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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.

Anti-Muslim Bigotry Directed at Mamdani

Mamdani appears smiling, arm-in-arm with unindicted ‘93 WTC bombing co-conspirator and terrorist apologist


The Democratic frontrunner to become the city’s next mayor was seen laughing and grinning while standing arm-in-arm with Siraj Wahhaj at the imam’s Bedford-Stuyvesant mosque in a photo the socialist posted to X a day after the first mayoral debate.​
Why is that problematic?
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What is the meaning of Total Depravity?

Then your will is not free to choose to be sinless.
It's a matter of who you choose to serve, God or mammon. Nearness to God equates to freedom from sin, If we sin, then we've exercised our freedom to remain apart from Him, as John's letters so eloquently emphasize.
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SNAP benefits ( gentally)

Anything that’s not edible or is a drug like alcohol should be excluded. The rest is up to the individual what they wish to use their SNAP money for. If they want to feed their kids nothing but cookies and soda, that’s on them. Not my business to tell someone else how to buy for their household.
what about the fact that the N in SNAP says otherwise? It was not meant to help people buy junk food.
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The Thing Most Sabbath Keepers Do not Talk About.

I have read your post more carefully, and I understand your points. You wrote “Christ is declaring he has authority over the Sabbath. Authority means just that, he can say what goes and what doesn't. He is just told off for picking grain and rather than defending the actions as work or not work, he defends his authority, ranking himself and followers as priest that are allowed to violate the Sabbath to do their duties then declaring he the one who has the authority over the Sabbath.” The focus on the authority of Christ is very important, but Christ and His Apostles did not violate the Sabbath. As pointed out in earlier posts, what they did was permissible and the Pharisees were just looking for trouble. Anyhow, the purpose of my post was to give an opening for those who keep The Lord’s Day a chance to state their case without attacking people like me who keep the Sabbath. You did an excellent job. It is important, because there is a difference between “breaking” one of the commandments as a rebellion against God and doing so to magnify the work of Christ. I think keeping the Sabbath is a great blessing, and you have made a clear case why one should not judge those who don’t. As we say here, go with God.
The disciples where picking heads of grain and the pharaisees were splitting hairs. Yet Christ is silent on this. He instead says priests can desecrate the Sabbath and guys like David who were led by their heart can eat consecrated bread. Then he tells them he is Lord of the Sabbath but no comment on the grain. He is invoking authority and type of led-by-the-heart action but he is not telling them off for staining gnats (which he certainly wasn't afraid of doing)

How are the pharaisees being scolded by Christ in this instance? They have definitely missed the point but Christ doesn't see the manner of which he and his followers pick grain on the Sabbath needed to be clarified and instead calls himself the Lord of the Sabbath. The Pharaisees wouldn't walk away challenged that picking heads of grain is not breaking the Sabbath, their thoughts on that would remain unchanged. What they would be challenged by is Christ's authority to pick heads of grain on the Sabbath which is a different conversation.

I would probably be considered by habbit and by intentionally obstaining from work someone who keeps the Sabbath but I don't call myself a Sabbath keeper. When I read the Sabbath message in scripture I don't see a call for physical rest, I see a call for spiritual rest through Christ and I see this for every moment. I have that rest, so the call for me now extends to spread that rest as far and wide as possible even if it involves labour.
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TRUMP "MISSED THE DEADLINE" TO CALL OFF TX GERRYMANDERING; CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE “BEAUTIFUL MAPS”

This time. When someone shows me that they're willing to toss their values aside in one instance, it makes it had for me to believe they wouldn't do it again in different circumstances.



That's one way to look at it. Another is to realize that if Democrats were to vote for a clean CR, the government would be operating on the same budget that was approved under Biden.
Is that the one that had all the cuts to Obamacare?
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Are professed Christians that worship our Lord on Sunday instead of Saturday sinning?

Do you have any evidence that this "clear distinction" is anything more than a rendering of καί?

Would you care to explain your conjecture?

I'd think you'd be at least a little surprised that your own source contradicts you.
I haven't seen the evidence that my source contradicts me.
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Consumer Prices Will Go Down From Day One? Will Gas Prices Go Down 50% Within A Year?

Trump just bragged about Walmart’s cheaper Thanksgiving dinner, but here’s what he conveniently left out

“Walmart just announced that Prices for a Thanksgiving Dinner is now down 25% since under Sleepy/Crooked Joe Biden, in 2024,” Trump wrote Wednesday. “AFFORDABILITY is a Republican Stronghold. Hopefully, Republicans will use this as irrefutable fact!”

A community note on X pointed out that this year’s meal featured fewer brand-name items and six fewer items overall. The Turkey cost nine cents more [per pound] compared to last year, and 2024 items like a [2 pound Marie Callender's] premade pie, cranberry sauce and onions were dropped entirely.

View attachment 372766
normal Trump
--------
cut out the pecan pie, whipped topping marshmallows, corn muffins, sweet potatoes, fresh onions, celery, poultry seasoning
Substitute lots of mac and cheese
make your own cranberry sauce
count on Walmart to absorb the 70% increase in turkey prices
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FBI agents group blasts Patel over 'erratic' personnel moves targeting agents who probed Trump

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - The FBI Agents Association on Tuesday lambasted FBI Director Kash Patel, after the bureau fired, unfired and then re-fired several FBI agents who had worked on cases targeting U.S. President Donald Trump or his allies.
"Director Patel has disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution," the association said in a statement.
More than 200 people have been fired from the Justice Department since Trump took office in January. Of those, dozens worked on criminal cases related to Trump or his allies.
Several former FBI officials, including former Acting Director Brian Driscoll, have since filed a lawsuit challenging their termination, and accusing the administration of orchestrating a politically motivated personnel purge.
The Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, has been releasing records from Smith's investigation that include the names of Justice Department or FBI personnel who were involved. Most of those people have since been terminated, and many of them have also been targeted online by pro-Trump social media accounts. --Reuters.

1762447976174.png


How many times has that happened? I never knew this org even existed, This is what the weaponizing of the DOJ looks like. They claimed Americans lost confidence in the FBI (they mean MAGA) only to conduct actions of retribution where now they lost the confidence of the FBI agents themselves. Keep your head down, bite your tongue, be miserable, and keep from getting fired. What usually happens when a leader looses the confidence of those they are suppose to lead?

Does Regeneration Precede Faith?

But those who had heard The Father and learned from Him will come to Him, verse 45.
And this refutes which premise, exactly? I laid out a structured argument from John 6:44 with explicit premises and a necessary conclusion. If you believe the argument is unsound, you must identify the specific premise that is false or show how the conclusion does not follow. Simply citing verse 45 as though it overrides verse 44 is not a rebuttal. It's an assertion of contradiction without demonstration. Right now, the argument stands as presented, and your non-response is a concession that it is sound.
  1. No one (οὐδεὶς) is able (δύναται) to come to Christ apart from divine enablement.
  2. The divine enablement that removes that inability is expressed by the verb ἑλκύω ("to draw"), whose semantic core denotes an effectual movement from one position to another.
  3. Therefore, to draw (ἑλκύω) in John 6:44 signifies that the Father effectually moves a person from a state of moral inability (οὐδεὶς δύναται) to a state of genuine ability to come.
  4. The clause κἀγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ("and I will raise him up on the last day") identifies the same individual as the direct object of the Father's drawing (i.e., the one drawn is the one raised).
  5. Every person who is raised up on the last day is necessarily saved (cf. vv. 39-40, 54).
  6. Therefore, all whom the Father draws will unfailingly come to Christ and will be raised up on the last day.

I explained all this in the post you ignored when you claimed that I never addressed John 6:44.
No, what you offered was not an "explanation"; it was an assertion. One that rests on a dispensational presupposition, not an exegetical demonstration of its truth. As I have said to you previously, it is not my burden to disprove your assertions. It is yours to substantiate them. An explanation accounts for the text; an assertion merely states an opinion.

And for the record, I did respond to your comment on verse 45 (see the end of that post). I cited your words directly and referenced where I had already engaged that verse in detail, asking for your interaction. You never replied. So you're simply being argumentative at this point. Merely repeating that you've "addressed" John 6:44 does not make it so. All you've done with John 6:44 is, again, state an opinion. To "address" an argument means to identify the premises and show where the reasoning fails. So far, you have not done that.

These were my comments on verse 45, which I already asked you to address:

Jesus is citing Isaiah 54:13, where "being taught by God" is a covenantal promise of divine renewal, parallel to Jeremiah 31:33-34, where God writes His law on their hearts so that "they shall all know Me." In context, it is not a general offer of instruction but a description of the effectual work of God upon His covenant people.​
Grammatically, διδακτοὶ θεοῦ contains a genitive of agency with a substantivized predicate adjective. This construction consistently denotes persons passively affected by the action of the genitive noun. Compare ἁγαπητοῖς θεοῦ in Romans 1:7 ("loved by God") and τοῖς ἁγαπητοῖς ἡμῶν in Acts 15:25 ("our beloved"), which describe an objective reality independent of response. The persons are loved; their reaction does not produce that love. Similarly, γεννητοῖς γυναικῶν in Matthew 11:11 ("those born of women") identifies those who have undergone birth, something wholly external to their will. The same pattern appears in θεόπνευστος ("God-breathed") in 2 Timothy 3:16, where the focus is on the divine origin of Scripture, not human participation.​
In other words, this grammatical logic essentially conveys the same thing as a compound word: God-breathed, woman-born, God-loved, and God-taught. It is descriptive of something that has happened; it characterizes. Thus, διδακτοὶ θεοῦ specifically conveys the idea that those in view have received the instructional benefits of the teaching. It does not convey the idea of a teaching simply offered. See also compounds σητόβρωτα ("moth-eaten," Jas. 5:2), πατροπαράδοτου ("inherited from forefathers," 1 Pet. 1:18), and ποταμοφόρητον ("swept away by a flood," Rev. 12:15). In fact, Paul actually uses a compound form of the "God-taught" phrase in 1 Thess. 4:9: θεοδίδακτοι.​
In every one of these cases, the modifying element marks the agent producing the effect.​
In other words, "taught by God" describes not a universal opportunity for instruction, but a divine action that creates the very capacity to come to Christ. It's a metaphor for regeneration, being born again, and directly parallel to "draws" in the prior verse. The subsequent clause, "everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me," simply articulates the necessary consequences of that effectual act. Being taught by God is what ensures coming to the Son.​

RE: John 3:18, still awaiting your interaction with my comments in post #91.

I'll refrain from further response unless you have a substantive engagement with the arguments above. Any additional assertion lacking demonstration will be regarded as a tacit concession.
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Two from New Jersey charged with terrorism--Alina Habba video

It's a matter of law not activism as to whether she was legally appointed. It appears that her and Halligan's appointments did not follow legal rules and regulations.


NOTUS reviewed more than 140 criminal cases filed in recent months which show how Habba has largely brushed aside explicit court warnings about her dubious authority. An analysis of those cases show that more than 39 indictments could be contested, because she signed them after July 1 — the point at which a judge deemed she acted “without lawful authority.” Twenty-eight of those came after the judge’s ruling in August.​
It’s the latest sign that the Department of Justice has prioritized keeping those closest to President Donald Trump in positions of power, regardless of how that could affect actual operations. Judges have disqualified Trump-picked U.S. attorneys for similar reasons in Nevada last month and Central California just this week, putting prosecutions there into question as well. In Habba’s case, the White House has been steadfast in keeping one of Trump’s most loyal allies overseeing all federal investigations in a district that happens to be home to his Bedminster golf club and presidential summer retreat.​
Longtime prosecutors in the office have become increasingly uncomfortable with Habba’s decisions and tactics, sources said.​
Pam Bondi flouts the law.
Fortunately we have a court system that makes decisions rather than Notus or Politico.
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The Book of Enoch?

Genesis itself speaks of the giants, with the term nephilim. It is not peculiar to 1 Enoch. I think that new testament passages would not make reference to passages of 1 Enoch if it was not anything of Scripture, with Jesus saying to Sadducees that they knew not the scriptures for not knowing the angels in heaven do not marry, which refers to a passage in 1 Enoch and no other passages that I know were ever found. There are still those references. And so certain fallen angelic beings did come among humans and seduced them into ungodly things and using flesh for their own enjoyment, contrary to God, whom humans were forgetting about.
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Stress Eating from Fear

Thanks so much for this because I don't get a lot of fellowship where I am and it helps to have the word of God reiterated with fellow Christians.
Same, but I'm here for you if you need me!

Like you, I was watching ASMR and mukbangs to manage cravings through third party but then I felt bad like I was encouraging sin through others so I stopped... I don't know...!
Mukbangs might not be a good idea, since it promotes overeating. And when you're on a diet, that isn't going to help because you'll just crave food. As far as ASMR, I try and find wholesome artists to watch. I stopped promoting one after she came out saying she started OF... I was like, yep... not supporting that and unsubbed. But general ASMR isn't a sin as long as the content is wholesome. Latte, and Myaling are my 2 absolute favorites.

Sorry about the milk intolerance! That must be a lot to manage because, as you say, there is milk in so many things!! But, congrats on your weight loss!!
Thank you! :heart:

I started out being Obese class II and managed to get to 'healthy' according to BMI scale but have crept my way up to 'overweight' by 10 pounds due to stress eating! I really want to get a grip on this so I can honor God through honoring my body and not resorting to anything worldly when stress and fear seem to consume me!
Congrats at getting down so far!! And also, give yourself some grace to realize that you're headed in the wrong direction and you're trying to do something about it. That in itself is exactly what you should be doing! Remember, this is a race (I really like Pauls metaphor as it makes total sense), so the only thing you need to do is KEEP GOING. Struggles aren't going to be an overnight thing where suddenly you wake up in the morning and it's all gone and you're good and you can go take on the world!! It's conquering 1 thing at a time, step by step. If you fall off the horse, get back on. Your desire to get a grip on this is a wholesome one and I KNOW God is going, "YOU CAN DO IT!" Picture him like your cheerleader XD

Thank you for the reminder that it is Satan. I think about God a lot but never Satan. I don't know why!
You're welcome! Probably because you're just not used to looking at it this way. Don't worry, that's why we have fellowship! We help each other <3

I'm still so scared. I have a paper journal and will try to use that more often. I had an online diary, because writing hurts (!) but I don't think it was helping because I only went to it after the fact AND I'm scared of anything being noted online in our current censorship era.
I don't blame you. Things get leaked all the time but maybe it might help to open up a word doc, pour out your heart just so you can feel like you're getting it out there and then delete it. Then go to God and pray about what you just wrote. Writing helps me sort my emotions and thoughts and if physical writing hurts, maybe this method might help you.

So, appreciate your help, thank you so much. If you need an accountability buddy, let me know!
Will do! And if you need someone too, I'm here also!
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Fr. Josiah On Pornography, and Nick Fuentes

Not smart, seems to know nothing about history. (Likes both Stalin and Hitler??) Anyhoo-what concerns me is everyday young men who feel disenfranchised in our society and don't do critical thinking seem to follow him. I'm glad he's being denounced by some good conservatives that I follow.
most conservatives I know don’t take him seriously.
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Brick-n-Mortar Demons

Grant them understanding Father for the loss they now exhibit, their destitution from that blessed engrafted word of God for which brother Kirk paid the price for.
Understanding? More like, “engrafted word” of God's example for which brother Kirk paid the price for.

Has enough time passed for everyone within your given convictions to rise up within His will? No doubt, so many!

“For if indeed I have forgiven anything,​
I have forgiven that one for your sakes​
in the presence of Christ, lest Satan should​
take advantage of us, ,” (2 Corinthians 2:10,11)​

Understanding? You be the judge! What great shared blessings Charlie left. For many of us, an indelible mark on our hearts yet still now, not all. This leaves a poignant reminder of the divide of both reverie and spite for the truths he was capable of uncovering. Does this shadow cast seek to overtake our present longing for our brother, or push to reserve such care for ourselves as in ancient times as THEY DID in “one accord” to have Providence once again,‘lose the Apostle from prison’ type protection?

For give us Father for repeating the example you have recounted, just enough example for us yet, have nothing to show for it. Including worst of all Lord, for putting your patience to the test.

What example of understanding? Wouldn’t you agree of these glaring similarities of the Charlie Kirk’ amazing rise yet, lack of support and passing, to the scriptural account of Steven’s qualities and lack of support in the book of Acts 6:8 – 8:3

In the Church:

1 Wonders
2 Wisdom
3 Envy unaddressed

The assassin:

Why dither) the best the unaffiliated had to offer, Saul / Tyler
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Morality without Absolute Morality

You claim it's just a subjective preference, but then you act as if it is an objective issue. You aren't consistent in maintaining that it's just your subjective preference, because you act as if it is well and truly wrong not just distasteful to you.

That's because it IS an objective issue. It's as if we metaphorically put everyone in a room and let them fight it out, and morals is what you get when you remove the dead bodies. It's what you're ALWAYS going to get, and it has nothing to do with God, unless you consider nature to be God.

So it becomes a self perpetuating fact simply through the process of elimination, because all the other options fail.

FYI, that's the exact same way that ALL objective truths come to exist, because all the other options failed.
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