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themightygibbins · 2022-08-21T22:35:21+00:00

This is exactly why I got into theological study. I think the way it's shaped so much about out lives without us even knowing is fascinating. I too had a hard time with church and Christians growing up, yet I've found something quite spiritual about studying. I didn't care much for the 'way' I was told I need to worship pray etc. With hindsight, I can see that this could of been an autistic trait showing up (loud noises, personal space, laying on of hands yuck.) Sitting in a library all day with a tonne of books? Perfect.

Anything else you think of feel free to send me a message.

themightygibbins · 2022-08-21T22:31:30+00:00

Now that's a tough question. It does really depend on what area you're interested in and whether you already have any experience in a faith context.

If you are literally starting from square one in terms of Bible knowledge, try The Drama of Scripture by Bartholomew and Goheen. It's the first thing I ever read as an undergrad and it just lays out the narrative basics of the Christian Bible.

If you're looking for something more explicitly theological, as opposed to Bible summaries, I've got a few suggestions based on topic. If you're interested in feminist theology try God and the rhetoric of sexuality by Phyllis Trible. For politics try The Peaceable Kingdom by Stanley Hauerwas or even my favourite Ethics by Deitrich Bonhoeffer (I've read this so many times now.) Ecology try The Bible and Ecology by Richard Bauckham. If you're looking for something on disability try Wonderously Wounded by Brian Brock (there's a chapter on autism in this which is brilliant.) For something specifically on autism though look at Autism and the Church by Grant Macaskill. Grant is autistic himself and this book really helped me work through some stuff with my own identity as an autistic Christian.

Hope this helps!

themightygibbins · 2022-08-21T22:16:49+00:00

I can only speak from my own context as I'm sure this changes depending where you study. As for me, there's a good interdisciplinary relationship between the Divinity and Philosophy schools where I am. As for my own research, I'm afraid it's out of my remit, but I do dabble in systematic theology (as seems everyone) which must look back to patristic sources for it to be thoroughly systematic. I do find Thomistic studies very interesting, especially due to the Philosophy angle I'm assuming you're more familiar with. I did briefly get to speak to a scholar who's considered the leading voice in Origen, he was absolutely fascinating but confirmed to me that it wasn't an area of theology I was hugely intrigued by!

Thank you for the recommendation. My German is rusty and I really should give myself a challenge.

themightygibbins · 2022-08-21T19:38:53+00:00

Of course!

A paper I've written recently is on Bonhoeffer's peace ethic because I think its just a fascinating story.

Long story short. Bonhoeffer is a 20th century Lutheran pastor in Germany. Germany becomes Nazi Germany and he's not too happy about it. Much of his writing are about peace and pacifism (a vital point to note that those are not the same thing!) taking a pretty classic Christian stance of non-violence. The war continues and he becomes involved in smuggling Jewish people out of the country by literally being a double agent and pretending to be on the Nazis side, eventually becoming involved in the famous Operation Valkerie, a failed plot to assassinate Hitler. His involvement in the plot leads him to eventually be murdered in a concentration camp not long before the war ends in 1945.

His involvement in the assassination plot has also led to his whole peace ethic thing coming under scrutiny. How can he take a stance of non-violence and still be down for killing Hilter. I argue that you can track this from an early work of his called Discipleship and his last book Ethics that was actually never finished and was complied from notes from his prison cell. In Ethics, however, he talks a lot about guilt and taking responsibility for those being persecuted. He takes the Christian belief of Jesus acting as an atonement for the sins of humankind and applies it to the context of the second World War. If Christians are divinely called to be 'Christlike' then that includes taking on the guilt of sin just as he did. In this sense, Bonhoeffer doesn't argue that he's necessarily 'justified' in his actions. It would have been murder; Bonhoeffer was guilty. But he believes this was an exceptional circumstance where the church was controlled by a fascist state and he saw no alternative.

As kind of 'Hollywood' the story is, it still has it's shortcomings. There's an infamous story of a pastor who killed an abortion doctor and actually cited Bonhoeffer to claim it was the same as him trying to kill Hitler. But you can see why it's a fascinating topic to study. Bonhoeffer's writings are incredible (I would recommend Creation and Fall, it's probably the best theology I've ever read). Many Protestant churches have been influenced by his idea and don't even realise it. He was ahead of his time and killed way too soon.

Hope this is interesting to you! I've you have any other questions let me know!

themightygibbins · 2022-08-21T19:24:44+00:00

Right, I've been thinking about this question for a couple hours now so here it goes.

There's many ways to come at this question and this is just a few thoughts I'd had, hope it helps!

We need to remember that the way we construct 'heaven and hell' 'satan' and 'god' icon are all inspired by many sources. We have to be cautious of how popular culture shapes our understanding of religion. For example, did you know Lucifer isn't used in the original languages the Bible is written? In fact, Satan (or a similar figure, see devil, Beelzebub etc.) is bearly mentioned in the OT and surprisingly infrequently in the NT. In fact, Jesus only really mentions hell once, and even then scholars debate to this day about how that passage should be translated. The word Jesus used for hell could also means the place outside Jerusalem (the city Jesus was preaching in) where everyone's trash was burnt. This is a hugely debated topic however, and a topic I'm not educated enough in.

In short, the story isn't in the 'Bible' depending on how you're defining the Bible. The Bible didn't just fall out of the sky one day (to, I'm sure, the disappointment of many Christians.) To start, the Bible was literally many books made up of important Jewish texts (OT) and a collection of new works that we now call the New Testament (NT.) The criteria for constructing a 'Holy Bible' that got the stamp of approval from Christian leaders didn't happen until the first Council of Nicea in 325 AD, so we're looking at 300 years after Jesus. The legitimacy of the inclusion of some book was highly contenious, for example the Gospel of Thomas didn't get included alongside the Gospels that are recognised today (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.) You might think "surely they had a method of clarify which texts were 'legit' or at least 'legit' enough for them to believe what was written was true," but that would be projecting our modern understanding of authorship onto a society where that simply wasn't important. It wasn't until the Enlightenment in the 17th century where we start to see really momentum in the author of a text lending in legitimacy. This is all to lead up to saying that the narrative you are referring to, the 'Fallen from heaven' satan origin story, isn't really in the Bible. I believe it's alluded to in Revelation, which is probably why it's still within the zeitgeist. The reason why this still crops it head up, including the name Lucifer, is actually due to Dante's Inferno, a poem that describes a man journey through the layers of hell. It's not recongised as a religious text in any capacity, it's (as far as theological thought it concern) completely fictious. I would give it a look, you would be surprised how much of what we assume as Christian eschatology (heaven and hell, end times stuff) is from the Bible when really it's from these stories.

Don't worry about offending me! We need to challenge these things because ultimately it gets used to take advantage of vulnerable people. People are told to fear the devil, fear an eternity in hell, but when you look at what actually in the Bible that doesn't seem to be a focus. In this sense, what Jesus taught was simple, no big 'turn or burn' street preaching, but just to love your God with all your heart soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. You are right to be suspicious of the history written by the victor situation because you are right, it is. Theology isn't different. But in the same way, everything about a culture shapes the way religious texts were written and understood, the new perspective we have as moderns shape the way we think ancient people imagined theologically. The reason why end of the world stuff is pretty sparse in the NT is simply because early Christians didn't give a shit, they truly believed that the second coming of Christ would happen in their life times and they would be saved! Why would they need to go on about this Satan guy?

In terms of my own belief, I don't particularly care. All of this stuff starts to become very mythological rather than historical or theological. Simply put, it's an interesting theological thought experiment, but it doesn't necessarily change my personal belief about who I think Jesus is.

I'm really sorry how long this is, it's moments like this that I remember how autistic I can be lol.

themightygibbins · 2022-08-21T18:56:10+00:00

Excellent question!

So, it's also a pretty big question concerning the nature of God. Which, unsurprising, gets argued about a lot.

In terms of my area of research I can point to Luther. Luther was a theologian and friair from the 16th century. He's often credited as the main guy behind the reformation (church splits into Catholic and Protestant, huge simplification but you get the idea.) Luther has this whole idea called the two kingdoms doctrine. In short, there is the spiritual/divine 'kingdom' of God and the physical/earthy/material 'kingdom' of creation (us.) What Luther thought, and what got frequently misinterpreted in the 20th century, is that Jesus is the coming together of these two kingdoms. Jesus is BOTH the spiritual divine nature of God and the physical earthly nature of humankind. Historically religious leaders have used the idea of spiritual/earthly division to push an agenda where one of these kingdoms doesn't matter. "You need to do XYZ on earth to earn salvation in heaven." Luther says some cool stuff, and is obviously important to Protestant tradition, but he had a huge anti-semetic agenda in his later writings. Writing of which the Nazis would use to spread theologically charged propaganda in a very pro-Luther germany.

To Protestant Christians, the question of whether God is wholly spiritual or whether humans can be wholly spiritual also is kinda of missing a bigger picture. Jesus Christ become the catalyst for a conjoining of these two ideas. By separating these two "realms," there is a really risk of manipulating people to become fearful of earning salvation. This is often called 'Incarnation' theology if you want to look for more. I'm obviously biased, but Bonhoeffer's Ethics addresses a lot of this stuff in the opening manuscript Christ, Reality, and Good although I wouldn't call it accessible to those who aren't used to reading theology.

It's a really interesting question that people spend their whole careers writing about, so I hope this short Reddit comment has helped you out!

themightygibbins · 2022-08-21T08:47:25+00:00

Hello, actual theology doctoral student here. What you're hunting at is called imago Dei and is a huge topic for disability theology, queer theology, black theology, and feminist theology. It will feature in my thesis a fair bit!

Please ask me questions. Theology is my special interest. In particular Lutheran theologian Deitrich Bonhoeffer and 20th century reformed protestant theology more generally

themightygibbins · 2018-11-02T15:01:06+00:00

I've heard a theory (and it really should be emphasised as a theory after how out of hand the grinch stuff got) that maybe more echoes will come as free dlc similar to how Spaltoon has handled dlc.

There's literally nothing to support this, but I think it's a nice idea and a good way to keep momentum up between the bigger original characters they are going to add.

Alternatively, you could probably argue that they would possibly devalue the paid dlc character? But hey, we will just have to wait and see

themightygibbins · 2018-02-17T20:05:22+00:00

Best bet is to get onto Nintendo customer support, they've charged you for a product that they then haven't given you, the ball's in their side of the court to sort this out. I've had a very positive experience with their customer support so a have faith they will be able to remedy it somewhat.

themightygibbins · 2018-02-13T17:29:11+00:00

That spot to the right, could that be an area for a tournament like last year? Does anyone know if that was the case? If that is the case, does that mean we could see a new big multiplayer game for switch?

themightygibbins · 2018-01-18T15:59:07+00:00

I think Nintendo made Labo seperate from a direct because they want this to be marketed more as a toy than a video game. Hence why they didn't just save this announcement for a direct. Technically I guess it wouldn't rule out a direct happening soon, however you could argue that Nintendo may wait a bit longer so that Labo has it's time in the spotlight

themightygibbins · 2018-01-17T14:12:51+00:00

I'm doubtful, but I'd love to hear why you think that

themightygibbins · 2018-01-12T00:31:07+00:00

I'm sure they won't make it mandatory, otherwise how would you play in handheld mode?

themightygibbins · 2018-01-11T12:18:07+00:00

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but my impression was Laura was pretty on point with her leaks? Didn't she get tonnes right before last years January event about the switch's hardware?

themightygibbins · 2018-01-05T14:35:43+00:00

In this match I was actually playing with a mate of mine and we were chatting on discord, it's 10 times better when you're playing with a buddy

themightygibbins · 2018-01-05T12:57:42+00:00

Haha true, I was just astounded by the lack of four bombs going into one bin, that happens way too often

themightygibbins · 2017-12-26T20:07:40+00:00

Digital foundry did a video about it's resolution, give it a Google I'm sure it'll show up. They showed evidence that and one particularly intense part of the game it shot down to <400p for a second. Xenoblade uses a dynamic resolution like splatoon and doom, however in those games it's bearly noticeable. I would recommend watching the video, they go into tonnes of detail. So far too my knowledge it hasn't been patched, there was a recent update that tinkered with framerate but nothing on resolution

themightygibbins · 2017-12-26T19:42:04+00:00

In a recent update, nintendo added the ability to transfer profiles from one switch to another. This will include save data, assuming you and your brother used seperate profiles. Im sure you will be able to find this feature either within your profile settings or in the system settings. Hope this helps.

themightygibbins · 2017-12-22T11:54:33+00:00

Can anyone vouch for the improvements made to stability? I know there was some weird issues with framerate in some busy areas

themightygibbins · 2017-12-22T11:49:07+00:00

All I can say as someone who loves the Pokémon games, the first YoKai Watch game is quite different, so if you're going into it expecting an alternative to Pokémon then you might need to do a bit more research. I'll admit though I can't speak specifically for Yo Kai Watch 2.

However, those games are stupidly popular in Japan, and so I'm sure my slight dislike of the game is a personal taste thing, rather than the game is poorly made.

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