Paulwat said:

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Love to get reassurance like this about the fact hell isn't real, but heaven is.

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Both are real.

rjs330 said:

Yes and rhe people of Chicago are recognizing the overall failure of Mayor Johnson to protect the people of Chicago.

Mayor Johnson’s 6% Approval Shows: Race-Baiting Can’t Cover up Epic Public Safety Failure

And the police themselves are not supportive of him either.

Shots fired! Police union boss calls Chicago mayor 'piece of garbage' for saying law enforcement a 'sickness' to be 'eradicated' - CWB Chicago

And the FOP doesn't support the top cop. This is a mess in Chicago and people are seeing it.

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Mayor Johnson is an absolute failure.

JUST IN: Chicago Shootings After Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony Leave 8 Injured and One 14 Year Old Dead, Lawmaker Says 300 Juveniles were Rioting in Teen Takover - Trump Responds! (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jordan Conradson

Apple Sky said:

Why not ? We are talking 10 to 12 miles difference, that's 12 miles more than my 60 miles..

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The Bristol Channel is no more than 40 miles wide below Swansea

A2SG said:

Incorrect. Cross dressing as entertainment has been acceptable for ages. Some Like It Hot, Bosom Buddies, Tootsie, Bugs Bunny...shall I go on?

-- A2SG, how about Shakespeare?

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I was describing my experience. Perhaps yours was different.

Dan Perez said:

And just asking , ARE we. under the Law. ??

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The very real evil present within everyone is definitely both under the law and condemned by the law, rightfully so.

Mark 7:21-23 is a reality for all of us Dan. Anyone who doesn't believe that is just lying to themselves.

Dan Perez said:

Are we UNDER. the NEW COVENANT. ??

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The tempter or his own in NO PERSON is under the New Covenant.

You're theology is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole by only seeing one party in the equations when that's simply not the case. We're all tempted internally by the tempter

Dan Perez said:

Are we UNDER GRACE ??

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People are. Devils are not.

Dan Perez said:

And a verse that says THE people of Israel and ALL. Mankind have ALWAYS been God.'s children. ??

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Matt. 23:9, Acts 17:28-29, Deut. 14:1, Psalm 82:6, Romans 11:26-32 among many likewise

Richard T said:

You really think that the USA and Russia will be just with Ukraine?

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Peace for our time.

Again.

Welcome!

Sam266 said:

My name is Sam Naccarato. I have a B.A. in philosophy (1981) and I’ve spent over 45 years thinking about philosophical questions. For the past twenty+ years, I've focused on epistemology, the study of knowledge, with a strong Wittgensteinian approach drawn from his later work, especially On Certainty.

My Recent Work:

I recently completed a book titled From Testimony to Knowledge: Evaluating Near-Death Experiences, which applies epistemic standards to testimonial evidence. The book introduces what I call JTB+U (Justified True Belief plus Understanding) and introduces "guardrails" for responsible belief: No False Grounds (NFG), Practice Safety, and Defeater Screening. This framework applies broadly to evaluating knowledge claims, including those based on testimony.

I've also written a paper connecting Wittgenstein's hinge epistemology to Gödel's incompleteness theorems, exploring how both reveal necessary structural limits of formalized systems. I'm also working on a second book, which I'll introduce later.

My Philosophical Approach:

My epistemology is grounded in Wittgenstein's later philosophy, particularly his concept of "hinges," those bedrock certainties that function as preconditions for inquiry rather than conclusions within it. Chapters 6 and 7 of From Testimony to Knowledge develop this Wittgensteinian foundation in detail. I've identified that hinges operate at three levels: prelinguistic (before language acquisition), nonlinguistic (shown in action), and linguistic (expressed propositionally). Some hinges are metaphysically necessary (like "other minds exist"), while others are contingent.

I believe this framework has proven remarkably powerful for distinguishing between genuine foundational certainties and beliefs that require justification but often avoid scrutiny by claiming foundational status.

Why I'm Here:

I'm deeply interested in how we evaluate historical claims, especially those that rest on testimony. What standards should we use? How do we distinguish between strong and weak testimonial evidence? When does testimony rise to the level of knowledge, and when does it remain mere belief?

These questions apply universally, to scientific claims, historical events, legal proceedings, and yes, to religious truth claims as well. I believe the same standards should apply consistently across all domains.

I'm here to engage in philosophical discussion and welcome serious engagement with these ideas. I'm not interested in dismissing anyone's beliefs, but I am interested in understanding what justifies them and whether those justifications can withstand careful examination.

Looking forward to thoughtful conversations.

Sam

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Welcome!

The Liturgist said:

It’s clear that the worldly leaders on the far left have identified us now as a threat and are moving to persecute us,...

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When you're getting flak, you know you're over the target.

The Liturgist said:

...by associating us falsely with “white nationalism” (which is absurd as anyone who has visited a typical Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox parish can attest) and sexist, which is even more absurd.

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Agreed. And I have no personal experience with any "Orthobro" problem. Our congregation looks like a meeting of the U.N. We have folks representing every continent and color on Earth. Even Middle Earth (a Kiwi, lol).

One occasion for sorrow by the way is the realization that several glorious martyrs lack a beautiful canon such as that of St. Galacteon and Epistemis.

Indeed, I find myself wishing for a gloss for the General Menaion for more specific types of feasts, for example, given the proliferation of married martyrs and of married hieromartyrs and of child martyrs due to Communist, islamic and Papist persecutions joining those persecuted by the Hellenic Pagans of antiquity, for instance, among the latter groups we encounter the great victors St. Alexei and St. Peter the Aleut joining the many martyred children of antiquity.

And here I find myself again pained, because St. Peter the Aleut despite his great importance to Orthodox Christians in North America, especially those of Aleutian or Native American ancestry or those in the OCA, ROCOR, Antioch, and other churches historically connected to the OCA’s Diocese of Sitka and Alaska, we lack a service specifically for St. Peter; we have a Troparion and Kontakion for him, but not a complete canon.

And at that, he is still better treated by our calendar than some young martyrs of antiquity; I was greatly pained to realize that, as far as I can tell, St. Abanoub, a Coptic boy martyred in the Diocletian Persecutions, is not on our calendar; his story is deeply moving and what is more, our Coptic friends report many miracles connected with him in recent years, and due to the strong similarity between the Coptic and Byzantine Rites it would not be difficult to transpose the Coptic propers for St. Abanoub into our liturgy, and either doing that, or writing a new service based on the hagiography of St. Abanoub, which we ostensibly accept, ought not be controversial, particularly since St. Abanoub was a victim of the Diocletian Persecution who died long before the wicked Nestorius set in motion the chain of events that would as a secondary effect cause the tragic alienation between the predominantly Alexandrian Greek Eastern Orthodox Christians of Egypt, and the predominantly Coptic Oriental Orthodox Christians (fortunately, the aforementioned efforts of the Khedive notwithstanding, the Alexandrian and Coptic churches do have arrangements for pastoral care facilitating intermarriage, which has become important due to the tragic decline of the Alexandrian Greek population in Egypt, a distinctive ethnic group increasingly at risk of dying off due to emigration even as the overall Alexandrian church flourishes). Likewise, despite the absence of formal arrangements, Copts frequently make pilgrimages to St. Catharine’s Monastery in Sinai where they are well received by the smallest autonomous Eastern Orthodox Church, which nonetheless has a few laity among the Bedouin tribes it serves (in addition to providing healthcare to all the members of the tribes, creating a symbiotic relationship; there are no parishes of the Church of Sinai but in addition to the Monastery proper it does have a few chapels; given the increased population and tourism of other Orthodox Christians such as Russians to Sinai I pray to see the Church of Sinai grow in size).

At any rate; if we had a gloss for the General Menaion to supplement the standard services with more refined subtypes, for instance, for specific kinds of martyrs, or for icons of the Theotokos (by, for example, taking those portions of the proper services for the various icons and arranging them as a gloss that could be applied to the standard service for feasts of the Theotokos), that would help, and if we had more services in general for important saints who lack their own service, or who only have troparia and kontakia, I would really like that.

I would also lament however that at a great many Orthodox parishes the only propers one might hear would be the troparion and kontakion of the feast, due to poor attendance at Vespers and Orthros and severe cuts. For instance, the AOCNA usually omits most of the canon from Matins and is not alone in this practice.

Thus, part of this thread's raison d'etre is to encourage new parishes and monasteries to seek the blessing of their hierarchs to try to celebrate more of the Menaion than is presently celebrated. And if we had more people writing Canons and other proper hymns, and not just Kontakia and Troparia and Akathists for new saints, that would also help.

Later in the weekend I will likely comment on the Synaxis of St. Michael and All the Angels and the Feast of the Entry of the Theotokos, (the former coincided with the afterfeast of the latter on the revised Julian Calendar).

Also while it is the case that I prefer the Julian Calendar (or the Gregorian) due to the Revised Julian causing anomalies like Fasts of the Apostles of negative duration, I am not doctrinaire on this point; I greatly dislike Old Calendarism and I love how in the OCA both calendar systems continue to exist, sometimes in the same parish, for example, Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles, which is an OCA parish which also has a small English speaking service on the Revised Julian Calendar (it is also one of the few Russian Orthodox churches in the US that follows the distinctly Russian practice of changing into red vesments between the conclusion of Paschal Matins and the start of the Paschal Divine Liturgy wearing them until the wekk of the Feast of the Ascension.

This is due to the similarity of the Russian word “Red” with the Church Slavonic word “Beautiful”, so Red Square originally meant Beautiful Square (this also why the Communists tried to own that color in Russia). I rather like this tradition however; the MP and some OCA parishes use a slightly different liturgical color scheme than ROCOR, the Ukrainians and most American parishes, with purple being used more frequently and outside of Lent, and also more use of green; and no attempt at liturgical color standardization (so the use of green for multiple Sundays after All Saints Day and of red during Advent is not done). It also results in MP parishes changing their vestments and some paraments thrice in 24 hours: from black to white on the morning of Holy Saturday during the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of St. Basil and from white to red shortly after midnight.

I wonder if on a Kyriopascha they throw in the use of blue vestments, for that would be epic; I would love to see a video if anyone is aware of one of of a divine liturgy in a Russian Orthodox church during the last Kyriopascha in 1991.

gzt said:

Well, it's very "Tristram Shandy" so far, so your consultants are at least cribbing from a tried-and-true model.

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Let us love one another, so that with one accord we may confess: the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Trinity, one in essence and undivided.

Kudos to the people who made this decision

CoreyD said:

The record shows I gave clarification... repeatedly.
The record shows you ignored the posts.

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Listen, you're not going to get anywhere with her. Her belief is that unless you can ALWAYS choose right, you don't have free will. Of course that is a bogus belief, but it's the way she sees it.

A Devil's Advocate said:

When Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees with what is the greatest commandment, as you know He replied with love your God and love your neighbor.

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Loving God above all and loving one’s neighbor as oneself are not easy tasks and imply a struggle to overcome all sinful behavior, since Christ our God specifically identifies the moral instruction of the Law and Prophets, who provide a forensic and qualitative explanation of sin, respectively, as being summarized by the love of God and of one’s neighbor over that of oneself. Thus, all Orthodox saints including the ascetics who struggled against sin, in many cases winning spectacular victories through various forms of martyrdom, are venerated because of their success in these two fields. St. Anthony is a prototypical God-loving saint who managed to overcome the passions after unsuccessfully presenting himself for martyrdom after selling all that he owned and giving it to the poor, and St. Cosimas and Damian, the unmercenary healers, are exemplary at loving their neighbor. St. Nicholas of Myra, whose torture during the Diocletian persecution did not dampen his love, became one of the most venerated hierarchs, especially in the East, and also the only Eastern bishop to be as extensively venerated in the West as is warranted (since the West during the High Middle Ages forgot or discounted the importance of the likes of St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Cyril of Alexandria and most other Orthodox bishops; indeed the tragedy now is that many Western Christians are familiar with post-Nicene fathers only through the writings of St. Augustine, who is venerable, to be clear, but also misunderstood, and a saint whose approach to original sin was not the one historically selected by the early church in rejection of the Pelagian heresy, rather the ancestral sin model of another Latin speaking saint, St. John Cassian, was preferred.

At any rate, we can love our neighbor as ourself only through repentance made possible through the grace of the Holy Spirit, a course of action we must willingly take according to the Fathers (Calvinist monergism was unknown in antiquity and those forms of monergism which were known were rejected at the Fifth Ecumenical Synod in the Chalcedonian churches and through equivalent decisions among the Oriental Orthodox).

I don’t understand what would cause you to believe that a focus on loving one’s neighbor above one’s self and loving God above all is anything other than a struggle against the sinful passions. The sinful passions (gluttony, avarice, lust, sloth, pride, especially pride) are sinful precisely because they are by nature self-indulgent.

To quote St. Nikitas Stithatos, in his 100 Texts on the Practice of the Virtues, contained in the Philokalia (compiled in the 18th century by St. NIcodemus the Hagiorite and St. Macarius of Corinth, translated into English by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Mother Mary, may their memories be eternal),

“If you aspire to the spuriousness of human praise as though it were something authentic, wallow in selfindulgence because of your soul's insatiability, and through your greed entwine yourself with avarice, you will either make yourself demonic through self-conceit and arrogance, or degenerate into bestiality through the gratification of belly and genitals, or become savage to others because of your gross inhuman avarice. In this way your faith in God will lapse, as Christ said it would when you accept human praise (cf. John 5:44.); you will abandon self-restraint and purity because your lower organs are unsatedly kindled and succumb to unbridled appetence; and you will be shut out from love because you minister solely to yourself and do not succor your fellow beings when they are in need. Like some polymorphic monster compounded thus out of multifarious self-antagonistic parts, you will be the implacable enemy of God, man and the animals.”

DaisyDay said:

True, it was simply stated the ICE would be going after criminals, with the unspoken "only" being strongly implied.

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I understood this to mean primarily criminals. Of course non-criminal illegal immigrants will inevitably get caught it the raids as well. They will also have to be deported, because - you know, illegal.

Rashid made adhan during night.

SHDMD

This is an extension of the most dangerous to ride light rail system in the United States. I would have preferred the money be used toward safety measures before even considering extensions. The closest stop to where I used to live is the most dangerous of all of the stops, and I haven't used the light rail in years nor do I intend to do so.

essentialsaltes said:

2 of 3 men who disrupted Muslim prayer at USF identified, police file hate crime charges​

Police said they filed hate crime charges against Christopher Svochak, 40, of Waco, Texas, and Richard Penskoski, 49, of Canyon, Oklahoma. Both have known local addresses in the Tampa Bay area, but no affiliation with USF, according to officials.

Police filed charges against Svochak and Penskosk under Florida State Statute 871.071 for disturbing schools and religious assemblies — which will be upgraded to a felony hate crime. They also filed charges for disorderly conduct and disrupting a school or lawful assembly.

The two men, and the unidentified third suspect, are associated with “the official street preachers.” In a statement, they said they were exercising their constitutional right to preach and speak against Islam.

Cell phone video captured the moment the three men confronted the group of students. The Muslim Students Association at USF said the men shouted slurs at them, waved bacon, and mocked their sacred rituals.

In one clip, a man could be heard saying, “You guys don’t have any bombs on you do you.” Another clip showed one of the men saying, “Spit on Muhammed’s name, he is a scum bag, just like all you Muslim terrorist.” It all lasted about 13 minutes.

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From the article:
"Abu Tahir, a student and prayer leader, said the encounter was deeply traumatic. “I had to relive the whole thing again,” he said. “Hearing every voice, every insult, every atrocious claim that they had made against our religion"

Awe, that's so sad. Thing is, as a Catholic, I get to hear my own friends and coworkers rag about my religion my entire life. Anyone see me weeping about it? No. You get over it and move on. It's called being humble.

From AI Overview:

Scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science, including Robert Hazen, Michael Wong, and Anirudh Prabhu, are leading a team that programs artificial intelligence (AI) to look for signs of life in rocks billions of years old. Researcher Katie Maloney from Michigan State University also contributed to the effort.

Dikaioumenoi said:

So you're suggesting "hearing and learning" may provide a condition to being drawn, which in turn enables one to come? How could someone who is unable to receive Christ in the first place "hear and learn"?

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I don't see the problem. Hearing and learning is not the same as receiving Christ. Listening to the prophets enabled one to come to Christ, in other words, you would be drawn. If you ignore the prophets, you would ignore Christ

Dikaioumenoi said:

The phrase διδακτοὶ θεοῦ ("taught by God" or "God-taught") in John 6:45 uses a predicate adjective derived from διδάσκω. Its function here is descriptive, not conditional. It describes individuals who have received the benefit of a divine act of teaching, not the offering of a teaching that may be accepted or refused. The genitive θεοῦ marks God as the source of the imparted knowledge. In other words, it is the effect of God's action, not a prerequisite for it.

Compare to "God-breathed" in 2 Tim. 3:16. It's the same sort of predicate adjectival idea. It's descriptive of a divine act. Just as Scripture is described as being "breathed out by God," those in view in John 6:44-45 are described as "having received God's instruction."

Grammatically and contextually, "taught by God" parallels "drawn" in the preceding verse: just as drawing is an effective divine act that enables ability, so being God-taught is a description of the outcome of that divine action (which actually further makes the point that the "him raised" refers to the one drawn). John 6:45 therefore does not suggest that hearing and learning is a condition to be drawn; rather, the hearing and learning are the result of God's effective action. They describe the means by which the knowledge and understanding is imparted by God to those whom He draws.

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I can neither verify nor refute your grammatical claims. I will say this: John 6:45 identifies those who are drawn as listening and learning, describing them as God-taught. The text does not explain why they listen and learn, why they are God-taught. It simply presents these as characteristics of those whom God draws.

Anyone knit some of the old ones together?!

If you're interested in music or mental illness, this is a good watch. If you're interested in music AND mental illness, this is a great watch.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston.