The Hagia Sophia

@fmf said
I don't see how being connected to the site through "something that is a bit distinctive from other people" justifies claiming to be "personally insulted". It comes off as manufactured outrage. You read the news, a museum of 70 years' standing is reverting to be a mosque. "Tut, tut, that's terrible; the people in my church 500 years ago suffered a great indignity and travesty..." ...[text shortened]... elings of being "personally insulted"? It's intriguing. It's an off-shoot of religiosity, I suppose.

I am honored that you think of me as having some level of religiosity.

@fmf said
The cathedral you are emoting about was "attacked" 560 years ago. It hasn't been a cathedral for the entirety of the intervening 560 years. The news about the Hagia Sophia was not an "attack" on you. If anything, it was an "attack" on the custodians of the excellent museum which had stood on the site for more than 70 years.

Is it completely irrelevant to you that this is a sacred place to Orthodox Christians?

@philokalia said
Every Christian should take their holy sites seriously. For what is more personal than our religion.

I don't see anything wrong with people taking what they perceive as their "holy sites" seriously. I am sure that Muslims see the Hagia Sophia as a "holy site" too and if it were to be torn down and turned into a cathedral I am sure it would be personally insulting to many of them. But you are claiming to be personally insulted by it being a mosque when it was turned into one more that 500 years before you were born. Taking the news "seriously" is one thing, but professing that the "insult" caused by a building reverting back to being a mosque [which is what it was for century after century] is somehow a "personal" one seems rather arm-waving and not level-headed.

@philokalia said
Of course it attracts pilgrims:

According to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Hagia Sophia was Turkey's most visited tourist attraction in 2015[19] and 2019.[20][21]

I visited in the 90s but I'd hardly call myself a pilgim!

@philokalia said
Is it completely irrelevant to you that this is a sacred place to Orthodox Christians?

I think it is completely relevant to Orthodox Christians that it was a cathedral 560 years ago. But seeing as there was no expectation that it was going to be turned into one again in 2020, and seeing as promises to do that were not made, and therefore no promises have been broken and there has been no betrayal or manipulation of the hopes of Orthodox Christians, I cannot see how its revertion to its use as a mosque and the end of its stint as a museum can be framed as a "personal insult" in anything other than a somewhat hysterical way.

@philokalia said
For what is more personal than our religion.

Surely something you share with hundreds of thousands isn't personal.

I may as well say brown eyes are personal to me. Ridiculous.

@philokalia said
A sad reminder of what they took from us.

Who did the Orthodox Church take the site from?
Bet they're upset.

@philokalia said
I am honored that you think of me as having some level of religiosity.

In this matter, and times when you have been regurgitating absurd doctrine that I don't think even you believe, my conjecture is that this religiosity ~ that you have relatively recently adopted ~ has debilitated you.

However, I don't know what emotional weakness and psychological pressures - and chips on your shoulders - were bearing down on you before you converted, or that led you to seek solace in an organized religion like the Orthodox Church, so I can't be sure.

You might have been the same before; in which case, "debilitated" isn't the write word. Maybe it has had an accentuating effect. Or perhaps you believe it has had a sanctifying effect on the perspectives you make pronouncements about. I don't know.

@wolfgang59 said
Surely something you share with hundreds of thousands isn't personal.

I may as well say brown eyes are personal to me. Ridiculous.

You seem to not understand the use of the word personal.

Personal can mean

5. referring to, concerning, or involving a person's individual personality, intimate affairs, etc, esp in an offensive way: personal remarks; don't be so personal.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/personal

Thus, we see things like this:

or me, being gay is very personal, and don't feel the need let my sexual orientation be overtly known, but also don't want to be in a hostile environment where I felt I couldn't share this aspect of my personal life. I don't expect to avoid adversity entirely, but would like to hear any positive and/or negative experiences others have had at various programs.

Jim Chapman made a podcast back in 2010 entitled

Being a Christian is Very Personal

Being a Christian is personal, but it is not private; believing in Christ is something I must do as an individual, but it is not an individualistic activity.

Richard B. Gaffin

When you pick too hard, you risk breaking your beak.

You need to adopt a style of constant deflection and pivoting if you are going to keep this up -- that's how the pros do it.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Did you alert this post Philokalia?

@fmf said
I think it is completely relevant to Orthodox Christians that it was a cathedral 560 years ago. But seeing as there was no expectation that it was going to be turned into one again in 2020, and seeing as promises to do that were not made, and therefor no promises have not been broken and there has been no betrayal or manipulation of the hopes of Orthodox Christians, I cannot see ...[text shortened]... t as a museum can be framed as a "personal insult" in anything other than a somewhat hysterical way.

Would it be absurd to hope for increased democratization in Turkey, and that the secular government would eventually allow the reconsecration of the Cathedral to correct past wrongs?

No.

Of course, it would not happen under Erdogan.

But a distant hope for this is rational.

Thus, it reverting to a mosque is upsetting, and when Orthodox Christianity is your religion, it is upsetting in a personal way.

Thus...

It feels like... a personal insult.

I am sure you understand the logic.

This is starting to go in circles.

I am going to end my part here, and let you have the last word.

@philokalia said
You seem to not understand the use of the word personal.

Taking a personal interest in something, even to the point of being angry or disappointed, and claiming to be "personally" insulted are not the same thing.

@wolfgang59 said
Who did the Orthodox Church take the site from?
Bet they're upset.

If I remember right, it was planned after a great fire had destroyed and depopulated much of Constantinople.

@philokalia said
You need to adopt a style of constant deflection and pivoting if you are going to keep this up -- that's how the pros do it.

I am not "pivoting". I am standing in my crease and carving your deflections over cow corner, over and over again. It's not "pivoting" at all.

@fmf said
I am sure that Muslims see the Hagia Sophia as a "holy site" too and if it were to be torn down and turned into a cathedral I am sure it would be personally insulting to many of them.

... Tear down the Hagia Sophia...

... So you could turn it into a Cathedral...?

LOL?

OK.

What a scenario.