Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

There's no way for me to 'prove' this other than the fact my wife can vouch, and thousands of other people have seen the same exact thing.

If it were a few years apart... it wouldn't have registered but this was like 3 days apart.

The parent to your comment gave one example because it's the first. But there are many. Here's another one, again from an early point in time, that shows regret.

Genesis 6:5-9

> And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

> And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Immediately after this, God first decides to end humanity, but later changes his mind again after focusing his attention selectively on Noah.

> And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created [...] for it repenteth me that I have made them.

> But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

> These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

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Truthfully, the bible is full of tensions and contradictions. You can't explain them without developing an opinion/interpreting the book holistically.

The God of the Old Testament is physical, emotional, and generally more demanding and hands-on with humanity; the language clearly implies that he possesses a locus of attention that he directs where he chooses. He interacts physically with humans, and not-infrequently changes his mind.

The God of the New Testament, is more ethereal, transcendent, and more consistent in the emphasis of grace and mercy.

That the debate on subjects like these, even among fellow Christians, has literally been ongoing since Christ's death, is probably evidence that all these ideas cannot be reconciled. They are merely there for us to contemplate and interpret.

That doesn't answer my question. Based on your answer, you seem to be interpreting the "fact of sin" to be original sin. I don't believe that is Chesteron's meaning as I showed in my comment. The fact of sin is the assertion that sin exists. Chesteron says it's obvious because one can "see it on the street"

However, in this statement you made:

> 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

you do differentiate between the fact of sin and original sin.

I'll ask another way. Do you believe murder is an offense against morality and is evil? If so, I don't understand why you would deny the fact of sin.

On child sexual abuse in the Catholic church. My stance on that is that it is shameful and absolutely repugnant. The men involved should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And for those who are unrepentant, I highly doubt their faith is genuine. The life of a true Christian is marked by repentance after moral failure.

On your comments on pedophilia. From reading your comment, I realize that I used the wrong wording by including pedophilia in the list of sins. I assumed the term included acting out of the behavior, but it doesn't. So I redact that term from the list and replace it with "sexual abuse of children".

Btw, it might not matter to you too much, but I don't aim to trigger you or anyone else with my comments. I see HN as a place for dispassionate and intellectual discourse on a wide variety of topics. Since the topic at hand is about spiritual things, I offer my comments about Christianity here. There are Christians way smarter than me that have much better writing on this topic than I do. e.g. https://www.bethinking.org/is-christianity-true/the-evidence...

You really believe that is what Chesterton meant? You think he thought there is only one single fact about the subject of sin? I find your interpretation hard to believe.

> Chesterton never says what "the fact of sin" is

First, if that is true, then how can you so vehemently deny something (the fact of sin) that you claim hasn't even been defined?

Second, Chesterton doesn't define it explicitly, but from a cursory reading of the text, I think it's pretty easy to infer.

> Some followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street

Here Chesterton criticizes followers of Campbell for denying the existence of human sin when it's obvious it exists in front of their eyes. This text is a few sentences after he asserts the "fact of sin". And the sentences in between are all about the existence of sin.

It's pretty obvious that when he says the fact of sin, he means the fact that sin exists.

> BTW, William Lane Craig is a charlatan.

Backing up your claims with evidence would make them more substantive especially with such a serious allegation. And even if he is (which I don't believe since I haven't seen any evidence), there are plenty of other examples on the website I linked to (and other sites). But I suppose you'd think they are all charlatans.

> read Bart Ehrman or Richard Carrier.

Sure. This is the second time I've seen Ehrman referenced on this thread. I'm game to to read up on them.