The Lord does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Part 2 of a hoped for weekly series of commentaries on the daily reading for Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary.  The readings for the Second Week of Advent are reprinted from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts.

Pre-Sunday Psalm: Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
OT	Hosea 6:1-6	Jeremiah 1:4-10	Ezekiel 36:24-28
NT	1 Thessalonians 1:2-10	Acts 11:19-26	Mark 11:27-33

Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Post-Sunday Psalm: Psalm 27

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday
OT	Isaiah 26:7-15	Isaiah 4:2-6	Malachi 2:10—3:1
NT	Acts 2:37-42	Acts 11:1-18	Luke 1:5-17

The first week of Advent was about the call going out for salvation, this week's readings are about the form in which that call is to be answered. There is to be a call for repentance, and for those who repent, there will be salvation.  Yet the answer may seem to be slow in coming yet it is not because God lacks swiftness.  Rather, as 2 Peter 3:9 expresses it: "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."  This is why traditionally the season of Advent was once a time of fasting and reflection.  Christmas is the celebration of he who came as Savior of all mankind, but salvation is not forced upon us, rather we must acknowledge our need for salvation by repenting of our sins.

I know that there are many who take an eschatological view of salvation and that we need not worry about them prior to the end times.  I think them fools.  Regardless of when the world ends, our lives may end at any moment.2 Peter 3:10 promises that "the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed".  Does that not adequately describe death as well as the end times?

As Mark 1:4 recounted "John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." yet as verses 7 and 8 report him saying, “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, [...] I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

So repent and circumcise your heart so that in its vulnerability it will be open to the Spirit.  For as Ezekiel 36:24-27 promised: "For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances."

[afleitch]

Why worry about a state of death which we will have no awareness of?  Why fear moving into a state of non-existence when non-existence is from when we came. We show no concern (some eastern philosophies aside) for the long, unfathomable time that we did not exist prior to being born. We show little concern for the fact that we have no conscious memory of our first few years despite being very much alive. We did not know or feel that non-existence. It did not satisfy us or trouble us. Why be concerned that when we return to it, that suddenly we will be endowed with the very attributes of consciousness; experience, fear, apprehension that are in fact annihilated upon death? ‘While we exist death is not present and when death is present we no longer exist.’

If in the period before our birth we were. And in the period of life we are but have no ability nor no right to know anything about the period in which we were (because we do not and cannot recall it), then what we do when we are alive does not matter to what we were. Nor can what we do in life lead on from what what we did when we were because we have been left with no frame of reference. So when we are dead  then what we ‘do’ when we are dead, or perhaps what is done to us, can not matter to whom we were when we are alive. Nor can what happens to us, lead on from on from what we did when we were alive. Therefore our life cannot have bearing on the nature of our state of death.

So it makes little sense to suggest that whatever happens to us upon death can ever be linked to what we did when we were alive for the same reason what we do when we are alive can never be linked to what we did when we are dead, with ‘death’ being both the foreward and afterward to our lives.

However if it really must matter; if what we do when alive and when physical must matter for some great metaphysical reason and must therefore affect our status when dead meaning that we constantly have to think about what we are doing when we are alive, then it must do so for both states of death. For both states of non-existence. If only life can affect death and death exists for us before life then life must also precede that death.

If both states of death are something one should be concerned about and life has any bearing on it, then the Christian god is a charlatan who will condition the living mind to only worry about one state of death, accept that death as finite therefore rejecting life as cyclical. He is therefore nothing more than a harvester of souls to which he has no entitlement.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Well, I was reacting to the fact that many of the passages for this week have a decidedly eschatological character, and I was trying to encourage people not to think about the impact of their actions not in terms of some remote end time, but in terms of now, so we aren't quite as far apart in our views as it might seem at first blush.

Metaphysically, my personal opinion is that the "afterlife" is outside linear time but that because humanity had until recently no conception of time as being just another dimension, albeit one we interact differently than with than those of space, we logically enough placed after life, as from our own personal experience it will seem so.

But even if one takes the view that we personally have no existence or awareness after our corporeal death, that makes the case for life after death even stronger, albeit also stranger.  For in that case, said life exists not only in our progeny but in all who we have interacted with while corporeal.  Our actions and our memory will continue to have effect long after our bodies lie a mouldering in the grave.  If you are so self-centered as to not consider the effect you have on others both during and after your corporeal existence, then what about the effect those living and dead have had on you?  There are plenty of people no longer corporeal who yet still live though me  and their effect upon me and what I thus do unto others means they will still live on in people who never have personally known them.

Shakespeare (as voiced by Marc Antony) was wrong.  Both our good and our evil live on after us, and thus we live on.  Neither they, nor our lives are interred with our bones.

[afleitch]

But even if one takes the view that we personally have no existence or awareness after our corporeal death, that makes the case for life after death even stronger, albeit also stranger.  For in that case, said life exists not only in our progeny but in all who we have interacted with while corporeal.  Our actions and our memory will continue to have effect long after our bodies lie a mouldering in the grave.  If you are so self-centered as to not consider the effect you have on others both during and after your corporeal existence, then what about the effect those living and dead have had on you?  There are plenty of people no longer corporeal who yet still live though me  and their effect upon me and what I thus do unto others means they will still live on in people who never have personally known them.

Memories of a person are disconnect. A memory is espoused by an observer. The memory of a person is based entirely on another person's observations that may be correct or may be completely fabricated to exalt or slander a person. So the 'memory of you', isn't you. It's the memory of someone else observing you. You can hope to do good in this world and be remembered; those are good things, but you have little control over what others say about you. They could cast you as a tyrant. At that point, the memory is not of you but of a person who didn't exist.

The further the 'remembering' is from that which is being remembered, the less accurate it is likely to be or indeed may simply become a list of things that have been done, not necessarily capturing intent or personality.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Now that is is a fundamental difference in our viewpoints.  It appears that for you, "self" is defined internally while for me "self" is defined externally.  I can understand that viewpoint, but it has no appeal to me, as it seems to me a rather lonely viewpoint bordering on solipsism.

The further the 'remembering' is from that which is being remembered, the less accurate it is likely to be or indeed may simply become a list of things that have been done, not necessarily capturing intent or personality.

Relating this back to the main area of interest of the Atlas Forum (and no I definitely do not mean Update, but U.S. politics) how does that affect or explain your opinion concerning the use of original intent when interpreting the US Constitution?

[afleitch]

Now that is is a fundamental difference in our viewpoints.  It appears that for you, "self" is defined internally while for me "self" is defined externally.  I can understand that viewpoint, but it has no appeal to me, as it seems to me a rather lonely viewpoint bordering on solipsism.

Going off on a tangeant here. That's not at all what I'm saying. You can wax lyrical about being fondly remembered, which of course we all want to be, but you can't say that how people remember you as being, even if it's incorrect is more 'you' than how you define yourself. What is certain is that how you define yourself, because it is internal, is lost when you die. You can only capture as much of it as you can to translate into a medium that's 'not you'

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Now that is is a fundamental difference in our viewpoints.  It appears that for you, "self" is defined internally while for me "self" is defined externally.  I can understand that viewpoint, but it has no appeal to me, as it seems to me a rather lonely viewpoint bordering on solipsism.

Going off on a tangent here. That's not at all what I'm saying. You can wax lyrical about being fondly remembered, which of course we all want to be, but you can't say that how people remember you as being, even if it's incorrect is more 'you' than how you define yourself. What is certain is that how you define yourself, because it is internal, is lost when you die. You can only capture as much of it as you can to translate into a medium that's 'not you'

You've lost me.  You say that I mischaracterized you when I said that you view the "self" as being internally defined, and then you spend the rest of your post asserting that the internal definition of self is the only real you.  Does that mean Joseph Stalin was a good guy because that was how he internally viewed himself to be?  Or on a more personal level, what about Michael's grandparents?  Is their self-perception of themselves more real than that of those who come into contact with them such as yourself?

[afleitch]

Now that is is a fundamental difference in our viewpoints.  It appears that for you, "self" is defined internally while for me "self" is defined externally.  I can understand that viewpoint, but it has no appeal to me, as it seems to me a rather lonely viewpoint bordering on solipsism.

Going off on a tangent here. That's not at all what I'm saying. You can wax lyrical about being fondly remembered, which of course we all want to be, but you can't say that how people remember you as being, even if it's incorrect is more 'you' than how you define yourself. What is certain is that how you define yourself, because it is internal, is lost when you die. You can only capture as much of it as you can to translate into a medium that's 'not you'

You've lost me.  You say that I mischaracterized you when I said that you view the "self" as being internally defined, and then you spend the rest of your post asserting that the internal definition of self is the only real you.  Does that mean Joseph Stalin was a good guy because that was how he internally viewed himself to be?  Or on a more personal level, what about Michael's grandparents?  Is their self-perception of themselves more real than that of those who come into contact with them such as yourself?

Please don't bring them into this conversation.

I have a feeling we have lost each other actually. I have no idea what any of this has to do with what was initially discussed.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Or on a more personal level, what about Michael's grandparents?  Is their self-perception of themselves more real than that of those who come into contact with them such as yourself?

Please don't bring them into this conversation.

I apologize.  I knew I'd be pushing my point in a potentially grating way by using them as an example, but since you'd been willing to mention them in the past, I thought an oblique mention of them would likely be okay.

I have a feeling we have lost each other actually. I have no idea what any of this has to do with what was initially discussed.

Let me summarize where I think the discussion went, before I try to return to the original topic.  The passages for this week have a fairly hefty eschatological content, and I was commenting that whatever the end times might hold, they're fairly irrelevant to how we should live.  Thus I dialed back from contemplating the universal end to our own personal corporeal ends.  You then expressed your viewpoint that the afterlife itself was irrelevant, and from there we digressed into the nature of life on this earth and whether it is best described by internal experience or external experience.  I didn't bother to discuss the existence or nature of the afterlife since I have no reason to believe you'd be either convincable or interested in such a discussion.  Besides, the nature of the afterlife as a discussion topic doesn't particularly interest me either, though I do find it slightly more interesting than eschatology.

Anyway, to get back to the main thrust of my commentary, I find the emphasis on eschatology in this week's passages fairly irrelevant to how we live our lives.  At best, the primary reason for eschatology is to make the mythology associated with a religion a bit richer, but in my opinion that's one area where Christian eschatology is rather lacking compared to other religions with eschatological content.  Plotwise, it makes Michael Bay movies seem profound and introspective by comparison.  How we live our lives is far more important than what happens after either our own corporeal existence ends or when the world's corporeal existence ends.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

That's pretty obvious to anyone who reads the Bible (at least the New Testament).