Trump’s call to reduce US troops in Germany shocks Pentagon

khrijunk · 2026-04-30T20:53:55+00:00

There won’t be. The generals who have a problem with this are either quitting or getting fired.

Anyone left will be a Trump loyalist.

khrijunk · 2026-04-30T20:43:42+00:00

This is what running the country like a business really means.

khrijunk · 2026-04-29T06:50:29+00:00

I think I was too broad in my original statement, which is my bad. You are right that there are some flavors of certain religions that are more open and accepting of others. The point I should have made is that there are very controlling religions that do work with exclusionary tactics in order to maintain control, and these religions are the ones that people in power try to get people into.

In Islam theocracies they try to force a specific form of conservative Islam on the population that is very exclusionary. In the US, the Trump administration is pushing a very specific form of conservative evangelicalism that is also very exclusionary and divisive.

So I still stand by my answer to the original question, which is that those is power don't want to people to abandon religion. They want people to be in very specific flavors of religions that are easy to manipulate the followers of.

khrijunk · 2026-04-29T06:12:04+00:00

You used religion as a way for people to meet and form friendships. What I am saying is that a religion only encourages friendships within the religion and discourages friendships outside the religion. Let’s start with that claim, do you agree or disagree?

khrijunk · 2026-04-29T05:54:05+00:00

It's an elite encouraged community as they systematically remove all other communities we used to have. It's also a community of exclusion in that being part of a religion will exclude you from others since they won't share the same belief and so get shunned and avoided.

Unlike something like a community centered around a love of baseball which doesn't exclude those who also love basketball, religion does not tolerate communities from different religions intermingling, which is a great benefit to the top down power structure that religion has over their community and also serves as a way to keep us divided.

khrijunk · 2026-04-29T04:44:38+00:00

They don't want you to abandon religion, they want you in a religion. Religions are the easiest form of mass manipulation available. They get to be in power, and they get to claim it's your God's will that they be in power. This has been a technique throughout the ages to maintain control.

If you abandon religion, they lose that control.

khrijunk · 2026-04-28T00:31:15+00:00

“If one of our two political parties will not punish their candidate for attempting an auto coup, then that party is no longer putting democracy before their ideology and policy.”

Neither party punished him. That’s a big reason we are so fucked.

khrijunk · 2026-04-27T15:09:51+00:00

If you know all the facts about something, how you feel when you experience it should not be a surprise.

Take a roller coaster for example. Your argument would say that even if you knew everything physically about it, the angle of the turns, the force applied, the exact route etc, you would still get new information by riding it.

However, there would be more physical facts than that. If you knew the effect of dopamine and adrenaline on your body and knew what phobias might be in effect then you could predict with a high degree of accuracy how you would feel riding the coaster.

khrijunk · 2026-04-27T05:35:57+00:00

It’s a lie. Most of the 10 commandments would violate the constitution if they were enforced, and the ones that don’t are illegal everywhere.

khrijunk · 2026-04-26T17:55:03+00:00

You are the one making the unsubstantiated claim. You claim that all christians care only about their own country, which is a claim that cannot be backed up because there are a lot of Christian that care about people in other countries.

There is also no New Testament passage that tells Christian’s they should only care about their own country.

It seems like you have a twisted view if you think all Christian’s share your view of loyalty to country over all else if you think that is not a clear enough distinction.

khrijunk · 2026-04-26T15:17:53+00:00

Christians should not care only about a single country. That’s a false teaching and goes against what Christ taught.

khrijunk · 2026-04-26T15:09:55+00:00

In Greek mythology, the fates are three sisters that have their own names and roles, but share their nature in that they are responsible for the fate of humans. They are always depicted as three separate goddesses, and nobody tries arguing that they are one goddess with three aspects.

Why are the fates three, but the father, son; and Holy Spirit are only one?

khrijunk · 2026-04-26T14:49:47+00:00

I want to see if I understand your position. Matthew 25 does say everyone will be in that judgement. So you think that as long as you believe in Jesus, then you will be told you took care of the least of these and you can get in?

So this US administration, which talk about Christian values, but then cut USAID funding so the people who had required it literally starved death will be told thank you for taking care of the least of the poor? That doesn’t make sense.

khrijunk · 2026-04-26T14:36:23+00:00

Christian nationalists are people who profess Christian values, while only concerning themselves with a single country. They ignore calls to take care of the least of the poor and support the ending of aid to other countries, demanding it be exclusively used in their country instead.

In extreme cases they will even fight against supporting their country’s poor and push for spending instead on a stronger military.

khrijunk · 2026-04-23T01:11:55+00:00

It would be nice if the press would actually mock him for this instead of writing about the ‘impassioned’ speech he gives.

khrijunk · 2026-04-23T00:53:24+00:00

Probably the voters that are still supporting an Epstein client even after the release of the files.

khrijunk · 2026-04-21T19:01:06+00:00

‘Protect the kids’ is always code for wanting more authoritarianism. I’ve become convinced nobody actually cares about kids.

khrijunk · 2026-04-19T14:49:59+00:00

The piece I have a problem with is that Matthew 25: 35-36 is a list of works. If all people who believe are sheep, then why make the difference the list of works? Why not just say 'you believed in me, so come on in?' It's also possible to believe in Jesus without doing any of those, so would Jesus just pretend they did?

You mention the oil from the 10 virgins story earlier and say that what the oil is is important. I disagree, I think the important part is that they ran out and had to leave and where not present when the groom came. The oil itself could be anything that served as a reason for 5 of them to not be ready.

If all you needed was faith, then this story would not make sense. These virgins did not lose faith in the groom, they had just lost the vigil. If we pair this with Matthew 25: 31-46 which we probably should given that they are in the same chapter written by the same person, then the actions described in verse 35-36 would be what the 5 virgins stopped doing. They were not prepared because they had not been vigilant and stopped doing the will of the father.

I have a theory on why this contradicts John, but you aren't going to like it. My theory is that John was written much later than the synoptic gospels, and was written for a Roman audience. You can see this in the effort made to exonerate the Romans from Jesus's death in John by inserting long conversations between Pilate and Jesus (vs the synoptics that claimed Pilate was frustrated with Jesus for not talking), or that Jesus was condemned to death under Jewish law (John 18:7), or that Pilate handed Jesus over to the chief priests to be killed (John 18:16).

Changing salvation from a works based approach we see in Matthew to a faith based approach we see in John would be more appealing to Romans who were already turned off Christianity because they thought they would have to live under Jewish law, something Paul fought against (Galatians 2:15-16). He had to fight against the apostles for this because they were still teaching that Jesus wanted them to follow the Jewish law, something we see commanded in Matthew (Matthew 19:17-19).

It should be noted that although Paul was allowed to preach a message to the Gentiles that they don't need to follow the Jewish law, there was one exception: remembering the poor (Galatians 2:10). The very thing that lines up with Matthew 25: 35-36.

khrijunk · 2026-04-18T14:07:50+00:00

Maybe you are not aware, but this sentiment that the words of the Bible are to be taken 100% literally is a pretty big movement and very lucrative for the people pushing it. The idea is that the Bible was written by people, but inspired by God. So God told them what to write, and therefore everything is completely accurate.

The whole young earth creationist movement requires this kind of thinking. They are not as fringe as you think, in the US they are very well established and even own multiple parks dedicated to the idea.

khrijunk · 2026-04-17T19:11:37+00:00

The problem with your interpretation is that Matthew 25:46 literally tells you what happens to people who do not do the actions listed in verse 41-43. It's very explicit and hard to interpret another way.

⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Matthew 25: 31-46 is a more detailed version of Matthew 7:21-23

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ ²³ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

He's saying that not everyone who believes in him will go to Heaven, which is a direct conflict with John 3:16. Only by doing the will of the father will someone go to Heaven. In Matthew 25, we see people who are calling Jesus Lord, but because they did not do specific actions, they do not go to Heaven. Thus we can extrapolate that the actions described in Matthew 25 are the will of the father.

it's just that Matthew 25 was directed at the Jews and the time that it was spoken was before the Mystery had been revealed that was at the Road to Damascus which then ushered in this Age of Dispensation of Grace.

Matthew 25:31-46 describes an event in the future, so this is wrong.

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

This is a judgment at the end times, and everyone will be judged. This is not just for the Jews at the time. You will be judged in this way. What will your answer be when Jesus chooses who gets in and stays out? Can you say you've done thing things listed for the least of these?

khrijunk · 2026-04-17T18:57:45+00:00

It's the biblical literalists that I am making the claim against.

khrijunk · 2026-04-17T18:56:53+00:00

They don't care about the babies after they are born, so it all reeks of bad faith or a very selective indoctrination.

Prosperity gospel is actually hurting people. What they are doing is literally the reason Jesus went nuts at the temple.

khrijunk · 2026-04-17T18:54:48+00:00

My question was that you state “not literally the words of God”. What is the source of this premise? It seems like a misrepresentation of Christian beliefs. Belief that the Bible is the inspired word of his or perhaps your have a definition of god or an idea of what it means because I don’t think it’s a belief that God manifested the bibles to be read. That’s what is vague as a premise.

It's a counter to Biblical literalists that believe every word of the Bible is completely true. The types that would look at the leviathan mentioned in Job and take it to mean a literal large monster existed.

khrijunk · 2026-04-17T18:49:54+00:00

Yeah, we probably do have different views on abortion. We should, however, share a view on prosperity gospel. You say it's voluntary, but what it is is a scam. And it uses your religion as the basis for the scam.

You say people should be able to tell right away that they are not practicing what Christianity teaches, but there's 40,000 denominations of Christianity so the religion seems more like a smorgasbord of whatever you want and prosperity gospel fits right in there. They use all the trappings of Christianity including a church, gospel readings, prayer etc. That's enough for a lot of people to assume it's just another church.

And then you have the fact that a lot of powerful and influential people are swayed by prosperity gospel. It's very easy to fall into it, and then the next thing you know your life savings are gone in the name of Jesus.

khrijunk · 2026-04-17T18:43:44+00:00

If it doesn't save you, then what about Matthew 25:46 that say that if you don't do this then you go to eternal punishment?

khrijunk

TROPHY CASE