Putin recently visited N. Korea....during the visit, Putin and Kim exchanged gifts in this budding bromance!

Will Trump be jealous?

"....a segment aired on he state-controlled Korean Central Television. The two bonded over animals as Kim fed carrots to a horse while Putin looked on. The two also took turns to drive each other around in a Russian-built Aurus limousine. Kim, known as a keen horseman, was famously pictured riding a white stallion in Mount Paektu during snowfall in photos released by state media in 2019, flooding the internet with online jokes and memes. The horses Kim rode are symbolic for North Korea which named its economic effort to recover from the 1950-53 Korean War after the mythical winged horse Chollima. Putin has been pictured shirtless and riding a horse in photos released by Russian state media. Pungsan dogs are a breed of hunting dogs native to a region in the northern part of North Korea. Former South Korean president Moon Jae-in also received a pair of white Pungsan dogs -- named "Gomi" and "Songgang" -- from Kim in 2018 at a time when inter-Korean relations saw a breakthrough. "


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sometimes I cry when i talk to people and they tell me the trials and errors they are going through especially if the issues are relatable and have experienced them before. I feel like as a grown man I shouldn’t be like I used to be like this as a kid crying when I see disabled people or people in poverty im bout to cry thinking about it now. Im starting to think this is a bad thing but im wondering should a Godly man be like this.

A New York City pastor known as the “Bling Bishop” will spend nearly a decade behind bars for financial crimes that he has vehemently denied committing.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced Monday that Bishop Lamor Whitehead was sentenced to nine years in prison for wire fraud, attempted extortion and making false statements to federal law enforcement agents.

Whitehead, pastor of Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in Brooklyn, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $85,000 in restitution and a fine of $95,000.

“Lamor Whitehead is a con man who stole millions of dollars in a string of financial frauds and even stole from one of his own parishioners,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams. “He lied to federal agents, and again to the Court at this trial. Today’s sentence puts an end to Whitehead’s various schemes and reflects this Office’s commitment to bring accountability to those who abuse their positions of trust.”

Continued below.

Trump pledges green cards for college grads, reviving a Hillary Clinton idea​

“You’d turn colleges into visa mills,” one advocate of restricting immigration said.

“What I wanted to do, and what I will do is, you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country,” Trump said in an interview on a podcast titled “All-In” released today. A green card is the colloquial term for legal permanent residency.

Trump went on to specify that he would apply the policy to anyone attending a two- or four-year college.

Trump previously expressed support in 2015 for green cards for college graduates. But the idea was more widely associated with Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent, whose campaign website said she would “staple” a green card to master’s and doctoral diplomas in science, technology, engineering and math. The proposal was attacked by immigration hard-liners in Trump’s camp, including the far-right website Breitbart and then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who became Trump’s attorney general.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt clarified ... “This would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.” [How does that work exactly? These are not the farm laborers and construction workers doing jobs Americans generally don't. These are people with college degrees.]

Viterbo University is a Catholic School in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and my alma mater. In the children's section of their library, they have a pride display of children's books.

One book is called "It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity." It's designed to teach children as young 4 about concepts of transgenderism, non-binary, cisgender, etc.

Another book is called Desert Queen. It encourages boys as young as 7 to cross dressing as drag queens.

I've often seen children on campus because they have a Boys & Girls club on campus.

It's depressing to see innocent children targeted with this. I've contacted the Archbishop (I cant find the Bishop's contact) and didn't hear back. I contacted the school and just got a generic response.

Please consider joining me in contacting the Bishop and library:



A local blog wrote about the display: Viterbo Promotes Gender Confusion in Young Children | CouleeConservatives

Ramos was released into the country after telling officials he he feared for his life if he was sent back to his home country, sources told The Post.
His discarded ankle monitor was found on Wednesday NewsNation reported.
More than 7.4 million migrants have been released on a non-detained docket after encounters with border patrol officers.
They are offered court appearance dates to decide their asylum requests sometimes years in the future.
The basis on which Martinez was released has not yet been revealed.
But Ramos was one of more than 184,000 enrolled into the Alternatives to Detention program for closer monitoring after raising suspicions at border encounters.

Most of the criminals released into our country by the Biden administration can wait out the 21 days.

FBI agents conducted search warrants early Thursday at the home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and the home of an employee of a city waste contractor.

The FBI confirmed the two search warrants but declined to say who the targets of the search warrants were and whether they were connected.

The first search was conducted at the mayor’s home on Maiden Lane in the Lincoln Highlands neighborhood, and it also included officers from the Internal Revenue Service as well as the U.S. Postal Service.

Video from local news agencies showed agents carrying boxes and bags out of the house.

Property records show that the [2nd] home is connected to Andy Duong, one of the Duong family members who own and manage Cal Waste Solutions, which has been investigated over campaign contributions to Thao and other elected city officials, the Oaklandside reported in 2020.

Who would pay more and who wouldn’t? It would depend on how much money a corporation donated to the Democratic Party and whether it had been gifted lucrative tax credits by Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress.
Much of the new spending Biden secured from Congress through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act doesn’t come through direct spending by federal government agencies. Instead, most is actually done through the tax code in the form of credits for politically favored corporations. F

Between the intelligence agencies putting out propaganda to get Joe elected and the corporations mentioned in the article, it is going to be hard to fight the corrupt government establishment.

The debate as to whether homosexuality is a sin often revolves around the question whether or not its a choice. But this assumes that something has to be a choice in order for it to be a sin -- which is implicitly an Arminian assumption. So its interesting that Calvinists, too, argue that homosexuality is a choice. Why can't Calvinists say that homosexuality isn't a choice since everyone was predestined to either go to heaven or hell from birth, so including homosexuality as a part of this predestination-package won't be any more unfair? Thus, it would make logical sense if Arminians were to say homosexuality is a choice while Calvinists were to say that it isn't.

However, despite the fact that Arminians would logically be more likely to agree with the statement "homosexuality is a choice", Calvinists would logically be more likely to agree with the statement "homosexuality is a sin". Here is why. The reason for arguing that homosexuality is not a sin (despite Bible clearly teaching that it is), is the fact that, based on secular evidence, homosexuality doesn't seem to be a choice, while sin is a choice. So, again, the underlying assumption here is Arminian: namely, that sin is a choice. So, logically speaking, Calvinist can argue their way out of it by saying "fine, people are born gay, but homosexuality is still a sin, because according to Calvinism every sin is predestined from birth". An Arminian won't be able to argue that way so thats why the Arminian, if faced with a failure of refuting evidence against homosexuality being a choice, would be forced to try to argue that its not a sin.

Combining the two paragraphs above, here is what would happen. An Arminian would, logically, first take "conservative" position and try to argue that homosexuality is a choice. Then, after he fails to make his case, he would, logically, switch to "liberal" side and argue that homosexuality is not a sin. On the other hand, Calvinist would logically be fine simply maintaining a fixed point of view that partly agrees with liberals and partly with conservatives, namely "homosexuality is not a choice but its still a sin, since those people were predestined to sin".

Now, you might notice that in the above I didn't say they "believe" something; I only said "one would logically expect them to believe it" (with the word logically being key word). Because I don't think the actual opinion survey would confirm what I would logically expect in the above discussion. Why not? One logical explanation is maybe because Calvinists used to be Arminians prior to converting to Calvinism. So, back in their Arminian past, they had to say homosexuality is a choice. And then, after they became Calvinist, they never came back to re-evaluate their perspective. Either that, or a different explanation is that Calvinists want to give people milk before giving them hard meat. Openly admitting to predestination would be hard meat that many people can't bear. So, in order to give them milk (since the discussion in question is the one with either non-believers or not true believers) they have to pretend to be Arminian and then argue from Arminian viewpoint.

I think it's in the book of Daniel
It means something

The Polish people are rejecting the Globalist and MSM narrative. Grzegorz Braun was elected with 0% MSM coverage, after he extinguished a menorah with a fire extinguisher. He stands on a platform of peace, and putting the interests of the Polish people over the Globalists' agendas.

Other European nations are moving in the same direction.




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I always do not attend Church's service on Sunday, I feel boring, not interested, have no friends in Church,
my wife and I go to different churches,
I feel that the preaching is boring, very dull.
Wasting my time to go to church.

What is your advice to me?

I propose more logical version of chess, with the following modifications:

1) You have to actually capture the king in order to win. Thus, if you made a checkmate, you didn't win yet. You only win after your opponent makes a move in response to your checkmate, and then you capture the king in your move after that.

2) Stalemate is not a draw. Just like with checkmate, the next move will be made, which will result in capturing the king of stalemated party, thus stalemated party losing the game

3) If someone doesn't pay attention, its possible to fail to capture the king after either checkmate or stalemate, simply because one doesn't notice that they just checkmated/stalemated their opponent. So in this case the game continues.

4) Conversely, if one doesn't pay attention, its also possible to accidentally put a king under threat without being either checkmated or stalemated. In this case, your opponent will capture your king the next move and you will lose

5) Its also possible that both parties are careless: one party accidentally puts a king under threat, and the other party doesn't notice it. In this case, the game continues.

6) If someone accidentally puts a king under threat and then notices it before their opponents move, they are not allowed to undo that move. Because the move of putting the king under threat is just as legal as any other move. And, just like you aren't allowed to undo any other move, you aren't allowed to undo this move either.

7) If the game is timed, and the one who checkmated/stalemated their opponent runs out of time immediately after that, they lose the game. So if its the checkmate then normal rules would say they won (since they checkmated their opponent before running out of time) but my rules would say they lost (because they didn't capture the opponents king before running out of time). And if its a stalemate then normal rules would say its a draw, while my rules would again say they lost (and if they didn't run out of time it wouldn't be a draw either, instead they would have won per part 2).

8) If someone resigns, then yes they lose. So, of course, its possible to resign due to being checkmated/stalemated. And in this situation they would lose without any more moves. But the official reason why they would lose would "not" be checkmate/stalemate. Instead, it would be the fact that they resigned. So, unless they officially resign, another move needs to be made.

9) On the other hand, if you do capture their king, then yes, they would lose without resigning. Losing a king is the official reason to lose the game, without any need for resignation.

10) By the same token, no position is automatic draw unless the draw is agreed upon. Thus, if the game is timed, in the draw situation they would simply be moving their pieces as quickly as possible until one of the parties runs out of time. Thus, if one player has a lot more time left than the other player, then the former is much more likely to win (unless the latter player happens to be able to move pieces faster). So, the player with less time left might realize this, resign, and lose due to resigning. Or they might decide not to resign and hope to move pieces really fast and see what happens. Or if they have similar time left, they might both agree to have a draw since they don't like mindlessly moving pieces for five minutes. And then they would have a draw, but official reason for a draw would not be the actual position but instead the fact that they agreed for a draw. If they don't agree for a draw, they would have to be moving pieces. Now, as they are moving pieces as quickly as possible, its very easy to accidentally put a king under threat. And then whoever does it would lose this way -- provided their opponent notices it, which they might not notice due to also being focus on moving as fast as possible.

11) An alternative way to deal with draws is that, instead of putting the limit on the total time of all moves (say, 10 minutes total for all moves) put the limit on the time for each move (say, 1 minute total each move). Thus, the total number of moves would be of unlimitted time. And since 1 minute per move is very easy to fulfill, especially in a draw situation, both players would realize the game would never end unless they agree for a draw. And this would induce them to agree for a draw. The purpose of 1 minute per move is completely different from the one for 10 minute total. You see, 1 minute per move is very easy, so it has nothing to do with thinking fast. Instead, it has to do with the fact that, without limitting time per move, the losing player would stall indefinitely. So this is the way to prevent them from stalling. So, if you like, I can make it an hour per move. Even that would do the job too. The losing player will realize they would lose after the hour runs out, so they would either make their bad move they are forced to make sooner or they will resign.

12) Here is even better alternative. Instead of saying 1 minute per move, say 1 day per move. So then even if they do move it indefinitely it won't be too bad: they just have to remember to make one move per day so the challenge would be to remember it. But still its a bit of a nuisance. So one thing they might do is this. Apart from being able to agree to have a draw, they can agree to postpone the game. And if they reach that agreement then the time for a move wont be a day. And so the game that is to be drawn can simply be indefinitely postponed instead. Or they can simply change their mind about allowed time per move on the condition that both players agree (so one player can't stall since it takes agreement of both to change the time per move). So in a situation of a draw, both players can agree to take a year per move, and then they don't have to come back to that game for a year.

I am originally from Russia, born to two Jewish parents, but I discovered faith in Jesus at the age of 22 completely on my own.

I first made conscious decision in favor of Christianity when I was 22 years old. The way it happened was pretty interesting. My mom was renting a room in Berkeley from a Jewish math professor, Jacob Feldman, who was an atheist. At that time, I was doing my first year of my Master's program in physics at University of Minnesota. I visitted my mom in Berkeley for the winter break, in winter between 2001 and 2002. Coincidentally, at that same time, math professor at university of Minnesota, Walter Littman, had visitted Jacob Feldman as well. Ironically, I haven't met him in Minnesota during my first semester there, so I first met him in Berkeley, when we both visited Jack's house.

Walter and his wife were talking about a mathematician Hillel who, while he was a little kid, was rescued from Nazi concentration camp: his parents threw him across the fense and then he found his way to the home that took care of him. Walter's wife then said "I resent the people that say it didn't happen". I asked what didn't happen? She then told me about some people that say that there is no holocaust. I haven't heard of this before, and I asked her why would they say it. She said they say it because they hate Jews. I didn't see how the hatred of Jews have anything to do with saying it. To me, that statement didn't sound hateful at all, instead it sounded something like 2+2=5. Now, I researched it later on the internet and I realized from my future research why it is politically charged: namely, as a result of the holocaust, Germany sends a lot of money to Jewish survivors, and also holocaust is the main reason the State of Israel was created. But I didn't know it at that time. Likewise, upon later research, I found the arguments that the holocaust revisionists were making as well as the rebutals of those arguments. But I didn't know any of it at the time of the conversation. So my reaction at the time was the one of simple surprise and curiosity, yet she didn't really address it.

When I asked her that question, her answer was "those are the same people who say that Jews have horns and they know how to hide them". So then I asked her why would people say Jews have horns? After all, if Jews had horns, you would see them, would you not? How is it possible for Jews to have horns without you being able to see them? Again, her simple answer was "they say it because they hate Jews". And then she refused to answer it further and just changed the subject.

When I googled it myself, I found out that the reason they say Jews have horns is two-fold:

1. There was a verse that when Moses came down from the mountain, he had light coming off of him. In certain language, the word illumination is similar to the word horns. So they mistranslated it as if Moses had horns. As a result of that mistranslation, they actually built a statue of Moses with horns, which later resulted in the stereotype that Jews in general have horns.
2. In John 8:44 Jesus told Jews that they are the children of the devil, and devil has horns. This verse was further used to back up Christian Identity doctrine that in the Garden of Eden, Eve had intercourse with the serpent which resulted in birth of Cain. Thus, the only offspring of Adam and Eve was Abel, while Cain was an offspring of Eve and serpent instead. They then claim that Jews are descendants of Cain and, consequently, are children of the devil (aka that serpent).

To me, those two things didn't add up. Because I knew that Christians regarded Moses as a prophet. So if the reason Jews have horns is that they are of the devil (point number 2), and Moses also has horns (point number 1), then this would imply that Moses is of the devil. Also, point number 2 didn't really make sense on its own either because it would imply that Jesus is of the devil too. Later on I learned Christian Identity answer to this: in particular they claim that today's Jews (who are of Cain) are not true Israelites, while the true Israelites (which includes both Jesus and Moses) are non-Jewish Europeans. However, it again didn't add up: if they claim that Moses is non-Jewish European, why would Moses having horns imply that Jews have horns and not imply that Europeans do? And why would he have horns if having horns is a sign of being of the devil (which they claim Jews are, but non-Jewish Europeans aren't, while Moses is supposedly European)? Plus, regardless of how ethnicities are assigned, Moses can't possibly be of the devil by the virtue of being a prophet, so he can't possibly have horns.

However, a lot more importantly, I got scared by that verse. While, coming from Russia, I knew antisemitism exists, I didn't know it gets that extreme. I was assuming antisemites say Jews are bad people – but still people. I didn't know anybody would say that Jews are literally demonic. That, plus also I assumed antisemitism is a folklore, I didn't realize it would make it into the Bible. I guess I knew about the claim that Jews killed Christ, and I guess if someone would have asked me if its in the Bible, I would say "I guess", but I would only be guessing since I haven't read the Bible. But since nobody asked me I haven't really thought of it. But in any case, the claim that Jews killed Christ didn't sound nearly as extreme as a claim that Jews are literally of the devil, and so the latter really scared me.

Logically speaking, as an atheist, I didn't believe the Bible. However, on an emotional level, I still regarded Bible as some sort of authority. And so while generally I would dismiss everything it says, once I ran into something that extreme, I couldn't dismiss it: I got scared. And I was wondering how come other people weren't as scared as I was.

In order to answer that question, I searched more conventional interpretations of John 8:44. One thing I found was that it wasn't talking about literal biological descent, but instead it was talking about spiritual one. If one speaks biologically, then if some Jews are of the devil that would mean all are, because Jews are biologically related. On the other hand, if one speaks spiritually, then it is possible for some Jews to be of the devil and for others not to be. In fact, one can even have identical twins, one is of the devil and the other isn't. Thus, it is possible that Moses and Pharesees are genetically related, yet Pharesees are of the devil and Moses wasn't, due to their different choices. And where today's Jews stand would also depend on their choices.

To me this was very hard to grasp. Because what I pictured was somebody supernaturally changing their genetics through their choices, which appeared to be next to impossible. So I decided to research it further. Upon further research I realized that it goes back to the concept of being "born again", and the question I was asking was the very same question Nicodemus was asking (except that the context in which I was asking it was a lot more scary). Yet, the notion of being "born again" seemed abstract too (just like it did to Nicodemus) and I had no idea how to address it. So I decided that maybe it would make sense if I read the Bible in order.

However, reading Bible in order didn't lead to what I expected. I expected Bible to be similar to a textbook, where all the terms are defined, all in logical order, etc. But it turned out not to be that way. For example, when I got to Matthew 4, I was surprised how did it mention devil without defining him. And as I kept reading it just kept getting worse and worse. So then I realized that Bible is not like a textbook but instead its like a universe where I can try to gather an evidence to come up with my own textbook about it. As a research-minded person, this intrigued me.

However, at the beginning, I was doing that research as an atheist, looking at a Bible as a human artifact that I was doing antrhopological survey about. What changed my attitude was the following. As I was running the google searches on "children of the devil", google sent me to church of satan (which was irrelevant to what I was searching for, but the google picked up key words). The existence of church of satan was the other thing I was previously unaware of, and it was the other thing that scared me. So then I started to search the church of satan, to address my fears. And as I was searching I ran into two separate things:

1. Laveyan satanists claimed that they aren't worshipping satan. In fact, they don't believe in satan to begin with, just like they don't believe in God. They are simply using satan as a symbol, while their belief system is identical to atheism. While their intention was to redeem themselves from the accusations, they had the opposite effect on me. In particular, if their faith is the same as the one of the atheists, then this means that by being an atheist I was agreeing with them! And that thought was really scary.
2. Christians claimed that, unless you are a Christian, you are an satanist. Actually I ran into a softer version of that statement that said "you are either a Christian or a Jew or a satanist" (thus redeeming the Jews from this accusation which was naturally quite important to me). But still, since I didn't believe in God at that time, I was still an atheist rather than the Jew as far as my religion was concerned. So since, unlike before, I became concerned with my religion rather than genetics, I was still scared I was siding with satanists religion-wise.

So what I noticed was that two opposite camps (Christians and satanists) happened to agree on one thing: that atheism and satanism is the same thing. This really scared me. Even though I was an atheist, I wanted to think that in the battle of Christians vs Satanists I would side with Christians. So then I decided to stop being an atheist. I wasn't quite ready to become a Christian yet. Instead I decided to start believing in God and possibly becoming religious Jew. I only ended up becoming a Christian few months later.

The way I ended up becoming Christian was the following. After 911, my grandmother was telling me about Palestinian terrorism against Israel, and was presenting it as facts. She didn't really tell me that there are two sides to the story until a couple of months later. But then, after said couple of months, she told me "do you know that most of Europe (especially France) supports Palestine?" I was like "Why? I thought they are terrorists!" And she told me they support Palestine because they hate Jews. Then I got angry about it and stayed angry for the next several months.

Then, some time in Spring 2002, I went to the holocaust survivors message board and started to complain how antisemites are using passive aggression a lot. In particular, in my post I drew a parallel between those three things:

1. During the holocaust, only Axis actually exterminated Jews, while Allied countries "neglected" to rescue the Jews from the Nazis (so Allied countries didn't target the Jews, they just neglected them).
2. People who oppose Israel, they aren't making up any of the bad things that Israel allegidly did that it didn't actually do. What they do instead is that they "neglect" to notice the stuff Palestinians do to the Israelis. So if you "forget" the acts of Palestinian terrorism, then Israeli response to it (without any exaggerations of said response) begins to look like aggression.
3. Today's Christians don't want to say anything negative about the Jews. But they "forget" to keep Old Testament law, because they "forget" that Old Testament is part of the Bible, too.

As far as point c goes, I now see that they didn't "forget the Old Testament"; instead, they read Paul that wrote at length why it is not to be kept. Of course, Messianic/Sabbaterian groups re-interpret Paul differently, to claim that one should still keep the law; but that is an entirely different issue. The point is that neither side "forgot" about the Old Testament, the way I claimed they did. However, back when I made that post, I haven't read Paul. Thats why I assumed Christians forgot it. And when somebody mentioned Paul in my response to that thread, I didn't even know that Paul was one of the authors of the Bible. Instead, I assumed he was one of the commentaries, and got mad as to why he said it.

In any case, while this was a board for holocaust survivors, there were a lot of non-Jews (including Christians) who were participated in it. So one of them told me that if I think Christianity and Judaism should be kept together, there are Messianic congregations that do that. This was the first time I ever heard of Messianic Judaism, and that term sounded attractive because it was exotic. So I decided to go check out Messianic congregation. The knowledge of Messianic congregations (which I obtained entirely by accident from that post) was the one bridge that I needed to be able to accept Jesus. Because when I attempted to go to Christian church prior to that, I felt an acute discomfort (although nowdays that I been Christian for a long time, I go to Christian churches and enjoy it; but this would have never happened if it wasn't for that bridge that Messianic congregation provided).

Again, however, simply going to Messianic congregation wouldn't necessarily mean believing their teachings (including the one about Jesus). The reason why I ended up believing in Jesus is that i went on a website that compared hell in three monotheistic religions. What I learned from that website is that Jews don't believe in hell at all, they just believe in different distances from God. Plus they also believe that the consequences in the afterlife (in a form of distance from God) would only last for a year. Muslims do believe in hell, but Muslims believe that people of the book (that is, Jews and Christians) are exempt from it, if they stay true to their respective religions (that is, Judaism or Christianity). However, Christians do believe in eternal hell, that both Jews and Muslims (along with other non-Christians) would go to. So I decided that if either Jews or Muslims are right, and I am a Christian, I won't have to suffer eternal torment. But if Christians are right, and I am either Jew or Muslim, then I would have to suffer eternal torment. So it is safer to be a Christian.

Now, back in my atheist days, I thought I had scientific proof that there is no God. So now that I decided to become religious (in 2002), I needed to deal with those arguments somehow. What came handy was the course on Descartes I took back in 1999 (when I was an atheist).

In most of the essays assigned for that course, they didn't ask us to actually agree with Descartes. Instead, they were asking us to write our own contemplations about the questions he was posing. Of course, we had to know, and describe, what his views are. But we were also asked to compare and contrast his views to our own views and make an argument about it. So I wrote that, while the quetsions Descartes posed were good ones, the way he addressed them was bad. In particular, he started out by being very careful not to make any leaps in logic that most people make. Yet, later on, he proceeded to make his own leaps of logic that are a lot wider than the ones others are making. I did, however, agree with him up to the point of "I think therefore I am". But I didn't agree with most of the subsequent claims he was making (including his claim in favor of existence of God, and so forth).

Now, the way I proposed to answer his questions was the following. I claimed that any reasoning is based off of axioms. So the idea that we are not sleeping is simply an axiom. Of course, this was totally different from Descarte's thinking, but since I was asked to present my own opinion, I got good grades for those essays.

Again, that is what I wrote back in 1999, when I was an atheist. But when I decided to become a believer in 2002, I decided that I can use that line of reasoning to convince myself to be a believer. In particular, since every reasoning is based off of axioms, then my idea that there is no God is also based off of axioms. So by abandoning some of the axioms that led to the idea that there is no God, and introducing some of the new axioms that would imply that there is God, I can make myself a believer.

In particular, one axiom I decided to believe in was the one that Bible is 100% true. The apparent problem with that axiom is that it seemingly contradicts archaeological findings. However, there are similar contradictions in science-proper too. A good example would be a contradiction between quantum mechanics and gravity. This contradiction doesn't lead people to say that scientists conspired to lie about their lab results, because an axiom that modern-day people (such as the ones who reported the lab results) are trustworthy surpasses the apparent incompatibility between quantum mechanics and gravity. Similarly, if I were to make an axiom that Bible is trustworthy and believe it to the point that it surpasses its apparent incompatibility with archeology, then I will end up believing in the Bible too.

1 Thessalonians 4:

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

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1. Jesus comes down.
2. The first group rises.
3. The second group catches up.

What's step 4? Will the entire bunch of people go up or down or stay in the air?

Down, I think.

YLT Matthew 25:

6 and in the middle of the night a cry was made, Lo, the bridegroom doth come; go ye forth to meet [G529] him.

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The word "meet" here is apantēsin. The virgins were to meet and welcome Jesus, the bridegroom.

7‘Then rose all those virgins, and trimmed their lamps, 8and the foolish said to the prudent, Give us of your oil, because our lamps are going out; 9and the prudent answered, saying — Lest there may not be sufficient for us and you, go ye rather unto those selling, and buy for yourselves. 10‘And while they are going away to buy,

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The foolish virgins went away to find oil. They missed being part of the welcoming group.

the bridegroom came, and those ready went in with him to the marriage-feasts, and the door was shut;

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The bridegroom continued in the same direction and reached his destination.

Now, Young's Literal Translation, 1 Thessalonians 4:

17 then we who are living, who are remaining over, together with them shall be caught away in clouds to meet [G529] the Lord in air, and so always with the Lord we shall be

Click to expand...

meet
ἀπάντησιν (apantēsin)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 529: From apantao; a encounter.

Presumably, after the meeting/encounter of the welcoming people in the air, Jesus will continue in the same direction to come down to reach his destination on Earth where the wedding banquet will take place. I don't think it is like the popular Left Behind film series, where unbelievers will be left on earth to face the chaos and the Antichrist.

See also The word "rapture"

What is the Christian stance on AI?

Are you worried that AI will strip away human nature?

Will AI enslave humans?

Is AI dangerous to human existence?

Do you think AI robot will dominate the world?

Family of black belts stops attempted sex assault next door, police say​

Simon An, a 20-year-old college student, was mindlessly scrolling social media inside his family’s Texas taekwondo school on Tuesday afternoon when he heard an unsettling scream. His father, Han An — a 59-year-old eighth-degree black belt who once served in the South Korean military — immediately sprung to action.

“My dad led the charge, and then my sister was just right behind him,” Simon said.

Within seconds, Simon’s father burst into a mobile phone store next door, where he said he saw a young man on top of a female, one hand over her mouth and the other touching her inappropriately.

From there, the scene unfolded quickly: Simon said his father grabbed the man’s shirt, but the man managed to take the shirt off. Han then grabbed the man’s pants, keeping one arm straight and stable while using the other to block any attacks. He was able to pin him down.

Although he used his taekwondo skills to help stop the attack, he said he hopes the public knows they can always intervene.

“If a regular person were to see something like that, I would hope for them to go and help,” he said. “Just help the person in need.”

Hi, I don't know a whole lot about this topic. There is a nursing home 10 miles away from me. I have a very strong attachment to the town it's in, but that's different story. However, it used to be under the umbrella of a Catholic hospital that was deconsecrated some time ago, I don't know when. With the hospital being deconsecrated, so was the nursing home. Also, when I was a kid, I could have sworn that when we entered the premises of the nursing home, there used to be a big cross on the side of the building. The cross is gone. The circular drive around the perimeter of the building is named after nuns. The name of the roadway was not changed, I guess. I would like to know:

- Why would a place that was once a Catholic facility be deconsecrated?
- Is it a sin to deconsecrate a facility?
- If not, why would the Bishop allow such a thing?

It does break my heart because it's a sign that society wants to "take God" out of a particular place.

Most Christians would say that Bible condemns antisemitism. Yet, starting from second century all the way throughout middle ages all the way till 19-th century and even beginning of 20-th century antisemitism was a mainstream belief among Christians. So the question is why did things change? Yes, we have antisemites now, but nowdays they are a minority, while in the past they were vast majority. The typical Christian answer is that "they were not true Christians". But this doesn't address the question of a timeline. Why would Christians in the middle ages not be true Christians, while Christians in 21-st century be true Christians, when Bible prophesizes the opposite, that there would be falling away of the church at the end times.

I think the real honest reason why Christians have sympathy towards Jews is simply because they feel bad for the Jews after the holocaust. As much as Christians will deny it, this is something that objective look at the timeline, and objective use of secular psychology would tell us. And whether the Bible supports antisemitism or not is a separate question. I am not discussing whether Bible supports antisemitism -- I am only discussing the psychology of people that cause them to choose one interpretation of the Bible over the other. Right or wrong, it was traditional to choose antisemitic interpretations of the Bible. But then the holocaust made them feel bad for the Jews, so they decided to rethink their interpretation of the Bible and choose less antisemitic ones.

This being said, lets ask ourselves a different question. On the one hand, Christians can't bear the idea that 6 million holocaust victims deserved it. Yet, on the other hand, Christians are okay with an idea that people that are in hell deserve it. But you see, the 6 million Jews only suffered for limitted period of time, while hell suffering is eternal (the reason I say they suffered for limitted period of time is because Christians are not comfortable in saying Anne Frank or any other holocaust victim is in hell, even though they don't believe in Jesus; or even if we do say they are in hell, they would have been in hell with or without Hitler; the amount of suffering Hitler ADDED to it is finite). So why is it finite suffering of 6 million Jews is harder to bear than infinite suffering of a lot more people in hell? I think its because Christians haven't actually seen hell, yet they seen the suffering of 6 million Jews. Yes, they say they believe in hell. But its one thing to simply believe, and its another thing altogether to actually see it.

In fact lets ask ourselves a famous question as to how Hitler could go to heaven if he accepted Jesus right before his death and how Anne Frank could go to hell for not believing in Jesus. But, instead of trying to answer this question, lets ask ourselves a different question. Regardless if its true or not, why would it be more appealing to our sensitivities to see Anne Frank in heaven and Hitler in hell? In other words, we are not asking who is actually in heaven or in hell, we are only asking the question about ourselves: namely our own sensitivities. And it is a valid question. Because you see, if Anne Frank were to go to heaven and Hitler were to go to hell, then Hitler would suffer in hell a lot more and a lot longer than Anne Frank suffered in the real life. So, since the honest reason for sympathy towards Anne Frank is that she suffered more (see above), then this reason is no longer true, since now Hitler suffered more. Yet, I still claim that the reason that Anne Frank suffered more is real honest reason. Because, again, people haven't seen hell. So even though they conceptually know that Hitlers suffering in hell are a lot more severe and a lot longer, still deep down on a more intuitive level they feel that Anne Frank's suffering are worse, because its here in the tangible, while hell isn't.

A counter-argument to this is a statement "yes Hitler suffered more but he deserved it while Anne Frank didn't". I don't buy this either. Because one can claim that Jews deserved it too, since they killed Jesus. If you say "Romans killed Jesus", again, let me ask you to be honest with yourself and others. What would have happened if for the past 2 millenia people were to persecute Italians instead of Jews beause Romans killed Jesus, and then Hitler were to kill 6 millions Italians instead of 6 millions Jews for that same reason. Then everyone would feel bad for Italians and would say "Jews killed Jesus" not because they hate Jews but simply because they want to redeem Italians who were victims of all that persecution. But since in actuality it were the Jews that were persecutted and not the Italians, thats why nowdays so many people want to say that Romans killed Jesus out of sympathy towards Jews. But if we were to be more honest then yes Bible teaches Jews killed Jesus or at least strongly suggests it.

Then the other argument is that its unfair to nowdays Jews to be punished for what their ancestors did 2 millenia ago. Well, by the same token, it is also unfair to punish humankind as a whole for what Adam and Eve did in even more distant past. Yet, most Christians feel like punishing Jews for their ancestors is objectionable while the belief in original sin isn't. Again, I think it is because they wittnessed the holocaust so they feel a lot of sympathy towards the Jews. But wait a second: wouldn't the majority of mankind suffer for original sin a lot more severely and a lot longer than Jews suffered for the holocaust? Again: the holocaust happened in the tangible while the future hell for original sin isn't.

And also, as far as the idea that "unlike Anne Frank, it was Hitler's own choice", if you look at it from Calvinist perspective, Hitler was predestined to make the choices he did. I am not saying I am a Calvinist. But I can still ask a question: why is it, the people that are Calvinist, still act as if Hitler is responsible for what he did, yet Jews aren't responsible for how they were born, if neither of them had a choice (from Calvinist perspective)? Again, the answer lies in their sympathies towards Jews after the holocaust. And again I can ask why don't they have even more sympathies towards Hitler, given that he had no choice either (from their perspective), and he would suffer eternally? Again, the answer lies in the fact that they see Jewish suffering in the tangible while the suffering in hell is not tangible.

Now, if you look at all the bolded parts, you will see that the jist of why people changed their theology out of sympathy towards the holocaust victims yet they are okay in believing in hell and so forth, is really because, whether they admit it or not, they treat hell as less real than this tangible world. So the holocaust was really just a small glimpse of hell here in the tangible. And the glimpse of hell in the tagible is something they can't stand to the point of having to change their theology, while the full blown hell in the intangible is something they are willing to believe in, because even though they say they believe in it, deep down they treat it as intangible.

A lot of other social issues point to the same thing too. How come people are more mad at David Duke than they are at John Macarthur? David Duke never said Jews or blacks go to hell, he simply wants to change some policies here on earth, while John Macarthur says vast majority of people were predestined to hell from birth (even though this predestination is not related to skin color, how is it any better than if it was? whether its skin color or not, the bottom line is that they had no control over it). The reason David Duke is more offensive than John MacArthur is, again, because David Duke deals with the tangible while John Macarthur deals with intangible. People claim they treat hell as tangible, since they want to say they are Chrsitian. But the fact is they don't, as the above contrast illustrates.

By the way, I am a Christian. If you ask me what I believe Bible wants us to believe about those issues, I would be a lot more honest than most and say I don't know: Bible has many interpretations. But the above secular analysis should be considered, if you want to be honest with yourself.

I know I've posted about Jim Carrey before, but this vid reveals a more thorough biography that makes his testimony even more profound. His expression of the Gospel and grace couldn't be more clear, imho. Enjoy and please say a prayer for his witness.

I am a Christian. However, I must say that Christians oftentimes use strawman arguments when dealing with atheists. If anything, it only hurts their case. I think it is very important to deal with things logically, admit where the other person's opinion comes from, and then address it.

This being said, one strawman argument Christians use is the following. They say that atheists must really hate God in order to say that God doesn't exist. They say that they don't even hate Stalin and Hitler as much as they hate God. Because they don't deny Stalin's and Hitler's existence, yet they deny God's existence.

I think this claim is simply not true. 99% of people would hate Stalin and Hitler more than God. Just ask them and see The reason they deny God's existence but they don't deny Hitler's and Stalin's existence is very simple. Hitler and Stalin made their existence tangible. God didn't. Hating Stalin and Hitler won't make people want to deny their existence: on the contrary their survival instinct would make them want to acknowledge their existence so that they can hide from them (at least if they lived at their time). But in Gods case its exact opposite because, unlike them, God doesn't make His existence known and tangible.

By the way, this is also the real honest reason as to why people prefer material things over praying. Material things are tangible. Prayer isn't. So it has nothing to do with liking material things more than liking God. If God were to speak in audible voice, the way He spoke in Genesis, maybe God would be more important than various material things. But since God doesn't speak in audible voice the way He used to, nor does He provide anything else tangible the way He used to, then its no wonder why people put him far from the top of their priority list.

And even the whole business with calling Christians bigots is related to this too. Most people don't call nutritionists bigots when they are telling them not to eat sweets, yet they call Christians bigots when they tell them something that would keep them out of hell. Christians would make a strawman argument that its because they hate God. No its not. The real reason is because if someone doesn't listen to nutritionists, they can come back 20 years later with a big regret about it. But if someone doesn't listen to Christians, they will only regret it once they go to hell, and at that point they can't come back from hell to tell about it.

Again, to reiterate: I am a Christian. The only reason I sound like an atheist in the above arguments is because I don't believe in using strawman arguments. I think it is very important to understand that atheists do have a point, in order to intelligently address it.

Now, lets address the above arguments (without strawman) from a Christian viewpoint. So, the key point in the above examples is that the root of atheism is the fact that God is not tangible. Now, ask yourself: why is that? Bible provides an answer. God used to be tangible in the early days, but then He became intangible due to human sin. So now we have a vicious cycle. Human sin makes God choose to be intangible, God being intangible makes people doubt His existence, which in turn causes people to sin even more, which in turn causes God to be even more intangible, and so forth. Now, that is biblical. The extreme version of this is when God makes it outright impossible for people to believe in Him by sending strong delusion (2 Thess 2:11). Now, like I just said, "strong delusion" is an extreme case. But then there are other cases, less extreme, when God doesn't make it "impossible" to believe, but simply makes it "harder". One example of this would be Jesus speaking in parables. A lot of people assume He spoke in parables in order to make it easier to understand. But if you read the plain text of Matthew 13:10-16, you will see that Jesus said that its the exact opposite: He spoke in parables in order to purposely hide the true meaning of what He was trying to say. Does it make it impossible to believe when true meaning is hidden? Not necessarily. One can still believe and say its a mystery to pray about (and we hear a lot of Christians saying they believe yet admitting that things like trinity and some other stuff are mysteries). But it certainly makes it harder to believe. Similarly, when God gives people over to depraved mind in Romans 1:24-28, it doesn't necesserely makes it impossible for them to believe either: after all, Paul then proceeds to offering them the solution of how to escape said depraved mind (in contrast to strong delusion in 2 Thess 2:11 when there is no solution since at that point its too late). Did God have to do it this way? Not necessarily. But it is Gods choice to punish non-belief/disobedience by making it progressively harder and harder to believe until, finally, one reaches a point of no return (either by getting strong delusion of 2 Thess 2:11 or by dying).

So then we see why God is not tangible (both to nonbelievers and believers): because, clearly, we are a lot more sinful than people used to be. And the fact that believers don't have tangible encounters with God is an evidenc in that direction. But the fact that believers have some sort of spiritual experience while atheists do not is simply saying that atheists disobeyed God more so God punished them more. In other words, atheism is not necesserely a choice but instead it is God's punishment for person's disobedience in other ways. Now, atheism does have a component of a choice. Because an atheist can say "yes, it is hard to believe in God because I never had any encounters, but I am going to make a free will decision to believe anyway" (which is possible to do, since Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is a belief in things not seen). However, God made it harder for atheists by withdrawing Himself from them. So while its possible to believe in things not seen, it is certainly harder to do than to believe in things seen. So while atheists "can" believe in God if they "really" try super hard, its harder for them to do so than to Christians from whom God didn't withdraw. Thats why I would say atheism is a combination of human choice to be an atheist and Gods choice to withdraw Himself due to other since (not involving atheism). So to say its only the former and not the latter is a strawman. On the flipside you have Calvinists that say its the latter and not the former. That would be unfair. I say its a combination of both.

And this also can be extended to homosexuality. Christians argue that homosexuality is a choice. That doesn't make sense. First of all, as someone straight, I can't choose to be gay. So I don't see how it can be a choice for someone else, unless that other person happened to be bisexual (and bisexuality isn't a choice either, since I can't choose to be bisexual even if I wanted to). Secondly, even if it was a choice, I don't see why would someone want to choose to be gay anyway, particularly since gays are looked down upon. I guess some might make that choice out of rebellion (like satanists do) but then homosexuality would be a lot less common than it is. Now, here is a real, biblical, reason for homosexuality, that doesn't involve choice to be gay. And it is at the end of Romans 1. If you read the end of Romans 1, what you find is that people were involved in some other sins and then, as a punishment for those other sins, God gave them over to depraved mind which, among other things, caused them to become gay. One example of other sins Bible mentions is worshipping creation rather than creator. So picture the following. Someone, who is straight, decides to worship idols. God repeatedly warns that person against idolatry, but that person persists. Then eventually God punishes that person by making that person gay. So then that person didn't choose to be gay: that person chose to worship idols. But God made that person gay in response to that person's choice to worshipping idols. So was that person born gay? No, because that person didn't have a chance to worship idols in their mothers womb. Yet, that person didn't choose to be gay either: being gay is God's punishment for that person's idolatry. And by the way its not my theory; this is something I read directly out of Romans 1. I don't see why other Christians not notice it.

Now, would this thread prove to atheists they are wrong? No. Because atheists can still argue that there is no God altogether and the above theory is just a convenient way for Christians to explain why what they claim to exist isn't tangible. However, at the same time, this thread would disprove atheist argument that Christians are wrong. In other words, we now have two logical possibilities. One logical possibility is that atheists are right and this whole thing is just explaining away of why we don't see God. But the other possibility is that Christians are right and the reason we can't see God is God's choice to respond to our sins. So since we still have those two logial possibilities, we still have to look at other arguments on both sides that are beyond the scope of this thread. But at least this thread will show atheists that there is a logical possibility that Christians are right, even though its at a level of logical possibility rather than certainty.

H everyone, is anyone here aware if Benny Hinn is still doing healing revivals around the world? I remember him doing lots of these years ago. He came to the Giant Center stadium in my hometown Hershey, PA probably 15 years ago and I went, it was amazing, a blast! I did not get healed but probably at least 1000 people did, the stage was full of empty wheelchairs from paralyzed people that got up and walked en-masse. I haven't heard much from Benny in the last few years.

Hi everyone, I would greatly appreciate your prayers- I have a very severe spiritual problem, I do not understand the bible and I do not understand God very well either. I think it would take a sovereign act of God for me to understand the scripture, you need to understand the scripture or you are going to get fooled and you won't understand God either, so I am in a serious predicament. I have been through reading the bible at least 8 times cover-to-cover over the years and I still do not understand it. Please pray for God to help me to understand the scripture and also to understand Him!

It will be on live TV so there is no crying fake anything. Can't be selective editing when it is live.


Even the left's CNN has commentators talking about it.