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  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

Is Europe facing civilizational erasure?

Yes both Putin and Trump agree on breaking up the EU. There is an opportunistic streak in both leaders here. Putin has a territorial divide and conquer ambition and Trump wants the greater leverage of trading with smaller nation states rather than Europe as a block, also he rightly sees a problem in the wokist, godless cultures of European elites and in the basic strategic foolishness that led to an overdependence on Russian raw materials and Chinese trade. We should neither be naive about Americas intent here nor make a big thing of opposing it. Rather they can be helpful allies in driving much needed reforms before it is too late for us.

Trump basically believes that the old Christian European and American models worked better than the multikulti ones employed today in Europe. In part that is an unwelcome recall of the memory of a different kind of Europe where racism held sway. But so also it is a commentary on current realities like the breakdowns of: cultural unity, true spirituality and religion. The current weakness of Europe on the world stage is spiritual rather than to do with our wealth or even military power which remains substantial albeit in need of an overhaul. Recovering our self-confidence is not about reasserting white imperial domination, that is gone forever. It is rather about finding a new Christian identity that can work with a different kind of world where we longer dominate but must compete both to survive and also to promote the values many of us have forgotten, or no longer care for.

Supporting jumped up nobody Tommy Robinson maybe? One has to wonder whether Putin really has something on Trump.

Kremlin hails Trump’s national security strategy as aligned with Russia’s vision
If so, I do hope it comes to light earlier rather than later.
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Baton Rouge Diocese announces Sunday Mass dispensation for migrants fearing deportation

Bishop Michael Duca has granted a dispensation from Sunday Mass attendance for immigrants fearing deportation in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, the fourth U.S. diocese to do so.

News of the dispensation comes amid heightened presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Louisiana as part of the Trump administration’s “Swamp Sweep,” which has been reported to include the deployment of 250 Border Patrol agents to the region and plans to arrest 5,000 individuals across Louisiana and Misssissipi.

“With the recent publicized arrival of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers into south Louisiana and greater Baton Rouge, and since many of the faithful genuinely fear immigration enforcement actions, thereby making it untenable for them to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, I hereby grant a dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass for those Catholics rightfully afraid to participate in Mass because of their fear,” Duca said “with a heavy heart” in a pastoral letterdated Dec. 4.

The Baton Rouge bishop said the dispensation would remain “until the individual Catholic determines it is safe to attend Mass again” or until the dispensation is revoked.

Continued below.

Bethlehem lights Christmas tree again while conflict still echoes nearby

For the past two years — while the war in Gaza has been taking place — all Christmas celebrations have been canceled in Bethlehem, the town where Jesus was born. However after the recent ceasefire, the famous town decided to have its Christmas celebrations return, starting with the lighting of the giant Christmas tree in front of the historic Church of the Nativity on Dec. 6.

“It’s been a bad two years of silence; no Christmas, no jobs, no work,” Bethlehem Mayor Maher Canawati said in an interview with the BBC. “We’re all living here from tourism, and tourism was down to zero.”

He added: “Some may say it’s not appropriate and others say it’s appropriate, but deep inside my heart, I felt that this was the right thing to do because Christmas should never be stopped or canceled. This is the light of hope for us.”

Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, two neighboring towns, will also be having Christmas tree lightings in the coming days. Hotels are also receiving more bookings from tourists as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Continued below.

Love codified in the Ten Commandments

No where in the entire Bible does it say God's laws written in the heart are a different law of God or the Law of Christ as if there is dichotomy between God and Christ and their laws. If there is than one automatically disqualifies themselves because the Scriptures say God's saints keep the commandments of God Rev14:12 and only those are reconciled back to God Rev22:14 those outside the comamndment breakers quoting directly from the Ten Commandments.

In Jesus own teachings He said when we lay aside the commandment of God and quoted directly from the Ten Commandments ones heart is far from Him, Mark 7:7-13 Mat 15:3-14 because they have rejected the law of God and has made one an enmity to God Rom8:7-8. No wonder Jesus said when we do this it makes the word of God of no effect, because if we aren't believing God's Words- whose words are we replacing them with. Jesus did not say the Ten Comamndment ended not once nor did Paul. The definition of how to love God Exo20:6 John14:15 1John5:3 , did not get replaced by mans feelings. Love fulfills the law because when we love Jesus we keep His commandments John14:15 Exo20:6 1John5:3 and want to obey Him and allow Him to define His own Laws that He did plainly and claimed as His Exo20:6,. But believe as you wish, we will all have to be accountable for our teachings Mat5:19 and He will sort this out soon enough. Its time for me to move on but I wish you well .

I agree there’s no dichotomy between God and Christ. That’s exactly why the New Testament consistently speaks of one law under the New Covenant, the law of Christ written by the Spirit, not the Sinai covenant written on stone. The issue is not “God vs. Christ,” but old covenant vs. new covenant, which Hebrews, Paul, and Jesus all address.

Hebrews 8:13 explicitly says the covenant defined by the Ten Commandments (Deut 4:13) is obsolete and passing away. That doesn’t contradict God; it’s the covenant change God Himself promised. The NT never says the Sinai treaty becomes the New Covenant law. It affirms God’s righteousness, not the permanence of the stone-written covenant document.

Revelation 14:12 and 22:14 don’t quote the Ten Commandments; John uses “commandments of God” the same way he defines them elsewhere (1 John 3:23)—faith in Christ and love for one another. That’s the New Covenant shape of obedience, not a reinstallation of Sinai. And nothing in Mark 7 or Matthew 15 says the 10 continue as the covenant document; Jesus is condemning human tradition, not describing covenant structure.

Saying that Christians are not under the Sinai covenant is not “laying aside God’s commandments.” The NT repeatedly says believers obey Christ, walk by the Spirit, and fulfill the law through love (Rom 13:8–10; Gal 5:14). That is not rejecting God, it is exactly what the New Covenant teaches.

I respect that you’re ready to move on, so I’ll leave it here too. But the distinction I’m making comes directly from Scripture: the old covenant engraved on stone has ended (Heb 8; 2 Cor 3), and the New Covenant law is written by the Spirit, not defined by the Sinai tablets.
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Does Open Carry Cause Problems?

Peter carried a sword -

Pretty much everyone has the ability to carry - it is not uncommon to see people exercising their rights daily. It's a great place to live for a number of reasons - but lots of people carry - you are incorrect in your assumption. There are some affluent area's but the vast majority is middle income. Just like me.

In Chicago perhaps? - oh, wait - they have more guns - just not legal.

Got proof for such a statement?

I'm proof positive - Grew up in NY - I've carried concealed since 1981, college grad, Married to a beautiful woman (college grad) who carries occasionally - I have six children with the exception of one - we all have the ability to carry - (no Hunters).

I am fortunate to live here. Low Taxes - strong family values - strong conservative area - four Christian Universities - great schools where they still pray with the kids. And freedom to carry openly.

Sure there are some who do not carry - but I'd suspect they are in the minority.

When Fantine commented that “Fewer educated people own guns” you asked, “Got proof for such a statement?”

I think I am quoting the same source that Fantine used, but here it is.

<< Overall, about three-in-ten adults with a high school diploma or less (31%) and 34% of those with some college education say they own a gun; a quarter of those with a bachelor’s degree or more say the same. Among whites, about four-in-ten of those with a high school diploma or less (40%) or with some college (42%) are gun owners, compared with roughly a quarter of white college graduates (26%). >>

To summarize:

Adults with High School Diploma
31% own a gun

Adults with some College
34% own a gun

...with Bachelor’s Degree or more
25% own a gun

Pew Research gives further statistics but I will stop here for simplicity.


Source:

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/
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Had Mary guessed about resurrection ?

Mary's faith was deep, but her human perspective struggled with the paradox of the Messiah's suffering
Actually, i understand what you say, and would fully agree, had you tell this about one of his male disciples.
But Mary is a female person, with a female sensitivity, then.
i mean : she knows how men pretend to feel no pain at the very moment of their sufferings. It's their conception of virility.
Indeed, it sounds like Jesus' sorrows on the cross also was an expression of all the pains men hide to look virile. About the meditative Mary, i doubt a little she was duped by these pretendings of men.

What's more, she also was a mother : i assume she had good reasons to worry for the 12 year old Jesus' sake when they looked for him. She knew danger does exist ; Didn't they have to flee to Egypt to escape massacre ? If non vulnerable, would they have had to ?

As believer of Gabriel' speech, finally though, she believed his reign was supposed to happen for ever. This is more where i suppose lies a paradox
the paradox of the Messiah's suffering
Indeed,
She could have wondered of what need is death (or suffering, yes..) for an everlasting reign ?
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Is Hell Annihilationism or Eternal Torment

And you would be extremely wrong to think that philosophy is, in whole, mutually exclusive to Christian theology.

You might want to keep in mind that, actually, the undertaking of biblical systematic theology REQUIRES the application of some points of the wide (very, very wide) field of Philosophy.

You would be right to say that I don't hold to Sola Scriptura, and I'd go on record to in fact say that in order to be saved, no one needs to. God is bigger than the rag tag collection of letters and books we call the New Testament, after all, and I'll continue to take my measures for what constitutes 'good theology' from many Christian scholars (and ministers) rather than ................... only one local minister.

And in saying all of the above, I'll continue on in my viewpoint and do so with the same outlook and attitude of Copernicus who said, and I quote, "There may be babblers, wholly ignorant of mathematics, who dare to condemn my hypothesis, upon the authority of some part of the Bible twisted to suit their purpose. I value them not, and scorn their unfounded judgment.”


I beg to differ on this point. How can anyone have "sound theology" by believing in a social bubble, with little or no education in the area of Hermeneutics, Biblical Exegesis, and Church History??? ............ by special pleading about one's special, personal revelations or by the special abilities of one's singular local minister? I think not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously. I never said salvation is exactly congruent with "how well" we know the Scriptures. It's also not exactly congruent with a set of presuppositions attuned solely and only to, shall we say, a more Calvinistic leaning.


And neither is God impressed with anyone's SPIRITUAL ZEAL that persists without KNOWLEDGE.

Well then, with that, have a Merry Christmas!
Indeed, and as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, ereryone!
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Does Regeneration Precede Faith?

1 John 5:1a reads:

πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστὶν ὁ Χριστός, ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ γεγέννηται
("Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God")

A few grammatical observations:

First, ὁ πιστεύων is a present active participle functioning substantively: "the one who is believing." The participle presents the subject, and describes a present, ongoing activity rather than a completed act of faith.

Second, γεγέννηται, the main verb of the clause, is a perfect passive indicative: "has been begotten" or "has been born [of God]." The perfect tense is more than just a "past" tense. Its aspectual function specifically points to a completed action in the past whose effects continue into the present.

When the two forms are set in relation to each other, especially with the present participle functioning substantively -- that is, as the subject of the main verb -- the natural sense is that the person who now believes does so as one who has already been born of God. The grammar, therefore, suggests a logical ordering in which the new birth precedes the act of believing.

This does not, of course, deny the simultaneous experience of these realities in human perception, but grammatically the text places regeneration as the root (the logical grounds) and believing as its fruit.

Hmmmm,..... interesting.

Let's see what other sections of scripture say,....

Rom 10:8 But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart;" that is, the word of faith, which we proclaim:
Rom 10:9 that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Rom 10:10 For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.


We always compare scripture with scripture to get the proper understanding, we never cherry pick one verse out and then try to build our theology around it with Greek tenses.
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For those who are gamers, how do you handle Christian Ethics vs gaming?

I decided to do a search for video games for Christians, and the first I came across is this:

Login to view embedded media
The next, is TruPlay.
I'm not sure of the content, but it shows that games are being made for those that believe in Jesus, and they have kids in mind, and learning.
Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media
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Revelation 13 mark of the beast is the hexagram.

It is in heavy code so that it can only be unlocked by someone that studies the bible a lot, studies the life of Solomon deliberately, and specifically, is willing to follow the text of the bible wherever it leads, and is willing to say what the bible says even if it is unpopular amongst other Christians. Also if it said in plain language "the mark of the beast is the hexagram on the future country Israel" the Christian Zionists would mock the bible, and say it has been corrupted that is not what it said originally.
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Daniel 9:25 — Interpreting “Messiah the Prince”

Truly a novel reading of the chapter.
Thanks for helping me see how that suggestion unfolds.

Historically, figures like Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and later Protestant reformers emphasized the Messiah's coming within this single 490 year timeline.

Vs 25 "70 weeks have been cut off" is a reference to the fact that the Angel shows up in Dan 9 to give "an explanation of the vision previously written as Dan chapter 8. So then Dan 9 is a much needed help for Dan 8. At the end of chapter 8 Daniel complains that it is not explained.

Dan 9 verse 25 says in essence that the first 70 weeks (490 years ) of the 2300 year timeline in chapter 8, are devoted to details regarding the coming of the Messiah in the first century AD>
Thank you. I made some corrections I think are in important.
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"The Meaning of Foreknew in Romans 8:29"

Cornelius in Acts 10 was a man known by God before he came to faith in Jesus Christ. You can see God taking that OT faith and as predestined, seeing it through to a NT faith in Jesus Christ. Just like with Lydia. That's what I believe Romans 9 is speaking of. They were already known by God, but predestined to come to faith in Jesus. All that the Father gives Me, I shall not lose one of them.

John 14:6-7 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.

John 10:27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

He *knew them*, before Pentecost, before they were indwelt with the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17) Before the Promise of the Father was given (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:4) - Pentecost, before they were in Christ and born again (Ephesians 1:13-14, 1 Peter 1:3). OT believers were not even yet justified, except by promise (Romans 3:25).

Romans 8:29-30 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called (John 10:27-28); whom He called, these He also justified (Romans 3:25); and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
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Now does everyone understand why the "right to refuse illegal orders" video was made?

That was a very clever thing to do by Hegseth. When you consider our nation's negligent National Security and DoD objectives, 2021-'24.

Yep, you want your military lawyers bowing to the political tides and ideology of whoever happens to be in power at the time and not providing neutral, fact-based, politically-independent legal advice. Because that has no possibility whatsoever of boomeranging on anyone. And the people who are in power now are always going to be in power. So there will be no see-sawing of legal interpretations. And no consequences!
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Daniel 9 ended 70 AD

The decree that went out had to be Nehemiah 2 20th year which went out on Nisan (abib in the torah) which was passover as Jesus in the NT is killed on passover. 445 BC decree goes out then 49 years later everything is rebuilt, all the Levites had come back from Babylon, and all the gold had come back from the Ezra 7 decree. Note most of those things happened by Nehemiah 12 time which takes place no longer than 12 years after the Nehemiah 2 decree as Nehemiah 3 is the 32nd year but maybe all the gold, and other people did not come back until around. 396 BC. From then until the messiah is cut off was 62 7s / 434 years or 483 years from the decree 445 BC. Converting 483 360 day years ends up with 476 solar years +25 days = around 32 AD. Can +- 1 maybe max 2 years either way. Persian chronology has a lot of sources, and is fixed pretty hard either way.

Daniel 9
[g] The people (the Roman army) of the ruler (either Jesus or Titus or Vespasian) who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary (Romans destroying Jerusalem 70 AD) . The end will come like a flood: (Jesus said 70 AD would be like Noahs flood; the Romans flooded in, and killed everyone) War will continue until the end (the end of the Mosaic age) , and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’[h] In the middle of the ‘seven’[i] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple[j] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.[k]”[l]


Josephus says Eleazar Ben Hanania stopped the daily sacrifice the Judeans had been doing for the Romans 66 AD, and this angered the Romans, and was one of the main causes of the Judean Roman wars. So if this is what Dan meant the final 7 was 63-70 AD ending with the destruction of the temple. One of the Judean rebels must of put an abomination of desolation in the temple before 70 AD but it was not recorded, and by the sound of it made a covenant with the Romans or other Judeans that they broke also not recorded. Josephus says another daily sacrifice stopped 70 AD because of want of anyone to do it aka they were too busy fighting each other, and the Romans. If this is what Dan meant then the final 7 was 66-73 AD ending with the last of the Judean rebels killing themselves at Masada. 66-73 was the length of the Judean Roman wars anyway which was 7 years. By 73 AD all the people that killed Jesus had been killed by God using the Roman army as punishment for that bad sin just like Jesus said would happen multiple times " all the righteous blood shed on the earth will come upon this generation" etc, and there was no visible sign of the Mosaic covenant / the temple anymore. That was the end of OT Israel never to return ever again.


Exodus 29:38-39 is reference for the daily sacrifice. They had been doing it since Moses 1400 AD, and without that there was no forgiveness of sins for one day so it was a big deal when it stopped which it did in the Babylonian, and Maccabean period also.

Josephus

The Wars of the Jews, 2.408​

. And at this time it was that some of those that principally excited the people to go to war, made an assault upon a certain fortress called Masada. They took it by treachery, and slew the Romans that were there, and put others of their own party to keep it. At the same time Eleazar, the son of Ananias the high-priest, a very bold youth, who was at that time governor of the temple, persuaded those that officiated in the divine service to receive no gift or sacrifice for any foreigner. And this was the true beginning of our war with the Romans; for they rejected the sacrifice of Cæsar on this account: and when many of the high-priests and principal men besought them not to omit the sacrifice, which it was customary for them to offer for their princes, they would not be prevailed upon. These relied much upon their multitude, for the most flourishing part of the innovators assisted them; but they had the chief regard to Eleazar, the governor of the temple.

The Wars of the Jews, 6.93​


931. And now Titus gave orders to his soldiers that were with him to dig up the foundations of the tower of Antonia, and make him a ready passage for his army to come up; 94while he himself had Josephus brought to him (for he had been informed that on that very day, which was the seventeenth day of Panemus, [Tamuz,] the sacrifice called “the Daily Sacrifice” had failed, and had not been offered to God, for want of men to offer it, and that the people were grievously troubled at it)


After 70 AD if someone believed in Jesus then they are a Jew Israel of God Abrahams seed circumcized heir to Abrahams blessing. Romans 2 28 29, Galatians 6 16, 3 29, Romans 9 8, and other verses. So that is Christians. Or there was people saying they are Jews but lying they are the synagogue of satan. No other religions emerged after 70 AD. Either in covenant with the God of Abraham via belief in Jesus or nothing. 30-70 AD was the transition period from old to new but post 70 AD it was the end. The synagogue of satan could of looked at those prophecies in Dan 9 just after 70 AD, realised it ended with 70 AD realised the messiah had to come 483 years (even just using solar years, and not 360 day years) after that decree in Nehemiah 2 or Ezra 7 or any of the other two decrees, and realised it put an upper limit of the time frame by which the messiah had to come by, and therefore according to God they are without excuse for denying Jesus Christ as son of God savior. Christians should not be unequally yoked with their religion today, and the beast country in Revelation 13 that calls itself Israel but lies, and the mark of the beast is the hexagram.

AI search says Adventists are the largest single denomination holding to Sola Scriptura

Using strict rules, identify the largest Trinitarian Christian denominations that (1) claim Scripture is sufficient to test all doctrine, (2) possess a single global administrative authority, (3) maintain one unified set of binding official doctrines for all members, and (4) contain no doctrtinally autonomous subgroups within their membership

Resulted in this just now

==========================================
AI said

The largest Trinitarian Christian denomination that meets all four of the specified strict criteria (as refined in the previous interaction regarding doctrinal autonomy) is the
Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church.

Here is how the SDA Church meets each of the refined strict rules:

  • 1. Claim Scripture is sufficient to test all doctrine: The SDA Church officially states that the Bible is the supreme standard and the sole foundation of its beliefs.
  • 2. Possess a single global administrative authority: The Church operates under a hierarchical structure with the General Conference serving as the highest global administrative authority, ensuring worldwide coordination and governance.
  • 3. Maintain one unified set of binding official doctrines for all members: The 28 Fundamental Beliefs constitute a globally binding set of official doctrines for all members, approved by the General Conference in session.
  • 4. Contain no doctrinally autonomous subgroups within their membership: The denomination's policies ensure doctrinal unity; rejecting the fundamental beliefs is grounds for disfellowship, meaning any groups with differing doctrines are outside the official membership of the denomination.
While other large global denominations exist (such as the Roman Catholic Church), they fail at least one of these criteria, primarily the first (regarding the sufficiency of Scripture alone) or the fourth (due to varying internal practices or historical schisms not related to formal disfellowship rules).
It's still biased. You might not be getting Catholic Church, but I have twice. Which means, whatever answers you're getting isn't proof of anything.
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The soul of Vladimir Putin

God's place to judge
"For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father." (in John 5:22-23)

Included in how Jesus judges could be what He says in Luke 9:55-56 > after James and John asked Him if He wanted them to call down fire upon people who had rejected Jesus >

"But He turned and rebuked them, and said, 'You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them.'" (in Luke 9:55-56)

And our Apostle Paul says what to do "first of all" >

"Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men," (1 Timothy 2:1)
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I have a question and I’m confused

I was not even expecting LCMS, WELS and ELS.

Color me shocked.

IN any case I don't mind multiple AI platforms returning consistent results for the same query.

Indeed, but you’re not getting consistent results on a single platform - chatGPT (which you did indicate in your initial post you were using). I’ve executed exactly the prompt you told me to, and as you can see, your denomination is absent. And since the results diverged, that rather conclusively proves my point.

What is more, insofar as you admitted you were modifying your questions to try to get consistent results on different platforms, that by itself demonstrates my point: AI is an unqualified authority. The fact that minor changes in wording produce different results for different users demonstrates the fallacy of appealing to AI as an authority, and its uselessness in answering questions involving statistics based on disputed terms (consider: there are divergent sets of statistics, the meaning of denomination and administration is disputed, the meaning of Sola Scriptura is disputed - chatGPT 5.1 specifically excluded the SDA from its results when I ran it on the basis of it deeming, in the moment, your church as not Sola Scriptura) should be a massive red flag.

By the way, this is not a technological limitation - your question is itself not capable of being rationally answered in a consistent manner, in that the terms it uses have disputed meanings (denomination, Trinitarianism, administration, Sola Scriptura). Without precise definitions of each term, even with perfectly reliable LLMs your question could not produce reliable results; rather, whatever random variables and the training data of the model favored as the definition would shape the output. If you do precisely define the terms, furthermore, you will simply move the debate to the question of whether those definitions are correct, which would be another can of worms, indeed a forty gallon drum of worms.

So, given all this, do you still intend to regard AI as a qualified authority or will you accept that appeals to LLMs are appeals to unqualified authority, at least outside of certain narrow problem domains (which I defined clearly, basically, LLMs are reliable only at solving pattern recognition problems uncontroversial parameters).
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The age of the earth gospel of Nicodemus

There are textual variants in the numbers in Genesis 5, and 11. MT gives 4000 BC LXX gives 5500 BC. Gospel of Nicodemus which internally is written pre 70 AD in the preface, and in the main body of the text has a prophecy of 70 AD related phenomena which means it is inspired apocrypha for the wise only makes it clear the original numbers are 5500 BC. It quotes a prophecy from Michael the angel to Seth, Adams son about God about sending the word (John 1) in 5500 years to save Adam, and anoint him with the oil from the tree of life which Adam wanted to do himself but God did not let him ( in Genesis God puts the angel to stop them getting back into the garden or to the tree of life). Gospel of Nic is quoting the life of Adam, and Eve, as some manuscripts of that say it was written by Moses (there is no internal date of authorship or claim to authorship of that text) so I believe it was, and is inspired. Gospel of Nic says the Israelites first century pre 70 AD understood the messiah would come 5500 years from creation based on the dimensions of the ark of the covenant being 2.5 by 1.5 by 1.5 (Exodus 25:10) which adds up to 5.5 (thousand years), and those numbers in Exodus are the same in all hand written manuscripts of the OT- MT, LXX, SP, DSS, Peshitta so one can have confidence it is correct. In Gospel of Nic Jesus descends into "hell" (there is no fire in the section he is in), and Adam, and other OT people have been waiting in the shadow of death for him there for a long time, then he takes them to paradise. The normal NT hints at some interesting things happening in the 3 days Jesus was dead

1 Peter 4:6 (ESV)


“For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead,
that though judged in the flesh the way people are,
they might live in the spirit the way God does.”


1 Peter 3:18–20 (ESV)


“Christ… being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,
because they formerly did not obey,
when God's patience waited in the days of Noah…”
Gospel of Nic does not have Jesus preaching to people just saving the righteous OT people waiting for him. Gospel of Nic is at the start has letter to Tiberius from Pilate, and then the second section is Jesus descent into hell. Gospel of Nic also references 2 Esdras ( internal date 557-457 BC) about a 70 book bible the first book of which was the life of Adam, and Eve. 2 Esdras explains the Babylonians destroyed the bible so Ezra had to re write it, and he wrote 94 books 24 for the common people, and 70 for the wise only. This would of been things like 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Test of the 12, Life of Adam, and Eve, Testament of Job, and others. For the NT the inspired hidden (apocrypha) books for the wise only written pre 70 are Gospel of Nic, History of Joseph the Carpenter, Proto James, and some others.

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