Total War Center Forums - Ethos, Mores, et Monastica

religious question #53422KL-X1

Gambit — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:57:16 GMT

So I'm pretty sure this question has been asked many times in the ethos, just dont remember what peoples responses were, but for those of you who are religious, what do you say to people born in a place where your religion hasnt/hadnt reached it yet? Or just another one had taken control beforehand? Can people really be blamed for believing what was taught to them as opposed to just another of the many religions? What about the ancient Mayans or basically everyone in the western hemisphere before the new world was discovered?

Death certificate is imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican scholar

davide.cool — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:14:30 GMT

Quote:

A Vatican scholar claims to have deciphered the "death certificate" imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, or Holy Shroud, a linen cloth revered by Christians and held by many to bear the image of the crucified Jesus.
Dr Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican secret archives, said "I think I have managed to read the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth." She said that she had reconstructed it from fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing imprinted on the cloth together with the image of the crucified man.
The shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral and is to be put in display next Spring, is regarded by many scholars as a medieval forgery. A 1988 carbon dating of a fragment of the cloth dated it to the Middle Ages.
However Dr Frale, who is to publish her findings in a new book, La Sindone di Gesu Nazareno (The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth) said that the inscription provided "historical date consistent with the Gospels account". The letters, barely visible to the naked eye, were first spotted during an examination of the shroud in 1978, and others have since come to light.

Some scholars have suggested that the writing is from a reliquary attached to the cloth in medieval times. But Dr Frale said that the text could not have been written by a medieval Christian because it did not refer to Jesus as Christ but as "the Nazarene". This would have been "heretical" in the Middle Ages since it defined Jesus as "only a man" rather than the Son of God.
Like the image of the man himself the letters are in reverse and only make sense in negative photographs. Dr Frale told La Repubblica that under Jewish burial practices current at the time of Christ in a Roman colony such as Palestine, a body buried after a death sentence could only be returned to the family after a year in a common grave.
A death certificate was therefore glued to the burial shroud to identify it for later retrieval, and was usually stuck to the cloth around the face. This had apparently been done in the case of Jesus even though he was buried not in a common grave but in the tomb offered by Joseph of Arimathea.
Dr Frale said that many of the letters were missing, with Jesus for example referred to as "(I)esou(s) Nnazarennos" and only the "iber" of "Tiberiou" surviving. Her reconstruction, however, suggested that the certificate read: "In the year 16 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius Jesus the Nazarene, taken down in the early evening after having been condemned to death by a Roman judge because he was found guilty by a Hebrew authority, is hereby sent for burial with the obligation of being consigned to his family only after one full year". It ends "signed by" but the signature has not survived.
Dr Frale said that the use of three languages was consistent with the polyglot nature of a community of Greek-speaking Jews in a Roman colony. Best known for her studies of the Knights Templar, who she claims at one stage preserved the shroud, she said what she had deciphered was "the death sentence on a man called Jesus the Nazarene. If that man was also Christ the Son of God it is beyond my job to establish. I did not set out to demonstrate the truth of faith. I am a Catholic, but all my teachers have been atheists or agnostics, and the only believer among them was a Jew. I forced myself to work on this as I would have done on any other archaeological find."
The Catholic Church has never either endorsed the Turin Shroud or rejected it as inauthentic. Pope John Paul II arranged for public showings in 1998 and 2000, saying: "The Shroud is an image of God's love as well as of human sin. The imprint left by the tortured body of the Crucified One, which attests to the tremendous human capacity for causing pain and death to one's fellow man, stands as an icon of the suffering of the innocent in every age." Pope Benedict XVI is to pray before the Shroud when it is put on show again next Spring in Turin.

Related Links

Missing Shroud of Turin mystery 'solved'

Pope announces Turin Shroud display for 2010

Age of shroud disputed again

Source:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6925371.ece

Does Christianity believe Jews may go to heaven?

Goodguy1066 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:20:28 GMT

Some person on the TD said non-christains can't go to heaven (in his religion). Is this true?

Dear Brannigan, what is the world coming to?

Dr Zoidberg — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:08:16 GMT

Came across this article this morning over my morning coffee. Lets just say I almost ruined my Mac by coating it in coffee.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/raunch-culture-and-the-growth-of-the-designer-vagina-20091119-iotc.html

What the hell is going on? First it was 'enlarge your manhood' emails online, now its 'design your own genitalia'.

Quote:

Yet most revealed uncertainty about what ''normal'' women's genitalia should look like.

I wasn't aware there was a standard design template with such things...

That said though, the article actually raises some interesting issues such as the negativity surrounding female genitalia:

Quote:

And as the shape of the vagina becomes a crazy new source of angst, we still don't even have an affectionate word to describe it. Where is the cosy, non-threatening equivalent to ''willy''? This linguistic absence speaks volumes about social attitudes towards female genitalia. Meanwhile, the c-word endures as a form of abuse.

Although I'm sure this post will be canned faster than a news report on Taiwanese independence on CCTV, I'd be interested in people's opinions as to strange new tangent in the search for 'beauty'.

Suicide?

jsktrogdor — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:20:55 GMT

Some christian faiths see suicide as a hell-worthy sin. Some minorities of Islam believe that killing yourself in certain ways grants you eternal paradise.

Heres my simple hypothetical question: If someone kills themselves in one religion, with the honest and truthful impression that god would be happy with them (which im sure they usually are considering their commitment level). Would the christian god grant them access to heaven, if in the grand scheme of things it turns out Christians won the whose god really exists lottery?

They literally killed themselves because they were honestly convinced it was what god wanted... thats how devoted to god they were. They martyred themselves like Jesus martyred himself in the name of god... Lets work on the hypothesis here that all religions are basically worshiping the same god they just have their own interpretations of him.

Keep in mind this is just a question to raise an interesting discussion, I just want to see a tame debate.

Executing Your Son for Molesting Your Daughter. . .

uos_spo6 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:50:41 GMT

Here's the link to the story. . . http://www.detnews.com/article/20091118/METRO01/911180394/Family--Father-shot-teen-son-over-contact-with-3-year-old-girl/?imw=Y

Just wondered how others would view this act. The jist of the story, a father in Highland Park MI (suburb of Detroit) marched his naked 14yr old out of their home and across the street to a field where he put a handgun to the back of his head and blew his brains out the front.

The reason being, apparently the 14yr old son had admitted some sort of sexual contact with a 3yr old female relative. What you won't see in this story because it was amended to protect the sex assault victims identity, is that the 3yr old girl was also the mans daughter (by a different mother).

Personally, I view this story with great remorse for the loss of the whole family but in some sick sadistic way I admire the father for the strength of his convictions. In a way, he sacrificed his own son for a set of morals he believes in.

Is the sanctity of a helpless little girl so precious and valuable that the gross offense of the son in any skewed instance warrants vigilante capital punishment?

Family witness accounts say the boy was pleading for his life to his father and he pulled the trigger regardless.

Faith

Wizav85 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:42:29 GMT

Alot of the time i hear people say that god wishes us to beleive in him on faith.

If that is true why does he offer heaven for those that believe and hell for those that dont, Is that not completely biased and contradictory.

If people are rewarded for believing something and punished for not how do you expect them to believe from an unbiased passive stance.

From a very early age people are fed reward story after reward and hear tales of hell and punishment. That imo is not faith atall its brainwashing.

How does it differ from a parent offering their child a bag of sweets if they are well behaved.

Discuss.

Is a soul created by God indestructible?

Thalassocrat — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:15:33 GMT

It just struck me, God breath life into Adam, the Quran has a slightly different version but overall the idea is God gave us part of His Essence.

Hell is damnation not obliteration....

New debate, are human and angelic souls immortal/eternal as created by God

Could This Be Considered A Type of Spirituality/Religion?

asianboy — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:30:26 GMT

I would like to quote from someone:

Quote:

Before I have even begun elementary school, I have always been doing a certain thing.
Back then, I was afraid of monsters in the dark. Because of that, I would always perform some rituals before I would go to sleep. I believe that this ritual would protect me from evil creatures, and that, if I fail to do them properly, I would be haunted by them. Now, this is certainly normal, for every child are afraid of irrational things when they were little. For now, my actions are excusable.

In elementary school, I have never sunk to average or to anything lower than average. I was the student of the month several times, and had received several awards. This is not extremely excellent or anything; I�m just telling you about this to prove to you that I did not dropped below average. However, I do have some setbacks. If you can, imagine a person that sings silently during the learning session. Yes, I was that annoying person. Before I continue, I would like to point out that, during that time, my dad was already in the 50�s. This explains my autistic nature (many academic articles have stated that, the older ones get before having children, the more likely those children would have autism). It was also this time that a problem relevant to the story had reached a new level. Instead of monsters, my new worries were that bad things would generally happen to me if I did not observe the rituals. I appeased this anxiety, of course, by doing these inconvenient rituals.

Then came middle school. Although I was doing quite well, it was during this time that I have one of the most negative experiences in my life. My silent singing during class became more frequent. The second factor of my negative experience was my lack of enthusiasm for education. In elementary school, this did not hinder my learning; but, in middle school, it has become much harder if you do not have the motivation to learn. As such, although I did not fail, the not-so-good grades began to accumulate.
This all changed when I when I have reached my most major Turning Point, which was during my 7th grade. It was during this time that I have met two of my most inspirational teachers. It was also during this time that I have pick up a good mathematics book. I became amazed at its rigorous methods of proving mathematical concepts. Soon, afterwards, mathematics became my favorite subject. Because of my realization of the logic that you could only have achieved with an education, and because of my teachers� inspiration, I became very motivated to be educated. But there is a problem; my feelings that bad things would happen if I did not do the rituals are still there with maximum effect. It was then that I have conceived of an idea that there might be a ritual that would end all the rituals. Perhaps I could fool my sensory definitively in a certain way that would eliminate my anxiety. Indeed, the success of this idea is very possible. This idea is what I would call the �Ritual That Ends All Unnecessary Ritual� ritual, which shall be called the �End All� ritual for the entire essay. Yet, I cannot do it right away, for I have to reverse the trend that I have started in 6th grade. Furthermore, my extremely superstitious self tells me that this ritual would have to be very hard and that I cannot use my full intellectual potential while doing the �End All� ritual. Basically, I don�t want to commit what is practically suicide.
But I also cannot just never do these rituals again. It�s either I continue doing these rituals, or start doing the �End All� ritual.
I solve this problem by promising myself that I would start this �End All� ritual in 3 years (maximum preparing time that my superstitious self would allow). In the time between 7th grade and 3 years later, I would only have to do short rituals, and are �allowed� to use my full intellectual potential.

As such, the time between 7th grade and 9th grade was the most zenith period in my life. During that period, my grades never really dropped below A�s. The lowest that I had received were B�s. At the end of Middle School, I have also received another Perfect Attendance Award. During 9th grade, I had many friend-girl (not girlfriends). Some of these relationships were flirtatious in nature. Now, I am not one of those creepy people who pretended that the other people like them, even when the reality is clearly the opposite. I try to keep my observation has bias-free as possible. Otherwise, I would have not been able to admit to you my embarrassing problems. Furthermore, there is no advantage to making things up. To not have girlfriends because you didn�t have the chance is one thing; to have the chance but did not use it is extremely horrendous. I am not making things up about 9th grade. I really was a popular �dude� back then, and positive things were happening to me.

And so it seems like it would continue to be that way. But then, the deadline has arrived. I have to decide: should I do the �End All� ritual or ignore it, continue with my good trend, but have to suffer anxiety and extreme bad feelings. I decided that my good trend could not be damaged anytime soon and that I would end the ritual very quickly. I know that this would take a long time, but I feel that, if I try hard enough, I could finish it before I even finish 10th grade. And so, I embark in this �journey�. That journey did not end until 3 � years later.

When I reached 10th grade, I was filled with so many expectations. I have signed up for AP Biology and was expecting to pass. AP Biology, when compared to other AP courses, is really easy. Then, right at the beginning of the semester, my teacher dropped me off from class. It wasn�t because I was failing (it�s too early to even decide that), but there was a reason. My teacher was an intelligent and a wise man. If you are not as sophisticated and efficient as a Professional (in any fields), then he would not consider you as a good student. In the beginning of the semester, we have to sign the emergency cards. To not fill them out or to never have the time to do so simply means that you are a lazy person. Even while I was doing the �End-All� ritual, I still would have no problem filling out these forms. However, I forgot to do it, and so, along with several of the other students (I wasn�t the only one), I got kicked out of the class.

There were so many things that I wanted to do while in high school. I wanted to take a lot of AP classes; I wanted to start clubs (either The Engineering Club or The Chinese Chess Club); I wanted to hang out with my friends when the school; I wanted to have a successful high school life. All of these things I cannot do, for I have not finished the �End All� ritual.

There are a couple of things that I have seen in the letter:
1. A supernatural concept
2. The person believes that he can gain strength through something non-empirical
3. Rituals
4. Deep faiths despite knowing the irrationality of the belief

Was that person essentially having a religious experience?

Were Jesus' Teachings Radical?

InsaneHanz — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:46:43 GMT

Looking at Jesus as a teacher, which of his teachings were actually radical? I'm only talking about teachings involving how to treat others, not any that involve the supernatural.

Whenever I ask Christians this, they just say "love". Was it really a new idea to be kind?

Religion: The Truth

KingDave — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:43:34 GMT

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Islamist_demonstration_outside_Danish_Embassy_in_London_in_2006.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Gustave_dore_crusades_entry_of_the_crusaders_into_constantinople.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/20051129_northlake-il5.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Burning-cross2.jpg

Qumran explanation

Saxon w�rolord — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:38:01 GMT

No one has made a topic about the Qumran manuscripts.....until now!

All you want to know: Just ask!

Mass: We pray

Veni — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:37:30 GMT

Anyone getting this "game"?

http://masswepray.com/

(No it's not satire)

:doh:

Patriarch of Serbia have died in Sunday, aged 95

4th Regiment — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:27:40 GMT

What to say in short�the last unquestionable authority in Serbian people, widely respected among theologians of all faiths (of whom, representative of all major religions are coming to Belgrade to funeral)� 50 kg old man who waked everywhere on foot or by public transportation, known for his Jesus like modesty, being bishop in Kosovo for 33 years, in harsh years of Albanian and communist oppression, being beaten and stoned on the roads and streets where he walked alone�Any way, 3 days of mourning were declared in Serbia, line of people coming to give him last honor walking by his open coffin is around 2 km long�Funeral will be in Thursday in Rakovica monastery...

YouTube Video
ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.

A question for someone who believes in no sex before marriage.

Adhamh Ashashi — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:26:05 GMT

Alright, down to business.

You don't believe in sex before marriage, but I wish to ask you this. What if, you meet someone, you are truely in love, and you feel marriage is pointless,because it won't enhance your love for eachother, would you still refrain from intimate relations until you have the piece of paper in your posession.

Just wondering :)