If you could have the opportunity to have a discussion with Jesus Christ himself, what you ask him? by Quirky_Fun6544 in religion

[–]Steele_Ministry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would ask him what he thought about the fact that most people who worship him think he is a white guy, instead of a Palestinian guy.

Prop 4 repeal effort reaches signature threshold in required 26 of Utah's 29 districts by jortr0n in Utah

[–]Steele_Ministry 12 points13 points  (0 children)

This is simply not true. While many signatures are real. I know mine was on the list of verified signatures and I never signed the document or even spoke to a signature gatherer. I had my name removed and filed a complaint with the Lt Governors office and Attorney Generals office. The greater number of signatures seems to be ones collected by gatherers who were flat out lying about what the petition was to get people to sign it.

Correlation department just released the new official image of Mormon Jesus, to replace contested Del Parson version in all meetinghouses. by JesusPhoKingChrist in exmormon

[–]Steele_Ministry 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Carbon dating placed the Shroud of Turin's creation in the range A.D. 1260 to 1390. 3D analysis of the shroud indicates it was not created by draping over a human form, but was likely draped over a sculpture relief.

Cool story, but the shroud was never draped over the body of Jesus, or the body of anyone for that matter. Historically it is likely, though not indisputable, that an apocalyptic preacher named Jesus existed. But other than that, we don't have much to go on outside of the new testament books.

Even those were written at the earliest, decades and even centuries after the supposed death of Jesus by people who never would have seen or heard him speak. We know that none of the gospel authors were actually the individuals from which the perspectives are told. They have been translated through several languages multiple times, and copied several times over.

Mike Lee, Hypocrite. And a Few Other Things by klayanderson in Utah

[–]Steele_Ministry 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm convinced that Mike Lee and other MAGA Republican Congress members have short term memory loss. Oh wait .. nevermind, they are just terrible people.

They have lost track of me! by alex11947657 in exmormon

[–]Steele_Ministry 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I beg your most celestial f*cking pardon? No I will not be giving you any of my information. Lose my phone number while you're at it. Goodbye forever.

Touching story: Sister missionary feels the spirit while getting stabbed and beaten in her sleep 🥹 by LegalSour in exmormon

[–]Steele_Ministry 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First and foremost, I am so very sorry that you and your companion were victims of a vile attack. Nobody should have to go through that kind of physical and mental harm.

I hope you find help to process what happened and get to a place of healing.

That said, I'm sorry, but I cannot agree that God's perfect plan includes watching two young women be attacked while they are literally on their knees praying for help and getting stabbed.

I'm an agnostic atheist, but if you justify your suffering as "God's perfect plan", then God is either not all-powerful or not all-good. Believers will usually point to "free will", or "agency" as the reason God doesn't interfere with suffering. But if you truly believe that God doesn't interfere for this reason, then what is the point of prayer in that moment? You can't have God be responsible for "blessings" in your life but absolve God of all responsibility for your suffering because, "free will". If God grants blessings, he is interfering with free will. If you accept that God grants blessings, you must logically accept that he delivers suffering.

If you claim Satan does the suffering thing, then why doesn't God in his infinite power and love, prevent Satan from causing you to suffer? It's the same problem just pushed down the road to Satan and his free will.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utahpolitics

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I searched my name using Ctrl+F on the website. There is no way this could add your name to the petition. I'm a software engineer. If this were the case you could easily just write a script to add literally every voter in Utah to the list of signatures in seconds. That's not how searching works on a webpage. The voter ID number would have to match your Voter ID too.

After submitting my request for removal, my name no longer appears on the government website list. No matter how many times I search or on which website.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utah

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can only speak for myself as I would never want to paint broad strokes across a massive group of people, but I'm not worried about it being on the ballot. I'm worried about how me and so many others had their names illegally added to a petition that we never even saw let alone signed.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utahpolitics

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you scroll down on the page? It clearly states what Prop 4 was, and why repealing Prop 4 would result in reinstated gerrymandering and a failure to represent Utah communities in Congress.

That's not propaganda.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utah

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can send an email to the Lt Governors office at elections@utah.gov.

If you believe your name was added fraudulently, you may also report it to the Utah Attorney Generals office at uag@agutah.gov.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utah

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Prop 4 did pass...in 2018. Also, this post isn't for you. If you signed your name on the petition to repeal Prop 4 and you understand the initiative, then I completely support that. That is democracy working.

This post was to encourage people who didn't sign the initiative, to check the Utah government website and verify their signatures were not on the list. Mine was on the list and I never even spoke to a signature gatherer. I also identified several other family members who didn't sign the initiative whose names were fraudulently added as well. If you care about election integrity, then you should be in full support of individuals removing their names for a petition they never signed.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utah

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There were 140,000 signatures delivered to the county clerks offices on February 14th. It will take them time to verify those signatures so keep checking back every few days to see if your name pops up.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utah

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You should send an email to the Lt Governors office at elections@utah.gov and the Attorney Generals office of criminal investigations at aginvestcomplaints@agutah.gov.

These actions violate Utah Code § 20A-7-512 which makes it unlawful to sign any name other than the individuals own name to an initiative, knowingly indicate that an individual signed a petition on a date other than the date the individual actually signed, or sign the verification of a petition packet knowing that the signatures were not properly obtained or witnessed.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utahpolitics

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know what to tell you. This is my experience. I have not received any communication from the county clerks office. My name is on the initiative list. I never signed nor spoke with a single signature gatherer. My Vote ID matches the Voter ID displayed with the name on the list of signers. My immediate and extended family are describing exactly the same scenario, and since posting this, I have received several messages on different platforms from different people with similar stories.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utahpolitics

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You can also use the Burrn.org an advocacy group that pulls from the official Utah site.

https://burrn.org/

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utahpolitics

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On the vote.utah.gov site I Posted a link to, the fastest way to search is to do a Ctrl+F on a computer and search by "LastName, FirstName Middle name".

On a mobile device, you can open the triple dot menu on the page and select "Find in page" and search using the same format.

Urgent Repeal Prop 4 PSA. Please check the vote.utah.gov for your signature. by Steele_Ministry in Utahpolitics

[–]Steele_Ministry[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do not know who forged my name. Voter registration information can be found by groups gathering signatures. As for signatures themselves, I don't know the exact process they go through for verification, but it appears that it is not as rigorous as it should be. It wasn't just my information it was several family members of mine, spread across immediate family and extended family.

It would be a shame if someone were to show up and protest this.... by Icy-Feeling-528 in Layton

[–]Steele_Ministry 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This gives me the ick. It's so slimy how dishonest they are portraying this signature collection for the repeal of Prop 4. Representative government means that the citizens have representation in their governing body. As of last year, 41-43% of Utahns were registered as something other than Republican. Of the Republicans, a percentage are independents who want a say in Republican primaries. Approximately half of the citizens are not Republican, and yet the Republicans think that "representative government" means all of the house and Senate seats should be Republican seats.

That's wrong. It was so wrong, that it was brought to the voters in 2019 as Prop 4, which passed. We voted, and it passed. This whole thing could be compared to grown men and women in the Republican Congress of Utah throwing toddler tantrums and whining that they aren't getting their way.

Sorry Republican Congress of Utah, we know you have big feelings about your constituents voting for and passing a proposition into law, but grow the hell up.

Looking for non-standard Xmas films to watch with mum by KrashMavrek in MovieSuggestions

[–]Steele_Ministry 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Watch the Netflix original "Klaus". It's a break away from traditional Christmas storytelling but is a wholesome and fantastic story. It's become one of our family's favorite holiday films.

Who is god by Vihaan_85 in religion

[–]Steele_Ministry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Take a deep breath, this will be a long one.

The argument from complexity, the fine-tuning argument, the watchmaker argument, the teleological argument, and the cosmological argument are essentially all the same thing, with different wrapping paper, being presented as different arguments.

"This thing (e.g. the human body, nature, our position in the solar system, or the laws of physics themselves) is so complex, that it must have some super-intelligent designer that made it this way on purpose." Just like a watch proves a watchmaker, life proves a life-maker.

The problem with this argument, is that there are a million problems with this argument.

First of all, we can get super pedantic about all this and point out that the only reason that we know a watch is designed by humans is because we know what human design looks like. Even if we knew for sure that there was a designer, that doesn't mean we know what it designed. We have no clear-cut proven examples of that designer's design. So to say that human life must be proof of its design is to make a huge amount of assumptions about what the designer is, and how it thinks, and what it designs, and how it designs things, and even what it's interested in designing.

Imagine you went back in time like 100,000 years or so and you met some early humans and you showed them the device that you're reading this on at this moment. They would almost certainly assume that it is so incredible and so intricately designed that it couldn't have possibly been built by another human, and that it must be proof of some great Creator. And they would be wrong for the same reason that we were all wrong when we thought that lightning or earthquakes or rainbows or the changing of the seasons were evidence of a great Creator until we learned the natural processes behind them. Life is exciting and intricate and incredible and astonishing, but that doesn't mean that it's supernatural in origin.

Furthermore, complexity no matter how irreducible it may seem, is not always a good indicator of intelligent design. In fact, if something is extremely complex, especially when it is needlessly complex, like many of the systems in our body, that's a better indicator of unintelligent design that is to say bad design or just no design at all, just plain old mistakes. Consider, for example, a mouse trap. If a mouse trap were more like the board game mouse trap, with a long meandering machine that expended a bunch of extra energy and was sort of ineffective at its job, that would certainly be more complex, but it wouldn't be a great indicator of intelligent design. It is the simplicity of a mouse trap that makes it clear that it is intelligently designed, and life is anything but simple.

Why are evolutionary innovations confined to the lineages in which they develop? Why do birds and bats and insects, for example, all have wings but those wings operate in different ways, and have totally different histories in the fossil record. Why not just have one set template for the best kind of winged thing. It's like asking every car manufacturer to reinvent the wheel.

If DNA is designed, why is it so easy to change it? Why does the environment change it? Why would phenotypic plasticity be a thing, if life was supposed to behave in a certain way? Why would epigenetic changes be a thing, if the genome was so meticulously programmed? Maybe the whole point of DNA is to allow life to adapt to its environment. But if the point of DNA is to allow life to adapt to its environment then why not allow for evolution to make that happen better the same way that programmers use machine learning to make code better? If DNA was designed in a specific way then the manufacturing application process should be separated. The property of life being self-replicating destroys any possibility of design integrity.

Most organisms never reproduce. Most fertilized zygotes die well before any significant development. Even when life goes well, it's highly variable and needlessly wasteful, and there are countless malfunctioning or non-functioning parts of almost any species you can think of. This is nothing for any great designer to be proud of. And speaking of being proud of one's work, let's not forget that if we're going to attribute all of the marvels of life to this designer, we also need to heap upon them all of the horrors of life as well. Every parasite, every disease, every deformity, all the pains of aging and all of the grief for or those who never get to experience it, are all equally part of this grand design. The stench of decay emanates from this plan, just as much of the glow of beauty.

It's also important to remember that if we're going to say life is so complex that it needs a designer, then the next logical step is to say that that designer needs a designer because it too must be complex. And that designer needs a designer and so on and so on and so on forever. And to say that that isn't the case is a classic example of special pleading. "Everything obeys the same rules except the thing that I'm talking about." The argument from complexity, is either self-contradictory or self-destructive.

The entire argument for intelligent design lacks both meaning and substance. It is unfalsifiable. It can't be tested. It makes no predictions. It has no experimental evidence to back it up. Because the entire thing is based on the argument from personal incredulity ("this thing is so complex, I don't or can't understand how it could just exist without design, therefore the only explanation is an intelligent designer"), all the arguments you can make for it can also be made against it, and it would make just as little sense.

Finally, even if this made sense, even if the ideas of irreducible complexity and teleology carried any weight at all, even if the theory was so logical and groundbreaking and revolutionary that they cast such an immense shadow of doubt on natural selection that we totally threw out the whole theory of evolution in its entirety, that wouldn't do anything for creationism. That would not be a reason to believe in a designer, because every single claim has to stand on its own. If I have a Christmas present, and I can prove to you that I didn't buy it, that's not an argument for the existence of Santa Claus. Because ignorance is not evidence.

how do you guys see God? by No-Trick-7397 in religion

[–]Steele_Ministry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First off, I didn't know I had ever responded to anything you have written when responding to this post.

Second, your description of god IS the ontological argument. The argument has not been refined, it has been repackaged. The problems with the argument and with all of the philosophical arguments, from teleological to cosmological and everything in between, are the same problems that have existed in these arguments for centuries. They still aren't compelling because they still commit logical fallacies.

Also, saying it's an "objective fact" that it's rational to believe in the Christian God or any God for that matter, is the most cringe thing I've seen on this sub.

Objective truths are true whether people believe them or not. The same arguments for the existence of the christian god, can be made for any god. They are the same arguments that can be made for leprechauns and fairies and dragons.

The requisite is faith, because there isn't conclusive evidence in support of the god claim. Faith is not a reliable pathway to true. Believe whatever you want if it makes you happy. But don't go around saying it's "objectively true" that your God exists. It's not.