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The past is not true

sive.rs

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Re: The past is not true

#321

Post by physicles »

Loughla wrote: post #307
macksd wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or at least what some Christians take from it > Doesn't matter what I do, Jesus will take care of me Well yes let's be clear that only a very selective reading of the New Testament allows you to conclude Jesus doesn't think it matters what you do. It's the same kind of logic that leads one to preach the "prosperity gospel". It's very clear that loving Jesus goes hand in hand with loving others and living his comman…

I genuinely don't get the prosperity gospel. Can someone please explain how it could at all be a legitimate interpretation of Christianity? Or is it just a flat out scam the entire way down?

It’s not a scam — well, not all prosperity gospel preachers are scammers, but a few likely are. (Source: back in 2007/08 I was a true believer of a more mainstream Christianity and looked into this stuff in detail) The most charitable interpretation: some Christian traditions really hate wealth, and some see it as a blessing. You can find support for both in the Bible: Jesus is pretty anti-wealth, but then in Revelation 21 you have the New Jerusalem descending down from heaven, and God took the bling and turned it up to 11, and it’s the best thing ever.

Prosperity gospel churches are usually Pentecostal, which means they have a few special ways they like to interpret the Bible:

- They tend to take single Bible verses, often out of context, and use them as a foundation for entire novel lines of teaching. (This is opposed to reading and digesting whole stories)

- Those favorite Bible verses are emphasized, and passages that contradict them are downplayed. Once you decide that the Bible is pro-wealth, it can’t tell you it isn’t. (All Bible-believing Christians do this, whether they realize it or not. It’s called choosing a hermeneutic)

- There’s a culture that it’s common for the individual, especially the preacher, to hear directly from God. It’s pretty hard to argue with someone who claims the Holy Spirit told them something was true. (I always saw this as obviously problematic for a bunch of reasons)

When you put these together, you tend to get weird novel theologies. Other examples in the Pentecostal church include the personal prayer language (aka speaking in tongues) and faith healing.

Re: The past is not true

#322

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

JackFr wrote: post #280
mrguyorama wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accept that sometimes when you do a bad thing that permanently harms someone else you don't deserve forgiveness (not everyone is christian FFS) and it's not wrong for that to follow you around forever. If that makes you uncomfortable, too fucking bad, don't irreversibly blind someone.

Well that’s the thing. No one deserves forgiveness (Christians especially should know that forgiveness is not earned with merit, but distributed with grace.) But genuine forgiveness is a powerful thing, though it’s very hard.

"Sir," the woman cried, "If he deserved it, it wouldn't be mercy. And so I ask for mercy."

https://chrismowery.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-life-lesson-from-...

Re: The past is not true

#323

Post by ants_everywhere »

metacritic12 wrote: post #166
miiiiiike wrote: post #134

He did the right thing by seeking her out to apologize. The rest doesn’t hold water. “There’s a small chance that the chaos and ruin I’ve visited upon others may not be as bad as as those people made me think. Thanks, I knew my negligence/malice wasn’t that big a deal.” The worst people that I’ve ever met would love for that to be true. They’ll stab people in the back or work to damage people’s careers and when you c…

I think misanthropes aren't being enabled by articles like the above. Many of them honestly don't care deep down about the damage they do. Others like Mark Wahlberg just "forgive themselves" for blinding a neighbor as a teen, even if their actual victim doesn't forgive them, so they can feel better about themselves mentally. https://time.com/3623630/mark-wahlberg-pardon/

Mark Wahlberg didn't blind that guy -- he lost his eye in Vietnam. Also he forgave Wahlberg. But Wahlberg believed he had blinded him, so it's basically the same story as the OP article.

https://jezebel.com/mark-wahlberg-beating-victim-says-actor-...

Re: The past is not true

#324

Post by jacurtis »

pdonis wrote: post #171

The article's main point is that you can change the story, but the actual example he gives is a change in the facts --the actual facts weren't what he thought they were. That is why the story changed--because he found out that the actual facts weren't as bad as the "facts" he had previously believed were true. So it's not true that "the actual facts are a small part of the story". They are the story; you can't change…

> The article's main point is that you can change the story, but the actual example he gives is a change in the facts

Not really. The facts didn't change. The fact still remains that both these individuals collided their cars together all those years ago. That is just as true before they met as it was after they met.

What you call facts are perspectives or interpretations of the facts. They both considered themself at fault. This means they both interpreted the fact of the crash in opposite ways. Now they have had a chance to reconcile their opinions or interpretations, but the fact that they collided in their cars never changed. They just feel better because they realized the other person felt like they caused the accident.

I think the point is that our memories are based on our personal interpretations, not based on fact.

Psychologically this is extremely true, your brain throws facts away very quickly but it holds onto emotions for a very long time.

Imagine you go and pick up a cup of coffee from the coffee shop. You probably struggle to actually remember picking up your coffee at all. It happened, but you will have little to no memory of it. Your brain tosses out facts. But now imagine you go to a coffee shop and a cute barista smiles or winks at you while they give you the coffee. You will probably remember that for years, very vividly because of your brain remembers the emotion of that transaction over the myriad of identical transactions you experienced.

Now using the same previous example, lets say you go home and convince yourself that the barista wasn't actually winking at you, they just had something in their eye. So you never act on the flirtatious act. But then a year later you bump into the same barista at a party and they ask why you never asked them out when they tried to flirt with you. Now when you think back on the event, you probably remember it as obvious that it was clearly a deliberate wink and exasperated smile that they gave you, despite the fact that previous to that reconciliation you were convinced it was an innocent act. Your memories have now changed. Its all based on emotion and interpretation of facts. But the actual facts never changed. The amount of winking, smiling, etc was always the same, your interpretation and memory of it is what changed.

Re: The past is not true

#325

Post by miiiiiike »

brudgers wrote: post #279
miiiiiike wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people I’m referencing are normal people doing things that are accepted as a normal part of doing business. They do it because there are no consequences and may even been an advantage to engaging in light anti-social behavior. That lady just had a baby and needs to go home at 5:00 PM says one NPR reporter/podcaster/host early in their career? Sound like she’s not committed, I’ll take on her work as I, for one, am…

Those may be the worst people you ever met. I have met rather worse people.

Me too, but they outliers.

Re: The past is not true

#326

Post by mistermann »

avgcorrection wrote: post #169
mistermann wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no wisdom in extrapolating absolute statements from fringe coincidences. What method did you use to determine this is comprehensively true, in fact , rather than simply intuition?

Just save us both the time and call me a hypocrite/inconsistent based on whatever figment you have in your mind.

Doubling down with mind reading, nice.

Re: The past is not true

#327

Post by hypertele-Xii »

mike_hock wrote: post #268
bittercynic wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make a mistake like this, where you owe a debt that can never be repaid, I think we need some social mechanism where you can do your best to make amends and get some measure of closure. This probably should follow you around forever, but maybe it shouldn't dominate every moment of the rest of your life.

I'm gonna be a bitter cynic here and say that blindness also dominates every moment of the rest of the victim's life, so why shouldn't the perpetrator suffer the same fate?

Because "an eye for an eye" leaves everyone blind.

Re: The past is not true

#328

Post by sanderjd »

UncleMeat wrote: post #294
sanderjd wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're doing both things. And I applaud you for the encouragement and useful information! I also don't begrudge you your frustration about this. But I also find the "ten thousand" idea to be a useful re-framing of how to respond to this phenomenon where something seems obvious to you because you know all about it, but it's actually not obvious to most people at all. Maybe you'll find this to be a useful re-fr…

> I will push back a bit on "professionals are doing everything they can to communicate effectively". I don't think that's really true. For personal reasons, I am very good friends with an unusually large number of history faculty. I do not agree with your assessment at all. My experience is that historians are desperately trying to communicate their expertise in the face of an increasingly hostile culture that eithe…

What are that trying? My last paragraph was intended as a call for examples, links, books, blogs, newsletters, YouTube channels, whatever! If they are trying to communicate to an amateur but interested audience, here's your chance to help them reach that audience.

Re: The past is not true

#329

Post by kirse »

d1l wrote: post #318

This is the so self-serving and self-congratulatory! He had the nerve to cry on her doorstep, which says he didn't want to apologize, but to be forgiven and to make a show of it. Amending past wrongs is about showing up without any regard for your own feeling and the intention to do whatever is in your power to set the wrong aright. You admit the wrong and then you listen. I get it that to the author this is some cut…

That's funny, I read it more as a story about forgiveness and how often we carry around these life burdens (guilt, anger, whatever) solely on an emotionally-charged misunderstanding of what we think to be the truth. It got me thinking about what stories I keep telling myself that I may be clinging to that are potentially incomplete or incorrect.

Re: The past is not true

#330

Post by pdonis »

jacurtis wrote: post #324
pdonis wrote: post #171

The article's main point is that you can change the story, but the actual example he gives is a change in the facts --the actual facts weren't what he thought they were. That is why the story changed--because he found out that the actual facts weren't as bad as the "facts" he had previously believed were true. So it's not true that "the actual facts are a small part of the story". They are the story; you can't change…

> The article's main point is that you can change the story, but the actual example he gives is a change in the facts Not really. The facts didn't change. The fact still remains that both these individuals collided their cars together all those years ago. That is just as true before they met as it was after they met. What you call facts are perspectives or interpretations of the facts. They both considered themself a…

> The facts didn't change.

The facts as he knew them did. He thought the woman was permanently disabled. Then he learned she wasn't. That's a huge change in his knowledge of the facts.

> They both considered themself at fault.

As I've already pointed out elsewhere upthread, that's not the "fact" I was talking about. See above.

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