Modern America gets compared to the declining Roman empire a lot. But the difference between Rome and Detroit is…the Roman roads are still in pretty good shape. *da dum tish*
The rain we’ve gotten in the last couple of days here in Michigan has uncovered some truly absurd potholes, apertures stretched wide by ice and snow tamped in them by passing cars. I’ve seen cars pulled over with blown tires, and I’m hearing rumors that local mechanics can guess which road you were driving on when the tire went based on its ruins. The local government’s typical fix for potholes is to send a couple contractors to close half the lanes and fill the holes with gravel out of the back of their truck. This accomplishes precisely nothing except to ruin paint jobs with flying gravel and appear to be addressing the problem without spending any money.
The typical conservative response to this sort of thing is “move to a better area, get a new job, etc. etc.” Folks, I live in an area that’s seeing huge growth from white flight and I work in a little upper-middle class Fordlandia, and I still have had to adjust my route to and from work to avoid potholes that will bottom out my car. Even a guy in one of those giant F-150s tells me he’s starting to get nervous about daily commutes. We are in the beginning stages of learning that failure to arrive at a place may not be a failure of intent, or spirit, or discipline, or any other character flaw. It could well be due to a lack of ability. If you think your ideas of what a “normal” person should be able to do are due to anything other than existing in a high-trust culture with healthy institutions, you’re wrong.
Davis Aurini wrote a good novel a while back called As I Walk These Broken Roads, where the broken roads stand in as a metaphor for the breakdown of institutions that perform cultural transmission. Yes, this post is yet another metaphor. But I’m not making any of it up, either. The situation is getting serious out here and it’s not easy to love a bunch of whiny children in the meantime. I still will, because I’m highly agreeable (in spite of INTJ), but I’d appreciate a little less crab bucketry in the meantime. Consider that maybe, just maybe, in a world where True Believer moral authorities are out to do the right thing by derailing the sexual development of 4-year-old children, professing unsound doctrine could well be a sign of genuine incorrectness. And not, as psychological solipsists are so quick to proclaim, a sign that the professor is a veritable demon-possessed deceiver from Hell.
To that end, we will discuss the doctrinal question over which glosoli and I disagree—whether Christ has called us to love the church—like adults, understanding that our differences in action follow directly from our disagreement. I believe we are called to love the imperfect church, and glosoli believes the church ought to be perfected by direct, open criticism rather than loving (e.g. Matthew 5:48). Our different focuses could even be ascribed to personality factors, where he is extraordinarily disagreeable and I am so agreeable that I can get along with people who get along with literally not a single other person on earth.
In doing this, you may not accuse anyone of lying unless you have first demonstrated, with a sound and valid syllogism, they have consciously misled someone to believe an incorrect fact that they do not believe, themselves. Otherwise, you may only say they are mistaken, disordered, incorrect, or simply wrong according to the proper definitions of those terms (if you want me to take you seriously, please brush up on these). If you are unwilling to put in the necessary work, then you clearly don’t feel as strongly about it as your language may suggest.
Edit: Boneflour illustrates,
Aeoli Pera 
http://biblehub.com/matthew/6-6.htm I think that seeing how america came about the englishman version is church should reaffirm what the bible says in groups of other men who feel that this is how society should be governed, apart from again stating what is said in a social group setting.
the americanman version is manjana manjana krishianity aka jesus loves you no matter what. we talk about german autism but anglo atuism regarding fair conduct and standards are often overlooked and what is flaring up here probably. I agree more with glosoli than with you aeoli, as a rock solid foundation on this planet church needs hitlerian screeching before it unavoidably collapses into the swedish protestant church version anyways. then again the only ones with seniority are probably the eastern orthodoxy, and they live in whacky gingerbread houses.
If i pray in the closet to get the strength i need to do what i know i need done, with no others around the input of possible failure is zero. If I am a crazy person with need for guidance, the shitty church might encourage me to become transgender becaus jesus loves, and the righteous grown up church might encourage me to take out parliament with a truck bomb. Both being viable career choices these days, but then again all I wanted was the strength to run a mile, instead of walking in the shoes of 30 churches and 300 doctrines.
Doctrine/dogma = politics of the current year, and boy is that year long. What is “Church”? How do I level up my piety without stagnating amongst the low effort “jesus saves” dullards and bring about those hard worked for good changes to my community around me, that are dullards? Society isn’t organized around morality which leads to epic mismatch comedy especially in bigger cities. Plymouth Rock 2.0 when?
bicebicebice: beautifully written.
Aeoli: haven’t forgotten you. Work has kept me busy. I’ll reply to your Skype message soon.
Thanks.
That Feel When your off-site joke to relieve your “OH NO HE DIDN’T” impulse hits front page. GORILLA MINDSET BABY
It’s really tempting to jump in on some of this stuff, so if you guys don’t mind, just imagine me going OH SNAP and AW HELL NAW and THAS RITE on anything you think is a sick burn.
In the scripture below, was Jesus seeking to be agreeable? Yes, he was, to his Father in heaven, the only one that matters.
Was he showing love to men on earth? Yes, he was by speaking the truth.
The framing of the topic at hand itself is wrong. The speaking of truth is a form of love. If I didn’t love Aeoli, I wouldn’t bother to even try to keep him from a bad path, I’d just be indifferent. When I see him mock me with a Boneflour meme thing, I feel sad for Aeoli. He’s so lost with his heathen pals, he doesn’t see what a hypocrite he’s become. Such a hypocrite he was willing to allow a Kratman scriptural error to remain, at the cost of the readership of a long-standing brother. Hard to believe. He also chastised Mycroft for pointing out that scripture is the ultimate authority.
Anyway, this scripture is all I have to offer on the topic at hand, as the modern churches are the hypocrites and blind guides these days, omitting weighty matters altogether, preferring an all-forgiving love-fest, and should be treated in the same way as Jesus treated the Pharisees:
1Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, 2Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: 3All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. 4For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 5But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, 6And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. 8But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. 9And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. 10Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. 11But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
13But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. 14Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
15Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
16Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! 17Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? 18And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. 19Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? 20Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. 21And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. 22And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.
23Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 24Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
25Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. 26Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
27Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 30And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. 32Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 33Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
34Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: 35That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. 36Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.’
Jesus built a new church, we need to do the same.
>When I see him mock me with a Boneflour meme thing, I feel sad for Aeoli.
You’re only one of four people I was thinking of when I wrote this.
It shows how much of an adult you are.
I remembered Jesus’ parable, very apt to this issue:
’21No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. 22And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.’
We ignore His wisdom at our peril.
That’s a metaphor, not a parable. A metaphor is used to describe a concept by analogy. It can’t prescribe behavior because it has no story structure.
So, you just ignore the metaphors from Jesus then?
‘but new wine must be put into new bottles.’
That really sounds like Jesus is literally prescribing a behaviour to me, using an analogy.
It’s a shit discussion so far.
Aeoli, are you going to bother to make your case or not?
Make my case for what?
You may not realise it brother, but you’re really not your normal self of late, as evidenced by you not even grasping my question. I’m worried about you.
Re-read your post, it suggests a discussion of a topic of disagreement.
You’ve not put forward anything to defend your view so far, or make your case.
I didn’t misunderstand your question, I wanted you to try to state my beliefs in your own words.
I have no idea what your beliefs are. But you will fail in your attempt to *save* Churchianity, it’s far too late in the day for that. And partaking in their non-biblical practices is not showing love to them, it’s cementing their belief that they’re saved, despite the obvious fact they’re lost.
I have a suspicion that female influences/desires may be clouding a decade of red-pilling on this subject. Be careful, if your dick is taking over from your heart, only trouble can result.
I understand it’s impossible. But also, anything is possible with God. So it’s up to him.
>And partaking in their non-biblical practices is not showing love to them, it’s cementing their belief that they’re saved, despite the obvious fact they’re lost.
There’s a reason I don’t tell you or Koanic much about what I’m doing IRL. But you are wrong about this because I only barely touched on it and you’ve jumped to conclusions.
>I have a suspicion that female influences/desires may be clouding a decade of red-pilling on this subject. Be careful, if your dick is taking over from your heart, only trouble can result.
This is good advice in general.
‘If you are unwilling to put in the necessary work, then you clearly don’t feel as strongly about it as your language may suggest.’
I declare victory. The other side didn’t even turn up, after 4 days.
Sad.
It’s comments like this that convince me you aren’t a machiavellian deceiver.
I’d be disappointed if you thought I was any kind of deceiver whatsoever.
I do think you’re disingenuous and spiteful, which has similar effects and explains why you’re often accused of being evil.
That you think that is further evidence that you’re a terrible judge of character and people.
The fact you continually side with catholics and unbelievers against biblical brothers reveals a lot, and means that like Koanic, I’ll now stop reading here.
May Jehovah bless you with wisdom and discernment for the rest of your days, as well as a wife and children too. Goodbye.
lol
Be nice, this is an improvement from the previous time he quit. I don’t want to punish improvements just because they’re still a bit clumsy.
If you’re talking about me, I haven’t even seen a challenge for me to answer.
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A quote about roads from humorist / essayist P.J. O’Rourke, comparing the prowess of the Romans to modern technology:
“The Romans made a better road than anyone ever has since. For a primary road like the Sarn Helen they dug parallel ditches more then eighty feet apart and excavated the soil between them Then they laid in a sand-and-quarry-stone foundation bound on either side by tightly fitted curbs of dressed and wedged stone blocks. On top of this foundation they built an embankment four or five feet high and fifty feet wide, constructed of layers of rammed chalk and flint and finished with a screened-gravel crown two feet thick.
Even so, 1,573 years of neglect have taken their toll. The road has worn down and topsoil has accumulated along it, and the Sarn Helen has turned from an embankment into a ditch. There are washouts and mudholes and boulders in the ditch, too. But the Sarn Helen *is* still there. I doubt we’ll be able to say the same about I-95 in the year 3556.”
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