/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

earthly things are impermanent and a foreshadow of the next live. sense pleasures are temporary and impermanent, enjoying sense pleasures is a form of gluttony. praise and joy of God is eternal, as if we go to heaven, we share in the eternal, unchanging, and non-contingent reality of God, the unmoved mover, which is eternal and infinite. if you love the things of this world, then you are going on the wrong path, as we are actually not called to love the things of the world, or be friends with this world. the lusts of this world are all impermanent and will pass away. all that will remain is God, the only thing that never changes.

there are two types of what you can call being happy or joy. if you eat some tasty burger and you feel happy, that's a false sense of happiness. that's sense pleasure and actually it's technically gluttony.

>"However, it is not a fault to feel pleasure in eating: for it is, generally speaking, impossible to eat without experiencing the delight which food naturally produces. But it is a defect to eat, like beasts, through the sole motive of sensual gratification, and without any reasonable object."

The idea that many things that people seek for in this life is impermanent is not refuted in Christianity. It is true.

1 John 2:16-17

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever.

So the point is to realize that the world and all the so-called desires of this world will all fade away. Set your mind on God and learn to love God. In heaven there will be eternal praise and joy in God.

What God created was good but it has been marred and destroyed by sin and the ruler of this world, Satan. However we can use this world to understand things about heaven and spiritual realities. But that's more of a different topic.

Normal sort of praise or joy about things which do pass away will also be temporary, but the Joy of knowing and understanding and abiding with God is eternal for God is eternal.

Love lasts because God is love and God is the living God. He has existed and will exist forever. True divine love, not like love oh I love you you're a cute person etc, the true divine love that the trinity itself shares for each person in the trinity, that is eternal. The living God is self sufficient and will always exist. He is "I AM THAT I AM". The very nature of actual unconditioned existence is the Lord our God.

You're confusing happiness and joy. Joy is not derived from "moment-to-moment sensual experiences" (AKA happiness)–in fact, we acknowledge that such experiences are indeed fleeting or even altogether meaningless. Joy is complex, but essentially, it is derived from God regardless of external conditions. We all have infinite wants and desires–hence why we can never be satisfied by worldly things–the only One who can truly fulfill us is God, who is infinite Himself.

I would highly recommend that you read the book of Ecclesiastes if you want to learn more about this subject. It's a relatively short read, too.

>>589999

Read the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Nothing new is under the sun. Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.

At least that was until Christ came.

Everything is nothing but dust (stardust). I'm currently researching how to be humble. Humility is acknowledging your real importance. Christ commanded to end our egos.

>>590225

Buddhism doesn't ultimately strive for immortality though. It doesn't even teach that immortality is possible. Attaining nibbana isn't immortality or heaven or eternal life, it's the cessation of giving rise to new desires and states of mind. It's freeing yourself from everything, it's quite literally like passing into nothingness, ceasing to crave and be reborn into some realm or another.

You don't "go to nibbana" to live forever in peace or something, you simply cease to exist. If you die having attained to nibbana that is.

>>590090

What is joy, then? If not the experience of some state of mind and/or sensual experience and then judging it as good?

>>590088

I understand what you are saying, but I can't understand how Christian joy i.e. love and faith in God is permanent. It can't be. I've never seen a Christian who was consistently at peace and consistently had a compassioned heart. These seem to me to be temporary feelings that pass away. It's why Christians will talk about "dry spells" in prayer and worship- sometimes they just don't "feel it." Christian joy is a pleasant feeling in the heart and soul that the believer hopes in faith that it will continue on incessantly in the afterlife and/or the world to come. There is no lasting peace in Christianity in this world. I have been born again of the spirit, felt it more powerfully than I have ever felt anything before or since. I felt happy and filled with love and tenderness, and I "knew" based on that feeling that God loved me and would fix everything in the world to come. That was ~2 years ago and I haven't felt it that strongly since. It has came and went. Somedays I would pray and feel nothing, but keep believing anyways even if the world was shit and I wasn't happy. Somedays I would just "feel it" and have hope for the future. The point is that it was based on temporary states of joy and tenderness that came and went. It doesn't last. It can't last.

Bumping for response because I don't want to leave Jesus Christ but these Buddhist ideas have been obsessing my thoughts as of late.

>>590435

>There is no lasting peace in Christianity in this world

If that's what you're after then you definitely picked the wrong religion. Paul promises us persecutions and the sword. If you're not being challenged, perhaps you need to step further out of your comfort zone.

Regardless, don't convert to budhism. You'll be promised happiness but will receive rather eternal damnation.

>>590447

Isn't that what we're ultimately after, though? Lasting peace and joy? That's what God promised for the resurrected dead. When I say peace I don't mean physical peace i.e. safety and comfort I mean mental / spiritual peace. Being at peace with yourself and your place in reality and the future. I guess Christian peace and joy is ultimately based on hope for the resurrection of the future, and is not based on peace with moment-to-moment reality.

>>590450

Yeah, everlasting peace is something we only really inherit in Heaven. On earth, our temporary peace is less of a thing to be found, and more of something to create.

>Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

>Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

You have the God-given ability to help alleviate the burden that your neighbor is carrying, whatever that burden may be.

>>590435

>I "knew" based on that feeling that God loved me and would fix everything in the world to come.

I know this based on the fact that these things are in the word of God. That doesn't change, so neither do I. How I feel about it may change from time to time, but I don't doubt it.

Also this world is an unrighteous mess, where all kinds of unimaginable lies and crimes are swept away like nothing happened and the world just keeps turning. But in the final judgement these things will be brought up again. That's why it's worth living for that reality and even striving for it. If you doubt that these things will be so, only then living might seem like a nightmare.

>>590450

I think you in need of a desert. Read about the desert fathers.

>How do you handle the ego and its anxiousness, its constant need for support? You walk into the desert, which doesn't care one bit about who you are or what you bring to it. That kind of terrain offers a marvelous antidote to the problem of the ego, the false self.

>>590426

>it's the cessation of giving rise to new desires and states of mind. It's freeing yourself from everything, it's quite literally like passing into nothingness, ceasing to crave and be reborn into some realm or another.

Technically nirvana is beyond all dualistic concepts, but Buddha stressed that it is not oblivion or annihilation or passing into nothingness, quite the contrary, it is something except that something can not be described and that something is eternal, unconditioned and extremely blissful and free from all suffering, in a non-dualistic sense….whatever that means.

nirvana is a sort of conscious immortality where nothing irks anything and you are free from suffering.

>You don't "go to nibbana" to live forever in peace or something, you simply cease to exist.

no this is totally false, i can quote you sutras but im too lazy and dont give a shit anymore. But buddha stressed over and over that nirvana is not cessation of existence, annihilation or anything of the sort, it is a form of ineffable transcendence that is described in extremely peaceful and harmonious terms

>>590729

>>590426

here is a legit monk talking about nirvana as not a cessation of existence, but a form of ultimate freedom

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/nibbana.html

>>589999

>it's moment-to-moment sensual experiences that cause us to feel happy and good, but they go away and we begin to search for some other source to feel good again

What about the joy we find in the Lord, who is eternal?

>>590225

>Buddhism contradicts itself by telling people that intense self effort, intense concentration and shifting of perspective and moral improvement can ultimately overcome the world and grant your consciousness unconditionally immortal.

Not true. It's not a contradiction; this is actually the Transcendent aspect of Buddhism, which is quite like Christianity in many ways. Buddhism is not purely an atheistic religion. It has its own way of articulating theosis.

>>591121

>theosis

>without God

Theres a process of self purification but it claims man can save himself via his own power and deeds. All while telling the man that he has no self and every phenomena is impermanent…so how can an impermanent man pull himself up by his own bootstraps and transcend the world forever? Theosis without God is not a form of theosis…its self idolatry

>>591129

Nothingness is a legitimate procession from God. The early Christian theologians have made note of this. Nothingness denies everything, even Being, so that it can grasp what is fundamentally beyond being, i.e. God. And of course an individual soul is "nothing" compared to the glory of God, who is infinitely greater than all.

>>591099

Those moments of joy fall away and then perhaps come back again for an untold amount of time. It isn't consistent. It's a feeling. "Catching the spirit", "feeling God's love", "feeling God speak" etc etc it all just means "my heart felt warm and tender and I was in the mood to hug and light candles." That's literally it.

The Holy Spirit is not consistent. You have it and then it's gone. It's like this week in and week out. Even the eldest monks who spend their life in worship and prayer lose the feeling of the holy spirit and beg God for it back. It's just stupid.

>>589999

Because people mistake pleasure for goodness. Pleasure is a sign, an effect of good, not its nature.