It’s a very easy point to understand: Satan would rather us all live “moral” yet Christless lives, unaware of our need for a savior, than there be rampant debauchery that drives even one person to God.
@LauraRbnsn I think it’s the general anti-intellectual bent that tends to characterize fundamentalism (as someone who shares many of their theological beliefs, if not this disposition). That plus a general distrust of institutions.
I spent a chunk of my early years around Mormons and they were in general exemplary people. Solid families, friendly and open. If I had one complaint it would be aggressive proselytizing - which even happened on the school bus. But that is also a healthy sign of confidence in their way of life.
Exact discussions of their theology strike me as beside the point when they frequently live more ‘Christian lives’ than men serving as Jesuit priests or leaders of prosperity gospel megachurches - which are basically a Sunday infomercial.
@jamesxhorror@Howlingmutant0 It also seems like you believe all media (or all horror media) is necessarily didactic in a very strange way. Not everything is telling you what the correct belief to have is.
@jamesxhorror@Howlingmutant0 Horror is deeply conservative in at least this sense: our experience of something as unnatural (a staple of horror) presupposes a meaningful and intelligible category of the natural, which is a key conservative tenet.
I cant believe all modern morals started 2000 years ago in one region of the world and before that, and outside that one location, nobody thought murder was wrong
I do not know much about this kind of thing, but the top two most populous cities in Alabama are Huntsville and Mobile. Tuscaloosa is 5th. You’re looking at Montgomery and Birmingham and calling it “every major city”
@Dirizheer That one man quotes once from it in this way but repudiates its teachings (on Christology specifically) elsewhere in the same book does not commend the idea that he considers it canonical, much less the Christian community more widely
@Dirizheer You are incorrect— no books were ever widely considered scripture except those that ended up in the canon. There were debates about a few of the books that ended up there, but, say, the Shepherd of Hermas was never considered scripture (despite its massive popularity).
@Dirizheer Canon was not established by the church unless the definition you’re using is that canonicity means ecclesial recognition— which is circular reasoning. But these books functioned as Scripture (IE as part of the canon) long before any church declaration.
@eigenrobot Calvinism is not the bare assertion “God chooses who is saved and who isn’t,” in other words. It is more accurately expressed as “the answer to the question, ‘why am I saved and not my neighbor,’ is ‘the grace of God’ rather than ‘because of some superior quality in yourself’”