CoffeeTiger

I mean, this is just saying that a person is justified in believing literally ANYTHING about themselves and their identity as long as they outwardly say that they are ascribing their beliefs to their version of God. Since God is a silent, dormant entity whose whims and beliefs only exist within the minds of each individual person who believes in him. Each person can decide, independently, for themselves what God believes, wants them do do, or approves/disapproves of, and there's no one that can tell them differently because God is the 'ultimate' judge and he's not going to say or do anything supposedly until some future day of judgement.....sometimes people have likeminded ideas of their version of God and form into different groups.....this is why we have thousands of different denominations that all define God a little (or a lot) differently and interpret the words of the Bible differently. And like I said, no, the Bible is not a good source for ascertaining Gods wants, beliefs, and commands since humanity has never been able to agree on what the correct interpretations or meanings of a vast majority of the book really is. Everyone interprets the Bible differently and nobody can ever prove any interpretation or version to be right or wrong because the books writers, and the only people on the face of the earth who have supposedly ever been able to truly 'know' Gods intentions, died thousands of years ago. (assuming you don't believe in any of the denominations that believe God has had more recent modern day prophets that have spoken for him outside of the Bible.) (and also assuming you aren't in a denomination that believes the modern Christian Bible isn't the full or correct version of Gods word)

Read that this morning. Very good essay.

Democrats : Pass aid for Ukraine and Israel! Republicans: NO! Not unless the border is addressed! Democrats: Ok.....it's taken some time for, but here is a bi-partisan Border security bill written by both Dems and Republicans that will help strengthen the border....now can we get Ukraine aid Trump: Nah....don't pass that Bill..it'll make Joe look good. Republicans: Ok...so Trump and MAGA said we can't pass the Bill, so no...no aid for Ukraine and we wont agree to your border bill either. Later: Republicans eventually pass Ukraine and Israel aid anyway without ANY action on the border. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Republicans and MAGA showing their excellent negotiating abilities as usual. They must have taken lessons from reading "The Art of the Deal"

People talk about the need for a strong 3rd party presence in American politics, but I agree with, but man....these 3rd parties...the Independents like RFKjr, Cornel West, the Green party, Libertarians..... The 3rd party options always seem to be even more crazy and 'out there' than the bad options that the Republicans and Dems give us.

Dems may need to spend some advertising highlighting RFKjr's weird conspiracies and how the Kennedy family at large supports Biden's campaign, but I don't think it'll hurt Biden too bad. RFKJrs campaign certainly seems to be specifically targeting voters of the more...right wing persuasion lately.

In 2017 there were protests happening in St Louis after a Black man there was shot to death by police and was acquitted by the courts. This group of white police officers shared messages with each other stating that they were looking forward to beating up and getting in fights with the protestors at the upcoming demonstration, and that they could do anything cause they'd be in riot gear and unrecognizable. So the cops picked out a Black man from the crowd and started the beat in up with their batons and such claiming he was resisting and a was threat to them. Ended up being that Black man was himself an undercover police officer that had been planted in the protesting crowd. The dude had broken bones, and other internal and external injuries that needed hospitalization. The white officers then tried to cover it up, tried to get the black officer not to cooperate with the investigation, tried to alter documentation and lied to the investigators and even under oath to a grand jury. The officers even had the nerve to admit to one another that they would have gotten away with it if it hadn't of been a cop they abused. That cop has now been awarded $23.5 million in damages and the cops have served some jail time and probation for violating his rights. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/black-undercover-officer-beaten-st-louis-b2531716.html https://apnews.com/article/st-louis-officer-beating-235-million-award-e02ff1a30667a4872afea1a0675b4c77

The funniest thing happened about a month ago. The Bee posted an article making fun of inbred white supremacist and that peeved off it's readers hard, and the bee started getting attacked by its Anti-Semitic followers accusing the Jews of taking over right wing media. lol

The trick is to embrace the depression. let it devour you from the inside out so that the stings of disappointment barely register as a tap of a feather upon the skin.

They'll eat mass amounts of cheese despite being lactose intolerant and then complain endlessly about their pent up gas and annoying runs to the toilet.

Many of the states who have banned and criminalized abortion were already among the ones who had the highest prenatal deaths and worst overall healthcare outcomes in the nation. BEFORE roevwade was ever overturned. It's not surprising that States and politicians that didn't care about the healthcare of their citizens back then didn't suddenly reverse course now.

The Democrats are never going to become an attractive party for highly Conservative independents, and that's ok. People like Titan recognize the GOP has gone crazy, but they also know they are still socially and economically Conservative and wish they had a party to vote for that aligns with their wishes. Nothing wrong with that. .....but I don't want the Democrats to become the type of party that a voter like Titan would be glad to vote for.....because that would mean the Democrats would just be indistinguishable from the early-mid 2000's Republican party, which isn't what a vast majority of the Democrat base in on board for.

Trumps walked into his powder room every morning and tells his makeup assistant "Give me that Jaundiced look today..."

This is a big thing! It's perfectly fine to say "I don't know" or "science hasn't figured that out conclusively yet". There is still vastly more physical and observable evidence of evolution/big bang theories than there are of any Religious creation story out there. My denomination doesn't believe in the "rapture", and believes the end time Revelations have already happened and were referring to events around Jesus and particularly the destruction of the Roman Empire. My Church has some eye rolling beliefs on Creationism, but I think our interpretation of the "end times" are pretty level headed and studied a bit more seriously. HA, well, while I don't believe in the Bible and don't worship any worldly god, I do still consider myself an agnostic, in that I'm certainly open to the idea that some form of higher being or creator could exist out there somewhere.

It's because in past election we've never before had a President and his administration literally telling everyone they were cheated out of the election because of it. The level of distrust of elections wouldn't be as bad as it is now if Trump never declared it to be the reason he lost.

Even if they do catch the scammer, it's not going to help this man. He literally chased her to her car, tried to hold her hostage and then gunned her down as she tried to get away. I'm sure he'll try to claim Ohio's stand your ground/castle doctrine as a defense saying he legitimately believed she was there to rob him or do him harm, but even in the most conservative interpretations of these self defense laws, you aren't allowed to chase them and kill them.

Nah, even with that you'll still have all the people who claim the Voting machines are hacked, or the ballot counts are being manipulated behind the scenes to change the results.

Most people have believed it their entire lives, and had the literal story of creation taught to them before they even started Kindergarten. I know plenty of great, overall smart people who are creationist. It's very, very hard to change such early, foundational beliefs, and frankly some people just aren't very curious or questioning, and just kind of go with the flow with what their Church, family, believe or tell them to believe without much interest in other viewpoints. Depends heavily on the Denomination . My church is full on creationism, but at the same time doesn't necessarily believe that Jews/Israel are special or different in the eyes of God. Our belief was that Jews being the 'chosen' people was primarily an old law type thing and that Jews turned away from God and more or less lost their special 'privalidge' and so now everyone, Jews and Gentiles, are equals within Christianity. Most people in my Church still heavily support Israel, mainly due to politics and wanting there to be a strong counterbalance to the Islamic theocracies.

That seems to be one of the biggest unknowns they are investigating. Someone somewhere was calling a scam on this guy, and also someone hired this Uber driver to do a pickup from his address. Also I'm not 100% sure from the reports if the old man knew he was being scammed at the time of the shooting. I don't know why the old guy thought this apparently middle aged woman with a limp was there to rob him.

Like auburnatl mentioned, It's not even just a secular belief. https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx A majority of American Christians don't believe in a literal interpretation of the Biblical account of creation and, somewhat surprising only 56% of protestant Christians seemed to believe in full human creationism.

Oh, yeah? Well, if this is true the Alabama Department of Transportation has been flagrantly violating my rights on a continual basis.

How does protestors blocking a random road in California or Oregon affect you, a man living in the Mountains of North Carolina? If North Carolina regularly allows protestors to block roads without punishment then you need to petition your local government to fix it.

Man, I must have been having a stroke when I wrote out that grammatical abomination of a post.

There's at least one Conservative Christian poster on these forums that I know of (and likely several others) who do not believe the Separation of Church and State is even real and is an unconstitutional mandate.

Nope, but as a responsible citizen I believe it's an issue the police should handle, and not citizens committing assault and murder, like our GOP congressman evidently believes is the correct response.

Not long ago we had an old man shooting at people who accidently pulled into his driveway. An old man who shot a black kid who accidently knocks on his door, And now we have an old man shooting an innocent Uber Driver to death in his driveway because he was mad/confused and thinking he was getting robbed. This man chased after with poor woman with a gun, took her phone from her to try and make her stay and then shot her multiple times when she tried to drive away. I'm sure he was angry and confused about the scam calls he had been receiving. He evidently thought someone was trying to take something of his, and decided that he'd take his gun and solve the problem himself....unfortunately it led to the death of an innocent person and he'll likely, and deservedly, end up spending the last years of his live in prison. https://apnews.com/article/ohio-uber-driver-fatally-shot-2efec12816a9a40934a6a7524e20e613