@PaulVargas Ah, good. Incidentally the various versions of Strong's lexicon online generally give a phonetic pronunciation that provides a syllable breakdown. Here's the one for Ἀβιούδ on BibleHub. It's not always completely clear which Greek letters are included in which part of the English transliteration, but usually it's easy enough to figure out.

@El'endiaStarman A couple, you say?

@Mr.Bultitude Yup.

@El'endiaStarman Cool. There are lots of moderator-worthy users here. I look forward to seeing who joins your ranks. :)

I've a few in mind I'd vote for.

Who's planning on running?

@fredsbend I haven't seen anyone announce themselves yet. Personally I've been thinking about it, and now that I am sitting up writing responses to meta questions when I should be sleeping, I suppose I've pretty much decided.

@curiousdannii The argument against it actually makes perfect sense to me, but it is contradicted by the UI. Given the stated goals they shouldn't be presenting the questions sorted by vote order at all.

@Mr.Bultitude You say that in the third person as if this wasn't your site too and you were not going to throw your hat in. I hope you consider doing so.

@Caleb Yeah I've read and upvoted that post before. The organic support argument makes sense, but the whole process with definition followed by commitment really does seem to ensure that there is enough. For the definition stage I don't see the problem with encouraging people to not waste their limited votes.

@Caleb I appreciate that. I'm definitely thinking about it. We'll see.

So two positions open. How many total mods will there be after election? Is anyone leaving?

I want to post a question about pedantism, but not sure what to say. Anyone else know what I'm talking about.

@fredsbend Good questions. I want to know the answers also.

@fredsbend I know what pedantism is, but I don't know exactly what your concern is.

@LeeWoofenden Especially on some sites (this one not too bad, but I can see it heading this way) they get hung up on certain words or phrases in a question, then vtc. Instead, they should look past that and see a viable question, then edit if necessary or just ignore the phrase/word. It's not as bad as it was, but on this site "truth" and similar words used to be a hot one, especially when we were working through defining a "truth question".

I see a similar pedantism used to attack perfectly good answers.

Those engaging in this fixate on a single sentence or phrase (sometimes even a word) in a good answer which sometimes leads to deletion. Naturally, I think it shouldn't. We have voting power. Let that rule in these cases.

Which kind of leads into the "deletion vs. inclusion" debate. We have comments and votes to show when answers might be wrong or even bad, but the question of "when to delete" is a difficult one. @Nathaniel asked such a question already, which I liked, but I feel it's too centered on one single thing that can get an answer deleted. I think it should be more generic.

I guess I would ask "Do you favor deletion or inclusion most times?"

But like I said, it's not too bad on this site, but I can see it getting bad. Certainly, other sites I browse have it pretty bad, and it's very frustrating.

@Mr.Bultitude Protestants need to be mostly Catholic in their theology, especially in their Christology and soteriology. Their defining difference needs to be in their total rejection of the Papacy as head of the church. Save a few, even rejection of any central, Earthly authority (i.e. Church of England). By convention, total rejection of any saint veneration is also very Protestant.

But if "protestants" start changing their theology such that the nature of Christ or salvation changes so as to be called outright heresy by the Catholics, then I personally view them as something else.

One frequent Protestant quibble regarding Catholic soteriology would be the requirements of the sacraments of baptism, confession, and Eucharist. Protestants for the most part still practice these, just differently, almost always rejecting any conference of grace.

However, Catholics, for the most part, don't seem too bothered as long as they are close enough, and call them "brothers in Christ", but naturally would rather they be Catholic and "do it right".

All this to say: Oneness Pentecostals, Unitarians, etc. are not Protestant in my opinion.

They are too far removed from the mother church (Catholicism) to be considered an immediate daughter (i.e. Protestantism).

@fredsbend Yes, I see what you mean. I tend toward inclusion if the question can be salvaged. There are some that have been deleted that I thought should have been reworked, because there was a reasonably on-topic question there. And in questionable cases, I generally vote not to close, and to let it play out.

@fredsbend But . . . I'm not running for mod.

@LeeWoofenden What about answers?

@fredsbend Same. If an answer actually does attempt to answer the question, rather than just going off on a tangent, I tend to favor keeping it, even if the quality of the answer isn't very good. As you say, that's what upvotes and downvotes are for.

However, if an answer answers the question, but also goes off on a rant about those horrible _____s who believe X about Y, then I'm more likely to just vote to delete the thing rather than trying to fix it through an edit.

@LeeWoofenden Hmmm. You don't think votes are good enough to keep ranting and the like at a minimum in answers?

@fredsbend No. I don't want to encourage ranters. And if we let a rant stand, they'll come back and rant more.

Answers should be focused on answering the question, not on saying how horribly wrong are those horrible people who disagree with me!

I've never seen such an answer with a positive score.

That's kind of a fringe case anyway.

It's handling gray issues I'm more concerned with.

@fredsbend Protestants inherited and adopted much of Catholic theology, including the Trinity of Persons and their Christology generally. When it comes to soteriology, they're in the same general class with the Catholicism of the 11th century onward, when Catholicisim switched from Christus Victor (and perhaps Ransom Theory) to Satisfaction theory after Anselm, and decisively with Acquinas.

A legitimate answer with a rant in it? I don't really care if it gets deleted. If they remove the rant and it's not undeleted would bother me.

However, within satisfaction theory, Protestantism has adopted a decisively different soteriology based on justification by faith alone and penal substitution--at least the first of which the Catholic Church has declared heretical.

@fredsbend Yes. It's not all that common. But it does occasionally happen. And I have occasionally edited out offensive parts of an otherwise decent answer.

@LeeWoofenden For the laity, that doesn't matter. "Go to church, believe in Jesus, believe Jesus is God and Lord of all" is both Catholic and Protestant.

I'm not sure what position the Catholic Church has taken on penal substitution. Might make an interesting question here.

When you get into the sticky little bits, they certainly do differ. That's why they aren't unified.

@fredsbend Yeah, but that's so general that it applies to almost every Christian Church.

@LeeWoofenden I feel like it's a Catholic position.

Oneness Pentecostals would say the same thing.

Heck, many Swedenborgians would say the same thing. And we're definitely not Catholic or Protestant in our theology.

@LeeWoofenden Almost every Christian church is either Catholic or Protestant ... Probably greater than 95%.

Besides, Catholicism wouldn't just say that. It would also say that you must do stuff, and not only believe in Jesus.

@fredsbend What about Orthodox Christianity? It constitutes a sizable segment of Christianity, and would bristle at being called "Catholic."

@LeeWoofenden Yes, I noted the Protestant contention with the Catholic way of doing Sacraments.

@LeeWoofenden But they are ...

@fredsbend Catholic soteriology is faith+works. Protestant soteriology is faith alone.

They have a love/hate relationship with the Papacy. Protestants are only hate.

This, I believe, is the primary distinction between Catholicism and Protestantism doctrinally.

@LeeWoofenden Kind of. Very few Protestants would believe you're saved if you don't "live like your saved."

@fredsbend Yes, institutionally there is the rejection of the Papacy.

@fredsbend But their official theology is that it is faith alone that justifies and saves you. The Catholic Church has declared that heretical in the Council of Trent, I believe.

@fredsbend Orthodox Christianity never adopted Anselm's or Aquinas's satisfaction theory of atonement. They still generally hold to the Christus Victor view. That distinguishes them decisively from Catholicism (and Protestantism) in their soteriology.

@LeeWoofenden Council of Trent was an official meeting meant to primarily condemn Protestantism. Of course they'd call it heretical. Only the most serious Christians care either way.

Like I said, laity jumping Catholic to Protestant or visa versa is not uncommon. Switching more than once is somewhat a rarity.

@fredsbend And yet . . . many ordinary Protestants do spout "faith alone." And they believe in penal substitution. They actually do think, in their head anyway, that what saves you is simply believing that Jesus paid the penalty for your sins.

@LeeWoofenden Yeah ... so.

Fortunately, most of them effectively believe in faith + works salvation, because they also have an idea that they'll go to hell if they sin. Though the "once saved, always saved" idiocy partially counteracts that for many.

Catholics believe it necessary too.

Like I said, this is the sticky details. I'm trying to define a broad swath of believers, not individual intricacies.

@fredsbend Catholics believe you must have faith in Jesus and do good works in order to be saved. Their concept of "good works" may be somewhat mechanical, but they actually do think that these "good works" are necessary for justification and salvation.

@fredsbend Well, if you want to ignore the doctrinal differences, then you can just be Swedenborgian and say that all good Christians are saved because they believe in Jesus and do good works as Jesus commanded. And then everyone will get mad at you and say you're a heretic. ;-)

"Good christians pray, read the bible, and go to church." Protestants just have different works.

@LeeWoofenden I prefer to throw the baby Jesus out with the bath water.

@fredsbend I've noticed.

Still, you can't just ignore the real differences between Catholics and Protestants. Those differences are doctrinal as well as institutional and cultural.

I'm a heretic of the worst kind. I don't believe at all. Worse than that. I'm not ignorant about the "facts". I consciously reject the whole thing.

@fredsbend And yet . . . I still think you're going to heaven. That's why they think of me as a heretic, too.

@LeeWoofenden Yes, they are there. No one said they weren't. I said that to the laity, they aren't that important (differences in soteriology specifically).

@fredsbend Most laity don't understand the intricacies of their church's teachings. They think they're supposed to believe in Jesus, love their neighbor, and be good. And they don't bother working this out with their priests and preachers, so they think that's what their church believes, too.

I still remember a relatively new member of the congregation I used to pastor telling a very funny story about how she went to her priest and told him all of the common-sense things she believed, only to have the priest tell her that most of them are wrong. At that point she decided she didn't think the Catholic Church was so great after all.

And she became a Swedenborgian instead. We actually did believe the things she thought the Catholic Church believed. :-)

@LeeWoofenden Blegh I don't care. I find the whole idea of even talking about it, who's going to make it to heaven, repugnant. I find the idea of a Hell ludicrous (any kind of hell), especially one where people get to spend eternity for only 80 years of sins. I even find the idea of sin foolish. We strive to get along through our lives without contention. Does a bird worry about sin?

And on that note, I've got to go. ;) no really, I should be doing something else.

See you around.

@fredsbend Lower animals do not have the ability to make moral choices. They have no concept of God and spirit. So no, birds, bees, and bears do not worry about sin because they're not capable of sinning.

@fredsbend Swedenborg said quite often that the laity understands genuine Christianity better than the clergy because their minds are not crammed full of all sorts of ridiculous, human-invented theology.

@fredsbend That, of course is your right. But hell is not a place where people are punished for 80 years of sins. In fact, people in hell are not punished for anything they do on earth. The traditional Christian concept of hell is indeed ludicrous. In that I agree with you.

@fredsbend See you later.

@fredsbend Do you find spending 80 years in jail for two minutes of crime repugnant?

@Mr.Bultitude Society's penal system is far different from God's. You murder, you get put in jail for life or executed. It's not because we all care so much for the victim; it's really only because we don't want to be your next victim. Along the same lines, you steal a car, you get about 10 years. Having your car stolen is more of a hassle than anything else. Being murdered probably sucks pretty bad.

It's hard line ridiculousness. And the bar is set so high that none can ever assume they are not a sinner. Christianity literally invented thought-crime. You can't even think natural thoughts without accusations of sin. And remember, the punishment is execution for all sin.

@LeeWoofenden Is morality a thought construct or something outside of humanity? Would human morality exist without humans? No. Common morality is clearly a societal benefit, developed because without it societies cannot form.

If you look at highly social creatures, they certainly have their own rules, and breaking them can get you punished. Wolves, elephants, orcas ... I've seen numerous examples on nature programs.

Yet bears, for example, not so social, have no such rules among their own kind. Rape, murder, infanticide, etc., all good. Morality is clearly a social construct that helps/helped the species survive.

It feels natural because it is. It's been bred into you. If we weren't social creatures then we wouldn't do it, likely. God had nothing to do with it.