Christian but not feeling anything at times.

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I don't believe "nationalism" had anything to do with it.

I feel like they were proud that they worship "one God," and that they had found the "one true God."

They believed polytheism was a more "primitive" mode of worship, and that they were at the vanguard of human advancement.

Have you actually read the entire account in Numbers?

This is not an attack on Jews. It’s just an example of horrific, human, tribal behavior.

No, I haven't.

But I would bet, like the Iliad, that this was written as a justification for the existence of their ethnic group, the struggle they had to go through to survive while being Greek. Which, I guess, is "nationalistic" in some sense.

But the situation in the Holy Land was more religious parochialism than nationalism, to me.

Chroniclers of that time did not subscribe to the same intellectual vigor that is imposed upon historians today.

Most people I know who are religious express, to a considerable extent, the thoughts that I expressed above. Even Muslims believe "The People of the Book" are superior to those whom they consider "pagan." Christians and Jews are considered "People of the Book," even through all the wars.

How can you comment on it and express how you feel about it without actually reading it? That is just really strange. I don’t get it.

Anyway, it’s an account about genocide. They are told to kill everyone, including infants and animals in a neighboring tribe and to keep the young virgins for themselves.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 17 Feb 2023, 8:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

People are tribal and nationalistic, especially in ancient times. A decent deity should not be.

I wasn't commenting on "Numbers," per se.

I was commenting on the religious situation around the time the Abrahamic religion was founded.

There are very few "decent deities" who have an objective view of the world. These deities are, and were, a reflection of any particular ethnic group. Of course, in ancient times, people were almost always quite insular, and knew little about those outside their ethnic group.

I don't have any particular "love" for any particular deity.

That’s true, but this thread pertains to Bible-based religion.

If thats true, then how come Judaism was basically a religion you had to be born into? It was a religion and also an ethnicity.

In my view, their God was just another way of them feeling like they had the right to do whatever they want to others.

The "God is on our side" is a common trope of fascism.

That is interesting, did leaving cause significant difficulties? I find religions and cults interesting.

Yes! I was publicly humiliated because they announced that I had sinned from the platform of two Kingdom Halls (their name for their churches) even though I was struggling with my mental health at the time and told the elders about it. (I informed them that I had been through some trauma and they knew that I spent some time in a psych ward, but it didn’t matter. Bastards.) They told me that my sin of fornication was as bad as murder because it’s listed in the same scriptures as things God hates. I lost all of my friends and most of my family. I can relate 100% to the book The Scarlet Letter.

The existential crisis was the most difficult thing, though. My brain kept on saying: what if I’m wrong?? This went on for years.

Things got better with time and research. A couple family members woke up, too, which helps. My brother apologized for shunning me; we are now best friends. I’m still hounded by elders sometimes, though.

I feel bad for most of my family. They think that I’m going to die at Armageddon.

For some people, it is more important to express an ad hoc opinion that to know what they are talking about.

I bet they called it "Being Disfellowshipped".

Most non-JWs seem to call it "Shunning".

Either way, a it is terrible thing for an allegedly "Christian" organization to do to a member in need.

JWs refer to disfellowshipping as a “loving arrangement.”

They disapprove of other groups who do the same thing. It’s absurd. They feel they have the right because they have “the Truth.” It would be hysterical if it wasn’t sad.

If I remember correctly (and it’s been over 40 years since I got my BA in music history), the pagentry of the ancient catholic (read that as Christian) church had some influence on what is now the modern musical stage, be it Opera, Broadway, or the West end of London.

For example, I’m planning to sing Charles Gounod’s Repentir, better known as O divine Redeemer on Maundy Thursday. The text suggests a person, who is in extreme torment, praying to the Redeemer of this world for absolution. If the singer is to do this number right, he or she has to put him- or herself in this sinner’s place. Believe me, the only other time I sung this, I was totally drained. Even right now, when I’m rehearsing this number, I’m completely exhausted emotionally and close to a meltdown. Even listening to this piece being performed by somewhat akin to Renee Fleming, Jesseye Norman or Jussi Bjoerling starts the waterworks.

As an aside, I find that most contemporary Christian music, especially praise band charts, are essentially devoid of any kind of meaning, or scriptural use.

I guess it’s true what a former church music director, now retired, told me several years ago: he and I are dinosaurs, the last of a dying breed of musicians.

^I wish I had that sort of talent.

That anyone would want me to go on stage and sing classically.

I wouldn’t make it even in an elementary-school glee club.

Screw all who scorn you…and act like you KNOW you’re not some bum.

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For me at Least, Visiting A Catholic

Church as A Participant Anthropology

Observer, Pretty Much Substituting

All They 'Say' With LoVE iN Peace,

Sort of Leading the Choir From The

Back Pew When The Choir Director

Is Absent As Yes my Wife Recorded

me Singing "Here i AM," A Really Cool

Song Written By a Gay Jesuit Priest,

Really Hitting the 'Sweet

Spot' of Ascending

And Transcending

The More Mundane

Feelings of Life Hehe in Flow

Yet That Was in the Past When

i Too Couldn't 'Feel' Anything in Church too...

(OR ANYWHERE ELSE Either, It Really Really 'S88Ked'...)

Not That i Agree With the Myths/Lies Yet Some

of The Songs Are Pretty Nice to Sing ToGeTHeR...

Really Uplifting,

Sparking The

Rest of The

Day For Free
Meditating Flow
of Public Dance As Well...

'You' Know What They 'Say,'

"Sing A New Song And Dance

A New Dance For the 'Lord'"

Or Hey Just Do it For the

Helluva it As it Feels GREAT

TO CONNECT TO OTHER HUMAN

Beings as it is True the Bonding Binding Love Neurohormone

Oxytocin as Science Shows Remedies Both Anxiety and Pain...

Two Parts of

Life i Mostly No

Longer Experience...

True, Mostly Literally

And Metaphorically Healed

By A Free Dance and Song

In Meditating Autotelic Flow ToGeTHER

As Science Shows it REALLY WORKS TOO

WITH
SMiLes

of Yes 'You'
Guessed it

Hehe, "Here i Am"...

Other Than That The Placebo

Effect Works; However, Not All are

Able to Take Advantage of the 'Sugar
Pill of Jesus' Delivered At Mass in Terms

of Bread and Wine; Not Unlike Hypnosis,

As Some Folks Just Aren't Swayed by the 'Power of Suggestion;'

However, On The Other Hand, Science Shows A Powerful Enough

Placebo Effect Puts Some Terminal Illness in Remission; So, Not So Wise

to Pooh

Pooh the

Basic Power
Of Belief That
Science Identifies
As The Placebo Effect...

As Negative Feelings About

Life Per the "Nocebo" Effect

Science Shows May Impact
Human Disease As Well

IN A Negative

Way of Course...

Yes, Feelings Do Count as
Science Shows They Are the Basic
Glue of Cognitive Executive Functioning

Per Focus and Attention Span and Short
Term Working Memory and Long Term

Memory Retrieval Too; Plus Science Shows

That Emotions Precede Most All Our So-Called Rational Decisions;

Although It's True, Some Folks Experience Shallow to More
Complex Emotions too...

True, Some More

Pro-Social And

Others Not So Much As the

Work of "Iain McGilchrist"

Shows the Left Hemisphere

of Our Mind That Processes the World

More Literally in Black And White Terms

of Materially Reducing Our World, More Often

Is Part of Emotions of Control Like Anger And
Hate And the Such,

And General

Discontent

When Stuff in
Life Seem Out of Control...

Anyway, Big Mistake in Life

to Discount Emotions, Core to

Most of All We Do; And It took me

For one, 53 Whole Years to Break
Through Fully to The "Other Side" Indeed...

Yet Life Wasn't Really Horrible All of my Life;

Yet Let's Just Say Some Years, it Was More 'Grey' Walking
And Talking Than 'Colorfully' Dancing Singing For Real..

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