”You say: ‘We worship stones and walls and boards.’ But it is not so, O Emperor; but they serve us for remembrance and encouragement, lifting our slow spirits upwards, by those whose names the pictures bear and whose representations they are. And we worship them not as God, as you maintain, God forbid!... Even the little children mock at you. Go into one of their schools, say that you are the enemy of images, and straightway they will throw their little tablets at your head, and what you have failed to learn from the wise you may pick up from the foolish... In virtue of the power which has come down to us from St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, we might inflict a punishment upon you, but since you have invoked one on yourself, have that, you and the counsellors you have chosen... though you have so excellent a high priest, our brother Germanus, whom you ought to have taken into your counsels as father and teacher. . . . The dogmas of the Church are not a matter for the emperor, but for the bishops.”
I have recently become interested in Islam on a scholarly(????) level for a variety of reasons.
Anyone know where I could find a decent .pdf of the Qu'ran in English? (I know you're *supposed* to read it in the original Arabic but I'm not entirely willing to learn a new language to read one book. Besides, I've never read the Bible in Latin either).
It's always bugged me how the majority of Christians (including me) have never read the Bible in any of its original languages. Considering the differences between, say, English and French (two languages that are heavily related), it's frightening to think what meaning may have been lost to the casual reader. We could probably mend a few cross-denominational arguments if the original text was readable by the hoi polloi.
Heck, the Bible originally wasn't capable of being translated into English; Wycliffe had to pull dozens of new words out of his rear to manage it.
Good point. I never could get around the fact that a major church was founded because King Henry wanted a divorce.
(Then again, my knowledge of the Anglican church mostly comes from school, and I've had schoolbooks call my religion a cult, so maybe it's actually more complicated and I just don't know about it)
Most of the factions that can be demonstrably proved to have not originated from politics are ones that originated because of sheer distance (eg. The Ethiopian Church).
This is true of most religions, especially ones where there is no formal distinction between religious and secular rulers.
(Then again, my knowledge of the Anglican church mostly comes from school, and I've had schoolbooks call my religion a cult, so maybe it's actually more complicated and I just don't know about it)
what denomination are you?
Also it's really not more complex than that. Henry wanted a divorce and embraced a loose concept of Protestantism to get one.
Hmm. Can't say that the creation of the SDA Church was politically motivated.
Consider that we arose out of the shambles of the Millerism movement, which was basically William Miller's one-man-show for the first seven years of its existence.
You're one of the branches we had a unit on in Religion class back in high school. Monsignor Montone liked to call you guys "the hippie church".
Not a very nice or open-minded man, him. Once told me to do anything but become a Byzantine.
I pass a Seventh Day church pretty often, it's got a very nice sculpture of Christ out front in a very abstracted style. I quite like it (I like the billboards less, they strike me as corny. But that is not unique to any denomination).
Hippie Church? Well, if he's not calling us a cult, I'm down with it.
I wouldn't say that we're very hippie-like at this point. Or at any point. I'm pretty sure that SDA leadership balked at the hippie movement during the 60s. We are very focused on healthy living though; that might be it.
"Hippie" is a descriptor Catholics tend to apply to any congregation that sings too much or too loudly or too non-Gregorianly in my experience. Even St. Nicholas, which is a nearby Catholic church, gets called hippie.
In any case, the opinions of elderly Catholic men should not concern you.
I used to know the Archbishop of Knoxville, speaking of old catholic men. He wasn't the Archbishop of Knoxville at the time though, obviously.
I mean, there are certainly churches that would fit that description, but my church loves it's calm hymns.
And, besides what I've already mentioned, we're also advocates of vegetarianism, we run a humanitarian organization called ADRA, and we're partially responsible for the creation of cornflakes. And that's the end of the tour.
I mean, there are certainly churches that would fit that description, but my church loves it's calm hymns.
And, besides what I've already mentioned, we're also advocates of vegetarianism, we run a humanitarian organization called ADRA, and we're partially responsible for the creation of cornflakes. And that's the end of the tour.
pretty much any of that would do it aside from the humanitarian stuff (even the cornflakes!) the Catholic Church styles itself as being big on humanitarian projects. Personally, I know little about the efforts, that's more the work of the Holy Orders. Did you know the Teutonic Knights still exist? They do stuff like that now, apparently. Got to meet some Sisters (that is to say, nuns.) from Ethiopia once as part of a "Christian unity program" though.
I find it interesting that the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in Rome is still technically sovereign.
On a tangentially related note, if your Religion instructor labelled the Seventh-Day Adventists as "hippies," I seriously have to wonder what he would call the denomination that my mother was educated in.
They are an exceedingly small sect. They came to the Perkiomen Valley from Eastern Germany back around the turn of the 18th century and can be found pretty much nowhere else. They are a bit like the Society of Friends, albeit much smaller and arguably much more radical.
It's always bugged me how the majority of Christians (including me) have never read the Bible in any of its original languages. Considering the differences between, say, English and French (two languages that are heavily related), it's frightening to think what meaning may have been lost to the casual reader. We could probably mend a few cross-denominational arguments if the original text was readable by the hoi polloi.
Heck, the Bible originally wasn't capable of being translated into English; Wycliffe had to pull dozens of new words out of his rear to manage it.
I'm trying to learn old Arabic, though I should probably have gone with Greek, Latin, or Hindu.
You mean Hindi or Sanskrit, I think. A small difference, but an important one.
Classical Arabic looks potentially very interesting, but I find the abjad visually confusing. Beautiful, for certain, but I feel like it would be too easy for me to miss the subtleties essential to conveying certain information.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Regarding a Qur'an translation:
Probably one of the best English translations you're going to find is The Koran Interpreted.
The Noble Qur'an is probably the most common (I believe it's even the official Sunni translation) and is rather easy to read in English. However, the translators clearly had an agenda and instead of a book where one of the messages seems to be "Good Jews and Christians will be saved by Allah on Judgement Day" it's more like "There's probably a handful of Jews and Christians that won't be pitched into a fiery pit of molten lava."
Ironically by the own rules of the Qur'an, this could very well mean the translators of The Noble Qur'an are destined to be thrown into that same fiery put of molten lava I mentioned, and NO, it isn't some vague, open to interpretation pit of fiery misery either in the Qur'an.
It MAY be worth it to attempt to read a few pages from one then follow it up with the same pages as the other. I'm doing that with four Qur'ans to compensate for no understanding Arabic.
don't the majority of Muslims (Ibadi aside) not believe in permanent hell anyway?
also I am slightly more interested in Shi'a Islam than Sunni. Since I have heard that it is the more liberal of the two main branches (this may be wholly wrong).
also I will bookmark the copy you've linked me here. Is it biased in any way I should know about before reading it?
Most of the factions that can be demonstrably proved to have not originated from politics are ones that originated because of sheer distance (eg. The Ethiopian Church).
Would you consider differences in canon interpretation politics?
Examples include Jehovah Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists whose canon interpretations basically require a split as they're significantly different from major sects.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
don't the majority of Muslims (Ibadi aside) not believe in permanent hell anyway?
There seems to be a common belief that many Muslims will go to Hell temporarily to have their sins cleansed, but idolaters, unbelievers, hypocrites will likely spend eternity there.
also I am slightly more interested in Shi'a Islam than Sunni. Since I have heard that it is the more liberal of the two main branches (this may be wholly wrong).
I would probably consider Sunni more "liberal" but it's kind of hard to quantify. Sunni is certainly larger and probably has more adherents outside Muslim countries who've adopted a more liberal take on their own religion. There differences are probably more rooted in Shi'a Muslims basically having a Muslim Pope (also a different set of Hadiths, if I'm not mistaken) .
And, though Sunni seems to considered more "Orthodox" I wouldn't consider this to mean it's less liberal than the other sects. Shi'a definitely has it's share of hardliners.
I'm not really an expert an comparing the two. I did do a quick comparison between various map in Women's rights to vote and another on homosexuality laws vs how the sects are laid out. The results don't clearly show one sect being more liberal in regards to homosexuality than the other. They're both pretty scattered on how badly they treat them (few Muslim countries treat homosexuals well). Women voting rights similarly don't really break down via sect lines. Though Suadi Arabia may be one of the only places on the planet that still don't allow women to vote and it happens to be Sunni.
I'd imagine Friday (who is Sunni and has visited Saudi Arabia) would state that this has more to do with Saudi Arabia being an ass-backwards country than having anything to do with the religion.
also I will bookmark the copy you've linked me here. Is it biased in any way I should know about before reading it?
From what I've seen about it and read myself, it's pretty devoid of agenda aside from presenting an easy to read, English translation of the Qur'an.
There seems to be a common belief that many Muslims will go to Hell temporarily to have their sins cleansed, but idolaters, unbelievers, hypocrites will likely spend eternity there.
I would probably consider Sunni more "liberal" but it's kind of hard to quantify. Sunni is certainly larger and probably has more adherents outside Muslim countries who've adopted a more liberal take on their own religion. There differences are probably more rooted in Shi'a Muslims basically having a Muslim Pope (also a different set of Hadiths, if I'm not mistaken) . And, though Sunni seems to considered more "Orthodox" I wouldn't consider this to mean it's less liberal than the other sects. Shi'a definitely has it's share of hardliners. I'm not really an expert an comparing the two. I did do a quick comparison between various map in Women's rights to vote and another on homosexuality laws vs how the sects are laid out. The results don't clearly show one sect being more liberal in regards to homosexuality than the other. They're both pretty scattered on how badly they treat them (few Muslim countries treat homosexuals well). Women voting rights similarly don't really break down via sect lines. Though Suadi Arabia may be one of the only places on the planet that still don't allow women to vote and it happens to be Sunni. I'd imagine Friday (who is Sunni and has visited Saudi Arabia) would state that this has more to do with Saudi Arabia being an ass-backwards country than having anything to do with the religion.
Hm. It's possible some other definition of "liberal" was meant.
I'm curious about this "Muslim pope" business though. Surely you don't mean the Khalifs? I was fairly certain those weren't a thing anymore. I might be wrong though.
Would you consider differences in canon interpretation politics?
Examples include Jehovah Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists whose canon interpretations basically require a split as they're significantly different from major sects.
Depends.
I find that differences in canon are often fueled by politics. But I don't know enough about 7th Day Adventists' theology to talk on it, same with Jehovah's Witnesses.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Seventh Day Adventist believe that the Sabbath should be a Saturday, not a Sunday.
Jehova Witnesses have a number of beliefs that set them apart from the other churches. The most prevalent probably being not believing in the trinity (at least in the sense that all are God), not practicing any holidays, birthdays, or even patriotism, and also believing blood transfusions are a sin.
Both also believe that "the end" is close at hand. Though there beliefs differ a bit on how that will go down.
I wouldn't say any of their beliefs where particularly politically convenient either now or when they where created. Though, they're both still relatively small sects. Granted, I believe both are growing rather rapidly.
Also, after further research, it seems I was off on the "Muslim Pope" thing. I was thinking the Ayatollahs, not knowing there where, in fact, many. Given that two are female, I may also have to rethink my position on "Shi'a vs Sunni liberalism".
Concerning the end-times, Seventh-Day Adventists (well, most of them; it's not exactly listed in the official charter) believe that there's going to be a law enacted in the end-times. Often, it's purported to be an official Sunday worship law (which I don't believe because such a law would piss off a lot of people that aren't SDA, or Christian). And then bad things happen to us and bad things happen to all of humanity, and then the Second Advent occurs and we'll all be taken up into heaven.
Apologies about the sparseness. The end-times aren't my forte.
We also believe that when you die, you don't go to heaven or purgatory or so forth. You stay in the ground (or the sea or wherever your corpse ends up) until the Resurrection occurs, at which point you'll be given a shiny new body that's free of sin.
As for the JWs, I know that they believe that only 144,000 people are going to heaven. And they managed to convert Prince.
We also believe that when you die, you don't go to heaven or purgatory or so forth. You stay in the ground (or the sea or wherever your corpse ends up) until the Resurrection occurs, at which point you'll be given a shiny new body that's free of sin.
That sounds potentially quite horrifying tbh. (*the being stuck in the ground or whatever bit*)
Well, you're not aware while you're in the ground. We usually compare it to deep sleep; it's just that you're not waking up anytime soon. And presumably, you're brought up to the surface when you're resurrected. No clawing your way out of your grave.
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church is not, has never been, and most likely will not become an advocate for the Second Coming with Zombies.
We'll leave that to, I dunno, Garth Ennis or somebody.
i meant like being stuck in the ground or wherever for a while sounds like it could be potentially quite distressing. like it's dark and there is nobody to talk to.
Of course this is assuming that the dead people spirit whatevers are like conscious.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Jehovah Witnesses' beliefs are similar in that the dead are "asleep", though this is a sleep without consciousness or dreams. People are resurrected on Judgement day and Earth gets basically recreated in as the Garden of Eden. Though, I think this belief used to be slightly different back when the Witnesses assumed slightly different things based upon dates they assumed would correspond with events. Events that never panned out (at one point, it seems they assumed people would also stop dying altogether).
They believe the dead cannot commune or any such stuff. This made for a somewhat tense discussion with a couple of them and me on one of our final Bible studies as there is a passage where Saul summons the spirit of Samuel.
Because bible teaches tend to frown on the use of spirit mediums, this a a debated topic anyhow; Though, I could never quite get behind the idea that it was Satan posing as Saul.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Perusing my new book Friday got me on Fallen Angels:
"Allah was a moon god worshiped in ancient pagan Arabia. The moon god had three daughters al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. Allah is also the name of the supreme god of the Muslims"
Nope. You fucked up. Zero Points.
OK, Allah DID exist pre-Islamas a creator deity and maker of rain a, and yes, he did have three daughters.
I guess they at least tried to separate the two entities, but the Moon god thing is pure propaganda from Christian groups trying to discredit Islam. There has been an attempt to link this with the Moon and Star symbol, but this symbol actually arose as a symbol for various states and factions and originally had nothing to do with Islam which shunned iconic depictions.
I think you meant "the idea that it was Satan posing as Samuel".
That's how it's taught in SDA too. Satan or one of the various demons in his service decided to screw him over. If it was God, then He probably would have pronounced his doom through the usual channels (i.e. the prophets).
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
It sorta depends on what you mean...
I wasn't down with everything the Jehova Witnesses taught, but the idea that the dead are "resting" until Judgement day was something they could point towards using many passages to support and didn't really have any canonical arguments against. Even the above exchange with Saul and Samuel includes a line where Samuel is basically pissed off his slumber has been disturbed.
Now, as mentioned, what IS up for debate is that the dead are "resting" so soundly it's impossible to interact with them in that state. Honestly, I think I could agree that this specific passage and the Witnesses Interpretation (and SDA, too it seems) kinda falls into interpreting canon to reflect doctrine.
While I can agree that Saul contacting a medium is unusual, Samuel's responses don't really betray any evil motive on the spirit's part, and it's not like Samuel's responses or the aftermath exactly encourage the reader to attempt to commune with the spirits.
I also have some trouble accepting the author's intention was for the reader to believe the spirit was anyone other than Samuel when there's not really any verse supporting this hypothesis out of the passage. Books out of the Tanakh aren't exactly known for being subtle.
Comments
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Even sadder, really.
Pope Donut didn't get much time to settle in.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
so Gregory II was basically sick with the burns.
I have recently become interested in Islam on a scholarly(????) level for a variety of reasons.
Anyone know where I could find a decent .pdf of the Qu'ran in English? (I know you're *supposed* to read it in the original Arabic but I'm not entirely willing to learn a new language to read one book. Besides, I've never read the Bible in Latin either).
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Heck, the Bible originally wasn't capable of being translated into English; Wycliffe had to pull dozens of new words out of his rear to manage it.
That's been done before. It's solved nothing.
Most of the schisms in christendom are more political than spiritual.
The original Protestant/Catholic split might be an exception. There's question even on that.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
(Then again, my knowledge of the Anglican church mostly comes from school, and I've had schoolbooks call my religion a cult, so maybe it's actually more complicated and I just don't know about it)
Most of the factions that can be demonstrably proved to have not originated from politics are ones that originated because of sheer distance (eg. The Ethiopian Church).
This is true of most religions, especially ones where there is no formal distinction between religious and secular rulers.
what denomination are you?
Also it's really not more complex than that. Henry wanted a divorce and embraced a loose concept of Protestantism to get one.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Consider that we arose out of the shambles of the Millerism movement, which was basically William Miller's one-man-show for the first seven years of its existence.
SDA?
Acronyms are my kryptonite.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
ahh.
You're one of the branches we had a unit on in Religion class back in high school. Monsignor Montone liked to call you guys "the hippie church".
Not a very nice or open-minded man, him. Once told me to do anything but become a Byzantine.
I pass a Seventh Day church pretty often, it's got a very nice sculpture of Christ out front in a very abstracted style. I quite like it (I like the billboards less, they strike me as corny. But that is not unique to any denomination).
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I wouldn't say that we're very hippie-like at this point. Or at any point. I'm pretty sure that SDA leadership balked at the hippie movement during the 60s. We are very focused on healthy living though; that might be it.
"Hippie" is a descriptor Catholics tend to apply to any congregation that sings too much or too loudly or too non-Gregorianly in my experience. Even St. Nicholas, which is a nearby Catholic church, gets called hippie.
In any case, the opinions of elderly Catholic men should not concern you.
I used to know the Archbishop of Knoxville, speaking of old catholic men. He wasn't the Archbishop of Knoxville at the time though, obviously.
ah, I'm silly.
not Knoxville, Louisville.
Archbishop Kurtz. (Archbishop Joseph II if you're one of the few who still prefers to use regnal numbering for archbishops).
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I mean, there are certainly churches that would fit that description, but my church loves it's calm hymns.
And, besides what I've already mentioned, we're also advocates of vegetarianism, we run a humanitarian organization called ADRA, and we're partially responsible for the creation of cornflakes. And that's the end of the tour.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
pretty much any of that would do it aside from the humanitarian stuff (even the cornflakes!) the Catholic Church styles itself as being big on humanitarian projects. Personally, I know little about the efforts, that's more the work of the Holy Orders. Did you know the Teutonic Knights still exist? They do stuff like that now, apparently. Got to meet some Sisters (that is to say, nuns.) from Ethiopia once as part of a "Christian unity program" though.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
don't the majority of Muslims (Ibadi aside) not believe in permanent hell anyway?
also I am slightly more interested in Shi'a Islam than Sunni. Since I have heard that it is the more liberal of the two main branches (this may be wholly wrong).
also I will bookmark the copy you've linked me here. Is it biased in any way I should know about before reading it?
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
I see. Interesting.
Depends.
I find that differences in canon are often fueled by politics. But I don't know enough about 7th Day Adventists' theology to talk on it, same with Jehovah's Witnesses.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Apologies about the sparseness. The end-times aren't my forte.
We also believe that when you die, you don't go to heaven or purgatory or so forth. You stay in the ground (or the sea or wherever your corpse ends up) until the Resurrection occurs, at which point you'll be given a shiny new body that's free of sin.
As for the JWs, I know that they believe that only 144,000 people are going to heaven. And they managed to convert Prince.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church is not, has never been, and most likely will not become an advocate for the Second Coming with Zombies.
We'll leave that to, I dunno, Garth Ennis or somebody.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
That's how it's taught in SDA too. Satan or one of the various demons in his service decided to screw him over. If it was God, then He probably would have pronounced his doom through the usual channels (i.e. the prophets).
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis