Damien the Leper

On 12/17/2024 at 12:42 PM, smac97 said:

I thought the inconsistency was pretty apparent, hence the question. 

It wasn't.

On 12/17/2024 at 12:42 PM, smac97 said:

Citizenship is not compulsory, though.  You could renounce your citizenship so as to avoid "complicity" in the "crimes" of the United States, and then move to some other country more deserving of your allegiance.

Instead, you stay.  So in the end, you end up compromising along with the rest of us.  And in such compromising you do not see yourself as "carrying water" or being "complicit" in "crimes" which you did not commit, did not authorize, did not approve, over which you had essentially no control, etc.  I think that makes sense.

You're suggesting running from one burning house to another. I'm not compromising. I'm one who is trying to help put out the fires. That is why I stay.

On 12/17/2024 at 12:42 PM, smac97 said:

But you do impute such ugly things onto your family members, and then publicly announce those ugly imputations here.  Perhaps this is not a good idea.

When I accused them of allowing "ugly things" to not be deal breakers it would be wise not to possibly assume that they disagreed with what I said. To be clear, they did not. 

On 12/17/2024 at 12:42 PM, smac97 said:

For example, I can accommodate/tolerate same-sex marriage as the law of the land, but that does not mean I must endorse it in a religious/moral sense, nor does my accommodating/tolerating it  amount to me being "complicit" with it or "carrying water" for it. 

This is far from the equivalent of accommodating/tolerating systems such as fascism.

20 hours ago, smac97 said:

It sounded like an oblique/backhanded statement to your family members that they are carrying water for racists.  But I was not sure, hence my request for clarification.

It wasn't backhanded or oblique. My family knew exactly what I was saying.

20 hours ago, smac97 said:

Is that a yes?  it sounds like one, but again, I am seeking clarification.

If you are an American, you presumably pay taxes to a state, and to the federal government, which probably do some things with it which you find morally objectionable.  And yet you presumably remain an American, pay taxes, etc.  Does that make you "complicit" in these things?

I'm not going to be backed into a corner to for you to try to find inconstancies in my position. As a citizen of any country, one must pay taxes. This is forced on people. Comparing paying taxes to voting is not the same thing at all. Voting is a choice. Paying taxes is not.

20 hours ago, smac97 said:

You can't also always separate yourself from the society in which you live.

We all make subjective value judgments about what we can accommodate in the behaviors of those around us.  That we accommodate/tolerate a behavior does not necessarily make us "complicit" in it.

I never said you can always separate yourself. I think I can get on board with the bolded. However, choose wisely that which you decide to accommodate/tolerate.

38 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't know what you are saying here.

I'm fairly sure I was clear on what I was saying.

39 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Ah.  So if you had previously planned to vote for a Democratic candidate, and if you then discover that some other Democrat voters have some terrible attribute or ideological stance, you withhold your vote because "{t}o do so would be carrying water for such groups"?

Which is precisely why I didn't vote at all. I chose not to be complicit in the crimes. 

41 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think we need to vote based on active, rather than reactive, reasoning.

You can't always separate the active from the reactive. I saw an uptick in conservative leaning simply over the falsely claimed Haitians eating pets in Ohio. The southern border is a tired issue on which people vote reactively. So, I suppose you're right.

On 12/10/2024 at 2:10 PM, smac97 said:

When Dan publicly accused me of "carrying water" for white supremacists and "conspiring" to "subjugate" women, I took those as "personality attacks."  His various categorical imputations of evil motives onto people opposed to abortion also seem like "personality attacks."

I have many family members who lean conservatively on certain issues but who are by no means, themselves, homophobic, transphobic, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, sexist, etc. However, I made a point to tell them that while they may not be any of those things they decided that those characteristics are not deal breakers to achieve their desired ends. I stated that because I am not a racist, I will not vote or align in any way with racists. To do so would be carrying water for such groups. We must always be better. And now for a less mature statement but one I stand by... Project 2025 is inherently evil from cover to cover.

On 12/1/2024 at 11:00 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

Peterson is criticized primarily by political partisans who misunderstand the nature of academic debate.  Indeed, those who hate him the most are deeply threatened by the questions he raises about the validity of their woke assumptions.  The high nabobs or society are the most frightened by his discomfiting comments and systematic analyses.  The shift in the debate is palpable.

That's like saying that Lysenkoism is scientific, and that Mendelian genetics is religious.  The third Earl of Russell thought Marxism to be a religion.  Why?  Perhaps because it has strong devotees who read the sacred texts from their prophets (Marx, Engles, Lenin, Mao), a belief system focused on achieving a utopian future -- a form of salvation from the evil capitalist social order, and finally with automatic harmony in a communist millennium.

Milovan Djilas, the top theoretician in the Yugoslav Communist Party, defined Marxism best in his The New Class (Praeger).

Let's not forget equally heretical religious texts such as Atlas Shrugged. 

On 9/25/2024 at 10:11 PM, The Nehor said:

No, I find the loving God commandment to be the hardest.

My bad. Thank you for clarifying. I can empathize with your sentiment.

On 9/18/2024 at 9:50 PM, The Nehor said:

The one about loving God?

That's only assuming they left faith altogether. Nothing of the sort had been asserted in the telling of the story.

Just...yuck.

My reasons for leaving are my own. I'm a joyful Catholic these days. My history here on the board is chaotic, even for me. I'm tolerated at best. 😘

On 9/15/2024 at 1:31 AM, Peacefully said:

It really bugs me when it is assumed that people who step away from the church are just doing it so they can party and fornicate. It is so dismissive of the real issues people have with the church. We need to leave that old trope behind. 

It reminds me of some silly story told to me when I was in high school about some authority arrogantly assuming and questioning exmo's about what commandment they couldn't live. How very reductive, myopic and, ridiculously ignorant. 🤢🤮 

46 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

Well...that's not true.

Later on in this topic i had admit that i was doubting about Tims attentions. So i took back my words a bit. 

This does not negate your claim for "having a nose" for lie detection. It's good to know your detection was more on point after your initial opinion. Detecting is such hard work.

On 8/4/2024 at 3:48 PM, blackstrap said:

4. It does seem that the prophecy about the whole world uniting against Israel is getting closer to fulfillment.

So long as a divinely unsanctioned campaign of genocide continues (to be clear, this isn't some holy war of righteousness) then the world must unite to condemn a regime that is not acting in any good faith. Perhaps, God willing, another exile is in order due to the unrighteousness of Israel.

Furthermore, Jackson County and Jerusalem have no valid connection. Without disrespect, Mormonism is an American religion just as the JW's (no other connection is being claimed by myself). No matter the claims, Mormonism is not, nor will it be, a middle eastern religion. There's no evidence to support that 24 apostles/disciples ever held such a position at the same time. Then there is the chasing of plagiarism with The Restored Branch of Jesus Christ which deals with the ancient people of the British Isles. I've not read their book the Chronicles of the Children of Araneck. But considering their beliefs, I'm guessing they'll have 12 disciples talked about in their book.

Now I'm going to take a step back and give Restorationism a little leeway. Perhaps there were more than the OG12. Perhaps there were more than the OG12 and the 12 of the BoM. Finally, I'm not God. I don't know if He has a hand in Restorationism in particular or as a whole. Ugh! Restorationism is so vast and unlimited. It's like Prostestantism but with a more palatable flavor. 

Thank you for reading my thinking out loud ramble,

Damien the Bad Catholic

On 7/5/2024 at 6:51 AM, bluebell said:

In my understanding, “good enough” means “capable”. Do you interpret it differently?

Is it the implication of a hierarchy of capable-ness among God’s children that you view as problematic or is it something else I’m not understanding?

The implication of hierarchy. There is too much unknown about the LDS pre-existence. Was Jesus the most capable? If not, why was he settled on? I'm, again, just thinking out loud.

13 hours ago, bluebell said:

Why in your view does it have to be problematic? (Sincere question, just trying to understand).

I know I already shared the analogy once, but I go back to childbearing. If my husband and I want to have biological children (if that is our plan), then it has to be me that does the painful, physically sacrificing, go through the valley of death, part.

Is a plan being dependent on one person doing the heavy lifting always a bad thing, always coercive?

The problematic part is determining that only one child is good enough to carry out the sacrifice. That is what I was responding to in @Malc's statement.

21 minutes ago, Malc said:

And isn't it pretty obvious from the get-go that only one of the children is good enough to do what needs to be done?

That is extremely problematic.

From an LDS perspective, is it possible that the son in premortality bit off more than he can chew? I ask this because of what Jesus said in Gethsemane and his words to God while on the cross. I've never bought the whole God turned away because He couldn't bare to see His child suffer nonsense my uncle tried to pull off. I had never heard a more shallow excuse before or since.

I was going to suggest drive-thru temples but there is too much going on with initiatory and ceremony. Could you imagine the endowment cut down to a 5-minute overview? I've been through the temple many times in the past and just the thought of a drive-thru gives me whiplash and vertigo.

Conclusion: Temples! Keep doing your temple-ing.  🤘

I saw a meme a long time ago that went along like this:

Quote

 

Jesus: *knocks on door*

Person inside home: "Who is it?"

Jesus: "It's me, Jesus. Let me in."

Person: "Why?"

Jesus: "So I can save you from what I'm going to do to you if you don't let me in."

 

From this perspective... a lot sounds like bull💩.

It is rather odd to be told to be grateful for something you didn't ask for but is decided "best" for you because a god says so. 

I'm just thinking out loud.

On 7/2/2024 at 1:09 PM, The Nehor said:

No idea what book you are talking about but I can assure this idea isn’t limited to one book.

Also interesting that accuracy is now WOKE. Gotta hate that wokeness.

A highly conservative and anti-woke friend of mine once stated that "fact checkers are absurd." 

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

Back in the good old days there used to be a couple of Calvinists here. We had some spirited discussions.

Wasn't Rob Bowman one of them?

15 hours ago, Devobah said:

Any chance there's a website or a TLDR you could provide for a poor English teacher who's trying his best to save money? 😁

Let me check around. I'm sure I have some references that I've hot written down.

ETA: Here is a link to a blog post on the subject of Evangelical Calvinism vs Classical Calvinism.

13 hours ago, Devobah said:

I saw a video critique for him one time that we shouldn't go around trying to get people into converting by talking about the love of Christ, but instead putting fear of hell into them. It's very off putting. It kind of reminds me of (sometimes) street corner evangelism.

Street corner is accurate. 

15 hours ago, Devobah said:

Yes. I'm aware that Aaron is a Calvinist. I always hold the belief that Calvinists should be the most humble Christians of all, but the ones you see on YouTube tend to be a bit pompous.

Remember that modern Calvinists would likely accuse Calvin of not being Calvinist enough. However, Evangelical Calvinism is much more rational.