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Hello everyone.

i came here before, about 5 or 6 years back. I was in poor shape, back then, dependent on drink and somewhat in despair had turned to the Bible. About a year passed and I'd long since forgotten about Bible studies, but was then able to quit on my own. Perhaps God made me suffer a bit longer, to drive home the message that it was an evil behaviour that had gotten a grip on me. I think if I'd managed to quit then, magically, I'd have been back on it by now. I've not touched any for over 4 years.

Anyway, I do remember I recieved lots of very kind, mature, thoughtful and supportive messages here. I recently decided to resume my Bible Studies and am in a much better place now to do that. I hope to make more of a contribution than I did last time! Outside of Bible Studies, I like camping, reading (mainly about history) and walking my dog.

Looking forward to chatting to you all,

Richard.

A ketogenic diet with exercise improve mitochondria and metabolic health

These results expand our understanding of human adaptation to a ketogenic diet combined with exercise. In conjunction with weight loss, we observed altered skeletal muscle mitochondrial function and efficiency, an effect that may contribute to the therapeutic use of ketogenic diets in various clinical conditions, especially those associated with insulin resistance...

Carbohydrate-restricted diets are a practical and sustainable lifestyle approach to manage conditions closely associated with insulin resistance, including metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes...

Given the involvement of both insulin resistance and mitochondrial impairment in a wide variety of degenerative diseases, if enhancement of mitochondrial function is a mechanism through which ketogenic diets improve insulin sensitivity, this would imply potential for major improvements in public health.


Hi I am struggling with faith

Hi all my first post. I was brought up a Catholic but lost my faith as a teen, I became an atheist perhaps agnostic. Many bad things happen to me in my life. of late I can only think that the devil or something is causing this. I have always thought that if there is a God he would be discovered by science. The more I learn about near death experince and cross referincing that with quantum mechanics I am convinced that there is a god. I have a good friend who ( A very good, happy genuine person with a great family) I will be meeting this weekend to discus Jesus. I have so many questions and I want very much to believe, wheere and how do I start?

Please help me understand

His Plans for Us

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” (Proverbs 19:21 ESV)

We as humans, no doubt, have many plans, things that we want to do and to accomplish in this life. Some of those may be good plans, and some may not be, and some may be neither good nor evil, but just are. But we who are followers of Christ should submit our plans to the Lord for his approval, for he may have other plans for our lives. But first and foremost we should seek his plans for our lives and then walk in them in his power and strength.

I can recall vividly this one night the Lord had me up in the middle of the might speaking to me. Now he didn’t speak to me audibly but by his Spirit in my spirit. The year was 2016. And the Lord, through his word, was asking me if I would leave it all to go with him wherever he sent me. He asked me if I would leave my children and my grandchildren and my house to go with him wherever he wanted me to go. And I said, “Yes, Lord, I will go.”

Well, later that morning, after I had slept for a little while, I saw that my husband, who was working his job from home, was intently staring at something on his computer. So I asked him what he was looking at. He was looking at apartments in our hometown of Akron, Ohio. I asked him why, and he told me he wanted to retire and he wanted to move back to Akron, from our home in South Carolina, to care for his aged parents.

Immediately I knew that this was what the Lord was preparing me for in the middle of the night. I still went and prayed about it, to confirm that this was the will of God, and then I said “Yes” to my husband that I would move back to Akron (500 miles away from our children and grandchildren). And so that is what we did. And I know that the Lord had a plan and a purpose for that move at that time, but it didn’t last very long (1 year, 3 months) before we knew we must leave, and that the Lord was sending us someplace else.

And then we lived in another state and in another city for two more years before the Lord sent us back home to be with our children and with our grandchildren once again. And that is where we have been the past 4 years and 4 months. And I am convinced that all of those moves were in the plans of the Lord for our lives, and that the people we met and spent time with and talked with were in our lives for that time and purpose. And the Lord had his purpose and timing for bringing us back home to our family.

And as I have talked about before, there was a time in our lives (in 2004) when my husband and I were training to be church planters under our church denomination at that time. But while I was at one of their prayer conferences the Lord spoke to me strongly through the speakers at that conference and through his word that he had something else for me to do which he then made clear to me several months later.

And that is what I have been doing the past nineteen years, which is to write down what I am learning through the Scriptures and through time spent with my Lord each day and then to post my personal times of devotion with the Lord on the internet for others to read. Now a lot of those early on were the Lord opening my eyes to seeing so many things I was totally unaware of as regards what is going on in the world and in these market-driven “churches.” And he was also helping me to unlearn things I learned wrongly.

Eventually these writings became more like Bible study lessons, and this is what God had planned for me, to be a missionary on the internet, basically, which is ministering to people throughout the world instead of just to our small congregation we had. But this was not in my plans. I would never have thought of doing anything like this. And then he added on writing songs and then poetry and then doing video talks and Christian memes. None of this was in my plans or thought of on my part.

And these are just two of my personal examples from my life in order to illustrate how this passage of Scripture might unfold in our lives when we are sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit and when we are willing to follow our Lord’s plans and purpose for our lives even if it goes against or changes and alters the plans that we had for our lives, even if they are good plans. For we may have good plans, but they may not be God’s plans for our lives, at least not for that time and purpose.

So, for me, the central message here is that, even if our own plans are good plans, they may not be God’s plans for our lives. And so we all need to be sensitive to hearing the Spirit speaking to us through his word and we need to let him direct our paths to where he wants us to go and to what he wants us to do. And that is no guarantee that everything is going to turn out great or that we won’t have definite challenges and even persecutions.

For, when we moved back to Akron, five months after we got there we were infested with bed bugs, something I never thought possible for us, for we are very clean people, and I falsely assumed bed bugs only came to people who were not clean. I was wrong! They were in the apartment building, and they went from apartment to apartment. And they were in my hair and I broke out in horribly large sores all over my body which burned and itched like crazy. But we were free of them in about six weeks.

And that was just one of the challenges that we faced there. For there were others, and then the Lord led us to leave and to go someplace else. But wherever we went God had a plan and a purpose for it all, as God has had a plan and a purpose for this calling on my life. And it has not been without “bumps in the road,” either, nor do I expect that there won’t be even more or worse “bumps” yet to come. For Jesus promised us a life of trials and tribulations and persecutions and sufferings for following him.

But the good news in all of this is that God is working his plans and his purpose through it all, and he will get us through these “bumps,” whatever they may be, when our trust is in him, and when we are walking in his ways, according to his commands. We have to just keep in step with him each step of the way in listening to what he directs us to do and in where he intends for us to go next, and his will and purpose will be accomplished through it all. So we need to be those who are making his plans our plans. Amen!

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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Cleaner Gut leads to better connection/communication with God?

Cleaner Gut leads to better connection/communication with God?

i.e. Those are on high BP or diabetes, simple food/drinks like bread, coke or high carbs food will immediately have dizziness after 30 minutes of consumption? With dizziness or not dizziness to have better communication/connection?

Some diabetic patient suspects is black magic work from somebody that cause of the dizziness but what i see is just a sugar spike up after consumption of a big mac meal.

bf17213a-c692-4106-9fc8-d692a9181d36.jpg


Gut and Christianity Connection
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Thoughts?

1 Kings 3:15-4:1 and Matt 16-17

1 KINGS 3:15-4:1

In this scripture portion, we see Solomon lifting up “burnt offerings” and “peace-offerings” after also having “dreams” In his dream YHVH asked him what he wished for, “For wisdom, an understanding heart to judge these people” and YHVH thus granted him what he wished for.

This should be a guide for us when we wish for things. I think the best wish would be knowledge of the Torah and wisdom to put into action what we learn from God's Holy Writ. As we see. God gave Solomon that and more. I think that God already knows what we wish for. There are a lot of things I guess we could say that "we want". However, do we really need them? Sometimes, God will give us what we WANT, yet, when we get our wish answered, we don't WANT what we GET. It proves to be a headache more than a blessing.

God listens to all prayers, and He answers all prayer requests. There are needs and wants. He always provides for our needs, and at times, even our "wants" Yet be careful, we might "want" the wrong things. The things that are not convenient to us. If God asked you "What do you want me to do for you or give to you?" How would you answer? Many look at God as the "Upstairs Genie in the magic lamp" who will grant your every wish and desire. Nothing doing! He is our Heavenly Father who knows EXACTLY" what we need, and what we want. To fulfill His plan for our lives here on earth, He will do accordingly. Solomon asked for the right thing; "wisdom to govern the people of Israel". Maybe we could ask for "wisdom to put into action what we learn from God's Holy Writ, and wisdom to serve those around us. How about, "Keep me from harm's way and protect my mind from carnal desires. (I guess the list could go on)

” Burnt offerings” symbolize our sinful nature, and the “peace offerings” speak of our happiness and joy because of our salvation experience. Today these offerings are “offered up” in “prayer and thanksgiving” The prayers of confession of sin are always heard, and so are the prayers of praise and thanksgiving, because we know we have been forgiven.

MATT 16: 1-17:27

The “leaven” of the Pharisees is non-the less “unbelief” as Yeshua said, this reminds us of when He was visiting the temple during this same time of Hanukkah, and the Jews came around him and said; “tell us plainly if you are the Messiah or not!” yet He rebukes them saying “I have already told you and you do not believe!” He had already given signs through his miracles of healing, and raising of the dead, how much more proof did they need? What does “leaven” do in bread? It “puffs up the bread” and that is what pride does, it “puffs up”the person, and sometimes, stubborn pride brings on unbelief.

Kefa exhibits his faith when he says; “You are Messiah, the Living God” Faith is “believing what we cannot see” Yet Kefa sees Yeshua and sees the miracles, and so he believes, yet Yeshua says later on after the resurrection, “You have believed because you see, blessed are those who do not see yet BELIEVE!

1 CORINTHIANS 2:1-5

Rav Shaul (The Apostle Paul) is speaking to the local believers of Corinth. This was one of the churches that this Rav started. I was in Corinth in 1999. He is stating very simply that he witnessed about Yeshua very plainly, without fancy words, without an intense religious vocabulary, just simply, “Yeshua died on the cross, was crucified for our transgressions, for our sins He gave up his life.”

When we tell others about Yeshua, we should do it not by force but by invitation. Not in a condemning way, not using scare “fires of hell” tactics, just a message of love and sacrifice. Thus we can allow the Spirit of God to work on the person, It is the Holy Spirit who opens the hearts of unbelievers so that they may become believers. Not our work, but HIS work.

Have a blessed week. (Shavua Tov)

Ben Avraham

Judgement

The Bible tells us to be careful in how we deal with others, to not bear false witness, we'll be judged as we judge, etc. Out of curiousity a hypothetical question. Would it be ethical then to follow these teachings and have, say those who report others because they are losing a debate or they are offended by another's right to free thinking.. in having them share the same punishment that they want meted out over pettiness?

AI learnt "something" from the Physical & Life Sciences Forum.

In April of this year I asked Bing this applied mathematics question.

Explain how the Schwarzschild metric when expressed in Droste-Hilbert coordinates results in the speed of light being anisotropic.
Calculate the difference Δv between the radial and peripheral velocity of light at the Earth’s surface.

It didn't know the answer.
I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find any information on how the Schwarzschild metric when expressed in Droste-Hilbert coordinates results in the speed of light being anisotropic or the difference between the radial and peripheral velocity of light at the Earth’s surface. Would you like me to search for something else?
I asked the same question today to Bing with GPT-4 Copilot which gave this answer.

The Schwarzschild metric, which describes the gravitational field outside a spherical mass, can be expressed in Droste-Hilbert coordinates as³:

ds² = c² (1-2MG/ c²r)dt² - dr²/ (1-2MG/c²r) -r² (dθ²+sin²θdϕ²)

In this metric, the speed of light appears to be anisotropic, meaning it varies depending on the direction of propagation. This is a consequence of the curvature of spacetime caused by the mass.
The radial and peripheral velocities of light refer to the velocities of light moving radially (directly towards or away from the mass) and peripherally (tangentially to the mass), respectively. The difference between these velocities, Δv, is a result of the gravitational influence of the mass.
However, calculating the exact difference Δv at the Earth's surface requires a detailed understanding of the Earth's gravitational field and the effects of general relativity. It's a complex calculation that typically requires numerical methods and is beyond the scope of this conversation.

For a rough estimate, we can consider that the Earth's effect on the radial velocity of light is very small, on the order of 0.1 m/s over a period of 1 year⁵. The peripheral velocity of light at the Earth's surface is essentially the speed of light, c. Therefore, the difference Δv would be extremely small and close to zero. For a precise calculation, I would recommend consulting a textbook on general relativity or seeking the help of a physicist.


Source: Conversation with Bing, 12/19/2023

(1) An experiment with Bing chatbot. | Christian Forums. https://www.christianforums.com/threads/an-experiment-with-bing-chatbot.8273104/.
(2) Doppler spectroscopy - Wikipedia. Doppler spectroscopy - Wikipedia.
(3) Schwarzschild metric in terms of a falling observer's coordinates. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/714074/schwarzschild-metric-in-terms-of-a-falling-observers-coordinates.
(4) Schwarzschild metric - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_metric.
(5) MathPages. https://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath697/kmath697.htm.
(6) The fundamental definition of ‘radial velocity’ - arXiv.org. https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0302522.pdf.
(7) A connection between radial velocity and distance. http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys240/lectures/expand/expand.html.
(8) Proper Motions and Radial Velocities - CliffsNotes. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/astronomy/observational-properties-of-stars/proper-motions-and-radial-velocities.
(9) Radial velocity - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_Velocity.
Bing provided a host of references including the CF thread in the first reference.
Despite the detailed response it didn't answer the question, you do not need numerical methods nor seek the help of a physicist.
This is standard applied mathematics question, the answer was provided in the first reference which AI clearly doesn't understand at this stage.
I might ask the question again in a years time.

If you think Obama's movie is bad, take a look at this:

Wow. :oops: I mean, just......wow.

the movie said:
"What's the most dangerous animal on the planet?" one of the key characters in the trailer asked the main protagonist.

"Sharks?" the as-of-yet unnamed main character asked.

"White people," the mentor figure stated. "When they feel uncomfortable. White people feeling uncomfortable precedes a lot of bad stuff for us.

"That's why we fight white discomfort everyday."

  • Informative
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Am I wrong for this as a Christian?

I asked my boss to put me on a certain time shift I told him my performance would be better at this shift so he gives me the shift and my performance starts off good and then the week later my performance on the shift becomes very inconsistent and worst than what it was on the original shift. My boss called me out on my performance and said as a Christian man your not being a man of your word. Is he wrong for this ? Or am I wrong

Fetterman says he’ll work to block ‘absolutely outrageous’ US Steel sale


Thought this would be an interesting one to discuss.

Recently, there was the other thread going around where the town in Michigan didn't feel comfortable with Chinese subsidiaries coming in and buying up land and facilities for the purposes of getting a foothold in certain US sectors. Some were implying that the attitudes of the towns people were xenophobic.

What are the similarities and differences between that situation and this one?
  • Winner
Reactions: Hazelelponi

Everyone expected a recession. The Fed and White House found a way out.


As 2023 winds to a close, Powell and his colleagues are far from declaring victory on inflation. They routinely caution that their actions could be thwarted by any number of threats, from war in the Middle East to China’s economic slowdown. Americans are upset about the high costs of rent, groceries and other basics, which aren’t going back to pre-pandemic levels. The White House, too, is quick to emphasize that much work remains.

Yet the economy is ending the year in a remarkably better position than almost anyone on Wall Street or in mainstream economics had predicted, having bested just about all expectations time and again. Inflation has dropped to 3.1 percent, from a peak of 9.1. The unemployment rate is at a hot 3.7 percent, and the economy grew at a healthy clip in the most recent quarter. The Fed is probably finished hiking interest rates and is eyeing cuts next year. Financial markets are at or near all-time highs, and the S&P 500 could hit a new record this week, too.

That strength and stability — defying even many of the most optimistic predictions — represents a remarkable development after seemingly endless economic crises that started with the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and continued through an inflation spike that the bank and the White House were slow to recognize.

Pope Francis Allows Clergy to Bless Same-Sex Couples

What is going on in the Catholic church? Never thought I would have seen this headline in my lifetime.

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