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1. 

   TampaNerd said, about 11 hours ago

   lol

2. 

   cabrobst said, about 11 hours ago

   John McCain doesn’t like nude teenagers.

3. 

   ninmas said, about 10 hours ago

   if he’s a teenager i’m 105!

4. 

   poppy1313 said, about 6 hours ago

   Stop eating the fruit off his tree. I don’t care what your wife said about it.

5. 

   bald 716 said, about 6 hours ago

   it’s not your lawn, it’s Gods….

6. 

   Joe Allen Doty said, about 4 hours ago

   Yesterday, bmonk posted:

   “@JAD, the reason the Christian Church set the Birth of Christ in late December, while John’s birth was set 6 months earlier (per Luke 1: 26, 36), in late June, was because John said (in John 3:30) “He must increase; I must decrease.” So, at John’s birth, the sun is beginning to decrease, while at Jesus it is increasing”

   I would ask bmock, where did you find that information? From a Roman Catholic Church priest?

   Your proof-texting of Scripture (taking it completely out of its original context) doesn’t support your argument that claims Jesus was born in December.

   The Gospel of John, which was really written by an unknown disciple of Jesus, doesn’t even go with what is in the Gospel of Luke in regard to Jesus’ birth as a human being. Luke never saw Jesus in person in Israel. Luke was a Gentile convert from Macedonia.

   The “in the sixth month” of Luke 1:26 refers to the fact that Elizabeth was 6 months pregnant with John when Mary became pregnant. The time period has no connection with calendar dates.

   John, aka the Baptist and the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, a rabbi and Levite Priest, was not even talking about the “sun” in our solar system in John 3:30.

   He was talking about himself need to cut back in his own ministry of repentance to allow Jesus to begin His ministry.

7. 

   Joe Allen Doty said, about 4 hours ago

   When the 2 people whom LORD God only called “Adam” were evicted from the Garden of Eden, they were not naked. Genesis 3:21 shows that LORD God made garments of skin and clothed them.

   The only one who called the 2nd person “Eve” in the Old Testament was the 1st human being.

   Actually, the 2nd human was named “Khavah” by the 1st human. Don’t ask me how they were able to translate that to “Eve.”

8. 

   fredbuhl said, about 4 hours ago

   Mow the grass only around Eve

9. 

   bmonk said, about 2 hours ago

   @JAD, look closely. I did not claim that Jesus was born in December. I agree: a springtime birth fits what we know from Luke better.

   (On the other hand, since Matthew has Jesus born in Joseph’s house [in Bethlehem], he could have been born any time of the year.)

   I claimed that the Church picked this date, sometime before about the year 250, because of these texts. Back then, such interpretations (“proof texts”) were acceptable, including the re-interpretation as measuring light/hours of sunlight; nowadays they are not.

   And the sixth month would, roughly, indicate that John was born about six months before Jesus, give or take some days or a few weeks–if Luke is accurate. It is interesting that two of the Gospels, Mark and John, were apparently not interested in the birth of Jesus; they only tell of Jesus’ adulthood.

   But, then, the Church is willing to use round numbers, even when they are known to be in error, as when they celebrated the 2000th anniversary of the Birth of Christ in 2000, even though, according to Matthew, who has Jesus born before Herod’s death (which happened in 4 B.C.), that anniversary would have been before 1997.

10. 

    Joe Allen Doty said, about 1 hour ago

    “The Church” must be the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church? Right, bmonk?

    The real CHURCH is not a denomination. One becomes a member of Jesus’ church, aka The Way, when one makes one’s own decision to accept Jesus as his Savior.

    The Roman Catholic Church’s history and its “official” interpretion of the Bible doesn’t always agree with what is in the Bible.

    When I was growing up, I knew some folks who were active RCC members and they told me that their parish priests told them not to read the Bible on their own because they might misinterpret what they read.

    The RCC folks were not even members of the same church.

11. 

    Joe Allen Doty said, about 1 hour ago

    Proof-texting is only acceptable if the whole complete context of the Scripture where the “proof-texted” verse or sentence is also considered.

    One does “proof-texting” to support one’s own doctrine.

    I have heard sermons where the preacher proof-texted a Bible verse. But, the context of the verse had no connection with his sermon topic.

    George W. Bush used quite a few proof-texted scriptures to support his own agenda.

12. 

    bmonk said, 37 minutes ago

    But, JAD, when the individual makes a decision to accept Jesus as his Savior, that only sets up a personal relationship with Jesus. The Church is a community, and as a community it has rituals, reaching back to its founding. And one such ritual is the means for joining the new People of God, the Body of Christ, which is baptism.

    Baptism is not a work: we do not make it effective; it is the grace given by God that makes it work. And we do it in accord with the command of Christ.

    And the Church is not identical with the Catholic Church–even the Second Vatican Council said “this Church, constituted and organized as a society in this present, world, subsists in (“subsistit in”) the Catholic Church” (Lumen Gentium 8). The word “subsists” was chosen most deliberately, to indicate our belief that the Catholic Church is the most complete image of the Body of Christ, but that others are still members, albeit imperfectly.

    As for individuals not reading the Bible, that was a common principle of some teachers, but never the ideal. Especially in prior centuries, with the example of many churches and individuals who (we felt) strayed into error, there was a caution in studying the Bible–but Catholic tradition properly includes reading, meditating on and studying the Bible.

    As for the “official” interpretation of the Bible not agreeing with what’s there, I would be interested in any examples.