I am talking about the Libertarian sense of free will here.

Logical determinism argues that since propositions about the future are either right or false actions are not free.

Theological fatalism argues that since God knows about future events (he knows the truth value of propositions about the future) our actions are not free.

But isn’t God knowing something about the future practically the same as a future proposition being true? Saying “God knows X will happen.” is the same as saying “The proposition ‘X will happen.’ is true.”.

So, God knowing something about the future is just proof of the truth of a certain proposition. God is just a reminder.

Does this make sense? What are some philosophers’ thoughts on this?

Suppose I am in a boat, enjoying some fishing, and I notice that a current is taking me away from the shore, out to sea. Suppose I have an anchor in my boat, so that if I so choose, I could at any moment drop the anchor and prevent my boat from being pulled out into the open sea.

In this situation, it would be perfectly sensible, rational, or logical to say that I could permit my boat to continue to drift out to sea. Perhaps I want to fish deeper waters, or I want to get away from the crowded shore area, or I just want a change of scenery. There are various reasons why I might permit the boat to drift out to sea. The key point is just that I could permit the current to take me, and it would be perfectly sensible to say I could "permit" that to happen.

Why is it so sensible to say that I could permit that to happen? It's because of my lack of control over certain relevant variables in the situation. Crucially, for example, I don't control the existence of the currents or their directions. I don't control the physical laws pertaining to buoyancy or hydrodynamics, which explain why my boat floats and moves as it does. And I don't control the fact that the current has the causal power to move my boat. It is my lack of control or determination of these factors which makes it sensible to say that I can "permit" my boat to be carried out to sea.

To more clearly see why this is true, imagine that I did control those factors. Suppose that somehow, I determined the physical laws of buoyancy and hydrodynamics, and the existence and causal power of the particular current that carried me out to sea. Suppose that it was only by my continual upholding determination that these factors existed in the exact state they did at any given moment. Would it then make sense to say I merely permit my boat to be carried by the current out to sea? Surely not. I am no longer merely permitting, but rather I am in a positive and direct sense willing or causing my boat to float out to sea.

The analogy here to God and the view of theological determinism should be clear. If theological determinism is true, then God is in a very positive and direct way willing or causing every meticulous detail of every thing that exists, and every event, through his continual upholding power and determination. It becomes clear then that on theological determinism, it is not sensible, rational, or accurate to say that God merely permits this or that.

Obviously, this has ramifications.

It's like a whole new world I previously had closed off as off-limits because it was "dangerous" and could potentially cause doubts. Sure, I glanced at a few philosophical concepts here and there, I had some intellectual curiosity about epistemologies other than my own, but mostly it was all in the service of my Christian faith.

Any other Ex-Christians out there who developed a greater appreciation for philosophy after deconverting?

I'm only an A-level Phil/Ethics student so my understanding may be limited in some areas.

If I have the handle on Calvinism then god has predetermined what my actions are and whether I go to heaven pre me being born hence I cannot be held morally responsible for any of my actions. If I have it wrong apologies.

If I have errored in a moral decision that according to the bible will damn me to hell or adopted a lifestyle that is regarded by the church as similarly damning,(recreational drug use, open relationships, being Gay all that kinda jazz,) surely I am now informed that god has predetermined me to be damned so no act I do matters anymore. Why don't I just abandon all restraint and just live by a completely selfish manner drinking, killing and blaspheming at will. I'm not getting any more tormented for all eternity and I have no moral responsibility for my actions all the suffering would be god's fault for predetermining my psychotic personality shift.

TLDR: If I'm definatly going to hell why don't I have fun while waiting?

The first article is this:

That to seek intimacy, friendship, and help from demons by means of magical arts, harmful magical acts, and forbidden invocations is not idolatry. This is an error because the demon is judged to be an undaunted and implacable adversary of god and man. He is incapable of ever receiving any truly divine honor or dominion by participation or by suitability like other rational creatures that have not been condemned. Nor is god adorned in these demons as a sign instituted at his pleasure such as images or shrines.

The second article:

That to give or to offer or to promise demons any sort of things so they fulfilled the desire of man, even to bear something valued by them in their honor is not idolatry. This is an error.

The third article:

To enter an implicit or explicit pact with demons is neither idolatry or a species of idolatry or apostasy. This is an error. And by implicit pact we mean superstitious ritual the effects of which cannot be reasonably traced to either god or nature.

The fourth:

That it is not idolatrous to use magical arts to try to enclose, to force, to restrain demons in stones, rings, or images consecrated [better?] execrated to their names or even to make these objects come to life by demonic power. This is an error.

The fifth:

That it is allowed to use magical arts or other kinds of superstition prohibited by god or the church for any good moral purpose. This is an error because according to the apostle evil cannot be done that good can result from it.

The sixth:

That it is allowed or even permitted to repel maleficia or sorcery by other maleficia. This is an error.

The seventh:

That someone can dispense with something in a particular situation in order to use such arts illicitly. This is an error.

The eighth:

The magical arts, similar superstitions, and their practice are unreasonably prohibited by the church. This is an error.

The ninth:

That the magical arts and malefica or sorcery lead god to compel demons to obey his imprecations. This is an error.

The Tenth:

That the offering of incense and smoke performed in the exercise of such arts and sorcery is in god’s honor and pleases him. This is an error and a blasphemy since God would not otherwise punish or prohibit.

The eleventh:

That to use such and do so is not to sacrifice or to make immolations to demons and therefore is not damnable idolatry. This is an error.

The twelfth:

T

My title's basically just a short restatement of what I said in longer form here.

Now, something being "dogma" in Catholicism means that it's been infallibly asserted; and to be sure, there's some slight ambiguity as to how to determine whether something has truly been infallibly proclaimed or not. But there are plenty of instances where there isn't any real ambiguity about this.

So if we have a reasonable suspicion that Catholicism may be false — or, certainly, if someone wants to defend Catholicism against this charge — then I think we should focus our efforts on some of the smaller and more "testable" points of dogma here. It'd obviously be much manageable than trying to tackle all the complex things that have been proposed in the faith as a whole: the historical truth of the resurrection, etc.

Also, backing up a little, the principle behind all this is simple: in Catholic theology, God supernaturally preserves the Church from asserting theological error as dogma. So if there is an instance of theological error being asserted as dogma, then God has failed to do what he promised in protecting the Church. In fact, it's tantamount to God himself asserting error.

(Further, I say that this would only help us determine the truth of Catholicism "in the negative" because, obviously, demonstrating the validity of a single point of Catholic dogma wouldn't prove the truth of the faith as a whole. Every other dogmatic claim would also still have to be true.)

In my original comment, I characterized this as a kind of inherent weakness of Catholicism because, to me it suggests a kind of extreme precariousness, and seems to entail an almost irresponsible amount of confidence that even the tiniest point of dogma can withstand the full brunt of critical inquiry.

Finally, most Catholic theologians believe that Biblical inerrancy — the complete absence of error in the canonical Biblical texts — has in fact been dogmatically asserted. If this is true, then, we could bring our "test" of Catholicism to even more of a micro-level: here the truth of Catholicism would be dependent on not even a single Biblical claim being in error. I suggest, then, that this is one of the absolute best candidates for our test (but, again, that this also puts Catholicism in an extremely precarious situation).

Note: re: inerrancy, there's some am

I have more to say and more to ask of you all on this sub, but I think it’ll be best if I just leave it at this for now.

More related follow up questions to expand the conversation:

What did that journey look like?

What kinds of books (apart from the Bible, of course) did you read and study that you found to be helpful?

Apart from books, what else was helpful in this process?

Did you have more of a pull factor into your current denomination or a push factor out of your old denomination?

What role did pastors and mentors play?

How did you choose your seminary and/or college?

To pastors who have changed denominations during their pastoral career - what did that look like? What lead to that decision? Etc.

Utilitarianism is roughly the idea that what's right is what maximizes the total amount of happiness in the world (or Universe), where the total amount of happiness is summed over all individuals. In performing this sum, it seems that the happiness of a gay person should count as much as the happiness of the Mormon God. Why? Because the Mormon God and the gay person are the same kind of thing. In Mormon theology God is literally a man, an exalted man, but still a man. Both the Mormon God and the gay person are self-existent, co-eternal minds. The differences, that the Mormon God has been embodied far longer, is more intelligent, more knowledgeable, more good, and more powerful don't seem relevant. The happiness of each is still happiness and should be counted accordingly. Now, the Mormon God may be capable of greater happiness than the gay person, but that does not mean that whatever happiness the Gay person experiences doesn't count, at least in appropriate proportion.

This means that if Utilitarianism, or something like it, is correct, then there is a sense in which the Mormon God and gay people are co-determiners of what's right and wrong, and even God must respect the role that gay people play. Put another way, it means that what makes gay people happy is just as moral as what makes God happy, if it maximizes overall happiness. Put another way, if Harry is gay and, relative to all other possible worlds, it increases Harry's happiness for Harry to be married to Fred, and it doesn't (rightly) decrease anyone else's happiness for Harry to marry Fred, then morality demands that Harry be married to Fred, and God is obligated to acknowledge that fact.

This kind of extreme democracy might seem shocking. But the Mormon God appears fearless in acknowledging to his followers that they are like Him. If Joseph Smith can be believed, it was the Mormon God who let out the secret that He was one of us. He could have pretended to be a greater kind of being than us, or let us assume that He was, but He didn't. Apparently, He cares less about convincing His followers to kowtow than he does about raising them to His level.

Now, no doubt, some will want to argue that gay people will be happier if they do as the Mormon God is said to command and live celibate lives. Maybe. But that's an empirical question, and the empirical evidence seems to say otherwise. In any event, Mormon theology gives no reason to expect that gay people will be happier if they live celibate lives

Let us begin then with an axiom; a base truth that cannot be refuted or argued against.

We attacked the human race over 80 years ago, by our calendar. We fell upon their planet with savage speed, and superior technology. Confident, we sent our legions down to their home-world, bringing death and annihilation in our wake.

They had only just begun interplanetary travel. They had stepped upon their Moon, but had only sent robotic probes to their nearest planet. They had yet to even reach one tenth of light speed. We were in all ways technologically superior to them.

And then... we lost.

Be it upon their vast, turbulent oceans; be it in their teeming skies; or be it on their blood soaked and verdant soil, we lost.

They were more ferocious than we thought they would be; they negated our technology by utilizing their savagery to get close to us; they undid our stratagems by being more innovative, more cunning, more surprising than we could imagine you could be at war.

And then, finally, they were able to wrestle our own ships from us, able to turn our glorious invasion into a retaliatory campaign of retribution.

And they destroyed us.

Even now, as we sit here in the broken remains of a hallowed hall of learning, where generations of our ancestors have come to learn and expand our species knowledge, we can still see the damage done by the human occupation. Even now we have not even begun to repair the legacy of that war.

I return now to my home-world, after 75 years as a prisoner upon the human planet, and can see perhaps most starkly, what you have no doubt normalized.

We are a ruin of what we once were.

And the final part of this truth is; we are also pathetically grateful to these humans.

They spared us.

That they showed us mercy.

Yes, we have lost our fleets and are forbidden to return to the stars.

Yes, what were once our own ships now orbit our world, watching for any of us to try and negate this order.

Yes, we are powerless in the face of the human stern judgment, which floats above us with wary eyes, never ceasing in their observations, always ready to punish us if we transgress their edicts.

But we have learned to be grateful have we not?

They showed us more mercy than we were going to show to them. We met them in battle and they bested us and then showed a compassion towards us greater than we had planned for them.

This is an axiom. This is the truth, which we all see before us.

But I was asked to attend this Sym

I subscribe to theological determinism, and I am highly sympathetic to occasionalism. I am a compatibalist regarding human will and morality responsibility, and do not believe that humans have libertarian free will. I am a one-boxer. In a theological context, Newcomb's problem has obvious parallels with the issue of human agency and God's foreknowledge. Moreover, such a position is highly similar to naturalistic determinism, at least in the context of Newcomb's problem. I heard that those who are theists are more likely to be one-boxers while philosophy students are more likely to be two-boxers.

Here is a post that discusses people's decisions for Newcomb's problem.

I am not a typical professional philosopher. I actually did my master's thesis on al-Ghazali's occasionalism, while I think most decision theorists would not touch that topic.

Also, since a perfect predictor would know your choice based on its full comprehension of the naturalistic factors (such as the environment and your neurophysiological state) leading to your decision (despite the illusion that your personal ratiocination makes it seem like a "free" choice), it makes sense to be a one-boxer. If you get more money, from the two-box choice, it would immediately falsify the notion that the predictor is a perfect predictor.

I understand that nature of the paradox where decision theory says that it is perfectly dominant to pick two boxes because despite whatever the predictor has placed one can get the most money. Naturally, one would say that one's choice has no causal efficacy on whether there would be money in any of the boxes. Since one has no causal efficacy as to the content of the boxes, it makes sense to choose two boxes.

If one really thinks the notion of fate is coherent or a meaningful concept, fate will be fulfilled despite our best efforts to thwart it, like Oedipus' father being murdered by his son, despite his father's best efforts to prevent that. (In most cases, the notion of "fate" is to nebulous to have any substantial discussion about it.) The point for mentioning that is that a perfect predictor would not be thwarted despite one's best efforts to game the system, even by exercising our ostensible causal efficacy to influence events and our agency.

As an aside, I think the notion of "HIV causing AIDS" is false, but in ordinary language I would affirm i

Josephus is typically seen as having referenced Jesus of Nazareth twice in his book Antiquities (93/94 C.E.). While the reference to Jesus in Antiquities 18 as we have it now has probably been doctored by a later Christian scribe in a couple or a few areas, most of the passage as we have preserved now is authentic, according to most critical scholars (though the tone of the passage has been debated upon). Paula Fredriksen for example says in her book Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (1999):

>"Most scholars currently incline to see the passage as basically authentic, with a few later insertions by a Christian scribe."

Likewise, Fredriksen reverberates something similar about the state of scholarship in her 2018 book, where she assumes that most take the TF (the Testimonium Flavianum) as authentic in it's core:

>"... most (though not all) scholars assume that Josephus’ originally brief notice on Jesus has been partially rewritten by later Christian scribes."

(Paula Fredriksen, When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation, Yale University Press, 2018, pp. 80-81)

Bart Ehrman likewise says in his book Did Jesus Exist? (HarperCollins, 2012):

>The big question is whether a Christian scribe (or scribes) simply added a few choice Christian additions to the passage or whether the entire thing was produced by a Christian and inserted in an appropriate place in Josephus’s Antiquities. The majority of scholars of early Judaism, and experts on Josephus, think that it was the former—that one or more Christian scribes “touched up” the passage a bit (pp. 49, emphasis mine).

Regarding the reference to Jesus in book 20, Alice Whealey writes,

>". . . Josephus’s passage about James the brother of Jesus (Ant. 20.200), the authenticity of which is in any case accepted by most contemporary scholars . . ."

(Alice Whealey, "The Testimonium Flavianum" in A Companion to Josephus, Honora Howell Chapman; Zuleika Rodgers, Wiley Blackwell, 2016, pp. 353).

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Josephus on John the Baptist

We begin with the paragraph relating to John the Baptist:

>*But to some of the Jews the destruction of herod’s army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist. For herod had put him to d

This is the continuation of the comments and explanations of the following post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mainlander/comments/ral9og/comments_on_and_explanations_of_the_premises_and/

Regarding the premises:

C 1. God's wisdom strictly forbids coexisting with or alongside a creation in which everything that happens happens necessarily and without real alternatives.

C 2. God can never create anything else than that whose activity from the outset will always lead only to a very specific and certain outcome, necessarily and inevitably so, due to Efficient Causes (determinism) and/or Final Causes (teleologism), thus according to The Principle of Sufficient

We now come to the premises which, in my view, are the most crucial, even though the others are equally important in the deduction. First and foremost, we must refer to Schopenhauer.

For Mainländer speaks of Schopenhauer's "important writing" On the Freedom of the Will and says that it "is without question one of the most beautiful and profoundly thought out pieces ever written[.]"

[Schopenhauer in seiner wichtigen Schrift: „Über die Freiheit des Willens", welche ohne Frage zum Schönsten und Tiefgedachtesten gehört, was je geschrieben worden ist, (Mainländer, Philipp. Die Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band)]

Mainländer continues:

"In the cited excellent writing Schopenhauer proves irrefutably and incontrovertibly that the will, as an empirical character, is never free. Even if the matter was not new, he has the indisputable merit to have definitively settled the controversy about freedom and unfreedom of human actions for all rational people. Henceforth, the unfreedom of the will belongs to the few truths that philosophy has fought for until now." [In der angeführten vortrefflichen Schrift beweist Schopenhauer unwiderleglich und unumstößlich, dass der Wille, als empirischer Charakter, niemals frei ist. War die Sache auch nicht neu, so hat er doch das unbestreitbare Verdienst, die Kontroverse über Freiheit und Unfreiheit menschlicher Handlungen für alle Vernünftigen definitiv abgetan zu haben. Die Unfreiheit des Willens gehört fortan zu den wenigen Wahrheiten, die sich die Philosophie bis jetzt erkämpft hat.]

So, when reading Mainländer, one should also add said writing of Schopenhauer

This morning I finished the final novel of the "Coda" trilogy, which marks the definitive end of the so-called "novelverse" -- both in- and out-of-universe. As many fans probably know, since the early 2000s the tie-in novels have been part of an overarching continuity of intimidating scope, encompassing dozens of novels.

Though there have been installments in the TOS era (most notably the Vanguard series, centered mainly on new characters on a space station at the edge of Federation, Tholian, and Klingon space) and the Enterprise era, the bulk of the new material has been devoted to continuing the narratives of the "Big Three" TNG-era shows. Fittingly enough, serialization started in the DS9 "relaunch" novels, then it really started to embrace the broader franchise with the "A Time To..." series, which sought to make sense of events between Insurrection and Nemesis and also introduced plot points (particularly a conspiracy around a corrupt Federation president) that would remain important up till the very end of the novelverse.

I can't claim to have read everything by any means, but I have dipped into all the eras and series. Some of it is pretty mediocre, but most is at least replacement-level Star Trek material -- and some (like David Mack's Destiny series, which simultaneously shows the origin of the Borg and their irrevocable defeat, or Christopher Bennett's Department of Temporal Investigation series, which tries to make sense of Star Trek time travel in a comprehensive scheme) actually rank among the most ambitious of Star Trek stories.

The Coda series itself is a bit of an odd duck. It draws on the established status quo of the novelverse -- which is in many cases far from what we saw in the shows -- but tells a story that seems to come totally out of nowhere. Essentially, the Devidians, the parasitic time-travelling aliens from the TNG two-parter with Mark Twain in it, have figured out a way to harvest even more mental energy from suffering sentient beings -- namely, by triggering and then collapsing alternate timelines.

Wesley Crusher, in his capacity as a Traveller, is the first to catch on to what is happening, and most of the (terrible, terrible, boring) first novel, by (the very worst regular Trek novelist) Dayton Ward documents his attempts to get a handle on the situation with the help of Picard and friends. They ultimately come to the grim conclusion that the only way

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

I grew up Christian, giving my whole life to it. I attained my Master’s in theology and education. It took me a while to leave the faith and re-educate myself, but not by the grace of god, I made it. Now I think I have an idea of what is happening. Here’s my summary of 1) Things Most Christians Believe, 2) The Rest of the Story, and 3) Two Types of Christian (of which I am neither).

Things Most Christians Believe

Most Christians believe…God turned into a human being named Joshua (Jesus) in approximately the year 1-4 C.E.

Most Christians believe… Ancient Jewish literature prophesied the coming of a Savior who was Jesus, though most Jewish people interpret their prophesies and predictions very differently and do not believe Jesus is the Messiah or the Savior of the world.

Most Christians believe… Jesus did a lot of miracles, including bringing a few dead people back to life, and people still didn’t believe he was God.

Most Christians believe… Though Jesus didn’t say he was God, and though he said he loved God and prayed to God as if God was a different person, he still accepted praise as if he was God and equated himself with God (God’s Son) all the time. Later traditions and writings would pretty much state he was God in a second form.

Most Christians believe… Jewish leaders were especially corrupt and prevented people from following Jesus and even planned his murder. The Roman state only arrested and crucified Jesus at the request of the Jewish leaders.

Most Christians believe… Jesus really didn’t speak out or do much about the exploitation of the Jewish people by the Romans. The story of Jesus, approved by Roman emperor, mostly characterized Jesus as advising Jewish citizens to live peacefully under the exploitation of the Romans. Jesus mostly spoke of a spiritual kingdom that didn’t conflict with political powers in the world.

Most Christians believe… Jesus was put to death at the request of Jewish leaders because he undermined their religious influence.

Most Christians believe… Jesus resurrected from the dead and appeared to many people. Still people did not believe in him. Jewish leaders continue to reject him. He ended up leaving for good and said that one day he’ll come back. That was 2000 years ago.

Most Christians believe… Jesus died, not merely because religious people hated him, but because God the Father was actually sacrificing him like an animal for the sins of the world. It was a plan from the beginning of the universe that include

The tolerant moderators in the "Catholicism" Reddit censored this post of course.

So I spent like a good year studying patristics and theology, and came to the conclusion that as a matter of history, Rome had more jurisdictional authority in the First Millenium than the Eastern Orthodox led on.

And I just came across this document. This document feels like a kick in the gut.

http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/testo-in-inglese1.html

This document, which seems to have been approved by Rome, says this in Paragraph 19:

>Over the centuries, a number of appeals were made to the bishop of Rome, also from the East, in disciplinary matters, such as the deposition of a bishop. An attempt was made at the Synod of Sardica (343) to establish rules for such a procedure.(14) Sardica was received at the Council in Trullo (692).(15) The canons of Sardica determined that a bishop who had been condemned could appeal to the bishop of Rome, and that the latter, if he deemed it appropriate, might order a retrial, to be conducted by the bishops in the province neighbouring the bishop’s own. Appeals regarding disciplinary matters were also made to the see of Constantinople,(16) and to other sees. Such appeals to major sees were always treated in a synodical way. Appeals to the bishop of Rome from the East expressed the communion of the Church, but the bishop of Rome did not exercise canonical authority over the churches of the East.

To me, this contradicts Vatican I, which says the following:

>And it was to Peter alone that Jesus, after his resurrection, confided the jurisdiction of supreme pastor and ruler of his whole fold, saying:
>
>Feed my lambs, feed my sheep [44] . To this absolutely manifest teaching of the sacred scriptures, as it has always been understood by the catholic church, are clearly opposed the distorted opinions of those who misrepresent the form of government which Christ the lord established in his church and deny that Peter, in preference to the rest of the apostles, taken singly or collectively, was endowed by Christ with a

I've been eased into Reformed belief over the past year or so & am new to covenantal theology. I’ve read archived content here & elsewhere and my biggest unanswered questions at this point regard infant baptism:

• A) If infant circumcision as a sign of the covenant (for males only) has been replaced by infant baptisms, why are male and female infants baptized alike by paedobaptists (not males only), and what Scriptures justify that mode of change?

• B) 1 Corinthians 7:14 states that the belief of one parent keeps children from being unclean and makes them holy; a seemingly covenantal point on the “set-apartness” of believers’ children, independent of baptism. Given that fact, is it Scriptural to have faith in covenantal blessings for one’s family [2 Cor. 1:20] but stick to the model of “repent and be baptized” as an “appeal to God for a good conscience” [Acts 2:37, 1 Peter 3:21]? In that view professing young children can repent & be baptized, and all children are seen as set apart from conception, at least in an extra-common-grace sort of way.

It may be relevant so I'll also add that I'm blessed to have grown up in a family where I can't remember a point when I didn't love God. I do remember a specific day when The Spirit moved me to an explicit decision of faith. My parents talked to me about baptism (framed as a public profession of faith) and I was baptized at our church soon after. That made sense (and still does).

Also, my wife & I have already missed the infant baptism train (we're several kids in) and I don't expect we'll be convinced to catch up to it if we have more. But I am genuinely interested in determining what is Scriptural versus cultural, and I am ready to think through my assumptions when presented with Scripture, especially since mine is a minority view in this sub. Perhaps I'll consider condoning baptized grandbabies in a couple of decades.

TL;DR, why baptize male & female infants both when circumcision was for males only? (What changed & where), & how can infants be baptized if they can't repent and demonstrate a good conscience before God? I grew up a Southern Baptist, y'all, but I'm being Calvinized.

Those phony Mormons, pretending to be the only true Christian religion.

It's really just a social/family/cultural club/society(/cult?)....the LDS tolerate the crazy history and doctrine for membership in the club, and don't really think or even want to talk about the details....heck, most of them I've spoken to don't even know as much about THEIR religion as WE do!

I'm so glad to be in an organization that encourages Bible Study(tm), including historical/archaeological/scriptural background and references. It's like getting a college education for FREE. (Without the worldly influence, of course)

The poor Mormons....and those kids they send out. Really nice guys, gotta appreciate their efforts because we go door-to-door too (although....WE do it until Jehovah says we're done)....they put in their required two-year stint and they're done....:::sniff:::....also, they have the BOM, while WE take the Bible...and our Bible-Based(tm) publications/videos/apps/etc.

I have mixed emotions when they come to our door...I feel sorry for them since they're locked into that cult which has them carrying out their perfunctory duty with the barest of education regarding their own faith....but I also like to elicit their responses to questions about the history of their religion; passages in the BOM and other LDS writings; changes in their policies, and even their theology and the BOM itself, which has been revised several times(!) Of course, they can't answer in any coherent, informed way, which, again, I don't blame them for.

I do this not to be snarky nor to humiliate them, but rather out of genuine Christian Love(tm). If I plant a seed of curiosity that motivates them to seek knowledge and information outside that of their Mormon bubble, then I'm sure Jehovah will bless my efforts. Who knows, they might just one day knock on my door again, but this time with the JW Studios LLC videos!

The LDS historical narrative is something that George Lucas might consider too fantastical. Smith was a con man storyteller/prevaricator with a penchant for collecting underage women. The "seer stone"?? LOL, what a joke. He wasn't even a careful grifter, recasting an ancient Egyptian burial ceremony ritual as "The Book Of Abraham."

How could anyone fall for that stuff?

Meanwhile, WE have the Proclaimer's Book, which covers the entire history of God's Modern Day Organization(tm), warts and all! It doesn't paper over the Human Imperfections(tm) of faithful servants such as

Do your worst!

Here are links to more blogs or articles that mention or discuss Mainländer:

Going nowhere: nihilism, pessimism and antinatalism
https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2021/01/going-nowhere-nihilism-pessimism-and.html

PHILOSOPHIES OF THE UNDEAD
https://fragiledignity.com/2020/09/06/philosophies-of-the-undead/

Jorge Luis Borges: John Donne's Biathanatos

"Donne infers that the suffering on the Cross did not kill Jesus Christ but that He, in fact, killed Himself with a prodigious and voluntary emission of His soul."
"As I reread this essay, I think of the tragic Philipp Batz, who is called Philipp Mainlander in the history of philosophy."

https://wlprrpl.blogspot.com/2018/03/jorge-luis-borges-john-donnes.html

The Ontological Suicide of Philipp Mainländer: a Search for Redemption through Nothingness

There seems to be only the title. Maybe it is an article that will be published soon.

https://www.acla.org/ontological-suicide-philipp-mainl%C3%A4nder-search-redemption-through-nothingness

Somewhere I had read a discussion about the pandeistic idea of Scott Adams, where someone had doubted the possibility that God could do such a thing.
There was a good answer to that, which could also be related to Mainländer's metaphysics:

"God is whatever God is. I don't think It is constrained by human interpretations of what it can or should be, can or should do."

Someone had written here that Mainländer's philosophy is Suicidism.

I think Suicide can never be part of ethics for Mainländer, and this for logical reasons. Because Mainländer is a representative of a eudaimonistic ethics, which is about true happiness and peace of heart. When one is dead, one obviously can no longer be happy and experience peace.
The philosophy of Mainländer is at most suicidism for theological reasons, if one humanizes the first metaphysical principle. Then one can say God killed himself.
In a very abstract and figurative sense, one could perhaps argue that the world exercises a slow suicide on itself.
But ethically, Ma

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

Three years ago, when my boss was vacationing in Iceland, I found myself hallucinating on her living room sofa twenty-five hundred miles away. I was celebrating the new year with her son and some friends, when he offered me an unknown dose of lysergic acid diethylamide, a derivative of the ergot fungus that grows on rye. Minutes later, I found myself ingesting one of the most psychoactive substances known to man. About an hour after that, my perception began to shift. I was watching Wayne's World when a holographic kaleidoscope of light filled my field of vision. Indigo and violet fractal triangles sparkled out of existence as soon as they emerged. Euphoria cloaked my body and mind like a warm blanket. English became gibberish as I tried to make out what Wayne and Garth were saying. I felt like a clueless infant. I became more and more fixated on my own hands as I waved them in front of my face, mesmerized at how I moved them by sheer will of the mind.

And then my perception shifted further. In a way I can't totally articulate, my perception moved from the first person to the third, except I was looking at my own body in the third person—but then in dimensions higher than the third—I could see the front of my face and the back of my head simultaneously. The mind-brain dichotomy became much more apparent as they were completely separate at this point. I was no longer looking at my body with my physical eyes, but observing it with my mind's eye. And my mind began to drift further and further away from my body until my body was completely gone, my surroundings were nullified into oblivion, and only the deep void of space was left. My body stopped existing completely. And then I lost my senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing, even my sense of self, until all senses were gone and only pure consciousness remained. And it was empty. It wasn't an expanse of blackness or whiteness, but void of both. It was literally nothing, and I can't even begin to explain this linguistically. I experienced complete and total ego death to the point that there was no "I," but spoken language is too shallow to explain it any other way. My ego died that night, but ego death limns a close likeness to actual death. Some would even say it is, because you lose yourself in both instances. With ego death you come back. Ego death is often mistaken as a permanent loss of the ego, whit it is simply the name given to the phenomenon. It isn't a permanent loss of the ego, but a tempor

Because she wanted to see the task manager.

Heard they've been doing some shady business.

I'm sort of at a fork in the road right now, in terms of going vegetarian, I don't want to commit fully to it.

Supporting factory farming, even free-range factories are unconscionable, we're forcing billions of animals into existence and condemning their existence to be a physiologically torturous one (Through ill-treatement & confining them)

In the future it will be regarded as the terrible moral failing of our time, and if we took a step back and looked at the meat industry in motion from the perspective of an alien species, what we've been doing is far, far worse than the slavery or the holocaust.

Understandably, this conversation is disconcerting for most of us because we're implicated. Now I'm of three minds.

1. I could embrace the fact that part of me is an evil fucker supporting this, so that I may live in comfort.

2. I could work to eliminate that aspect of my moral footprint, but all in all, it seems like an exercise in self-piety because most people won't be on board to make a difference & I could always continue to draw the line further and further.

3. I could keep the wool on my eyes, not think about it, not care about it or believe I'm justified.

It seems like 2 is the only correct decision but I'm attracted to 1 as well.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------‐------------ Determinism already pokes holes through a lot of our structures and notions. But there's even more to it.

I've noticed our civilisation, society & culture gives us a false sense of identity and security.

For those of us who are secular we have an almost theological belief about ourselves - Something I call human exceptionalism. Like we're an aspect in nature but seperate from nature, as if we've been put here by God and are more than just a biological phenomena.

Having said that we're all happy enough to regard Neanderthals and early humans as biological puppets, but is there any evidence to suggest we've changed neurologically from our ancestors 115,000 years ago??

I've been able to de-program myself from that to an extent, and when I think of my being or our civilisation or the abstractions and buildings that dominate it. And even our history, I regard it with a gnarly sense of neutrality.

The mud-huts of an African province just as interesting and brutal than the city sky-line of New York, just in their own ways, you ever get that sort of feeling? Its like a feeling of oneness...

We're all just biologi

So, a few months back I asked if there was a way to justify a ComStar remnant group disappearing into the Deep Periphery to rebuild. Largely because I was unhappy with the unsatisfying way in which they had been killed off. I intended largely to throw together a mix of ideas to justify this and then experiment with a few cultural elements to flesh things out.

Well, it ended up being thirteen pages in length. I'll likely rework a fair few bits of this later on, so consider this the Mk. 1 backstory.

Maclnir Commonwealth

Regional Information:

Time Period: 3087 - Present

Classification: Deep Periphery State

Systems Controlled: 4

National Motto: “Morte solum vincula fidelitatis solvuntur.” (Official)

“The warrior serves the worker.” (Unofficial)

Governmental Information:

Organization Type: Crusader State

Head of State: Princeps

Commander-in-Chief: High Marshall

Executive Branch: Council Primaris

Legislative Branch: Council Secundus

Military Branch: The Commonwealth Guard

Secret Service: The Stormwatch Institute

Societal Information:

Capital: Telisgrad (city) Khigan (planet)

Official languages: German (dominant), Hungarian, French, English, Irish

Average Life Expectancy: 36.5

History:

Emigration:

The first whispers of what would become the Maclnir Commonwealth were born in the aftermath of Tukayyid. Between the failure of Operation SCORPION and the vast amounts of Clantech in the inner sphere, ComStar’s original ambitions lay in ruins. Many privately questioned if the battle had been worth it, and this would only steadily increase as one disaster after another dominated the following decades.

The loss of Terra. The sundering of ComStar and the rise of the Blakists. The death of the Second Star League. The failure of Victor Steiner Davion’s leadership and Case White. The Jihad. The White-Out. Any one loss would have been enough, leaving ComStar as a shadow of its former self, but combined they all but broke the organisation. As what remained of the Com Guards fought on in their wars, whispers gradually became discussions. What would happen if they survived the Jihad?

In every plan, every possibility of victory, the answer was always the same: ComStar would be a remnant. Made subservient to another government if not outright disbanded, they would never again be allowed any true power of any form. In the worst of situations they would likely be tarred with the same brush as the Word of Blake, and held trial for the

The State, and the Problem of Minority Part 2 - Religions in Indonesia

This is a continuation of part 1 of "The State and the Problem of Minority": https://www.reddit.com/r/indonesia/comments/ql1nxe/the_state_and_the_problem_of_minority/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

1. Background of Religions in Indonesia

Indonesia is predominantly Muslim but is not an "Islamic" country in the sense that sharia law or islamic superiority is universally recognized (except in a limited way as in Aceh). In fact, that's the issue early on with Piagam Jakarta with the "syariat islam" part of the first sila being replaced by "Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa". So even during the initial phase of independent Indonesia, the role of Islam in Indonesia was questioned. But indeed, that question remains debated up to this day, yet at the same time, there seems to be a constant issue with religion in Indonesia, especially along with the issue regarding the majority (Islam) and minorities.

We had a peculiar relationship between and in religions. For example, the fact that Pancasila is neither completely religious nor completely secular gives a certain condition in which a certain degree of freedom was given under the law of the country. Religions in Indonesia are under the law, meaning their existence is regulated, while not completely confirming the influence of any of them, as they obey the law, not the other way around. What it made is that yes, this arrangement acknowledges minority religions despite the dominance of the majority religion. BUT, with certain formal and informal considerations applied also, such as how religions are literally must be officially acknowledged and recorded by the state, hence KTP includes religion section in it.

Now it is a topic which must be thoroughly examined and studied, why religion and their adherence behaved the way they did? What was the reason behind the arrangement? or even the history behind it? Most importantly, how did they shape the state's attitude towards each religion? If we think about it, why they don't necessarily go full Islamic even though the government officials are majority Muslim? that means the government has a distinct interest in that of the majority, or is it something else entirely? Why? Or why it seems that certain minority groups seem to be w

Suppose I am in a boat, enjoying some fishing, and I notice that a current is taking me away from the shore, out to sea. Suppose I have an anchor in my boat, so that if I so choose, I could at any moment drop the anchor and prevent my boat from being pulled out into the open sea.

In this situation, it would be perfectly sensible, rational, or logical to say that I could permit my boat to continue to drift out to sea. Perhaps I want to fish deeper waters, or I want to get away from the crowded shore area, or I just want a change of scenery. There are various reasons why I might permit the boat to drift out to sea. The key point is just that I could permit the current to take me, and it would be perfectly sensible to say I could "permit" that to happen.

Why is it so sensible to say that I could permit that to happen? It's because of my lack of control over certain relevant variables in the situation. Crucially, for example, I don't control the existence of the currents or their directions. I don't control the physical laws pertaining to buoyancy or hydrodynamics, which explain why my boat floats and moves as it does. And I don't control the fact that the current has the causal power to move my boat. It is my lack of control or determination of these factors which makes it sensible to say that I can "permit" my boat to be carried out to sea.

To more clearly see why this is true, imagine that I did control those factors. Suppose that somehow, I determined the physical laws of buoyancy and hydrodynamics, and the existence and causal power of the particular current that carried me out to sea. Suppose that it was only by my continual upholding determination that these factors existed in the exact state they did at any given moment. Would it then make sense to say I merely permit my boat to be carried by the current out to sea? Surely not. I am no longer merely permitting, but rather I am in a positive and direct sense willing or causing my boat to float out to sea.

The analogy here to God and the view of theological determinism should be clear. If theological determinism is true, then God is in a very positive and direct way willing or causing every meticulous detail of every thing that exists, and every event, through his continual upholding power and determination. It becomes clear then that on theological determinism, it is not sensible, rational, or accurate to say that God merely permits this or that.

Obviously, this has ramifications. For example, it i