DOJ |OT| SUMMIT NOW SUMMIT NOW

[benjipwns]

ResetERA.com staff gathering photo, 2019

(Image removed from quote.)

Is this loss?

[nudemacusers]

Holy Christ I’ve never seen this much melodrama at an actual retirement 😂

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Roy is gone. Fiction is gone. Finale is gone. Nepenthe is on break, which means when she comes back rejuvenated she'll realize this shit ain't worth the stress, and she'll be gone too.

Congrats to the assholes. You win. Pieces of shit.

RIP  :'(

[ShutUp]

Where was this rage when they demanded the gay black mod be removed? Oh right, only the ones already protected can complain about the mods, even though said mods bend over backwards to keep them happy.

[clothedmacuser]

I am a black woman. I am also a moderator.

This bit of intersectionality has been one of the hardest weeks I as an individual have had to deal with in my life. Right now I'm sitting in my car with a cry-headache trying to leave to go to my brother's house. I barely have the energy.

It's been interesting to see both sides of the spectrum, where on one end my input in threads concerning black representation and issues is valuable because I can speak from life experience and knowledge, and then on the other end I get called a cop with all of the pain and irony that entails simply because I was the fool who said "yes" to volunteering.

I have simultaneously felt valued and valueless throughout this endeavor, and it's made me question whether or not I'm even a good person. I don't know how to parse the emotional toll, other than to just ignore it and make do with what I have and serve the community with the powe rand knowledge I myself have. Because I want this place to succeed. But I admit, my emotions have been all over the place.

That's all. I figured the most appropriate thread to open up in would be this one. To anyone who has given me and the other staff members a kind word, thank you. To anyone else who is dissatisfied with our performance: I understand, and I still apologize. Just remember we are human too.

I will be taking a break. I'm not leaving the forum, or my position, but I think I've exhausted myself to the point where my basic mental and even physical faculties are beginning to degrade. Continuing in my state right now is not fair to myself or to the people who want better.

I don't know how long it'll be either. I guess just long enough to bounce back. I love you guys. See you later!

She now knows the pain of an old woman being sent to the hospital from a beating. 



It's time to heal.

I know Nepenthe, you know Nepenthe, anyone who knows her knows she's a good person and yet she's left in a spot where she's even questioning that, it's awful. It's also shitty for trans people or any other minority to feel the way they feel here, that is not how things should be. I don't have the answer beyond there needs to be some sort of communication without everyone going back to their corners.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-just-want-to-say-thank-you-to-the-moderation-staff.155006/post-26781821


 



I wonder how many trans people on era look  at Excel and Feisty boots posts and just shake their heads and wish they would shut the fuck up.

[bdoughty]

So when Amir0x gets justifiably killed in prison via piss waterboarding, is his punishment in hell going to be eternal sex with age-appropriate women?

Sounds more like a punishment for the age-appropriate women, even for Hell that would seem cruel.

[clothedmacuser]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-just-want-to-say-thank-you-to-the-moderation-staff.155006/post-26780359

I'm just letting them know their work doesn't go unappreciated. What's wrong with that? Some people just want to see this place burn to the ground.

Your shit ain't as slick as you think it is tbh. I was tempted to keep quiet because this is an obvious bait/trap thread (btw, real cute putting that "the majority here appreciate you", because if there's anything queer posters, posters of color etc like being reminded of, it's that we're The Minority), but then you had to insert this shit which is just blatantly "Minorities with valid concerns and criticisms? Couldn't possibly exist, people just want to see this place burn to the ground" and it's fucking sickening to see us get downplayed and dehumanized to that regard so casually. Not just here and now but anytime we have something to say. If you want me being silent about it like you clearly want me and everyone else being silent about everything else that Bothers You, please spare us the time and outright say that you want us banned. At least that's honest

WTF is this?
 

Support is casual racism.  I love how they blame outside forces for their paranoia.

[KarpalaJoe]

We're all supposed to believe Nepenthe decided to step back ?   

Damn, she can't sing for shit, but Camilla Cabello is  .



 

[Potato]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/every-day-about-600-bad-faith-trolls-enter-resetera.154968/

User Banned (Duration Pending): Xenophobia

These are predominantly young incel men arriving mostly from 4chan, reddit, NeoNaziGAF, 8chan, Facebook and many other alt-right and white supremacist forums. ResetERA.com is a forum of about 10.5, hundred people with an aging, decreasing population. By ResetERA.com standards, 600-700 people is one new alt-right thread daily. It's also about 250k people per year, equal to one ResetERA.com Hangout of considerable size. At this rate it's very likely that in less than 20 years ResetERA.com, which is a welcoming bonfire, could be another alt-right terrorist forum.

Next to the small Hangout that I live in there is a junior poster hospitality center. In the last few years the crime rates have skyrocketed. The place that I grew up is now pretty much a Wild West where anything goes, moderator presence in non-existent or even worse, useless. Last week the community residents got together to discuss and agreed to fund and hire a private security firm to police the town streets because the ResetERA.com staff can't be bothered. It's obvious that Cerium and the forum elite is very fond of what is happening, hoping that this will help solve ResetERA.com's ageing problem and increase the population/consumer base while providing below poverty-line poster salaries.

I've never voted for the right, I am an atheist and a vegan. I try to show compassion for the hardships of other people. But is it wrong to not wish to live in an alt-right shithole in many of which I would duration pendinged or permabanned for being black and gay?

User Banned (permanent): Xenophobia

This is not the best forum to post this, OP. I may get banned for saying this, but it's not wrong to be concerned about a huge influx of bad faith posters, especially ones that have different beliefs or lifestyle than what your forum is accustomed to.

Banned for telling the truth in a reasoned and non-racist manner. Fuck you REEEsetera!

[thisismyusername]

I did see her on a dating app a few years ago in like...fetishy outfits

And yet you didn't take your shot...

I did but her account was deleted shortly after :negative

You spooked her with her now knowing you were hot for teacher, I guess.

[benjipwns]

Roy is gone. Fiction is gone. Finale is gone. Nepenthe is on break, which means when she comes back rejuvenated she'll realize this shit ain't worth the stress, and she'll be gone too.

Congrats to the assholes. You win. Pieces of shit.

Wait, wasn't The Kree one of those demanding the admins/mods heads?

edit, oh, he just wanted more severe bans: https://www.resetera.com/threads/resetera-moderation-staff-is-fucking-up-beyond-belief-on-lgbt-issues.153951/post-26641845

I've heard multiple site staff members, past and present, say that they want this forum to be a safe space for minorities. I believe them when they say that. But I don't think this can be a safe space when the burden of informing and educating fuckwits who may or may not be sincere constantly falls on said minorities.

Every day there is a thread about sexual assault or police brutality or a trans person being thrown out of a bathroom or a gay couple being denied wedding reception services or a Muslim banned from traveling in the US, and every day those threads get filled with idiots who don't get the fucking issue, and every day the overriding sentiment among members of the affected groups is that they're sick and tired of having to explain and justify their existence to these idiots who don't get the issue or understand the anger. I believe the reason this keeps happening is because the site staff is too lenient as it pertains to these kinds of issues. They seem to believe that people should be given a chance to correct and advance their stunted or backwards attitudes on these issues, so they dish out temporary punishments in the form of warnings and one month bans. I don't believe this should be the place for correcting these attitudes. I think this should be the place where you either come with the correct attitude or get the fuck out.

Oh, you can manage to simultaneously participate in three fantasy football leagues at once but you can't comprehend the statistical improbability of a woman lying about being sexually assaulted? You can memorize ten-hit combos for a dozen Tekken characters but you don't understand the effects of hormone treatment on bone and muscle density on trans athletes? You can follow the convoluted as fuck Kingdom Hearts story line but you don't get what it actually means when people say fuck all cops? You lying pieces of shit.

Warnings and one month bans are kiddie punishments for kiddie shit. Give those to people who port beg or whine about the Epic Game Store or whatever the fuck trivial shit that doesn't really matter. When somebody comes into a thread on some all lives matter shit or talking about they're not comfortable sharing a bathroom with a trans person - six months for the first ban. Second ban for a similar offense is permanent. If they claim to just be asking questions or trying to have an honest debate, they can type those questions into Google and find their answers there during their time off from the forum, or they can go back to jacking off to whatever Atelier fantasy bullshit with their Dorito crusted hands. The site staff needs to be swift and decisive with the punishments and stop trying to balance civility against justice. And if the worry is that people will be afraid to say anything in those topics with harsher moderation, good - more of you motherfuckers need to learn to shut up about certain things and just listen.

Site staff: You do a thankless job, you do it for free, and you're constantly getting shit for it by the people you're trying to serve. I imagine you're often incredibly frustrated by what goes on here. I think a solution for your benefit and the benefit of these minority groups is to stop wasting time trying to discern bad faith actors from sincere ignorance and actually try create a real safe space for once. If these suggestions sound ridiculous or draconian or whatever, so what; all these minority groups have had to learn lessons about what they can and can't do, where they can and can't go, what they can and can't have in the world. The bigoted fuckheads can take that lesson too and realize everything ain't for them either. There are other forums they can enjoy where they can say whatever the fuck the want free of reprisal.

[BIONIC]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hold-up-wouldnt-satan-reward-us-heretics-instead-of-torturing-us.152204/page-6#post-26768908

Sure thing. I'll expand on that thought a bit more in response to another post below.
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You're welcome. Ultimately, the battle for each individual person's immortal soul is not in the head so much (mentally) as it is in the heart (spiritually).

Say for instance a person has not decided to establish a eternal relationship with (the biblical) God. The bible says no one that is unsaved decides on their own to go looking for Him. That is to say, this person is not waking up one morning and thinking on their own, "You know, I honestly want to find God for a relationship with Him." and then goes out to try to find where God is at for that relationship to begin.

So, for a person to do that on their own (with no urging from God whatsoever) would be the ultimate good deed in their life (pure goodness is described in the bible as being"holy"), but all of us are completely incapable of doing that without Him because of the sin in our hearts (Psalm 14:2-3):


Romans 3:11-12 echoes that conclusion:


This is why God has to come to us, not the other way around. After defying God the Father's specific warning in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve tried to hide from Him (Genesis 3:9). The whole scenario supports this main point perfectly... because of our sin, we don't go looking for God, we instead hide from Him as best we can.

In modern times, we hide from Him by immersing ourselves oftentimes even deeper into sin: alcohol/drugs, illicit relationships with other people, criminal activity, spritually lazy distractions like video games/TV shows/sports, etc. (if we prioritize them over Him), pride-filled vanity pursuits, emphasizing success/money/etc. over everything in life, and on and on.

So just like Adam and Eve, not only do the sinful people of any era or geographic location NOT go searching for God on their own, they run away from Him. However, the good news is that just as God still loved His children in Eden so much that He went out to search for them (Genesis 3:9), the Lord is pursuing each and every sinner that is still alive today with all of His heart to save them from eternal damnation brought on by their sin. Jesus said so Himself in John 6:44 and Luke 19:10:



How does Jesus do this? He doesn't solely come to our mind to merely reason it all out with us. That method is insufficient. The mind will entertain the temptations from Satan to consider false interpretations of Christianity, embrace false religions altogether, or reject God outright by saying He doesn't exist.

That's the best that the human mind that is corrupted by sin can do on its own. The deeper, more true connection between God and us is, again, through the heart. A stirring in the heart that begins with a sincere belief in Him after He first comes to each individual person in His desire for that relationship.

Jesus said in Revelation 3:20 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me”. Jesus is talking about the door to your heart that you open with belief.

He will not force His way in, but will politely (and throughout one's relatively short life, persistently) continue to knock in hopes that you will *choose* to let Him in. The Holy Spirit carries out this activity on His behalf. If you do accept the Lord, your heart is transformed to be one with Jesus forever, and the two of you will dine with one another as the verse explains.

Dine on what? This is not a physical relationship that dines on earthly food, but through the heart it is an eternally spiritual relationship that dines on spiritual food: the word of God. As I said above in my first post, the real, eternal "you" is not the physical body, but the life that resides inside of it.

With the nourishment of spiritual food flowing inside, the real "you" has the fuel to grow spiritually. The spiritual growth begins initially here on earth once a relationship with Jesus is established in the heart, and ultimately continues forever in heaven. One of the most famous quotes from Jesus encounter with the devil when He refutes one of several temptations illustrates this principal (Matthew 4:4):

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The idea that God is punishing a person who does not choose to have a relationship with Him is not what the bible is describing. Instead, it goes like this:

- God evaluated the universe He created and everything in it at that time (before humans chose to sin). His conclusion was that everything was either individually "good" or altogether "very good" (Genesis 1). Nothing bad existed in the universe or on earth at that time. Sinful choices of mankind (starting with Adam and Eve) corrupted everything good that was created. Every physical aspect of the universe, every different type of human emotion and intellect, even the very nature of the soul itself, is tainted by sin in some way. This is why we have to deal with "natural disasters, illness, infant mortality, etc."... our collective choice to sin brought those misfortunes upon us, not Him.

- With that said, everything good that still remains comes from God (James 1:17). Not only external, physical things of His creation (water, the breath of life, the components of effective medicine/healing technology, many kinds of talents in the arts and other areas of skill and ability, etc), but this also includes the internal moral compass of what is good that everyone was born with that the person can choose to follow, to ignore, or to defy. This understanding is brought to the person's attention via the Holy Spirit, aka a "good conscience" (John 16:7-8), who also makes the case for Christ in an unrepentant sinner's heart (John 15:26). The "bad conscience" is wrought with temptation that is brought into your mind by Satan (Matthew 6:13).

- God stated the consequence for defying Him: death, which initially meant an infinite life in a perfect universe (untainted by sin at the time) was no longer possible. This was to be followed by death in the form of an eternal separation from Him after the physical death, which is said to be burning in the lake of fire forever (the absence of anything good since God is no longer around them).

- No one in and of themselves is "good" due to their sinful choices to defy their Creator once temptation is brought to their attention. Not Adam or Eve, not you, not me, not MLK, not Jesus' mother, not the Dali Lama, not the Pope, not Noah, not Moses, not the apostles Peter or Paul...no one is good, no not one (Romans 3:10-12 and Isaiah 64:6).

- God the Father cannot be around sin. Heaven is where He resides and sin cannot enter that place. Why? For one, the pure holiness (perfect goodness) of the Father in heaven makes it impossible for sin to exist in His presence. Also, wherever sin exists, it taints everything and everyone with evil and corruption - no exceptions. Heaven would become just as bad as the universe is now if sin were allowed inside of it, filled with sorrow and anguish and hate and wickedness and perversion and more.

- You yourself believe it would be wonderful if there were no more "natural disasters, illness, infant mortality, etc.". Me too! That's in great part why I am looking forward to when I get to heaven (after God's plan for me here on earth has ended). It will be the place where not one iota of "bad" or death will ever exist ever again (Revelations 21:4). God has made this freely available to everyone who will then be able to be  forever in the presence of the Lord (1 John 3:2).

- No one who makes it to heaven (by choosing to believe in their Creator) gets in by any list of good deeds they accomplished on earth. Entry is a free gift for whoever wants it. They affirm that they want it by believing in He who is giving salvation away. Only by coming forward to God the Father with the righteousness of Jesus Christ representing them (instead of their own righteousness) can one enter into heaven (Romans 10:9–10).

Therefore, the ones that wind up in hell have only themselves to blame and not God. All of them chose not to have a relationship with the Lord, and hell is the only place where that choice can sadly be honored (God will not force you to choose Him over the love of sin).

Everyone innately knows enough about right and wrong (whether they've heard of Jesus and the bible or not) to agree they have no defense of ignorance against His judgement for many of the sins they chose to commit. Not one of us can claim that we have never lied, that we have never cheated, that we have ever acted out in anger towards another, and that we have spent our lives defying our Creator. This includes sins of wrongdoing, sins of evil words coming from our mouths, or sins of intentionally developed thoughts (Mark 7:20-23) that we know are wrong in God's eyes.

With that in mind, He could have carried out the sentence on any of us at any time as a result. However, in His grace and mercy God provided an escape from eternal condemnation through the work of His Son on the cross and subsequent resurrection.

All a person has to do is accept that pardon since the price for their sin was paid if they want it. If you choose not to believe, how can you say that He is being unfair? You would simply receive what you chose to embrace instead: to be eternally separated from the only source of good in existence (the presence of God). If you don't agree to let Jesus pay for your sins, you will pay for it yourself.

With the absence of a rejected good God for eternity, one is by definition subjected to the absence of anything good forever and ever, which is horrifically bad beyond what any comprehensive description can convey. Still, it is through the bible that God warns against going to the lake of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:42) and utter darkness (Matthew 22:13).

This is no game; this is your eternity.
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To the main point of objection, you are not fully aware of what you ask in your desire for everyone to obtain the "truth" that we all "deserve" when defending Adam and Eve's sin of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge that was forbidden to them.

Since you say you are familiar with the narratives in the bible, think about it for a bit. Firstly, God stated that defying Him would bring death into their lives (Genesis 2:16-17). Death wasn't present before then, so how is the introduction of the first death (the soul separating from the physical body, Hebrews 9:27) and later the second death (the soul eternally separated from God, Revelation 21: an improvement over their initial existence of peaceful bliss? It clearly was not, and it also shows that God told them the truth (with His awareness of how bad things would become for mankind), so no one could claim either ignorance of the law, or accuse Him of malfeasance.

Next, please note that Satan told Eve (who later passed the lie to Adam) that God was wrong and they wouldn't die if they defied Him (Genesis 3:4). That turned out not to be true, since an earthly death is obviously part of our physical timeline directly because of their terrible choice, and a spiritual death is what hangs over every person's head because of sin unless we believe the fact that Jesus paid for our debt with His own life.

So the question then is, what productive knowledge did they gain after defying God? There isn't an immediately obvious positive gain after they sinned from their standpoint since the bible doesn't state that Adam and Eve were happier, enjoyed life more abundantly, or had a deeper closeness with each other and God respectively. It doesn't even say that the skies were sunnier, their relationship with nature improved, that they became smarter and healthier, or that work became easier.

In fact, the opposite happens in every single one of these points (and a lot more). The woman was cursed to endure a painful labor to produce children and be subjected to a naturally more subservient relationship with her husband. The man was cursed to toil the earth to get it to produce anything worthwhile, and a physical death would eventually take him out. (Genesis 3:16-19).

Nature and the universe itself was scarred by sin in that destruction, pestilence, famine, drought, earthquakes, fire storms, disease, etc. were introduced into existence. Internally into humanity's heart came hate, strife, violence, wars, agony, misery and perversion.

So Adam and Eve did not celebrate their newfound knowledge of evil even before His judgements against them were passed down. Instead, they ran and hid from God because of guilt and shame, and they ultimately suffered (internally and externally) for the rest of their years on the earth as He had explained they would.

Ever since that awful moment in Eden, people since then have been trying to get back to that Utopian way of life. We try to delay death, predict and protect against natural disasters, impose laws to control deviant human behavior and fight in wars for various reasons. Any and all of this is a bandaid for worldwide peace and happiness at best, and moving us in the opposite direction at worse.

The problem is that sin is a constant roadblock as it prevents many from reuniting with God (through their choice to avoid Him) who is the only source of anything truly "good" like peace, love, joy, and eternal life.  So that discounts any value in knowledge that they (we) were conned by Satan into obtaining.

Carrying the point further, like a caring mom and dad it's not hard to think that God doesn't believe we need to experience the terribleness of sin in order to be complete people. What parent would reason to themselves, "Well, I already told my twelve year old that smoking crack is bad for her, but let me drop her off with strangers at a notorious crack house for summer vacation so she can come into that knowledge for herself."

That would be insane. Absolutely nothing good came to Adam and Eve (and us by extension) from listening to Satan's lie about obtaining "knowledge". Even sex wasn't forbidden to them since they were told to reproduce (Genesis 1:28).

Did they technically know more in general? About all things evil, yes, but they would have been better off simply trusting what God already knew about evil. They trusted the devil instead, and a price continues to be paid. So Jesus was correct when He said in John 10:10, which says in part:


This is all he does. To this day, Satan continues to tempt mankind with sin so that He can steal your love, peace, and joy (like he did with Adam and Eve), so he can kill every life that comes into existence (like he eventually did with Adam and Eve) and so he can destroy any truly good things in your life that comes from God, including attacking the opportunity for salvation (like he tried but failed to do with Adam and Eve).

Thankfully, Jesus provided a second half to the verse above:


Put Adam and Eve's misadventure aside for a moment. Today, here and now, are people who made the same awful choice that they did in that they gave in to the evil one's temptations. The bible doesn't say you will be condemned for doing that; you are already condemned (John 3:18). The bible doesn't say that you will be an enemy of God without His righteousness in your heart, you are already His enemy (James 4:4).

But due to His love, grace, patience and mercy, you still have his breath in your lungs to choose wisely while your eternal judgement is temporarily put on hold. In practicing what He preached in the sermon on the mount, Jesus loves His enemies (Matthew 5:44). That is the only reason why some of you still have the choice to accept an eternal freedom from the presence of sin over the choice of damnation due to the penalty of sin by wanting to be separate from your Creator.

The bible urges over and over (i.e., parts of Psalm 95:7-8) not to wait to respond to the Holy Spirit knocking on the door of your heart, but to instead accept the free gift of salvation today:

+++++++++++


Heh, one of my all time favorite tales as a kid was a really cool unauthorized spin-off of "Through the Looking Glass". The 1947 short story is called "Mimsy Were the Borogroves" by Lewis Padgett, and it kinda touches on the point that you are making at the end (though you can skip the terrible movie version that came out a few years ago). :-)
+++++++++++


I briefly addressed a similar claim in my first post, but that's not something we would ever had to worry about. God's is sovereign, and He will accomplish His plans to maximize the number of those who choose to come into salvation over the course of human history whether we decide to join with Him or fight against Him.

God's Plan A for humanity (John 3:16) is still in effect: to establish a two-way, loving relationship with whomever will choose to believe in Him (eternal life in heaven), and to sadly acquiesce to the choice of those who reject Him (eternal separation in hell).

How that plan plays out for our own, individual lives is up to us, but either choice won't prevent Him from moving his plans forward for all of mankind across the world and throughout the ages. He does it by his command because his word is that powerful (Isaiah 55:11):


Two examples...

In the book of Jonah, God had declared a judgement on the city of Ninevah in that they would be destroyed within 40 days because of their evil ways after Jonah finally delivered this message to them (he was initially delayed due to a self-inflicted set back). Though God was fully prepared to follow through on that judgement, He ultimately did not destroy those people because Ninevah citizens from the king on down repented (changed their hearts towards God).

So yes, God has various ways to adjust specific activity depending on what we choose to do (individually and collectively), but the ultimate Plan A was obviously still in effect as evidenced by His mercy in this instance. Sadly, once this generation died out, the future generations went back to their wicked ways and were ultimately destroyed 120 years later, but the blessing of eternal life for the initial generation will last forever.

The second example is one of the most eye-opening passages I've read in the bible... the Lord once ventured out into the wilderness in order to kill Moses who was camping with his wife (Exodus 4:24-26). The reason why is that at the time Moses was heading back to Egypt in order to confront Pharaoh and free the Hebrew slaves, but due to Moses giving in to his non-Jewish wife's decision not to allow their son be circumcised as Jewish boys were required, he was unfit to eventually bring God's Law (the commandments) to the Hebrews and be God's spokesperson if he couldn't follow the main laws himself. As the passage shows, eventually the wife reluctantly relented, so Moses' life was spared.

How different would history had been had Moses been killed? He still would've gone to heaven for his faith in God, but what about the Hebrews in captivity in Egypt? Simple - God would've raised up another (obedient) servant in his place. For all we know, maybe Moses was already the second or third choice because of, well, reasons.

In the end, The Lord's primary plan always moves forward whether we choose to be in or out.
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No, that would not have been an issue at all.

As I referenced in my first post, the bible said God wanted salvation for everyone (2 Peter 3:9 and 1 Timothy 2:3-4, among others) , and that hell was enlarged to accommodate people who died in their sins (Isaiah 5:14-15) since it was originally built only for the devil and his demons (Matthew 25:41).

We can take these perspectives to assume that the original plan for Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" (had they not succumbed to the temptation of sin) would not have encountered any types of problems such as the one you describe (running out of room).

Even from what we do know of life on the corrupted world we live in right now, things are not nearly as cramped (space-wise) on this earth as you might think. Consider the fact that New York City is the most crowded city in the U.S. It has around 8,398,748 citizens who are poured out over about 303 square miles of land. This means that about 27,719 citizens live in each square mile of the city.

Compare that to this crazy statistic... if the state of Texas (261,232 square miles) were densely developed in a way that is comparable to life in New York City, the entire world's population of about 7,550,000,000 could then move into Texas with 28,902 citizens living in each square mile.

So whether you lived in NYC (27,719 citizens per square mile), or moved to Texas with the entire world living there (28,902 citizens per square mile), the density of people living around you would be roughly the same. Play that out over the course of the entire U.S. as time moves forward, or over all of North America, or over the entire world. Especially in an environment where sin had not yet corrupted anything, it would take eons for the earth to fill up without even a lick of discomfort or turmoil for anyone.

And what would've happened at that point? C'mon, some of you out there have played No Man's Sky. In God's undefiled universe, why couldn't humanity then venture out into space unhindered to expand the population even more? Remember, there is no death or evil circumstances to fear, so anyone could boldly venture out to see what wonderful things could be discovered and enjoyed (that's my theory at least, lol).

Nothing we've done in human history up to this point comes close to the awesomeness that God had planned for us to experience if we collectively maintained our trust in Him and not listened to Satan's temptations along the way. Thankfully, the promise of indescribable goodness is still obtainable for those who choose to spend eternity in heaven. When the Lord says that we cannot even imagine how cool everything in heaven really is (1 Corinthians 2:9), I for one believe Him.
.....

God bless each and every one of you!

I preferred it when my bots were trying to sell something actually real. Like authentic Belgian passports 

[benjipwns]

i heh'd at Fiction's post right after that

[Potato]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hold-up-wouldnt-satan-reward-us-heretics-instead-of-torturing-us.152204/page-6#post-26768908

Sure thing. I'll expand on that thought a bit more in response to another post below.
+++++++++++


You're welcome. Ultimately, the battle for each individual person's immortal soul is not in the head so much (mentally) as it is in the heart (spiritually).

Say for instance a person has not decided to establish a eternal relationship with (the biblical) God. The bible says no one that is unsaved decides on their own to go looking for Him. That is to say, this person is not waking up one morning and thinking on their own, "You know, I honestly want to find God for a relationship with Him." and then goes out to try to find where God is at for that relationship to begin.

So, for a person to do that on their own (with no urging from God whatsoever) would be the ultimate good deed in their life (pure goodness is described in the bible as being"holy"), but all of us are completely incapable of doing that without Him because of the sin in our hearts (Psalm 14:2-3):


Romans 3:11-12 echoes that conclusion:


This is why God has to come to us, not the other way around. After defying God the Father's specific warning in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve tried to hide from Him (Genesis 3:9). The whole scenario supports this main point perfectly... because of our sin, we don't go looking for God, we instead hide from Him as best we can.

In modern times, we hide from Him by immersing ourselves oftentimes even deeper into sin: alcohol/drugs, illicit relationships with other people, criminal activity, spritually lazy distractions like video games/TV shows/sports, etc. (if we prioritize them over Him), pride-filled vanity pursuits, emphasizing success/money/etc. over everything in life, and on and on.

So just like Adam and Eve, not only do the sinful people of any era or geographic location NOT go searching for God on their own, they run away from Him. However, the good news is that just as God still loved His children in Eden so much that He went out to search for them (Genesis 3:9), the Lord is pursuing each and every sinner that is still alive today with all of His heart to save them from eternal damnation brought on by their sin. Jesus said so Himself in John 6:44 and Luke 19:10:



How does Jesus do this? He doesn't solely come to our mind to merely reason it all out with us. That method is insufficient. The mind will entertain the temptations from Satan to consider false interpretations of Christianity, embrace false religions altogether, or reject God outright by saying He doesn't exist.

That's the best that the human mind that is corrupted by sin can do on its own. The deeper, more true connection between God and us is, again, through the heart. A stirring in the heart that begins with a sincere belief in Him after He first comes to each individual person in His desire for that relationship.

Jesus said in Revelation 3:20 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me”. Jesus is talking about the door to your heart that you open with belief.

He will not force His way in, but will politely (and throughout one's relatively short life, persistently) continue to knock in hopes that you will *choose* to let Him in. The Holy Spirit carries out this activity on His behalf. If you do accept the Lord, your heart is transformed to be one with Jesus forever, and the two of you will dine with one another as the verse explains.

Dine on what? This is not a physical relationship that dines on earthly food, but through the heart it is an eternally spiritual relationship that dines on spiritual food: the word of God. As I said above in my first post, the real, eternal "you" is not the physical body, but the life that resides inside of it.

With the nourishment of spiritual food flowing inside, the real "you" has the fuel to grow spiritually. The spiritual growth begins initially here on earth once a relationship with Jesus is established in the heart, and ultimately continues forever in heaven. One of the most famous quotes from Jesus encounter with the devil when He refutes one of several temptations illustrates this principal (Matthew 4:4):

+++++++++++


The idea that God is punishing a person who does not choose to have a relationship with Him is not what the bible is describing. Instead, it goes like this:

- God evaluated the universe He created and everything in it at that time (before humans chose to sin). His conclusion was that everything was either individually "good" or altogether "very good" (Genesis 1). Nothing bad existed in the universe or on earth at that time. Sinful choices of mankind (starting with Adam and Eve) corrupted everything good that was created. Every physical aspect of the universe, every different type of human emotion and intellect, even the very nature of the soul itself, is tainted by sin in some way. This is why we have to deal with "natural disasters, illness, infant mortality, etc."... our collective choice to sin brought those misfortunes upon us, not Him.

- With that said, everything good that still remains comes from God (James 1:17). Not only external, physical things of His creation (water, the breath of life, the components of effective medicine/healing technology, many kinds of talents in the arts and other areas of skill and ability, etc), but this also includes the internal moral compass of what is good that everyone was born with that the person can choose to follow, to ignore, or to defy. This understanding is brought to the person's attention via the Holy Spirit, aka a "good conscience" (John 16:7-8), who also makes the case for Christ in an unrepentant sinner's heart (John 15:26). The "bad conscience" is wrought with temptation that is brought into your mind by Satan (Matthew 6:13).

- God stated the consequence for defying Him: death, which initially meant an infinite life in a perfect universe (untainted by sin at the time) was no longer possible. This was to be followed by death in the form of an eternal separation from Him after the physical death, which is said to be burning in the lake of fire forever (the absence of anything good since God is no longer around them).

- No one in and of themselves is "good" due to their sinful choices to defy their Creator once temptation is brought to their attention. Not Adam or Eve, not you, not me, not MLK, not Jesus' mother, not the Dali Lama, not the Pope, not Noah, not Moses, not the apostles Peter or Paul...no one is good, no not one (Romans 3:10-12 and Isaiah 64:6).

- God the Father cannot be around sin. Heaven is where He resides and sin cannot enter that place. Why? For one, the pure holiness (perfect goodness) of the Father in heaven makes it impossible for sin to exist in His presence. Also, wherever sin exists, it taints everything and everyone with evil and corruption - no exceptions. Heaven would become just as bad as the universe is now if sin were allowed inside of it, filled with sorrow and anguish and hate and wickedness and perversion and more.

- You yourself believe it would be wonderful if there were no more "natural disasters, illness, infant mortality, etc.". Me too! That's in great part why I am looking forward to when I get to heaven (after God's plan for me here on earth has ended). It will be the place where not one iota of "bad" or death will ever exist ever again (Revelations 21:4). God has made this freely available to everyone who will then be able to be  forever in the presence of the Lord (1 John 3:2).

- No one who makes it to heaven (by choosing to believe in their Creator) gets in by any list of good deeds they accomplished on earth. Entry is a free gift for whoever wants it. They affirm that they want it by believing in He who is giving salvation away. Only by coming forward to God the Father with the righteousness of Jesus Christ representing them (instead of their own righteousness) can one enter into heaven (Romans 10:9–10).

Therefore, the ones that wind up in hell have only themselves to blame and not God. All of them chose not to have a relationship with the Lord, and hell is the only place where that choice can sadly be honored (God will not force you to choose Him over the love of sin).

Everyone innately knows enough about right and wrong (whether they've heard of Jesus and the bible or not) to agree they have no defense of ignorance against His judgement for many of the sins they chose to commit. Not one of us can claim that we have never lied, that we have never cheated, that we have ever acted out in anger towards another, and that we have spent our lives defying our Creator. This includes sins of wrongdoing, sins of evil words coming from our mouths, or sins of intentionally developed thoughts (Mark 7:20-23) that we know are wrong in God's eyes.

With that in mind, He could have carried out the sentence on any of us at any time as a result. However, in His grace and mercy God provided an escape from eternal condemnation through the work of His Son on the cross and subsequent resurrection.

All a person has to do is accept that pardon since the price for their sin was paid if they want it. If you choose not to believe, how can you say that He is being unfair? You would simply receive what you chose to embrace instead: to be eternally separated from the only source of good in existence (the presence of God). If you don't agree to let Jesus pay for your sins, you will pay for it yourself.

With the absence of a rejected good God for eternity, one is by definition subjected to the absence of anything good forever and ever, which is horrifically bad beyond what any comprehensive description can convey. Still, it is through the bible that God warns against going to the lake of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:42) and utter darkness (Matthew 22:13).

This is no game; this is your eternity.
+++++++++++


To the main point of objection, you are not fully aware of what you ask in your desire for everyone to obtain the "truth" that we all "deserve" when defending Adam and Eve's sin of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge that was forbidden to them.

Since you say you are familiar with the narratives in the bible, think about it for a bit. Firstly, God stated that defying Him would bring death into their lives (Genesis 2:16-17). Death wasn't present before then, so how is the introduction of the first death (the soul separating from the physical body, Hebrews 9:27) and later the second death (the soul eternally separated from God, Revelation 21: an improvement over their initial existence of peaceful bliss? It clearly was not, and it also shows that God told them the truth (with His awareness of how bad things would become for mankind), so no one could claim either ignorance of the law, or accuse Him of malfeasance.

Next, please note that Satan told Eve (who later passed the lie to Adam) that God was wrong and they wouldn't die if they defied Him (Genesis 3:4). That turned out not to be true, since an earthly death is obviously part of our physical timeline directly because of their terrible choice, and a spiritual death is what hangs over every person's head because of sin unless we believe the fact that Jesus paid for our debt with His own life.

So the question then is, what productive knowledge did they gain after defying God? There isn't an immediately obvious positive gain after they sinned from their standpoint since the bible doesn't state that Adam and Eve were happier, enjoyed life more abundantly, or had a deeper closeness with each other and God respectively. It doesn't even say that the skies were sunnier, their relationship with nature improved, that they became smarter and healthier, or that work became easier.

In fact, the opposite happens in every single one of these points (and a lot more). The woman was cursed to endure a painful labor to produce children and be subjected to a naturally more subservient relationship with her husband. The man was cursed to toil the earth to get it to produce anything worthwhile, and a physical death would eventually take him out. (Genesis 3:16-19).

Nature and the universe itself was scarred by sin in that destruction, pestilence, famine, drought, earthquakes, fire storms, disease, etc. were introduced into existence. Internally into humanity's heart came hate, strife, violence, wars, agony, misery and perversion.

So Adam and Eve did not celebrate their newfound knowledge of evil even before His judgements against them were passed down. Instead, they ran and hid from God because of guilt and shame, and they ultimately suffered (internally and externally) for the rest of their years on the earth as He had explained they would.

Ever since that awful moment in Eden, people since then have been trying to get back to that Utopian way of life. We try to delay death, predict and protect against natural disasters, impose laws to control deviant human behavior and fight in wars for various reasons. Any and all of this is a bandaid for worldwide peace and happiness at best, and moving us in the opposite direction at worse.

The problem is that sin is a constant roadblock as it prevents many from reuniting with God (through their choice to avoid Him) who is the only source of anything truly "good" like peace, love, joy, and eternal life.  So that discounts any value in knowledge that they (we) were conned by Satan into obtaining.

Carrying the point further, like a caring mom and dad it's not hard to think that God doesn't believe we need to experience the terribleness of sin in order to be complete people. What parent would reason to themselves, "Well, I already told my twelve year old that smoking crack is bad for her, but let me drop her off with strangers at a notorious crack house for summer vacation so she can come into that knowledge for herself."

That would be insane. Absolutely nothing good came to Adam and Eve (and us by extension) from listening to Satan's lie about obtaining "knowledge". Even sex wasn't forbidden to them since they were told to reproduce (Genesis 1:28).

Did they technically know more in general? About all things evil, yes, but they would have been better off simply trusting what God already knew about evil. They trusted the devil instead, and a price continues to be paid. So Jesus was correct when He said in John 10:10, which says in part:


This is all he does. To this day, Satan continues to tempt mankind with sin so that He can steal your love, peace, and joy (like he did with Adam and Eve), so he can kill every life that comes into existence (like he eventually did with Adam and Eve) and so he can destroy any truly good things in your life that comes from God, including attacking the opportunity for salvation (like he tried but failed to do with Adam and Eve).

Thankfully, Jesus provided a second half to the verse above:


Put Adam and Eve's misadventure aside for a moment. Today, here and now, are people who made the same awful choice that they did in that they gave in to the evil one's temptations. The bible doesn't say you will be condemned for doing that; you are already condemned (John 3:18). The bible doesn't say that you will be an enemy of God without His righteousness in your heart, you are already His enemy (James 4:4).

But due to His love, grace, patience and mercy, you still have his breath in your lungs to choose wisely while your eternal judgement is temporarily put on hold. In practicing what He preached in the sermon on the mount, Jesus loves His enemies (Matthew 5:44). That is the only reason why some of you still have the choice to accept an eternal freedom from the presence of sin over the choice of damnation due to the penalty of sin by wanting to be separate from your Creator.

The bible urges over and over (i.e., parts of Psalm 95:7-8) not to wait to respond to the Holy Spirit knocking on the door of your heart, but to instead accept the free gift of salvation today:

+++++++++++


Heh, one of my all time favorite tales as a kid was a really cool unauthorized spin-off of "Through the Looking Glass". The 1947 short story is called "Mimsy Were the Borogroves" by Lewis Padgett, and it kinda touches on the point that you are making at the end (though you can skip the terrible movie version that came out a few years ago). :-)
+++++++++++


I briefly addressed a similar claim in my first post, but that's not something we would ever had to worry about. God's is sovereign, and He will accomplish His plans to maximize the number of those who choose to come into salvation over the course of human history whether we decide to join with Him or fight against Him.

God's Plan A for humanity (John 3:16) is still in effect: to establish a two-way, loving relationship with whomever will choose to believe in Him (eternal life in heaven), and to sadly acquiesce to the choice of those who reject Him (eternal separation in hell).

How that plan plays out for our own, individual lives is up to us, but either choice won't prevent Him from moving his plans forward for all of mankind across the world and throughout the ages. He does it by his command because his word is that powerful (Isaiah 55:11):


Two examples...

In the book of Jonah, God had declared a judgement on the city of Ninevah in that they would be destroyed within 40 days because of their evil ways after Jonah finally delivered this message to them (he was initially delayed due to a self-inflicted set back). Though God was fully prepared to follow through on that judgement, He ultimately did not destroy those people because Ninevah citizens from the king on down repented (changed their hearts towards God).

So yes, God has various ways to adjust specific activity depending on what we choose to do (individually and collectively), but the ultimate Plan A was obviously still in effect as evidenced by His mercy in this instance. Sadly, once this generation died out, the future generations went back to their wicked ways and were ultimately destroyed 120 years later, but the blessing of eternal life for the initial generation will last forever.

The second example is one of the most eye-opening passages I've read in the bible... the Lord once ventured out into the wilderness in order to kill Moses who was camping with his wife (Exodus 4:24-26). The reason why is that at the time Moses was heading back to Egypt in order to confront Pharaoh and free the Hebrew slaves, but due to Moses giving in to his non-Jewish wife's decision not to allow their son be circumcised as Jewish boys were required, he was unfit to eventually bring God's Law (the commandments) to the Hebrews and be God's spokesperson if he couldn't follow the main laws himself. As the passage shows, eventually the wife reluctantly relented, so Moses' life was spared.

How different would history had been had Moses been killed? He still would've gone to heaven for his faith in God, but what about the Hebrews in captivity in Egypt? Simple - God would've raised up another (obedient) servant in his place. For all we know, maybe Moses was already the second or third choice because of, well, reasons.

In the end, The Lord's primary plan always moves forward whether we choose to be in or out.
+++++++++++


No, that would not have been an issue at all.

As I referenced in my first post, the bible said God wanted salvation for everyone (2 Peter 3:9 and 1 Timothy 2:3-4, among others) , and that hell was enlarged to accommodate people who died in their sins (Isaiah 5:14-15) since it was originally built only for the devil and his demons (Matthew 25:41).

We can take these perspectives to assume that the original plan for Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" (had they not succumbed to the temptation of sin) would not have encountered any types of problems such as the one you describe (running out of room).

Even from what we do know of life on the corrupted world we live in right now, things are not nearly as cramped (space-wise) on this earth as you might think. Consider the fact that New York City is the most crowded city in the U.S. It has around 8,398,748 citizens who are poured out over about 303 square miles of land. This means that about 27,719 citizens live in each square mile of the city.

Compare that to this crazy statistic... if the state of Texas (261,232 square miles) were densely developed in a way that is comparable to life in New York City, the entire world's population of about 7,550,000,000 could then move into Texas with 28,902 citizens living in each square mile.

So whether you lived in NYC (27,719 citizens per square mile), or moved to Texas with the entire world living there (28,902 citizens per square mile), the density of people living around you would be roughly the same. Play that out over the course of the entire U.S. as time moves forward, or over all of North America, or over the entire world. Especially in an environment where sin had not yet corrupted anything, it would take eons for the earth to fill up without even a lick of discomfort or turmoil for anyone.

And what would've happened at that point? C'mon, some of you out there have played No Man's Sky. In God's undefiled universe, why couldn't humanity then venture out into space unhindered to expand the population even more? Remember, there is no death or evil circumstances to fear, so anyone could boldly venture out to see what wonderful things could be discovered and enjoyed (that's my theory at least, lol).

Nothing we've done in human history up to this point comes close to the awesomeness that God had planned for us to experience if we collectively maintained our trust in Him and not listened to Satan's temptations along the way. Thankfully, the promise of indescribable goodness is still obtainable for those who choose to spend eternity in heaven. When the Lord says that we cannot even imagine how cool everything in heaven really is (1 Corinthians 2:9), I for one believe Him.
.....

God bless each and every one of you!

I preferred it when my bots were trying to sell something actually real. Like authentic Belgian passports 

I concur

[benjipwns]

Your shit ain't as slick as you think it is tbh. I was tempted to keep quiet because this is an obvious bait/trap thread (btw, real cute putting that "the majority here appreciate you", because if there's anything queer posters, posters of color etc like being reminded of, it's that we're The Minority), but then you had to insert this shit which is just blatantly "Minorities with valid concerns and criticisms? Couldn't possibly exist, people just want to see this place burn to the ground" and it's fucking sickening to see us get downplayed and dehumanized to that regard so casually. Not just here and now but anytime we have something to say. If you want me being silent about it like you clearly want me and everyone else being silent about everything else that Bothers You, please spare us the time and outright say that you want us banned. At least that's honest

This really falls apart when it gets to "outright say you want us banned" and loses all the momentum about BEING SILENCED.

[TVC15]

When the Lord says that we cannot even imagine how cool everything in heaven really is (1 Corinthians 2:9), I for one believe Him.

This is the idiotic Christian god that gave us amusement parks for bodies but will send us to hell if we play with them. Based on his behavior, you’d have to be a moron to believe his lies.

Christians are so fucking lame. We could lose a billion of them and there’d still be enough left to make life miserable for everyone else.

[TVC15]

To anyone that’s a Christian, I challenge you to explain this:

Why did god make it so humans derive sexual pleasure from killing with their hands (as confirmed by convicted killers, including Bundy and Gacy) if we are not supposed to use this function? That is just bad design—why build a feature no one is ever supposed to use? That’s strange and bizarre API design at best, and the more likely answer is that it’s just a trap to fuck gullible assholes.

Explain this and I’ll convert to some sort of strange Russian church tomorrow.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/RaidersLakers/status/1198830485226442752

[thetylerrob]

Sir, this is a Taco Bell

[thisismyusername]

Woah, nicca. You think I'm going to read all that religious bullshit about an afterlife written by you?.jpg

[benjipwns]

[benjipwns]

I thought Marx was commonly taught in business because his views on society and economics are profound, irrefutable, and useful.

[benita]

If a game studio subjected their staff to the conditions nepenthe and finale fireworker would have us believe they experienced, discussion of that game would be banned on era.

[benjipwns]

The divisiveness of the left is ruining us. That's again why I stan libertarian municipalism, because it is a deeply uniting form of political organizing and relating.

[benjipwns]

I find the "burn it down" response to capitalism to be kind of missing the point.

I think we need to undermine capitalism and make it irrelevant. Unwind ourselves from our dependency on it, and commit ourselves to our interconnected wellbeing and liberation instead. Defeating capitalism will take relationships and community first and foremost.

[benjipwns]

I dream about the world one day being covered in forests again

I thought people were supposed to be Googling things on ResetERA.com now.

[BIONIC]

Kojima already figured out that the only viable alternative to capitalism is a like-based economy to connect everyone with each other

[benjipwns]

omg

I'm on the Murray Bookchin philosophy of seeing capitalism as one aspect of the greater root evil of domination. Because yes fuck capitalism, but domination and oppression is about a lot more than just class divide and exploitation. This is where Bookchin moves beyond Marxism to integrate race, gender, colonialism, and ecology. He offers two earnest and extremely educated visions for how to understand and confront domination in all its forms: social ecology and libertarian municipalism.

To sum it up very briefly, social ecology is a theory that states that all of our ecological degradation is in direct relationship to our social degradation. In this way (and many others) Bookchin's analysis parallels and borrows from what indigenous, black, and brown theorists have been saying for centuries: domination is intersectional and all the forms it takes are (to varying degrees perhaps) inseparable.

Libertarian municipalism advocates a re-centering of our political lives to focus on both a hyper local and necessarily global perspective. It proposes neighborhood level councils as the center piece of community political life, with directly elected and recallable delegates chosen to then represent the people as candidates for local political offices such as city councils, school boards, local transit agencies, etc. But before running candidates for office, it's vital to build solid community relationships, organization, capacity, and power. This is a vital perspective shift: the root of our political power is in our relationships to each other, both as people but also ecologically as organisms and planet. Fuck, even cosmos. This is a central perspective in both social ecology and libertarian municapalism, and you'll see it echoed by some of the most shining examples of the philosophy in action, including in Rojava in Kurdistan/Syria and within the Zapatista project in Oaxaca. Build from the grassroots up. Focus on bread and butter work like growing food and helping each other eat and thrive. Start housing cooperatives, childcare collectives, community cafes, food pantries, support networks, neighborhood dinners, free dental clinics, etc. Build relationships and resiliency strong enough to face the future head on.

While organizing locally, we must also organize regionally and globally. We must make this an interconnected (and, to be specific, confederated) movement.

I could gush on and on about this shit honestly. I genuinely think this is the answer to capitalism and it's two modern forms: neoliberalism and fascism. But it's also the answer to climate change, to mass isolation and alienation and powerlessness, hunger, police accountability, demilitarizing our borders, ending war, etc. It's some next level visionary shit and I stan it hard.

brb I'm gonna edit with some educational videos lol

One of the organizers from Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi:



Bookchin on domination and his transition from Marxism to anarchism. This is before he started espousing municipalism, but it's still illustrative -- and funny imo:



A panel discussion on modern municipalist organizing in Europe and North America (including Bookchin's daughter Debbie Bookchin):

[Momo]

somewhere on page something 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/tokimandee/status/1198767101009203201

[close]

[benjipwns]

This thread, where to begin...

I’m sure there were many feudalism apologists back in the day, too. Imagine a capitalist having to deal with “Europe is what it is because of feudalism and the monarchy, why would you trust some unproven socioeconomic construct over something that has bettered mankind for centuries?!”
They’d lose their damned minds at the audacity of trying to claim that oppression by aristocracy was favourable to any alternative. Lucky for them, they don’t have to suffer the indignity of that conversation. Unfortunately for the rest of us, it means that many lack the understanding that they bring that indignity upon others in a similar position.

So long as the price system is in play (which is honestly the true enemy in all of this), it doesn’t matter if it’s capitalism or socialism, you’re still putting an arbitrary monetary value on human suffering at every turn, and it’s revolting to know it.

[Kara]

GOOGLE MURRAY BOOKCHIN

[Momo]

GOOGLE MURRAY BOOKCHIN

if i do an image search will i see a man with a chin as large as a book?

[Kara]

This is a meme; do not Google Murray Bookchin.

[OnlyRegret]

GOOGLE MURRAY BOOKCHIN

if i do an image search will i see a man with a chin as large as a book?

[Momo]

his chin looks normal

[benjipwns]

Also sensible that we respond to shootings by making bulletproof backpacks and create schools that look like Call of Duty warzone maps.

The """free market""" knows best after all. Yet another deity, something we project morals and ideals on, that is once again a phantom

learning a lot from this thread

[benjipwns]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/fuck-capitalism.154965/post-26795614

Why are you in debt?

why does it matter?

we all know money doesn't grow on trees, and we know life happens fast and costs money.
we know debt isn't fun or kind.
so why?

maybe he got sick once, and lives in America.

Because I was looking to offer help or advice if possible

that's what you think.

...uhhh yeah?

unless you were about to hand down some cash, i'm curious what kind of advice or help you would be offering that could possibly be of use to OP.

[Transhuman]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hold-up-wouldnt-satan-reward-us-heretics-instead-of-torturing-us.152204/page-6#post-26768908

Sure thing. I'll expand on that thought a bit more in response to another post below.
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You're welcome. Ultimately, the battle for each individual person's immortal soul is not in the head so much (mentally) as it is in the heart (spiritually).

Say for instance a person has not decided to establish a eternal relationship with (the biblical) God. The bible says no one that is unsaved decides on their own to go looking for Him. That is to say, this person is not waking up one morning and thinking on their own, "You know, I honestly want to find God for a relationship with Him." and then goes out to try to find where God is at for that relationship to begin.

So, for a person to do that on their own (with no urging from God whatsoever) would be the ultimate good deed in their life (pure goodness is described in the bible as being"holy"), but all of us are completely incapable of doing that without Him because of the sin in our hearts (Psalm 14:2-3):


Romans 3:11-12 echoes that conclusion:


This is why God has to come to us, not the other way around. After defying God the Father's specific warning in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve tried to hide from Him (Genesis 3:9). The whole scenario supports this main point perfectly... because of our sin, we don't go looking for God, we instead hide from Him as best we can.

In modern times, we hide from Him by immersing ourselves oftentimes even deeper into sin: alcohol/drugs, illicit relationships with other people, criminal activity, spritually lazy distractions like video games/TV shows/sports, etc. (if we prioritize them over Him), pride-filled vanity pursuits, emphasizing success/money/etc. over everything in life, and on and on.

So just like Adam and Eve, not only do the sinful people of any era or geographic location NOT go searching for God on their own, they run away from Him. However, the good news is that just as God still loved His children in Eden so much that He went out to search for them (Genesis 3:9), the Lord is pursuing each and every sinner that is still alive today with all of His heart to save them from eternal damnation brought on by their sin. Jesus said so Himself in John 6:44 and Luke 19:10:



How does Jesus do this? He doesn't solely come to our mind to merely reason it all out with us. That method is insufficient. The mind will entertain the temptations from Satan to consider false interpretations of Christianity, embrace false religions altogether, or reject God outright by saying He doesn't exist.

That's the best that the human mind that is corrupted by sin can do on its own. The deeper, more true connection between God and us is, again, through the heart. A stirring in the heart that begins with a sincere belief in Him after He first comes to each individual person in His desire for that relationship.

Jesus said in Revelation 3:20 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me”. Jesus is talking about the door to your heart that you open with belief.

He will not force His way in, but will politely (and throughout one's relatively short life, persistently) continue to knock in hopes that you will *choose* to let Him in. The Holy Spirit carries out this activity on His behalf. If you do accept the Lord, your heart is transformed to be one with Jesus forever, and the two of you will dine with one another as the verse explains.

Dine on what? This is not a physical relationship that dines on earthly food, but through the heart it is an eternally spiritual relationship that dines on spiritual food: the word of God. As I said above in my first post, the real, eternal "you" is not the physical body, but the life that resides inside of it.

With the nourishment of spiritual food flowing inside, the real "you" has the fuel to grow spiritually. The spiritual growth begins initially here on earth once a relationship with Jesus is established in the heart, and ultimately continues forever in heaven. One of the most famous quotes from Jesus encounter with the devil when He refutes one of several temptations illustrates this principal (Matthew 4:4):

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The idea that God is punishing a person who does not choose to have a relationship with Him is not what the bible is describing. Instead, it goes like this:

- God evaluated the universe He created and everything in it at that time (before humans chose to sin). His conclusion was that everything was either individually "good" or altogether "very good" (Genesis 1). Nothing bad existed in the universe or on earth at that time. Sinful choices of mankind (starting with Adam and Eve) corrupted everything good that was created. Every physical aspect of the universe, every different type of human emotion and intellect, even the very nature of the soul itself, is tainted by sin in some way. This is why we have to deal with "natural disasters, illness, infant mortality, etc."... our collective choice to sin brought those misfortunes upon us, not Him.

- With that said, everything good that still remains comes from God (James 1:17). Not only external, physical things of His creation (water, the breath of life, the components of effective medicine/healing technology, many kinds of talents in the arts and other areas of skill and ability, etc), but this also includes the internal moral compass of what is good that everyone was born with that the person can choose to follow, to ignore, or to defy. This understanding is brought to the person's attention via the Holy Spirit, aka a "good conscience" (John 16:7-8), who also makes the case for Christ in an unrepentant sinner's heart (John 15:26). The "bad conscience" is wrought with temptation that is brought into your mind by Satan (Matthew 6:13).

- God stated the consequence for defying Him: death, which initially meant an infinite life in a perfect universe (untainted by sin at the time) was no longer possible. This was to be followed by death in the form of an eternal separation from Him after the physical death, which is said to be burning in the lake of fire forever (the absence of anything good since God is no longer around them).

- No one in and of themselves is "good" due to their sinful choices to defy their Creator once temptation is brought to their attention. Not Adam or Eve, not you, not me, not MLK, not Jesus' mother, not the Dali Lama, not the Pope, not Noah, not Moses, not the apostles Peter or Paul...no one is good, no not one (Romans 3:10-12 and Isaiah 64:6).

- God the Father cannot be around sin. Heaven is where He resides and sin cannot enter that place. Why? For one, the pure holiness (perfect goodness) of the Father in heaven makes it impossible for sin to exist in His presence. Also, wherever sin exists, it taints everything and everyone with evil and corruption - no exceptions. Heaven would become just as bad as the universe is now if sin were allowed inside of it, filled with sorrow and anguish and hate and wickedness and perversion and more.

- You yourself believe it would be wonderful if there were no more "natural disasters, illness, infant mortality, etc.". Me too! That's in great part why I am looking forward to when I get to heaven (after God's plan for me here on earth has ended). It will be the place where not one iota of "bad" or death will ever exist ever again (Revelations 21:4). God has made this freely available to everyone who will then be able to be  forever in the presence of the Lord (1 John 3:2).

- No one who makes it to heaven (by choosing to believe in their Creator) gets in by any list of good deeds they accomplished on earth. Entry is a free gift for whoever wants it. They affirm that they want it by believing in He who is giving salvation away. Only by coming forward to God the Father with the righteousness of Jesus Christ representing them (instead of their own righteousness) can one enter into heaven (Romans 10:9–10).

Therefore, the ones that wind up in hell have only themselves to blame and not God. All of them chose not to have a relationship with the Lord, and hell is the only place where that choice can sadly be honored (God will not force you to choose Him over the love of sin).

Everyone innately knows enough about right and wrong (whether they've heard of Jesus and the bible or not) to agree they have no defense of ignorance against His judgement for many of the sins they chose to commit. Not one of us can claim that we have never lied, that we have never cheated, that we have ever acted out in anger towards another, and that we have spent our lives defying our Creator. This includes sins of wrongdoing, sins of evil words coming from our mouths, or sins of intentionally developed thoughts (Mark 7:20-23) that we know are wrong in God's eyes.

With that in mind, He could have carried out the sentence on any of us at any time as a result. However, in His grace and mercy God provided an escape from eternal condemnation through the work of His Son on the cross and subsequent resurrection.

All a person has to do is accept that pardon since the price for their sin was paid if they want it. If you choose not to believe, how can you say that He is being unfair? You would simply receive what you chose to embrace instead: to be eternally separated from the only source of good in existence (the presence of God). If you don't agree to let Jesus pay for your sins, you will pay for it yourself.

With the absence of a rejected good God for eternity, one is by definition subjected to the absence of anything good forever and ever, which is horrifically bad beyond what any comprehensive description can convey. Still, it is through the bible that God warns against going to the lake of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:42) and utter darkness (Matthew 22:13).

This is no game; this is your eternity.
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To the main point of objection, you are not fully aware of what you ask in your desire for everyone to obtain the "truth" that we all "deserve" when defending Adam and Eve's sin of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge that was forbidden to them.

Since you say you are familiar with the narratives in the bible, think about it for a bit. Firstly, God stated that defying Him would bring death into their lives (Genesis 2:16-17). Death wasn't present before then, so how is the introduction of the first death (the soul separating from the physical body, Hebrews 9:27) and later the second death (the soul eternally separated from God, Revelation 21: an improvement over their initial existence of peaceful bliss? It clearly was not, and it also shows that God told them the truth (with His awareness of how bad things would become for mankind), so no one could claim either ignorance of the law, or accuse Him of malfeasance.

Next, please note that Satan told Eve (who later passed the lie to Adam) that God was wrong and they wouldn't die if they defied Him (Genesis 3:4). That turned out not to be true, since an earthly death is obviously part of our physical timeline directly because of their terrible choice, and a spiritual death is what hangs over every person's head because of sin unless we believe the fact that Jesus paid for our debt with His own life.

So the question then is, what productive knowledge did they gain after defying God? There isn't an immediately obvious positive gain after they sinned from their standpoint since the bible doesn't state that Adam and Eve were happier, enjoyed life more abundantly, or had a deeper closeness with each other and God respectively. It doesn't even say that the skies were sunnier, their relationship with nature improved, that they became smarter and healthier, or that work became easier.

In fact, the opposite happens in every single one of these points (and a lot more). The woman was cursed to endure a painful labor to produce children and be subjected to a naturally more subservient relationship with her husband. The man was cursed to toil the earth to get it to produce anything worthwhile, and a physical death would eventually take him out. (Genesis 3:16-19).

Nature and the universe itself was scarred by sin in that destruction, pestilence, famine, drought, earthquakes, fire storms, disease, etc. were introduced into existence. Internally into humanity's heart came hate, strife, violence, wars, agony, misery and perversion.

So Adam and Eve did not celebrate their newfound knowledge of evil even before His judgements against them were passed down. Instead, they ran and hid from God because of guilt and shame, and they ultimately suffered (internally and externally) for the rest of their years on the earth as He had explained they would.

Ever since that awful moment in Eden, people since then have been trying to get back to that Utopian way of life. We try to delay death, predict and protect against natural disasters, impose laws to control deviant human behavior and fight in wars for various reasons. Any and all of this is a bandaid for worldwide peace and happiness at best, and moving us in the opposite direction at worse.

The problem is that sin is a constant roadblock as it prevents many from reuniting with God (through their choice to avoid Him) who is the only source of anything truly "good" like peace, love, joy, and eternal life.  So that discounts any value in knowledge that they (we) were conned by Satan into obtaining.

Carrying the point further, like a caring mom and dad it's not hard to think that God doesn't believe we need to experience the terribleness of sin in order to be complete people. What parent would reason to themselves, "Well, I already told my twelve year old that smoking crack is bad for her, but let me drop her off with strangers at a notorious crack house for summer vacation so she can come into that knowledge for herself."

That would be insane. Absolutely nothing good came to Adam and Eve (and us by extension) from listening to Satan's lie about obtaining "knowledge". Even sex wasn't forbidden to them since they were told to reproduce (Genesis 1:28).

Did they technically know more in general? About all things evil, yes, but they would have been better off simply trusting what God already knew about evil. They trusted the devil instead, and a price continues to be paid. So Jesus was correct when He said in John 10:10, which says in part:


This is all he does. To this day, Satan continues to tempt mankind with sin so that He can steal your love, peace, and joy (like he did with Adam and Eve), so he can kill every life that comes into existence (like he eventually did with Adam and Eve) and so he can destroy any truly good things in your life that comes from God, including attacking the opportunity for salvation (like he tried but failed to do with Adam and Eve).

Thankfully, Jesus provided a second half to the verse above:


Put Adam and Eve's misadventure aside for a moment. Today, here and now, are people who made the same awful choice that they did in that they gave in to the evil one's temptations. The bible doesn't say you will be condemned for doing that; you are already condemned (John 3:18). The bible doesn't say that you will be an enemy of God without His righteousness in your heart, you are already His enemy (James 4:4).

But due to His love, grace, patience and mercy, you still have his breath in your lungs to choose wisely while your eternal judgement is temporarily put on hold. In practicing what He preached in the sermon on the mount, Jesus loves His enemies (Matthew 5:44). That is the only reason why some of you still have the choice to accept an eternal freedom from the presence of sin over the choice of damnation due to the penalty of sin by wanting to be separate from your Creator.

The bible urges over and over (i.e., parts of Psalm 95:7-8) not to wait to respond to the Holy Spirit knocking on the door of your heart, but to instead accept the free gift of salvation today:

+++++++++++


Heh, one of my all time favorite tales as a kid was a really cool unauthorized spin-off of "Through the Looking Glass". The 1947 short story is called "Mimsy Were the Borogroves" by Lewis Padgett, and it kinda touches on the point that you are making at the end (though you can skip the terrible movie version that came out a few years ago). :-)
+++++++++++


I briefly addressed a similar claim in my first post, but that's not something we would ever had to worry about. God's is sovereign, and He will accomplish His plans to maximize the number of those who choose to come into salvation over the course of human history whether we decide to join with Him or fight against Him.

God's Plan A for humanity (John 3:16) is still in effect: to establish a two-way, loving relationship with whomever will choose to believe in Him (eternal life in heaven), and to sadly acquiesce to the choice of those who reject Him (eternal separation in hell).

How that plan plays out for our own, individual lives is up to us, but either choice won't prevent Him from moving his plans forward for all of mankind across the world and throughout the ages. He does it by his command because his word is that powerful (Isaiah 55:11):


Two examples...

In the book of Jonah, God had declared a judgement on the city of Ninevah in that they would be destroyed within 40 days because of their evil ways after Jonah finally delivered this message to them (he was initially delayed due to a self-inflicted set back). Though God was fully prepared to follow through on that judgement, He ultimately did not destroy those people because Ninevah citizens from the king on down repented (changed their hearts towards God).

So yes, God has various ways to adjust specific activity depending on what we choose to do (individually and collectively), but the ultimate Plan A was obviously still in effect as evidenced by His mercy in this instance. Sadly, once this generation died out, the future generations went back to their wicked ways and were ultimately destroyed 120 years later, but the blessing of eternal life for the initial generation will last forever.

The second example is one of the most eye-opening passages I've read in the bible... the Lord once ventured out into the wilderness in order to kill Moses who was camping with his wife (Exodus 4:24-26). The reason why is that at the time Moses was heading back to Egypt in order to confront Pharaoh and free the Hebrew slaves, but due to Moses giving in to his non-Jewish wife's decision not to allow their son be circumcised as Jewish boys were required, he was unfit to eventually bring God's Law (the commandments) to the Hebrews and be God's spokesperson if he couldn't follow the main laws himself. As the passage shows, eventually the wife reluctantly relented, so Moses' life was spared.

How different would history had been had Moses been killed? He still would've gone to heaven for his faith in God, but what about the Hebrews in captivity in Egypt? Simple - God would've raised up another (obedient) servant in his place. For all we know, maybe Moses was already the second or third choice because of, well, reasons.

In the end, The Lord's primary plan always moves forward whether we choose to be in or out.
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No, that would not have been an issue at all.

As I referenced in my first post, the bible said God wanted salvation for everyone (2 Peter 3:9 and 1 Timothy 2:3-4, among others) , and that hell was enlarged to accommodate people who died in their sins (Isaiah 5:14-15) since it was originally built only for the devil and his demons (Matthew 25:41).

We can take these perspectives to assume that the original plan for Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" (had they not succumbed to the temptation of sin) would not have encountered any types of problems such as the one you describe (running out of room).

Even from what we do know of life on the corrupted world we live in right now, things are not nearly as cramped (space-wise) on this earth as you might think. Consider the fact that New York City is the most crowded city in the U.S. It has around 8,398,748 citizens who are poured out over about 303 square miles of land. This means that about 27,719 citizens live in each square mile of the city.

Compare that to this crazy statistic... if the state of Texas (261,232 square miles) were densely developed in a way that is comparable to life in New York City, the entire world's population of about 7,550,000,000 could then move into Texas with 28,902 citizens living in each square mile.

So whether you lived in NYC (27,719 citizens per square mile), or moved to Texas with the entire world living there (28,902 citizens per square mile), the density of people living around you would be roughly the same. Play that out over the course of the entire U.S. as time moves forward, or over all of North America, or over the entire world. Especially in an environment where sin had not yet corrupted anything, it would take eons for the earth to fill up without even a lick of discomfort or turmoil for anyone.

And what would've happened at that point? C'mon, some of you out there have played No Man's Sky. In God's undefiled universe, why couldn't humanity then venture out into space unhindered to expand the population even more? Remember, there is no death or evil circumstances to fear, so anyone could boldly venture out to see what wonderful things could be discovered and enjoyed (that's my theory at least, lol).

Nothing we've done in human history up to this point comes close to the awesomeness that God had planned for us to experience if we collectively maintained our trust in Him and not listened to Satan's temptations along the way. Thankfully, the promise of indescribable goodness is still obtainable for those who choose to spend eternity in heaven. When the Lord says that we cannot even imagine how cool everything in heaven really is (1 Corinthians 2:9), I for one believe Him.
.....

God bless each and every one of you!

I preferred it when my bots were trying to sell something actually real. Like authentic Belgian passports 

I thought we rounded these doey-eyed freaks out of society years ago.

I don't think i'll ever not be viscerally offended by this shit.

[VomKriege]

Those colours on my screen do not exist in real life.

[benjipwns]

Could God create colors even she couldn't see?

[Momo]

Could God create colors even she couldn't see?

god doesnt have a gender you racist

[VomKriege]

Millions of colours (usually) 
Millions of gender identities 

[OnlyRegret]

tfw it's a greyscale day

[Raist]

Could God create colors even she couldn't see?

god doesnt have a gender you racist

Incorrect; god has all genders.

[BIONIC]

Much like Samus, God is a transgender woman in a wheelchair.

[benjipwns]

This thread, where to begin...

I’m sure there were many feudalism apologists back in the day, too. Imagine a capitalist having to deal with “Europe is what it is because of feudalism and the monarchy, why would you trust some unproven socioeconomic construct over something that has bettered mankind for centuries?!”
They’d lose their damned minds at the audacity of trying to claim that oppression by aristocracy was favourable to any alternative. Lucky for them, they don’t have to suffer the indignity of that conversation. Unfortunately for the rest of us, it means that many lack the understanding that they bring that indignity upon others in a similar position.

So long as the price system is in play (which is honestly the true enemy in all of this), it doesn’t matter if it’s capitalism or socialism, you’re still putting an arbitrary monetary value on human suffering at every turn, and it’s revolting to know it.

Price systems are means for an economic system to provide valuation to any commodity in the form of money. In modern price systems, that is expressed by fiat money (a promissory note that suggests it has value but does not have any intrinsic value itself).
What most of the world operates on, even socialist countries, is a “free price system”, where prices are determined mostly arbitrarily based on what a consumer is willing to spend for it and nothing more.

This, for one example, is why carbon pricing is such a demonstrably polarizing idea in society, because it imposes a value on, and thus commoditizes, befouling the earth, an act which people find both abhorrent in one hand and not something they believe should add value to a product on the other, along with some corporations who place no value on true sustainability and thus reject the price that’s applied to it.
Conversely, it allows the commoditization of human suffering, which is why we fine big corporate polluters in lieu of jailing them, more often than not. Or sometimes governments just take kickbacks to look the other way. But in either case, it is commoditizing suffering by putting a price on it. The price system not only allows it but encourages it.

capitalism COULD exist theoretically without the price systems we have. But billionaires and paupers alike seem to appreciate the arbitrary nature of the current system far too much to part with it.

People come into threads like this talking about Marx, but attention would be better given to Thorstein Veblen, who was also more anti-price system than anti-capitalist, but understood how those terms are almost always inexorably linked together, regardless of whether or not they should be. Interpretation of Marx by Lenin and Mao and other through the price system lens is part of why I think communism has inevitably failed, but that’s a whole other discussion. But it is why I say that the price system fails us all, even those in socialist countries.

[Transhuman]

Much like Samus, god is a poorly written fictional character who seems compelling to people with nothing else in their lives

[benjipwns]

we have fun though

[Momo]

Could God create colors even she couldn't see?

god doesnt have a gender you racist

Incorrect; god has all genders.

how dare you imply god is male

[benjipwns]

how dare you imply there is only one god, they may have multiple alters

[Potato]

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/do-you-feel-this-community-is-thicker-skinned-and-less-uptight-than-other-message-board-communities.1512391/
Someone should go in there and post the shower goblin's Paris climate accord message and see how quickly they get banned.

[Momo]

how dare you imply there is only one god, they may have multiple alters

how dare you dare

[Bore Expert]

Walls of text and Gaf links.

Slow night on the bire

[Averon]

Imagine saying you used to mod ResetERA for 10 hours a day, as it is some fact you should be proud of
Imagine saying it was the hardest work in your life
Imagine going on a spiel about how it take courage and guts and sacrifice, as if locking threads and banning users on an online message board is some risky, Herculean task

Imagine saying all that in an attempt to gain pity points without a hint of irony and self-reflection 

[benjipwns]

How dare you attack a true patriot of NeoGAF.com like this.

[bdoughty]

To anyone that’s a Christian, I challenge you to explain this:

Why did god make it so humans derive sexual pleasure from killing with their hands (as confirmed by convicted killers, including Bundy and Gacy) if we are not supposed to use this function? That is just bad design—why build a feature no one is ever supposed to use? That’s strange and bizarre API design at best, and the more likely answer is that it’s just a trap to fuck gullible assholes.

Explain this and I’ll convert to some sort of strange Russian church tomorrow.

Lapsed Christian. The design is fine, the circuitry on the other hand... Humans are imperfect, some more imperfect than others.

Ted Bundy
“You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You’re looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!”

Serial Killers are just bad examples as so many of them are trying to play God. Which is obviously a big no-no in the Bible.

[bdoughty]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/there%E2%80%99s-too-much-incest-in-porn-these-days.155057/

That is why you type "Not Mom and Not Daughter" in your Xhamster searches.

[Transhuman]

Lapsed Christian.

Interesting. What was it that made you start, and more importantly, stop?

[Momo]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/there%E2%80%99s-too-much-incest-in-porn-these-days.155057/

That is why you type "Not Mom and Not Daughter" in your Xhamster searches.

instead, search for father and brother 

[BIONIC]

Much like Samus, god is a poorly written fictional character who seems compelling to people with nothing else in their lives

You have nothing in your life, yet God does not compel you. Curious