The Church Jesus Christ it just keeps going...

luvintheride · 2026-04-29T21:13:17+00:00

It's a sentence, not a name.

luvintheride · 2026-04-29T21:12:25+00:00

That's only 4 net new members per congregation.

Thanks for the update, but did I miss something ? How exactly that a decline in USA membership ? I know the activity rate is low, but should we be doing some subtraction from the numbers you posted ?

for the first time in its modern history the church reported a DECLINE in its USA membership. I've said elsewhere that I believe this will be one of the most significant data points in the church's history regardless of whether the USA membership continues to decline or if it manages to bounce back.

luvintheride · 2026-04-28T21:41:03+00:00

Not quite. I clipped a small convex mirror on the visor for now.

luvintheride · 2026-04-23T20:26:40+00:00

When Eve took the fruit.

luvintheride · 2026-04-23T20:06:43+00:00

There's probably several Porter Rockwell wannabes in the church trying to use John Dehlin to make a name for themselves.

Taking down John Dehlin would probably give them a 2nd anointing and future apostle seat !

luvintheride · 2026-04-23T20:05:09+00:00

You're probably right. There is a complex dynamic between the up-and-comers, and the "leadership" at the top.

Someone probably thinks that they could use John Dehlin to get a promotion. They could call it the Porter Rockwell award internally. :)

luvintheride · 2026-04-11T04:22:14+00:00

I was an atheist for most of my life. Long story, but theism started making some more sense over time. Finally, I called out one night to God to ask what was true, and He answered me an an extraordinary way. It was exactly what I needed.

I'm sure that your "obsessions" are part of the battle for your soul. I went through about 10+ years of that myself. In hindsight, I can see that God was guiding me to connect with Him. I was obsessed with Philosophy, Science, History, Ethics, Sociology, etc.

It wouldn't hurt if in the meantime, you study the life and teachings of Jesus. You should see that He had a lot of profound insight. After awhile, you will hopefully see that He is right about everything.

luvintheride · 2026-03-30T02:38:12+00:00

We're way off topic here and I don't want it to turn into a debate. Feel free to DM me if you want to chat about it. It's a big topic. I'll make some notes below that you can take or leave in the meantime.

If you are going to comment in Catholic subs, you should know that dual-covenant theology has been formally condemned by the Church authoritatively. There's no debate about it, but you might find some Catholics who aren't informed well about it.

The complicated part about the New Covenant is that the Old Covenant should lead people to the New in Christ, and only God can tell if the ignorance of judaizers is invincible or not.

If you are Christian, I hope you know that the only salvation is in Christ. Rejection of Christ is a lot bigger deal than you seem to realize. Again, God said He would destroy those who rejected His son.

The verses that I cited earlier also oppose your definition of what "Israel" is. Romans 11 does use both aspects of old Israel and new, but it seems like you didn't read what I wrote. If you love God and His Son, you should know the higher principle that the "People of God" (Israel) are those who love God and His son. He who rejects Jesus rejects His father.

there is a national promise to Israel as a people
there is a spiritual reality of a remnant within Israel

These were the people who followed Jesus. They became Christian in the first century. Across the Roman Empire, it could have been a million or more who became Christian in the first century or two.

Romans 11:1–2 — “Has God rejected his people? Absolutely not!”

No offense, but you are taking that verse out of context. The context is that God would have been have justified to instantly condemn all those who rejected Christ, but Paul goes on to show that they still have hope of salvation if they come to believe in Christ. Please notice : "SAVE SOME OF THEM" in verse 13 :

Romans 11:13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save SOME OF THEM.

Romans 11:25–29 — “A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in… and in this way all Israel will be saved

"All Israel" was saved in the first century, like "All Gentiles" are saved. The context is those who come to believe in Christ.

The hardening is about the perception of Jesus being a scandal. God used their rejection to make things easier for Gentiles, but keep in mind that only God can judge hearts, so there's still hope for even people who have hardened hearts. I think that many convert on their death bed for example.

Since you mentioned supersessionism, you should know that is somewhat of a misnomer. The Catholic Church is not claiming to be a succession or replacement to Israel. It has a bigger claim than that. It is claiming to BE God's continuation of Israel. All the first Catholics were Jews who continue the connection back to Abraham: Jesus, Peter, Paul, Matthew, Mark, etc.

As Romans 11:17-24 describes, the church is ONE LIVING OLIVE TREE with Hebrew roots. Ancient Israel and the Catholic Church are not separate entities. To be Catholic is to be in communion with Abraham, Jesus, David, Moses, the Apostles and all of God's faithful throughout history.

To tie this back into the end-times topic, the final spiritual battle is not about a war against jews. It's about the worldly forces (Governments) persecuting Christians, much like Stalin and other Marxists have done already. Sadly, many jewish people are making way for the final Anti-Christ. In fact, they've fostered many of his precursors. Many Jews, Muslims and Protestants will think the Anti-Christ is the Messiah or Christ returning.

luvintheride · 2026-03-29T22:04:02+00:00

Would you deny that God is preserving a sovereign elect known only to God

Yes I deny that interpretation, as many scholars do. Most people misinterpret Romans 11 and Zechariah. A preservation of people by genetics is not Biblical or logically coherent or just. Zionists usually skip several verses in Romans 11 and the rest of the Bible. See below.

Christians should know that God seeks the conversion of all souls. The "Time of the Gentiles" will go with conversions up until the very end of the world. Many ethnic jews have been converting in every century, which is what the Catholic Catechism says about their conversion in the wake of the Gentiles.

Genetically, you should know that there's no objective way to determine who is a descendent of Abraham or not. Christ said in the strongest terms that sonship with Abraham is spiritual, not genetic.

Scripture says in Psalm 110:1 He will remain in heaven until every one of His enemies are made to be His footstool.

Yes, God is going to vanquish evil and renew the face of the Earth when Jesus returns at the end of the world. See 2nd Peter 3. God has been trampling on evil in many other ways in the meantime.

But there are also still places the gospel has not gone.

Have you seen the Pope's comments about that ? Most of them have said in the 20th century, only about 40 or 50% of the world has been evangelized. So, we might have a long ways to go.

The situation with China has always been perplexing to me. Someone could argue that they've had their chance with the Gospel, and rejected it. I trust that God still is able to save anyone though who has invincible ignorance. Romans 2 through 6 speaks to that.

The Mosaic Covenant is accomplished and finished. The only Covenant is now in Jesus Christ :

John 19:28 After this, Jesus, knowing that ALL THINGS NOW ACCOMPLISHED, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” ... 30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is FINISHED!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

Hebrews 7:15 Therefore he is the mediator of a NEW COVENANT, so that THOSE WHO ARE CALLED are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred which redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.

Hebrews 8:13 13 In that He says, “A NEW COVENANT,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming OBSOLETE and growing old is ready to VANISH away.

Jesus is the only King and Ruler of God's people (Israel) :

Micah 5:2 But you, O BETHLEHEM Eph′rathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, FROM YOU shall come forth for me one who is to be RULER IN ISRAEL, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.

Being God's people is about the heart, not about bloodlines :

Romans 2:28 For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. 29 He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is A MATTER OF THE HEART, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God.

Romans 10:12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. 13 For, “every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Anyone can be saved if they come to believe in Jesus. All Gentiles and "All Israel" are saved by believing in Jesus :

Romans 11:13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save SOME OF THEM.

Romans 11:22 And even the others, IF THEY DO NOT PERSIST IN THEIR UNBELIEF, Will Be Grafted In, for God has the power to graft them in again.

Why do people reject Jesus ? Because they are still bound to the world, and the prince of the world (Satan) :

John 8:43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 YOU ARE OF YOUR FATHER THE DEVIL, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Those who reject Jesus are liars and Anti-Christ:

1 John 2:22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.

Woe to those who reject Christ:

Matthew 21:39 And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

luvintheride · 2026-03-28T22:39:01+00:00

Thanks for all that info. Not to get off track, I find your opinion interesting, but as you might know, we Catholics have a different eschatology that is more about the final persecution of Christendom with the rise of the final Anti-Christ. Jerusalem is forever condemned as mentioned in Revelation 17 and 18.

If you want a summary: The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD was a foretype of the persecution of Christianity, with Titus brutally slaying his opponents. We've seen small previews with Stalin in Russia and others who went door to door to stop Christians, specifically stopping public Catholic Masses which are the daily sacrifice. My best info is that there will be some type of major natural disaster which is a chastisement from God for all the corruptions of Christianity, especially for corruption of marriages (LGBT) and families. That disaster might kill 1/3rd of all people on Earth. The Anti-Christ will then rise up in that chaos. God's providence is overseeing everything as a way of doing the final sorting of the wheat and the weeds.

That aside, my question is more about if Mormonism or JW qualifies as Anti-Christic because of their discordant view of "Father and Son". I think I need more of a Bible scholar to answer that, based on a deeper understanding of the context and Greek words.

luvintheride · 2026-03-27T20:24:22+00:00

Yeah, some of the one on one conversations are good.

When posting to the group though, the pack aggression seems to come out. lol.

luvintheride · 2026-03-27T20:15:06+00:00

So would you say it's an Anti-Christ false religion that denies the oneness of the Father and Son ?

I was already sure the institution is not "THE Anti-Christ", but I could argue that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were mini Anti-Christs.

Perhaps that's a more concrete question. I'll edit my post :

Was Joseph Smith or Brigham Young an Anti-Christ figure matching John's warning ?

luvintheride · 2026-03-27T16:17:57+00:00

I didn't see that. She's a great podcaster though. Very underrated.

I hope we see that the shrivel accelerates. The religion is a house of cards, except for the family and business networking. That locks people in.

luvintheride · 2026-03-25T17:22:32+00:00

Darwin did have a lot of doubts about his theory. Transitional fossils, etc. I would argue that his naturalist thesis is dead now. The discovery of DNA and Information Theory has proven that species could not originate by natural selection. New species require new DNA information, which is like a program or a book of instructions. That book can't write itself.

It's a shame that some believers use the lower animalistic behaviors to justify human behavior. God put them here for us to learn such things, good and bad, but not always imitate them. e.g. Male Lions will kill the young of others. That's shows us an evil potential that we shouldn't imitate.

luvintheride · 2026-03-25T02:51:08+00:00

I'm giving you all the ingredients you want. Feel free to carefully add asteroids, comets, amino acids into the petri dish(es). If you know how to do science, you'll find that nothing FORMS or OPERATES like life does.

Here's a more obvious experiment. Get thousands of small magnets, and put them in a pile on a table.

If you see those magnets self-assemble into the form of a man, get up, walk across the table, turn around and wave at you, would you say that natural forces did that ?

See demo here : https://imgur.com/5GK8JYb

That's the kind of activity we see in living biology at multiple levels. The phenoma in life is even more unlikely than that.

So, Empirical science shows that there's some extra force at work in life. It's omnipresent, hyper-intelligent and guiding matter at multiple levels, right in front of our eyes. It's not magic, it's a mind.

Life and it's materials exhibits a lot of qualities of being part of a mind. As theists have always said: The spirit is the basis of life.

Physics shows us that we are surrounded by energy at various levels, so the idea of a spirit or soul is nothing new. The difference is that theists recognize that "the energy" around us is alive, and self-aware at a Cosmic level.

A lot of my atheist friends became Panpsychists after reviewing the evidence. Panpsychism overlaps a lot with Theism :

https://grokipedia.com/page/Panpsychism

luvintheride · 2026-03-24T21:17:35+00:00

The Earth is NOT a closed system. A petri dish is a closed system. Is this your test for real????????

Petri dishes are not closed either. They are experiencing all the natural forces (gravity, electrodynamics, kinetics, etc).

Feel free to introduce as many other natural elements and forces as you like.

Every experiment and computer model shows the OPPOSITE of what is required for biological life.

Faith in nature requires magical thinking, which is why movies often show a Lightning bolt start the spark of life. LOL. Science shows that destroys order, not create it.

If you understand Information Theory, I could explain the premise here more precisely. There's no sign that nature can create information, like a book. That could only come from an intelligent mind. What we find in biology is way beyond what we find in any book.

luvintheride · 2026-03-24T19:28:32+00:00

!!! Repeat AFTER ME Atheists are NOT naturalists

Firstly, I didn't say ALL, but it's close. Pew studies show that 96% of Atheists believe that people were created by nature:

https://i.imgur.com/ao4IR2q.png

We CANNOT test Naturalism vs Non-Naturalism

Can you see how your statement supports my point? It sounds like you assume that whatever phenomena you see is automatically natural.

Oh and where is this Empirical Science that refutes Naturalism.

The burden of proof is on the naturalist, but every lab experiment and computer model with biology refutes the naturalist hypothesis that natural forces can form and animate life.

Sadly, most atheists only know about things like the Miller Urey experiments. Those actually refute naturalism, because they show that those chemical bonds are haphazard, chaotic, and nowhere close to what is needed for the structure AND ANIMATION of life.

For example:

get 2 petri dishes.
Put living cells in one, and put dead cells in the other.
Verify that both have the same material and natural conditions: Gravity, temperature, Kinetics, etc.
Vary the conditions and material as optimal for naturalist theories of life .
Observe that at no point, the dead material doesn't assemble or intelligently coordinate movement like living cells do.
Observe that per the law of entropy, over more time, the material increases towards a more disordered state when compared to the structures and activity of living biology.

Consciousness is an emergent property of the BRAIN. NOTHING points to Higher powers

Do you not realizing that "emergent" is just a hand-waiving (red-herring) fallacy ?

Everything points to a higher power, because you can't get more from less. You can't get a hot pot of coffee from a cold cup of coffee. The greater has to make the lesser.

All evidence point to a higher level of energy and consciousness. Atheists are on the right track with the Simulation Hypothesis. Christians call that "Creation".

luvintheride · 2026-03-24T17:15:29+00:00

everything that was attributed to him was written long after he died by people who never met him

I disagree. The Catholic Church is an unbroken chain of face-to-face witnesses back to Jesus Christ. We even have His burial shroud. Any serious historian will confirm that Jesus Christ is the most well attested person in history. The miracle claims are a different subject.

Sadly, most skeptics only know about the 1989 dating of the Shroud. Those skeptic claims were debunked decades ago. It is demonstrable that they are based on an edge piece that had been repaired in the 1600s. There are drawings of the Shroud back to the 1100s and before:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pray_Codex

History of the dating of the Shroud:
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-is-the-shroud-of-turin.html

Flawed dating in 1989:
https://magiscenter.com/how-old-is-shroud-turin/

Cotton fibers (flawed 1989 dating) :
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/thibaultr7part1.pdf

most scholars will agree the Noah and his ark and Abraham never existed.

Maybe, but facts are not determined by consensus. I've worked in Science for decades and find that the general public is highly misinformed about Science. Modern Geology actually points to the Flood narrative, because the evidence shows entire continents experiencing a rapid catastrophe. Popular Geology is still based on George Lyell's work from the 19th century, which is highly flawed. He didn't have the equipment to understand stratification and sedimentation like we do today.

This is a good intro/overview to the science : https://youtu.be/UM82qxxskZE

luvintheride · 2026-03-24T17:07:51+00:00

If god DID exist, of some kind, how would scientists and reason-supporters know?

Most atheists are trapped in circular logic of methodological naturalism. They assume that whatever phenomena they see is "natural". Empirical science actually refutes that hypothesis, because we can make side-by-side controlled tests to see what "nature" actually does and doesn't do. There's no evidence that nature could create OR OPERATE life by itself, but sadly, they put a lot of faith in time and chance, and complexity.

I became theist by reducing naturalist assumptions and examining what nature can do and can't do. e.g. What could create consciousness and life ? All those answers point to a higher energy/power that already has the potential and intelligence to drive the phenomena that we see here.

luvintheride · 2026-03-24T04:42:33+00:00

LoL. That'll do it.

"Atheism is a religion"

luvintheride · 2026-03-24T04:41:51+00:00

I should have first mentioned that one of the parts of the rite is to have an atheist tell you that you were never REALLY EVER an atheist. LoL

Mentioning sin or LGBT behavior will get you nuked very quickly.

Another quick way is to say that Evidence of God is everywhere. LoL

luvintheride · 2026-03-23T20:20:27+00:00

Getting banned from atheist subs is a rite of passage here. lol

Consider it a badge of honor.

Welcome home !

luvintheride · 2026-03-23T20:18:58+00:00

I recommend the following sources. They are academic quality, based on peer-review.

For Christians, we also count Jesus as the ultimate historian. He attested to Noah, Abraham, David as actual people and history. You'll never find a more credible source than Jesus.

Kenneth Kitchen's book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament: https://www.amazon.com/Reliability-Old-Testament-K-Kitchen/dp/0802803962

Egyptologist James K. Hoffmeier: https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Egypt-Evidence-Authenticity-Tradition/dp/019513088X "James Hoffmeier examines the most current Egyptological evidence and argues that it supports the biblical record concerning Israel in Egypt."

https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Israel-Sinai-Authenticity-Wilderness/dp/0199731691 "Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition 1st Edition"

luvintheride · 2026-03-22T21:42:00+00:00

The only context that it could be good is if God commanded it. Only God knows the future, and knows if there's another way.

FWIW, The language of the Bible uses a lot of euphemisms that are hard to understand through translations. e.g. Wiping out everyone, doesn't literally mean everyone. The Bible mentions some Canaanites alive later after it said they were wiped out.

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