The way faith is treated in the First Century doesn’t translate well to modern audiences. Having faith of a child isn’t an analogy to a child being gullible. It’s an analogy to the way a child trusts in and depends on his parents. Trust, arguably, would be a better translation than faith in many instances.
Faith for ancient religious peoples wasn’t about believing without proof. That would be as ridiculous for a First Century Jew as it is for us. Faith is being persuaded to a conclusion by the evidence.
No, sorry. I try to be deferential when talking about this stuff, but this is pretty cut and dry, and I’m afraid you’re just wrong here. This is Greek–not theology. πίστις is the word we’re talking about. It shares the common root with πείθω–“to persuade” (i.e., that evidence is compelling or trustworthy). πίστις is the same word you would use in describing the veracity of a tribunal’s judgment (for example, “I have πίστις that the jurors in NY got the verdict right/wrong”). The Greeks used the word to personify honesty, trust, and persuasiveness prior to the existence of Christianity (although someone who knows Attic or is better versed in Greek mythology feel free to correct me). The word is inherently tied up with persuasion, confidence, and trust since long before the New Testament. The original audience of the New Testament would have understood the meaning of the word without depending on any prior relation to religion.
Is trust always a better translation? Of course not–and that’s why, you’ll notice, I didn’t say that (and if it were, one would hope that many of the very well educated translators of Bibles would have used it). But I think you can agree that the concept is also difficult for English to handle (since trust in a person, trust in a deity, and trust in a statement are similar but not quite the same thing, and the same goes for belief in a proposition, belief in a person, and belief in an ideal or value, to say nothing of analogous concepts like loyalty and integrity).
The point is that πίστις–faith–absolutely does not mean belief without evidence, and Christianity since its inception has never taught that. English also doesn’t use the word “faith” to imply the absence of evidence, and we don’t need to appeal to another language to understand that. It’s why the phrase “blind faith” exists (and the phrase is generally pejorative in religious circles as well as secular ones).
Now, if you think the evidence that convinces Christians to conclude that Jesus’ followers saw Him after His death is inadequate, that’s perfectly valid and a reasonable criticism of Christianity–and if you want to talk about that, that would be apologetics.
In any event, if you’re going to call something bullshit, you better have a lot of faith in the conclusion you’re drawing. ;)
Say more about this? Why is it a worse profession? Anywhere I can get a layperson-friendly deep dive on this (that doesn’t require a graduate degree in mathematics)? I’m fascinated by the nuance between niche academic disciplines and the “politics” of academia.
Oh I know. Trust me, I don’t engage with these people with any illusions. There’s no arguing with the agitprop element here. The point of responding at all is just to identify them to the general public.
“You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.”
So no, thanks. I don’t owe you a defense, engagement, or an policy apologetics treatment of the current administration’s governance for the last four years. There are plenty of places to find that information if you actually care to find it.
So far you’ve managed to call me an idiot, a liar, and a coward in all of about fifteen minutes. Why on earth would I believe you’re capable of nuanced political discourse? We’ve nothing to discuss.
President Joe Biden is taking fresh steps to help keep gas prices from climbing. For Republicans to see this as “disgusting” and “disgraceful” is bizarre.
They actually don’t care if the kids are religious. They just need them to be uneducated, pliable, and poor. Then when the religious mood shifts, the owners can just move public opinion wherever they want it.
This isn’t about ideology: It’s about money. They want the tax dollars in the private schools because they own those schools. They don’t want the Catholic Church or the UMC getting their hands on that money. They want it going into standardized tests and “accredited” curricula–nice, private, for-profit industries the owners can use to fatten their portfolios.
Windows 10 LTSC 2021 ends support in 2027 (although it doesn’t matter quite as much). And it’s likely that the Win 11 LTSC later this year will necessarily be free from much of 11’s bullshit. Linux is still the right call, but for those of us who need to run a Windows machine for whatever reason, there are alternatives, so, you know… yarr.
Treasury secretary came out against the proposed global levy, which proponents say would stop the rich from shifting wealth into countries where they can avoid paying the tax
But that wasn’t the question, was it? United international action works and also doesn’t really exist. You think billionaires are going to just throw up their hands and give governments their tax dollars if enough nations agree they should. Doesn’t work that way.
Read the article you linked. Who’s going to jail in Panama? A few bankers–maybe. Panama changed its rules, and the billionaires just moved all their money elsewhere–exactly as predicted.
The solution to tax evasion isn’t more tax law. That’s like saying that if only everyone agreed rapists should go to jail, people would stop committing rape.
I’m in favor of a wealth tax just because any action beats no action, but it is absolutely a half measure. The real solution to this problem is not financial. It’s personal.
It’s a safe bet, by a lot, and the calculus doesn’t really change no matter how much nuance you apply, because with every statement you’re always trading some nebulous number of single-issue pro-Palestine/anti-Zionist voters for a much larger group of pro-Israel/Zionist voters.
Then you have folks like the OP who are essentially working as a thinly-veiled propaganda arm of Hamas/Russia/etc., and it really muddies the signal-to-noise analysis on the issue.
It’s a problem for Biden, but there’s no winning. Trump doesn’t have the problem only because he’s not the incumbent right now, so he can hem and haw and try to deflect from the reality that he’s much worse on the issue–like every other issue–for people who align even a little bit with any policies left of center.
So Biden just has to basically take the hit, because the Democrats care about functional government and stable diplomacy and foreign policy relationships, whereas the GOP, as the party of dysfunction, white grievance, and ethno-religious fascism, isn’t saddled with the same considerations. Biden actually tried–and partially succeeded–in slowing down arms shipments to Israel, and the GOP threw a shitfit in Congress because they want those arms shipments: Their donors want them, and they can hang it on Biden’s neck no matter what, because people like OP will continue to go to bat for them.
It’s a safe bet. The number of voters Biden loses if he were to change positions enough to appease any authentic anti-Zionists (as opposed to agitprop elements, for whom no position would be good enough to silence) would dwarf the number of voters he might gain. That might not mean he gets reelected, but hell, changing positions at all would cost him votes. Like I said: all choices are bad. It would have been a political disaster for any president, because every voter who cares enough about it to be a single-issue voter is entrenched enough to not be swayed at all unless the other side is completely alienated.
He can’t find a way to appease both sides? Well what does that look like? What’s the position that appeases both staunch Zionist voters and the subsection of the anti-Zionist protestors who vote? That’s not a rhetorical question. Every other US politics-adjacent post on Lemmy recently has been OP or one of their comrades criticizing Biden for his position on Israel, and I’m genuinely interested to hear someone articulate the nuanced position that Biden should supposedly take that he’s currently failing at, and how he’s supposed to do that and not immediately lose all prospects of reelection. FFS, even characterizing this as a division between “pro-Israel” and “against genocide” is already throwing nuance out the window. From where I’m sitting, Joe Biden has as nuanced a position as he can, because the nature of foreign relations in the Middle East in 2024 is itself nuanced and, for US interests, profoundly precarious. If you want nuance, you better be prepared to swallow a healthy dose of realpolitik alongside it, and that’s something that as of yet I’ve not found any noble armchair advocates and red-shadowed “patriots” willing to do.
Eh… this is kind of nothing. Jurists quote religious texts all the time. Judge Ho–the topic of the article–doesn’t quote the Bible in a particularly eloquent fashion, but he’s far from the first US judge to use a biblical quote to make a point.
And yes, they quote the Quran too–just not as much since not as many of them are familiar with it. Law is a reasoning profession, and people who practice it like finding analogies and drawing distinctions. If they see that a set of facts is like or unlike something from ancient history, they’re likely to bring it up. They’ll bring up song lyrics, mythology, popular proverbs, ancient legal texts, moral fables–anything with any reasoning or legal thinking in it.
Trump appointees are deserving of criticism for horrible jurisprudence, terrible judgment and insight, and piss-poor qualifications. There are plenty of things to hate about lots of them, but “they quote the Bible sometimes” isn’t one.
Would you respect a judge that quotes Harry Potter in official documents on a regular basis?
YES! If the judge used the Harry Potter quotes to advance sound legal reasoning, I’d consider it a potentially clever and humorous way to inject some levity into something that’s otherwise likely mundane and dry. Also I guarantee you a judge has quoted those books in opinions, along with every other popular piece of literature.
I’m sorry to remind everybody incensed here, but the professionals in the profession get to decide what is and is not professional, and the legal profession has a long history of quoting material that’s non-germane. You can be upset about it if you want, but we’re fortunate that judges explain their reasoning at all.
Quoting a book you don’t like doesn’t make a decision bad. A decision is bad if it’s wrong on the law, and as I think everybody in this thread knows, the Bible isn’t the law of the land! Quoting non-law in order to bolster a line of reasoning isn’t good, bad, harmful, or harmless by itself, because the reasoning is the important thing. The Bible has been used to stand for many bad positions–but if it hadn’t been, those positions would still have been bad!
While you lot are pulling out your pitchforks because a judge quoted the Bible for the billionth time in the last 200 years, did any of you even bother to find out what the decisions actually were?
It’s definitely hard to miss all the people where I live pulling out of driveways in dresses and people taking pictures across all the public areas, it really lets you know it’s prom time....
Mine when I was in school was entirely forgettable. But! I married a teacher, and until the pandemic we chaperoned prom almost every year. And that was reliably awesome. We may get back to it eventually. The kids are always proud of their outfits, and it’s a small, rural school, so even though there are cliques, it’s still mostly an everybody-in-it-together atmosphere. We’ve never really been party types, but getting to dance with my wife at prom every year is something I miss.
Yes–although the ticket prices for her school have always been reasonable, so it’s not as big a perk as it would be in some places. The free meals, however, have reliably been incredible and well worth the headache of chaperoning.
We’ve been very fortunate to have never had any “incidents”–most of the kids appeae willing to save their drinking and debauchery for after prom–but it’s always a real worry that the next morning we’ll read about one of her kids drunk driving his car into a tree.
Glad I was too dumb to finish college... (startrek.website)
Just a reminder we are the future of social media. (lemmy.world)
Mathematicians (lemm.ee)
www.smbc-comics.com/comic/apply
Trump told donors he will crush pro-Palestinian protests, deport demonstrators | Speaking to wealthy donors behind closed doors, he said that he supports Israel’s right to continue “its war on terror. (wapo.st)
Republicans enraged by Biden’s efforts to keep gas prices lower (www.msnbc.com)
President Joe Biden is taking fresh steps to help keep gas prices from climbing. For Republicans to see this as “disgusting” and “disgraceful” is bizarre.
Too hot for learning: American schools that never needed AC are now overheating. Fixes will cost billions. (wapo.st)
As heat waves creep north, they are baking schools that previously did not need air conditioning. Fixing the problem will be neither cheap, nor easy.
Windows 10 is EOL in October 2025 (lemmy.ml)
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/15988326...
OpenAI Just Gave Away the Entire Game (www.theatlantic.com)
A Global Tax on Billionaires? Janet Yellen Says ‘No’ (www.wsj.com)
Treasury secretary came out against the proposed global levy, which proponents say would stop the rich from shifting wealth into countries where they can avoid paying the tax
How Biden is winning over corporate America behind closed doors (www.cnbc.com)
In public, President Biden and corporate America appear to oppose each other’s interests and blame each other for the economy’s problems....
Statement from President Joe Biden on the Warrant Applications by the International Criminal Court (www.whitehouse.gov)
Full statement:...
Some Trump-appointed judges keep sneaking Biblical reference into court opinions (www.salon.com)
How is the prom experience for everyone?
It’s definitely hard to miss all the people where I live pulling out of driveways in dresses and people taking pictures across all the public areas, it really lets you know it’s prom time....
'People got betrayed': Cardi B says she's not voting in the presidential election (www.msnbc.com)