Yeah, temporarily, I think. You ever indulge in a food repeatedly until it stops tasting good? I have, many times. It resets after a while, but the difference, I think, is that the light and sound are actually doing physical damage to your retina and ear follicles / ear drum. You could blow up a fire cracker in your mouth to get that outcome, but that’s not what you’re asking.
This is my favorite posts this morning. Made me smile and silently laugh internally.
Graduated reduction under the supervision of a medical provider. I went off a medication without supervision, once, and it was a disaster.
That I could love myself. That I’d be a productive member of society. That I’d be a square.
Apologies, I’m going to do something that I think is kind of a jerk move and paste my standard argument for a very specific point. It’s a jerk move because I see that you wrote a genuine reply and I appreciate that. I don’t know enough about the specific points that you raised to discuss them directly, so I’m falling back on my broader thinking. To that end, I’m truly trying to contribute to the discussion (even though I’m pasting a repeated(-by-me) blurb; see my sibling post; I’m pretty into this topic). I respect your views even if we disagree, so long as you don’t try to impose them on others, which I’m not saying you do / did.
Jesus is an ahistorical figure who was originally crucified in the firmament above the earth. Notice no mention of an earthly ministry in the Pauline epistles; Paul is arguing for salvation from a heavenly figure. In his letters, Jesus is still to be revealed, rather than returning. Only decades later did the stories about a human man get written.
The Didache was most likely part of the letter written by the “pillars in Jerusalem” (James the Just, Peter, and John) after their meeting with Paul. This was the meeting to discuss the matter of preaching to gentiles and whether circumcision ought to be required for christian converts. It contains many of the tenets later ascribed to Jesus, but doesn’t associate him with teaching them.
The reason the earthly story was embraced by the church was to stop people like Paul from having visions of Christ that the church couldn’t control. By pointing to a real guy on earth, they could control the message. Otherwise, any yokel on the street could teach that Jesus revealed new teachings and the church risked being undermined.
Marcion was probably the first to create a collection of writings associated with christianity: he collected some of Paul’s letters and had his own gospel. It was thought that he had a shortened version of Luke (as testified by Eusebius and Tertullian). Marcion, however, claimed that his gospel had been “judaized”; this suggests that his shorter version was the original gospel before others modified it.
Acts was written as a direct response to Marcion’s scripture. It was written to harmonize Paul’s high-jacking of the religion by making he and Peter appear to be in alignment when actually he was at odds with the leaders in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem pillars (James, Peter, John), were strict adherents of Judaism, whereas Paul taught that Jesus made the Law / Torah unnecessary. They were almost certainly Essenes, one of the three flavors of Judaism at the time (the other two were the Pharisees and Sadducees mentioned in the new testament). John the Baptist was clearly also an Essene. He’s said to wear camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and honey. His practice of baptism also aligns with daily ritual water immersion believed to be a core practice of the Essenes.
This is a very long way of saying that Jesus first appeared in visions and spoke to the early leaders without walking on earth. It’s a fringe belief about which I was quite skeptical, but damn if the evidence doesn’t line up. See Robert Price, Earl Doherty, and Elbe Spurling for more info. Elbe’s online book is free and contains a huge amount of historical information about the region at the.
As David Cross said, “They didn’t have science back then so everyone was even stupider…” or something approximating it.
The best part, in my opinion, is the extra ending in Mark. This was the original ending, which is an absolute banger:
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'”
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
This is in later versions, likely because someone copying the text found the ending to be insufficient:
When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.
Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.
Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
But remember, kids: the bible is all true and infallible and the word of god and whatever other crap they tell you.
Criticism aside, I’m a hardcore atheist and reading about the history of early christianity (first ~300 years) was absolutely fascinating and I’d recommend checking out the subject to others who oppose organized religion. Bart Ehrman would be a good starting point, though can you go down quite a rabbit hole beyond his writing. This might be a good jumping off point: How Jesus Became God
I’ll take cash, please. Thanks!
Sriracha for my noodles, please.
Used to be Memmy for Lemmy. That’s gone, so I’ve been using Arctic and the web.
This just inspired me to download the source code for Memmy for Lemmy. Whether I spend time updating it for personal use or not, at least I have it if I need it. Sorta like how I plan to keep a derivative of Pocket going if I decide Wallabag isn’t enough (also code available on github).
Fuck that, I can say it back to them and not know in the next second. I’m somehow great at it.
Usually meant to increase the degree to which I’m being absurd or facetious. It’s a manner of showing contempt for the thing I’m describing. I use it to joke more than with actual dialog.
But “kinda” probably happens in my daily vocabulary to such a degree that I’m unaware how much I use it. So, despite using this sort of word deliberately in certain situations, I’m also very guilty of using it everywhere else.
Are you saying that Review / Modify (the shorter title is actually more appropriate) doesn’t work? I’ve been using it to improve my LLM projects for a while now. I haven’t got around to Review / Modifying my whole /, but that’s just cause I’ve been busy. Luckily, today is a holiday in USA. I’m gonna set aside some time and improve my whole computer. It’s gonna be great.
Fortunately, my male friendships were formed through shared experiences at difficult workplaces. I feel like only a percentage of workplaces are conducive to this type of bonding. Working front line tech support is one of the places where that can happen but also I’ve just been fortunate to have been adjacent to some great people when those situations arose.
I barely chat with my long ago male friends; we live in different regions and while we used to talk on the phone a lot, now it like once or twice a year. But I’ve got new long-haul friends from said workplaces and though we we only get together maybe every month or three, it’s in person and that goes a long way.
I hope you keep at looking. Loneliness is a terrible feeling. I was utterly lonely for a lot of my life and it’s very hard.I don’t wish that for anyone except for the hateful bigots that need to be shunned to tell them their views, words, and actions are not acceptable.
Go to therapy and work on yourself deliberately for years and years. It works. I was super messed up and hateful and angry and I would never have believed that I could love myself, but I do.
I know “cheat code” implies quick or easy or both and this isn’t either one, but it’s life changing if you do it.
On a first date, someone said I was so incredibly polite. I was like, all I do is say please and thank you because my mother taught me it’s the right thing to do. She was responding to my placing an order at a coffee shop.
I’m telling you, this works. Each day, pause to think of three things for which you are grateful. It can be big or small. Examples that I’ve used: that I got to spend the evening with a close friend who has a typically busy schedule, that I slept especially well the night before, that the book I was reading turned out to be a good one, etc.
Sometimes it’s something profound about how someone positively mentored me when I was younger. Or small stuff like knowing that there’s a piece of cheesecake waiting for me in the fridge. The point is to do it every day. It’s kinda awkward getting going, but then it becomes second nature and they come to mind effortlessly. I am convinced that it’s made me a calmer, nicer, more understanding person.
Check out the coffee table book, All Yesterdays. It’s half reinterpretations of known fossils, half artist renderings of contemporary animals based only on their skeletons. We’re obviously misinterpreting a lot of creatures going just off their skeletons and we’ll never know how they really appeared.
As I recall, this is from the skeleton of a contemporary species of monkey, as an example:
Every time. And I’m halfway through life. I could do a web search, but who ever thinks of that except when this happens? Will I do a web search now? No. I have other stuff to think about. And so it goes.
Making music. I’ve been collaborating with a buddy off and on, but I used to have a strong drive to work on music daily and now I’m just passively consuming media and generating little creative output. I watch from the sidelines when cool new tools warrant a look, but I wish I still had the drive.