Hello folks, I guess I should give a short bio. I am Married father of 2 whom just celebrated 20 years of marriage, I served in the military for 20 years and I am an assistant pastor of the Praise community fellowship of Monticello Maine. Oh and I am a Musician/ recording artist and my music is on all platforms under Pastor John's studio. I believe in a pre wrath rapture, I believe that the gifts of the spirit are for today including tongues, and I believe that the sabbath is on Saturday and should be honored.

As a former soldier I had to ask myself what kind of conflicts I would be prepared to get involved in. I had to learn drill, to obey orders, and do all the things you HAVE to do or people around you die.

We rehearsed basic moves again and again and again. We would be jogging and our Corporal would yell "Contact!" and the whole platoon would yell "RUN DOWN CRAWL OBSERVE AIM FIRE!" Again and again - until I heard it in my dreams.

The Secret Service agents have their own drill - and the President is meant to follow the same drill. The creator of this next meme thinks it shows how awesome Trump is. Let me set them straight.

Shots were fired from a rifle - so he pauses long enough for MORE SHOTS to be fired from cameras!

Except, we have a live contact! More rounds could be coming down range. They should have been out of there by then! Follow the drill!

Trump wasn't just risking his own life - but the lives of the agents around him. Yeah - what a hero - he can punch the air and let the agents pay with their lives for this photo shoot opportunity! If I were an agent in that situation I would be tempted to quote Trump's lines about NATO members struggling to pay 2%.

"You don't want to obey the drill - you delinquent? No I will not protect you and in fact I will encourage them to do whatever the h.... they want!"

And stand back and let whatever happens, happen!
Hey - it's only fair. He said this about whole countries who would not pay - potentially encouraging major new wars.
It's only fair if he cannot even obey the drill.

Agents are the heroes in this shot - not Trump! They're LITERALLY shielding him with their bodies.
Yet people want to think Trump is the hero as he puts them at further risk?
I ask you - is this the most misdirected meme you've ever seen?

Trump sneakers, with photo from assassination attempt, on sale for $299 on Trump site

What are people's thoughts on this? This sits, at BEST very weirdly with me.

It's been announced today that Joe Biden has "Covid" possibly his great disappearing act is now taking place?

NEWSWEEK​

Joe Biden COVID Diagnosis Could Be Final 'Nail in Coffin': Analyst​

July 17, 2024

Secret Service Snipers Were Aware Of The Gunman On The Roof "20 Minutes" Prior To Him Firing The First Shot At President Trump?

ABCNEWS 3:20 Clip

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, look on as he is nominated for the office of vice president on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Delegates, politicians, and the Republican faithful are in Milwaukee for the annual convention, concluding with former President Donald Trump accepting his party's presidential nomination. The RNC takes place from July 15-18. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Image

Following former President Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, the Republican lawmaker’s wife has received renewed attention now that her husband, if elected, would become the second in command.

Usha Chilukuri Vance and her husband have been married since 2014. She is an accomplished attorney and the daughter of Indian immigrants.

In a Monday announcement posted to Truth Social, Trump revealed that he chose Usha’s husband as his vice president after “lengthy deliberation.” Trump highlighted Vance’s military service and educational background, promising that his running mate “will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.”

Continued below.

Evolutionists ignore the fact that along with man evolving, we are the only species on the planet that has also evolved evil. Pain, suffering and death occurs with all creatures. But for mankind, we discriminate, enslave, lie, steal, cheat, murder, have wars, and on and on. Not only do we do things to others, but we do evil things to ourselves. And both internal and external traits of evil grow with each generation. Some psychologists believe evil evolved with evolution. But if this were true, then mankind would be devolving, not evolving-which is a Christian position. Despite the insistence of some that mankind has evolved from the same source and are just like all the other animals, there is no explaining how evil evolved. Evolutionist tend to ignore the issue.

Mankind is unique to this world and generates evil apart from any other animal on the world. And if evolution was correct, and mankind came from the same source as all other living creatures, then evil wouldn't/shouldn't exist.

So how did evil evolved?

The White House said that Biden is heading to Delaware and will self-isolate and "continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time."

Continued below.

Why? Because the gun lobby got laws into place that prevent the ATF from creating a searchable digital database, forcing them to manually sift through paper records (or photo scans of paper records).


Some back story and details:

I wonder how the folks opposed to government waste and inefficiency feel about this.

Hello all, I have recently accepted Jesus Christ into my life and have working towards being a better follower of God. I must confess I went from being a nihilistic atheist to an edgy satanist, I then began following Asatru which if you don't know is a neo Pagan faith centered on the Norse gods and ancestral worship. While I was involved I began to realize how truly foolish these previous beliefs truly were. They all centered around a selfish individualistic view of the world and I was truly in a dark place. I came to reject all of these false hoods and begin to learn about God. It has truly impacted my life in profound ways and I am dissapointed in myself for rejecting His words for so long. I am trying to rectify my heathen, nihilistic, and edgy satanic past with becoming a Christian and acknowledging my definite blasphemous past. Its not an excuse but I have been sober since September 20th 2023. Once I was sober I begin to radically shift my thinking and life had meaning once more. My thoughts became way more clear and this I feel is when I began to seek God. How do I rectify my past spiritual failings with God? Any thoughts on this matter. Thank you

Tucker Carlson believes the attempted assassination of Donald Trump is evidence of an ongoing "spiritual battle" in the United States. Speaking at a Heritage Foundation event at the Republican National Convention, Carlson shared his view that "deeper" forces, like evil, are behind attacks like the one that occurred at Trump's campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. "I think what happened on Saturday — the assassination attempt against President Trump — reminded a lot of people of this or awakened a lot of people to this," Carlson said on Monday.
"There is a spiritual battle under way," he added. "There is no logical way to understand what we're seeing now in temporal terms. You just can't. These are not political divides. There are forces — and they're very obvious now; they've decided, for whatever reason, to take off the mask — whose only goal is chaos, violence, destruction."

According to Carlson, the forces that he identified are "dedicated to the destruction of people," and he believes they have a common enemy: Christians.

A well-known Phoenix news anchor Mark Curitis interviews with his former colleauge - Kari Lake.

"At your speech in front of the RNC, you had a chance to address America at a time when America in many ways is dealing with the aftermath of the attempted (Trump) assassination, and yet you chose to attack the media rather than talk about coming together as a country. Don't you think political rhetoric like that is also damaging?" Curtis asked Lake. "I mean, this is an industry, Kari, that put food on your table for years."


Here is the entire, unedited interview (stick around until the end...)

There is a LOT we can investigate about SCIENCE and Miracles and Healing. So there really is NO REASON to drift off of that subject.

First of all Science depends a lot on research. The PROBLEM is they do not know HOW to set up a study. The basic belief is that the "miracle" has to go beyond what you can achieve though the placebo effect. My dad was an expert on this so I know about the power of suggestion and the power of positive thinking to bring about healing. Still we have to go beyond the placebo effect to establish something in science. Even though clearly there are advantages to the placebo effect and what people may perceive as being a miracle.

Second we have to look at what they call spontaneous remission.

"When cancer suddenly disappears, people may call it a miracle. But a recent study by three physician-researchers from DMS and Norway found that spontaneous remission of breast cancer is actually quite common. More than one in five invasive cancers detected in the study by mammography vanished without ever being treated."


So science does not use the word miracle, they use the term spontaneous remission. Or they will write it off to Psychology.

Spontaneous remission in psychology means that a symptom will be spontaneously reduced or disappear without any therapeutic intervention. Spontaneous remission mostly occurs when a person with depression or anxiety experiences the reduction.

We can go where people want to go, we just need to remember the forum we are on.

THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKSTRUMP CAMPAIGN PROFILED FATHER ...​

MAGA Sign At Family Home​

Donald Trump's presidential campaign once profiled the father of attempted assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks ... identifying the guy as a strong Republican who was into guns.

Trump's 2016 campaign amassed a database of millions of voters in swing states and Matthew Brian Crooks was one of them ... with Trump's team determining he was a likely gun owner and "hunter" who would favorably respond to pro-gun rights messaging ... according to data first obtained and revealed by the UK's Channel 4 News.
The would-be assassin's mother, Mary, was profiled by Trump's 2016 campaign too apparently ... and she was also identified as a likely gun owner by campaign researchers.

And get this ... Trump's campaign database assigned scores to each of the 6.7 million Pennsylvania voters analyzed ahead of the 2016 election ... with the shooter's father scoring among the top 20 in their Bethel Park hometown in terms of pro-gun-related indicators. Crooks' father legally purchased the AR-15-style rifle his son used in Saturday's assassination attempt at Trump's rally in Butler, PA ... and TMC reportedly bought 50 bullets from a gun store on the morning of the shooting.
Thomas lived with his parents in Bethel Park ... and a neighbor told WPXI the Crooks family had pro-Trump and MAGA yard signs until recently. It's unclear if the seemingly pro-Trump affiliation applied to Thomas himself -- but on its face, it sounds like his parents liked DT.

The shooter's ex-classmates say he was nicknamed "school shooter" and would get bullied in class ... and he was such a poor shot he couldn't even make his school's rifle team. We're learning more about this guy every day ... but the picture isn't becoming much clearer on his motivation.

I am. not sure a sitting president has ever had a worse 1-2 months than Biden at this point

and Schiff just declared that Biden should discontinue the campaign

I expect Biden to step do exactly that within a few days at this point --ot the 25th might get invoked.

httphttps://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/17/joe-biden-covid-00169176

Hello folks. Today's news is very dark, but is important for Christians and atheists alike, and goes to show how both parties have corruption. The Republican National Convention had an opening prayer by Dhillon to an ancient entity, a false god named Waheguru today on July 17, 2024. Prayers for those who are misled by the world. Makes me wanna vote for the American Solidarity party, a centrist, Christian party which is pro-life and pro-environment, and it does not force religion on others. For reference, I was never a Republican, and have moved closer to the center from the left over the past few years, and especially over the past few months.

Source:

Opening "prayer" to ancient demon: "Dear Waheguru, our one true God, we thank you for creating America as a unique haven on this Earth, where all people are free to worship according to their faith. We seek your blessings and guidance for our beloved country. Please bless our people with wisdom as they vote for the upcoming election and please bless with humility, honesty, skill and integrity all those who conduct the election".

Info about Waheguru: Beliefs about God - Waheguru (God) and authority - Edexcel - GCSE Religious Studies Revision - Edexcel - BBC Bitesize

American Solidarity party: American Solidarity Party - Wikipedia

Chuck Schumer pushed to delay DNC as concerns persist over Biden's candidacy​

I'm currently undecided about my eschatological view. I'm leaning towards premillennialism currently, but it's not a strong lean as I am open to amillennialism.

One of the hang ups I have is about Israel:


I believe there is only ONE people of God, and ONE way to salvation. God does not have two separate peoples, nor two plans for salvation. This means that Jewish people must still accept Jesus as Lord and Savior in order to be saved.

That said, I agree with premillennialism in that Satan is not currently bound and is still deceiving the world. I do think his power has been limited somewhat, but not to the extent portrayed in Revelation.

I also believe that the Church began at Pentecost, like what dispensationalists teach. There is no Church in the OT, but there is a spiritual Israel. The Church is just the form spiritual Israel takes in the NT. The OT Israel was entirely Jewish, while the NT Israel is predominantly Gentile.

I believe that, while the Jews have been cut off, they will one day be grafted back in. I still think there will be a future restoration of a Jewish kingdom in the Near East. So, Israel, while currently still cut off and in denial of the Messiah, still fulfills biblical prophecy, or at least lead to the fulfillment of prophecy.

I'm not sure if this makes me a progressive dispesationalist, a historic premillennialism, or something else.

We have unstable, unsafe countries that people are willing to risk their lives to leave and come to the U.S. with hopes and dreams. Most of them are not criminal but are desperate mothers and fathers with children. The Bibles tells us to welcome the stranger.

But wait a minute. They are coming by tens of thousands. This is far more than the policies and procedures are able to handle. It is overwhelming, not only at the boarder but also at the destinations across the country. It is also unsafe for those who make the journey.

What should we do?

Some popular answers

Build a wall

Close the boarder with more law enforcement.

Deport undocumented immigrants.

The National Immigration Justice center says:


What should the Biden administration be doing to address the humanitarian need at the border? There are other ways to address the situation at the border, leading with empathy and courage in compliance with the Refugee Act of 1980.

The administration can and should:
1) develop and support robust communication and planning between federal, state and local governments, and civil society, so that those arriving migrants in need of additional support can be matched with a destination with capacity to provide services;

2) fully fund and support civil society, including social and legal service providers;

3) create non-custodial, humanitarian reception centers at the border, instead of jailing migrants and asylum seekers; and

4) overhaul the federal immigration budget by moving funds away from detention and enforcement and toward asylum processing and humanitarian needs.

5) abide by its obligation to ensure asylum access to those arriving at the United States’ borders and ports.


Senate Republican Working Group Solutions for the Southern Border Crisis

GOP rep speaks out after attack by anti-Israel protester at RNC: We will not allow them to ‘intimidate us’​

Out-of-state officers shot and killed a man wielding two knives blocks away from the RNC, police say​

2 People Arrested During, After RNC Protest in Downtown Milwaukee Monday: Police​

https://news.wttw.com/2024/07/16/2-...-rnc-protest-downtown-milwaukee-monday-police

ETA: now extradited to the US (post #10)​

Alleged neo-Nazi ‘murder cult’ leader accused of plot to poison children​

The Georgian national was charged with scheming to have an associate dress up as Santa to hand out poisoned candy to Jewish and minority children in Brooklyn.

Michail Chkhikvishvili, a Georgian national in his early 20s who goes by the alias “Commander Butcher,” was indicted on four charges, the Justice Department said in a statement on Tuesday, including the transmission of threatening communications and conspiracy to solicit hate crimes and acts of mass violence.

He is alleged to be the leader of a group known as the Maniac Murder Cult, a violent international extremist outfit that prosecutors say “adheres to a neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and promotes violence and violent acts against racial minorities, the Jewish community and other groups it deems ‘undesirables.’”

According to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, he was arrested in Moldova on July 6 under an Interpol order after trying to recruit an undercover law enforcement officer to join the group and commit acts of violence, including arson and bombings.

In electronic correspondence with the [undercover officer], who was not identified in court documents, Chkhikvishvili later suggested carrying out the plan at another time, on “some Jewish holiday” at “Jewish schools full of kids.”

[In his manifesto] he encourages others to commit acts meant to sow terror — specifically within the United States — and admits to committing such acts himself.

For the past thirteen-plus years, up until this past Monday, I have frequently, repeatedly doubted my salvation. That is why I am posting in "Struggles-By-Non-Christians." In case there are other borderline Christians/Non-Christians who are having some of the same problems as I have had.

Pastor JD Greear, in his book Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart: How to Know For Sure You Are Saved, has an Appendix 2 with the same title as this post. (He has written another book with a foreword by Tim Keller.) I so want to share this with others that I first tried to scan in the pages of the appendix and then use Optical Character Reader software to attempt to turn the image into text. That failed. So, I laboriously typed in the appendix, word for word, into a file, over a period of several hours over a period of two or three days. The text of the appendix follows the next paragraph.

I came to full assurance, finally, be rereading this appendix a number of times, and, especially, by reading, concentrating on, and praying about, numerous times, the very last sentence of the appendix.

Text:

In this appendix, I want to show you why believing salvation comes by faith alone is essential to gaining assurance.

In recent years, many Bible-believing Christians have downplayed the doctrine of eternal assurance because they say it creates Christians who believe they can “accept Jesus” and then live however they want. Some say that salvation, in fact, is not received as a gift by faith: it comes, rather, to those who believe and do a reasonable job of following Jesus’ teachings, to those who live appropriately under the order of His new kingdom and embrace His mission of restoration.

They cite verses such as:

“For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified.”

(Rom. 2:13)

“You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.” (James 2:24)

“And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?’ So he answered and said, ‘”You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.”’ And He said to him, ‘You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.’” (Luke 10:25-28)

They deny that this equals “salvation by works,” because they insist that (a) our keeping of the law is fueled by God’s gracious work in our hearts and (b) because we all fall so far short of the standard we can only hope in Christ’s substitutionary work to meet God’s standard. Nonetheless, they insist we “obtain” Christ’s righteousness by keeping the law. To use the Levitical picture we looked at earlier, “good works” are the hand we lay upon the head of Jesus that makes his death our own.

A variation on this common teaching in some Christian circles is that Christ’s righteousness is not something that God “credits” to our account but something He “infuses” into us. God gives us the grace of wanting to act right, and then evaluates us on the basis of how righteously we act. Salvation is given according to our “good works,” though the works themselves are “of grace.”

If that is the case, however, I am still left wondering, How can I know that I’ve obeyed sufficiently to be counted righteous? Where exactly is the line of demarcation between those who will be damned and those who will be saved? Or, to ask it perhaps even more clearly: What level of disobedience disqualifies me from Christ’s righteousness?

Faith most certainly includes an attitude of repentance toward God that expresses itself in good works. These expressions of faith, however, cannot be confused with faith itself. Faith’s object is Christ and His substitutionary work alone. Saving faith looks outside of itself to what Christ has done, not back onto itself at what it has done.

That is the only kind of faith that brings assurance. When we confuse the object of faith with the results of faith, we will soon lose assurance. We will always be plagued by the question, ”Am I doing enough?” “Enough” is a question that will drive you to despair. No matter how much you do, the “accuser” will always be crying out for more. You’re never “good enough.” The good news is that Jesus has done enough. He said it was “finished.” So point the accuser there and tell him to shut up.

What, then do we make of those verses (cited earlier) that seem to imply that salvation is gained by the keeping of the law? Let’s take a closer look at them:

“For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified.” (Rom 2:13)

This verse appears in a section in Romans in which Paul is laying out a case explaining why everyone needs salvation, not explaining how people get saved.

Paul is making two points in this verse. The first is that the Jews’ mere possession of the law does not justify them before God, as many Jews seemed to have thought. Of course, if you kept the law perfectly you would be righteous, but merely possessing the law, Paul says, does not make you so. So what Paul says is true: if there is anyone who really does keep the law, they will be justified by it! But no one does. Paul says in the next chapter, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none who understands. (3:10-11) The conclusion of the law is for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (3:21-23) Paul’s words in 2:13 must therefore be read in light of his conclusion in 3:23: No one can be saved on the basis of obedience to the law. We all fall short.

In another sense, however, Paul is intonating that true faith does produce an internal righteousness that obeys the commands of the law, a conclusion he will flesh out later. The goal of salvation, Paul explains in Romans 12:1-2, is not just forgiveness, but a transformed heart that loves God’s laws. Those who have been justified by faith will begin to obey the law from their heart. Where there is no righteous behavior, Paul will say, there has been no heart change. And where there has been no heart change, there has been no salvation. Keeping the law is not the basis of justification but is the result of it. Faith is the means of salvation; good works are the fruit.

“You see that a person is not justified by works and not by faith alone.” (James 2:24 ESV)

James isn’t contradicting the other writers of the New Testament here by saying that salvation is not by faith alone. Rather, he is saying that the faith that saves will never be alone (that is, alone without good works.)

Saving faith, because it is rooted in a new, born-again heart, has in its character the impulses that produce good works.

Think of faith like a living body. A body that is alive will breathe. Coercing a dead body to breathe by hooking it up to a respirator does not equal making it alive. In the same way, salvation, or life in the soul, happens through faith. But when we are truly alive, we will most certainly “breathe” out good works!

James is not contradicting Paul – in fact, he is assuming the readers already understand and agree with Paul! James is clarifying that the faith that saves is a faith that brings life to the soul, a faith that produces the ”breath” of good works. Where the “breath” of good works is absent, the “life” of faith is also.

And finally:

“And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?’ So he answered and said, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself,” And He said to him, ‘You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.’ “(Luke 10:25-28)

Was Jesus really saying that we inherit eternal life by loving our neighbor? At first lance it may seem so, but careful attention must be paid to the story that spawned Jesus’ answer. Jesus had been asked by a man who had spent his whole life trying to earn eternal life what else he must “do” to secure it.

This was not a seeker honestly seeking an answer to his question, but a religious man trying to boost his own ego. He did not believe he needed salvation, so Jesus was willing to play his game and beat him on his own terms. He says, ‘You ask what you must do to inherit eternal life? Easy. Be perfect.’ I would rephrase Jesus’ answer this way: ‘Seriously? You really believe you have loved God and others well enough to qualify for eternal life?’

Jesus story reveals the absurdity of the man’s boast by exposing the hypocritical heart behind the man’s supposedly righteous actions. If you read the entire chapter, you’ll see that this is the last guy who should be trying to be saved by keeping the law (he hated the Samaritan!). Those trying to be saved by keeping the law well will, with a little probing, reveal that their hearts are riddled with inconsistency and hypocrisy. That’s what Jesus was doing to this man. He was helping him reckon with the actual state of his heart.

Jesus’ words actually serve to reinforce that none of us can possibly hope to be saved through obedience to the law. None of us is loving enough, none of us is a good enough neighbor. Thus, if we are to be saved, it will take more than a renewed commitment to keep the law; more than a resolve to be better people; more than a greater activism on behalf of the poor. It will take the work of another – another who obeyed the law perfectly in our place and suffered the penalty for our failures. When we believe that He has done that on our behalf, and we rest in that, His righteousness becomes ours.

I feel there's a deeper level to all of this back and forth about evolution, but it's something very challenging.

It's about our basic relationship with truth itself, and it starts from an observation. That observation is this - our comprehension of truth will always stand ready to be overthrown by some deeper revelation.

And not because truth contradicts itself - it never does - but because truth is infinitely more profound than any comprehension we might ever have of it. God the Father is ultimate truth, He is the eternal font of revelation that never runs dry. And this means there will always be profundities underneath the most profound possible things we know, discoveries that will atomise all we understand by revealing a deeper coherence.

The laws of God do not end with the laws of human behaviour set out in the Bible. There are other laws, the deep laws of reality itself, and their depth and profundity is as eternal as the God who created them. In this way, truth is perfect - God is perfect. He is the font of eternal, glorious revelation that never runs dry, an unending source of revelations of forever compounding potence and majesty.

Secular science is not the pursuit of truth. It looks like it is, but cannot be. It is instead the pursuit of facts, and facts are not the same as truth.

Facts are flat pieces of contained information that fit inside your current frame of reference. Revelation is the thing that obliterates your frame of reference. The revelation of truth is the thing that obliterates your current frame of reference and opens a wild horizon of untouched possibility and power. Facts are the attempt to reduce the world to flat and controllable certainties. Truth is a much deeper and bigger kind of thing than any collection of facts. Truth is always new, truth is eternal, truth is alive. Truth became a man and died on a cross to buy back a world fallen into the worship of lies. Truth cares. Truth loves. Truth fights. Truth saves.

The book of Ruth is one of the simplest books in the Bible. It's really only about one thing - "Wherever you go, I will follow." And to serve God is to follow God, to follow truth, wherever it leads, however wrenching it may be. No matter how it jeopardises whatever comprehension we have constructed. To follow God is to lose control of your heart to your love of truth, to lose control of your life to your love for that neverending glory. To be reconciled to God is to have the honour of following that horizon, of living that life, that wild adventure. That is what it means to walk with God, and seek Him. And He loves to be sought by humanity. I think perhaps it is what He wants the most.

But can't atheists follow truth?

Can't atheists let their passion for truth overcome their ability to control the direction of their own lives?

Can't atheists love that hard? Live that hard? Believe in truth that much?

The answer is no.

Why not?

Because the central truth of human life is that all human goodness is a lie. Our moral pride, our vanity as we admire our own goodness - this is the heart of sin. The knowledge of good and evil which is passed down generation to generation since the fall - it lets us glory in our own fraudulent goodness, and show ourselves how 'good' we are by how much we find to condemn other people. It is a charade of goodness constructed from pieces of hate. It is the broken cistern that we drink from. And so hate and lies flow out of our rotten hearts, and we are all slaves to the serpent that slithers and corrupts. Through our worship of ourselves, the devil twists us inside, twists us into becoming horrific behind the pretty masks we concoct. And in this vanity we become so horrifying we cannot bear to see the real truth of ourselves.

An atheist must always hide from this. They cannot admit that their own moral glory is a lie, that as Jesus said - God alone is good. And so they have to control their pursuit of truth, limit their comprehension of truth, stop themselves from seeing truth too deeply, because they must keep this appalling secret from themselves so they can live their lives. And that's the secular world. A world of lost people - lost in its own moral arrogance.

And so no atheist can never love truth uncontrollably. They can never let go, and truly surrender to a life devoted to seeking it, no matter where it leads. Because it leads to something they cannot bear to see.

The fact that we Christians can bear to see it is not because we are better than atheists. It is because we have been pulled like burning sticks from the fire. God did something. Something happened to make the most terrible possible news - the truth of who we are - into the most amazing possible news - the truth of how much we have been forgiven. For as Jesus said: those who have been forgiven much love much. And all who are in the blood of Christ have been forgiven much indeed.

And so you have these two quite distinct relationships with truth.

One, a relationship of control. Where you only interact with set, contained, specific facts that fit inside your current understanding. Where you never look deeper in case you see something that upends your identity, your own idea of you. You keep it safe by building a fortress of cynicism around it, by being ungenerous and mean-spirited toward any idea that undermines it. You zero in on the faults and failings of anything that threatens it, and never appraise those things at their strongest and best.

This is, I would say, a pretty complete description of how atheists appraise Christianity.

But there is another relationship you can have with truth, relationship two. A relationship of uncontrollable love. This is where you allow your love of truth, of the power of truth, the glory of truth, the possibility and fire of truth, to overwhelm everything you are. You love so much you cannot help but follow it - like Ruth - wherever it leads.

And when this is your approach, the way you appraise the things set against you entirely inverted. You consider challenges to your position with deep generosity. You consider those things only at their strongest and best, judge them only by the standards they set, overlooking all their flaws and failings.

Because if there is something true in them that actually can blow apart your current understanding - that's amazing. Exhilarating. Intoxicating. What could it be? What might you see? What deeper truth is there to find?

If your heart is for your own self, your own identity, then you'd push away anything that might disrupt it. But if your heart is for truth, you would delight in that disruption. You would hunt for it, seek it, pray for it, beg for it - show me the truth that blows apart all I know from a depth I never knew existed. Let me see you that deeply, my Lord and God.

And if you appraise something with extreme generosity and total forgiveness, that's the only way you can be sure you won't miss any deep truth it might contain.

But if it's not true, then a lie is just as much a lie at its strongest point than it is at its weakest.

And if we give something the best possible hearing - and it still fails utterly at its strongest point - then our counterattacks no longer snap at its heels. We can do something different. We can drive a stake through its beating, black heart.

An ungenerous appraisal of an enemy means that if there is deeper truth in what they say, you will never see it. And if it is a lie, all you will ever do is whine about side-issues that miss the central point. Your cowardice and lack of faith severs you from truth, and renders you useless at combating falsehood.

And so I believe that the hallmark of someone who has truly given their heart to the pursuit of truth - the pursuit of God - is that they will always consider any enemy in the most generous possible light. Only those reconciled to God through Christ can do it. But all truly reconciled to God through Christ will leap to do it.

Because it is not becoming for followers of Christ to fight as the atheists fight - to be ungenerous or mean-spirited. Not because it's morally wrong. But because it is weak.

And weakness is not of enormous use to those who are called upon to fight a war, and win it.

I believe in evolution because I follow truth wherever it leads. And I follow truth because I can't do anything else. I literally could not be a creationist, because I let my heart fall in love with truth to such a degree that I gave up my own capacity to control my own life direction. I cannot hold myself at a set level of comprehension, hold my identity in a fixed and static position. I might try, but it doesn't work. I just get overwhelmed by the glory and wild potential of truth itself, of God Himself - and I consider the very best of ideas at their best. Not because I'm so good, but because this alone is the way to find truth and to find falsehood. It seems insane to me to do anything else.

This is not a boast, because I have done nothing to earn this love or deserve it. God won my heart through His grace and His sacrifice, because it was Christ's blood that cleared the way, allowing me to seek truth even when the truth of me is so appalling and wretched.

No atheist could think like this, could love like this, could live like this.

But when we hold tight to a flat, literal comprehension of Genesis, how can we say it is God we seek? How is it God we're protecting? It seems to me we're instead protecting ourselves. We are not following truth where it leads - somewhere unknown, and scary, with wide open possibility, the possibility to do and discover even deeper things that glorify God in even deeper ways. It seems that instead we are burying our talents. We are staying at the safe level of comprehension we control so our identities do not get disrupted. We are prizing our identities over the deep discoveries of truth. We prize ourselves over God. I cannot see anything else that it can be.

This is a very challenging thing to say, and I do not say it lightly. Nor do I claim to be a better Christian or have a deeper faith. We are all hemmed in by the limits of our courage. It is always scary to consider something extremely challenging in a super-generous way. This is only compounded by the shrieking arrogance of militant atheists who deluge the world with their facile comprehension of truth and biology. It is entirely understandable why a Christian would flinch away in fear, and throw up a wall of cynicism to protect our identity.

But it is not identity that saves. It is Christ.

When we are generous with an extreme challenge, we have to put that identity in danger. Generosity in appraisal is not just an act that jeopardises the comprehension we have of the world, it also endangers the 'me' that arises from that set, static comprehension.

And so we need faith. Faith that there is something there to find. Faith that God is real, and He won't go away if we move beyond the static understanding we have right now. Faith that there will be no contradiction in whatever truth we end up finding. We have to believe that there will be something to find, something amazing. And perhaps more than all of this, that God will have a place for us. That He will give us something new to be at that deeper level, something more wonderful than we could even imagine from a shallower depth.

New clothes, if you want to put it like that.

When I look at creationists and those who deny evolution, I cannot but be struck at how ungenerous they are with evolutionary theory. How much they zero in on faults and failings. How much they seek to criticise and subject it to standards other than its own. How they leap to speak of the gaps it doesn't explain, rather than face the power of the things it does. It is as if they need to belittle it and comprehend only a smaller, weaker version of it, because if they truly considered it with generosity, courage, and faith, and gave it the best possible hearing, they would lose who they are.

But because they focus on the weak points of it, their attacks against it are themselves laughably weak.

This is indistinguishable to me to the way atheists interact with Christianity, and their reasons. Atheists do not give Christianity a generous hearing, but instead focus like lasers on abuse, corruption, and any kind of gaps, failings or flaws they can find.

What does that say about an atheist's faith in atheism? That they only dare consider the weakest possible forms of Christianity? What does it say about how strong they believe their own ideas to be?

But then by that token, what does it say about how strong a creationist's faith in God is, if they do not dare consider the strongest and best of evolution?

How can this be understood except as a lack of faith? And that's my question. How can I comprehend creationism as anything other than a lack of faith?

Now while this might (might!) upset people to hear, I would just point this out.

That whatever you have to say in response to it, I've kind of backed myself into a corner. I cannot criticise you. I cannot snipe. I cannot zero in on the weak points of any creationist riposte, because I've just pinned my colours to the generosity mast.

So take heart. If I start looking for the worst and weakest in your answers, I destroy the credibility of my own position. And so you can be assured that if you do disagree, I will hear your disagreement in the most generous possible spirit I can muster, give it the benefit of every possible doubt, overlooking every flaw and failing, and considering only the strongest of it.

Not because I'm so good. But because if what you say is true, I want that truth more than anything, and if I consider your words in the strongest possible light, I will not miss any truth they may contain.

And if what you say is false, I have no interest - and no need - to snipe at weak points. A lie is just as much a lie at its strongest point as it is at its weakest. Generosity allows me to knock out the best of what you say, and not just the worst. So that's my approach.

But I also hope that the faith that unites us will allow us to have this crucial discussion in frankness and fullness, with nothing held back on either side - but in mutual love and respect. Passions run high here because we care about God. And that unites us as brothers and sisters in Christ. I am not above anyone, and my life of faith is as much limited by my own halting bravery as anyone else's is.

And so if we are to disagree over issues we all passionately hold, I hope we can do that a little better than the secular world around us.

What say you?

You may eat anything you like from all the trees in the garden except!

Except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

What is that tree about. What exactly is the meaning of this prohibition?

If you compare China 13.6 trillion in GDP versus Taiwan's GDP of 585 billion, are Trumps comments a concern? Does he really expect Taiwan to defend itself and pay for everything? China vs Taiwan Economies: 61 Stats Compared

His comments too on Taiwan taking over the U.S. chip manufacturing sector is worrisome too. Why? Because they are better competitors. They are more efficient. The secret sauce for Taiwan's chip superstardom

This efficiency is in part is driven by FREE MARKETS, which I hope Trump favors. as shown by the bullet points. Taiwan vs. US Chip Subsidies: Bolstering the Sacred Mountain.

• "Whereas policymakers in the US and South Korea direct government funds toward closing supply-chain weaknesses, Taiwanese policymakers allow companies to determine which technologies to lean into.
• Whereas lawmakers in the US and EU attach tight strings to the subsidies that administrative agencies dole out, Taiwanese lawmakers write vague laws that grant enormous discretion to government ministries.
• And whereas local governments in mainland China steer a significant share of the nation’s total semiconductor subsidies, Taiwan’s central government funds and manages the island’s most meaningful incentive programs."

So first, Trump's comments threaten the security of Taiwan and the entire region and secondly they threaten good competition. I know he is running against Biden, but he and many in the GOP need to shore up on foreign policy because this is worrisome. By saying Taiwan should pay the USA defense you have to admit that China loves to hear that. It shows a possible weakness in the USA commitment to defend Taiwan. It also implies that all of SE Asia at more risk and while he considers US defense of Taiwan an "insurance policy" the US friendly SE Asia nations help keep the USA safe as well. Does Trump for instance think the Philippines should pay for all of its defense? That is not in the treaty the USA signed, nor is it possible for such a poorer nation to defend itself. Sure the USA can be isolationist. The result though could be that most of S.E. Asia will be controlled by China, including the 3.4 trillion (out of 16 trillion) shipping that goes through the South China Sea. I know a lot of what Trump says will be tempered by some in the cabinet but I hope he answers more questions in interviews ahead.
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Questions to be considered:
Is the USA competitive in chip manufacturing?
Does the USA have a commitment to defend Taiwan?