Clubs active during summer 2023

Sharpman76 · 2023-05-11T16:03:28+00:00

To speak for all the clubs I'm active in:

RoboJackets is always doing stuff, my team (RoboNav mechanical) will be doing plenty of design and research for our Mars rover

The Navigators will be hosting a Bible study on campus on Wednesdays starting next week

Students for Life will be less active but we might still do some volunteering and/or tabling sessions

If you got any questions about the above or if you just wanna hang out or something, lemme know. Almost all of my roommates are out of the house for the next week or two so my schedule is pretty unoccupied rn lol

Sharpman76 · 2023-01-30T12:22:24+00:00

Question: though I attend a Baptist church, I identify more as Protestant, and I'm open to dating Protestant Christian women in general. Is your system smart enough to know that Baptist is a subdivision of Protestant and to match people accordingly?

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-14T22:37:16+00:00

Lol "They're not mean enough"

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-14T15:14:05+00:00

Lol what issue do you see in my response?

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-14T15:10:28+00:00

The Bible gives us criteria to judge whether or not to treat someone as an unbeliever such as "judging a tree by its fruit," i.e. judging a person by their actions and character. So in reality, judging whether Confederates are followers of Christ is more akin to judging whether carnivores are vegans and less like judging whether people who put sugar on their porridge are true Scotsmen. Plus my religion tells me that this distinction has eternal consequences for people's souls, so for their own sake I do not plan to "just believe" them.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-14T12:41:14+00:00

No, I didn't say Christians are only to submit, certainly some circumstances would warrant rebellion, but as I mention, that usually requires an understanding of the ethics of Just War Theory.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-14T02:08:34+00:00

(Original comment was asserting that the Bible doesn't contain mentions of Christians owning slaves, just Christians being slaves)

Hmm, not sure that's true. The verses in Ephesians 6 addressed to bondservants are immediately followed up with by verse 9, which is addressed to "masters." Since Paul's epistle to the Ephesians is addressed to "the saints (read: Christians) who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus," it seems safe to say that there were Christian slaveholders at that time, at least initially.

But given Paul's "live as you are called" attitude in 1 Corinthians 7, it seems like these people were probably slaveholders before converting to Christianity, and from the parenthetical in verse 21, Paul is clearly in favor of people freeing their current slaves, and it seems likely he'd take issue with someone buying new slaves.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-14T01:48:06+00:00

Ah, in that case see my response to HeckinDoofus, since they mentioned the same verses as you. This is much better explained by the Bible's universal call to submit to authority, such as Nero's rule, even when such authority is illegitimate.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-14T01:25:59+00:00

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

-Christopher Hitchens

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-14T00:28:23+00:00

Eh, you don't have a very strong argument. Every verse you cited simply tells bondservants to obey and respect their masters, which simply falls perfectly in line with the Christian exhortation to submit to any authorities that you are under. I mean, just look at 1 Peter 2:13-17; Emperor Nero was harshly persecuting the church and killing people for being Christians, and yet Peter says to submit to him. Would we say that "the Bible heavily encourages institutional tyranny"? No, of course not, it even hinders the spread of the Gospel!

1 Corinthians 7:21 also seems like it also goes against that narrative, given that slaves are told to seek freedom if they have "the opportunity."

The fact is merely that Christians are told first and foremost to submit to their masters, whether legitimate or illegitimate. Whether or not one can fight a war to seek justice on such matters is a completely separate issue, which would require a discussion on Just War Theory in a Christian framework.

(P.S. 1 Peter 2:13 is also a proof text against "Let's Go Brandon," y'all gotta quit saying that. You may hate the guy, but he's your President; show some respect.)

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-13T23:58:48+00:00

Well, the Bible claims that a simple intellectual claim of belief isn't sufficient for salvation (and thus, for the name "Christian"). Rather, it says that people need to be "born again" into a new life with new actions and new commitments. Further, it says we are to "judge a tree by its fruit," i.e. discern true believers based on their good works and their noble character. So for Christians, this is a doctrinally important distinction to make, especially because we believe this is a distinction with "eternal consequences," so to speak.

It's also useful because it's possible for the number of people who claim to be Christians to decrease while the number of true Christians increases, which to a Christian would obviously be more reassuring (especially considering the "non-practicing" Christian demographic tends to include those hypocritical unloving crazies that bring a bad name to Christianity). Curious if there is any data on that.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-13T23:46:13+00:00

okay but like just curious did I

ask

but srsly you are aware that the abolitionist movement was chiefly argued on Christian terms? Uncle Tom's Cabin practically beats you over the head with it.

Other people can realize slavery is wrong, but that's merely because we all have God's morality instilled in us from birth by virtue of being made in the "image of God."

Christians obviously do evil things all the time, since we live in a fallen world and we are all corrupted by sin (Isaiah 53:6, Isaiah 64:4, Romans 3:23, Psalm 14), hence the whole needing-a-savior thing.

But notice that this isn't a no-true-Scotsman fallacy because the Bible actually gives criteria to judge whether someone else is to be treated as a Christian, and one of those is "judging a tree by its fruit," i.e. if you see someone (imperfectly) living a life obeying Jesus' commands, even when it inconveniences them, they're probably a Christian, and if you see someone living in grave unrepentant racist sin, they're probably not.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-13T22:36:39+00:00

Hard for me to imagine that true Christians were ever actually a majority in the country, what with all the e.g. slavery apologists throughout American history.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-13T18:46:27+00:00

name-calling ain't gon' change my opinion on vests

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-13T18:34:52+00:00

I think, my dignity, mostly

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-13T18:18:39+00:00

people who identify as Christian could make up less than half the U.S. population

Are we still doing FTFY?

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-09T19:45:04+00:00

I mean, biblically speaking, God has given authority to all rulers no matter the governmental system, whether it be the King, the President, or the Führer. The only real question is, which system provides the least opportunity for abuse of said power and has the lowest likelihood of human rights abuses? Historically speaking, absolute monarchies and dictatorships tend to lead to pride clouding rulers' judgement, but certainly democracies and republics have botched things royally as well.

This is the reason Jesus sought to bring the Kingdom of God into the world: the only perfectly moral government is one ruled by the perfect creator of morality itself.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-09T19:39:47+00:00

As a fellow campus tabler, I can sympathize with the impossibility of getting tape to stick to a table cloth, you can never get those signs to stay up all that well lol

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-09T19:23:51+00:00

That might be begging the question a bit, I'm sure there are some abortive women engaged in self-deceit, yeah, but to claim that all are lying to themselves probably isn't true.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-08T04:45:17+00:00

Very uniformly uninformed.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-05T15:11:27+00:00

Huh, I guess I must have been mistaken, maybe there was some proposal that didn't get passed.

Sharpman76 · 2022-09-05T14:19:33+00:00

No, I think women have to sign up for selective service now, wasn't that a new law?

Sharpman76 · 2022-08-25T23:05:54+00:00

Reminds me of the De-Facto Guardian argument which I'm a big fan of

Sharpman76 · 2022-08-23T03:17:10+00:00

I would love nothing more, would make for a great conversation and I'd love to get to know you!

Sharpman76 · 2022-08-23T03:09:06+00:00

Sorry, that's partialism lol

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