1 Peter 3:
8 Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another;
love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;

9 not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing,
knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.

We are called into a new way of life with others who may have
previously reviled you, or have been reviled by you.
Learning to receive and be a blessing is the high calling.

10 For:
He who would love life
And see good days,
Let him refrain his tongue from evil,
And his lips from speaking deceit.
11 Let him turn away from evil and do good;
Let him seek peace and pursue it.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
And His ears are open to their prayers;
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

The fear of God in a believer's life is found
with the knowledge that nothing will remain hidden:

Hebrews 4:13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight,
but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him
to whom we must give account.

This is the fuller understanding of being born again.
John 3:
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through Him might be saved.
18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe
is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of
the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light,
lest his deeds should be exposed.
21 But he who does the truth comes to the light,
that his deeds may be clearly seen,
that they have been done in God.

"Anyone who says otherwise is evidence that DEI offices profit from teaching people to judge others by their skin color, rather than their character.
Character cannot be built by meeting racial quotas. It’s developed through taking risks and working hard."
DEI is creating racial division. We must unite as a country.

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OK this is beyond acceptable for a world leader. Even with microphones I can barely understand what most of his words are. He garbles most of his words and tone shifts when unneeded. Loud then soft and garbled. Incoherent at certain points.

And he is one of the pillars of NATO leadership? I usually don't have to get a transcript to understand what most world leaders are talking about. This is a few rare occasions I have to read the official transcript. I only caught about 60% of what he said clearly.

Also I can't believe what I just heard when he talked about other people's wife. I played the clip over and over again to analyze. He did start the sentence with an f sound then some unintelligible mumbling before slurring out "talking". First time around I really thought he was so crass as to talk about sexual acts with other people's wife and then tell her to extend the service followed by an apology.

And this is not to mention the awkward movements during the medal ceremony.

If I'm an intelligence agent from a hostile country watching it, I won't know what to write in my report to my boss.

Many people are looking for a viable alternative to Calvinism. I believe Evangelical Arminianism is that alternative. What it is can be viewed by the word 'FACTS'
F Freed will.
A Atonement for ALL.
C Conditional election.
T Total depravity.
S Security "in Christ".

It would seem to me to be more scriptural than the Calvinistic alternative.
Your thoughts?

Or was it in the Bible in the first place to be removed ? Was there such a chaper as Acts 29 or was it all fabricated ? I reckon it was all fabricated, but why ?​

I'll leave you to decide.......

Here is the alleged chapter - Acts 29;

Acts of the Apostles 29:1 And Paul full of the blessings of Christ and abounding in the Spirit, departed out of Rome, determining to go to Spain, for he had for a long time purposed to go there and was minded also to go from there into Britain.

2/ For he had heard in Phoenicia that certain of the children of Israel, at the time of the Assyrian captivity, had escaped by sea to ‘the isles afar off’, as spoken by the prophet, [Jeremiah 31:10] and called by the Romans, Britain.

3/ As the Lord Commanded, the Gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles and to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Matthew 15:24

4/ And no man hindered Paul, for he testified boldly of Jesus before the Tribunes and among the people. He took with him certain of the brethren who were with him in Rome. They took ship at Ostium and having the winds fair, were brought safely into a port of Spain.

5/ Many people gathered from the towns and the hill country, for they had heard of the conversion of Paul and the many miracles he had done.

6/ Paul preached mightily in Spain and a great multitude believed and became Christian, for they perceived that he was an Apostle sent by God.

7/ Then Paul and his company departed out of Spain, finding a ship in Armorica sailing to Britain, they went on it and passing along the south coast arrived in a port called Raphinus. [Portsmouth]

8/ Now when it was noised abroad that the Apostle had landed, great multitudes of the inhabitants met him and they treated Paul courteously as he entered their town by the East gate and lodged in the home of a Hebrew, one of his own kin. Romans 16:13

9/ Then they travelled to the main town of Britain, [Londinium] Paul stood upon Mount Lud, [Ludgate hill, where St Pauls Cathedral now stands] and the crowds thronged in Broadway as he preached Christ to them and many believed the Word and the Testimony of Jesus.

10/ In the evening the holy Ghost fell upon Paul and he prophesied, saying: ‘Behold, in the last days the God of peace shall dwell in this place and the citizens shall be numbered, then in the seventh numbering of the people, their eyes shall be opened and the glory of their inheritance will shine forth before them. Nations shall come up to worship on the mount that testifies to the patience and longsuffering of the servants of the Lord’.
11/ And in the latter days, new tidings of the Gospel shall issue forth out of Jerusalem and the hearts of the people will rejoice. Behold fountains will be opened and there will be no more plagues.

12/ In those days there shall be wars and rumours of wars and a king shall rise up, his Sword will be the healing of the nations, his Peace-making shall abide and the glory of his kingdom a wonder to the world. [The Millennium Kingdom of Jesus]

13/ Then some of the Druids came to Paul privately and showed to Paul by their rites and ceremonies that they were descended from Israel, who had escaped from their bondage in the land of Egypt. The Apostle believed them and he gave them the kiss of peace.

13/ Paul stayed in his lodging for three months, preaching the Gospel continually and confirming those in the faith.

15/ After this Paul and his friends sailed from there to Atium in Gaul. [France]

16/ There Paul preached in the Roman garrisons and among the people, exhorting all to repent and to confess their sins.

17/ There came to him some of the Belgae, [North Europeans] to enquire of him about this new doctrine and about the man Jesus. Paul opened his heart to them and told them all that had befallen him and how Christ Jesus had come into the world to save sinners. They departed, pondering among themselves the things they had heard.

18/ After much preaching and toil, Paul and his labourers passed into Helvetia, [Switzerland] and came to Mount Pontius Pilate, where he who had condemned Jesus had dashed himself down headlong, so perishing miserably.

19/ Then a torrent gushed out of the mountain and washed his broken body into a lake.

20/ Paul stretched forth his hands over the water and prayed to the Lord: “O Lord God, give a sign that here Pontius Pilate, who condemned your only begotten Son, has gone down into the pit.”

21/ As Paul was speaking, there came a great earthquake and the sign of the Cross was formed upon the lake.

22/ A Voice came from heaven saying, “Even Pilate has escaped the wrath to come, because he washed his hands before the crowd at the blood shedding of Jesus.”

23/ When therefore, Paul and those who were with him, saw the earthquake and heard the Voice, they glorified God and were mightily strengthened in spirit.

24/ They journeyed on and came to Mt Julius, [the Julian Alps, now the Dolomites] where there stood two pillars; right and left, erected by Caesar Augustus,

25/ Then Paul filled with the Holy Spirit, stood between those two pillars and said, “Men and brethren, these stones you see here shall testify of my travels to here and I say with certainty that they will remain until the outpouring of the Spirit onto all nations and the way, [the Gospel] will not be hindered throughout all generations.”

26/ They went forth and come to Illyricum, [the Balkan area; Romans 15:19] where they prospered and had peace, as grace was found in all the churches.

i am a christian struggling with sin. i need an honest answer. why shouldn't i just kill myself? isn't that preferable to living in sins you can't defeat? i'd rather die and go to heaven than sin against my lord repeatedly day after day. i could lose my chance to repent if i stay alive. aren't i doing the right thing by killing myself, thereby preventing myself from sinning again and losing my chance to enter heaven? what's the point in staying here if all i do is sin every day? what use am i to god here?

Questions:


[Galatians 2:20; Philippians 3:10-11; Romans 6:22; 1 John 3:2-3]

Having some historical background here helps us in understanding what this is teaching us, plus we need to read all of the book of Galatians in order for us to fully comprehend what is being taught here correctly, for context is critical to correct biblical interpretation. And I would include Romans and Colossians in that, too, for they also deal with this subject quite a bit.

Okay, so under the Old Covenant that God had with his people Israel, who were then Jews only, they were given not only the 10 commandments of God, by Moses, but multiple liturgical and ceremonial and sacrificial and purification and dietary laws and restrictions that they were required to follow. You can probably read most of these in the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). And the Abrahamic covenant included the requirement for circumcision of males.

But when Jesus Christ (God the Son) was crucified on that cross to deliver us out of our slavery to sin, all those Old Covenant liturgical and ceremonial laws were done away with, but God’s moral laws remained intact. But the problem that Paul was dealing with was that of the Judaizers who were trying to convince the Christians that they had to add on to their salvation some of these Old Covenant laws, especially the law of circumcision. So Paul wrote to the Romans and to the Galatians and the Colossians (and others) to correct this wrong and to make it right. But this can be a confusing subject.

But then read what Paul wrote in Romans 8:3-8 ESV:


So, what is this saying? Going through the motions of obeying all those OC liturgical and ceremonial laws saved no one from their sins. But the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the Spirit and no longer according to the flesh. For what does it say? “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” So we are not free from God’s moral laws. We are not free to continue living in sin because we aren’t under the Old Covenant.

And faith in Jesus Christ, which is biblical faith, is not of ourselves. It is not of our own doing – not of the will of man nor of the flesh. So we don’t get to decide what this faith looks like. God does. His word does. And it teaches that Jesus is the author and the perfecter of that faith, and that faith is gifted to us by God, and it is persuaded of God, for no one can come to faith in Jesus Christ unless God first draws us to Christ. And God persuades us as to his righteousness and holiness and of our sinfulness and of our need to turn from our sins and to now follow Jesus in obedience to his commands.

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Peter 1:15; 1 Pet 2:24; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

And what does it mean to be justified by faith? It means to be made right with God, to be made righteous, to meet God’s judicial approval, to show what is right, to conform to a proper standard (what is upright), and it means to be cleared of all charges.

And all the noted Scriptures above teach what those standards are. For the faith that comes from God, which is not of ourselves, results in us being crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to God and to his righteousness. For if sin is what we are obeying, it leads to death, but if obedience to God is what we are obeying, its end is eternal life.

So, being crucified with Christ so that “I” (the flesh, self-life) no longer live, but Christ is now living his life in and through me, by his grace, can only come by us dying with Christ to our old lives of living in sin so that we now, by his grace and in his power, walk (in conduct, in practice) in obedience to his commands in holy living and no longer in deliberate and habitual sin. So just because we are not under the OC liturgical and ceremonial laws does not give us the freedom to keep living in sin and not in walks of obedience to our Lord and to his NC commands (see Galatians 5:16-21).

To Be Like Him

An Original Work / March 16, 2014
Based off Scripture

Crucified you are with Jesus.
To be like Him, oh, you’ll be,
Because He died at Calv’ry,
So from sin you’d be free.
Oh, what joy He brings into your life,
Giving life with Him endlessly.

Oh, what plans He has for your life.
Share the gospel faithfully.
Show the people He loves them.
Now His witness you’ll be.
Tell the world of sin about Jesus,
How He died for them on a tree.

Purifying hearts, He saves them,
Who believe on Christ, God’s Son.
Turning now from their idols,
New lives they have begun.
Jesus saves from sin; we’re forgiven.
Over sin, the vict’ry He won!

When He comes again to take us
To be with Him evermore,
There will be no more crying.
Gladness will be in store.
Heavens joys will now overtake us:
We’ll be with our Lord evermore.

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Questions:


From what I have read, “Cephas” was the apostle Peter. And if we might recall, the Lord previously spoke to Peter in a series of three visions in which the Lord was teaching him that “What God has made clean,” he was not to “call common.” And the lesson that he was to learn from that was that God shows no partiality, “but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” And this was to let Peter know that God had accepted the Gentiles who believed in Jesus and had granted them repentance that leads to life. (see Acts 10:1-48 and Acts 11:1-18)

But see here the requirements of God for those who are acceptable to God as his chosen people, his beloved. They are all who fear (honor, obey) the Lord and who are doing (obeying) what is right in the eyes of the Lord, and who are no longer walking in sin. All who still walk in sin do not know God.

[Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23; John 10:27-30; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Galatians 5:16-21; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]

So, he was to receive the Gentile believers in Jesus Christ as his brothers and sisters in the Lord and as no different from the Jews who had believed in Jesus. For God had now made one man out of the two through faith in Jesus Christ. Now there was no longer to be a separation between Jew and Gentile, but we were to be regarded as one body, one people, one nation under God, one chosen people in place of the two. So Gentile believers are fellow citizens with Jews who believe in Jesus. We are together one holy nation under God, not two separate people groups (Ephesians 2:11-22).

And Peter accepted that and he received the Gentile believers in Christ as equal to the Jewish believers in Christ. And he ministered to them and ate with them and became one with them in Christ Jesus. But then the Judaizers showed up. They were Jews of some amount of influence. And fearing their opinion or treatment of him, he then withdrew from eating with the Gentile Christians. And then other Jews followed his lead and did the same, and even Barnabas was led astray by the hypocrisy of all of them. And so Paul rebuked Peter to his face before them all, perhaps including the Judaizers.

So, why did Paul do that? Why did he potentially humiliate Peter in that way? Because Peter was setting a bad example for other Jewish believers in Christ to follow after, which was hypocritical. And all of them needed to be put on notice that this was wrong, and that they needed to correct the wrong. And why was it hypocritical? Because Peter behaved as though he believed one thing when he was with the Gentiles, but then he acted as though he believed the opposite of that when he was with the Judaizers. And it was wrong in how he treated the Gentile believers out of fear of the Judaizers.

So, what can we learn from this to apply to our lives today? We should not be hypocrites, right? We should not act one way with one group of people and another way with a different group of people. And we should not shun and reject one group of people we normally accept out of fear of the opinions and treatment of others who do not accept them. We should not be two-faced, bouncing back and forth in what we believe and in what we practice depending upon whom we are with and out of fear of the rejection and/or persecution of those we think might reject us.

And we should not do that to people who we say we care about and that we say are our friends and fellow Christians. We should not act one way when we are with them when certain other people are not around and then turn against them, and perhaps even speak evil against them when we are with a different group of people. We are to be who we are all the time no matter who we are with and never be ashamed of those we call our friends if others are around who do not regard those same people as their friends. We must be willing to be hated and rejected by some in order to love all the same.

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

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I believe that this law is necessary to try to prevent non-citizens to vote in Federal elections. I predict that Chuck Schumer and the Democratic majority in the US Senate will not even allow this bill to come up for a vote.

Consuming a single alcoholic drink per day can reduce a person’s life expectancy by two-and-a-half months, according to an expert on substance use.

Tim Stockwell, a scientist at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, told The Daily Mail that alcohol cuts down one's life expectancy.

Having a drink a day can lower life expectancy by two-and-a-half months, while having five drinks a day can decrease life expectancy by around two years, and two drinks per week can reduce it by as much as six days.

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“Alcohol is our favorite recreational drug,” Stockwell told the Daily Mail. “We use it for pleasure and relaxation, and the last thing we want to hear is that it causes any harm ... it’s comforting to think that drinking is good for our health, but unfortunately, it’s based on poor science.”

Stated harms of alcoholic consumption include damage to organs like the brain, liver and heart, damage to the nervous system, as well as contributing to heart disease and higher blood pressure.

Regarding studies that indicate non-drinkers suffer from various illnesses that drinkers can avoid, Stockwell told the Daily Mail that this was likely because the non-drinkers surveyed were former alcohol-consumers.

“These abstainers are often older people who gave up alcohol because their health was bad,” he explained. “Being able to drink is a sign you are still healthy, not the cause of being in good health. … There are lots of ways these studies give false results that are misinterpreted to mean alcohol is good for you.”

Continued below.

I added a few notations in red to my anytime rapture view chart, that enhances its clarity.

Couples struggling with infertility may feel excluded from family life and yearn for a child. Some fulfill this desire through adoption, although it can be a challenging process. Others opt for IVF or, in certain cases, choose artificial insemination with a donor. The yearning for a child can be intense, and while I cannot claim to fully grasp the emotions involved, the Catholic Church does express views on these alternatives.

Adoption is endorsed as it meets the longing for a child and is seen as an act of loving kindness towards the child.

However, IVF and artificial insemination are not sanctioned. The rationale for this is that such methods remove the process of conception and birth from divine providence. Additionally, concerns arise regarding the management and disposal of surplus fertilized eggs.

Africans before the arrival of Christianity were very religious people. When Christianity came, they embraced it with joy. Originally, Christianity promised personal salvation after death and everyone who came to Christ then was looking forward to life after death. The missionaries who brought the Gospel to Africa abandoned their families, the comfort of their homes, all the luxuries in their home countries and jeopardized their lives to reach Africans with the Gospel and love of Christ.

The first generation of Christians in Africa received the spirit of mission that was passed to them by the early missionaries. In 1857, the Rev. John Christopher Taylor — an Igbo slave who left Sierra Leone for Onitsha in Southeast Nigeria on a missionary journey made a clarion call to all African Christians to come together to ensure that the people of Nsugbe were saved: “Ye enlightened sons of Africa will you leave the 26,000 inhabitants of Nsugbe to perish for lack of bread of life? Ye sons of Africa in general whether born of Sierra Leone or West Indies here are tracks marked out for your usefulness.”

This call was made when the first missionaries arrived in Nigeria, when the biblical Gospel was first preached and believed. The Rev. John Christopher with other volunteers labored amid sufferings, persecutions, and frustrations to bring the people of Nsugbe to the saving knowledge of Christ. This trend of laboring to preach the whole Gospel lasted for centuries with the resultant discipleship of committed and dedicated Christians who denied themselves, carried their crosses, and followed Jesus.

Continued below.

According to Kostin, on July 10th, a video recording of the shooting of two Ukrainian defenders by Russian army servicemen, who had previously been taken prisoner, was widely circulated on the internet.

"The killing of prisoners of war is a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and qualifies as a serious international crime," the office added.

It is worth noting that this is not the first such incident. Last month, Ukrainian military intelligence identified Russians who executed four prisoners near Robotyne.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion by Russia, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have documented over 60 cases of executions of Ukrainian military personnel by Russian forces.

Almost all of the writers of the 2025 Plan were advisors of Trump, or close
associates to Trump.

That Trump would now try to disassociate himself with them, because of the
radical and nontraditional goals of the Plan, is ridiculous.

These writers of the Plan, are Trump's guys.

I went through a traumatic event 2 years ago I recovered so I thought fully but it takes time I prayed & God healed me but what I struggle with now is major health anxiety due to my trauma (near death experience) & wondering if I won’t live out Gods plan when I pray for clarity he tells me not to worry & im ok but for some reason I doubt it and then I feel bad & spiral it’s my PTSD causing health anxiety and me to lack faith because I’m scared what if I start living according to Gods plan & something happens to me I don’t know how to get out of this cycle

I was going to call this thread "the Elephant in the room" but since this is about the fix the Democrats find themselves in Donkey seems more appropriate.

Many Democrats want rid of Joe but find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Just a few of the problems.

1. Any intellectually honest person has to admit Joe has some kind of cognitive issue going on.
2. The Democrats party would love to replace Joe on the ticket but admitting he is not fit to run also means he is not fit to finish the term.
3. Many Democrats are not excited about the prospect of Harris as the top of the ticket, her numbers are worse than Joe's.
4. Harris has to be on the ticket to use the Millions in the Democrat war chest.
5. The clock is running out on finding a new candidate.
6. Many Democrats are admitting Joe as a zero chance of winning.
7. Even the liberal press is turning on Joe.
8. Pierre has the most difficult job in the world, gaslighting the public on the true situation.
9. Many Democrats are waking up to the insanity and supporting Trump. Who would have thought that could happen?
10. A Parkinsons Doctor visting the White House on several occasions is not a good look. Said Doctor was a Biden donor.
11. Who is actually running the country? Advisors, Obama, Jill, or Hunter, who knows.

The Democrats put themselves in this corner with no real escape plan and are imploding as a party.

My question to Democrats is this . How do you think the party can survive this mess they find themselves in.

Please don't try to fix this by saying anyone but Trump that will not work here I guarantee it.

Though governments have increasingly turned to artificial intelligence in the past year to spread messages more widely and credibly, the takedown is unusual because the Western intelligence agencies traced it to an officer of the Russian FSB intelligence force and to a former senior editor at state-controlled publication RT, formerly called Russia Today, as explained in court filings.

In a strikingly detailed joint advisory, agencies in the United States, Netherlands and Canada identified various software programs used to manage the network, including one named Meliorator, which created fictitious users known as “souls” in various countries.

“Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.”

X complied with a court order to furnish information on the accounts to the FBI, then deleted them.

But many other systems are operating already, and they will get better as they adapt for what is getting detected and what is getting by, Scott-Railton said. “This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “This is the drip of the iceberg.”

Using preferred pronouns is not a harmless concession, but the first step in a cascade of interventions that make someone a patient of "trans" medical procedures for life.

You may have wondered, “Should Catholics use pronouns?” It may be near impossible not to. The simple and obvious answer, grammatically speaking, is yes, of course we should use pronouns if we want our language to be clear and correspond to reality.

In the English language, we use pronouns all the time to keep sentences from becoming repetitive and clunky. Without possessive pronouns like “their,” we’d have to say things like “John and Mary took John and Mary’s books to John and Mary’s car.”

But should we use someone’s “preferred pronouns” that do not correspond to their sex? No.

The truth can be defined as when what we believe corresponds to reality. St. Augustine said you don’t need to defend the truth, it can defend itself. The truth — reality — is self-evident. Ideologies, on the other hand, are not true, and therefore need constant affirming and propping-up.

Continued below.

If you are not a fan, are there other introductory courses for enquires you would recommend?

And what about follow-up courses?

I've mentioned intellectual integrity as an essential value in
science.
It is of course an ideal, and as such is imperfectly realized.
And dishonest people in all walks of life will do the opposite.

I'm suggesting here that it's a value all would do well to strive
for, and presenting this article as food for thought.

If you decide to explore Christianity, you might visit a Catholic Church and inquire with the priest or another leader about embracing the faith.

• Pay attention to their recommended steps.
• Engage with the literature they propose, such as the Bible and any guide to Catholic teachings they provide.
• After a period of guided group study with a Catechist and fellow seekers, you'll be in a position to determine if Christianity resonates with you.
• Remember, you're free to withdraw at any point, and the Catechist and priest will support you throughout your exploration until they believe you're prepared for baptism and confirmation.

In summary, that is the beginning; the remainder of the path is a lifelong communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and a faith rich in love and virtue.

Why, do you think, when all of Jesus' words seemed to emphasise action and behaviour, is belief so supreme in Christianity?

(I am considering starting a Theology degree. Most colleges I have approached insist on belief, some don't. )

For clarity, I am willing to accept and submit to Nicene theology, but I cannot force myself to believe anything, and I think this is a crucial question - the nature of belief, it seems to me, is not a choice.

I saw this post from a pastor in his church, discussing an obvious problem that he's contending with. That one gender is not trusting the other in church, and the women have segregated themselves from the men there. That women in their church have already assumed the men there are lairs, cheaters, and objectifying them and have other odd ideas about them...and this attitude is keeping men from dating them. And at this point, their co-ed Bible studies and the young adults are only women now as a result.

He tried to have sermon discussing this issue, and all he gets from them is that "he's celibate and has never date" (the pastor hasn't). So that he has no credibility to discuss this issue.

He said he spoke with the men on this topic, and they tell him that they don't feel welcomed or safe there. He spoke with other team leads at the church, and it was discussed that some of the problem members should simply be removed from the church.

After reading this, I was really sad to hear this. Someone suggested the internet is giving these ladies these ideas about men, and thus...avoid the men even in their congregation.

Some mentioned that the Internet may have influenced their attitudes.

I have had women state that in their church, even if there are single men there...that they can't picture themselves dating any of them. They have this "brother/sister" mentality, and they keep it that way. It just would feel like they'd be dating a sibling if they ever attempted it.

So there's that. For whatever reason they may not find them attractive enough...and seek outside church among their secular peers.