Well this "Ask HN" shows HN is as full of madness as any Mensa meeting.
Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
811–820 of 966 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#812Earlier quoted context omitted.
>concept of original sin Personally as an atheist-ish / lapsed Catholic, original sin is just about the only thing I've never actually doubted, Chesterton put it very well: “Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin – a fact as practical as potatoes.…
> the fact of sin Yeah, there's your problem right there. At the risk of stating what should be painfully obvious to any sane person, there is no "fact of sin", and you certainly can't use the claim of a "fact of sin" as a justification for the idea of original sin. It's a completely circular argument. Garbage in, garbage out.
> should be painfully obvious to any sane person, there is no "fact of sin"
When Chesterson asserts the fact of sin, he's saying that there in fact exists plainly perceptible offenses against morality [1], e.g. murder, pedophilia, rape to name the more extreme and obvious cases. In other words, evil.
So you deny the existence of offenses against morality or evil?
[1] "But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street"
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#813I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I read scriptures every day (Book of Mormon, Bible, Doctrine and Covenants) for 10-30 minutes. I turned 40 this year and have a goal to read all of those scriptures cover to cover before my next birthday. I pray every day as well, at least at night, often when I wake up, and almost always before meals (unless I'm at a restaurant or something). Weekly I…
Out of curiosity, are you a recent convert? I would imagine anyone who's as religious as yourself would have easily read all the scriptures by now, rather than aiming to do it by the age of 41?
I've read them multiple times over my life, but slowly (like a chapter or two a day). This year I'm trying to read them all within the year, which has me reading a lot more than in the past.
Seems like individual verses hit harder when reading slow, but the larger narrative hits harder when plowing through the books quickly.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#814Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that Catholics treat sin as a static field and any sane person treat it as an instance field. Why do we need to baptize infants? Because they have original sin. How could they get it if they haven't done anything? Because Adam and Eve sinned and their sin is shared with all of humanity. How are we responsible fot their sin? We aren't but God still had to kill himself to forgive us. Cause reasons. It ge…
> Why do we need to baptize infants? Because they have original sin. How could they get it if they haven't done anything? Because the idea of original sin doesn't, or only superficially, has anything to do with wrongful acts. What the idea of original sin is about that humans, by their very nature and in their being are confronted with evil. Or if you want a secular version call it injustice, or the ethical and the u…
>> > Why do we need to baptize infants? Because they have original sin. How could they get it if they haven't done anything?
> Because the idea of original sin doesn't, or only superficially, has anything to do with wrongful acts. What the idea of original sin is about that humans, by their very nature and in their being are confronted with evil. Or if you want a secular version call it injustice, or the ethical and the unethical, but certainly I did not need Catholicism to see that humans are, by virtue of simply being human, not 'sinless'. If there was nothing to the idea of humans being sinful, then living a moral life would not be a struggle, we'd be 'divine' by nature and as Chesterton says just walking across the street rids most people of that idea very quickly.
Okay, so...why do we need to baptize infants? I don't really see any answer here. If it were just about human nature, then what does pouring water over the head of a baby achieve? I don't see any problem with it as a general ritual to help remind us of our nature, but that's explicitly _not_ what Catholic doctrine teaches; it claims that it has an important, non-trivial effect cleanses the infant itself. Whatever that effect is, it doesn't seem to do much to the human nature that causes it to sin when it gets older.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#815Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. God already understood the human experience. He became human to prove to us, beyond all doubt, that He does understand.
"Beyond all doubt" is doubtful since, taking your assertions for granted, he only manifested himself to an infinitesimally small cross-section of humanity.
I'm not sure I follow your argument. So because he only manifested himself to a relatively small number of people, he can't prove that he understands us?
We have his teachings in writing. Do you only believe in knowledge that is personally manifested to you? If so, then you wouldn't believe in any history.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#816Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree, but your post feels out of place. This Ask HN is "What is your spiritual practice?", not "Debate others' beliefs."
I think pointing out flaws in other people's reasoning is perfectly valid. You could argue the response was mean-spirited, but I actually enjoyed how well it articulated something I was thinking. Honestly I think we need more posts like the above, not fewer.
The set of "valid" actions is a superset of what's actually "useful" or "good."
I'm an atheist, but for the most part I enjoyed reading others spiritual practices.
It is useful to learn about others; empathy and understanding are incredibly valuable even if one views the world from a strictly Machiavellian lens (though I hope that folks do not).
There is also much that the non-religious can learn from the religious. What I got from many posts here was a sense of the purpose, meaning, and/or serenity that many of these folks derive from their spiritual practices.
Call me crazy, but those are qualities many of us would like to enhance in our lives. I think there is much to learn from them.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#817Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Beyond all doubt" is doubtful since, taking your assertions for granted, he only manifested himself to an infinitesimally small cross-section of humanity.
I'm not sure I follow your argument. So because he only manifested himself to a relatively small number of people, he can't prove that he understands us? We have his teachings in writing. Do you only believe in knowledge that is personally manifested to you? If so, then you wouldn't believe in any history.
> I'm not sure I follow your argument. So because he only manifested himself to a relatively small number of people, he can't prove that he understands us?
I'm referring to the miracles attributed to him, which are used as the conclusive evidence that he was God in the flesh.
> We have his teachings in writing.
How do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have his teachings? You do not even know the historical identities of the authors of the gospels. Nor do you have his teachings in the original language that he spoke.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#818Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think pointing out flaws in other people's reasoning is perfectly valid. Frankly my knee-jerk reaction on some of the above comments was to start picking apart their reasoning and thinking of ways to explain why they're wrong. I was gearing up to drop some bombs. I have done this a lot. The internet is full of it. And it sucks. There's so much of "I'm just pointing out the flaws in other people's reasoning". It's…
Different people want different things. I hate when people feel that harsh criticism isn't nice. It starts to make everything feel like fluffy bullshit. I wish HN was way, way harsher with its commentary. I understand your perspective and realize I'm outnumbered here, but basically we fundamentally disagree (and that's okay!). I'd rather see more arguments about controversial topics from people with differing perspec…
I hate when people feel that harsh criticism isn't nice
I'm extrapolating here, but it sounds like you may often have this misconception w.r.t. metacriticism?
IME the issue people typically have with unnecessarily "harsh" criticism -- at least in engineering circles -- is that such unnecessarily harsh criticism is often counterproductive or at least wildly unproductive. I mean, what was the desired outcome here? Is criticizing some rando's spiritual practice supposed to benefit somebody, somehow?
I'm 1,000% in favor of speaking out or better yet, acting out when folks' religious beliefs interfere with others' freedoms. But I think that pretty clearly is not what was happening here.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#819Earlier quoted context omitted.
Warning, I'm not a specialist in this. My only qualifications is that Christianity has made me happy and I have read and listened a lot. > I've never understood what part of the crucifixion was a sacrifice. Jesus is literally a god. He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. All the more agony. (See also below.) > He could have left at any time. Yep, but as far as I understand then it wou…
I always found this whole bit farcical. Firstly, if God is the one who exercises judgement in the first place in the form of who goes to heaven and who does not, then (as is written elsewhere in the Bible) what God says is good, is good, and what God says is bad, is bad, for no intrinsic reason other than God says it is so. When I do the good, I want to do it because I have some stock in the moral value or principle…
> but that Jesus had to suffer, to what, to make God decide to be more lenient with how he interprets our sins?
Justice requires accountability for wrongs committed. When we break God's moral law, justice requires that we be held accountable.
Jesus suffered for us to take the punishment that our sins require. Jesus took the penalty for us. That allows God to be a merciful judge, yet still fulfill all justice.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#820Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never understood what part of the crucifixion was a sacrifice. Jesus is literally a god. He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. He could have left at any time. He can return any time he wants. And how can his death on the cross be actually considered a death? If he was dead, are we to understand that for those few days there was no god overlooking all of creation? It seems to me…
You are trying apply a rational argument to faith, which is inherently irrational.
I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that faith is inherently irrational, but I will say this:
All people everywhere live by faith.
This is because no one can know the future. You get in your car and drive to work. You are going by faith that you won't get killed in a car crash. Why do I know this? Because if you knew you would be killed, you wouldn't get in the car. You don't know. But you get in your car anyways, hoping by faith (probably subconsciously) you won't get killed.
By faith, I look at the evidence and believe God exists. By faith, someone else looks at the evidence (or lack thereof) and concludes He doesn't.
I can't know for sure if I'm correct. The other person is in the same position.
When we die, we'll know (technically, if the atheist is correct, we won't know anything at all). Good luck!