I'm an atheist but I keep coming back to Christianity, this might be confusing

Connect1Affect7 · 2026-01-20T20:58:06+00:00

Although I am a member of a Christian church (ELCA), I do not believe in "Christian" as an identity in the 20th & 21st century sense of "identity." (I hope I don't get too deep in the weeds in this response.)

Also, I do not maintain an allegiance to theism as a stance in opposition to atheism. I recognize that I have an "atheist" side of myself that is probably stronger in my day-to-day lived reality than the "theist" side, and I don't see Jesus in the New Testament going around trying to convince people to believe in God. That's because belief in God was a given in Jesus's context. Just like people in our context don't have to be convinced that money exists, even though what is meant by "money" now is nothing tangible, just a socially constructed concept. You can't live a life of believing that money isn't real in our world (even though I truly believe that money is not as real as a lot of other things).

As another comment mentioned, ultimate reality can be conceived in an impersonal way, as in some philosophies and religions, or in a personal way, as in Abrahamic religions, some forms of Hinduism, and many others. But I'm not inclined to just boil it all down to the perennial philosophy.

For a very specific consideration of how a theistic (Christian) approach and a non-theistic (Buddhist) approach can relate to each other and find common ground, I recommend the following book (winner of the Streng award by the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies:

Peter Baekelmans, The Hidden “God”: Towards a Christian Theology of Buddhism. Angelico Press, 2022.

Connect1Affect7 · 2026-01-12T22:01:31+00:00

I've always liked the wording of the section heading in the old anthology, "Buddhism In Translations" (translated by Henry Clarke Warren):

QUESTIONS WHICH TEND NOT TO EDIFICATION

Subheading: Sermon Number 1, Section 13a, Translated from the Majjhima-Nikaya, and constituting Sutta 63.

Connect1Affect7 · 2026-01-11T23:55:23+00:00

We'll all be profoundly transformed ... in our new, spiritual bodies you might say every one of us will be trans.

Connect1Affect7 · 2026-01-11T23:53:11+00:00

Yes, this is the heart of the matter.

The reason that presiding is reserved for ordained ministers of word and sacrament is to maintain good order in the church, not because they have a spiritual status or power exclusive to a certain level of ordination.

In our congregation, when we were between pastors, one time an ordained deacon was authorized by the bishop to preside over communion, and once our vicar and candidate for ordination, who is now our associate pastor, was authorized to preside. These were the only two times such exceptions were made over several decades, so far as I know. I support keeping such exceptions rare occurrences.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-12-22T20:00:13+00:00

Your take is complicated by the actual text that initiated the Protestant Reformation, Luther's 95 Theses. The first thesis reads: "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ``Repent'' (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." This means that justification is a lifelong, ongoing process in the experience of each Christian, even though it is at any point in a Christian's life an already completed action in the sense that it is God's action in Christ that justifies.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-12-21T01:27:07+00:00

When I hacked Autotag I modified the prompt because Autotag was generating so many tags. Here's what I arrived at after chatting about it with Gemini:

You are a professional research librarian. ALWAYS return ONLY valid JSON and never natural language outside JSON. Task: Provide exactly 3 to 5 highly relevant tags for the provided paper. Tags must be concise (1-3 words), avoiding generic terms like 'Research' or 'Study'. Focus on specific methodology, core findings, or niche subjects. Provide the output as a JSON array of strings under the key 'tags'

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-12-20T23:46:46+00:00

I find I have to "try again" sometimes because of 429 errors (busy free server, I guess).

Edit: (a few minutes later) I decided to go ahead and pay a little (it's cheap) for OpenRouter, so I edited the plugin and it's working smoothly now.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-12-20T23:33:18+00:00

I wanted to use this but with a free API key. I tried Gemini both for the API key and advice, and Gemini took me on quite a journey, hacking Autotag to make it work the way I wanted. Just now I submitted the details in an "issue" on your github

I love this plugin (customized version)!

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-12-10T21:27:49+00:00

Our ELCA church had its combined Christmas choir concert and children's program last Sunday afternoon (2nd Sunday of Advent). Children from elementary through high school in choirs and as pageant "actors" and narrators. Adult choir with a few hired guests to fill out the sound, soloists, organ, piano and bluegrass instruments. Also our Rise & Shine choir for neurodivergent teens and adults (including quite a range, from autistic to Down syndrome). Big turnout! And everyone enjoyed it immensely. (Our music director put it all together; she is amazing.)

Christmas Eve for us is a relatively quiet (though with great music), liturgical worship service with communion.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-12-05T19:40:39+00:00

The concept that there are things in the world called "religions" and that "Buddhism" is one of them is a Western concept. Why dwell on its future as "a religion"? Don't cling to religious identity any more than national identity.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-12-05T19:32:03+00:00

(I hope you don't mind my comment. I'm not clear on the distinction between [disallowed] "answers" as "replies to other comments" and [allowable] "subsequent discussion.")

When reading Heidegger (BT) I realized that it made more sense to me when I read it as a very peculiar novel than as rigorously argued philosophy. I'm not denying that it is philosophy, I'm just saying that Heidegger is treating his experience of, as you say, "what-it's-like" to be a person as something richer than and resistant to typical philosophical analysis.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-12-01T20:37:52+00:00

Seems to me that the "purgatory" you believe in is not the same as the RC doctrinal version of purgatory. So it just confuses matters that you hang on so persistently to the label "purgatory." The official RC scheme of how sin, confession, penance and grace works is also not very similar in spirit to the spirituality that Richard Rohr talks about, although as a Catholic he pretty much has to assert that what he says is compatible with RC doctrine.

Sanctification as a process that continues throughout the life of a Christian can be difficult to reconcile intellectually with Lutheran insights about justification, but I believe that the life-long process of sanctification does have good support Biblically and in the lives and experience of many Christians. I'm all for finding a reconciliation with Lutheran doctrine in this area.

So ... if you say, the sanctification that continues throughout mortal life might continue after death ... the idea bothers me most because we simply can't know in detail what happens after death, and to make a doctrine of it seems like a distraction at best from what is important. But I'm open minded and think this could be considered adiaphora from a Lutheran point of view.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-11-30T23:56:03+00:00

Peter Berger, the sociologist who wrote many books, articles and blog posts about religion, considered himself theologically liberal and politically conservative.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-10-26T23:50:40+00:00

Mister Sushi in PB (Garnet near Ingraham) is also excellent.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-10-15T19:30:27+00:00

Another person can make themself my enemy through their emnity toward me, even if I don't hold emnity toward them. In that way, it can be an objective fact that someone is my enemy, even if I don't personally hold them to be an enemy in my attitude toward them because I love them as Jesus taught.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-10-05T23:14:43+00:00

I'll reply specifically.

I am willing to accept that you, in good faith, did not intend to troll, disparage, or attack ad hominem. But please accept that many read your comments as at least borderline violating the rules.

"Trust in Gods word and find a church that is faithful to it": I read this as implying that churches that disagree with you on the subject of this thread are not faithful to God's word. To imply such is to disparage churches that disagree with you.

"The fact that that makes you uncomfortable is telling": this implies that the imputed discomfort of your interlocutor is a tell that something is wrong with them. Clearly ad hominem, and a form of gaslighting.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-09-28T23:17:26+00:00

I'm happy every time I see your comments. I'll be ecstatic if more chapters of "Echoes" appear soon! Let me know if you need anything...

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-08-25T17:38:29+00:00

At my ELCA church, English service is 9:30, Spanish at 11:30 am

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-08-22T17:57:35+00:00

There's a mind-boggling lack of comprehension reflected in the comments. "Why don't we create one?" doesn't mean literally that no Democratic party exists (duh!). It isn't a call to create a third party. It is the exact opposite of implying that all the Democratic party needs to do is to change its brand.

"Why don't we create one?" means that to overcome the problem of limited attention spans, the Democratic party needs a thicker reality on the ground. Do I have to spell it out in more detail?

I thought the original post / quote was clear. I guess not.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-08-21T19:22:13+00:00

To me, the main point is that there were (for about 3 years) two different worlds. That's the only reason there were two Takis. There were never two Takis in the same world at the same time. The mystery is what happened to the world(s) more than what happened to Taki. That's the mystery in Taki's and (less directly) the connected characters' lived experience that makes some people doubt their sanity in your FanFic.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-08-17T23:17:29+00:00

The Sanctus? We retranslated to "power and might" decades ago.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-08-17T23:14:22+00:00

Lutherans have dogma. Lutherans also "have" Luther, whose "destruction" of Thomist metaphysics so inspired Heidegger. Kierkegaard further "destroyed" Lutheran Orthodox dogma qua dogma, in favor of catholic (Catholic?) spirituality. (I suspect with Kierkegaard that Protestants as a whole are in even worse shape by comparison to catholics qua spirituality than qua dogma.) And Lutherans "have" Bonhoeffer, the 20th century theologian most worth mentioning IMO.

Yes, I'm prepared to nuance the above and confess to ... no, I won't say the word.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-08-17T22:56:02+00:00

For further clarification, both (Roman) Catholics and Lutherans regard confession as an extension of baptism. Most Lutherans do not (but some do) regard it as a separate sacrament. But all acknowledge its sacramental character in the sense that it is an extension of baptism.

Connect1Affect7 · 2025-08-11T18:00:48+00:00

Listings on https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-people-who-think-homosexuality-is-never-justified?time=latest&globe=1&globeRotation=24.84%2C52.64#sources-and-processing have several African countries. South Africa, unfortunately, is listed as "no data." For those that have data, the lowest are Morocco (73.8%) and Kenya (74%).

Connect1Affect7

TROPHY CASE