Llwellyn Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 Now that the USA will respect the establishment of gay marriages nationwide, America celebrates. But this realization of certain specific human ideals has troubled Yahweh: "God's righteous decree is that those who do such things deserve death." Romans 1:32. I would have hoped that the political change would have not awakened dissatisfaction in Yahweh. Nevertheless he feels himself harmed. Though Yahweh's ideals are unquestionably the worse off for this change, yet a greater total number of ideals find shelter in our newly-changed universe. The universe has shaken itself from one sort of relative equilibrium into another. But even in the hour of his defeat we see that he has invented some new values which he can satisfy. This cultural change generates in him his own new humor, his own new joys: "The One enthroned in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them." Psalm 2:4-5. "The Lord laughs at the wicked." Psalm 37:13. In his happiness, I am sympathetically happy with him. Christians too, will experience new opportunities to rejoice under the changed circumstances, and that joy also is concrete: "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance." Psalm 58:10-11. Can you be happy because they are happy, however unintelligible their ways may be to you? They are making the most of their own opportunities under the circumstances. Can you agree with me that pain is pain, joy is joy, everywhere, even as in you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will02 Posted June 27, 2015 Share Posted June 27, 2015 I imagined conservative Xian heads exploding like popcorn in the microwave these last few days between the preservation of the ACA and marriage equality. It's quite delightful. I still haven't forgiven the SCOTUS for Citizens United and I believe Scalia needs to be tarred and feathered. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilith666 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 ...so we can all just laugh together, no matter what we are laughing about? I'll tell you what cracks me up is my family's belief that these are the end times and the SC's ruling is the work of Satan. The Christians can laugh all they want to and keep telling themselves that god is in charge. *shrug* 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted June 28, 2015 Author Share Posted June 28, 2015 ...so we can all just laugh together, no matter what we are laughing about? Yes, we can all laugh together. Persons have some measure of cruelty and schadenfreude. Personal cruelty is a stubborn phenomenon which no talk about "good" or "evil" can glaze over or dispel. If Christians and their God see fit to "wash their feet in our blood," Psalm 58:10-11, that is understandable and tolerable. Atheists do suffer, and we do die. If they will not be pleased to attend to our wounded cries, then at least they will be pleased to hear them. "Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies." Deuteronomy 32:43. George MacDonald says that "To regard any suffering with satisfaction, save it be sympathetically with its curative quality, comes of evil" -- but we are not Platonists like he was, so we can't be so sure. And whether or not it "comes of evil" in an abstract sense is irrelevant when Christians feel concrete joy from grief. Feelings are facts, even feelings that we can't understand. We must not be forward in pronouncing on the meaninglessness of ideals other than our own. We can tolerate, respect, and indulge those whom we see experiencing gratification, however unintelligible their joys may be to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blood Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Why can't God just send a lightning bolt or something to destroy the Supreme Court? Is the Supreme Court more powerful than God? (Yes, because the Supreme Court actually exists.) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fweethawt Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 They have little iron chariots under their podiums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted June 29, 2015 Author Share Posted June 29, 2015 Why can't God just send a lightning bolt or something to destroy the Supreme Court? Is the Supreme Court more powerful than God? An ineffective God is as impotent a thing as an ineffective "Absolute Good"; and in the eye of reason it is as hard a thing to explain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
◊ crazyguy123 ◊ Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 They have little iron chariots under their podiums. Ah, that must be it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VacuumFlux Posted June 29, 2015 Share Posted June 29, 2015 I've seen posts on Facebook intentionally rejoicing in dead gays. Like... Americans praising ISIS for throwing people off the roof of a building and saying America would be better off if we did that too. Quoting Bible verses about the righteous rejoicing in the death of the wicked. I find it hard to be happy that they are happy, or even to laugh at their horror about being on the loosing side in this political battle in a personal act of vindictiveness, because I'm more afraid that they, or one of their friends, would delight in personally adding me to the death toll. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted June 30, 2015 Author Share Posted June 30, 2015 I find it hard to be happy that they are happy "The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at him." Psalm 52:5-6. This laughter makes itself valid by the fact that it exists at all. There is nothing outside of a joy's mere existence which makes the joy valid or invalid. There is no other sublime dimension of being, which the moral law inhabits. If we can't be happy that Christians are happy, then we are really not so much different than they are when they cannot see the value of gay love. Each of us are blind in regard to the feelings of creatures and people different from ourselves. I say that we should have done with this illusion -- their joy does have weight on the scale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VacuumFlux Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 "The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at him." Psalm 52:5-6. This laughter makes itself valid by the fact that it exists at all. There is nothing outside of a joy's mere existence which makes the joy valid or invalid. There is no other sublime dimension of being, which the moral law inhabits. If we can't be happy that Christians are happy, then we are really not so much different than they are when they cannot see the value of gay love. Each of us are blind in regard to the feelings of creatures and people different from ourselves. I say that we should have done with this illusion -- their joy does have weight on the scale. I disagree that laughter is valid in and of itself and that no other factors can influence it. I'm not that much of an individualist. I believe more in the good of the whole; the whole of my tribe, the whole of the human race, the whole of the Earth's ecosystem. Any "good" for a smaller unit that comes at the expense of a larger will be negated by the harm done to the others. Oddly enough, that leaves me ending up siding with individualists most of the time, because any group of humans that values in-group bonding as a major source of happiness tends to become antagonistic to out-group humans in order to increase their happiness - their pursuit of happiness directly causes them to act in ways that decrease the happiness of others. I'm not bothered by someone getting the occasional happiness at someone else's misfortune; that's natural and human. I am bothered by people who enjoy their own happiness at other's misfortune to the point they cause harm to others to get that happiness. I think their joy should be combined with the harm they cause, and it come out as a net negative, in the same way I avoid scratching a rash because I know that my overall long term comfort will be decreased by that action. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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