Hoping2 said:

"Water" doesn't need to be in the Greek text.
There was no other way to get baptized, besides with with water.
It is what John used, unto repentance, (and remission of sins).
Nothing changed between John's and Peter's baptisms, other than using Jesus' name during the rite.

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White Supremacist Group Patriot Front Claims It’s ‘Prioritizing’ ‘European Peoples’ After ‘Inserting Itself Into’ Texas Disaster Relief Efforts​

Hazelelponi said:

Fervent,

I understand your analogy is meant to expose what you see as a flaw in Calvinism, but what it actually does is flatten and misrepresent both God’s holiness and His grace. And in doing so, it trades the beauty of the gospel for something unrecognizably distorted.

The analogy of an arsonist setting a fire just to rescue people for personal glory is deeply flawed—because it assumes that mankind was neutral, innocent, or undeserving of judgment in the first place. That is not the biblical story.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
“There is none righteous, no, not one… there is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10, 18)

The fall of Adam was not a neutral event—it was the willful rebellion of man against a holy God. And every one of us, by nature, has followed in that rebellion. The house was already in flames. The arsonist wasn’t God. The match was in our hands.

So what does God do? He sends Christ into the fire—not to gloat in rescue, but to be consumed in our place. The cross is not the act of a manipulative deity—it is the self-giving love of a holy and merciful God, saving people who deserve nothing but wrath, by taking that wrath upon Himself.

You said this view of God dishonors Him. But if God were not sovereign over sin—even its allowance—then evil would exist outside His control. And a God who isn’t sovereign isn’t trustworthy. The very promise that God can work all things for good (Rom. 8:28) requires that He governs all things—even the darkest ones.

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)

God didn't create sin—but He did ordain a world in which sin would be defeated by the greater display of grace and glory in Christ. That doesn’t make Him guilty. It makes Him God.

“He has mercy on whom He wills, and He hardens whom He wills... But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” (Romans 9:18–20)

You may feel this doctrine of sovereign election is uncomfortable—but that discomfort doesn’t disprove it. Many found Jesus’ teaching hard. They walked away when He said, “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (John 6:65–66)

But I would rather embrace a hard truth that humbles me than a soft lie that elevates man and limits God.

In the end, Calvinism doesn’t make God an “arsonist.” It proclaims Him as the Holy One who entered the fire Himself to redeem a people for His name.

“For our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:29)

And if He has set His love on anyone, it is not because they deserved it—but because He is love.

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The Liturgist said:

That’s true, and I appreciate your desire to avoid the excesses that I urge members to avoid. That being said, some debate and criticism is legitimate, although one could also say it is strictly speaking off-topic for this thread, which you have observed, and which I again greatly appreciate.

I do also appreciate the very friendly manner in which you and @chevyontheriver have engaged in this thread, which in my view exemplifies how we should try to interact in this manner; I am not a fan of the Wesleyan remark of “agreeing to disagree” as I see it as being Pietistic and anti-doctrinal, representing the normalization of schism or the normalization of the minimization of doctrine (and Wesley, for all his good, did experience pietist influences, chiefly from the Moravians, as well as the influence of the similiar Latitudinarian movement within Anglicanism).

But without agreeing to disagree we can still agree to a dialectical model that is cordial, that refrains from logical fallacies or gross historical inaccuracies, such as the alternate histories of the early church proposed by some Restorationist denominations and also by the Landmark Baptists and those influenced by them*


*On the other hand, some skepticism of the generally accepted Patristic narrative such as evinced by your own beliefs is obviously something that can be accepted, particularly since some hagiographic texts are known to contain inaccuracies or accidental confusions, for example, the Copts regard the Ethiopian synaxarion to be more reliable than their own, for their own synaxarion confuses Eusebius of Caesarea with Eusebius of Nicomedia with regards to the incident surrounding the death of Arius, which is embarassing since the Syriac Orthodox, the historical main communion partner of the Copts, venerate Eusebius as a saint with the feast day of February 29th, which in the Byzantine Rite is the feast day of St. John Cassian interestingly (and for saints with their feast on the 29th of February there are rubrics for what to do when it is not a leap year at least in the case of St. John Cassian), but completely discarding it and instead, without any archaeological or historical textual evidence to support it, claiming that certain ancient heretical sects such as the Paulicans, Bogomils, Marcionites, etc were anachronistic proto-Protestants, when all historical evidence suggests that most Protestants including all confessional Lutherans, confessional Calvinists and creedal Anglicans would find their doctrines utterly abhorrent, is something else.

Indeed among the Orthodox and Catholics committed to a Patristic theological model of the church, an accurate historical record and critical editions of the Patristic corpus and of liturgical texts such as the Divine Liturgy of St. James (the Byzantine version of which until recently lacked a good, robust translation free from speculative interpolations from a 19th century Greek translator, but ROCOR has provided a really good translation in English and Church Slavonic that also avoids weirdness like celebrating the liturgy versus populum on a makeshift altar in front of the Iconostasis being deleted, for this kind of thing confuses the laity and is not actually called for by the ancient rubrics, and is further anachronistic in that historically there was a templon or curtain and the Bema of the Armenian and Assyrian churches, but the full iconostasis as seen in contemporary Byzantine, Coptic and some Syriac churches took a while to develop from early proto-iconostases). Thus we want to make sure our historical record is accurate, even though we do accept many events which I believe you have expressed a view of as being incredible.

But in general, your conduct has been that of a responsible debater, who has never caused any of the harm I alluded to in the OP.

Recently in another thread also where you and my friend @BNR32FAN and our mutual friend @Xeno.of.athens have been present the three of us shared the unpleasant experience of encountering what one might call a “trackless trolley” minus the “ey”, by which I am not referring to a trolleybus, but rather one dewired in an altogether different way and in a manner than what sometimes happens to busses powered by overhead electric cables such as one finds in San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Dayton, and until recently also in Boston.

Which takes me to another point - these overly intense theological debates create enmity which prevents us from discussing other fun subjects like, for example, mass transit systems, which i absolutely adore. I would love to discuss mass transit for hours with any member of the forum who is interested in the subject. When I was in my youth I persuaded my parents to obtain for me, at great expense, a copy of Jane’s Urban Transport Systems (then in one of its earliest editions as a standalone apart from Jane’s World Railways) and i recall reading breathlessly about the different transit systems in Tashkent, Torino and Toronto and in Dalian, Delhi and Dortmund, and the different manufacturers, particularly of monorails, peoplemovers, hovertrains (like the Otis peoplemovers used to access the Getty center in Los Angeles, which ride on a cushion of air, or the even more aggressive Aeromovel of Brazil, and of course full-fledged maglevs such as the Transrapid in Shanghai which sadly I did not get the chance to ride on before its maximum speed was decreased from 256 MPH to 186 MPH) and the new Shinkansen maglev being developed of necessity in Japan due to overcrowding on a portion of the original conventional Shinkansen line, and other specialized high tech transit systems (but not hyperloop, which has been overdiscussed, and is also, as Elon Musk may have conceded by calling the related company he established The Boring Company, kind of literally boring, and as exciting as Tunnel Boring Machines are to some, I am not an enthusiast, since they engage in too much boring for me, although I do appreciate the fruits of their boring).

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Say it aint so said:

Why Kerr County balked on a new flood warning system​

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Kerr County did not opt for (American Rescue Plan Act) ARPA to fund flood warning systems despite commissioners discussing such projects nearly two dozen times since 2016. In fact, a survey sent to residents about ARPA spending showed that 42% of the 180 responses wanted to reject the $10 million bonus altogether, largely on political grounds.​

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“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.​

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“We don't want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We'd like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.”​

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Even Kelly, the Kerr County judge remarked that this “old law partner” – U.S. Sen. John Cornyn – had told him that if the county did not spend the money it would go back to blue states.​

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The hatred for anything brought to you by Dems is intolerable, and well, what's that quote from Forrest Gump's Mom?

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The Liturgist said:

The result is a horrible waste of compute resources, and as a paying customer of OpenAI I find it deeply frustrating that my money is in some respects being used to subsidize such experimentation by non-paying users.

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rjs330 said:

Yes that's correct. Thats what laws do. If you dont like it, get the law changed. Just because youve been breaking the law for 30 years doesn't mean it no longer applies to you. Why wouldn't it?

If ive been stealing for 30 years and I finally get caught, I should just be let go?

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rjs330 said:

I dont believe thats how class action suits are supposed to work.

Several conservatives, including Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, warned against courts using class-action litigation to essentially supplant the kind of nationwide injunction the court had just shot down.

“Lax enforcement of the requirements” for certifying a class, Alito wrote in an opinion joined by Thomas, “would create a potentially significant loophole to today’s decision.”

Federal courts, he added, “should thus be vigilant against such potential abuses of these tools.”

Whether Laplante’s decision is an “abuse” or exactly what the Supreme Court had in mind will likely wind up back before the justices in short order.

A class action begins when lead plaintiffs file a complaint in court on behalf of a larger group. This document outlines the facts, names the defendant, defines the proposed class, and details the legal claims. This filing pauses the statute of limitations, or the legal deadline for filing a claim, for all potential class members.

Following the initial filing, the plaintiffs’ attorneys file a motion for class certification. The defendant has the opportunity to oppose this motion, leading to a hearing where both sides present arguments. The judge then issues an order either granting or denying certification.

If the class is certified, a formal notice is sent to all potential class members explaining the lawsuit and their rights. The case then proceeds through discovery, where both sides exchange evidence, and moves toward either a settlement or a trial.

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Pommer said:

There’s an infamous atheist trope that goes “I just believe in one less god than you” when addressing a monotheist of any stripe.
So, “no”.

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Landon Caeli said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the left actually did try running with that.

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Rose_bud said:

I can see how that is especially given the value in pedagogical contexts. But I also prefer to engage with commentaries after forming my own thoughts, as it enables a more meaningful and critical interaction. It allows me to evaluate others insights more discerningly, and to appreciate where our perspectives converge and diverge and why.

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Rose_bud said:

I haven't read, this one by Scott McKnight, and will add to the list. But looking at the preview it seems he prefers reading the book from the application prior to the more doctrinal passages. An interesting approach.

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Rose_bud said:

Presuppositions can be helpful, but yes important to be aware of them, as well as our biases.

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Rose_bud said:

I was thinking more the OT narratives in the general sense and, that the original audience is known-Israel, their stories, their history. I understand your concern about beginning with genre and reading it in, but I think knowing the genre can equally help to uncover the intended meaning and avoid misinterpretation. More than anything it's a lot more easier to identify as a whole and on first inspection.

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Rose_bud said:

Yes, that does support that post is more plausible.

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Rose_bud said:

There is always hope.

Agreed.

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Gnarwhal said:

Since you're well armed with articles and the history of the practice, I assume you've read Fr John Dreher's 1997 article objecting to the practice called The Dangers of Centering Prayer? He goes into the background of the Trappist monastery where the practice originated, noting that they hosted speakers and retreat leaders from various eastern faiths quite often which seemed to have a strong influence the way it did over Thomas Merton.

I find I agree with Fr Dreher if for no other reason than to err on the side of caution.

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Tuur said:

Floodplains are a bit of a misnomer since it's in a small valley-like terrain. Contour lines there are at 20 foot intervals. Not the greatest interval distance in the US, but more than the flatland 10 foot interval. (the steeper the terrain, the greater the interval, to prevent having so many contour lines close together as to make a topo map hard to read). Determining elevation between contour marks is chancy. Sometimes, like at the summit of a hill, the USGS notes an elevation.

If the flood maps themselves are a fault, then that's a news story. But from the cited article, it notes the buildings in question were in areas shown as subject to flooding, but the buildings themselves weren't shown on the maps.

Let's see...

Here's a quote from the article:

If the buildings were in the floodway, that means the potential for flooding at that location was noted on the maps. If the area inundated was greater than shown in the FEMA maps, then that's the the story, not the buildings. But harping on buildings not shown on the maps if the ground where they were built is shown subject to flooding isn't anything more than spin. It's why I've come to refer to "news" as propaganda.

Note: Am looking at what could be Camp Mystic on both the FEMA maps and the National Map. The problem is this only lets me look at the terrain and flood potential, not the area that was actually flooded.

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two tribes in Asia and Europe, subject to the Romans: while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now; and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers.
S.: Antiquities of the Jews - Book XI Chapter 5

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Pommer said:

Okay then let us rehash the discussion.

All agree that this woman went to the ER with a medical condition that gave pause to medical staff as to how best to proceed and after a few hours delay, the woman got the care that she needed.

What else was there to discuss?

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