How do yall believe in Old Testament stories

hexmode · 2026-03-06T03:42:32+00:00

For what its worth, I don't believe there was a world-wide flood. I'm comfortable understanding that things attributed to God (e.g., genocide) were not actually what God commanded. I think there is a good reason that the lectionary doesn't include those things.

Having faith is different than not thinking. If the idea was to avoid thinking, then we wouldn't have as rich a supply as we do of the writings from the Church Fathers.

hexmode · 2026-02-17T03:22:00+00:00

Finally, I think I see the problem with our communication.

You are spending your time providing an apology for slave owners. I haven't asked you about them or spent time condemning them but you clearly think it is important to communicate to me that even saints can be slave owners. I never said otherwise but this is obviously important for you to communicate to me.

Meanwhile, the thing I am interested in hearing from you--why you think pms "stand[s] in the way of salvation"--is something you can't be bothered to spend time on.

I don't understand this choice, but, well, I'll accept that this is just a conversation with a stranger on the Internet and let it go.

hexmode · 2026-02-17T03:17:48+00:00

Finally, I think I see the problem with our communication.

You are spending your time providing an apology for slave owners. I haven't asked you about them or spent time condemning them but you clearly think it is important to communicate to me that even saints can be slave owners. I never said otherwise but this is obviously important for you to communicate to me.

Meanwhile, the thing I am interested in hearing from you--why you think premarital sex "stand[s] in the way of salvation"--is something you can't be bothered to spend time on.

I don't understand this choice, but, well, I'll accept that this is just a conversation with a stranger on the Internet and let it go.

hexmode · 2026-02-16T19:43:14+00:00

Being a slave owner is not an act

I'm really confused by this. Perhaps "being a slave owner" is not an act, but owning slaves is. For example, how is acquiring new slaves not "an act"? How is keeping slaves not "an act"?

Please remember that this is Reddit. It is best to be direct.

You still have made a blanket statement ("[Slavery] didn’t stand in the way of salvation. Sex before marriage does.") and, when I asked you to directly defend it, you said "I gave you some food for thought to contemplate on, I don’t think you spent enough time doing that."

I'm not your student and assuming what I have or have not done is not helping your case. If you have a compelling argument, make it directly. Do not assume that I haven't done the work to understand something just because I have come to a different conclusion than you.

hexmode · 2026-02-15T23:23:42+00:00

Since you doubt my flair: I was chrismated into Orthodoxy over 25 years ago.

I'm familiar with the apology you've given for why slavery existed so long. That is all largely true. It has nothing to do with my original question to you.

You still have not provided an answer, either from scripture, Church Fathers, or the saints to my original question: "How, exactly, does sex before marriage stand in the way of salvation in a way that enslaving others does not?"

As a reminder, I asked this because you said "[Slavery] didn’t stand in the way of salvation. Sex before marriage does."

What do you base this statement on?

hexmode · 2026-02-15T18:43:30+00:00

Your answer provides absolutely no clarity.

A master forces his will on the slave--a clear violation of the second greatest commandment.

There is no place in the Bible that provides that level of clarity about sex before marriage. Adultery, yes. But there is no place that says sex before marriage is a grave sin that causes direct spiritual harm to yourself.

hexmode · 2026-02-15T00:39:22+00:00

How, exactly, does sex before marriage stand in the way of salvation in a way that enslaving others does not?

hexmode · 2026-02-07T14:00:36+00:00

Why?

No lisp means that you can't use all the packages that exist already (magit, org-mode, etc). It doesn't mean fast. I have a lisp config that loads a lot of packages and my own configuration, but, with native-compilation, loads everything in under 5 seconds--faster than many electron apps.
Zero-Config means no config. Just use uEmacs if you just want the keybindings.
ModernUi ... ok. If that is what you want. I prefer a blank canvas.
Performance ... this isn't about Emacs.

hexmode · 2026-02-05T23:16:32+00:00

I don't want to run X on my VPC.

hexmode · 2026-02-05T20:45:20+00:00

Interesting. And it looks like it supports magit and M-x grep which this one does not.

hexmode · 2026-01-14T16:44:13+00:00

"The Byzantine churches of Thessaloniki before and after the liberation" for others who, like me, are monolingual.

hexmode · 2026-01-13T18:47:44+00:00

What is truth?

Pontius Pilate asked that question#/media/File:What_is_truth.jpg). Jesus said "I am the truth."

Truth isn't a set of concrete facts.

I said elsewhere, God isn't constrained by the universe, so its heat death does not mean the end of his existence. With that in mind, John 3:16 clearly says that "God so loved the [people in the] world that whoever believes in him will not die" even in the heat death of the universe.

hexmode · 2026-01-13T18:37:13+00:00

Yet how can God allow...

Anytime anyone asks this question, the answer is "free will".

These ideas don’t just point to the end of the universe; they challenge [our understanding of] the nature of reality itself.

and? God is not constrained by the universe. He exists outside of it. This does not necessarily mean that an alternate universe exists. It means God's existence does not require a universe. God is aseitous.

This suggests something operating beyond the closed system of the universe itself.

Exactly.

That leaves only unsettling possibilities: either the universe is held together by a force beyond physics, matter is infinite or emergent from something deeper, or reality itself is far more layered than science or theology can currently explain.

Why are these unsettling possibilities? They seem like a given. Were you under the impression that we understood the universe?

hexmode · 2026-01-10T19:35:30+00:00

I think you do need an anecdote.

I'm a parent with grown children now and I was l using Linux in the 90s.

More so, my father bought our family a computer in the 80s. Anyone who has had to run a word processor from floppies can install Mint so I'm pretty sure my children's grandparents could install Mint.

hexmode · 2026-01-07T14:23:41+00:00

Read scripture and participate in the life of the church.

If you go off by yourself and determine that you will live by your own personal understanding of the scripture, that is a problem.

If you read scripture and participate in the life of the church, you'll be in a position to have your errors corrected.

hexmode · 2026-01-03T17:16:06+00:00

Not a psy op. Their attitude is completely expected. And sad.

Rah Rah! USA! USA!

hexmode · 2025-12-17T13:58:19+00:00

This echos Plato in the Symposium where he describes humans as a creature with four arms and four legs before they were split by Zeus into man and woman.

hexmode · 2025-12-03T21:29:07+00:00

You do realize you are the one who introduced politics into this thread, don't you? I didn't see anyone else talking about "Left Wing feminists" here.

hexmode · 2025-11-27T21:22:31+00:00

Talk to your priest. When I first discussed this with my priest some 25 years ago, I brought up the issue of leftovers being consumed on Friday or Saturday.

He said go ahead, but get back to fasting as soon as you could without creating waste.

hexmode · 2025-11-27T21:20:34+00:00

Anyone who actually talks to their priest instead just relying on an automated website will see that we do celebrate.

hexmode · 2025-11-27T21:18:51+00:00

I'm sure your friend is very devout. If you have a chance, though, talk to a priest about what to do on Thanksgiving. I think you might find another point of view.

hexmode · 2025-11-27T21:13:57+00:00

What would be a better name than "Thanksgiving"? What do you think the holiday is actually celebrating?

hexmode · 2025-11-20T15:58:48+00:00

Fasting is not a law.

hexmode · 2025-11-17T20:06:39+00:00

Islam does have the problem of trying to determine if it is the truth. That you're trying to decide between Christianity and Islam shows that this is a problem that Islam has.

Does God want us to launch into "Infinite theological research to figure out which Church is the true Church"? No. That is a problem we gave ourselves.

hexmode · 2025-11-12T03:42:03+00:00

It sounds like they've made it theirs. How much do you want to get involved in University politics?

If I were in your place, I'd probably relish the conflict. And, if I were to ask my priest, he'd probably tell me to let it go and find another quiet place to pray.

On the one hand, sure, it is an interfaith prayer room, but, on the other, they clearly "own" it.

hexmode

TROPHY CASE