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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   23673 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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I'm not necessarily looking for guidance from a progressive perspective, nor was I really looking for a conversation about what "loving your neighbor" means. I'm quite convicted in my position on the latter and not really interested in having my mind changed on that.

Okay, but it seems integral to your progressive philosophy. You might feel better considering that Christ does not want you to love random strangers or, in this case, Haitians who practice voodoo.

Yes, it is, and respectfully, I'm not looking to have my mind changed on it.

Are there some relevant things you are willing to have your mind changed on? The whole point of being here is discussion. Not making write-only posts.

As I was just explaining yesterday, almost no one ever changes their mind on anything, so making everyone sign a pledge before the discussion starts attesting to a non-trivial probability of mind-changing is an unreasonable standard to hold people to. You should go into every discussion assuming that no one will actually change their minds.

Yes, I would like to be challenged on the notion that all politicians have become completely self-serving and/or only serve the wealthy and elite and are incapable of nuanced thinking.

Yes, I would like to be challenged on the notion that all politicians have become completely self-serving and/or only serve the wealthy and elite and are incapable of nuanced thinking.

Maybe instead re-evaluate the position politicians play in your worldview? One of the reasons I lean libertarian is my understanding that people's well-meaning motives and actions are easily corruptible and so the best we can do is limit the power given to anyone person. IMO, the root of your angst is that you want a single person moral enough to exercise a level of power no single person is moral enough exercise. The solution is not to create a false specter of a more-perfect human, but to reduce the power of the federal government.

But you’re correct now and would be incorrect to change your viewpoint.

So the thing you want challenged shouldn’t be.

You should challenge the idea that Trump is an existential threat to anything or that living through Christ makes you live your best life … or some such.

Christian agape for a Haitian voodoo neighbor would involve getting them to stop practicing voodoo and turn to Christ.

Christian agape applies to Christians, the in-group. Christians have an obligation to lead strangers to Christ, but the emphasis of love in the gospel is decidedly not on strangers. In Christianity, the voodoo practitioner is not your neighbor even if he literally lives next door to you.

Among other things, this interpretation doesn’t really jibe with the Great Commission.

The Great Commission does not say to make disciples out of neighborly love, or any love for that matter. It says to make disciples. Upon becoming Christian they become neighbors, brothers, etc. The theology of this can be explored through other passages: “many are called but few are chosen”; “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world”; “he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons”; “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him”; “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you”. It’s not simply that you create disciples through your own efforts and they become Christians from a blank slate because they have persuaded — there’s an element of Christ having already chosen those who would hear his message. There are logic and moral arguments against this which are known among atheists but that is, of course, outside the premises of the religion. Romans 9 takes this idea to an extreme level, calling those who can’t hear Christ “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, molded by God to show his wrath”. Not very neighborly to non-Christians, right? Barely humanizing. Another interesting tidbit is that the original Eucharist was called the Agape Feast, the same word used for love. Outsiders were completely excluded from participation in the central love ritual of the religion, and not just outsiders but students who were yet confirmed members. Those who participated but in Judas-esque fashion were also utterly dehumanized in the epistle of Jude, labeled “reefs at your love feast for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever”. Lastly, I would ask you whether Christ can love someone he never knew? Christ, plainly, never knew those who do not follow him, and at his return he tells them to go away. (Matthew 7:23).

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