I am not even talking about scriptural problems within the bible, You don't have to open a single bible to start seeing the problems,
1-) The Problem of Salvation and Faith (Why the plan of salvation is ridiculous, and has failed)
I.The ridiculousness of the plan
A. Demanding blood for remission of sins Heb 9:22 - Why is this the terms that god insists upon? Isn't he the architect of the parameters regarding sin, punishment, and forgiveness? Is he not able to forgive sin without blood sacrifice? Can he not say, “No blood sacrifice necessary, I just forgive you?”
B. God sacrificing himself to himself to save us from himself by creating a loophole in the architecture for condemnation he engineered in the first place? This is your solution for a problem in which you yourself are the problem. It’s like a doctor stabbing people to be able to operate and save them.
C. Dying for someone else's crime does not equal justice in any court.
D. The sacrifice was not a sacrifice at all :

Jesus is said to be eternal
He spent a few days in misery out of his billions of years plus of existence
He spent a minutiae of a fraction of his existence suffering knowing he would be resurrected after the ordeal and spend eternity in divine luxury, and that somehow provides him justification to sentence us to trillions of years of eternity suffering without end?
Jesus is a supernatural immortal who suffered temporary mortal punishment and then sentences mortals to supernatural eternal punishment if they do not receive his sacrifice.
Why is three days of punishment followed by eternity in glory sufficient for all the horrible deeds any man has ever committed, but billions of years suffered in hell by a good moral person who does not believe due to lack of evidence is not sufficient?

2-) Nature of The Christian god
I. He is supposed to be an all Powerful and All mighty being and yet he died on a cross by his own creation (If you see someone claiming to be god and then you saw him hie before your very eyes, How on earth are you supposed to conclude anything else other than "This guy is a liar"?)
Modern Christians would respond to this saying "Only the Human part died, The Divine part wasn't affected"
Which again, doesn't make any sense :
A. Even when assuming a human sacrifice is somehow necessary for salvation, The sacrifice of 1 Human being can never be Enough to atone for the sins of all of mankind since Adam and Eve till the return of jesus.
I found a Coptic pope explaining this issue in detail, Here is a link to his book, https://st-takla.org/books/en/pope-shenouda-iii/nature-of-christ/propitiation-and-redemption.html
Quoting from it : "The belief in the One Nature of the Incarnate Logos is essential, necessary and fundamental for redemption. Redemption requires unlimited propitiation sufficient for the forgiveness of the unlimited sins of all the people through all ages. There was no solution other than the Incarnation of God the Logos to offer this through His Divine Power.
Thus, if we mention two natures and say that the human nature alone performed the act of redemption, it would have been entirely impossible to achieve unlimited propitiation for man's salvation. Hence comes the danger of speaking of two natures, each having its own specific tasks. In such case, the death of the human nature alone is insufficient."
It's very clear that saying only the human part died doesn't make any sense, Even according to the Christian theology itself.
B. The Trinity is based on a false idea
I know, It's a classic Argument against Christianity but you can't deny that it's an actual damning argument against the Christian theology.

God is all knowing but Jesus wasn't all knowing (mark 13:32)
Jesus is supposed to be god, but he is praying to himself to save himself with cries and tears?? (Luke 22:41-44)
Jesus is god but we can't say he is good because only god is good?? (Luke 18:18-19)
God can't be tempted by evil (James 1:13) but yet jesus was tempted by satan?? (Matthew 4:1)
Jesus is god but he can't do a thing on his own?? (John 5:31) 6.Jesus is supposed to be the same as the father, But their teachings are different? (John 7:16)

And so many more, Throught the bible i can't help but notice the intense number of verses which clearly states Jesus can't be god.
3-) The Problem of a Historical Jesus (Why we don’t know the actual historical Jesus)
I. No contemporary historical evidence,
A. No historian alive during Jesus day wrote about Jesus despite ample opportunity

The kings coming to his birth
Herod’s slaughter of baby boys
The overthrowing of money changers
Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem where he is declared king by the whole town.
Darkness covering the whole earth for hours on Jesus’ Death
The earthquakes at Jesus’ death
The rending of the temple veil at Jesus’ Death
The resurrection of Jesus that was seen by 500 witnesses.(Only Paul claims that, even tho he never met jesus)

II. The Gospels are contradicting, late hearsay accounts
A. Mark, the earliest gospel, was written at least after 70 A.D. (referencing fall of temple) by a non-eyewitness, and makes numerous cultural and geographical errors that a Jewish writer would not have made such as locations of rivers, cultural customs regarding divorce, locations of towns or Jesus quoting from the greek Septuagint etc. (see geographical and historical errors in this link, https://holtz.org/Library/Philosophy/Metaphysics/Theology/Christianity/Criticism/Bible%20Problems%20by%20Packham%201998.htm#ERRORS )
B. The other gospels all copied from Mark. Luke and Matthew contain over 70% of Mark and mainly make changes in attempts to fix blatant errors made in Mark and to correct Mark’s poor grammar.The writer of Luke even reveals to us in Luke 1:2 that he was not an eyewitness, but that the story has been passed down to him.
C. Four where chosen by the church father Iraeneus because he believed the earth was founded on four pillars and so too, should the gospels be founded by only four accounts.
Iraenus also revealed the names of the Gospels in the late second century, without any reason to assume they where the authentic authors - no one knows who actually wrote them!
D. John was initially considered heretical by the early church because of its variation from the synoptic but was overwhelmingly popular amongst Christians and so was included.
E. The book of Revelations was also considered heretical by many :
For centuries The Revelation was a rejected book. In the 4th century, St.John Chrysostom and other bishops argued against it. Christians in Syria also reject it. The Synod of Laodicea: c. 363, rejected The Revelation. In the late 380s, Gregory of Nazianus produced a canon omitting The Revelation. Bishop Amphilocus of Iconium, in his poem Iambics for Seleucus written some time after 394, rejects The Revelation. When St.Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, producing the Vulgate bible c. 400, he argued for the Veritas Hebraica, meaning the truth of the Jewish Bible over the Septuagint translation. At the insistence of the Pope, however, he added existing translations for what he considered doubtful books: among them The Revelation. The Church in the East never included the Revelation.
4-) The early church did not seem to know anything about a historical Jesus. Huge amounts of disagreement over Jesus in the first hundred years :

Some churches didn’t even believe he had a physical body, prompting Paul to write about that very issue.
There was an enormous debate between all the major early churches as to whether Jesus was divine or not, this was settled at the council of Nicea by the Roman Emperor Constantine.

5-) Which Bible?
A. Over 450 English versions of the bible All are translated using different methods and from entirely different manuscripts
B. Thousands of manuscripts disagreeing with each other wildly in what verses and even books they contain.
C. Different translations teach entirely different things in places, some often leaving out entire chapters and verses or containing footnotes warning of possible error due to uncertainty about the reliability of the numerous manuscripts.
Take a look at this example, 1- Revised standard version 2- Revised standard version Catholic edition 3- NEW revised standard version Updated edition 4- NEW revised standard version Catholic edition 5- NEW revised standard version, Anglicised 6- NEW revised standard version, Anglicised Catholic edition
How many attempts would it take to finally get it right ?!
6-) The Morality of the bible
I don't like using Morality as an argument because i believe it's a subjective thing, But I cannot help but notice how the morals of the OT and the NT are completely contradictory
In the OT god was Angry, Vengeful, Demands war, order genocides, Ordered the killing of children and even the ripping open of pregnant women.
But in the NT he somehow became loving, a father figure, saying if anyone hits you you shouldn't even respond back.

In Conclusion: I don't think Christianity can be accepted as the truth by any logical person (Even most convert stories i heard were basically "I saw jesus in a dream" or "The holy spirit held my hand")

There is so many Theological confusion, A salvation idea that makes 0 sense, Lack of any form of historical critirea of knowing what is true manuscripts and what is hearsays (The authors of the gospels are all Anynomous),
There is even disagreement within Christianity itself about what stories go into the bible (Many stories have been found out to be false like John 8:1-11 and Mark 16:18)
https://textandcanon.org/does-the-woman-caught-in-adultery-belong-in-the-bible/
The lack of consistency on literally everything makes it one of the least convincing religion in my opinion.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a YouTube channel or a book to further inform me about atheism especially when arguing points to someone who's not atheist. I have a neighbor across the street who's very religious quotes the Bible all the time and I'd like to be more informed and more well spoken when we debate this. He's a great guy and we're friends except for this point. We talk openly about it but I'd like to be more informed as I have little religious upbringing and don't plan on reading the Bible.

So I was thinking of starting a new channel where I talk about philosophy/psychology, but I was wondering about how I can quote a work without getting a copyright strike. I've seen other channels use little snippets and even up to a paragraph's worth of quotes from the original work, but apparently this is a no-no.
And then there's copyright of translations. For example, I wanted to make a video about a book in the Bible using someone's more accurate translation, but the translation is copyrighted. How does that even make sense? How can I quote the translation without getting a strike?

"Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?"

The main reason Jesus died on the cross was to defeat Satan and set us free from his oppressive rule. Everything else that Jesus accomplished was to be understood as an aspect and consequence of this victory (e.g., Recapitulation, Moral Influence, etc.).
This understanding of why Jesus had to die is called the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ is Victorious”) view of the atonement. But, what exactly was Christ victorious from, and why? To find out the answers to these questions, we have to turn to the Old Testament, as that's what the apostles would often allude to in order to properly teach their audience the message they were trying to convey (Rom. 15:4).
The OT is full of conflict between the Father (YHVH) and false gods, between YHVH and cosmic forces of chaos. The Psalms speak of this conflict between YHVH and water monsters of the deeps (an ancient image for chaos) (Psa. 29:3-4; 74:10-14; 77:16, 19; 89:9-10; 104:2-9, etc).
The liberation of Israel from Egypt wasn’t just a conflict between Pharaoh and Moses. It was really between YHVH and the false gods of Egypt.
Regardless of whether you think the aforementioned descriptions are literal or metaphorical, the reality that the Old Testament describes is that humanity lived in a “cosmic war zone.”
The Christus Victor motif is about Christ reigning victorious over wicked principalities and Satan's kingdom, and is strongly emphasized throughout the New Testament. Scripture declares that Jesus came to drive out "the prince of this world” (John 12:31), to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14) and to “put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25). Jesus came to overpower the “strong man” (Satan) who held the world in bondage and worked with his Church to plunder his "palace" (Luke 11:21-22). He came to end the reign of the cosmic “thief” who seized the world to “steal, and to kill, and to destroy” the life YHVH intended for us (John 10:10). Jesus came and died on the cross to disarm “the principalities and powers” and make a “shew of them openly [i.e., public spectacle]” by “triumphing over them in [the cross]” (Col. 2:15).
Beyond these explicit statements, there are many other passages that express the Christus Victor motif as well. For example, the first prophecy in the Bible foretells that a descendent of Eve (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The first Christian sermon ever preached proclaimed that Jesus in principle conquered all YHVH's enemies (Acts 2:32-36). And the single most frequently quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament authors is Psalm 110:1 which predicts that Christ would conquer all YHVH’s opponents. (Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in Matthew 22:41-45; 26:64, Mark 12:35-37; 14:62, Luke 20:41-44; 22:69, Acts 5:31; 7:55-56, Romans 8:34, 1st Corinthians 15:22-25, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews 1:3; 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21; 8:1; 10:12-13, 1st Peter 3:22, and Revelation 3:21.) According to New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman, the frequency with which New Testament authors cite this Psalm is the greatest proof that Christ’s “victory over the angel powers stands at the very center of early Christian thought.”
Because of man's rebellion, the Messiah's coming involved a rescue mission that included a strategy for vanquishing the powers of darkness.
Since YHVH is a God of love who gives genuine “say-so” to both angels and humans, YHVH rarely accomplishes His providential plans through coercion. YHVH relies on His infinite wisdom to achieve His goals. Nowhere is YHVH's wisdom put more on display than in the manner in which He outsmarted Satan and the powers of evil, using their own evil to bring about their defeat.
Most readers probably know the famous story from ancient Greece about the Trojan Horse. To recap the story, Troy and Greece had been locked in a ten-year-long vicious war when, according to Homer and Virgil, the Greeks came up with a brilliant idea. They built an enormous wooden horse, hid soldiers inside and offered it to the Trojans as a gift, claiming they were conceding defeat and going home. The delighted Trojans accepted the gift and proceeded to celebrate by drinking themselves into a drunken stupor. When night came and the Trojan warriors were too wasted to fight, the Greeks exited the horse, unlocked the city gates to quietly let all their compatriots in, and easily conquered the city, thus winning the war.
Historians debate whether any of this actually happened. But either way, as military strategies go, it’s brilliant.
Now, there are five clues in the New Testament that suggest YHVH was using something like this Trojan Horse strategy against the powers when he sent Jesus into the world:
1) The Bible tells us that YHVH's victory over the powers of darkness was achieved by the employment of YHVH’s wisdom, and was centered on that wisdom having become reality in Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25, 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 3:9-10, Col. 1:26). It also tells us that, for some reason, this Christ-centered wisdom was kept “secret and hidden” throughout the ages. It’s clear from this that YHVH's strategy was to outsmart and surprise the powers by sending Jesus.
2) While humans don’t generally know Jesus’ true identity during his ministry, demons do. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, but, interestingly enough, they have no idea what he’s doing (Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7, Luke 8:21). Again, the wisdom of YHVH in sending Jesus was hidden from them.
3) We’re told that, while humans certainly share in the responsibility for the crucifixion, Satan and the powers were working behind the scenes to bring it about (John 13:27 cf. 1 Cor. 2:6-8). These forces of evil helped orchestrate the crucifixion.
4) We’re taught that if the “princes of this world [age]” had understood the secret wisdom of YHVH, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8 cf. vss 6-7). Apparently, Satan and the powers regretted orchestrating Christ’s crucifixion once they learned of the wisdom of YHVH that was behind it.
5) Finally, we can begin to understand why the powers came to regret crucifying “the Lord of glory” when we read that it was by means of the crucifixion that the “handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us [i.e., the charge of our legal indebtedness]” was “[taken] out of the way [i.e., canceled]” as the powers were disarmed. In this way Christ “triumph[ed] over” the powers by "his cross” and even “made a shew of them openly” (Col. 2:14-15). Through Christ’s death and resurrection YHVH's enemies were vanquished and placed under his Messiah's feet, and ultimately His own in the end (1 Cor. 15:23-28).
Putting these five clues together, we can discern YHVH's Trojan Horse strategy in sending Jesus.
The powers couldn’t discern why Jesus came because YHVH's wisdom was hidden from them. YHVH's wisdom was motivated by unfathomable love, and since Satan and the other powers were evil, they lacked the capacity to understand it. Their evil hearts prevented them from suspecting what YHVH was up to.
What the powers did understand was that Jesus was mortal. This meant he was killable. Lacking the capacity to understand that this was the means by which YHVH would ultimately bring about the defeat of death (and thus, pave the road for the resurrection itself), they never suspected that making Jesus vulnerable to their evil might actually be part of YHVH's infinitely wise plan.
And so they took the bait (or "ransom"; Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:5-6). Utilizing Judas and other willing human agents, the powers played right into YHVH’s secret plan and orchestrated the crucifixion of the Messiah (Acts 2:22-23; 4:28). YHVH thus brilliantly used the self-inflicted incapacity of evil to understand love against itself. And, like light dispelling darkness, the unfathomably beautiful act of YHVH's love in sending the willing Messiah as a "ransom" to these blood-thirsty powers defeated them. The whole creation was in principle freed and reconciled to YHVH, while everything written against us humans was nailed to the cross, thus robbing the powers of the only legal claim they had on us. They were “spoiled [i.e., disempowered]” (Col. 2:14-15).
As happened to the Trojans in accepting the gift from the Greeks, in seizing on Christ’s vulnerability and orchestrating his crucifixion, the powers unwittingly cooperated with YHVH to unleash the one power in the world that dispels all evil and sets captives free. It’s the power of self-sacrificial love.

Why Penal Substitution Is Unbiblical

For the sake of keeping this already lengthy post as short as possible I'm not going to spend too much time on why exactly PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is inconsistent with Scripture, but I'll go ahead and point out the main reasons why I believe this is so, and let the reader look further into this subject by themselves, being that there are many resources out there which have devoted much more time than I ever could here in supporting this premise.

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"-1 Corinthians 5:7

The Passover is one of the two most prominent images in the New Testament given as a comparison to Christ's atonement and what it accomplished, (the other most common image being the Day of Atonement sacrifice).
In the Passover, the blood of the lamb on the door posts of the Hebrews in the book of Exodus was meant to mark out those who were YHVH's, not be a symbol of PSA, as the lamb itself was not being punished by God in place of the Hebrews, but rather the kingdom of Egypt (and thus, allegorically speaking, the kingdom of darkness which opposed YHVH) was what was being judged and punished, because those who were not "covered" by the blood of the lamb could be easily identified as not part of God's kingdom/covenant and liberated people.
Looking at the Day of Atonement sacrifice (which, again, Christ's death is repeatedly compared to throughout the New Testament), this ritual required a ram, a bull, and two goats (Lev. 16:3-5). The ram was for a burnt offering intended to please God (Lev. 16:3-4). The bull served as a sin offering for Aaron, the high priest, and his family. In this case, the sin offering restored the priest to ritual purity, allowing him to occupy sacred space and be near YHVH’s presence. Two goats taken from "the congregation” were needed for the single sin offering for the people (Lev. 16:5). So why two goats?
The high priest would cast lots over the two goats, with one chosen as a sacrifice “for the Lord” (Lev. 16:8). The blood of that goat would purify the people. The second goat was not sacrificed or designated “for the Lord.” On the contrary, this goat—the one that symbolically carried the sins away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness—was “for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8-10).
What—or who—is Azazel?
The Hebrew term azazel (עזאזל) occurs four times in Leviticus 16 but nowhere else in most people's canon of the Bible, (and I say "most people's canon," because some people do include 1 Enoch in their canon of Scripture, which of course goes into great detail about this "Azazel" figure). Many translations prefer to translate the term as a phrase, “the goat that goes away,” which is the same idea conveyed in the King James Version’s “scapegoat.” Other translations treat the word as a name: Azazel. The “scapegoat” option is possible, but since the phrase “for Azazel” parallels the phrase “for YHVH” (“for the Lord”), the wording suggests that two divine figures are being contrasted by the two goats.
A strong case can be made for translating the term as the name Azazel. Ancient Jewish texts show that Azazel was understood as a demonic figure associated with the wilderness. The Mishnah (ca. AD 200; Yoma 6:6) records that the goat for Azazel was led to a cliff and pushed over, ensuring it would not return with its death. This association of the wilderness with evil is also evident in the New Testament, as this was where Jesus met the devil (Matt. 4:1). Also, in Leviticus 17:1-7 we learn that some Israelites had been accustomed to sacrificing offerings to "devils" (alternatively translated as “goat demons”). The Day of Atonement replaced this illegitimate practice.
The second goat was not sent into the wilderness as a sacrifice to a foreign god or demon. The act of sending the live goat out into the wilderness, which was unholy ground, was to send the sins of the people where they belonged—to the demonic domain. With one goat sacrificed to bring purification and access to YHVH and one goat sent to carry the people’s sins to the demonic domain, this annual ritual reinforced the identity of the true God and His mercy and holiness.
When Jesus died on the cross for all of humanity’s sins, he was crucified outside the city, paralleling the sins of the people being cast to the wilderness via the goat to Azazel. Jesus died once for all sinners, negating the need for this ritual.
As previously stated, the goat which had all the sin put on it was sent alive off to the wilderness, while the blood of the goat which was blameless was used to purify the temple and the people. Penal substitution would necessitate the killing of the goat which had the sin put on it.
Mind you, this is the only sacrificial ritual of any kind in the Torah in which sins are placed on an animal. The only time it happens is this, and that animal is not sacrificed. Most PSA proponents unwittingly point to this ritual as evidence of their view, despite it actually serving as evidence to the contrary, because most people don't read their Old Testament and don't familiarize themselves with the "boring parts" like Leviticus (when it's actually rather important to do so, since that book explains how exactly animal offerings were to be carried out and why they were done in the first place).
In the New Testament, Christ's blood was not only meant to mark out those who were his, but also expel the presence of sin and ritual uncleanness so as to make the presence of YHVH manifest in the believer's life. Notice how God's wrath isn't poured out on Christ in our stead on this view, but rather His wrath was poured out on those who weren't covered, and the presence of sin and evil were merely removed by that which is pure and blameless (Christ's blood) for the believer.
All this is the difference between expiation and propitiation.

The Content of Paul's Gospel Message

When the New Testament writers talked about “the gospel,” they referred not to the Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide–the proposition that if we will stop trying to win God’s favor and only just believe that God has exchanged our sin for Christ’s perfect righteousness, then in God’s eyes we will have the perfect righteousness required both for salvation and for assuaging our guilty consciences–but rather they referred to the simple but explosive proposition Kyrios Christos, “Christ is Lord.” That is to say, the gospel was, properly speaking, the royal announcement that Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel’s promised Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The New Testament writers were not writing in a cultural or linguistic vacuum and their language of euangelion (good news) and euangelizomai would have been understood by their audience in fairly specific ways. Namely, in the Greco-Roman world for which the New Testament authors wrote, euangelion/euangelizomai language typically had to do with either A) the announcement of the accession of a ruler, or B) the announcement of a victory in battle, and would probably have been understood along those lines.
Let’s take the announcements of a new ruler first. The classic example of such a language is the Priene Calendar Inscription, dating to circa 9 BC, which celebrates the rule (and birthday) of Caesar Augustus as follows:
"It was seeming to the Greeks in Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: Since Providence, which has ordered all things of our life and is very much interested in our life, has ordered things in sending Augustus, whom she filled with virtue for the benefit of men, sending him as a savior [soter] both for us and for those after us, him who would end war and order all things, and since Caesar by his appearance [epiphanein] surpassed the hopes of all those who received the good tidings [euangelia], not only those who were benefactors before him, but even the hope among those who will be left afterward, and the birthday of the god [he genethlios tou theou] was for the world the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] through him; and Asia resolved it in Smyrna."
The association of the term euangelion with the announcement of Augustus’ rule is clear enough and is typical of how this language is used elsewhere. To give another example, Josephus records that at the news of the accession of the new emperor Vespasian (69 AD) “every city kept festival for the good news (euangelia) and offered sacrifices on his behalf.” (The Jewish War, IV.618). Finally, a papyrus dating to ca. 498 AD begins:
"Since I have become aware of the good news (euangeliou) about the proclamation as Caesar (of Gaius Julius Verus Maximus Augustus)…"
This usage occurs also in the Septuagint, the Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures. For instance LXX Isaiah 52:7 reads, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news (euangelizomenou), who publishes peace, who brings good news (euangelizomenos) of salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'" Similarly, LXX Isaiah 40:9-10 reads:

"…Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos) to Sion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos); lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Ioudas, “See your God!” Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with authority (kyrieias)…."-NETS, Esaias 40:9-10

This consistent close connection between euangelion/euangelizomai language and announcements of rule strongly suggests that many of the initial hearers/readers of the early Christians’ evangelical language would likely have understood that language as the announcement of a new ruler (see, e.g., Acts 17:7), and, unless there is strong NT evidence to the contrary, we should presume that the NT writers probably intended their language to be so understood.
However, the other main way in which euangelion/euangelizomai language was used in the Greco-Roman world was with reference to battle reports, announcements of victory in war. A classic example of this sort of usage can be found in LXX 2 Samuel 18:19ff, where David receives word that his traitorous son, Absalom, has been defeated in battle. Euangelion/euangelizomai is used throughout the passage for the communications from the front.
As already shown throughout this post, the NT speaks of Jesus’s death and resurrection as a great victory over the powers that existed at that time and, most importantly, over death itself. Jesus’ conquest of the principalities and powers was the establishment of his rule and comprehensive authority over heaven and earth, that is, of his Lordship over all things (again, at that time).
This was the content of Paul's gospel message...

Justification, and the "New" Perspective on Paul

The following quotation is from The Gospel Coalition, and I believe it to be a decently accurate summary of the NPP (New Perspective on Paul), despite it being from a source which is in opposition to it:

The New Perspective on Paul, a major scholarly shift that began in the 1980s, argues that the Jewish context of the New Testament has been wrongly understood and that this misunderstand[ing] has led to errors in the traditional-Protestant understanding of justification. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation were not based on works-righteousness but rather on covenantal nomism, the belief that one enters the people of God by grace and stays in through obedience to the covenant. This means that Paul could not have been referring to works-righteousness by his phrase “works of the law”; instead, he was referring to Jewish boundary markers that made clear who was or was not within the people of God. For the New Perspective, this is the issue that Paul opposes in the NT. Thus, justification takes on two aspects for the New Perspective rather than one; initial justification is by faith (grace) and recognizes covenant status (ecclesiology), while final justification is partially by works, albeit works produced by the Spirit.

I believe what's called the "new perspective" is actually rather old, and that the Reformers' view of Paul is what is truly new, being that the Lutheran understanding of Paul is simply not Biblical.
The Reformation perspective understands Paul to be arguing against a legalistic Jewish culture that seeks to earn their salvation through works. However, supporters of the NPP argue that Paul has been misread. We contend he was actually combating Jews who were boasting because they were God's people, the "elect" or the "chosen ones." Their "works," so to speak, were done to show they were God's covenant people and not to earn their salvation.
The key questions involve Paul’s view(s) of the law and the meaning of the controversy in which Paul was engaged. Paul strongly argued that we are “justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law” (Gal. 2:16b). Since the time of Martin Luther, this has been understood as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit favor before God. Judaism was cast in the role of the medieval "church," and so Paul’s protests became very Lutheran, with traditional-Protestant theology reinforced in all its particulars (along with its limitations) as a result. In hermeneutical terms, then, the historical context of Paul’s debate will answer the questions we have about what exactly the apostle meant by the phrase "works of the law," along with other phrases often used as support by the Reformers for their doctrine of Sola Fide (justification by faith alone), like when Paul mentions "the righteousness of God."
Obviously an in-depth analysis of the Pauline corpus and its place in the context of first-century Judaism would take us far beyond the scope of this brief post. We can, however, quickly survey the topography of Paul’s thought in context, particularly as it has emerged through the efforts of recent scholarship, and note some salient points which may be used as the basis of a refurbished soteriology.
[Note: The more popular scholars associated with the NPP are E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright. Dunn was the first to coin the term "The New Perspective" in a 1983 Manson Memorial Lecture, The New Perspective on Paul and the Law.]
Varying authors since the early 1900's have brought up the charge that Paul was misread by those in the tradition of Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers. Yet, it wasn't until E.P. Sanders' 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, that scholars began to pay much attention to the issue. In his book, Sanders argues that the Judaism of Paul's day has been wrongly criticized as a religion of "works-salvation" by those in the Protestant tradition.
A fundamental premise in the NPP is that Judaism was actually a religion of grace. Sander's puts it clearly:
"On the point at which many have found the decisive contrast between Paul and Judaism - grace and works - Paul is in agreement with Palestinian Judaism... Salvation is by grace but judgment is according to works'...God saves by grace, but... within the framework established by grace he rewards good deeds and punishes transgression." (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 543)
N.T. Wright adds that, "we have misjudged early Judaism, especially Pharisaism, if we have thought of it as an early version of Pelagianism," (Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 32).
Sanders has coined a now well-known phrase to describe the character of first-century Palestinian Judaism: “covenantal nomism.” The meaning of “covenantal nomism” is that human obedience is not construed as the means of entering into God’s covenant. That cannot be earned; inclusion within the covenant body is by the grace of God. Rather, obedience is the means of maintaining one’s status within the covenant. And with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness, Judaism was never a religion of legalism.
If covenantal nomism was operating as the primary category under which Jews understood the Law, then when Jews spoke of obeying commandments, or when they required strict obedience of themselves and fellow Jews, it was because they were "keeping the covenant," rather than out of legalism.
More recently, N.T. Wright has made a significant contribution in his little book, What Saint Paul Really Said. Wright’s focus is the gospel and the doctrine of justification. With incisive clarity he demonstrates that the core of Paul’s gospel was not justification by faith, but the death and resurrection of Christ and his exaltation as Lord. The proclamation of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who fulfilled Israel’s expectations. Romans 1:3-4, not 1:16-17, is the gospel, contrary to traditional thinking. Justification is not the center of Paul’s thought, but an outworking of it:
"[T]he doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved. It is, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ….Let us be quite clear. ‘The gospel’ is the announcement of Jesus’ lordship, which works with power to bring people into the family of Abraham, now redefined around Jesus Christ and characterized solely by faith in him. ‘Justification’ is the doctrine which insists that all those who have this faith belong as full members of this family, on this basis and no other." (pp. 132, 133)
Wright brings us to this point by showing what “justification” would have meant in Paul’s Jewish context, bound up as it was in law-court terminology, eschatology, and God’s faithfulness to God’s covenant.
Specifically, Wright explodes the myth that the pre-Christian Saul was a pious, proto-Pelagian moralist seeking to earn his individual passage into heaven. Wright capitalizes on Paul’s autobiographical confessions to paint rather a picture of a zealous Jewish nationalist whose driving concern was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as Jews who had lax attitudes toward the Torah. Running the risk of anachronism, Wright points to a contemporary version of the pre-Christian Saul: Yigal Amir, the zealous Torah-loyal Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for exchanging Israel’s land for peace. Wright writes:
"Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, ahistorical system of salvation... They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel." (pp. 32, 33)
Wright maintains that as a Christian, Paul continued to challenge paganism by taking the moral high ground of the creational monotheist. The doctrine of justification was not what Paul preached to the Gentiles as the main thrust of his gospel message; it was rather “the thing his converts most needed to know in order to be assured that they really were part of God’s people” after they had responded to the gospel message.
Even while taking the gospel to the Gentiles, however, Paul continued to criticize Judaism “from within” even as he had as a zealous Pharisee. But whereas his mission before was to root out those with lax attitudes toward the Torah, now his mission was to demonstrate that God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness) has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.
At this point Wright carefully documents Paul’s use of the controversial phrase “God’s righteousness” and draws out the implications of his meaning against the background of a Jewish concept of justification. The righteousness of God and the righteousness of the party who is “justified” cannot be confused because the term bears different connotations for the judge than for the plaintiff or defendant. The judge is “righteous” if his or her judgment is fair and impartial; the plaintiff or defendant is “righteous” if the judge rules in his or her favor. Hence:
"If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom. For the judge to be righteous does not mean that the court has found in his favor. For the plaintiff or defendant to be righteous does not mean that he or she has tried the case properly or impartially. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake. That is not how the language works." (p. 98)
However, Wright makes the important observation that even with the forensic metaphor, Paul’s theology is not so much about the courtroom as it is about God’s love.
Righteousness is not an impersonal, abstract standard, a measuring-stick or a balancing scale. That was, and still is, a Greek view. Righteousness, Biblically speaking, grows out of covenant relationship. We forgive because we have been forgiven (Matt. 18:21-35); “we love" because God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10, Gal 5:14, Jam. 2:8). Paul even looked forward to a day when “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10), and he acknowledged that his clear conscience did not necessarily ensure this verdict (1 Cor. 4:4), but he was confident nevertheless. Paul did in fact testify of his clear conscience: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation [i.e., behavior] in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward” (2 Cor. 1:12). He was aware that he had not yet “attained” (Phil. 3:12-14), that he still struggled with the flesh, yet he was confident of the value of his performance (1 Cor. 9:27). These are hardly the convictions of someone who intends to rest entirely on the merits of an alien righteousness imputed to his or her account.
Wright went on to flesh out the doctrine of justification in Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. The “works of the law” are not proto-Pelagian efforts to earn salvation, but rather “sabbath [keeping], food-laws, circumcision” (p. 132). Considering the controversy in Galatia, Wright writes:
"Despite a long tradition to the contrary, the problem Paul addresses in Galatians is not the question of how precisely someone becomes a Christian, or attains to a relationship with God….The problem he addresses is: should his ex-pagan converts be circumcised or not? Now this question is by no means obviously to do with the questions faced by Augustine and Pelagius, or by Luther and Erasmus. On anyone’s reading, but especially within its first-century context, it has to do quite obviously with the question of how you define the people of God: are they to be defined by the badges of Jewish race, or in some other way? Circumcision is not a ‘moral’ issue; it does not have to do with moral effort, or earning salvation by good deeds. Nor can we simply treat it as a religious ritual, then designate all religious ritual as crypto-Pelagian good works, and so smuggle Pelagius into Galatia as the arch-opponent after all. First-century thought, both Jewish and Christian, simply doesn’t work like that…. [T]he polemic against the Torah in Galatians simply will not work if we ‘translate’ it into polemic either against straightforward self-help moralism or against the more subtle snare of ‘legalism’, as some have suggested. The passages about the law only work — and by ‘work’ I mean they will only make full sense in their contexts, which is what counts in the last analysis — when we take them as references to the Jewish law, the Torah, seen as the national charter of the Jewish race." (pp. 120-122)
The debate about justification, then, “wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church.” (p. 119)
To summarize the theology of Paul in his epistles, the apostle mainly spent time arguing to those whom he were sending letters that salvation in Christ was available to all men without distinction. Jews and Gentiles alike may accept the free gift; it was not limited to any one group. Paul was vehement about this, especially in his letter to the Romans. As such, I will finish this post off by summarizing the letter itself, so as to provide Biblical support for the premises of the NPP and for what the scholars I referenced have thus far argued.
After his introduction in the epistle to an already believing and mostly Gentile audience (who would've already been familiar with the gospel proclaimed in verses 3-4), Paul makes a thematic statement in 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” This statement is just one of many key statements littered throughout the book of Romans that give us proper understanding of the point Paul wished to make to the interlocutors of his day, namely, salvation is available to all, whether Jew or Gentile.
In 1:16 Paul sets out a basic theme of his message in the letter to the Romans. All who believed, whether they be Jew or Gentile, were saved by the power of the gospel. The universal nature of salvation was explicitly stated. The gospel saved all without distinction, whether Jew or Greek; salvation was through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Immediately after this thematic declaration, Paul undertakes to show the universal nature of sin and guilt. In 1:18-32 Paul shows how the Gentile is guilty before God. Despite evidence of God and his attributes, which is readily available to all, they have failed to honor YHVH as God and have exchanged His glory for idolatrous worship and self-promotion. As a consequence, God handed them over in judgment (1:18-32). Paul moves to denunciation of those who would judge others while themselves being guilty of the very same offenses (2:1-5) and argues that all will be judged according to their deeds (2:6). This judgment applies to all, namely, Jew and Greek (2:9-10). This section serves as somewhat of a transition in Paul’s argument. He has highlighted the guilt of the Gentiles (1:18ff) and will shortly outline the guilt of the Jew (2:17-24). The universal statement of 2:1-11 sets the stage for Paul’s rebuke of Jewish presumption. It was not possession of the Law which delivered; it was faithful obedience. It is better to have no Law and yet to obey the essence of the Law (2:12-16) than to have the Law and not obey (2:17-3:4). Paul then defends the justice of God’s judgment (3:5-8), which leads to the conclusion that all (Jew and Gentile) are guilty before God (3:9).
Paul argues that it was a mistaken notion to think that salvation was the prerogative of the Jew only. This presumption is wrong for two reasons. First, it leads to the mistaken assumption that only Jews were eligible for this vindication (Paul deals with this misunderstanding in chapter 4 where he demonstrates that Abraham was justified by faith independently of the Law and is therefore the father of all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike). Second, it leads to the equally mistaken conclusion that all who were Jews are guaranteed of vindication. Paul demonstrates how this perspective, which would call God’s integrity into question since Paul was assuming many Jews would not experience this vindication, was misguided. He did this by demonstrating that it was never the case that all physical descendants of Israel (Jacob) were likewise recipients of the promise. In the past (9:6-33) as in the present (at that time; 11:1-10), only a remnant was preserved and only a remnant would experience vindication. Paul also argued that the unbelief of national Israel (the non-remnant) had the purpose of extending the compass of salvation. The unbelief of one group made the universal scope of the gospel possible. This universalism was itself intended to bring about the vindication of the unbelieving group (11:11-16). As a result of faith, all (Jew and Gentile) could be branches of the olive tree (11:17-24). Since faith in Christ was necessary to remain grafted into the tree, no one could boast of his position. All, Jew and Gentile alike, were dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. As a result of God’s mysterious plan, He would bring about the vindication of His people (11:25-27). [Note: It is this author's belief that this vindication occurred around 66-70 AD, with the Parousia of Christ's Church; this author is Full-Preterist in their Eschatology.]

Why being transgender is not a sin, by MARK WINGFIELD NOVEMBER 9, 2018

Link to original post: https://baptistnews.com/article/why-being-transgender-is-not-a-sin/#.YYk6tE7MK72
I recently met a lovely young family in the northern suburbs of Dallas. They told me they previously attended a large Baptist church there – until their high school son became their daughter.
The mother was committed to her volunteer work in the church, and when she told the pastor who supervised that ministry area that her child was transgender, the pastor said: “That’s fine. We love everybody here. But it’s still a sin.”
“Blah, blah, blah, but….” Whatever comes after the “but” always negates whatever nice things were said in the first part of the sentence. Beware of the “but.”
Some would look kindly on the suburban pastor’s response because, after all, the pastor didn’t kick the family out of the church or condemn the teenager straight to hell. But.
Even among Christians who appear kind or progressive, too often the existence of someone who identifies as transgender gets chalked up to “sin.” No doubt that’s the root reason so many Christians happily pile on against transgender persons and their family members about bathrooms and schools, because in their heart of hearts, they don’t understand transgender identity and simply default to thinking it is a sinful lifestyle choice.

I think we all can agree that a “sin” is something we do that we shouldn’t do, something we have a choice about. If I eat an entire half-gallon of ice cream, I am likely guilty of the sin of gluttony. I didn’t have to eat the ice cream. If I fixate on why other people are more athletic and agile than me in my mid-life body, I probably am guilty of the sin of envy. There is a way for me to redirect my thoughts to avoid envy.
The same is not true of transgender identity. Emphatically and conclusively, this is not a choice. It is who a person is. Did you choose to have red hair? Did you choose to be tall or short? Did you choose to have the genetic markers you have? Of course not. Transgender persons are simply acknowledging that the gender identity assigned to them at birth because of physical anatomy does not match the brain, biochemical and genetic gender identity they know inside.
Since writing a column two years ago about understanding transgender identity – an opinion article that has been read more than 1 million times and led to giving a TED Talk on the same subject – I have conversed with hundreds of transgender persons and family members of transgender persons. That’s not just ministerially speaking. It really has been hundreds. Every one of those transgender persons has told me that they knew from their earliest awareness – from the time they were 4, 5 or 6 years old – that the gender anatomy they showed on the outside did not match who they knew they were on the inside.
There is an increasing body of scientific evidence to back up this assertion. For example, a 2008 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that female fetuses with increased prenatal exposure to androgens are more likely to have gender nonconforming behaviors. Researchers – including some theologically conservative ones – point to environmental factors that may be responsible for what appears to be an increase in transgender identity through endocrine disruption beginning in the 20th century. This is linked to industrialization, development of new chemicals and medicines.
But these environmental factors only explain an increase, not the presence of transgender identity, which has been documented for centuries. The American Academy of Pediatrics (not to be confused with a small association of conservative pediatricians often cited by critics of transgender rights) recently released a new policy statement explaining that variation in gender identity is a normal part of human diversity. For an excellent, lay-friendly description of the emerging science of transgender identity, look to this report from Harvard University.

I could quote chapter and verse for study after study, and that would not change the minds of some people who are determined to label as sinful anything they do not understand, usually because “the Bible says so.” In these cases, I ask people to tell me where in the Bible being transgender is condemned as sinful. The only answer usually offered is Deuteronomy 22:5, which says: “A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the Lord your God.”
Here’s the problem with even a literal reading of that passage: Transgender persons will tell you they are not “men” putting on “women’s” clothing or “women” putting on “men’s” clothing. Instead, they are declaring an identity much deeper than clothing; they are saying that they are dressing outwardly to match who they know they are on the inside. This is not cross-dressing, which is not the subject of this column. Cross-dressing is about finding pleasure in wearing certain clothes. Being transgender is about finding mental and spiritual peace by aligning outward presentation with inner being.
Occasionally, people will point to Genesis 1:27 as a condemnation of transgender identity: “male and female he created them.” Most transgender persons will tell you they believe God has, in fact, created them as either male or female; the problem is how they have been labeled by others who are not God.
Some people today identify as “gender fluid,” meaning they find in themselves bits of both male and female identity and cannot definitely say they are one or the other. While this may sound unsettling to some of us on first hearing, a return to Genesis might help. There we also learn that God created both “night” and “day” and that God separated “land” from “sea.” Yet we have no problem understanding the existence of dawn and dusk or marshes and everglades. Also, the point of Genesis 1 is inclusion, not exclusion. The ancient text tells us that God created everything: “and,” not “or.”
The other lesson we need to keep learning from Genesis is that all humanity is created “in the image of God.” Everybody. Without exception. When we look at others who are different than us and try to see in them the image of God, we gain new understanding and empathy.
Sometimes well-meaning Christians get this part but still can’t get over the “sin” label. So they will say things like, “All of us are sinners in God’s eyes, and it’s just that my sin is different than your sin.” That’s another way of saying, “I love you, but….”
There’s an easy way to remember why this is wrong: Transgender identity is about who a person is. It is about their fundamental being as humans created by God in God’s image – an image that God has declared to be good.

Providing a list of 50 alleged falsehoods or contentious points from the Book of Mormon is a complex task and might be perceived as disrespectful to those who hold it as a sacred text. However, I can list some common points of debate that critics often discuss. If you're looking for more detailed scholarly critique, there are many sources available from historians and religious scholars.

No evidence of large-scale civilizations: Critics argue that there is no archaeological evidence for the large-scale civilizations described in the Book of Mormon.
Anachronistic animals: The text mentions animals like horses and elephants, which were not present in the Americas during the time periods described.
Wheeled vehicles: References to wheeled vehicles, which were not used by pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas.
Old World plants: Mentions of wheat and barley, which were not found in the Americas during the time periods described.
Steel and iron: The use of steel and iron in the Book of Mormon does not match the known metallurgical history of pre-Columbian America.
Silk: References to silk, which was not produced in the pre-Columbian Americas.
DNA evidence: Genetic studies have not shown a link between Native Americans and the ancient Israelites as suggested by the Book of Mormon.
Hebrew and Egyptian languages: The Book of Mormon claims it was written in Reformed Egyptian, a language for which there is no evidence.
Nephite and Lamanite cultures: Lack of archaeological evidence for the Nephite and Lamanite cultures described in the text.
Coinage: References to coinage, which was not used by ancient American civilizations.
Glass: Mention of glass, which was not produced by ancient American civilizations.
Chariots: References to chariots, which were not used in the Americas.
Cattle and sheep: Domesticated cattle and sheep were not present in the Americas during the time periods described.
Agricultural practices: Some agricultural practices described do not match those of ancient American civilizations.
New World geography: Some geographic descriptions do not match known locations in the Americas.
Fortifications: Descriptions of extensive fortifications that have not been found archaeologically.
Weapons and armor: Types of weapons and armor described that do not match those used by ancient American civilizations.
Metal plates: The use of metal plates for writing, which was not a known practice in the ancient Americas.
Christian theology: Some theological concepts in the Book of Mormon are similar to those of 19th-century American Christianity.
Biblical passages: Direct quotes from the King James Bible, including translation errors specific to that version.
Advanced technology: References to advanced technology not known to ancient American civilizations.
Complex writing systems: Claims of complex writing systems not supported by archaeological findings.
Rivers and seas: Descriptions of rivers and seas that do not match known geography.
Linguistic anachronisms: Use of words and phrases that are anachronistic to the time periods described.
Population sizes: Descriptions of population sizes that seem implausible given known demographic data.
Ethnic and racial origins: Claims about the origins of Native American peoples that conflict with current anthropological understanding.
Technological capabilities: Descriptions of technological capabilities that do not match those of ancient American civilizations.
Historical timelines: Timelines that do not align with known historical events in the Americas.
Ancient prophets: Descriptions of ancient prophets and their activities that lack corroborating evidence.
Zoological anachronisms: Mention of animals like goats and swine, which were not present in the Americas during the time periods described.
Swords and scimitars: References to swords and scimitars not consistent with known ancient American weaponry.
Natural disasters: Descriptions of natural disasters that have no supporting geological evidence.
Migration patterns: Migration patterns described that conflict with known historical and anthropological data.
Cultural practices: Cultural practices described that do not match those of known ancient American civilizations.
Economic systems: Economic systems described that do not align with those of ancient American civilizations.
Religious practices: Religious practices described that are more consistent with 19th-century American religious practices than ancient American ones.
Prophecies: Prophecies in the Book of Mormon that critics claim were written after the events they describe.
Christian themes: Presence of Christian themes and narratives in a pre-Christian context.
New World animals: Mention of animals like the curelom and cumom, which have no known equivalents in the ancient Americas.
Shipbuilding: Descriptions of shipbuilding and transoceanic travel that are not supported by archaeological evidence.
Military strategies: Military strategies and tactics described that do not match those of ancient American civilizations.
Government structures: Government structures described that do not align with those of ancient American civilizations.
Genealogical records: Genealogical records described that have no supporting evidence.
Metalwork: Descriptions of advanced metalwork not supported by archaeological evidence.
Textual consistency: Critics argue there are inconsistencies within the text itself.
Chronological inconsistencies: Timelines and events that seem inconsistent or contradictory within the text.
Lack of external corroboration: Lack of corroboration from other ancient texts or records.
Scientific knowledge: Some descriptions of natural phenomena that do not align with scientific understanding.
Societal structures: Descriptions of societal structures that are not supported by anthropological evidence.
Historical accuracy: General concerns about the historical accuracy of events and figures described in the Book of Mormon.

Found myself connecting the tridactyls to DMT today and not off any experience but history. Word of the day: Diety Yesterdays: Stargazer* Look up these peruvian cultures (in textile) and be shocked to your core: Huari Culture, Chimu culture, Moche culture, Caral culture, Paracas culture, And even “the staff gods”
Lost and overlooked or longed for and questioned depictions of garmented; robed; crowned; floating; grouped and small sized brown,bronze,tan, grey and red tridactyl beings depicted alongside birds snakes & people. Adherently found depicted among such beings were apparent (present)current 'dying out';(high priority~preservation status) hallucinigenic plants/trees. ;Going under the name Anadenanthera colubrin/vilca, cebil, cohoba, hatáj, peregrina or yopo; An ancient or ceremonial south american drug known to contain dominant amounts of psychoactive tryptamines. As well as retaining hallucinogens like DMT, 5MeO-DMT, and the colubrina bufotenin ;found to have been utilized snuff’d or concocted in drinks by prehistoric cultures. Accounted under other cultures finding its way to Wichi "Shamins", bolivian cultures like the Tiwabaku and the wari culture fron peru.
Gods; angels; terrestrial; evolutionized dinos; alternate dimensional beings; dietys; extraterrestrial; physical myth/ or lost legend
¿terrestrial 'dispute worthy "cryptids"?
‘But all this right when I was already about to start delving into Indian history or the hebrew bible. And ofc disecting upon any folks regard for well-being or safety, one questions tribal traditions like ayahuasca, maize and other spiritual;adherently mind bending/seemingly lost ancient sciences or dimensional lineages of quote lost “deep magic’s” -From a peruvian textile book "Placed in the huaco according to a rite gave it a 'new dimension' in the minds of the people"
On the same note' but out there< like these beings/ 🦖dont even get me started on these precolumbian dinosaur depiction theories lol .#spirits #religion #lore #development #reincarnation? #elves #monsters #beasts #gods #shamins #petroglyphs #archeology #history #alterdimensionaltheory #evolution

The Collect
Almighty and merciful God, in your goodness keep us, we pray, from all things that may hurt us, that we, being ready both in mind and body, may accomplish with free hearts those things which belong to your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever; Amen
Readings:
Psalm 5; 6 Proverbs 4
Gospel: Matthew 11:7–15
7 And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John,What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?
8But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.
9But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.
10For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
11Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
12And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
13For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.
14And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.
15He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Commentary:
We often find others, and sometimes ourselves, in a moment of religious fervor quoting a single verse or perhaps a passage, as a means of accentuating our editorial point or even justifying that point or opinion. When a verse is used appropriately, in that the contextual meaning of the verse actually is relevant to the theme we are seeking to emphasize, the usage stirs great emotion and sometimes introspection or encouragement. But when a verse is used out of context, the result is an opposite effect, causing confusion when the reader attempts to understand the writers intent or motivation.
Therefore, if we are going to use bible verses effectively, without sowing confusion and misunderstanding, we should attempt to learn all we can about the Bible, especially these individual scenes or vignettes we are presented with in bible studies such as the one today.
Quite frequently, the backgound of the Gospel account and the historical and cultural influences, are interesting, enlightening, and add a deeper understanding and appreciation of the lesson presented in the Gospel.
Regarding the setting or background of the passage we are studying today, we find John the Baptist—who had been arrested and imprisoned by Herod Antipas (see Mt. 4:12 and 14:1-12) hearing reports of the works of Christ—even while in prison—leading John to send two of his disciples to inquire of Jesus if he was indeed the Christ, the anointed one promised by the prophets. The one that the people were longing for with great expectations; a Messiah that would lead them out of subjugation by the Romans and restore the kingdom to its former glory as was under the reign of King David. (v. 11:2-3)
Donovan writes of this situation:
“The reason behind John’s question is found in his messianic expectations. He called people to repent (3:2), because “Even now the axe lies at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t bring forth good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire” (3:10). He warned that the one who was to come would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire” (3:12). John clearly expects a fire-and-brimstone messiah.”
“Jesus has not lived up to that billing. He has pronounced blessings on the poor in spirit, the meek, and peacemakers (5:1-11). He has called his disciples to love their enemies (5:42-48). He has warned them not to judge others (7:1-5). These teachings seem weak by comparison with the actions anticipated by John’s fire and brimstone preaching.”
“Furthermore, Jesus moved away from Jerusalem, the home of the temple and the center of religious authority, and began his ministry in Galilee (4:12).”
“Then Jesus worked a series of healing ministries in chapters 8-9—what Bruner calls an “ambulance ministry”—of tremendous significance to those who were healed, but not significant to the nation as a whole. It has been centuries since Israel has heard a prophetic voice (other than John’s). People are looking for a voice of authority—for a fire that will purge the dross—for a powerful leader who will restore Israel’s former glory—for a messiah who will restore the people of God. John keeps watching Jesus hoping to see fireworks, but thus far has been disappointed.”
“But we must admire John. He has a problem with Jesus, so he approaches Jesus as directly as his imprisonment allows—no behind-the-back criticism! He sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one or shall they look for another? John has doubts, but he seeks to learn what Jesus will say—is open to hearing Jesus say that he is, indeed, the one! ”
In verse 6, Jesus states, “And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.” John did not take offense, but only expressed doubt. We can surmise, that John was questioning his own situation just as he was questioning that of Jesus. After all if he (John the Baptist) was truly the one sent by God to prepare the way for the Messiah, why is he in prison? Wouldn’t he better serve God by being out preaching the word of God? And if Jesus was the anointed one, why isn’t he calling down lightening strikes on the Romans, putting them on the run out of Judea? John, as great of a prophet as he was, is about to learn a great lesson in messiah-ship.
“Jesus could rebuke John for his doubts, but instead offers him a blessing. Jesus has not lived up to John’s expectations, but John has not allowed that to be a stumbling block (skandelisthe). Soon enough, Jesus will deal with cities that refuse to repent (11:20-24)—hometown people who take offense (13:57)—Pharisees who take offense (12:1-8; 15:12) and conspire to kill Jesus (12:9-14) and charge that Jesus gets his power from Beelzebul (12:24)—and even disciples who desert him when the chips are down (26:31-33). John has done none of those things, but simply asks Jesus to confirm that he is the one for whom everyone has been waiting. Jesus offers the blessing, not just to John, but to all who do not take offense—all who do not stumble—all who are not scandalized. Jesus blesses us when we remain faithful in the face of prayers that seem not to be answered or hopes that go unfulfilled.” (Donovan)
Perhaps you now understand the importance of reviewing the nuances of the surrounding factors relative to a passage. Hopefully the brief summation provided helps you to understand why Jesus did not rebuke John, but in the verses suggested as today’s study, we find Jesus offering John praise.
“And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John,What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?”(v. 7) John’s disciples had departed, returning to Herod’s prison to report what Jesus had said, and Jesus turns his attention to the followers who had gone out to hear John preach and now were intently listening to and watching Jesus.
Instead of teaching in the formal places of religious instruction, such as the temple in Jerusalem or the outlying synagogues, John had preached in the wilderness, rural areas free of distraction and creature comforts. It required effort upon the part of the people to make the arduous journey out there to hear him, but none the less they did, in great multitudes according to the Gospel writers.
Jesus—in a rhetorical manner—asks them, “What went ye out into the wilderness to see?” Naturally, no one—much less multitudes of people—would make such a great effort to venture out into the desert to hear someone preach who was unworthy. “ They who are weak as reeds will be shaken as reeds; but John was strong in spirit, Eph. 4:14. When the wind of popular applause on the one hand blew fresh and fair, when the storm of Herod's rage on the other hand grew fierce and blustering, John was still the same, the same in all weathers. The testimony he had borne to Christ was not the testimony of a reed, of a man who was of one mind to-day, and of another to-morrow; it was not a weather-cock testimony; no, his constancy in it is intimated (Jn. 1:20); he confessed and denied not, but confessed, and stood to it afterwards, Jn. 3:28. ” (Henry)
In essence, Jesus is stating “Let me tell you what kind of man John is!”
“But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.” (vs. 8-10)
John was said to wear a rough cloak made from the hair of a camel, with a leather belt to gird it, eating wild honey and grains so as to avoid the comparison of those political and religious leaders who lavished upon themselves great luxury. “A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.” Is a direct condemnation of the weak and lascivious usurper who had inherited his father’s throne, Herod Antipas, who in an attempt to seduce his own step daughter granted her a wish, which resulted in her mother asking for John’s head on a platter.
“Note, they who have lived a life of mortification, are least likely to be driven off from their religion by persecution. John appeared rough and unpleasant, yet they flocked after him.” (Henry)
“A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.” Israel endured four hundred years without a prophet. When John burst onto the scene with his fiery preaching, the authenticity of his ministry generated enormous public appeal. “For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.” “John prepares the way of the one who is to come. People check roads before the king travels them. Servants repair potholes and scouts insure security. Today, executives have assistants who plan their travel, secretaries who make their reservations, chauffeurs who drive their cars, and pilots who fly their planes. Just as the services of those who prepare the way enhance the executive’s ability to accomplish work, so also John smoothed Jesus’ entry into the world by calling people to repentance.”(Donovan)
“Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist:” (v. 11a) Jesus declares John to be, not just the greatest prophet, but the greatest figure ever. Given Israel’s pantheon of heroes, such as Abraham, Moses, and David, this is an astonishing statement, indeed. What makes John so special is not his personal characteristics, excellent though those might be, but his privileged place in salvation history. All the other heroes of the faith have done mighty works, but only John has the privilege of introducing the Messiah.
“notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”(v. 11b) “ John stands at the pinnacle of the old era, but even the greatest representative of the old era is less than the humblest representative of the new. An appropriate metaphor is the ancient astronomer whose observations were limited by a small, primitive telescope. The most brilliant person, so limited, could never match the work of a more ordinary person with access to today’s space-based telescopes. Like Moses, John marched up to the border of the promise without actually entering it himself. He was Jesus’ forerunner—not his disciple. If the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John, consider where that places us. We may be very ordinary Christians, but God considers us to be great.” (Donovan)
“And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (vs. 12-15)
Jesus’ reference to violence refers to both the intensity of spiritual warfare surrounding the ministry of Jesus and His herald, and also to the intensity required to persevere in following God and His kingdom.
The exact sense of this has been greatly debated, and is made more difficult by complicated grammar. Carson probably gives the best sense of both expressions. “The kingdom has come with holy power and magnificent energy that has been pushing back the frontiers of darkness. This is especially manifest in Jesus’ miracles and ties in with Jesus’ response to the Baptist…The kingdom is making great strides; now is the time for courageous souls, forceful people, to take hold of it.” (Carson)
“For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. ” Jesus saw an era ending with John; all the prophets and the law anticipated John and his ministry as a herald. There is a sense in which John spoke for every prophet who heralded Jesus’ coming. Under the Old Covenant, every other prophet announced, “The Messiah is coming.” John alone had the privilege of saying, “The Messiah is here.”
“The ministry of John was the beginning of the gospel, as it is reckoned, Mk. 1:1; Acts 1:22. This is shown here in two things: [1.] In John the Old Testament dispensation began to die, v. 13. So long that ministration continued in full force and virtue, but then it began to decline. Though the obligation of the law of Moses was not removed till Christ's death, yet the discoveries of the Old Testament began to be superseded by the more clear manifestation of the kingdom of heaven as at hand. [2.] In him the New-Testament day began to dawn; for (v. 14) This is Elias, that was for to come. John was as the loop that coupled the two Testaments; as Noah was Fibula utriusque mundi—the link connecting both worlds, so was he utriusque Testamenti—the link connecting both Testaments. The concluding prophecy of the Old Testament was, Behold, I will send you Elijah, Mal. 4:5, 6. Those words prophesied until John, and then, being turned into a history, they ceased to prophecy. ” (Henry)
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” “A proverbial form of speech often used by Jesus after important utterances, here for the first time in Matthew.” (Bruce) A saying of Jesus that will appear throughout the Gospels which is a veiled warning to all mankind, to listen, to take heed, to understand that the teachings of Christ are indeed the thoughts and commandments of his Father in Heaven, and an implication that to ignore these words will result in less than favorable circumstances.
Benediction
It is not enough to acclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord and King. Our mission in life is to make his kingdom a reality among us and to bring it to those around us by our words and deeds. The way to do this is to live as he lived: for others, in love and service. May almighty God bless you for this task: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord and to give shape to his kingdom. Thanks be to God!
Thought for the Day:
Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury

Is it ok if I read NAB bible for study and understanding, but read KJV for literature? KJV read like poem, but obviously (for me) difficult to understand. I feel when I want to quote something, I usually go to NAB, but for understanding, I usually go to NAB

The recent beef had made me obsessed with Kendrick's songs again and understanding why the songs were made and what he wanted to communicate. When it came to Auntie Diaries, I was wondering why he went through dead naming, using the wrong pronouns and even dropping F bombs, but one line stood out to make that point pretty simple:
"Kendrick ain't no room for contradiction, to truly understand love, switch position"
The central theme of the song is empathy, and the story is about how Kendrick learns to empathise. He may have been initially supportive of transgender people around him, but he never truly understood what things they have been going through.
This is why the intro says: "Heart plays in ways the mind can't figure out".
Middle schoolers have no filter and to them it is just a word. However, it still affects queer people like me despite it being a word. People may just make jokes, but to queer people it can be seen as an attack. To Kendrick, he was taught that words were "nothin more than a sound" if the intentions weren't there. However, the heart understands that it represents a normalisation of marginalising queer people. Kendrick, just like most of the other non queer people in this story, were ignorant of that reality.
It all comes to a climax at near the end when Kendrick stand up against the Church, and with the experience of the white girl on stage.
Kendrick questions if we should "love thy neighbour" because the preacher man is contradicting that by attacking his uncle and Mary Ann.
He chose humanity over religion despite quoting the Bible, as a minor critique of modern religious practices (especially in Christianity) being more exclusionary. It became more representative of the ignorance that plagues human virtues, misconstruing the word of God to spread animosity and biases.
Kendrick's message is this: Our humanity is getting contradicted by the biases that come from ignorance. By learning empathy and understanding people, you can alleviate the contradictions and choose humanity over ignorance.

New Flash everyone: the guy who hangs out with Daniel Greene(a pro-fairy rights socialist), is loved by redditors, and got a Hugo award is… woke. Who would have ever seen that coming? But, thanks to Jon Del Arroz making a video about it on May 18th, I am here to repeat the news back to you so there is an easily accessible source as to HOW he’s woke. Everything was revealed back in January 2023, but I want people to understand the implications and narrative that he’s presenting when he says his concerns about fairy rights. By the end of this, you will realize that people calling themselves Christian does not cause them to be immune to wokeness.
In fact, with how Christianity has influenced wokeness into existence, it’s likely a lot of "Christians" are what we can call “first wave wokeness”.
For context, Brandon Sanderson is a Mormon, part of the Latter-Day Saints (LDS). Mormonism is almost exclusively a US issue, and I’ve also noticed that there are a lot of youtubers who tend to be Mormon women(probably because they have other women in the house to do the chores). These people are great with money, big in business, and their church is anti-fairy. A lot of problems the fairy-rights activists have are with Mormon churches, which is strange for Europeans to witness with how open a lot of their churches are, outside of the US. Protestant, evangelical, unitarian, the national church of Denmark, it’s a big list.
But in 2008, Brandon wrote an essay about his Mormon beliefs on how Dumbledore from Harry Potter liked to have wands stirred around in his brown cauldron. His quote:

How does this relate to Dumbledore? I'm not trying to present him as an antagonist or a villain. All I'm saying is that if you believe in the truth of your message, then you shouldn't care if someone decent, respected, and intelligent is depicted as believing differently from yourself. Decent, respected, and intelligent people can be wrong--and you can still respect them. It's okay. That doesn't threaten our points, since we (theoretically) believe that they are eternal and stronger than any argument we could make.

Back in this time, Brandon had only been an author for 3 years, but he won an award for his first published book, Elantris. He was being careful with his words, and his take is considered liberal. He was trying to defend the backlash JK Rowling received for her (poor) choice of virtue signaling and tried to mend this defense with his own religion. Mentioning his religious views is what got him canceled back then, which he later apologized for in 2011:

I cannot be deaf to the pleas of [fairy] couples who want important things, such as hospital visitation rights, shared insurance, and custody rights. At the same time, I accept and sustain the leaders of the LDS church. I believe that a prophet of God has said that widespread legislation to approve [fairy] marriage will bring pain and suffering to all involved.

He was not backing down from his religion yet. His goal post moved to the legal ramifications of the US, which are separate from his church(remember, church and state, supposed to be separate in the US), but he was still saying his religion wanted him to oppose people calling it a marriage and having it in churches. This was a second “cancellation” that didn’t go very far, mostly because he was able to use religion as an excuse for his take, with the Christian Cake Packed With Fudge Scandal not happening yet(2018).
Fast forward to 2023, after he hangs out with a bunch of woke youtubers, and we get a new quote from Brandon:

The church’s first prophet, Joseph Smith, famously taught, “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.” My current beliefs are where I’ve arrived on my journey, as I attempt to show the love that Jesus Christ taught. I look forward to seeing further changes in the church, and I work to make sure I am helping from within it to create a place that is welcoming of [fairy] people and ideas. I would love, for example, to see the church recognize [fairy] marriage among its members. Both temporally and eternally. I would support ordaining [tinkerbell] men to the priesthood. (And would support the ordination of women, though that is another issue.)

That’s interesting. It seems like he made a complete 180 on his stance, claims that he’s always believed this new stance, blames Jesus for this new stance, and then doubles down on this new stance by adding female ordination(becoming a priest and higher) and even Tinkerbells. As time went on, he decided that his religion was totally wrong about fairies, and this 13 year difference means way more than the nearly 200 years Mormonism has been around. I believe a fellow Mormon, Shadversity, would love to have a discussion about how any of this makes sense, but I’m starting to feel that he’s the same way. Who knows if Ethan Van Sciver understands Mormonism as well as Brandon Sanderson does, with how easy it is to manipulate prophecies and reinterpret scripture.
But that’s been the point for a while, right?
Wokeness is here to restructure both historical evidence and even religions, in order to shift cultures and social institutions to obey this progressive change. Words are changed in the dictionary, social “norms” are changed to be updated for a “modern audience”, and postmodernists like Foucault were able to trick college kids into thinking the Greeks were all pixie fairies. Once a critical theorist gets their hands on something with power, their goal is not to keep it as it is. It is to keep it for themselves. This is why you will hear these people say everything is subjective, which is secret code for “Look at me: I’m the captain of reality now.”
But wait, it gets better! Brandon Sanderson continued with:

Back in 2007, I was mostly known only in my community, not to the world at large. The essay, then, was directed at my local community, and was more controversial among them (for being too liberal) than it was controversial to the world at large for being [fairy]phobic. That might surprise you, if you’ve read the excerpts that often float around the internet. This was mostly me trying to encourage other members of the church to be more open and welcoming of [fairy] characters and ideas.
That said, the essay does display the casual bigotry common to people who (like myself) have lived lives where we haven’t had to deal with some of the issues common to the lives of people suffering discrimination. Many of the assertions (such as my view on [fairy] marriage) do not reflect my current stance. After writing it, and interacting with those who found it objectionable–even painful–I came to understand them and their experiences better. Though they did not owe me that honor, they gave it freely.

You see, he's honored to hear about the life of a bug chaser.
Brandon cares deeply about the pain he caused to his wallet… I mean the fairies who saw his essay. He was an award winning author back then, he didn’t know it would be a global thing. It was supposed to be only seen by people in Utah, that’s it. This is what we call: bullshit. The woke rely heavily on gaslighting and pretending they’re ignorant of everything, while telling others that they need to learn and understand EVERYTHING about a subject before they are even able to mention it.
He was already big on reddit, he knew all about his fandom, and he knew about his publisher, Tor. The only thing that really changed is that now he is unable to stick to being liberal and he has to present himself as progressive. Why? Well, the new Amazon deal happened recently, and he’s the writer of the series The Wheel of Time. As if Rings of Power wasn’t evidence enough of how Amazon mistreats their properties, Brandon was forced to erase his own past, like Agent J in Men in Black, burning his own hands in the process.
I’m not surprised that he’s woke or even that Christians are falling to this woke inquisition. When I said first wave wokeness, I would like to clarify why it’s the catalyst for all of this stupidity. Wokeness is not of Christian values, but instead a parasite upon Christianity, in the same way Gnosticism and Satanism would be. When Christianity started to allow new sects, and a lot of these were considered valid, the crazy sex cults of the 60s opened the floodgates for a bunch of crazy reinterpretations. It’s the same way as how there are still circles of Christianity that go for flat earth theory or say that dinosaurs don’t exist, with these people usually at the forefront of the home-schooling movement.
It’s not that home-schooling is bad by itself, it’s that bad people use it to then have the good people using it be wrongfully grouped into the same area, in the same way gun-ownership does. This type of bastardization has always been a problem in the US, due to the lack of authority over what makes something categorized as such a thing, thanks to liberalism allowing the freedom to constantly change things. As time went on, this liberalism changed into progressivism, with the key difference being that liberalism is an allowance of change while progressivism is an enforced change. The liberalism of the 1800s allowed the Confederates to claim Christianity approved of their enslavement of black people, by blaming the story of Ham and using scripture to claim it was okay to enslave certain people for generations. We always see this strange cherry-picking of scripture from fake Christians, and this problem has expanded into the Vatican itself with the current and following generations of Popes.
A lot of times, we’ll hear news about how Christians are under attack, a bakery is targeted to expose discrimination, or even where people claim they were banned from twitch for being Christian. But what they get wrong is that they are in the same circle as liberal and progressive Christianity, their openness created this weakness to tourism, and most Christian circles have been taken over in the US since before the 60s. The south has a culture of being liberal, Mormons have a culture of being liberal, protestants are very liberal, all because the US began as a liberal culture in the form of classical liberalism. The libertarian argument is always used by these liberal groups, that changes into the progressive enforcement, and over the years these liberal people get infected by the virus.
Add money to the mix, and we have ourselves an endless chain of liberal minded people falling to wokeness. The “redemption” narrative, along with original sin, from Christianity is currently its main weakness. The appeal to ignorance is another weakness, with people playing skeptic as a snake slithers through the grass. Christianity isn’t the problem by itself, it’s the naivety that comes from blind faith, which then expands into a contradictory blind faith that people are good inside, only to later wonder why everything is changing for the worse when evil people are put in charge. Fantasy stories have been under attack by the woke for quite a while, long before they tried to appropriate Tolkien with Rings of Power.
The fantasy that is controlled by the woke is an extension to their attack on religion, because to them a fantasy story is no different than a bible. Mythological presentation, symbolic themes, a dream-like world to present morals to follow; the entire thing has been used by Brandon to then have him later claim that he’s always had fairy characters since the beginning. Sure, his religion says fairies are bad, but then he virtue signals by claiming he’s always made fiction about how they’re good. He would never say this if the publishing world made sense and if publishers were the way they were in the 1950s. That is because he would never have to choose between religion and money back then, with money always mattering more to the typical materialist.
I’m sure people will say that I’m being hard on Christians, or that I’m evil for saying this, or even that I am a satanist for noticing. These people would only be angry at the truth being said, which is the opposite of what Christianity teaches. Fantasy writers, like Brandon, have a lot of supporters, with this support merging between the woke and Mormons. So many feel that they need to make sense of their fandom, so they claim their religion is wokeness, converting it into blind Satanism. This is far from the truth and we need to condemn those who focus solely on radical subjectivity.
Especially if they blame God for their stupid takes, like how Brandon does now.

I grew up and live in a very conservative Christian county. There are lots of Amish, and Mennonites, but mostly non-denominational Christians everywhere. I only know of one mosque and one synagogue in my city. So we were taught the bible and it was the expectation for the way of life. Well when I was 20 (I'm 23 now) I decided to leave the faith and become pagan. My parents did not respond well at all. Unfortunately I still live with them so sometimes it's still a sore subject.
Well my sister, 26, recently decided that she's not straight and wants to divorce her husband to pursue her friend. Since I came out as a bi, liberal, and pagan, my parents are more understanding but still close-minded. They're relatively supportive if she's not happy but honestly, they're digging themselves a hole and I don't understand it. I got into an argument with my mother yesterday. She said that she and my father are going to die alone since my sister and I won't come around anymore. Once I'm out of the house, they don't know if I'll come back. And if I marry my current partner who's military, I could end up anywhere.
But then it came down to my sister. I told her that she wouldn't lose my sister if she could just accept my sister. Mind you, my sister is still very Christian as well. She said she can't, it's against her religion. She can love her and be there for her and always welcome her in, but if asked, she can't support her or give them her blessing. ngl, I don't usually pick apart the religions of others out of respect, but I can't stand when so-called Christians use God as their excuse for homophobia. The bible didn't say don't support them. The original text was about pedophiles. And she kept assuming God's intent and I pointed out that she shouldn't be doing that. She would rather risk getting judged by god for not supporting LGBT than to just support them to get judged anyways. She called it unnatural and I was so mad. There are over 900 versions of the bible and not once is there a direct quote from god, all of it is mans' words. and you're going to pick that one sin to uphold? The one that will lose you both your daughters? I get that it's not necessarily fair of me to ask her to abandon part of her faith, but at this point, I can't believe that she still believes in that shit.
So tell me, why is she so concerned about dying alone with no family if she's the one bringing it upon herself? I might stay in town if I don't marry my current bf. I might have kids I don't know yet, I'm only 23 and still in college ffs. They've been concerned about me never coming back since I graduated high school, which is why they didn't let me go to college out of state. And my sister, she said she might not come back if she wasn't accepted and if I wasn't there. This is all on them. They chose their big sky daddy and the possibility of it instead of their own flesh and blood. They've made their bed, now they can lie in it. They don't get to guilt me into staying. I love my dad and my sister. I do want to come home, but my parents keep bringing it up and I just can't deal with it. Sky daddy said to love everyone. You have one job. Fucking do it or else realize that all your sorrows are man-made.

How can Christians respond to non-Christians when they mention the fact that textual criticism, which is a good thing, has led to the exclusion of many verses and passages from the Bible as not being original (which has caused many ignorant Christians getting surprised since the textual basis for the majority of NT translations today is the Nestle-Aland/UBS text)? I know that many of these verses are repeated elsewhere (e.g., Matthew 17:21 is a variant of Mark 9:29), but, for example, the Pericope Adulterae is, I think, an important passage that, of course, isn't mentioned anywhere else in the Bible (unlike the long ending of Mark, which most of it is found in other parts of the Bible). Now, some scholars believe that it actually did happen (Papias probably mentioned it, Eusebius quoting Papias: "He has set forth another story about a woman who was accused before the Lord of many sins, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews" (Church History 3:39)), but the majority of scholars believe that it isn't in the original text of the Gospel according to John regardless of wether it actually happend or not. Now, of course, these do not affect any Christian doctrine, obviously because our faith and doctrines aren't limited to only one verse. I'd say that if we remove the Gospel according to Mark from the Bible, I don't think any Christian doctrine would be affected. So, how can we reconcile this issue with the doctrine of inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Is the original alone inspired? Or the later additions (e.g., probably the story of the Pericope Adulterae was added later by the Johannine community) are inspired too?

The injecting alcohol into your veins illustration was a popular one for many years among JWs. The organization has moved away from it over the years, with it being simplified and the picture removed in the 2015 What Can the Bible Teach Us? book, and now completely absent from the 2021 Enjoy Life Forever! book. Since it was in the primary study tool, What Does the Bible Really Teach? which was used since 2005, many JWs are familiar with it and still might mention it. For those unaware, here it is quoted from Chapter 13, paragraph 13:

Does the command to abstain from blood include blood transfusions? Yes. To illustrate: Suppose a doctor were to tell you to abstain from alcoholic beverages. Would that simply mean that you should not drink alcohol but that you could have it injected into your veins? Of course not! Likewise, abstaining from blood means not taking it into our bodies at all. So the command to abstain from blood means that we would not allow anyone to transfuse blood into our veins.

What Does the Bible Really Teach? (2014)
Here, the organization makes the answer for you, "Of course not!", in that you would not have alcohol injected into your veins if your doctor told you to to abstain from alcoholic beverages.
Most would agree that avoiding a transfusion of alcohol, especially if one had an issue with alcohol, would be a wise course of action. But would that mean that you would refuse to do so, under any circumstance?
Enter... Quantum Leap!
The main plot of Quantum Leap is about a protagonist (Sam Beckett) that travels through time and temporarily takes the place of someone else, with Sam's mission being to correct events in that person's life. At a certain point in this pilot episode, which takes place in 1956 (5 years after the first "Questions from Readers" in The Watchtower was released which specifically forbid blood transfusions), Peg, who is pregnant, enters premature labor. Her wife Tom (who is currently Sam from the future and has advanced medical knowledge), is told by the doctors that there is nothing they can do to stop premature labor, and suggest doing the delivery right now and then fly the baby to LA. The baby would likely die, but the wife would survive. Since beta sympathomimetics (like Ritodrine) do not exist in 1956, Sam suggests injecting a solution of 5% alcohol into her veins to get her instantly drunk and stop the contractions. It is successful, with both Peg and the baby being safe.
The scene can be found here: https://youtu.be/JWYDCxtMh58?si=d94j1Sb-Cqh4Y_H9&t=1701
(Due to copyright, a non-react version is not available on YouTube. The scene comes from the pilot episode of Quantum Leap entitled "Genesis: Part 2 - September 13, 1956", released on March 26, 1989.)
Imagine Peg was told in the past by a doctor to abstain from alcoholic beverages. Can you imagine her refusing the transfusion because of that, even with the knowledge that her baby would likely die? While Peg would be wise not to do that for recreation or on a regular basis for health reasons, it is understandable that she would accept it when facing the risk of losing the life of her baby.
This illustration has been talked at length before, but this is the first time I have seen it being mentioned with a practical use of alcohol being given intravenously. I am not promoting any medical procedures or giving any medical advice, but thought this scene was quite interesting with that specific illustration in mind.

I am the mother of a twinless twin. In September of 2022, two weeks before their 18th birthday, I lost my son and his sister lost her best friend. I’m currently sending out to have a special ring for her made with his remains for their birthday. I wanted to inscribe it and the custom box with something but I’m suddenly at a loss of words or direction. Just his name? Our little ampersand (we both got them tattooed on their birthday)? A quote? If it’s a quote, what would resonate? I know what it’s like to lose a child but I cannot even begin to imagine losing your wombmate… Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Bible tattoo quotes

Fake Bible Quotes

"Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?"

Why Penal Substitution Is Unbiblical

The Content of Paul's Gospel Message

Justification, and the "New" Perspective on Paul

Why being transgender is not a sin, by MARK WINGFIELD NOVEMBER 9, 2018