Tim Tebow and his wife, Demi-Leigh Tebow, are now parents.

The couple announced the birth of their first child, a baby girl named Daphne Reign Tebow, on social media Sunday, calling her arrival a blessing and an answered prayer.

“Our daughter is here! We couldn’t be more grateful for the blessing and gift of this new little life,” Demi-Leigh wrote on social media on July 6. “We are so incredibly thankful for all of the love and support we’ve felt.”

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I am living la vida loca
Every single day here on earth
Also I am already used to that
I enjoy living every single day
La vida loca
Yes I am having a busy life
That is la vida loca
Every day first thing in the morning
When I wake up
I pray for my Father
I thank my father
For keeping me alive today
Also I never complained to my father
About my life
Because my Father gave me a beautiful life
To live
Also I don't have no more good health
And every day I am looking after my health
I will not let my health go down hill
I promise you that my Father

Pray that Jesus Christ some how miraculously strengthens Hong Kong disheartened democratic movement who are oppressed by China's communist party :

Paramount settles Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit with $16 million payout and no apology​

I read this website Creation.com and as the name implies, they’re very literalistic, as were the teachings of the LCMS church I used to attend. Something is bothering me. This website and the Lutheran pastors say and believe that you can’t pick and choose what’s literal in the Bible and what isn’t. If you believe evolution is true and the earth is billions of years old then that puts the rest of the Bible in jeopardy. Like you have to believe all of it. What is the Catholic position on this line of reasoning? Because I know that we believe or can believe that evolutiom occurred and the earth/universe is billions of years old so does that puts the rest of the Bible in jeopardy? Why or why not?

Pray that a foreign Indian nurse who was convicted of murder in the nation of Yemen is given a lighter sentence other than murder:

This is interesting.

A Danish friend asked who wrote this:
My best guess was Calvin, but I thought Luther maybe, if the quote was a little imprecise, and Saint Augustine if it was a biased translation.

An AI said this:

I drew up this very brief and not very nuanced comparison.

Comparison with Calvin

"Effective immediately" you can leave your shoes on at airport security.

Oh happy day!

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/08/travel/tsa-shoes-security-checkpoints

A number of progressive cities and areas seem to be helping the criminals.

I've been mulling this over for the past few days...

The Gaza issue is still "hot & heavy" in public discourse.

I've long maintained that it's a strategic error to have the "reign in the influence of Israel" movement defined and dominated by a political faction that seems to think that glorifying/celebrating Islamic Fundamentalism is the proper anecdote to it. (the people out in the streets wearing keffiyehs and waiving Palestinian and Iranian flags around, while burning the American flag)

I noted in a previous thread that it's a mistake to cheerlead for either side in a conflict for which both are acting unethically (especially when the "who to cheer for" decision is being made for rather superficial reasons)


Should some on the left welcome the recent statements of Tucker Carlson on this issue? -- as he's reaching people that nobody from their own side could ever reach on this particular issue?

Just on that one interview he did with Ted Cruz, it seems to have had a measurable impact on the Republican base...

In an Economist/YouGov poll conducted not long after the interview, only 23% of Republicans think the U.S. should get involved in the conflict between Iran and Israel. (Down from 39% a few months prior to that interview)

I'd have to think that Tucker's grilling of Cruz played at least some part in that.

Are some progressives willing to accept the potential "help" on that issue, even if it comes from a source that may have contrasting viewpoints with them on other issues?

Four Quebecers, including two active members of the Canadian Armed Forces, who were allegedly involved in activities of “ideologically motivated violent extremism” with the intention of “forcibly take possession of land in the Quebec City area” have been arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Three of the accused — Marc-Aurèle Chabot, 24, of Quebec City, Simon Angers-Audet, 24, of Neuville and Raphaël Lagacé, 25, of Quebec City — allegedly “took concrete actions to facilitate terrorist activity,” the RCMP states.

“The three accused were planning to create [an] anti-government militia,” the force notes.

Numerous weapons and military equipment related charges as well as the terror charge.

Taking a step back from that way of thinking and am looking for different ways of looking at it.

"Despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs.
Talk about biased news. My concern is that the radical lower-court judges are going to continue to try and sabotage the presidency unless and until they are sanctioned.

I.R.S. Says Churches Can Endorse Candidates From the Pulpit​

In a court filing, the tax agency said a decades-old ban on campaigning by tax-exempt groups should not apply to houses of worship speaking to their own members.

The I.R.S. said on Monday that churches and other houses of worship can endorse political candidates to their congregations, carving out an exemption in a decades-old ban on political activity by tax-exempt nonprofits.

The agency made that statement in a court filing intended to settle a lawsuit filed by two Texas churches and an association of Christian broadcasters.

The agency said that if a house of worship endorsed a candidate to its congregants, the I.R.S. would view that not as campaigning but as a private matter, like “a family discussion concerning candidates.”

“Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted,” the agency said, in a motion filed jointly with the plaintiffs.

The ban on campaigning by nonprofits is named after former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who introduced it as a senator in 1954. President Trump has repeatedly called for its repeal.

Per Wiki: The amendment was to a bill in the 83rd Congress, H.R. 8300, which was enacted into law as the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.

I gather this means churches can't run ads in the NYTimes with endorsements, but who knows, when decades old laws can be set aside.

A pastor who led a small Hispanic church in Florida was deported to Guatemala after more than two decades of living in the United States, leaving his wife and five children feeling that the world as they knew it had come to an end.

Maurilio Ambrocio, a 42-year-old pastor who led the 50-member Iglesia de Santidad Vida Nueva in Wimauma, told the Tampa Bay Times he was among 100 Guatemalan immigrants deported from New Orleans through a charter flight. He was allowed to contact his family once he arrived and was provided with information to help with reintegration into Guatemalan society.

Ambrocio was arrested in mid-April during a check-in at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Tampa. He lived in Florida for more than 20 years after entering the U.S. illegally. He left his home in Guatemala when he was 15 years old.

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Public school teachers can no longer demand that staff and students refer to them as the opposite sex, an appeals court has ruled.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled 2-1 that Katie Wood, a high school math teacher who is a man but identifies as a woman, could not require the use of feminine pronouns or the honorific “Ms.”

At issue was a state law passed in 2023, known as Florida Statute § 1000.071, which reads that “[a]n employee or contractor of a public K-12 educational institution may not provide to a student his or her preferred personal title or pronouns if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex.”

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Is it a sin to buy and wear these? Made in Kathmandu, Nepal. They were described as sort of Hindu-y once but I don’t see it now. They’re beautiful and on sale.

While most U.S. Protestant churches have policies in place to address significant misbehavior by members, formalized church discipline is rarely practiced, according to newly released data from Lifeway Research.

The survey, conducted among over 1,000 Protestant pastors between August and September 2024, found that one in six pastors reported their church had disciplined a member in the past year.

“The infrequency of church discipline is not because church members aren’t sinning,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “Church discipline typically occurs when a member is not repentant for a sin or is no longer qualified for a role because of sin.”

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Was not sure where to put this so I thought I’d try it here.
***********************

There’s a famous story of how The Times of London once put out a query: “What’s wrong with the world today?” G.K. Chesterton wrote back simply, “Dear Sir, I am.”

It’s always worth reflecting on his answer and his very scriptural awareness that human sin is at the root of the world’s problems. It’s especially worthwhile at a time when so much of what’s wrong with the world is being blamed on non-human, “Artificial Intelligence.”

Alongside those who think AI will save the world and revolutionize everything are a growing number who think it will destroy it, or at least come close. In a recent episode of Ross Douthat’s “Interesting Times” podcast, former Open AI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo warned that Artificial Intelligence will become an existential threat to humanity within two years.

While we await his apocalypse, the damage AI is doing to education by making cheating normal has become the stuff of regular headlines. “AI is Destroying a Generation of Students,” declared the tech news website Futurism. And thanks to AI, “Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College,” warned New York Magazine.

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Me encanta predicar y adorar el nombre de Dios

LINK

The security breach involved voicemails, sent via the Signal messaging app, and text messages to “at least five non-Department individuals, including three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and a U.S. member of Congress,” a diplomatic cable, obtained by The Washington Post, stated.

The impostor, whose identity is unknown to U.S. authorities, was able to mimic Rubio’s voice and writing style using AI-powered software, an unnamed senior official told the newspaper.

In mid-June, the impostor created a Signal account under the display name: “Marco.Rubio@state.gov,” which is not a real email address.

The Rubio security breach took place in the wake of the Signalgate scandal, where a journalist was inadvertently added to a group chat with military leaders and members of the Trump administration. In that group chat, which included Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared minute-by-minute plans of sensitive military operations in Yemen.

[For that Waltz was ultimately removed from his national security role, which was then given to Rubio (who is also SecState)]

Security experts have warned against using Signal to discuss government business

I believe I converted two years ago, after going through a very deep depression. I'm 25 years old and have always had a tendency toward depression throughout my life. But everything got worse when I began to doubt the existence of God.
I immersed myself in atheist websites and began to blindly or fanatically believe in their arguments, which led me to atheism. I don't think I was ever 100% atheist, but I was largely one.
This inclination toward atheism brought a deep and profound spiritual depression into my life. I even sank into a very dark, dead-end pit and began to sin excessively. I stopped sleeping at night and slept during the day. I felt demonic presences when I slept and in my dreams. I had nightmares. I was in this situation for a little over two months.
Until one night, I surrendered to God in prayer. I was tired of the nightmares and the whole traumatic situation. I asked God for forgiveness and told Him to do whatever He wanted with me.
That same night I didn't have any nightmares while I slept, and when I woke up, I woke up completely credulous, convinced that God had healed and saved me.
From that moment on, completely transformative changes began in my life. I overcame the social phobia I'd suffered from my entire life; the depressive symptoms diminished until they disappeared completely. I began to have a normal relationship with my biological father (we always didn't get along, and because of his personality, I was afraid of him). However, we began to develop a father-son relationship we'd never had before, perhaps nothing unusual, but something completely unknown to me.
I stopped using obscene language in my home.
I fell completely in love with God. I wanted to please Him in everything, and it pained me greatly to fail Him.
I started attending church and didn't want to miss a single day of the meetings.
Neighbors and friends were amazed by my dramatic change.
I began practicing some hobbies, which I had in my past life but didn't enjoy passionately because of my depression.
All of this went smoothly for about 5 months (September 2023), when I felt God almost audibly tell me that I had to give up one of my hobbies, internet radio.
It's true that I did it for most of the day, so it's likely (or very likely) that I had made an idol of that hobby, and that I was distancing myself from God.
Then I quit, and little by little I began to experience a growing emptiness in my heart. Not only that, but little by little I began to doubt the existence of God again. My joy began to wane; it was no longer constant, but rather ups and downs. My shyness gradually returned, my mood began to depend on the circumstances, and there were times when I lost control, meaning the symptoms of my old life seemed to reappear. However, I continued to attend church without any problems, but there were many ups and downs.
And so it remained until approximately November 2024.
My father began to act harshly and somewhat abusively again (I don't know if it was because he noticed my bad mood and I seemed more easily manipulated, like in my old life, or because he was feeling ill again).
We have been working together since March 2024.
The problem is that the abuse became so harassing and unbearable that I couldn't take it anymore. I was becoming psychologically ill, withdrawing socially once again. Until one day I came home and decided I no longer wanted to work with him (December 2024).
Shortly after this happened, I once again challenged the little faith I had by conducting an atheistic Google search on whether God existed.
And that caused a break in my faith, so that for approximately six months now, I have been doubting that what saved me two years ago was the power of God, of Jesus, of the God of the Bible. And this brings me to what the title indicates. The fact that I am currently doubting the Scriptures, the existence of that God, indicates whether I was truly converted two years ago or if I am simply like the dogs and pigs of 2 Peter 2:21-22.
Furthermore, in recent months, due to questions I have asked members of my congregation about this state of unbelief and doubt, I have become angry and held grudges regarding things I have disagreed with them on, and I have responded inappropriately, obeying carnal desires. And I don't know (I really don't know) if a true convert can make those mistakes and have those ugly feelings. To this day, with one of the brothers, I still have them.
And the truth is, I'm very sad. I feel lost because I don't know where I stand. When I was in better times and I sinned, I realized I was close to God because I immediately repented and felt His forgiveness. But now I don't know when I'm obeying the Spirit, and when I act by the flesh, it's like I can't discern it; I'm much further away...
I also don't know if what's happening to me is my fault (maybe in part) or if it's a process prepared by God to help me grow spiritually and mature... I really don't know.
I find it hard to repent of my sins. There's a certain resentment toward God that I struggle to uncover. Genuine repentance doesn't spring from me, as if I have nothing to hold on to.
I don't know... What do you think?
Thank you.
God bless you all greatly.

Six public university systems have formed a new academic accreditation agency, with the intention of serving as an alternative to what some consider a "woke" establishment.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, announced the formation of a new accrediting organization, known as the Commission for Public Higher Education, a consortium of the public university systems from six states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

The commission will place a greater focus on student outcomes and academic quality and eschew ideological biases that allegedly underpin other accreditation agencies.

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