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Fervent · 2025-11-15T21:05:37-0600

johansen said:
you should read it.

I'm not disputing the study, but your misappropriation of it.

rockytopva · 2025-11-15T21:05:13-0600

If George Clark Rankin would not have moved in with his uncle into a good family and church would he have every found himself in ministry? I worry that the effects of Covid have encouraged people into a world that makes little difference to the heart.

"It is the heart that experiences God, not the reason." -Blaise Pascal

Without the heart felt experience I would look for very little change religiously. If I tried to help things along with my mental logic I would even make things worse. So, as far as I am concerned, my best option is to pray!

RDKirk · 2025-11-15T21:04:50-0600

Fervent said:
All this time, I thought it was Carnival Christians...

Well, the kind of Christians that take Carnival cruises.

Fervent · 2025-11-15T21:04:27-0600

BobRyan said:
2. 2 Tim 3:16 says scripture comes from God, and not "the best idea that primitive man could think up"

The Greek concept of pneumotheos wasn't what you think it is. It was applied to things like combs and other such religious paraphenalia and was used to indicate that they took on life through their association with the Divine. It wasn't a theory of inspiration.

Bobber · 2025-11-15T21:03:11-0600

rambot said:
I also think his brain is now at a place where he shouldn't be running the country. It's too far gone.

Y'all need to make your government far, far younger.

I don't think anyone should be allowed to be President past 74 in running for a term. That means they would be done at 78. A two term ambition you should start no later then 70 and be done by 78.

johansen · 2025-11-15T21:02:53-0600

Fervent said:
someone's gotta prove the old adage right, "There are lies, d**ed lies, and statistics." It really seems like you're reaching for any cherry picked data to claim some sort of harm, rather than looking at the available data and coming to an informed conclusion.

you should read it.

Landon Caeli · 2025-11-15T20:59:10-0600

Bradskii said:
Just...what?

This is international trade we are talking about, not filling an expletive deleted pool! People who make and grow things overseas have workers, have mortgages, have profit margins, have transport costs, have employer costs - they have to ship their goods over seas and continents and they base how much they are going to make on orders from their customers and a reasonable stable price. That allows them to take on more workers if needed be, or even lay some off, sometimes difficult to replace. They have to invest in material and equipment and machinery and offices and trucks and pay taxes. They don't want to over invest or they'll go broke. And they don't want to under invest or they won't make a profit.

Trump, on a whim, has added tariffs, dropped them, increased them, raised them again, reduced them again...and this has been going on for months. Nobody, including Trump himself, knows what in blue blazes is going to happen next month, let alone next week. Ye gods, he could change his mind again today and sent out a tweet at 3:00am changing things yet again With some Letters Capitalised and lots of exclamation Points Into the Bargain!!!

It's a ship of fools and ol' Cap'n Trump is flicking switches and pulling levers and making announcements at random. There is no plan. He's making the whole thing up as he goes, because his poll figures aren't in the toilet any more. They have been well and truly flushed. And I swear, if he does another 180 and reintroduces the tariffs then you'll do exactly the same and say 'it's a great idea!'

This is incompetence on a scale I've never seen before in a modern western government. To say his fiscal policies are idiotic is an insult to idiots.

If one has the energy to maintain this, or set a standard for others to follow in achieving it, then who's to say it's idiotic? I think your main focus points to where you brought up international trade... As a non-American. It's just that American voters won't place the interests of foreign nations on par with American interests. It's not that we're selfish, it's just that we are putting to use our survival skills for the long run. Our country must be maintained. It's our obligation.

Dan1988 · 2025-11-15T20:58:59-0600

fhansen said:
And that’s what makes the alternative, that hell is God’s choice for some, all the more repulsive. The pain of hell is the absence of God, the absence of love in favor of the cold, selfish, pride that already causes the harm we see everyday in this world.

And my opinion is at least consistent with the millennia-old opinion of the Church Christ established.

What sort of fool would make a such a ridiculous claim, "that hell is God's choice for some". That would have to be the most absurd statement I've ever heard. I don't know, where you heard t but I can tell you that it is a lie straight from the pits of hell, as it portrays God as being evil.

It sounds like the same teacher told you that "hell is the absence of God", that's another demonic doctrine. The Bible says that God is in hell, tormenting sinners with fire, so the sinners see Him. I'm not going to give you any more verses to confirm the above statements, but they are all biblically sound, you can search the scriptures to see for yourself.

Your opinion couldn't be further from the truth, which the Church has been teaching for the past 2000 years

MarkSB · 2025-11-15T20:58:47-0600

BobRyan said:
2. 2 Tim 3:16 says scripture comes from God, and not "the best idea that primitive man could think up"

This article presents a pretty compelling argument that the most commonly accepted English version of 2 Timothy 3:16 if very likely a mistranslation.

Bobber · 2025-11-15T20:55:28-0600

Always in His Presence said:
I forgot how weak and unstable the economy was.

Yeah if you want to put it that way fine. Could be our Canadian politicians purposely have kept our dollar lower to appeal to U.S. investment that's possible too I don't know. Keep in mind the U.S. economy raising the debt ceiling with no end in sight isn't necessarily as strong as it should be either for the world invest in U.S.. bonds propping up your standard of living to give you the space to do that. That's one thing President Trump should consider when saying all nations of the world have taken advantage of the U.S. Could be an element of that but he needs to keep in mind the world is propping up U.S. debt. There's always a two way street in there somewhere.

rockytopva · 2025-11-15T20:52:07-0600

Without some kind of spiritual transformation I see little of people turning to Christ.

rockytopva · 2025-11-15T20:51:35-0600

It takes the Holy Spirit to make the change in someones life. Here is a story of a man who had beginnings of having to go to a church he hated attending...

"Grandfather was kind to me and considerate of me, yet he was strict with me. I worked along with him in the field when the weather was agreeable and when it was inclement I helped him in his hatter's shop, for the Civil War was in progress and he had returned at odd times to hatmaking. It was my business in the shop to stretch foxskins and coonskins across a wood-horse and with a knife, made for that purpose, pluck the hair from the fur. I despise the odor of foxskins and coonskins to this good day. He had me to walk two miles every Sunday to Dandridge to Church service and Sunday-school, rain or shine, wet or dry, cold or hot; yet he had fat horses standing in his stable. But he was such a blue-stocking Presbyterian that he never allowed a bridle to go on a horse's head on Sunday. The beasts had to have a day of rest. Old Doctor Minnis was the pastor, and he was the dryest and most interminable preacher I ever heard in my life. He would stand motionless and read his sermons from manuscript for one hour and a half at a time and sometimes longer. Grandfather would sit and never take his eyes off of him, except to glance at me to keep me quiet. It was torture to me." - George Clark Rankin

And then ending up at his uncles church where he underwent a transformation that would eventually lead him in the ministry. Without that transformation we will lose the generation every time... After having attended a lively church for some quite time he finally broke through (Full story here - The Life of George Clark Rankin)

When evening came I was ready for Church service and was glad to go. It required no urging. Another large crowd was present and the preacher was as earnest as ever. I did not give much heed to the sermon. In fact, I do not recall a word of it. I was anxious for him to conclude and give me a chance to go to the altar. I had gotten it into my head that there was some real virtue in the mourner's bench; and when the time came I was one of the first to prostrate myself before the altar in prayer. Many others did likewise. Two or three good people at intervals knelt by me and spoke encouragingly to me, but they did not help me. Their talks were mere exhortations to earnestness and faith, but there was no explanation of faith, neither was there any light thrown upon my mind and heart. I wrought myself up into tears and cries for help, but the whole situation was dark and I hardly knew why I cried, or what was the trouble with me. Now and then others would arise from the altar in an ecstasy of joy, but there was no joy for me. When the service closed I was discouraged and felt that maybe I was too hardhearted and the good Spirit could do nothing for me.

After we went home I tossed on the bed before going to sleep and wondered why God did not do for me what he had done for mother and what he was doing in that meeting for those young people at the altar. I could not understand it. But I resolved to keep on trying, and so dropped off to sleep. The next day I had about the same experience and at night saw no change in my condition. And so for several nights I repeated the same distressing experience. The meeting took on such interest that a day service was adopted along with the night exercises, and we attended that also. And one morning while I bowed at the altar in a very disturbed state of mind Brother Tyson, a good local preacher and the father of Rev. J. F. Tyson, now of the Central Conference, sat down by me and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said to me: "Now I want you to sit up awhile and let's talk this matter over quietly. I am sure that you are in earnest, for you have been coming to this altar night after night for several days. I want to ask you a few simple questions." And the following questions were asked and answered:

"My son, do you not love God?"

"I cannot remember when I did not love him."

"Do you believe on his Son, Jesus Christ?"

"I have always believed on Christ. My mother taught me that from my earliest recollection."

"Do you accept him as your Savior?"

"I certainly do, and have always done so."

"Can you think of any sin that is between you and the Savior?"

"No, sir; for I have never committed any bad sins."

"Do you love everybody?"

"Well, I love nearly everybody, but I have no ill-will toward any one. An old man did me a wrong not long ago and I acted ugly toward him, but I do not care to injure him."

"Can you forgive him?"

"Yes, if he wanted me to."

"But, down in your heart, can you wish him well?"

"Yes, sir; I can do that."

"Well, now let me say to you that if you love God, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and if you love your fellowmen and intend by God's help to lead a religious life, that's all there is to religion. In fact, that is all I know about it."

Then he repeated several passages of Scriptures to me proving his assertions. I thought a moment and said to him: "But I do not feel like these young people who have been getting religion night after night. I cannot get happy like them. I do not feel like shouting."

The good man looked at me and smiled and said: "Ah, that's your trouble. You have been trying to feel like them. Now you are not them; you are yourself. You have your own quiet disposition and you are not turned like them. They are excitable and blustery like they are. They give way to their feelings. That's all right, but feeling is not religion. Religion is faith and life. If you have violent feeling with it, all good and well, but if you have faith and not much feeling, why the feeling will take care of itself. To love God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning away from all sin, and living a godly life, is the substance of true religion."

That was new to me, yet it had been my state of mind from childhood. For I remembered that away back in my early life, when the old preacher held services in my grandmother's house one day and opened the door of the Church, I went forward and gave him my hand. He was to receive me into full membership at the end of six months' probation, but he let it pass out of his mind and failed to attend to it.

As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.

I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Jipsah · 2025-11-15T20:50:31-0600

contratodo said:
Prophetically we therefore see truth related to the stars being cast down.

Seems kind of a leap from poetic imagery like that to Spacemen & Flying Saucers, unless you already believe in SM&FS a priori, and are just looking for some way to stick 'em into Scripture. I don't believe in them, and thus see no rationale in the Bible for doing so .

Fervent · 2025-11-15T20:49:01-0600

johansen said:
you can support the system all you want but there is systemic rejection of people's concerns due to the prevailing notion that vaccines were safe. as such perhaps 90% of various ills that came in many cases months later were swept under the rug. we now have entire countries disagreeing with each other over if the vaccine is safe for pregnant persons lol. sorry, women.

did you read this study?

Observed-to-Expected Fetal Losses Following mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination in Early Pregnancy

Background The clinical trials used to approve COVID-19 vaccines excluded pregnant women, and existing safety assessments of COVID-19 vaccination, particularly during early stages of pregnancy, are limited to observational studies prone to various types of potential bias, including healthy...

www.medrxiv.org

50% increase in actual miss carriage rate. from 9 to 13 out of 100.

now here is the thing...

those miscarriages and lack of those specific persons born on earth may appear to increase the overall state of health of the whole earth, on a short term timeline.

this is where the "good" that is done by vaccines becomes irrelevant as well on a long enough time line.
you need to think 40,000 years from now
what impact will there be of vaccinated the whole world against a small strain of a certain type of corona viruses?

you won't be there to witness it.

but you will be judged later.

someone's gotta prove the old adage right, "There are lies, d**ed lies, and statistics." It really seems like you're reaching for any cherry picked data to claim some sort of harm, rather than looking at the available data and coming to an informed conclusion.

essentialsaltes · 2025-11-15T20:46:22-0600

Servus said:
But what motivated Biden to keep them hidden?

Why would he need motivation to do something normal, i.e. keep investigative files confidential?

Belk · 2025-11-15T20:44:47-0600

Servus said:
If Biden was protecting Trump by not releasing the files in the four years he had them, I suppose that's a possibility.

So is that a yes or a no? Because Trump is not releasing the files so if Clinton is being protected Trump is following along.

Bradskii · 2025-11-15T20:42:38-0600

Desk trauma said:
Indefinitely.

But they all know he's lying. They cannot not know. Doesn't it eat away at your soul to keep denying it?

rockytopva · 2025-11-15T20:41:02-0600

Well... A proud Jeff Bezos for rivaling Elon Musk!

Watch Blue Origin's huge New Glenn rocket ace its epic landing on a ship at sea (video)

Relive a big part of New Glenn's big day.

www.space.com

BelieveItOarKnot · 2025-11-15T20:38:58-0600

fli said:
Love one another in verse 23 is not love our neighbor

That's pretty funny.
How many scriptural citings would you like for loving our neighbors as ourselves? I can count at least 10 citings in the N.T. alone, all stemming from the O.T. where there are several more

Even funnier it never made the cut of requirements of any creed

fli said:
Above is the OT law to love your neighbor as you love yourself. If we love Jesus, we will keep this one. If we don't keep it we will not be in the Spirit, and the Father will discipline us. We will not lose salvation.

Doesn't your church teach the bible? Do you read the bible?

I asked if you believe our "unsaved neighbors" are going to burn alive forever or be permanently annhilated.

I don't believe either happens to our neighbors, so you have my answer. Where's yours?

BelieveItOarKnot · 2025-11-15T20:33:09-0600

bling said:
Is it what they had or did not have which caused them to sin?

Adam and Eve ceased to be individuals the moment God spoke His Words to them, ala Mark 4:15

From that point on it was Adam and the tempter within him, as well as Eve, with the tempter within her.

They left the garden with the tempter intact, in their own sorry hides, predetermined to the death of their own flesh and so on to today

BelieveItOarKnot · 2025-11-15T20:31:37-0600

RDKirk said:
Romans 7:7–11 is the classic passage where Paul identifies the dynamic that the giving of a law creates an occasion for sinful desire. To put it another way, the command itself provokes the impulse to violate it.

Brilliant deduction proving to each of us, inside, that evil is in fact present withIN us.

RDKirk said:
Sin as a reality precedes knowledge. Wrong actions are objectively wrong, even if the person does not yet know.

We're wrong before we even open our mouths.

RDKirk said:
Moral responsibility begins with knowledge.

You shot by the obvious point. Evil present can not be moral. We do put on a good act though don't we?

Paul cut to the chase on the subject stating, honestly, that he both did evil, Romans 7:19 and that even when he did good, evil was present with him. Romans 7:21

RDKirk said:
Once awareness arrives, the person is accountable for the wrongdoing. This principle appears dozens of times in Scripture.

Uh, not the case on several levels.

Sins are not counted against people, 2 Cor. 5:19

And sin is in fact "of the devil," 1 John 3:8, Mark 4:15

There is another party or parties involved with and in sin that are not the person, which was kind of the entire point of the opening post.

RDKirk said:
Legal guilt is tied to command + knowledge. The command creates the standard. Knowledge triggers accountability. Before knowledge, there is sin but not accountability.

Sin was always meant to profligate under the command, Romans 7:13 and sin is empowered by the law to do so, 1 Cor. 15:56

Adam, planted in corruption, dishonor and weakness was a foregone conclusion sinner, along with everyone else other than God Himself in the flesh.

Bradskii · 2025-11-15T20:29:01-0600

Landon Caeli said:
It's like filling a pool with a garden hose, but the rules to filling it are such that it has to be filled using only a specified amount of water per day, and has to be filled within 90 days, and the water cannot be shut off until completion, and the dimensions of the pool walls are mathematically unattainable (randomly lumpy).

So you turn the valve a little higher, then a little lower, and adjust it accordingly as you see fit, so as to not overflow it, or have it too shallow.

Just...what?

This is international trade we are talking about, not filling an expletive deleted pool! People who make and grow things overseas have workers, have mortgages, have profit margins, have transport costs, have employer costs - they have to ship their goods over seas and continents and they base how much they are going to make on orders from their customers and a reasonable stable price. That allows them to take on more workers if needed be, or even lay some off, sometimes difficult to replace. They have to invest in material and equipment and machinery and offices and trucks and pay taxes. They don't want to over invest or they'll go broke. And they don't want to under invest or they won't make a profit.

Trump, on a whim, has added tariffs, dropped them, increased them, raised them again, reduced them again...and this has been going on for months. Nobody, including Trump himself, knows what in blue blazes is going to happen next month, let alone next week. Ye gods, he could change his mind again today and sent out a tweet at 3:00am changing things yet again With some Letters Capitalised and lots of exclamation Points Into the Bargain!!!

It's a ship of fools and ol' Cap'n Trump is flicking switches and pulling levers and making announcements at random. There is no plan. He's making the whole thing up as he goes, because his poll figures aren't in the toilet any more. They have been well and truly flushed. And I swear, if he does another 180 and reintroduces the tariffs then you'll do exactly the same and say 'it's a great idea!'

This is incompetence on a scale I've never seen before in a modern western government. To say his fiscal policies are idiotic is an insult to idiots.

Delvianna · 2025-11-15T20:21:29-0600

Don't negate the promise to Abraham of the "seed" which will never die which means ethnic Jews (biological descendants of Abraham). We don't replace Israel, as Paul says, we gentiles are grafted in. The original branches are still there and will always be.

Fervent · 2025-11-15T20:20:33-0600

Dikaioumenoi said:
TDNT has several well-known issues among actual Greek lexicographers. Its method is concept-historical and frequently theological rather than strictly lexical. That means its entries often trace interpretive traditions around a word rather than isolate the word's semantic core in Koine usage. So yes, it is extensive, but page count doesn't equal precision. It can and does sometimes import Johannine theology (or an interpretation of it) into its lexical discussion, effectively commenting the text back into the word. It functions more like a commentary than careful lexicography.

Barr's Semantics of Biblical Language is the classic critique (a dismantling, really) of this style of semantic history. Moisés Silva, John Barton, and others have also shown the limits of TDNT's approach. BDAG, Louw-Nida, etc. are corpus-based, usage-driven works that aim for tighter semantic delineation. Hence, their conciseness is a strength. It reflects disciplined lexical method.

This sounds like an unfounded presumptive attack, rather than a substantive critique. Louw-Nida is far more often theologically driven in its definitions, particulary because of their reliance on biased historical sources rather than dealing with the source material itself.

Dikaioumenoi said:
As to the quote itself, TDNT is correct to note that ἑλκύω has both literal and figurative uses (e.g. John 18:10, 21:6 literally; John 6:44, 12:32 figuratively). What it misdescribes is the figurative sense: figurative application to persons or will does not by itself strip the verb of its forceful, effectual core. The figurative use shifts the object of the pull (from net or rope to a person), not the verb's basic sense of bringing about movement. This doesn't entail success of the action, but it does mean that failure (in both the literal and figurative senses) requires contextual indication (e.g., John 21:6); that is, "an attempt that may fail" is not implicit in the verb's meaning, and that is not what is "figurative" about the figurative use. Just as "lift" in English still means "raise off the ground" even when someone fails to lift a boulder, ἑλκύω carries an effectual sense; apparent failure in a context is an extra-lexical matter to be proven from context, not assumed as part of the lemma.

None of this is relevant, and instead appears to be a pretext to force fit your pre-arrived at understanding rather than dealing with the contextual usage.

Dikaioumenoi said:
So TDNT should be treated as theological commentary; it is the wrong authority if you expect a discipline-level lexical argument about what ἑλκύω means in Koine.

and your whole argument is theologically driven, particularly in your failure to recognize the role of context in meaning and instead seeming to cling to a word-concept fallacy of meaning.

Dikaioumenoi said:
You're not representing the Calvinist argument accurately. The claim is not that ἑλκύω must mean "force" in order for the conclusion to follow. The reason Calvinists hold that all who are drawn are saved is grammatical, not because of the semantics of ἑλκύω. The argument is that the grammatical objects of ἑλκύσῃ and ἀναστήσω in John 6:44 are identical. The one who is drawn is the one who is raised. That observation does not depend on a particular interpretation of the verb's "forcefulness." The preoccupation with arguing for a "less forceful" understanding of ἑλκύω frequently leads to this misunderstanding of what the Calvinist argument even is.

In order for the Calvinist conclusion to follow, sure. But not for it to make sense in the context of the passage. All you're doing is imposing your theological baggage onto the word rather than actually presenting a grammatical argument. It's abusive of how languages actually work, and fails to carry force with anyone who isn't set on arriving at your conclusion.

MarkSB · 2025-11-15T20:17:34-0600

Servus said:
I would imagine what's happening all over the US in the video below is another factor in a decline in tourism. I used to love visiting Seattle, but not anymore because it's become like this.

Login to view embedded media

Yeah I'm sure that's the reason why. That certainly looks like a tourist destination.

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