/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>782666

Experience shows that atheists and pagans flourish in big cities and states like NY and California. It's hard to believe that anyone who lives a life close to nature would be unironically atheist. Also atheism needs other people around to survive, nobody can be an atheist by himself, he needs to tell others all the time.

I think it is. The Church was even signified by it's cities from the very beginning. Church of Jerusalem, Church of Antioch, the 7 Churches of Revelation, etc..

I think it was part of God's plan to lay a sort of imperial/urban framework first with Alexander's conquests.. then the Roman layout of their empire and network of trade and roads. This became immensely important to the Apostles later. And ultimately victorious under Constantine's new Rome.

>>782669

That's an interesting perspective and I think what you say is definitely true for Atheists but what about the fringe believing Pagans?

Surely they're not the same people as those who order soy lattes with rainbow hair in LA I would think.

>>782670

Yes all that, It's also theorized that Christ's coming happened when it did because the Roman Empire was this huge and interconnected encompassing state with huge urban centers that enabled for the word to spread a lot easier, it's a theory that I subscribe to myself to some extent.

Immediately falsified by the existence of the amish

>>782666

no thats a caricature, urban environment is just as part of nature as a forest, nature worshippers don't worship materials but the spirit in them.

>>782666

pagan shrine vs church really no difference, if a christian cannot attend a church with a ordained minister they are not cut off from grace, they can worship God anywhere.

>>782671

I tag modern pagans with atheists tbqh because i don't see many differences. At least for the majority of them. Maybe there's another group of pagans who are more into philosophy and their paganism is more of that aspect. Those will probably like smaller cities i guess.

>>782666

Nah, religions are neither urban nor rural, but they adapt to the circumstance. Greco-Roman paganism also had priests and temples etc., it's just northern Europe that was primitive before the arrival of Christianity.

>>782666 (you don't fool me satan)

The modern religions were created to enslave humanity under human laws, while denouncing the laws of nature. Urban isn't the right term here, because it just describes a way of living, not the fundamental laws it's build upon. What it all boils down to is that humans chose the easy way of evil, by denouncing the eternal struggle that is the law of nature, and instead promoting lies to exploit each other, instead of accepting the unshakable rules of nature and living in accordance to them. Everything that happened afterwards, and brought us to the brink of extinction, is merely a natural self preservation tactic to get rid of the parasite that is humanity.

>>782681

*Tips trilby*

>>782688 (heil'd)

>God

Everything that human religions use to describe God, a superstition that has to be believed in to work, clearly describes nature itself.

>God created the material world

Nature provably did that.

>declared it to be good

Natural law clearly dictates life…good and evil, life and death, 0 and 1, yin and yang.

>God created us and declared it good

If you just believe in it and ignore that natural law exists, which helps a whole lot of evil human beings to exploit you to their hearts content.

>Humans aren't parasites

Literally doing nothing else than exploiting and destroying the host (ecosystem) they were born into.

>we are made in the image of God

All lifeforms are made to function together by nature itself. It's called existence in the balance between life and death.

Anything else you want me to disprove easily with the laws of nature that predate human life for, nobody knows, how many millions of years?

>>782694

What is 'nature' and 'natural law' according to you?

Do tell us because it's pretty clear you have your own personal definition instead of anything that would make some sense.

>>782695

The laws of nature are the rules of existence between life and death.

>>782695

About nature itself…

Every way humans describe God…be it the creator of all life, the entity that connects everything on earth, the power that can hear our thoughts and feel our pains, the god that grows his power through our worshiping, the god that makes us part of himself when we die, the one that tests and challenges us, the one that shows us all the wonders on this earth, the one who dictates the morality of good and bad, the one who puts his own existence into the hands of his creation, the one true God…all this describes unmistakably NATURE itself. Humans not only based their religions entirely around what nature teaches us, but they decided to claim the achievements of nature for themselves and hide it behind a superstitious entity. Why? Because they think they can can get away with defiling and exploiting nature for themselves.

>>782666

Catholicism is an urban religion. Originally, chorepiscopi had the same power as urban bishops. The middle ages, too, show the struggle between the urban Catholicism and the rural "heretics"

>>782703

>heretics

Of course they called them so, because acknowledging the laws of nature would stand in the way of the sweet racket that would become the laws of men.

I think you're forgetting that there was an "urban paganism" in the Roman imperial god/goddess worship.

>>782694

>The natural world created the natural world

I shiggy diggy

>>782799

>>782701

Pagans have made nature an idol when God created nature. But it is an impersonal idol, a dead, cold material world. Nature is not a person, you cannot have a relationship with trees like you can with God. They are missing the divine, they are missing God.

>>782839

>They are missing the divine, they are missing God.

And just to add: And thus, they are missing a sense of gratitude. They're all miserable people without it.

There's been several Pope Urbans. Not a single Pope Rural.

>>782884

The Russian Tsar Nicholas II lived in the countryside, not at St. Petersburg. The peasants were hardcore Orthodox believers and supporters of the monarch.

>>782698

Just like how there is no such thing as a civic law without a civic arbiter (a king, judge, rulers, etc.), there is no such thing as natural law without a natural arbiter (God). A law cannot impose itself, it must be imposed by an enforcer.

>>782666

So you're one of those walking tumours who follow a religion because of what ever social benefits it gives without it being true?

>>782884

Kek.

>>782951

No, nice assumption but I'm a Christian because it's the truth I've come to after years of searching simply, I've come around to take the word as a fact of life and so there's no reason to follow anything else.

I do like to converse with people like the one Pagan I mentioned in my post who obviously came to different conclusions than I have and I want to know why.

Sorry if a foreign perspective have upsetted your fragile world friend.

>>783062

I think it's a topic worth examination, even with the OT (independent of the NT), there is a leap from the tribalism of early Man to somewhat current forms of civilizations (all encompassed in Genesis, actually).

Christianity is a pretty holistic religion though, I'd argue it's more suited to "life in the woods" than the Jews were. "Leaving the world to follow Christ" is an introverted intuition that is somewhat alien to the Jews.

>>782884

w-w-woah..

>>782798

Also a good point. Greeks are some of the most famous pagans of all time and were well known for their civilizations, I think OP may be hanging out with white nationalists too much.

Even the indian pagans had a giant capital, see the Aztecs with their capital.

>>782703

>>782707

Catholicism, and by that understanding, Christianity, only came about after the Roman Empre, to accuse them of subjugating rurals is a mistake, especially with the monastic tradition actually helping to prop up many rural and poor communities.

>>783063

> "Leaving the world to follow Christ" is an introverted intuition that is somewhat alien to the Jews.

Yes, but this also accompanied preaching the Kingdom of God (both now and the one to come) and the great commission. There is an introverted element away from the world, but an expansive one when it comes to things of God. Which is what the Church is meant to be.

>>782666

>Paganism is rural in it's essence, there's lots of nature spiritual larping involved and thus it cannot prosper in an Urban environment without being bastardized and degenerated into something else.

See the Pre-Christian Greek city states and Rome.

>Christianity lends itself better to an urban environment and urbanites as opposed to general European Paganism and thus it makes more sense to be a Pagan if you live in a non-urban environment while it makes more sense to be a Christian if you're an urbanite.

Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premises. Paganism thrived in cities before Christianity, and large temples dedicated to Pagan gods were built in cities, there were also pagan priests, such as the pontifex maximus in pre-Christian Rome.

>>782666

I think Christianity most definitely leans to the urban and perhaps always will. The Church functions as an urban transference of a rural message: Constantinople teaching the writings of the desert monks, St John's Cathedral from St John the Baptist, etc. It's functionality is urban (social, and must be) but its strength draws from the wilderness. Christians would grow weaker when they loses their sense of "mostly urban" to "wholly urban." You can take Christianity out of the wilderness but you can't take the wilderness out of Christianity, something like that.

>>782666

All religions are urban, insofar as they all have to do with our moral relations with others, ourselves and God. Some fair better than others at the whole group cohesion thing though.

When you think about it, the fact that the neopagans inhabit cities most of the time, it goes to show you that the cities can be sources of both group identity, and also alienation. Because that's what neopaganism is; it's a byproduct of social alienation, which produces religious innovation.

Just so you know, I'm not using "innovation" here in the good sense, but more in the sense of doing something tasteless.

>>789573

This would actually explain why LARPaganism is so popular in liberal cities and not out in the country.

>>782694

You know very little philosophy. Yikes.

>>782698

Yawn. Vague as shit.

>>782694

This is the same eco-religion of the progressives. Oh mankind is such a strain on mother earth! Boo hoo hoo! We should just off ourselves for the sake of Gaia or whatever!

That's the dumbest, most feminine garbage I've ever heard.

>>782698

Dualism is retarded as it's saying life and death are equally good. The number 2 is feminine and so is dualism. This yin and yang garbage is just new age garbage. Reminds me of a bunch of genX LARPing on their winnie the poohin yoga mats. Namaste or whatever the winne the pooh.

>>782675

i watched this whole video. not sure why but this guy seems pretty cool.

>>782666

Christianity is both urban and rural. The Apostles mostly traveled between cities, but John the Baptist lived in the wilderness. Jesus Himself spent time in both rural and urban environments. Thus, the Gospels lay out a tradition for both urban Christianity and rural Christianity. Many great saints followed in the tradition of John the Baptist and sought God in the wilderness, just as many other great saints followed the traditon of the Apostles and taught God in the cities. It all depends on what God is calling you to do; there's not necessarily a need to move into a city if you're a Christian.