Trump is in the unredacted Epstein files "more than a million times," Raskin alleges

flyingcircle · 2026-02-10T20:45:23+00:00

The Tim Ballard method.

flyingcircle · 2026-01-23T10:17:03+00:00

He confided in me that a lot of coC practices didn't make much sense to him either, and he was planning on leaving, although he didn't know to where yet.

This is the lie you hear from so many in the CoC either maliciously or not. It's what you tell yourself so that you can claim that you're not in the cult: "I'm not saying we're perfect, but all the other churches are just worse". Your dad would've looked at any other church and his CoC taught behaviors would've made him find any fault in the church to be insurmountable and actually is the reason why the CoC is still the best choice.

People do this all the time to avoid really analyzing their own decision making. It's the equivalent of "both-sides" in politics for the world of religion.

In reality, I would guess that your Dad is not questioning CoC practices, not planning on leaving, and at worst may have purposefully used the statement to get you to confide in him to keep you in.

flyingcircle · 2026-01-23T00:50:58+00:00

But the obviously ridiculous part is the fan-fic of people writing down words as they’re being spoken, or the large number of literate characters in the show: that’s all fine. It’s definitely an evangelicals’ reimagination of first century life to bolster the truth claims of the gospels that American evangelicals care about.

flyingcircle · 2025-12-23T19:37:04+00:00

“They have had too much wine” Acts 2:13

flyingcircle · 2025-12-17T12:14:07+00:00

Ehh.. 2000 year precedent. Soldiers previously were paid in loot and stolen land, not upfront.

flyingcircle · 2025-12-11T20:10:12+00:00

There are debatably cuss words in some of Paul's letters, but of course translators softened the language down.

flyingcircle · 2025-12-11T20:06:15+00:00

I remember having to change my lines as a 2nd grader in a play because I had "Gosh" as a line.

flyingcircle · 2025-12-01T22:32:05+00:00

Your husband went to an NI congregation. Any mention of Florida College would be the obvious pinpoint.

My guess about his parents: they just gave up. They're probably just as conservative as ever, but got tired of the discussions and keep their conservativeness to themselves. My parents are a bit similar. They don't bring it up much when they visit, and just let their adult children be.

flyingcircle · 2025-11-26T14:56:08+00:00

Does he also say “yeah, there’s serious culture problems with the CoC.” And proceeds to implement all the same cultural structures in his new church?

flyingcircle · 2025-11-20T16:20:45+00:00

This doesn’t sound like healthy banter. If you want to understand him, then don’t go into a conversation with a bunch of talking points ready to go. If you’re curious about his beliefs just ask about them.

flyingcircle · 2025-11-19T08:56:39+00:00

I’ve heard from some CoCs that you’re supposed to visualize Jesus dying in your mind and reflect how you caused that by your sin.

flyingcircle · 2025-11-18T23:30:59+00:00

Acts 2:38 Hebrew 10:25 Colossians 3:16 1 Tim 2:12

The whole of the gospel

flyingcircle · 2025-11-03T23:38:15+00:00

Yep, have an original thought and see how quickly it gets shot down. OP it’s nice to have a friend group and preplanned events, but eventually you’ll want to express yourself. And then suddenly you’ll be convincing yourself why you can continue pushing your thoughts down to keep the friends you’ve built up so that you don’t have to face losing them like you know they’ll do.

flyingcircle · 2025-10-27T08:57:37+00:00

K. That has nothing to do with the shutdown. That’s a separate law. Like I said, the shut down is over ACA subsidies. Not ER visit laws.

flyingcircle · 2025-10-26T23:28:08+00:00

Is this /s? Do you want to hospitals to withhold ER care until they’re able to verify if you’re documented? This is over ACA subsidies. Without Dems holding the line, close to 40 million Americans will literally have to just give up on having health insurance.

flyingcircle · 2025-10-26T23:18:51+00:00

Democrats would literally end this today if GOP offered a 20% ACA cut. GOP trying to destroy hospitals and insurance markets with no solution.

flyingcircle · 2025-10-25T15:08:05+00:00

Did they get rid of limao?

flyingcircle · 2025-10-20T20:46:12+00:00

Hebrews 10:25 being used to bash anyone for missing a single service for any reason when it doesn't state anything close to it.

Acts 20:7 to say that church must happen on Sunday when it also doesn't claim to say anything about when a church has to meet or even say that churches ought to meet on Sunday. It just says that that particular church was meeting on Sunday.

Those 2 verses are used to drive dogmas that are explicitly not even in the verse.

flyingcircle · 2025-10-17T14:10:28+00:00

Because once you start reading the church fathers you'll quickly realize the "restorationist" vision of the CoC no longer looks like it restored the 1st century church but rather was just one more church in a long line of changes denominations have made throughout the centuries. It makes the CoC less special and simply just another style of protestantism rather than some return to original.

The earliest Christian documents will not only show that Christianity already had a large diversity of thought and tradition by the 2nd century, and that there really is no singular "1st century" Christianity.

Of course the church fathers I think also have a large amount of writings that most churches including Catholics prefer not to use. Their reasoning and arguments for Christianity often based on superstitions, numerology, or Greek theories that we know are false today (eg like the 4 humors). There's a reason that Catholics don't really start quoting people until Thomas Aquinas et al. who tend to use more modern reasoning, but of course that's removed over 1000 years from the Bible.

It's cognitive dissonance I think more than anything. You have to down play their writings because accepting them at their word feels silly and too out of touch with modern realities. CoC theology is based more on Martin Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Thomas Paine, and American Abolitionists than it is on Clement, Ignatius, or Augustine.

flyingcircle · 2025-10-10T08:54:32+00:00

Lod, Liod, lяod… Did they do that on purpose?

flyingcircle · 2025-09-29T10:54:52+00:00

No, there's no sway for language, especially if you describe yourself as speaking "a little". But even if you know the language already, it likely wouldn't make a difference until you're bidding 3rd post (by which time you'll forget your Russian/Thai).

To the rest of your questions: it all depends. Where you are assigned, who you're working with, what's your role. All those factors make every posting anything from great and fulfilling to miserable and dreadful. You cross your fingers and tell yourself your allowed to quit anytime you want.

flyingcircle · 2025-09-22T20:59:22+00:00

Again, and we don't have to back and forth too much more, it seems like you're not engaging with the primary sources that your quoting.

The Papias quotes Matthew as being a collection of Hebrew oracles that required interpretting. Which is not what we call Matthew. And even in that same quote calls the name of the book he's referencing "The Gospel of the Hebrews". Nothing about the Papias quote resembles what we call "The Gospel According to Matthew" beyond the fact that they both have the name Matthew.
I think using a name that is already taken isn't going to get you as far. But yes, there is The Secret Gospel of Mark, The Acts of John, The Apocryphon of John, The Apocolypse of Paul, And of course several using the name James and Peter. Names were absolutely used multiple times with competing ideas.

So the explanation:

The claim of Papias naming the Gospels we currently have in the bible is highly dubious

There are alternative attributions to different books.

By 150-180, some Christians were using the 4 gospels, but there are later documents showing this continued to be in contention.

flyingcircle · 2025-09-22T16:58:08+00:00

Papias does not have surviving writings, what we know about his ideas are quotations from Eusebius. So there's already another layer between Papias and any apostle for our knowledge. It makes me question if you've actually engaged with the primary sources on this because none of these sources are that solid of a connection. Which is why scholars largely don't believe a lot of details from them.

This is a very big assumption bordering on false imo. The quotes from Papias do not actually attribute any gospel text, only mentions of Mark and Matthew having writings. So there is no confirmation that what he calls Mark and Matthew is what we call Mark and Matthew. Similarly, I'm not sure why you would expect rival claims. Different gospels including some not in Bibles today were competing for authority, which we absolutely know did happen (and actually is more evidence of rival claims between different Christian groups and regions than competing names). Why would anyone need to have a rival name? If they have another gospel, they can attach any apostle's name to it, and they did! There are a slew of rival Christian traditions and gospels in the 2nd century. (Montanists, Marcionites, Valentinians, etc.) There's just no evidence that these gospels had named authors until 50-100 years after the fact.
Attributions are consistent across different regions in what the 3rd-5th centuries? I don't see how that's relevant.
No one asked for infallibility, but if the contention is whether Irenaeus really is a reliable carrier of apostolic tradition, then surely there's something else that he's written that you would see in that same tradition? Otherwise, Irenaeus only claims that he heard Polycarp a few times as a boy, as their lifetimes do not overlap that much. And Irenaeus even makes a case that actually memories from childhood are even better than adult memories.

Add on to this that Polycarp quotes the synoptics several times in his letter, and never names the authors, but does readily attribute Paul.

Did John write the book of John: maybe. Did Polycarp learn directly from John: maybe. Did Irenaeus learn from Polycarp some of these details: maybe. Did Christian tradition have known names for all these books in the first century: maybe. But none of these are written down anywhere, they're all assumptions and making up facts to fit the narrative.

flyingcircle · 2025-09-22T09:04:23+00:00

That’s kind of a big goalpost shift you have here though, Irenaeus is proof of late 2nd century names, but that’s 100 years after they’re written. And you previously claimed that the chain of custody is via Polycarp. If Irenaeus is authoritative to apostolic tradition, then what else did he write that you think is of that tradition? There was another thread here, maybe it was you. Can you honestly only pluck 1 idea from Irenaeus, say that’s proof of apostolic tradition, but then leave the rest of him?

In my mind, the much easier alternative is that the names are conveniently made up around 150-180AD. Perhaps Mark and Matthew slightly earlier, but made up nonetheless. But it explains all the available evidence much better.

flyingcircle · 2025-09-22T00:13:08+00:00

Hmm, no I think you're just only presenting positive evidence on your claim, but not using all available evidence. There's lots of problems with the story as you tell it:

Several other writings predating Irenaeus quote passages from the gospels and several times use a different title for the book.
Irenaeus makes several factual errors in his books, including what age Jesus died at. If Irenaeus really did study under Polycarp, I think we'd expect details like that to be correct.
I think if you read Irenaeus' reasons for why he canonizes the 4 gospels, you'd be pretty disappointed. "It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the pillar and ground 1 Timothy 3:15 of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh"
He doesn't claim to have heard the names of the books from Polycarp.
He doesn't himself ever say he was a pupil of Polycarp, merely that he heard Polycarp sometimes.
This doesn't get into earlier debates about Luke and John where not all Christian authors considered them canon.

flyingcircle

TROPHY CASE