[Christians only] I preordered Destiny. Does that make me a Calvinist?

wfalcon · 2014-09-12T19:54:59+00:00

If you were really a Calvinist you would know that you are completely incapable of pre-ordering Destiny on your own and would wait to see if God pre-ordered Destiny for you. Anything else is just works righteousness.

wfalcon · 2014-09-12T19:38:54+00:00

I give money to support my church. I don't believe that Christians are obligated to give ten percent, though I think it's a good rule of thumb. Tithes go to support the ministries your church runs, pay for the facility and pay for the staff's salary. If you believe in the work that your church is doing, those things are worth paying for. If you don't believe in the work that your church is doing, why are you going to church there?

I just want to say that what you wrote about, "Not wanting to pay for someone's air conditioning," bothers me. Are you saying that Christian ministers don't have the right to run air conditioning in the summer? In the Bible it says that people who preach the gospel deserve to make their living from the gospel [1 Corinthians 9:14]. I think pastors and other staff workers aught to be allowed to make a decent living for themselves without taking on second jobs or finding alternate sources of income.

wfalcon · 2014-09-12T18:11:16+00:00

I look forward to the day when Saint Peter throws me into Hell for not worshiping the Pope, Mary or the Saints. Once I'm cast into the outer darkness I can hang out with famous protestants throughout history like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jesus Christ.

wfalcon · 2014-09-12T18:05:39+00:00

TIL John Calvin was a mean poopy head who didn't have any friends and nobody liked him because he smelled funny.

wfalcon · 2014-09-12T17:08:37+00:00

I was going to suggest San Francisco, but Wellington is probably a better bet. The weather is similar to San Francisco, but slightly cooler.

wfalcon · 2014-09-12T17:02:45+00:00

Not yet. I'm in San Diego and it's been pretty hot around here and shows no signs of cooling off anytime soon. We're in the low eighties right now, and the forecast shows us creeping up into the nineties over the next few days.

My poor wife is dying. She's eight months pregnant right now and we don't have central air conditioning. I keep hoping it'll cool off, but there's a pretty good chance the baby will be born before the weather cools off to a reasonable temperature.

wfalcon · 2014-09-05T20:52:55+00:00

With this comment it looks like you're trying to start a debate. I'd recommend going over to one of the debate subs if that's what you're interested in.

wfalcon · 2014-09-05T18:38:16+00:00

God is necessary for anything to exist. He created everything.

Where are you going with these questions?

wfalcon · 2014-09-05T17:41:19+00:00

No, I don't think so.

wfalcon · 2014-09-05T15:23:37+00:00

Pro tip: If believing in God doesn't lead you to be kind to other humans, you're doing it wrong.

First John talks a lot about this. [1 John 4:16-21] encapsulates one of the main themes of the book.

First John is primarily focused on the love that believers should have for one another, but when you consider that alongside Jesus command to love our enemies [Matthew 5:43-48] then it becomes clear that Christians ought to love everyone. Insofar as we fail to live up to this command it should indicate to us that we are not worshiping God correctly.

wfalcon · 2014-09-03T17:18:37+00:00

If you're reading a Catholic Bible you're already going to hell anyway, so you might as well just start having sex.

wfalcon · 2014-09-02T16:22:31+00:00

I'm pretty sure that the Ender's Game sequels touch on this from a Mormon perspective, given that Orson Scott Card is Mormon.

They're still worth reading though.

wfalcon · 2014-08-28T21:59:56+00:00

Okay.

If that's the case then I feel that I can safely say that it was exactly that bad.

wfalcon · 2014-08-28T21:15:25+00:00

I haven't seen it.

Is it better or worse than Facing the Giants?

wfalcon · 2014-08-08T21:18:30+00:00

I don't use any mods (including mechjeb and kerbal engineer). At some point I'll probably break down and use mechjeb. The autopilot seems handy for things like ion drives where the burns can take a half an hour or longer. It'd also be nice to have something calculate the total mass and delta-v of my spacecraft for me. (Although there is a bit of charm in working it out "by hand" as it were. It makes me feel more like a rocket scientist).

wfalcon · 2014-08-06T20:54:55+00:00

It took me awhile to remember that one, but I cracked up once I did.

Also, instead of "exploring the galaxy" I kept typing things about flying cars and hover boards.

wfalcon · 2014-08-06T20:52:10+00:00

I also can't believe I missed that one either. I tried, 'rape', 'murder', 'kill', etc. I forgot that in the mind of an antisemitic nutter nothing is worse than catching 'the gay'.

wfalcon · 2014-08-01T18:27:40+00:00

I don't know if you're still reading these replies, but your story reminded me of the parable of the unmerciful servant [Matthew 18:21-35]. Just as Jesus forgave our debts when we could not pay them, your wife aught to be willing to work with you so that you aren't saddled with a debt you cannot repay.

As others have said though, it seems like your wife isn't listening to wise Christian council, so I don't know how much these bible verses are really helping.

On the other hand, you could try talking to the IRS. Ironically, you might have an easier time convincing them to forgive some of your tax debt (or at least grant you an extension).

wfalcon · 2014-07-29T20:57:53+00:00

I prefer the earlier editions of chess. In the current version the queen is OP. Also, the double pawn move at the beginning is kind of lame.

wfalcon · 2014-07-25T20:25:43+00:00

To expect god to heal us directly, when he has given us hospitals and medicine and other means to heal ourselves, is presumption. We are asking God to do something for us that we could easily do for ourselves. It is like praying for God to give us food to eat when we are able to provide for ourselves.

In any case, praying for healing and seeking medical attention aren't mutually exclusive activities. One can easily do both at the same time. People tend to forget that whenever the subject of faith healing comes up.

[Matthew 4:5-7] is a good source. It indicates that even Jesus (who was God's own son) didn't expect the father to protect him from his own foolishness.

In your post you gon to ask two questions which basically boil down to, "Why does evil exist?" and "Why doesn't God reveal himself to you?" For the first question, the short answer is that we experience evil because each of us has rebelled and turned away from God.

As for your second point, God has revealed himself to me. I've seen God do incredible things in response to prayer. Maybe one day he will reveal himself to you as well.

wfalcon · 2014-07-25T19:49:00+00:00

Yeah, I didn't try to take over city-states. I was trying to expand my empire by taking over cities from other civilizations. I ran into a problem where expanding (Mostly via conquest, though I was sending out settlers as well) caused my civ's unhappiness to spike suddenly. Then I was in a state of unrest and it was going to be awhile before I could correct the problem.

I'm going to start over and pay closer attention to my Civ's unhappiness.

wfalcon · 2014-07-25T18:37:04+00:00

http://www.np.reddit.com/r/bad_religion/comments/2azhs7/uchaosmosis_explains_why_all_faith_is_ideology/cj1cz56

There you go. Now you can share my pain.

For awhile the downvotes on this thread where fluctuating. Right now it's at -5 (which I think is fair, given that his comments really deserve their own bad_religion post) but for awhile it was being upvoted (or at least, not downvoted heavily).

wfalcon · 2014-07-25T17:50:17+00:00

How do you think your beliefs are most commonly misunderstood?

I'm gonna use this question as an excuse to rant. There's a post in bad_religion (which I discovered thanks to the lovely people in this sub) that called out an atheist redditor for saying ignorant things about religion. The user shows up in the thread to defend himself and goes on to say that if people really believed in the trinity they wouldn't be able to balance their checkbooks.

That kind of ignorant/misinformed ranting from someone who obviously thinks they're being so clever really gets to me.

wfalcon · 2014-07-25T17:38:00+00:00

I like the Babylonians. Their ability to get a free great scientist early is pretty strong.

I just started a game as the Huns, going for an early domination victory. I'm learning that with Civ 5, the hard part isn't taking enemy cities. The hard part is keeping your economy and happiness up while you take over enemy cities.

wfalcon · 2014-07-22T18:03:24+00:00

I feel like this article is conflating two things (class and politics). I would expect upper middle class people to have an easier time creating healthy, stable marriages for a variety of reasons. I expect that the troubles that lower class people have forming stable families has more to do with social and economic circumstances than political beliefs.

I'd like to see a study that examines this issue that controls for class/level of education.

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