ozso said:

Epstein crimes have nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

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The topic of this thread is a deflection. Not yours. Trump's.

ozso said:

If you want to debate about Epstein crimes then start a thread about that, rather than derailing other threads with it.

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In my last six posts, I've mentioned Epstein once, in response to another's comments. In your last comment, you mentioned him twice.

Gregory Thompson said:

Do we just need to "trust" that it is real, in the same way we are?

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No. We can simply say, "This appears to be real, and - from a practical standpoint - if I act as if it is real, so far it continues to turn out as expected. I might as well continue acting as if it is real, until something happens to make me reconsider."

Entryway

fleeing

Omaha, Nebraska

yum...willing to try

vodka pasta a la penne?

Quirinus

Churn

joymercy said:

View attachment 368728

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Thanks for sharing!

ozso said:

The idea is to deter rather than arrest. As for the prosecution end of it, the USAO-DC in charge of that is fully in favor of Trump's order.

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As I said, criminals figure out very quickly that the system is merely a revolving door.

Of course the USAO-DC is "fully in favor." Trump has made it very clear what happens to people in his branch what happens if they are not "fully in favor" of his orders.

linux.poet said:

Yeah, I drink a b-complex vitamin water every day. It’s a mental performance enhancer.

The compounds in the olives/olive juice heal the inflammation that causes brain fog, but you don’t want it to just come back the next day, hence the B vitamin stuff. Switching to whole grain bread products can help, because non-whole grain bread actually drains b-vitamins from your system.

It is a real prayer though, I do want God to help you with this. I was fortunate that I knew about the Tasso’s olives and they were easy to find.

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Thank you! I appreciate your prayers and advice!

God bless

WolfGate said:

It's populist, which is a bit ironic given populism normally represents the common citizens against a self-serving elitist ruling class. In this case, MAGA has done a really good job of convincing the voters that both parties were that corrupt self-serving class, and only a very rich narcissist can save them.

America could very much use a conservative party again. You have some left in the GOP (Nikki Haley for example) but many more are leaving every election (Tom Tillis, GOP Senator from NC).

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The current Republican Party has no place for conservatives such as Tom Tillis, Nikki Haley, and even Mike Pence, who received less than 5% of the GOP primary vote.

If W. Bush ran for office today, GOP voters would label him a socialist who would give amnesty to all the undocumented.

David Lamb said:

Young Earth Creationists certainly do see nature as being subject to God.

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I've been told by YECs that nature is corrupted and subject to Satan. If some don't think so, good for them. And my apologies to them.

essentialsaltes said:

Matt Gaetz Apologizes After His MAGA-Aligned TV Network Used AI Images Of Women Soldiers​

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Five years later, that poor horse still hasn’t moved.

Hvizsgyak said:

Hey, aren't you one of the people who are trying to convince me that humans evolved from a single celled organism swimming in a primordial bowl of soup in another thread here?

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Do you understand that whether or not I am "one of those people" is irrelevant to point under discussion. Of course, as seems to be the case, you choose to focus on your misguided interpretation of people's beliefs, rather than objectively validated observations, than I can see you might think it relevant.
But you have raised it. I probably am one of the people you've run across on the forum who accept evolutionary theory as the most effective and multiply validated explanation for the diversity of life on the planet and who know - not think, know - that it beats all alternative explanations by a country mile. But I am not one of those people who "belief in" your cartoon version of evolutionary theory.
If you are going to contest such a profoundly well-established theory as evolution, don't you think you should know a little more about it than you seemingly do?

Hvizsgyak said:

So we are back to the facts stuff here.

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If only that were true. (I've read ahead and all I see from you is mistaken and unfounded assertions. No facts.)

Hvizsgyak said:

Well, unfortunately for you, this is a theological situation that our culture needs to address and here, your facts are wishful thinking and theology has the facts correct.

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Theological situations are irrelevant if there is no god, God, or gods, or Gods. You claim our culture needs to address inclusiveness and tolerance and diversity and acceptance. It should do so by being for them. I have already stated that I understand you position. Now clearly understand mine. I think you are mistaken. I think your assertions are offensive, as you no doubt consider mine to be. There is little to be gained by recycling those opposed viewpoints. I'll let you have the last word, then let's be done with it.

Hvizsgyak said:

Sorry, show us the facts (and not the ones falsely created by ultra-liberal minded people who are not in touch with the "common man").

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Finally, If I may borrow, and adapt, a phrase from @AV1611VET, the "common man" can take a hike if "he" argues in favour of your narrow minded, iinsensitive, etc, etc, etc, position.

Guojing said:

and you are sure about this "lack of causality" because of?

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Yes.

The Barbarian said:

hing in this world. YECs just don't see nature as being subject to God.

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I’m not a Young Earth Creationist, but this remark is clearly inaccurate.

Daniel Carlton said:

Just wanted to politely point something out: I read your post thoroughly and you said you ask moderators to delete posts that have no facts attached to them but that is exactly what you did - made a post with claims without any sources attached to it to verify them.

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I don’t think you understand what my friend @boughtwithaprice is saying. His post can be independently verified with regards to the facts, whereas conversely, there are publications written by people prejudiced against the Roman Catholic Church which contain verifiable historical falsehoods. Thus, citations in and of themselves do not ensure factual content, and you cannot have a post with “facts attached”, since there is a difference between a citation of a third party source, and a historical fact.

Citations of third party sources rather have to be independently evaluated for their accuracy.

For my part, I would prefer it if members conducted the most basic research using mainstream encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia Brittanica, as well as books published by respectable academic publishers such as Oxford University Press, and its equivalent at Cambridge, and in the US the presses attached to the major seminaries such as Concordia University, Moreau Seminary, St. Tikhon’s Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, Nashotah House, Holy Cross Seminary, Holy Trinity Seminary, and others, as well as relevant schools of archaeology and history.

This research can easily be conducted using Google.

I also wish members would refrain from using easily avoidable logical fallacies in their arguments, which is something we see a lot in threads such as this.

However, it is up to the members to conduct themselves in such a manner. Thus, one can rely on sources lacking credibility and employ fallacious arguments, provided one does not cross the line into inflammatory remarks about another denomination, for example, denying their status as Christian.

MarkRohfrietsch said:

Enjoy the traffic; I read an article that Highway 401 is one, if not the busiest highways in North America; I will avoid it at all cost. If we are going down-town, we drive to Burlington then take the GO Train to Union Station (Cheaper to take the train than to pay for parking in Toronto) ; Roger's center is a short walk and is right beside Ripley's Aquarium, the round house museum, Fort York, and Steam Whistle Brewing (also in the round house).

If I am not going to the other side of Toronto, I will use the 407 Toll Road (not cheap), or go north of the city through Arthur, Orangeville, Newmarket. If going north, we avoid the 400 at all cost and go cross country, and catch the north end of the 400 at Horseshoe Valley Road; then north towards Sudbury.

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401 is dangerous between Toronto and London. I try to avoid it. When I do drive it we do 120km/75 miles an hour and still get passed like I'm standing still.

stevevw said:

The fact that we can use intelligible language that works so well points to describe reality points to a creator behind it.

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No it doesn't.

It points to the fact that humans are very good at coming up with accurate ways to describe reality.

essentialsaltes said:

Six major book publishers have teamed up to sue the US state of Florida over an “unconstitutional” law that has seen hundreds of titles purged from school libraries following rightwing challenges.

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Federal judge guts major portion of Florida’s book ban, in a blow to DeSantis​

A judge said a law allowing parents to challenge books over purportedly pornographic content was overbroad and unconstitutional.

Last year, multiple publishing companies, Florida parents and authors filed a lawsuit seeking to thwart the bill, naming as defendants various members of the state education board and school boards in Orange and Volusia counties. And the suit appears to have succeeded, in large part.

“By enacting HB 1069, the Florida legislature sought to prohibit material from entering or remaining in school libraries that is not obscene for minors,” District Court Judge Carlos Mendoza said in his ruling on Wednesday, which found the section that targets descriptions of sexual conduct to be unconstitutional.

Mendoza declined to strike down the law completely, writing that the law’s reference to “pornographic” content can be read as synonymous with content considered “harmful to minors” under Florida law, which means some books could still be banned but only if they meet a rigorous standard for obscenity known as the “Miller Test.”

pastorwaris said:

The Law Was Holy, But It Was Never the Savior​

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There is a direct connection between God's Word and God's Word made flesh insofar as he is the embodiment of God's Word expressed by setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to it. God graciously saving us by teaching us to embody His Word is the same means of salvation as through God's word made flesh. Jesus saves us from from our sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), so Jesus graciously teaching us to be a doer of God's law through faith is intrinsically the way that he is giving us his gift of saving us from not being a doer of it, so God's law does not just point to our need for a Savior but also teaches the way that he is saving us. In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faith by setting it before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith.

pastorwaris said:

You referenced Matthew 5:17 and rightly so. Jesus fulfilled the law, meaning He lived it perfectly. He didn’t abolish it. He satisfied every demand of it. And in doing so, He opened the door to a new covenant.

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According to Galatians 5:14, anyone who has ever loved their neighbor has fulfilled the entire law, so while Jesus living in perfect obedience to it is an instance of fulfilling it, we are to required to live in perfect obedience to it in order to fulfill it. There is nothing in the Bible that states that living in perfect obedience to God's law makes the way for the New Covenant.

pastorwaris said:

And Hebrews 8:13 is clear:


We don’t go back to what was meant to lead us forward. To return to the law after receiving grace is like insisting on animal sacrifices when the Lamb of God has already been slain!

Grace Is Not a Loophole, It’s a Living Relationship,​

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The Hebrew word "yada" refers to intimate relationships/knowledge gained by experience, such as with Genesis 4:1 where Adam knew (yada) Eve, she conceived, and gave birth to Cain. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that He and Israel might know (yada) Him. In Titus 2:11-13, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce dong what is ungodly, so doing those works in obedience to God's law has nothing to do with trying to earn our salvation as the result, but rather God graciously teaching us to be a doer of them is part of His gift of salvation. The people in the Bible wanted God to be gracious to them by teaching them to obey His law, but you seem to want God to be gracious to you instead of teaching you to obey it.

pastorwaris said:

I sense a warning in your message to those who might treat grace lightly, and I share that concern. Romans 6:1-2 asks the rhetorical question,


But here’s the beauty: the Spirit doesn’t just forgive us. He transforms us.
Romans 8:3-4 says,

So yes, the law is fulfilled in us, not because we grind it out in the flesh but because the Spirit of Christ lives in us.

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God has not commanded anything that is not in accordance with walking in the Spirit. In Acts 5:32, the Spirit has been given to those who obey God. In John 16:13, the Spirit has the role of leading us in truth, in Ezekiel 36:26-27, the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey God's law, and in Psalms 119:142, God's law is truth. In John 16:8, the Spirit has the role of convicting us of sin, and in 1 John 3:4, sin is the transgression of God's law. In Romans 8:4-7, Paul contrasted those who walk in the Spirit with those who have minds set on the flesh who are enemies of God who refuse to submit to God's law. In Galatians 5:16-23, Paul contrasted the desires of the flesh with the desires of the Spirit and everything that he listed as works of the flesh that are against the Spirit are also against God's law while all of the fruits of the Spirit are aspects of God's character that God's law was given to teach us how to embody. In Romans 2:25-29, the way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by observing their obedience to God's law, which is the same way to tell for a Jew (Deuteronomy 30:6), and having a circumcised heart is a matter of the Spirit, which is in contrast with Acts 7:51-53, where those who have uncircumcised hearts resist the Spirit and do not obey God's law.

pastorwaris said:

The Danger of Returning to the Law​

Paul was deeply concerned about believers who were saved by grace but tried to return to the law for sanctification. He called it foolish in Galatians 3:3:

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In Romans 3:27, Paul contrast a law of works with a law of faith, in Galatians 3:10-12, he contrasted the Book of the Law with "works of the law", and in Romans 3:31 and Galatians 3:10-12, he said that our faith upholds God's law in contrast with saying that "works of the law" are not of faith, so that phrase does not refer to God's law. Christ spent his ministry teaching his followers to obey God's law by word and by example and the problem that Paul had in Galatians was not with those who were teaching Gentiles how to follow what Christ taught, but with those who were wanting to require Gentiles to obey works of the law in order to become justified.

If God had saved the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt in order to put them under slavery to His law, then it would be for slavery that God sets us free, however, Galatians 5:1 says that it is for freedom that God sets us free. God's law is truth and in John 8:31-36, it is the transgression of God's law that puts us into slavery while the truth sets us free.

I don’t advocate for kosher diets or ritual law-keeping for Gentiles in the church (see Acts 15, Romans 14).

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According to Deuteronomy 13, the way that God instructed His children to determine that someone is a false prophet who is not speaking for Him is if they speak against obeying His law, so it is either incorrect to interpret Acts 15 and Romans 14 as doing that (my position) or they were false prophets, but either way followers of Christ should follow his example of refraining from eating unclean animals.

Imagine being raised your whole life under the Law, only to find out that the Messiah came to fulfill it and you now walk by faith, not by adherence to a legal code.

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Jesus fulfilled the law by teaching us how to correctly obey it. The Bible repeatedly connects walking by faith with walking in obedience to His law, such as with Revelation 14:12 where those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept God's commandments, and in Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of God's law. We can't have faith in God to guide us in how to rightly live instead of following his guidance. It is contradictory to walk by faith in God's Word made flesh instead of walking by faith in God's Word.

They didn’t require circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, or ceremonial laws. Why? Because the New Covenant is not about law-keeping it's about heart transformation.

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If Paul had been speaking against circumcision for any reason and not just against incorrect reasons, then according to Galatians 5:2, Paul caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised and Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US. In Acts 15:1, men from Judea were wanting to require Gentiles to become circumcised in order to become saved, however, that was never the reason why God commanded circumcision, so the Jerusalem Council upheld God's law by correctly ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect reason. In Exodus 12:48, Gentiles who want to eat of the Passover lamb were required to become circumcised, so the Jerusalem, Council should not be interpreted as ruling against Gentiles correctly acting in accordance with what God has commanded as if they had the authority to countermand God.

The law to honor our parents written on stone has the same content as the law to honor our parents written on our hearts, so having a heart transformation does not involve something that is not in accordance with law keeping.

so that salvation is no longer about us trying and failing to earn righteousness through works, but about receiving His righteousness by faith.

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We can't earn our righteousness even as the result of having perfect obedience to God's law (Romans 4:1-5), so that has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of the law. Righteousness has always been by faith (Genesis 15:6), so that is not something that changed.

The beauty you see in God’s Law even when it confronts us is exactly what drives us to Christ, the only One who fulfilled it perfectly on our behalf.

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Nowhere does the Bible say that Jesus removed his give of salvation by fulfilling the law on our behalf.

The Law was like a tutor (Galatians 3:24), pointing us to Christ, and once He came, the purpose of the tutor was fulfilled.

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Someone who disregard everything that their tutor taught them after the purpose of the tutor has been fulfilled would be missing the whole point of the purpose of a tutor.

So the Law ends in the sense that its role as a covenant binding Israel to God is completed in Christ (Romans 10:4),

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The context of that verse is speaking about the Israelites missing the goal of the law and has nothing to do with Christ ending it. It doesn't even make sense to think that God's Word made flesh ended God's Word, but rather God's Word made flesh is the the goal of God's Word.

A senior military adviser to Iran's supreme leader warned Sunday that another war with Israel or the United States was likely, dismissing the current ceasefire as just another phase in the conflict. According to Iran International, Revolutionary Guards general Yahya Rahim Safavi declared the current situation is not a ceasefire but rather a stage of ongoing warfare.

"We are not in a ceasefire, we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation, or agreement has been written between us and the US or Israel," Safavi told Iran International. The general added his prediction that another conflict may occur, stating "I think another war may happen, and after that, there may be no more wars."

Safavi's comments represent the latest in a series of combative remarks from military leaders on both sides, with Israel's army chief vowing readiness for further strikes and Iran's General Staff warning of "a far stronger response" to any future attacks by the US or Israel. The Iranian general argued that his country must build power at both the regional and global levels. Israel Hayom August 18th

Bible Prophecy informs us that Iran will attack Israel, Isaiah 21:2 & Isaiah 22:6, but this time, the Lord will intervene. Jeremiah 49:35-37