Perhaps the most troubling possibility is that Kirill’s Church, with its canny blend of politics and faith, turns out to be better adapted to survival in our century than mainstream Churches are.
This, as a “mainstream Christian”, if that still means something today, is a question that almost keep me awake at night. Jesus preached peace and forgiveness, freedom from rules and universality of human dignity, and yet Christian nationalism is on the rise in America, Kirill is winning the Orthodox war of secession, in Europe the Catholic and Protestant reactionaries are winning traction, not to speak about Africa and Asia, … Secularism is not freedom from religion, it’s reinforcing the worse part of religion.
I have troubles expriming qualified opinions in English, which is not my mother tongue, sorry.
Of course secularism is not the problem, that was not what I intended to say, sorry again. But still, secularism has this secondary effect to weaken rational and open forms of religion while strengthening reactionary forms of religion.
Matthew 10 is not about what Jesus desired, but about the persecutions.
Matthew 8 is a parabola, not meant to be taken literally.
Matthew 5:18 is followed by Matthew 5:19-48 when Jesus change the law. The teaching is clear, especially when compared to the actions of Jesus: what should be followed is the spirit of the law, not its letter. And that’s valid for the letter of Jesus’ commandments themselves.
Matthew 15:24 is followed Matthew 15:28, where he does save the Canaanite’s daughter. Jesus changes his mind in this text. You’re fond of cherry picking, aren’t you?
There was no historical Jesus
So you’re a science denier. I don’t know if Jesus is just a man without relationship with a God or more than that, or even if a God exists. But denying the historicity of Jesus is like saying we don’t walked on the Moon.
Christianity has always been a fascist faith.
Say that to MLK, William Wilberforce, Dorothy Day, or the Lübeck martyrs.
Wars are caused by power, and people searching it. Religious, political, economical, symbolic, … when there’s power, there could be war.
Religion is a way to give sense to a world which seems very chaotic. Governments need legitimacy. Mix the two, and the sense given to the world by a religion can be justifying the legitimacy of a government. If it’s the case, this legitimacy can be very strongly rooted in people’s mind, making any decision of this government a part of the sense of the world (even if for an individual, this decision may look nonsensical). The more nonsensical a political movement is, the more religion will be useful to it, but ut’s a very strong temptation for any government, and that’s why the religions and the State should be separated.
Now, religion is a very complicated thing. I was reading yesterday an article in the last issue of the socialist American magazine which says : “there is not, and has never been, a single identifiable thing that we can call ‘Christianity’ except with excruciating generality.” And I think it’s true for Christianity, but also for any religion. For our subject, we could discern to kinds of movement within every religion:
An open one, which sees in the Divine a reality exterior to the world, thus too complex to be locked up in any religious tradition. This kind of religion don’t give a turnkey sense to the world but ask their members to think by themselves. They’re more a method than a dogma.
A closed one, which sees the Divine as perfectly given in their own tradition. This kind of religion ask for obedience and conservation of the dogma. The sense of the world is given, no need to think by oneself.
Of the two kinds, which one will be more useful for a government? Of course, the second one. That’s why we see, all around the world, alliances between oligarchic political movements (which have less legitimacy than more popular political movements) and with reactionary forms of religion. Trump with evangelicals, Putin with super-Z orthodoxs, and so on.
“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to...
It’s not condescending and a very legitimate question. In fact, it’s partly the reason why I said that I have anarchist tendencies but don’t call myself an anarchist.
But for me, anarchism is about anti-authoritarianism. Religion can be authoritarian and hierarchical, or can be a free association of like-minded people. I don’t see how the second one couldn’t fit in an anarchist society. When I read for example Bakunin, I don’t recognize religion as I live it everyday; he clearly speaks about something else. Moreover, Jesus himself was quite anti-authoritarian and most political passages of the Bible criticize quite strongly the powerful people, or praise Jesus as a freedom giver (to call the Bible an anarchist book would be at least an anachronism, but the Bible was an influence of the early anarchist thinkers).
Thanks for your serious answer. My bad joke wasn’t deserving such a caring message.
To be honest, I actually don’t think I have ADHD, I’m just the kind of guy who’s always in his head, not actually paying attention. As a teenager I saw a psychologist because I had memory troubles, but he didn’t saw anything strange (and I’m a white man; I’m not American, but racism and misogyny are realities here too).
I hope your husband will receive his meds again soon!
Ça fait bien longtemps qu’iels auraient dû changer le nom du parti. Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste, ça fait truc temporaire… et le temporaire date de 2009.
I have an HP Stream 11 that I want to use for word processing and some light web browsing - I’m a writer and it’s a lightweight laptop to bring to the library or coffee shop to write on. Right now it’s got Windows and it’s unusable due to lack of hard drive space for updates. Someone had luck with Xubuntu, but it’s...
For example : I write in French. It wasn’t easy for me to have a way to type É or Ç. Tmux wasn’t easy to configure. It took time to understand how to use USB drives. And now I didn’t use it for some time, and I’d have everything to learn again if I had to turn it on.
I’m no computer scientist. All these things may be trivial for someone who works with computers, but it’s not my case 😅.
Christianity Was Always for the Poor (David B. Hart, Jacobin) (jacobin.com)
cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/14386046...
Man pages bad (sh.itjust.works)
This is their album cover. What's the name of the band? (lemmy.world)
flanged rule (lemmy.world)
Clash of the Patriarchs | A hard-line Russian bishop backed by the political might of the Kremlin could split the Orthodox Church in two. (www.theatlantic.com)
State Rep. James Talarico Delivers Sermon Against Christian Nationalism (yt.artemislena.eu)
The Soviets were completely cool with it to. The Iran-Iraq war was one of the few where the Soviets and U.S were in agreement. Plus both had decent relations by this point. (sh.itjust.works)
r*ddit
What Would Jesus Do? (lemmy.world)
“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to...
every cat is a tiny less racist elon musk (slrpnk.net)
Born to live (lemmy.world)
It doesn't exist once you step out of the shower (lemmy.world)
[Solved] Seal - Kiss From a Rose (lemmy.world)
Philippe Poutou sera candidat en Belgique sur la liste « Anticapitalistes » pour les européennes | NPA (nouveaupartianticapitaliste.org) French
Ça me semble être la bonne décision que ne pas présenter de liste face à la FI.
What distro should I use on my potato?
I have an HP Stream 11 that I want to use for word processing and some light web browsing - I’m a writer and it’s a lightweight laptop to bring to the library or coffee shop to write on. Right now it’s got Windows and it’s unusable due to lack of hard drive space for updates. Someone had luck with Xubuntu, but it’s...