re: This Country needs comprehensive LGBTQ+ reform.

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Trannies need to be classified as a terrorist group

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Lol... I just posted the same thing! Didn't see your post until afterwards. Great minds think alike!

It needs to be nipped in the bud STAT.

Enough is enough.

It's pretty disturbing. Here's what a 2023 study showed.

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new study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds that 81% of transgender adults in the U.S. have thought about suicide, 42% of transgender adults have attempted it, and 56% have engaged in non-suicidal self-injury over their lifetimes.

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2023 UCLA school of law study

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B is for bisexual... it's still just a sex preference rather than delusion based

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Its all delusional

Something I’ve been chewing on:

The Parable of the Weeds Explained
Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

There’s a lot going on here. I have questions. The weeds are sons of the evil one, and were “sowed” by the devil. Sowed means planted (not created). I may be overthinking this, but, if the field is the world- doesn’t that imply that to be “sowed” into the world is to be born? If so, then from birth you are wheat or you are a weed. Planted by Jesus, or the adversary. From birth.

Predestined. Both ways. Wrath or mercy.

Your thoughts?

Bonus: (off topic) Im sure we’ll agree that most Christian music is not very good. But I found this- Ecclesiastes in Blues
If you like blues music, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this song.

You are correct on this. Traditional gay and lesbian people are primarily driven by a sexual attraction to their same sex. Trans people are primarily driven by the need to be identified as a member of the opposite sex. Sexual attraction to the same sex has nothing to do with being trans, which is a mental disease, IMO. Completely different pathologies.

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Oh how I have missed your youthful (misplaced) confidence

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Well it is a fable for several reasons. For one Jesus and Satan weren’t literally planting wheat and weeds. And secondly, neither one of those characters actually really exists now or ever. Now it was a thing in the Roman period for mothers to name their boys Yeshu (Aramaic version of Yahushua or what we’d call “Joshua”) because many Jews longed for the recapture of their holy land the same as the fictive character Joshua was supposed to have done against the Canaanites that never actually happened either . Could there have been a Yeshu/Iesous during that period who broke Roman law and got hanged? Absolutely. Is the gospel Iesous based on a real version of any of those Yeshus (like the many different Yeshus named by Josephus) not a chance.

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the vast majority of prominent evangelical scholars who have written commentaries, monographs, and journal articles on Ephesians in recent years are convinced of Pauline authorship Don’t you see how you will cling to fringe theories and spout them as though they are the gospel truth? Classic Squirrelmeister!

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PS, it isn’t news that people who believe Ephesians is inspired and written by Paul… would say that it was written by Paul. There’s a plethora of reasons why Ephesians wasn’t written by Paul. It has 80 Greek words in it that Paul never used in the 7 “undisputed” epistles. The theology is way different too - the dead are in heaven rather than the dead being asleep on earth awaiting the final judgement and resurrection on a new earth. Also Ephesians doesn’t mention any names of anyone - not greetings. No equivalent to Priscilla or Aquila. In fact what we have as Ephesians Marcion had the exact same latter but he called it the epistle to the Laodiceans, so it was probably a general purpose letter, forged in Paul’s name, that could go out to any of Paul’s churches to attempt to override the real Paul’s theology. If Herman Melville tried to write a sequel to Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain’s name, don’t you think even you would be able to tell it wasn’t Mark Twain that wrote it? Well there are professionals whose life work is to analyze ancient texts and they say the guys who wrote Romans and Philippians definitely wasn’t the same guy who wrote Ephesians.

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Enoch “the elect” which was maybe the most influential book to the earliest Christians

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I don’t believe you

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This is established fact. There’s nothing to “believe” but to deny the reality in front of you. Besides the Torah and Isaiah, the book with the most copies found at Qumran was 1 Enoch. Jude directly quotes from it as prophecy. That means Jude - the book you believe is inspired by God - believed the book of 1 Enoch was inspired by God. 1 Enoch has been found in Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Coptic and of course the full text in Gaez can be found in the modern day Ethiopian Orthodox Church in their Bible. I think you need a book on this subject because I think even a Christian who denies 1 Enoch influence on the religion is simply uninformed. There are many Christians today around the world who cherish this book as scripture (many of them are flat earthers ).

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Philo is an interesting character for sure.

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If he could have gone forward in time 100 years and read John 1:1 he’d have been like yeah duh I know this already. He was a pre-Christian Jew and didn’t know it. The claims and stories of the logos taking on a body of flesh and being crucified in heaven or later ok earth hadn’t yet been invented during his life.

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Why not both? I mean, from God’s perspective, it’s a done deal.

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Why not both the saved being predestined to be saved, or the saved having the free will to control whether they are saved or not? Is that really what you’re asking? Why can’t a shape be both a square and a circle? There’s just no logic to it.

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Granted- that’s actually in there. Tell me how that’s a problem.

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I don’t know why you’re shaking your head. Yahweh lies when he tells Adam and Eve in the day they eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge they will die. So God either lied, or he didn’t know they wouldn’t die. Take your pick. Either way you can’t tell me he intended all along to trick Adam and Eve and kick them out of the garden he created for them. If he intended to do that, then he’s an a-hole. If he didn’t intend to do that, then his original setup was a mistake. But like I said in many places in the Bible is says “Yahweh repented” and “Yahweh regretted”. Believing that Yahweh is all knowing is just cognitive dissonance.

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So just about with anything in the Bible, anyone can pick any verse they like to support whatever position they hold dear.

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I agree. The irony is that you fail to recognize that this applies to you as well.

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I’m glad you agree. But you got the next part wrong. You see, I don’t have a dogma, nor do I have a dog in the hunt. Whatever the scripture says it was it says, and if it holds more than one contradictory position I will state them. When I say things like “early Christians believed in XYZ” it doesn’t mean all Christians, but many or some. There was no monolithic Judaism or Christianity. That’s how we got over 50 gospels about Jesus, and ya’ll choose to accept 4 of them (even though they don’t agree with each other) and reject 46 of them. Look it up. Look how many different gospels they found written by early Christians. If you reject 46 of them and accept only 4, then you also have no choice but to admit that the vast majority of early Christian writings are made up and untruthful.

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Your average Gay or Lesbian person has no business being grouped with delusional people who claim they are the opposite sex.

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Have you read Tigerdoc’s Russiagate posts?

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I believe you. Well, I believe that you are fully and unshakably convinced of the truth of your position, anyway.

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Thanks, and I am convinced though not unshakably. The reason I say that is because what I consider a fact could change based on new evidence being presented. The truth is what the facts are, simply put.

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What I m saying, which is what scripture says, is that you are currently incapable of believing otherwise.

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That’s approaching Foo logic right there. The Bible is the truth, because it says so in the Bible. Maybe just maybe is it possible that Paul was just making an excuse for his already converted followers to explain why some people didn’t believe his claims? “I tried to teach them but they were incapable of understanding it.” Maybe those people Paul was trying to convert had a decent bullshite detector?

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You have not been granted faith in Jesus Christ.

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If that were somehow true, then Jesus didn’t want me to be saved. And that what he tells his disciples in “Mark”. So if that were true, then he doesn’t love everyone.

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your atheistic evangelism- your inmost (and futile) desire to destroy the faith of others. All Christians are called to share their faith with unbelievers- yet most do not do so. You’re not called to do anything.

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I have a responsibility to make this world a better place- we all do or should. I wish everyone was more educated and informed and knew how to think. I’m helping them out. Plus “sparring” with you guys on here helps me to learn as I do often have to do research and then I go down a rabbit hole.

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Why? Maybe it’s because you are of your father- the devil.

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The only reason you believe in a “devil” is due to the influence of Zoroastrianism on post exilic Judaisms in the late Persian period (the Persians themselves did not have the devil “Angra Mainyu”, aka the Satan of Ahura Mazda until around 300-400BC).

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It also explains how someone can appear to be a Christian and then walk away.

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No, these are people that didn’t just appear to be Christian. They were so full of Christian belief and a desire to believe that they dedicated their lives to Christianity. Take your best friend Bart for example. Alex O’Conner makes the best argument for this I’ve ever heard. They walk away once they’ve engaged in enough education and thought to break free of their indoctrination.

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But I also realize that you may be nothing more than a worthy adversary

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Hey thanks, and I mean it.

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I still pray for you. I pray for God to open your spiritual eyes.

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I would rather you spend your day with your family watching football and drinking a beer - ya know things that matter.