The Upper Room

Doubting Thomas

12:15 AM

@El'endiaStarman @El'endiaStarman yo! long time :D

@TRiG howdy :)

El'endia Starman

12:34 AM

Copy-pasting from my FB status because C.SE is relevant. :P

> Near the beginning of my ~6-hour "nap", I had a lucid dream. I was scrolling down the page on Christianity.SE, which had a dull green/light brown color scheme. At this point, I suddenly remembered that Christianity.SE hadn't graduated yet, so it couldn't have had that color scheme. That disconnect was the gateway into lucid dreaming. This time around, I was actually able to choose the subject of dream I had.

> (One option that I ended up not choosing was to go to sleep in the dream. :P) A couple things that I tested a bit were awareness of my body to confirm that I was dreaming and an idea connected to solipsism at the end. The end happened while I was reading a block of text. I could comprehend the words at the beginning and at the end, but the middle was gibberish. At that point, I felt my right leg move and knew I was awake.

Doubting Thomas

12:59 AM

@El'endiaStarman dude. awesome.

those gateways are so weird. I've never totally lucid drempt, but i've been half-asleep and done something very similar

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas The possibility of being half-asleep was basically why I tested my body's tactile awareness. :P

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman oh cool yeah

ugh, that awkward moment when you're demonstrating a website you built to your mom and it crashes

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas [wince]

Doubting Thomas

yeah lol

that was my way of beta testing lol

let that be a lesson to always double-try tests, a single-try doesn't always work...

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Be glad it wasn't a Heisenbug... :P

Doubting Thomas

1:13 AM

@El'endiaStarman haha yeah

@El'endiaStarman have you done any more of those cool vids like the mobius strip one?

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Not recently, no, haha.

Doubting Thomas

you should. :)

El'endia Starman

For one, I've been away at college, and the video was filmed with my brother's camera.

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman ahh. what college are you at?

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology).

Doubting Thomas

1:17 AM

oh yea, you told me about that. I considered it for a bit. good school?

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas As far as I know, yes.

Where're you going yourself?

Doubting Thomas

Georgia Tech

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Ah, nice.

Doubting Thomas

it's hard work, but worth it. finally got my life under control so I could hang out here again

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Good to hear! How many weeks into the semester are you?

Doubting Thomas

1:20 AM

@El'endiaStarman counts seven. Wow.

I didn't even realize.

El'endia Starman

Hehehe. I myself am heading into week 5 of 11 (RIT has a quarter system).

11 including finals week, so 10 weeks of classes.

Doubting Thomas

ah, cool

Doubting Thomas

1:40 AM

@El'endiaStarman what are you majoring in?

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Computational mathematics.

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman ooh, cool. Is that applied or discrete? I'm Computer Science myself.

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas It's....uh, it's kinda on the flip side from Computer Science. Like, whereas CS is about theory and mathematics as it relates to computers, Computational Mathematics is more about doing math with computers.

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman oh, sweet.

...I wonder if Georgia Tech offers that... it'd make a sweet minor

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Lol. This major was one of the 5 reasons I chose RIT. :P

Doubting Thomas

1:44 AM

@El'endiaStarman ah, nice!

looks like Tech's got a graduate program in Comp. Math, but you're undergrad, right?

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Correct.

Doubting Thomas

what were your other 4 reasons?

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Well, besides 1) the 5-year combined BS/MS program (for Comp Math), there were also 2) Scholarships, as well as the tuition reduction from going to 3) NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf), where I would 4) get practice in sign language.

Doubting Thomas

whoa, a 5 year BS and MS? that's pretty awesome!

@El'endiaStarman wait, are you deaf? or do you just want sign language practice?

I feel like you told me something about this before

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Indeed. It's up in the air though whether or not I'll do it. Time will tell.

@DoubtingThomas Both. :P

Doubting Thomas

1:48 AM

@El'endiaStarman oh, wow. You spoke incredibly well in that video, I had no idea!

@El'endiaStarman well God be with you in your decisions, sounds like it'd be great!

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas [laughs] It's pretty accurate to describe me as being intellectually hearing. :P

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman how do you mean?

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas :D Time for a bit of education! :P

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman oh haha

so are there people signing in the classes at RIT? or how does that work?

El'endia Starman

There is a difference between "deaf" and "Deaf" that is more than capitalization. Little-d "deaf" means that the person can't hear, nothing more, nothing less. Big-D "Deaf" means that the person is part of the Deaf culture. I am deaf, but before the summer of 2011, I hardly Deaf at all. Thus, it was far more accurate to say that I was "Hearing". These days, I'm kinda in between, part of both worlds.

Doubting Thomas

1:52 AM

@El'endiaStarman oh, cool!

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Oh yes, there are people signing in the classes. Well, when there are at least two deaf/Deaf students. For intro classes, there's usually one section that has interpreters, and basically all the deaf students take that one. I'm in one of those, and there are like 10 total deaf students. Conversations between deaf students while the professor is lecturing happen relatively often. :P

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman haha, cool!

El'endia Starman

There's about 1 deaf student per 8 hearing students. Which is actually a lot of deaf people to see around the first few days. :P

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman wow yeah that's not bad! that's like the initial woman to man ratio at engineering schools, before they actively recruited women

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Haha, yeah. The male-female ratio here is 70-30.

Doubting Thomas

1:59 AM

@El'endiaStarman oh wow. i think it's like 60:40 at Tech

finding any good Christian companionship? I know it's a little rarer at technical schools

@El'endiaStarman can you link me to that mobius strip video? I tried searching for it but got some, er, other results including the word "strip" ... O_O

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Oh, yes! I'm part of a group called BASIC (Brothers And Sisters In Christ), and there are also Cru, InterVarsity, Agape [Christian Fellowship], and Hands of Fire (the deaf Christian club).

@DoubtingThomas [chuckle]

►

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman wow, great! I'm still looking for something that fits my schedule, but I'm living at home so I've still got family as a refuge.

@El'endiaStarman thanks ;)

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Using provided 2009 data, the ratio was nearly 66-34.

Doubting Thomas

@El'endiaStarman 64/36 in 2010. Seems bigger.

well, gonna go watch a movie now. ttyl!

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas What movie?

Doubting Thomas

2:09 AM

@El'endiaStarman Great Expectations, 90's BBC

El'endia Starman

@DoubtingThomas Ah, huh. Haven't heard of it. Anyway, talk to you later! :)

Jim G.

2:31 AM

@DJ Clayworth wrote: "It's important to understand something about the origins of the Bible. The authors of the various books within it did not sit down to write "The Bible". They intended to write stuff that would be helpful to other people for various reasons..."

I could not agree with this enough.

But if this is true, then why should the Biblical canon make the Bible immutable????

I know that Christianity.Stackexchange.com is not designed to answer a question like this, but this "fact" makes me angry because it runs contrary to modernity and progress!

El'endia Starman

@JimG. [blinks].....that's actually an excellent question. (Regardless of whether or not it's suited for C.SE.)

@JimG. Have you read my blog post on the matter?

Jim G.

I guess I'm the only one. I love Jesus and I hate the shackles that arbitrary institutions place on the Bible and the institutional worship of Jesus.

@El'endia Starman: No... Sounds interesting.

El'endia Starman

@JimG. ...wut. How are you hitting topics that I dealt with recently? Another blog post (though on my personal blog).

Jim G.

@El'endia Starman: Very well written blog posts. I'm glad that somebody else is thinking about these things.

El'endia Starman

@JimG. Haha, thanks. I'm glad too, to know that someone is noticing the same problems.

David Stratton

3:27 AM

@DoubtingThomas - I just wanted to say "Welcome back" as well. You've got some really good answers, and I look forward to hearing more from you.

Wikis

5:02 AM

@Kazark: thank you for the explanation. Yes, I am well aware of Paul's sarcasm. What a shame he didn't use smileys...

@DavidStratton: yes, thanks for that reasoning. But even that is too much, like you say: too much for the average person. Just consider: "what is most loving"? Could you explain why you don't agree? I'm puzzled that people here seem to be thinking, "there must be some rules" and that they are missing out on the wonderful true Grace, which separates Christianity from religion.

To anyone else interested, please see "The Grace Awakening" by Charles Swindoll.

amazon.com/Grace-Awakening-Believing-thing-another/dp/…

Caleb

7:12 AM

An interesting commentary on answer deletions from back in the day. I fully agree that it needed to go, but we've definetly laxed up on allowing people to ramble off topic in answers. Not sure that's a good thing...

Stack Exchange

7:49 AM

1

Q: Is "doctrine" a useless meta-tag?

In editing some old questions and answers today I noticed that the tag doctrine seems to be getting used as a meta tag. Occasionally it is on a question about a specific doctrine, but usually it's just appended when the questioner feels strongly that their question should be answered with doctrin...

Caleb

8:22 AM

@DavidStratton Naw actually I think that was fine. I ended up closing the question "not a real question" instead of "off topic", but your complaint was valid. The fact that the user later rolled back the edit somebody made to try to make it less ridiculous and possibly constructive makes me think the user was just trolling anyway.

I would also suggest that this answer from that user is probably not something we need to keep around. It's just an anti-Bible rant, and not even a very good one at that. No serious non-Christian scholar would give those interpretations the time of day, and it certainly doesn't represent Christian beliefs in any way shape or form.

Hey community, any thoughts on why this answer got downvoted? Even I gave it a pass and I'm usually free with the downvotes. There are several worse answers on there that didn't get that kind of beating. Any idea what button it pushed that made it catch flack?

El'endia Starman

8:45 AM

@Caleb ......honestly, I have no idea. I agree that it's not a bad answer, and is actually better than neutral. Lack of references, perhaps?

...and then I look at the answer above it (Shawn's) and see that he even says he has no support, yet it's a 0/-1 as opposed to a 0/-2...weird.

Caleb

@El'endiaStarman Ya. There are even upvoted answers I think are less helpful / accurate than that one.

Caleb

9:57 AM

I wonder if this guy is brave, crazy, clueless or biased? It's a question I've wanted to pose but didn't feel up to wording it constructively.

Also, people that say Islam and Christianity are basically the same haven't noted this:

why you think it was sin? at that time no religion existed to then sin exist. any disobey is not sin. — Ahmadi 2 hours ago

TRiG

11:30 AM

John Courtney Murray

John Courtney Murray, (September 12, 1904 – August 16, 1967), was an American Jesuit priest and theologian, who was especially known for his efforts to reconcile Catholicism and religious pluralism, particularly focusing on the relationship between religious freedom and the institutions of a democratically structured modern state. During the Second Vatican Council, he played a key role in persuading the assembly of the Catholic bishops to adopt the Council's ground-breaking Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae. Life and education John Courtney Murray was born in New...

Interesting guy.

Apparently Newark Archbishop John Myers disagrees and thinks all Protestants are living in sin.

Wikis

1:00 PM

@Caleb it's a great question; I've also thought about posting it.

Doubting Thomas

@DavidStratton thanks! :)

Kazark

1:48 PM

@Wikis Haha. Probably he did, but scribes didn't know what they were, thought they were stray marks, and took them out. :)

Affable Geek

4:50 PM

I wonder if I could say something about the Islam site - and I'm not sure if its the site or Muslims in general. I was really disappointed in the answers to my question about the "Go To Verse" in the Quran. It really read as though "No, there is no way to get to the heart of the Quran without reading it all - in Arabic!

It's sad, because there've got to be Islamic missionaries who would say "start here," but I got the distinct impression that you are either born a Muslim or you're not.

Rant Done. (And I do know that Islam.SE readers are here). As a guest, I'd really rather not post that there - but if its helpful to anyone, then I'd like to let people know...

Jon Ericson

@AffableGeek Since your question is +6 and the best answer is +3, I'm not sure many people over there are satisfied with the answer you got.

Affable Geek

Yeah. THat's why I say, I wasn't sure if it was a problem with the site or with the faith. I gotta think there is an answer to that...

Jon Ericson

@AffableGeek The missionaries I've met who serve in Islamic countries emphasize that the work is far more relational than cerebral. In other words, you need to make friends more than you need to make arguments. (Bu that's really true of all missionary work, I guess.)

8

Q: Reading of Quran in a language other than Arabic

Is it necessary to read the Quran in Arabic? I have learned from elders and also seen many videos stating that understanding the meaning of the Qur'an is more important than just reading it. As i don't understand Arabic i would like to read the Quran in a language that i understand like English. ...

quran language translation reciting

> But why Arabic? I have 3 experiences, Arabic, Persian and English. But the Persian and English translation does not have any effect on my heart!

Caleb

@AffableGeek Ironically, in spite of the comment in your question, when sharing with Muslims I and a lot of other people often DO start in Genesis.

Jon Ericson

@Caleb Now that's interesting. I assume many of the stories are familiar to Muslims, if not in the same form that Genesis tells them.

Caleb

5:13 PM

@JonEricson Yes, they know them and there are far less prejudices about the OT than there are about the NT. If you start with the stories they know by name but not in detail and show from a text that you don't have to argue about so much that the whole point of all those stories is to point to the Christ, the next logical step falls into place a lot easier.

El'endia Starman

@Caleb Hey Caleb, related: have you heard of Lief Hetland?

Jon Ericson

@Caleb I just came off a series of Sunday School lessons in which I taught about the people mentioned in Hebrews 11:32. I have to say that many of them are difficult to reconcile with the label "people of faith". The NT is much easier to teach from in a Christian setting. :-\

Caleb

@El'endiaStarman Negative.

Caleb

5:41 PM

People on StackOverflow who don't know the first thing about C# don't feel the need to pitch in with their opinion of CSS on every question. Why do people on C.SE who don't know the first thing about the topic of a question feel the need to chip in their 2c?

Jon Ericson

6:26 PM

@Caleb On that particular question, it might help if the title were expanded a bit. Also, the link is pretty much a must read if you are going to attempt an answer. So it might be better if key points from the article where quoted or summarized in the question.

TRiG

6:50 PM

3

Q: You might be a "fundamentalist" if ___

What sources could one appeal to if trying to argue if a doctrine was or was not consistent with fundamentalism? The question What is fundamentalism? identifies the historical source and some of the main characteristics of fundamentalism. I am more interested in the current usage of the word an ...

definition fundamentalism movements

Is that the one you're referring to?

Caleb

@TRiG No. I made that comment in regard to the 3 uses of the law one from Thomas, but it was a general remark after a couple days of reviewing old posts.

TRiG

@Caleb Ah. By the way, might you be an evangelical?

Caleb

@TRiG Considering I think that term is close to meaningless, I'm not sure how to answer that. Many would consider me to be. But there are also enough areas that I differ from mainstream evangelical, that you could also make a case for me being a former Evangelical (I did grow up in an EFCA church and still have many close ties with folks in various flavors of Evangelical churches). It would, however, be more proper to define me as Reformed, maybe even Reformed Presbyterian.

Caleb

8:58 PM

Holy mother of permanent markers! That XKCD question on Mathmatica in the collider that was asked 12 hours ago has seen 37219 visits.

Jon Ericson

@Caleb Quick! Someone ask how to create xkcd-style diagrams in Christianity!

TRiG

@JonEricson It's been asked for Mathmatica and for TeX, so why not?

Caleb

9:20 PM

@dongle26 I notice your recent beginnings of an edit to this answer has the same issue as the one I just commented on and deleted here. If you'd like some help with a tour of the site and why this is an issue for us and what you can do instead that is productive, there are almost always people that would be glad to chat with you in here about it.

Affable Geek

So, according to this California is more than happy to intervene when a physician is trying to allieviate gender confusion but if a state tells a doctor they need to woman to know what is being removed her uterus, that's unprecendent interference in a doctor-patient relationship? I'm so glad the left is incapable of hypocrisy!

I've even more glad that the state did interfere when my (now)Sister-in-law was considering aborting my favorite niece!

TRiG

@AffableGeek Gender confusion?

That link is not about gender identity disorder.

Affable Geek

Sorry, had to get that off my chest. I do understand the reasoning behind the law (even if I disagree with it - but

The next time I hear some baby-killing lefties saying "How dare the state interfere with doctor-patient relationships" I need to bring up the fact that states interfer all the time.

That link is about California legislating what a doctor can do with his patient

TRiG

@AffableGeek Yes, but I think you've mixed up trans issues and gay issues.

Jon Ericson

@AffableGeek Virginia, not California, I assume?

TRiG

9:38 PM

@AffableGeek My dispute is not with your argument (which I'll have to think about) but with your terminology.

Stack Exchange

1

Q: What is "Good Subjective," for this site?

Based on this question: Is methodology advice to pastors too subjective to deal with here? there seems to be a consensus that: Not only are Doctrinal Questions are on topic, but so too are Practical Ones There is support to model "Subjective" questions the same way that Parent.ing SE does We n...

discussion

Jon Ericson

11:42 PM

-1

Q: Why are Baptist Fundamentalists labeled Protestants?

Something that always bothers me which I witness to Catholics: the well-meaning ones tell me I am a Protestant and say that "we protested the Catholic Church". This isn't true, the Baptist Church was never a part of the "Protestant Reformation" movement, and we don't actively engage in protesting...

catholicism protestantism lutheranism baptist fundamentalism

I think some of the confusion on this question stems from the very specific denomination I believe the asker is referring to: fundamentalistbaptistchurch.org/whatwebelieve.htm

> We believe that we are currently living in the Great Apostasy, a period of a “falling away” from Biblical truth within professing Christianity. We believe that such men as Rick Warren, Chuck Smith, Billy Graham, Robert Schuler and others have been instrumental in contributing to this Great Apostasy.

But I don't know how to reasonably answer the question.

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