com7fy8 said:

And, yes . . . what about Christian games? I would think that, by now . . . . we have Jesus people who are pretty expert in computer operations.

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That's a good point.
I watched two animated movies made in 3d, and there were really funny, and beautifully made I would say.
There are indeed talented people out there who want to give people entertainment that is proper for Christians, and I appreciate that.

I haven't come across any Christian games, but I'm sure that's because I haven't searched for any.
Doing a quick search...
Several games based on the biblical story of Noah's Ark have been developed across different platforms and formats. One notable title is Noah's Ark, a platform game originally released in 1992 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) by British studio Source Research & Development and published by Konami in Europe.
That sounds interesting.

This one, however, seems too close to the world for me.
Super 3D Noah's Ark, is a non-violent Christian first-person shooter developed by Wisdom Tree and released for the Super NES in 1994 and MS-DOS in 1995. It uses the Wolfenstein 3D engine but replaces combat with a slingshot that shoots food to knock out animals like goats and elephants.

Yes. With AI, it's possible to have your characters and props exactly how you want them, even without artist skills.

NxNW said:

Looks like they were surrendering.
View attachment 374095

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Love AI of hate AI - here is the truth behind this picture:

This image shows suspected drug smugglers surrendering aboard their boat in the Pacific Ocean on June 19, 2012.
The engines of their fleeing boat were disabled by a U.S. Coast Guard gunner firing from a helicopter, after which the individuals raised their hands in the air. The photo was released by the U.S. Navy and the incident has been a subject of discussion regarding the rules of engagement for such interdictions.

Wrong year - wrong decade - wrong body of water and wrong military force.

How embarrassing

BobRyan said:

I was not even expecting LCMS, WELS and ELS. IN any case I don't mind multiple AI platforms returning consistent results for the same query.

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Indeed, but you’re not getting consistent results on a single platform - chatGPT (which you did indicate in your initial post you were using). I’ve executed exactly the prompt you told me to, and as you can see, your denomination is absent. And since the results diverged, that rather conclusively proves my point.

What is more, insofar as you admitted you were modifying your questions to try to get consistent results on different platforms, that by itself demonstrates my point: AI is an unqualified authority. The fact that minor changes in wording produce different results for different users demonstrates the fallacy of appealing to AI as an authority, and its uselessness in answering questions involving statistics based on disputed terms (consider: there are divergent sets of statistics, the meaning of denomination and administration is disputed, the meaning of Sola Scriptura is disputed - chatGPT 5.1 specifically excluded the SDA from its results when I ran it on the basis of it deeming, in the moment, your church as not Sola Scriptura) should be a massive red flag.

So, given all this, do you still intend to regard AI as a qualified authority or will you accept that appeals to LLMs are appeals to unqualified authority, at least outside of certain narrow problem domains (which I defined clearly, basically, LLMs are reliable only at solving pattern recognition problems uncontroversial parameters).

Awake my soul & siiiiiiiing of him who died for theeeeeeeee

Oompa Loompa said:

No, because that person would be under the jurisdiction of law enforcement, not the military.

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Oh, no. You don't get out of it that easily. You are classing those who deal in drugs as terrorists. The police and the FBI would deal with them on US soil. And they are entitled to use deadly force against terrorists. So the questions still stand.

Do you account for the age of the terrorist? Does it matter what he or she is dealing? Is the amount relevant? Can the police or the FBI kill them up as they transport the drugs? If the police or the FBI or the airforce down a plane or blow up a truck, can they kill any survivors? Is collateral damage acceptable? What if the National Guard is involved? What if Trump involves Marines in a US city?

Using strict rules, identify the largest Trinitarian Christian denominations that (1) claim Scripture is sufficient to test all doctrine, (2) possess a single global administrative authority, (3) maintain one unified set of binding official doctrines for all members, and (4) contain no doctrtinally autonomous subgroups within their membership

Resulted in this just now

==========================================
AI said

The largest Trinitarian Christian denomination that meets all four of the specified strict criteria (as refined in the previous interaction regarding doctrinal autonomy) is the
Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church.

Here is how the SDA Church meets each of the refined strict rules:

• 1. Claim Scripture is sufficient to test all doctrine: The SDA Church officially states that the Bible is the supreme standard and the sole foundation of its beliefs.
• 2. Possess a single global administrative authority: The Church operates under a hierarchical structure with the General Conference serving as the highest global administrative authority, ensuring worldwide coordination and governance.
• 3. Maintain one unified set of binding official doctrines for all members: The 28 Fundamental Beliefs constitute a globally binding set of official doctrines for all members, approved by the General Conference in session.
• 4. Contain no doctrinally autonomous subgroups within their membership: The denomination's policies ensure doctrinal unity; rejecting the fundamental beliefs is grounds for disfellowship, meaning any groups with differing doctrines are outside the official membership of the denomination.

While other large global denominations exist (such as the Roman Catholic Church), they fail at least one of these criteria, primarily the first (regarding the sufficiency of Scripture alone) or the fourth (due to varying internal practices or historical schisms not related to formal disfellowship rules).

rjs330 said:

Its not. You don't live here so you have no idea.

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Oh but you know what life is like in Europe, eh?

Remember when people apologized for incivility?

essentialsaltes said:

Trump hates 60 Minutes, but he just had to tune in to see his jilted ex-whatever on the show.

View attachment 374228

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Say… I think I’m starting to get the appeal with this guy.

What other prominent right wingers can we get him to go after like this?

There are textual variants in the numbers in Genesis 5, and 11. MT gives 4000 BC LXX gives 5500 BC. Gospel of Nicodemus which internally is written pre 70 AD in the preface, and in the main body of the text has a prophecy of 70 AD related phenomena which means it is inspired apocrypha for the wise only makes it clear the original numbers are 5500 BC. It quotes a prophecy from Michael the angel to Seth, Adams son about God about sending the word (John 1) in 5500 years to save Adam, and anoint him with the oil from the tree of life which Adam wanted to do himself but God did not let him ( in Genesis God puts the angel to stop them getting back into the garden or to the tree of life). Gospel of Nic is quoting the life of Adam, and Eve, as some manuscripts of that say it was written by Moses (there is no internal date of authorship or claim to authorship of that text) so I believe it was, and is inspired. Gospel of Nic says the Israelites first century pre 70 AD understood the messiah would come 5500 years from creation based on the dimensions of the ark of the covenant being 2.5 by 1.5 by 1.5 (Exodus 25:10) which adds up to 5.5 (thousand years), and those numbers in Exodus are the same in all hand written manuscripts of the OT- MT, LXX, SP, DSS, Peshitta so one can have confidence it is correct. In Gospel of Nic Jesus descends into "hell" (there is no fire in the section he is in), and Adam, and other OT people have been waiting in the shadow of death for him there for a long time, then he takes them to paradise. The normal NT hints at some interesting things happening in the 3 days Jesus was dead

1 Peter 4:6 (ESV)​

“For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead,
that though judged in the flesh the way people are,
they might live in the spirit the way God does.”

1 Peter 3:18–20 (ESV)​

“Christ… being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,
because they formerly did not obey,
when God's patience waited in the days of Noah…”

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Gospel of Nic does not have Jesus preaching to people just saving the righteous OT people waiting for him. Gospel of Nic is at the start has letter to Tiberius from Pilate, and then the second section is Jesus descent into hell. Gospel of Nic also references 2 Esdras ( internal date 557-457 BC) about a 70 book bible the first book of which was the life of Adam, and Eve. 2 Esdras explains the Babylonians destroyed the bible so Ezra had to re write it, and he wrote 94 books 24 for the common people, and 70 for the wise only. This would of been things like 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Test of the 12, Life of Adam, and Eve, Testament of Job, and others. For the NT the inspired hidden (apocrypha) books for the wise only written pre 70 are Gospel of Nic, History of Joseph the Carpenter, Proto James, and some others.

BobRyan said:

First question to AI:

Using strict rules, “Is there any NT text that calls for weekly Sunday worship, or is the only explicit weekly pattern that of Sabbath preaching in Acts 18:4?”​

(AI confirms that there is no command to observe week-day-1 as a day of worshiip/rest etc)

Second Question to AI

Using strict rules, Given that we see not one new testament text saying that Sunday is the Lord’s day and not one text saying that the New Testament church met very Sunday for communion or for worship and not one statement that the term Sabbath is applied to Sunday, how do we get to the point today where the common view is that the new testament says Sunday is the Lord's day, they met every Sunday for gospel preaching and worship. ?​

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Honestly, this whole argument assumes the NT was supposed to give us a new version of Leviticus. It doesn’t. There’s no command for Sunday, yeah—but there’s also no command for Christians to keep the Sabbath as a covenant sign either. The NT just doesn’t legislate worship-day rules at all.

Acts 18:4 isn’t Christians “keeping Sabbath”—it’s Paul preaching to Jews in a synagogue. If we turn Acts’ descriptions into commands, then we also need to meet daily, sell everything, and preach till midnight.

“Lord’s Day” isn’t defined in the NT, but the earliest Christians (1st/2nd century) consistently used it for Sunday, not Saturday. That’s long before Rome had institutional power, so the “Catholic Church invented Sunday” narrative isn’t historically accurate.

Bottom line: the NT emphasizes freedom of days (Rom 14:5) and the passing of Sinai’s covenant markers (Col 2:16–17). It tells Christians to gather, not which day they must gather.

So pointing out “there’s no Sunday command” doesn’t prove Sabbath is binding, it just proves the NT isn’t a rulebook for weekly holy days.

The Barbarian said:

So Biden was right, yet again.

Yep. No "humanitarian crisis." No "overwhelmed capacities."
Biden was right, yet again.

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Again you cite the EO he issued after 3 and a half years of telling us it was out of his reach.
It lowered crossings by 40% it was just 3 and a half years too late.
The border was a disaster under Biden, everyone has seen the videos and read the statistics.
To claim otherwise is delusional

GoldenBoy89 said:

I just find constantly playing devil's advocate and seeing people's real problems as purely hypothetical exercises in logic to be getting very tiresome. You don't have to try and rationalize everything this administration does, you know.

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On topics where I disagree with the Administration, I push back quite hard with the same approach...but those topics on here are few and far between. I went hard on the anti-vaxxers during covid, I've pushed back on climate change denialism in the past. When Israel funding comes up, I criticize that... I'd be more in-line with the left on matters of campaign finance reform, and drug policy. Rewind a decade when gay marriage was the hot topic, I sided with the left on that.

Those topics don't pop up as much anymore

The thread content is heavily saturated with the topics of immigration and DEI related stuff as of late. I can't help it that 75% of the threads that come up happen to fall into the handful of topics where I have some overlap with the conservatives.

Jan001 said:

I had not considered your interpretation of these verses. Thank you for sharing your viewpoint.

I have always believed it was Paul. I think he was privileged to participate in a vision, and that he received revelations personally from Jesus Christ. These revelations were given to him because of his calling, and not because of anything he did to deserve them.

2 Corinthians 1-10
I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. 5 On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6 Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. 7 And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. 8 Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; 9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

We know that Paul received his instructions personally from Jesus Christ. He received them because he was called to preach to the Gentiles before he was born!

Galatians 1:11-17
For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man’s gospel. 12 For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it; 14 and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, 16 was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus.

It seems to me that Paul did not know if he received this revelation while he was bodily on earth or if he received it by actually bodily entering into heaven. It overwhelmed his senses.

Since only the pure of heart can literally enter into heaven after death, my guess is that Paul participated in a vison of the third heaven while he was still physically on earth. Matthew 5:8

The apostles, Peter, James, and John, participated in a heavenly vision with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Matthew 17:1-4

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Yes I believe it was Paul now, and can not be referring to someone else.
Claudius was known to kick people out (Acts 18 2), and exile people (Slavonic Josephus). Nero was known to kill people. One of those churches in Revelation (the rich one) was hit with a big earthquake 60 AD although they recovered by their own finances without need of government aid (Tacitus), and they would of rebuilt quickly by the sound of it. I want to date Revelation as early as possible because chapter 1-12 was about to come on the whole world (of first century Israel- Judea, Samaria, Galilee although mainly Judea), and those first Christians needed time to read the book, and understand ch 1-12 was about them. So I believe it was written 41-49 AD. Nero is too late I feel.

Hans Blaster said:

Steve, I know that you are a middle-aged Australian. But if I didn't, I would be forced to conclude that you were a 19-year-old homeschooled MAGA Trump superfan who went 5 years ago to the Capitol riot with his father (who stopped watching Fox News because it was "too woke" after firing Tucker Carlson) and is now aggrieved that his boss at the Piggly Wiggly won't let him wear his red MAGA cap while bagging groceries and who only recently learned that throughout his primary (home) schooling Pres. Obama had been ordering drone strikes in Afghanistan.

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Not only is your idea of me warped but your idea and steroetypes of Trump supporters is also twisted and strange. My info and view comes from expert analysis and not MAGA.

Hans Blaster said:

Even the most ardent American Trump defender here (and I have tangled with them all) have a far better awareness than you do and are not nearly so into the "deranged level of bias" (to quote you immediately below this) that you are. They have a lot better idea what America is like.

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I disagree because I am basing this off the politicians and expert political commentators. How is it deranged when its truth lol.

Hans Blaster said:

They know our history a lot better. They experienced the news coverage of strikes under earlier presidents.

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They are the ones who said it lol. Where do you think I got this. I have also been following this for years. I actually got caught in the first Iraqi war in Kwait. I think you underestimate my knowledge and experience.

Hans Blaster said:

They've watched the "drug war" for decades. They had to decide who to support in the 2016 election that first brought Trjmp to power. And I think more importantly, they know which of the conservative media and political figures who are concerned by these events have backed Trump in the past. (Even I don't know that one all that well.)

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But I do so I am more informed than you.

Hans Blaster said:

In the last few days (including since the post I am responding to) you have invoked "Russiagate", "Epstein", Trump's legal issues, "FBI investigations in to GOP members of Congress", Larry Summers, "Bill Clinton and Epstein", Soros, Fraud in minnesota, the "deplorables" comment, and so on and so forth with the MSM and leftists and "anti-Christian bias".

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Which is real.

Hans Blaster said:

(The last I can only assume is because some of us arguing with you or against the strikes are non-Christians.)

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There you go. You jump into my posts and don't even know what your complaining about. It was in response to the one sided moral claims about the Narco boats.

I used those examples to show how they are bias and have no moral ground. You don;t need to know a detailed history of American politics or Trump to know this as its quite plain to see. Even the Australian commentators say the same.

Hans Blaster said:

None of this has a single thing to do with this CURRENT EVENTS topic. At this point, I can only conclude that the concept of "on topic" is incomprehensible to you.

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They do when people are making bias moral claims. The perfect rebuff is to show how they have no moral ground to stand on and they have allowed the same and it was quite ok then. But not now because its Trump.

I don’t like politicizing my savior. Right or left, I don’t care. It just feels so, so wrong. IMO

essentialsaltes said:

Judge to address how he'll proceed with contempt inquiry into AEA deportations​

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, in a hearing Wednesday, is set to address how he will proceed with the early stages of contempt proceedings into whether Trump administration officials violated a court order by deporting hundreds of men to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act in March.

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Judge orders top DOJ attorney to testify about Alien Enemies Act deportations​

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered Drew Ensign -- Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Immigration Litigation of the Civil Division -- to testify during a hearing on Dec. 16.

He also ordered testimony on Dec. 15 from Erez Reuveni, a former DOJ attorney who alleged the Trump administration evaded court orders.

He wrote that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's brief sworn declaration recently submitted in the case did "not provide enough information for the Court to determine whether her decision was a willful violation of the Court's Order."

prodromos said:

Only in your febrile imagination.

In other words, you have no response. You recognise that the flights cannot be rationalised with the only flat earth map that has ever been presented, so you have to create some fantasy map that you imagine you might (some day, which will never come) be able to work with. It seems you have not even begun to plumb the depths of your delusion.

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I am under no obligation to take into account what you consider an accurate flat earth map or not.

On Friday, when the earliest hints of Episode 38 happened, I was going to post some images from last week's exploration of the impacts, but I thought to myself "I'll do it tomorrow". Well, the volcano had other ideas and put on quite a show on Saturday.

I liked this photo from the Dec 2nd overflight. It shows a small flow of lava above the crater from spatter landing on above the rim on Oct 1st (shutdown, day 1)




Full set:

Bro.T said:

Ample evidence from history shows that the celebration of Sunday originated from pagan practices of SUN WORSHIP. In March of 321 A.D., the Roman Emperor Constantine, who was at first a sun-worshiper and later a Christian convert, issued the first decree declaring Sunday to be a legal day of rest. In 336 A.D., the Roman Catholic Church officially changed the observance of Sabbath to Sunday for political and economic expediency. Since then, the original Sabbath gradually gave way to Sunday observance and the practice remains to this day.

The Catholic authorities proclaim: "The Bible says, 'Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.' The Catholic Church says, No! By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day, and command you to keep the first day of the week. And lo, the entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church!" Father Enright, C.S.S.R. of the Redemptoral College, Kansas City, Mo., as taken from History of the Sabbath. pg. 802

The Biblical Sabbath, however, is and has always been on the seventh day of the week, or Saturday. Despite the prevalence of Sunday worship in Christendom, we must look to the Bible as our authority and keep the seventh day Sabbath ordained by God.

So now you will prove to me out of the Bible that keeping the 1st day of the week Sunday, is now a Commandment!!

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No historical evidence exists to prove your conspiracy theory. It’s all in your head. The early church began keeping the Lords day in remembrance of Jesus resurrection from the very beginning of the church. Only the legalists and the unbelieving Jews continued to keep the law.

The legalists use the law to instill fear on their adherents which invalidates the saving grace of Jesus redemptive sacrifice.

Paul teaches about the newly converted Jews who started preaching a different gospel by insisting that Christian had yo keep the law. This was an argument that Paul fought in the early churches.

“I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel, which is not just another account; but there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

These verses talk of his visit to Jerusalem depicted in Acts 21 where he almost lost his life even though he only preached the true gospel to those that were if reputation (leaders of the church including James. He ended up running indeed because the legalists wanted to kill him for preaching grace instead of the law.


“Then after an interval of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also. It was because of a revelation that I went up; and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but I did so in private to those who were of reputation, for fear that somehow I might be running, or had run, in vain. But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

The law that you preach does not justify and never will justify anyone. You preach gospel of works of the law. Cephas and Peter were being swayed by the legalists and were embarrassed of preaching the gospel of good news to the Jews.

“But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of some men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and separate himself, fearing those from the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? “We are Jews by nature and not sinners from the Gentiles; nevertheless, knowing that a person is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law; since by works of the Law no flesh will be justified.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭2‬:‭11‬-‭16‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬


Like Paul you need to die to the law so that you might live for God. The law that you promoted will never declare the Christian righteous (justification), therefore your promotion of the law renders Christ sacrifice worthless. Think about that for a bit as you condemn all Christians that do not follow your law. Your condemnation means nothing.

“For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.””
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭2‬:‭19‬-‭21‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

BPPLEE said:

If this is a duty to retreat state the jury really screwed up on this one

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From the article I linked earlier, they don't have a "stand your ground" law like some of the more gun-friendly states do.

However, even if a state has no duty to retreat, this still wouldn't apply since he was the one who moved in on the other guy. If you're actually afraid of an unarmed person (in an open-air environment with ample opportunity to exit the situation), typically you don't move 20-feet toward them in an attempt to "trade a weapon for cigarettes", and then calmly walk away after stabbing them in the shoulder.


I think people have been tripping over themselves to grasp at any straws they can to create some sort of benefit of doubt for a jury making a clearly poor (perhaps ideologically motivated) decision on this one.