The Christian Discussion Thread VI

[Tarsonis Survivors]

New Moon is the evening of February 9th. Where is Ash Wednesday in the Besorah?

I know jack-shite in this form of stuff, so what is a Besorah? Is it a name for a Jewish calendar and/or book?

Besorah is the bible, because effy's version of Christianity are the hipsters.

[Talvezout]

I know jack-shite in this form of stuff, so what is a Besorah? Is it a name for a Jewish calendar and/or book?

Besorah is the bible, because effy's version of Christianity are the hipsters.

Which was what I was expecting.

[Luminesa]

Well you're voting for candidates, not parties. A good bit of the Republicans have good pro-life records, whereas most of the Democrats don't. TRUMP certainly won't do anything about abortion if he's elected, but Rubio or Cruz probably will.

But we can't wait for our presidents to do stuff concerning abortion. This is not just a political issue, but a human rights issue. We should be working in our communities right where we are, if we want to help to end abortion. What state are you from? Whichever one it is, you've still got plenty of work to do.

Cruz and Rubio won't do shit for abortion.

They know they can't, so they won't. Abortion was largely decided in the courts, and unless they can pass a Constitutional amendment or can overturn case after case of abortion they can't do anything in their power to ban it, let alone legislate it further than it already is.

Sadly, the talk about abortion has only become a political point which presidential and congressional hopefuls have just duped the population into actually paying attention to that and not to all the actual blunders their other policies have. Pro-life advocates in the U.S. have to focus on culture if they want to change the paradigm of abortion for the better, not on policy; because policies in the U.S. at the Supreme Court level are very rare to overturn, especially if they have been used as precedent.

I feel the best way to prevent abortions is to reduce the effect/rate of unwanted pregnancies. Sadly, abstinence-only education DOES NOT WORK! I have said this before, and I will say this always. This delusional belief Southern Protestants have that teenagers and young adults won't have sex until they marry is that, delusional. Catholicism puts a moral condition to sex before marriage (it is bad in the eyes of God), however, not everyone is a Catholic in the South, let alone every Catholic being a devout Catholic.

I was gonna say that about changing the culture, but you beat me to it. JPII approves.

The only problem I can see with it is you're taught not to have sex, when you're in school, but you go out and sex is all over the TV and the Internet. If I were bringing sex into a conversation, I'd bring in some sort of pop-culture and be like, "What's wrong with this picture and why?" I dunno. The best way to teach is to meet the kids right where they are, I would think.

It also has a lot to do with our culture not understanding sexuality and sex itself very well. And that's on both sides. It's just one of those mysteries of the human body that we still know relatively little about, kinda like psychology. Also, it's become such a touchy subject in the media that you can't talk about it without riots starting. So if we want to learn about how sex works, we first have to learn how to discuss it with each other. And then we can go from there!

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Cruz and Rubio won't do shit for abortion.

They know they can't, so they won't. Abortion was largely decided in the courts, and unless they can pass a Constitutional amendment or can overturn case after case of abortion they can't do anything in their power to ban it, let alone legislate it further than it already is.

Sadly, the talk about abortion has only become a political point which presidential and congressional hopefuls have just duped the population into actually paying attention to that and not to all the actual blunders their other policies have. Pro-life advocates in the U.S. have to focus on culture if they want to change the paradigm of abortion for the better, not on policy; because policies in the U.S. at the Supreme Court level are very rare to overturn, especially if they have been used as precedent.

I feel the best way to prevent abortions is to reduce the effect/rate of unwanted pregnancies. Sadly, abstinence-only education DOES NOT WORK! I have said this before, and I will say this always. This delusional belief Southern Protestants have that teenagers and young adults won't have sex until they marry is that, delusional. Catholicism puts a moral condition to sex before marriage (it is bad in the eyes of God), however, not everyone is a Catholic in the South, let alone every Catholic being a devout Catholic.

I was gonna say that about changing the culture, but you beat me to it. JPII approves.

The only problem I can see with it is you're taught not to have sex, when you're in school, but you go out and sex is all over the TV and the Internet. If I were bringing sex into a conversation, I'd bring in some sort of pop-culture and be like, "What's wrong with this picture and why?" I dunno. The best way to teach is to meet the kids right where they are, I would think.

It also has a lot to do with our culture not understanding sexuality and sex itself very well. And that's on both sides. It's just one of those mysteries of the human body that we still know relatively little about, kinda like psychology. Also, it's become such a touchy subject in the media that you can't talk about it without riots starting. So if we want to learn about how sex works, we first have to learn how to discuss it with each other. And then we can go from there!

My main qualm about abstinence-only is that it teaches not to have sex, and they never teach how to protect yourself if you ever do. It is an assumption that abstinence-only will scare the bejeezus out of children into not having sex and skirts all over the place on actual sexual education. I can tell you one thing, it didn't scare me back then, and it still doesn't scare me now, and I probably know more about contraceptives and whatnot on my own than I ever did in high school.

Cultural sex isn't all the pressure there is on teenagers who have their hormones on overdrive and who are pressured to have a girlfriend and marry because everyone else is doing it as part of adulting. Hell, I am 26, and haven't left a girl pregnant or have had STDs of any kind and I'm not an abstinent person. The pressure simply didn't get to me because my dad understood and told me that my time would come and to not worry about it right then and there because I had a future to look forward to anyways, and he reaffirmed the fact that just because I didn't have sex with anyone didn't mean I was less of a man because of it.

Basically, you are getting mixed messages striahgt up from your local community in many cases. Both "don't have sex" and "why are you not having sex?"; basically, fucked if you do, fucked if you don't.

[Luminesa]

I was gonna say that about changing the culture, but you beat me to it. JPII approves.

The only problem I can see with it is you're taught not to have sex, when you're in school, but you go out and sex is all over the TV and the Internet. If I were bringing sex into a conversation, I'd bring in some sort of pop-culture and be like, "What's wrong with this picture and why?" I dunno. The best way to teach is to meet the kids right where they are, I would think.

It also has a lot to do with our culture not understanding sexuality and sex itself very well. And that's on both sides. It's just one of those mysteries of the human body that we still know relatively little about, kinda like psychology. Also, it's become such a touchy subject in the media that you can't talk about it without riots starting. So if we want to learn about how sex works, we first have to learn how to discuss it with each other. And then we can go from there!

My main qualm about abstinence-only is that it teaches not to have sex, and they never teach how to protect yourself if you ever do. It is an assumption that abstinence-only will scare the bejeezus out of children into not having sex and skirts all over the place on actual sexual education. I can tell you one thing, it didn't scare me back then, and it still doesn't scare me now, and I probably know more about contraceptives and whatnot on my own than I ever did in high school.

Cultural sex isn't all the pressure there is on teenagers who have their hormones on overdrive and who are pressured to have a girlfriend and marry because everyone else is doing it as part of adulting. Hell, I am 26, and haven't left a girl pregnant or have had STDs of any kind and I'm not an abstinent person. The pressure simply didn't get to me because my dad understood and told me that my time would come and to not worry about it right then and there because I had a future to look forward to anyways, and he reaffirmed the fact that just because I didn't have sex with anyone didn't mean I was less of a man because of it.

Basically, you are getting mixed messages striahgt up from your local community in many cases. Both "don't have sex" and "why are you not having sex?"; basically, fucked if you do, fucked if you don't.

Yep. But we need more teachers like your dad, because he's right, despite what our culture tells us! One does not need to have sex every minute of every day to be a man!

[Constantinopolis]

Well, I'd love to jump into the conversation, but instead I will just second what Luminesa is saying, because on this topic I agree with her completely.

And on another note, I have a small announcement to make: Having once again developed a serious backlog of work that needs to be done, it's time for me to take a break from NSG for a while, in order to (hopefully) get more productive.

So, I won't be reading this thread or visiting NSG until... well I'm not sure when, exactly, but I'll probably return near the end of March. Don't worry, that doesn't mean I'm going to miss any major occasions leading up to Easter, because Orthodox Easter is exceptionally late this year: May 1st. Therefore, Orthodox Lent doesn't start until March 14th.

Of course, as usual when I go on hiatus, I'm still going to log into my nation on a regular basis, and check my telegrams and respond to them as normal. So, feel free to telegram me about anything at any time! I just won't check this thread until I come back.

May Our Lord Jesus Christ bless you, and keep you, and enable you to have a spiritually fruitful Lenten season!

[The United Neptumousian Empire]

I was in the same boat, but ultimately I decided to vote based on other issues, largely because I think parties that claim to be pro-life are liars and are just trying to force pro-life people to vote for them. They won't do anything about abortion if they're elected.

Well you're voting for candidates, not parties. A good bit of the Republicans have good pro-life records, whereas most of the Democrats don't. TRUMP certainly won't do anything about abortion if he's elected, but Rubio or Cruz probably will.

But we can't wait for our presidents to do stuff concerning abortion. This is not just a political issue, but a human rights issue. We should be working in our communities right where we are, if we want to help to end abortion. What state are you from? Whichever one it is, you've still got plenty of work to do.

In Canada, we actually do vote for parties and not candidates. The party itself selects which candidate will be prime minister if that party forms a government.

I should say that many candidates might try to do something about abortion in the US, but they will fail. Bush was in office for 8 years and he didn't really manage to change anything.

In Canada, unfortunately there is definitely no one who will do anything about abortion, because none of the political parties here are pro-life. The poison has set in too deep, and there is no cure in the foreseeable future. The only way I can see an end to abortion is through the technology of artificial wombs, which would allow fetuses to be removed without being killed. Unfortunately peoples minds have become too clouded with the delusion that bodily autonomy matters more than life itself for much to be done about it.

[The United Neptumousian Empire]

nonsense. great arching beautiful cathedrals should not be made a thing of the past. glorifying God is a worthy use of money.

You're both forgetting the distinction between stocks and flows.

Having a massive cathedral (that was built a long time ago) is not the same thing as building a new massive cathedral.

Should we refrain from building new massive cathedrals, because the money would be better spent elsewhere? Perhaps. This is a suggestion that we should at least consider.

But we can't just stop having the massive cathedrals that were built centuries ago. They are already built. Other than the maintenance and restoration costs (which would have to be paid by someone anyway, no matter if the Church owned these buildings or not), it doesn't take a lot of money to just keep worshiping in them, no matter how extravagant they are. Having a massive cathedral passed down to you from previous generations is like having a diamond ring passed down from your grandmother. It's not an indication of any actual large spending on your part.

But we should build new massive cathedrals, there are not enough of them! Modernism in church design should be eliminated, all churches should be beautiful and extravagant, built in the styles of antiquity.

[The Archregimancy]

But we should build new massive cathedrals, there are not enough of them! Modernism in church design should be eliminated, all churches should be beautiful and extravagant, built in the styles of antiquity.

Hagia Sophia is best church.

[Czechanada]

Well you're voting for candidates, not parties. A good bit of the Republicans have good pro-life records, whereas most of the Democrats don't. TRUMP certainly won't do anything about abortion if he's elected, but Rubio or Cruz probably will.

But we can't wait for our presidents to do stuff concerning abortion. This is not just a political issue, but a human rights issue. We should be working in our communities right where we are, if we want to help to end abortion. What state are you from? Whichever one it is, you've still got plenty of work to do.

In Canada, we actually do vote for parties and not candidates. The party itself selects which candidate will be prime minister if that party forms a government.

I should say that many candidates might try to do something about abortion in the US, but they will fail. Bush was in office for 8 years and he didn't really manage to change anything.

In Canada, unfortunately there is definitely no one who will do anything about abortion, because none of the political parties here are pro-life. The poison has set in too deep, and there is no cure in the foreseeable future. The only way I can see an end to abortion is through the technology of artificial wombs, which would allow fetuses to be removed without being killed. Unfortunately peoples minds have become too clouded with the delusion that bodily autonomy matters more than life itself for much to be done about it.

No, in Canada, we vote for a candidate, specifically for the candidate to be the Member of Parliament of the riding in which we reside. The party that gets the most seats has its leader become Prime Minister.

And as a Canadian, I'm quite frankly appreciative of the fact that religious fundamentalism has gone to the wayside in politics when we have actual issues to deal with like racism, the continual plight of the indigenous, the economy, the education systems, and so forth. Things that would actually reduce abortion.

You could always vote for the Christian Heritage Party of Canada if there is a candidate in your riding.

[Luminesa]

But we should build new massive cathedrals, there are not enough of them! Modernism in church design should be eliminated, all churches should be beautiful and extravagant, built in the styles of antiquity.

Hagia Sophia is best church.

...You know what?...I just might agree with you on that. Hagia Sophia is best church. I want to see it before I die. That thing is just...amazing.

Tied with St. Peter's Basilica, of course.

[Luminesa]

You're both forgetting the distinction between stocks and flows.

Having a massive cathedral (that was built a long time ago) is not the same thing as building a new massive cathedral.

Should we refrain from building new massive cathedrals, because the money would be better spent elsewhere? Perhaps. This is a suggestion that we should at least consider.

But we can't just stop having the massive cathedrals that were built centuries ago. They are already built. Other than the maintenance and restoration costs (which would have to be paid by someone anyway, no matter if the Church owned these buildings or not), it doesn't take a lot of money to just keep worshiping in them, no matter how extravagant they are. Having a massive cathedral passed down to you from previous generations is like having a diamond ring passed down from your grandmother. It's not an indication of any actual large spending on your part.

But we should build new massive cathedrals, there are not enough of them! Modernism in church design should be eliminated, all churches should be beautiful and extravagant, built in the styles of antiquity.

PREACH! I utterly despise the new metal-looking churches in metro areas. That design doesn't lift my heart to God in the slightest. Now the Gothic spires of Notre Dame, the bulbs of St. Basil's, and the mosaics in Hagia Sophia? Those lift one's heart to God. People have tried so hard to bring the Church into modern times that we've forgotten some of our most beautiful heritage.

And in the words of Montell Jordan, "Let's split the track, bring the old school back."

[Herskerstad]

But we should build new massive cathedrals, there are not enough of them! Modernism in church design should be eliminated, all churches should be beautiful and extravagant, built in the styles of antiquity.

Hagia Sophia is best church.

If it still was then yeah it would rank pretty high on most scores.

Chances are always that the sultan of crazy will revert it from a museum to a mosque again.

As for myself, while I will always have a weakness for the staff-churches in Norway, I like the design more simple and elegant than elaborate and stunning.

[Czechanada]

There's only one cathedral for me:

[Cill Airne]

nonsense. great arching beautiful cathedrals should not be made a thing of the past. glorifying God is a worthy use of money.

You're both forgetting the distinction between stocks and flows.

Having a massive cathedral (that was built a long time ago) is not the same thing as building a new massive cathedral.

Should we refrain from building new massive cathedrals, because the money would be better spent elsewhere? Perhaps. This is a suggestion that we should at least consider.

But we can't just stop having the massive cathedrals that were built centuries ago. They are already built. Other than the maintenance and restoration costs (which would have to be paid by someone anyway, no matter if the Church owned these buildings or not), it doesn't take a lot of money to just keep worshiping in them, no matter how extravagant they are. Having a massive cathedral passed down to you from previous generations is like having a diamond ring passed down from your grandmother. It's not an indication of any actual large spending on your part.

As I've mentioned before, I go back and forth between the United States and the United Kingdom. The Church I attend in the Episcopal Church while in the United States was built in the later 19th century, with construction ending in the 1920s, and most people remark it looks like a "Mini-Cathedral". In truth, it's actually based on Magdalen College, in Oxford. I absolutely love Cathedral architecture, and to worship in them makes me feel as though I am looking at the beauty of Heaven on Earth. But I do agree, constructing a new cathedral could be seen as a waste of money today, with better things to spend on but that does not mean we should abandon our cathedral churches for simpler building-styles.

[Luminesa]

Hagia Sophia is best church.

If it still was then yeah it would rank pretty high on most scores.

Chances are always that the sultan of crazy will revert it from a museum to a mosque again.

As for myself, while I will always have a weakness for the staff-churches in Norway, I like the design more simple and elegant than elaborate and stunning.

But I like elaborate and stunning!

[Diopolis]

I'm a roman Catholic who is currently studying for confirmation, and I was wondering what you guys thought of Gay Marriage. It's interesting to see a range of opinions from a group of people

How do you call it marriage at all?

Because what else are you going to call it? That's why some people use the scarequotes.

[Diopolis]

Well you're voting for candidates, not parties. A good bit of the Republicans have good pro-life records, whereas most of the Democrats don't. TRUMP certainly won't do anything about abortion if he's elected, but Rubio or Cruz probably will.

But we can't wait for our presidents to do stuff concerning abortion. This is not just a political issue, but a human rights issue. We should be working in our communities right where we are, if we want to help to end abortion. What state are you from? Whichever one it is, you've still got plenty of work to do.

Cruz and Rubio won't do shit for abortion.

They may not. The judges they appoint, however, might.

[Menassa]

New Moon is the evening of February 9th. Where is Ash Wednesday in the Besorah?

I know jack-shite in this form of stuff, so what is a Besorah? Is it a name for a Jewish calendar and/or book?

It ain't anything Jewish, trust me.

[Efraim-Judah]

I know jack-shite in this form of stuff, so what is a Besorah? Is it a name for a Jewish calendar and/or book?

It ain't anything Jewish, trust me.

Except it is.

[Efraim-Judah]

New Moon is the evening of February 9th. Where is Ash Wednesday in the Besorah?

1. What the fuck is the Besorah?

2. What does the new moon have to do with anything?

1.) The Besorah is what one might call "The New Testament"

2.) Everything. The New Moon helps determine times and seasons.

[Efraim-Judah]

New Moon is the evening of February 9th. Where is Ash Wednesday in the Besorah?

I know jack-shite in this form of stuff, so what is a Besorah? Is it a name for a Jewish calendar and/or book?

The Besorah is a collection of Jewish books commonly referred to as the New Testament

[Efraim-Judah]

I know jack-shite in this form of stuff, so what is a Besorah? Is it a name for a Jewish calendar and/or book?

Besorah is the bible, because effy's version of Christianity are the hipsters.

I thought you were gone, dear friend.

[Diopolis]

I know jack-shite in this form of stuff, so what is a Besorah? Is it a name for a Jewish calendar and/or book?

The Besorah is a collection of Jewish books commonly referred to as the New Testament

So then they wouldn't be Jewish then, now would they?

[Efraim-Judah]

The Besorah is a collection of Jewish books commonly referred to as the New Testament

So then they wouldn't be Jewish then, now would they?

Jewish guys were writing them, weren't they?

The "New Testament" is as Jewish as Pesach.