I don't think atheism is illogical, but I do find it to be a "non-prophet/profit" position. On a personal level a theistic me is a stronger & healthier me. My theism is intuitive and derived from the Bible and life events. The Torah is really a book of life, a celebration of life, and the bible is the greatest work of literature ever written. And you don't need Jesus to be a theist.

How these conversations go:

Them: I oppose Israel because it's an ethnostate.
Me: So you oppose a Palestinian state?
Them: I support a state with a Palestinian majority, but with full rights for a Jewish minority.
Me: Of the two biggest Palestinian factions, though, one promises a real ethnostate, not like Israel with full minority rights, and the other promises an Islamist dictatorship with an expulsion or murder of the Jewish population. So how is this fantasy state of yours going to come into fruition?
Them: I oppose Israel because it's an ethnostate.

occupiers-oppressors (e.g. Israeli Zionists) — 180 Proof

What exactly is it that you/your movement want? A return to 1967 borders? A return to the original 1948 borders? Or an end to all Jewish political autonomy in the region because all Jewish political autonomy in Palestine/Canaan/whatever you want to call the region is "OcCuPaTiOn." The latter is the most outspoken position, the most widely adopted by the leaders of the movement. To oppose that is Zionism. The Jewish liberation movement. So how do we stop oppression in a way that guarantees Israel's security? We can have that discussion.

There will very possibly come a day when Arabs once again control Palestine and Jewish political autonomy is lost. I hope if that day comes, you will be sympathetic to Jews burning Arab babies in their cribs, raping & slaughtering Arab women, and slaughtering random innocent Arab men in house to house murders because "resistance by any means necessary" and because Arab hegemony/oppression breeds such behavior. :vomit:

Oppressor vs. Oppressed. Powerless vs. Powerful. Endless war. That's your morality.

We must eliminate those who are intent on the murder of innocents. Killing them is not murder.

If that helps you live your best life then more power to you. I don't really mind as long as you follow the the 7 noahide commandments.

You just believe in a different sort of God.

All Abrahamic sects are the same superstitious nonsense — 180 Proof

Because they believe in God? Or is it the talking snakes?

it's the unholy "parties of god" on both sides committing atrocities that "explicitly" sabotages any prospective (secular) resolution to Israeli-Palestinian hatreds.

Atrocities come from both secular and religious sources. Hamas is religious, PLO is secular. Likud is a mix. Bibi is secular but obviously zionist. Decades of bus bombings and stabbings will lead to the rise of parties like Likud. Israel is an amazing, beautiful place regardless of whether one is religious or not. Resolution will come when the Palestinians renounce their ownership claim over all of Israel. Until then, constant war.

we're not craven like most of "the explicitly religious" who superstitiously obey "commandments" for the sake of reward or to avoid punishment in some imaginary "afterlife". — 180 Proof

I'm sorry if you were taught that way. When I read the Tanakh, I noted that obedience to commandments/morality are closely linked to life, not afterlife reward. There's a common theme where when Israel (or other societies) strays from God's commandments destruction follows. It should be intuitive: If corruption and immorality pervade a society that society will likely implode or suffer great upheaval. It's true on a personal and societal level.

There is essentially zero afterlife mention in the Hebrew Bible.

It bothers me that I don't quite know who runs the show. He's just so weak at a time when we need anything but a weak leader.

I think his legacy speaks for the quality of his ideas. — Lionino

An interesting statement that leaves room for interpretation.

I wouldn't indulgences are doctrine, more like a corrupt practice. — Lionino

But why were indulgences sold to the public? IIRC it was because through purchasing them one could supposedly lessen the time one's dead relatives spend in purgatory. I couldn't tell you the biblical basis for that one. Religions rely on scripture, but they also rely on tradition and reason and sometimes things just stray too far from scripture. I get the idea that that was Luther's function -- bringing Christianity back to scripture while curbing the excesses of tradition. He's an interesting figure. Nasty anti-semite, but not dumb.

I don't think there is any single individual alive who is more qualified to interpret it — which is to go against the interpretation of the Church. Which even then would be goofy, the Church made the Bible, are we going to tell the priest how to preach too? — Lionino

Yet Luther did. You say the Church admitted a mistake regarding indulgences. So the Church can be mistaken. So there is a truth about Christianity that exists regardless of whether the Church acknowledges it.

Because it didn't suit the "orthodox" agenda, right? It was too gnostic. — ENOAH

Yes, although I do have to say even in the synoptics Jesus can get pretty gnostic. I did not pick up anything in there that was antithetical to the synoptics but I only gave it a brief look.

This seems pretty essential to the metaphysics, not something ad hoc; it is God "in whom we live and move and have our being," (Acts 17:28, repeated every Mass).

This makes sense from the frame of a God who is "within everything but contained in nothing," (St. Augustine)

Panentheism.

As a Jew, not the understanding that I was brought up with. The bush doesn't set alight because divinity inheres in it, but because God, at that moment, invested it with his divinity. Once the revelation stopped, the bush stopped burning and returned to its normal non-divine state.

There's also this idea of gradients of divinity as demonstrated through the construction of the temple with the tabernacle at the center (inner chamber, outer chamber, outside.)

Paul occupies such a fascinating, peculiar place within Christianity. About half of the NT is Paul. His words are Scripture, placed right after the Gospels. Inclusion in Scripture means his words are authoritative. Authoritative means deserving of our attention. And Paul's words are certainly deserving of our attention (if we are Christians); Paul was enormously influential in early Christianity. But authoritative does not mean infallible. It has never meant that. Jesus said "beware the scribes" - the scribes being educated laymen who challenged the priesthood on Scripture in the second temple period. Paul could very well be considered under this label.

Paul draws inferences and these inferences deserve our attention because they do come from somewhere.

moral cretins

Always love to hear it from the explicitly irreligious. :heart:

-Evolution happened naturally, the current array of species on earth evolved

-Evolution happened, but it was a guided process by a divine or intelligent being

These two are not in contradiction. God is understood to be outside of/beyond nature in tradition theology. That said, divine explanation has no place in science classrooms. The point of science is to understand the natural world by looking at nature and understanding its underlying mechanisms.

So one could believe that a) evolution is natural and b) that it was guided by divine provenance and there is no contradiction. God will use nature to carry out his plans.

Whether it's Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, or the Hamas murderer-rapists the left has a clear tendency to sympathize with, elevate, or idolize the absolute dregs of humanity because they take issue with the the force that brings them to justice. Double standards are the hallmark of this ideology, where certain groups are allowed to engage in certain actions or rhetoric and others are not. But there there will be a backlash. America's tolerance has its limits.

I can't help but notice a suicidal impulse within the movement as well as seen through "Queers for Palestine." Such activists take no issue in sympathizing and romanticizing with a murderous and intolerant group which would happily murder their "useful idiots" in a heartbeat if given free reign. Western suicidality at its peak.

And then there's the modern day blood libel of Israel committing "genocide." Such libelous accusations are nothing new.

You are referring to things like the Gospel of Thomas I am guessing? That is another topic altogether, but Church canon about the gospels has been established from a very early time, and they were aware of these gospels and perhaps others that are still lost. — Lionino

I meant Jesus's words drawn from the canonicals and how these words are understood. That's considered divine revelation in Christianity so presumably wells of ink have been spilled trying to correctly interpret those teachings.

I find gThomas a fascinating document but having read it I do understand why it was not made canon.

I need a shower and I'm done engaging with race hustlers. :monkey:

:monkey:

Hamas terrorizes Israel the ethnostate oppressor of Gaza — 180 Proof

Israel doesn't oppress Gaza, it "oppresses" Hamas/the PLO and those Palestinians who bring harm to Israel. Like how a cop oppresses a criminal which seeks social destruction. If the cop acts, it's "oppression." I don't buy it.

The obvious problem is that not every palestinian is a criminal, but the entire population has essentially been galvanized against israel from an early age. so israel must be cautious if it seeks to survive and protect itself.

Hamas murders Jews simply because they are Jews.
Hamas, radical Islam, seeks world domination and to spread Islam far past the Middle East.
Hamas executes homosexuals
They are virulently anti-feminist and suppress women's rights
They routinely arrest and torture their own dissidents

Hamas refuses to accept any independent Jewish political entity in the region and that is what they see as oppression because they consider themselves (Islam) as entitled to everything.

And anti-semitic propaganda is widespread and embedded in children's books. But no, they're oppressed which apparently makes them good. :roll:

Well so are Israelis which are subject to a genocidal neighbor which refuses to accept theirn autonomy.

Here is the google definition of ethnostate:

a sovereign state of which citizenship is restricted to members of a particular racial or ethnic group. "they actively promoted the concept of a white ethnostate"

Israel does not restrict citizenship to Jews. It's neighbors are arab-muslim nations which protect arab-muslim interests but God forbid those Jews have their own state that's racist. :vomit:

If you were to ask me who's closer to Nazis IDF or Hamas the answer is Hamas and it's not remotely close. You're the delusional one if you think otherwise.

Israel has always been a pariah. But keep believing body count is the main determinant of morality.

You get the gist. Both Hamas and the Nazis intentionally murder civilians solely because they belong to a certain ethnic/national group. The highest form of evil. Israel does not murder Palestinians because they are Palestinians. Hamas will murder Jews simply because they are Jews/Israelis (certainly the latter, almost certainly the former). You might not see a difference, but civilization and philosophers do.

If you only view evil through body count your perspective gets really, really weird. Like that would say that the US army from 1941-1945 was much, much worse than al-Qaeda.

Hamasniks.

Peace-loving noble people.

Are you okay with kristalnacht 2.0 if the target was jews zionists?

You're seemingly ok with jihadi protestors blocking Jews from campus. Would you be alright if they blew up a synagogue or a Jewish theater? When does it go too far, if ever?

Why are you mad? I agreed with you. The Palestinians are a noble and peaceful people while those Jews over there are racists who hate Palestinian happiness.

No, I did not make that claim.

I only say 300,000 indigenous German children murdered.

300,000 indigenous German children murdered in the Second World War and the Allies think they're the good guys.

the brownshirt does not have a sense of humor. some things never change. :zip:

Yes, the Jews are racist but the Palestinians are a noble people. Some of the noblest on Earth. You've convinced me.

The number is higher if you just include all arab children killed by jews. why limit it to 10/7? the oppression is constant and never ending.

I'm on your team now.

I stand with the indigenous Palestinian people of Palestine - a noble people who are indigenous to the land of Palestine and have built great Palestinian civilizations consisting of rich and brilliant Palestinian artwork and architecture. The indigenous palestinian population of palestine who only strive to be free and happy have unfortunately been oppressed by the wicked zionist forces who are opposed to all Palestinian happiness in all ways, shapes, and forms. FREE FREE FREE PALESTINE.

This is actually way more fun than being a Zionist.

The number is more than 15,000 if you include the christian children sacrificed in their blood rituals. What do you say we rough up a few of them? Vandalize their businesses? They're pro-genocide zionists what's the problem? I just care so much about the indigenous Palestinian people I can hardly contain it anymore.

That's right, and don't forgot how those nasty little Zionists stabbed Germany in the back during the Great War in which 2 million Germans were murdered. And don't forgot those Christian children used for their Zionist sacrifices in the Middle Ages. Those Zionists have been at it for a while! Don't you think it's time we did something about them, Mikie?

Where did your mod powers go? Did the zionists do this to you?

Thanks for your insight into Jewish racial issues, rabbi :lol: :lol: :lol: :death:

Please tell us more about the various types of Jews and their oppression levels relative to one another.

Jews are one family. No Jew would tell you that they are indigenous to Poland. Or do you know better than them?

We are indigenous.