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Had to post this one... too funny...

Could you? J/k

The antidote is quite simple: go to the confessional... make a thorough and honest confession, then the priest will absolve sins and you're back in the state of grace with God (in TWI terms... back "in fellowship with God"). As we know this differs from the TWI version. But in Catholic and some other Christian traditions, a priest acts as a representative of Christ and is able to forgive sins. This is not the priest's own power but a conferral of God's forgiveness through Christ. The priest through the power given to the church acts as an instrument of God's mercy. The practice stems from Jesus's giving authority to forgive sins to the Apostles, who passed this authority down through apostolic succession to priests. In this manner, Catholics believe that when a priest absolves sins, it is ultimately God who forgives. NOTE: IMO, I consider this method more substantial and ultimately valid than simply asking God for forgiveness without a witness.

I guess you're right. "Well, I believe in the soul, the c--k, the p---y, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days." "My name is Dances with Wolves. I have nothing to say to you. You are not worth talking to." "Sex and golf are the two things you don't have to be good at to enjoy." George

Danger, sin, egregious sin, ungodly lifestyle, commands of God, hardened hearts, salvation maintenance, suffering, hell, ... Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to believe. (tangled web = a complex, difficult, and confusing situation or thing) Yeah, decided not to go down this rabbit hole again (rabbit hole = a bizarre, confusing, or nonsensical situation or environment, typically one from which it is difficult to extricate oneself) "What has been seen cannot be unseen, what has been learned cannot be unknown." Cynthia Woolf. Entangle me once, shame on you...entangle me no more, shame be gone. I'll stop now.

Some fine print on what you shared is that the code of canon states 1) the abuse must cause grave mental or physical danger and 2) while separation is allowed, divorce is not which means the woman is still sacramentally bound to her abuser. Her only option is to seek an annulment which involves Church officials deciding whether the marriage was invalid from the beginning.”

This 15 min. clip was sent to me and it's highly recommended. Please note this is not about politics (not my intention) -- its all about answering the question "What is Israel". Note that Atheists (I think Jimmy Dore is one too) know more about biblical truths than some Christians. If we owe the modern state of Israel anything as Christians, it'd be converting them to Jesus Christ as it says in Romans Chapter 10.

I think you're up George.

The only lines left to this tune are repeated four times with the name of the song in them. So, I'm posting this then ~Neil Young~ Are You Ready for the Country and I will soon a new one.

Yes. I know nothing about it and I think the Christian hell is enough to keep me concerned.

2 billion Muslims say yes. Willing to take that chance?

I don't know about that... so I did a quick AI search: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has clearly stated that no woman is expected to stay in an abusive marriage and encourages these women to seek an annulment. However, studies on the experiences of battered, Christian women indicate that this is not always enough to free women from abusive marriages.May 23, 2024

Wow now there's a question I was never asked in my 68 years. Should I be concerned?

I did send a message to JS on this website. I finished by asking, "Also, if someone is wanting to know the truth about what was going on with Wierwille, knowing how his doctrine and practices concerning sexual sin were passed on and then followed by many leaders, are you willing to talk openly about it now?"

I just found out that John Schoenheit also no longer teaches once saved/always saved. In his REV bible, he writes a commentary for Ephesians 5:5 saying, "We must be careful to understand the relationship between sin, the ungodly lifestyle, and abandoning Christ to the extent that one forfeits their everlasting life. Everyone sins, and some people sin egregiously, but sin does not cause a person to forfeit their salvation. However, if a person ignores the commands of God and defies Him and lives an ungodly lifestyle, they are in danger of having their heart so hardened by sin that they go so far as to renounce their trust and belief in Christ, and at that point, they forfeit their everlasting life. A person gets born again by trusting Christ (Rom. 10:9), and they maintain their salvation by trusting in Christ (1 Pet. 1:5)." Ephesians 5:5 I find his complete commentary on this verse to be questionable. He also does not believe "the orthodox depiction of a hell ruled by the devil where people suffer eternally" is based on Scripture. I'm about to listen to a video where he "explores what the Bible has to say about the destiny of the unsaved and explains the biblical depiction of 'hell.'" What is the Destiny of the Unsaved? If I get into either of these topics any further, it will be in the Doctrinal sub forum.

I know it's a dormant thread, and we usually have some leeway in policing "on topic" posts after a long time and a long discussion, but... This thread was started in Doctrinal by someone who wanted to discuss doctrine, not by someone who wanted to see his relationship with God mocked by comparing it to the relationship of a pet owner and his good boy. I understand the impulse, but we set up Doctrinal: Exploring the Bible apart from the other subforums specifically to avoid this kind of thing. Please refrain from posting on this thread unless you want to explore issues in the spirit of this forum. Thank you.

"Avoid it at all costs" AI Overview "The idiom "avoid it at all costs" means to make every effort to prevent something from happening, regardless of the difficulty or expense involved. It emphasizes the importance of preventing a particular outcome, action, or situation." How confident can one be that their "every effort" is actually enough? The point of my earlier post was to question how the all-loving God of the Bible could 1) send people to eternal torment and now, 2) cause his people to live in fearful obedience their entire life to avoid said eternal torment not knowing if it was enough to ease his wrath towards them. This is a rhetorical question. A non-rhetorical question is whether a believer, such as yourself, sees living with this fear and uncertainty as a demonstration of being devoutly religious - something which God expects and honors? I'll never forget when a priest (over five decades ago) told my mother she had to stay with her abusive husband as a show of her pious suffering which later would be rewarded in heaven.

How are you avoiding Islam's hell?

And if it's true, someone has done me a great service warning me to avoid it at all costs. It's been said that in the beatific vision, "we'll understand it all by and by". I certainly don't right now.

It was Psycho II. Go ahead

Expectations of Allied POWS in this WWII movie were that Japan should have honored the Geneva Convention. Actually, Japan wasn't a signatory to the treaty until 1953. (Interestingly, misdeeds by the Japanese prompted revision of the treaty in 1949.) The commandant of the prison was portrayed as being ruthless. According to many of his prisoners after the war, the actual Japanese officer on whom the role was based was one of the more humane and reasonable ones. To keep costs down, producer Sam Spiegel decided not to hire any extras, using crew members and Ceylon locals instead. This meant that some of the British prisoners were really natives of the region wearing make-up to appear Caucasian. For the scene when he emerges from "the oven" after several days confined there, Sir Alec Guinness based his faltering walk on that of his son Matthew when he was recovering from polio. Guinness regarded this one tiny scene as some of the finest work he did throughout his entire career. Sir Laurence Olivier was offered Guinness's part but turned it down in order to direct The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) instead. In retrospect, Olivier said that it was a sensible decision to go off and do love scenes with Marilyn Monroe rather than tough it out in the jungles of Ceylon with director Sir David Lean. George

I hated to do this, but I don't think Raf would mind. I googled. Psycho "I guess they're dead. I guess I've known that deep down for a long time." "I'm not giving up. Don't you give up." "I didn't want to be just another orphan. I wanted to believe I was special." "You are special! Never stop believing that!" "You spend your evenings in the shanties." "You had me followed." "Imbibing quarts of bathtub gin." "Bronchitism." "And here you're dancing in your scanties..." "Great gams." "With some old geezer called Little Caeser." "He's an uncle." George

Tom Jones Albert Finney Annie George