Xeno.of.athens said:

It arose out of a conversation with a dear friend with sleep deprivation who benefited from the example of the saints in his religious life. So its goal is to share a thought that was useful for us and to share the theology behind it.

Click to expand...

Ok, thanks. I'm glad you were able to help your friend. But you must have had some deeper conversation than what was relayed above. I found one nugget most helpful - "repeated falls can be occasions for deeper humility and dependence on grace—not despair". But then I was confused because I thought most Catholics did not see "grace" as relating to forgiveness of sin but as enablement to not sin. Maybe you were using "grace" in the latter sense to say we should be humble and learn to not sin?

Experience tells me that the only way to dispose of a guilty conscience (that perhaps keeps a person up at night) is to internalize the fact that Jesus paid the price for all our sins. His sacrifice is sufficient to eliminate our guilt before God. Orienting our thoughts about ourselves to be in line with His sacrifice being sufficient for us is really the only way to not feel guilty.

As I searched your post for this central truth, I saw things like...

Xeno.of.athens said:

Jesus encouraged his disciples to struggle against sins.

Click to expand...

Xeno.of.athens said:

The Church sees the struggle with sin as a path to holiness, not a sign of failure.

Click to expand...

Xeno.of.athens said:

“God would not allow evil if He were not powerful enough to bring a greater good from it.”

Click to expand...

Xeno.of.athens said:

Prayer, fasting, and cultivating virtues like chastity, humility, and temperance are essential tools in this struggle.

Click to expand...

The only thing that I saw in reference to forgiveness being a cure for sin was...

Xeno.of.athens said:

The Church offers Confession

Click to expand...

But even this threw me off because telling another person you are sorry for your sins is not the same as receiving Christ's forgiveness. Or maybe you guys say the church is standing in for Christ and you're really looking to Him instead of the priest? But if that was the case, then why would being forgiven by Jesus (through the priest) not be sufficient to allay a person's guilt?

keras said:

Only by a stretch of imagination, can that verse mean a rapture and there needs to be supporting scriptures as well. There isn't any.

Click to expand...

The 1989 REB bible for 1Thessalonians4:16-17....

"For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever.

Those two verses are the resurrection/rapture event.

Brightfame52 said:

This is what Im asking,

According to Jesus words here can a man by his own freewill ability come to Christ ? Jn 6:65

65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father

Click to expand...

No, you are asking why someone comes to Jesus, not why it's given to someone to come to Jesus.

The reason they come to Jesus is because they have listened and learned from the Father.

It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.
— John 6:45

Larniavc said:

Looks outside to see a peaceful warm summers day with the sounds of birds and insects busy about their duties. I can hear kids playing across the way the sounds of DIY for over the old wall.

UK is great

Click to expand...

It's only warm where you are? Where I am (suburban heat trap) it's hot enough for me to lurk in the supermarket fridge aisles for a bit when I go shopping this afternoon.

Apple Sky said:

I didnt't say a car could fly in space, what I said that they had supposedly lunched a Tesla car into space & expect us to believe it's just floating around up there.

Click to expand...

Yes, and you're not answering my questions.
Who are "they" and who says they "expect us to believe" that a car is floating around in space?

You were told:

David Lamb said:

But the car didn't drive into space, nor did Elon Musk claim that it did. The wording of your link says that the car was the cargo ("dummy payload") on board a space rocket:

Click to expand...

And you replied:

Apple Sky said:

Correct

Click to expand...

Someone else explained that the car was cargo, that it had no battery, motor or electrical bits.

So no, no one believes that a car was driven into space and is floating around up there.

zoidar said:

What you have to ask is why it is given unto a person. Here is the answer:

It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.
— John 6:45

Click to expand...

This is what Im asking,

According to Jesus words here can a man by his own freewill ability come to Christ ? Jn 6:65

65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father

PloverWing said:

who are generally distrustful of the government anyway

Click to expand...

And yet seem unaccountably gullible in so many other areas.

Landon Caeli said:

People like us don't call it authoritarianism. We call it an opportunity you can't refuse.

View attachment 367379

Click to expand...

I don't think using an AI slop image of a merged Cartman and Trump is going to advance your position a great deal.

Landon Caeli said:

The UK is dead.

Click to expand...

Looks outside to see a peaceful warm summers day with the sounds of birds and insects busy about their duties. I can hear kids playing across the way the sounds of DIY for over the old wall.

UK is great

Could be worse - the Royal Marines are notorious for their "entertaining" choice of dress (or perhaps more accurately gown).

essentialsaltes said:

And then you follow up my comment about what is happening right now in America with something more than 150 years old and repudiated by modern Democrats apart from those, like the late Strom Thurmond, who eventually found their home in the GOP 60 years ago as the political winds changed.

I mean, you're not the first, but this baloney is way past its sell-by date. And everyone with a brain knows it.

Click to expand...

The modern Democrats keep the the poor (mostly inner city blacks) in bondage still with handouts that are too small to make a living but set restrictions that don't allow them to also have jobs that would help lift them out of poverty. That is a form of slavery.

Government aid programs were never meant to be used as the sole income a person has, but were meant to be a temporary hand-up to help them out of poverty, to ease the squeeze when times were tight, but the democrats changed the rules and they became a permanent handout. And even today, when trying to revert back to the original purpose of government aid, all the democrats can do is run around and lie about it. IF there was an ideological switch long ago, it's switched back. But I'd go so far as to suggest that this was the original plan of the left when LBJ's social justice plans were put into place. To give them just enough to keep them coming back but not enough to escape poverty.

BelieveItOarKnot said:

Evil is, by definition, the spirit of disobedience

Click to expand...

That’s not evil “by definition”. And the spirit of disobedience of God is not something God created or He’d be the ultimate fool, not to mention evil, itself.

God is sheer goodness, and that’s why He cannot create evil, but only the freedom (another good) to oppose that goodness. What is made is a reflection of its creator. Your god may create turds but not the real God. Turds are created by willfully falling from the cleanness, the goodness, they were created in.

Otherwise, good and evil don’t even truly exist, because if God created both then neither is superior to the other, and He’d then be solely to blame for every atrocious act anyway. In fact, one of the most evil acts would be to commit an evil act and then place the blame on someone else for it.

Landon Caeli said:

Former Pink Floyd songwriter Roger Waters could face prosecution after declaring his support for Palestine Action, a terrorist organization that has been banned by Parliament in the U.K.

Waters posted a video to X on Saturday, in which the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame inductee praised Palestine Action as a "great organization," while also giving kudos to Bob Vylan, who led the Glastonbury Festival crowd in a chant, shouting, "Death, death to the IDF."

Waters said in his video that he was in his studio and was working on a piece of brown cardboard with a Sharpie.

He then switched the camera from his face to the cardboard.

Former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters faces possible prosecution after supporting banned Palestine Action

Former Pink Floyd songwriter Roger Waters could face prosecution in the U.K. after declaring support for Palestine Action, a group recently banned under anti-terrorism laws.

www.foxnews.com

Click to expand...

I don't think there's an authoritarian left-wing or anti-western regime he won't shill for, so I'm not exactly surprised.

The disapproval of others can be intimidating. However, it is possible to respond to such oppression if you challenge them to defend their opinions. For example asking them to clearly state their objection and support it. Then one can ask them of what they would approve. One can then accept or refute their opinion.

For example if they objected to your level of education and suggested you get more education, you might respond that most of the people you have observed with higher levels of education have almost toxic levels of self-righteousness and that you would prefer to avoid that for your self.

Similar approaches can be taken with income level, or social prominence.

However, rather than confrontation, it may be best to simply ignore the opinions of fools. If your wife's family is particularly offensive in demonstrating their displeasure, you might ask her if she agrees with a particular barb. It my force her to recognize that which is unjust and begin to see your side more clearly.

All for yourself?

Fervent said:

Depends on what we're talking about. While the numbers of trans individuals is rare, the impact on culture cannot be denied. And it's far more than simply a matter of sexual mores, but a question of truth itself since "male" and "female" are objective statements not simply a matter of opinion. So a large part of the conversation is about embracing post modern theories of truth that focus on subjective perceptions and deny that there is such a thing as objective truth.

Click to expand...

No, just that the conservative version of Christian doctrine is not necessarily objective truth, especially with regard to conventional gender performance.

Fervent said:

So it's not as simple as a humanitarian question, but a question that very much undermines theistic belief at its core. So there is an existential threat to it, just not when it comes to women's sports.

Click to expand...

If your "theistic belief" is so vulnerable to unconventional behavior of people you don't even know, perhaps it would be best if you just abandoned it altogether, instead of waiting for it to be undermined.

It’s MY water closet!

CLST

fhansen said:

You’re not trying to understand here. Evil is the negation of good

Click to expand...

Evil is, by definition, the spirit of disobedience. It is not some supposed void of good, but a very real evil power wielded by a coagulation of bad unseen actors, at least according to the scriptures

fhansen said:

God cannot create anything but good.

Click to expand...

And that is simply ridiculous. God can create anything simply on the basis of being Greater than anything created or the sum of all created things. All things are in fact completely subservient to HIM. Including any forms of opposition.

Those who claim God can not create evil without being evil simply have a low esteem value of God, whom they claim becomes what He creates.

Short version: God can make a turd and not be one

Urgent information about Usher intensified.



RGENT

I prefer to use the term Aspergers. Autism used to refer to people with brain damage or malformation who seldom lived past their teen years. I do not see what Hans Asperger observed with the four boys he studied to be a similar disability to autism.

I see it as an uncommon neurological variant. Often this results in developmental delays as a child is faced with an abundance of sensory and cognitive processing that is handled manually rather than the more common reflexive way childhood experiences are integrated for those with a more typical neurology.

There is a free pdf booklet available called Aspregers and intentional life that my be of interest.


The christianpioneer.com website might be of interest as well.

Shane R said:

We went and did it, my mother and I. We booked a Christmas village motor-coach tour package through the German speaking countries. Our trip begins in Vienna, Austria and meanders Westward through Germany, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland with a return to the US from Zurich. We'll catch the first 4 or 5 days of Advent in Europe. We are taking my daughters too but my father has reached the stage of life wherein he does not care to go anywhere that he cannot drive himself or maybe take a ferry boat so he had no interest in going.

Click to expand...

You will enjoy that. Although its a pity the package didn’t involve use of the lovely European railways, but you can use those on another trip (also to my frustration, my favorite type of European train, which is a first class compartment car with fabric rather than leather seats, so that one can recline across the seats if the compartment is empty, which it often is, and which provides a more quiet ride since one is not subjected to noise from throughout the carriage, has become less common, as has the restaurant car, and if one wants both, they mostly exist together on the railways of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.

On a happier note however, night trains, which became nearly extinct a dozen years ago, have undergone a spectacular renaissance all over Europe.

DialecticSkeptic said:

What if Jesus is the telos of Torah and, thus, the fulfillment of the sabbath rest—and therefore "Today" is the sabbath rest for the people of God?

Click to expand...

What if Jesus was sent by God to teach you to be as he was in the Father as he said he was? Have you followed Jesus to his God he called Father that God may be your Father as well and you be in His same image that He creates man to be spiritually by the same spirit be in you that God is? Do people really even know what Gods Spirit is?

What if Jesus was correct in who he said he was in God in his very statements below?

And why dont people listen to Jesus instead of some doctrine for law such as a Torah, or Catholic law, or Mormon law, or Pentecostals law, or Baptists law, to AOGs, or COCs, and many more creeds for laws, that Jesus was once rabbi of even from a young age, then after God revealed Himself in Jesus and opened all of His heaven in that man in Matt 3:16 did not the Torah, law, have him crucified for blaspheme?

Jesus was of the law until God Himself opened the truth in that man and here is who Jesus said he was in God after he was released from those laws and rabbi of, and from mans religious ideas.

John 12:49: For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.

John 12:44-45. who believes in me, does not believe in me but in Him who sent me. He who sees me sees Him who sent me.

John 7:16. Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

John 5 :17 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

John 5:19. “Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”

John 6:38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

John 17:2-21, the kingdom of God doesnt come withj observation, it is withn you

John 16:23. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.

John 14:16. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

Matt 11:25. At that time Jesus declared, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

John 17:22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.

Philip_B said:

Has anyone else read The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism by Martyn Percy? I found it interesting, challenging, sad, scary, informative and insightful.

I would be interested in discussing it.

Click to expand...

No, but I will look into it for purposes of discussion. The issue of liturgical diversity in Anglicanism resulting from the expansion of the church around the world is a related subject I’m fairly well versed in.

Brightfame52 said:

According to Jesus words here can a man by his own freewill ability come to Christ ? Jn 6:65

65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. 2

Click to expand...

What you have to ask is why it is given unto a person. Here is the answer:

It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.
— John 6:45

The abundance of stone tools is not necessarily an indication of age. Poverty can also extend the use of older technology.