Make America Christian Again

[Jarhyn]

The earliest records of Christians we have list accounts of one sect of Christians anathaemizing and excommunicating each other. Even founding fathers like Marcion were no exception. Arians, gnostics, etcetera. The Huns were Arians, but Marcion was excommunicated way back in 144. Apparently it is great fun excommunicating each other.

I love it when "church fathers" are credited with creating a rich literature and a sturdy foundation for their denomination. It's always worth asking if these saints and worthies defended torture of heretics (Aquinas) or the death penalty for heresy (St. Augustine, John Calvin), and which ones were extreme bigots and displayed such traits as raving antisemitism (Luther). Know who your founders are.

I'll be honest, before I die, I'm probably going to attempt to write a book about philosophy, ethics, and my approaches which provides (physicalist) answers to complex topics such as free will, consciousness, emotion, self-mastery, goal oriented action, and a proposed solution to the is/ought problem.

I'm not a great person. In fact, I wasted years I could have spent on actually living out those principles just so I could get the words together, and while I've gotten through most of the hard parts I'm still not even done yet. I could die tomorrow and all of that effort will be roundly wasted on nothing and nobody. Maybe the few homeless people I have tossed a pittance to?

And it's not like I'm just a bad person in terms of not doing everything I could have with the time I had. I have so much awareness of all the things I do and have done and will do that have such negative consequences for others and I do them anyway, as much because I don't know how not to ask anything else, and a lot of it will be for selfish reasons, because if I don't get in a little bit of good experiences now, I will have betrayed my own commitment to "everyone", because that's me, too.

I have said awful things, and if people told stories about me, they could do a lot of damage with the truth.

Honestly, I think I would rather nobody who eventually reads my book on philosophy ever really knows who I am, or if they come to hear it, they hear it from my own mouth so that nobody makes the mistakes people do with most "founders" of ideas.

Or maybe I just fail miserably and nobody cares or someone else beats me to writing the book...

 

[KCFlyer]

The only thing that all Christians agree on is that 99% of the other Christians are doing it wrong.

Reminds me of a joke I heard. A Catholic dies and goes to the pearllly gates and St Peter greets him, looks at his paperwork and says "Ah..Catholic, down that hall to room 12, but very quiet passing Room 9. Next up is a Muslim. St Peter looks and says "Muslims....welcome, you are down that hall in room 17, but be careful passing room 9". Next up is a Jew. St Peter looks and says "Welcome to heaven, Jews are down the hall in room 21 but be quiet passing room 9". Before proceeding the Jew says " I hope I am not out of line, but I noticed that you asked us to be quiet passing room 9...may I ask the reason for this?". St Peter responded with "Room 9 are the Baptists and they think they are the only ones here."