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12:49 AM
Sheesh
this user unknown character is something else
 
 
2 hours later…
2:49 AM
@Flimzy Heh, yeah...
What has he done in the few hours I've been gone? :P
 
@ElendiaStarman: His snide remarks on my answer on his ranting meta post
3
A: Answer deleted with, imho, poor arguments

FlimzySorry, I didn't read everything you wrote in your Meta question. (TLDR). The answer you provided about dinosaurs is basically: A grep of the Bible for 'dinosaur' has no hits. This is not a useful answer. If it was a useful answer, it would mean the question itself was not useful (for sho...

 
@Flimzy Ah, heh.
 
If he doesn't want people to think his remarks are snide, he's shouldn't say things like that.
I'm tempted to reply to his comment, but nothing I would say would improve the situation
 
Hmm. I could say something, but I don't know what I would say.
 
hehe
 
3:01 AM
Enthusiast! Wooo!
 
hehe, I think I got that today, too
I also got yearling on SO!
just a day or two ago
 
@Flimzy Nice!
@Flimzy Yeah. Everyone who's been here every day since private beta began will get theirs today.
 
I thought I might have missed a day in there
but I guess not
 
3:18 AM
I already have 113 rep today
someone went thru and did a random upvote on a bunch of stuff it seems
 
Lol.
By the way, all your upvotes on me a few days ago got reverted. :P
I still have the mortarboard badge though, so I'm happy with that. :P
 
3:37 AM
haha
why did they get reverted?
it looks like my votes are still registered
 
5:04 AM
0
Q: Can we truly know anything about God's character?

stoicfuryI've seen a few people casually write about how they know God's character—the features and traits that make up His person or existence—yet I've always been taught the opposite (that we can't possibly comprehend his true nature), and upon thinking about it myself I don't see how anyone can really ...

Is this even remotely a useful question with his restriction that "Biblical sources will not be of use here"?
 
5:17 AM
I guess I came up with an answer that's I hope "remotely useful"
 
@Flimzy Yeah, that question is kinda more suited to Philosophy.SE, but he did mention that he wanted Christian perspectives.
 
Yeah... although "I want a Christian perspective" doesn't magically make a question on-topic :)
"How do I define a variable in Perl? I want a Christian perspective."
 
Lol, true.
@Flimzy LOLZ.
Well, I think that the other mods (and I) will discuss it tomorrow, so...
Aaanyway, heading to bed. Good night @Flimzy! :)
 
'nite
 
 
3 hours later…
8:11 AM
@Flimzy True enough. How does my comment sound? @ElendiaStarman?
 
8:36 AM
 
 
5 hours later…
1:16 PM
@Flimzy If you have any idea how it can be re-written to make it on topic, I'd say go for it. I've also pinged some mods over on Philosophy.SE.
 
@Caleb Well said.
 
1:36 PM
@ElendiaStarman He does this on multiple sites. It is not worth trying to engage him on the subject.
 
@Beofett Heh, okay.
 
2:25 PM
boy we just have a bunch of people on here that like to argue everything
 
2:58 PM
@JonathonByrd No we don't. :D
 
Is our visitors/day troubling, or are we just between the "new site!" and "lots of search engine traffic" stages?
 
3:17 PM
can a picture be a valid answer? ;)
 
3:40 PM
I'm ready to post my next question
How does a Man receive Eternal Life?
This question is open to any denomination or belief, but should be backed by scripture, please post a comprehensive answer to this question.

I don't think that anybody would disagree that Jesus Christ is the only way to God and to your inheritance. But what is mans responsibility? That's what this question is addressing.

What do I need to do in order to receive eternal life?
Just posting it here for review before I post it
@ahardin @ElendiaStarman @Caleb
 
@JonathonByrd Go 'fur it.
 
did want somebody to think that it was a list or poll q
0
Q: How does a Man receive Eternal Life?

Jonathon ByrdThis question is open to any denomination or belief, but should be backed by scripture, please post a comprehensive answer to this question. I don't think that anybody would disagree that Jesus Christ is the only way to God and to your inheritance. But what is mans responsibility? That's what th...

 
@JonathonByrd It kind of is, but at first pass it sounds like it's worth a shot.
It's not a poll our outright list, it's just a question that is going to get multiple POV's by nature.
 
@JonathonByrd Is the question asking how do you get into heaven?
Or how do you live forever on Earth.
or either?
 
@JonathonByrd I just made some edits. See what you think. Nothing personal if you don't like it, but I thought re-arranging it a little might help the thrust of the thing.
<dinner>
 
4:21 PM
@JonathonByrd I've posted my view
1
A: What does Man do to receive Eternal Life?

a_hardinAs you have said, in John 14:6 Jesus tells us that "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Paul and Silas tell their jailer in Acts 16 what he must do to be saved. Acts 16:29-34 NIV 29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembl...

I had a hard time picking scripture for some of that
 
0
Q: Is this the most magnanimous bunch of Protestants on the internet?

Peter TurnerSo far two of the most beloved anti-papist sentiments have not been broached, and I'd like to thank ya'll from the bottom of my heart. http://christianity.stackexchange.com/search?q=galileo http://christianity.stackexchange.com/search?q=inquisition Not to jinx the thing, but let's keep it up! ...

 
 
1 hour later…
5:34 PM
0
Q: Should question on Jewish beliefs be closed?

jimreedShould this question about Jewish beliefs be closed for the reasons given in this meta post explaining a moderator's reason for closing a question about atheism and this other meta post that explains another moderator's reason for closing a question on Judaism? If not, what's the difference? I ...

-2
Q: Deleted comments

DJClayworthI'm pretty sure I made a comment on this question, and it's not there now. I think I'm noticing this happening a lot. Can we get an explanation, or get our moderators better trained? At least can we know which moderator is doing these deletions?

 
5:51 PM
@ahardin you left out the fact that they did get baptized
 
6:03 PM
@filmzy, "Perhaps Christians can be "more" moral than Atheists (since they have a greater understanding of the source of morality)" why have christians a greater understanding of the source?
@Flimzy ;)
 
@ahardin hahaha you referred me to my own answer in another question to answer this question
thats awesome
 
@JonathonByrd :)
I'm working on my response to James 2:24... I'm kind of surprised it's not a question already
 
@a_hardin lol that could easily be a q all in it's own
What I'm struggling with is that I know I'm not sin free, I continue to sin knowing the truth.
so where does God draw the line between, yes you are obeying and no you're not obeying
1 john says that we will continue to sin, but we cannot continue to sin
so I'm confused...
 
yep
 
I have no idea as to how to word it as a q
 
6:23 PM
0
Q: Is righteousness a prerequisite for salvation?

a_hardin James 2:24 NIV 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. In James we are told that a person would be considered righteous by their deeds and not just their faith. Is righteousness a prerequisite for salvation?

 
oh sad... since one of my answers got migrated to philosophy, I lost out on a bunch of rep :(
I would have had mortarboard today
now it's looking unlikely
 
Oh well... you only get one mortarboard, anyways
 
yeah, well, it's more about the 200 rep than about the "badge" :)
Several of my upvotes counted for 0 today because I'd already hit the 200 mark
but now I'm well below 200 because a bunch of my rep migrated
 
ah, that stinks
 
Yeah... now nobody's going to take me seriously here because I don't have enough rep!!
:P
 
6:29 PM
><
ooh, i got popular question on serverfault
 
nice
 
@Flimzy, did you see my question regarding the better understanding of the source morality by christians?
 
I never get many upvotes for questions on the SO/SU/SF sites... because when I have a question to ask, it's usually so obscure nobody knows what I'm talking about
@BeatMe: Not yet... I'm just now looking at all the new questions
 
i did ask here in chat ;)
 
oh, then no I didn't see it
 
6:33 PM
just would like to know what you mean with "christians do have a better understanding of the source of morality"
 
better understanding than?
 
other people
 
@ahardin you should add to your last q when jesus said that you have to be more righteous then the pharisees
 
@BeatMe: I don't think I would say that all Christians have a better understanding of the source of morality than all other people
@BeatMe: I might say that within the context of Christianity it is possible to come to a fuller understanding, than it is outside of Christianity.
 
@Flimzy lol ditto.
 
6:43 PM
@Richard: I do like your answer to my question... it just doesn't quite address the specific question I was asking... And that is: how do people who hold those views answer?
@Richard: One of my closest friends believes those two premises, and when I asked him the same question, his answer was, "Well, I think enough time has passed by now that we don't need to answer the question."
@Richard: Which I found to be a very unsatisfying answer :)
 
I'm going to pull something out of that to ask as a question on main.
But it won't be up till some time at the weekend. Fair warning, so ye can have your answers prepared before I post the question.
 
7:20 PM
1
Q: What are some situations documented outside of the Bible in which God intervened in human affairs?

stoicfuryAs a continuance of this question and also somewhat this question, I was curious if there were any instances of God's influence on humanity that are not mentioned in the Bible. On a basic level, many people like to believe that God intervenes from time to time in answering prayers; surely all the...

Is it me or is that a duplicate?
 
I'm not quite sure if it's a dupe
I almost flagged it as a dupe of my miracles question...
but decided not to because it's a bit broader
although, the miracles question could answer his
 
@Flimzy Hmm.. Yeah, I see what you are saying. But it's kind of like asking "When did you stop beating your wife?" The basis is false, so my answer is addressing that.
@Flimzy I considered this too. But what would be considered documented intervention that would not be considered a miracle?
 
Yeah, I don't know... :)
 
The only possible flexibility I can see between the two is time frame: where one is asking for "modern" miracles and the other for simply miracles.
 
oh, sure... one is strictly extra-biblical miracles
 
7:24 PM
Isn't the other? Since the Bible isn't considered "modern"?
 
Re: the question of christ's death... I don't think the timing is important, but the knowledge posessed by the one who might be "saved." And so in that regard, I think your answer hit the nail on the head (although I'm not sure about your alternate interpretation of pre-Christian salvation... have to think on that one some more).
 
@Richard Also, I agree that this doesn't totally answer the question directly. It's more of addressing the assumptions instead of the question. Not the "ideal" answer, but it's not an "ideal" question due to the assumptions.
 
Okay, discussing two topics here at the same time is confusing me ;)
My question was "modern," his was "extra-Biblical", which includes modern, but is also more broad.
 
@Flimzy :) Yeah, it's not a universally held viewpoint due to the text of Romans. But if you read through the OT, it really seems to make sense.
@Flimzy LOL =)
 
I could re-word my question to not be specifically 'modern'
or to expand 'modern' to mean "after the writing of the Bible"
 
7:27 PM
@Flimzy I don't know if anyone would accept a miracle as "documented" if it happened in 1100 AD.
 
They they would be clear duplicates.
 
@Flimzy I think that would be a good idea.
 
If I change the middle sentence in my question to:
What evidence exists for post-Biblical miracles?
Is that sufficient? Should I change the title, too?
or maybe:
What evidence exists for modern (as in post-Biblical) miracles?
several of the existing answers already take a broad view of 'modern'
 
@Flimzy True.
 
Well, one in particular...
it's a story from the 1920's
I think I suggest you edit my question, so it's a Mod doing it
 
7:30 PM
The Sun miracle was 1917, also.
@Flimzy As you wish. :)
 
Grr... there's a bug!
I'm being cheated out of rep!!
 
@caleb can I get you to rename this chatroom
"Can I lose my salvation?"
should be the new name
 
@JonathonByrd There ya go. I happened to be on. ;)
 
Perfect, thank you
I laughed pretty dang hard on your comment to that Q
it seems that the commenter was not realizing what he was saying.
 
@JonathonByrd Well, he does have a good point, but...
 
7:38 PM
just not a point that supported his argument
 
exactly.
 
has anyone else seen the mention in the podcast, yet?
Posted by Alex Miller on September 21st, 2011

Everyone’s back in their home towns this week (Sorry for the audio quality last week. It was Joel’s fault [actually, it was TechCrunch's fault]). And joining Jeff & Joel this week is John Sheenhan, Developer Evangelist for Twilio.

Jeff and Joel are bored of board meetings. How do you make them productive or even useful? Brad Feld says you should give out a document beforehand. Joel does this, and nobody reads it, but they at least pretend they did. Maybe Joel should plant money under the attendees’ chairs? …

"We also have a site on Christanity now. It is less technical than Judaism… which isn’t good. Our engine works better on more technical applications. Jeff: “I’m not 100% sure Christianity is working.” It’s still early, and it is getting more fact-based as it gets older, though."
 
@a_hardin Aah, I was wondering. I've heard mention of it, but I didn't know what they said. Yeah, we are getting "better", but I think we have a ways to go.
 
7:54 PM
I thought we were doing good
 
Was this a sufficient change christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/3016/… man, it would suck if we can't ask anything about atheism.
 
8:10 PM
@BeatMe You lack understanding in your basis for morality. you say that murder and cruelty are condoned in the Bible. But you lack the understanding as to why those things were from God. IT's because those people were receiving the type of judgement that they judged upon other people. They were wicked nations that did these exact things to others. This is why God judged them the way that He did. He is a perfect judge an He will judge you by the basis that you judge.
0
Q: Why is Cruelty and Murder condoned in the Bible?

Jonathon ByrdIt's not secret that very vial things were done to people in the bible. Millions murdered, raped, beaten and even infants dashed against rocks. These things are normally ignored because of a lack of understanding. These things have also caused men like Richard Dawkins to write books filled with ...

 
@JonathonByrd: I think "Millions murdered" is inaccurate.
@JonathonByrd: Assuming you're referring to things that happened in the OT...
There were probably less than ~50 million people in the entire world
so if "millions" were murdered, that would be a genocide of at least 4% of the entire earth population.
Anyway, it's a minor point :)
ah! I got my rep back
 
8:31 PM
@Richard I wanna apologize for giving you and others a hard time with the porneia question...
 
@dancek Well, I think I remember comments that you don't personally have these issues, but are battling this with others that carry these beliefs.
Unfortunately, the explanations can only go so far. :\ Even the original language suffers from this. How do we define any word? Where do words come from?
 
@Richard yep, and that's exactly why I don't wanna settle for a half-good answer :/
@Richard yeah, that's a big question... even the semiotics of an actively spoken language are non-trivial
and that's why it's hard to really answer someone who claims a commonly held definition is wrong
 
Unfortunately, Strong's is as close as we can get to a definitive answer. Since we can't time travel and ask the apostles what a given word means to them, we have to trust Strong's.
 
especially when they might have a PhD in theology, etc.
@Richard yeah, but Strong did something to come up with the definitions
and I do know that for some Greek words we're very sure about the meaning and some others are quite unclear.
I just have no idea of the science behind it all
 
8:54 PM
@JonathonByrd. You described Dawkins' words as "filthy". I note you didn't attempt to claim they were untrue.
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
 
@TRiG One can ask a question about a statement without making a judgement about the truth/untruth of the statement in the question.
Of course Christians see those as a patently false and desperately mis-guided description of God, the question is WHY.
 
@Caleb. I happen to think that Dawkins has an excellent turn of phrase, but that The God Delusion is not his best book.
Unfortunately, I've not yet got around to reading most of his others, but The Greatest Show on Earth is absolutely excellent.
 
@TRiG it definitely is not
 
@dancek. ?
What's not what?
Which book are you referring to?
 
@TRiG the God Delusion is not Dawkins's best book
 
9:01 PM
@dancek. Ah. Sorry; I wasn't sure which of my comments you were replying to.
Personally, I think the Bible is vague enough that it's possible to get almost any sort of morality out of it.
 
@TRiG yeah. You can see that by hovering. Granted, some people misuse the reply feature here.
 
But Dawkins' reading is certainly supported by the text.
@dancek Oh. I've never used the "reply to message" feature before. I've just typed the name.
Handy.
 
I haven't read The Greatest Show on Earth, but I don't think I will either.
 
@dancek Actually... I was looking at it. Strong's is nothing more than an concordance. The "dictionary" portion of it are lexicon dictionaries. See the footnote here for an example.
 
I think The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker were interesting reads, but The God Delusion was pretty much a no-more-Dawkins-for-me-ever book
 
9:06 PM
@dancek Perhaps you weren't the target audience. But he's an excellent science writer. I've read a few of his essays, and look forward to getting around to his earlier books.
 
@Richard :(
 
All of which is getting us off the subject of: Does the Bible provide a coherent picture of God, and, if it does, is that a picture at all nice?
My answer to both of those questions would (and this will surprise no one here), be No.
 
@TRiG I'd say he was a good pop science writer (and a good scientist afaict), and he's become a very good evangelist
 
@dancek Actually, it's kind of a good thing. There are multiple dictionaries available that you could use to cross-reference what multiple scholars are thinking in regards to a given word. It would just make the case for a given definition stronger.
 
@Richard hmm... I'm starting to wonder if there are any academic papers written on this
debunking a known definition for some sin-related word is exactly what they'd love to do at the University of Helsinki :)
scholar.google.com/scholar?q=porneia <- wow! now where are all the fulltexts!
 
9:32 PM
1
Q: Where should we continue ongoing discussion on closed questions?

DJClayworthThis question was closed as a duplicate while discussions as to the best answer were ongoing, and while useful information was coming out. Where should we go to continue discussion on questions that have been closed? Should we copy all the comments and answers to the duplicate question?

 
@Richard edited the question with links to two probably relevant articles, which I unfortunately don't have access to :/
 
@Richard: You should install this: stackapps.com/questions/2378/comment-link-autoprettifier (I use it to auto-fix your comments a lot.)
 
@Caleb ooh! /me needs!
 
10:00 PM
Love it. Our SE Overloards can't pronounce Hermeneutics.
 
@Caleb Oh, that's nice! I'm going to look into that...
@Caleb How do we install user scripts? Is that a brower specific thing?
 
@Richard Depends on the browser, yes.
Crome: Click install.
 
Opera? :}
 
Firefox: Have Greasemonkey installed. Click install.
Hmmm...Opera...
I don't know about Opera.
 
@ElendiaStarman Yeah, I like Greasemonkey.
 
10:12 PM
@Richard Opera I think you have to put the file somewhere manually.
 
@Richard: Just Google it.
wait
Ta-da! :P
 
4
Q: Would it be alright if the mods cleaned up comment clutter?

RichardIf you follow meta, you have seen considerable discussion lately regarding comment deletion. Usually comments are deleted because they are obsolete, off topic, impolite, or have turned into noise (long, extended discussions that detract from the actual post). Normally, this deletion goes on qui...

 
YES! Yes it's alright!
Wait a minute... >.>
 
@ElendiaStarman Thanks. You should've used the tinyurl. It adds the element of surprise. :P
 
@Richard Ah, that's true.
There ya go! :P
 
10:24 PM
@Caleb Oh, just got that installed. Nice!
 
@Richard Now go leave some useless comments so we can keep up our delete spree :)
 
Ugh. Time to leave. Seeya guys.
 
@Richard Alright. Seeya! :)
 
10:49 PM
I'm trying not to pick fights. (Difficult, sometimes, given my history and my temperment.)
-1
Q: What is "Spiritual Warfare"?

TRiGWhat is spiritual warfare? And how is it different from malefic ("black") magic? One Evangelical Christian sums it up with, Prayer should not be spellcasting. God is not your djinni.

 
11:01 PM
Alright, heading out. Seeya guys! :)
 
@Caleb just wanted to say I really appreciate the courtesy of pinging the mods before migrating the question over to philosophy. I will certainly try harder to be more diplomatic in the future with migrations. Anyway, just wanted so say thanks again for helping us work through that hiccup smoothly. Hope you are well :)
 
@JosephWeissman No problem :) I suspect we might run into a few questions now and then that might get shuffled between Philosophy and Christianity. We might even have some cross-over expertise eventually. So far it seems pretty one-or-the-other. In any case I hope to keep the communication open and see both sites grow/improve. Thanks for being open to talking.
G'night all. I'm done for the day night.
 

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