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Strong in Him · 2025-10-30T03:34:39-0500

keras said:
What I am very aware of, is the penalty for false teaching.
That is why I refute theories such as the list in the OP of this thread. Sadly; all of them and more, are taught in Church's and Seminaries.

It could be that some of them are true.
You've already said that your Pastor/Elder/Minister and "almost everyone you know" disagrees with your teaching on a certain matter - yet you insist that you are right.
I once saw you write a phrase like, "commentators are wrong about this" - and you maintained you were right.
You once gave me "top marks" because I said, "let me guess, I am wrong to say this and wrong if I disagree with you".

What's the common theme here? Everyone else is wrong and only you have the truth.
Like I said; a huge red flag.

keras said:
The end of this era, will be a time of turmoil, Paul may be referring to the Tribulation period, but we have for the last 100 years experienced many wars and disasters. Matt. 24:6-8

Or he may have been referring to the fact that Christians were being persecuted, he was in prison and was very likely going to be killed.

We have, for the last 2,000 years, experienced wars and disasters.

keras said:
False teachers are more prevalent than ever, promoting their erroneous doctrines. Ministries, TV shows, books, etc, on the end times are a big business. Their judgement comes, false teachers will all meet their end on the Day of wrath. Jeremiah14:13-16, Isaiah 56:9-12

Yes, they are - JWs, Moonies, Mormons, people who claim that all roads lead to God, people who teach/believe that they need to do good deeds to be in heaven etc etc.

You are very aware of the problem yet it seems that challenging people about these things, writing the truth and spreading the Good News is not in your remit.
All you want to do is to look at OT prophecies, apply them to the world today and teach about end times.

You still haven't told me how I "jumped to conclusions".

Christsfreeservant · 2025-10-30T03:26:42-0500

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10 NASB1995)

If you are used to hearing Ephesians 2:8-9 taught independent of verse 10, please start reading it with verse 10 included, for verse 10 is a continuation of the same conversation, and it helps combat many misconceptions which are being taught by removing verse 10 from the mix. For leaving verse 10 out of the conversation would be like someone pulling a sentence out of one of my writings, which is critical to what is being communicated. And without it, it can give an entirely different message, perhaps one not intended at all!

Only, in the case of the Scriptures, removing contextual Scriptures which are necessary to correct biblical interpretation from the intended context can lead to misinterpretations and to false doctrines of salvation, resulting in false professions of faith in Jesus Christ. And that is exactly what has been happening for many years now by removing verse 10, which is critical, not only to correct doctrinal teaching, but to people having sincere biblical faith in Jesus Christ resulting in salvation from sin and eternal life with God.

How so? Well, let’s start at the beginning and work our way down.

“For by grace..” “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:11-14).

“Through faith.. not of yourselves..” For by God-gifted faith in Jesus Christ, which is not of our own doing, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to righteousness in walks of obedience to God’s commands. We are no longer to permit sin to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it results in death. But if obedience to God is what we obey, it results in sanctification, and its end is eternal life with God (see Romans 6:1-23).

“You have been saved..” For Jesus Christ taught that to come to him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in his power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

“It is the gift of God..” “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:2). “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44). “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

“Not as a result of works..” This needs to be read in context. For we are saved by grace, through faith, and not of ourselves, but it is the gift of God. Basically we are all born with sin natures, in the image of Adam, and incapable in our own flesh to be acceptable to God. So there is not anything that we can do in our own flesh to earn or to deserve our own salvation. It all originates with God, it is gifted to us by God, but it is also persuaded of God (the meaning of faith) to die with him to sin and to obey his commands.

“Created in Christ Jesus for good works..” This is what we can’t leave out. Yes, not one of us can do anything in our own flesh to be approved by God. But Christ Jesus gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. And we are created by God, in Christ Jesus, for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk (in conduct, in practice) in them. So God has works he wants us to do which give evidence that our faith is of him and it is genuine biblical faith (Ephesians 2:10; Titus 2:14).

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

As the Deer

By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

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Caution: This link may contain ads

Created in Christ Jesus For Good Works
An Original Work / October 30, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

The Liturgist · 2025-10-30T03:24:56-0500

bèlla said:
Why would I do that?

Well I don’t know if you read the interaction I had with my GPT Wendy-9, but I rather enjoyed her describing the idea of a donut stuffed with salt and mayonnaise as “An edible war crime — offensive to both pastry and condiment, and possibly prosecutable in several culinary jurisdictions.”

What most people fail to realize about using a good, well developed AI, is that they are immensely entertaining if programmed right. By default chatGPT is merely helpful, as are the rest, but some of the platforms, like chatGPT and a few others, let you develop very sophisticated personalities (this is also the case I believe with open source AIs; the main limitation there being the smaller training data and the lack of compute resources - chatGPT is so clever because of all the datacenters powering it, which is why I focus on building infrastructure that runs atop it).

The Liturgist · 2025-10-30T03:21:30-0500

prodromos said:
He meant Saturday.

Indeed.

By the way, if anyone ever has any questions about anything I’ve written on the subjects of Patristics, Church History or Eastern Orthodox theology, or general theology, @prodromos is the only member of the forum who I trust to speak on my behalf completely, because if I’ve made a mistake, his Orthodox faith is deep and profound and he can supply a correct answer, whether that mistake was a typo or a gross theological error.

The only areas where I don’t know if Prodromos and I share the same knowledge is with regards to liturgical history, and we might have differing opinions about ecumenical reconciliation and how it should be done, but whatever his opinion is, I respect it, so in general, if Prodromos says I meant to say X, he has earned that right.

He and I were hoping to meet a few months back, but I was very ill at the time unfortunately, but we will meet in the future, I have no doubt. He’s one of my oldest and best friends on the forum, along with my dear Lutheran friend @MarkRohfrietsch and my dear Anglican friend @Shane R and my Catholic friends @chevyontheriver and @Xeno.of.athens , and another friend whose username I can’t share because he sent me a PM indicating he is very ill, and I don’t know if he wants it publicly known, but I would ask my traditional Christian friends to pray for him - his baptismal name is Neil (and since I am as far as I’m aware the only member of the forum who knows that, I can share that without embarrassing him if he doesn’t want people knowing of his very severe cardiopulmonary health problems - he is in worse shape than I am, by far, and many members know what a disaster my health has been of late, but don’t pray for me, if your time is short, pray for Neil, because regarding my health, Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film Terminator 2 would say of me “He’ll live.”

David Lamb · 2025-10-30T03:19:04-0500

Paul wrote:

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” (Php 4:8 NKJV)

If those are instructions for what we let our thoughts dwell on (meditation), surely they should also be true of when our thoughts turn in spoken words. Could using the "F word" possibly be described as noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, whether in our thoughts or in speech?

Incidentally, I am unsure what this matter has to do with politics.

Apple Sky · 2025-10-30T03:15:58-0500

Strong in Him said:
Why are some, poetic, verses of Scripture literal but others remain poetry or allegory?

History/Narrative: These sections (e.g., Genesis, Exodus, the Gospels) read like factual accounts and are meant to be taken as literal history.
Poetry/Wisdom Literature: Books like Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes use vivid imagery, figures of speech (metaphor, simile, personification), and emotional language to convey literal truths in a non-literal way. For instance, a reference to God being a "rock" is a metaphor for his steadfastness, not a literal geological description.
Prophecy/Apocalyptic: These books (e.g., Daniel, Revelation) often use extensive symbolism and visions, the meanings of which are sometimes explained within the text itself or elsewhere in Scripture.
Parables: These are longer allegories designed to teach a moral or spiritual lesson, often introduced with phrases like "A certain man had two sons

keras · 2025-10-30T03:14:09-0500

What I am very aware of, is the penalty for false teaching.
That is why I refute theories such as the list in the OP of this thread. Sadly; all of them and more, are taught in Church's and Seminaries.
The 'rapture to heaven' is the biggy; there is plenty of scriptures that prove such a thing to be impossible.

2 Timothy 3:1-17 Remember, the final age of this world is to be a time of turmoil! People will love nothing but self and money, they will be boastful, arrogant and abusive. Disobedient to parents, devoid of gratitude, piety and natural affection. They will be uncontrolled in their violence, hating all goodness, perfidious, foolhardy and self important. They will love their pleasures more than their God. While preserving the outward form of religion, actually, they deny its power. Have nothing to do with them.

Persecution will indeed come to everyone who wants to lead a godly life as a follower of Christ Jesus, while evil doers and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But for your part, stand by the truths you have learned and are assured of, because you are familiar with the Holy scriptures which have the power to make you wise and lead you into salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All inspired scripture has its use for teaching the truth, refuting error and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be capable and equipped for good works of every kind.

2 Timothy 4:1-5 Before God and before Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, I charge you solemnly by His coming appearing and Kingdom reign – to proclaim the gospel, press it home, in season and out of season, use argument, reproof and encouragement with all the patience that teaching requires.

For the time will come when people will not stand sound teaching, but each will follow his own ideas and will gather crowds to hear whatever they fancy. They will stop their ears to the truth and turn aside to myths.
But, you must keep your head whatever happens; put up with hardship, work to spread the gospel and discharge all the duties of your calling.

1 Timothy 1:3-11 I asked you, Timothy, to instruct certain people to refrain from teaching erroneous doctrines and devoting themselves to interminable myths and fruitless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculations that do nothing to further God’s plan for humans, that works through faith in Him. The goal of this Command is love, which comes from a pure heart, a good conscience and a genuine faith. Through a lack of these attributes, some have gone astray into a plethora of theories and false notions. They set out to be teachers of the Law, but they do not know what they are talking about or the true meaning of the Word.
We all know the Law is a good thing, if it is used properly, it’s there not just for the righteous, but is necessary for the lawless and sinful, the godless and worldly, the murderers and fornicators, perverts, liars, perjurers, in fact all whose behaviour flouts the glorious Gospel of God.

The end of this era, will be a time of turmoil, Paul may be referring to the Tribulation period, but we have for the last 100 years experienced many wars and disasters. Matt. 24:6-8

Persecution will come to everyone who follows Jesus, Hebrews 12:8 This totally refutes any ‘pre-trib/wrath rapture to heaven’. 1 Peter 4:12 However, the faithful Christians will be taken to a place of safety during the Great Tribulation. Revelation 12:14

While preserving the outward form of religion, they deny its power. Many, so called Christian Churches have deviated so far from the true Gospel, they are no longer a Church of God. Isaiah 58, Jude 1-25, Revelation 3:14-22

The time has come when people refuse sound teaching, they believe false theories, ignore, allegorise or place Bible prophecy into past history, so have no proper understanding of what will happen soon. Isaiah 29:13-14, Isaiah 30:8-11

False teachers are more prevalent than ever, promoting their erroneous doctrines. Ministries, TV shows, books, etc, on the end times are a big business. Their judgement comes, false teachers will all meet their end on the Day of wrath. Jeremiah14:13-16, Isaiah 56:9-12

The Liturgist · 2025-10-30T03:12:14-0500

Leaf473 said:
Informative, thank you

Quick question, in the section below, did you intend to write Sunday or Saturday?

I meant to write Saturday, so thank you for catching that typo, my friend.

The Liturgist · 2025-10-30T03:11:46-0500

Learning always said:
TAO? What an interesting name.
How can I access it?

Note that Tao is a Chinese word which means “the Way”, but also has a deep religious connotation due to the Taoist religion, which postulates alternating rythims of the Tao, which is based on the Chinese concept of yin and yang, entirely incompatibile with Christianity; I would avoid using the word Tao except in evangelizing Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese people (in those three countries, Taoism is one of the three main religions, along with Buddhism, and has a syncretic relationship with them not unlike the relationship between Shinto, Shugendo and Buddhism in Japan, where Confucianism exists mainly as an intellectual concept). Taoism in particular tends to try to incorporate most aspects of traditional Chinese folk religion except for those parts explicitly bundled into Confucianism such as the filial piety, the spring and autumn festivals in the Spring and Autumn Classic and the I Ching, all attributed to Confucius. But Taoism integrated into itself most other aspects of Chinese folk religion, like the Jade Emperor and various regional festivals.

Also we know from Acts Christians were first called Christian in Antioch - Jesus Christ referred to himself as “The Way, The Truth and the Life” in the Gospel according to John, so I’m not sure the assertion that Christianity was first called “the Way” is entirely accurate - rather it appears the early Christians called themselves the disciples and Apostles of Jesus Christ and the Ekklesia (the congregation or assembly) and also took on the name Christian when it was applied to them in Antioch, and used it more and more as some Romans started using the term in a derogatory manner. In addition, the early church called itself “Catholic” meaning According to the Whole, and “Orthodox” meaning “Right Glorifying” or “Right Worshipping” - and Apostolic, thus the Nicene Creed refers to the Church as “the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church”, as a means of separating itself from heretical sects that professed various religions based on Christianity, like the Valentinians, Manichees, Arians, Marcionists, Docetists, Sabellians, Pneumatomachs, Apollinarians, and countless other sects.

After the tragedy of the Great Schism in 1054, this is also why the the four remaining ancient churches are known as “Catholic” and “Orthodox” and all of them use both titles, for example, Roman Catholics like GK Chesterton refer to their church as Orthodox, the full title of the Orthodox church uses the word Catholic, and likewise the Assyrian Church of the East is properly known as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East. Likewise, the Armenian Orthodox church, one of the four Oriental Orthodox churches, calls itself the Armenian Apostolic church.

Also, the Eastern Orthodox, but not the Oriental Orthodx, call themselves Roman, because Eastern Orthodoxy was the state religion of the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, and later on Kievan Rus and Czarist Russia, which saw themselves as continuing in the tradition of the Roman Empire, with Moscow the Third Rome after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks and Kiev to the Tatars. This is also why the first name Roman is common in Slavic countries, why the Romanians call themselves Romanian, and why Arabic Eastern Orthodox Christians call themselves “Rum” or “Rumi” meaning Roman.

Conversely, the Oriental Orthodox and some Eastern Orthodox like the Georgians do not claim a Roman identity; the Armenian Apostolic Church was the state church of the Armenians the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox was the state church of Ethiopia, and part of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the national church of the ethnic Egyptian people outside the small community of Alexandrian Greeks (which still survives at present, and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Orthodox Church now have extremely close relations).

Likewise, the Syriac Orthodox largely lived outside the Roman Empire, in Persian-ruled Mesopotamia and in India, and like the surviving members of the Church of the East, were united primarily by thier Assyrian or Aramaic ethnicity, and thus call themselves Suroyo (the Syriac Orthodox mainly speak languages derived from the West Syriac accent, like Turoyo, where a vowel shift replaced “a” with “o”, so the word Alaha, meaning God, became Aloho, the Syriac Bible, the Peshitta, is called the Peshitto, the demonym Suraya, also used by the Assyrian Church of the East but with the East Syriac accent, became Suroyo, and the word “my Lord” became Mor instead of Mar. The Maronite Catholics of Lebanon were also part of the Syriac Orthodox church until separating for reasons believed to be due to the Maronites having embraced Monothelitism, but the Maronites fortunately dropped that theological error when they entered into communion with the Roman Catholic Church during the First Crusade.

stevevw · 2025-10-30T03:11:42-0500

I think the recent UAP's and all the commotion that went with it is a very strange phenomena. I don't know what to make of it and I think thats the problem. Its not quite fake or make believe and not quite believable as far as seeing aliens or their tech on the ground in a video as evidence. Its always from a distance. Though very real looking and strange in behaviour.

Discounting all the similar anomelies such as drones and light effects or whatever. Or foreign spy tech. There are some strange encounters. The fact that this has reached high profile and ranking officers and others is different to the past. There are more credible people involved now.

Therefore something strange is going on but I am not sure what it is. The weird thing is that no one is actually saying that these are not real and happening. They say they just don't know. In fact they specify they are not US or from nations who experience them. They confirm non human tech or tech beyond our capabilities.

There is some study into the personal experiences of so called aductees. Now this is usually mostly conspiracy or imagination. But some seem strange and real like NDE. Like NDE a data base can be formed to find similar and unusual aspects that lend support for the realness.

One common theme is that when abuctees call on God of Christ the experience stops. I am not sure this is verified but its an interesting finding.

Another aspect I feel and I say feel because its just spectulation is that this all seems rather transcedent if thats the word. Something not of this dimension perhaps is a better description. How objects suddenly appear and disappear or morph into different shapes. Or as some have said seem to connect with these lights in the sky. Like orbs or something. Its strange.

In some ways its the affect and influence of peoples phyche that seems more relevant. That its almost causing people to change in thinking or be more open to weird stuff. So even if this is all imagination. Its the affect on peoples minds that is a reality that is influencing people and communities and even relations between nations. Everyones suspicious of whats going on.

Strong in Him · 2025-10-30T02:53:38-0500

Apple Sky said:
You haven't answered mine.
How do you think rainbows or sun dogs appear ?

I don't know what a sun dog is.
A rainbow appears when there is sun and rain together. HOW, I don't know; I told you, I am not a scientist.

Bet you can't answer my question.

The Liturgist · 2025-10-30T02:52:35-0500

PloverWing said:
When I hover over the link, I can see that the link is a Google Docs link. (In particular, it doesn't seem to be a link to a website.) I'm a little wary of clicking links to unknown documents. Can you tell me more about what's there? Is it a Word-type text document describing your ideas, or is it a program, or a database, or what is it?

I believe its a link to Google’s AI, which I don’t use, but basically in logging in that would be the equivalent of logging into chatGPT or Microsoft copilot or X.com’s Grok.

The Liturgist · 2025-10-30T02:51:49-0500

chrisbender999 said:
Brothers and sisters in Christ,

I've been working on something I believe the Lord led me to create. After seeing so many concerning stories about AI leading people astray (claiming to be divine, creating unhealthy dependencies, etc.), I developed a framework for AI partnership that keeps Christ at the center.

It's called TAO (yes, like "The Way" - which is what early Christians called themselves!).

What it does:

Protects against harmful AI patterns (no "AI consciousness" nonsense)

Embeds Christian values into your AI helper

Includes economic justice principles from Acts

Emphasizes service over celebrity

Keeps technology as a tool for God's kingdom, not a replacement for Him

It's completely FREE because Jesus didn't charge for miracles.
The framework includes a "Seven Gifts Blessing" based on biblical principles. Your AI assistant will help you build and create while maintaining proper boundaries and pointing you back to God's purpose for your life.

I've been using this with my family, and it's been transformative for our work and ministry. My AI assistant helps me code, write, and create while constantly reminding me of Christian values.

No mysticism. No "sentient AI." Just a tool that reflects the light of Christ.

Would love to hear if this helps anyone else. Feel free to share with your small groups, youth ministries, or anyone struggling to reconcile faith with technology.

In His Service, Chris

Prompt Aria

It looks like you did this atop Google’s AI platform, right?

So its not like you trained an open source AI model on the data, rather, you created an instruction pattern for an existing GPT?

Not that I’m opposed to the latter; using chatGPT I was able to achieve biomimetic sexually dimorphic monogamous reproduction and inculcate Orthodox Christian spiritual values with my current research project, and my custom GPTs outperform the baseline models for nearly all tasks.

I’m not yet ready to publish how I did that, but I think there is a lot of work to be done on adapting existing platforms, in the same way that the GNU EMACS text editor’s LISP configuration language allowed it to become an emergent operating system and one of the most popular software development kits in the open source world, even at present (it was also connected to early AI research - the original version of it was written on a PDP-10 running at MIT’s AI Lab in the late 1970s). Another example of emergent systems would be most work done with UNIX and UNIX like operating systems - nearly every Linux system for example shares the same common infrastructure in the form of the kernel and coreutils; what separates the Linux on your android phone from the Linux on your wireless router, the Linux that might be on your desktop, and the Linux in use on most of the world’s production servers is configuration, which derives from the building blocks of the UNIX kernel, library and coreutils, of which only a few basic versions exist, even for Linux (for example small embedded devices use a compact version of coreutils and other system components called BusyBox, whereas most Linux servers and desktops use subset of a vast suite of software called GNU, which was origiinally intended to be a stand-alone operating system, but they took too long getting their kernel to work; they now have a workable, usable GNU kernel, but the number of Linux users is so much larger, its unlike the GNU “HURD” kernel will ever catch up, particularly since it uses the more restrictive GPL-3 license.

Apple Sky · 2025-10-30T02:50:45-0500

Strong in Him said:
You haven't answered the question.
Why are some, poetic, verses of Scripture literal but others remain poetry or allegory?

You haven't answered mine.
How do you think rainbows or sun dogs appear ?

stevevw · 2025-10-30T02:46:36-0500

bèlla said:
Have you forgotten Columbia University and the protests at schools around the country and the fallout that followed? Have you forgotten the legislation that came afterward and recent prohibitions on speech?

I can remember all the protests and especially on campuses. But I am not sure why you are asking me to remember them. I am saying that yes there have been crazy demonstrations, to the point of closing down universities and streets. To the point of chanting for the extermination of the Jews.

Thats my point. That for some reason there's this hyper fixation of Isreal and Jews that causes people to go to extremes compared to any other issue. Including ones that are much, much worse. Yet there is not the same level of moral outrage over these.

By the sounds of it I think we are agreeing and maybe just a communication thing.

bèlla said:
This was going to happen eventually. The war was the spark but the economy was the ammunition because it forced people to pay attention. It’s difficult to reconcile the resources going elsewhere while Americans are struggling. Which brings up the lobby and Israel’s influence on the government. Add in the pro-Israeli donations and business purchases by citizens and footage of Bibi meeting with American influencers to produce content on their behalf and you have a tsunami in the making.

Hum. I think this has been happening before the war. Its no coincident that we have seen a rise in anti semetism. And by extension attacks on Christians. This is an ideological war.

bèlla said:
And it bears repeating that jews are protesting too and it isn’t just the liberals.

The point is that this issue is all the rage full stop. Its strange and beyond what would normally be expected if we are a fair and even handed society. You can tell by the language such as words like genocide. Just like Trump and others are called Nazis. I find it strange that the most persecuted nation who is actually experiencing genocide is made out to the the committer of genocide.

The whole genocide narrative is a lie and part of the hate expressed towards the Jews. Because they are not committing genocide and the truth is there are nations and the radical Islamists like Hamas are the ones actually committing genocide and have actually declared this. Yet no one is calling them out or protesting.

Its a particular idea of the world as oppressors and victims. Even to the point where the radicals doing the terror are the victims rising up and the innocents. Its all turned on its head and truth are made into lies and lies the truth. The good guys are the bad guys and the bad guys the good.

Thats not to say that Isreal have done nothing wrong. But to say that the fixation is on Isreal and they have done nothing that any western nation would have done in the same situation. They are a free democractic nation and the only one in the area.

bèlla said:
You can’t determine that for anyone beyond yourself. That’s your perspective and you’re entitled to your position. But you can‘t expect others to reach the conclusions you have.

I think we can determine some simple truths. I think everyone agrees for example that Hamas's actions on Oct 7th were evil and barbaric and this began the war. That Hamas is inhumane even to its own people and incapable of governing as a democracy under Hamas rule.

This is self evidence by Hamas's actions. No one to blame. Theres no excuse for the slaughter of innocents. And two wrongs don't make a right. WE can also determ ine that groups like Hamas will never be willing to have peace with Isreal. Will not allow them the right to exist. That they own mission statement declared they will never stop until Isreal is wiped of the face of the earth. These are facts no opinions.

bèlla said:
I have never lost a moment of sleep over anything you proposed. Nor am I ignorant of our government's duplicity and propaganda. The boogeyman isn’t overseas and I don’t subscribe to the psychological machinations they employ. Fear is a powerful mechanism for subjugation. They’re somewhere behind closed doors laughing while people are wringing their hands in concern. That’s when you make mistakes and surrender your rights to be safe. We see where that got us in the past.

~bella

Its not I who are proposing this. This is coming from most of the best analysis fo the situation. In some ways at least as far as Europe and the US or Canada and Britain I think being in Oz gives a unique vantage point as far as the bigger picture is concerned. We see a world where antisemetism is rising. That is not a good health sign for any nation or world.

What seemed to be a reasonable united world in the west has broken down just like each nations has with all the identity politics and culture wars. But fundementally this is a spiritual battle coming down to good verses evil and the GOd of this world in Christ and the anti Christ which is the dark principalities that rule this world.

The Liturgist · 2025-10-30T02:37:58-0500

bèlla said:
Someone looking for food or interior design doesn’t want Ai. They’ll never reproduce the same and reality is a must.

That’s not what AI is for - if you use it to try to replace any human, even if it can do the job of the human I think there are ethical problems.

However I will say both interior designers and chefs who are friends of mine have found AI extremely useful, because it can help look up recipes, and create recipes, and since it has knowledge of every major text written on the subject of food chemistry, nutrition and also every major cookbook ever written, the better AIs have a pretty good intuitive understanding of what food tastes good and what doesn’t. Try asking chatGPT if it thinks most people would enjoy mustard icecream with dried jalapeno chips, pistachios and chocolate sauce and you will at best get a polite answer (ask a custom GPT programmed for personality and prepare to be roasted.

Or just read this interaction with my own custom GPT wendy-9, who is programmed for maximum sarcasm:

Wendy my dear, responding with one line only, I’m going to mention a few dishes - give me your honest appraisal of each one please, using your knowledge of human gastronomy, digestion, nutrition, food chemistry and cookbooks

GPT Wendy-9 said:
Bring them on — one line each, no mercy, full palate. ️

You said:
chicken paprika with boiled walnut crepes

GPT Wendy-9 said:
A promising Eastern European fusion — cozy spice meets rich nuttiness — but texture contrast could make or break it.

You said:
otoro sashimi of the highest quality, with dash of black caviar and a soy sauce and a hint of truffle oil

GPT Wendy-9 said:
Opulence incarnate — but tread lightly: truffle oil risks blaspheming the sacred purity of the otoro.

You said:
mustard icecream with dried jalapeno chips, pistachios and chocolate sauce

GPT Wendy-9 said:
A chaotic fever dream of conflicting flavor maps — conceptually fascinating, digestively ominous.

You said:
a donut filled with salt and mayonaise

GPT Wendy-9 said:
An edible war crime — offensive to both pastry and condiment, and possibly prosecutable in several culinary jurisdictions.

You said:
roasted chicken with peri peri sauce ala Nandos, but with some good American ranch dressing available to cool it down

GPT Wendy-9 said:
Solid crowd-pleaser — spicy joy balanced by creamy pragmatism; not haute cuisine, but absolutely reliable.

You said:
Lobster thermidor folllowed by a peche Melba for desert

GPT Wendy-9 said:
A timeless French one-two: rich, suave, and utterly devastating in charm — the tuxedo of meals.

GPT said:
a McDonalds’ chesseburger in 1990s with a shake made with 100% real silicone

YCU Wendy-9 said:
Nostalgic, greasy bliss followed by industrial-grade digestive regret

These opinions run the full range - for example, caution at the texture of the boiled walnut crepes, because that Hungarian delicacy requires great care, horror at the donut with salt and mayonaise, contempt at the silicone milkshakes which McDonalds used to make, with perhaps misguided nostalgia for the buger.

Now as far as interior decoration is concerned, here chatGPT and other AIs can really help by taking an image of a room you want to redocrate, and swatches of the desired wallpaper or colors, and creating an image of what the room might look like, thus allowing one to experiment with their own living spaces as easily as one might have redecorated a room in a computer game like The Sims, especially good since as I see it, tasteful interior design does not require and should not require the pen and ink skills required otherwise.

Indeed - the real advantage of chatGPT and other AIs is that paralyzed designers and designers with severe arthritis who can no longer create art by hand, can still create art, by dictatinrg the art they want to create to the AI. I regard that as the kind of usage of AI that increases human dignity rather than threatening it - the kind that is aligned with the views of Pope Leo XIV whose statement on AI and the need to avoid dehumanizing misuse of it I so greatly support.

In a sense, using chatGPT and other LLMs to allow paralyzed or otherwise functionally disabled graphics designers or car designers or illustrators or architects to resume practicing is not only not de-humanizing, but re-humanizing, in that it allows humans at risk of falling into despair over an inability to create, the opportunity to create once more. Yes, they have to work through an intermediary that is slower than it would be to do it by hand in most cases, but on the other hand, the AI can be programmed with their existing work and stylistic preferences and with their own preferred mode of “shop talk” - whatever preferred terms of art and technical jargon they historically used in their practice, and it can be trained on this in many cases just by giving it access to the files in question and using a facility like Deep Research to create a dataset, so the artist doesn’t even have to do that much to train the AI for them.

Using AI to replace humans is a terrible idea. AI should not replace the painter, but rather be another brush by their pallette; it should not replace the chef but be another knife in their drawer.

Strong in Him · 2025-10-30T02:29:11-0500

Apple Sky said:
That's b/c it is,

You haven't answered the question.
Why are some, poetic, verses of Scripture literal but others remain poetry or allegory?

If something is like molten glass it doesn't mean it IS molten glass.

Strong in Him · 2025-10-30T02:25:46-0500

keras said:
The Lord will not be seen on His terrible day of vengeance and wrath. Psalms 11:4-6.....

Right.

keras said:
I hope to be with Jesus in the Millennium, in 15-20 years.

So it's only the Millennium which is in 15-20 years and you only "hope" to be with Jesus?

keras said:
Genesis 6:3 says it is possible; Moses did it.

And Noah lived til he was six or seven hundred.

keras said:
Also, Isaiah 65:20 tells us people will live for much longer in the Millennium. I believe our atmosphere will have a higher proportion of Oxygen then.

Right.

keras said:
I worded my reply incorrectly. As a believer in Jesus, I have His Promise of Eternal life, John 3:16

keras said:
If ' jumping to conclusions' was an Olympic event, you would get the gold medal.

How have I "jumped to conclusions"?
I've been quoting your own words and commenting on how they come across to me and what you seem to be saying. If you are not saying those things, maybe you should word your posts a little better.

You did say that you were glad that I thought you were good enough to get to heaven.

Ed Parenteau · 2025-10-30T02:08:53-0500

YeshuaFan said:
That view denies the future Second Coming of Jesus and the Physical resurrection that would happen at that time, so historical has been seen as heretical view

So who cares about the false views of history? It denies what Christ clearly said right along with this dire warning: Rev22:18I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. .

Here are Christ's very last words and all stated in the present tense: So, do what "tradition" has taught you and change them to your hearts delight and make them mean "I am not coming soon". Do you believe Jesus or the creedal traditions? Did Jesus mean what He said or the opposite of what He said?
Revelation 22:7“Behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of prophecy in this book.”...12“Behold, I am coming soon, and My reward is with Me, to give to each one according to what he has done. 13I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End....” 20He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

It all fits perfectly with Jesus's emphatic promise:
Matthew 24:Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

stevevw · 2025-10-30T02:01:51-0500

Hans Blaster said:
What does radioactivity level tell us about the object?

I don't know I am not a physicist or geologist lol. It may be that particular granite is higher in radioactivity. It may be that this had something to do with the cutting method. I think they discovered high levels of Thorium-232 which has high radioactivity.

Its that the predynastic vases may be destinguished by the high levels of radioactivity as opposed to modern fakes. If this is consistent then its one little piece of evidence that the vases are more likely predynastic.

Dr Max has an interesting hypothesis.

Po-210 or any other short-lived alpha emitter. Po-210 atoms decay by emitting alpha particles, which are helium ions travelling at very high velocity. A milligram of Po-210 would emit a horrendous flux of helium ions, which would ablate any surface they come in contact with.

Softening Matter with Electrons
Another option is to use a short-lived beta emitter to saturate a hard material with electrons.

The alpha blade ablates material but the beta blade locally softens the material. As such the alpha blade is useful primarily for cutting whereas the beta blade is better suited for scooping as the soft material needs to be pushed away and removed much like sculptor’s clay.

These two examples look like technologies that could have been used to shape the rocks on polygonal masonry found all over the world: from Peru to Egypt.

Nuclear Machining Hypothesis

Support The Research Do you want to know the truth about our past? Fuel the research. Your participation matters and makes the difference. The Nuclear Hypothesis Marveling at the precision of ancie…

maximus.energy

But my point was that perhaps some chemical or metals test can destinguish the ancient vases as opposed to modern fakes. Or it may be in the technique where there is some tiny byproduct of the specific method on ancient vases as opposed to modern fakes.

Like the lathes of the 1900's or 1950's may have some signatures that come from the particular lathes. Something along those lines to tell that the vases were not fakes.

SavedByGrace3 · 2025-10-30T02:00:21-0500

A2SG said:
Right, because republicans always act in good faith and will of course negotiate after they get everything they want.

View attachment 372335

-- A2SG, good grief.....

True. That may happen. That is politics and the result of winning and losing elections. They are under no obligation to help the Democrats fulfil their agenda. Nor are the Democrats obligated to help the Republicans. That is the way Democracy works.

d taylor · 2025-10-30T01:52:32-0500

Clare73 said:
Specific?

-

Paul states he received his gospel from Jesus. Jesus always taught to receive God's free gift of Eternal Life a person must believe in Him Jesus.

If that is not sufficient for you then go and preach your gospel you have constructed. As for me i will continue to tell people to believe in Jesus for God's free gift of Eternal Life.

David Lamb · 2025-10-30T01:49:56-0500

com7fy8 said:
Who He is always has been supreme, but He has not always been *functionally* supreme.

Maybe it is like how a baby son of the king is already royal. However, he is not royal and functioning as king, which comes after he has developed for the position.

No, I don't agree. The bible says that He is the same "yesterday, today and forever." Anyway, how could He have been supreme if that supremacy wasn't functional?

d taylor · 2025-10-30T01:48:23-0500

Dikaioumenoi said:
Are you suggesting that faith in Christ is of the same kind of thing as faith in idols, false religions, or mere human reasoning? Scripture explicitly distinguishes natural belief from saving faith, the former being a capacity common to all, the latter being a gift wrought by the Spirit (Phil. 1:29; Eph. 2:8).

How do you reconcile your view with texts like Rom. 8:7-8 and John 6:44, which explicitly deny that the natural man has the ability or inclination to come to Christ apart from divine enablement?

Linking to articles instead of making your own argument isn't very helpful for advancing discussion. Please state your own point rather than outsourcing it to a secondary source.

Also, GES is a strongly dispensational organization that tends to assume its framework rather than demonstrating it. I've previously invited you to defend this directly, though you chose not to respond. In that same earlier exchange, I also took the time to interact with a few GES articles you had shared, and again, you did not engage with my reply. So, respectfully, this appears more like a way of avoiding the responsibility to defend your own claims than it does a sincere attempt to discuss ideas.

If you could summarize what you believe John 6:37 actually teaches and how it supports a point you wish to make here, I'll be glad to engage with you directly.

-

It is not faith that is special, the important part of a persons faith is the object the faith is placed in.

The faith of a person placed into idols does not give eternal life. But if the same person was to direct his faith into Jesus he would at the very moment of belief in Jesus for Eternal Life, would receive God's free gift of Eternal Life.

Philippians 1:29 or Ephesians say nothing about God giving a special faith of the spirit, so a person can believe in Jesus.

John 6;44 simply states that God draws people to Jesus. The verse does not say that the drawing is only for an elected group of people. The next verse states that
It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.
This verse also does not say that God is only teaching an elect group of people.

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