@PaulVargas Language wise I don't see any issues, though I didn't look particularly closely. I'm still a bit busy getting my wife moved to my old phone

so that she can have a phone again when she goes to work tonight

@TRiG I wonder how they deal with Isaiah 7:14, then.

> 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Working on a question for Mi Yodeya now.

@El'endiaStarman Not in my bible.

@HodofHod Yeah, looked up the JPS translation, and it says "young woman".

That, incidentally, will be the tail end of my question. Why is a "young woman" conceiving such a significant sign, then?

@El'endiaStarman It's not. Neither would a virgin, incidentally.

s/funny/strange

@HodofHod Isaiah 7:14

@HodofHod Thanks for the link, I'll quote that in my question too.

@El'endiaStarman No problem. I have a magic little script that makes links for me :)

@TRiG I sense a question on C.SE spawning from this. Let's see how @El'endiaStarman's pans out first.

@fredsbend It's actually going on Mi Yodeya.

Right. have you posted it yet?

@El'endiaStarman Rashi says that the proof would be the woman's prophetic naming of her son, unaware of Isaiah's prior prophecy.

@HodofHod Excellent. You can put that in your answer on the question. :)

Though, I'm sure there are several other explanations, I don't remember offhand.

@El'endiaStarman As long as we're on the subject, I've always wondered: Do Christians view that verse as prophesying two separate events? In context, it's a prophecy meant to show King Ahaz that G-d would them from Aram.

*protect

@HodofHod Good question for C.SE! :)

@El'endiaStarman I knew it! :D

@El'endiaStarman Yeshayahu is the Hebrew for Isaiah, not the name of the translation.

@HodofHod Well, go ahead and fix it. I don't know my Jewish translations and made a guess...

Judaica Press. Sweet. Now I know one more! :P

@El'endiaStarman Done, and don't worry about it.

As if we weren't having enough cross-religious discussion in this room.

@TRiG Bahaha.

@El'endiaStarman Imagine that someone Awakens to God, then gradually falls away (the work of faith, prayer, etc. is HARD and they didn't expect that); then perhaps ...

they are stirred to spiritual life again by another experience, but fall away again for similar reasons; so they begin to believe that

religion is just a "phase" for them, something that's not important but just superficial.

Then, they are confronted with a major moral choice; they know that their "religious self" would consider it wrong and a great affront to God (let's say, committing adultery).

Knowing that it is wrong "before God", they choose to turn away from God entirely and do this wrong.

That, I think, destroys the relationship, not because God has left them, but because they've left God.

@MattGutting [nods] Yeah, I'm not saying that God leaves anyone first. But I think there is good support for the idea that God will leave someone alone if they completely leave/reject Him.

Agreed; and that's what I meant by the relationship being "destroyed" and the person "falling Asleep" again.

> There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." - C.S. Lewis

@El'endiaStarman You read my mind there :-)

@MattGutting Mmmm...okay. I think, if both "fall Asleep", I would distinguish the two by why they fell asleep. If they didn't want to be Awake anymore, then that would correspond to the relationship being destroyed.

I think the situation I had in mind is not so much not wanting to be Awake anymore, as it is no longer recognizing a difference between being Asleep and Awake, and not really caring.

That works too.

So, would you say that there's a cycle between being fully Awake, and being in that unaware and not-caring state?

I'd say there Can Be. I think there's always a cycle, hopefully just between being Awake and being Tired, but perhaps

between being Awake and not caring. And it's when one is as far from Awake as one gets (whatever that may be) that the spiritual danger comes.

@MattGutting I'd say instead that it's at that point when spiritual danger is most potent.

Point. That's probably a better way of phrasing it.

Danger is there, but our resistance is lowest, or nonexistent.

be back shortly.

I'm back. Is it shortly yet?

@MattGutting :)

Thanks for answering me Matt.

You're quite welcome!

And welcome here, by the way :-)

Yeah, not very active chat room though :(

@Con7e Well, that depends on what you're used to...

But now that I think of, even IRC channels had their fair share of "dead moments"

Different chat rooms have different activity levels. The English Language & Usage one is quite active. This one is active on and off.

Skeptics is much less active than this one.

@Con7e especially recently

Interesting link: faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/07/02/…

The oldest continually operating churches in the United States

@AffableGeek not sure the second one really counts if the church changed entirely. Or were there actually Unitarian Universalists in 1620?

love the comment about the first preacher on the Connecticut one preaching 24 sermons on 3 verses. I thought we went slow when we take a year and a half to go through the book of Luke

Hm. According to Wikipedia, San Miguel Mission is the oldest Roman Catholic Church in the US; it's as old as, or older than, other churches in that list, but I don't see it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

@MattGutting they must have taken a British approach

or just were ignorant of it

@AJHenderson Maybe so. Or maybe because of the title "Mission" they thought the status of the church was different.

@fredsbend response to comments on christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/31296/…?: I didn't claim that all evolution has to do with pleasure. Simply that a desire to eat, yields more survival than not. Most of the food that tastes good but is bad for us, is man-made. Long after we've evolved to enjoy those tastes.

pleasure happens to be one of many useful ways that natural selection can encourage certain behaviour

I guess we are on the same page then

However, you state:

> Is that if eating was not necessary for survival, then it being pleasurable would not have evolved.

There are things that are pleasurable that decrease survival. Thrill seeking is the first to come to mind.

Intentionally increasing the likelihood of injuring yourself is pleasurable.

@Cruncher ^

@fredsbend I agree, there are some side effects of evolution. In today's age natural selection is hindered in a world which is greatly artificial. Advancements in modern medicine now means that, people that put themselves at risk are less likely to die doing it, than they would have, when minor injuries could be fatal. My statement saying that it would not have evolved was under justified. But it's still true. The advantages of eating are obvious.

@fredsbend uneducated and generally unproductive members of society, often have many children as well.

@Cruncher "But evolution answers many 'why' questions." - I guess we just have a different view on that. If you're construing something I say (in answer to someone else's theological question) to contradict your understanding of the TOE, all I can say is - I'm sorry, but that seems to be more your issue than mine. It seems to me the OP doesn't assume TOE as the basis for his question, so I don't feel any need to assume it in regard to a comment or an answer.

@AJHenderson Yeah, I sort of did the 'huh' with the Unitarians. If they switched in 1800, it is still old, but they left the faith, so...

@AffableGeek they have apparently changed denominations 3 times

and I guess the last one doesn't generally consider itself Christian right?

of course, I also naturally wonder about the health of most of those churches too. Are they actually doing well or are they full of history buffs who simply don't want to let an old thing die because it is an old thing

@Cruncher Evolution for humans does seem to be taking an unfavorable turn lately ...

I know that is often a problem that really old churches can fall in to

@fredsbend well we did kind of remove the whole selective element

But would you rather have 3 out of 5 kids die or stifled evolution?

I think I'll take the stifling.

@fredsbend or more brutally, the poor and disabled dieing

Though, oddly, I am in favor of involuntary vas ectomies for certain individuals.

@AJHenderson Right. Heartless. Can we handle that as a society? I don't think so.

Not for the sake of evolution.

@fredsbend I don't think we should, I think we could

Nazi germany pretty much proved that

So I can't do this again today. I've got to work. I'll be back later ... clicking .... little .... red ... x.

Okay. Bye.

Another feed to post into this room, @Caleb?

Am I missing something, or does anyone understand this? christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/31299/…

@MattGutting My eyes glazed over pretty quickly trying to read that.

And by "that", I mean both the question itself and the specific comment to which you linked.

@TRiG Agreed. Clueless...I'd try to help if I had a hint of understanding.

@MattGutting I kind of understand it

but it is stupidly broad without more of a question

each of the items in the first list is compared to the corresponding item in the second list

what he means by asking about catholic doctrine proving the metaphores... I have no clue though

@AJHenderson That's my problem. I understand that some of the scriptures he links to have, or are, metaphors, but what on earth is a linking metaphor, and how can you "prove" it using Catholic or any doctrine? :-\

well, I think he is alluding to saying they are all indirectly metaphors of the same thing and asking for how Catholic doctrine fulfills them all

based on his comments

his comments seem to be showing how from his perspective they all play out on either side in a cohesive understanding of theology of the fallen vs theology of the saved

but it is super broad

like super, super broad bordering on unanswerable

even with a book

Hello, @AJHenderson What's topic's today?

@PaulVargas don't know, I haven't been in here as much today, I'm working more on code gen stuff than build heavy stuff so I haven't had as much free time

@MattGutting That user is regularly incomprehensible. In fact, I don't think I've even read a single comment from him that made sense or was useful to the conversation. I ignore him almost always and simply downvote when it doesn't make sense.

Just look at his first comment when asked where he got that from:

Well, from Jesus, of course.

@fredsbend @MattGutting I read all that and my brain nearly melted. Shame on you.

@AJHenderson Don't worry. I'm very busy too.