RDKirk said:

A soldier of lesser integrity might ask "But is that a universal order?" but not someone like Uriah.

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Good point

See also
Did David universally prohibit his men at war from engaging in sexual intercourse? and follow up there.

Ophiolite said:

We do not "all know" that your interpretation of Genesis is true. There are, perhaps, as many different interpretation as there are minutes in a 24 hour day.

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Astrophile said:

Only 1,440?

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Astrid said:

1488 actually

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Yet, every single Christian past, present, and future believes IN THE BEGINNING, GOD.

So if our differences -- (which some make a big deal about) -- mean anything, do our similarities?

I'm guessing our similarities can take a hike though, can't they?

Else there would be less atheists and agnostics.

Guys, pray for a taxi driver named Karl. He is a devout Christian, but he has a cigarette addiction. Pray that he is freed from this addiction.

It sounds like it's Hungary's own fault for getting involved and accepting EU funds in the first place.

When countries accept a measure of austerity from other countries (or a collective of other countries), you become beholden to some of their expectations and demands, and sometimes that involves other nations' governments demanding things your own people aren't going to like.

That why national leaders need to think very carefully about what their priorities are, and what level of control they're willing to give before signing onto some of these international organizations.

Greece had a similar situation of citizen backlash after they received money from EU nations (3 times) in the form of austerity measures, and in exchange, those EU nations demanded that they change some of their working-hours expectations, public benefits, and pension policies.

If keeping a 32 hour work week and paying for people to retire at age 52 was something that was a priority for them, they should've brainstormed a way to make it work domestically without accepting money from other countries.


In Hungary's case, I can understand their frustrations with the asylum rules...the EU was basically saying "you have to onboard this culture clash because we said so, regardless of negative impacts"



...but this should be a lesson. There's no such thing as "free money". When you receive money that wasn't the result of your own efforts, there's almost always going to be strings attached.

Or perhaps a better analogy, joining the EU (or any other similar organization for which you aren't the "big dog on the block"), is sort of like deciding to buy a house in an HOA where you're not the HOA president, someone's going to be telling you what to do with your money and property and you're going to have to suck it up and take it if you were naive enough to sign on the dotted line because you only saw benefit and discounted the fact that there could be a downside.

In this instance, Hungary joined the "HOA", and the cranky 63 year old busy-body HOA president who likes to come by and tell you that your mailbox is the wrong color (Brussels) is fining them.

JohnEmmett said:

Darwin is your deity

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That's why I have a fish skeleton sticker in my read car window.

BPPLEE said:

If I remember right, didn't one of Solomon's brothers request to marry this woman

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Right.
13 Then Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. And she said, "Do you come peacefully?" He said, "Peacefully."
14 Then he said, "I have something to say to you." She said, "Speak."
15 He said, "You know that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel fully expected me to reign. However, the kingdom has turned about and become my brother's, for it was his from the Lord.
16 And now I have one request to make of you; do not refuse me." She said to him, "Speak."
17 And he said, "Please ask King Solomon—he will not refuse you—to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife."
18 Bathsheba said, "Very well; I will speak for you to the king."

BPPLEE said:

and Solomon had him put to death?

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Right.
22 King Solomon answered his mother, "And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also, for he is my older brother, and on his side are Abiathar the priest and Joab the son of Zeruiah."
23 Then King Solomon swore by the Lord, saying, "God do so to me and more also if this word does not cost Adonijah his life!
24 Now therefore as the Lord lives, who has established me and placed me on the throne of David my father, and who has made me a house, as he promised, Adonijah shall be put to death today."
25 So King Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he struck him down, and he died.

BPPLEE said:

And I remember some claiming that this woman is the same one in Song of Solomon

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Right.

1 Kings 1:3-4 (ESV)
3 So they sought for a beautiful young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king.
4 The young woman was very beautiful, and she was of service to the king and attended to him, but the king knew her not.

The Shulamite in Song of Solomon 6:13 (ESV)
13 Return, return, O Shulammite,
return, return, that we may look upon you.
Why should you look upon the Shulammite,
as upon a dance before two armies?

But I doubt she was the same woman. It seemed that Shulam was famous for having beautiful women.

nalex1066 said:

We? have both genetics within us??? Male & female????

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Only in men. Men are XY, women are XX No big mystery there.

Dave Darling said:

The path we are on throughout our lives, called a Wordline, consists of a series of connected events forming a path in space-time from birth to death. Once you have discovered the “Wordline” for an object or even a person it cannot be changed, it is the complete “story” of it's or their lives.

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Yeah, since the subject necessarily has to be dead. No mulligans.

Dave Darling said:

Everything that has ever happened to you is located on coordinates in the space-time continuum in your Wordline, from your first day in kindergarten, to that test you failed in grade school, to your first car, to when you got married, to the day you die, everything you do.

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Yeah, you just said that.

Dave Darling said:

The bible says that we will each be judged after we die based on the things we have done in our lives. Could this be the spiritual equivalent to the “Wordline” in the laws of physics?

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Lessee, the Physics one includes everything we did, said, thought, felt, experienced, ad infinitum, right? Seems pretty all inclusive, dunnit?

Dave Darling said:

If we are on the wrong “path” in life (the Wordline) we can choose to repent and change our Wordline for the better! In physics the Wordline cannot be changed, it takes a miracle to do that (salvation)!

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Zat mean repentence allows us to edit out stuff we did that God has forgiven us for? I think that's where your analogy falls apart. God can edit stuff out if He's so inclined, as He's outside space-time, having, in fact, created it.

I harbor the belief (worth the price charged) that the Eternal Punishment dealt out to unrepentant sinners is to have their existence expunged from time-space. They not only no longer exist, they never existed at all. Any trace of any evil (or any good, for that matter) that they ever did never happened.

"Oh, but God can't...". Rubbish. God can do anything He pleases.

The Bible can give you answers to a lot of questions which you have not thought of asking.

His time being a professional Jeff bridges impersonator will not be forgotten

RandyPNW said:

The problem is that the Pope made himself the source of division in the universal Church, by denouncing all Christian movements and territories not under his rule.

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Except he never did that. It's one of your fictions.

RandyPNW said:

Today, Francis calls Israel's efforts to defend themselves against bombings "beyond morality."

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I'm not sure he said that but if he did, he is right. No one can make a good case for killing thousands of innocents just to kill a few guilty people.

RandyPNW said:

Should we get our politics from one who divides the Church?

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The Pope isn't giving you your politics! That's such an untrue claim.

RandyPNW said:

I'll listen to him when he builds his truth on the true foundation of the Church, that of the apostles and prophets who gave us the Scriptures (not the Catholic version).

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Objectively speaking the pope probably has no idea that you exist. He isn't asking you to be his follower. Try following Jesus.

RandyPNW said:

The Pope seems to like Biden more than Trump--why is that?

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It's you who likes Trump more than Biden and you project that onto what the pope says. No wonder you wrote these accusatory posts.

RandyPNW said:

Biden is pro-abortion in his policies, and Trump is not. Trump has the support of many consevative Christians in America.

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Donald Trump sleeps with many women and is proud of it. He's a convicted felon. He lies in every speech he gives. What's not to like?

RandyPNW said:

He's entitled to his opinion, but he is not entitled to misrepresent the Universal Church!

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You are not the universal church. You are just some person on CF who writes anti-pope posts.

PloverWing said:

Wikipedia has a list, if you want to skim through it: Time Person of the Year - Wikipedia

I was about to post saying "no, no female clergy on the list", but I found one. In 1975, Time's person of the year was "American women". In that issue, they highlighted a number of particular women, including Allison Cheek, one of the first female Episcopal priests in the United States. You can read her story here (Alison Cheek - Wikipedia), and the story of the Philadelphia Eleven here (Philadelphia Eleven - Wikipedia).

So, yes, a woman priest has been a Time person of the year.

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That’s pretty awesome and informative.

ralliann said:

Why? Women priests are the product of neither male nor female in Christ right?

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IIRC, the first female ordained was by Congregationalist in the 1800s. Of course, deaconess existed before then.

MarkRohfrietsch said:

It can be confusing; the more conservative and confessional clergy (mostly from the eastern US will refer to their district president as "my Bishop"; where those from the more liberal west tend to dislike the term; there are exceptions.

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Ah, thanks for clarifying.

Fantine said:

Biden performed the miracle of beating inflation without increasing unemployment or going into.recession. Biden's approach was disciplined. Thoughtful. Collaborative.

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Oh Sure, Big Smiles!

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not just code words for anonymous and unreliable authors.​

Most of us take for granted that the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were in fact written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, respectively. In times past, this would have been the obvious assumption, and questioning this assumption would have been seen as an absurd waste of time.

However, no assumption is safe today, and the identity of the authors of the Gospels is now hotly debated by some scholars.

So let’s take a look at this question. Who did write the Gospels? And why does it matter?

Briefly, we should begin by setting the parameters of the question. When talking about who wrote the Gospels, we should clarify whichgospels we are talking about. There are only four canonical Gospels, those purported to be written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are considered authentically part of the New Testament by all Christians the world over. There are a great number of so-called “gospels.” Among others, there are the “Gospel of Judas,” the “Gospel of Mary,” the “Gospel of Thomas,” the “Gospel of Philip,” the Protoevangelium of James, and many more.

These are all recognized as having been written a century or more after the death of Jesus, sometimes several centuries later, and not attributable to those closest disciples of Our Lord, or even to their disciples. While these facts in and of themselves do not mean that they are unreliable historical records, we know that the authors were not divinely inspired, as the Church has discerned and declared the canon of Sacred Scripture, and the canon is closed. Scripture is public revelation from God, and such public revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle (see Dei Verbum 4, CCC 66-67, 73). So these so-called “gospels,” though they may be historically interesting documents, are not part of that canon. The authorship of those documents is not at issue here.

Continued below.

The bigger immigration issue--that no one talks about--is what to do with all of the undocumented immigrants who have lived and worked in this country for years, and have otherwise committed no crimes. Exact numbers are impossible to know with accuracy. Pew Research (a very reputable organization) puts a 2022 estimate at 11 million. Check the link.

What we know about unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S.

Donald Trump's idea to deport these folks is a ridiculous impossibility. How in the world can state and federal personnel identify and round up millions of people? The idea is stupidity on steroids. But preposterous, irrational, lunacy is Donald's stock and trade.

The much better approach has already been introduced in the House. H.R.3194 allows unauthorized immigrants, who've resided in the US for over a year, to identify themselves and undergo a background check. If there is no other criminal record, and after 5 years as law-abiding resident aliens, they are eligible for permanent resident status. The link has more details.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3194

This is reasonable, sensible, and humane. And far superior to Donald Trump's pandering to prejudice, ignorance, and bigotry.

KathrynAragon said:

Thank you, my friend!

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You’re welcome!

Editor’s Note: This is part three of three in a series from Rob Marco’s interview with Leila Lawler. Read parts one and two here.

In the final installment of the interview series, Leila comments on the hidden cycles of repression and financial burden so often overlooked in our social belief systems: that everyone ought to go to college, that the ability to divorce is true freedom, and that the dual-income home is necessary for happy living.

There seems to be a reactionary trend in recent years against higher education in favor of the trades among conservatives. This is understandable given the exponential cost of college combined with the left-leaning politics of universities today, not to mention that one can earn a good living in the trades.

How did you approach the issue of college with your children? Did you have conversations about their chosen field of study, return on investment, and maintaining their Catholicity during the college years, and whether or not to attend a public, private, or Catholic college? For those that did attend college, how did you approach the financial aspect?​

Leila Marie Lawler: The relative expense of college tuition is an interesting phenomenon. Its trajectory tracks elite and upper-middle-class women working outside the home. The market responds to the available income. A man once said to me, “I couldn’t afford the tuitions if my wife didn’t work!” So it’s a self-fulfilling cycle, isn’t it? Women go to college to get degrees so they can get good jobs so that in 20 years their salaries can go to tuitions for their children—they have to work to afford future tuition. We were the last to enter a situation that was free of this influence. Yes, college is expensive, and I’m not sure what most who go there are getting out of it—for many reasons, but that’s probably beyond the scope of this interview!

Continued below.

For Christians the word of God defines what our moral behavior should be for ourselves ... traffic laws and many laws are not moral in nature.
As long as we are not individually forced to partake against the moral behavior as we understand from the Word of God ... we are to obey our government laws.

I would agree we are way over regulated

• Laws
  Written by legislatures, laws establish requirements and prohibitions that define how people should behave in areas that fall under government authority. Laws serve many purposes, including establishing standards, maintaining order, and resolving disputes.
  
  
• Regulations
  Written by executive branch agencies, regulations are legal directives that explain how to implement laws. Regulations are also known as rules, and they have the force of law. Regulations are created to supplement laws and clarify how they will be implemented. They often include penalties for violations.
• 
  
• As the saying goes ... "the devil is in the details", more details in law and regulations than we can shake a stick at LOL
  

Akita Suggagaki said:

Yes, I would think Koine Greek of the New Testament would be even more powerful than Latin.

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But most people in the West spoke Latin, which is why St Jerome, who's memorial is today BTW, translated
the Bible from Greek into Latin.

I remember seeing that when I visited Paris! Very beautiful!

Sword of the Lord said:

I would suggest everyone who speaks English to learn to understand KJV and DRB style English and call it a day. So many people want to the newest translations, but they're very often missing parts, translated in a way they weren't previously, and made gender neutral along with other modern day woke changes. Get old bibles and hoard them like a scared treasure.

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I have the DRB Bible. Wonder if I should order a KJV Bible or not?

I mostly use my Jerusalem Bible for devotional and personal study.