Prodigal Son

Gotta spend money to make money.

This is great! Once you give them the necessary information, they let you know which re-education camp you’ll be sent to! I’m going to the Philippines! Awesome!

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Look, the OP made some idiotic, flat earth claims

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I don’t know about the flat earth claims, but I always sympathize with someone who is excited about something that strengthens their faith (right or wrong), but fails to realize that faith, by definition and design, is something that cannot be proven. This is an example of good intentions/bad decision, in which God still accomplishes His will.

Talk about a long game. :lol:

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I don't believe this anomaly will be shown to be Ark remnants.

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I agree again. Not because I know anything. I just don’t expect it or many other things to be found/questions to be answered for you/me/us. There’s a trajectory. This would feel too soon if it were in a story with a perfect ending.

I applaud those Christian scientists who dedicate themselves to figuring out how God did it. And my own faith has been fortified by their work- and it’s a beautiful thing. But I caution anyone. The idea that someone’s faith in their personal relationship with Jesus would be determined by any man’s interpretation of rocks should cause concern.

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The pseudoatheistic responses are just as stupid as the OP, though. Look for example at what a fool the pseudoatheist, northshorebamaman, made of himself in response.

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No doubt. The only thing worse than holding an indefensible position (atheism, by definition) is defending it.

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E.g., Were there ancient CATASTROPHIC floods?

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More important, is the reason the question is asked.

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That our political leaders face a judgment for how they used their earthly authority

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Good. We differ- respectfully. Are you at all familiar with Michael Heiser?

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i studied at their feet

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That’s awesome. I bet there’s been some interesting conversations at get togethers. How would you interpret Psalm 82, in light of their teaching?

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It's kind of like with climate change.

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Go on…

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I can find you Roman statements about Mithra. Does that mean that Mithra was a real person?

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Mithra? Or Mithras? Person or god? I’m taking the Michael Heiser angle here.

From Grok:
The older one: Indo-Iranian Mithra This is the god of covenant, oath, friendship, and cosmic order. In the Avesta he is a yazata who rides before the sun, sees everything, punishes oath-breakers, and has warrior traits. He is associated with light and later with the sun itself, but originally distinct from it. In the divine-council reading this is a straightforward fit: a created elohim / son of God assigned to the Iranian peoples after the division of the nations (Deut 32:8). He becomes an object of worship, which the biblical writers treat as illegitimate even if the being itself is real. The later one: Roman Mithras of the mysteries (roughly 100–400 AD) This is not a simple transplant of the Persian god. The Roman cult used the name and some Persian coloring (“mysteries of the Persians,” Phrygian cap, the name Areimanius), but its defining image—the tauroctony (Mithras killing the cosmic bull in a cave)—does not exist in Iranian Mithra worship. Neither do the underground mithraea built as model universes, the seven grades of initiation, or the heavy astrological framing that many scholars now think is the real heart of the cult. Most specialists treat Roman Mithraism as a new Greco-Roman mystery religion that borrowed an exotic eastern name and some motifs, probably filtered through Anatolia (Commagene, Cilicia) rather than imported wholesale from Persia.

So, Mithra could be one of the sons of God. While Roman Mithraism was the LDS of Mithra worship.

Thought I’d add:

How both fit the Psalm 82 framework

• The original Mithra can be understood as one of the territorial spirits judged in Psalm 82: a real created being given authority over a nation, later corrupted or at least receiving worship that belongs only to Yahweh.

• The Roman cult is a later human (and, in the biblical view, demonic) packaging of that same class of being—or a new presentation of a similar power. Early Christian writers (Justin Martyr especially) explicitly called the Mithraic meal and rock-birth stories demonic imitations of Christian realities. That is exactly the language you would expect if the beings of Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 are real, rebellious, and still active in shaping pagan religion.

I’m with you. But if we really want to make a difference, then we use this evidence to strengthen our own faith- which should cause us to live more like Jesus, which is the most effective witness one can be.

This is me, reminding myself of this, before I waste half of my day attempting brain surgery on someone who really just needs a heart transplant. :cheers:

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Jesus, after his sojourn to East Asia, was a little too caught up in himself and thought he was the Son of god. Didn't exactly cling to those teaching in that aspect. Jesus was a good dude.

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I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. “He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

—CS Lewis