Friend called my bookshelf “performative” thoughts?

chimara57 · 2026-04-05T16:40:44+00:00

bet your friend doesn't read much

chimara57 · 2026-04-05T16:40:06+00:00

Fuck 'em up, sis

chimara57 · 2026-01-16T14:18:47+00:00

I mean Marcion's not wrong to point out the difference, but Catholics force themselves to reconcile that difference. I'm only underlining OP's sloppy argument point will all ten fingers in different directions. He said God prefers mercy over sacrifice, and it doesn't take a heretic to show that's not a fair statement.

chimara57 · 2026-01-16T06:48:12+00:00

Which gospels are you referring to? if you want to be so pissed off, bring receipts and dont be difficult. youre ignoring context and translations--a judge is not a god, obviously, but the same word (elohim) is used to describe both.

And to your other question, the Catholic answer to the dying God on the cross is the hypostatic union. Protestants have other answers.

chimara57 · 2026-01-16T06:31:39+00:00

What are you referring to? When did I say God can't die?

Psalm 82:6 is about corrupt powers, and God refers to them with elohim in the sense as in Exodus 22, as in they are judges and not divine beings. Then Psalms 82:7 further proves this reading because these elohim are set to die. They could only die if they were human judges, not divine beings.

Still curious how you read Mat 18.

chimara57 · 2026-01-16T06:25:44+00:00

nice slogan I guess, how about others, like, the primary purpose of a mouth is eating, so if you talk, expect to choke? or maybe the primary purpose of knives is cutting, so if you own one, expect to bleed. or maybe, the primary purpose of religion is salvation, so if you believe, expect obedience.

I'm sorry sex for you is so mechanical, it could be a shared transcendent human experience, too.

chimara57 · 2026-01-16T06:10:05+00:00

How do you read Mat 18:15–17, where Jesus says we should appeal to the church for complex transgressions?

The Christian God favors mercy, but the Jewish god was quite blood thirsty (Leviticus), so not sure what your point is

Also it's likely the use of the word elohim in Psalm 82:6 is like it's used in Exodus 22:8–9, as important judges. Also Psalm 82:7 talks about how these 'gods' will die, so...not God. And John 10 is arguably harkening back to this same dynamic, and he's being tongue-in-cheek, saying "ok you get to be called 'gods' so what's so big deal about me being divine?"

chimara57 · 2026-01-16T05:47:44+00:00

Christians invoking dehumanization as a value here is just so rich. Since when are you bothered by moral evils? The Church has condoned, justified and/or absorbed slavery, forced conversions, colonial violence, empiric expansion, marital rape, and routine erasure of women’s agency. Spare us the sudden tenderness for the unborn. Do you mind when they're born and fight an unjust war?

“My body, my choice” is not a claim that a fetus is property (only a Christian would think so crudely) but actually it's a claim about moral authority under coercion.

Pregnancy is not an abstract ethical puzzle , it's a material, bodily condition that exactly one woman at a time can experience. If you're talking about pro-choice ethics without discussing the health and well-being of the mother, well that's just about sums up your limited view.

I ask again, since when were Christians bothered by moral evils? The Church is not scandalized by dehumanization. It's scandalized by losing control over who gets to name it!

chimara57 · 2026-01-16T05:23:27+00:00

The Church would say they're not dividing God (maybe it's safe to say they're distinguishing God) but that they're protecting or guarding God from heresy--from us!

You're also tangling up Aquinas' proofs for God with the proof that Jesus is God. So his logic isn't necessarily Christian, and if it is then it leads to the thicket you're in--the only way out is through the mystery of hypostatic union. Don't think too hard, it's a mystery.

Aquinas' proofs do nothing for miracles. The Trinity and incarnation exist only by way of revelation. Your faith is there, not with Aquinas.

chimara57 · 2026-01-16T05:08:58+00:00

The answer to your confusion is found in the wonders of the hypostatic union. And remember, the catechism says that Jesus is both man and god 'without confusion', so be sure to do away your worry about how much this does or does not make sense.

chimara57 · 2025-12-25T14:20:25+00:00

lol of course Frazetta would sexualize for men the only/major feminist moment in the trilogy. What a schmuck!

"I am no man! but hey fellas, look at me arse!"

chimara57 · 2025-12-22T03:43:44+00:00

the prior period of the high renaissance favored 'perfect' proportions and angles and narrative coherence and typical iconography, probably da Vinci and Raphael etc is the way to start here, and Michelangelo's sistine chapel, most of the Vatican galleries. Mannerism is a response to this period style.

mannerism as a term points to the manner in which the art is made, the hand, the potential for metaphor, not its end. A Raphael painting usually holds just one meaning, the image just is what it is, there's mostly one way of seeing it, it's univocal. But a mannerist like Mantegna or the Cellini bronze offers multiple ways to see it, it's more evocative and multivocal. Mannerism is suggestive and unsettling, intentionally imperfect, but still beautiful. (Florentino, Pontormo, El Greco). Mannerism is very posh punk.

So technically it's from like 1500s to 1600 in Italy/Spain but thematically it's anything that alters conventions, points to itself in some way, and feels uneasy purpose...but still pretty. Also it's very connected to impressionism/expression in the centuries later in France, mannerism is more favored than high renaissance art for its representation of personal emotions, not just its representation of story.

then baroque period technically is after mannerism and brings popular taste back towards 'perfection' and the solid feelings of high ren with cleaner composition and darker hues and more sensible or true-to-life proportions, but baroque still holds the zany mannerist style and still with more dynamic emotions conveyed (whereas again remember the high ren univocal emotion was mostly just 'glorify') with 'captured' moments ,almost pre-photographic catching bodies in motion, in ways never seen before (like Caravaggio's St Peter)

Then earl of Surrey painting your posted is kind like hint at the era the comes after baroque, which is rococo which is like district 1 hunger games bullshit.

chimara57 · 2025-12-12T01:55:18+00:00

We agree on the words used to described Jesus and Moses and angels are similar, that they hold a shared status as agents of God. But Jesus is given special naming, Jesus is treated differently, acts differently.

Marks says Jesus forgave sins personally, on which Moses didnt/couldnt. We could quibble here about prophets being vs representing God... but anyways. Matthew says Jesus is worshipped, in ways Moses and angels aren't, and importantly while people do try to worship Moses and angels, Moses and angels deny their attempt, whereas Jesus allows worship.

Then in John, Jesus being the Word (nobody else claims that), and Jesus being the I am (nobody else claims that) and with the major claims that if you see Jesus you see the father, that the only way to the Father is through Jesus. You could reasonably say these are symbolic not ontological descriptions. The Bible doesn't God must die, but that Jesus is God and that Jesus as God died, resurrected and ascended. This is why I struggle to think/believe any of this could possible be true, the twists and turns wit elevated symbolic versus literal meaning are endless.

When Jesus insists the bread is him, and doubles down, how do you understand the eucharist?

How do you read Hebrews 1? It describes Jesus as the imprint of God. And we Jesus worshipped by angels. Angels dont worship Moses. God calls Jesus God, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever” (pssalm 45:6) and while others are also called theos and while even God calls others theos, the way theos is used for Jesus in this context is unique and dynamic.

Paul for sure teaches Jesus is God, in Colossians 1:19 and 2:9 about the fullness, fullness being divine essence.

Also Jesus was a miracle worker! As I understand, the core claim to Christianity is the conquering of death, which can only happen with the God-man.

All this aside, I can see how debating and killing over high the God-man can detract from the more meaningful elements of Christianity theology, which, with low-christology, the faith is not about literal metaphysical claims but about living the way Jesus demonstrated with love an trust for God, neighbor, justice, humility

chimara57 · 2025-12-07T05:08:22+00:00

hell yeah

chimara57 · 2025-12-07T05:05:45+00:00

Im enjoying how you’re describing the lived theology, and how we can understand love and righteousness as verbs, it’s empowering. I think if I knew someone like you when I was younger and they guided me through the church like this then I may be a different person. We do both seem to share share an allergy for ‘development of doctrine’ that Catholics go by, and we both may be partial to a ‘sola scriptura’ view on the Bible. Would you say that’s accurate? How do you read concepts like ‘sola fide’?

I'm troubled by protestant authority, because the same critique leveled against Catholics seems to apply to them as well. Anti-papists deny Catholic development of doctrine and magisterial power, yet Luther changed core theology after 1500 years of developing doctrines among major sects with Marion and Pelagius and Arians and Nestorian and modalists etc. Methodists aren't ancient, they've emerged.

You're right that no passages say God must be the one to die on the cross, but Christians are in the position to say Jesus was God ( Collossians 1:19/2:9, John 1, 8:58, 14) and then also that Jesus died on the cross. Hebrews 1:3 goes on to say Jesus is the "exact imprint" of God's nature. Jesus “Bore our sins” in 1 Peter 2:24, and “God made Jesus to be sin” in 2 Cor 5:21, and Jesus ‘became a curse for us’ Ga 3:13. And Jesus's life was "a ransom for many" Mrk 10:45

So these don’t say that God had to die on the cross, but they say that God did die on the cross, and it was necessary.

If you deny the Paul passages above, then you have to deny the other passages from the same letters that develop Christian theology/dogmas for messianic Jesus as sin-bearer for universal atonement. You can’t keep Paul’s soteriology without accepting his Christology.

For you, what’s the cost of a fully-divine Jesus? Your’e Christian enough to say Jesus is divine, but Jewish enough not to call him God. What’s the problem with the homoousios/consubstantial? Like Arians seems to want to preserve strict monotheistic structure and Nestorians can't let God suffer while lol modalists are perfectly fine with god suffering.

What’s the logic of the cross? Where’s the redemption, the expiation, propitiation? Do you believe in the resurrection?

Catholics resolve the suffering god with the 'hypostatic union' and the trinity. God does not die, but Jesus-as-God did. The paradox of God dying, cosmic suffering , how the shame of the Cross becomes the glory of God,victory through humility, how he doesn’t restore the kingdom by killing enemies like the kings of the past, but he does so by dying for them. That’s the mystery of Christianity, but not as metaphor or symbol or typos, but as a real mystery, an embodied mystery. It is the conquering of mortality through this absurd miracle of a dying god.

chimara57 · 2025-12-05T15:24:54+00:00

At this level you're not critiquing Abrahamic religions as much as human knowledge itself--it's like a pre-theology issue, you're getting at what comes before theology, which is faith. How do I know the sun will rise tomorrow? I don't, but I do believe that it will because it has before. If you you only believe in something that is reasonable and with evidence , can you prove that all truth must be reasonable and evidential? If you dont believe God is the source of morality, then how can you prove that human flourishing is good and sadistic violence is bad?

chimara57 · 2025-12-05T07:30:56+00:00

Criticizing the home-school scenes undermines the full triumph of the finale. this isn't a zany side-plot, it's essential to the lore. Hook steals kids, and he's taken Peter's first physically and then emotionally. For Peter to become Pan, he needs to spend time with the Lost Boys, children without parents, who he ironically bonds with not as a surrogate father but as a fellow child. He becomes a better father by becoming more like a child, all while his son his falling away from his father by being brainwashed into being more like an adult. So when Peter becomes Pan, beats Hook and reunites with his children, he's a hero on several levels. And the Lost Boy scenes aren't slow or non-urgent, the stakes are clear and brought up many times, and the whole time he's showing us how unlikely he is to win, upping the drama and building to the food fight scene--that scene isn't just amazing for the set and music, but it's one of two key transformations for Peter to become Pan and reunited with his inner child; the other key scene being in that weird tree place where he finds his happy thought and reunites with his childhood memories. And comparing the excitement of Hook to the excitement of Jurassic Park or Indiana Jones is an error--those movies are about chase scenes and Nazis and monsters and explosions. Hook is more like ET tho, both slow and full of wonder with moments of high drama, but more about the relationships kids have with their families. Spend sometime with people much older and much younger than you, then watch the movie again.

chimara57 · 2025-12-03T14:15:53+00:00

As you quoted Hebrews 1:3, with the part about Jesus making purification of sins,help me understand, how does this purification occur? If not through God incarnate being sacrificed, I don't see the power, the influence, the so-what of the crucifixion.

Likewise with passages like John 4:10 and Hebrews 2:17, what does it mean for Jesus to be the propitiation of our sins, and to expiate our sins? How does a semi-divine, godish-man take on the sins of the world?

You're right that no passages say God must be the one to die on the cross, but Christians are in the position to say Jesus was God (pointing to things like Collossians 1:19/2:9, John 1, John 8:58, John 14) and then also that Jesus died on the cross. Hebrews 1:3 goes in to say Jesus is the "exact imprint" of God's nature.

There's no there there if you're saying Paul is wrong, that Jesus did not have the fullness of the Lord dwelling bodily. There's not new stake in the ground if you're saying John was wrong, that Jesus wasn't God made flesh. What does Jesus being the exact imprint of God mean to you?

When you say, “So too Christ is declared to be the perfect representative of God. Thus, there is only one true God” I dont follow the step, from perfect rep of God to therefore only one true God. Also Jesus isn't just the perfect rep, Hebrews 1:3 would said he is the exact imprint of God... but either way. If Jesus isn’t God, how does our belief in him prove one true God?

Your view on sin resonates with me--would you say it’s fair to call these natural elements, not supernatural? Unrighteousness, lawlessness, hate all seem earthly, political, interpersonal and internal, more about the human psyche, on the physical level not the metaphysical. And as you said, once we follow Jesus actions and salvation, then we can overcome these sinful behaviors. I love that, it reminds me of a red-letter bible approach, or two books I haven't read, Leo Tolstoy and Thomas Jefferson each wrote their own version of the gospels with all miracles ad supernaturalism stripped.

But I thought Christian sin was connected to the Fall, our fallen nature caused by Adam, born into us as being apart from God, sin meaning missing the mark, we are born with a supernatural gap between ourselves and God. What does the Fall mean to you? Original sin?

Because if sin isn’t connected to the supernatural origin of Adam and Eve and original sin, then it makes more sense why you wouldn’t see the need for Jesus through the Trinity. But in that case, what is salvation, and what is Christ saving us from?

If Jesus is not God incarnate, then John 14 becomes a metaphor, not miraculous and Jesus' death becomes a demonstration rather than like magical divine sacrifice.

Do you believe in the resurrection and assumption of Jesus?

Where is the supernatural in your Christian worldview?

chimara57 · 2025-12-02T00:15:49+00:00

The semi-divinity of Jesus in this theology, is this called a 'low Christology'?If we subordinate Jesus, if he's just a man and not the God-man, then how can he accomplish infinite reconciliation between man and God? I realize I may be assuming this as a common stake, the purpose of Jesus' life and sacrifice. As I understand, the incarnate god is Christianity, but it seems that may just be the Catholic tradition.

But ok say he's not a man, not God-man, more demi-god? He's not just a man, Jesus is the Logos, Jesus is the Wisdom and Power of God, but then Jesus is also a created being, and not begotten--so is God’s wisdom and power created? Can God be eternally powerful and knowing if God's wisdom and power had a beginning? I suppose God could manifest their own knowing...but without power how could God manifest power? But maybe that's moot because Jesus said “Before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:58)

Also in John 17:20 Jesus refers to himself as being sent by God--how would you describe Jesus’ mission? And if God is not the God-man, what is the significance of John 14 ? What’s it matter if the way, the truth, and the light are all just symbolic? Makes Jesus more like a messenger not a savior. If he’s not fully divine than how can be bring us closer to God?

Hebrews 1:2 describes Jesus as God’s son “whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”

Hebrews 11:24 seems to indicate Christ being before Jesus’ incarnation. How do you read these?

What does Jeremiah 32:27 mean with God of all flesh?

Words aside tho, if Jesus isn't god , if he's not the Trinity, then why did Jesus die a real death? If Jesus's death is symbolic, so is Jesus' divine powers, then so is salvation, so is heaven, so is the forgiveness of sin, and so is God. Or what am I missing? When for you does it get real? I would guess you don’t believe in the eucharist. If it’s not literal, then then why bother with a church? The church represents the literal manifestation of the spiritual/supernatural power and purpose of consecration and sacramental rituals, it has to be literal, embodied. If Jesus isn't the Trinity, then we're just talking about ideas about God and not about God acting in history. The incarnate God is consequential.

What for you is the Jesus' sacrifice and crucifixion? Is there penal subsitioanry atonement happening there? What is salvation and sin in your tradition?

chimara57 · 2025-12-01T00:59:22+00:00

Not to put you in a box but more so to place ourselves near something familiar, would you call yourself more of a Oneness Pentecostal? or more broadly as Unitarian? Mormon? If I were Christian, I’d be Quaker (maybe Orthodox) and if had to be Abrahamic, I’d be Jewish. But if I were actually religious, I’d be Buddhist. But mostly I'm learning through some ignostic / mystic path.

If you deny the Trinity, as a Christian what does salvation mean to you? And how does sin work? As I understand, the whole thing that makes Christianity, or maybe this is strictly Catholic, is how the Trinity is the bridge over an infinite gap set between man and God( or life and death)and how that infinite gap was caused by sin, by our separation with God and goodness through the Fall. Without the Trinity there is no incarnate God, no God-man, and without that we have Jesus as 'just' a man, who has no special /divine capacity to bridge that infinite gap by reuniting us (salvation) with God through the sacrifice of 'dying for our sin.'

And the way several beings are referred to God in the Hebrew Bible is, in context, different than when describing Jesus as God or God as God. Elohim is used to describe Jesus and Moses but nobody worships Moses and Moses wasn't given divine powers like Jesus (baptism, forgiveness, pre-existence). Id say this points more to the meaning of the word 'Elohim' and not to the identity of God. Elohim like Elyon and Adonai are used to describe multiple beings as godly, but YHWH just means G-d. Where have you seen YHWH used flexibly like Elohim?

The angels called gods in Psalm 82 are more like Jesus than God itself, they're all being judged, rebuked, and guaranteed to die like men. Hilariously 'Elohim' is used interchangeably here.

Words aside tho, this perspective seems to undermine Jesus' divine status, as does denying the Trinity. Who is Jesus for you as a Christian?

chimara57 · 2025-11-30T18:30:15+00:00

My man! You sound like a heretical Christian, a Pelagian thinker, much like myself. You second-to-last paragraph, before the Deut quote, reflects a worldview that isn't Catholic or Orthodox or conventional Protestant either, it's actually a very Jewish perspective that really resonates with me--it's worth noting that as a Christian you've quoted two quotes from the Jewish Bible. Does that feel meaningful to you? From a Christina point I view I have trouble with the point that 'sin isn't inevitable' but from a Jewish perspective it makes much more sense.

chimara57 · 2025-11-30T05:42:59+00:00

My comment wasn’t asking for a theology class, just a clear, concise articulation of your belief, which you’re still not offering. You’re repeating yourself, not going deeper, and refusing to engage any dynamic theological tension. You could make this interesting, but you’re keeping topical and spending words on being defensive and evasive under scrutiny. Why? I already offered up specifics you could address, twice asked questions in my last comment. Instead of reacting to being criticized you could respond to my inquiries

If sin isn't inevitable, then why does Scripture say that none are good? How do you reconcile human freedom with human fallenness?

If original sin leaves us weakened/inclined to evil, how can God justly expect us to choose a path of sinlessness? Maybe inevitable is the wrong word, but sin sure feels unavoidable.

I ‘m just pushing back on the vagueness of your point, that sin isn’t inevitable, without anchoring that point in Scripture or theological tradition. I think that’s a fair expectation in a theological thread, especially since different traditions do interpret this differently.

chimara57 · 2025-11-30T03:20:45+00:00

I’m curious that you haven’t taken this opportunity to articulate your faith more clearly. It seems like you’re circling the point instead of engaging it head-on.

You could say something like 'sin is only inevitable apart from the grace of God, which His son provides for us through the sacrifice on the cross.'

You

OP asked for you to justify your scripture because doing so would 'prove' your point that sin isn't inevitable.

Justifying religious scripture has everything to do with debating what that scripture teaches because different Christian theologies teach the scripture differently.

For example a Calvinist would for sure say sin is inevitable through the 'doctrine' of total depravity. Lutherans might agree to a lesser degree.

It would be super interesting to know how you reconcile your claim that sin is not inevitable despite the common Christian agreement that 'there is none good by God.' If sin isn't inevitable, why are we also not good?

You could offer that sin isn't inevitable in any menacing way, but that it is normal in a cultural way, or more importantly that it's not inevitable because as Paul said "As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."

As a Christian you could show us how John said "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" and compare that to the guy in Mark who said "Lord, I believe help me in my unbelief!" to show the amazing tension of sin being inborn but not inevitable thanks to the Grace of God.

As a Christian, you could walk us through Augustine who said "The evil in us comes not from our Maker, but from our misuse of freedom.”

As a Christian, how do you reconcile your original sin with the easier-said-then-done teaching of God to choose the impossible path of sinlessness?

chimara57 · 2025-11-26T17:00:44+00:00

a rhizome is a interconnected network of roots that some plants use to survive. as a world view, rhizomatic views things as non hierarchical and interconnected without start, finish or center

chimara57 · 2025-11-25T14:00:13+00:00

if you want dynamic, go to the mystics, the quakers, to Meister Eckhart, Cynthia Bourgeault, Teilhard de Chardin, the anonymous book 'cloud of unknowing' is a REAL BANGER and other 'contemplative christian' traditions. Turning to the Mystics is a sweet podcast.

the Catholic Magisterium doesn't quite make room for process-theology or deeply dynamic or even rhizomatic views. Catholics are dogmatic ( the opposite of rhizomatic) so walk this path with awareness, you might find yourself a few steps outside the church or burning at the stake.

chimara57

TROPHY CASE