Chesterton said:

Even if I were a pedophile, there's not much I'd be able to do surrounded by a bunch of parents at a football game, you know.

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If a parent even gets a sniff of someone who might be a paedophile they are persona non grata and likely face extra-judicial attention at some point in the future.

Here is an example of this rock softening technology.


On the other hand it could be Buzz Aldrin's footprint on the moon.

NxNW said:

Much of that cash has come from foreign sources...

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NxNW said:

The topic of this thread is not the validity of crypto as currency, but how the Trump Organization is using the presidency to profit from it.

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I think a lot of this really underlies how important crypto is for online transactions for people outside the United States. If you're in a country that doesn't have easy access to Paypal, frequently your only option is to use your local currency to buy crypto and then use that to make whatever online transaction you wanted to make. If you're getting pay via internet freelancing, it's the same deal - get paid in crypto and sell it for local currency.

So, people who have to do this want crypto that is unlikely to lose value overnight, and Trump is giving that to them, so they are buying in. Trump's assoiciates are making a profit off of U.S. sanctions and restrictions on Paypal, the U.S. based online payment processor. The ease that Paypal gives us is something we take for granted here in the U.S. - many don't understand how the rest of the world lives in terms of online payments.

sjastro said:

As everyone knows toast always lands on the buttered side when dropped on the floor and cats land on their feet. So what happens when buttered toast facing upwards is strapped on the back of a cat which is then dropped from a great height?
This is one of the great mysteries of science and since Chatgpt-5 joked about my sock analogy I posed the question.


ChatGPT has turned into a comedian.

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It was such ground breaking research it won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics.

[touches earpiece]... mmmhmm ... ok .. got it

A minor correction, that was the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize for Physics.

peaceful-forest said:

After I was saved, I attended Baptist churches and non-denominational churches. It seems like at the two Baptist churches, whether it was from leadership or other church members, they had this attitude that once you were saved, you didn't matter anymore. What I mean is that the church has too much of a focus on saving lost people. So if a Christian needs something or wants something, it doesn't matter, because "there are more important things to focus on and there's people going to Hell".

Is this anyone else's experience? Are the pastors and/or leadership being taught something in seminary school/Christian colleges/Bible colleges that is encouraging this kind of behavior? Why is it okay to neglect other parts of the church because "people are going to Hell and need to hear the Gospel"?

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What a strange attitude on the part of the church! I have been a Baptist ever since I became a Christian, and have not come across such a thing. Of course a church should be concerned with unsaved people, but church members (including the leaders) should be concerned for their fellow church members. Perhaps you need to discuss how you feel with the leaders.

com7fy8 said:

I think it was Jesus who talked about hypocrites being like tombs full of bones and having white-washed walls.

And Paul had some things to say to hypocritical people. For example > in Romans 2:1-11.

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Yes and I notice this same truth in the Lord prayer when it says "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us". As though our disposition is not to be judgemental to begin with.

But to be willing to forgive even our enermies or loved ones which can be very hard as well. Without going all ballistic on them lol. Or even persisting with a gruge. Which is completely against the mentality of the culture wars.

com7fy8 said:

I would say, yes, but first make sure we are calling out how we ourselves are wrong. And use this as an example to encourage others to also seek God for real correction.

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Yes 'take the log out of your own eye before removing the speck in another'. Really a life and psychological truth principle. Petersons mentions the 12 steps to a better life as a psychological principles.

The first being "Clean up your room" or your own house first lol. Then you may have achieved some value in maybe helping another. Then go on to be a productive member of the family and society and help others.

But even more so for Christians who proclaim a different way.

Even then I think the major aspect of Christianity is non verbal. The gospel is quite simple and on that alone we can rationalise as a matter of a testimony and faith claim. The rest is subject to that.

So a simple humble and quite disposition exmpling Christ speaks a 1,000 words. When some does say the little they will say. They will be well respected and listened to. It won't be the same old whitenoise of the culture war.

This to a fair extent was how the church and Christians were. A seperate moral voice that was not mixed up in the world. Sought out as wise counsel in moral matters. Until the two got into bed together and the church just became another corrupted power and identity in the world.

In some ways I think identity and culture wars are Pharisees in mindset as its all about the how to be good to earn salvation rather than the core truth that all are sinners and fall short and its only by the Gospel that we can be transformed in Christ to be the kind of person all these identities are trying to live up to.

So by engaging in the wars we are actually drowning out the simple truth which has no identity but in Christ Himself.

Fervent said:

That's a whole lot of assertion, and nothing really substantive.

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Are you sure that you want to question whether humans have an innate sense of right and wrong?

Okay, then in Genesis chapter 3, who told Adam and Eve that they were naked?

The cross

Torture of extreme brutality turned into embodiment of salvation
When the wrath of God was poured out and
cup of curses was drunk to the full
When the justice of God was satisfied and
not any transgressions went unpunished
When the grace of God was withheld and
Jesus was separated from God for the first time

The harmony of divine attributes was manifested
The paradoxical dilemma was reconciled

Sin was fully propitiated and guilt completely atoned for
For His name’s sake, God accomplished this once and for all

Fervent said:

This is along the lines of the kind of opinions I was hoping would get discussed in this thread. Though I'm not sure it is a lone principle.

In particular, what I was hoping would get focused on is what it is that governments are instituted to preserve/protect...and whether or not the Enlightenment value of protecting individual liberties as the primary function of governments passes Biblical muster.

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God does love justice. He hates when the scales are imbalanced. However, he allows slavery but does not endorse it. I think God would reject free speech at least as far as the USA gives it. Pornography for instance would never be God's will for protected speech. God always seems to support due process. Paul appealing as a citizen of Rome shows that respect. God too has rules of evidence, such as everything being confirmed by two or more witnesses. God does give some criminals and foreigners rights too. I don't see any liberties that Americans would enjoy as being opposed to God, except maybe some exceptions for speech (the right to pornography an exception) and perhaps the right to any religious exercise. To me God gives free will though and while God does not want alternative paths to be worshiped, I think he suppresses that but does not outlaw it in the New Testament period. In the OT, God is quite direct in stamping out some nations that oppose him or are oppressive. In modern times, he allows far more. I think God emphasizes the difference between believers and non-believers, rather than the nations. I have seen some to suggest that God judges the church, not the nations in the New Testament. I lean to the former but there are times when God will judge leaders or groups that warrant this. If I consider the love of money in American society as a likely judgment coming, I have to assume that while everyone is effected those who are balanced in this area could actually fare better. Here I consider the low will be brought high, the high will be brought low as a Godly principle. The same goes for the humble versus the proud. So someone walking in humility without the love of money could fare extremely well.

If I consider a nation that has abortion rights as a major policy. Does God care? absolutely. So that to me is the paradox with Trump. Trump is God's choice because he is a vessel of correction in so many ways. In some things Trump is righteous yet in other things he is a leader in excesses. God is using both parts for America's good. Looking forward to more of your own and other's thoughts on this topic.

BPPLEE said:

Assault was overcharging. They should have just charged him with disorderly conduct. Surely you don’t think it’s okay to throw things at people, even if you don’t like them

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The problem is that they are the feds. They don't really have that charge available for a regular DC street. It would be a city charge.

fhansen said:

And why would God need to be patient with anyone and with what they may do if He's already predetermined that they'll come.

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Because God's decree does not eliminate means; it establishes them. His patience is not uncertainty about the outcome; it's the ordained space in which the elect are brought to repentance according to His timing.

fhansen said:

If the drawing can fail it's only because while God makes it possible for people to come to Him, He leaves it up to them to assent, or not.

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You're still missing the point. In John 6:44, ἑλκύω modifies δύναται ("is able"), not ἐλθεῖν. The Father's drawing is what effects the ability to come. If the drawing were to fail, God hasn't made it possible. That is precisely what the drawing does: it makes coming to Christ possible.

fhansen said:

Not so. That's like saying I can give...

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Again, you're not paying attention to what the argument is. Your analogy assumes God has already given something. The text says the Father's drawing enables coming: "No one can come to me unless the Father draws them." That drawing is what makes coming possible. So if someone can come, they have been drawn.

How, then, can it makes sense to say it is possible for someone to come, yet the Father's drawing -- the very act that makes it possible -- also fail?

You're wanting to jump ahead and say the Father's drawing doesn't necessitate that people will actually come to Christ. But that's not what we're disputing at this point. What we're concerned with at the moment is that the drawing is an enabling act of the Father that makes salvation possible. So if ἑλκύω can fail, salvation is not obtainable. The argument that the Father's enabling (drawing) activity does bring people effectually to Christ is a different point made from the grammar of the verse, not the meaning of ἑλκύω itself.

fhansen said:

1) The elect will be drawn, of course
2) The elect will come, of course
3) The elect wil be raised up, of course.

Does that mean that all who are drawn will necessarily come? Or that all who come will necessarily remain? No and no.

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Yes, it does. But not for any reason discussed above. What necessitates the conclusion that all who are drawn (i.e., all who are enabled) will come and be raised is that the grammar of the verse identifies the same individual in both clauses. The "him" who is drawn is the same "him" who will be raised:

οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρός με ἐὰν μὴ ὁ πατὴρ ὁ πέμψας με ἑλκύσῃ αὐτόν, κἀγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ

This becomes even clearer when phrased contrapositively:

"If he is able to come to me, then the Father has drawn him, and I will raise him up on the last day."

Who will be raised up on the last day? The one who is drawn/enabled. There is no distinction or separate category; the drawing guarantees coming and final resurrection.

lismore said:

That is often true. The church is made up of people from all social backgrounds, all ages, together as one, a new family in Christ. We had some what of a culture war in this country in the 90s, people were more or less expected to be middle class tories to be Christians and that this would bring revival. Instead the number of people attending churches fell off a cliff, as people were pushed into being something they could not be. Someone from a single parent family cannot be a middle class tory anymore than fly to the moon. It can be good for a church to speak out on clear Biblical distinctives, like speaking against abortion, or greed, but aligning to a political movement is to step into a morass.

The Kingdom of God is not of this world as Jesus himself said.

God Bless You

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Yes as the epistemics underlying the culture war is about identity and which groups are oppressors or victims or good or bad. Then through intersectionality, another key principle that people can belong to more than one identity group and the more victim identity groups the better. The more bad identities the worse.

So fighting becomes about how much identity you have aligned with good and bad identity groups. Christianity can then be reduced to other identities dragging down or lifting up the Christianity. Christians become another identity group that may align with good and bad identities.

Of course with that comes all the morals that align with the identities and thus some Christian morals and beliefs are going to come into conflict. Either stand on that differences as a biblical truth. Or find ways to compromise so that it fits with the good identities and the perceived morals or worldview that goes with that.

Its too complicated and full of ideological and moral mindfields that cause divisions and cultivating a culture of war between identities and will turn Christians into just one more identity group at war in the overall culture.

Hi, everybody. I haven't posted in a while. Although my fiancé and I have had a home to live in for almost four months now, we still struggle. I only get disability and he's not had a paying job in years. He starts today on a temporary assignment today for which he will eventually get compensated, but it'll take a while. We must provide for ourselves in every way but rent and utilities. I have only a couple of friends who help here and there with donations. I saw on Google that Reddit offers subs where people can ask for donations; I joined the site and eventually got to post, but I made mistakes and was accused of trying to scam people. I have nowhere else left to ask at this time and it's still a long way until the next disability day.

I please want to ask for your urgent prayers that a way to get money in an honest way will become available ASAP.

Thank you, and blessings.

Hi, everybody. I haven't posted in a while. Although my fiancé and I have had a home to live in for almost four months now, we still struggle. I only get disability and he's not had a paying job in years. He starts today on a temporary assignment today for which he will eventually get compensated, but it'll take a while. We must provide for ourselves in every way but rent and utilities. I have only a couple of friends who help here and there with donations. I saw on Google that Reddit offers subs where people can ask for donations; I joined the site and eventually got to post, but I made mistakes and was accused of trying to scam people. I have nowhere else left to ask at this time and it's still a long way until the next disability day.

I please want to ask for your urgent prayers that a way to get money in an honest way will become available ASAP.

Thank you, and blessings.

lismore said:

Several of the cities mentioned in the bible, including one of the Seven Churches of the Revelation, were sacked by Turkish armies on Jihad.

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Surely Turkic, not Turkish?

Also, Christians armies have sacked cities mentioned in the Bible. While on crusades. Including Jerusalem and Antioch.

So, if that's the standard were meant to judge on, its pot meet kettle im afraid.

ThatRobGuy said:

I always thought the more apropos solution to these shutdowns would be...
At 7 days: suspend pay for congressmen and senators (and their staffers) until it gets resolved.
At 14 days: actual fines imposed on them
At 30 days: failure to reach an agreement means governors have the option to call a special election to replace them if they so choose (the same way they do when one of them vacates a seat)


As much as I dislike the "4th branch of government" (the bureaucracy), their pay getting frozen doesn't do anything to bring a swifter end to these shutdowns as it doesn't instill the right sense of urgency in the legislature.

The notion that there's a shutdown, and outlets are reporting "well, no agreement was reached, so they'll be back in 5 days to restart negotiations" is unacceptable. If there's outstanding assignments that are urgent and time sensitive at my job, I don't get to bail on Thursday and say "well, have a good long weekend, we'll pick this back up on Tuesday", it's more of a "it's gonna be a busy weekend, put on a pot of coffee".

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I agree.

If government is disfunctional, that's not anyone's fault but their own.

Could be better...

Could you ever get it clean enough?

Carl Emerson said:

Do I go by the Georgian calendar, maybe the Hebrew Calendar, whoops we lost 10 days in 1752...

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although I do not know how history has played out and there may be some calibration issues with the point of the first Sabbath but with Western adjustments to the calendar, the days of the week remains unchanged. Sept 2nd 1752 was a Wednesday, then there is a 10 day skip and Sept 14th was a Thursday so the days of the week continued their natural progression. On Wednesday night Sept 2nd, people went to sleep and woke up as expected on a Thursday morning, went to work and did their lives even if the date was 10 days ahead. if we count sabbath to sabbath it would have still been 7 days regardless of the date changes or adding on months, days or removing etc... it's no different with February, every 4 years we get an extra day but this has no bearing on how the days of the week continue.

to me the 7 days week has issue with it's origins. Since when traced back it seems to be a Babylonian invention around the same time of the Babylonian exile, which challenges the creation account as being it's inception and suggests the Hebrews adopted the 7 day week rather than it's origins going back to creation. To me the greatest point in favour of the Babylonians is the question of why the number 7? there no biblical reason why 7 is the magic number and why it wasn't 6 or 9... or better yet 10. There is a lot of significance with the number 7 in the bible, but it is all rooted in creation, yet creation has no answer for us why 7, and without explanation, it would seem arbitrary and would imply there is still another origin story to explain 7.

The Babylonians have it, 7 is the known number of celestial bodies of the ancient world (before telescopes were invented). These are basically the planets we can see with the naked eye but also include the moon the sun (does not include the earth) they are the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The days of the week were set at 7 to venerate these planets, each day for a separate planet which in English are still named this way today. (Sunday = Sun, Monday = Moon, Saturday = Saturday, etc...) Even the 7th day had a special veneration to not work but the Babylonians were motivated from fear and hiding themselves. This gives explaination for why the number 7, without the need to go deeper, where the creation account still asks why 7?
dd
This may be upsetting to many and they would outright reject it as it can be seen as challenging the authority of the scripture. But scripture is most certainly has a lot of woven metaphore, the entire law points to Christ for example. But it really depends on how we view these accounts of valuing literal details or spiritual truth and if the latter is more important, can the details take on shape to affirm the spiritual truth? I would say the 7 day system was adopted by the Hebrews and used as a tool to reveal a message far better. A system rooted in pagan motivation is uprooted to point to Christ, which is a biblically consistent theme and is a more noble goal. This is challenging for a lot to accept and requires a type of faith that does not need the inerrancy of the literal details but instead the inerrancy of truth. It also requires clear understanding of non-negotiables where we can say the creation account may have not been litteral God still is the one who created it. Or that this doesn't mean Christ wasn't a literal person or literally died and resurrected, etc. Drawing the line means a very critical version of faith to understand what details are non-negotiable and what may be negotiable. The question of why 7 is an example of critically challenging the text.

Apathetic men never exercise.

PATH

pay attention to when it’s your turn, and don’t constantly be asking “Is it my turn?”

You can probably tell…

Camp Candy

Chesterton said:

In 14 years of frequent posting, I think this is the first post sympathetic to Christians that I've ever seen you make. Has Fuentes rubbed off on you from all the recent threads about him?

They are primarily Antiochian Orthodox, not Greek. We Antiochians and Greeks are theologically the same, the only difference is geographical location. I'm a conservative MAGA Antiochian Christian, and I have sympathy for them.

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So do I, but if you expect any sympathy from the Evangelical Protestants who are the main drivers of MAGA you will be disappointed. Most of them don't even think you are a "real" Christian.

Best you mind your manners.

Michie said:

No I said they were real people. And Paul was discussing covenants. Admittedly, I was scattered when I read this thread given the other things I was attending to at the time. Adam, Eve, Sarah, Hagar were real people. Using their situations as allegories to teach about covenants is not the issue, my misunderstanding was quickly reading through the thread while distracted and misunderstanding. So if you want to debate it, you aren’t going to find it with me. My apologies for hopping in and misunderstanding.

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That's fair: You misunderstood. No worries, mate.