Hentenza said:

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I look at the martyrs under the altar as metaphorical as far as the imagery but I extrapolate that there are probably quite a few martyrs in heaven anyway. So maybe just a teaching about the special place that the martyrs have in God’s heart?

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I don’t think you understand - if a martyr is in Heaven, Heaven is not the final destination, so it doesn’t matter if their body is on Earth or not - since for most Christians, Heaven is a spiritual realm until the General Resurrection and the Last Judgement. Then, those of us who Christ Pantocrator numbers among the righteous will live in the presence of God in their resurrected bodies in the light and life of the World to Come, eternal life in glory.

So if I say that the body of a martyr is not in Heaven, that is not a commentary on their eschatological status - we can safely say the souls of all the Holy Martyrs and Confessors are in Heaven because of the promise Christ made for those who confess Him before men. Indeed in the Orthodox Church martyrs are instantly glorified as saints (with Confessors, people tortured for Christ, they are glorified after they repose, but the status of Confessor also applies to those who were tortured and later died as a result of that torture, examples would be St. John Chrysostom who was death marched in 406 AD for criticizing Empress Theodora for using her wealth to have a commode made of solid gold rather than giving that money to the poor of Constantinople, and St. Maximus the Confessor, who had his tongue cut out for refusing to retract his opposition to the Monothelite heresy (which was later anathematized by the Sixth Ecumenical Council). These saints are in Heaven, and will be reunited with their bodies according to Scripture on the Dread Day of Judgement, but they will be accounted among the righteous, for they confessed Christ before men, like the Holy Martyrs such as St. Stephen the Illustrious Protomartyr, St. James the Great, St. Peter the Apostle, St. Paul the Apostle, St. Mark the Evangelist, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp of Smyrna, St. Peter of Alexandria, and many many others.

Always in His Presence said:

Donald Trump is the only American President who has been awarded the Grand Order of Mugunghwa

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I guess this means a lot to you?

David Lamb said:

So I am still left wondering why, in post 228, you posted an image showing the earth as a square.

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I posted this image as it was likened to a Mexican hat that my friend had drew out for me, it was the only image I could find that resembled a Mexcian hat.

Benaiah468 said:

Abbas is the main contact person for Europeans who want to establish a democratic "Palestine".

For decades, it has been part of his tactic to present himself as ‘moderate’ in speeches in English. In front of Arabic-speaking audiences, he regularly advocates the opposite. After Trump took office, for example, Abbas announced that he would stop paying terror pensions, monthly payments to terrorists or their families. Shortly afterwards, it emerged that this was a lie. The payments continue.

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Palestinian Authority caught hiding terror payments despite claims of reform

There is no alternative to dependence on the PA, which encourages terror.

“Terrorists are the superheroes of the Palestinian Authority. And that’s what they tell their people... (excerpt from article above)

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The new "Palestinian" generation is learning to love what human beings should hate. They are victims of their own current generation, who is training them to become worse.

Yeshua HaDerekh said:

You are using scripture out of context. Numbers 29:35 in context is during Sukkot. Has nothing to do with Christian Sunday worship. The reason Christians hold services on Sundays is because Yeshua rose on the first day of the week (Sunday) and it is to commemorate that event. The sabbath is on the 7th day, always was and always will be...

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The problem is of course Sabbatarian churches who attack us, the Eastern Orthodox, for having our main weekly Divine Liturgy on Sunday, even though we have the second largest number of liturgies on the Sabbath after the Roman Catholic and sui juris Eastern Catholic churches in communion with the Roman bishop (not even counting Vespers and All Night Vigils, which technically happen on liturgical Sunday, since like in Judaism, the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox start the liturgical calendar at Sunset, as you know but some other readers might not).

They accuse us in many cases of being under the control of Roman Catholics and also say false things about the purpose of the Council of Nicaea, St. Constantine and other important events and persons in the history of the Orthodox church - there seems to be a false dichtomy wherein everyone not a part of the Sabbatarian denomination is viewed as either part of the Roman Catholic Church or somehow enthralled to the Roman Catholic Church, despite that not being the case for the Orthodox.

Indeed the fact that the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, despite being separated by tragic schisms that in some cases have lasted for over 1500 years, all worship on Sunday, despite never having been subject to the jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome is one of many reasons why people should accept that worship on Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Christ our True God is an ancient practice going back to the Holy Apostles (which we also see in Acts on Pentecost Sunday in 33 AD - it is not a coincidence the Holy Spirit descended when most Christians are worshipping.

David Lamb said:

So I am still left wondering why, in post 228, you posted an image showing the earth as a square. If you didn't mean that you think the earth is a square, why post a picture of a square earth? Even the title of the picture you posted was: "Square and Stationary Earth."

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She even said that her friend said the earth was like a "Mexican hat", she looked it up, and behold - cue image of a square earth.

After reading all the debating, I have a question: where in all the scriptures does God ever demand that Gentiles observe the law concerning the keeping of the weekly Sabbath or any of the eight other high Sabbaths? Another question: Israelites had to become circumcised, obviously to take part in the ceremonial requirements. 11 "You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you." Gen 17. If Gentiles are, at some point, required to take part in the Israelite ceremonies, where is the command for us to be circumcised?

The only way a Gentile could take part in the rituals God gave only to the Israelites was to convert. Is it any wonder that Paul wrote so much about the Old Covenant law being done away? Eph 2:
11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace,

Jan001 said:

These were Jewish worship services, not Christian worship services. Paul went to the synagogues on the Sabbath because that is where he could speak to both large numbers of Jews and to the circumcised Gentile converts to Judaism. Acts 13:43

Christians worshiped on the first day of the week, the Lord's day. Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:2, Revelation 1:10

Numbers 29:35 On the eighth day you will hold a public assembly: you shall do no heavy work.

The eighth day (Sunday, the first day of the week) is the day the Christians have publicly worshiped God for 2000 years.

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That said, the Christians did worship on other days of the week - the primary day of the week was always Sunday, the feast of the Resurrection, which we know because of the worship service in progress at the Cenacle at St. Mark’s house in Jerusalem at the third hour (9 AM) on a Sunday when the Holy Spirit descended, since Acts clearly says that there were 200 of the faithful present when that occurred.

However it is also the case that, ironically, the church that Sabbatarians appear to believe it is their religious duty to criticize, the Roman catholic Church, conducts more worship services on Saturday than any other denomination. All current and retired Roman Catholic priests are required to celebrate the Mass daily, and also the Liturgy of the Hours, and most churches have at least one public mass on Saturday, and recently Catholics have been permitted to attend a vigil mass on Saturday as a means of satisfying their Sunday worship obligation. The net result is that every Sunday, there are more masses celebrated in Catholic churches, cathedrals, priories and friaries, oratories, chapels, monasteries and convents than there are parishes of all Sabbatarian denominations combined - and all of these services, being masses, feature the Holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ our God given for the remission of sins and life everlasting (1 Corinthians 11:1-34), as a perpetual recapitulation of and participation in (anamnesis) of His voluntary sacrifice on the Cross, wherein God in the person of the Son and Word died in order to trample down death by death, and show us what it means to be human - death is swallowed up in victory as Christ arose from the grave on the First Day.

Thus, on Friday we commemorate that Christ remade humanity in His image, just as He made humanity in His image in Genesis 1 (it is not a coincidence that John chapter 1 parallels Genesis chapter 1, for Genesis 1 is a prophecy of the Passion of Christ our True God), on Saturday we commemorate Christ reposing in a tomb, and also by extension the mystery of Him who is uncircumscribable being contained in the womb of Our Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin mary, and because of the Harrowing of Hell, a day to pray for our departed loved ones, and then on Sunday we celebrate Christ rising from the grave, and the light of the World to Come, the mystical Eighth Day of Creation.

The Sabbath is fundamentally prophetic, in that it was about the mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ in the womb of the Theotokos and his repose in the tomb, and our own pending repose even as our soul shall either be with Christ in Heaven or not with Christ, depending on our probable eschatological outcome. Thus, traditional Christians properly observe this feast through the Vesperal Divine Liturgy on Holy Saturday in the Orthodox Church and equivalent services such as the Roman Catholic Paschal Vigil Mass (all of which originated in Jerusalem and are very similar, well, in the Roman Catholic Church it was nearly identical to the Orthodox liturgy until Pope Pius XII made some odd changes to the Paschal Triduum in 1955 - I don’t see what the point was of taking an ancient liturgy virtually identical to that celebrated by the Orthodox, which in the case of the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday contained elements in common with the Eastern Orthodox Presanctified Liturgy we attribute to Pope St. Gregory the Great, and replacing those liturgies with rescheduled liturgies very different from what was historically celebrated and what still is celebrated by the Orthodox.

Fortunately, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has been encouraging Roman Catholics who are still able to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass to use the pre-1955 Triduum, and thus the celebration of the ancient version of it is increasingly common. Alas, the SSPX, which is regarded as canonically irregular by many, and by some as schismatic, although I don’t think that’s the position of the Vatican, but I don’t know, only uses the final 1962 Tridentine missal, which of course has all the unpleasantness of the 1955 reforms.

The topic of this thread is not the validity of crypto as currency, but how the Trump Organization is using the presidency to profit from it.

Apple Sky said:

You were replying to my post 228, where I said;



You replied,



What I should have said was;
'Read my post again, this is not what I said.'

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So I am still left wondering why, in post 228, you posted an image showing the earth as a square. If you didn't mean that you think the earth is a square, why post a picture of a square earth? Even the title of the picture you posted was: "Square and Stationary Earth."

Tropical Wilds said:

Both objective and empirical data can be biased.

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If something is "objective", it is by definition "unbiased".

From Merriam Webster:

Tropical Wilds said:

I mean, pollsters maybe not, but statisticians, yes. They understand it.

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No one fully understands exactly how polls influence people's decision to vote or not vote.

Tropical Wilds said:

In my opinion, popularity polls serve (and have historically been used) as a means for various people (in this case, the government) to understand their job performance as it is interpreted among the American people. In lieu of repeated voting to determine if a president is popular, effective, or if their leadership is popular, effective, and serving the will of the American people, they use the polls. They see how actions, perceived or actual or proposed, impact the American people and adjust accordingly. Typically in first-term leadership, they do it so they can hold the job for another term or support their party through an election. There's other tertiary purposes, but that's the basic point main point. It's the basis of action and strategy to reflect the will of the people and protect the parties that are in or want to come to power.

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That's not what you said earlier. You said, "Performance and popularity polls are static polls, meaning their results do not influence their results. Nobody will change a behavior or an action based off of what the popularity polls dictate." But here, you just said that these polls cause people to "adjust accordingly". So popularity polls absolutely do result in people changing behaviors and actions based on the results.

Tropical Wilds said:

Groupthink is not really a factor in popularity ratings.

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Groupthink is a factor in everything. If the prevailing narrative is that candidate X is "objectively unpopular", there will be those that will be afraid to go against the grain and state their approval for such a person. And it works both ways. If you are opposed to the candidate your preferred political party has embraced, you may be wary of stating your disapproval publicly. To pretend this doesn't factor into popularity ratings is remarkably naive.

Apple Sky said:

The F/E is circular like a disc.

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The Bible says the earth has 4 corners, Isaiah 11:12, Revelation 7:1. Is this incorrect?

wing2000 said:

You refer to some CR and don't bother to provide the CR# or a description?

And btw, your narrative is wrong. The House went into recess after throwing their CR to the Senate. No negotiation. No subsequent negotiations with the Senate. They just went home...and have been there for the past six weeks.

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"Throwing the CR" - In other words voting and passing the CR is the extent of their responsibility - the CR is the EXACT same one that Schumer and Democratic Senate Leaders voted for and supported just seven months ago -

The power to open or close the Government lies with the Senate - not the House

• 13 Failed Votes: The Senate attempted to pass a Republican-backed funding bill 13 times, each failing to reach the 60-vote threshold required to advance.
• Shutdown Fairness Act: On October 23, the Senate voted on a bill to pay federal workers during the shutdown. It failed to pass.
• No Democratic Support: Despite repeated efforts, no new Democratic senators voted in favor of advancing the funding bill.
• Vice Presidential Involvement: Vice President J.D. Vance met with Senate Republicans but did not sway votes or offer a viable funding solution.

rjs330 said:

Yes they do need help. And we should help them. I'm all for it. The question does become, how many times, ten twenty, three?

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Seventy times seven.
Matthew 18:21-22

rjs330 said:

There is only so much we can do for people who refuse to stay off.

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That's true. If they are not harming you, why are you trying to force them?

rjs330 said:

And maybe, staunching the flow will eventually help as well. If we make it much more difficult to obtain, it may help keep them off.

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Sure, kill the people who are not us in hopes that the people who are us will modify their own behavior. Good idea! The only ones who matter are us, not them. /s

Tropical Wilds said:

If you'd been following the thread, you'd know.

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I've been following the thread. I have no idea what you think labeling Trump "objectively unpopular" proves or why you've fixated on it. Perhaps you could succinctly summarize why you're belaboring this point.

Tropical Wilds said:

That is just his second term..

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Isn't that's that what we're talking about?

Tropical Wilds said:

When you look at his first term, you see the broad spectrum which includes his peak (which was 49%) and his valley (32%). If you'd like to state that he's had flat disapproval with no peaks during his second term, you won't hear me disagree.

However, the cherry-picking of data in order to extrapolate the facts you want, while fun, doesn't change the overall data. Nor does it mean I think you particularly qualified for a discussion on statistical analysis.

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Cool. I don't think you're particularly qualified for this discussion either. Look at that! We have something in common after all.

Tropical Wilds said:

Where in there did I say people were souring on him...?

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You stated that people were "crying in their Cheerios" over how his actions were affecting them. What exactly do you think they're "crying" about if not souring on Trump?

Tropical Wilds said:

Again, you disingenuously cherry-picked a statement to lop out the part where it made clear I was explaining somebody else's rationale for a statement they made, not making a statement myself.

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So you don't think people are "crying in their Cheerios"?

Tropical Wilds said:

I never said anything about "buyer's remorse." You invented a narrative, inflicted it on me, hurt your own feelings over it, and now are spending your time proving to me why something that I never said that hurt your feelings isn't true. And for some reason you think because other editorials have said it and you intentionally were deceptive about something I said, I need to be answerable to your deception and their editorials.

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My "feelings"? Are you incapable of engaging in an "objective" discussion without getting personal?

Tropical Wilds said:

Something I pointed out later when I said he was only popular for 23% of his presidency, which is still twice as long as Trump was. That all being said, however, he was an objectively unpopular president.

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Again, what is the point? Stating that Biden was popular twice as long as Trump reeks of playground banter, and I have no idea what you think it proves.

Tropical Wilds said:

It tells me I understand more about how elections work than you do, apparently.

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Alrighty then. Maybe you should go help the Democrats. They are clearly in need someone with your higher understanding, since they can't seem to figure out how to win elections.

Tropical Wilds said:

I'll take the eye roll as an admission that you know I'm right, but it bothers you.

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"Objectively", Fauci was such a great and wonderful guy, he needed a pardon from Biden to excuse him from accountability for more than a decade of his career leading up to the pandemic.

Tropical Wilds said:

So yes, he did talk about injecting bleach.

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If you want to keep misleading people on that point, that's certainly your prerogative.

Tropical Wilds said:

However, people were not using that Ivermectin....

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Because this thread isn't about COVID, I'm going to ignore this Gish gallop, but suffice to say if people read your links closely, they'll see that the content at your links does not support your contrived summary of events.

Tropical Wilds said:

I mean, apparently you do care since you're fixating on it.

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If anyone is "fixating" on it, it's "objectively" you.

Tropical Wilds said:

And again, if the election was based off of votes, he would have lost. Why? Because he was not the winner of the popular vote.

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Actually, he did win the popular vote in 2024.

Tropical Wilds said:

A majority of voters did not choose him.

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Yes, they did, in 2024.

Tropical Wilds said:

He has run 4 times. Lost the popular vote three times. Elected twice.

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The most recent of which he won the popular vote.

Tropical Wilds said:

And he is objectively unpopular.

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The polls show that the majority of people think he is unpopular.

Always in His Presence said:

D your research - educate yourself - It is the Senate Democrats voting to keep the government closed to strong arm legislation that did not go their way when BOTH Houses passed the Big Beautiful Bill. The answer to the issue lies with the Senate, not the House.

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You refer to some CR and don't bother to provide the CR# or a description?

And btw, your narrative is wrong. The House went into recess after throwing their CR to the Senate. No negotiation. No subsequent negotiations with the Senate. They just went home...and have been there for the past six weeks.

ArmyMatt said:

councils are called when a heresy becomes a problem, not because the Church hasn’t yet made a decision on dogma.

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Indeed - the Orthodox Church probably would never have called an ecumenical council had it not been for the nightmare caused by Arius and his supprters in the aftermath of the edict of Milan, and their continued contumacy after Pope St. Alexander of Alexandria anathematized Arianiasm and deposed Arius. And there wouldn’t have been a second ecumenical council without people like Eusebius of Nicomedia conspiring to convert the heir apparent, Constantius, to the Arian religion, away from Christ, and to perpetuate the heresy of Arius even after Arius was struck down by what many believe was a providential act, just before Arius was to be allowed to receive communion in the Hagia Sophia according to one of the ancient Synaxaria.

Indeed by the Second Ecumenical Council there were multiple Arian denominations - the Eunomians, the semi-Arians, the Pneumatomachs, and other screwball groups such as the Apollinarians, who were the first to confuse the humanity and divinity of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, compromising the doctrine of the Incarnation, which would later be continued by the Eutychians, who degenerated into Tritheism by the time of John Philoponus, the last known intellectual of the original Monophysites (the group following Eutyches that was anathematized both by the Chalcedonians and the non-Chacledonians). Interestingly the modern successor to that group is probably the Mormons, insofar as Mormons are tritheistic, and Eutychianism promotes Tritheism by comingling the humanity and divinity in the prosopon of the Logos.

Then the Monothelites were actually created for the most farcical of reasons - an attempt to heal the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox, by basically reinventing Apollinarianism. This did not work, the only lasting result being the schism of the Monothelite Maronites of Lebanon from the Syriac Orthodox - the Maronites later entered into communion with the Roman Catholic Church and the Syriac Orthodox have a formal agreement with the Antiochian Orthodox since 1991 (which I’ve been told is not in force in North America, which makes sense, because AOCNA is an autonomous church under the omophorion of the Antiochian Orthodox Patriarch, His Beatitude John X Yazigi, for the Antiochian emigres and other Arabic speaking Orthodox Christians were served by the ministry of St. Rafael of Brooklyn, an Antiochian bishop transferred canonically to the Russian Orthodox Church, which was widely regarded as the canonical church in North America prior to the confusion and chaos that followed the Bolshevik revolution, which resulted in the Russian church splitting into three Slavic groups, which became ROCOR, the Metropolia (later the OCA) and the Patriarchal Parishes, and likewise caused a schism among the ethnically Syrian Christians who had been under the pastoral care of the Metropolitan of New York and North America (historically St. Tikhon of Moscow, the first Patriarch since Nikon, and the last for well over a decade, who died in a Soviet prison in the early 1920s, where he was treated harshly) and until his repose in 1915, St. Rafael of Brooklyn.

Interestingly there was also a schism among the Armenians after the USSR invaded that country. The Communists caused a massive number of schisms, almost all of which have healed, thankfully, because people became fearful that the church authorities had been corrupted by the secret police - a legitimate concern.

One group I have very little patience for are the small minority of ROCOR members who left ROCOR and joined schismatic groups like the “Genuine Orthodox Church” after schism separating ROCOR from the MP and the other canonical churches including the OCA was healed in a glorious moment in 2007. But what for most Orthodox was a moment of great happiness, was for a small misguided minority an occasion for sinful despair and schism.

Donald Trump is the only American President who has been awarded the Grand Order of Mugunghwa

Jan001 said:

It seems to me once everyone becomes immortal, it will be time for the judgment.

John 5:28-29 Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.

I don't think this "thousand years" is a literal one thousand years.

Revelation 20:4-6 Then I saw thrones; those who sat on them were entrusted with judgment. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image nor had accepted its mark on their foreheads or hands. They came to life and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over.) This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over these; they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for [the] thousand years.

The first resurrection was about 33 AD. There can only be one first resurrection.

Matthew 27:51-53 And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, 52 tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53 And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.

I think the "thousand years" symbolizes the time period between Jesus' resurrection and his second coming.

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I don't agree, but I always welcome different views. The truth comes out in the wash.

And we're all a little contaminated with misperceptions. Both the thousand years and the 144,000 are difficult prophecies and I think it's well to stay open in case we're wrong.

wing2000 said:

What are you referring to?

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D your research - educate yourself - It is the Senate Democrats voting to keep the government closed to strong arm legislation that did not go their way when BOTH Houses passed the Big Beautiful Bill. The answer to the issue lies with the Senate, not the House.

Stopped_lurking said:

What sophisticated machining?

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The type created by sophisticated machines that despite all the evidence we have for the Egyptians, both from themselves and other sources, have not found a single trace of, let alone in the Greek or Roman world who repeatedly came into contact with the Egyptians, and especially the latter who would have no doubt used it themselves if they found it.

Studyman said:

Yes, it is not now, nor has it ever been against God's Law to take a walk on God's Holy Sabbath Day, and pick an apple or ear of corn along the way to eat. Not was it against God's Law to have a lantern or heat in your home on the Sabbath Days.

It is against "mans" Law/philosophy/doctrine, but it was never against God's Law.

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Not even the Sabbath keeping is part of the new covenant. All of the law, including the Ten Commandments, has been fulfilled(completed) by Jesus sacrifice on the cross so again your argument is moot.

Tuur said:

When I was a wee lad, I asked my father why there was Daylight Savings Time. He said so congressmen could play golf in the afternoons. That's as good an answer as any. Daylight savings time is sold as saving energy,

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It's about more daylight time for activities after one gets home from work.