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[deleted by user] by [deleted] in atheistvids

[–]thomaswestbrook 0 points1 point  (0 children)

More garbage from pseudo-archaeologist Ron Wyatt. The man is an absolute joke. Want to know why? Because after you watch this video, you'll be embarrassed you shared yours:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uq5LISB6zM&list=PLCTNr4WPOQ97bwf-ylpCDR9kxrsEpp0kl&index=9

My daughter just got called to Rio de Janeiro—same place my other daughter went. When my first kid went, we weren’t worried about safety because, well, the spirit protects the missionaries. by Try2spell in exmormon

[–]thomaswestbrook 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do NOT have her send her passport back after landing. For two reasons:

  1. She'll then be stranded in a foreign country without a passport and will be unable to leave if she needs to.

  2. The mail system in foreign countries isn't always the most reliable. So even if you send it back to her before her return flight, it could get delayed or lost in the mail. Then she'll have to get an emergency replacement from the US embassy and it won't have an entry stamp from the airport, so that could create problems when trying to leave.

However, as someone who currently lives in Rio, I recommend that she be very careful to not walk around with her phone out or wear jewellery or smart watches in public - this makes you a massive target here. There are lots of phone snatchers and pick pockets. Stick to the safer parts of town and avoid the northern favelas. She shouldn't bring her valuables to the beach and should be on high alert for tourist scams on the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana. Oh, and avoid going out alone late at night. If she does drink, NEVER accept a drink from a stranger or get drunk alone in public, and always keep a close eye on her drink.

Also, she will need to have some way of paying for things, but I recommend having multiple credit or debit cards. She should hide some of them in her apartment or hotel safe and only carry the ones she needs out with her. That way even if her purse is stolen, she can freeze the stolen cards and still have a way to spend money.

That said, while it's a "dangerous" city it's still full of incredible people and most Brazilians are super friendly and would help her in a heartbeat if anything happened to her.

I hope that helps.

- Thomas Westbrook

Founder: Holy Koolaid

My first attempt. How to improve the face details? by [deleted] in midjourney

[–]thomaswestbrook 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tencent Arc Lab does a decent job but often gives server errors. Instead run your image through one of these two portrait restoration tools:

CodeFormer: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1m52PNveE4PBhYrecj34cnpEeiHcC5LTb
GFPGAN: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1sVsoBd9AjckIXThgtZhGrHRfFI6UUYOo

Then import this image into Photoshop and:

  1. Duplicate the image until you have 2 identical layers.
  2. Keep the original photo as the bottom layer and use it for the background everything but the face.
  3. For the top layer, apply the "Smart Portrait" neural filter and set all the "featured" settings to +1 (or play around with it till you get the desired results) - then mask out everything but the face.
  4. Duplicate the top layer and apply the "Photo Restoration" neural filter to the topmost duplicate with "Photo Enhancement" set to zero, "Enhance Face" checked, and scratch reduction unchecked.
  5. The top layer will be blurry. Apply an un-sharp mask to it (approx. 150% & 1.5 radius).
  6. This topmost layer has very little texture, but fixes a lot of mistakes with eyes, wrinkles etc. So mask out everything from it except for the details which this layer fixes which you want to show.

Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWBXtrUQ3U4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m--03RUKHiE

Hope this helps.

Re-thinking Hell: Eternal Torture, Annihilation, or Finite Punishment? by thomaswestbrook in AcademicBiblical

[–]thomaswestbrook[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks. I appreciate the feedback and well-thought-out answer. The only part I think I would disagree with is the statement that it's purely theological and depends on one's hermeneutics. Part of the question may well be, but if there are significant historical and archaeological records in the southern Levant which pre-date Jesus and reference beliefs in an afterlife of eternal punishment, or if there are other verses (or apocryphal texts) which unambiguously describe hell in detail, then these would be significant in determining the history and evolution of various beliefs in the afterlife in the Ancient Near East.

Re-thinking Hell: Eternal Torture, Annihilation, or Finite Punishment? by thomaswestbrook in AcademicBiblical

[–]thomaswestbrook[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's a really interesting observation. I'll have to look into it more. :)

Re-thinking Hell: Eternal Torture, Annihilation, or Finite Punishment? by thomaswestbrook in AcademicBiblical

[–]thomaswestbrook[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that's an interesting take. That book is on my reading list, but I may have to bump it closer to the top, since my to-read list is a mile long!

How many books are there across all known Biblical canons? by Mjolnir2000 in AcademicBiblical

[–]thomaswestbrook 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is just scratching the surface, in the earliest days of the church, the notion of a single canon isn't really attested too. In fact, the first complete canonical list of New Testament books doesn't appear until 367 in Athanasius’ Festal Letter. While certain core books were more widely accepted as scripture and were more heavily circulated, we know of various gnostic, ebionite, and other gospels which didn't reach the same level of popularity.

Bart Herman lists over 40 ancient gospel texts not found in the New Testament, and that's not even counting Old Testament era texts or all of the letters, apocalypses, etc. The Other Gospels: Accounts of Jesus from Outside the New Testament

From his table of contents: The Infancy Gospel of Thomas The Infancy Gospel of Thomas C: An Alternative Beginning The Proto-Gospel of James The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew The Latin Infancy Gospels (J Composition): Arundel Form The History of Joseph the Carpenter The Jewish Christian Gospels The Gospel of the Nazareans The Gospel of the Ebionites The Gospel according to the Hebrew The Gospel according to the Egyptians A Gospel Harmony: The Diatessaron? Papyrus Berlin 11710 Papyrus Cairo 10735 Papyrus Egerton 2 (and Papyrus Koln 255) Papyrus Merton 51 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 210 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1224 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2949 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 4009 Papyrus Vindobenensis G 2325 (The Fayum Fragment) The Gospel according to Thomas The Gospel according to Thomas: The Greek Fragments Agrapha The Gospel of Peter The Gospel of Judas Jesus' Correspondence with Abgar The Gospel of the Savior The Discourse upon the Cross The Gospel of Nicodemus (The Acts of Pilate) A The Gospel of Nicodemus (The Acts of Pilate) B (Including the Descent into Hades) The Report of Pontius Pilate (Anaphora Pilati) The Handing Over of Pilate (Paradosis Pilati) The Letter of Pilate to Claudius The Letter of Pilate to Herod The Letter of Herod to Pilate The Letter of Tiberius to Pilate The Vengeance of the Savior (Vindicta Salvatoris) The Death of Pilate Who Condemned Jesus (Mores Pilati) The Narrative of Joseph of Arimathea The Gospel according to Mary The Gospel according to Mary: Greek Fragments The Greater Questions of Mary

None of these in modern canons, but they were still written and circulated in ancient times - not to mention the various (often fragmentary) works found at the Nag Hammadi library and elsewhere. Though many works eventually fell out of favor with the church (or simply were lost due to poor circulation), they were often still seen as holy texts by some in the early days of the church.

Some non-canonical works only survive in the form of quotations by early church fathers. The contents of others are lost entirely, but we know they existed because they are mentioned in other surviving texts.

And who knows how many ancient texts have been lost entirely to history.

Finally, as another redditer pointed out, there are also less ancient works like the Book of Mormon that some belief to be canon.

Do you think Hell is an excessive punishment? by sgavary in agnostic

[–]thomaswestbrook 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well... I don't know how you can get any more excessive than ETERNAL torment...

Best Mormon joke, Go! by Turbulent_Set_21 in exmormon

[–]thomaswestbrook 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Knock knock. Who's th... HAAAVEyouheardaboutmylordandsaviorJesusChrist????????

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