I am not Orthodox, but have done much research about Orthodoxy. Based upon what I have read, some Orthodox believe that the dead receive a conditional sentence when they die, but that no sentence is final until the second coming of Jesus. Based upon this assumption then, some Orthodox believe that it is possible for at least some of those who are destined now to go to Hell, may eventually have their sentences changed and that they at least have a chance to still end up in Heaven. How common said belief is in Orthodoxy I was unable to discern. I did run across though an interesting discussion once between an EO and an OO. The Oriental Orthodox person explained that they do not hold to such a belief. Army Matt, can you tell us how common the belief is within Eastern Orthodoxy that it might be possible for souls now destined for Hell, to have their sentences changed, up to the point of the second coming, as at that point sentences are considered final? Is this view a minority or majority position within Eastern Orthodoxy? Is it true that the Oriental Orthodox do not consider such a position to be valid?

ArmyMatt said:

I think he’ll be more of an obnoxious fad.

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I hope so.

It seemed to me that your post was very much doing that, but perhaps I misunderstood.

JSRG said:

Is there any practical difference between them having a supermajority and a majority?

The big difference would that you need a supermajority to override a governor's veto. But given the fact the governor is Republican too, that doesn't seem like it matters much for now. So is there any practical difference that has been achieved here?

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It could matter for things like redistricting and constitutional amendments.

Clare73 said:

My text states that "he believed God and it (his belief/faith) was credited (imputed) to him as righteousness." (Ro 4:1-5. 22, 2 Co 5:21, Php 3:9).

The word ellogao (impute) does not mean "declared."

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Most whose theology resembles your own have no problem with "declared" as they believe it refers to a legal change in status only in God's eyes. But I listed two other words there: "reckoned" and "credited". There are two Greek words used in Rom 4 for these concepts (and neither are used in the other passages you mentioned). The words are: elogisthē, used 5 times by my count, and logizetai, also 5 times.

elogisthē: reckon, account, charge, numbered
logizetai: count, reckon, credit, calculate

The only translation offhand where I could find "impute" was the KJV and NKJV, 5 times out of 10, sometimes used for elogisthē, sometimes for logizetai. "Reckon" was used more often than not in all translations, with "counted" or "credited" following.

But the real question here is, why does God reckon us righteous when we believe? Is it because He counts/reckons faith as righteousness, or is it because He merely now sees us as righteous because we believe? And what does impute mean here? How is it used?

JSRG said:

Because Mary is the prototype of the Church as such and is, so to say, the Church in person, this being "with" is realized in her in exemplary fashion. But this "with" must not lead us to forget the "first" of Christ: Everything comes from him, as the Letter to the Ephesians and the Letter to the Colossians, in particular, tell us; Mary, too is everything that she is through him.

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So insightful.

As an example, at Ephasus I, Mary's title of "Mother of God" was made dogma because of her Son.

jmldn2 said:

A great America is following a duly presentation and following of the Constitutional Republic of the USA. Putting America first as that Republic and following the letter of the law(s).

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Following the letter of the law... something which Trump so obviously doesn't do.

Hans Blaster said:

You keep adding relevant items to your story.

Huh?

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I would be ill advised to argue with you about science.

Say it aint so said:

Now, the Democrats, are yes, holding out for ACA funding. Funding that Nearly 80% Of Americans And 57% Of MAGA wishes that funding continue as well.

Shutdowns happen all the time, and yes, it is the only tool the minority in congress often uses to force "X" to happen. So to me it comes down to what that "X" is. This time it's to make sure people have healthcare and hospitals that may be the only hospital in rural areas stay open. The time before that was a hold out for money for a wall that Trump said a gazillion times Mexico was going to pay for.

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We need to entirely change the rules of the game.

The federal government has chosen to reimburse the states with more and more money. If the feds choose to slow down the rate of INCREASE in federal support for the STATES, somehow it is the federal government who is closing the hospitals. NONSENSE!

Each year, the Congress should decide how much money each state should get each year for public welfare spending. The states should then CHOOSE how to use these funds. Instead, the feds make decisions on exactly how the money spend. But even now, the feds don't really decide how the states spend the money. This system would result in a huge reduction in federal administration costs (and federal jobs) and would probably allow for the unreasonable increase in federal spending percentages to continue, or not.
========
JUST BY THE WAY
This process is called "revenue sharing". The federal government decides first how much to collect for public welfare and then how much to allocate to each of the states. There should be a minimum of admin costs. For some federal programs the admin (overhead) costs are very low (e.g. Social Security). For others, it is very large.

Tom D said:

How Good Is AI at reading and understanding narratives?

How well can AI read and comprehend stories and novels? Not many people have tested this.

It's time to find out the answer.

Ask an AI software to rate a story on a scale from 0 to 10. It gave a score—let's call it X.

Now it's your turn. Read the same story and give it a rating. Then compare your score with the AI's.

How close is the AI score X to YOURS?

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You want it to comprehend a story. Yesterday I asked it the best way to store unhusked corn on the cob. It said: "To keep unhusked corn on the cob fresh, place it in the refrigerator with the husks still on."

Hammster said:

There has been many owners. And of the four of us who oversee the site, only one is Catholic.

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May we know who the other three are?

To all four of you - thank you to those of you who oversee the site. I've been on it for 20 years. I joined when I was going through a very difficult time which the Lord has changed into a much better one. That is partly due to those who have prayed and also due to having fellowship here, particularly during a time when I was unable to go to church in person. Thank you so much and God bless you.

Amo2 said:

Yes, I understand your presumptions according to your faith in the theory of Evolution and deep time scenarios required to support such.

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It's not faith, it's just a demonstrable reality. Hence why no scientist who studies paleontology, anywhere on planet earth, has ever demonstrated otherwise.

And on that note, I'll give you the last word. If creationists ever find a bird fossils in the Cambrian, please let me know. Otherwise, all the best.

Dorothea said:

The Saints' and Elders' visions of what they foresaw are indeed true. However, our prayers can alter and even change them. That's the key.

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Okay, but, this kind of eliminates their usefulness outside their immediate temporal context -- it's one thing if the elder tells it directly to you, but, like, at decades remove... There's a reason these sorts of things don't get published and preserved for ages, historically, and it's not because they weren't ever said. And this also explains why, generally, people are told not to pay much attention to these sorts of things.

Gene2memE said:

Post WW2 labour to rebuild Europe mostly came from within Europe.

Migration into Europe from other regions was minor in the immediate post WW2 decades. Migration grew only very slowly through the late 1940s and 1950s and hardly accelerated until the mid 1960s.

For instance, UK migrant growth in the 1940s and 1950s was slower than it was in the 1920s and 1930s. The 'guest worker' programmes of Germany and the Low Countries didn't start until the second half of the 1950s and weren't expanded to countries outside of Western Europe until the 1960s and 1970s.

France was a major exception to this, with large numbers of Vietnamese and Algerian refugees started arriving in the 1940s. This was followed by waves of migration from France's colonial holdings in West Africa in the 1950s and 1960s.

Migration into Western Europe accelerated mildly though the early 1970 to the end of the 1980s. The big change in migration rates really occurs in the early to mid 1990s.

This is primarily related to the end of the Cold War, the formation of the EU and the unwinding of regulatory, practical and economic impediments to migration (on both sides). Put another way, it became cheaper, easier and above all legal for people to move across borders to seek opportunities.

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You are correct, but UK/Europe had to "catch up" with the two superpowers (yes I know Stalingrad was nearly a ruins). If you lose 50% of your money, you have to make 100% just to get back to where you were. Hence the urgency beginning in the 1960's.

Plus there's the emotional fact that, Europe learned a lesson from WWII, but it learned the wrong lesson.

I will present my understanding of the Ancient Hebrew.

YSRAL

Y(Yod) S(Shin) R(Resh) A(Aleph) L(Lamed)

First off, there were no spaces between the otiot (letters) in Ancient Hebrew. The otiot were all written in a single string or word. The spaces to make separate words within the string were added later; thereby those divisions reflect a specific interpretation. Numerous interpretations can be derived from the unbroken string.

Second, Ancient Hebrew is a concrete (as opposed to abstract) language, built on concrete thought. Concrete thought is built on what can be experienced though the senses, and opposed to abstract philosophy.

Third, each ote (letter), in Ancient Hebrew, is a pictograph; and each has it's own meanings, which can be interpreted in different ways.

Fourth, Ancient Hebrew words are built on two ote (letter) roots.

Let's start with the root SH-R (Shin Resh).

The Shin depicts teeth. The Resh depicts a man's head.

The teeth can be interpreted as pressure. The man's head can be interpreted as a beginning.

SH-R is the Hebrew word for cord. To make ancient cords, one would start at the beginning with the fibers, and tightly (pressure) weave them into a cord.

Now lets build a word on SH-R by adding the Y.

Y (Yod) is a pictograph of a hand and arm.

If one holds a cord tight; it becomes straight; just as the righteous one makes a straight path.

YaSHaR means straight in concrete Ancient Hebrew. It is often translated as righteous in abstract Greek thought.

Now let's look at the AL in YSRAL

The A (Aleph) depicts an ox's head. It can be interpreted as headship or strength,

The Greeks took the Ancient Hebrew Aleph-Beyt, and turned the letters upside down and backwards. Then they wrote it from left to right, instead of right to left. Seems like witchcraft to me. The modern English Alphabet evolved from the Ancient Hebrew Aleph-Beyt, through the Ancient Greek alphabet.

If you turn the letter A upside down; you can still see the ox's head, with his horns.

Anyway, I digress.

The L (Lamed) depicts a shepherd's staff. It can be interpreted as guidance or being yoked.

Many people call God El; but if you look at the Ancient Hebrew, you will see that the word is AL (Aleph Lamed)

One interpretation is that your AL (God) is the headship that you are yoked to.

So YSR (YaShaR) AL (AL) can be interpreted as the straight (righteous) headship that you are yoked to (God).

ChubbyCherub said:

Another update: the sermon on Sunday was built around my email to the elders and subsequent discussion. I was amazed that I was in the presence of God answering my prayers!

1. I prayed for months about what to do because I wasn't sure if the church was where I should be
2. I prayed months before sending my email to the church
3. I came here for advice
4. I prayed after sending my email re: how to handle the meeting e.g. how to communicate, how to respond, how to show that all my feedback and questions were Christ led

Then, I watched in real time, as the church listened and honored God by delivering a sermon which was biblical, powerful and wholesome

Praise God!

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Praise God indeed, and your trust in Him was rewarded.

God's Spirit pours out on the earth as a plume of spray (waterfall) again

Hi everyone, I also wrote this and it mentions to and a video of a waterfall with a plume of spray at the end.

Hi everyone, I love Psalm 104 about God’s Holy Spirit and it is one of my favourite psalms. “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain” This can only be God’s Holy Divine Essence which resides in Heaven.

We know in Genesis that at the beginning of creation that God’s Spirit hovered over the earth (Genesis 1:2).

God is the Shammah (God is with us) and his spirit is always near us.

He is the same God as always.

God’s spirit to me is worth more than any crew of national health workers in the world and they need to be treated with respect. They are the highest national health workers to me. They can come from the sanctuary in Heaven in times of great hardship for us and they are the most worthy of being rewarded.

They are more than blue light workers that stream as ambulance on alert on the roads to get us quickly to places of safety when in distress. Blue to is colour that represents Heaven, divinity and God’s throne. The work that they do is tireless which involves their many roles as a comforter, protector and standby and more. They can revive us when are down and depressed to and they have attributes of the Lion of Judah to. I share with you how they revived me once, for their showed a card and on it the front was the Lion of Judah and I jumped up immediately and I knew immediately Jesus was just there as the gatekeeper of the Heaven and that my spirit too can a very good personality as well. They can be a life-saver, this had immediate effects me when I saw this and restored me and as if to back the wind out of me as a mere babe again to be restored.

God’s spirit still can be reached by us. I have felt it myself and sometimes at church to. We can be baptised with water and spirit to be born of spirit as Jesus asks us to (John 3:5). Jesus promised us a comforter to, which is our Holy Spirit that dwells permanently within us (John 14:26).

When I think of God’s spirit it brings me so many good memories, from my house of Mirabel miracles on earth and more. I to think of Philip the evangelist and his four daughters in the book of Acts and how they had the gift of prophecy as females (Acts 21:7-9). I think too of the Prophet Joel and how he said that God’s spirit will again be poured on the earth towards the end of times-

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy." (Acts 2:16-21). This is the work of the Holy Spirit who God extends to us through divine love, grace and mercy and it is Jesus who gives us the Holy Spirit as Christians. Jesus will give us living everlasting water and when he gives this to us it be the Holy Spirit that resides within us when we are baptised (John 4:14).

Can you feel God calling you back as his spirit sways around you.

I just had to post this today when I watched a video that I made in Rhine Falls and looked at the water and saw a majestic Plume of Spray and the mist and it reminded of God’s Holy Spirit that hovers on the earth and can come to us gently and swiftly in time of great need, if it be the will of God alone.

God is near us and his spirit is with us until the Perfect One comes which is his Son Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 13:10).

Take a look at the video and the wonderful Plume of Spray and think of God’s spirit being poured out in the world or coming to you in times of great need. Call upon him and he will answer you in his own time and be patient when you need to be.

Shalom

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday afternoon only that Trump was "aware" that Dick Cheney died.

"I know the president is aware of the former vice president's passing. And as you saw, flags have been lowered to half staff in accordance with statutory law"

Abraham1st said:

And. you did quote many verses , BUT out of CONTEXT

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And what verse was that ??

dan p

Underdog

chevyontheriver said:

I think so. In addition to your own prayers. You can find indulgenced prayers too. Or have a priest offer a mass for the person’s intention. These are all good things to do. And we are so forgetful to do anything for the faithful departed.

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Thank you!

Peace

The Army listed German food banks for soldiers seeking shutdown help​

The Army removed the list after German media reported that U.S. troops were using the local food banks, a U.S. official said. It's unclear if any U.S. troops actually did.

Army officials in Germany removed a list of German-run food banks from a “Shutdown Guidance” webpage aimed at soldiers stationed in that country, hours after the list was met with outrage on social media.

The “Shutdown Guidance” page was posted on the official website for U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria, the umbrella command over U.S. bases in Grafenwöhr, Vilseck, Hohenfels and Garmisch. The page listed dozens of resources available to soldiers and their families during the government shutdown, from seeking hardship loans to impacts on base schools.

But at the bottom of the page — as an archived version of the website confirms — was a list of four German food aid groups and one food aid app under the heading “Running list of German support organizations for your kit bags” with the word “German” in italics. The list of German organizations was removed by Wednesday morning when Task & Purpose checked.

The German government announced last month that it would pay about 11,000 local employees who work at U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown.

And here is a warning from 1 COR 3:15 TO ALL. , especially to those that are SAVED by. the GRACE of God !!

# 1 IF. //. EI. is a CONDISTIONAL PARICILE.

# 2 ANY MAN.'S // TIS , is an INDEFINITE PRONOUN in. the GENITIVE CASE in. the SINGULAR

#. 3. WORK. //. ERGON. is. a NOMINATIVE CASE , in. the SINGULAR in. the NEUTER

#. 4. SHALL BE BURNED // KATAKASIO. in. the FUTURE TENSE in. the PASSIVE VOICE in. the INDICATIVE MOOD in. the SINGULAR

# 5 HE SHALL. SUFFER. LOSS. // in. the FUTURE TENSE , in. the PASSIVE VOICE , in. the INDICATIVE MOOD , in. the SINGULAR

# 6. BUT //. DE. , is a CONJUNCATION

# 7. HE HIMSELF. //. AUTOS. , is a POERSONAL POSSESSEIVE PRONOUN in. the NOMINATIVE CASE , in. the SIGNULAR

# 8 SHALL BE SAVED. //. SOZO , in. the FUTURE TENSE , in. the PASSIVE VOICE , in. the INDICATIVE. MOOD in. the SINGULAR

# 9 YET. //. DE. is a CONJUNCATION

# 10. SO. //. HOUTO. is a ADVERB

# 11. AS. //. HOS. is a ADVERB

# 12. BY //. DIA. is a PREPOSTION

# 13. FIRE. //. PYR. is. in. the GENITIVE CASE , in. the SINGULAR. , in. the NEUTER //

#A THE word FIRE means JUDGEMENT

# B. This JUDGMENT is called the BEMA SEAT JUDGEMENT

# C. And only those Saved by Grace will be there , by Rom 9:9 and 10

# D. And our. MOTTO is in 2 Tim 2:15 to RIGHTLY DIVIDING. THE WORD OF TRUTH !!

# E And in 1 Cor 3:6-9

# F And Paul in. verse 9 that we are Gods FARMERS and Gods Building

# G. And any. is saved by. GRACE , and in. the BODY OF Christ , no one has an. ACCUSE to be teaching Gods GOSPEL

as Paul. did in. Rom 1:1 as Paul was LIMITED to only preach GOD'S GOSPEL //

dan p

Ain't Zwinglian said:

Kinda strange and bizarre reasoning. In the case of the thief, how could baptism be required if it wasn't established by Christ yet?

I am out of this conversation...

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If it wasn't established yet, what was Christ doing getting baptized by John and what was John doing Baptizing people?