The Upper Room

TRiG

12:18 AM

We decided not to teach @MaxineDanger about Santa. He's a guy... but HER presents are brought by The Doctor.

Tweeted by CheyenneWright on December 8, 2013 at 11:26 PM

TRiG

1:29 AM

@JamesT Fred Phelps?

Anonymous

@TRiG I think he is a Baptist with Calvinist theology.

Fred Phelps has a church that consists of members mainly from his own family.

And he and his family all love to go to law school.

Ironically, Wikipedia reports that Fred Phelps fought for African American civil rights during the civil rights era. I would never expect that a man so fanatical about homosexuality would fight for African American civil rights during the civil rights era, but I guess he was merely doing his job as a lawyer, which was to defend the people by studying and practicing the law.

TRiG

1:52 AM

@Anonymous It's one of the more confusing parts of his history, yes.

fredsbend

3:26 AM

@waxeagle Okay. I'm with you.

christianity.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/9327

There's a suggested edit here that I cannot verify. I would like to know who is right though.

Dan

John Bunyan

John Bunyan (28 November 162831 August 1688) was an English Christian writer and preacher, who is well known for his book The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he became a non-conformist and member of an Independent church, and although he has been described both as a Baptist and as a Congregationalist, he himself preferred to be described simply as a Christian. He is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on August 30, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (US) on August 29. Some other Churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the Anglican Church of Austr...

In January 1661, Bunyan was brought before the quarter sessions in the Chapel of Herne, Bedford. His prosecutor, Mr. Justice Wingate, despite Bunyan's clear breaches of the Religion Act 1592, was not inclined to incarcerate Bunyan.

However, John's stark statement 'If you release me today, I will preach tomorrow!' left the magistrates (in their opinion) - Sir John Kelynge of Southill, Sir Henry Chester of Lidlington, Sir George Blundell of Cardington, Sir William Beecher of Howbury and Thomas Snagg of Milbrook - with no choice but to imprison him. So Bunyan was incarcerated for 3 months for the crimes of "pertinaciously abstaining" from attending mandatory Anglican church services and preaching at "unlawful meetings".

then again, this is Wikipedia - not exactly a reliable source

it also says, "He conceived the work during his first period of imprisonment, and probably finished it during the second."

so most likely - both of them are wrong

:P

@waxeagle got my upvote

Dan

4:40 AM

@DavidStratton you in here?

I am in here.

hi

Hi.

@DavidStratton and I are clogging up a chat wall so I figured I'd ping him here so we don't create a wall of text

Anonymous

@Dan chat wall?

Do you mean posting incessant messages in the chatroom and practically ignoring everyone else as if there are no people in the room?

Anonymous

5:07 AM

-1

Q: Why does the church appear so male chauvanistic?

Is there a reason why Christianity seems so anti-women. In the bible and in the church women have long been minimalized.

For the question, some people have made comments about the number of females on the site.

I think that is funny, because I would expect that the Internet should be anonymous enough that gender cannot be known until it is revealed, and even then, there may be concealment of gender.

Age, gender, socioeconomic status, name, personal history, education background, and the like are all personally identifiable information. That means the more information you tell about yourself online, the more likely it is that people will know who you are.

Dan

@Anonymous I meant making lots of comments on the question

Anonymous

@Dan Ah, I see.

Dan

@Anonymous yup

Anonymous

@Dan Hee-hee-hee. I saw that posting before you deleted it. I'm a quick reader. XD

Dan

@Anonymous no prob

mods can read it too

no biggie

but the average joe schmoe on the Internet can't - and that's sufficient for me

Anonymous

5:18 AM

Putting your e-mail address can sometimes give away your whole identity. There was this guy on the Straight Dope who published his e-mail address. I searched his email address on Facebook, and I instantly got a general picture what he was like. At the same time, privacy on the Internet is not so private.

Dan

@Anonymous oh I can be easily found by those who look

I just don't care to make it too easy

to where I become a fraud victim

Anonymous

@Dan Sometimes, there may be two or more individuals with the same name, depending on the frequency of occurrence of the name and the frequency of occurrence of the combination of the first and last names.

Dan

@Anonymous indeed

Anonymous

@Dan Have you ever recorded a list of your sins in a notebook? Isaac Newton did when he was in his late teens. It's kind of funny.

So pious.

Dan

@Anonymous not exactly no

Anonymous

5:25 AM

@Dan Oh, then what would you do if you had a guilty conscience that you wanted to remove?

Anonymous

5:36 AM

I wonder if God would forget the sins that a person committed.

Dan

@Anonymous confess them to my priest

Peter Turner

Sure wish protestants would stop trying to answer this christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/23641/… question.

Anonymous

@Dan How often do you go to confession? How many sins do you typically confess? How long does it take for you to confess all of them?

Does Elisha speak?

0

Q: Do we have enough female users to close questions?

On a recent question "Why does the church appear so male chauvanistic", a user with a name 'Dan' put a comment "It would be very ironic if five men close this question" I was about to close it but when I saw that comment, I stopped and a thought came to me that we might not have enough fem...

discussion

Anonymous

@PeterTurner Maybe the title should have the word "Catholic" before the "Church", so that it is more narrowed to the Catholic Church, thereby discouraging more Protestant answers. Protestants or non-Catholics can still answer, but they must answer from a Catholic perspective.

Dan

5:41 AM

@PeterTurner you may enjoy the perspectives of Paul Nadim Terazi

His NT Into books published by SVS Press are great

Anonymous

I'm sure it would not be so hard to write from a Catholic perspective as a non-Catholic. :)

Dan

@PeterTurner I'm Orthodox, and I do have quite a bit to say about that (i.e. I've read a lot about it), but time is so limited

but... I'll let a Catholic handle this... as requested

our views are different

Anonymous

6:02 AM

0

Q: Questions of faith?

I am a college student and being I exposed to all kinds of people... In my classes, I hear or give answers that question my faith or make me seek God for more guidance to understand some of these things. But I wanted to know if it is disrespectful to The Lord in asking these questions?

faith

Too opinion-oriented.

It sounds like it's asking for pastoral advice.

Because that's what college ministers do.

College ministers minister to college-aged Christians and try to help them in the Christian lifestyle as well as Christian apologetics.

It would be cool if waxeagle and Dan write their own apologetic articles and then compete against each other one-on-one.

TRiG

11:29 AM

Christians and more so Roman Catholic bestows such a high respect and admiration on Virgin Mary and no other religion has displayed such a veneration for any feminine figure. Can you name any other faith having a better example than this? — jayyeshu 7 hours ago

@jayyeshu. The hopeless ignorance of other religions so often shown on this site never fails to amuse/upset me. Do you seriously think the Roman Catholic Church is the only religion to respect and venerate a woman? Wow. That's an extraordinary level of ignorance. (Anyway, the RCC loves women in the abstract, but tends to be somewhat hostile to them in reality. The more it talks about Mary, the more life gets worse for actual women.) — TRiG 44 secs ago

Anonymous

1:53 PM

I am having the impression that Mawia is male. Funny, but I always thought Mawia was female by judgment of Mawia's name Mawia. It sounds like an alternate form of Maria. LOL.

James T

2:14 PM

@TRiG Never met him, never want to.

wax eagle

What's with all the gender directed metaness lately?

quantcast says our userbase is even

James T

@waxeagle comments below Why does the church appear so male chauvanistic? are very... very.

wax eagle

@JamesT sigh

Trying to cull the misogyny where I can...

James T

@waxeagle thank you wax eagle.

Anonymous

2:30 PM

Mawia's comment that there are more male theologians than female theologians because of thinking preferences seems to be aware of the fact that there are many older and more conservative denominations in the world that forbid women to become pastors on theological grounds. Since many people study theology in the first place to become ordained as pastors, and women in some denominations cannot become pastors, the logical conclusion is that women are less likely to go to seminary.

Women are more inclined to do attend church, perhaps because the church is a very social place and source for belonging. They may like the social atmosphere of church, and that may override the patriarchal structure.

wax eagle

@Anonymous However, simply stating it as fact isn't helpful and really underlines why questions like this get asked

James T

@Anonymous But even then it's not because women aren't interested in theology or unable to do it. They are willing and able but someone is stopping them.

Mawia's suggestion that women are happier watching TV is just sickening.

wax eagle

just...wow. I'm preparing a response, but looking for some demographic information to support it rather than just spouting BS...

(ideally I'd like to show a strong percentage of biblical studies students are female, something I'm about 80% sure is true in the aggregate)

well that's helpful Covenant Theological Seminary is 75:25 which is a good start, not 50:50, but they train pastors for a denomination that doesn't ordain women and their rate is 3:1...

(I'm of the mind that we should combat this kind of ignorance directly, rather than delete it or scuttle it)

2

James T

2:49 PM

@waxeagle yes yes yes

wax eagle

though truthfully, going through the first page of users (and a bit more) there actually aren't any 3k users who are openly female

Dan

5:39 PM

@waxeagle shucks, my sarcasm got cut :P

but it was preserved on meta

@Anonymous that was true for my wife - she wanted to be a hospital chaplain but the only churches that would ordain her also tended to support a lot of things she couldn't subscribe to

wax eagle

@Dan sorry, I tried to cut things that no longer made sense after I deleted the first inane comment

sad part about the whole line of thinking is that some of the longest and most thoughtful discussions on theology I had were with some girls I knew in highschool. We had incredibly long and meandering discussions of reformed theology and infant baptism. The very thought that women don't care about theological things doesn't even register with me.

Dan

@waxeagle it's just that I think I put a wink or :P in my comment to make it clear it was meant humorously

but that didn't make it to meta :P

oh well, no biggie

@waxeagle my wife has a masters degree in theology - I don't

wax eagle

@Dan that's awesome :)

Dan

@waxeagle but we both converted to Eastern Orthodoxy

and they don't ordain women - but that's not a problem for us because they also don't try to explain why they don't ordain women

that's where I think Western Christians get in the most trouble

trying to explain why

wax eagle

@Dan I sort of get that, but don't you, at some point, have to?

Dan

5:50 PM

@waxeagle this is the best parody I've seen of why most excuses are ridiculous

wax eagle

@Dan heh, nice.

Dan

@waxeagle but for an Orthodox response, check out this article, written by a woman :)

fredsbend

7:14 PM

@Dan So it would seem. Thank you Dan. You should probably correct that answer to say 3 months instead of 6.

fredsbend

7:26 PM

@TRiG Yeah, this is definitely wrong. My first thought is the ancient cult of Atargatis, where her priests commonly castrated themselves for her "veneration."

Sounds pretty dedicated to me.

Though I can't think of a modern example where followers "venerate" a female figure as intensely as the Catholics do Mary.

To answer Peter's question, yes, the Candace of Meroe, a human woman, was worshiped as the divine God incarnate, while she was still living!

Now a woman as the pinnacle for the best follower of that faith ever. That is a challenge. He might have you there.

The issue here is that Catholics insist they don't worship Mary, but nearly every outsider I talk to agrees with me that it looks an awful lot like worship.

Dan

7:42 PM

@fredsbend I'm not confident enough that Wikipedia is right to change the answer only on that basis

and I don't really care to do the research to find out ;)

TRiG

So Time's Man (sic) of the Year is Pope Francis. Wonder why?

TRiG

8:04 PM

> You have existed in the first place. Why am I still here?

Generated using Flack Overstow. I think that's lazy. random would have typed it out himself.

wax eagle

@TRiG yes, yes he would have

speaking of Random, I need to figure out how to score 24 more points than he does this week...

Anonymous

9:27 PM

@waxeagle How can you tell? Dan can be short for Danny, Daniel, or Danielle.

@Dan What kind of things?

@waxeagle How long were the theological conversations that you had with men?

fredsbend

Any Amazon S3 Pros in here? Anybody know of a better place to ask this question?

Anonymous

@fredsbend I think Catholics are really talking to God through the saints and Mary.

fredsbend

@Anonymous Yes, I know what they say about it. But what I see it as is a different story. Their explanations about why it is not worship sounds like splitting hairs to me.

Quacks like a duck, looks like a duck ... Forgive me, but I think it's a duck.

James T

@fredsbend the lqw.me domain is registered to a company in Sarasota, FL called AdPeak who seem to be pretty shady, from a cursory Google.

perhaps you have some malware on your computer

I don't know anything about Amazon S3 though.

fredsbend

Yeah, I just figured that out.

So I think it is a spybot on my computer. I guess that makes this too localized. When I learn how to fix it I would like to post somewhere. Any ideas? Doesn't have to be SE network. — fredsbend 46 secs ago

Dan

9:40 PM

@Anonymous being too stringent on areas she/we like to leave open

James T

@fredsbend My wife saw something similar on one of her websites - in that case it was a little script which just inserted some invisible keywords and links (for evil SEO). It was not her machine which was infected though.

Turned out to be one of her coworkers.

fredsbend

@JamesT It was doing it over the network?

@JamesT Tracked it down to 'ScorpionSaver' in my programs tab. Removing it now to see if that fixes things. Listed as "AdPeak, Inc." made.

James T

@fredsbend I don't know if they managed to track down exactly what happened - if it was malware on his machine that intercepted and altered the data (they were using regular FTP at the time) or if his passwords were stolen at some point. In any case the sequence of backups pointed to him and his machine was found to have all sorts of malware.

They cleaned everything very thoroughly and changed a lot of procedures as a result.

No problems since.

@fredsbend I have to go now but good luck sorting this out!

fredsbend

10:22 PM

0

A: How to remove AdPeak lqw.me script from my web pages?

Yes, AdPeak is one of those less than reputable companies that manages to install their extensions on your browsers when all you wanted to install was something else. AdPeak is the owner of lqw.me and all its subdomains, too, according to the Whois. Simply turning off the extension is not enoug...

Anonymous

@fredsbend Your profile says you're raised Catholic. Surely, you've gone through catechumenate, haven't you?

@fredsbend I think Arminianism and Calvinism behave the same way. Theologically, they contradict each other, yet practically they look identical.

However, I think Arminians may actively engage in missionary work, while Calvinists and Reformed individuals may suppose that God is already doing the missionary work.

fredsbend

11:08 PM

@Anonymous Some of it, yes. In hindsight, it did not seem very detailed.

@Anonymous I suppose. Those are just logical steps taken from different assumptions on God's sovereignty. The differences between Catholicism and most Protestantisms are many and vary in topic.

Anonymous

11:32 PM

@fredsbend Some of it? Does that mean you are not confirmed in the Catholic church?

@fredsbend Did you receive confirmation presents? In some families, family members give various gifts for the person that is about to be confirmed. This coming-of-age event may provide some extra incentive to be confirmed.

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