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CatholicVote
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This. Is. VILE!
President Biden makes the Sign of the Cross at an abortion rally in Florida!
You cannot be Catholic and support abortion!
You cannot invoke GOD and promote Death!
5:18 PM · Apr 23, 2024 //
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
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Wow. Biden in Tampa on Trump: "He said there has to be punishment for women exercising their reproductive freedom ... maybe it's coming from that bible he's trying to sell. I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell is in it."
3:21 PM · Apr 23, 2024
While some depict the Bible’s Passover meal and Jews’ Exodus from Egypt as a fable, archeological and other evidence squares with the Bible’s account.
While Magi sounds like a Persian word, Kenneth E. Bailey in Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels gave evidence that the Wise Men were for Arabia:
According to Matthew 2, the wise men arrived with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Rich people usually possess gold, and gold was mined in Arabia. But more specifically, frankincense and myrrh are harvested from trees that only grow in southern Arabia [Yemen = Sheba].
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Dr. Bailey pointed out that Justin Martyr identified the Wise Men as from Arabia:
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In the 1920s a British scholar, E. F. F. Bishop, visited a Bedouin tribe in Jordan. This Muslim tribe bore the Arabic name al-Kokabani. The word kokab means “planet” and al-Kaokabani means “Those who study/follow the planets.” Bishop asked the elders of the tribe why they called themselves by such a name. They replied that it was because their ancestors followed the planets and traveled west to Palestine to show honor to the great prophet Jesus when he was born. //
The wisemen or magi all came from present day Ethiopia. There were at least 12 in total not just three. Three magi or people who understand how to read the stars and three kings with each of them (9 kings). The three gifts mentioned of gold, myrrh & Frankincense are the same gifts that the queen of Sheba (Ethiopia & Yemen) had taken to king Solomon a few centuries before when she returned and introduced Jewish religion in Ethiopia. Being strong Jewish believers and always making pilgrims to Jerusalem to worship it is the Ethiopians outside of Israel who were anticipating the birth of the messiah. Ethiopian kings traveled from different parts of ancient Ethiopia to present the gifts to the Christ child to fulfill the prophecy of their sages. Maṣḥaf Kebur (መጽሐፍ ክቡር), an Amharic source published in 2008/9, lists the names of the three wise men and the kings who accompanied them to Jerusalem.
Luke 3:1 "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar" - convention for counting years (NOT what the actual A.D. year was)
This question is NOT what the A.D. year was but about the counting convention for years when mentioning reign of a ruler.
“We believe in objective truth. We believe that there are often right and wrong,” Woodruff told me when asked about its editorial process. “There are many times when our entire staff agrees on a specific issue, but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to only present that side. We trust our readers to be able to be discerning.”
That purported neutrality is built on the hope that Christians avoid “falling into culture wars that promote hate of the other group” and instead seek greater understanding and love for “political enemies.” Concerned by how Christians, and Americans in general, are becoming siloed in ideological media echo chambers, Woodruff wants Pour Over readers to understand what “both sides” are saying about the news of the day.
But Woodruff’s philosophy conflates the understanding of other political opinions with the belief that they should hold equal weight, a fatal conclusion that misleads and misinforms his readership. While I resonate deeply with the idea that all Americans need an accurate view of what their political others believe, these perspectives shouldn’t be framed in an amoral vacuum. Political neutrality has never been the silver bullet that some presume it to be. //
Presenting all perspectives as equal creates a false binary and results in an unwillingness to hold firm, journalistic principles for the preservation of democracy and human rights, all while eroding public trust. According to reporter Sean Illing, “The issue for many people isn’t exactly a denial of truth as such. It’s more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable.” //
In these ways, The Pour Over is not so different from the mainstream outlets it’s seeking to distinguish itself from. In chasing the biggest news of the day, The Pour Over magnifies the vices of the mainstream press by framing its own view of objectivity as in line with the divine. The daily news is not all-encompassing, and holding a long-term perspective is important, but it also has real material and spiritual consequences. Good journalism should inform readers not only of the facts but also of the stakes.
By framing the news as all-but-equal, The Pour Over pushes readers toward an unbiblical political indifference.
Since World War II, most American Jews have believed that the more secular American society is, the more secure their status.
This has been, as I have argued all of my life, a colossal error. Indeed, it may turn out to be a fatal error.
With the outburst of unprecedented levels of antisemitism, American Jews are living the famous warning: “Beware what you wish for; you just may get it.”
The primary reason American Jews have lived in the most Jew-friendly, even Jew-honoring, country in history is that most Americans have been Christian. But we must make a key distinction here. American Christians have been not just Christian, as Europe was, but Judeo-Christian. //
In a famous study published in the American Political Science Review, Donald Lutz, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, surveyed the political literature of the American founding. He found that the Bible was cited more frequently than any other work or any other author. The Bible accounted for approximately one-third of the Founders’ citations. The single most frequently cited work was Deuteronomy, the fifth of the five books of the Torah.
The late great Catholic theologian Michael Novak wrote that the roots of the doctrine that “all men are created equal lie in Judaism, carried around the world by Christians.”
As American society and Americans individually become less religious, i.e., less Christian, the Jews become less significant.
Yet, many, perhaps most, American Jews, have bought—and promulgated—the idea that Jewish security in America lies in secularizing, i.e., de-Christianizing, America. //
Look around, my fellow Jews. Are you happy with the results of the secularization of America? Do you feel more secure? Or less?
I ask you: Is it not obvious that when more Americans attended church every Sunday, America’s Jews were far more secure?
Size: 24 x 36 inches on sturdy cardstock
Description: This colorful, easy-to-read poster shows the family tree of every major Christian denomination.
ISBN: 978-0-7753519-3-1
Helsinki prosecutor Anu Mantila argued Finnish courts should ban from the internet the booklet, Rasanen’s tweet, and an audio recording of Rasanen defending Christian views. Mantila also seeks punitive fines. “Male and Female He Created Them” was published in 2004, several years before Finland adopted the antiterrorism laws now being used to prosecute the two Christians for “hate speech.”
“With the right police and prosecutor, we could expect to see similar cases crop up across Europe and in fact around the world,” noted Alliance Defending Freedom International lawyer Paul Coleman, who is assisting the Christians’ legal defense. Hate crimes laws like Finland’s are on the books in many European nations and American states and cities.
Rasanen said the most difficult part of her prosecution has been the prosecutor’s false accusations against her, including that Rasanen considers homosexuals inferior. She said that is “against my conviction” as a Christian. Christianity teaches that every human is made in God’s image and so beloved by God that He sacrificed His own Son to wash away every sin ever committed.
“We represent the common traditional classical understanding of family and sexual ethics, and now this has been labeled widely in our society and also in the established Lutheran church as something which is … not only offending and extremist but it’s also criminal,” Pohjola said.
Pohjola is the bishop of a small non-state church body that adheres to the Bible’s teachings, which Finland’s state church has in large part abandoned. The Federalist interviewed Pohjola in person in 2021, and Rasanen in person in 2022.
Free will
God created a perfect world, yet gave Adam and Eve a way to reject him by accepting something that would remove their innocence. Why offer them a choice? Why not leave it perfect?
Because without a way to reject God, their love would have been meaningless.
God goes to great lengths to make sure people can choose to love Him without violating their free will. That plays heavily into the idea of deus absconditus, or "hidden god". God is hidden, but wants to be found. Thus, you ensure that the majority of those who find Him are actually those looking.
Predestination
I think the confusion that surrounds this issue is largely rooted in the question of free will. If God wants us to be saved, will we not be saved? If God wants you condemned to Hell, will you not be condemned? There is some level of truth there, but it misses that God does not throw Free Will out the window to accomplish this.
God orchestrates the universe. He knows every decision that can be made, and what decisions will, in fact, be made. Take Luke 13
13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
Jesus is speaking here, and this verse illustrates predestination perfectly. Jesus spent time doing miracles in two cities that bore no fruit. Indeed, we see Jesus do many things that do nothing to promote faith. What is positively mind blowing is that Jesus is saying that if he had done those same miracles in Syria they would have repented wholeheartedly. So... why not go and do those things there?
Jesus' ministry was primarily to the Jews. Other miracles will be done in those places later, but Jesus was trying to get the Jews to repent first and foremost. In other words, God was showing love to the Jews by giving them miracles He knew they would reject, so they could be seen from a different perspective later.
To watch Killers is to observe the slow progression of what Mollie calls a “wasting illness” (in literal and metaphorical terms) that surrounds her family. It’s the creeping, insidious, nature of sin devastating a community in real time, like an invasive weed gradually suffocating the life out of a thriving garden. //
The film ends with a brilliant, unexpected coda, set several years after the movie’s main action. It’s a scene of a true crime radio program recording that dramatizes the story in auditory form. We catch the end of the broadcast, as radio actors and sound-effects artists narrate the “what happened to” fates of the key players in the Osage Murders case.
The scene is brilliant narratively for how it informs the audience about where Hale, Ernest, and Mollie end up. But it’s also brilliant thematically, as a commentary on the importance of how stories get told in different forms, across generations. We’re watching a live radio program, filmed for a movie, adapted from a book, about a true story.
Most meta of all, Scorsese himself appears in a cameo, as a radio performer who reads the newspaper obituary printed after Mollie Burkhart’s 1937 death. After reading the obit, Scorsese’s character notes, as he looks soberly into the audience, that “There was no mention of the murders.”
It’s the last line of the film. It speaks to the ways we’re prone, in our fallenness, to whitewash history and edit out the uncomfortable episodes and the sins of our ancestors, even as (like Ernest and others in Killers) we’re prone to concealing rather than confessing our present sins. Our instinct to hide sin is as old as Eden. //
When future observers look back on our generation’s telling of the Christian story, may it never be said that “There was no mention of _____ [insert unpopular or difficult biblical teaching].” Let’s tell the whole truth, even if it means the audience dwindles. And let’s rejoice that the whole truth includes not only the guilt of our sins in the past but also the grace of Christ in the present and an unfailing hope for the future.
Amalekites don’t just happen to harm women and children as “collateral damage.” Amalekites don’t carry out the ban, as Israel did, destroying men, women, children, and animals in select Canaanite cities, on Yahweh’s orders. Israel didn’t attack Jericho, Ai, or Hormah when all the men were gone. They attacked fortified and guarded cities, conquered them, and offered them in smoke and fire to Yahweh. Amalekites specifically target women and children and the weak. Amalek is the anti-Israel, a people whose way of life, values, and military tactics are set in direct opposition to Yahweh’s purposes for humanity. //
Hamas isn’t Amalek. Hamas isn’t literally under Yahweh’s ban and curse. And Hamas certainly isn’t the same as the Palestinian people. Thousands of Palestinians are Christians, and many Muslim Palestinians oppose Hamas and its violence. To compare Hamas to Amalek isn’t to justify or even suggest genocide.
Still, the tactics Hamas used on October 7 were Amalekite tactics. Hamas isn’t the only terrorist group to fight like Amalekites.
[Deconstruction] has little to do with objective truth, and everything to do with tearing down whatever doctrine someone believes is morally wrong. //
it was very personal and it focused on the human beings who have come out of this, rather than on whether a certain kind of theology is right or wrong. //
If deconstruction means nothing more than changing your mind or correcting bad ideas, then I can say I deconstructed by switching from AT&T to Verizon. //
Deconstruction is not about getting your theology right.