How many Christians are here?

I am a Christian. However, I don't attend church, because I'm not very social. On the other hand I keep God close to my heart. I am a sinner, and my heart is full of regrets. I feel that every day I find a new way to spit on all I have been given and I just can't turn back some things. So I feel the need for salvation. I believe Jesus came to earth to show us the dangers of ``amor sui', and is our savior. I certainly accept him as my savior.

Is anyone else here a Christian? I imagine most of you are atheists, agnostics or of other religions. This is ok with me, as I understand it is what is fashionable amongst young people these days. However, I'm always happy when I meet a fellow Christian in an unexpected place :)

I know a guy named Christian, but I'm not one myself

>>1
I'm Christian, but like you have difficulty dealing with people and don't attend church. Remember that repentance is the opposite of regret: if God has forgiven you for something, once you've decided it was a sin, then there's no reason not to forgive yourself.

Jesus' main lesson was about love, and loving yourself is not a bad thing. "Amor sui" in the sense of screwing others over is bad, but you're going to have a tough time loving life and others if you don't allow yourself to love yourself. That sentence sounded better in my head but I don't know how else to phrase it. Anyway, my point is that you basically can't go wrong with genuine love. Even if you screw up, at least you were trying. Much of the other trappings of religion can get you away from that, which I think is dangerous.

I wish I were a Jew.

>>1

as I understand it is what is fashionable amongst young people these days.

Sadly, yes. I've met some people who have ``outgrown'' atheism. They must be the same people who get a fairly attractive woman to like them and leave the wizard thing in the past.

aka ``faggot''s.

>>1

I feel that every day I find a new way to spit on all I have been given and I just can't turn back some things. So I feel the need for salvation.

Why do you even care? From your point of view, no matter how hard you screw things up you are practically guaranteed to have an afterlife (possibly a quite dis-pleasurable one, but still an afterlife); with that in mind, you can lead a merry and practically carefree life, knowing that even if you don't do your very best in this world, it doesn't really matter since it's just a transition to the next world, for you and for everyone else. Earthly life is just the waiting room to the afterlife: you can read a few magazines, you can check your email, you can talk with the other people waiting there.

All that to say: is it just me or atheist oblivion is far far scarier than Christian hell.

Jesus was a Jew, and actually his name was ישוע‎ !

>>6
How do you read that!

>>7
Yishu.

>>3
Yay cool! Hi! Glad to know you're here fellow Christian /prog/rider

Now in response to the other things you wrote,

I am but man, not God. So even if I know God will forgive me (or has already, it doesn't matter), I can still have trouble forgiving myself. I forget, recognize and move on (I do not dwell), but forgive? sometimes, other times it can be very difficult. I try forgive others to my fullest (even that not always), and I find this hard sometimes too. It's easy to say you forgive someone but have you really forgiven them if you're repressing feelings of distrust and hurt? This is one of the reasons I admire our Lord so much. I can't fathom the kind of love and courage you must have to be able to forgive everyone of all their sins. Actually forgive them! How far us men are from all that!

Time helps. Remembering Jesus's example, love and forgiveness of all the wrongs I (we) do, also helps. The trouble is I don't always have Him on my mind. Even as I type this it feels like lip service. I know God is always with us but just how open is my heart to him right now?

A wise man, interperting St. Augustine told me "Without amor dei, there is only amor sui". This is what led me to (re)discover my Christianity (which had been lost when I was a teenager). So this phrase has special significance to myself and my faith.

The great scholar himself put it thus:
``Fecerunt itaque civitates duas amores duo, terrenam scilicet amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei, caelestem vero amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui.''

Thank you for your advice and faith :)

>>5
It's not just you.

Scripture is meant to be read philosophically, in all religions. Furthermore translation after translation has warped some of the meanings heavily.

English Bible(s) are a (many times not direct) translation of the Latin Vulgate, which is itself a translation of the Hebrew Tanakh.

Jewish folk are Semites, and most of their religion is taken from the beliefs of the inhabitants of ancient Iraq, which was called Sumer, and its people Sumerians. Related people are Akkadians, Babylonians, etc, which are even referenced in the canon.

Even the hieroglyphic-like alphabet of the Sumerians gives clues, such as the cuneiform "Dingir", which means both "Heaven/Heavens", "Deity/God/Gods", and "Star", consistent with their beliefs that their Gods came down from the Heavens/Stars, as well as words/names like "Adamu", which means "Created Man" (Adam being taken from this in Hebrew, which means "First Man"), and is the name in Sumerian mythology for the first man, created by "Enki", the creator god and inventor of civilization.

Think about the fact that the writing system of Sumerians existed about 4000 years before Christ was born, and most of their mythology / beliefs developed around that time as well, at most between 4000BC and 1000BC.

In conclusion, Christianity is only a modified version of Judaism which is itself a modernized version of Sumerian mythology, with some other elements throw in from various philosophies and religions around the world.

I much prefer eastern philosophies such as Taoism, it's mostly the "real" underlying message of all other religions but without all the deities and nonsense.

Oh, and to add, I seriously don't understand why people don't just accept that knowing whether "God" exists or not is absolutely impossible. Theism, Atheism and Agnosticism are all imbecilities, there isn't "knowing there is / knowing there isn't / not being sure". No, there only thing you can be sure of is that it's impossible to know, unless this Universe actually receives information from outside of the Universe itself, and if that's the case, the creator of this Universe must be a shitty mathematician because that fucks up all the laws of entropy, thermodynamics, etc, that govern any sort of stable or working systems.

A being capable of creating Universes would surely welcome and/or respect this line of thought. As a programmer/mathematician, you should be free from belief and only arrive at concepts using logical deduction, and base as little of it as possible on your faulty perceptions of reality.

>>11
It is possible to prove the existence of god if god decides to interfere with the world and make eir existence known in a rather earth-shattering and physically-impossible manner.

>>12
And by doing so he dooms us all into non-existence by creating an inconsistency in the Universe. Great.

I still can't understand how a very considerable part of the world follows a half-assed attempt at Judaism that seriously.

>>10

But where is the role of God here? Surely God isn't just ``what's right for man''?

>>11
God is a man-made creation. I don't seen any point on discussing that. "We will never know" is accepting the legacy of a few niggers who thought the sun and potatoes were life-making fairies, and lumping that with the current developments in logic and philosophy. Associating a fuckton of symbolism from our ancestors

Sorry if I sound like an ebin reddit fuck, but it's been a good while (probably decades) since I last partook in a redditargument. Feel free to point out any errors in my retort; I'd like to know if I'm saying something really stupid but it's unlikely I'll reply with another retort because these conversations are fucking pointless and it'll take another 10 years to recharge my inner reddit.

>>16
Don't refer to it as "God". I think we can be fairly sure that the "God" depicted in, say, Christianity is just lunacy.

In that post, I meant a "creator" in general, in the same way that if you were able to run Universal simulations, and if you programmed that simulation, you would be the "God", or creator of that simulation.

The point is, we will never know if the Universe was created by someone/something for a reason or whether is just exists by some mechanism that will likely forever elude us until the end of time.

Regardless, when discussing about the "reality" of concepts at this level (i.e., what exists outside/before/after the Universe) realize that everything you know or perceive is a "man-made" creation for you are just a information processing system that creates its own understanding of the world. For all we know, you could be "God" (the creator of this simulation) running through it yourself because you feel like it.

>>16
I'll reply with a bunch of random thoughts and go nowhere cause I don't intend to discuss this anymore either.

I can't see any ``errors'' in your retort.

You're probably sophisticated enough to see a clear distinction between the symbol which represents a number number and a number itself (or any other such examples). Well, you can say some symbol e.g. '4' is a man made creation but saying the number that symbol represents is man made too, is, to me, ludicrous.

It's not something that just exists in your head. It's something that exists period. It's not physical, you can't touch it, see it, taste it, or hear it, but it exists anyway. You can know it exists with certainty.

With the same certaintiy I know God exists, and I know my soul exists.

So, to me, its not about finding some set of morals or ethics and knowing what's ``good'' in this way, it's about discovering God. This is the ``amor sui'' vs ``amor dei'' thing. If there is no God, if deities are just some relic of ancient symbolism or whatever, then all you have left is love of self. You are God in your own head and you have the power to create and destroy all the gods you please (sort of like the very amusing take on religion and gods in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels (and numerous video games))

To me Christian theology is by far the most sophisticated, and aside from that I truly do believe Jesus was God and that God came to earth to guide us and that God, Jesus and the Holy spirit are all one holy union. I understand this sounds borderline insane to someone who doesn't have faith, but its not that insane ;). If you accept this, and then e.g. read the great scholastics and really give things some thought, you'll be surprised at the sophistication (the kind a programmer ought to appreciate) that's been put into the Christian faith. It's the only faith I know that actually studied God, and not man; descriptive not perscriptive.

Anyway, I share the same distate for this sort of discussion.

I started this thread just to see if there were any other Christians here, say hi, maybe share some experiences, and generally feel good. That is all.

I didn't really want a debate on whether this religion or that religion is the right one etc. etc.

!5

God is never just "what's right for man", in any religion. The concept of "God" is, again, philosophical.

I can't tell you what it meant for the people who decided to personify it in Judaism / Christianity / etc, but originally it's just an abstract metaphor for the "foundations of reality".

>>19
Whoops, that should have been >>15 instead of >>!5

>>17
Why does the creator always have to be a human-like entity, though?

If dogs were able to communicate and think rationally, would they also form religions around the One True Dog? I mean, what kind of retarded inbred dog would think there is such thing as a Supreme Tiger? Of course it's a dog, what the fuck else would rule this dog-ridden world?

Don't humans think that way too? With this vast universe and the characteristic terminal retardation of humans, it would be very unfortunate if it had been created by some sandnigger. It would have been much more likely for it to be created by some intelligent species that doesn't revolve around le 420 weed and Facebook. Yet humans seem to think the only way the universe could come to be was some skyjew? That's why I agree with you, the "God"s depicted in mainstream religions are outright bullshit.

As an unrelated comment, is it impossible for a sentient life form to be something other than a torso+head+limbs combo, or a big ball of slime with eyes that goes GRHRHRHRHRHBRHBRHBRHBH every time it opens its fucking mouth? _{Actually, who the hell said all species need an opening near their processing center to be able to communicate their thoughts in form of utterances?} Is there some kind of rulebook that restricts sentient beings to be made in those shapes?

It's always those two options. No wonder "Creator" and "God" are always depicted as a Caucasian bearded guy.

>>18

I started this thread just to see if there were any other Christians here

I was raised as a Catholic and I have a question for you. What sets apart a ``mainstream Christian'' from a ``Catholic''? Is it just their beliefs about the Pope and the Vatican? Some people here call themselves ``Christians'' and they have odd customs like not decorating their house in Christmas and their women being forbidden from wearing skirts or using makeup.

>>19

There is a strong qualitative difference between God as God and God as some sort of personification of the laws of nature which man observes. There is an even bigger difference to the kinds of conclusions the different views lead to.

>>18

This is the ``amor sui'' vs ``amor dei'' thing

Care to explain? I'm too lazy to look up that.

>>18

It's not something that just exists in your head. It's something that exists period. It's not physical, you can't touch it, see it, taste it, or hear it, but it exists anyway. You can know it exists with certainty.

There's a difference between knowing something through logic and knowing it because you "feel" that you know it. Not even the number itself really exists.

The axiom of the relation of the quality is defined by: "Two objects x and y are equal if and only if x has every property y has, and y has every property x has."

The definition for property can be made more "rigorous" by using things like propositional functions, but in the end it always relies upon assumptions and high level concepts created by what you've learned from the world.

If the world or your perception is faulty or obfuscated, you can't know that anything you know or feel that you know really exists.

You can only know that what you know is a representation of something that exists, but you don't know what it is. If you can't even satisfy the basic axioms without running into mutual dependence problems, drawing far more complex conclusions out of thin air like "God and my soul exist because I know it!" is nonsense.

When thinking about these things, you should always assume you're living in a dream. In your dreams, nonsense and illogical things happen, and they don't even segue properly, but you don't notice/care because the logic you use and take as "normal" in dreams is twisted anyway. When you wake up, you realize that the dream was messed up and strange.

Realize that reality is probably the same thing. To some system that can process the world "better", we would likely seem absolutely insane and broken. We can process the world better (assumingly) than people with mental diseases like psychosis and schizophrenia, therefore they seem broken to us because their behaviour seems illogical, inconsistent, or destructive.

People who choose to know that they know things because they feel that they know them seem broken to me.

>>22

I think the Catholic church defines what you need to do to be a Catholic.

As for forbidding people to wear skirts and makeup, I understand when Christian parents have certain rules for their children (in order to give them a Christian education (i.e. educe; to bring forth the Christian in them) but I don't think that aside from this worldly duty as a parent there is any heavenly obligation to combat sin in others (and for a large class of sins, I don't think there should be any [b]wolrdly[b] right to do so either). If anything your duty is to recognize your own sin and forgive others when they seek forgiveness, as the Lord does.

A Christian should always help his fellow man, and tell them about God if they are interested. We are all Christian souls, it's just a matter of recognizing it.

Faggots, all of you.

Yo Christians in this thread, where do you stand on unborn baby killing and faggots?

>>25

Try explaining to a 6 year old child the difference between a symbol and the thing the symbol represents. They will have much difficulty.

If you have a pet cat or dog, it probably understand numbers to an even smaller degree. For example your pet may exhibit the ability to count.

In the same way your cat probably has an even less sophisticated understanding of God than you (i.e. you in general, myself included) do.

Now, speaking of dreams, in the eastern religions, it is not uncommon for followers to get intoxicated to induce a hypnagogia like state, in order to have ``spiritual'' or ``mystic'' experiences. This is the great folly of not understanding and recognizing God. Think about your ability to understand a number in such a state. It probably isn't very good, in fact I imagine this sort of confusion and meddling of concepts is similar to how a dog or cat might understand a number.

Humans have the ability to recognize things that exist, that other creatures cannot. We understand these things clearly and intuitively. However, some things not quite, like the soul. I can imagine a creature however that would be capable of understanding and maintaining as clear a model of the soul as I have of e.g. understanding a "function".

>>28
Both make me sad :(

>>30
Why?

>>30
Faggots make you sad?

>>31
You have life do you not? What do you do with it? Do you value it?

>>32
I'm more or less indifferent to faggots but more on the sad side then the happy side if I think about them hard enough.

>>24
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1201.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/index.html
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1301.htm

>>33
``than the happy side'' I meant to type.

HAIL SATAN

>>28
Abortion is so clearly murder that it staggers me that it's allowed. The only difference between a baby and an unborn baby is that you can't see the unborn one; physiologically they're the same. I think people rely too much on visual information. The hysterical last stand of pro-choice people is often that "it's my body." Their body contains another body, which does not rightly belong to them. They had the choice not to risk having a child, and they allowed themselves to be overcome. The selfishness of killing a person when all you have to give him or her is nine months of your life is astounding to me. We (or I at least) live in a country where you can just give up an unwanted child and be pretty sure they'll have an ok life. So other than the pregnancy itself you need to do nothing. I think probably a lot of people have abortions to spare themselves embarrassment.

There's some limited stuff about not approving of homosexuality in the Bible. However in Christianity strongly homophobic behavior is a fairly recent development, arising a few centuries ago during a political power struggle in Italy. Or so the story goes. This is not useful as an argument, but I thought it interesting, unless of course it's one of these manufactured "facts" the left is fond of. In terms of homosexuals, it seems pretty clear that God has ordained that these people be gay, and that it is not a choice; my religion tells me above all to love people, and this overrides any of that limited and largely disputable biblical evidence I mentioned earlier. I don't think there's anything to be done "about" gay people at any rate. They exist, and it's wrong to hate and/or kill them.

A general point about the difference between Christianity and Judaism: Christianity is a religion of love. Judaism consists of the tribal beliefs that have been discussed here already; Christianity adds a message of love from the mouth of God himself, putting it higher than other commandments. To me, this is the critical difference.

This is also why I choose this religion over, for example, the Tao to which someone alluded earlier. I read the Tao or Dao or whatever you like to call it, and it seemed both obvious and repetitive: the primary message I took from it was one of passivity. For example, one suggestion in it is to "Be like water flowing around a rock," meaning that one should take the path of least resistance. Sometimes being genuinely good means taking the hard path instead. In a similar vein, Buddhism seeks to reject the material, which has the ultimate worldly effect of turning its monks into beggars - they take food from the mouths of the poor. If you don't believe me go and see for yourself. Compare this with the work of the Jesuits, or other Christian orders. Where is the good in trying to deny one's worldliness? Where is the love in failing to help the hungry? I think that in the West we tend to view Asian religions as the least harmful, because they have a less violent history, and less of a culture of interference. However I believe they are insidiously harmful in refusing to address or even acknowledge the material needs of humankind. Intervening on behalf of the helpless is a good thing, and one which I think is worth the mess and unhappiness is causes in the short term.

tl;dr Be nice.

>>36
Chinks, gooks, japs, nips, dotheads, etc, cant get anything fucking right.

>>36

This is also why I choose this religion over, for example, the Tao to which someone alluded earlier. I read the Tao or Dao or whatever you like to call it, and it seemed both obvious and repetitive: the primary message I took from it was one of passivity. For example, one suggestion in it is to "Be like water flowing around a rock," meaning that one should take the path of least resistance

That is not the message of Taoism, at all. In all the literature it mentions that becoming a "sage", i.e., one who truly understands the Tao is a very difficult thing to achieve.

>>36

We (or I at least) live in a country where you can just give up an unwanted child and be pretty sure they'll have an ok life.

Where do you live? In farytale rainbow candy land?

>>36

The only difference between a baby and an unborn baby is that you can't see the unborn one; physiologically they're the same.

Aside from the fact that one of them is over 9 months old, has a more-or-less functioning brain, and can survive without parasitism, and the other one is a 1.2 months old parasite the size of a cyst with an inactive, undeveloped brain.

I would agree with you that people who wait until the 3rd fucking month to get an abortion are kinda pushing it, but that's another issue.

I wonder how things would be if humans laid eggs instead.