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I still love Kierkegaard

aeon.co

121–130 of 146 posts

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#121
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

religion = magical thinking

Well that's a silly thing to say. For the record, Kierkegaard doesn't claim to know or try to prove that god exist. Doubting is a crucial part of believing, and literally requires a "leap of faith" according to Kierkegaard. That's one of the major things that separates religious belief from for instance scientific knowledge. Also: "Christian dogma, according to Kierkegaard, embodies paradoxes which are offensive to r…

Sure, but he goes on about religion a lot. And it's always been obvious to me that faith is foolish. I was reading Popper, Kuhn, Nietzsche, Camus, Kafka, Hesse and so on. And I had no patience for Kierkegaard's obsession with fantasy. I mean, I enjoy fantasy. But I know that it's fantasy.

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#122
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, neither the letter ø nor the sounds /œ/ or /ø/ exist in English, so presuming the GP lives in an English speaking country they probably didn't want to curse their kid with a name that nobody could pronounce. So, as has been an American custom for a long time, they modified the name slightly by substituting out a visually similar character with vaguely similar phonological characteristics (the /ɔ/ in "Soren" i…

Also it is common in English and most other countries to have different spellings for the same name. In English it is called Anglicisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicisation Jesus was never called Jesus (probably). His name was Yehoshua (Joshua but Hebrew has no J) but when translated to Greek we get Jesus. In French Jacob is pronounced James due to some name meaning of James being having a limp. The New Te…

Ha, I am from Minneapolis and knew a few Sorens as well.

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#123
post #29
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

religion = magical thinking

Or, religion is, at least, a form of seeing meaning in things, which is the same category of activity as magical thinking.

It's seeing agency in things, and reality overall, I think.

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#124
post #69
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>God sacrificing his own Son, which is also Him, in place of all sacrifices. The twist is more complex than that. God is sacrificing his own son, which is also him, to himself, in order to satisfy rules that he himself also put in place so that he doesn't have to send people he created and loves infinitely to be tortured forever in a place he created because they broke rules they couldn't understand with consequences…

As someone in the tech field and an Orthodox Christian doing a masters in theology, I find it incredibly frustrating that there is absolute sheer ignorance about Christian theology. Literally ALL basic tenets of Christianity are misunderstood and distorted. And while I acknowledge that part of the problem is the ignorance of some Christian leaders and ministers, it's definitely not the whole problem. Intellectual hon…

That's the view of the atonement as presented in fundamentalist / evangelical circles. Reduced to snarky absurdity, but the theology is itself absurd.

Perhaps this is different than your own experience or reading, but it doesn't make this experience less valid. Considering this is the dominant form of Christianity in the US, I think it's safe to say the snarky statement above accurately describes Christianity as how a majority of us experienced it.

My childhood spent in a very restrictive environment, and watching how "Christians" behave, definitely gives me the right to speak on behalf of Christianity, and the right to reject it completely as the fraud it is. I understand it completely well.

All I have to do is observe what they do. From the near-abuses of my own experience, to how the Orthodox have been perfectly willing to embrace Putin and other cruel leaders, to how women and gay people are frequently treated. There's the cruelty dispensed by the faithful over the millennia. In your own response there's no shred of Christ's love or humility. You offer nothing but cold, empty judgements rushing to defend and insult.

All of this shows there is little to nothing of worth in the system, and wasting hours of my irreplaceable life reading men (and it's always men) debate how many angels can fit atop a pin, is not going to convince me otherwise.

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#125
post #104
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intellectual laziness. It's more of a coping mechanism, is it not? I've read roughly half of the things you've listed, but definitely don't remember most of the nuances. By default, people don't know (or care) about philosophy, and religion is a type of philosophy. It's a bit like bashing people for not taking the time to read Kant.

It's a bit like bashing people for not taking the time to read Kant. I think that thebproblem is that people that haven’t taken the time to read Kant most of the time do not attempt to criticize or discuss his work.

Kant isn't directly used in ways which oppress or abuse people. His works are generally not used as the foundation of unpleasant systems. Children are not raised to think of Kant as infallible, nor are they punished for failing to follow his dictates.

People criticize religion without extensively reading the theology because religion is a lived experience in a way that Kant isn't.

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#126
post #69
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>God sacrificing his own Son, which is also Him, in place of all sacrifices. The twist is more complex than that. God is sacrificing his own son, which is also him, to himself, in order to satisfy rules that he himself also put in place so that he doesn't have to send people he created and loves infinitely to be tortured forever in a place he created because they broke rules they couldn't understand with consequences…

As someone in the tech field and an Orthodox Christian doing a masters in theology, I find it incredibly frustrating that there is absolute sheer ignorance about Christian theology. Literally ALL basic tenets of Christianity are misunderstood and distorted. And while I acknowledge that part of the problem is the ignorance of some Christian leaders and ministers, it's definitely not the whole problem. Intellectual hon…

>How can someone reject Christianity when they haven't done the due diligence of looking at __primary sources__ for the Christian position?

I find it incredibly unsurprising that a christian like yourself would assume you know everything about my understanding of religion based on a single snarky comment on an internet forum.

I also find it incredibly unsurprising that a christian like yourself assumes that your understanding of christianity is the one that's right, and most Christians agree with you.

>Don't speak on behalf of Christianity if you do not understand it. And let me tell you in case this isn't clear: You do not understand it.

Holy shit. Literally. There was no place in my statement that I claimed to be speaking on behalf of christianity. Go ahead and keep 'splaining away to that strawman you constructed.

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#127
post #75
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone in the tech field and an Orthodox Christian doing a masters in theology, I find it incredibly frustrating that there is absolute sheer ignorance about Christian theology. Literally ALL basic tenets of Christianity are misunderstood and distorted. And while I acknowledge that part of the problem is the ignorance of some Christian leaders and ministers, it's definitely not the whole problem. Intellectual hon…

Traditional Catholic here, former seminarian in a traditional seminary. >How can someone reject Christianity when they haven't done the due diligence of looking at __primary sources__ for the Christian position? Intellectual laziness. They just repeat what they see on reddit or sound-bytes they've heard from others who have no idea what they're talking about. If they want to know what Christianity truly teaches have…

>Intellectual laziness. They just repeat what they see on reddit or sound-bytes they've heard from others who have no idea what they're talking about.

Wow that's incredibly judgemental from someone claiming to be a christian. I see you've learned the lessons from those books well and are applying them in your daily life.

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#128
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone in the tech field and an Orthodox Christian doing a masters in theology, I find it incredibly frustrating that there is absolute sheer ignorance about Christian theology. Literally ALL basic tenets of Christianity are misunderstood and distorted. And while I acknowledge that part of the problem is the ignorance of some Christian leaders and ministers, it's definitely not the whole problem. Intellectual hon…

That's the view of the atonement as presented in fundamentalist / evangelical circles. Reduced to snarky absurdity, but the theology is itself absurd. Perhaps this is different than your own experience or reading, but it doesn't make this experience less valid. Considering this is the dominant form of Christianity in the US, I think it's safe to say the snarky statement above accurately describes Christianity as how…

Indeed as I said earlier part of the problem is the kind of theology that is taught especially in the US. I never said it was an invalid experience but only said that it cannot be a representation of Christianity - for one to get that they would need to look into works by Christian authors throughout the years.

I'm sorry to hear you were personally negatively affected by the Church. Btw Orthodox is a big umbrella, I'm not sure what you're referring to with Putin, I'm not Russian Orthodox.

I recognise that my comment may have been flippant. But you can't judge Christianity based on its misuse or the inadequacies of Christians. I am just sick and tired of hearing that my beliefs are irrational, or "out of date", and that I need to "get on with the times" and abandon myths and legends about God and Christ. This has been a consistent impression I get from others especially in the tech field. And upon talking to people who believe this I find that they really have done no research on their part and so end up with superficial understanding of everything. I only ask that people do their due diligence and read Christian texts to judge for themselves. I encourage you to completely abandon the current messy Christian debates (including my comment) and look into Christian texts of the first few centuries.

Indeed a lot of writers are men due to the cultural reasons of old times. But you can find sayings by women: https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Desert-Mothers-Sayings-Chri...

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#129
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, neither the letter ø nor the sounds /œ/ or /ø/ exist in English, so presuming the GP lives in an English speaking country they probably didn't want to curse their kid with a name that nobody could pronounce. So, as has been an American custom for a long time, they modified the name slightly by substituting out a visually similar character with vaguely similar phonological characteristics (the /ɔ/ in "Soren" i…

Also it is common in English and most other countries to have different spellings for the same name. In English it is called Anglicisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicisation Jesus was never called Jesus (probably). His name was Yehoshua (Joshua but Hebrew has no J) but when translated to Greek we get Jesus. In French Jacob is pronounced James due to some name meaning of James being having a limp. The New Te…

The argument about anglicized names usually works because there are lots of shared names by way of shared religion. Иван can be anglicized as John because it's an important name in the foundation of both western and eastern european religion, not because someone just decided they seem similar.

> I met dozens of Sorens and none of them pronounced it differently.

And none of them were named the same as Søren Kierkegaard, being named Soren and all.

Being from MN, by the way, you would think actually naming your kid the same as the person you're naming them after wasn't such a big deal, considering there's lots of scandinavian heritage there.

I think the big takeaway here is that americans, for all their talk of heritage and mixed culture are still super resistant to actually embracing and getting things from other cultures right. In general I'd say native English speakers are extremely lazy when it comes to other languages.

This assumption that you can remove umlauts and diacritics from letters and everything will be fine is everywhere in US media and it's pretty ridiculous. Both umlauts and diacritics specifically mark a difference in pronunciation. That's their entire purpose.

Re: I still love Kierkegaard

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also it is common in English and most other countries to have different spellings for the same name. In English it is called Anglicisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicisation Jesus was never called Jesus (probably). His name was Yehoshua (Joshua but Hebrew has no J) but when translated to Greek we get Jesus. In French Jacob is pronounced James due to some name meaning of James being having a limp. The New Te…

The argument about anglicized names usually works because there are lots of shared names by way of shared religion. Иван can be anglicized as John because it's an important name in the foundation of both western and eastern european religion, not because someone just decided they seem similar. > I met dozens of Sorens and none of them pronounced it differently. And none of them were named the same as Søren Kierkegaar…

> Being from MN ...

I went to college in Minneapolis. I'm from Connecticut.

> I think the big takeaway here is that americans, for all their talk of heritage and mixed culture are still super resistant to actually embracing and getting things from other cultures right.

When it is actually IMPOSSIBLE for me to spell my son's name with anything other then what is possible with the English Alphbet your just coming off as Pedantic - overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching.

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