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Alabama lawmakers have voted 24-4 to allow Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham to establish a police department. The church has over 4,000 members and is also home to a K-12 school and a theological seminary with 2,000 students and teachers:
"After the shooting at Sandy Hook and in the wake of similar assaults at churches and schools, Briarwood recognized the need to provide qualified first responders to coordinate with local law enforcement," church administrator Matt Moore said in a statement, referring to the mass murder of 20 first graders and six teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut by a deranged man with an AR-15 style rifle just before Christmas 2012. "The sole purpose of this proposed legislation is to provide a safe environment for the church, its members, students and guests." The church would pay the bill for its officers.
[...] "It's our view this would plainly be unconstitutional," Randall Marshall, the ACLU's Acting Executive Director, told NBC News. In a memo to the legislature, Marshall said they believe the bills "violate the First Amendment or the U.S. Constitution and, if enacted, would not survive a legal challenge." "Vesting state police powers in a church police force violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment," his memo states. "These bills unnecessarily carve out special programs for religious organizations and inextricably intertwine state authority and power with church operations."
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Saturday April 29 2017, @07:51PM (15 children)
Hole in the firmament? so what? for ages we believed wrong things as scientific truth and we likely still do. So what?
A star fell from the sky in the apocalypse, yet it can be a symbol for a nuclear reactor. The mark of the beast could be an implant, yet it can be a symbol for a new religion (parallel for the tefillin), the reference to the waters above might be idiomatic (oral tradition needs symbols and metric), or not.
As for the rest, I don't see the problems you see, the OT god is the same of the NT Jesus, or everything is fluff. Problem, whatever proof of a difference between OT and NT god is based on theorems on fluff. So you can go as deep as you want in theology if you need answers to existential questions, personally I don't need them.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 29 2017, @08:42PM (14 children)
So you're one of those people who not only doesn't know, but doesn't care to know, as long as you can say "fuck you i got mine." That's not a coherent religion, and if your God is anything like what you're obligated to believe, you've earned yourself an eternity on fire. Good grief, you're one of the intellectually laziest people I've ever run across.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Friday May 05 2017, @12:12PM (13 children)
The rat who realizes he is in a labyrinth is likely the laziest one too, so what.
The eternity on fire is luckily to be decided by the hypothetical perfectly just judge, which I don't fear. Not because I guess I am saved or not, but because either nothing happens or whatever happens is, guess what, just.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday May 06 2017, @04:32AM (12 children)
That's not even wrong, holy shit. I think I've pinpointed your problem though: define "just."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Tuesday May 09 2017, @05:28PM (11 children)
Just judge in this world is giving each one according to what s/he deserves. Obviously Undefinable outside this world by us. If you wanted a theological definition IIRC matthew 21 gives some pointers.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday May 09 2017, @09:49PM (10 children)
Way to circular logic there, bro.
Define what "deserves" is. And while you're at it, explain to me how the hell a finite being's limited, temporally-circumscribed, spatially-circumscribed, vastly ignorant sins can possibly merit infinite punishment.
For bonus funsies, tell me if you know what the early Church fathers believed about that.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:31PM (9 children)
Logical answer: your question is, how does a defined action earn you (undefined) because (somebody outside) (undefined)? I dunno. What I do know is that this is not basis for any kind of judgement, not because i like to censor, but because I like people not to make fools of themselves.
Theological answer:The MEANING of what you do resides in the domain of meaning, like true and false values are not bound by time or space. Eternity is not necessarily defined as an infinitely long time (the universe could be infinitely extending in both past and future yet have a creator and a judgement and a heaven and a hell). It can simple be beyond time. In fact a god bound by time is not creator of time itself so easily. So it is perfectly doable to have punishment of prize in the domain of god. Let's say you run a successful sim resulting in aware beings (which I argue should happen given the right parameters) So there are beings that you deem worthy to share your reality so you give them an array of sensor, a motor and you tell them what they see now is your own dimension. They still live in their so they still have to trust, aka believe you on that. There are other clearly defective beings which you cannot trust to behave in your reality. You leave them in the sim, you don't destroy them because Matthew 13:29. Or you do destroy them when the sim is over. Have you done anything morally reprehensible?
Practical answer: How can winning a 90 minutes final match earn you the first place in the competition forever? clearly sports do not exist or if they do, they do not award championships.
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Wednesday May 10 2017, @02:33PM
comment above is mine.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 10 2017, @04:12PM (7 children)
Comment above is all kinds of false equivalence because you're implying this God does not, as it is stated, "know the end from the beginning." Why is it that you True Believers (TM) are the ones most likely to blaspheme your God, to knock out inseparable fundamental attributes he has and needs in order to *be* God?
An omniscient being. Does. Not. Run. A simulation. What would be the point? It already knows the outcome of any and all possible sets of starting conditions, and furthermore, being atemporal, from its PoV these outcomes have already happened.
Furthermore: you're making the same category error that whatever asshole who wrote "Who is the pot to say to the potter 'what has thou wrought?'" made; that being, sims and pots are not sentient, ensouled, free-willed beings. This is the root of your evil: even if by proxy (for what else is a God-concept than a human's best guess at the universal order?) you reduce people to objects and elevate whims and guesses over reality. You have thereby made your God in your own image.
And as to your "practical answer" ("How can winning a 90 minutes final match earn you the first place in the competition forever? clearly sports do not exist or if they do, they do not award championships."): it earns you *recognition* forever as the first-place winner *in that specific finals match.* And so what? What, in the end, does it mean?
Marcello, you aren't anywhere near as intelligent--or moral--as you think you are.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Thursday May 11 2017, @02:15AM (6 children)
> because you're implying this God does not, as it is stated, "know the end from the beginning."
Nope. In fact a god outside time sees/creates end and beginning and can have freely evolving things in the middle, all "in one go" (can't say at the same time, can we). But this is theology.
> to knock out inseparable fundamental attributes he has and needs in order to *be* God?
Still theology. There is no fundamental attribute of god other than transcendence, and that only because it is part of the modefinition. Immanence already is a theological matter.
> An omniscient being. Does. Not. Run. A simulation.
Read again what I wrote. "Let's say you run a successful sim". YOU, not an omniscient being. I do NOT NEED to imply that this world is a simulation by an omniscient god for my argument. All I need is to bring to the table ONE example that says it is perfectly doable to have consequences in the domain of the creator for the acts done in the domain of the created.
My impression is that you reply on autopilot, lumping together my ideas with those of others. For example, a self aware thing is like I am, qualitatively speaking. Yet the right of the guy who runs the sim to MAKE THOSE THINGS ENTER HIS OWN WORLD trumps whatever right they have.
But You were probably discussing the right of the sim things to keep existing. It is not there, if resources are limited, for obvious reasons. If resources are unlimited? Still there is no right. It is a privilege. If you think those things should be saved, since resources are unlimited, you can take a backup. Still it's a privilege conceded by your magnanimity, right? or a cruelty inflicted on all the other aware things, that will be affected by your decision, depending on the kind of simulation. Tricky, huh.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:09AM (5 children)
Just curious, is English your first language? There's something weird I can't quite place about your sentence structure that makes my brain squeak a bit trying to look at it.
Your bigger problem, though, is that you don't actually seem to be paying attention to anything that's being said to you. I am saying this for the fourth or fifth time now; try and get it through your head: any being that actually had the qualities or attributes necessary to be God would be the *only thing that exists.*
You seem to have trouble with this concept, as the last couple of times I brought it up you deflected with some irrelevant bullshit and went right on righting on. What are you not understanding about it?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @05:56PM (4 children)
#500092 already replied. Yours is a theorem. If god is X then does Y (or does not do it) because Z. I have already pointed out that the theorem is inapplicable from the POV because absence of time => absence of the same concept of causality we have. It is like the sim creature asking us how what kind of RAM is our world using.
Valid for theology. Cannot be formulated outside it. Also incompatible with Christianity but who cares. I am not a native English speaker too.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday May 12 2017, @06:35PM (3 children)
Er, no, it is not a question of time or causality. This is a simple definition of what it means to BE GOD. Perfection, complete aseity, and utter self-sufficiency entail that nothing else would ever be created. It has nothing to do with the flow of time or causality and everything to do with plain logic.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Saturday May 13 2017, @09:41PM (2 children)
> BE God
note "What it means to be god" is in the domain of meaning of the domain of god.
> entail
Entail is causality. But let's pretend it is not, you are likely not making your own theology but telling me the Christian one is inconsistent because perfection is (according to some ad hoc mental model which I could challenge if I had not already won) logically at odds with omnipotence. Now, remember the principle of no contradiction is invalid in one domain, like U={}, so our logic system is not universe-independent (which is banal if you think how it came to be). You call it a matter of definition, but you cannot "define" where the principle of no contradiction is not necessarily valid. Definition means separating A from not A. Such a separation needs the principle of no contradiction to be valid in that domain, which is not proved now nor likely provable ever. The end.
You are making theology dressed up as logic, and no matter how you keep calling it logic you don't make it so.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 14 2017, @04:14AM (1 child)
Hey, dipshit, I didn't say perfection is at odds with omnipotence. I said if a being is perfect AND self-sufficient AND possesses complete aseity AND transcends space/time/causality, nothing else but that being would exist. You have not "already won," you lost before you even started.
Thanks, by the way, for fatally undermining your entire argument; you are working from the assumption of the law of noncontradiction being invalid, which means instant game over for you as you can no longer say anything with any meaning, as anything you say may mean itself and not-itself at the same time. Jeez, you *suck* at this. This is *not* how you do apophatic theology.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Sunday May 14 2017, @08:02AM
> I didn't say perfection is at odds with omnipotence.
So could he create a reality external to him and consubstantial WRT him or not? your theorem, or application of definiton as you put it, says no.
> nothing else but that being would exist
you simply reformulated the theological "god is one". You do not deny creation, you deny a particular creation standing external and at the same level of god which is not part of christian theology.
Define existence. I did, experience is what you are doing right now, real is what can be directly or indirectly experienced, existing is what belongs to the set of real things. How does that apply to god? theologically only. What is real at one level is abstract in another.
> you can no longer say anything with any meaning.
I can, I do in fact, but: whatever I end up with has no meaning necessarily, this is my entire point. I am not putting forward ideas, I am defining the limits of others'. You want to sick with coding using maybe uninitialized vars? your choice. In the case of your theorem there are other problems in the code. Such as implying an imperfect world precludes a perfect and immanent god, but matthew 5 already offers a working model for it.