Ophiolite said:

At the risk of going off topic, the image on the left would not be the sort of evidence I would wish to use for any purpose. It is labelled as a granite, but its appearance counts against this. Granite is primarily made up of feldspars and quartz. These have low-order interference colours under polarised light and these should dominate the image. Moreover there is no evidence of the twinning one would expect of the plagioclase feldspars and crystal shape is atypical. Micas, an important minor constituent of granites, are also seemingly absent. In contrast several of the crystals have interference colour, shapes and character associated with pyroxenes. This is certainly an igneous rock, but it is not a granite.

Note: it is some decades since I've had occassion to examine rocks in thin section, but petrography was one of my favourite aspects of practical geology. Nevertheless, I considered two alternative explanations that might justify the identification as granite. First, birefringence colours are increased in intensity if the thin section thickness is too great. Against this explanation, a) one does not publish or work with thin sections not prepared to exacting measures and the crystal shapes are abnornal for granite. b)If the micrograph was photographed in uv light then unusual colours might be produced, but in that case the image would be properly identified as taken in that uncommon way.

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Thanks for your input, I sourced the Google image under the search 'Granite cross polarization image', but the greater problem there were no images for vitrified granite so I used Obsidian as an example what a vitrified granite should look like in a glassy amorphous state under a polarizing microscope.
Ironically @stevevw's link to the Nature article provided all the information I needed.

Apple Sky said:

Rising number of Brits leaving Christianity turning to paganism​

Rising number of Brits leaving Christianity turning to paganism

A growing number of Britons who leave Christianity are turning to paganism or other forms of spiritualism instead of converting to other major religions, a new study has found

www.christianpost.com

I wonder why ?

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Probably lots of reasons.
Not being able to believe in a God of love when there is much suffering, would be a chief reason.
Being let down by the church, is another - after all, what must God be like if his followers/representatives behave so badly?
Perceiving that the church has too much wealth when there is much poverty, may be another reason.
And sadly, even meeting other Christians - those who tell people they are going to hell, those who insist that church members tithe, those who say that people will have to give up parties/smoking/drinking/gambling or they can't be a Christian.

Maybe even people who claim the earth is flat, and everyone except themselves, is wrong.

BPPLEE said:

Good luck finding 400 million jobs in the US

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More jobs get created just by virtue of there being more people who need goods and services.

BPPLEE said:

Good luck finding 400 million jobs in the US

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Easy. We all know that in the US anyone who wants to can get a good job and if he doesn't have one it's only because he is too lazy to work. Right?

BPPLEE said:

So they can come here and live in poverty, with low paying jobs and government assistance. It’s not sustainable.

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Not sustainable according to whom?
Cato's model has immigrants being a net economic benefit to the country (there's some nuance in the details, but that's the gist.

You know what also is unlikely to be sustainable? An aging population with an expensive healthcare regime. No amount of abortion bans are going to fix that.

Servus said:

Actually they don't look alike.

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As I said, they're not identical. Quibbling over the details is irrelevant - again, the point is that there is no consistent definition of what a "fishing boat" might look like in the Caribbean, so saying that something "doesn't look like a fishing boat" because it doesn't look like a random picture of a fishing boat that you found on the internet is a red herring.

The similarities between the two boats in my post are their size (roughly 20 ft) and their general layout (open boats with fairly low freeboard).

BCP1928 said:

Hard to put a top number on it if they are, as Iluvatar suggested, law-abiding, working and paying taxes.

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Good luck finding 400 million jobs in the US

I am a Calvinist. Eph. 2:10 refers to Believers born again by the grace of God. We don't EARN the new birth.

Why did God create Satan? Why did He CHOOSE Israel?

John 3:18
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

But that wasn't what brought my attention to your view of Calvinism. You suggested that Calvinism teaches that childless women go to hell; that is not true.

This is an image of a basalt boulder on my property which on a superficial level exhibits 'melting' to a far greater level of detail than any of @stevevw images.



It highlights the problems of presenting images solely as evidence.
The melted appearance is based on well understood chemistry, the basalt boulder is mainly composed of hematite which can undergo hydration where mainly hematite (Fe₂O₃) is converted into goethite (FeO(OH)), ferrihydrite (Fe(OH)₃), or intermediate amorphous iron oxyhydroxides forming a dark vitreous (shiny) layer.

The hydrated compounds can only be identified by tests such as X -Ray diffraction and Transmission Electron Microscopy.

The Liturgist said:

Mark, to clarify, did you run the question in the AI that appears in Google search results or did you follow the link through to Google Gemini? If you don’t know, past a URL to the AI that you asked, and I can tell you.

@BobRyan , had you tested that prompt on Google’s AI, or were we supposed to use ChatGPT as per your previous revision of the prompt?

I got this answer, from ChatGPT 5.1:



I’m guessing @BobRyan that again wasn’t the answer you were expecting?

I tried to warn you; the terms you are using are subjective. AI can’t answer it consistently. There is an issue of bias in the training data as my pious and excellent Lutheran friend @MarkRohfrietsch mentioned, but the actual problem is that you’re still relying on subjective terms and a question that is answered based on statistics. Even with perfect AI, the subjective terminology (including, but not limited to, Trinitarian, administration, denomination) makes your question unanswerable. And since the definition of these things (Trinitarian, administration, denomination) is disputed, if you try to impose objective definitions on them, you still have to deal with the issue of statistical reliability in the training data. So even a perfect AI would be unable to consistently answer this question. Indeed if chatGPT were more advanced, it would refuse to answer the question due to the subjective terms.

As it is now, it isn’t confused, it’s rather using temperature (the value that introduces randomness into chatGPT’s output; this is essential in that it literally is what makes chatGPT capable of sustaining an interesting conversation; if you use the chatGPT API you can set temperature=0, and the result is … not useful, and also it costs money each time your run a question using the API; it’s useful only for serious prompt hacking purposes, and I myself don’t use it (if I had used it in this, you wouldn’t see the pretty output formatting that chatGPT does, since the output would be through an ssh session to a Linux or OpenBSD server, in a command line terminal, basically).

But the other issue is even if we weren’t getting inconsistent issues, which we are, you’re already prompt hacking; your efforts to “prevent the AI from getting confused” are simply massaging the question to get the results you want, and the fact we’re seeing digressive results with each iteration you supply us proves both my point that AI cannot be used in this manner without constituting an appeal to unqualified authority, and also that you’ve lost objectivity, since you’re now trying to manipulate chatGPt into desired behavior, which is the definition of prompt engineering.

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The Google one, to demonstrate the "results may vary" nature of AI. Google may indeed have given a very truthful answer, I get the logic it used from the answers in light of the explanations.

BPPLEE said:

I did. Eliminate criminals (like you really could) and those who won’t try to come how many does that leave? How many do you want to come here? 800 million?
400 million?

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Hard to put a top number on it if they are, as Iluvatar suggested, law-abiding, working and paying taxes.

BPPLEE said:

It’s a voodoo ritual.

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So what?

I have parents that are flawed like everyone, though not to this degree. But I do have a couple of them in my family that are like this (I'll keep them anonymous, the point is the same).

I had family members, after me not answering calls for 6 weeks (was busy, had helped them, they seen it as I'm always available) who proceeded to beat on my door until they actually broke it open. I will not go into further details, but you can imagine I was not a happy camper and I'm putting that very nicely. Now, in my case I have an advantage, because this isn't my parents and that episode was somewhat extreme and so I haven't had any calls since. There is the "awkward silence" and sideways look at family gatherings if they are there now, but I will not open a door for further encouragement of the previously mentioned behavior.

The rest of my family, while not like this, does absolutely do crazy things. Has been my entire life and many of my childhood struggles (I learned as an adult) were caused by these very insane decisions or things neglected. Do I think our families intend to be off the wall? No, but it doesn't fix it nor make it easier to know that.

I'm praying for you, because I know the intensity of being harassed like that. I've had a number of situations with very similar patterns and behaviors with other people and it just is intolerable. My heart truly goes out to you in this.

I think the only things we can do (at least the only things I could do) is teach people how to treat you. They simply will never draw any lines and it seems for this kind of mindset, anything and everything is fair game if they try it and it "worked before" (even once). I feel like the boundaries and limitations must be firmly set and even explicitly pointed out to them, because they clearly don't see the lines they are crossing. I personally am not the best with having "sit downs" and "hard blunt heart to hearts" with grown people (physically at least) and I have these feelings in me that say "they SHOULD know this is NOT ok."

But... I think they simply needdd that really tough love kind of in your face very point blank sirens and flashing lights rules laid out before them, and not just in words. I think it takes absolutely refusing and becoming a person that will not budge when they push before they will stop pushing. Often words mean nothing to people, and they will also fight and complain if we don't move when pushed, but in my experience dealing with the mouthy backlash has been a picnic compared to the continued behaviors. So tolerating some nuisance accusations or people gossiping behind your back things that aren't true tends to be the requirement to set the permanent boundaries that people with this mindset need to view the situation or relationship differently.

With all that said I hope this doesn't make it hard for you to forgive them, even when you have to put your foot down extremely hard. I've had a lot of injustice done to me and it put some (unwittingly to me previously) bitterness in my heart that God had to forcibly uproot. Since then, I do the hard things needed, but I stay in a position of full forgiveness even when having to tolerate injustice or foolishness or (sometimes) outright childishness. A younger me would get angry about it, but now I just get serious and firmly plant my feet in concrete with tough love.

Some of those things you said really resonated with me, because I've experienced variations from many people, family and not, all my life. It's sheer chaos, and chaos isn't from God. Maybe preaching to them more would discourage them wanting to contact you. lol (sorry, couldn't help but try to add some humor, though it might actually also work)

Praying for you earnestly!

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN said:

This is unlikely. Since it's not cooked.

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It’s a voodoo ritual.

ThatRobGuy said:

As noted by that article you linked:
"but they hold differing opinions of what that phrase means"

2/3 say Churches should keep out of politics.

View attachment 374271

View attachment 374273

So among the that 45% you're referencing, only a quarter of that subset want the "Christian form of Sharia".

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And they are not going to get it, any more than the subset of Muslim immigrants who want the Muslim form of Sharia are going to get it. And no, the call to prayer is not an imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims.

FWIW, the video does not mention the president. Just refusing illegal orders.

sjastro said:

For example this is the level of evidence you should supply.

View attachment 374264​

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At the risk of going off topic, the image on the left would not be the sort of evidence I would wish to use for any purpose. It is labelled as a granite, but its appearance counts against this. Granite is primarily made up of feldspars and quartz. These have low-order interference colours under polarised light and these should dominate the image. Moreover there is no evidence of the twinning one would expect of the plagioclase feldspars and crystal shape is atypical. Micas, an important minor constituent of granites, are also seemingly absent. In contrast several of the crystals have interference colour, shapes and character associated with pyroxenes. This is certainly an igneous rock, but it is not a granite.

Note: it is some decades since I've had occassion to examine rocks in thin section, but petrography was one of my favourite aspects of practical geology. Nevertheless, I considered two alternative explanations that might justify the identification as granite. First, birefringence colours are increased in intensity if the thin section thickness is too great. Against this explanation, a) one does not publish or work with thin sections not prepared to exacting measures and the crystal shapes are abnornal for granite. b)If the micrograph was photographed in uv light then unusual colours might be produced, but in that case the image would be properly identified as taken in that uncommon way.

If the

Servus said:

Some do indeed perfer swift action as opposed to a problem slowly grinding it's why though miles of bureaucracy and red tape.

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If the US was actually attacked or under immanent threat, Congress would do it in a day.

Its these elective wars (the ones Trump fans were so dead set against until Trump changed his tune) that would and should take more scrutiny.

None of it is an excuse to bypass the Constitution tho.

Yarddog said:

Well, we know that they have killed many people, including survivors, which is illegal. They were told by many military men and lawyers that hitting the boats may be illegal. Hopefully, we'll get a court ruling soon.

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That's called (wait for it...) ***LAWFARE*** Because we know the President's actions were certainly legal and moral. We just want to stop him because we hate him.

Servus said:

No one has proven the administration and military involved are guilty of anything either.

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Well, we know that they have killed many people, including survivors, which is illegal. They were told by many military men and lawyers that hitting the boats may be illegal. Hopefully, we'll get a court ruling soon.

Seven years? I guess that's some experience, but nowhere as good as the 20 years that Trump's pardon czar put in for dealing in tons of Colombian cocaine.

Oompa Loompa said:

So Marines in L.A. cannot summarily kill them because the terrorist is in the jurisdiction of law enforcement.

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Ah, I see. If the drug runners are just outside territorial waters then you want them blown up. Summarily executed. But if they're just inside then you don't want them killed. You want them arrested and given due process.

Why don't you just say that you want them all to be killed? Why not come clean and say that? Why do you spend so much time dancing around this? Show some conviction for heaven's sake. Use any excuse you want: they are terrorists. You are at war. They are intentionally killing US citizens. They are trying to destroy your society. Trump wants them all killed.

Who cares whether any excuse is valid? As long as they can be used then you can say anything you want. You can even convince yourself that you're right.

Oompa Loompa said:

Servus said:

No one has proven the administration and military involved are guilty of anything either.

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Okay? Would you like to reread my question and try again? With emphasis on "after WW2."

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Oh, it's a trick question. How many wars have been formally declared since WWII? I'll bet Congress declared them.

BCP1928 said:

I guess you didn't read it

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I did. Eliminate criminals (like you really could) and those who won’t try to come how many does that leave? How many do you want to come here? 800 million?
400 million?