In light of this:

Vietnam: In a letter Saturday, Vietnam’s Communist Party offered to remove all tariffs on U.S. goods in hopes of lowering the 46% tax Trump imposed. From this thread.

Trump et all if they had their desire, would like to remove all tariffs from all trading partners and in this case with Vietnam, Vietnam is asking for zero tariffs as well.
The hourly manufacturer rate of pay in Vietnam is $6.95. The hourly manufacturer rate of pay in the US is $ 28.92. That's a 76% difference. So not only a huge labor cost savings, with the Trump TCJA (Tax Cuts Jobs Act) the US shifted toward a territorial tax system. That allows multinational corporations to avoid US taxes on most foreign earnings. So you, as a manufacturer if you moved overseas you will 1) face no tariffs 2) Save 76% in labor costs and 3) don't have to pay US taxes on your revenue. 4) Regulatory laws are mitigated.

So if you were a American manufacturer, why would you not move your operations to Vietnam?
.

In light of this, in little over a year after Biden's focus to crack down on high income tax delinquents and cheats:

IRS tops $1 billion in past-due taxes collected from millionaires; compliance efforts continue involving high-wealth groups, corporations, partnerships​

Remember when Obama focused on closing tax loop holes in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands?

Republicans poo poo'ed that too.
IRS funding is something the GOP has been cutting since 2010. Is not part revenue, or lack thereof part of the debt problem?
Why would anyone jettison the idea of going after those of high income who are cheating the system? Or is that a rhetorical question?

NAIROBI, Kenya — A mother of six children was stabbed to death by her Muslim husband in Uganda after she attended her first church service, sources said.

Nasiimu Mirembe, whose children range in age from 3 to 18, had put her faith in Christ on March 21 after hearing the Gospel from a friend in eastern Uganda’s Busembatya town council. She was 41.

She and her friend were on their way to a church service on March 23 when a Muslim neighbor, Awudu Mbulalina, greeted them 218 yards (200 meters) from the worship site and continued on, said the friend, whose name is being withheld for security reasons.

Continued below.

Supreme Court backs Trump in controversial deportations case​

Promises made. Promises kept

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major victory to President Trump on Monday, allowing the administration to continue deporting what it says are Venezuelan gang members. The vote was 5-to-4, with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the three liberals in dissent.

In a memo sent to the Justice Department on Monday night, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department will no longer participate in regulation in the digital asset space and will instead focus on crimes that people commit with cryptocurrency, such as dealing narcotics and human trafficking.

In 2000 Bill Clinton signed the law below regarding Communist China, it was the greatest American sell out in its history supported by Democrats and Republicans alike $$$ Here we are 25 years later

Wikipedia: United States–China Relations Act of 2000​

Prior to passage of the bill, China was subject to an annual review by Congress of China's trade status with the United States. Since 1980, the president has had to issue annual waivers to trade with China. The act removed the review, eased some trade barriers, and facilitated China's entry into the WTO. China became a member of WTO on December 11, 2001, and its permanent normal trade relations status with the US was made permanent on December 27, 2001.

Wiki:

Pre-existence, preexistence, beforelife, or premortal existence, is the belief that each individual human soul existed before mortal conception, and at some point before birth enters or is placed into the body.

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Plato believed in the pre-existence of the soul, which tied in with his innatism. He thought that we are born with knowledge from a previous life that is subdued at birth and must be relearned.

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A concept of pre-existence was advanced by Origen, a second and third-century church father.[9] Origen believed that each human soul was created by God[10] at some time prior to conception. He wrote that already "one of [his] predecessors" had interpreted the Scripture to teach pre-existence, which seems to be a reference to the Jewish philosopher Philo.[11]

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Wiki:

Plato's theory of the soul, which was inspired variously by the teachings of Socrates, considered the psyche to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how people behave. Plato considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of a person's being. Plato said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn (metempsychosis) in subsequent bodies. Plato divided the soul into three parts: the logistikon (reason), the thymoeides (spirit, which houses anger, as well as other spirited emotions), and the epithymetikon (appetite or desire, which houses the desire for physical pleasures).[2][3]

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The soul contained the person's volitional faculty.

According to Plato, before a soul was born into a body for the very first time, it possessed knowledge of ultimate truths. It had direct access to the realm of the Forms—the eternal, unchanging essences of reality, such as Beauty, Justice, Equality, and Goodness. This idea was central to Plato's epistemology and metaphysics, particularly in his theory of anamnesis (recollection). He believed that learning in this life was not about acquiring new knowledge but rather recollecting what the soul already knew in its preexistent state.

In the dialogue Meno, Plato used the example of a slave boy who, through Socratic questioning, demonstrated knowledge of geometric principles he had not been explicitly taught. Plato interpreted this as evidence that the soul already possesses innate knowledge from its preexistent state. This evidence is weak in proving the preexistence of the soul. I don't buy it.

The following was Plato's logic:

P1: The boy's soul preexisted with knowledge of geometry.
P2: Learning was the recollection of knowledge in the preexisting soul.
G: The boy demonstrates knowledge of geometry.

∴ P3: The boy's soul preexisted.

P1∧P2∧G→P3

The problem with this line of argument is that both P1 and P2 assumed the preexistence of the soul, the very proposition, P3, that he was trying to prove. He hid what he tried to prove in the atomic propositions P1 and P2. Plato wasn't arguing clearly in terms of modern first-order logic.

World English Bible, Ge 2:

7 Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground,

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body

and breathed

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spirit

into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

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When the breath of God entered Adam's body, his soul was formed for the first time. He, then, spent the rest of his life developing his soul.

The final episode released last Thursday so my wife and I finished watching it. I thought it was wonderful.

Despite the fact that they sourced some things from the Talmud as well as the Christian bible, overall I think it was rather accurate and the production values were excellent. I was really impressed.

Personally I think this was a much better endeavor than The Chosen because of its depiction of David as this uncompromising and courageous man of faith who was kept to the margins by his family until God raised him up.

The series covers David's story from the beginning up through his slaying of Goliath (side note: there's a flashback sequence in one of the middle episodes that depicts the fall of the angelic host and the emergence of giants (Nephilim) in Genesis 6:4. I thought the show runners depiction of the fallen angels and the origins of the Nephilim was pretty cool.

Anyway, if you're a subscriber to Amazon Prime Video you can view it that way, I'm not sure if it's scheduled to be released anywhere else. It's also scheduled for a season two, which will cover another span of time following the Battle of Elah.

This show was really well casted, the actor portraying David was an Egyptian man I've never heard of but he was spectacular. Saul is portrayed by Ali Suliman (perhaps best known for playing the villain in season one of Amazon's Jack Ryan series). Samuel is played by Stephen Lang, and he might've been one of the most compelling characters in the whole series. You just feel his righteousness and also God's anger through Samuel when Saul disobeys. Ayelet Zurer plays Ahinoam, Saul's wife, and Ethan Kai plays Jonathan.

I gotta say, it's been a while since I've seen a biblical story that was both largely faithful to the text (unlike Exodus or Noah) and also really well produced and acted.

Here's a look at the trailer:

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To truly understand what this is saying it is good if we can break it down somewhat by words which are critical to us having true understanding of the message being spoken. For example, what is faith? In a biblical sense, in relationship to our faith in Jesus Christ, which comes from God, and which is gifted to us by God, it means for us to be persuaded of God. And God persuades us as to his holiness and righteousness, and of our sinfulness, and of our need to die to sin and to now walk in obedience to his commands.

And to be justified by such faith means that we now meet with God’s judicial approval because, by biblical faith in Jesus, which is not of human flesh, but of God, and is gifted to us by God, we are now being conformed by God to a proper standard of what is upright, honest, faithful, morally pure, and obedient to our Lord and to his commands. For such faith as this will result in us being crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with him to walk in newness of life in him, no longer as slaves to sin, but as slaves to God.

And we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ because our faith in Jesus is by God’s design and not according to our human flesh. For Jesus said that if anyone would come after him, he must deny self, take up his cross daily (die daily to sin) and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to our lives of living in sin and for self, we will lose them for eternity. But if we deny self, and we put sin to death daily, by the Spirit, and we are walking in obedience to our Lord, then we have the hope of eternal life with God.

And what is this grace in which we stand, as true followers of Jesus Christ? It was the grace of God which sent Jesus Christ to die on that cross and to put our sins to death with him so that, by faith in him, we will die to sin and obey our Lord’s commands, in practice. And God’s grace, which is bringing us salvation, is training us to renounce (say “NO!” to) ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives, in the power of God, by his Spirit, while we wait for our Lord’s return.

[Matthew 7:21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:23-31; Hebrews 12:1-2]

But this is NOT what is primarily being taught as the gospel of our salvation here in America in 2025. Slowly, over the course of many years, the true gospel, as taught in the Scriptures, has been being destroyed one step at a time, slowly diluting and altering the truth of the gospel message to make it more attractive and less offensive to human flesh and to the ungodly. And one piece at a time the majority seem to have adopted this altered gospel message which does not call for death to sin and obedience to our Lord.

And because of this, many people are believing the lies of Satan instead of the truth of God, convinced that their sins are forgiven, and that they are on their way to heaven, but regardless of how they live, and despite the fact that they are still living in deliberate and habitual sin, and not in walks of obedience to our Lord and to his commands. For they have been indoctrinated to accept the lies as the truth, and to reject the truth, as though the truth is the lie, for they are listening to human flesh, not to God.

So, if you are someone who is teaching the gospel message that Jesus taught, and that his New Testament apostles taught, in its fulness, in the proper biblical context, and not out of context, and so you are teaching that, by faith in Jesus, we must die with him to sin and now walk with him in obedience to his commands, in practice, as empowered by God, or we will not have salvation from sin and eternal life with God guaranteed, then you will face some persecution from certain others professing faith in Jesus.

And this is not speaking of any of us having to live in absolute sinless perfection, as many would have you believe. God divides his true followers from those who are not his followers by profession of faith in Jesus Christ, by our deeds. For it is by our deeds that all of us are going to be judged by God at the end of time. If dying with Christ to sin and walking in obedience to his commands are what we practice, we have eternal life with God. But if sin is what we practice, and not obedience, then we will die in our sins, instead.

And if we are among the few in number who are walking the narrow road, which is hard, which leads to life, and which few are traveling, and so we are not on the broad road, which is easy, which leads to death, which the majority are traveling, and if we who are on this narrow road are leading others to also be on this narrow road, we are going to be persecuted, rejected, cast aside as unwanted, rebuked, scorned, and abused. But tribulation is for our good, to mature us in our walks of obedience to God.

[Matthew 5:10-12; Matthew 7:13-14; Matthew 10:16-39; Matthew 24:9-14; Luke 6:22-23; Luke 21:12-17; John 15:18-21; John 17:14; Romans 5:3-5; Philippians 3:7-11; 1 Peter 1:6-7; 1 Peter 4:12-17; 2 Timothy 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5; James 1:2-4; 2 Corinthians 1:3-11; Hebrews 12:3-12; 1 John 3:13; Revelation 6:9-11; Revelation 7:9-17; Revelation 11:1-3; Revelation 12:17; Revelation 13:1-18; Revelation 14:1-13]

All Through the Night

Based off Various Scriptures

Blessed are you when you’re persecuted
Because of your faith in Jesus Christ.
Blessed are you when people insult you,
And falsely say what leads folks to doubt.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is
Great in the heavens. You’re not alone.

When you are persecuted in one place,
Flee to another. God will be there.
You will be hated by all the nations
Because you testify of God’s grace.
Many will seize you and persecute you,
And put to death the foll’wers of Christ.

Yet do not fear what humans may do to you,
For I’m with you all through the night.
I tell you, love your enemies with my love,
And forgive as I forgave you.
Pray for those who do evil against you.
Rest in my love and grace from above.

An Original Work / December 7, 2013
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

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This Grace in Which We Stand
An Original Work / April 8, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

I am in desperate need of prayer. I was abused as a child and have been mourning and crushed and broken in spirit and heart for so long.
Please pray that God gives me the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God within me.
Please pray that God heals me, comforts me, binds me up, delivers me and saves me, so that I will be comforted. Also that God restores me, perfects me and makes me strong, firm and steadfast, so that it will be just as it was in the good times again. And that God gives me beauty for ashes, happiness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair, so that everlasting happiness will be mine.
Also, that God would give me godliness with contentment, so I will always have a deep, personal, close and intimate relationship with Jesus and the angels, just like I used to.
And that God transforms me by a renewing of my mind, gets rid of all anger, rage, bitterness, malice, vengeance, fear, anxiety, worries and troubles, and helps me to think of whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.
That God renews my strength and gives me plenty of energy, also peace, rest and rest for my soul. and that God would deliver me from all my troubles, including medication and its side effects, and all other troubles I am experiencing and having.
Also that God gives me the gift of discernment of spirits and the gift of prophecy and the gift of faith.
Also I have had lower back pain for a few years and for the past 8 months or so it has gotten really bad, please pray that God heals me.
Please pray that God does all this to the fullest, both now and continuing forevermore. Thank you Heavenly Father. Agreeing on and asking in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
Thank you.

Archaeologists recently made a colossal discovery: They found an ancient Roman mass grave, dating back to the first-century A.D., underneath a soccer field in Vienna.

The necropolis was found by construction crews working in the Vienna neighborhood of Simmering last October. The discovery was unknown to the world until the Vienna Museum announced it on Apr. 2.

The 129 bodies, which were likely a mix of Roman soldiers and Germanic tribesmen, were found in total. Dislocated bones were also found at the site, meaning that as many as 150 victims' remains were found, The Associated Press reported.

Continued below.

President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged a first ever $1 trillion defense budget proposal on Monday, a record sum for the military.

Hegseth went further in an X post on Monday evening, saying Trump “is rebuilding our military — and FAST.”

“COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar @DeptofDefense budget,” Hegseth posted from his personal account. “(PS: we intend to spend every taxpayer dollar wisely — on lethality and readiness).”
The number would be a significant increase from the $892 billion funding Congress allocated for national defense programs this year, which includes the Pentagon, nuclear weapons development and security programs at other agencies. It also comes as the armed services seeks to cut 8 percent of their individual budgets and reinvest the money in modernization efforts.


We should stop spending money on defense of other coutries, alliances, etc but yea, we sitill need more money for defense......

Bit of a silly question. Basically I enjoy playing video games granted I play them a whole lot less now but I have times where I play more than usual and might get back into them. One game though I do miss playing but feel like I shouldn't due to the themes even if they would still be considered a kid's game. This game is called Fire Pro Wrestling World. It was really fun and honestly I think one of the reasons I have been interested in playing it so much lately is because I was really into wrestling but stopped watching it since becoming a christian but do miss it. compared to other wrestling games it's probably a lot more tame. I think some of the reasons why I've been hesitant is due to the fact its violence (granted cartoon violence), and it might be something that would feed my boastfulness, pride, and exultation from creating characters. Probably embarrassing I know but still its just been on my mind lately and something I've been debating with. The only thing I can think of in the bible as to why it would be okay is the story of Jacob wrestling God and the thought that if God could wrestle a person and still be holy and perfect than maybe playing that wrestling game is okay lol. Idk if I'm wrong and if i am someone please correct me. Then the argument against it would be the things mentioned it could feed into and the verse talking about doing nothing for selfish ambition Philippians 2:3-4 but idk if that would apply because this would just be something in my leisure time. What do you all think like I said I know it's silly but I'm sure we have something silly we have dealt with before or will but I wanted to hear some insight. Thanks.

Edit - If a mod is reading this can you move it to the video games section of this site? Thanks

hey! I believe abortion is wrong and wanted to explain my views. i do not agree with pro life. they actually shoot down bills protecting the mute and unborn.

If the Supreme Court does not put an end to rogue lower court justices giving orders to the elected president of the United States then Congress will have to pass legislation.

Of course Executive Branch employees should be able to access such data.

I need all the prayer I can get

..and had a shower and brushed my teeth and wandered into CF off the street. The name's Mick, I'm retired and it's a straight run to the cemetery gates without hindrance from now on..

He was a devout Christian Scientist so i doubt he was ever baptized or received any sacraments.

Is it weird to pray for a famous celebrity?

What are your thoughts?

God bless

I have no energy, I’ve been working out but I just get worse, I’m eating healthy, but that isn’t working either, I feel like I’m just going more and more downhill. Does anyone have any advice on what I can do?

When I read scripture, I clearly see that the gifts are for today. I believe that Jesus taught healing by faith although I disagree with what kind of faith most charismatic churches teach.

I don't want to discuss whether or not the gifts are for today. I know where I stand on that point. My issue is finding teachers thar I can trust. As of now, I do not trust most of the teachers that agree with my doctrine stance. In my opinion, they are charlatans squeezing money out of their congregation. People like Andrew Wommack, Todd White etc align themselves with Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn. I just can't. Thry have turned the gospel in a merchandise empire and I've seen enough of their conferences to make me sick. The fake tongues and false healings followed with a guilt trip to give money are just too much.

The other option is teachers that go against what I find I'm scripture. Those who call out these charlatans are part of the other extreme. They tend to be cessacionist or calvinist. I wholeheartedly disagree with these beliefs.

As you can see, this leaves me all alone. I understand that we are to study on our own. I agree. Sometimes it's nice to listen and to glean off of others. I just can't find anyone. The ones who agree with what I see look like charlatans and the other side reminds me of the Pharisees.

Anyone here that beliefs in the gifts, healing etc and agree that most of gift teachers are frauds? If so, who do you go to? Also, what are your thoughts on all this? Why has the continuisism side of the church fallen into such a money hungry spectacle with barely any real signs of the gifts?

I hope I made some sense on where I'm struggling.

The Trump administration is planning a June 14 military parade through the streets of Washington, D.C., to mark the president’s 79th birthday.

It will also mark the Army’s 250th anniversary. A senior administration official confirmed the plans to NewsNation, The Hill’s sister network.

President Trump in his first term in 2018 ordered the Pentagon to plan a large military parade after he visited Paris and was inspired by a French Bastille Day event.

[That didn't happen, primarily due to costs and bad optics.] see also: Trump's military parade is now estimated to cost $92 million – $80 million more than estimate

But now, who will stand in President Trump's way? And the laid off federal workers of DC and seniors looking at their investments desperately need something to cheer them up.

I see Elon Musk broke with Trump in regards to tariffs, probaby because he is taking a big hit in personal income, as is Tesla taking a hit. But Musk is not alone.

It is no wonder that the White Supremacists backed Trump over Harris. They want their history white-washed.

China has cheated us long enough.