Three days.

Keep the Katy Perry pics to a minimum, please.

Kerrey/Brown

What's up with that?

Pope Francis rocked some religious and atheist minds today when he declared that everyone was redeemed through Jesus, including atheists.

During his homily at Wednesday Mass in Rome, Francis emphasized the importance of "doing good" as a principle that unites all humanity, and a "culture of encounter" to support peace.

...

“They complain,” the Pope said in his homily, because they say, “If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.” And Jesus corrects them: “Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good.” The disciples, Pope Francis explains, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of ​​possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong . . . Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation”

Pope Francis went further in his sermon to say:

"The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can... "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!".. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

Huffington Post

...how would the state vote locally and nationally?  Would it look more like Colorado in terms of politics, or would it be almost the same as it is today?

And this is why I don't believe any side has a monopoly on truth... I am willing to accept that I may very well be wrong, and if I am, I will take full responsibility for it no matter who's right in the end. 

isn't this a bit of a contradiction?  if the truth can only be approximated, surely you can't be too much to blame if you get it wrong?

I don't think I would be blamed for getting something wrong as long as I'm honest about my methods and ability to distinguish between right and wrong, but just because I desire for something to be true doesn't make it so.  I'm not obsessed with having the correct answer 100% of the time because doing so would be impossible, and I think God takes that into account when deciding who is deserving of eternal reward and who is not.  In the end, it's all hit-or-miss.

CANTERBURY, England (RNS) The Church of Scotland’s General Assembly on Monday (May 20) passed a historic vote to allow actively gay men and lesbians to become ordained ministers.

After more than six hours of debate, more than 700 commissioners attending the Presbyterian church’s 2013 General Assembly in Edinburgh voted in favor of gay ministers, but in a mind toward compromise agreed to allow parishes that disagree to opt out of the new rules.

The decision will now need to be endorsed by the church’s 48 regional presbyteries and, if it survives the regional ratification, will become official at next year’s General Assembly.

Huffington Post

Good. Consider this my endorsement.

Yes (The option for those defending human rights.)

Stop trolling.

It's not trolling; it's Oldiesfreak.

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/x-reasons-why-3d-printed-gun-nothing-to-worry-aboutph/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage

Thoughts?

Ernest, I think the consensus among historians and theologians today is that probably none of the gospels were written by their namesakes.  I know the authorship of the Pauline Epistles has been brought into question.

No trouble, Afleitch.  I realize I need to brush up on the way I convey my thoughts, so I appreciate the comments.

First of all, I think it’s important to establish that progressive Christians do not always understand God the way that more conservative ones do – even if a particular aspect of God is mentioned in The Bible.  I am only speaking from my own perspective.

I’ll elaborate on some things.  When I say that God is unknowable, I am obviously not referring to the concept of God, but rather, the specifics associated with it other than what we have been told by authoritative sources.  It is a more apophatic understanding of God.  I think the acknowledgment of such a being is sufficient enough to “know” it, but ultimately we cannot achieve the answers that lie within the competence of human reason.  A theist cannot say with absolute certainty how God uses his power beyond that said power is integral to God.

For the sake of argument, let’s use God’s omniscience and the fate of individuals after they pass on as an example.  One commonly accepted view is that God knows everyone who is going to Heaven or Hell (assuming these exist), but this runs into a big problem: because humans have not experienced God in a literal sense or know all His intentions, we cannot with any credibility say whether God uses His power to, perhaps, conceal that information from Himself.  Because God is not physically or mentally similar to us, we can only speculate, so any claims of certainty about how God acts are futile.

Yet, while we are limited in the ways we can conceive God, we are not totally divorced from His presence, and the important aspects of God that humans must know and are capable of understanding are communicated to us by His son.  With this, we now have a “bridge” to this God for which we can connect, but only in the way we are allowed to.

To answer your second criticism: first, I disagree about morality being universal, at least to man, but that’s wide of the point.  But ultimately, I cannot say whether God communicates to other beings in the same way He communicates to us, because I am limited in my human understanding of right and wrong that is influenced by evolution as well as life experience.  I would argue that God, no matter what message He’s arguing for or to whom, is “right” simply because He is the final authority – even if we, personally, don’t find His methods sound.  (And this is why I don’t think we can apply the same moral standards to God as we do to fellow humans.)

Lastly: I should have mentioned that I use ‘established’ very liberally.  The moral code (i.e. Sermon on the Mount) was established for those who would listen.  Those who lived by the old saying “an eye for an eye” exchanged it for a new one: turn the other cheek.  These rules may not have been original, but I would argue that they were re-established, or re-introduced, in another way that was unique to the people who hadn’t lived that way before.

At this point, I am pressed for time, so I wasn’t able to edit and revise this post as much as I wanted to, but I hope that this explanation of my views on the subject ties some loose ends.  I would like to reiterate that although I am a Christian, I am representative only of my own thoughts, so don't be surprised if I act contrary to traditional methods of Christians.

Mega-old post, but I don't think age denies it a place in this thread.

As an economic populist/progressive I'd have supported Orval Faubus but I would never have a agreed with his segregationist stance. The likelihood is I'd have voted for the Democrat, Faubus or not

Did Faubus merely run as a segregationist and/or, apart from Little Rock High School, did he govern as a segregationist?

From what I can gather Lester Maddox of Georgia ran as a segregationist but governed as a moderate

I didn't vote. Horrible Person and Freedom Fighter are too narrow

Dave

I'm more concerned with how politicians are bought and paid for while they're in office than how elections are influenced.

But yeah, I really wish Romney had won that election.  You know, just so it would be more convenient for people like me.

Hahaha.  Anarcho-capitalists.

More than 75 otherwise unknown documents from the early Christ movements of the first and second centuries have been discovered in the sands of Egypt, the markets of Cairo, or in unprocessed sections of European and Near Eastern libraries in the past 150 years. As these documents have been translated and studied by scholars, it has become clear that many of them belong to the very heart of Christian beginnings. Unfortunately the public knows little about these documents and churches almost never read them.

...

It is true that some of these new works have already been published in collections of what are often called the "lost books of Christianity." But this cordoning off of them into special collections has only encouraged their segregation into one of two categories. They are treated either as heretical versions of early Christianity or secret teachings that are far better than the traditional Scriptures.

I reject both of these alternatives. These documents are neither the perfect Scriptures nor despicable heresy. Rather, they contain the same and different stories, new and old teachings, powerful prayers and fresh imagery.

Huffington Post

Should The Bible be updated?

I've had belief in a God for as long as I can remember, and I've managed to go eighteen years so far without having once doubted it.  That is far from saying, however, that my faith has not evolved over the years.  I used to have such a simple perception of God.  I used to imagine God as a humanoid figure, just like you or me, who wants us to behave, answers prayers, and does a lot of neat stuff.  But I never really got in touch with my faith until I began to experience life.

God's nature has not yet been embraced by people who claim to know Him.  I think that for centuries, God has been reduced to a mere symbol whose very being exists within the circle of human understanding.  Few God believers are willing to acknowledge that this God, should He indeed exist, goes beyond human conception, which has since the beginning of mankind consisted of people's thoughts and writings.  But this acknowledgment of an unknowable God doesn't discourage me.  In fact, it entices me into thinking of this God as something greater and beyond human perception of its foundation.  Isn't that, in the long run, what makes this God so good?

And this is where Christianity comes in.  As a Christian, I believe that God manifested Himself as a being that's human as God could get while still being wholesome in uniqueness and power.  This, I believe, was to create a relationship between God and creation that could be appreciated and understood.  The great irony of this is that we, if anything, have gone further away from understanding God through the infinite number of questions that have stemmed from the life of this one man.

And this is why I don't believe any side has a monopoly on truth, and I don't believe that anything should be approached with absolute certainty.  I am willing to accept that I may very well be wrong, and if I am, I will take full responsibility for it no matter who's right in the end. 

But I find myself infuriated with those who abuse God for the advancement of their selfish and destructive social agendas.  We now have this notion that you can buy your way into Heaven and use fear tactics to get people to accepting a moral code, which, 99% of the time, doesn't come close to the moral code established by Jesus Christ.  We now have this notion that God only works for man in this universe and nowhere else, and this is a God that I just can't accept.  I think that until we worry more about the people destroying our world than the one Who created it, we as a human race will never advance the way each and every one of us needs it to.

Do IQ/race fanatics count as an 'alternative science group?'

This seems like a good idea, although I hope the Northeast is never again cursed to have an assembly so inactive that they can't even approve an effing form of debate.

My sentiments exactly.

[Company Cutbacks Protection Act]

Company Cutbacks Protection Act

1. In case of company cutbacks, the employer has the right to dismiss employees. The employees have the right to be compensated, up to twelve months of salary depending on the time with the employer.
2. No employer can give its management a bonus for two years after reorganization.
3. No employer can give its management a raise higher than 5% for three years after reorganization.
4. Employers have the duty to assist employees dismissed after cutbacks in finding new work. This duty exist until six months after dismissal or when the former employee refuses four job offers obtained by their former employer.
5. The employer have the right to designated part of the dismissal compensation to educational purposes for the employee.

I endorse this measure, of course.

Three days.