Castin

Although the sentiment sounds fair, who determines what the rules of the religion are? 

Your interpretation of your religion.  People have all sorts of ways they interpret the Bible because the Bible contradicts its self.  If you’re Christian, you live by your interpretation of the Bible, and if that means going kosher because Jesus never denounced it, you do that.  I think Christians should go kosher because their religion tells them too and no Bible verse undid kosher laws.

The Bible can be pretty infanticidal

Is a complete lie. If you read the Bible, you would know that it supports life, not death.

It seemed as if the overarching goal is to increase membership to avoid it going the way of DDO.  Apparently the site is having trouble getting new members to come in and then stay around to use the site. 

So, regarding DART's Latest Update,  it strikes me as counterproductive (to that end at least). If the problem is new members don't stay,  reducing new member participation on the site and restricting  debates, voting, and forum topics is not a solution.  Do we really think the site gets more new members by offering less?   

I really don't think a "you have to earn the right to participate here" message is going to be particularly inviting to new members.

In the past I enjoyed being able to vote on debates without participating in any. Ah, well.

I will try to find a way to "qualify" people to vote, even if they don't participate in the debates, maybe something like manual qualification for the special members, like yourself :)

"And I just peeked into the religion forum on DDO and was reminded of how toxic the atmosphere of a completely unregulated forum can be." - Castin

https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/74/post-links/1276

I foresee a repeat of inevitable chaos and disorder. Could easily be prevented by those who have the power. There is too much to say, so I do not want to say anything at all

We know the Romans crucified Jesus then went on to destroy the Holy temple and city in 70AD.

So why did the Roman Emperor Constantine in 325 embrace Christianity and make it the official religion of the Roman Empire to later become a universal religion.

Simple answer. The Gospels. Once the Gospels were written and the apostles spread the teachings of Jesus to a wider audience. The full story of Jesus was revealed and embraced by the Gentiles.

Jesus was fully in control of his  ascension into modernity.

Should the Jews then feel betrayed by Jesus?

• We don't have any original manuscripts of the Gospels, obviously. The earliest manuscripts we have, the ones dating from before 200 CE, are fragments -- they don't start at the beginning and they don't contain an end, so we can't tell if they had titles. The complete manuscripts we have date from a later period that is not of much use in determining if the Gospels originally had titles. So the fact that all our (complete) manuscripts have titles does not really tell us much.
  
• Even in these later manuscripts, the way the Gospel titles are phrased changes from manuscript to manuscript -- i.e., "The Gospel According to Saint Mark" vs "The Holy Gospel According to Mark" and so on. More suspicious, where the titles are located changes from manuscript to manuscript -- some titles are at the beginning of the book, some are at the end. This indicates that the titles are scribal ornamentation and were not in the original manuscripts, or else we would expect the titles to always be in the same place and always worded the same way (if they were copied faithfully).
  
• Note how Justin Martyr, writing in the second century, quotes from the Gospels at length but refers to them collectively and anonymously, indicating he wrote before they had been widely attributed to specific men. This is a key piece of data pointing to the original anonymity of the Gospels. Scholars believe they began to be attributed to their now-traditional authors in the second century (and remember, our complete, titled manuscripts date to after that).
  
• For me one of the biggest indicators is just that all of the Gospels are written anonymously in the third person, none of them in the first person, as you would expect of men telling firsthand accounts -- and Matthew, who was supposed to be a disciple of Jesus, feels the need to copy vast swaths of his material from Mark, who never met Jesus. Apostles should feel no need to copy from anyone.
  

I was somewhat more disillusioned with some of the reasons for the votes cast by some of the members and moderators. Member(s)/Moderators were citing Airmax's moderator experience for a role that did not include a moderator's capacity. I can understand wanting to bring Airmax into the fold in a reduced capacity, but for one who has expressed little interest in this site--DART that is--his late bid, at least in my opinion, was nothing short of a nepotistic attempt to shoehorn him in. There are many reasons to which one can allude for DDO's past popularity: (1) fewer online debate platforms, (2) higher attention spans, (3) a younger membership who had little to no work and/or family obligations, (4) members having little to no prior experience with other members before joining the site, so forth and so on. I honestly think it's a fool's errand to try and recreate DDO (though I understand the irony in that DART is essentially a recreation of DDO.) Perhaps the focus of the site's brass should be placed more on member satisfaction and not alienating members on abstract interpretations of the rules. As opposed to seeking out an old friend and stating, "make our community popular, again," the site can focus on expanding the scope of options members here can control how they interact with others. I think there is no one more fit to advise the moderators on these aforementioned prospects than 3RU7AL.

Fast forward to Airmax's actual first post on the site, and it looks like he has a renewed interest in the community. Knowing how good he was at being a mod on DDO, old users including myself supported his presidential campaign on this site and he got elected. His campaign even attracted other old DDO users to DART, some of which were users that quit DDO before I joined in 2016. Sadly, he never did anything after that (and those old members disappeared again), which leads us to the present where he has been justifiably removed from office.

There's a lesson in all of this: When someone loses interest in something, they are incredibly unlikely to regain it for longer than a moment. Some will say you can't blame us for being hopeful, but I disagree. We should've seen it coming. Everyone was so focused on a Michael Jordan-esque comeback story that they forgot about the possibility of a Brett Farve-esque comeback story. Or a Michael Jordan-esque comback story, Wizards edition. Not a perfect comparison, but I hope you get the point.

I think it has to do with a desire old members tend to have. They desire a culture that was closer to the old DDO, where there was more discussion and less flaming. There was drama, of course, but much more of the time seemed to be spent organizing tournaments, playing mafia games, or joking around in forums. Even the discussions were better. There was a time on DDO when the Religion forum was the only toxic forum. Political polarization in society then led to the Political forum being corrupted as well, eventually to the point where DART's Politics forum got to the sad state it is now. The Main forum on DART has a history of drama and flame wars, which is something I rarely saw on DDO.

The consensus among historical scholars is that Jesus of Nazareth did exist as a historical person. I have no trouble believing that.

Me neither.

For me the difficulty lies in what can be confidently known about him. Did he really think he was the son of God, or was that a belief that developed after his death? Was he really betrayed by Judas? What exactly did Jesus teach -- how much of what we know as "Christ's teachings" were really his teachings? To what degree did he actually anticipate his death? And so on.

All fair questions that I would be more that interested to have answered by the devout Christians.  But I won't be holding my breath, Castin

Once you accept Jesus  indeed existed as a historical person.  The specifics of Jesus’s life and teachings are found in the Biblical Jesus. All your questions are answered in the Bible.

“The first question we have to answer is How do we know what we know about Jesus? How is it possible for twenty-first-century people to know with any reasonable certainty what he did and said in the first century? Obviously, none of us was there when Jesus walked the earth. So how do we gain access to him as a historical person?

For many people, the answer to this question is simple: open up your Bible and read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; they tell us what Jesus did and said. Indeed, for almost nineteen centuries, most Christians—and virtually everyone else, for that matter—believed that the Gospels of Matthew and John were written by eyewitnesses and disciples of Jesus and that the Gospels of Mark and Luke were written by companions of the apostles Peter and Paul.”

"Most people who are not conversant with biblical scholarship probably think that knowing about the historical Jesus is a relatively simple matter. We have four Gospels in the New Testament. To know what Jesus said and did, we should read the Gospels. So what's the problem?" -- Jesus Interrupted, p. 143

"The problem is in part that the Gospels are full of discrepancies and were written decades after Jesus' ministry and death by authors who had not themselves witnessed any of the events of Jesus' life.

... They were written thirty-five to sixty-five years after Jesus' death by people who did not know him, did not see anything he did or hear anything that he taught, people who spoke a different language and lived in a different country from him. The accounts they produced are not disinterested; they are narratives produced by Christians who actually believed in Jesus, and therefore were not immune from slanting the stories in light of their biases. They are not completely free of collaboration, since Mark was used as a source for Matthew and Luke. And rather than being fully consistent with one another, they are widely inconsistent, with discrepancies filling their pages, both contradictions in details and divergent large-scale understandings of who Jesus was.

How can sources like this be used to reconstruct the life of the historical Jesus? It's not easy, but there are ways."

I have said it many times before on this forum that this is the author of Matthew's gospel once  again reaching for his trusty OT in a desperate attempt to link Jesus to the OT prophesies as being the one to come and prophesised about.

No abuse. No derogatory language. No trolling or abuse.

Some scholars indicate rightly that the Hebrew word in Isaiah means young woman not virgin.  No one says it is impossible to translate it virgin.  The Septuagint - an OT Greek translation by Jewish scholars pre Jesus, did translate the word virgin.  

Some scholars indicate that there are better words for virgin if that meant to be the point. 

NT Christian scholars would indicate that the translation of the word in the NT from the OT is confirmed firstly, by the inspiration of the Spirit of God who breathed it out and confirmed its meaning.

Secondly that the Septuagint which was commonly used at that time by Jews and the Christians, including Paul, translated it that way.

thirdly, that the context in the gospels of Matthew and Luke clearly understood it to mean virgin.

Fourthly, though it is acknowledged it may well have other meanings and moreover virgin is not its primary meaning, it is not impossible for it to mean virgin since indeed Jewish scholars have translated it that way.

Why does me remarking that I was surprised mean that I expect you to care what she thinks?

I don't care what you expect or don't expect of me.

My point was that it's irrelevant, and I wanted to make that point.

Do you even know anyone who cares what Ivanka thinks, left or right?

Clearly the Democratic Party did since they called her up just to make a big deal about some opinion of hers that was only useful for making headlines.

Democracy is the ultimate priority because if it fails, no other priority can be addressed.

The failure of democracy is a symptom of the problems we have today. Not the cause. Same problems Russia and Venezuela have with their Democracies.

About that, this appears to be something else some people I read previously do not understand in this thread. There is a difference between a whataboutism, and issuing priority.

From what I see, the conservative side of this thread isn't deflecting from issues, but critisizing the hyperfixation upon a specific issue as insignificant to the greater American predicament. 

Democracy is integral to the survival of the nation.

Absolutely not. There is nothing about Democracy that ensures individual survival. It's mob rule. Thankfully the USA is a Republic.

Tribalism is just how our brains work. The brain always calculates what is best for survival before it calculates what is best independently of survival. 

That's why inflation is such an important issue over all others. Survival.

Why do most people I come across either agree with the left on all of these issues or agree with the right on all these issues?  Why are there few people that look at each issue individually?  Is it because people are partisan hacks?

Sadly, the people who most need to see these hearings probably will not, since Fox won't air them.

They probably want to hear shows about inflation since 36% of Americans say it's the most important issue.

“EVERY word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.“ (Proverbs 30:5)

"The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says."  (1 Corinthians 14:34)

• Before this passage, Paul openly speaks of women praying and prophesying in church (1 Cor 11:5). He probably wouldn't acknowledge women speaking in church and then immediately forbid them from speaking in church. Strike one.
  
• Paul cites "the Law" here, which is uncharacteristic of his ideology -- he believed in justification through faith, not the law. Appealing to the law for authority is simply non-Pauline. Strike two.
  
• If you remove this passage from the text, it flows perfectly; the passage is, in fact, intrusive. Strike three.
  
• The passage moves around in different ancient manuscripts; sometimes it appears at 14:34 and others after 14:40. This is a tell-tale sign of interpolation, a.k.a. tampering by little shits. Strike four.
  

TRUE Christians like myself have to accept the biblical FACT that women are 2nd class citizens at best.  They were put upon the earth in the beginning as a helpmate for man (Genesis 2:18) and are to be ruled by man with his authority over the woman (Ephesians 5:22-24), notwithstanding, and as the JUDEO-Christian bible promotes, there will be NO woman in heaven, since we had to put up with the woman while upon earth, praise Jesus!

• I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well. (Romans 16:1-2)
  
• Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. (Romans 16:7)
  

SILENCE WOMAN!  (Timothy 2:12)

is it possible for there to be a purpose for suffering? yes. it can help us make progress to end suffering.

it can give people the perspective to appreciate no suffering.

also, asking why we still have suffering is like asking why darkness exists.

FFS. In 2020 I had a choice -- I could vote for weakness or for cancer.

Most cancers are benign, they just look scary. Weakness ensures even the common flu will kill you.

All of this is happening because of Biden’s weakness and incompetence in foreign policy. Period. Full Stop.

Blocked. You've established yourself as a disingenuous and dishonest interlocutor. I will devote no more energy toward you while that remains true.

- What is to you the undeniable proof that the Bible is true? What does truth mean to you?

I probably have more cultural and ideological ties to the average Russian than the average American. Which is why I am supporting Russia.

And just when I was about to get back on this site ...

This comment goes against democracy (which the Ukraine is), against an international treaty that Russia swore to uphold, against decency and against what the Ukrainians WANT FOR THEMSELVES!

Over 90% of their country voted to become a democracy, to become independent. That is 44 million people who DO NOT WANT a dictator telling them what to do.

I am not a regular here, so I can say this.

ANYONE WHO SIDES WITH OUR LONG-TIME ENEMY, PUTIN, OVER A DEMOCRATIC NATION IS A TRAITOR.

If I get banned for this, I get banned. Democracy is WORTH IT!

I probably have more cultural and ideological ties to the average Russian than the average American. Which is why I am supporting Russia.