#theology

[psalmlover]

1 corinthians 13:4-8

god is love

[victusinveritas]

Pope Francis told Vance "Fix your heart or die." And then he died. Absolute power move in theology, politics, and televised competitive ballroom dance.

[perhaps-relax]

Religious alignment chart w/ internet quotes

I am not a theologian, hope this helps

Links and alt text under the cut:

Gnostic Theism: “Tell me the name of God, you fungal piece of shit” @personsonable on tumblr [link]

Anti-gnostic Theism: “If the zoo bans me from hollering at the animals, I will face God and walk backwards into Hell” @dril on twitter [link]

Agnostic Theism: “I don’t care where the sun goes at night, he’s an asshole” Firebringer by Starkid [link]

Gnostic Deism: “When I kill God, I will find the spigot from which he measures out grace and smash it permanently open” @Linux on twitter [link]

Anti-gnostic Deism: “God may not have to beg my forgiveness, but He’s got some ‘splaining to do” -Robert Semple on Quora [link]

Agnostic Deism: “I guess I would scream too-ie if I knew a God could hear me”  @soupygarbagejuice on TikTok [link]

Gnostic Anatheism: “Humanity named kindness, it must know kindness” @realbrucespringsteen on tumblr [link]

Anti-gnostic Anatheism: “Wide-eyed and hackles raised, I will conquer the Devil and rid the world of doubt.” @little-tunny on tumblr/@itslittletunny on twitter [link]

Agnostic Anatheism: “I need to sink my teeth into the material world and unmake God’s creation” @chaumas-deactivated20230115 on tumblr [link]

[christiannerd]

Oh! Another Parallel that requires some historical context! In ancient Israel, it was illegal to have herds of animals within a certain radius if a city (because of the smell). The only exception allowed was Levite shepherds who were responsible for taking care of the sacrificial lambs. Since these lambs had to be without blemish, they couldn't risk anything happening to them, so they would "bubble wrap" the sheep in swaddling cloth so they couldn't wonder off and get injured. This swaddling cloth would have been made from old, worn out priestly garments torn into strips. (These garments had been consencrated, so even old and worn out they couldn't be used for purposes less than holy).

Thus, at His birth we see Him, our Great High Priest and Sacrificial Lamb, wrapped in priestly garments and guarded by those tasked with guarding the sacrificial lambs.

At His death we see Him fulfill both those roles by sacrificing Himself, both the High Priest and the Lamb.

Losing my mind over the gospel of Luke being like “they wrapped his body in linen cloth and laid him in a tomb” after the beginning of the story being “they wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger” like

I’m absolutely feral

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

In this house, we do philosophy in the kitchen, theology in the bedroom, and mysticism in the garden. As God intended.

[embervoices]

You can tell a lot about a theology by how humans are supposed to handle gods being assholes.

Off the top of my head I can think of several different reactions (for "God" read: any God in particular)

If you think God is being an asshole, you are the asshole.

God is an asshole sometimes. This is a metaphor for reality, which is also an asshole sometimes. Ahh, well.

God is an asshole sometimes. There is nothing we can do about it.

God is an asshole sometimes. Everybody gets cranky when hungry. Do not forget to feed your God!

God is an asshole sometimes. It's our fault, somehow, and we must make up for it.

God is an asshole sometimes. It's our job to point this out as politely as possible, so it doesn't go too far.

God is an asshole sometimes. This is why we avoid interacting with God as much as possible.

God is an asshole sometimes. Fuck that guy.

God is an asshole sometimes. Eh, so am I. We'll talk it out.

God is an asshole sometimes. This is why knowing other gods is useful. Go tell his wife and girlfriend he's being an ass again. They'll handle it.

[prokopetz]

Some of my favourite pieces of Christmas media are the ones that are straight up Evangelical propaganda, but they don't want to appear as such, so they copy and paste Santa Claus into Jesus' place. Like, I appreciate the hustle, my dudes, but I cannot begin to explain how many heresies you just promulgated.

[ladyphlogiston]

Part of what makes Christianity at large not a cult is there is no Secret Knowledge. It's all there. You can't level up.

My sister, discussing gnostic heresies

[chthonic-sorcery]

"I know everything about ancient Egyptian theology" okay bet

[thewellofastarael]

FWIW this is why Catholics have the idea of purgatory - a temporary hell to get you ready for heaven. Funny enough this is (spoilers!) what the Bad Place ends up becoming.

Re: the good place, someone I went to college with (and am therefore Facebook friends with) made a long post after finishing season 1 about how disappointed she was that the heartwarming good show was no longer heartwarming and good due to [spoilers]. So she would therefore no longer be watching it.

She was exactly that type of person in college too; sometimes I wonder if she ever went back and watched more of the good place

That's hilarious because most other people I've talked to about the matter agree that season 1 is kind of depressing.

(spoilers under the cut)

A "heaven" where you can only interact with 322 preselected people forever, where you're essentially in an arranged marriage with someone the system picked out for you as a "soul mate" (there is NO WAY that, given the exclusivity of actually getting into heaven, everyone works out with the right point totals that all heaven-goers are coincidentally perfectly paired up with an ideal mate who will be ideal forever), the major emphasis is on "harmony" in a "perfect system", and nothing you do will ever really matter in any way. The system's already ideal, there's someone there who can magically provide anything on request, you have eternity to just kind of sit around trying to entertain yourself knowing that any actual impact you can have on the community must be perfect or is making everything worse.

And -- this is the critical point, the thing that makes the whole Good Place model completely unworkable -- most people don't go there. You arrive and watch a cute intro video where Michael explains how the points work, how only people good enough to make serious social change and make it as impactful as possible end up there, and you talk to all your neighbours and they're people who dedicated their whole lives to helping others, only to arrive here and be told "oh, no, this isn't the end, it's the beginning -- and all those people you helped? Probably tortured for all eternity. Maybe you dedicated your entire life to getting shelter and counselling and medical care to homeless drug addicts, proved with every action how much you cared about helping them; they're all getting tortured forever. Don't worry about it! They weren't "good" enough, unlike you! Look how many flavours of frozen yoghurt we have!"

Season 1 was not a happy place.

[beauty-funny-trippy]

[graphic--horde]

spme of the stamps I made / collected for my spacehey profile

[sapphosremains]

Side A Roman Catholics - question from a potential convert.

How do you deal with confession and taking communion? Say I am lucky enough to end up married to a woman, and personally do not view that intimate relationship as sinful. Technically speaking, I would have to confess that, right? But then I would be confessing that so regularly, and that's not the point of confession. Or I don't confess it, and then enter into another grave sin by deliberately withholding a sin? And then I'm taking communion in mortal sin? Or I can't take communion at all? I really, really want to take communion.

I want to be Catholic more than anything, I really believe it's the right thing for me. However, I don't want to be a bad one! I want to be good and I want to do my best, and I don't know how to reconcile these things.

Advice very much appreciated!!

[apilgrimpassingby]

I don't know about the Holy Spirit, but the figure of the Divine Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon (one of those books Roman Catholics and Orthodox have but Protestants don't) is often equated with the pre-incarnate Christ.

Firstly, She's a divine figure distinct from the Father - She "sits by Your throne" (9:4), "was present when You made the world" (9:9) and is called "a breath of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty ... a spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of His goodness" (7:25-26 - compare Hebrews 1:3). 7:22 calls her "the fashioner of all things", and chapters 10-11 basically consist of crediting Wisdom with all God's deeds in the Pentateuch.

I don't know about formal theology, but the liturgical tradition of East and West equates the Divine Wisdom with Christ - in the West, the second of the O Antiphons (the set of Advent prayers best known today for inspiring "O Come, O Come Emmanuel") is addressed to Wisdom, and includes a quote from the Wisdom of Solomon ("reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things" is Wisdom 8:1), while in the East, the Paschal Canon calls Christ "Wisdom and Word and Power of God", a slight variant of which ("Word and Wisdom and Power of God") appears in St. Athanasius as a title of Christ (On the Incarnation 32.6).

I feel like Catholics and other Christians tend to hold up the Holy Family as the ideal role model of a nuclear family; but Mary was pregnant outside of wedlock, and Joseph was not Jesus's bio dad. The Holy Spirit (the One Who conceived Jesus) is referred to with feminine language in the original text of the Scripture. According to the Church, Mary and Joseph never consummated their relationship; instead adopting more kids. At Jesus' request, John the Beloved took in Mary as his own Mother--that's chosen family.

None of these things exactly fits the ideals of a nuclear marriage and family which Christians espouse--in fact, it would be considered scandalous. But they were a Holy Family nonetheless. It's almost like family can be complicated and not fit into lines or boxes, and still be built on love and honoring to God

[canonicallyplural]

The Holy Trinity is Canonically Plural!

According to trinitarian canon, God is three persons in one being. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

This is admittedly stretching my criteria a bit since it's not confirmed if they have the same "body" per se. Trinitarian canon is actually kind of vague about what the Trinity is and how it works, with Christians often arguing that it's something unknowable and incomprehensible to the human mind.

For the argument that they are in separate bodies, I will reference first that God is in all things. So his body is technically everywhere.

Who can hide in secret places     so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord.     “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord. —Jeremiah 23:24

But by this logic, if God is everywhere and everything can therefore be considered to be part of the body of God, why am I only considering Jesus part of the plural system? Why not you and I?

The reason for this is that people lack the self-awareness requirement. That is, relatively, we have no knowledge past our world and our relatively short existences. By comparison to the eternal and all-knowing, we would be more akin to God's dream characters. Temporary entities thought into existence that can't see past the dream.

Perhaps heaven could be seen as a sort of awakening. Joining God's system. But while that's a cool thought, it's slipping too much into headcanon territory for my tastes.

What we do know is that Jesus is different than random living people. He is considered to possess the "fullness" of the Deity in bodily form.

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. —Colossians 2:9-10

The idea of people being "brought to fullness" also seems to back up the headcanon that heaven could be joining God's system.

"Fullness" is an interesting term here because it seems to imply that while some of God may reside in all things, all of God resides in Jesus's body.

Happy Easter to all the Christian Plurals out there!