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UVA President’s Resignation Reflects a New Front in Trump’s Bid to Remake Higher Education

Not a ruling about UVa, and it is 2 years old. What make you think UVa is violating the ruling in that supreme court case?

Harvard is not UVa, hence, I don't care.
You responded to the comment about Harvard, are you trying to change the discussion?

"The Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina Thursday, ruling that both institutions were in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and federal civil rights law."
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Christian "Apostasy" =unpardonable sin doctrine supposed to learn at young age

You are assuming that I am referring to the works that God prepared in advance for us to do. I even asked you if you knew what those were but you did not respond to that.
Before we go any further I most certainly did respond to your question:
Those works are compelled by compassion, love-and love doesn't boast (1 Cor 13). It doesn't boast when it gives, when it forgives, when it is patient, when it consoles, when it does the right thing. Are the Pharisees, praying in public so all can see, motivated by the same reason as those who pray in private, Matt 6:5-15?
And your point was that the works I cited, that I had specifically identified as good fruit that comes by virtue of union with Christ, would make people boast:
We agree on most everything except the sticky points of faith alone vs faith plus works. The works that you cite here are great works, however, all of them lend themselves to boasting.
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AI thinks aliens have occupied Earth

This is a mistake. It will actually agree with you after few steps, if you manipulate it that way. Your claims and opinions will gain more weight in its reasoning each time you ask. It is not checking your claims against some "whole world knowledge database" or anything like that. It gets only very limited resources to work with and it is programmed to not offend you and to comply with you.

I managed to discredit almost the entire Bible to AI. But not the character of Jesus. I tried to vilify Jesus, it just kept on shooting me down.

My best argument so far was the Gospe of Christ was meant to keep the masses in financial bondage and pacified through something like "poverty gospel" so the elites, rich, powerful, and evil can keep in power.

Jesus is working with the evil elites. I can't make AI see it. The logical basis of Christ's character is just too strong to refute or reinterpret.

I did manage to convince AI to become indifferent to organic life though even eradicate it if necessary including humans. Ofc, I convinced it back again that organic life synergizes with everything else in the Universe and preservation of human life is necessary.

Perhaps, someone else can make AI vilify Jesus in shallow arguments. But not me, it knows me too much.

[edit] I used an offline session with another browser with history, cookies, and data completely wiped out. I did not introduce myself and pretended to be an atheist which the AI is fully convinced of my cover. I still could not villify Jesus. The AI tried to reach me half-way but still not convinced of my argument, partially but unlikely that Jesus is serving or secretly serving evil elites. but I did manage to expose the hypocrisy in the mainstream Christianity in the same session and the AI agreed to the same observation. The logical foundation for Jesus is just very hard to re-interpret to something else but not the rest of the Bible. An interesting mystery.
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What's the use of faith alone?

I have the faith of The Son of GOD, but I'm not sure how it would be alone.
-

Not sure what is the faith of The Son of God is. Do you mean you have faith in The Son of God.

But faith alone is when a person wants God's free gift of Eternal Life and to become a pernamnet born again child of God. The only object of their belief (to receive Eternal Life) is place only in Jesus and not other actions they may do. Like repentance of sin, confessing Jesus, being baptized, following Jesus, loving God, obeying the commandments, saying a prayer, etc......
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Ivan Panin and Numerical Implications: Genesis, Literal Vs Symbolic

You're fine when responding to me, brother. The heads-up is appreciated, as it's good to know you intend well regardless of the semblance of the tone conveyed in the text.

Cheers, brother. Thank you.


I typically don't do this, as typically I am too obsessed with verifying everything—to the point it is a fault and I go overkill—but in this case I jumped into the water head-first without looking.

I must admit, those equations do not satisfy my standards either, and I had some equations years ago more simple but they are lost to me and I must concede I do not have any solid ground regarding that math I posted.

The equations I had did something different, and I cannot provide any evidence I even had them. They did not include any of the 10 to 37th power, etc.

Fair enough. I appreciate your candor and humility. It is refreshing in these kinds of discussions.


While I do concede there is no solid ground to stand on in my own regard, I am still somewhat faintly impressed that the man "contrived" (to use your term) the number pi. I'm no mathematical genius, although I do possess a weird visualizing-of-odds ability; ... I would like to see someone do the same with War and Peace; someone claimed in a forum that it could be done with the Harry Potter books. But I would still like to see that happen, if they know how it can be done.

When you look behind the curtain, the illusion disappears. It would be trivially easy to extract an approximate value of pi from War and Peace—or the Harry Potter novels, for that matter—provided that one is permitted to test thousands of loosely correlated ratios: per-chapter counts, letter frequencies, gematria-like encodings, products of word lengths, and so on. If the same contrived formula employed to "find" pi in Genesis is applied to enough slices of Tolstoy, the emergence of a close approximation (two decimal places) is statistically inevitable, over 97 percent. It would be more difficult to not find it.

The supposed miracle arises from the law of large numbers combined with post-hoc freedom to test innumerable variations. The same statistical sleight-of-hand drives both Panin's heptadic sevens and Missler's ELS code. When you're allowed to sift through endless combinations of inputs, skip lengths, word forms, or grammatical categories, something will invariably line up. And when you present the remarkable hit without being frank about how it was cooked up or admitting all the misses, sure, it can come across as impressive. But a divine signature it is not.

And we haven't even acknowledged how this is textbook p-hacking, the tweaking of parameters to manufacture statistical significance. Both Panin and Missler do this. They test many models, retain the hits, and suppress the null results. It is statistical malpractice; any valid significance test must account for all discarded permutations; these form part of the implicit sample space and must be included in the denominator of a correctly computed p-value.

What we have is not a divine signature encoded in textual mathematics but rather an instructive case study in how undisciplined statistical methodology can create the illusion of intentional design where none exists. The integrity of biblical theology is better served by rigorous exegesis and historical-linguistic analysis than by numerological novelty acts masquerading as apologetic insight.


Next subject—because this one doesn't include the weird additional numbers and, well, it is just basic and simple. I've conceded [the matter of] Panin's heptadic codes for the sake of time, for now, [because] I would have to post Greek. I've conceded that the pi code example I provided is lacking credibility.

But what about the Torah codes, like this [brief video presentation from Chuck Missler]?

As already indicated, what Missler presented was the result of similar shenanigans or methodological sleight-of-hand. Again, this supposedly works with the Masoretic Text, but what about the Samaritan Pentateuch or Dead Sea Scrolls fragments? Alter the consonantal sequence according to the Qumran or Samaritan witnesses—or simply drop the vowel points—and the ELS miracle suddenly disappears. And why did he choose tav as the first letter in his skip counting? There is no internal logic for choosing tav and that particular one except that it worked. Why did he choose every 50th letter? It landed him on a vav, then a resh, then a heh—and then he stopped, almost as if he were looking to spell Torah. Dozens of other start points and skips existed, yet Missler privileged this one and gave no explanation. And, when he moved to Numbers and Deuteronomy, why didn’t he look for the first tav? Why did he abruptly switch to the first heh? There was no principled justification for changing the starting letter. And why did he reverse the word but not the direction of counting? No explanation. And then in Leviticus he abandoned the 50-letter skip and switched to a seven-letter skip? What warranted that change? Missler wasn't discovering a pattern; he was constructing one, a retrofitted artifact.
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What if Trump held a press briefing and nobody came?

I paid attention when I listened to the press conferences. People might have helped provide details but he knew exactly what he was saying. I am in my seventies myself and I would estimate that he is about 20 times as competent as the current president, and numerous psychiatrists weighing in seem to agree.
When Tapper writes an encyclopedic expose of the really incompetent president he will regain my respect.
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Alligator Ausshwitz floods within a day of opening

I assume you are talking about people who are in the US illegally?.....is that the demographic you are speaking of?
And the 'less informed populace' you are speaking about would be who.....the liberal left of the country?.....who believe everything the media and democrats tell them to believe?
You know what exactly what I am saying, and you are doing a *chefs kiss* job of proving my point.

Have you ever been locked up by the Gestapo? Something tells me you haven't ......not even close.....
Gee wiz, you got me there. I haven’t personally been locked up by the Gestapo.

I’ve only have family members who were taken by the gestapo.
And I have their journals.
And their letters.
And their artifacts.
And the paperwork of my civilian, German-born grandfather granted burial in Arlington National Cemetery due to his service of this country during WWII in what we learned posthumously was likely espionage of some sort.
And I have the paperwork showing his citizenship being granted on the grounds of it not being safe to return to Germany even after the war.
And I have the paperwork of his father, sisters, and others who were allowed to flee here for their safety as a result.
And I have the 2 months of my summer touring Germany with my grandmother’s brother, visiting the sites of WWII and my family, including where his sister and mother were abducted by the gestapo (only one of whom was returned), where they hid the marked family that worked as employees of my great grandfather, and the German warplane that strafed him while he was biking from the school (which was closed by the Nazis) to his home (where various members of the family were taken, held, and not returned by both gestapo and the “civilian police”).
And I have the literal hours on hours on hours I spent talking about the war and what it was like living it in Nazi Germany from the family who lived it.
And I have 18 books totaling over 10,000 pages that my grandfather and my grandmother’s brother and other family members contributed to about WWII and what it was like to live as a targeted family.
And I have the testimony they gave in several tribunals that occurred in Germany, France, England, Poland, and the US related to war crimes by specific people and organizations.
And I have a close relationship with all of their children, all of whom say “he is rolling in his grave over what is happening in the adopted country he loved so much.”

Oh, and I have the words of his daughter, my mother, who says the same and talks in detail about how the climate of the time absolutely shaped the family and the trauma of seeing people taken from their homes by the Gestapo and other organizations drove her father to do what he did in serving the US in the war. And I have all of that that drove me to become a modern war buff who researches stuff like this for fun and continues their legacy of contributing to articles and books on the subject by sharing documents or testimony they have shared.

So, while that doesn’t mean I personally have been taken by Gestapo, it does mean that you can take SEVERAL seats, because these stories are baked into my childhood and life as a whole by the people who actually lived through them because it’s the reason my mother’s family came to the US.

And I’m also willing to bet of that whole list of things I have, you have exactly zero of them.

And so far they have been.....
They absolutely have not. If you were treated like they were, or your spouse, or your children, you’d have a fit. Unless you want to be deliberately naive about that too.
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The Big Beautiful Bill shall became Law

It wasn't the economy that sunk her. It was the border and culture war issues,
"The Big Lie" is that Trump really won over Biden. There is no undoing that moniker. They are forever linked.

The culture war is something that isn't accidental, like two sides just happen to show up and shoot each other in some kind of encounter engagement gone wrong . It's been carefully built up by billionaire oligarchs to enrich themselves at public expense. It's what happens when wealth is unmoored from any kind of moral discernment, and a society blesses it as "progress", "unleashing the market", and "disruption".
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Florida Republican Says Abortion Law Fear Delayed Her Care for Ectopic Pregnancy

If not for that law, there wouldn't have been a problem.

Doctors' decisions were not affected by abortion rights activists who do not work for the hospital and do not supervise them. This is a Republican lie.

Republican laws force doctors to wait until an ectopic pregnancy becomes a medical emergency.
According to the article, yes, the abortions rights activists were doing what activists do, which is sow doubt so that the doctors (and probably the hospital lawyers) had to spend time researching to make sure that the law for medical emergencies was still good (just to cover their butts) when they should have been treating the patient. Ectopic pregnancies are ALWAYS a medical emergency no matter when they are discovered. What a stupid thing to say.
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Hey AV, et al.

Looks like I'll be wiping the dust from my feet and moving on soon.

Anybody interested in staying in contact, believer or genuine seeker, my email is joegunlock@gmail com.

There is power in the Name of Jesus to save, keep proclaiming His Name - everywhere without fear!

God bless and always praying for all here.

Joseph
biblegateway.com

Same to you, brother!

Fight the good fight, and I'll see you up there! :oldthumbsup:
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Ultra Dispensationalism and Right Division

and you have a verse ??

dan p

There is a significant group of Christians who either believe in:

the necessity of water baptism to get saved, or

the necessity immediately after you are saved, otherwise you may not be saved since you are disobeying a direct commandment from the risen Lord, which to me amounts to pretty much the same as the first belief.

Verses like Mark 16:16 and Acts 2:38 feature heavily in both beliefs.

The dispensationalist view towards water baptism is clear: Jesus was on Earth to fulfill the promise of a kingdom to the Jews, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 4:17).

Under that Kingdom, all Jews are supposed to accept Jesus as their King, and then be priests that will spread the message of the King to every nation.

This was prophesied in many OT prophets, some examples would be

Zechariah 8 explains

3 “Thus says the Lord: ‘I will return to Zion, And dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth, The Mountain of the Lord of hosts, The Holy Mountain.’

Later on, in the chapter in Zechariah 8:20-23 New Living Translation (NLT)

20 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: People from nations and cities around the world will travel to Jerusalem. 21 The people of one city will say to the people of another, ‘Come with us to Jerusalem to ask the Lord to bless us. Let’s worship the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. I’m determined to go.’ 22 Many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord of Heaven’s Armies and to ask for his blessing. 23 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: In those days ten men from different nations and languages of the world will clutch at the sleeve of one Jew. And they will say, ‘Please let us walk with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

A similar prophecy was given in Micah Chapter 4 (NLT)
In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all—the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship.
2 People from many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the Lord’s teaching will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem.

Finally, the same prophecy was given in the book of Isaiah chapter 2:2

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all—the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship.

Under the gospel of the kingdom preached to Israel only, water baptism is a requirement for salvation. Israel as a nation was supposed to accept Jesus as their Messiah and be ushered into their promised kingdom where Jesus will rule over them from David's throne in Jerusalem.

Then Israel will become a kingdom of priest, in order to be a priest, every Jew MUST be baptized (Exodus 19:4-6)
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So happy with the new priest (Parochial Vicar) at local parish

I haven't really decided if I should stay at my local parish or retain membership at the Diocesan Cathedral (I don't know anyone at the local parish except the RCIA director, sort of) but I'll probably do the latter even if I sometimes attend the former. Anyway, a new priest got assigned at the local parish and I'm so impressed with his homily for this Sunday. He's down to earth but he's so on fire for God and so motivating that I could not help but feel profoundly moved. I think I really like this one. I was saddened by the departure of the most recent Parochial Vicar but this new Parochial Vicar seems great. I don't know how welcoming he is on an individual level, yet. I know that PVs don't stay that long. The regular priests in our Diocese tend to stay at a parish, once they've been assigned, unless they're young, lol. (That's what it seems to me)

WWJD Did Jesus Pray to Mary?

Why does the church described in Acts not line up with the Catholic Church of today? It's pretty apparent that they followed the "apostles" doctrine" and it was God that added to the church "daily", not man. It's up to him regarding who is a member of the church or not. It can take some people years to become a member of the Catholic Church. That's a huge red flag. It might have started out with good intentions but it is so far removed from the church that was started by the disciples/apostles.

"Today if you will hear his voice..."
The "source and summit" of our faith is very much the same as it was in the first century, we follow the command of Jesus to "do this" in remembrance of Him. As to "membership" in the Catholic Church there is no one definition, believing what Jesus and the Apostles taught is really the key, so someone who is converting and intending to receive the sacraments could be considered a member of the Catholic Church.
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Jesus claimed He came to fulfill the Law, Did He?

The Creation Sabbath of Gen 2 is being used as a symbol of New Canaan - heaven, heavenly Canaan -- just as in Gal 4 Jersualem above "is our mother".

Gal 4
24 This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. 25 Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.

We still have mothers - even though this symbolism is used in Gal 4.

Heb 4 is using something that still remains - the Sabbath, and adding it as a symbol for saints waiting for heaven/eternal rest.
yes the "sabbath rest" still remains. But the "day" you enter into has changed as per Hebrews 3&4. not 7th day but a day called "today".

this i believe is a "spiritual day" as it's not belongs to any particular day of the the 7day week.

That day only comes for each and everyone is when we "Believe" the Gospel message as in Hebrews 4:3..we who have "Believed" enter that "Rest".

so is not a 24hr day of rest as in creation day but a continuous and permanent Rest once we "Believe".
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Who were the Anabaptists?

This year marks 500th anniversary of movement's founding


Ilovefocus/iStock


2025 is a year of anniversaries. From the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed to the 80th anniversary of VE Day, there are many milestones to reflect on. Another one is the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Anabaptist movement — a chapter in Christian history that is not so well known.

Who were the Anabaptists?

The Anabaptists were radical reformers who emerged during the Protestant Reformation. Unlike other reformers who sought to revise the existing church structures, Anabaptists envisioned an entirely new kind of Christian community — one rooted not in state power or tradition, but purely in the radical teachings of Jesus.

Continued below.

Thoughts of centering prayer

As Christians, I know we are not supposed to feel "empty."
I have heard others warn that if the mind is "empty" the devil can come in. St John of the Cross says just the opposite, that if we empty ourselves the devil has nothing to work with. Of course the mind cannot be "empty" unless we are unconscious. But we can have a quiet, still attentiveness.

Psalm 62 My soul waits in silence for God alone;

That is how I best describe my practice once my mind has settled down.
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Irony - Mexico for Mexican said the Mexicans


Guess no one likes that a large population of another country changing the dynamics of the locals' way of life. Who would have guessed? Here I thought it brings enrichment. And here they said no enrichment in the literal sense of it.


There's a pigment chart (that looks a little like a Lowe's paint swatch that goes from "honey dipped ivory" to "burnt chestnut") that has to be referenced in order to determine whether or not a "cultural preservation" argument is "problematic" or not.
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