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馃憢 Programmer and Theology Major in University.
馃實 Iowa, US
馃棧 Followers 35 路 Following 15 路 Logs 127 路 Docked 1 year ago
Finally I went to the craftsmen, for I was conscious of knowing practically nothing, and I knew that I would find that they had knowledge of many fine things. In this I was not mistaken; they knew things I did not know, and to that extent they were wiser than I. But,... the good craftsmen seemed to me to have the same fault as the epoets: each of them, because of his success at his craft, thought himself very wise in other most important persuits, and this error of theirs overshadowed the wisdom they had, so that I asked myself, on behalf of the oracle, whether I should prefer to be as I am, with neither their wisdom nor their ignorance, or to have both. - Plato, Apology
馃挰 0 Replies 路 1 Thumb 路 1 month ago
Also just got the first trectate of the Talmud - Bavli Berakhot. Now when I'm not reading plato, I can temper it with Talmud, lol :D I have a ton of catching up to do for Daf Yomi.
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Here is a strange contradiction: To believe in God, we are told, is simultaneously too simpleminded and too complex. It is far easier and economical to believe the universe arose without a guiding intelligence. Yet it is also simpleminded to believe in a guiding intelligence. In other words, religious people are too unsophisticated to realize that the belief they hold is too intellectually complex for the problem. - David J. Wholpe, Why Faith Matters
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Just got my "Plato: Complete Works" book! I will now be able to finish reading Phaedrus that I started with my professor during school. I'm rereading Symposium first though :D
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There is a story of a Hasidic rabbi whose child used to wander off to spend time alone in a forest. Concerned and curious, one day the rabbi pulled his boy aside to ask him what he was doing. "I go to the forest to find God," said the boy. "That's wonderful," replied his father. "But you need not go to the forest to find God. Don't you know that God is the same everywhere?" "God is," the boy answered, "but I'm not." - Why Faith Matters, David J. Wholpe
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"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" - Einstein
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I have created a gemlog with images showing off my work-in-progress calendar program here: gemini://auragem.space/~krixano/20220520-HorusProgram.gmi
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@eph I was just reading up on the Eastern Orthodox hours and would like some clarification. Is the First Hour prayer at Sunrise, or at a (variable/sundial?) hour after Sunrise? I looked at one wiki, and it says the first hour was at 6:00am, but the 3rd hour at 9:00am, which I assume is a mistake (since there's 3 hours in between 6 and 9, and 6:00 is usually deemed sunrise in sundial time, and would be the zeroeth hour technically). A different wiki says the first hour is at 7:00am (sundial time). I assume the second one is correct?
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I have been making a new graphical calendar program for a while now. It's not done yet, but I'm making progress. It's a custom GUI made with SDL for rendering, so it's quite responsive, and has decent animations. It can calculate a form of Sundial Time, which is used so that it can calculate Jewish Prayer times. Islamic prayer times are more complicated to calculate, so that's not done yet. It can also handle 4 different calendars atm: Gregorian, Julian, Jewish Calendar, and Islamic Kuwait Algorithm (this usually has a setting to tweak when months start as well, but that's not finished yet). It can calculate most Jewish holidays, and some Christian Eastern Orthodox holidays. [1/2]
馃挰 12 Replies 路 3 Thumbs 路 1 month ago
It's sad when people who are opposed to a certain idea or philosophy latch onto everything they can to prove that it is bad, even if there's barely any relation. To word it a different way: People project their hatred onto things, and then use that projection as a prime representation of what they hate.
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Would you be interested in a new graphical calendar program? What features are most important to you?
The concept of original sin is interesting, especially how Judaism and Christianity debate on the nuances of sin being passed down. There are verses in the Bible that suggest some form of passing down, while other's suggest the exact opposite. For example, Christians use the below verse to show Original Sin: Exodus 20:5 (ESV) - "You shall not bow down to [idols] or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me." They connect this to the fall of Adam and Eve as well as the general trend of sinning, repentance, and forgiveness throughout the Bible. [1/3]
馃挰 18 Replies 路 3 Thumbs 路 2 months ago
It's kinda funny how blunt Thomas Merton is. Although I don't always agree with him, he does have some good points: "Do not think that you can show your love for Christ by hating those who seem to be His enemies on earth. Suppose they really do hate Him: nevertheless He loves them, and you cannot be united with Him unless you love them too" - Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
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It is unfortunate to see how slow countries are being to protect Ukraine, especially given that this slow response also happened during the Holocaust and led to ~6 millions Jews and others (those with impairments, disease, etc.) being killed. It is also disheartening to see people stereotype all people who come from or have ancestry from Russia. Not everyone of them supports Russia and it is wrong to assume such things.
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My server at gemini://auragem.space is back up and running. Had a power outage months ago and been too busy with school to get up the energy to bring it back up.
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"The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is the more he is convinced of his own infallibility. And if the sheer force of his own self-confidence communicates itself to other people and gives them the impression that he is really a saint, such a man can wreck a whole city or a religious order or even a nation." - Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
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"Within religions, even at their most extreme times, there are those who offer a gentler reading of God's Will." - David J. Wolpe, Why Faith Matters
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Doing a Fasting project for my "Christian Spirituality and Prayer" class. My partner and I chose to fast from all digital technologies for 1 hour per day. It starts in 3 days, so we'll see how this goes :D
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Psychology doesn't work by just declaring someone is mentally ill because they think differently than you. I will say this flat-out - this is a dangerous ideology that led to the oppression and killing of *a lot* of people, and goes against the very core of what we have established with modern science. Homosexuals were once considered mentally ill, for example. Christians and Jews were killed for the first 300 years of Christianity's existence because they were different from the polytheistic greek/roman religion that was popular at the time. At least have the decency to recognize the damage the Enlightenment had, leading to racism via Social Darwinism, and co-opting of evolutionary theory to justify oppression.
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Fun Fact: Some Jewish traditions have developed the notion that God gives you your soul (spark/breath of life) at/near birth. Therefore, your soul already pre-existed your physical body. Additionally, when you sleep, your soul goes back to God for the night, and then when you wake up, your soul is given back to you, and that's why you thank God for "giving me back my soul in mercy" right when you wake up. There are similar-ish conceptions of this in other religoins like Hinduism where everyone has an Atman - a divine spark - that reincarnates with the goal of getting off the cycle/wheel of life (samsara) and merging with the Brahman - the transcendent divinity within the world.
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"charity is a two-way process. One receives even as one gives. This should remind us, according to the Vilna Gaon, that one who gives today may have to receive tomorrow." - Etz Hayim (p. 523, Intro to Ki Tissa Parshah)
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Got my first IPFS site up! http://auragem.space.ipns.localhost:8080/
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"Avarice suggests a lengthy old age, inability to perform manual labor, famines that will come along, diseases that will arise, the bitter realities of poverty, and the shame there is in accepting goods from others to meet one's needs" - Evagrius Ponticus
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Being "nice" on the surface means nothing if you veil your insults under sarcasm, jokes, "politeness", and snide remarks.
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Fun Family History Fact: My mom was born in California near a military base, I believe, since her father was in the military. He was also a pastor.
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AuraGem Search now has a page that lists all the twtxt feeds it knows about: gemini://auragem.space/searchengine/twtxt
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Who can you give to if you never allow taking?
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An apple is not an orange, but they are both fruits.
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The irony of criticising people that are sharing their views for not allowing others to share their views...
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If I say Apples are bad, I'm not saying everything in the world is bad... I'm saying *Apples* are bad.