Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal’s syndrome or Florence syndrome is a psychosomatic condition involving rapid heartbeat, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations , allegedly occurring when individuals become exposed to objects, artworks, or phenomena of great beauty and antiquity.
Fun with words
Phenomenology is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany.
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reasonable or cogent.
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having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.
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The quality or state of being real
The reactive nature of religion, to challenge anyone who finds a path to a good and happy life, but without their lies and control, is really powerful.
I’m quoting myself to clarify what “lies” I was talking about. I’m not talking about just regular old belief in God. They will say that is a “faith” decision, so they aren’t even hiding that they can’t know it.
Even my sentence was poorly structured. I was referring to how religion reacts to any alternatives, and how powerful that is, and they do it with lies and control. I meant lies like this:
Telling people they can give to the church and that will help secure their place in heaven.
Telling soldiers they are fighting for god and that is equivalent to what is “right”.
On his deathbed, Francis Schaeffer expressed doubts about his beliefs to Billy Graham. His son reported this conversation, otherwise we would not know of it. Makes you wonder how many others have those thoughts.
Telling children the story of Noah as if it is true, and giving them toys and books depicting it.
All of the anti-evolution stuff, although we don’t really know what they believe, but it seems unlikely that they could maintain the necessary cognitive dissonance.
Any end-of-the-world scenario. We’re used to this being fringe now, but for centuries, it was mainstream.
That’s lies as metaphor though isn’t it? And, or as absolute truth. As a synonym for falsities. YEC makes God a liar of course, but in their delusion, YECists aren’t lying. The alt. right, fascists and all Republican Congress members lie for their greater good, like Rahab. They all support Trump’s coup attempt. Exposing the lie just makes them double down. The other and overlapping certain liars are members of Congress who say they are believers when a large minority aren’t. And there are many lying clergy who no longer believe but keep taking the money and lying the lies you describe. But one never knows who they are. All that you describe are in truth lies, but that doesn’t make anyone who believes them liars.
[quote=“martin-peter-clarke, post:25, topic:8582, full:true”]
That’s lies as metaphor though isn’t it? And, or as absolute truth. As a synonym for falsities. YEC makes God a liar of course, but in their delusion, YECists aren’t lying.
The alt. right, fascists and all Republican Congress members lie for their greater good, like Rahab. They all support Trump’s coup attempt. Exposing the lie just makes them double down.
The other and overlapping certain liars are members of Congress who say they are believers when a large minority aren’t. And there are many lying clergy who no longer believe but keep taking the money and lying the lies you describe. But one never knows who they are. All that you describe are in truth lies, but that doesn’t make anyone who believes them liars.
In biblical terms that would all be called the “machinations of the Devil”, the great deceiver, no?
Don’t think me unkind
Words are hard to find
The only cheques I’ve left unsigned
From the banks of chaos in my mind
And when their eloquence escapes me
Their logic ties me up and rapes me
The pursuit of truth. True truth. Believing a lie isn’t lying. Propagating such a lie believing it to be true isn’t lying. Who is lying? Who started the lie? My stepson lives in an alt. reality universe where last year China, Japan and Korea banned microwaves, so none have been made or sold or used or owned there except by criminal lunatics for two years, how their coms work I can’t imagine. It’s an overt Russian satire. He and millions of others know it’s true. He can’t be told as he’ll have to double down hard. Where is the lie? He doesn’t believe a lie from any liar. His own mind lies to him and he believes it. And that is a metaphoric, poetic use of lie. Not a forensic, moral one. Lying has a moral component does it not? His own mind tells him science lies. Twisted is the word.
What intrigues me is what happened to you that you should ask your closed question? Unless you’re just being robustly whimsical.
And yes,
Poets, priests and politicians
Have words to thank for their positions
Words that scream for your submission
And no one’s jamming their transmission
'Cause when their eloquence escapes you
Their logic ties you up and rapes you.
There’s the sting.
Where does faith end and lying begin?
All of this because transcendence is just a natural state of mind. Is that true?
What is a blessing? Feeling transcendent numinous feelings looking into the eyes of your newborn or the newborn? The fact is, the newborn is the external trigger for the neurochemical reaction in the brain that cause those feelings. There is no blessing to any of it, just a wonder feeling beyond words.
I said “we don’t really know, but” and “wonder how many others”. I’m making this a dialog, not a condemnation. I think it is up to anyone else to address me specifically, instead of with a “it’s possible they aren’t lying, therefore it’s probable” type of response.
I’ll expand: There is scant Biblical support for tithing. Indulgences was one of Luther’s main beefs, which led to war and one of the major schisms of the church. So even the believers are willing to say other believers are liars.
Modern versions of sending young people to war for god don’t seem sincere, and the Crusades were not started after deep prayer and consideration of what Jesus might do.
If you have doubts about what you are preaching, but you aren’t public with them, I call that outright lying.
We know how many people believe the Noah story is fact, and we know how many teach it in Sunday School. Do you know of any Sunday School teachers who discuss the nuances of myth vs fact?
If you want to believe that cult leaders believer their own lies, that’s a deeper psychological discussion, not really relevant to this topic.
Na hah. Prods tithe. It’s the gold… standard of ‘giving’. My cult had three tithes. All strictly biblical. Indulgence is another matter. Indulgence was paying for your sins in advance. On top of tithing. The Church had, has the unbelievable hubris to declare that it binds Heaven, on Jesus’ authority according to 80s ‘Matthew’.
I’m not aware of modern versions of sending young people to war for God, unless you count Bush Jnr.'s (for some domestic and global Muslim consumption) public and Blair’s private religious justifications for the last crusade. Devout Sunni suicide bombers are sent by more calculating but still incidentally inextricably devout but most worldly, territorial, socio-political leaders actually wanting a fair deal up against imperialism. One could see that on camera in the Palestinian intifadas. I’m sure the Taliban are 110% sincere.
And the Crusades were strongly, prayerfully motivated by chiliasm, millennialism, hence their initial timing. Jesus was coming back not gentle, not meek and not mild. On steroids. Psychotically righteous after His hippy sojourn. So it was WJWD according to The Apocalypse. Warring Christendom also needed an external enemy.
And yes, as my cult imploded I saw the money colour of some of the ministry.
And no, when I was a Sabbath School teacher (unpaid) myth was fact.
I know my cult leader certainly believed his ‘lies’, his untruths, his anti-rational self-deception. And we believed for him. There was no doubt among the true believers. Me. As to whether L. Ron Hubbard believed his sci fi fantasies, say anything enough and it becomes your truth.
Within any conversation, there are sub-conversations. This is not “highjacking the thread”. I said something about lies. You challenged me that if someone believes, then they aren’t lying. You have not backed up that statement. You have avoided basic concepts, like how doubt is dealt with in the church, how discussions of myth are suppressed, and accepting that the Taliban honestly believes, well, I won’t even bother.
I’ve backed it up according to my experience. by what I see and hear everywhere, in church and out. We all lie to ourselves all the time. I’m avoiding nothing at all (which must be a lie ). It is impossible to doubt in all churches but one of my experience. Impossible to have the conversation. And why not bother with how groups like the Taliban, ISIS dress up their territoriality, their group identity in the face of imperialism with religion?
I hear the echo of Abrahamic expectations unfulfilled.
That’s what I find so cool, nah wonderful, about science, it’s more about starting with observation and wonder, then closer observation and gathering evidence, then seeing what we can learn from that, repeat and rinse.
