FAITH-IN-HIM said:

I won't share polling data or personal anecdotes; I'll share the actual statistics I posted in #68.


In USA there are 300 Full time Islamic school. compare to


Bangladesh-91% population Muslim vs 0.30% Christian. yet Bangladesh has over 1500 Christians schools and colleges.

Pakistan: 96% Muslims and 1.6% Christian. Pakistan is known as the country of Islamic extremist. yet Pakistan has over 450 Christians schools and colleges.

Malaysia : 64% Muslim vs 9% Christian , yet Malaysia has over 400 Christians schools and colleges.
Similar story in other country.

These statistics are consistent with my four decades of volunteer experience at Christian schools and hospitals in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and other Muslim-majority countries. Furthermore, I believe that approximately half of the Christians participating in this forum belong to churches that support American missionaries, doctors, and educators who serve in many of these schools and hospitals.

The argument that Muslims are inherently intolerant and, therefore, should not be given opportunities in America is not supported by either my personal experience or by the factual evidence on the ground. My observations, drawn from years of involvement in Christian educational and medical institutions across Muslim-majority countries, directly contradict this narrative. The statistics I have shared further demonstrate that, despite being in the minority, Christian communities in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Malaysia have established and operated hundreds of schools and colleges.

It appears that a country guaranteeing religious freedom in its constitution faces more challenges opening Muslim schools in Alabama than Christian schools do in Muslim-majority Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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• Somalia (Rank 2) — Nearly 100% Muslim; al-Shabaab militants target Christians, especially converts, who are often killed on the spot. Christianity is seen as a betrayal of clan and Somali identity.
• Libya (Rank 3) — Post-collapse chaos allows militias to harass and detain Christians; converts face death threats, and proselytizing is forbidden.
• Eritrea (Rank 4) — Though not exclusively Islamic-driven, non-recognized Christian groups face imprisonment; Muslim-background converts experience intense family pressure.
• Yemen (Rank 5) — Houthi-controlled areas enforce strict Sharia; converts risk execution, and Christians face discrimination in aid and healthcare.
• Sudan (Rank 8) — Islamic laws and ongoing conflict target Christians; churches are attacked, and converts are ostracized or killed.
• Pakistan (Rank 7) — Blasphemy laws are weaponized against Christians; mob violence, forced marriages, and abductions of Christian girls are common.
• Iran (Rank 9) — The regime views Christian converts as threats to national security; arrests, imprisonment, and house church raids are routine.
• Afghanistan (Rank 10, previously higher) — Under Taliban rule, no public Christianity is allowed; converts face death from family or authorities.
• Nigeria (Rank 6 in some prior lists, high violence) — Northern Muslim-majority states see Fulani militant and Boko Haram attacks killing thousands of Christians annually; the deadliest country for Christians.

• Syria
• Iraq
• Algeria
• Mali
• Morocco
• Bangladesh
• Tunisia

peaceful-forest said:

One of my favorite bands growing up was No Doubt. I had watched one of their music videos earlier this week - Simple Kind of Life.

I wasn't sure if I was able to post the video or not since there's a scene where Gwen Stefani is topless but has hair covering up her breasts. So I'll post the audio version of the song to be on the safe side.

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ThatRobGuy said:

That's where things like polling data, stats, and overall outcomes need to be given the proper weight in discussions instead of just anecdotes.

Personal anecdotes can be used to amplify or downplay themes and narratives.

I've personally been to East Cleveland easily hundreds of times, and haven't been shot while I was there. That doesn't negate the reality that there's a problem of gun violence in East Cleveland that's way higher than out in the burbs. (People who have been, or have a relative who has been would probably have a much stronger narrative in the opposite direction)

Polling & aggregated statistics would indicate that there are some problems that are largely unique to Islam, as well as other problems that while aren't unique to Islam, exist to a much higher degree in Islam. That trumps individual anecdotes (going in either direction)

"I lived in an Islam-majority country, and never had any problems...therefore, all of the complaints are just hype" is reminiscent of "My grandpa smoked 2 packs a day, and lived to be 82 and never got cancer...therefore, all of the anti-smoking stuff is just hype"

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concretecamper said:

People become Christian through the Sacrament of Baptism

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narnia59 said:

So your view would be that all children are saved until the time when they can make a conscious decision to be saved or not? Did I understand that correctly?

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jonojim1337 said:

We use exactly the same footage to claim it is flat.

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jonojim1337 said:

But the Chinese spacewalk - although it’s probably fake - is supposedly much higher.

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jonojim1337 said:

Hard to get a high res photo anyway. Find me something credible where you can see the rest of the moon and maybe I’ll change my mind. Just kidding I won’t.

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jonojim1337 said:

Something’s wong.

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stevevw said:

And I explained this several times. I did not begin with the physical sciences. It was more philosophical about how the orthodoxy was flawed. Thats a epistemic issue of philosophy of science and not physical science.

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Ivan Hlavanda said:

Please don't give me AI responses

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stevevw said:

View attachment 374292

The snake shape is melted into the stone. See those little scoop marks. They are man made and not from grinding. See the glaze this is all over the indent showing the stone was softened and melted to create this into the stone.

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This photo shows a series of round, shallow holes forming a vertical line in a stone block, with a larger cavity or notch at the top. This type of feature is commonly found on ancient or historical stonework — and it is not a natural formation but the result of stone quarrying or shaping techniques.

Likely Identification​

This is most likely an example of feather and wedge or plug and feather holes — a method of stone splitting.

How It Was Produced​

1. Drilling: A line of small, evenly spaced round holes was drilled into the stone using a hand chisel, iron drill, or later, percussion drill.
   • Each hole was typically 2–4 cm in diameter and spaced 3–6 cm apart.
2. Inserting Tools: Into each hole, two metal shims ("feathers") and a wedge ("plug") were inserted.
3. Splitting: Workers hammered the wedges in sequence, applying even pressure until the stone split cleanly along the drilled line.
4. The top cavity visible in your image may be where a lifting clamp or pry point was used after the split, or where erosion has enlarged the uppermost drill hole.

Typical Contexts​

Such features can be seen in:

• Quarries (unfinished blocks or extraction faces)
• Ancient monuments or construction sites
• Abandoned stone blocks where the cut was never completed

Geological Note​

The stone in your image appears to be volcanic tuff, limestone, or a similar soft rock, consistent with materials quarried and dressed in ancient Mediterranean or Andean contexts.


If you’d like, I can narrow down which site or culture this resembles most (e.g., Roman, Inca, Egyptian) — would you like me to do that?

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Dikaioumenoi said:

... The grammar itself provides it. They hear and learn because God has made them such. He has rendered them "God-taught."

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HARK! said:

Aside from the fact that the price has been artificially suppressed, I don't know how in the world you came to that conclusion, even prima facie.

Let's see your source on that. I'd be glad to debunk it for you.

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prodromos said:

Login to view embedded media This is a short video from a balloon at 121,000ft, from just before the balloon burst. As the camera is falling and the horizon goes from one side of the centre to the other, you can see the effect of the fishey lens distortion, bending the horizon up and down, but if you pause the video and step through one frame at a time, you can find frames where the horizon passes through the centre and is not being distorted. You can see for yourself that the horizon is not flat. No doubt you will call bollocks on what your own eyes can see.

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Paulwat said:

Not sure what board to post this in. Please feel free to move to another area of the board if it works better there.

So, I saw a post today that interested me and searched it up and found lots of similar results from other people. Apparantly hell isn't a real place and instead is a mistranslation. Apparantly awful people don't get eternal suffering and instead just cease to exist (similar to how life was for them before being born)

Here's the full post and explanation. It was reassuring to hear this as I worry about peolle I know going to hell and hate to imagine them being tortured. So it's nice to know such a place doesn't exist


perhaps you could start by realizing just how ridiculous the entire idea is and how it really isn't even supported by the scriptures.

This concept of “Hell” as a place of ‘eternal suffering in a lake of fire’ that Christians so often try to scare people with is all made up by humans and doesn't even exist in the 'old testament' and is not well supported by the 'new testament' either...

every single 'old testament' reference to "hell" is a mistranslations of the Jewish concept of "Sheol" which is distinctly different from what most people today refer to as "Hell".

• 1: Sheol is temporary - not 'eternal'. you are only there until 'judgment day'.
• 2: everyone goes to Sheol to await judgment day. (good or bad, believer or not).
• 3: everyone in Sheol atones for their misdeeds in life. everyone, regardless of whether they "have faith" or not. You don't escape punishment for your misdeeds in life just because you 'have faith'. THAT was an invention (apparently of Paul).
• 4: after judgment: the 'truly wicked' are annihilated: They 'cease to exist'. They are not "punished for the rest of eternity. (That view is not supported by anything in the bible outside of 'revelation' (and even that is pretty thin)
• 5: after judgment: everyone else goes to "Olam Ha'Bah" (aka "the world to come"; "gan eden" or "the Garden of Eden). - This did NOT require belief in or worship of "YHWH" it was based on whether you were a decent person in life; not "blind faith".

outside of 'revelation" The "New Testament" does not refer to this concept of 'eternal punishment' at all. not once, not anywhere. It is ONLY mentioned in the "Book of Revelation" (aka "The Apocalypse of John") and even those references are pretty flimsy evidence.

every "New Testament" reference to "Hell" in modern translations are mistranslating one of three words. “Hades” (which means “the grave” and does not imply torment); "Tartarus" (which appears only one time in 2 Peter 2:4) and "Gehenna".

• Tartarus is a specific reference to the pagan concept of the 'lowest level of hades'; The word “Tartarus” is arguably the closest word used to this concept of eternal torment but this word is only used in one specific verse: 2 Peter 2:4 which is talking about a place where "fallen angels" are sent and is never mentioned as a destination for humans. - Also note that this same verse clearly limits the time spent in that place to "until judgment".
• Gehenna is an actual physical place in Jerusalem, it was (in the first century CE) possibly a trash dump, garbage we know dead bodies were taken there and burned in a 'eternal fire' (a constantly burning fire that was always burning garbage). it was considered a "cursed place" due to legends about people sacrificing children there. It was mentioned in a lot of parables; often 'jesus' talking about wealthy people ending up in Gehenna (just like all the poor people). essentially saying that all their wealth doesn't save them from eventually dying and being thrown into the trash heap. - The parables did seem to imply that “Gehenna” was some undesirable place but it’s very dishonest to claim that the word literally translates to the common concept called “Hell”.

The words translated into “Eternal Punishment” in Matthew 25:46 (for instance) is also a mistranslation. The word they translate as “eternal” there is “αἰώνῐος” which is more correctly translated as “lasting for an age”. If you note the same exact word is mistranslated to ‘eternal’ in modern translations of Jude 1:7 where Sodom and Gomorrah are supposedly destroyed by “eternal fire” - Those fires are clearly not burning today as we’ve never found any such remnants anywhere on earth of this supposedly never ending fire. The other part of that phrase for “Punishment” is also a poor translation of “kolasis” which was an agricultural term basically meaning “cut off” or “prune” - possibly suggesting the concept where you “prune away part of a plant and the rest of the plant gets stronger”. It could possibly refer to “punitive correction” as opposed to some eternal torment or possibly it refers to being ‘cut off from paradise/eternal life’ which is effectively what happens when you cease to exist. - you aren’t suffering but you are denied eternal life and entry to paradise ‘for eternity’ since you no longer exist.

Outside of Revelation the most common


Outside of Revelation the most common thing people tend to bring up to support this 'eternal suffering in a lake of fire' nonsense is the story from Luke 16:19-31 of "lazarus and rich man". That parable however does not suggest "eternal suffering" at all.

• 1: Abraham, Lazarus and "Rich Man" are all in the same place. - That already sounds a lot more like "Sheol" than "Hell". the claim that all of them talking to each other is clearly not a reference to one being "in heaven" and the other "in hell" since these places are always depicted as separate.
• 2: "Rich Man" is suffering but... he's complaining about "being thirsty".... if he were burning in a lake of fire I think he'd have bigger problems than 'parched lips'.
• 3: Nothing about that story says anything to suggest that the suffering is eternal; it only implies that "Rich Man" is suffering currently, not what his fate would be down the road.

Then we have the claims from "Revelation":

• 1: the "Second Death" is mentioned 4 times in this book; and described as the "Death of the soul"
• 2: Revelation 20:6 states that only people named in the "book of life" (those "on the right") receive "eternal life" - this gift of eternal life is ONLY for the righteous people that pass into paradise.
• 3: Revelation 20:10 states that the 'beast', the 'false prophet' (aka the antichrist) and 'satan' are cast into the lake of fire where they will "suffer for ever and ever" - note that none of these entities are 'human'.
• 4: then in Revelation 20:15 - the people who's name did not appear in the 'book of life' (those "on the left") are also cast into the same lake of fire where they "suffer the second death". - Note the different language... it does not say "suffer for ever and ever" but instead states that they "suffer the second death" - this suggests that their soul dies.. which is "Annihilation" not "eternal suffering". How can there be "eternal suffering" for people that do not have "eternal life"? - (see note 2 above).

Nothing about "eternal suffering" is consistent with anything in the bible. "Eternal suffering" is sadistic cruelty without any purpose or benefit. - It makes no rational sense if they are also trying to claim that 'god' is benevolent, loving, merciful etc. - Totally logically inconsistent with this view.





In the early days of the christian church there were several competing views of the afterlife that are a lot more consistent with the rest of the bible:

• Annihilation" is the belief that "after judgment" the "truly wicked" are annihilated; they 'cease to exist' and that's it... no further suffering; they are gone. end of story. This is exactly what the Jewish traditional view of Sheol mentioned above taught and is logically consistent with the 'old testament'.
• "universal salvation" or "universalism" is the belief that eventually everyone is saved. - This view treats suffering/punishment in the afterlife as reformative/corrective/judicial - meant to correct the recipient and is finite in duration - once you have atoned for your sins you get to move on to paradise with all the other people that ever lived. These were both pretty popular views in the early christian sects prior to ~425 CE;

The early christian sects disagreed considerably about which of these three views was 'correct'. “Basil the Great” specifically commented in ~370CE that the dominant view (of the time) was a belief in a limited purgatory, and others (such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus the blind, Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia wrote extensively about Universalism. There were some (mostly in Northern Africa around the coast of modern day Tunisia/Algeria) that were advocating the view of “Eternal Torment” but it wasn't until 425CE that the church unified on this 'eternal suffering' doctrine (largely through the writings of Augustine of Hippo – who came to Rome from a city near what is now Annaba Tunisia). This became the official version the church went with and the other views were deemed "heretical" and banned along with any early christian scriptures that supported those opposing views (such as the "Apocalypse of Peter").

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Michie said:

Can a young child truly be saved and on their way to Heaven? Can he or she be in the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, one of those who is a genuine believer?

A Christian educator once said that the faith of a child — up to age 12 — could be called a “borrowed faith”; this faith could be borrowed from his parents or a Sunday school teacher. Then, in his early teens, the child would develop their “chosen faith,” ultimately moving on to their “owned faith.”

Now, when we think of a borrowed faith, do we also think of it as a saving faith? Not exactly, and not something you’d want to count on when you’re not totally confident.

Let’s see what Jesus had to say about children’s salvation. “At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven’” (Matthew 18:1-4).

Okay, so the disciples have a different question than I originally posed; they want to know who’s the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus calls a little child. In case you question whether this really is a young child, the Greek word is paidión, which means “little” or “young.” So, he didn’t just call a child, he called a little child. Now remember, in that culture, a 13-year-old boy enters manhood. Young people were married at 16. So, if they are calling a child little, they mean little.

Continued below.

Can a young child become a Christian?

Can a young child truly be saved and on their way to Heaven

www.christianpost.com

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essentialsaltes said:

Trump says U.S. seized oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela​

U.S. forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said Wednesday.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large tanker,” Trump said during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. He provided no detail on who owned the tanker or its destination.

[Trump] would not rule out a ground invasion of the South American nation.

(Ok, armchair generals, what sort of response would be justified for this provocation?)

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narnia59 said:

You mean because God told them to not eat of the tree, he was setting them up for failure?

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essentialsaltes said:

living or sitting

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ThatRobGuy said:

Right, but when they did have that power the last time, they flubbed it.

So my question remains, what will be different about the 120th congress compared to the 116th congress?

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