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  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

Elijah Comes First

(in the case of the Theotokos, her repose helped prove the reality of the human nature of her Son; had she been assumed without dying, as a minority of Roman Catholics believe (I’m pretty sure its a minority; my beloved Roman Catholic friends @chevyontheriver and @Xeno.of.athens might be able to clarify that), it could have created a cause for Docetists to promote the heresy denying the full humanity of Christ our God, which was the most common heresy until the fourth century when, following in the direction of Paul of Samosata, the first Unitarian, and so corrupt the Romans arrested him for embezzling from the church in the only instance where Christians were assisted by the Roman Empire before the Edict of Milan in 314 AD under St. Constantine, Arius established a large sect denying the deity of Christ, whose errors are still felt in various cults like the J/Ws, Unitarian Unversalists and others.
There is no compulsion from the teaching Church to believe that she died before being assumed or did not die first. For the time being we are free to believe either position and not free to condemn the other position. Myself, I leave it an open question. Kind of like whether GNU HURD will ever be finished.

Anyway, I await the return of Elijah, and am beginning to hope it is soon.
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Trump strikes friendly tone with NYC Mayor-elect Mamdani in Oval Office: 'We agreed a lot'

No, it's not. That's propaganda and delusion. According to YOU, police are socialist.
I did not say that. That providing a socialist program, like police, public school, etc.. does not make police, teachers, etc... Socialist. The US has always been a mixture of socialism and capitalism.

We have a Capitalist economy and are a Constitutional Republic and we provide social programs for the good of the people.

All governments have various degrees of democracy, authoritarian, communistic, socialistic, fascist.

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Notre Dame drops ‘acceptance and support for Catholic mission’ from staff values

Notre Dame took out the 'Catholic Mission' part of their mission statement. And people took note and objected. So they put it back in.

But not so fast. They took one thing out and put something else in.

Old: “Leadership in Mission: Understands, accepts, and supports the Catholic mission of the university and fosters values consistent with that mission.”

New: “Catholic Mission: Be a force for good and help to advance Notre Dame’s mission to be the leading global Catholic research university.”

Does anyone see the difference? And is the difference for the better, or for the worse? I think Fr. Edward Sorin of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, the founder of Notre Dame would not be happy about it. But then a mission statement usually only reflects the underlying ethos of a place and the ethos of Notre Dame isn't what it was.
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Quartodecimanism: Myths and Facts

Quartodecimanism: Myths and Facts

Myth: Those second-century Christians who ended the Paschal fast on 14 Nisan were called "Quartodecimans".
Fact: The word "quartodeciman" is not reliably attested until after the council of Nicea. It was never applied in the second century to those who ended the Paschal fast on 14 Nisan.

Myth: The second-century Christians who ended the Paschal fast on 14 Nisan celebrated Easter on the night of 14/15 Nisan.
Fact: They may have, but they may instead have celebrated on the night of 13/14 Nisan. This is the date when, according to the Gospel of John (John 18.28) Jesus ate the last supper with his disciples. Polycrates, in his letter to the Roman bishop Victor, wrote that "my family have always kept the day when the people [i.e. Jewish people] put away the leaven." The removal of the leaven, according to the nearly-contemporary Mishnah, begins on the night of 13 Nisan. (Mishnah Pesachim 1).

Myth: Victor tried to excommunicate the churches in the Roman Province of Asia.
Fact: Eusebius's account is anachronistic. We can read between the lines of Eusebius's account by examining the letter that Irenaeus wrote to Victor, which Eusebius quotes: "Never was this [difference in practice] made a ground for repulsing anyone, but the presbyters before you, even though they did not keep it, used to send the Eucharist to Christians from dioceses which did." So what Victor actually did was refuse to send the _fermentum_ to the Asian stranger-churches in Rome, not attempt to excommunicate the churches in Asia.

Myth: The Nisan-14 practice was the practice deprecated at the Council of Nicea.
Fact: The controversy at Nicea was between two schools of Sunday observance: Christians who might be called "Jewish calendarists" (and who were in later years called "Protopaschites") who wanted to celebrate Easter on the Sunday falling in the Jewish week of Unleavened Bread, even if that meant that the festival would fall before the spring equinox; and "Independent calendarists" who wanted to calculate their own month of Nisan and set the Easter festival to the third Sunday in that independently-calculated month of Nisan, so that the festival would always fall after the spring equinox. The "independent calendarists" carried the day. But the decision was controversial, with some Christians refusing to abide by it. One scholar has proposed that the Nisan-14 custom, moribound in the early 4th century, was revived in the later 4th century by Christians protesting against the Nicene decision, and who had read about the practice in Eusebius's book.

Myth: The controversy over the Nisan-14 practice was between the Eastern churches and the Western churches.
Fact: The Nisan-14 practice was confined to the Roman Province of Asia. All the other churches in the world, according to Eusebius, kept Easter on Sunday.

Myth: Those who kept the Nisan-14 practice were Torah-keepers.
Fact: The Evangelist Matthew's community were Torah-keepers, but there is no evidence connecting them to the Roman Province of Asia. The community in which the _Didache_ was written were partial Torah-keepers ("If you can shoulder the Lord's yoke in its entirety, then you will be perfect; but if that is too much for you, do as much as you can." But again there is no evidence linking them to Asia. The Nisan-14 assembly as it is known to us from Melito of Sardis's _Peri Pascha_ shows no evidence of Torah-keeping. Indeed, _Peri Pascha_ is partly Jew-hating.
John 18:28 does not prove that Jesus ate the Passover meal on the night of the 13th/14th. But rather just the opposite. Nine times in the NT it confers the notion that Jesus ate the PASSOVER meal with his disciples on the same night that he was betrayed. John 18:28 in fact confirms that it was the scripturally mandated time to eat the PASSOVER on the 14th day of the month at evening when all of it was to be consumed before the dawn of the next day.

The events of John 18 actually records (in one blurred account) of Jesus being brought before Pilate not once but twice. Luke records the third time taking place the third time after having been seen to Herod. The first instance took place before dawn. It was early according to John 18:28. Back to this in a minute. Luke 22:66 says, AS SOON AS IT WAS DAY, Jesus was taken before their council. And then in Luke 23:1 Jesus was taken inside the judgment hall to where Pilate then asks him, "Are you the king of the jews?" Compare that to John 18:33,34 where it is inside the judgment hall [he called for Jesus to be brought to him]. The 1st encounter of Jesus with Pilate was in John 18:29 where Pilate meets with Jesus and his accusers OUTSIDE OF the judgment hall. Thus, on this 1st encounter, The Jews did not go into the judgment hall "so that they might eat the PASSOVER ".

You see the PASSOVER must be eaten before dawn arrives. The dialog between Jesus and Pilate on the subsequent encounters is in the presence of the Jews inside the judgment hall, for Pilate says in Luke 23:14 "I have examined him [who was brought before ME] before you".
WHY was this okay now and but not okay the 1st time? Because it was after daybreak when the restriction about eating the PASSOVER expires at dawn. If the time for eating the Passover had not yet arrived, it would have defiled them to enter into the judgment hall. If they were so conscientious to not defile themselves in the 24 hour period prior to the time, they would have not entered the judgment hall during the daylight hours in which Jesus was brought TO Pilate. But they did. Verifying the time required to eat the Passover... before dawn.
Be blessed
The Pup
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The NEA is pushing far left teaching upon children

yeah....forcing joining clubs I'm not behind.

I've just never worked in a "traditional" office so I have NO idea what that would be like.
One of the benefits of a blue collar job is that you can tell the prissy twits from HR who think up this kind of thing to stuff it.
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JD Vance responds to Pope Leo's comments about immigration policy

True story of mine, that demonstrates the confusion I and my fellow Catholics experienced in real life, at the local food pantry:

1) All food recipients were required to show proof that they lived in the local area, so that we could provide food only to local area residents, due to our limited resources

2) There was a sudden shift in about the year 2022, in which people came to pantry with a passport only and no proof of residence to show that they were from the local area we served

3) People we were trying to help were showing passports from other countries, and had nor proof of local address, such as a ID card or piece of recent mail

4) We were running out of food while people were still in line.

5) We had to cut back on whom we served, although it just really hurt us, as we believe in providing food to those who are hungry. We just could not meet the demands of car loads of people, all with only passports and no other ID, as well as local residents who were hungry.

6) We tried hard at first to serve everyone, but we could not.

What are supposed to do then? I take it that this real life experience is showing that we just pray-fully do what we can, and with much love, until there just simply are no more groceries.
That right there is our immigration dilemma in microcosm. What happens when the hordes of illegals swarm into an area, and absorb everything that the relief system can provide for them, until it runs out? Some people go without, both citizens and illegals. What happens when more and more and more people show up, demanding goodies, and there's simply no more goodies left to give? What then?

Everybody loses.
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Clinton's avoiding deposition

Why is it okay to copy and paste some article from a source that leans left, or right but it's not okay to use AI?
Either way is dialing it in but I don't see anyone complaining about copy and paste jobs as long as a source is given
I will note that I have been critical of both, and for the same reasons. I come to a forum to have a discussion with the users on that forum, not with a large language model or the author of an article who is not present.
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SLOTKIN STUMPED! Senator Admits She's 'Not Aware' of Any 'Illegal' Orders From Trump to Military [WATCH]

I've been reading that a lot of the top military lawyers were let go as part of the Trump purge/consolidation of power.


...But despite the high profile natures of these firings, some analysts have argued that the firings of the military’s top lawyers — its Judge Advocate Generals (JAGs) — poses an even greater threat to the rule of law in the US.
“Trump…firing the Army, Navy, and Air Force JAGs [is in some ways] even more chilling than firing the four star [generals]. It’s what you do when you’re planning to break the law: you get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down,” wrote Georgetown Law Professor Rosa Brooks on X.​
“When you start firing the military’s top lawyers, that means you are getting ready to order the military to do unlawful things. Trump replaces those JAGs with men who will justify any future unlawful and unethical actions that he wants the military to do,” wrote Democratic political candidate and former US fighter pilot Amy McGrath, also via X.​

And more recently - eight months later:

Eight months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Air Force’s top lawyer, the judge advocate general tasked with those duties has stepped down. No one has yet been nominated to permanently fill either of the service’s top legal jobs.​
Maj. Gen. Rebecca Vernon, who had served as deputy Air Force JAG since 2022, became acting JAG after Hegseth’s Feb. 21 announcement that he was firing Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer. Vernon’s last day on the job was Sunday and her retirement date is set for January 1, 2026, Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said.​
...​
The judge advocate general of each military service—TJAG for short—must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. A former Air Force lawyer said the lack of a Senate-confirmed TJAG leaves the branch’s legal officers in limbo.​
“It’s tough to make any long-term plans without that position filled,” the lawyer said. “We’re in the middle of assignment season and the TJAG makes those decisions. There’s a ripple effect throughout the [JAG] Corps that hurts morale, retention, budgets, hiring, and every major policy decision.”​
The services are missing more than their top JAGs: the Pentagon has also been sending lower-level lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges.​
This has raised concerns among legal experts. Margy O’Herron, a senior fellow in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, wrote in September that the administration’s plan will pull JAGs “away from the important work they are trained and assigned to do, risking military readiness.”​
Earlier this year, Hegseth said he fired the Air Force and Army TJAGs because they were "roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.”​

That just doesn't fill me with confidence that the secretary is not and will not issue illegal orders.
That only means the lawyers themselves aren't morally concerned about the legality. But those orders will be couched in legalese to confuse the issue to force the issue to the Supreme Court. We see this in the case of the Venezuelan speed boats. The orders are couched in legalese about the "War on Terror" as already authorized by Congress. But Congress will not pass a resolution to clarify that the White House is outside the intended scope of the War on Terror. The Supreme Court historically refuses to get involved in military operations, and this Court certainly won't.

A soldier is only held accountable for "manifestly illegal" orders, and this is not a "manifestly illegal" order if Congress keeps silent and it has to go to court.
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Former congressional candidate (from out of state) charged with vandalizing Satanic Temple display at Iowa Capitol

Update time.

Mississippi Republican Takes Plea Deal After Destroying Satanic Statue in Iowa

Michael Cassidy, a former congressional and legislative candidate, was set for trial June 3, but his attorney filed a guilty plea on his behalf to an aggravated misdemeanor count of third-degree criminal mischief, the Des Moines Register reported. [felony charges were dropped as part of the deal. He gets 2 years probation and pays restitution.]

Since that 2023 event, Iowa has refused the Satanic Temple's applications to have a holiday event at the Capitol.

State again denies Satanic Temple's request to hold event at Iowa Capitol building

Matt Kezhaya, general counsel for The Satanic Temple, said the government is not alowed to deny pubic services or benefits to people or religous groups because officials disagree with their beliefs.

"Once state officials open up the Capitol to public events, as it has for displays and events around the holidays, they can't legally exclude The Satanic Temple because of its disfavored or minority viewpoint," he said in a statement.

In June, the ACLU of Iowa filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of The Satanic Temple Iowa alleging state officials illegally discriminated against the group based on its members’ religion when they denied the group’s event request in 2024.

[And now they've denied it again for 2025.]
When you fight for freedom, this is the EXACT freedom you fight for.

All these free speech folks who shrug when racist wingnuts spout off certainly will protect this speech as well.
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The Reality of Free Will

Well . . . yes love causes us to do something.

But we do have ability to choose to do something. So, this would mean we have some sort of free will . . . meaning ability to choose.
I know I have the ability to move or not move my finger (I thank God for that). In my thinking, what I desire or intend to do with my fingers is my will, and scripture concurs. Is it free? Do I just make up a will to do something? Perhaps when I'm bored? But I didn't will to be bored. I don't actually will to will when I think about it, and there's always a reason why I reason and that's because I'm alive.

Okay, I have an ability to choose to move my finger. But in the moral/immoral sense, to have a will that equivocates back and forth between obeying God and disobeying God would be doublemindedness. In the dialogue of faith, that's what it looks like.
  • James 1:8: “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
  • James 4:8: “Purify your hearts, ye double minded.”

However, we have how there is "the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience" > in Ephesians 2:2. Satan's spirit is working people to do what they do, I see this means, since his evil spirit "works in" disobedient people. And his spirit has anger, fear, lust, and unforgiveness which were not in Adam and Eve when God created them "very good".
This is the same scripture that informs my reasoning about what makes me will as in lust or covet. It's important to note that the Truth preceded a lie in existence. I'm defining a lie as something false that undermines what is true. The reason this is important is because if we already had a free will walking and abiding in the truth through faith, then the lie that we don't have a free will would make free will a lie. So yes, there is a prince of the power of the air, and that power implies the ability to create desires in the flesh through deception, or vain imaginings which lead to sin. So, in this scenario, what looks like free isn't actually free.
Humans now in sin are not "very good". And so their wills are not in the "very good" state in which humans were first created.

So, their wills are free, meaning they can make choices; however . . . where does the Bible say they work their own wills???? And we have, for children of God >

"for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)

So, I see from this, that God is the One who works in our wills, to get us to do whatsoever is "for His good pleasure". And this would be in His love having us so submit to Him.

So, we might say we have the ability to choose this, but who in us is working us to use this ability the right way? Are we of our own selves freely getting our own selves to submit to God working at every moment . . . or does God change our character so we become submissive to Him in His love?
Exactly. These are the right questions to ask. In the dialect of Faith, God is the Eternal power, and we are dirt. “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” <-- What is this power? --> In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
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Priest facing battery charge after scuffle with woman at donations table

Physical fight ensues after woman told not to take political photos, attempts to take back donations

A Roman Catholic archdiocese has put a priest on administrative leave after he was arrested and accused of assaulting a woman during a donation drive.

The Archdiocese of Miami, Florida, released a statement on Monday in response to the arrest of 72-year-old Father Jesus Saldaña earlier this month.

“Father Jesus Saldana, pastor of St. Kevin’s Catholic Church, was arrested and charged with battery to a visitor stemming from an incident earlier this month in the parish parking lot near a bin collecting items for hurricane relief,” stated the archdiocese.

Continued below.

Eve and the Fallacy of Moral Choices

1 Cor. 15:42-46
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Most scriptures you referenced are taken out of context and are based on your own judgment of mankind - you use those scriptures to support you, not what they truly mean.
It would take too much time to correct all of what you have said, so I will only address this part!

Adam was in a natural body - that’s true. But, his body was not a corrupted body?

1 Corinthians 15:44 KJV
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

Before the fall, Adam had not undergone the change that would have happened if he had eaten from the Tree of Life. The Tree of life would have caused the change from a natural body to a spiritual body. But sin came in and the process from natural to spiritual was stopped. The tree of life would have changed Adam to a spiritual body that would live forever- that’s why, after Adam sinned, God had to put them out of the garden and block the way of the Tree of Life.
Genesis 3:22-24 KJV
22 “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:”
23 “Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”
24 “So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

So, now how would God fulfill His original plan for man to be a spiritual being like Himself? Man at this point of the fall had to be redeemed.

You must understand that before the fall, man did not have to be redeemed from anything. Redemption came because of sin.

Adam and all men that came after Adam was not supposed to stay as men/natural, but was supposed to be spiritual and live forever. The result of this sin or fall caused God to withdraw His Spirit from man. Genesis 6:3 KJV, “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”

So now, man needs a redeemer. It’s the spiritual aspect of man that’s important- so how will it be accomplished now if the Tree of Life was blocked?
1 Corinthians 15:45 KJV
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
So it is by Jesus Christ that man has been redeemed and made children of God by the Spirit- the Holy Spirit.

Redeemed from what? A fallen state in Adam.

So, if Adam was already corrupt, as you are implying, then what state did he fall from?
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