Plotinus

[FrankSophia]

There are seriously more admins and moderators than actual users... lol

 

[RJM]

You have side tracked a thread to attack Islam and still want to claim the higher ground because you're an investor in an interfaith forum that has like 5 members?

Go then

 

[FrankSophia]

Good heavens! What kind of Christians are these?

Protestants are especially antagonistic around the topic, but even Catholic family members have apparently been taught to be against it... and although I have not been to an Orthodox church the members I've encountered online even dismiss it... which I found odd.

Yes, but then the New Testament was written in Greek?

For me this was not a mistake, it was simply more capable of expressing the concepts required...

Insisting on the Latin undid this.

Who have, sorry, not sure which 'they' you mean?

The Greeks.

I'm sorry you've had such a poor experience of Christians. All I can say is my experience differs. While most, I agree, are not overly interested in the technicalities (nor need they be) there are plenty, in my experience, who are ...

I mean, you have been symptomatic of the issues I have with Christianity so it is not surprising you notice none.

I was once talking theology with my late mother. "I love listening to you talk," she said, "But all that really matters is the Eucharist."
Now that, my friend, is a mystical affirmation.

We are what we eat, by consuming the divine our own form increasingly becomes divine too...

This needn't be such a slow process.

I'd rather people were better educated in Scripture, Tradition and the Liturgy, than in sophistry and lexicons; in simple theology rather than complex philosophy –

I'd rather people didn't speak unless they knew what they were talking about, too many speak for God without experiencing or living the reality.

I rather say any authentic tradition – Abrahamic, Buddhist, Hindu (where it's 'remembered' rather than 'revealed'), whatever, is entire and complete in itself and sufficient for every human need and every eventuality, because of its ontology. It's inexhaustible. It's Infinite. If something is perceived as lacking, the fault lies with the beholder.

For me these are collectively the fruits of humanity, but we inflict an unnecessary poverty by restricting our exposure.

 

[FrankSophia]

At their peak they are each just different perspectives of the same truth.

The valleys are not very interesting to me.

By bringing these perspectives together our own understanding surpasses each individually.

Yet, it is not a greater truth.

Truth is not different.

Our opinions and positions have no bearing on it.

 

[Thomas]

OK, the final ad hominem. We're done.

 

[FrankSophia]

Eternally ... so no arising as such.

Here I have issues, the oneness shared is eternal, but the appearances are in time.

It's not divine though, is it? Our natures are created. Or are you proposing pantheism?

John 17:20-26
Galatians 3:28-29

What I see in the mirror will one day rot in the ground but that isn't where my identity is.

I am according to my logoi, which dwells eternally in the Logos, but I am not my logoi – in that the Buddhists are right. There is not the true nature of Frank, there is only true nature, which transcends all determinations ... 'Frank' qualifies a particular instance of that nature manifest at a given time and place, but Frank, and all that belongs to it, is contingent and ephemeral ... its continuance is entirely dependent on Grace.

What you call logoi the Orthodox rightly know to be nous... this is individual instances of spirit but again Ephesians 2:11-22 tells us there is ONE SPIRIT.

That one is Logos and is ultimately Monad, but appears as psyche... as the Stoics say.

The effort here, then, is to align the psyche fully with the monad such that logos is the foundation of activity... called sophrosyne and the definition of a sage.

 

[Cino]

Modern science has confirmed there was never literally nothing, so creatio ex nihilo is wrong.

I haven't heard about that seminal breakthrough of modern science yet.

Can you tell us where to learn more about it?

 

[FrankSophia]

I haven't heard about that seminal breakthrough of modern science yet.

Can you tell us where to learn more about it?

Look into the quantum vacuum...

It is impossible for there to be literally nothing.

 

[FrankSophia]

Seems science found the eternal.

Home.

 

[Cino]

They are passages from the Quran allowing men to have unmarried sex with female captives whose husbands are still alive. To rape them, in other words. It's in the Quran.

You are of course aware of similar passages in the Bible.

 

[TheLightWithin]

Did you not read my post #26 ?
"A man is never justified in performing a sexual act with other than their wife."

I know that it is a problem in the West, where the institution of marriage
has broken down.

In the West (very broad term) as we see it, the ferocity of the problem is not in whether or not a sex act took place between people who are not married.
The severity of the problem from (most of) our point of view is: Whether violence or coercion were perpetrated, or whether sex was imposed on someone in some fashion, such as taking advantage of someone under the influence or sex occurred with someone underage or with a significant disability. Sex itself isn't a crime. Pressure, coercion, or violence are crimes.

I've never been quite sure what people meant when they say "the institution of marriage has broken down" There is the old rejoinder "Well who wants to live in an institution anyway?" That's a play on words of course, but naturally living in an institution brings to mind prisons or hospitals.
People are no longer locked into marriages without escape. People can cohabit or have sexual relations/relationships outside of marriage. They always have. People just don't have to hide it or be afraid of losing jobs or homes or being social pariahs because of it.

And yet people still continue to get married.
People get legal rights and financial benefits from marriage (health insurance, taxes, inheritance of property, etc)
The institution has not so much broken down, as evolved in a world where people have longer lives, and a longer period of time in their young adulthood where education and social life are part of preparation for later adulthood. Thus seeking parenthood is not something that is just assumed to be your destiny as soon after puberty as possible, as it once was.

The institution, if you want to call it that, is a living part of an ever changing and rapidly changing society.
And it lives on.

 

[TheLightWithin]

Did you not read my post #26 ?
"A man is never justified in performing a sexual act with other than their wife."

And I did see, yes, the point I'm making is that in our society, a sex act with a non wife is not a crime. Force or manipulation is, but that can be hard to prove or sometimes next to impossible to prove.

Even if a man has a sexual act with his wife, if there is force or coercion involved, it is a crime. The laws on the books finally caught up to that in the 1990s I think. Sometimes even today people have difficulty recognizing that it is the force or the coercion of sex which is the crime, and not at all the presence or absence of marriage.

 

[muhammad_isa]

The institution, if you want to call it that, is a living part of an ever changing and rapidly changing society.
And it lives on.

Well, that's it..
The advent of the contraceptive pill for women, has transformed society.
It appears on first glance, that it has been for the better..
..but family life is becoming fragmented, and women have lost their privileges.
i.e. married women not expected to work, for example

 

[Cino]

..but family life is becoming fragmented, and women have lost their privileges.
i.e. married women not expected to work, for example

Oh, but even in such a traditional arrangement, a married woman is expected to work, hard, 16-hours shifts, 7 days a week - but without pay.

That women don't want that kind of privilege any more, is not that surprising to me.

 

[TheLightWithin]

Well, that's it..
The advent of the contraceptive pill for women, has transformed society.
It appears on first glance, that it has been for the better..
..but family life is becoming fragmented, and women have lost their privileges.
i.e. married women not expected to work, for example

A lot of this is about economic pressure, and for classes under economic pressure, those issues long, long, long, LLOOONNG predate the advent of the contraceptive pill.

 

[RJM]

You are of course aware of similar passages in the Bible.

I doubt there is anything in the Old Testament condoning the rape of female captives. I am certain there is nothing in the New Testament that condones rape. The Quran originated 500 years after Christ, in an attempt to 'update' the Christian Jesus, and the words of the Quran are regarded as inerrant word of God as still applicable to 21st Century life?

Incidentally I believe that most tribal societies are strict about marriage fidelity -- adultery 'adulterates' the tribe and causes many difficulties. Whatever the problems with tribal society, those of the 21st Century are different.

 

[RJM]

I've never been quite sure what people meant when they say "the institution of marriage has broken down" There is the old rejoinder "Well who wants to live in an institution anyway?" That's a play on words of course, but naturally living in an institution brings to mind prisons or hospitals.
People are no longer locked into marriages without escape. People can cohabit or have sexual relations/relationships outside of marriage. They always have. People just don't have to hide it or be afraid of losing jobs or homes or being social pariahs because of it.

Christian marriage is regarded as permanent. Jesus forbade divorce. (The Catholic Church has to find loopholes for annulment of marriage, as divorce is not permitted). Muslim marriage can be cancelled by saying three times: 'I divorce you'. I don't see how Muslim marriage can be regarded as so sacrosanct, if the partners can simply opt-out at any time. And again, a divorced woman in the 16th Century had very few prospects. It was a man's world ...

EDIT: The Catholic Church cannot contradict the actual words of Jesus

 

[muhammad_isa]

Christian marriage is regarded as permanent. Jesus forbade divorce.

That is another incorrect interpretation.
Making people live together, when they are obviously unhappy, is not only wrong but dangerous.
Jesus was referring to men "putting away their wives" as in "new wives for old".

And again, a divorced woman in the 16th Century has very few prospects. It was a man's world ...

Mmm .. the grass is always greener..

 

[RJM]

Jesus was referring to men "putting away their wives" as in "new wives for old".

Jesus forbade divorce:

They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. ’So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” (Mark 10:4-12)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark 10&version=NIV

 

[TheLightWithin]

Christian marriage is regarded as permanent. Jesus forbade divorce. (The Catholic Church has to find loopholes for annulment of marriage, as divorce is not permitted). Muslim marriage can be cancelled by saying three times: 'I divorce you'. I don't see how Muslim marriage can be regarded as so sacrosanct, if the partners can simply opt-out at any time. And again, a divorced woman in the 16th Century had very few prospects. It was a man's world ...

EDIT: The Catholic Church cannot contradict the actual words of Jesus

There is a difference though between what church or religion requires, what society tolerates, and what the government can enforce.
The government is at least supposed to be in the business of managing legal rights, that's why marriage is under its purview.
What society tolerates may be more stringent.
A religion understandably is more stringent yet, calling people to a higher standard.
The separation between church and state is to ensure that the church and/or religious people in society, cannot use earthly means to enforce their beliefs. People must enter the church and comply with its standards voluntarily. If they don't, the church can do nothing, and that is how is should be.