So, you’re saying God miraculously spared just the monastery 
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No, but that’s what the church is saying, which is a bit funny. (I am not sure about the value of the following theological position, on practical terms: “The rest of the forest and your fields and some houses burned down, but the monastery is intact! Huzzah! A miracle” 
)
The truth is - and it is mentioned in passing in the church’s article - that the people of the villagers around the monastery rallied to save it. Of course they couldn’t save the forest - when pine trees burn, it takes training and a lot of equipment to do something about it - but they did manage to save the monastery.
My main point is that when priests open their mouths to make a sermon, sometimes the dumbest stuff come out of their mouths (mainly because they tend to be a bit out of touch with reality). In this case is anyone really happy that everything was turned to ash and now the floods are eroding the hills and turning everything to a moving sludge? No. But the preacher asked for strife and tests, trials and tribulations. And got them. 
(edit: I am not saying that “God delivered”, it is just a coincidence that happened. )
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I presume you’re a nonbeliever, right? Do I need to point out the irony of a nonbeliever accusing a religious person being out of touch with your reality in their place of worship?
Isn’t it expected for their reality to be different to yours?
1st Corinthians, friend.
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Easy times are enjoyable for everyone, but rarely do people grow deeply during them. In this time of great trouble, I indeed hope the whole community found a deeper reliance and trust in God. One might even go so far as to say the sermon was directly preparing their hearts to navigate this coming tragedy.
Edit: I am also not claiming God caused the fire, but if He knew it was coming, it makes sense He would prepare the people’s hearts to navigate the scary and challenging time.
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You presume wrongly. I did mention earlier that I went to the monastery for a service, right? 
I mean the place was nice with all the forests and stuff, but I wouldn’t leave my house and drive up 40 minutes into the mountains just to pass time. That monastery is of local religious significance.
I am also a trained Greek Orthodox chanter, though I do not practice much nowadays, so I’ve forgotten most of it.
No argument there on the practical side and I have personal examples aplenty, but who actually works or hopes for bad times? You overcome those trials in order to get through them to a “better tomorrow”. That is the intrinsic goal of most people (religious or not). A better day coming for them and/or their children.
Whose God though? That’s the million dollar question.
Even in Christianity there are hundreds of divisions and denominations. Even within the same denomination there are also varied positions. And even between believers of the same dogma you will hardly find two people with the exact same beliefs.
What probably happened was the person making the sermon was also a monk and forgot to “tone it down a little”. Monks, by definition, have a different approach in life since they actively seek God’s favour, thus they are expected to pray and ask God for trials which to overcome (like Jesus did in the desert), via which they can prove to God that they are worthy.
So, that’s the kind of mindset they talk about between themselves (and I am all for that since that is their chosen calling), but it is not for outsiders.
And at that day he probably forgot that was preaching to the public and got carried over, mixing the normal religion stuff with the “monk mode” content.
If God knew that fire was coming, then there are a lot of theological problems.
Forest fires here are usually… “purposeful” and I’ll leave it at that.
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Isn’t the Christian God supposed to be all-knowing?
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Under Classical or Dynamic Omniscience, yes, but the question is, is “There will be a fire like this in this location” a true statement a year prior, or was it contingent on future choices of free creatures and/or truly random elements?
Calvinism and Arminianism and Molinism and Provisionism say that that was a true statement and has been so at least since Creation, but Open Theism, which I hold to, says that it could go either way, since some future events are set (either because events have been set in motion which will inevitably (or with sufficiently high probability) lead to it, or God has decided to cause it at that time, but other events are contingent on the choices of free creatures, and until those choices are made, the results of those choices are logically unknowable
It’s also not self-evident that Yahweh has Omniscience (if defined as knowing everything which is logically possible to know). It is a common Christian position, but there are passages in the Bible (such as God talking to Abraham regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, and “will remember their sins no more” (though perhaps this can be read as “will call to mind their sins no more?”), or “increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man” (cf “in whom the fullness of Diety dwells”)) which seem to suggest that there might be some things God chooses not to know, even if we grant that He could
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Yes, but the bolded word is important. In practice it just means endless theological debates and quite a few schisms and new denominations.
That’s probably it. Remember that there is the matter of those texts being translated to different languages and copied by hand since ancient times. Some contextual leeway should be given to most of the passages.
I’ve even heard of interpretations that the Holy Trinity as a whole knows everything, but parts of it do not. Some theologicians seem to treat the “Holy Spirit” as the AWS cloud of the divine… 
The idea that the Son and the Father sometimes can be a few patches behind the “server version” is hillarious, but not entirely unserious.
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“Nonbeliever” — what a funny word to use … would you also call someone with a brain “non-lobotomized”? Someone with two functional eyes “non-blind”?
Reminds me of how USians call men who are not genitally mutilated “uncircumcised”, when the correct word would simply be “intact”.
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“Nonbeliever” is a conventional usage for someone who is not a “believer.” The comparisons you offer are not comparable because they involve physical fact rather than a subjective condition. We might just as well criticize the term “believer” itself, since everyone believes in something. (Indeed, Eric Hoffer popularized the term “true believer,” in his book of that title, for fanatics of all kinds.) However, “believer” is also a convenient, conventional generalization, hence vague by nature, when something more specific in not appropriate to the context.
“Intact” is a useless euphemism because of its vagueness.
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Since my guess was wrong anyway, the point seems rather moot. In my youth I would have argued the semantics for the fun of it, but it would selfishly be solely my own fun. I have little desire for such pedantry these days (I know, risking an OGF ban here, decrying both semantics and pedantry haha)
If I see an opportunity to invite a curious heart towards the Light, I will try to drum up the strength to offer them. Exchanging words with a settled mind would just be wasted.
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Well, considering that the correct/formal term for what I am is probably a “heretic”, then “nonbeliever” is quite tame. 
I can assure you that my mind is quite unsettled (and you can take that with any of the possible meanings of the phrase, I do not mind 
). I’ve given all those things a lot of thought since I was a kid and through my sincere curiosity I am happy to say that I helped my theology teachers at school achieve a rare feat for their profession, since they are be able to say with a straight face that they really worked hard to earn their money 
Jokes aside though, a person that believes in a religion - any religion - is usually the person who is more likely to have a settled mind on the matter. An unbeliever (a person that does not believe that anything divine exists), non-believer (a person that believes that something diving might exists, but has nothing specific in mind), a semi-believer or a former-believer, usually have less settled minds on the matter since they are primed by society to believe when they were growing up, yet for various reasons change their minds during their lifetimes.
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I’d say it’s useless not for vagueness (after all, a distinguishing feature of euphemisms is to be apparently vague), but rather because noone (to my knowledge) uses it. “circumcised” I would not even call a euphemism but rather just the normal term for it, though it obviously derived from an original euphemistic term, since “cutting around” is no less vague than “non-intact”: it may as well refer to a bowl-cut if one has only the etymology and not the meaning to go on
I didn’t want to resort to a “no one uses it” argument because that would allow the coinage of a bad neologism. Yes, euphemisms tend to be vague, but they are usually still identifiable with their subject, whereas “intact” can refer to practically anything.
Euphemisms are identifiable with their object the same way any word is: a shared understanding of what it means. If people start using “intact” to mean uncircumcised, then it will mean that. Until then, it doesn’t mean that. Why do we know that “undead” is a noun and “unalive” is a verb? shared understanding of what they mean: they can’t be reduced to their etymology, because the etymology would not tell you what either undead or unalive meant, and it certainly wouldn’t tell you that they’re completely different concepts, not antonyms of eachother
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I’d interpret “non-believer” (when used by a person of European descent) to mean a person who doesn’t believe in the god of the Bible, while I would interpret “infidel” as a person who doesn’t believe in the god of the Quran (which supposedly is the same god as the god of the Bible).
There is also “non-religious” or “irreligious”. They may believe in a god or gods, but they don’t participate regularly in ceremonies in places of worship.
And there is “atheist”. That term may have a negative connotation in more religious countries, but I interpret it as just meaning “not a theist”, i.e. not believing in the existence of any god. I fit that description, so I’d call myself an “atheist”, but “non-believer” would also be fine with me (in Dutch the common term is “niet-gelovig” meaning “not-believing”, “faithless”).
There is also Liberal Protestantism, where some denominations consider themselves followers of Jezus and participate in religious ceremonies and worship (so they are religious), but they don’t necessarily believe that Jezus is/was an actual deity, or that the god of the Bible actually exists. They just follow (their interpretation of) the Bible anyway, because they believe it’s good to do so.
I’m not a believer and I don’t participate in religious ceremonies or worship, but I do think it’s good to “love your neighbour like yourself”: help each other and not be too judgemental towards each other.
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+1
I think the really difficult thing for many people is this:
Like, how judgemental exactly is too judgemental?
And what would be not judgemental enough?
I think a good measure is the effects that one’s actions have on OTHERS (humans and animals), on one’s surroundings, the environment, etc.
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I think that people acquire a code of conduct from their social environment while growing up: What is considered good behaviour, what is considered bad behaviour? Much of that morality seems univeral across cultures and religions. Like cruelty and vandalism are probably universally disapproved, while caring for people in need is probably universally approved.
But (dis)approval of some other behaviours are much less universal. Like eating beef vs eating porc (or eating any meat at all), working on a Sunday, accepting a blood transfusion, charging interest, depicting human faces, shaving your beard, getting a haircut as a man, covering your head as a woman, clothing in general, having sex outside marriage, homosexuality, killing infidels, homosexuals or adulterers, etcetera.
And based on what we consider good and bad behaviour (our personal, societal and possibly religious set of morals), we may judge the behaviour of others. And there are different degrees to which people feel entitled to judge others. Entitlement to judge others can itself be part of those morals. And judgement is not inconsequential, as it can lead to some form of punishment.
Religious texts like the Bible may validate or even encourage harsh judgement and punishment for specific perceived misconducts. But there are also these quotes from the Bible “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thy own eye?” and “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”.
There is a choice how much weight you adhere to different (contradicting) admonitions that can be found in religious texts, and different religious denominations can make different choices.
My life stance is mostly like secular humanism. I believe all humans (and animals too, to varying degrees depending on their level of “sapience”) have rights, and one of the most important ones is freedom to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t disproportionally infringe on the rights, freedom and general wellbeing of other beings having those rights, now and in the future. It’s very much linked to fairness.
From this life stance that I have, I don’t judge homosexuality, but I do judge pedosexuality. I don’t judge entrepeneurs making a profit, but I do judge price gouging, exploitation of workers and slavery. I don’t judge animal husbandry, but I do judge cruelty towards animals.
To a large degree, my moral judgements coincide with our current legal code, but this is not always the case. Like I don’t quite understand why selling alcohol is legal (under specific regulations), but selling XTC is not. I think it’s probably better to legalise (and regulate) more substances than we do now (to reduce the revenue of criminal organisations). It’s bad for your health to use those substances, but you’re free to do many things that are bad for your health.
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That mainly happens with the Bible because there are two serious issues (there are other, smaller ones, but those are the main ones):
a) The New and the Old testament seem to have been made for different Gods, therefore there is a disconnection there.
b) Even within the New Testament, sometimes Jesus seems to be saying something on one gospel and something different at another point of the same or different gospel, creating contradictions in the minds of people that just want a coherent text with “advices/commands”.
The first issue can be easily bypassed for most normal people since most Christian denominations do not follow the Old Testament anyway and have it there for “historical reasons” (mostly establishing the Messianic status of Jesus). You still have some fondamentalists that will go “Old Testament mode” to excuse and provide an religio-ideological basis for their existing misconceptions and agenda, but let’s stick with normal, well-meaning people.
The second one is trickier because it requires some nuance and understanding of Jesus’ teachings, not in the prism of theology, but in the prism of Jesus’ words trying to be didactic, which is a much more basic issue that tends to be overlooked.
If you’ve ever taught anyone, about anything you will know that you do not teach the same things, to different people, even if the main point is similar or totally the same. Some students are good with sub-subject X, but weak in sub-subject Y, so you focus on sub-subject Y. The next student might have issues with sub-subject X, so you focus there and so forth. In Go terms, if a student is good at the direction of play and lacks in tsumego, you will focus your lesson in tsumego. An outsider who will isolate your lesson from all the other things you teach, as well as Go itself, could then make the “interpretation” that “tsumego IS Go” . This is obviously a catastrophically wrong logic, but there you have it.
Therefore Jesus when teaching to wealthy sinners like those tax collectors, taught with parables about money, since that’s what these people understood and greed was their main problem that needed to be adressed.
When Jesus taught farmers, you got parables about vines.
People that owned livestock, out come the parables with Jesus being a sheep-herder.
People that were violent and angry? To them Jesus told them to calm down and be meek and calm (like Peter when he drew the knife).
People that were downtrodden and weak? To them Jesus told them to improve and do their best.
and so on…
Naturally if you try to compile all those and distill them into an ethical canon, things would be difficult, but not impossible. What makes the task impossible are the “Bible literallists” that treat the New Testament like a fortune cookie catalogue and just toss “Jesus quotes without context”, to justify ANYTHING, even their greed and avarice for money and fame! They have found snippets for that, no worries that Jesus was humble and rode a donkey. “Who cares for that? Look at that line, that tiiiiiny passage there? YES! See? By my “interpretation” Jesus said it was ok! NOW BUY ME A JET!”
He even tells us to “think about it for a minute”… well, I did. And it didn’t go well
Case in point for my previous point about the fortune-cookie-fication of the Bible, when I read this post, for some reason my eyes fell on that particular spot and I thought it was some kind of alt-coin and I was like “ok, most of them are scams and ragpulls, but what’s that coin in particular?”… and then I read the whole thing and I realised what you meant.
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XTC is the term commonly used here for this substance. Perhaps in other places people use the term ecstacy or MDMA?
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