rjs330 said:

I find it difficult to take you seriously. You sure haven't said that to Rambot or Bradskil or any other number of foreign posters on rhe left.

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No, they’re all cool. What reason would I have to tell them anything?

My older daughter was confused that it was already the second Sunday of Advent. We didn't go to a church service last Sunday though we did drop into a church after the Mass had ended and pray a few minutes. We were in Salzburg, Austria that afternoon.

The Liturgist said:

Roman Emperors did not historically wear blue - they wore a purple Toga or the Toga Pretexta, but by the time of the Hagia Sophia that would have been out of fashion for some time.

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There are plenty of icons with either red, purple, or both, with clear imperial embroiderment. Just do a Google search.

In this particular case, it looks somewhere between blue and purple. It can be the picture quality, the shape and style of the mosaic itself. But in any case, you can see underneath he has finely embroidered Byzantine vesture, and overall it is not working class attire.

The Liturgist said:

No, its what our own liturgical and historical texts as well as those of the Latins, Armenians, Ethiopians and Syriacs say.

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What’s the date of the oldest copy…

Also do these copies offer dates.

Factotum said:

Semantics?
Considering how the overarching issue here clearly encompasses BOTH scenarios no doubt.

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I just totally explained why it's not merely a semantic difference.

The difference is who is authorized to make the determinations and who can be held accountable for them.

That's not a merely semantic difference...it determines who can be held accountable for what.

jonojim1337 said:

That’s the official, post-Reformist, Scaligerian history version, yes.

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No, its what our own liturgical and historical texts as well as those of the Latins, Armenians, Ethiopians and Syriacs say.

jonojim1337 said:

the same church, you can see Christ in blue or purple garment,

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Roman Emperors did not historically wear blue - they wore a purple Toga or the Toga Pretexta, but by the time of the Hagia Sophia that would have been out of fashion for some time.

keras said:

Correct:
1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation....claimed by God as His own......
Revelation 5:9-10 ,,,,by the blood of Jesus, bought for God, peoples from every tribe, race, nation and language.......and they shall reign on earth.

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Tick.

keras said:

Ethnic Israel has had the Kingdom taken from them;
Matthew 21:43 ....I will give the Kingdom to the peoples who bear the proper fruit.
Matthew 8:11-12 Many people will come from the East and the West, to sit with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.....but those who were born to the Kingdom will be thrown out into the dark. ......

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Tick.

keras said:

We Christian peoples are those who will occupy all of the Holy Land.

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Cross. (Bzzzzzzt!)

We Christian peoples are those who already occupy the Holy Lands - because the gospel has gone out into the whole earth.

GRACE
Jesus so over-fulfils the OT law and sacrificial system so that we no longer need a high priest or temple - because Jesus replaces them. In the same way, the promises to Abraham that his children would be God’s people living God’s way in God’s land - and that this would bless the whole world, is fulfilled in Jesus living as the perfect Israelite, dying in our place, forgiving our sins, rising to new life to show that it worked, giving us hope of a new creation (as his body ran by the rules of the new reality as a guarantee of what was to come.)

KINGDOM
Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world. Jesus rebukes the disciples when they ask about an ethno-religious state in Israel and gets them to focus on the gospel going out to ALL people - even enemies - even the ends of the earth! Acts 1:8.

SUPER-TEMPLE
He told the woman at the well that because he is the living water, where we worship would soon be irrelevant - as long as it was in Spirit and truth. John 4. Jesus IS the perfect temple where God and mankind meet in perfect incarnation. He is Ezekiel’s “super-temple” - with the living water rushing out to make a new creation! Ezekiel’s super-temple cannot be literal - in the vision he stands on a mountain higher than Jerusalem to see the whole thing and this mountain does not exist. Amillennial Interpretation of Ezekiel 40-48 | Monergism
Zechariah 14 also visualises a terrible earthquake coming from the Mount of Olives - and then living water spreading out to renew the world. But as we have seen, this is all fulfilled in Jesus. He said if they had faith, they could say to this mountain fall into the sea! It’s a reference to the fact that Jesus is the one who splits the mountains - who makes the temple irrelevant.

PRIESTHOOD
1 Peter 2 shows we are all the priesthood and holy nation. That fulfils the end of Zechariah 14 where everyday cooking items are like the most precious items in the temple - the sacred and secular are now both sanctified in Christian life. WE are now the temple of God. 1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19. We are the ‘one humanity’ made from both Jews and Gentiles. Ephesians 2

LAND
Hebrews 11 shows even Abraham himself and other patriarchs were not really aiming for ‘the land’ - but for heaven! “16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."
Just as Zechariah reminds Israel that Jeremiah’s prophecies of a Messiah at the end of 70 years of exile can only be fulfilled if they remain obedient and keep the covenant, which reinterprets Jeremiah’s prophecies in the unfolding plan of God for Israel - so the gospel does for the Old Covenant but in much more dramatic and universal ways.

Hebrews 12 puts the final nail in the coffin of the idea of a special land. Just as Jesus told the woman at the well, we no longer worship from special places, but special hearts. Wherever we are, when we pray we are united as if we were all standing in Jerusalem itself! But the billion plus Christians alive today physically would not fit! (Forget any crowd crushes in the Muslim Haj - this would be apocalyptic!) But of course - this is the advantage of the New Testament reality of the ‘spiritualised’ gospel fulfilment of Old Testament concerns and promises. Everything is so much bigger!

Hebrews 12:22 “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

Chesterton said:

Symbolically there could be something Satanic to that.

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There probably is, considering that Muhammed was obviously, at least to begin with, under the influence of a fallen angel impersonating St. Gabriel the Archangel. And alas since his only contact with Christianity had been with an Arian heretic, he was not equipped to realize how he was being misled. I suspect this was also the basis for the later “Satanic Verses” controversy - clearly, as demons tend to do according to the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, and the Orthodox lives of the saints, he was abandoned, and not knowing what to say, uttered a Sura which confused his followers, only to retract it.

And regarding Muhammad’s personal life, well “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

CLEEB said:

Even Jesus did not know the day and hour of the second advent. He said that only the FATHER knows. Theories are OK as long as we do not make them doctrine. Christ returns early to stop the tribulation else no one would be left alive. The two witnesses, after being killed, are resurrected 3 1/2 days later and rise up into the air to meet the returning Jesus. I would think that at that time , when they are killed, we, if alive, will know that in 3 1/2 days Jesus returns. When the antichrist signs a covenant with 10 nations this begins the countdown of the final “week” and at the midpoint of that week 1260 days into it, antichrist defiles the temple, as Paul said, declaring himself GOD. This event is the beginning of the great tribulation that is cut short for the sake of the elect, who are the church, and this indicates the church is still on Earth at the time of the great tribulation but is protected from this hour of trial that comes upon the whole earth. Revelation 3:10 Jesus was only involved with the earth twice, during his fleshy existence and second when he returns in glory. Hebrews 9:28 verifies this. Also in his prayer to the FATHER in John 17:5 Jesus specifically asked his FATHER to not take the church out of the world. The rapture theory began in 1830 by a Scottish woman , Margaret Macdonald, it was then popularized by a preacher, John Nelson Darby. If Christ re in secret before the tribulation this would be his third interaction with the earth when Hebrews 9:28 limits his appearances to only two times, his life on earth and the second advent. The confusion seems to come from making how we meet Jesus in the air with the second advent, making two separate occurrences rather than just one. The church rises up to meet the Christ at his return, not at some time beforehand. Certain scriptures are misused and misinterpreted to develop this rapture theory. This Macdonald woman and false preacher Darby literally invented the rapture from their own carnal minds.

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The Great Tribulation in Matthew 24:15-22 was in the first century AD.

“So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; 17 let him who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house; 18 and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his mantle. 19 And alas for those who are with child and for those who give suck in those days! 20 Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. 22 And if those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.

According to Jesus, the desolating sacrilege standing in the holy place will be the Roman armies that will soon be encamped around Jerusalem within this generation. These armies were comprised of soldiers from the many nations of the Roman Empire.

Luke 21:20-24 But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it; 22 for these are days of vengeance, to fulfil all that is written. 23 Alas for those who are with child and for those who give suck in those days! For great distress shall be upon the earth and wrath upon this people; 24 they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led captive among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

The two witnesses that the disobedient Jews rejected were the law and the prophets, which were symbolized by Moses and Elijah. Luke 9:28-37
The Old Testament foretold Jesus the Messiah's birth, death, and resurrection. Luke 24:44

The Liturgist said:

Not true; in the famous icon depicting Christ and Emperor Justinian in the Hagia Sophia, you can see Emperor Justinian wearing a toga and stole which is quite different than the resplendent robes worn by Christ our God.

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In the same church, you can see Christ in blue or purple garment, which signifies the Roman aristocracy. But you will find plenty of icons as I described, so it was no lie.

The Liturgist said:

Also, insofar as the Roman Empire was a thing of holiness, it was not the first Christian government, that was the Kingdom of Edessa, converted in 301 AD, the first Christian nation was the Kingdom of Armenia, converted by St. Gregory the Illuminator (who we venerate, as well as the Armenians) in 306 AD, and the Roman Empire was the sixth, under St. Theodosius when he finally banned Paganism and smashed the Altar of Victory around 390 AD (in the interim, Georgia and Ethiopia both converted to Christianity).

Now, St. Constantine the Great did embrace Christianity and legalize it under the Edict of Milan, but his heir Constantius was an Arian heretic, and Julian the Apostate was a Neo-Platonist; there was not another Christian Emperor until St. Theodosius, and it was only under Theodosius that the Roman Empire declared Christianity its official religion. Shortly thereafter it split into the Eastern and Western Empires, the Western Empire was overrun by Visigoths (who were Arian) and collapsed, and the Eastern Empire persisted until Turkocratia.

By the way there are a large number of Eastern Orthodox members of this forum - @prodromos @jas3 @FenderTL5 @HTacianas - in the event we are making any mistake, our pious brethren will correct us, if we invite them to do so.

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That’s the official, post-Reformist, Scaligerian history version, yes.

The Liturgist said:

And to be clear, I am not completely rejecting your arguments; some of what you have said I agree with - I simply feel that, even more than Fr. John C. Romanides, you’re making an Orthodox == Roman association which is relevant only to the Eastern Orthodox Christians of the former Eastern Roman Empire, who identify using the demonym of Rum in the case of Antiochian and Alexandrian Greek-speaking Christians, Romiioi in the case of some other Greek-speakers, and Romanians in the case of the Wallachians, Moldavians, Bessarabians and Transylvanians who speak the Romance language related to Aromanian and the lost Dalmatian language.

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There’s more to it than just that. I can refer you to the research of Moscow State University.


This is a 24-part series made some time ago. They have more research on the actual channel.

The Liturgist said:

Yes, that’s one of the wackier stories in the Quran. Alexander the Great and the setting Sun just chilling for a bit, before the sun has to sink into a mud puddle to travel to the East to light up the dawn.

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I don't know. Symbolically there could be something Satanic to that. The Light from the East going into and coming out of mud? I don't know.

But yeah, there's no shortage of wacky stories. My personal favorite is Allah's eternal instructions to Muhammad's dinner guests. "Don't come early, don't stay after dinner. you're annoying my prophet with conversation" (and presumably with questions that, unlike Jesus, he didn't have a clue how to answer). And Muhammad has to remind his followers that he himself is much too shy to say such a thing, but this is Allah talking from his book - the uncreated word from before the ages. "Oh and also, don't look at his wives and slave girls".

BNR32FAN said:

No I'm pretty sure that thumbs are equally designed to move both up and down. I mean you do have to raise your thumb up before you can push the safety lever down right? So in both designs you have to move your thumb up then down to turn off the safety.

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I mean the safety should be designed to pull the lever downward to fire. That's the natural movement of the thumb while gaining a grip on the gun. Close your hand as if closing around a grip: Your thumb moves downward and inward, the desired pressure a well-designed safety should have. That's also the direction of the greatest strength of the thumb.

Oompa Loompa said:

Poor poor narco terrorists drug smugglers. If only they had the same level of outrage for the kids they kill every year with their cargo.

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Many just sign on a boat as a day laborer for 10k or so. One even told the Wall Street Journal reporter that he never expected he would see any of the crew from the boat he went on, ever again. So they have no outrage, some are just locals trying to boost their income from transporting drugs. The boat that was double tapped was headed to Suriname. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/05/politics/suriname-boat-strike-bradley
Given that the USA never gives capital punishment to drugs dealers or makers that kill people after a sale, I am not sure why capital punishment is required? I guess the USA wants to have jurisdiction over all cocaine sales. Good luck with that. Dutuerte in the Philippines killed thousands of drug people, and most researchers suggest it had no long term effect.

I can now offer a solution that was first discussed in the UK to help prevent smuggling. Quit selling the fast boat motors to these areas of smuggling. I would suggest too a boat buy back could take all many boats out of the fight. Cheaper than a 100,000 missile per boat too. Combine the strict regulation of certain boat motors and a dwindling supply of craft and the issue is almost "dead in the water" rather than boat crewman dead forever.

BobRyan said:

I don't tell AI about my affiliation

AI says "The answers I provided were determined by analyzing theological viewpoints against your precise criteria, not by attempting to guess or please you."

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And what were the answers it provided?

jonojim1337 said:

Well in the Orthodox denomination, Christ is clearly portrayed as a Roman emperor, as his red and purple garments in the icons will show, likewise worn by his relatives.

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Not true; in the famous icon depicting Christ and Emperor Justinian in the Hagia Sophia, you can see Emperor Justinian wearing a toga and stole which is quite different than the resplendent robes worn by Christ our God.

Also, insofar as the Roman Empire was a thing of holiness, it was not the first Christian government, that was the Kingdom of Edessa, converted in 301 AD, the first Christian nation was the Kingdom of Armenia, converted by St. Gregory the Illuminator (who we venerate, as well as the Armenians) in 306 AD, and the Roman Empire was the sixth, under St. Theodosius when he finally banned Paganism and smashed the Altar of Victory around 390 AD (in the interim, Georgia and Ethiopia both converted to Christianity).

Now, St. Constantine the Great did embrace Christianity and legalize it under the Edict of Milan, but his heir Constantius was an Arian heretic, and Julian the Apostate was a Neo-Platonist; there was not another Christian Emperor until St. Theodosius, and it was only under Theodosius that the Roman Empire declared Christianity its official religion. Shortly thereafter it split into the Eastern and Western Empires, the Western Empire was overrun by Visigoths (who were Arian) and collapsed, and the Eastern Empire persisted until Turkocratia.

By the way there are a large number of Eastern Orthodox members of this forum - @prodromos @jas3 @FenderTL5 @HTacianas - in the event we are making any mistake, our pious brethren will correct us, if we invite them to do so.

And to be clear, I am not completely rejecting your arguments; some of what you have said I agree with - I simply feel that, even more than Fr. John C. Romanides, you’re making an Orthodox == Roman association which is relevant only to the Eastern Orthodox Christians of the former Eastern Roman Empire, who identify using the demonym of Rum in the case of Antiochian and Alexandrian Greek-speaking Christians, Romiioi in the case of some other Greek-speakers, and Romanians in the case of the Wallachians, Moldavians, Bessarabians and Transylvanians who speak the Romance language related to Aromanian and the lost Dalmatian language.

iluvatar5150 said:

For a while, his show was being produced/paid by a front company for Russian propagandists.

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I checked on it, and yes they allegedly contributed (nothing's been proven yet), but it did not produce and fund his show. Is Ilhan Omar a Somali propagandist? What was this Russian propaganda saying?

Tim Pool's never been charged with any wrongdoing, so I have no idea why you put that in this thread.

BobRyan said:

It consistently gives the correct answer in my clean AI session windows and it correctly explains why it did not select options like Baptist Lutheran and Assemblies of God.

I did not mention any of them in my query to AI

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What is the “correct answer” you are seeing? I’d assume its not the answer I’m seeing? Because you never disclosed what we should expect to be seeing; I would assume the SDA is on the list, but if you tell me the exact results you’re getting I can watch for it and conduct a larger survey.

BobRyan said:

did you do it in a fresh AI session or did you rely on lingering bias features in the AI system to groom it toward your desired target.

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In a fresh session. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered posting a screenshot proving the result.

BobRyan said:

Sadly that is totally false. The reason we are getting autonomous AI implementations recently is that they work. They work without having to be first told what the right answer is. Which is why the simple test I show of AI rejecting what even you admit is a bad conclusion .

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I’ve been unable to repeat the results you claim, which essentially moots your entire argument, despite having used a clean session and having used the question with your exact wording.

Which goes to my point - the results you get from AI searches are not repeatable between users. Factors such as prior AI usage will influence the output. If chatGPT knows you are an Adventist, it will tailor the output to your usage scenario.

For this reason, all queries of this sort are appeals to unqualified authority.

I would note also your claim contradicts the claims of the AI manufacturers, you seem to be claiming a level of reliability that they disclaim. Your argument would have us ignore the warning “ChatGPT can make mistakes.”

Hentenza said:

Here. I’ll let AI answer that one.

Objects in moonlight often feel colder because clear, moonlit nights are prime conditions for radiative cooling, where the ground rapidly loses heat to the cold, clear sky, while being in the "shade" (under cover like a tree or roof) blocks this heat loss, trapping warmth and making it feel relatively warmer, not because moonlight itself is cold. Moonlight is reflected sunlight and carries little heat; the difference is due to what the object isn't experiencing in the shade versus the open, moonlit area.

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What about the sky makes it colder.

Hentenza said:

So then prove that the reflectors are not on the moon and that the moon is not made of rock. No social media though. You can only use credibly academic or scientific sources.

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How about the time when one of the astronots gave a foreign diplomat a moon rock, which turned out to be petrified wood?

chevyontheriver said:

So, he is stalking you. If you need to you can get a restraining order if he ever just shows up or manages to get your phone number.

As to landline phones, we got rid of those about three years ago and have not missed them one bit.

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I havent been able to part with our landline phones. Very few people have my cell number. If my cellphone started getting as many calls from solicitors as my landline does it would drive me crazy. One day i counted 29 calls and I’m not even sure that was the last one.