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Seems the one person who can i.d. all of those types has been all those types at one time or another. But, then again, sitting on a fence, one does see the parade go by without having to participate.On the other hand, no one gets anywhere fence-sitting, do they?As Teddy Roosevelt once said [paraphrase] only the one who comes down off the fence and into the frey have any personal knowledge of victory and defeat, and usually experience both. And perhaps it is only they who ought to be heard.
I presume he's talking about "In The Arena" a famous quote by Teddy Rosevelt I can still quote because it was on the wall of the wrestling room when I wrestled (about a hundred years ago). It is for all the couch potatoes sitting and eating Cheetos while they talk about how the Olympians on TV suck.
In The Arena
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
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Let’s dispel the rumor that Social Security, initially set up in the 1930s in the Roosevelt administration for the benefit of retirees, is a socialist program. It is not “an entitlement,” because all the money paid into the S.S. Trust Fund is out of private industry, not public money. The paycheck stub calls these payments “FICA,” [Federal Insurance Corporation of America], and consist of payments we make out of each personal paycheck from our employers to cover future retirement expenses in the form of monthly Social Security and Medicare payments. Our employers match our paycheck FICA contributions over the course of our careers, which should be considered as additional income, but slated for investment purpose rather than in-pocket, like a private savings account.So, none of the input is public money, so the payout from the government is not an entitlement; it is our private money, earned by working [ours and our employers’ money]. It is therefore not a socialist program, as many today accuse.The government is often accused of robbing money out of the Social Security Trust Fund that our private contributions, and those of our employers, feed. The government denies the “theft,” but, they do acknowledge “borrowing” money from it. To date, as of the end of fiscal year 2024 [September 30, 2024], the government owes the Trust Fund $2.5 trillion dollars. The robbery accusation appears to be a reality given the size of the debt; it is just called “borrowing.” By the way, the congress.gov reference from above stipulates that, by law, the borrowed money must be reimbursed by the government. Past time to pay-up, and given the size of the incurred debt, Congress is, once again, dragging its feet. How about changing the law that allows government to “borrow” from the Social Security Trust Fund in the first place? It is patently unfair to impose this debt on taxpayers whose own future access to Social Security they are currently paying into is at risk to be utterly lost to them.
They stole our $2.5 trillion, and I'm old enough to remember when 2.5 trillion was a lot of money.
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When a corporate executiv0e is caught "borrowing" from the employee pension fund, they go to jail, it happens all the time. I'm sure every one of them sat in jail saying, "I was going to pay it back".
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@AdaptableRatman
I think I am a rare enigma that actually enjoys arguing. I get actual pleasure when doing it as long as it is respectful.
I don't think it's really that rare, I have known a lot of people who love to argue, contrarians who will argue anything, on any side, some folks prefer argument over discussion, the adversarial stance suits them.
My father was one, you say the sky is blue and he'd argue that it's red. To him it was about competing, to his way of thinking, every conversation has a winner and a loser.
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@AdaptableRatman
Skywalker was the Chosen One
You misspelled my name again, it's not "Sky", it's "Side", as in "Sidewalker was the Chosen One".
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@Sir.Lancelot
OP.You gotta cool it with the blatant sexism. This not-so-subtle discrimination towards women is not acceptable.
It will be even more of a problem if he actually meets a woman someday.
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@zedvictor4
Wherein lies the conspiracy when an old man is diagnosed with prostate cancer?Though, I still think that Donald is an extra-terrestrial super carrot, employed by the Jews, in order to perpetuate the ongoing spheroidal Earth misinformation, thereby concealing the fact that bigfoot, who are responsible for Earth's rotational mechanism, which is failing, live on the other side and only come this side to play in the snowy forests of America.Are Bigfeet the plural of Bigfoot...I believe that there is an ongoing lexicographical conspiracy surrounding this information, and that if we fully understood the correct plurality of Bigfoot we would be able to live forever, and the Jews along with Donald super-carrot are conspiring to make humans die unnecessarily from prostate cancer or similar.
Much batter.
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@zedvictor4
So an 82 year old has prostate cancer.Nothing new.I wish him all the best.
Oh man, you really suck at conspiracy theories.
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@TheGreatSunGod
If in elections there, one candidate was rapist and the other murderer, Americans would elect rapist.
In the election, one candidate was a rapist, and the other was a black woman, Americans elected the rapist.
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@WyIted
I suppose I could've done what the trailer trash rednecks and sociopaths did, and vote for Trump.But that would be moronic.How dumb of people to oppose open borders, cutting the penises off of gay kids and be pro free speech
Only the very dumbest people believe that load of bullshit.
You got your Dumbfuck Degree at Trump University, didn't you?
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@WyIted
Had Gary Johnson won he would have implemented the worst of Trump's policies and the worst of Hillary platform so yes you voted for both and the worst parts of both.
I didn't have access to someone with a crystal ball in 2016, next time there is an election I'll let you predict the future for me, thanks.
I knew he couldn't win, and I knew I couldn't vote for Trump or Clinton.
In the future I would advocate you avoid doing things that a retard would do and behave like a non retard would.
I suppose I could've done what the trailer trash rednecks and sociopaths did, and vote for Trump.
But that would be moronic.
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@Shila
It was locked for everyone.
Yeah, the dumbassedness was escalating, so they locked it.
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I wrote this in response to a dumbass who posted very dumbass thread, but when I went to post it, the thread was locked.
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Maybe our spiritual detractors look only at the surface level of literalism because they are simply intellectually unable to grasp any deeper level of understanding. This would explain why their posts that attempt to denigrate Spirit and declare themselves more intelligent, or more scientific, seem to be such stupid posts, I have never understood why some people think if they say something really stupid about religion, that it makes the religion look stupid, it doesn't, saying something stupid makes the person saying it look stupid, no matter what the stupid statement is about.
If true intelligence is mental expansion, which is to say, it involves the ability to view and understanding widely different things from multiple different perspectives, an aptitude for grasping a wide range of truths, relationships, and meanings, and the capacity for abstract and symbolic thought, then it follows logically that the contention that one can reduce reality to only one of its modes, to know it in only one of its forms, to deny that different perspectives even exist, is an unintelligent claim.
Science does not contend that reality can be reduced to a single ontological level, on the contrary, science asserts that reality is in fact, multileveled, it asserts that the four dimensions of existence that we call reality, are contingent and relative to a greater reality of more dimensions, of which we cannot have certain knowledge, and which can only be expressed metaphorically. Because this is a function of abstract and symbolic thought, perhaps it simply cannot be grasped by less intelligent people.
All knowledge begins with experience, we are human beings having an experience of reality, and when we do philosophy, religion, science, or art, what we are doing is trying to comprehend and understand, and then to express and relate that experience. It logically follows that a person of less intellectual capacity will have a different experience of reality than someone with a greater intellectual capacity.
Perhaps the lesser intellect just doesn’t have the ability to grasp who we are in the larger framework of meaning and significance. Maybe it has nothing to do with religion or dogma; maybe it is simply a matter of possessing the faculties that allows one to conceive of self in more expansive terms.
In possessing a greater range of mental capacities and consequently being capable of a greater range of possible responses, can bring about a fuller state of being. Perhaps reconciling a richer inner life with outer reality, can render an outcome that can be characterized as “a life of abundance”.
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@n8nrgim
That's where someone who has the highest approval rating wins,
How would that work, polls, which poll? I think voting is already all about who the voters most approve of.
If a Governor is running against an incumbent, they both have approval ratings, but they are rated for two different things, just because people approve of a how a Governor is doing, it doesn't necessarily mean they think he/she would make a good President. Could you look at Congress and all Governors and say the one with the highest approval rating wins? Then what about the individual who runs for President and is not in office, let's say it's a reality TV game show host, do you look at ratings to determine approval level. That's what showed us how flawed the voting system is in the first place.
or choices r ranked by each voter and the weighted averages system decides the winner. Way better system.
This makes more sense in checking the current systems tendency towards extremism, the last few elections were largely determined by people voting against someone, rather than for someone.
I voted for Gary Johnson in 2016, because the other two candidates were the last two people on earth I would vote for. Every single Republican I knew told me I really voted for Hillary, and every single Democrat I knew told me I really voted for Trump. Everyone was voting "against", rather than "for", so nobody could see another vote as anything but "an against" vote anyway.
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@Greyparrot
America almost re- elected a terminally ill president.
Instead, they elected a terminally SICK President.
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@Greyparrot
To show my support for the movement, I will lay flat tonight, and hopefully I will be able to continue showing my support till morning.
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@FishChaser
Sacraments are real when the eucharist actually has Jesus in it and baptism actually has salvific power, and if you define other things as sacraments (as catholics do) that these also are binding and efficacious.Eucharistic miracles can be verified by analysis in labs.
You are taking matters of faith and claiming they are not matters of faith, they are matters of evidence, but the so-called "evidence" is also a matter of faith.
God is not another fact that we can record and document, you can’t reduce religion to some sort of argumentative and speculative science, the believer does not want an inferred God. Religious faith is a matter of expressing a dimension of being which can only be apprehended by a specific form of human sensibility. Consequently. It is a personal affair, it is about an inner reality that can be experienced, not an outer reality that can be supported by scientific evidence.
The God whom our minds can penetrate and whom our thoughts can circumnavigate is merely a finite and partial image of God. The various images of the divine can represent a genuine encounter with the divine reality, but none by itself fully and exhaustively corresponding to the infinite nature of the ultimate reality.
It diminishes God to even think that human beings could devise a single doctrine that could exhaust the possibilities of expressing the truth of God, on the contrary, what it expresses is a blasphemous desire to “possess” God rather than the proper desire to be possessed by God. I understand why a complete and total commitment to a Church and her doctrines is necessary, but when that commitment transforms into a belief that a single Church is in sole possession of the truth in a complete and definitive way it is guilty of idolatry.
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@FishChaser
Most convincing argument for Catholicism: any church without valid sacraments is automatically 0/10 and
Help me understand, what makes a sacrament "valid", and can you give an example of a sacrament that is not valid?
only the catholic church has verified eucharistic miracles.
How are eucharistic miracles "verified"?
Although they aren't 100% proven they have the most evidence that their sacraments are real.
Can you give an example of evidence that a sacrament is real, and perhaps explain the difference between a "real" sacrament and one that isn't real?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
@AdaptableRatman
He is a closeted Pagan that keeps saying he knows Bible.
Let me clarify, when I refer to the Bible, I'm not talking about The Turner Diaries, or the Trump Bible.
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@Greyparrot
If you have the right skin color, shame isn't an emotion you will ever be compelled to feel.I suggest laying out in the sun a few hours and learn to talk with a bit of sass.
That's part of it.
Trump came along and made me ashamed to be a Republican, the country embraced him and made me ashamed to be an American, it was all primarily driven by white supremacy and that made me ashamed to be white.
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@zedvictor4
Gay pride is the big thing.Transsexual pride next I suppose.
I think the next big thing should be American Shame.
Twenty years ago, I could not have imagined this could happen.
I am ashamed to be an American.
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@Mall
Is homosexuality and asexuality sexual disorders?Information about the live debate will be posted soon. Feel free to have a question and answer discussion here on this thread regarding it.
Love is love, it doesn't fit into neat littlecategories, and the Bible teaches that Love conquers all prejudice andovercomes all divisions among mankind. There is nothing unnatural about anyshared love if that experience brings both partners into a fuller state ofbeing.
Genesis 1:31
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
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@AdaptableRatman
What religion are you
I am a Christian.
Consequently, I recognize that the central commandments of Christianity are that “The Lord our God is one Lord” which expresses a divine unity, and we must “love our neighbors as we love ourselves”, there are no other commandments greater than these in Christianity. Logically, it follows that to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we must necessarily recognize that his religion is to him, what our religion is to us.
The basic Christian epistemological postulate is that God transcends human understanding, the limiting distinctions and categories of normal human thought just do not apply; human knowledge is "finite" knowledge and the way we "know" is a function of our limited capacity to know. The true reality is much more, perhaps infinitely more, than we think it is, much more than we are even capable of thinking. God is transcendent to human knowledge; we can never have perfect understanding of God; at best He is as “seen through a glass darkly” such that “no man knows as he ought to know”. I think you can broadly characterize religious cognition as such that there is a direction involved in the journey, and you can characterize the associated epistemological development as an ascent of religious discernment.
If you stand the various religions side by side you can draw lines horizontally between them and find great differences, but these are the surface level differences, cultural differences of form rather than content, solely exoteric differences. But there is another way to draw the lines, you can draw them vertically along a graded scale of ascending religious discernment in esoteric recognition that every religion has, underlying their various and conflicting literal meanings, a transcendent dimension, which is essential, primordial and universal. Ontologically speaking, there is a transcendent Divine Unity, commonly referred to as God; and using the vertically graded scale of the Christian worldview it can be said that “above” the religions converge, and “below” they differ. I think it can also be said that epistemologically speaking, and on the same Christian vertical scale that I referred to as ascending religious discernment, that cognitively, religious discernment unites also. Each religion approaches the transcendent reality from different cultural directions or frames of references, but they do essentially converge on this understanding of the epistemology of knowledge.
the Absolute Unity that is referred to with the word God defies visualization or even consistent description, and the Philosophia Perennis which is being imparted by those who wrote the Bible is in fact, represented in a variety of cultural contexts, it is one and the same Spirit that is presented in a variety of different forms in all of the great religions of Mankind. The Divine Unity in all its fullness cannot in any way be circumscribed or even exhaustively defined by any single tradition, to circumscribe is to bound and limit, and “the word of God is not bound”.
This understanding is Biblically derived, Divine unity is not just the concept that there is one God; it precludes any existence apart from God. The Christian vision is of a Metaphysical tiered reality with a transcendent and Divine Unity at its apex, usually referred to with the word God, which is an absolute, categorical, undifferentiated Unity in which we live and move and have our being. For it to be the reality in which “we live and move and have our being”, this Divine Unity must include everything, if anything possessed reality apart from it, this would reintroduce the division that Absolute Unity by definition precludes. While the Christian faith cannot circumscribe the Divine Unity, the Divine Unity of the Christian faith does circumscribe the other ways of seeing within different contexts.
The various founders and great religious leaders were esoterics that had travelled farther than the audience they were addressing, which is why we consider them to be people of authority, they were above the line and the journey is in their direction, from exoteric to esoteric understanding, or from the letter to the Spirit, so to speak. I think this is why we have esoterics like Meister Eckhart saying things like “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me”.
Going back to our graded cognitive scale of the religious journey, epistemologically speaking, the Divine Unity precludes final distinction between knower and known, and anthropologically speaking, precludes final distinction between human and divine. Jesus said things like “The Father and I are one” while he also said things like “Why do you call me good, no man is good but God alone”. Perhaps these statements only appear to be contradictory, but from the “higher” understanding of esoteric consciousness, they are different aspects of one and the same truth.
Christ said he came for “all men”, transcending the very concept of religious exclusivity, and I believe that religious one-upmanship is a betrayal of His spirit. As a Christian I believe “The Lord our God is one Lord” which expresses a divine unity in which I can also say that I believe Jesus was his Savior, Muhammad was his Prophet, and Buddha was his Enlightened One. It is from this Christian perspective that I believe that the conflicting religious influences that seem to tear our world apart can disappear, and it is the logical basis for my strong conviction that all faiths are One.
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@AdaptableRatman
As for Islam, it is impossible to be a true Christian and consider Islam valid.
Nope, many true Christians consider Islam valid.
The 10 commandments render that fundamentally implausible due to commandments 1 and 4 among other things in the Bible.
Oh, for crying out loud, you really have no idea what you are talking about.
Muslims do keep the 1st Commandment, so do Jews, both Islam and Judaism see Christianity as violating the first Commandment because of the Trinity belief. in both the Incarnation is a blasphemous idea. If you disqualify Islam because their Sabbath falls on Friday, then Christianity is disqualified because their "so called" Sabbath falls on Sunday. Sunday is not the Sabbath day.
Judaism considers the Sabbath to be from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown. Accordingly, Christianity does not "remember the Sabbath and keep it holy", instead they worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, in honor of the resurrection falling on a Sunday. Most Christians think Sunday is the Sabbath, it is not, it is the day of worship because of the resurrection, which demonstrates that they do not comply with the fourth Commandment, you can't argue that Christians remember the Sabbath and keep it holy if they don't even know what day the Sabbath is.
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@Shila
I always assumed that was the case.Afterall, how could Jesus be the messiah if he did not fulfill one of the prophecies, The Third Temple of Israel?The temple was destroyed by the Romans after Jesus’s death. The temple was destroyed in 70AD.
That's the second temple, the first (Solomon's Temple) was destroyed in 586 BCE.
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the Jewish Messiah is in the future,Their mistake. Jesus was the Messiah, and Orthodox Jews then and now, as a whole, do not recognize him. However, on an individual basis, there are some who have converted, and I am close to at least three families I know who number among converts. All that you mention of a future Messiah, for whom Orthodox Jews, and others, await, is Jesus Christ, and they will, again on an individual basis, recognize him and worship him, and he will accomplish all that has been said of him to accomplish. There will, then, still be those who oppose him still, including Satan and his minions.Yes, Luke was likely a convert. But, Luke, while being a disciple, that term is not synonymous with "apostle, " of whom there were twelve, and all of those originally chosen were of the House of Judah, and from no other of the original 12 tribes of Israel [Jacob, renamed to that name], while it is true that those original twelve apostles [less Judas Iscariot, who was rejected, and died by his own hand, and replaced by Mathias] will, among others, like perhaps Christ, himself, be "the judgment of all" when that time comes for all tribes of Isreal, and all others, as well, who have ever lived on Earth.
I know what the Christian faith believes, I was responding to the question of the Jewish understanding, and I was explaining why the concept of Jesus as the Messiah does not align with Jewish understanding of the Messiah.
Christianity interprets the Hebrew Bible differently than Judaism does, I know that, I was talking about the Jewish understanding of the Tanakh. I also believe that the assertions that Judaism is wrong, or that this somehow means they cannot attain heaven is not supported by the Christian Bible.
I also believe we have to see religious one-upmanship within the context of Isaiah 55:8-9, both are merely two different human understandings of something that transcends human comprehension at this time. The Bible is explicit that there are various ways of imperfect human understanding (John 14:2 and 1 Corinthians 7:7), that none are adequate (1 Corinthians 8:1-2), that there are various expressions but one and the same spirit within every man (Luke17:21), and therefore, we are not to Judge one another (Matthew7:1 and forty or fifty others).
Judaism is the religion of Jesus, and Christianity is a religion about Jesus, for Christianity to disparage and condemn Judaism is particularly hypocritical and offensive.
If the Holy Spirit exists in each of us, as the Bible says, and if it manifests in people in many ways, as the Bible says, then attacking other ways of understanding is the one and only unforgivable sin according to Jesus (Matthew 12:31-32 and Mark 3:29).
Jesus was a Jew, the way the Holy Spirit manifested in him, resulted in Christianity, then wouldn't it be an unforgivable sin to condemn the religion of Jesus, in the name of Jesus?
Scripture referenced
Isaiah 55:8-9
For mythoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yourways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
John 14:2
In my Father's house aremany mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare aplace for you.
1 Corinthians 7:7
For I would that all menwere even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one afterthis manner, and another after that.
1 Corinthians 8:1-2
Now as touching thingsoffered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledgepuffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.
Luke17:21
Neithershall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Matthew7:1
Judgenot, that ye be not judged.
Matthew 12:31-32:
Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Mark 3:29:
But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.
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@AdaptableRatman
Do you even know what the first commandment is?
Gee whiz, that's a tough one.
Is it "Thou shall denigrate Jews and Muslims"?
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@AdaptableRatman
Idk what you quoting those verses proves.
Then you aren't paying attention.
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@AdaptableRatman
But Joseph is of King David's bloodline.
Then you deny the Virgin birth?
Lets say messiah isnt Jesus. Then who is and who are gentiles meant to follow to get to heaven?
We must shift our expectations from what is to what could be.
Jesus experienced a radical transformation of consciousness that transcended the normal egotistic dysfunctions of mind and achieved a complete awareness of his connectedness with the whole, a true realization of the core teachings of His Jewish faith. It was an inner transformation that resulted in a leap to an entirely different level of being that allowed him to actualize the spiritual dimension within.
Jesus had broken through the interior conceptual walls that separate man, expressing this world-transcending wisdom with world-transcending symbols. Ironically, we have built a religion around His life and death that translate His teachings back into the types of verbalized thoughts that structure the interior walls that He had transcended and represented to mankind.
It does not matter what our background, faith or religion is, because in a higher state of consciousness, we transcend them all. When we transcend, we move beyond all dogma and differences. In unity consciousness, we know and appreciate the oneness of all living things.
This is why the Bible tells us that Christianity speaks of a Truth that makes men free, and that “the word of God is not bound”
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@AdaptableRatman
No, Jesus fits the messianic prophesy and was of the bloodline of King David via Mary.Idk why they also point out Joseph even more directly being from King David since that contradicts virgin birth. Pretty irrelevant if Joseph is of King David's bloodline as he is a stepdad dad of Jesus.
TheMessiah of Judaic prophecy was to be completely human, born of two humanparents, and descended on his father’s side from King David (Genesis 49:10,Isaiah 11:1, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:17; Ezekiel 34:23-24).
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@AdaptableRatman
All the Apostles were Jewish. Theres a guy called Luke who wasnt.
Luke was a convert.
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@AdaptableRatman
Jesus said the only way to the Father is through him.
John 14:2
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
Luke 17:21
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
1 Corinthians 7:7
For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.
Matthew 7:7-8
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
1 Corinthians 8:1-2
Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.
Was that for gentiles only?
Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:11
Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
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@AdaptableRatman
The non-odthodox Jews must explain who the Messiah is if not Jesus.
No, they don’t, the Jewish Messiah is in the future, he will be a human leader from the line of King David who is expected to restore Israel, rebuild the Temple, and usher in a time of universal peace. That person has not arrived yet, and so there is no need to identify who it is.
With all due respect to Christianity and its beliefs; the idea that Jesus fulfilled Judaic Prophecy about the Messiah is simply not true from the Jewish point of view. Jesus did not fulfill the Messianic prophecies of Judaism and He did not possess the personal qualifications of Judaism’s Messiah.
Jesus did not build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28)
He did not bring all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6),
He did not fulfill the central theme of Judaic Messianic prophecy, which was to bring about an age of perfection with universal peace and worldwide acceptance of the God of Judaism. (Isaiah 2:1-4; Zephaniah 3:9; Hosea 2:20-22; Amos 9:13-15; Isaiah 32:15-18, 60:15-18; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8:23, 14:9; Jeremiah 31:33-34).
In fact, the fundamentalist Christian contention about the Messiah regarding divisiveness and exclusivity is diametrically opposed to the Judaic prophecy that the Messiah would unite mankind to live in perfect harmony as one.
The Christian belief in the divinity of Christ and the virgin birth and is not at all consistent with Judaic prophecy of the Messiah. The Messiah of Judaic prophecy was to be completely human, born of two human parents, and descended on his father’s side from King David (Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 11:1, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:17; Ezekiel 34:23-24).
Jesus contradicted the Torah and claimed that many of its commandments were no longer applicable. The Torah states all mitzvot remains binding forever, that the Messiah will lead all of the people to full Torah observance, and it states that anyone attempting to change the Torah is a false prophet.
There is absolutely no concept of a “second coming” of the Messiah in Judaic Scripture and the Jewish Messiah is to rule Israel during the age of perfection, Jesus did not do so. (Isaiah 11:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5-6, 30:7-10, 33:14-16; Ezekiel 34:11-31, 37:21-28; Hosea 3:4-5)
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@fauxlaw
I just love how these Trumpers, who are obsessed with him, who worship him, who have devoted themselves to him,All that you say I am gagging for TRump, is heresy. I worship Jesus Christ, and him alone as worthy of my adcotration. TRump is just a guy who happens to be the president, but he is not my moral advisor, and do not need him as such.
Why do you let me live rent free in your head?
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@Greyparrot
I'm sure 99% of these discussions are hypothetical thought experiments.
So, there's not gonna be a fight between a gorilla and a hundred guys?
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@fauxlaw
You ignore the several Bible verses that describe not one, but many anti-Christs. That makes sense; there are many, just members of this site, who oppose Christ.Not to mention that most of the verses you have taken from whatever Google gave you, and told you they were descriptive of anti-Christ, describe other beings having traits that the anti-Christs have, do have, and will have, but are not Donald Trump. He just occupies such a significant portion of your head, rent-free, I'm surprised you don't use his name.Having another subject to discuss would be refreshing.
I just love how these Trumpers, who are obsessed with him, who worship him, who have devoted themselves to him, like to tell the rest of us he lives in our heads rent free LOL.
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@Shila
Before becoming pope.Over the course of five decades, Donald Trump has been accused of sexual assault, tax evasion, money laundering, non-payment of employees, and the defrauding of tenants, customers, contractors, investors, bankers, and charities. Also filed 6 bankruptcies. Trump paid 88.5 million to E.Jean Carroll for raping and defaming her. Trump was charged with paying hush money to porn stat Stormy Daniels to keep secret their sexual encounter while Melania was pregnant with Barron. Trump's false or misleading claims total 30573 over 4 years . Yet, he has continued to amass wealth and power. In this book, criminologist and social historian Gregg Barak asks why and how?Trump has been impeached twice, indicted 4 times with 91 felony counts. Ordered to pay 88.3 million dollars for sexually assaulting and defaming E.Jean Carroll. Trump was fined 464 million dollars for business fraud and is in court for paying a porn star Stormy Daniels hush money to keep her silent during the elections. Trump's false or misleading claims total 30573 over 4 years Trump has been charged with tax fraud in Chicago to the tune of 100 million dollars. A New York jury on Thursday found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — the first time a former U.S. president has been convicted of a crime.
To his base, those are his good qualities.
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@whiteflame
@airmax1227
@AdaptableRatman
Airmax. David. Now you.Your duty is to keep us in accordance to God. Therefore, please keep him in line.
Cool, I didn't realize that was the moderator's role, so you are our shepherd, and we are your flock?
If you want a list of people you should smite, let me know and I'll PM it to you.
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@RemyBrown
He talks shit and blames it on Autism all the timeElon Musk: Autistic and a Nazi. Cuts government spending quickly; doesn't care if people suffer.
ASPD, not Autism.
Chris Rock: Autistic and hates soft a's (except he actually uses the N word). He doesn't care if it offends blacktivists.Chris Rock - Black People VS. Niggaz (Bring the Pain 1996). This video was made before Trump came along. Chris Rock says he wishes they would let him join the KKK.
Chris Rock is not on the spectrum, he has Nonverbal Learning Disability (NVLD), he's a comedian, he makes jokes.
When you go to a KKK rally; pretty much everyone there is autistic. Neurotypical people don't join the KKK because they care what others think about them wrt political ideology.
You are completely full of shit, you really need to learn the difference between Autism and Sociopathy.
One autistic guy I met on the internet even said it's fine for a white man to rape a Mexican woman.
Oh well, there you go, if the internet can't diagnose Autism, then nobody can. You're almost a medical professional.
Autistic people aren't known for being empathetic or for talking with a filter.
They have trouble reading visual cues to grasp other's state of mind, doesn't mean they lack the ability for understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.
Autistic people are extremely politically incorrect.
A lot of folks are, especially those with ASPD.
So it's funny to me how leftists claim they support the autistic community; when autistic people get power, they act like Chris Rock and Elon Musk because they flat out don't have empathy.
Again, you are completely full of shit.
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I sit at a table with my wife all the time, does that make me a woman?
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@AdaptableRatman
Autism doesnt mean we do not empathise.
He talks shit and blames it on Autism all the time, and I'm not buying it.
What I'm seeing is Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) being blamed on Autism.
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@Sir.Lancelot
Those are very great points.I'm thinking about a discussion that talks about which faith is more strongly supported by scientific and historical evidence.
What sort of "scientific support" are you looking for?
What would constitute "historical evidence"?
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@AdaptableRatman
He is:
- Not a Jew
- Hated Jews
- Hated Judaism
- Said Jesus was a valid prophet (did not mean it but said it still, invalidating himself as a contender)
- Said Yahweh lied about being a Father of any sort, to the Jewish tribes and that his real name is Allah.
- Did not remotely adapt the law of Moses, instead replicated it and added more severe violence and bloodlust.
- Said sex slavery is not just permissible but entirely fine.
- Claimed the Holy Spirit was angel Gabriel faking being God.
- Believed that Allah controls Shaitan and Iblis who work as Satan and demons of New Testament do except the Jinn/djinn are also angels.
- Said Gods creations are to be covered up as much as possible.
- Said Gods creations are illicit to ever depict.
- Made all dancing and music Haram unless it was Arabic and Rhythmic in nature. This includes all Jewish dances and music.
- Said Allah wills people to Hell predestined from Birth, which invalidates the wrathful and regretful motivation all times Jewish God got angry and did things like the Flood and plagues.
Foundational to Christianity is belief that Jesus made an atoning sacrifice to pay for our sins and through personal acceptance of Jesus as savior, our sins will be forgiven. All but one sin, there is a sin that Jesus said could not be forgiven, and that “unforgivable sin” is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, for which the penalty is eternal damnation. (Matthew 12:31-33, Mark 3:29, Luke 12:10)
Considering Christ’s uncompromising warning, I think it is important to examine just what the unforgivable sin is and perhaps remind Christians of it. I single out offending Christians here because in Hebrews 6:4-6 the unforgivable sin is associated with "falling away”, it clearly states that only Christians can commit this sin, and it claims the offenders are crucifying Jesus again while putting Him to an open shame. When I see some Christians engaging in so much denominational strife and religious one-upmanship, which upon consideration of Scripture is in fact what Jesus referred to as “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit”, I can’t imagine Jesus being anything but openly shamed by such a divided house.
In Matthew 12 Jesus says a divided house cannot stand, in his definition of the unforgivable sin he makes a clear distinction between blasphemies against Him (forgivable), and the Holy Spirit (unforgivable), and then immediately reminds us that you should only judge a tree by its fruit.
Jesus said he came for ALL men, transcending the very notion of religious exclusion. In the context of the absolute laws of unity and compassion that He embodied and the utterly non-dual nature of his teachings, exemplified in the statement that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28 , Colossians 3:11) there can be little question about what the unforgivable sin is.
When asked to, Jesus summarized all of his teaching into the maxim that you should love your neighbor as you love yourself (Matthew 22:36-39 and Mark 12:28-31, also see Leviticus 19:18, Galatians 5:14 ,Matthew 22:39, Luke 10:27, James 2:8, John 1:5, John 13:34), something impossible to do without recognizing that your neighbor’s faith is to him, what your faith is to you. Christ said that the true Kingdom of God was within, that his father’s house had many mansions and that a Kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation and a divided house cannot stand.
The unforgivable sin then, is to have been to the mountaintop of the transcendent and non-dual love of Christ’s understanding of God, and to again become dual minded and unstable (James 1:8), and to judge the Holy Spirit working in others by the external trappings of ritual and dogma rather than looking beyond those things to the Kingdom within (Luke 17:21), judging by something other than the fruit of the Holy Spirit, especially when the agenda of tribal denominationalism causes someone to totally deny His teachings and attribute the work of God’s Spirit in others to demonic forces.
Along with almost every other major religion, Christianity maintains that God is transcendent to human understanding (Isaiah 55:8-9, 1 Corinthians 13:12 , Romans 11:33, and scads more) and Scripture is filled with supporting statements, explicitly telling us that no man knows as he ought to know (1 Corinthians 8:1-2 ), every man has his proper gift of God after different manners (1 Corinthians 7:7), with explicit consequential statements that therefore, we should not judge others (out of hundreds of references, Matthew 7:1 and 1 Corinthians 4:5 stand out).
When I see Christians engaging in all this religious one-upmanship and self-righteous condemnation of other ways of understanding God it is hard not to see a direct parallel to the manner in which the Pharisees smugly proclaimed the fruits of Holy Spirit that dwelled in Jesus to be the works of Satan (Matthew 12).
When questioned about it, the Christians who engage in all this “puffing themselves up” (1 Corinthians 8:1-2) and “self-exaltation” (Luke 14:11), typically justify it by claiming that they are only trying to save your eternal soul. Perhaps those offending individuals should forego their own egos and instead defer to their Scripture and consider what Jesus had to say about it all and recognize that maybe it would be more appropriate to worry that it is your own soul that is facing eternal damnation.
Romans 2:1-2
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
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@AdaptableRatman
I am blessed to have had a Catholic Church near enough to me to visit weekly. A lot of the world does but not enough yet.However, the fact is it is the OG church and only Coptics rival it in age afaik.It is also the only church to blatantly claim to be founded by Jesus himself rather than a second one later. The Nicene emperor that sort of 'founded it' being finalsied doctrinally duebto the first Nicene council being catholic in thinking vs later ones that became Byzantine, hence eastern orthodox, did not name himself as founder. In fact they considered St. Peter the first Pope.Catholics are why we have hospitals human rights and most science vs what the Greeks did.
To worship a church is idolatry.
"You shall have no other gods before Me” - 1st Commandment
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@Sir.Lancelot
This post is about Orthodoxy vs Catholicism vs Protestantism, and it's directed towards christians.In my personal studies, I've noticed the divide in these denominations. And it's by no means uncommon for the denominations to talk smack about each other.The differences that caused these splits was always due to church politics and tension over differences of scriptural interpretation.Where do you stand on the side of church politics, if you are Christian?If you are a christian that believes all churches are universally acceptable, so long as you have faith in God, then this post doesn't apply to you.Protestants, evangelicals, orthodox, catholic... I want to hear from all of you what denomination/church you represent and why it appeals to you the most, versus other branches of christianity.
I don’t think such exclusivity of truth is a tenet of the Christian faith and I do not believe it is Biblically derived. The central commandment of Christianity is that “The Lord our God is one Lord” which expresses a divine unity, and we must “love our neighbors as we love ourselves”, there is no other commandment greater than these in Christianity. To love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we must necessarily recognize that his religion is to him, what our religion is to us.
The basic Christian epistemological postulate is that God transcends human understanding, the limiting distinctions and categories of normal human thought just do not apply; human knowledge is "finite" knowledge and the way we "know" is a function of our limited capacity to know. The true reality is much more, perhaps infinitely more, than we think it is, probably much more than we are even capable of thinking. God is transcendent to human knowledge; we can never have perfect understanding of God; He is as “seen through a glass darkly” such that “no man knows as he ought to know”. I think you can broadly characterize religious cognition as such that there is a direction involved the journey and characterize the associated epistemological development as an ascent of religious discernment.
If you stand the various religions side by side you can draw lines horizontally between them and find great differences, but these are the surface level differences, cultural differences of form rather than content, solely exoteric differences. But there is another way to draw the lines, you can draw them vertically along a graded scale of ascending religious discernment in esoteric recognition that every religion has, underlying their various and conflicting literal meanings, a transcendent dimension, which is essential, primordial and universal. Ontologically speaking, there is a transcendent Divine Unity, commonly referred to as God (but not always); and using the vertically graded scale of the Christian worldview it can be said that “above” the religions converge, and “below” they differ. I think it can also be said that epistemologically speaking, and on the same Christian vertical scale that I referred to as ascending religious discernment, that cognitively, religious discernment unites also. Each religion approaches the transcendent reality from different cultural directions or frames of references, but they do essentially converge on this understanding of the epistemology of knowledge.
Man’s mind cannot imagine a Divine Unity that excludes nothing any more than it can visualize light that is simultaneously wave and particle, or an electron that moves from place to place without traveling the distance between those two points, but that is the way the authorities of physics tell us the underlying reality is. In much the same way, the Absolute Unity that is referred to with the word God defies visualization or even consistent description, and the Philosophia Perennis which is being imparted by those who wrote the Bible is in fact, represented in a variety of cultural contexts, it is one and the same Spirit that is presented in a variety of different forms in all of the great religions of Mankind. The Divine Unity in all its fullness cannot in any way be circumscribed or even exhaustively defined by any single tradition, to circumscribe is to bound and limit, and “the word of God is not bound”.
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@TheGreatSunGod
And now he's going to declare that he's in charge, AGAINHe is not even in charge. He is just getting some attention this way. He sticks to the book "48 laws of power" which told him that he needs to do everything he can to get attention so that he can gain more power somehow. He says he has changed, but thats the exact "smoke and mirrors" chapter in the book he follows.
It's a vicious cycle, desperate for attention but with nothing of substance to say, so decides he is in charge of what other people say, and as always, people ignore him, and that leaves him desperate for attention but with nothing of substance to say...
It just becomes a constant high-pitched whine.
Waah, waah, waah.
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@TheGreatSunGod
In 'Satire' the website is having a user right now with profile poc of Trump and a swastika.You mean Sidewalker's profile? I mean, no one ever complained about that.
That's because no one was ever as anal retentive as Ratman.
But....heeeeee's back.
He fell out of the asshole tree and hit every branch on the way down.
And now he's going to declare that he's in charge, AGAIN.
It's just adorable, he's desperate for attention, angry, and has nothing of value to share.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I wish someone would help you. Whatever precedes these unhinged sardonic myopic ranting sessions cannot be healthy.
I'll bet the scientific name for it is really hard to spell.
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@TheGreatSunGod
Well, you didn't just prove God, so....what was the other option again?
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