Seoulmission

[Del]

I got a strange PM today from a user named Seoulmission.

A lengthy post. Very well-written, but just a bit off -- like it was composed by AI.

It is an anti-Catholic screed, written from the point of view of one who is half fundamentalist Bible-Christian and half modern nihilist. As Chesterton said, "Any stigma will do to beat a dogma."

Seoulmission joined on April 2. He has not posted any messages on CPS.
I'm left wondering if this is a joke or a sock puppet or a bot.

[Del]

Here's the message....

QUESTION

I know that some think that Christianity is just about being a member of a church, doing a sign of the cross, or praying some Hail Marys.

But it isn't. Early Christians knew of it as the way. A way to become more like Christ.

Sadly, Catholicism and much of what is considered "traditional" Christianity becomes heretical when it's removed from traditional source texts such as the Bible. If one reads the teachings of Christ, they'll easily see that Christ was all about doing away excessive traditionalism, much to the chagrin of the Pharisees and scribes. But this is just casting pearls at sine, I know. Some prefer the traditions of man over the way of Christ.

Christianity isn't about building a "Kingdom of God" here on earth. The Catholic Church came up with that one because it allowed them to build a worldly "kingdom" and accrue power and money in the process. But naturally they had to corrupt the teachings of the Bible in order to sell that one, since Christ clearly says that the Kingdom of God isn't outword, but inward. The Pharisees wanted an outward, worldly kingdom, and had Christ crucified because that's not what he was selling:

20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=KJV

If people just read the Bible in full and the teachings of Christ, the Catholic Church would be out of business, but most are content to live in ignorance.

Sadly, you value everything except for Christ. Based on what you peddle here, I would have to conclude that you are not a Christian, and should consider reading and comprehending the Bible in full. It would result in most of what you say here becoming irrelevant and obsolete, but that's a sacrifice you'd have to be willing to make in pursuit of the truth.

Your constant appeals to "nature" show a gross misunderstanding of it. First off all, "natural law" is a pagan concept originating with ancient Greeks such as Aristotle, rather than with Christ, and wasn't a concept which necessarily had to do with "nature" in the sense of flora and fauna. Christ didn't require any of his followers to bother themselves with irrelevant conceptions of "natural law", and if anything, called them to something higher than "natural law" - such as how he and his followers such as Paul sacrificed having families and children in order to dedicate their lives to following him.

Second, something simply being "unnatural" doesn't necessarily make it "bad", and may in actuality be superior to whatever the "natural" alternative would be. Your computer, for example, is man-made rather than "natural". but you enjoy being able to use it to post on this forum. Civilization isn't "natural" either. Humans lived as hunter-gatherers for most of human history, akin to Adam and Eve in Eden, so we could just as easily favor reverting to the hunter-gather lifestyle and giving up on "unnatural" human constructions such as civilization and Catholic Churches (but, of course, you won't favor that).

Likewise, in Christianity and world religions, many things which are rooted in "nature" can be bad. Mankind is described as having a sinful nature, and many sinful behaviors such as wrath and lust have roots in the "natural" or biological (the desire to cheat on one's spouse may be rooted in one's evolutionary desire for sex, but that doesn't make it "good").

So your odd veneration of "nature", when in reality, no one lives completely in nature needs to stop. While it is possible that people could be more in touch with the natural world, if you really believed that, you could to live in the jungle.

On abortion, the subject of abortion isn't mentioned anywhere in the Bible, and was frequently permitted by traditional authorities. It's one which you misunderstand. This is why you conflate everything which could be described as "abortion" into one, when, in actuality, the processes are completely different depending at which stage during the pregnancy they are administered.

Obviously, the concern is whether or not an actual life is being taken, not whether or not "potential life" is simply not being brought into existence (or else a person who has only 1 child who "potentially" could have had 10 children should be charged with 9 counts of murder). So if you're conflating the word "kill" with merely preventing a potential life from being brought into existence, rather than the taking of a life which already exists, you need to stop doing that. They're not the same thing. The issue isn't even one necessarily of "killing". In the Old Testament, murder was forbidden, but, of course, killing in warfare wasn't murder under the law. So simply stating that something leads to "killing" doesn't automatically make it a bad thing. Though I'd say that killing is never a "good thing".

Less "potential" life isn't a bad thing at all, and in modern society, we already have fewer children than we did in past times where life expectancy was lower. So while some feminists may style themselves as "anti-abortion activists" and believe they are "having children" by virtue of only having 1 or 2, in actuality the children they "aren't having" may be more significant than the ones they "are having", while naturally being able enjoy modern luxuries and self-actualization like Amy Coney Barrett being able to pursue a legal career or the ability to participate in anti-abortion activism. Something which they wouldn't be able to enjoy if they were illiterate, impoverished, and perpetually pregnant, as they often are in 3rd world countries which they'd never agree to live in. We'd also have to consider what the effective differences are between abortions occurring legally, and illegal or "at-home" abortions which have always occurred, and may have had more reason to occur in times where people lived more impoverished lifestyles. If the issue is simply abortion being "legal" rather than whether or not the abortion is actually occurring, then I would view that as questionable, similar to how during the 1920s prohibition, it was an open secret that, while alcohol was "illegal" on the books, there was a huge, thriving black market for it, controlled by gangs and the like.

So ultimately, it would be erroneous to conflate 3rd world countries with "life-affirming cultures", and 1st world countries with "death-affirming" cultures, solely based on whether or not some form of abortion is legal on the books, or pretend that there is some competition with, for example, the Muslim world simply to have "more population". First, we know that "more population" isn't necessarily a good thing and isn't necessary, just as it would be erroneous to pretending that all members of a population are "the same". Societies are run by a comparative minority of wealthy and educated "elites", such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk. Second, "life" as a whole is not simply about "giving birth", particularly in an impoverished 3rd world country where illiteracy, rape, and abuse, run rampant. Life is about self-actualization and what you do when you are born, rather than merely "being born". So we can easily say that a Western culture which allows women to accrue wealth, become educated, and pursue their dreams is far more "life-affirming" than a 3rd world country with a higher "birth rate" where the average person lives in poverty and 10-year old girls are given in arranged marriages to old men.

Your take on marriage and divorce is laughable and archaic. smoke tobacco substantiates a God-given intent for people to smoke tobacco.
It's a moot point whether you believe in "divorce" (as opposed to annulment), since in reality a couple could be married "on the books" and still physically or emotionally separated, and not sexually available to each other as Paul urged married couples to be. Even if one takes some heretical vows, which are no where in the Bible, and just another contrivance of the Catholic Church, they are merely symbolic and have no legally-binding power, and are probably better off not being taken to begin with, since in reality, they would of course be broken, such as in the event that a spouse is abusing drugs or sexually abusing their children. Paul did encourage some people to avoid marriage entirely due to it potentially containing suffering, and possibly because it tends to result in children, and he didn't want some people to have children. Whether or not his views on fornication could be interpreted more leniently and less literally in light of modern contraception and abortion is a separate debate, though I'd wager it would be important to remember the spirit of the law as he insisted.


Your takes on history are so full of errors I don't know where to start. The Middle Ages were not a romantic place from the likes of Arthurian fantasy. As mentioned before, the Catholic Church is a heretical institution which created a worldly "Kingdom of God" rather than the inward one which Christ preached. Its function was akin to that of a megacorporation, existing during a day and age where the average person was illiterate and had no rights beyond what was allowed by the whims of their lord, and was prone to corruptions, such as charging people money for the forgiveness of sins, until the Protestant Reformation thankfully addressed some of its wrongdoings. Today the church just serves the function of a privatized authoritarian state, and thankfully doesn't have the legal power which it would have in times where church and state were viewed as less separate entities. Basically, you favor a system in which weatlhy, educated elites (priests) controlled a largely illiterate population. In spite of your pretentious rantings about "elitists" controlling you, your view is about as elitist as its possible to get. The issue is simply one of "whos" elites are doing the controlling and "who" is being controlled. And merely reading a minority of historical books, written by the wealthy and educated of the society in question will never give an accurate picture of what the average, illiterate person of that day and age though or believed in the privacy of their own mind. Many beliefs "don't come" from anyone, they're simply ordinary thoughts and observations that anyone can make on their own.

Your take on the Industrial Revolution is silly. Only the poor lived on farms prior to the Industrial Revolution. The wealthy and literate lived in cities such as Rome and enjoyed luxuries which the poor were unable to. Many of those families which were poor and suffering arguably would have been better off never having been. The only real thing which the Industrial Revolution did is make many material luxuries more readily available to many people than had been available before, but otherwise, nothing really changed. Human nature remains the same. Similarly to how you won't go and live in the jungle to be more "in touch with nature", you won't go live as an impoverished farmer in a 3rd world country as a serf or a slave, though you're content to idly fantasize about it, despite having the living and literary standards in the modern era that a prince or lord would have in the Middle Ages.

On the subject of the "sexual revolution". Basically, there was no "sexual revolution". Human sexual behavior has been the same as it always has. People have always lusted, such in the story of King David lusting after another man's wife. While modern birth control has made sex less risky, and in the 21st century, pornography has become easier to access via the internet, there hasn't otherwise been any difference, and things were not necessarily any more "normal" back then than they are today, assuming that "normal" is even a good thing. Obviously, an abused spouse or child was deprived of a "normal" existence, and abuse has always occurred, so it is easily arguable that, even if single-parent households are statistically more common now, that a single-parent household would be preferable to a dysfunctional two-parent household, and that two people merely officially residing in the same physical residence isn't particularly different to them physically residing in different residences. The "family" isn't particularly important anyway, at least in light of Christ, who said that, for his sake, one should leave their father and mother. The minimum that a "family" is simply two people electing to breed together, regardless of their financial, intellectual, moral, or other qualifications for doing so. One has to demonstrate more aptitude to fill out a job application for McDonald's or apply for a driver's license than they do to start a family, so the sad reality is that many "families" would be better off never having been, and arguments could be made for the more financially, intellectually, and morally adept members of society taking the role of being parental figures to children rather than the mere biological "parents".

The subject of population control is barely worth touching on. The fact that you pretend that the genocide well-documented in history isn't just a more expedient form of population control is a bit laughable. What more efficient way to ensure that a population doesn't reproduce than to simply kill them off? Modern ideas of population control are more merciful, since they at least acknowledge that people have some semblance of rights, and that preventing them from reproducing doesn't have to involve killing them. We all know that population control has always been around in some from or another, such how the ancient Spartans discarded infants at birth they viewed as unfit or defective. It was never "invented" by Malthus or anyone else. It was just an ugly, pragmatic way of dealing with the reality that people sometimes reproduce without the means to care for their offspring, and would have had more reason to exist in ancient times where poverty was more widespread and ills such as deaths in childbirth and starving children were more common. Today, at least its rare that the basic material needs to care for children are less likely to be absent, though many other needs often are.

While I'm sure there are other things I could touch on, I'll conclude by saying that you aren't a Christian, and have little value for the teachings of Christ, seeming to instead value worldly and pagan things like notions of "natural law", "Western Civilization", "families", and whatnot rather than Christ, who saw none of that as necessary whatsoever if one wanted to be like Christ (and thankfully so). And you spout a lot of nonsense based on mythical notions of history which don't reflect how the average person in those eras actually lived or saw the world (only how a minority of wealthy and educated elites who had the luxury of writing elaborate books lived and saw the world), when the average person's life would have been more comparable to how a citizen of North Korea lives today. Basically, you don't seem to read anything that challenges you or conflicts with your established narrative, to the point that the slightest bit of contention makes the whole thing fall apart.

[coco]

Here's mine:

I'm aware that people like you have, in the past, tried to use the Bible or God to justify slavery, when we know that there is much in the Bible which can be used to argue against slavery, such as man and woman being made in the image of God. Similarly, we all know that the Christian arguments for veganism are much stronger than the worldly justifications for eating meat. Adam and Eve being vegans in the Garden of Eden, for example. And while I don't realistically expect everyone to become a vegan, I'm merely pointing out that using the Bible to argue in favor of animal welfare is a far stronger argument than pretending to do otherwise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_vegetarianism

So, in spite of your odd justifications of things you know are wrong, that isn't going to work. People are much smarter than that. I'm reminded of a cult leader who used the story of Lot's daughters becoming pregnant by him to try to justify marrying his own daughters, and while I'm sure that if that's something you wanted to do, you could easily find a selective Bible verse to justify it while ignoring the whole, but thankfully we have enough of a basis of common sense to know that something like that is wrong.

As per Calvin, I'd recommend that you read the Bible in full and attempt to interpret it in light of the whole. If you did, you'd find that much of what you believe to be a lie and out of business. But sadly, I know you likely won't, since it would require too much self-sacrifice of wrongly-held convictions, such as your right-wing politics having no basis in the Bible, but merely being a product of culture.

Based on what you've expressed here, I'll have to conclude that you are not a Christian, and that much of, if not the entirety of your life has been a lie, simply because you've refused to read and toss aside your previous wrongly held convictions.

[Del]

I'm glad this AI bot doesn't have access to android bodies and weapons systems....

[coco]

If these things describe you, then you are not a Christian:
- You eat meat
- You are Catholic/a traditional Christian
- You believe Natural Law arguments
- You are pro-life
- You hate divorce
- You see some light in the "Dark" ages
- You believe the Sexual Revolution changed attitudes about sexuality
- You are pro-family

If everyone posts their letter, we can fill out the rest of the list of litmus tests.

[Del]

Does everyone blame Biff? Or is it just me?

[Biff]

It's hard to know who is legit or not from an email address. I should post a list of all the crap I have to deal with. In this case the clown made the mistake of PM'ing me. Account banned.

[Del]

It's hard to know who is legit or not from an email address. I should post a list of all the crap I have to deal with. In this case the clown made the mistake of PM'ing me. Account banned.

Cool! What did it have to say to you?

I am fascinated by what AI can do.

[Hugo Drax]

His PM's are actually fun. They let me know I'm on the right path.

[Biff]

It's hard to know who is legit or not from an email address. I should post a list of all the crap I have to deal with. In this case the clown made the mistake of PM'ing me. Account banned.

Cool! What did it have to say to you?

I'm going to posit a question or two, seeing as you clearly don't have the Gospel, and have been rather adverse to me attempting to elucidate it to you and the others here, who clearly lack it.

The Gospel actually refers to something, specifically, the four New Testament accounts of the teachings of Christ.

It doesn't refer to whatever bougie "gospel" has been peddled to you by the masses, while you continuously try to worm your way through the eye of the needle while enjoying your boats and wordily luxuries. Or whatever right-wing political nonsense you've bought into, which likewise has no basis in the Bible, but is merely a product of culture.

As a Catholic, the Gospel is your anathema, just as it is the anathema to most of you here, and if you actually read the teachings of Christ without error and applied them to your life, your Catholic shenanigans would be out of business.

I'm also tempted to ask you if you are, for lack of a better word, nuts to presume that your rather archaic, Victorian-era attitudes toward the subject of sex have any business in the 21st century, and if you feel embarrassed and self-conscious to constantly carry such archaic attitudes when you go out in public. They certainly have no place in the Bible, which is rather celebratory of sex, such as in the Song of Solomon. And, while it would be hard to argue that a completely open sexual license would be compatible with the teachings of Paul, it is likely that particular views on sex are a product of the culture and time in which they originated in, such as you your views on it have more to do with cultural attitudes which were products of the Victorian era more than anything else. How Paul would view things, for example, in light of women's liberation and access to modern birth control and abortion is definitely open to interpretation.

So, in light of the ignorance you and the others here constantly peddle in regards to the Gospel. I'd like to ask why you are here, and make you an offer. How about you hand the site on over to me, given that it's supposedly a "Christian website". (Not that I have much faith in that, as, sadly, anyone can brand anything they want to as Christian regardless of the quality control thereof). Given that none of you here appear to read to comprehend the Bible (or simply misinterpret what little you do actually read) yet go on pretending to be Christians, I believe I could elucidate much of it for you, or other Christian texts, such as John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian religion if they float your fancy. Think on that offer and get back to me on it, okay?