LadyRaven

I would selectively vote MOST of them out. Ron Paul, though, I want to keep, but he's not MY congressman. There may be others just as good as RP, too, and I would not want them to go. Leaving the good ones, like RP and getting rid of the rest in a big sweep would be good, it would definitely let people who represent us know what we DONT want anyway.

Everyone pays for insurance, or is supposed to if they drive, and I would go ahead and file a claim. The admonition to turn the other cheek and give away your cloak is how to respond on a one on one basis between two individuals, not how one is to respond legally to anything. And since the OT law had specific teaches about restitution when someone is wronged, it is perfectly right to seek restitution if you have a claim. You are not obligated to do so, but it is right if you decide to do it. The only time this might become a lawsuit is if the person who hit you is driving without insurance. In this case, I would allow the police to press charges.

That house looks like it needs way too much work. But then again, some people are into that sort of thing. I had a friend in College who was going to do that. Buy old houses for cheap and fix them and then sell them for cheaper than the market price to low income people. I wonder if she has enough capital to take advantage of the housing market right now.

Well that is why I asked if this was logically not knowing or if it was absolutely not knowing. It is the same in a way as something being logically prior while not necessarily being physically prior. Like a rain drop hitting a leaf logically precedes the leaf being wet, even tho in reality, it happens at the same time. God does exist outside of time, yet at the same time, some things are logically prior to others. God sometime or other did not have anything created, later on, He did. And the only way we can discuss creation is to place it in time, which means there was an eternal "before" in which God existed and nothing created did. Has God always wanted to create the world and man and had this planned from before the beginning or was there a time where he mulled the idea over and decided. If the first is true, it could never be that he did not know because He had not decided anything - the knowledge always existed. If the second is true, then logically speaking (as opposed to ... ) there may have been a point when He hadn't considered it at all, which could mean that He didn't know in one sense. Not in the same sense we dont know things, but... See this whole concept warps my mind.

Well, do you mean that God didn't know logically, ie, He didnt know until he decided to create the world and all of it's circumstances and possibilities that might only exist in principle? Or do you mean this absolutely? As in Open Theism?

How would God's knowledge alone prevent there being multiple possible libertarian choices, as the libertarian choices are, practically and actively, in the will of man and not the direct act of God. (A direct act of God, of course would be a circumstance and nulify the whole thing, eh?) God's decision to ALLOW all of these multiple possibilities and the choices of man would be a circumstance, though. Because He could have NOT allowed it.

I have seen a few people with this, but never knew what it was. Had no idea that dogs got it, nor that it made you more susceptible to cancer. I do not have it, I'm just really really Caucasian, of the Celtic variety and I burn easily and such. This would be a real bother, seems to me.

They will vote again on another one shortly I am sure because everyone is afraid. sigh. And I do believe it's also part of the lie. Some have to oppose it or it will look too easy. Cant have a great socialist society against the people's will without a fight.

My father was married to my mother for over 37 years. She died of lung cancer. He mourned for about a year and then made a few female friends. Eventually he met my step mom, and he's very happy. I would never wish him to be alone the rest of his life, he was only 70 when Mom died.

SOunds like a serious case of obession to me. I'd leave it alone, run the other way, stay away from her.

Emphasis mine, Ovedya. That is it in a nutshell. It isn't identical to historical Arminianism, though I'd be hard pressed to explain exactly how. It has to do with the concept of middle knowledge in the first place. Which is hard to explain. I'm still reading it. Myself an Arminian and Mudcat a Molinist seem to agree that Out side the belief that God knows all possibilitys (which I as an Arminian do not reject) it is identical. Why would you an outsider to either system of belief come in and say that it is not? So far, from what I gather, it does seem to line up with Arminianism in some aspects, in the sense that the nature of what the will is seems close if not identical. It also does share with Calvinism a sense of God's sovereignty. God who created you knows you so well that not only does He know what you will do, but what you could have done. It seems to be an attempt to marry the two extremes. Still the concept of Middle Knowledge itself does not exist in either historical Calvinism or Arminianism, and that is why I can say that it is not the same as either..

It isn't identical to historical Arminianism, though I'd be hard pressed to explain exactly how. It has to do with the concept of middle knowledge in the first place. Which is hard to explain. I'm still reading it. I can say that it's a fascinating concept for the concept's sake (I like to do this. I take things I dont necessarily believe and like to play with the ideas for a while. It's odd and sometimes confusing, but if you are able, it's fun.). It's like the whole concept of an alternate universe (or several of them) or the concept that alternate realities exist for different choices. I remember reading a book, written for kids no less which explored the possibility of alternate universes for different choices. The wise person told the child that if you were to flip a coin to decide something, until you called the drop, all possibilities existed, literally in an alternative universe. Then when you called it, some disappeared, but not all, as the drop had not been made. then when the drop was made and you saw it, the possibilities that existed were even smaller, having to do with your reaction (would you accept the drop or no). Once your decision was made, only one universe existed. I wonder why I even went into that now. I think I need to eat something...

If all those possibilities of middle knowledge exist in all times and places it is definitely a contradiction to Calvinism, or at least High Calvinism, as I believe. However, if God is in complete control over all of these, having an end worked out for all of them before they happen, then I see, so far, nothing that makes it heretical. If they move toward the thought that there would be things He cannot control, know, or cause, then you move into Open Theism which is wrong. But so far in my short studies on it, I have not found anything unorthodox about it. The concepts play with your mind a bit though, like quantum physics.

wow man, we actually agree on something.

In 1913, the banking cartel fooled congress and the American government into the formation of a central, private bank called the Federal Reserve. It's not owned by the government, there is no oversight of it and the government is beholden to this bank to receive funds to run. This bank gives the government money, on loan, as much as it needs and requests. The interest on this debt is the foundation for our current monetary system. IOW, if the national debt disappears, there is no money, we'd have to go back to gold (which is a bad thing only due to the shock it would produce as few citizens actually have gold). The fed has had an agenda since before it was founded to do certain things. These things were decided Nov 1910 on a place called Jekyll Island. (I personally find this ironic, actually). These goals were as follows: 1. Reduce competition from smaller banks 2. Make the money supply elastic by taking it away from the gold standard 3. Pool interests together so that failures could be controlled and minimized (for member banks) 4. Get congress to bail out member banks in the case of failure, at tax payer expense. 5. Convince the populace that this was a good idea to reduce interest rates and even out the economy. Now, lets just take the #4 objective and think about it for a second. This is how it works. A big borrower (like a nation, a big corporation, etc) takes out a loan to finance something it deems important (like investment for growth or maybe to purchase materials for defence). But when the economy dips, often these big borrowers cant repay these loans. So, the big bank rolls over the loan. But this loan might be at a higher interest rate than the first one, so eventually that too becomes a burden. So, the big bankers make a new loan, covering the old one and the interest and so the money comes in for a while. Eventually, as people who are overextended tend to do, they continue to overextend themselves and cant repay that new load, so they borrow more money to pay that loan, plus money to improve the situation (fund projects which might earn money to help pay off this debt). More often than not, he will also need to extend the terms of the loan over more time so that the payments are less repressive. Eventually, though, in situations like this, the economy will dip again and the debtor cant pay. So they will go to congress for a bail out. Taxpayers aren't asked because...this endeavour is to important to fail and...the fed can just conjure up some money from nothing and all will be fine (never mind inflation). Now, if that doesn't work the bank who loaned the money goes to Congress and gets Congress to guarantee the money if the debtor(s) cant pay the debt because the bank is too important to fail. sometimes the IMF and other interests also help pay this off. And if that doesn't work the bank and the debtor can go to the fed and they will give you the money, if you are important enough to them. The FDIC pays the depositor's losses, and when they run out of money, they go to the fed and get more... In the end everyone ends up beholden to the Fed. Think about how many times people who should have been allowed to fail have been bailed out this way. Penn Central Rail, Lockheed, Chrysler... and we have bailed out failing financial interests who practice these policies such as the S n Ls yrs ago, and several large banks such as the bank of Detroit and first Penn of Philadelphia... The Fed's objective is to consolidate all the money under it's control and by allowing banks to lend the way described above and by scaring people into bailing these things out, they are succeeding. So no, I do not want a bail out. They practised dirty pool and need to fail. And the Fed needs to go.

I see where you are coming from, I really do, I'm 44 and have no retirement and am very poor. While there is not much they can take from me, I do worry about my children and their future. Unfortunately my children are old enough that their beginnings could be so bad that they never really get past them. The thing is, the enslavement to banking interests has been the agenda of big business interests from the very beginning, or at least for a very long, long time. It has been the cause of all the wars, even WW2 and the hostage crisis in Iran. It was the cause of the S and L crisis back a while ago and now the cause of the housing crisis. In the end, all financial interests are going to end up under the fed with no oversight from anyone. And then the fed will merge with other international banks (officially, it's been connected for years) and then the financial world will be enslaved. It is, spiritually, caused by greed. But it's not caused by everyone's greed directly, only the greed for power of a few groups of people. However, the greed of individuals (like myself, I confess, I lived above my means long enough to go bankrupt and then decided to never be beholden to anyone again) has allowed this to go by unchecked. S and L's would not have been able to over extend credit if people had not wanted that credit. Fanny and Freddie would have been out of business if people all decided to save money until they could buy a house outright. Investment banks would not be failing if people had not asked for their services. We are, indirectly, the cause of this mess. However, in the future, we can be the agents of change to get out of this mess. They can only enslave us if we want what they have. I realise how badly you want to keep what you earned over the course of your life. But are you willing to be a slave in order to keep it?

I hope death came to him as a friend. I'll miss him.

And one the other hand, he has some of the believers who are aware of his existence bound to superstitious behaviours, beliefs and fears. I have a friend in HS who did not ever shop at a flea market because there could be "demons attached to the clothing", for example. Scripture teaches to test the spirits and see if it be good or evil, to hold fast to that which is good and then to avoid evil. There is nothing evil about clothing gotten from a flea market.

Yes. The answer is, no. Something about Reformation Day (Oct 31) ? I didn't realize that many Americans celebrated Martin Luther LOL, actually my family does celebrate Reformation Day...and then all Saints the day afterwards, it's a good excuse to learn church history and decorate the house with computer printouts of really strange looking dead people....

Yes, and I believe I answered that in a post to angelique, the one about the town with 12 cats...

As I have never heard of Molinism, I'll have to do some research. However, the idea that God might know the whole of all possibilities in existence not just the current ones is not problematic to me.

"When I and my wife, a legal alien, bought our house, the mortgage company told me that if my wife were an illegal alien, rather than legal, we would have qualified for certain loan programs with big banks." One world agenda, that's what it all smells like to me. Why else would you lend to someone who isn't guaranteed to be around in a few months?

The insinuation is that she's afraid of wiccans. Which I am sure she is not. And even if she was, who cares?

yes, the Bible is clear on lying, what is not clear is if turning off your lights and not answering your door one night is lying. I would have never in a 1000 years thought of that as lying. Because it isn't. It does NOT signify that you are not home. It means very little that way since most people who are not home turn ON the lights so that they can see to get in when they do come home. Turning your light off and not answering a door is a universal sign that you are not available for company. Which is, in this case, the point. If I turned on the light and opened the door, when I was not in the mood (for any reason, not just 31 October) it would be lying as it would be saying that I *did* want company when I most certainly did not. And it would be lying twice on beggars night because this would also signify that I had candy when I most certainly dont.