Castin

The Orthodox Church itself rejects your conception of the church. Also, we reject the claim that the church is a denomination. This type of ecclessiology only serves to justify the existence of protestant sects that are detached from the church.

The ancient and venerable Saint Basil the great has this to say about your baptism...

"...they who were broken off had become laymen, and, because they are no longer able to confer on others that grace of the Holy Spirit from which they themselves are fallen away, they had no authority either to baptize or to ordain."

Now, it is the position of the church that under certain circumstances a bishop may make acceptable a baptism done by heretics, but this can only be done on entering the church and receiving chrismation. Apart from the church, there is no baptism.

A more recent Orthodox saint, Hilarion Troitsky writes, “Outside of her, whatever is called ‘Church’ is a congregation of heretics that have lost the one faith in the one Lord and consequently the baptism which is performed by them is not the Christian baptism.”

Even in the acts of the apostles we see that after Philip the deacon baptized the Samarians, it was still necessary for a bishop, priest, or in this case an apostle to come give the gift of The Holy Spirit.

"...when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women... Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost."

As St Basil up there said, those who are not with the church cannot be priests, they are laymen. Laymen cannot administer the sacrament of the seal of The Holy Spirit.

St Gregory the dialogist writes...

"And indeed we have learnt from the ancient institution of the Fathers that whosoever among heretics are baptized in the name of the Trinity, when they return to holy Church, may be recalled to the bosom of mother Church either by unction of chrism, or by imposition of hands, or by profession of the faith only. Hence the West reconciles Arians to the holy Catholic Church by imposition of hands, but the East by the unction of holy chrism."

St Leo the great writes...

"For it is the unity as such of ecclesiastical society that avails unto salvation, so that a man is not saved by Baptism to whom it was not given in that place where it is needful that it be given."

The point is, you may think you were baptised, and you may think you received The Holy Spirit, but the church has taught since the beginning that these things are not done independently of the church. The fathers of the church did not have the same understanding of ecclessiology that you do.

An attack on a person rather than their arguments.

I agree.

In other words, foul play in a debate environment.

How is this "attack on a person rather than their arguments" specific to "a debate environment"?

I mean, if, hypothetically, someone called another member a "conspiracy theorist" or "a complete idiot" in the forums (and not in the "debate" section of this esteemed website) wouldn't that still be considered an ad hominem attack?

Not "a questioning of the credibility of a source of information." In other words, fair play in a journalistic, scholastic, or scientific environment.

Attacking a person, rather than their arguments, would seem to fit the definition of an ad hominem attack in ANY setting.

Even if you find a person questionable, there is always the option of analyzing his methodology and the source of his claims over choosing to analyze the man alone. We don't have the technology to know the intentions of people, but we do have a scientific process for data collection.

I don't think it's an ad hominem attack to ask "Is this a credible source of information?"

Depends on how you go about it, but dismissing claims on the pedigree of the source invariable leads to argument from authority type fallacies.

I don't think it's an ad hominem attack to ask "Is this a credible source of information?" That is a necessary question in the detection of misinformation and propaganda. Step one should be consider the source, step two should be consider the content.

The idea of "consider the source" is 100% "to the person" and not "to the claim".

This is the very definition of "ad hominem attack".

Please present your personally preferred definition of "ad hominem attack".

Voting for a third party (or unaffiliated individuals) at least signals that you are capable of voting and NOT simply oblivious to the rampant corruption in the current system.

RCV FTW!

And yes, that means the republicans will win.

  Thanks for your response, Castin.  I didn't mean to indicate I took offense and I apologize for the misunderstanding.  I just wanted to distance myself from the idea of executing innocent people as no one wants that.

I don't think we're separated all that far in ours opinions on this subject.

Don't forget to include in your calculus of possible outcomes, not only wrongful executions and the number of convicts escaping from prison but, any people killed by convicted killers both within and outside prison.  That is, regarding your statement, "...even one innocent person could be put to death, I am left with the question: Is it worth it to kill guilty people if it will also kill innocent people ?" while that would be horrible, what if one person were killed by a convict when we could have prevented an innocent's subsequent death by permanently eliminating the threat from the time of the conviction ?  ..And please don't forget killings inside prison, hospitals and court facilities.  You tend to gloss over those when you speak of only escapees and those let out improperly.

  You say : "I can't imagine that our accuracy will ever be perfect," with regard to assuring the guilt of all capital criminals but, we don't have to be perfect.  Naturally, we can and should only execute the criminals we know are guilty.  If, later, we find evidence that assures their guilt, we should carry out the execution at that time for the safety of the Community.

  It's difficult to know how to think about your last statistic.  "Only 13% of death row exonerations since 1973 (18 of 142) resulted from postconviction DNA testing,"  When you think about it, that means 87% were exonerated by other reliable means.  What if we were to employ those other means, plus DNA testing, in the investigation process rather than after trial ?  Indeed, that's what's happening now.  The new technologies, including DNA, and forensic methods, such as those advocated by the John Howard Society,  are being used early in the process, and can determine absolute guilt.  ..And, I can't stress this strongly enough, those who are not absolutely guilty should not be executed.

  Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.  We have a method that know will prevent proven killers from ever killing anyone ever again.  Just because we can't be certain of guilt in all cases.  Let's protect the safety of the Community as best we can by executing those whom we know are guilty.

When examining statistics of wrongful convictions, it would be inaccurate to only consider past convictions where modern forensic technology was not available at the time.  Forensic technologies and investigation methods are improving and becoming more accurate all the time.  What would really be more telling of the truth would be to use current and future convictions, when modern criminology is in play, to determine the rate of wrongful convictions.  Of course, that is impossible, but it's inaccurate and misleading to only consider past statistics.

• "It is possible that the death-sentencing rate of innocent defendants has changed over time. No specific evidence points in that direction, but the number and the distribution of death sentences have changed dramatically in the past 15 y. One change, however, is unlikely to have much impact: the advent of DNA identification technology. DNA evidence is useful primarily in rape rather than homicide investigations. Only 13% of death row exonerations since 1973 (18 of 142) resulted from postconviction DNA testing, so the availability of preconviction testing will have at most a modest effect on that rate."
  

The real question is, if you saw that Duck at a Trump rally, would you pet it, or run in fear?

I would give you milk and cookies and a duck to pet from time to time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Da8ZhKcNKQ

Trump did it.

People afraid of Orange Clowns don't need much more prompting to be afraid of anything else.

Why do right-wingers CONSTANTLY bring up Trump's skin color?

Pfft. Colorists.

lol!  I think they like to say it FIRST before anyone else can make fun of it.  They know it is embarrassing, so they take it off the playing field before anyone else can use it. 

His color is just so damn emblematic of the deeply fake person he is  ---  inside and out.

People afraid of Orange Clowns don't need much more prompting to be afraid of anything else.

even the name of this topic is stupid. I assume Hidin biden refers to him understanding and respecting the global crisis that is ongoing. Trump on the other hand constantly undermines it and holds super spreader events. 

I'll take the guy who takes a global crisis seriously over the one who is actively trying to make it worse. Hidin Biden is honestly a compliment in the current climate when the alternative is spreading a deadly virus. 

Life as a cancelled liberal is easy. All you have to do is go on Dave Rubin's show, or Steven Crowder's. Then you start a YouTube channel where you post videos complaining about cancel culture, and conservatives will flock to you and tell you how much more tolerant they are than liberals. You get to complain about how persecuted you are and make money doing it. It's a great gig.

Or, you could not, because you don't want to sell your soul to the open sewer that is YouTube politics.

OR, perhaps they believe "YHWH" IS REAL and just don't give a flying flip.

For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia states, "Formal dogmatic atheism is self-refuting, and has never de facto won the reasoned assent of any considerable number of men. Nor can polytheism, however easily it may take hold of the popular imagination, ever satisfy the mind of a philosopher."

Dawkins: "It is not clear why the change from polytheism to monotheism should be assumed to be a self-evidently progressive improvement."

I must say it isn't clear to me either. Do you believe polytheism is somehow less evolved than monotheism? If so, why? And if not, why do you think others do?

I would take the view that monotheism is the original and that polytheism is the later.  Yes, I know current thinking rejects this for all sorts of reasons.  But the Biblical picture commences with ONE GOD and humanity made in God's image.  As man learned more and more wisdom they started seeing gods everywhere and behind everything. And ironically, enough the gods started looking more and more like man. Hence - it went from ONE GOD with humanity made in God's image to many gods all made in the image of humanity and its variants.  

Oh the wonder of human wisdom. 

In Biblical Wisdom - Things devolve over time due to the taint of sin. And only after Jesus came - did the curse start to reverse - in respect of the way the world began to mature.  In this sense it follows the second law of thermodynamics but then in Christ - starts something wonderful and new. 

The wisdom of humanity - perceived in things like evolutionary theory - dismiss science - particularly the second law of dynamics - in terms of the bigger picture. They would rather talk about the ascent of humanity. Rather than its descent. Ah the wisdom of humanity. 

I liked doppleganger Castin more, she chatted with me and was friendly.

.

Castin, 

You act as though you're the only member that I am talking too!  Since when do you think you are that special that I am supposed to drop other dialog with other members and address your concerns?

To easily address your question, I have to believe in my serial killing Jesus as Yahweh God incarnate because of a glorious heaven WITHOUT any women!  We had to put up with the biblically  2nd class women while upon earth, and upon passing the Pearly Gates, we will not have to put up with them anymore because the scriptures stated ONLY MEN will be in heaven, praise Jesus! This alone is worth believing  in a brutal serial killer of the innocents!  Understand?

.

John the Baptist on the one hand tells us he didn’t know Jesus,but if this indeed be the case, then how did he recognize Jesus as “the one to come”.

How could you worship a God you believe is evil?

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”