llevronbelac

I write about Christian topics hoping to find the Truth. Missionary kid raised Baptist. I believe that the Bible is true and truth is knowable.

[wren-clouds]

The Odyssey but make it a Christian allegory.

The war is over, it's won. The king is coming back. But no one knows when he will return, they just wait for him. And evil forces are at work, plotting, abusing, taking over. But the king is coming--he has won the war and he is coming home. He will bring justice and punishment for evil when he returns, and he will claim his bride and elevate his son. No one knows when he is coming, but his wife remains faithful, waiting. His son remains watchful, waiting.

The king is coming.

[karas-demon-blog]

that’s so deeply insulting to hellinistic religions who have forever been pushed down because of Christianity. Some things aren’t for you.

[wren-clouds]

God created everything, so everything has some echo of His story in it somewhere if you look. A pre-Christ story mirroring God's great story is a beautiful sign of His hand in history

[karas-demon-blog]

Oh you are one of those people who thinks that your religion is better than everything else

[wren-clouds]

Someone's religion has to be true--why not the one where God comes down to man to restore a relationship? Every other religion is man trying to reach or appease a god/gods. The true God is so full of love, he became human and died. So yeah, my God is better than every other God because he is Love, and he is real.

[greater-than-the-sword]

I don't believe in purgatory because as Jesus was dying on the cross he looked at a man who had any number of dire sins throughout his life, all we know of him is that he had the death penalty for stealing and he himself agreed his own punishment was just, so he was likely a violent robber, and he had converted only while dying, with no time to do any sort of penance, and Jesus looked at him and said "Today you will be with me in paradise." Today. Not eventually. Paradise. Not some kind of intermediate state that kind of sucks. That is the mercy of God.

[llevronbelac]

I get what you are saying, and purgatory is surely false, but considering that Jesus went to Hades for three days after this, paradise here is not referring to heaven.

[making-you-in-mtg]

[homoquartz]

i’ve warmed up significantly towards the concept of small talk ever since i learned that its sole purpose is to make friendly noises.

as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.”

small talk isn’t to get to know a person. it’s just a greeting to affirm you’re buddies in the universe.

i am motivated by wanting the other person to know i am friendly, so i have gotten pretty decent at small talk when i used to hate it.

[piratedgender]

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

Hot take, all adaptations of the story of the passion of Christ should have him recite all of Psalm 22, not just the first line (my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me), since the entire Psalm is what would have been understood to be communicated by his listeners, but it is NOT understood by modern/non-Jewish/non-ancient audiences without being told.

Iirc it was already a miracle for Jesus to be speaking at all at that point, so rather than being unlikely, him delivering an entire 31-verse Psalm would help emphasize that as well

Psalm 22 weaves astonishing prophecy into the crucifixion itself, which most people are just plain unaware of.

And it's just SO EMOTIONAL. I don't remember if any of the gospel accounts record Jesus weeping at any point during the crucifixion, but I don't see how he wouldn't have been. He wept in the garden after all, just in anticipation of it. But when I read Psalm 22, I picture the speaker weeping. If Jesus wasn't crying, it would make every other person there do so, at least.

Anyway it's a clearly relevant and important part of the crucifixion and the fact that we leave it so miserably truncated, when that's not what was intended, reduces the quality of any adaptation that leaves it out.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

like, yes, there are features of the way he says it that would be lost: the Roman soldiers not understanding him, for example, and the social intricacies that cause people to use euphemisms or censor their words or say something kind-of-similar to what they mean as a way of obscuring their meaning or being polite, even though their actual meaning is still perfectly understood. I think that might be a little bit of a factor here: the declarations in Psalm 22 are a bit... intimate. Very heavy, absolutely vulnerable at heart. Saying just the first line to IMPLY everything else makes perfect sense.

But I think the relevance of the Psalm outweighs all of this. When they go read it in their Bibles they can put these little bits and pieces together, as opposed to NOT KNOWING that one of the pieces is in Psalms.

[cipheramnesia]

If I was a wasp, I'd sting you. If I was a venomous snake, I'd bite you. If I was a lion, I'd maul you. If I was a swamp, I'd poison you. If I was a mountain, I'd fall and crush you. If I was the ocean, I'd drown you. If I was a cat, I'd never let you touch me. If I was a dog, I'd run away. If I was a horse, I'd never let you break me. If I was a farm, I wouldn't grow for you. If I was a fire, I'd burn out without warming you. If I was a home, I would fall apart around you.

If I was harmless and small, and easy to hold, you would love me. If I was a worm you could put me in the soft earth and I would be helpless in your care. Of course you could love me, but could you love me if I stung you, bit you, pulled against you, hid and didn't understand you but wasn't harmless or helpless at all?

Could you love something for what it is, when that means you can't touch it or show kindness, maybe even never be near it, and it might never, ever love you back? Is it okay to exist and not belong to anyone, to not be useful to anyone, to be dangerous or poisonous or a failure but a part of the world all the same?

[gallusrostromegalus]

I know this is a metaphor, but if you take it kind of literally, there is an answer to this.

We build wildlife preserves. Often explicitly for the protection of animals and ecosystems that can and have killed humans.

Whenever a whale gets stranded on a beach, CROWDS show up ad risk getting bludgeoned to death trying to get it back into the water.

Every Zoo has a reptile house full of venomous snakes and a team of humans dedicated to giving them the best quality of life possible.

There are volunteer beekeepers who will travel for miles and miles and hours and hours to relocate an entire hive.

There are people who rehabilitate dangerous dogs and horses

There are people who restore structurally unsound houses

There are people who study the way that fire burns so it can rejoin the ecosystem and not be smothered on sight.

Every day, millions of people get up and devote themselves to things that can and will kill them by their nature. Things they can't touch or show kindness to. Things they can't go near. Things that are wholly incapable of loving them back.

And they do it because they love them.

Everything dangerous, everything poisonous, everything 'useless'- absolutely everything has someone, often many thousands of people, who loves them exactly as they are, without expectation that their affection will be returned.

It is alright for anything, even you, to not belong to anyone, to not be useful, to be frightening and dangerous and not adhere to any standard of success. It's all alright. You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.

[teary-prayer]

“If you filled your hands with sand and threw them into the sea, would the water dry up? No, neither could our sins defeat God's immeasurable mercy."

St. Issac the Syrian

[illustratus]

Ecce Homo ("Behold the Man") by Antonio Ciseri

[trufflesmushroom]

patricia lockwood has officially completed 6 years of her full 1000 year sentence

[trufflesmushroom]

patricia lockwood has officially completed 7 years of her full 1000 year sentence

[phantomrose96]

“Bat swinging at wasp nest” post but I cannot be nice about astrology people. No you did not find the one good or cute or quirky way to believe the quality of someone’s character is biologically pre-determined. Just because you found a way to not base it on race or ethnicity or gender does not make judging someone’s character on an innate and uncontrolled attribute suddenly teehee fine.

I’m even more baffled by the people going “it’s just fun!” “It’s just a hobby!!” Sure if it was something harmless. It’s not. We are quite literally talking about how you intend to judge, treat, view, respect, and interact with someone entirely differently based on an inherent trait. How are you not aghast? How are you not embarrassed? Why are you so insistent on needing to operate on a hierarchy of pre-determined character judgement?

[schrodingers-blursed-kitty]

I've even heard of parents treating their children differently because of astrology, which is absolutely terrible

[apilgrimpassingby]

Now the Greeks declare that all our affairs are controlled by the rising and setting and collision of these stars, viz., the sun and moon: for it is with these matters that astrology has to do. But we hold that we get from them signs of rain and drought, cold and heat, moisture and dryness, and of the various winds, and so forth, but no sign whatever as to our actions. For we have been created with free wills by our Creator and are masters over our own actions. Indeed, if all our actions depend on the courses of the stars, all we do is done of necessity: and necessity precludes either virtue or vice. But if we possess neither virtue nor vice, we do not deserve praise or punishment, and God, too, will turn out to be unjust, since He gives good things to some and afflicts others. Nay, He will no longer continue to guide or provide for His own creatures, if all things are carried and swept along in the grip of necessity. And the faculty of reason will be superfluous to us: for if we are not masters of any of our actions, deliberation is quite superfluous. Reason, indeed, is granted to us solely that we might take counsel, and hence all reason implies freedom of will.

St. John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 2 Chapter 7

[many-sparrows]

“Progressive Christianity” doesn’t exist. I want you to know that. Christianity doesn’t “progress with the times” because God is perfect. You can’t progress perfection. That’s just heresy.

I actually agree with you, but not in a way that I think you would like, anon

[andonlyafoolwouldsaythat]

I wonder what Anon thinks "conservative Christianity" is conserving, exactly, when most of the things that make it distinctive are less than 200 years old.

(Trick question, of course; conservative Christians don't constantly have their sincerity questioned because of their political stances.)

[apilgrimpassingby]

This is a thing you notice when you do folklore research - once something has been going on for longer than anyone can remember, people assume it's always been that way. For example, you see people talking about the pagan origins of kissing under the mistletoe, which we know isn't true because kissing under the mistletoe only began in the 17th century.

More generally, I refuse to use the label because, while I have positions that could be considered theologically progressive, they aren't modern. I didn't decide that non-Christians aren't categorically damned because of modernity, but because of (among others) St. Theophan the Recluse. I didn't decide that failing to help the poor was as grave a sin as sexual immorality because of liberalism, but because of St. John Chrysostom. I didn't decide that religion without charity is an abomination because of secularism, but because of the Prophets.

[llevronbelac]

Charity is not a distinctive of progressive Christianity. I just need educated on this I'm sure, but show me which early church fathers advocated for wedding homosexual couples, people living as the opposite sex to their birth sex, and women killing their children while in the womb?

[magpie-trove]

Thinking about God’s glory, and how I’ve heard people say God’s goal is his glory, and how I wanted to disagree with that because it makes God seem like an uncaring egomaniac, and that he is an uncaring egomaniac is definitely wrong, but then I remembered what God is. God is love right? If everything is orchestrated for the glory of God it is orchestrated for the purpose of showing love’s power. Of making people see and experience the heights depths riches of love and go wow! Wow. What a thing is love. And love involves two people. Love is care for the other’s best. God shows people how cool that is, how stunning and moving and powerful and praiseworthy, over and over again, and his glory is ours too. It’s hardwired into us!! We love love!! We see someone act powerfully in love and go wild!! And in that sense or suffering can be allowed for God’s glory, because suffering is an opportunity for love to express itself more powerfully than we had known it was before! And its power is effective for the others best, for the other’s ultimate and unlimited happiness. And that is glory.

[headspace-hotel]

Small piece of Kentucky lore: There is a Versailles, Kentucky and it is pronounced ver-SALES. Unlike the Versailles in France, which is pronounced normal. It's not that we don't know how to pronounce Versailles, France, it's just that Kentucky Versailles is a different one and it's pronounced ver-SALES.

This is one of the easiest ways to clock someone who isn't from here

[jedda-martele]

There’s also a Monticello that’s pronounced mont-uh-Sell-oh unlike Jefferson’s estate in Virginia. Kentuckians are tricksy.

[headspace-hotel]

I was about to say "no wtf we don't" but then I said it to myself and realized we do. Mont-uh-SELL-oh.

[headspace-hotel]

Relatedly, when I was in college in Georgia, a friend called me on the phone so he could put me on speaker and show his girlfriend while I said "Louisville." (It's LOO-uh-vull, or even LOO-vull if you're short on time)

[bunjywunjy]

Wisconsin has a town named Rio which is pronounced "rye-oh" which we use for the same purpose

[phantomrose96]

“Bat swinging at wasp nest” post but I cannot be nice about astrology people. No you did not find the one good or cute or quirky way to believe the quality of someone’s character is biologically pre-determined. Just because you found a way to not base it on race or ethnicity or gender does not make judging someone’s character on an innate and uncontrolled attribute suddenly teehee fine.

I’m even more baffled by the people going “it’s just fun!” “It’s just a hobby!!” Sure if it was something harmless. It’s not. We are quite literally talking about how you intend to judge, treat, view, respect, and interact with someone entirely differently based on an inherent trait. How are you not aghast? How are you not embarrassed? Why are you so insistent on needing to operate on a hierarchy of pre-determined character judgement?

[schrodingers-blursed-kitty]

I've even heard of parents treating their children differently because of astrology, which is absolutely terrible

[apilgrimpassingby]

Now the Greeks declare that all our affairs are controlled by the rising and setting and collision of these stars, viz., the sun and moon: for it is with these matters that astrology has to do. But we hold that we get from them signs of rain and drought, cold and heat, moisture and dryness, and of the various winds, and so forth, but no sign whatever as to our actions. For we have been created with free wills by our Creator and are masters over our own actions. Indeed, if all our actions depend on the courses of the stars, all we do is done of necessity: and necessity precludes either virtue or vice. But if we possess neither virtue nor vice, we do not deserve praise or punishment, and God, too, will turn out to be unjust, since He gives good things to some and afflicts others. Nay, He will no longer continue to guide or provide for His own creatures, if all things are carried and swept along in the grip of necessity. And the faculty of reason will be superfluous to us: for if we are not masters of any of our actions, deliberation is quite superfluous. Reason, indeed, is granted to us solely that we might take counsel, and hence all reason implies freedom of will.

St. John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 2 Chapter 7

[alfredo-zauce]

My poor friends have had to deal with an hour of messages of me both starting and putting down different heresies

The gang now knows far too much about Sabellianism and why I hate it while also hearing me say things about the Nicene Creed that would make both Nicholas and Arius slap the ever-loving shit out of me

I just want to apologize to @heresylog for needing to log me ☹️ I dunno, I just feel like the argument over the filioque doesn't make sense because the phrase before it is the bigger issue for me—is the Spirit not consubstatial and coeternal as well? Why is it "proceeding" from anyone, regardless of whom?

[heresylog]

as usual, the filioque issue was not the main cause for the schism. it was just convenient to say it was that instead of politics.

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

soon-to-be-orthodox and i wholeheartedly agree

[llevronbelac]

Incredibly informative lecture on the Trinity (according to Orthodox and Nicea).

[preemptive-self-defence]

Does anyone have the "death hath no dominion, my god has rattled hell" poem

[why-bless-your-heart]

Yeh.

Epitaph

They caught me singing at my funeral and dancing to my dirge,

They caught me heckling my eulogy and joy-riding my hearse.

They caught me spray-painting my tombstone and teasing the mortician,

They caught me at all sorts of mischief, in grand Christian tradition.

They scolded me, I put my face into my hands to hide

The smiles and the laughing that I couldn’t keep inside.

They didn’t want to hear the joke that I had learned so well,

That death has no dominion: my God has rattled hell.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

To Claim That Hell Is Not 'Eternal Torment' Is To Downplay The Entire Gospel Message - Harbinger's Daily

Failing to understand God’s judgment means that you also neglect to recognize your desperate need for a Savior—and what you have been saved

Kirk Cameron, a well-known actor and Christian podcaster, recently drew criticism for announcing that he no longer believes Hell to be “eternal torment.”

In a podcast on December 3rd, Cameron rejected the idea that Hell is an “eternal barbecue for sinners,” calling it an invention of the early church. Instead, he now insists that rejecting the Gospel merely results in a soul being “destroyed” and ceasing to exist.

Cameron’s claims about Hell, however, don’t align with Scripture, which describes this judgment of God as “everlasting...

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

The judgment of God IS everlasting! When you die the second death ("perish" in John 3:16), you very much stay dead forever. Eternally, even. You don't get resurrected or anything. That's both Biblical and logical.

However...

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should NOT PERISH, but have eternal life.

You have two options: eternal life or perishing ("annihilationism").

Eternal torment is still eternal and you're definitely still alive. You're not supposed to get that without faith in Christ.

I don't think annihilationism downplays the Gospel message at all - in fact I think it strengthens it. Unbelievers seem to understand inherently that eternal torment is not justice.

If God had declared it to be just and he was doing it, I would of course submit to his decision on the matter, but he has not. The second death, perishing in the lake of fire, and "destroying both body and soul" are all clearly explained in the Bible.

If you have verses to the contrary, I'll be glad to hear them, but for now I will continue to declare that God is justice and eternal torment is not, and you don't have to believe in eternal torment to be a Christian.

Life is objectively good. It would not be objectively good if you had a, say, 50/50 chance of spending eternity in hell. Eternity is a long time. Eventually it would cancel out ANY and ALL good that came from life on earth. It not loving or just or kind to bring a child into this world with that kind of risk hanging in the balance.

There are people who cannot believe a God who would condemn anyone to eternal torment is just, loving, or good. These are people who are missing out on salvation because of something God DOESN'T DO.