better a man than Judas Iscariot because I attend the mass, say prayers, and receive the sacraments. I am not without sin, none of us are. Lucky for us though, we're not totally doomed. We each have the capacity to love God anyway despite our stubbornness, despite our sin. Life is worth living.

[Lost Memories]

I wonder how many of the people visiting here know about the vices in christianity, and their opposite virtues.



To make it more explicit. The english names of the vices and virtues, are translations, sometimes just phonetic anglicizations.

The common usage of the english words used to translate the original meanings, can differ from the original meanings. Or poorly convey their meaning.
For english people learning about the seven vices and virtues, it would maybe be better if they used the latin words, rather than the english words. It could help avoiding overlaps with already defined words, so avoiding to take for granted the meaning of the vices, when instead one doesn't understand them.


If literalism was a sin, I wonder where it would fit in there. Or would literalism need a new spot all for itself? (hypothetically)

[New Visayan Islands]

Considering that Communion is always on the tongue in the TLM, it's no surprise the Bishop admonished the priest key in reviving the practice of the TLM, what with health standards meaning the Communion on the tongue is a big no-no. As a workaround, he has Communion distributed after the Mass, either on the hand or (his preference) a personal purificator, giving instructions for cleanup after the Mass (soak in water for 30 minutes to ensure complete dissolution of any Remnants of the Host, then pour the solution onto the soil--inb4 someone decides to use the solution in watering their favorite plants).

[The Archregimancy]

I wonder how many of the people visiting here know about the vices in christianity, and their opposite virtues.

(Image)

As is regrettably so often the case, that Wikipedia article seems to be conflating Western Christianity with 'historic Christian denominations'. It's telling in that context that the languages used are Latin and Italian rather than, say, Greek - which is, after all, alongside the more niche Aramaic, the original language of Christianity.

Orthodoxy has never tried to classify seven virtues in opposition to an official list of seven 'deadly' sins, instead more broadly and loosely recognising fourteen Christian virtues:

https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-ortho ... he-virtues
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Virtues

(Love/charity/agape is sometimes considered separately on the basis of 'the greatest of these is love').


The concept of 'seven deadly sins' isn't necessarily rejected by Orthodox theologians, and the Western classification is sometimes seen as a useful handle to discuss the concept of sin without in any way being a formal Church categorisation, but to quote one Russian theologian's remarks: 'until Orthodox made contact with Roman Catholics and Protestants, it never occurred to us that sacraments were something to be counted'; and what goes for sacraments also goes for sins.

[Sundiata]

I wonder how many of the people visiting here know about the vices in christianity, and their opposite virtues.

(Image)

As is regrettably so often the case, that Wikipedia article seems to be conflating Western Christianity with 'historic Christian denominations'. It's telling in that context that the languages used are Latin and Italian rather than, say, Greek - which is, after all, alongside the more niche Aramaic, the original language of Christianity.

Orthodoxy has never tried to classify seven virtues in opposition to an official list of seven 'deadly' sins, instead more broadly and loosely recognising fourteen Christian virtues:

https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-ortho ... he-virtues
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Virtues

(Love/charity/agape is sometimes considered separately on the basis of 'the greatest of these is love').


The concept of 'seven deadly sins' isn't necessarily rejected by Orthodox theologians, and the Western classification is sometimes seen as a useful handle to discuss the concept of sin without in any way being a formal Church categorisation, but to quote one Russian theologian's remarks: 'until Orthodox made contact with Roman Catholics and Protestants, it never occurred to us that sacraments were something to be counted'; and what goes for sacraments also goes for sins.

Wow.

[Lost Memories]

I wonder how many of the people visiting here know about the vices in christianity, and their opposite virtues.

(Image)

To make it more explicit. The english names of the vices and virtues, are translations, sometimes just phonetic anglicizations.

If literalism was a sin, I wonder where it would fit in there. Or would literalism need a new spot all for itself? (hypothetically)

As is regrettably so often the case, that Wikipedia article seems to be conflating Western Christianity with 'historic Christian denominations'. It's telling in that context that the languages used are Latin and Italian rather than, say, Greek - which is, after all, alongside the more niche Aramaic, the original language of Christianity.

Orthodoxy has never tried to classify seven virtues in opposition to an official list of seven 'deadly' sins, instead more broadly and loosely recognising fourteen Christian virtues:

https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-ortho ... he-virtues
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Virtues

(Love/charity/agape is sometimes considered separately on the basis of 'the greatest of these is love').


The concept of 'seven deadly sins' isn't necessarily rejected by Orthodox theologians, and the Western classification is sometimes seen as a useful handle to discuss the concept of sin without in any way being a formal Church categorisation, but to quote one Russian theologian's remarks: 'until Orthodox made contact with Roman Catholics and Protestants, it never occurred to us that sacraments were something to be counted'; and what goes for sacraments also goes for sins.

Some western trivia:

The modern concept of the seven deadly sins is linked to the works of the fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus(345–399 AD), who listed eight evil thoughts in Greek.
They were translated into the Latin of Western Christianity largely in the writings of John Cassian(c. AD 360 – c. 435).
In AD 590 Pope Gregory I revised this list to form the more common list. Gregory combined tristitia with acedia, and vanagloria with superbia, and added envy, in Latin, invidia. Gregory's list became the standard list of sins.

But seriously, it was clear it wasn't about orthodoxy, it was even written in there, it wasn't about eastern orthodoxy.
I mean, reading "protestantism" and "historic christian" in the same sentence, should have already warned you that the meaning of "historic christianity" was very limited, and not general.
(or how the "catholic church" and "denomination" in the same sentence is also incorrect, if we really want to be pedantic)

And sorry, but latin is as much of an original christian language as greek and aramaic, not in the sense of who came first, but as they all were the languages of the early church.
Besides, christianity isn't a segregated ethno culture, so the language used isn't the most important thing, but what matters is the meaning expressed by the usage of language. Which is what I focused on, the meaning, not the words. Even less the specific language, but rather how translations across different languages can change, alter or lose the meaning.
Two actions aren't the same sin because they are called with the same name, but because they amount to the same essential properties against God's will.

Which again, given the nature of this forum, and its common userbase, when people jump in here talking about sins, most often by using the common english and non-christian understanding of them, they come from a western context. In most cases, not from an eastern context.
It's also quite understandable, for the english version of wikipedia, to have a western centric view. Which you correctly noted.
Do we really want to go check a similar page about christian sins and vices, in russian and greek, to see how complete it is, and how much it conflates Eastern Christianity with 'historic Christian denominations' while excluding the western side ? That's a really silly objection.

Still, this is a good opportunity to view the orthodox traditions about the understanding of sin and vices. So still thanks for the addition.

So, from an orthodox understanding of sin, how sinful would be literalism? The Literalism which hinders communication and makes it harder for people to understand each other.