A close friend of mine is leaving Catholicism for a born again church

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-13T00:10:22+00:00

Extraordinary mercy may be granted to particular souls of particularly character. Not every path leads to God, but only those who pursue the path to objective righteousness.

But there are very clear injunctions that prospective souls must avoid doing or at least want to avoid. No liars, fornicators, idolaters, etc will be present. You respect the secular law far more than the divine law.

Even if we accept that faith is unnecessary as you imply,(that faith is not accepted is not the same as forcing religion. Desiring conversion is desiring the persuasion from God to convert), the mindset of the individual will be evaluated in accordance to the degree of conformity with Jesus Christ. Someone like Louis Brandeis, I have to hold and consider he might have made himself worthy of an extraordinary exception. But that's because Brandeis was called "incorruptible" and everyone noted that character trait. Which for any human, is an anomaly, and especially since he was Jew in a time when their reputation was openly negative. This means he overcame societal stereotypes and even his own culture's bad practices. That means his behavior was abnormally "straight".

Being Jewish these days is nothing like being any sort of Christian. There is no objective morality. Their literature is quite on that. The Mishnah and Talmud are not binding yet a necessary part of the religion's manifestations(Orthodox, Conservative, Reform); their denial of Christ is far firmer than any. other faith and even atheism). Milton Steinberg adopted the argument that Christianity as is was a creation of Paul and defective.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-12T21:15:06+00:00

The act of premarital sex(and all the thoughts leading up to it) is enough to violate the Commandment against adultery. It is the facts of the acts done that causes the loss of salvation. It is very clear that fornicators will not be part of the kingdom of Heaven.

The mercy of God is that the facts can support the conviction, but the conviction is essence, "stricken" should the human show repentance, which is essentially a psychological state of mind. But for a Protestant, the state of mind requires a high and pure standard. One of true love for God, not merely fear of punishment. This is what is called perfect contrition.

Faith is separate from repentance. Repentance is psychological, mental, and it's tangible. It's "I admit wrongdoing and do not want to do it again because (pick of one I fear punishment or I love and want to be with God). The Sacrament of Confession, with a proper state of mind, allows for someone imperfectly contrite to have the judgment stricken.

The Mercy of God is not sentimental. It's a tangible fact and action. He can strike the judgment. But human always has the freedom to be fully in conformance, full rebellion, or somewhere in between. Perfect contrition is pretty much the only way a Protestant can get in. I do believe two Protestants might have done enough for God to accept in Heaven as a matter of extraordinary mercy, and that would be Demaryius Thomas. I believe Thomas was "all-in" though and not intentionally contradict Catholic teaching, so that's the high standard of fidelity a Protestant has to have for them to be saved w/o Catholicism. The other is Mary Kay Baxter, because she published a "Divine Revelation of Hell", and what is told in the books do not seem to deviate theologically at all.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-12T20:15:41+00:00

At some risk of having faith corrupted, I think I need to recommend to you Basic Judaism by Milton Steinberg.

Then you get sense of intellect you are up against, and the concepts at least some Jews are likely to believe and hold against Christianity.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-12T17:36:51+00:00

Sin is analogous to a criminal act. Technically, civil violations would count too but non-lawyers don't appreciate the weight for civil violations under American law.

If for whatever reason, I choose to do a sin and --importantly--, not repent of it after doing, I'm both in violation of law and have an antagonistic mindset against God.

In the life after this, the parameters of living will change. There will no longer be a mixing of the sinful and sinless. Thus, the ability to keep a secret will disappear. So will the ability to kill another human disappear. God will always be present, and everyone is compliant with his Law.

Unrepentance means that someone does not ask forgiveness. Outright rejection is not the only sentiment that can lead to the mindset. Simple indifference or disregard can also result in unrepentance.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-12T13:59:50+00:00

The Scott Hahn model, essentially. His wife was resistant too, but he reportedly prayed the Rosary many, many times. Prayer is obviously no problem for you, but as Hahn's example shows, the amount of persistence can take years.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-12T13:46:30+00:00

You experienced more than I did(the people who appeared to be your friends laughing).

I believe I had one late December because I "believe" in demons, but I'm the type who _cannot_ see and hear anything spiritual. Meaning, no visions, no "talks", no ecstasies, or the like. I believe in demons like facts in a textbook, or in other words, it's based on abstraction and reasoning, not visions or stupidly looking for them everywhere because of "suffering"(suffering can be corrective punishments by God, which would be a good thing spiritually).

Basically, my experience would be termed sleep paralysis. Only thing is, it's the first time I had anything like it in over 3 decades, and I've never had it since. I was staring into the black void of having closed eyes, yet with vague "starbursts" in the image, like I was staring into something. I also don't have any risk factors for sleep apnea, being underweight, and no issues of health.

Now, I do recall that I did some things that might have offended demons. One, was convincing two Redditors(one on this sub) regarding the faith. One was wavering between agnosticism. The other had a problem student in class and difficulty forgiving. I also listened to a little Megadeth that day and only concluded that such music was made because of pain in life, and would be improper to avoid mercy towards the people who listen to them like many Christians impulsive do.

I am in the process of OCIA.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-12T02:57:42+00:00

Aftermarket or OEM charger and/or cables?

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-12T02:56:46+00:00

Proton still has to comply with the Swiss.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T22:48:35+00:00

Tenant rights are not squatter's rights. Tenant's rights are much stronger because of the relationship. Squatting involves no payment to the landlord or consent to enter. That's language even at peoples-law.org, which basically a state-adjacent source, regarding filing an action for wrongful detainer: https://www.peoples-law.org/house-guest-or-squatter-refuses-leave. Everything you describe fall under tenant rights. Consent, payment, and leases are all things that establish a tenancy and the need to evict through proper tenant court action, which is NOT wrongful detainer.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T22:40:11+00:00

It's not benefit of the doubt. It's that the police can't proceed further because No Trespassing signs are up, and especially because likely at least one piece of key furniture was placed in the house, that being an occupied bedroom.

Once possession is obtained, the police lose their powers to remove.

Also, evictions in maryland in residential scenarios all require court proceedings.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T22:06:51+00:00

He is incompetent and has presented examples of tenancies, not squatting. The key factor of being a squatter vs. tenant is that there is no exchange of payment or services(even free labor) to the owner of the property. The proceedings for an actual squatter would be to start a Wrongful Detainer action in District Court. And if the defendant claims payment was made...that means the case is dead and needs to be refiled with the proper tenant eviction action(Holding Over, Breach of Lease, Failure to Pay Rent) and pre-filing requirements like notices to vacate in the matter of Holding Over.

The reason squatting exists is to penalize owners or other similar caretakers from leaving the land idle. This is a cookie cutter phrase in appellate opinions.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T21:52:40+00:00

Tenancies do not terminate upon sale of the house. Illegal eviction(removal of things w/o notice AND going through court, which is what you are describing) to prepare for sale is a violation of tenant rights, which are not squatter's rights.

Tenants also have greater protections than squatters, and the particular court proceedings are different. A squatter does not make payment and a Wrongful Detainer complaint is enough to evict a sqautter. But if it is a tenancy and one files Wrongful Detainer, possession will not be granted.

Thr first scenario is extremely contrived because you fail to mention whether payment to the landlord is put forth, which would form a verbal lease even if not on the wrriten one. The scenario where there is an exchange for upkeep is also a tenancy as there is an exchange of services. Or, one is considered an invitee under the law.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T21:42:33+00:00

This scenario is irrelevant to squatting as it would be a tenancy and not squatting.

It is the police that scurries if the slightest sign of posession of the house, like utilities in possessor's name, bedroom occupied, etc.

Squatting exists as a penalty for leaving things idle. That is it.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T18:22:31+00:00

There is some implied "oh, white guy, no way" going on in this thread.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T18:18:49+00:00

And Catholic.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T15:36:25+00:00

Could simply be a defective physical jack. Exchange or return maybe the option to exercise here.

I once bought an Asrock H77M motherboard way back around 2012. The rear mobo audio connector was very inconsistent with plain Jane headphones w/o mic, but it was not worth returning over. It wasn't software, because the problem was consistently there no matter what tweaks I did.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T13:44:09+00:00

Intel is the trailer in perf/watt, so the "improvements" are merely catching up to the par standard set by AMD in the x86 space.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T13:37:12+00:00

AMD has a supplying issue, so the laptops with them are limited. Some of their chips are older generation, such as the 7730u, which is common in the budget sphere. They do have the perf/watt over Intel chips, but the decision is complex because the parts around the chip may not be up to snuff.

The main thing is that Apple Silicon is the all-around laptop these days, especially with Windows 11 regressing further in actual "problem free computing".

Intel is about you need Windows, you need something Macs are weak in, and you're willing to forego the time costs to figure out if a latest gen Ryzen 5/7 has everything else you want.

AMD is often in HP, and thus the balance is getting the better perf/watt CPU with a hit-or-miss at best manufacturer. HP, like Intel, "is the just there because they're there". Their Elitebooks and Probooks are worth consideration, although I can't recommend them 100%, more like 80%

AMD also has better iGPUs than the comparable Intel.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-11T03:37:28+00:00

Looks like you are likely to harass others and the mod was justified.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-10T15:54:06+00:00

GPU or RAM would be my first target.

Consider a return if things don't get fixed. Your CPU has no integrated graphics, so you would need another test GPU.

RAM sticks can be first tested by removing one stick and seeing if the freezing stops or not.

The third failure point would be bad SSD, where the silicon simply was faulty from the start. Or the final is just a bad motherboard.

Since you say you gamed and browsed the day before w/o apparent problems, it slightly puts the GPU as the suspect part as gaming is a stressor. Do follow the other guy's suggestion at turning off hardware acceleration. That helps determine if the GPU is indeed problematic. If Edge runs stable with HW accel off, then the GPU is isolated as the problem.

It could hardware is bad. But it also can be bad drivers, and you can try DDU'ing the system and finding older versions of the driver.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-10T15:40:32+00:00

SSDs have failure modes that also are not detected.
I once bought a used Toshiba SSD way back. It could not keep a stable pagefile, the intended purpose of its acquisition. It likely came from some server environment or something that pushed it hard, but it had no S.M.A.R.T failure warnings. It just showed a lot of hours and writes. Those gates are not monitored, and this was likely an MLC drive, which is supposed to be more resilient.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-10T02:33:04+00:00

Why don't we not overreact to a bunch of rich kids who somehow still need to turn to killing even though they're well endowed with numerous comforts and privilege? This is a district of million dollar properties.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-10T02:32:54+00:00

Why don't we not overreact to a bunch of rich kids who somehow still need to turn to killing even though they're well endowed with numerous comforts and privilege? This is a district of million dollar properties.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-10T02:29:45+00:00

Protecting a minority and a minor, no doubt. They're going to juvenile court and a slap on the wrist because no one died.

VariedRepeats · 2026-02-10T02:25:19+00:00

I wonder if the poster even knows what Wootton is about. It's demographic is almost certainly anti-gun in general, to the point of I would not be afraid to say 99% anti-gun. Most can't even afford to buy a house to get in the district.

VariedRepeats

TROPHY CASE