David Lamb said:

Why not?

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As Antarctica encircles the earth like a ring.

Why do think they have the laurel leaves encircling the map on the UN logo ?

A symbol of the Ouroboros snake which encircles the earth​

The Elite know the earth is flat but just wont admit it.

A Devil's Advocate said:

Disclaimer: This post is intended for those who follow the True God of the bible and not the lesser form of God commonly associated with Christianity (sarcasm intended).

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Why the Disclaimer? You think the God of the Bible is to be separated from Christianity?

A Devil's Advocate said:

There is this popular belief that mankind messed up. We were given a test. Should we choose correctly, we would remain in a relationship with God, completely dependent on Him. But if we choose wrong, we would end up cast out from a relationship with Him and left to eventually die, unless God were to intervene. This test was made known through the two trees in the midst of the Garden; the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of course, as we've all been made to understand, mankind messed up and made the wrong choice. This is absolutely ridiculous!

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It is hardly ridiculous. Everything about the trees in the Garden was a test of loyalty with consequences. God also tested Israel in the wilderness with consequences.

A Devil's Advocate said:

Let's start with the fact that God is the creator of the very reality in which we exist. All existence comes from God. The very idea that God would create a life form, from the infinite possibilities of what He could create, that would be capable of messing up, if He did not want them to mess up, is absolute fantasy.

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Not at all. Yes, God created all existence. And yes, God has infinite possibilities. But he did create the ability for angels and men both to "mess up." He did not want them to mess up due to His holiness. But He wanted them to be able to mess up because He wanted to test their loyalty, preferring their choices based upon free will.

A Devil's Advocate said:

If God did not want man to sin, man never would've sinned. When the serpent told Eve she would become like God, the serpent was speaking in reference to knowledge, not some form of godly power capable of messing up God's plan.

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Yes, God allowed the serpent to offer Man the knowledge of disobedience to God's word. That is not "godly power," but rather, "ungodly power."

A Devil's Advocate said:

Also, the idea that God was testing man to see if he would remain loyal is just as ridiculous. In everything that God created, He said that it 'was all very good.' There was nothing God created that could possibly tempt man away from God.

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Actually, what God allowed the serpent to offer Man in the Garden was precisely God's creation of circumstances that tested his loyalty. The creation was good. The choice to disobey by Man was not good. Having free will was good. The choice to use free will to rebel against God's word was not good.

A Devil's Advocate said:

By introducing the tree of knowledge, with the commandment not to eat from it, creates the very condition where disloyalty becomes possible. Meaning, God creates the very thing to cause disloyalty. This is illogical. If He did not want man to be tempted, He would not have created the potential for it.

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False, God thought it good to give Man free will. He did not wish Man to use his free will to rebel against His word. But God thought it good to allow Man, in his free will, to rebel against His word if he so wished to do so. Who are we to say that this is illogical or absurd? It is precisely what happened!

A Devil's Advocate said:

It should also be understood that you cannot know the character/nature of God without evil.

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That does not follow. I can know God as a good God without ever having sinned, just as the good angels who never sinned still know God is holy. They say so in the book of Revelation.

May God comfort those who mourn!

Servus said:

Maybe if you didn't usually misinterpret what I say and didn't add in what I didn't say, I'd have some hope of a proper discussion rather than the usual rabbit hole.

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If I've misinterpreted or misunderstood your point, you've had more than enough opportunity to explain it better, or show me what I got wrong. Instead, you simply call my points strawmen and ignore them.

And since you've gone out of your way to miss my points, let me try to explain your point better, and see where we stand.

Your point, that even if Trump were framed, it wouldn't change our minds about him, misses one key, salient point: he wasn't framed. He did what he was accused of doing, and the evidence of that convinced a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's not all. Trump has been accused of many other crimes and misdeeds, a good number of them proven in a court of law. Fraud, defamation, sexual assault, just to name a few, and there are others going back well before his entrance into politics. His life has been public long before he descended in that escalator.

So, your implied premise that our criticism of Trump comes from bias alone is incorrect. One can easily object to Trump based on Trump's actions, and his character as has been observed and reported on for decades. The 34 felony convictions is just the tip of the iceberg.

So, of course if someone came out and said Trump was framed, it wouldn't make a difference. A negative view of Trump doesn't come from that one single trial where he was proven guilty of 34 felonies, it comes from a much larger body of evidence of dubious and questionable behavior over the years, including a previous term as president. Add to that, the fact that the possibility of him being framed for those crimes is so monumentally unlikely, it's frankly laughable. That doesn't help your premise.

Trump being framed is about as likely as Trump singlehandedly curing cancer, another ridiculous scenario some have come up with to pretend that a justifiable and understandable objection to Donald Trump could not possibly come from the man himself, but must be due to an irrational bias. That's a false premise.

-- A2SG, the real difference between Trump detractors and Trump supporters is the former choose not to ignore reality, while the latter has to......

Delvianna said:

Same thing with Jehovah's Witnesses and their 2 class system. The people who think they are apart of the 144,000 just think they are.

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This always makes me laugh when I hear this, as the 144,000 are;

These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They have been redeemed from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb. And no lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless
Revelation 14:1-5

And must belong to the twelve tribes of Israel.

'Do not harm the land or sea or trees until we have sealed the foreheads of the servants of our God.' And I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel: From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben 12,000, from the tribe of Gad 12,000, from the tribe of Asher 12,000, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000, from the tribe of Simeon 12,000, from the tribe of Levi 12,000, from the tribe of Issachar 12,000, from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000, from the tribe of Joseph 12,000, from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000." (Revelation 7:1-8)

But no mention of the tribe of Dan, I wonder why this is ?

Air hockey

iluvatar5150 said:

No. My understanding is that he couldn't (or perhaps really really shouldn't) release them until Maxwell's appeals were finished, which didn't happen until this year.

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If there was something really bad about Trump in the files do you really think Maxwell's appeals would have stopped them from releasing them?

Charlie’s grouchy grandma got nothing.

GRNDM

d taylor said:

-

​

God is life, there is no separating life and God. God did not exist and then one day decide to bring life into existence.

There is no such thing as origin of life, that is a science lie. Sadly that is something Bible believing creationist have adopted as a belief

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I agree that God is alive, and so before He began to create, He was the only life. However He did create life "outside" of Himself when He created plants, animals and mankind. I understand that when Christians talk about the origin of life, they are talking of created life, not saying that God had a beginning.

Apple Sky said:

Very beautiful - But was it taken in Antarctica ?

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Why not? It, and hundreds like it, are to be found by a Google image search for "Aurora Australis". Also, there are people living in the South part of the earth who have seen Aurora Australis, whereas we in the North see Aurora Borealis.

Yarddog said:

It doesn't fit into the definition of sedition. It is the duty of the military to refuse to obey an illegal order. They take an oath to the Constitution, not to the President.

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However, those Senators are very clearly implying that President Trump has issued or shall issue illegal orders to the military. I've been in the US military for more than 27 years and I have more trust in President Trump than any other President whom has been my Commander-in-Chief. President Trump has not, and he shall not issue any illegal orders to the military.

Yarddog said:

Yeah, nurses work 16 hour days.

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not the ones i know.

David Lamb said:

Try a Google image search for "Aurora Australis." You will find hundred of pictures of Aurora Australis, like this one: taken in the Antarctic:

View attachment 373383

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Very beautiful - But was it taken in Antarctica ?

essentialsaltes said:

Federal judge orders Arlington, Fort Worth [and a dozen other] ISDs to remove Ten Commandments displays​

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered several Texas school districts to remove Ten Commandments displays from classrooms, issuing the ruling in a lawsuit brought by families who argue the postings violate the Constitution’s ban on government-endorsed religion.

The districts must remove the displays by Dec. 1, and the order will remain in effect while the case continues. This applies only to the districts named in the lawsuit, but the groups behind the case are urging all Texas school districts to avoid displaying the Ten Commandments.

The lawsuit was filed in September when some districts began putting up the posters after an August ruling [post #66] in a different case that called the law “plainly unconstitutional.” That earlier ruling temporarily blocked the law in nearly a dozen other districts across Texas’ largest metro areas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a vocal supporter of SB 10, has appealed that decision.

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The liberals will be out in the cold, the "Ten Commandments" will win!

Brother Del said:

Better yet, what does it matter what Calvin thinks about good works, and why spend anytime debating it?

Are we really that uninterested in the "weightier matters"?

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I'm not a Calvinist, though they think much the same as I do. But what are these "weightier matters" you refer to?

Oh, and who is Calvin? I don't think of him as a Calvinist, lol. He just started the ball rolling.

This is disgraceful (changed earlier this month), but what else should have been expected with an anti-vaxxer in charge of HHS?


Looks to me like someone is going to get a lot of people killed. And, they don't care.

Apple Sky said:

Does this really occur in the south pole ? How can it when Antarctica encircles the whole earth - 360° ?

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Try a Google image search for "Aurora Australis." You will find hundred of pictures of Aurora Australis, like this one: taken in the Antarctic:

Servus said:

I did not say falsified documents or faked. You keep setting up that strawman to keep knocking down. You might as well change it up a little and say there's no evidence that the judge was from Mars. Just keep inventing things I didn't say.

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Your premise was suggesting that Trump was framed, somehow. For that to be the case, the evidence that Trump falsified business documents would have to be faked. Evidence, by the way, that Trump's legal team never tried to refute, and the jury found convincing beyond a reasonable doubt. The likelihood of this being the case is extremely low.

Your other suggested scenario, that the facts of the case are somehow misleading and that constitutes a frame, is even less probable.

But if you wish to explain how Trump could possibly have been framed, given the facts involved, I'd love to hear it. As it stands, that Trump was framed is so unlikely that, well, I've already established how it compares to the theory that Kubrick faked the moon landing.

-- A2SG, suppose I could also bring up Bigfoot, if we needed an alternate example....

d taylor said:

Real Country Sizes Shown on Mercator Projection (Updated) - Engaging Data

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The map above shows the distortion in sizes of countries due to the mercator projection.

WOW - Some reduction in sizes here - Thanks @d taylor

This is getting more like the flat earth map every time & wheres Antarctica ?

d taylor said:

They are always asking you to produce a flat earth model. Well ask them to produce an actual physical 3d globe showing the land masses at 100% accurate size.

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I think I've asked them this before but a scaled down model which displays the sun, moon and all the stars - But alas no joy.

Fervent said:

you are once again attempting to read in semantic considerations based on essentialist misconceptions. I'm making no category mistake, you're simply imposing something onto the text on a faulty basis to build your conclusion into it.

Having come in mid-thread, I didn't see the circumstances for your semantic argument.

Then why have you simply shifted to another semantic argument focusing on a different word but built on the same faulty approach?

Nope, "ability" is a vague concept that doesn't necessarily depend on a novel feature of the object. It is the drawing that is the focus, no need for any sort of change in the object of that drawing for the drawing to enable.

Again, you're reading a non-standard understanding of "ability" as in a novel creation in the object when it is more readily understood as belonging to the act itself rther than some change in the metaphysical situation.

And your questions only remain undistinguished if you impose an artificial metaphysical construct onto it. I don't need to argue your conclusion out of the text, I simply need to point out that its something you're packaging into it rather than genuinely drawing from it.

"Predicated of the subject" is a rather nonsense statement, since all predicates are dependent on the subject with the object being in the predicate. Your argument requires a metaphysical framework to be read into the word that it simply cannot support.

Which is supposed to be changing, the subject or the object?

Again, the subject or the object?

You are, through a fallacious essentialist approach to linguistics

The problem is exactly this, you think grammatical analysis is the same as exegesis. It's not. It's a supplement, and can't bear the weight you're trying to place on it.

I'm contesting your essentialist approach to linguistics, which had you read your own citations you would understand the issue with.

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I'm tiring of this assertive approach of yours. I'm going to be direct with you.

Your replies continue to fire off unsupported assertions while avoiding the actual point I have pressed from the beginning. You keep circling back to abstractions about "essentialism," "metaphysics," and "semantic fallacies," but none of these touch the argument I have explicitly grounded in the syntax of the text. At this stage, I'm not going to keep chasing every passing sentence you throw out

If you intend to continue, you need to engage the syntactical argument itself. If you will not, then this conversation has reached the end of its usefulness.

Here is the argument you must address:

1. John predicates δύναται of the subject (οὐδεὶς). The construction expresses a personal capacity or incapacity, not an environmental condition. That is simply the function of δύναται in Greek grammar. "You're reading a non-standard understanding of "ability"" is an unsubstantiated claim. I already challenged you to defend it. You won't. You insist on reading English conceptual models into a discussion of Greek semantics and syntax. That's not a serious contribution to our exchange.
2. John 6:44 presents a conditional structure: ἑλκύσῃ --> δύναται. The Father's drawing is the stated condition that generates the person's ability to come.
3. John gives no secondary effect for drawing, no third category such as "general atmospheric possibility," and no indication that drawing may occur without producing the predicate ability he assigns to it.
4. Therefore, if drawing occurs and ability does not arise, the conditional statement is false. The text leaves no space for a drawing that fails to accomplish the one effect John attaches to it.
5. The final clause of the verse ("and I will raise him up on the last day") grammatically ties the raising to the granting of the capacity to come to Christ. It is the one who is granted this ability who is promised salvation.

That is the entire argument. It is grammatical, not metaphysical. It is structural, not theological. And it stands or falls on the text, not on accusations of "essentialism." Your use of that term reveals a fundamental misunderstanding -- either of my argument or of the concept itself. At no point have I argued that words possess immutable, metaphysical senses, or that meaning is fixed by nature rather than by usage. The argument I gave concerning δύναται was based on its usage in Classical and Koine literature. Deploying terminology like "essentialism" here is just swinging a hammer in search of a nail. It attempts to land a critique where none exists and distracts from the syntactic reality the text actually presents.

The bottom line is there is no point to this exchange if you can't go to the text and deal with what's there in the grammar. I will not respond again unless you do so. Dispute the grammar. Show where δύναμαι functions as an imported condition detached from the subject. Show where John permits drawing without producing the predicate ability. Show where the conditional structure may be broken without rendering the sentence false. And show where the one raised is not explicitly identified as the one granted the ability to come.

If you cannot or will not do that, then the discussion is over. I'm not interested in an endless loop of assertions that never touch the text, and will regard the next round of them as a tacit concession to the argument I laid out above.

fhansen said:

Ok, so bear with me on this if you will. We agree that ἑλκύω, itself, allows for resistance: a person can resist and thwart the enablement, can refuse to act on it themselves. The word does not imply an act that cannot be resisited, an act that must be completed. That implication comes from the fact that God raises those who've come. Is that correct?

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No...

You are still collapsing two different categories that John keeps distinct. Let me lay this out again in the simplest possible terms.

There are two issues:

1. The ability to come (δύναμαι)
2. Actually coming (implied in the resurrection clause)

ἑλκύω in John 6:44 governs the first category, not the second. The verse says nothing about the mechanics of the second except by implication. So when you talk about "resisting" ἑλκύω, you are not resisting the act as John defines it; you are importing the second category (coming) into the domain of the first (ability). That is the category error I keep pointing out. Notice what you wrote:


This sentence presupposes exactly what you need to prove. A "refusal to act on it" is only meaningful after a genuine capacity exists. You cannot refuse to act on a capacity you do not possess. So by framing it this way, you are presupposing the very thing at issue: that the enablement has succeeded.

But if the enablement has succeeded -- if the Father has in fact generated the capacity -- then ἑλκύω has already been effectual in the only sense John applies the term: it produces the ability (not the exercise of it). That is why your attempt to deny effectual movement in ἑλκύω collapses. Earlier you argued that ἑλκύω does not imply a decisive transition because you assumed that would commit you to irresistible grace. But the transition in view is not the act of coming; it is the giving of the renewed capacity that makes coming possible. So by denying that ἑλκύω entails an effectual transition (from inability to ability), you not only miss the actual basis of the argument for irresistible grace (which lies in the structure of the verse, not the semantics of ἑλκύω), but you undermine your own position. On your reading, the Father's act of "drawing" becomes an attempt that may or may not succeed in generating the capacity for faith, leaving the text saying that the very ability to come may never be granted at all.

So the argument I've presented divides cleanly into two parts:

1. Semantics. ἑλκύω describes the decisive transition from inability to ability. It does not speak to whether someone later exercises that ability, and therefore the question of resistance is not relevant here. The claim "someone can be drawn but refuse to come" is not a semantic point; it is a category mistake. ἑλκύω addresses only whether the Father has successfully generated the necessary capacity to act, which is something that must be in place before the very question of resistance even becomes meaningful.
2. Grammar of the whole verse. The final clause ("and I will raise him up on the last day") identifies the one raised as the same one who has been given the ability. That is the only place where the text links ability with actual coming. That syntactical linkage -- not the semantics of ἑλκύω -- is what yields the argument for irresistible grace. If the resurrection clause were absent, no argument for irresistible grace could be constructed from verse 44 alone.

AV1611VET said:

Good.

There is.

And for the sake of arguing, let's call this something else "vital energy."

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Let's not. There is nothing in science that equates to that. And again, this is the science section.

AV1611VET said:

That's what Kent Hovind and David Mainse are doing. They are concentrating on just the science and showing that life cannot arise on its own -- even if all the ingredients are there in the right order.

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If all the characteristics are there, then we have life. There is no argument about that. It's the definition of life. We've covered this.

AV1611VET said:

They are showing that abiogenesis is a lie.

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Hovind is ignorant as to how it started. He can't argue against something he doesn't understand. Neither, for that matter, can you.

AV1611VET said:

Let's discuss how life originated, using science only; and I'll use my near-zero knowledge of science, as well as try my best to leave theology out of the discussion, and we'll see where this goes.

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That's the whole idea.

Fervent said:

not quite, Islamic jurisprudence is heavily regulated until modernists have sought to re-write Islamic history. They say "the doors of ishtijad are closed" and defer to classic interpreters, who unanimously agreed that ayat like 9:29 were unlimited calls to war until the end of time "when there is no more fitnah."

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As I said, it's all interpretation. All sections of the Quran must be read in context. No cherry picking or I'll start with the OT.

Fervent said:

Perhaps I should have added "or pay the jizya" since that is what Islam calls for, modernist whitewashing not withstanding.

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No, that only applies to non believers within an Islamic state. And nowhere does it call for beheading. Or any other form of death.

Servus said:

The issue is often what gets repeated is either inaccurate or distorted.

As for what you are looking for, have you ever even searched for Trump displaying acts of kindness or gentleness etc?

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I'm asking for answers. A single act is nothing. Fruits. With an s.

I did just see him call a woman piggy without apologizing or regretting or anything that could come as s fruit of the spirit.