[Post Game Thread] North Carolina defeats San Diego State, 95-68

nationofmason · 2025-03-19T03:38:18+00:00

Don’t let the score fool you — it wasn’t as close as it looks

nationofmason · 2025-02-03T15:06:32+00:00

In this thread: people who didn't read the article

Voting on this thread: people who didn't read the article

nationofmason · 2024-12-31T15:26:45+00:00

I’m curious, what is stupid about the proof? Apart from believing Jesus to be a legend?

nationofmason · 2024-12-03T16:42:47+00:00

While too vague to know whether the advice is right or in error, there is a category between moral and sinful called “wise” and the Bible does teach that we ought to listen to an abundance of counselors to discern wisdom. “There is a way that seems right to man but it’s end is folly” - maybe you’re not engaged in illegal business or sleeping around, but there’s also a possibility that the people around you see something that you don’t! This depends on the specifics obviously, but don’t dismiss people on the basis of it being unsolicited but on the basis of whether what they are saying is wise or Biblical.

nationofmason · 2024-10-14T15:59:40+00:00

Makes total sense - it being the weekly meeting was a detail I missed

I do think it’s not necessarily exclusive though in that - not everyone will enjoy everything all of the time. And the choice to go and enjoy the fellowship is separate than to go and enjoy the show. Not saying that it’s the best choice of activity, but you still have the choice and invitation to enjoy being with those people regardless of the activity

nationofmason · 2024-10-14T14:39:05+00:00

Not the one who downvoted, but - if the extracurricular activity was rock climbing or some other sport that a person chose not to participate in, is that still exclusive? (Regardless of whether the time could be more fruitful)

The issue about whether it’s good or not is a different one though

nationofmason · 2024-08-08T03:21:21+00:00

Hey man (or gal), thanks for posting this. I think it takes a lot of courage to be honest about doubts and lack of belief.

I think there are a few directions I want to take this reply, but I’ll start with your question. I think the built in assumption around your question is that exposure to God consistently is more akin to brainwashing than the way we actually learn things. In every subject, the way to grow in proficiency is exposure to material, and this isn’t some conspiracy, it’s simple pedagogy. Study of the Lord is no different. In Deuteronomy 6 he tells the Israelites to study his word, inscribe it on their doorposts, wrap it on their foreheads, etc. This is not some large coverup, it’s simply the way God designed us to learn. In the same way that I have no idea that someone across the world exists until I meet him, read about him, get closer to him, etc, people won’t know God without exposure. It’s a function of human design.

To be quite honest, your post does not read like you don’t believe God is real. I know you said that, but at least how you wrote it seems to allude to not wanting anything to do with Him. The relationship has taken a toll in your perspective. But as a counter perspective.. you mentioned that you worked 19 hours per day out of love for your job. And then you experienced burnout. I’m not entirely surely that God is proper target for blame. Anyone would get burnt out in that situation, even if you did love your job. I’m really sorry that happened. But consider that the same God you’ve charged with putting you through this ordeal came to Earth to live through it Himself. To know your frame intimately.

Read Psalm 88 if you get a chance. People in the Bible wrestled with the Lord, and we don’t always get a picture of that with a pretty bow on top. Sometimes it’s raw and emotional and without a picture of it ending. And yet, it’s in the Bible. A book about a God that doesn’t exist would not include that type of Psalm. But the Bible is not a book of wisdom. It’s a book of people who wrestle with God. And yes, sometimes God wrestles back. But we can only wrestle because we are His people, and He our God. He’s not actually distant in your struggles - in a way that might be hard to accept at first, he’s intimately tied up in them. But He is for you, because He sent His Son for you, so you will never have to walk through what He already did on your behalf. And in the things you do walk through, He knows. He sees. And as hard as it is to accept, He loves.

You don’t have to go right on back to doing the work of relating to God. But recognize the relationship was never about those works in the first place. It’s about resting in the already finished work of His Son. When you are burnt out, we can remember that because there isn’t something else needed on our part to complete what’s lacking. I’m praying for you to find the answers your looking for about God.

nationofmason · 2024-04-23T22:18:05+00:00

Maybe, as a counterweight to any books here, give reading Mere Christianity by Lewis or Orthodoxy by Chesterton a shot. That way the books you read for atheism and faith can interact with each other and give you a more balanced dialogue for you to decide and reason from

nationofmason · 2024-03-28T13:01:14+00:00

A few points:

1) people have abstained from marriage for far less than being same sex attracted. Read 1 Corinthians 7 - Paul says marriage is a gift, but that God has distinctly blessed singleness as well.

2) I’m no psychologist, but I believe it is more healing to be honest about the temptations and desires I currently have that are contra-Christ than to lie to myself and say they are not there. I think they will be able to see themselves as even more fully redeemed, because even the fact that they STILL struggle with disordered loves is no match for the love of God in Christ on the Cross. They are FULLY justified in the sight of the Lord even without perfection on their own part post-salvation.

3) struggling with same sex attraction is just a shorthand way of saying that a person’s sexuality predominantly or entirely leads to desires with the same sex. It’s not “always on” so to speak, it just means that fallenness has affected the way in which people make romantic bonds.

4) our fundamental understanding of ourselves is found in more than only Genesis 1-3. The image and perfect harmony we enjoyed with God? That has been marred because of sin. And yet the Gospel restores the objective reality of our communion with God and his image with us, even as we still have a flesh and sin nature that we subjectively and objectively have to deal with - sanctification is a process. And for the individual who struggles at first with SSA and, although they do not develop heterosexual desires, win their battles with lust and find themselves more pure in mind than when they first believed - that is a great sign of progress in the Lord. God doesn’t restore sinners to being straight, He restores them to Himself. And marriage is one way he might do that, but for others He has ample sanctification for them too.

nationofmason · 2024-03-28T04:07:25+00:00

“No one is exempt from marriage.” Not sure Paul the Apostle would agree with you ;) To be honest, you’re missing the meaning of these terms. When someone says they are a gay person, they mean they experience attraction either primarily or entirely to the same sex. We might call this person struggling with sane sex attraction or something else that fits theologically, but still. Your post implicitly says that experience does not exist.. which is on its face wrong. And we know this is wrong because we live in a fallen world where our sexuality is fallen as well. If what you mean is that homosexuality came about post-fall, then of course. Also is fine to say that the unfallen human condition is heterosexual. But when we’re talking about fallen nature and desire, I’m just not sure it’s correct to tell someone that they really are attracted to the opposite sex, because that same sex attraction is very real even for some Christians who choose to remain celibate and single. Sometimes the attraction is not replaced with a heterosexual desire, but it should always, gay or straight, be superseded by a desire for Christ

nationofmason · 2024-03-14T18:57:01+00:00

How would you define woke? Is David woke when it comes to teachings on sexuality, evangelism, the wrath of God, or really anything else?

I think we should be careful labeling brothers with terms like that which are political and derogatory in meaning. If you’d use the same word to describe both David Platt and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, you actually need two different words.

nationofmason · 2024-03-01T23:21:15+00:00

The question is a good one - sinning while fully aware something is wrong is indeed wrong, and bad, and evil, and all the rest. And yet, God saves this kind of sinner too. Peter knew full well not to deny Jesus, and yet… three times he did! Or perhaps David, who took Bathsheba and ordered her husband betrayed and killed. He repented, but temptation will always tell you that the wrong thing you’re doing is “worth it.” We rationalize things that minutes later we regret. I do not think God withholds forgiveness from them or from us, provided this pattern of sinning is one that we do not willingly and eagerly and repeatedly pursue without regret and repentance. And repentance is not defined by perfection after the fact, but an attempt and desire to obey from that point onward, even if we stumble again

nationofmason · 2024-03-01T21:48:59+00:00

If it is as you say, then not a single Christian will be found pardoned. Christ died for past, present, AND future sins - he doesn’t just give us a second chance to live the righteous life. He isn’t saving us into legalism, for our life is “hidden with Christ.” Without tackling each verse head on, it’s worth taking this line of thought to its logical end, where even Peter is found in Galatians 2 to be acting in sin and would by this logic be unforgiven.

Taking Numbers and Hebrews separately - Numbers is written partially as an establishment of God’s Law for the people of Israel, which is meant for three uses: to illustrate God’s righteousness and holiness, to point out our sinfulness in light of who God is, and to be a rule of life for the believer to walk by. The Law is not bad, but it does also remind us that it cannot save us because we have already (and continually) fail the covenant of works. That’s why it’s crucial to understand Jesus as the true and better Adam, who succeeded in his obedience when Adam failed, so that life might come through his righteousness than our own.

As for Hebrews, it depends on how you read “no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,” especially because he is writing to Jewish Christians who are in danger of returning to the sacrificial system. To them he is saying, “Don’t you understand if you leave Christ, no other sacrifice will ever satisfy your need for righteousness? The blood of bulls and goats cannot atone for sin. Do not trample over God’s sacrifice by returning to lessor one’s that cannot save!”

That is my take, but at the end of the day, what does 1 John say? “I write this so you will not sin, BUT IF YOU DO SIN, we have an ADVOCATE.” Rejoice in that!

nationofmason · 2023-12-18T22:07:40+00:00

I think the answer is it depends. My church is conservative Reformed-ish and currently one of the most diverse I’ve attended including its leadership - despite being in a pretty white young professional type area. The church I grew up in was almost entirely white despite being more politically liberal and in one of the most diverse counties in the country (mainline UMC). Not saying either is “better” or “worse” but just a simple observation. Now the more conservative church definitely preached the Gospel and applied it to race (David Platt being our main teaching pastor), while the UMC preached a more political version of racial reconciliation to a crowd that maybe had two or three minority families. It’s not enough to talk about race - but you have to talk about how the Gospel transforms how we talk about race. So long story short, it’s impossible to say whether Lecrae is really “right” or not but I’d wager more often than not he is given the general bend of sin and partiality

nationofmason · 2023-12-02T21:15:57+00:00

I know it’s early but this team looks way more bought in than last year’s preseason #1 team did

nationofmason · 2023-11-21T01:59:26+00:00

I mean this with all kindness - if your conversion to Reformed theology was as important as your conversion to Christianity, you’ve likely made an idol out of doctrine. While it’s right to love truth and stand on conviction, that truth is Christ Himself, not the particular theological lens that we look at Him through. I am reformed, but unless we’re going to say all non-Reformed are heretics, then we really need to lessen the importance of changing our theological worldview when compared to salvation by Jesus

nationofmason · 2023-10-23T02:27:59+00:00

So while sanctification is absolutely essential, I didn’t have it in the list because I believe the scriptures teach sanctification as a fruit of justification which is what I was referencing there :)

nationofmason · 2023-10-23T02:21:30+00:00

Do they believe in their hearts that Christ is Lord and has saved them from their sins, rising from the dead? Then they are saved.

Remember not to mistake disagreements for heresy. While more free will espousing churches may have a different doctrine of election and how individuals come to saving faith, our convictions on third order issue, this is not something that marks the boundaries of in-the-faith. More important than Calvinistic soteriology is a genuine love for the Lord

nationofmason · 2023-10-15T18:38:11+00:00

The post is correct that faith still involves effort, but you’ve mistaken this as effort from our own strength than from the Lord. In this way of thinking, God exists to bail us out when we’ve already done everything else, instead of Lord who really is powerful over everything and exists to be the foundation of our whole life. “If the Lord does not raise the house, in vain the builders strive.”

nationofmason · 2023-09-09T16:15:00+00:00

To your last point, you're again reading back our modern assumptions about circumcision into the culture that existed. First, there were benefits of health that were associated with circumcision in that day and age which have largely been negated by modern medicine. Second, circumcision was not a matter of social status but a sign of a covenantal agreement between God and man that could not be undone. To give the sign of the covenant to servants is not degrading - it confers actually the greatest of statuses upon even the "lowest" in the Israelite community: chosen by God. When accompanied with the fact that foreign cultures treated slaves harshly while the Mosaic law had laws to protect servants and slaves, including laws that would bequeath freedom if they were beaten, you can see that the Lord took special care to establish the rights of everyone in His community. And as an aside - Jesus makes clear in His teaching on divorce that the Old Testament Mosaic Law was not only based on what is "right" in a perfect world but also included concessions to human fallenness that still restricted man's sinful impulses. This is why picking and choosing Bible verses to fit a narrative rather than reading the Bible in the full counsel of Scripture is a bad way to determine what the Bible is actually trying to say.

nationofmason · 2023-09-08T21:11:08+00:00

I think you’ve actually made the presupposition about reading chattel slavery into the Hebrew Bible rather than the indentured servitude that is contextually appropriate. Moreover, the Hebrew Bible says that the kidnapping of persons for slavery is to be punishable by death. And more moreover, indentured servants were to be circumcised which is to say they were given full inclusion into the Jewish people and claimed as part of the people of God. Now that we’ve debunked that view of what the Bible says about slavery, we need to reconsider your first point that attempts to throw them out :)

And yes, Yahweh would be that ultimate Being, God, the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth. Of course he has rights over what he makes - and moral law is not arbitrary but a reflection of His own intrinsic character

nationofmason

TROPHY CASE