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Uncle Nate

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Posts posted by Uncle Nate

  1. My cousin's husband killed himself one morning after an especially heated argument.  But he had mental issues and it was spotty if he was utilizing his meds.  I just found the timing interesting coming off a bad fight with the wife.

    A friend of mine from my youth committed suicide back in January (he was 45)...and apparently he had some legal trouble and his reputation has been disparaged in the local press as a result (the legal process hadn't played out yet...but I think it was one of those situations that even if he had been found innocent of the fraud he was accused of, the bad press had already maligned him enough the previous few months that he may have felt his reputation would never recover....or he was guilty of the charges, either way).

    I think I'm o.k. mentally, but I will be honest that either scenario...(1) hurting the people (or soliciting sympathy from them) for hurting me....or (2) my reputation is now so irreparably damaged that nothing I could do would ever repair it...could cause me to empathize with these people who felt the need to take their own life.  I hope that's not an indictment on my mental state...but I totally get it.  Two things would keep me from doing it.  The first is not wanting to hurt the ones I love who would be hurt the most and the second would be my fear that suicide is an unforgiveable sin (how could I repent at that point?)

     

     

  2. 16 minutes ago, XYZ said:

    So suicide = mental illness? There’s no chance of a person with a clear mind to come to the decision that he/she doesn’t want to live anymore?

    I think this is a very good point.

    On a different note, how often do you think the person committing suicide is doing it to get back at people, or to put it a different way, to punish them for how they treated (or didn't treat) you?  To hurt them...to make them regret their actions?  I have to think that's got to be the root motivator in for many of them...the thought that they only way you are going to get their attention is to do this.  Then they will be sorry and they will feel sorry for me.

    Especially the teenagers and those who commit suicide where a failed relationship has occurred.  

  3. 7 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

     The title of the seminar could be "Fideism: The Theology Endorsed by Internet Atheists."  

    I personally wouldn't consider my position fideism.  I feel we have all the facts we need to know that God is real, God is the creator of all things visible and invisible, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is God incarnate and literally died for our sins and destroyed death with his resurrection, and that God works through us with the Holy Spirit. 

    My positions in this thread that one has to have have faith to believe is still based on facts and scripture...because I still feel that the Bible and the world around us provide us the proof and facts we need.  HOWEVER, it is through faith alone, given by the Holy Spirit, for me to believe the Bible as factual and as proof. Does that qualify as fideism?

    "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."  Nothing I have done or can do can have me believe.  Only faith allows me to believe, and that is a gift from the Holy Spirit.  Granted, this is a very Lutheran doctrine, I admit.

    Not sure that qualifies as 100% fideism.  But like I said, I'm no theologian, so I should probably just shut up now.

  4. I hate sour cream and anything with the sour cream flavor.

    I refuse to eat ranch dressing or anything with ranch flavor.

    I don't get "Old Country for Old Men" and I'm a huge Cohen Bros fan.  But not that one.

    I can appreciate big picture story line of the Star Wars Prequels, and that bigger picture helps me to not hate the movies.

     

    • Like 1
  5. On 6/6/2018 at 11:21 AM, Armybrat said:

    74 years ago today Bryan Fox of Granger, Texas went ashore on Omaha Beach in the first wave and was shot up so badly he spent the next year in a stateside hospital recovering. Later he became a prominent local educator & rancher.

    I had the privilege of falling off one of his cutting horses during the BBQ engagement party he & his wife Geraldine threw for me & my bride-to-be in the spring of 1967. Bryan later passed away from a heart attack suddenly at age 80+ while doing what he loved best - participating in a week long trail drive in Southeast Texas with many of his fellow ranchers & their families. He was an awesome Texan, as was his wife. RIP.

    My first savings account was at the Granger State Bank, so this hits close to home for me.

  6. 4 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

    Regardless of God or no God, "eternal" is a reality. I agree with you--It's hard to wrap our heads around. What was before the Big Bang? Is the Big Bang the first of an infinite number of Big Bangs? Does the universe eventually pull in upon itself?

    I need a drink.

    Right?

     

  7. 6 minutes ago, Steamboat1874 said:

    If you are of the belief that all of this cannot just create itself and there must be a creator then my question would be who created the creator?

    Here's one of the things I cannot wrap my human head around...the concept of "eternal".

    It's actually always been a very scary concept to me for some reason.  God is eternal.  He is not created.  He has always been and always will be.  And by what is written and what I believe, we will live with Him for eternity.

    You want to talk about a concept that scared the crap out of me as a child?  The concept of eternity, and the concept that God is eternal.  

    But think about it like this...for a God to be able to create all of this...the math, the physics, the subatomic, the solar system, nuclear fusion and fission, the universe, us, everything...he has to be on a level of existence that we couldn't possibly comprehend...a level that is not created, but that just exists.  Otherwise, would He even be God? 

    Think about it...how disappointing would God be to us if we could understand Him?  He created the freaking universe...why would we want a God we could comprehend?  Wouldn't that be kind of boring if God was simple enough for us to understand?  Then we would question how a being that simple could have possible created all of the complex universe.  This is why the incarnation of God in the form of a man named Jesus was necessary...that is the only way our simple minds could possibly talk and interact with God.  He had to bring himself down to our level for us to get it.

    On a side note...I always thought it was cool how consistent God is in his creation.  He basically has atoms and the subatomic particles that make up atoms  look and act like the planets and solar systems, which then are small particles to the much larger galaxies and so on and so forth.  Little particles orbiting around bigger particles...everything sticking together through what we understand as gravity (but still have so much more to learn about it...especially how it bends space & time).  You gotta admit...He is consistent in how he constructs everything...loves him some stuff orbiting around other stuff. Major props.

     

  8. 3 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

    I thought the question on Josephus was as verification of the witnesses. 

    I'll read what was posted and get back with y'all. 

    That's the thing though. You present the evidence and dismiss it simultaneously. We do have at least some of Josephus extant, same as Tacitus. We've also had several centuries to argue and speculate about them. Surely there has to be a least common denominator of consensus. If there are gray areas that's cool. That's normal too. 

    I keep hearing about the Gospels being supported by Josephus and Tacitus but no quote. I've found other religions cited by Tacitus too. Still working on him. Josephus mentions didn't seem nearly as conclusive of the veracity of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John from what I recall. 

    Refresh my memory. I am going to have to read your links later. 

    Dude...I'm neither a historian nor a theologian.  I've always heard about Josephus being a 1st century historian who recorded a non-Biblical account of Jesus life and the events surrounding his death.  As I understood it, he wrote down what he heard witnesses say...he was not a first-hand witness. 

    I have heard there are Roman historical documents also with similar accounts, but I have not read them and couldn't tell you what they were.  

    So I just googled what was out there and threw them up there...but like I said, if the roles were reversed, I wouldn't accept those.  Anyone can put anything on the internet.

  9. 2 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

    No offense, man. But the three links you posted are Christian websites. 

    Wiki has a very different take:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

    No offense taken.

    I was just answering the question if there was any non-Biblical history written by someone who was not a Christian regarding Jesus.  That's the most famous one.  But it's not going to satisfy anyone wanting hard and fast "proof".  

    To quote the granny from the commercial...That's not how this works.  That's not how any of this works.

    • Like 3
  10. 8 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said:


    Sure. But how do you prove that what they are saying is in fact the word of God?

    Aren’t you the one that believes the Bible is to be taken literally?

     

    All scripture has to be tested against (or with) other scripture.  Over and over again.  Jesus says to test scripture with scripture.  That's how we know.

    Plus, God loves to use parables and similes to make his points...his preferred form of communication isn't even delivered literally.

  11. 1 minute ago, Cheeseweasel said:

    You should probably do a little research on this. Josephus did write that a person named Jesus existed and was crucified. No one is debating that. But he doesn't describe any miracles.

     

    He does note that multiple witnesses attest to the miracles and to the resurrection.  He was not an eye-witness, but he does report that multiple people claim to have witnessed it.

  12. 2 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

    Rex Kramer made the same claim. He also stated that Tacitus did as well. 

    Going to ask you to cite it.

    With what could I possibly cite?  I don't have his original writings in front of me, and anything I post from the interwebs you won't accept (would you?  I wouldn't).  It's not like there are scholarly journals out there I could cite with APA style formatting that have been peer-reviewed by his fellow scholars.  That's really the only thing we would accept in this day and age when it comes to citing scholarly works, is it not?

    Here's some stuff...not peer-reviewed scholarly journals, however.  If our roles were reversed, I would not accept these at face value:

    https://www.allabouthistory.org/josephus-and-christ-faq.htm

    http://www.josephus.org/testimonium.htm

    https://www.namb.net/apologetics-blog/josephus-and-jesus/

    • Like 1
  13. 7 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said:

     


    You mean “accept the wisdom of God as told by man”, right?

     

    Comes down to accepting if the Scriptures are the Word of God written down by man as instructed by God or not.  Again, it comes down to faith.  I admit I had serious doubts, and I really had no clue what the Old Testament was about other than to give us history and law.  But after reading the Bible cover-to-cover, and then digging deeper into those areas that I had (and still have) trouble comprehending, I believe now more than ever the Bible, all of it, was written by man but is the word of God.  That's what I believe after reading it.

    I can't convince anyone else of it...I'm not a theologian and I'm not an evangelist.  I have had no religious training.  I believe the Holy Spirit worked within me to hear and understand what I read.

    There is no way...NO WAY...man could have come up with that stuff on his own over those thousands of years.  It's not possible. 

    That's what I believe.  Can I debate someone on it?  Not really, no.  I can just tell you what I believe and why.

  14. Just now, gsoda3 said:

    textual variants.  if you want to go down that road there are thousands of examples like that-  a handful of copies that branch away from the main line at different places.  the key is to trace the main line through the ages.

    This is why at least with some of the Lutheran & Methodist seminaries (that I know of), students have to learn Greek because they have to be able to read the NT in the original Greek.  I know some Lutheran pastors also learned Hebrew so they could read the OT in the original Hebrew.  Why?  So they are not dependent on the English translations as they study the scriptures.

  15. 3 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

    I've always had an issue with this. This is the shit that gets people to travel to some exotic country and drink Kool-Aid when Dear Leader says "you must have faith".

    The Bible has been rewritten/translated for thousands of years. If this is THE WORLD, why would God allow confusion?

    Yet if you read the original Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek, it's pretty much unchanged.

    God did not intend for there to be confusion and a broken world.  We did that.  We screwed it up.  And in this broken world evil gets in and does its thing.  False prophets take advantage and use that...thus the kool-aid.  

    I'm not here to convince you one way or the other...I can only tell you what I believe. There is a God, and I'm not him.

  16. The irony is that, according to Scripture, God's not a fan of theocracy.  Two kingdoms and the whole "give unto Caesar what is Caesar's."  People like to claim America was founded as a Christian or a Judeo-Christian country.  It wasn't.  Far from it.  

    I'm a Christian and I have no problem saying that not only was America NOT founded as a Christian nation, it shouldn't be considered one either, and that is a GOOD THING.  Keep the two kingdoms separate.  Let people worship as they want to and leave each other the hell alone.

    • Like 1
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