...y'know...I think the SE team could totally graduate this site after just a month or two. It's hardly two weeks old and already we're fast approaching the numbers for a healthy beta... :P
I wouldn't worry too much about him, he doesn't seem to even believe in a God and most of his answers are not related to the question, they are just various rants about how God is a figment.
The Bible In a Minute video by Barats and Bereta has been enormously popular on YouTube, with 3.6 million viewers. The video quite literally goes through the Bible in less than a minute.
Obviously, the video leaves out a lot. But as for what is included:
Is it accurate?
Is it enough? Consider ...
Over and over I hear people pronouncing in one way or another that God is "not fair"*. Sometimes this is stated directly, other times indirectly as in "that doesn't seem fair, therefore God must not be that way."
My question is, are we humans in a position to judge whether God is fair or not? If...
@dancek Wow obviously I did but how I intended to escapes me at the moment. I'm pretty sure I had a specific idea, I'll put my thinking cap back on and see if I can remember what it was.
@DTest nah, we are find. We live on top of a mountain :). But a lot of the valley seems to be flooded and there are some road closures to work around. Hopefully we are heading out in about an hour.
I can do some work from home, but our email server is down (thankfully not my job).....
If you were editting this sentence: "When he was hanged on cross", would you change it to 'nailed on the cross', or just correct the tense: "hung on the cross" ?
Hmm, my pastor recently said Dr. Pepper was "of the Devil"...That night at small group dinner, I tested that theory with a Dr. Pepper. He wasn't amused
@DTest :). Dr. Pepper is nectar from God, can't possibly be of the devil :). Also whatever mojo they have that makes the diet taste just like the real thing has to be a miracle :)
@caleb your pseudo code in that answer and the 'dont feed the trolls' aspect of proverbs makes me think someone should develop a programmer/internet-jargon type translation of the Bible.
It looks like a fairly valid answer to me. Granted, it seems completely screw-ball, but coming from the perspective of a fool, it seems valid.
However, the question itself... Yikes, this is a tough one.
@Caleb I think there are some great answers to the question. I don't think that is one of them. But I can't argue that it's "not an answer". I could see it being deleted as a troll post (if that's possible), but the "logic" seems sound (although strange).
@Richard That's just the trouble, there isn't a "this is foolishness" or "screw-ball" flag reason. I haven't flagged it for just the reasons you cite although my comments should indicate I don't think it's a legitimate defense or POV to give for that Q.
@dancek: I think it's suitable enough for Christianity.SE. Every religion (including Christianity) will have some viewpoint on how its deity came into being (or if that's even something to consider). I think that asking for the Christian perspective is reasonable.
@dancek I agree, but like @Richard I couldn't think of a valid reason for giving it the boot. It's bound to get asked so we might as well have and explanation around to at least close dups with.
I do think that the answer is oddball. I don't believe it's a troll post (the poster seems sincere), but I don't think it's suitable as it does not appear to answer the question from a Christian perspective.
@WikisAtArea51 A couple reasons actually. A few of my questions simply don't have good answers. More than that tho, a bunch of them are controversial. I don't want to seem like I'm trying to bully a viewpoint into being canonically correct on the site, so there are a few that I will probably never "accept" unless somebody does a really good write up of multiple POVs, which per meta discussion I think is unreasonable. Leaving a few high-voted answers floating seems like the least troublesome solution.
@WikisAtArea51 I've accepted a few of the easier undisputed ones. I don't know long term how we're going to work this on the site but I foresee a bit of a problem with accepts.
Yeah, the wide variety of Christian beliefs (and the fact that some will call them Christian and some will not) is going to make any but the most fundamental or simple questions difficult to have a "correct" answer in terms of the larger community.
@WikisAtArea51 It already came up once. Mason brought it up I think. It don't think it's something we can work out right away, we have to see how it plays out a little first.
I think it's a bigger problem for the more outspoken people. I have strong opinions and am fairly outspoken about them. If I go accepting things that aren't somebody elses idea of an orthodox view it will make bigger waves and step on more toes than if some new user does.
@WikisAtArea51 True enough, but the general thought behind SE sites has been that the original questioner is not as important as the question itself :) The idea is building a knowledge base, rather than answering someone's question on an individual level.
I kind of subscribe to the idea that the truth will when out no matter what, I don't have to railroad people to the "right" answer. Having a few views out there to be read will give people an opportunity to discern for themselves.
@WikisAtArea51 That's true, but that doen't mean everybody is going to understand the SE format, and like I said with the number of questions I have out there it might not go over too well.
Over on Programmers, accept rate doesn't show up on your card when you ask a question. I wonder if we shouldn't adopt the same model here, since a lot of questions are going to bring very different answers from different viewpoints and make it hard to pick a single objective "right answer" the w...
@DTest Why is that? The REQUESTED point of view is what will make things duplicates or not. If you ask "what do lutherans belive about X" that is not a duplicate of "what does the bible say about X" or "what is X". The tricky one is "what do christians think about X". Some of those answers will overlap elsewhere, but we don't flag duplicate answers only duplicate questions :)
@caleb I was looking at it from the viewpoint of 'I know this question was asked earlier, but I didn't like the accepted answer so I'm asking again to accept my own.'...which actually makes it an obvious duplicate now that I think about it.
@DTest Yes, that makes it an obviously duplicate. Which is why on a lot of issues I think not accepting answers (so as not to tempt that response) might be a reasonable practice here.
In a small town, the height of ecumenism is a joint Christmas choir concert. We certainly tolerate each other enough not to throw our respective clerics/elders out of our steeples. But we don't really come to any sort of understanding of each other.
I've learned more about protestantism in 2 ...
I'm out (or at least switching to mobile) for the rest of the day. Take care folks. Put this in your thinking caps and let's discuss closing some "in bad faith" questions at some point.
A few weeks into the beta, I've noticed most questions here are what I flippantly referred to in chat as "Sunday school fodder", but I don't think that really covers what I find so unappealing about the level of questions being asked.
Which got me thinking about the other betas that didn't do so...
gee, voting is sometimes so unfair! I've got +8 already with an answer that took a minute to write while there's a less voted better answer... I thought I'd get +1 or +2 with this: christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/2170/…
@dancek Yeah, it's very unfair--almost random at times. I think the shorter, simpler answers sometimes get voted higher because they're more easily read.
I suspect there's an entire psychology to the way votes are cast and which answer rises to the top.
@waxeagle Yeah, I'd be curious to see what the qualifiers would be for a high-voting question/answer. I suspect "easily digestable" would definitely be in the list.
@Richard indeed. My answers that have gotten solid votes here have been simple, scriptural answers, often with additional non-scripture outside links. (for example my Lev 14 answer had commentary from Matthew Henry in addition to a scripture verse).
When Jesus returns, or the rapture,etc, and we having the events surrounding it, the bible says the whole earth will see it, day or night. Does the bible mention what happens to humans not on Earth, from space stations to the Moon and Mars (as current plans want to see humans on the Moon and on M...
@Richard its an odd little question from someone who has obviously been trying to trip up Christians, but I think it may have some validity...it at least allows us to express our opinion that God is god of the universe, not just earth.
It just seems to (1) go against the idea of SE as being a gathering of experts and (2) not be useful per the FAQ. I agree with the fact that it's nice to express this concept, but the question just seems... I don't know, "useless" comes to mind.
I'm an East Asian non-Christian, so somehow I'm more interested, just from geographic closeness, in non-Catholic, non-Protestant, non-Orthodox type of Christian denominations. (i.e. those split from the "main branch" at the Councils of Ephesus and of Calchedon, the yellow and purple ones in the f...
before you vtc. does anyone have enough knowledge on the subject to know if the OP's assertion that books are rare to actually make a judgement here?
If they are sufficiently rare this question can and should stay as there is some precedent for shopping questions for obscure items (Jeff's HTPC remote question is coming to mind).
@waxeagle Yeah, reading the question more thoroughly, this almost seems to be a "too localized" issue. The question is looking for something with "geographic closeness, in non-Catholic, non-Protestant, non-Orthodox type of Christian denominations". Yikes.
List of Christian denominations (or Denominations self-identified as Christian) ordered by historical and doctrinal relationships. (See also: Christianity; Christian denominations; List of Christian denominations by number of members). Also, some groups included do not consider themselves a denomination (e.g., the Catholic Church considers itself the one true Church, and as pre-denominational). Regarding the use of the word "church," the Catholic Church does not consider any groups or denominations to be true "churches" unless they have maintained apostolic succession and observe the s...
he is interested in the yellow and purple lines on the picture in the linked article. I vtc'd the instant I saw book rec, but I'm wondering now.
It is easy to recognize the body as the physical matter that makes up a person. The body is clearly distinct from the soul and spirit in several ways:
The body is visible to others. (When I see you, I am seeing your body.)
The body is recognizable by others. (I know who you are when I look a...
When I was first looking at it, it seemed purely a philosophical question. I didn't realize that the bible actually referred to both. I thought the bible only talked about one of the two.
Yeah, my mistake. I didn't realize that was a biblical separation. I thought that humanity was a triune nature (body, mind, soul). I didn't know spirit was thrown in the mix (biblically)
upon research I see the omnibenevolence can mean whatever the heck you want it to mean :). It can mean God is perfectly good, or that God desires perfect good...hmmm. I will buy perfectly good, but it has nothing to do with fair. If God was fair we would all go to hell...
@dancek yeah, I started on smaller sites (gardening and RP) that don't have the volume to do it, I'd never done it until this site started, now I've done it twice
If the Bible has said that women shouldn't be pastors, women should not, and are not to be pastors. One thing to keep in mind, is to remember that the Bible is God's WORD, and so, shouldn't be taken lightly.
Now, having said that women shouldn't be pastors, what about Galatians 3:28 which obviou...
There is just one verse in the New Testament that refers to hyssop and is not referring to the Old Testament:
Joen 19:29 (NLT)
A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch, and held it up to [Jesus'] lips.
Why is the fact that a hyssop bra...
@ElendiaStarman okay, I don't have a declined flag to check that, I assumed it would be the opposite of helpful. The moderator view says "declined", so it makes sense somehow.
Huh...Jeremiah 29:11... NLT: For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. NIV: For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. KJV: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
I've never thought that "expected end" could be synonymous with "hope and a future"...
@waxeagle Well, yes, but the other parts of the verse make sense. It's just the idea of an end doesn't mesh with the idea of no end as in the other two versions.
The Bible In a Minute video by Barats and Bereta has been enormously popular on YouTube, with 3.6 million viewers. The video quite literally goes through the Bible in less than a minute.
Obviously, the video leaves out a lot. But as for what is included:
Is it accurate?
Is it enough? Consider ...
In a small town, the height of ecumenism is a joint Christmas choir concert. We certainly tolerate each other enough not to throw our respective clerics/elders out of our steeples. But we don't really come to any sort of understanding of each other.
I've learned more about protestantism in 2 ...
It is easy to recognize the body as the physical matter that makes up a person. The body is clearly distinct from the soul and spirit in several ways:
The body is visible to others. (When I see you, I am seeing your body.)
The body is recognizable by others. (I know who you are when I look a...
There is just one verse in the New Testament that refers to hyssop and is not referring to the Old Testament:
Joen 19:29 (NLT)
A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch, and held it up to [Jesus'] lips.
Why is the fact that a hyssop bra...
