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Akita Suggagaki · 2026-02-21T08:21:10-0600

Jon Meacham says a president needs to have moral character because anything can happen in the term. Good interview.

ThatRobGuy · 2026-02-21T08:20:49-0600

rambot said:
Well okay but the...the other point is that the other data centres were smaller and didn't have the same kind of impact on their community as these new ones would.

That is kind of THE point.

I have only ever heard "NIMBY" being brought up to discredit an argue but I think their argument is valid.

But those data centres, on the whole, were MUCH smaller and so their impacts, though already a strain, is simply going to be amplified in new communities. IOW, AI data centre's impact, though previously great, is getting greater

But the complaints in the context of what was posted in the OP are basically the definition of textbook NIMBYism.

Opposing the development of real-estate and/or infrastructure projects because it is close to them, that they would otherwise tolerate or support it if it were built farther away and didn't have any negative impact on them personally.

The OP noted that these oppositions are coming from deep red rural areas in Indiana and Oklahoma.

Forgive me if this is presumptuous, but I'm going to to out on a limb and suggest that rural republican voters in those areas gripes aren't stemming from climate change concerns.

Their concerns are more akin to that of people who don't want new Section 8 housing built two blocks away from their house.

weary2025 · 2026-02-21T08:20:46-0600

Maria Billingsley said:
Y

Yes, Christian Nationalism is anathema. It is portraying a "different gospel" that distorts the core message of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Galatians 1:8-9 warns that anyone preaching a gospel contrary to the one received should be "accused" or "accursed" (anathema). If an ideology prioritizes earthly political power over biblical teachings, it meets that definition. Christians involved need to come out of her.
Be blessed.

People like Charlie Kirk are seen as godly men but to me its the opposite

Firstlightdawn · 2026-02-21T08:17:36-0600

Warden_of_the_Storm said:
Do you think that the problem here is that you're taking a literalist reading of the Bible, specifically Genesis, which are a series of events that cannot be described by purely naturalistic means, and trying to force it together with science that only deals with the naturalistic?

It takes roughly 250,000 scientific books to explain what we know from just 20 words in the Bible.

And we are talking about Genesis chapter one only. Take anything out of chapter one and we can look to see what science tells us. Pick any verse. For example, Genesis 1:11:

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

It takes roughly 250,000 scientific books to explain what we know from just 20 words in the Bible.

And we are talking about Genesis chapter one only. Take anything out of chapter one and we can look to see what science tells us. Pick any verse. For example, Genesis 1:11:

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

In science, this entire subject is called botany.

Gerald Schroeder puts it this way:

“The Six Days of Genesis, which have given people so many headaches, are confined to 31 sentences! At MIT, in the Hayden Library, we had about 50,000 books that deal with the development of the universe: cosmology, chemistry, thermodynamics, paleontology, archaeology, the high‑energy physics of creation. Up the river at Harvard, at the Widener Library, they probably have 200,000 books on these same topics. The Bible gives us 31 sentences. Don’t expect that by a simple reading of those sentences, you’ll know every detail that is held within the text. It’s obvious that we have to dig deeper to get the information out.”

So yes — it takes about 250,000 scientific books to unpack what we learn from 31 biblical sentences.

And we know it’s better to read peer‑reviewed scientific journals, where the consensus of experts in each field is tested, challenged, and refined. Science gives us the mechanisms; Genesis gives us the meaning.

weary2025 · 2026-02-21T08:16:11-0600

Democrats seem to always oppose the law. First it was "defund police." Now its demonize ice. But is this love and is it godliness?

Isaac the Recluse · 2026-02-21T08:15:12-0600

Stole a walrus's swimming trunks.

WIMMI

SabbathBlessings · 2026-02-21T08:11:26-0600

KevinT said:
I don’t take your replies as hostile. I take them as passionate. There is some core issue that doesn’t set well with you, and you seem to be either trying to work that out for yourself. Or perhaps you are trying to help others come to the understanding you have.

I grew up in the SDA church, and as a kid when I heard the phrase “well, Ellen White says…“ it made me stop listening. Many people use her as an authoritarian figure with which to whip others into shape. If that was your experience, I can certainly understand you pushing back. Many people view her as an infallible speakerphone for God. And then, if she says something incorrect, it seems like the whole house of cards collapses down.

I read somewhere once that the students at the Loma Linda medical school wrote to her about her guidance against the use of medication’s. They wondered if if something as simple as potassium supplements were included in that list. And she got upset at them for pushing back on what she felt was guidance from God. To me, this scenario is a microcosm of her situation. Let’s accept for the sake of this discussion that an angel told her to not use medication‘s. (And by the way, I think every single medication that was in use in her time is something that would be malpractice to use today.) So she passes this message along. Then, when the situation changes, the advice doesn’t seem to apply anymore. So the medical students push back. And she interprets it as rejection of the Angel’s message. But she is caught in the middle and gets defensive.

I think the solution is to try to understand the positive, and set the negative elements aside. She spoke against using medication. That seems bad. Children have died due to withheld antibiotics. On the other hand, many patients that I interact with are spending obscene amounts of money on weight loss drugs such as Ozempic (list price is >$1,000 per month), when instead instead they would be much better better served to follow the dietary guidelines that just make common sense. So medication‘s can be viewed as a good thing, and they can be viewed as a bad thing.

I think I may have rambled off topic a bit too much. So I’ll close off here.

Best wishes
Kevin

Since we are sharing, I will say my grandmother had the most influence on me being an Adventist. My dad is also SDA. My grandmother walked the talk. To this day I have never met anyone like her. Everyone loved her, she was not judgmental to anyone, she adopted grown adults as her children because they didn't have families. When I would visit her, I would have to wait in line because there was always someone at her house visiting. I remember growing up seeing her face shine like I have never seen anyone else's in my life when she would read the Bible or an EGW book. She was always loving, always available, never judgmental. I left the Adventist church at a young age, didn't want anything to do with it, not that I didn't believe, but wanted to do my own thing. When I moved near her, I went to church just to spend time with her and I was so blessed that she went to Pastor Doug Batchelor's church and I found myself going even when she couldn't make it for various reasons. When she passed, no one wanted her EGW books, so I received her extensive collection, I felt like I received the greatest inheritance. The books that touched and transformed her life. There is no way I could read them in my lifetime, there are so many.

Happy Sabbath!

weary2025 · 2026-02-21T08:11:08-0600

BobRyan said:
Commandments regarding both in the TEN

There is a difference between "do not take God's name in vain" and "Honor your father and mother" but BOTH are in the moral law of God

depending on which Christian denomination you are in

Not in the Ten Conmmandments

Read the actual commandment and see for yourself

So who decides how you observe Sabbath? Where are the rules?

Akita Suggagaki · 2026-02-21T08:07:00-0600

Soeaking of the Bible,

Thus says the LORD:
If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday; Isaiah 58:9

Hentenza · 2026-02-21T08:05:19-0600

d taylor said:
-

Just like it can be claimed there is no fisheye lens use in the image the globe earths being posted. Of course there is no fisheye lens, because there is no lens used at all. The images being posted are not photographs, but images created from data. They could create from the data a square earth, a triangular earth, etc... They just chooes to put the data on a sphere, because that is what most people believe the earth is.

Prove it.

Maine Progressive · 2026-02-21T08:01:59-0600

Well, of course. But we are laborers in the field. God produces the harvest, yes. But it's our job to plant the seed. We do that by demonstrating the outstanding compassion and charity Christ directed us to in the beatitudes. Mt 5:16 is just one example "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." There are many like that. If evangelicals would make charity their priority instead of fear and loathing I do believe there would be a revival like the world has never seen before.

bbbbbbb · 2026-02-21T07:55:57-0600

Naked narwhals never need nothing.

o_mlly · 2026-02-21T07:52:30-0600

FireDragon76 said:
My understanding of Christian theology, shaped by studying both patristic sources and neopatristic theology, doesn't lead me to conclude that one must be a confessional Christian or live in a confessionally Christian state to recognize what we would call natural law. It's a basic idea in classical Protestant thought that Jesus's human nature and particularly doesn't "enclose" the Logos or Reason, and it's also consistent with what I know of patristic theology as well. To my knowledge, this is close to the teachings of the Catholic Church (Lumens Gentium), that while the fullness of revelation is found in the Church's teachings, this doesn't imply that the Church encloses all truth, or that other religions or worldviews are necessarily divorced from participation in God's creative and redemptive activity. When we see a non-Christian living out recognizeable virtues, this isn't an exception to a rule, but demonstrates a deeper coherence in the Christian worldview than merely a strictly nominalist account of salvation or formalistic account of grace.

Grace is a mystery.

Karl Rahner, a Jesuit priest and theologian, had a strong influence in the Second Vatican Council. Rahner calls grace the “supernatural existential,” or God’s self-communication, and he understands grace to be a fundamental dimension of being human, affecting all people at all times.

Describing the “supernatural existential,” or indwelling grace as God’s self-communication is similar to the explanation of conscience in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which reads:

Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths. (490)

Apple Sky · 2026-02-21T07:46:06-0600

On Time

d taylor · 2026-02-21T07:33:29-0600

Carl Emerson said:
That sounds like universalism...

I hope I misunderstand.

-

If you understand how a person becomes a born again child of God, you should understand my post.

o_mlly · 2026-02-21T07:32:03-0600

SoldierOfTheKing said:
Did David ever lose his kingship?

? Only when he died.

o_mlly · 2026-02-21T07:29:11-0600

The Barbarian said:
That's a testable assumption. Let's look at a simple case.
Two alleles for a given gene locus in a population. Each with frequency of 0.5. Since the information for this gene would be the sum of each frequency multiplied by the log of each frequency, the information for that gene would be about 0.301. Now let's suppose a new mutation occurs, and eventually all three alleles have a frequency of about 0.333 each. (I used these to make the numbers simpler for you; if you like, I can use different frequencies) Now, the information for that gene is about 0.477.

Nope. You lurch to the usual evo's deflection of explaining micro events (with which no one disagrees) when the question is to explain macro events.

Shannon Entropy (SE) explains microevolution events but offers nothing to explain macroevolution events, novel body plans. SE primarily measures uncertainty and information in data rather than biological processes. New body plans require not only an explanation of mere complexity but of specified complexity. And so, we're back to the First Principle of Sufficient Reason -- one can't give what one doesn't already possess. Try again.

The Barbarian said:
And as the Church points out, this is consistent with evolutionary theory. Couldn't be any other way, really.

We know you have exhausted your talking points when you constantly repeat yourself. All your arguments have been "asked and answered". Do let us know when you have something new.

I suggest you also check your parish's adult catechesis formation offerings. You should enroll.

under grace1 · 2026-02-21T07:28:28-0600

Carl Emerson said:
I was seriously lost - broken - demented - admitted to psych ward - taking drugs - given ECT -

I can relate to much of that. I was sent to a couple of psychiatric institutes and at one time ended up in a padded cell and a young person's prison, though probably for different reasons than as you describe above concerning yourself

weary2025 · 2026-02-21T07:25:02-0600

The way to be like Jesus is to study, meditate, and obey his commandments and teaching. Many people neglect some of his commandments and those of his apostles

Yusuphhai · 2026-02-21T07:14:45-0600

under grace1 · 2026-02-21T07:08:39-0600

weary2025 said:
I can only speak for myself. My mind is a battlefield. I war against the old me. Somehow I escaped lust. I will never go back, I pray.

That's great, but my original point was, to obey outwardly is not so hard. Jesus said the Pharisees cleaned the outside of the cup, but the inside was very different. I don't believe any of us will perfectly obey on the inside, however much we may desire to. As you say, our minds are a battlefield, would they be if we faultlessly obeyed in our minds?

jamiec · 2026-02-21T07:08:31-0600

Mercy Shown said:
Eph 2: 1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

If you are worried about your salvation, hear the good news of Epistle to the Ephesians 2:1–10.

Paul does not begin by telling us to try harder. He does not say, “You were struggling and needed improvement.” He says something far more radical: “You were dead.” Not weak. Not confused. Not mostly alive with a few bad habits. Dead in trespasses and sins.

Dead people do not debate techniques for self-resuscitation.

And yet look at us. We argue about baptism — dunking vs. pouring vs. sprinkling — as though the precise amount of water determines eternal life. We debate holy days, music styles, food, and drink, as though heaven is secured by liturgical precision or dietary discipline. We divide over beverages, calendars, and worship formats as if Christ were waiting for us to get the details right before He decides to save us.

But Ephesians says we were spiritually lifeless. We “walked according to the course of this world.” We were enslaved to desires. We were, by nature, children of wrath. That means salvation was never about fine-tuning our religious behavior. It was about resurrection.

Then comes the hinge of hope: “But God…”

“But God, being rich in mercy…”
“But God… because of the great love with which He loved us…”

When we were dead, He made us alive together with Christ.

Notice the direction of movement. We were not reaching up. We were being raised. We were not negotiating terms. We were being rescued. Grace is not God helping the willing; it is God awakening the dead.

And why did He make us alive?

The text gives the reasons:

Because He is rich in mercy.

Because of His great love.

To show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

So that we might walk in the good works He prepared beforehand — not to earn life, but because we now have life.

None of those reasons are:
“Because we were baptized correctly.”
“Because we kept the right day.”
“Because we avoided the wrong beverage.”
“Because our music passed inspection.”

Salvation is by grace, through faith — and even that is called “the gift of God.” Not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

If you are anxious about your salvation, look away from yourself. Look to the One who raises the dead. Your hope is not in the strength of your grip on Him, but in the strength of His mercy toward you.

The good news is not that you have finally gotten serious enough.
The good news is that God is rich in mercy.
And He makes the dead alive.

The world is not ending this very instant, for most people, so for most people the question is pretty pointless. And there is far more to Christianity than narcissistic navel-gazing about whether one is “saved”, or not. The Christian life is not primarily about being saved. The Gospel is primarily about the Βασιλεια του Θεου - the Reign, Rule, Kingdom & Kingship of God; & thus, of Christ. Salvation is a result of that.

Salvation is a three-stage process, not a single finished event in the past. It is

- a past event
- a present way of life, happening now
- a hope to be fulfilled in the future.

“- None of those reasons are:
“Because we were baptized correctly.””

Baptism is obviously not a reason why God made people alive; denying that Baptism is a reason God has made us alive, is a straw man. The fact remains that Baptism saves, according to 1 Peter 3.21. Baptism is a means by which salvation comes. It is not the Author of Salvation, any more than the Bible is; but both the Bible, & Baptism, are among the created means by which God works to real-ise the salvation of the members of the community of salvation AKA the Church.

Firstlightdawn · 2026-02-21T07:07:06-0600

dlamberth said:
That kinda of sounds like Panentheism to me.

I am not trying to explain anything. I am just quoting the Bible. For me something covered with eyes sounds like wheels within wheels. Although wheels within wheels makes a lot more sense. A solar system for example is made up of wheels within wheels. “The universe is built in layers: solar systems inside star systems, star systems inside galaxies, galaxies inside clusters — wheels within wheels at every scale.”

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