The whole Sermon on Mount is best interpreted as a stand-up routine in my opinion

What? >:O

Maybe, as some Radical, Death of God theologians are insisting, God is simply the depth-dimensions of reality, not a personal savior sky-god. I tend to like this idea, but it does away with a Biblical conception of God

On the contrary, actually. I would say that, with regard to the New Testament, the biblical God is very much a philosophical construct rather than a mythologized deity.

Also, I think you need to set yourself on a single definition and interpretation of God. If you're not sure what God is, then you can't then, quite obviously, figure out how the nature of God plays itself out, through ethics, say.

Don't ever be veiled in your words, and it should never be your fault for being misunderstood then :)

Perhaps you should stop speaking in riddles so people understand more clearly what you say? :o

One can be a determinist and still acknowledge the responsibility they have for their actions. If one doesn't do that, however, it just makes them a conceited prick. And not very wise.

I mean I have to ask, because there have been some unenlightened folk in this thread who have told me that my desire to get married is a selfish patriarchal desire to ensure that the children of my wife are my own, and that my wealth gets passed on to them - and I thought I just wanted to give all of my love to one woman - who could have thought that my introspective effort was so far off from the truth? :D

I don't know if it's patriarchal, but if your priority is to have children, then you would indeed be selfish and "in it" for something you may not even realize.

Are you sure? Do not many criminals murder in order to gain the money they need to feed their child? Is this not a crime motivated by love, and thus having a good intention at its foundation? Would you say such is moral, and they should be forgiven by the victim and their family?

Actions aren't always 100% moral or immoral. The father you mention did one thing right, but a lot else very, very wrong. He intended to do the right thing, by providing for his child, but he also intended to kill someone and steal their money. The state, for example, will look at the former as grounds for making his sentence, based on the latter, shorter. Why? Because he committed murder, and not manslaughter, but did so under the pretense that he had to do what he did and for good reason, which was as we both agree, not quite the case.

I don't :-O Is this bad?

Well, perhaps you should reevaluate your faith as being a little less spectacularly special and all commanding as you think it is?

I know by faith - it's still knowledge, which does imply a degree of certainty. As St. Thomas Aquinas, or even closer to us - Pope John Paul II - have explained, faith and reason are both sources of knowledge.

Someone else could have as strong a faith as well, and cite that as being knowledge enough for being certain. Yet, here we are in a world which realizes that's a load of baloney. If all faith was certain, then you couldn't just be a Christian. I think one has faith precisely because they do not know, yet have the conviction to entertain being wrong. Some people don't find that prudent, however.

Ever heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?

Such a road is not what we oft travel by, as Robert Frost might suggest.

Well certainly there is no love if there is no life, so the two of them are mutually necessary.

Perhaps, perhaps not.

If you don't know, then I think it's important to note that us two are very probably the only two Christians here. So it's good to finally have another brother around

Now I have you, right where I want you! Meet me in the desert, would you? >:)

Anxiety is used precisely to denote that kind of fear which is simply paralyzing - totally not useful.

As I said before, many a time this anxiety comes and goes whether you like it or not. And how isn't it useful? If one is aware that they are anxious much of the time, and work hard against being so, how isn't that helpful?

I also suppose that we'd need to define anxiety more thoroughly. I'm not necessarily using anxiety solely in the medical sense (which wouldn't apply to the story I made up, for example) but an anxiety more akin to general angst. It's that pervasive feeling of uncertainty and worry that comes with some who have lived the worst sides of life. I also think that such an attitude, whether chosen or not, can be healthy if you use it to your advantage.

And self-deception - the deception that one is saved when one isn't

No one has knowledge of salvation to be a certainty. I'd argue that you are no more in salvation's back pocket than the faux Christian you mention before that. The difference between you both, however, comes as you argue from faith+works. But that doesn't ensure salvation. You can believe that it does, but you don't really know, 'tis why you must have faith!

So cheating on your wife, day after day, but begging for forgiveness, and then doing it again - then crying that your sinful nature doesn't let you do any better, then repeating the whole cycle over again - that isn't faith. Faith isn't a license to sin. You don't claim "I believe in Jesus Christ" so then you can go ahead and go to the harlots. Faith needs to be seen outwardly - its radiance must be perceptible, and it is so through works.

The important foundation here should be intent to do good. If one intends to be compassionate, and is able to be loving as a result, then great. But as respectable is the person who still intends to be compassionate but falls short. You can't always do the right thing, especially when the right thing isn't always as black and white clear, like your avatar is.

Life is a gift from God...

Love is the gift to the world, not life itself. Without love in life, I'd rather go back to being dead.

how joyous will God be when his creatures rejoice in his creation!

No concept of God deserves a bended knee for what mess the world is as a result of whatever you attribute to creating it.

That is impossible, because being depressed, being grieving, being frustrated - all these are lacking in virtue. It is a virtue to be joyous, happy and content. It's not like virtues are just being pious, courageous, loyal, etc. That's why in Christianity for example, being anxious is a sin. You have a duty to rejoice in creation

It seems that you're under the illusion that one can always choose whether or not to be anxious or depressed.

As much as I try, and as much as I do at times cultivate positive results from my work, depression and anxiety is something I'm always going to live with. I can't rewrite my life so I didn't have to experience what I have. There's no amount of medication or counseling that's going to keep me from being a somber individual. Does Paul, as you say, command us to not be anxious? Absolutely. But he doesn't condemn the heart that fights their sin. Paul implores us to be aware of our shortcomings and not to dwell in apathy. I strive to combat that which makes me a wretch, but it isn't my fault when I, still being human, still come up short.

Neither Jesus nor Paul were in the business of damning those who understand love to be the greatest virtue, those imperfect men and women who strive to be good, yet always stumble because of their, our, imperfect natures. You, Agustino, are no more good and virtuous a man or woman than I if we both strive toward love in all things. And if indeed you are of upstanding character, were you to be unloving, anxious, or adulterous, I would not damn you, for even Jesus invited a thief to be a disciple unto him.

~

Frankly, rereading what I first quoted from you above makes me think of you as distinctly unchristian. Ironically, I'd be a lot more abashed by what you wrote were I to be in a more cynical and frustrated frame of mind. To be anecdotal for a moment, say that my best friend and I were abducted, and I had to watch on, powerless as she was tortured and raped. Would I be unvirtuous were I to feel the least bit frustrated, hateful, or anxious? To be perfectly honest, I think it would in fact show a distinct lack of virtue if I did not feel in such a way.

I agree. I don't think the uprising would have taken shape in the way it did if it hadn't been for repeated encouragement from the US.

What kind of encouragement are you referring to? Do you think Syria didn't already have a pretty large segment of its population vehemently against Assad and his family's government? That they weren't already of the disposition to rise up when the opportunity arose?

That's how the US helped screw Syria.

Well, considering the thread title, I don't think I want to allow you to soften your original position to the US just being one factor and not the factor, which the OP/title suggests.

I think that the United States is no more directly culpable for the current Syrian civil war than they were for World War II erupting in the late 1930's.

The problem in Syria doesn't just affect Syria, but the region as a whole. It isn't fair to look at Syria in some sort of microcosm, as if the current situation exists all by itself.

Admittedly, the US has definitely made mistakes with regard to the civil war, but our poor foreign policy the last few years didn't just magically create the longstanding Assad regime out of thin air, nor even IS. As much as some people would very much love to lay all of the Middle-east's problems in the past 1,500 years at the feet of the US, the reality will never align itself with that kind of scapegoating. The idea that the Middle-east would somehow be "better off" if the US had never involved itself in the region would be to ignore what the environment looked like before.

Thanks for the replies :D



"Betrayal" is really all you need for one's marital vows to be broken. I'd define adultery as just that, as well. By the definition, to say adultery is applicable when only sexual contact is at hand would be a bit too obtuse, in my opinion. Especially when pornography is innately sexual! I don't think there should be a semantics debate with regard to the word adultery, although I suppose that's in the realm of possibility.

The thing about pornography and masturbation is that there are no performance demands--physically or emotionally. It's reliable. It's cheaper and easier than adultery. And much, much safer.

I can't say I agree with any of what you say here. Coming from my own experiences dealing with pornography, it's anything but unemotionally draining, easy, or "safe." For myself, or anyone else I know. Pornography is something that could always be replaced by something infinitely more moral, loving, and healthy, so for me at least I don't think that viewing pornography is as harmless as washing one's hands or perusing a grocery aisle.

What's the solution?

Well it's certainly not for the state to dole out punishment! For whatever reason this thread gave off a similar vibe I remember when lawmakers and the like discussed gay marriage and how to, or not to, police bedroom business. It all is a bit silly.

Hi all,

I've lurked on this forum for quite awhile, but this thread has recently stirred me enough to join the club, so I thought I'd share a few points here in the discussion. Hopefully I can be clear and understandable.

Firstly, the issue of adultery in this thread seems only to be used in the directly physical sense. That is, married person X sleeps with person Z, thus X and Z are cheating on X's spouse Y. I don't think anyone here disputes such social interaction to be unhealthy, unproductive, and even distinctly immoral. I do think, however, that there is at least one non-overtly physical form of adultery. Let me explain.

I was raised in a Christian family, by Christian parents who had taken the commonplace wedding vows, done so by thousands of couples, here in the United States. With those vows came many things, none more important, however, than the agreement between both my parents to be utterly and completely faithful to each other. Were I to tell you all that such a vow between them was broken, I doubt anyone would think anything more than, "well, one or both of them was seeing and/or sleeping with another person, clearly." I would too, understandably, but that's not quite right. My father, in ill-health and frame of mind, turned toward viewing pornography as a means of releasing the many tensions in his life (to no fault of my mother). I didn't know that he had been up to this for as long as he had when I did, finally, realize the weight of the situation, nor even did my mother. I remember being greatly distraught (an understatement) as I slowly put together the pieces of what was going on. And when I did tell my mother one afternoon what my father had been doing, showing her the evidence, as much as that was awkward for me to do, she immediately concurred with my initial thought that this was adulterous, that he had dabbled in infidelity. In not receiving sexual satisfaction, or, to him, proper affection from my mother, he turned to pornography.

Is this any different from physical adultery? In both instances one partner had been replaced, whether by someone or by something. Instead of sticking with what vows they did originally swear, under even their own God's nose, my father threw it all away. Instead of continuing to give his love to my mother, my father gave himself to women on a computer screen, abstract women that are as real as any physical lover might be. This I consider to be adulterous, in such a situation. If, perhaps, there is a marriage where porn is understood to be okay in viewing, then obviously no vow has been broken. But I think that, in the vast majority of marriages, viewing porn is absolutely seen as adulterous, as adulterous as one or both partners seeing another person while still married.

In following from this, the dilemma of punishment for adultery becomes almost comical, and is one reason why I've decided to pipe up here. It's absolutely absurd, in my opinion, to consider adultery as some problem of the state, that my father adulterously (goddamnit I'm making that a word!) viewing porn is of any importance to judges or lawmakers or Obama. Does my father need to serve jail time because he looked at pornstar x, y, or z? Should he be fined, hanged, forced to endure 100 lashes and then walk the plank? I don't think so. He shouldn't be punished by the state for what he did. His punishment is already losing his wife, his children, his God, and his livelihood. Even as I sit here today, knowing all the nuances of my childhood as I do, the last thing I'd ever think of would be that my father should have been punished by the government with some criminal sentencing. I never even thought to think such a thing until this thread came around.

As followup, the state can, however, punish what may come from adultery, but not adultery itself. The state does, if applicable, have to concern itself with childcare and the settlement of assets and all the other wonderful things many divorces have to deal with in light of adultery, but adultery in and of itself should never be up for public punishment.

Anyway, I realize this post is out of the discussion loop a bit, but hopefully my thoughts are welcome here :)