Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Simple Minded

Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Simple Minded »

Parodite wrote:
“36 But those who miss me injure themselves.
All who hate me love death.”

—from Proverbs 8
I tried that at evening dinners, telling my wife and kids the same. That if the don't follow my instructions they will injure themselves and if they hate me they love death. Not sure what I'm doing wrong... but they just start giggling. I think it is public schools that kill all respect for authority.
Parodite,

It is high time you took some personal responsibility for this situation that YOU CREATED!!! Blaming others for your own faults, shame on you! now you sound like one of "them."

Talk is cheap. Your logic is sound, so I think it may be a problem of either execution :o or lack there of!

Tough love requires getting tough on occasion.

I would recommend watching some videos of Chuck Norris back fisting some bad dudes as a starter.

Or maybe some old John Wayne movies......

I often start dinner table conversation with "Woman, listen up! I be the man, and you be the woman, and if this conversation has to go much farther, you ain't gonna like it very much!"

Works every time!
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Parodite »

lol right on SM. However...

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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Mr. Perfect »

manolo wrote: Parodite and folks,

"Allah akbah!!"

http://infidelsarecool.com/2006/12/over ... ence-of-i/

Alex.
Muslims will kill you before your time. Christians will leave it to a God of righteousness after your natural days end. I've often wondered if atheists are that way because they know they are headed for hell and desperately create denial constructs.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Marcus »

Mr. Perfect wrote:. . I've often wondered . . .

It's like this, Mr. P . . . ;)
DSCF2470.JPG
DSCF2470.JPG (19.27 KiB) Viewed 1792 times
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by kmich »

Scriptures of the Abrahamic religions provide an endless variety of passages to suit whatever beliefs, temperaments, or intentions people have whether they are a "believer" or not. What people select, emphasize, applaud, denounce, or ridicule in their readings informs you about their aspirations, convictions, and character and not much else.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Parodite »

Good observation, Kmich. In God we paint ourselves in the mirror. Human fears, needs, the sense of possibility, giving the mystery words and a face. We create these rorschach tests and confront each other with it. A hall of moving mirrors. I would however not define it as "not much else" as that suggests the endeavour being something inferior or limited. "Nothing less than.." sounds more respectful.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by kmich »

Parodite wrote:Good observation, Kmich. In God we paint ourselves in the mirror. Human fears, needs, the sense of possibility, giving the mystery words and a face. We create these rorschach tests and confront each other with it. A hall of moving mirrors. I would however not define it as "not much else" as that suggests the endeavour being something inferior or limited. "Nothing less than.." sounds more respectful.
I suppose that does sound more respectful. I would only that add it is not only positive but also negative assertions about "God," whatever that happens to mean to us, through which we paint ourselves in the mirror.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Parodite »

kmich wrote:
Parodite wrote:Good observation, Kmich. In God we paint ourselves in the mirror. Human fears, needs, the sense of possibility, giving the mystery words and a face. We create these rorschach tests and confront each other with it. A hall of moving mirrors. I would however not define it as "not much else" as that suggests the endeavour being something inferior or limited. "Nothing less than.." sounds more respectful.
I suppose that does sound more respectful. I would only that add it is not only positive but also negative assertions about "God," whatever that happens to mean to us, through which we paint ourselves in the mirror.
The negative assertions about God are both an opinion about other people's creations of God and indeed as such also reveal something about ourselves. These evaluations are very meaningful! Maybe humanity is calibrating its Hall of Mirrors.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Marcus »

kmich wrote:Scriptures of the Abrahamic religions provide an endless variety of passages to suit whatever beliefs, temperaments, or intentions people have whether they are a "believer" or not. What people select, emphasize, applaud, denounce, or ridicule in their readings informs you about their aspirations, convictions, and character and not much else.
Not so.

First, the only congruity between the so-called "Abrahamic" religions is monotheism, little to nothing more.

Second, the great, overarching, universal command of Christianity, whether Orthodox, Protestant, or Roman Catholic, is The Golden Rule, and whatever distorts or abuses that injunction is plainly seen, by the majority over time, as an aberration of Christ's instructions.

Islam contains no such corresponding universal. Zip, zero, nada . . . :(
“Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land. Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God." —from Leviticus 19
“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” —Jesus Christ, as recorded in Matthew 22
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by kmich »

Parodite wrote:
kmich wrote:
Parodite wrote:Good observation, Kmich. In God we paint ourselves in the mirror. Human fears, needs, the sense of possibility, giving the mystery words and a face. We create these rorschach tests and confront each other with it. A hall of moving mirrors. I would however not define it as "not much else" as that suggests the endeavour being something inferior or limited. "Nothing less than.." sounds more respectful.
I suppose that does sound more respectful. I would only that add it is not only positive but also negative assertions about "God," whatever that happens to mean to us, through which we paint ourselves in the mirror.
The negative assertions about God are both an opinion about other people's creations of God and indeed as such also reveal something about ourselves. These evaluations are very meaningful! Maybe humanity is calibrating its Hall of Mirrors.
I am not that optimistic. Humanity is a collection of habits: habits of thinking, beliefs, and behaviors that are occasionally glimpsed in the mirror. However, what is seen in the mirror is rarely even recognized as mere refection, much less critically evaluated and "calibrated."
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Marcus »

kmich wrote:. . Humanity is a collection of habits: habits of thinking, beliefs, and behaviors that are occasionally glimpsed in the mirror. However, what is seen in the mirror is rarely even recognized as mere refection, much less critically evaluated and "calibrated."
Again, I disagree . .
The Present Crisis, James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)

WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. 5

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe,
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth’s systems to and fro;
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start,
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart,
And glad Truth’s yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future’s heart. 10

So the Evil’s triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill,
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod,
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod. 15

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,
Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;—
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. 20

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever ’twixt that darkness and that light. 25

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet ’tis Truth alone is strong,
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. 30

Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see,
That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion’s sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry
Of those Crises, God’s stern winnowers, from whose feet earth’s chaff must fly;
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. 35

Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness ’twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. 40

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market’s din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—
‘They enslave their children’s children who make compromise with sin.’ 45

Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood,
Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood,
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day,
Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;—
Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play? 50

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. 55

Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes,—they were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s supreme design. 60

By the light of burning heretics Christ’s bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned
One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned. 65

For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History’s golden urn. 70

’Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our father’s graves,
Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;—
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time?
Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime? 75

They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts,
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past’s;
But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free,
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee
The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea. 80

They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom’s new-lit altar-fires;
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay,
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away
To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day? 85

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted key. 90
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
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"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by kmich »

Marcus, Lowell’s poem was inspired by his indignation at the moral challenges of the ante-bellum era, the ongoing chattel slavery of African people and the political chaos that was creating. That’s fine and quite understandable in context.

However, it has no relation to what I said, unless it is implied generically, perhaps as a presumed counterpoint of the perennial value of a quaint, simplistic moral clarity and righteousness, which, more often than not, has been the exercise of the unreflected and unrepentant in their own self exaltation.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Marcus »

kmich, as you say, Lowell's poem was indeed inspired by abolitionism, but he, I believe, meant it and meant it to be understood generically.

Lowell knew, as did Rosenstock-Huessy, that history is a process in which both good and evil come to maturity together.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.

“The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’

“‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.

“‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.

“‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them[/i], and to put the wheat in the barn.’”

—Jesus Christ
"The story of salvation on earth is the advance of the singular against the plural. Salvation came into a world of many gods, many lands, many peoples. Over against each of these it sets up a singular: one God, one world, one humankind.

"Correspondingly, the story comprises three great epochs. In the first, one God triumphs over the many false gods. This process fills the first millennium of our era, and its outcome is the Christian Church. Therefore church history is the interesting and important aspect of the first thousand years A.D. In the second epoch one earth is won from the plural of unconnected countries and undiscovered lands; no Chinese walls remain effective. This is the point at which we stand today: geographically, technically, statistically, the earth is finally one, and so indeed is the whole world of nature, thanks to modern science which Christendom created. The master institutions of the second millennium are, first the Papacy as a worldly power, then the system of territorial states which grew from under its wings. Therefore world history or political history is the theme of this period.

"Today we are living through the agonies of transition to the third epoch. We have yet to establish Man, the great singular of humanity, in one household, over the plurality of races, classes, and age groups. This will be the center of struggle in the future,... They pose the questions the third millennium will have to answer. ... The State is on the defensive because it is inadequate for the needs of the coming age. The theme of future history will be not territorial or political but social:..."

The Christian Future Or The Modern Mind Outrun, Rosenstock-Huessy, Harper & Row, 1946, pgs. 114-115
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
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"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Mr. Perfect »

kmich wrote:Scriptures of the Abrahamic religions provide an endless variety of passages to suit whatever beliefs, temperaments, or intentions people have whether they are a "believer" or not.
What would be an example.
What people select, emphasize, applaud, denounce, or ridicule in their readings informs you about their aspirations, convictions, and character and not much else.
Sounds like someone is being denounced here.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by manolo »

Mr. Perfect wrote:Jesus is widely misunderstood, particularly by seculars. I'm amazed they comment on him at all.
Mr P,

You have hit on a core issue in the perennial debate.

Theists and secular folks talk past each other. I think this is because the secular folks do not feel the tribal loyalties that theists, such as muslims and christians, obviously do feel in their religions. Against this, I'm sure that a secular person can know a sense of loyalty, to family or to an idea such as freedom, but they do not have the specific religious loyalty that theists have.

IMHO this is about emotion. The 'talking past' is happening because reasonable words are not easily effective in countering emotions and emotions have little truck with reason. It might be like a counsellor dealing with a person who deeply loves their family despite obvious problems. I've known a couple of people who had counselling to help them de-convert from religious sects and it was a long and painful process for them. These days we see a lot of stuff about muslims, and it is clear enough that Islam has a deep emotional hold on believers, even to the point of love. These folks really seem to love their God with all their hearts.

So, it's clear enough that different things are going on with reasoned argument and emotional loyalty. Reasoning with a person who is in love is pretty much a non starter IMHO. Put reason and emotion in the ring, one on one, and my money would go on emotion to win every time, although I might be secretly rooting for reason in the process. ;)
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Mr. Perfect »

I think it's more that atheists are nosy busybodies and theists are defensive.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by manolo »

Mr. Perfect wrote:I think it's more that atheists are nosy busybodies and theists are defensive.
Mr P,

Could be.

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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Parodite »

Just wonder why it is that extreme bi-polarism runs so deep in Abrahamic cultures.

1. God <> Devil, Heaven <> Hell
2. Jesus: Humble yourself and wash the feet of the lowest <> Jesus: King and Heir, killing off all unwanted and unrepentant scum
3. The bigger the human ego <> the more they seek and choose submission, self-negation, repentance and surrender (or alternatively choose an external scape goat)
4. Surrender to God above, but trample on other people below.

Maybe the 2nd law of thermodynamics has something to do with it. The more extreme on one end.. the more extreme it will be on the other. Maybe the Abrahamic religions grew out of a hot desert life to distract them from the fact they had no air conditioning?
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Parodite wrote:Just wonder why it is that extreme bi-polarism runs so deep in Abrahamic cultures.

1. God <> Devil, Heaven <> Hell
2. Jesus: Humble yourself and wash the feet of the lowest <> Jesus: King and Heir, killing off all unwanted and unrepentant scum
3. The bigger the human ego <> the more they seek and choose submission, self-negation, repentance and surrender (or alternatively choose an external scape goat)
4. Surrender to God above, but trample on other people below.

Maybe the 2nd law of thermodynamics has something to do with it. The more extreme on one end.. the more extreme it will be on the other. Maybe the Abrahamic religions grew out of a hot desert life to distract them from the fact they had no air conditioning?
The bi-polarism is in all three Abrahamic religions is between God as the leader and integrator of a community versus individual drives and motives.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Parodite »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:The bi-polarism is in all three Abrahamic religions is between God as the leader and integrator of a community versus individual drives and motives.
What I referred to is the transferring of all bipolarity or "opposites" to metaphysical qualities or entities "at the top", that in turn becomes the prism through which realities "down-here" are defined.

Reality down-here is not very bipolar, black or white... but rather colorful with many shades of gray. The bi-polarity from above with only two colors (Good<>Evil, God<>Satan, Life<>Death etc) is superimposed on our colorful world. It doesn't seem to make the integration of individuals into community any easier.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by manolo »

Parodite wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:The bi-polarism is in all three Abrahamic religions is between God as the leader and integrator of a community versus individual drives and motives.
What I referred to is the transferring of all bipolarity or "opposites" to metaphysical qualities or entities "at the top", that in turn becomes the prism through which realities "down-here" are defined.

Reality down-here is not very bipolar, black or white... but rather colorful with many shades of gray. The bi-polarity from above with only two colors (Good<>Evil, God<>Satan, Life<>Death etc) is superimposed on our colorful world. It doesn't seem to make the integration of individuals into community any easier.
parodite,

You're going over my head again but it's very interesting. Like being back at first year uni. :?

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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Parodite wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:The bi-polarism is in all three Abrahamic religions is between God as the leader and integrator of a community versus individual drives and motives.
What I referred to is the transferring of all bipolarity or "opposites" to metaphysical qualities or entities "at the top", that in turn becomes the prism through which realities "down-here" are defined.

Reality down-here is not very bipolar, black or white... but rather colorful with many shades of gray. The bi-polarity from above with only two colors (Good<>Evil, God<>Satan, Life<>Death etc) is superimposed on our colorful world. It doesn't seem to make the integration of individuals into community any easier.
Good is not the opposite of evil, God is not the opposite of Satan and life is not the opposite of death. Things are often presented that way to children, but mature theology isn't that way at all.

There is a broad spectrum of expressions of good, of understandings of God and of life.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Parodite »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Good is not the opposite of evil, God is not the opposite of Satan and life is not the opposite of death. Things are often presented that way to children, but mature theology isn't that way at all.
You think the Abrahamic faiths have matured a lot? I don't have that impression at all.
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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Parodite wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Good is not the opposite of evil, God is not the opposite of Satan and life is not the opposite of death. Things are often presented that way to children, but mature theology isn't that way at all.
You think the Abrahamic faiths have matured a lot? I don't have that impression at all.
Certainly they have developed. Arithmetic has remained the same, but mathematics has developed.

Theology is similar to mapmaking, and our maps are constantly being revised as we cover new terrain. Only the basic outlines are the same.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Re: Should you love thy neighbour as thyself?

Post by Parodite »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:
Parodite wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Good is not the opposite of evil, God is not the opposite of Satan and life is not the opposite of death. Things are often presented that way to children, but mature theology isn't that way at all.
You think the Abrahamic faiths have matured a lot? I don't have that impression at all.
Certainly they have developed. Arithmetic has remained the same, but mathematics has developed.

Theology is similar to mapmaking, and our maps are constantly being revised as we cover new terrain. Only the basic outlines are the same.
How about a new canvas? Sometimes..
Deep down I'm very superficial
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