Title: College QB arrested, suspended after claiming ‘cocaine’ on his car was bird poop. It was bird poop. Source:
Saturday Down South URL Source:https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/s ... on-car-was-actually-bird-poop/ Published:Aug 3, 2019 Author:SDS Staff Post Date:2019-08-11 09:33:59 by Deckard Keywords:None Views:39748 Comments:348
Georgia Southern QB Shai Werts has been suspended following an arrest earlier in the week.
Werts was arrested following a traffic stop on Wednesday night in Saluda, South Carolina. According to reports, Werts was originally pulled over for speeding. When the officer attempted to pull him over, however, he kept going and reportedly called 911 to explain that he wasn’t pulling over in a dark area. After reaching town, Werts then pulled over and was arrested for speeding.
The QB was then asked about the white powder on the hood of his car, and he claimed it was bird poop that he tried to clean off at the car wash. The officer tested the powder, and it tested positive for cocaine with two different kits and in two different places on the hood of the car.
“Everything about him and inside his vehicle made him appear as a clean person but the hood of his car was out of place,” the police report states.
Werts denied any knowledge of the origin of the cocaine. The officer wrote that the powder appeared to have been “thrown on the vehicle and had been attempted to be washed off by the windshield wipers, and wiper fluid as there was white powder substance around the areas of the wiper fluid dispensary.”
In addition to speeding, he was charged with a misdemeanor possession of cocaine.
This is all really bad news because Georgia Southern plays LSU Week 1.
Al Eargle, the Deputy Solicitor for the 11th Judicial Circuit which includes Saluda County, told Werts’ attorney, Townes Jones IV, that these kinds of charges would not be pressed on “his watch,” Jones said.
South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) tests were conducted on the substance samples collected from the hood of Werts’ 2016 Dodge Charger, but the results confirmed that no controlled substance was present in the samples.
“I have not seen (the SLED results) yet,” Eargle said on a phone call Thursday night. “But I was informed that the test did come back and that there was no controlled substance found.”
I really should have spraypainted Ichabod over the front door as a safety warning to the general public.
As for why I never told the story before, despite people inquiring here, was because I was embarrassed to have ever been in such a church of dumbasses and heretics who seemed to attend mostly to backstab and gossip.
I'm not saying they should go to hell. But I think that's their destination. They are cows, plodding along the wide path to destruction, chewing their cud placidly.
I quit going the week they kicked him out. I didn't badmouth them around town or spread the accurate story around town because I thought they'd come to their senses. I stopped going to church after that and haven't gone again other than a few clan funerals held at other local churches. I'm more than a little tired of the local Christians. I am avoiding that kind of religion. I never told this before here or at LP and always dodged the question when someone inquired (like watchman who asked me the other day) but I'm tired of hiding their cruelty to him just because someday someone might read this and figure out what church and what people I'm talking about. And, no, I have not forgiven them either. They would first have to confess their cruel sins toward Mel as he was fighting his losing battle with leukemia and make public contrition with his wife, a widow whose heart they broke. And they should return the sizable funds he donated to keep that church open. But Mel did forgive them. Sweet sweet man, a better man than me.
Toxic church. No wonder I encounter previously church attending folks in large numbers at Christian sites. I hear of the same backbiting, gossip and lack of charity when they hit rock bottom.
When I did my deacon interview last year, after answering a lot of questions I understood they had to ask, I was asked to ask the elders and pastor questions. Taking care of our own was a main concern. I told them of an elderly man who sat in the back every late service on Sunday morning. I started sitting next to him and formed a rapport. One day he came in tears to tell me that the doctors recommended he go on hospice care. He did have family not far away who were not members. We prayed, already had each other's email and phone numbers and kept in contact. He told me he was a member of the church for "years." After not seeing him for two weeks I called, no answer. Texted email nothing. Last I heard he was going to live with family. Asked the associate pastor to pull his member file so I could go do a hard target search. Nothing in the files.
My point to the church leadership was I had the man fill out a "connect" card months before, the pastor did a follow up and nothing after that. The difference with my church is they listened and asked me to work with the senior deacon to shore up our contact with elderly members. My church is young and there are actually not many elderly. But we do now keep a closer eye on the elderly and I offered the pastors, elders and deacons keep up an active hard target search for the elderly. I told them many fall off the grid when they become shut-ins, don't know how to work their computers (some do) to get the service on Facebook. Not only that but the human to human contact is what we should be doing even with the services broadcast. I also offered what Catholics do, bring communion to the shut-ins. Good news is they listened and acted.
Fair enough. It doesn't MATTER to me, because I don't expect the Bible to be letter-perfect history. I think the tradition has it right, and it fits the general story in the Scriptures: Killed on Friday, in the Tomb on Saturday, raised the morning of the First/8th Day, Sunday. That's what the text says, and that's what the tradition says.
The only reason it's an issue is because of the "three days, three nights" language. That's not accurate, but it doesn't MATTER to me. It matters to other people, for whom the absolute perfection of the historical record in the Bible is a matter of absolute theological necessity. I'm not someone like that, and if I were part of a Church that demanded that thought, I would either have to leave that Church or, more likely, stick around and just disagree with it.
Of course, I were a member of a Church that actually put real pressure on me to give money, I would not be a member for very long!
#256. To: Vicomte13, A K A Stone, TooConservative (#242)
What did I "make up"?
Jesus died "in the ninth hour" during daylight, on Good Friday. That's Friday at 3 PM. He had to be in the grave before sunset (about 6 PM), because the body had to be put away and people stop working by sunset. The Jewish day begins at sunset, and sunset Friday means Saturday, the Sabbath begins at about 6 PM.
Jesus was in the tomb all day Saturday, from about 6 PM Friday night - by our calendar, which is the beginning of Saturday by the Jewish reckoning. "Saturday night" by Jewish reckoning, was the night between Friday sunset and Saturday sunrise.
When the sun set on Saturday, Sunday night began, circa 6 PM Saturday. It was during Sunday night, before dawn on Sunday morning (circa 6 AM), that Jesus rose from the dead, before the light.
So, by the Jewish calendar, Jesus was dead for three hours on Friday, all day Satruday, from sunset Friday until sunset Saturday, and he rose from the dead Sunday night, about 4 AM, before the sunrise on Sunday morning.
By the Roman, or our Calendar, Jesus was dead on Friday afternoon at 3 PM, in the tomb before sunset, and still in the tomb at midnight Friday night. That's 9 hours. He was in the tomb all day Saturday, that's 24 hours, and he rose from the dead about 4 or 5 AM Sunday, another 4 or 5 hours, for a total time of 37 or 38 hours, not even two full days (that's 48 hours).
By the Jewish calendar he was in the tomb for part of two days - Friday (3 hours), and all day Saturday. He was in the tomb for slightly less than two nights: Sunset Friday until sunrise Saturday, and sunset Saturday until before sunrise Sunday morning.
That's 1 and a quarter days, and 1 and 3/4 nights.
Jesus was not in the grave three days and three nights by either the Hebrew or Roman recknoning. I'm not making this up. It's just basic math.
Enter Screen Names of recipients separated by commas or semicolons.
There are other possibilities to explore examining the pertinent Scriptures. I think the gymnastics used today is try to fit post apostolic "feast days" and calendars in to a 7 day Roman calendar.
Jesus said in Matthew 12:40, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Those who argue for a Friday crucifixion say that there is still a valid way in which He could have been considered in the grave for three days. In the Jewish mind of the first century, a part of day was considered as a full day. Since Jesus was in the grave for part of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday—He could be considered to have been in the grave for three days. One of the principal arguments for Friday is found in Mark 15:42, which notes that Jesus was crucified “the day before the Sabbath.” If that was the weekly Sabbath, i.e. Saturday, then that fact leads to a Friday crucifixion. Another argument for Friday says that verses such as Matthew 16:21 and Luke 9:22 teach that Jesus would rise on the third day; therefore, He would not need to be in the grave a full three days and nights. But while some translations use “on the third day” for these verses, not all do, and not everyone agrees that “on the third day” is the best way to translate these verses. Furthermore, Mark 8:31 says that Jesus will be raised “after” three days.
The Thursday argument expands on the Friday view and argues mainly that there are too many events (some count as many as twenty) happening between Christ's burial and Sunday morning to occur from Friday evening to Sunday morning. Proponents of the Thursday view point out that this is especially a problem when the only full day between Friday and Sunday was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. An extra day or two eliminates that problem. The Thursday advocates could reason thus: suppose you haven't seen a friend since Monday evening. The next time you see him it is Thursday morning and you say, “I haven’t seen you in three days” even though it had technically only been 60 hours (2.5 days). If Jesus was crucified on Thursday, this example shows how it could be considered three days.
The Wednesday opinion states that there were two Sabbaths that week. After the first one (the one that occurred on the evening of the crucifixion [Mark 15:42; Luke 23:52-54]), the women purchased spices—note that they made their purchase after the Sabbath (Mark 16:1). The Wednesday view holds that this “Sabbath” was the Passover (see Leviticus 16:29-31, 23:24-32, 39, where high holy days that are not necessarily the seventh day of the week are referred to as the Sabbath). The second Sabbath that week was the normal weekly Sabbath. Note that in Luke 23:56 the women who had purchased spices after the first Sabbath returned and prepared the spices, then “rested on the Sabbath.” The argument states that they could not purchase the spices after the Sabbath, yet prepare those spices before the Sabbath—unless there were two Sabbaths. With the two-Sabbath view, if Christ was crucified on Thursday, then the high holy Sabbath (the Passover) would have begun Thursday at sundown and ended at Friday sundown—at the beginning of the weekly Sabbath or Saturday. Purchasing the spices after the first Sabbath (Passover) would have meant they purchased them on Saturday and were breaking the Sabbath.
Therefore, according to the Wednesday viewpoint, the only explanation that does not violate the biblical account of the women and the spices and holds to a literal understanding of Matthew 12:40 is that Christ was crucified on Wednesday. The Sabbath that was a high holy day (Passover) occurred on Thursday, the women purchased spices (after that) on Friday and returned and prepared the spices on the same day, they rested on Saturday which was the weekly Sabbath, then brought the spices to the tomb early Sunday. Jesus was buried near sundown on Wednesday, which began Thursday in the Jewish calendar. Using a Jewish calendar, you have Thursday night (night one), Thursday day (day one), Friday night (night two), Friday day (day two), Saturday night (night three), Saturday day (day three). We do not know exactly what time He rose, but we do know that it was before sunrise on Sunday. He could have risen as early as just after sunset Saturday evening, which began the first day of the week to the Jews. The discovery of the empty tomb was made just at sunrise (Mark 16:2), before it was fully light (John 20:1).
A possible problem with the Wednesday view is that the disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus did so on “the same day” of His resurrection (Luke 24:13). The disciples, who do not recognize Jesus, tell Him of Jesus' crucifixion (24:21) and say that “today is the third day since these things happened” (24:22). Wednesday to Sunday is four days. A possible explanation is that they may have been counting since Wednesday evening at Christ's burial, which begins the Jewish Thursday, and Thursday to Sunday could be counted as three days.
always dodged the question when someone inquired (like watchman who asked me the other day)
I didn't see this post until today, TC. I think it is very important to tell these stories...at the right time and when it seems fitting to do so.
What you are talking about here in this post...this is an epidemic. It's repeating itself across the nation like the plague. There has been some abatement, but in my opinion...the damage has been done. The salt has lost it's savour and the light has been hid under a bushel basket (often of bile and venom).
I have a story. My first church had split just before I was called so I thought, great, the problems had left the church and we could just start over. That first Sunday I looked out in the congregation and realized...it had split again, just after the first split left! But somehow, we grew and grew. All the while seismic plates(!) were pressing against each other. Hugh lava domes were forming. Just as victory was looking so sweet! The volcano erupted. New believers crushed, whole families burned alive. A bedrock church from our nation's history...it was gone for good.
That's the thing. The local church IS the bedrock. Its that little community church, in thousands upon thousands of communities and villages, towns and cities. The local church nearest me has taken a novel approach. They tore up their constitution! I figured whatever! If it keeps the doors open and the gospel message going out, I'm all in favor. But as for any serious light emanating, that would breath freedom back into the land...not happening.
Long story short, I moved to a cow pasture. Thankful, everyday. It's safe for now but I see the fabric ripping already. Did I mention, we have Somalians walking the country road past my farm. Its the craziest thing. Middle of nowhere, temps hitting 20 below in winter. I'd like to befriend even share the gospel but they are always gone by the time I walk across the field. Still, its unsettling.
And I will return to my own view of all of this. I am TOTALLY INDIFFERENT to the day on which he was crucified, or rose from the dead. It makes NO DIFFERENCE WHATEVER to me, because I'm not superstitious or idolatrous. That something happened on a certain day does not make that day "more extra special", such that it matters before God.
IF I were a circumcised Hebrew living in Israel when the Temple was still up and the daily offerings were still being made by the Aaronic priesthood, then the Saturday Sabbath would matter, as would the dates of various moons and seasons. But I'm none of those things, so they are completely, utterly, totally irrelevant, in every single respect, to my spiritual OR physical voyage through this world. They're the badges of a defunct religion that neither I nor anybody in my ancestry back to "Adam and Eve" were part of.
I understand very clearly WHY there is such sturm und drang, and effort expended on this very subject: it's a contradiction in the Bible.
But I don't expect a collection of copied human scrolls to be perfect, so such contradictions and imperfections are of no concern to ME either.
They ARE of concern, very great concern, to those people for whom the Bible MUST be word-and-letter perfect, lest their faith be shaken.
I am not such a person - I consider such people to be superstitious at best, and vaguely idolatrous about the Bible, at worst - but their concerns are no skin off my nose, and I'm well content to just let them be - if they let me be also. When they don't, then I bring up obvious issues like this one to repay them for not letting me be by letting them deal with the distress of the obvious imperfections in their book. Perfectionism is not my circus, not my monkey.
I do maintain that the Church is fading all around the world IN PART because of piddling little nits like this. We've got Christians being killed for their faith in the Middle East, China and Africa, and 2 million babies a year being killed for convenience in the USA, and we've got staggering poverty and abuse...and THIS is the sort of trivial shit that Christians fight about?
It's also fading because of more serious issues, such as unchecked abuse, mistreatment of people, bigotry, attitudes about wealth and power, etc. It's not selling well anymore, at all.
My simple, sincere, direct suggestion is: if you want to save the Church, you had better get back to what Jesus himself said, and then insist on DOING THAT. That requires a revamped view of violence, of money, of foreigners, of...everything. It's demanding but consistent.
I don't personally believe that the churches are going to be able to survive if they don't do that. And I'm ok with that. All of the dross falls away, and what is left is Jesus - Just Jesus. That's an improvement, to my eyes. It's sincere, clean and uncomplicated. It's real.
And I will return to my own view of all of this. I am TOTALLY INDIFFERENT to the day on which he was crucified, or rose from the dead. It makes NO DIFFERENCE WHATEVER to me, because I'm not superstitious or idolatrous. That something happened on a certain day does not make that day "more extra special", such that it matters before God.
Jesus did say the 'sign of Jonah.' In Jonah we see that as three days and three nights. So that is what happened regardless of the days.
I thought the Wednesday option had good logic according to the feast days being Sabbath's. Makes sense as we see the women prepare the spices, keep the feast day and then go back before the weekly Sabbath.
I don't know, but it is a consideration, that the early church circa early second century when coming up with the liturgical calendar may have made days fit Holy Week.
And I will return to my own view of all of this. I am TOTALLY INDIFFERENT to the day on which he was crucified, or rose from the dead. It makes NO DIFFERENCE WHATEVER to me, because I'm not superstitious or idolatrous. That something happened on a certain day does not make that day "more extra special", such that it matters before God.
Well as a Catholic and me Reformed we are creedal. The Creed does not specify days of the week but Jesus was Crucified, died, was buried and on the third day He rose again the third day in fulfillment of the Scriptures.
I have a story. My first church had split just before I was called so I thought, great, the problems had left the church and we could just start over. That first Sunday I looked out in the congregation and realized...it had split again, just after the first split left! But somehow, we grew and grew. All the while seismic plates(!) were pressing against each other. Hugh lava domes were forming. Just as victory was looking so sweet! The volcano erupted. New believers crushed, whole families burned alive. A bedrock church from our nation's history...it was gone for good.
Apparently people can't gather amicably to worship for an hour or two a week. Maybe they're too busy with their online lives to conduct a real life.
Long story short, I moved to a cow pasture. Thankful, everyday. It's safe for now but I see the fabric ripping already. Did I mention, we have Somalians walking the country road past my farm. Its the craziest thing.
Smart move. But Somalians all over? Yeeesh. Can't we attract a better class of migrant? I don't mean whiter. I just mean people more apt to blend in with American ideas. Somalia is barely a country at all.
Toxic church. No wonder I encounter previously church attending folks in large numbers at Christian sites. I hear of the same backbiting, gossip and lack of charity when they hit rock bottom.
Neglect is bad enough. Persecuting the dying is just too far over the line.
My point to the church leadership was I had the man fill out a "connect" card months before, the pastor did a follow up and nothing after that. The difference with my church is they listened and asked me to work with the senior deacon to shore up our contact with elderly members. My church is young and there are actually not many elderly. But we do now keep a closer eye on the elderly and I offered the pastors, elders and deacons keep up an active hard target search for the elderly.
It's a little like the problem with Social Security. When you have a dozen young workers supporting a retiree, then the burden is not so great. When you extend the average lifespan a few decades past retirement age, suddenly you only have 3 workers to support a retiree. And Big Gov wonders why people don't have very many kids nowadays. Hell, they can't afford them and government doesn't do much to help. Government is mostly run by pols who are cashing in with lobbyists. So few have an incentive or desire to simply pursue the public interest on ideologically neutral terms.
The natural tendency in recent decades is for churches to turn elderly. Then suddenly it's not so much fun for anyone, it seems. And we haven't seen the full impact of the Boomer retirement quite yet.
Maybe the Boomers are going to just kill off the churches completely. The upcoming generation has a deep love for their phones and tats, not for religion.
Therefore, according to the Wednesday viewpoint, the only explanation that does not violate the biblical account of the women and the spices and holds to a literal understanding of Matthew 12:40 is that Christ was crucified on Wednesday. The Sabbath that was a high holy day (Passover) occurred on Thursday, the women purchased spices (after that) on Friday and returned and prepared the spices on the same day, they rested on Saturday which was the weekly Sabbath, then brought the spices to the tomb early Sunday. Jesus was buried near sundown on Wednesday, which began Thursday in the Jewish calendar. Using a Jewish calendar, you have Thursday night (night one), Thursday day (day one), Friday night (night two), Friday day (day two), Saturday night (night three), Saturday day (day three). We do not know exactly what time He rose, but we do know that it was before sunrise on Sunday. He could have risen as early as just after sunset Saturday evening, which began the first day of the week to the Jews. The discovery of the empty tomb was made just at sunrise (Mark 16:2), before it was fully light (John 20:1).
I like how you attack the problem analytically. But is all this interest in the exact day and hour of Jesus' crucifixion of any great importance. I think it is broadly accepted that Jesus was crucified. Would anyone be a better Christian even if they managed to deduce the exact day, hour, minute and second of the crucifixion of Jesus? It might sell a few books for an enterprising author but does it actually make any real difference? I don't think so. Either you believe that He died or you don't. Since all men die, the only matter here is that Jesus, the alleged Son of God, died a death on this plane of existence, just as we do. The key thing is whether a person believes that Jesus was resurrected, as the Gospels testify.
Sometimes, you get into the discussions and passions get a little high and you realize the old proverbs have some wisdom. Far more good is done by an old lady treating a child kindly than by a bunch of men quarreling over the fine points of the law or doctrine.
Vic has a certain line on this angle, it seems. The question for anyone is not what you know or what you can argue or what you can do to forward your cause. Sometimes it is just knowing that those pursuits are okay in moderation but it is far far more important what we do than what we say or know.
A Baptist church peddling that bogus and blasphemous "serpent seed" doctrine?
Not from the pulpit. Just a lady with a complete collection of those cassette tapes who shared with with the church by leaving them laying around to "borrow".
You know, it took me a while to realize just how unsound they really were. I really should not have been surprised that it ended badly.
I've come up with a new way to increase Bible literacy and make a tidy sum as well.
Publish...the Twitter Bible!
Rewrite the entire canon, especially the Gospels, as tweets. Reconstruct the whole thing as a bunch of Twitter timelines. No more dusty chapters and verses to quote, just tweets and DMs.
I'd give it a couple of years before someone actually publishes something like that and actually makes money off it.
Either you believe that He died or you don't. Since all men die, the only matter here is that Jesus, the alleged Son of God, died a death on this plane of existence, just as we do. The key thing is whether a person believes that Jesus was resurrected, as the Gospels testify.
Yes the Creeds do simplify it for the masses.
I just thought the breadcrumbs of one or two Sanbaths that week was interesting. Gives you something concrete to pursue.
I think even the most read and accomplished theologians even Protestant don’t want to rock the boat of Holy Week being that one week with Palm Sunday kicking it off. Even the more contemporary Evangelicals are starting or have been observing traditional calendars. Even my church started two years ago running an Advent devotional guide for families. The world is crumbling as Prots become more “catholic.”
At my pastors small group this past Wednesday I joked over pizza that now that we have 3 church plants that makes him an “arch pastor” or “arch bishop.” We all had a laugh at that and as the only former Catholic I went further to say “I guess we can see how things got going that way in the 2nd century.”
Rewrite the entire canon, especially the Gospels, as tweets. Reconstruct the whole thing as a bunch of Twitter timelines. No more dusty chapters and verses to quote, just tweets and DMs.
I'd give it a couple of years before someone actually publishes something like that and actually makes money off it.
Yes, it does. But that "third day" business is a detail. It doesn't have any moral significance. The resurrection means Jesus was who he said he was, THAT'S why resurrection on the third day was so important, not the fact that it was "the third day". The precise time measure is only important to those whose faith requires an exact trcod
(1) The world is crumbling as Prots become more “catholic.”
(2) 3 church plants that makes him an “arch pastor” or “arch bishop.” We all had a laugh at that and as the only former Catholic I went further to say “I guess we can see how things got going that way in the 2nd century
(1) YAY!
(2) Now tell him "in five years, we're imposing the celibacy rule on pastors."
Even my church started two years ago running an Advent devotional guide for families. The world is crumbling as Prots become more “catholic.”
You're more sensitive to that than the rest of us cradle Prots.
I'm not sure that's the real underlying problem with American churches. We see Jews now don't intermarry or practice their faith, the Prots denominations are in steep decline, the evangelicals are holding Fight Church if they haven't succumbed to easy-believerism, the Mormons have announced they're ending their door-to-door campaigns this year, etc.
There's simply a drifting away from every type of traditional religion, across the board.
There have been such eras through the centuries. History does reveal it. This is not unique. Just as American politics is actually not much more vicious today than it was 150-200 years ago.
Unless you think this is the final general apostasy before a Second Coming, it's just another periodic drifting away from religion generally. And it's nothing new.
t's a little like the problem with Social Security. When you have a dozen young workers supporting a retiree, then the burden is not so great.
That's not the problem. The problem is the salary cap.
Most people pay Social Security tax, of 6.2%. on up to the first $132,900 of salary - with no deductions whatever - the very first dollar of wages is taxed at 6.2% (this is also true for Medicare, and there's no cap). The employer also pays the same 6.2%
Hence, the maximum amount of the employee's and employer's Social Security tax for each employee in 2019 is $8,239.80 (6.2% X $132,900) each, for a total of $16,479.60.
Note, please, that if there were no such tax, the employee might earn the employee portion of the tax, but the employer would not be paying the employer that tax.
The average Social Security beneficiary receives $1422 per month, which is $17,064 per year.
I currently pay the top bracket, so essentially my employer and I, with my combined Social Security "contributions", pay for one average retiree.
Of course, Social Security is a brutally regressive tax.
(The source of the following data is the Statistical Atlas of the United States) Now, the average income of the top 20% is $200,000 per year, and the average income of the top 5% is $358,300 per year. Now, the top 20% of the income earners earn 51% of the income earned by everybody in America, and the top 5% earn 23% of the income.
To make the numbers simple, 28% of income earners average $200,000 per year, and 23% average $358,300 per year.
Now let's look at what this means for Social Security. 80% of the population pays Social Security taxes on 100% of their wages - but those wages constitute less than half of the wages in America.
20% of the people earn 51% of the money, but their wages are taxed by Social Security only up to $132,900.
With a little more math, we see that 28% of the income earned in America should be taxed an average of an additional $4160.20 per year, and 28% of it should be taxed an additional $13,974.80 a year for Social Security, then double those amounts for the employer contribution.
There is no "Social Security crisis" in America. There is a stubborn unwillingness of the rich, who control the levers of government, to pay the SAME proportion of taxes on their wage income as everybody else.
Of course if we look higher up the chart, things get really out of whack. The top 1% earn $718,000 per year or more, and THEY are a full 13.4% of wages. And the top 0.1% belt begins at $2.757.000 per year, and THEY earn 5.2% of all wages.
And this is just wages. The well off (top 1%) on average earn only 51.2% of their income in the form of wages. 48.8% of their income is in the form of capital income (profits, dividends, interest, rent and capital gains). But in the top 0.1%, only 30% of what they earn is in the form of wages. 70% is from capital income, which is not (currently) subject to the income taxes or payroll taxes at all.
I will repeat: there is no Social Security crisis in America. There is simply a political unwillingness on the part of the rich to be taxed at the SAME rates that everybody below them pays. It's not because it would break them - the Social Security tax doesn't break the people at the bottom, and they are taxed on their entire salary. It's because they have had the political power to impose taxes in ways that prevent the well-off from becoming truly rich, and to push the costs of governance downward on everybody else.
I do not advocate for massive progressivity in the tax code. That's Bernie Sanders. What I insist upon is absolute FAIRNESS. It is not FAIR that the poor, working and middle class pay a flat tax without deduction on all of their income, while the rich do not. Everybody should be paying that same tax on every dollar of income, from whatever source derived.
Do just that and there would be no Social Security crisis, no Medicare crisis, and we would have a budget surplus.
Consider redleghunter's math. If I were required to pay social security under the tax code as I have suggested, I would be paying $31,000 per year, and my employer would be matching. $62,000 per year would be supporting 3.6 average retired workers.
There is no Social Security or any other fiscal crisis in America. There is a stubborn unwillingness to be FAIR. We strongly favor the super rich (not the merely rich, but the super rich), and in doing so, we shift the burden of government onto the middle class, and allow the rich to get much richer, must faster. Nothing about this is fair, or necessary.
I've come up with a new way to increase Bible literacy and make a tidy sum as well.
Publish...the Twitter Bible!
My Bible rewrite is this:
First, acknowledge right up from that there are multiple canons of the Bible, and that, while there is much overlap, there is divergence on the fringes. Choose the LARGEST canon: the Ethiopian Orthodox longer canon, which includes everything in any other canon, plus additional books. THAT will be the canon. All of those books will be translated and bound together.
The order of the presentation of the books will be in accordance with the largest denomination - the Catholics - but where there are additional books or parts of books from various Orthodox canons, those will be inserted at the appropriate places in the Orthodox canons. Each book will note on its opening page for which denominations it is canonical.
This convention will allow everybody to see all of the books of all canons, and allow people to simply skip over the books they do not want to read (because it's not "canon"), without moving books around in a way that positively denigrates those books. NOBODY's tradition will be completely respected, because non-canonical books will be here for all, but canonicity will be noted.
Next, we must ADDRESS WHAT, exactly, is translated, and from what language.
The age of computers allows us to do something brilliant.
Different religions insist that different manuscripts and languages are THE correct ones to use. Others do not, but want things "scholarly".
A key question is whether you translate ONE manuscript, or you translate a scholarly recension of manuscripts. There are pros and cons of each. In the age of the computer, you don't have to finally decide. You can, rather, translate each source and then overlay the texts, in the original languages and in English, to demonstrate the differences.
Some logical bases: the oldest complete Bible (Codex Vaticanus) in Greek. Also Codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, side by side. The oldest complete version of the Vulgate. The oldest complete Peshitta.
And...and...and...who cares?
TL; DR Only a billionaire could commission it done right, and no matter what you do people will squabble anyway. It's a pit of quicksand.
That's not the problem. The problem is the salary cap.
Well, I was using an analogy. My point to redleghunter was that it is a lot easier to take care of the elderly in your church when you have a small number of elderly and a lot of younger people. More people to share the burdens.
We've already drifted from college QB's with bird poop (or cocaine) on their car to religion. I'm trying to resist moving on to the Social Security issue as well. : )
The age of computers allows us to do something brilliant.
Different religions insist that different manuscripts and languages are THE correct ones to use. Others do not, but want things "scholarly".
A key question is whether you translate ONE manuscript, or you translate a scholarly recension of manuscripts. There are pros and cons of each. In the age of the computer, you don't have to finally decide. You can, rather, translate each source and then overlay the texts, in the original languages and in English, to demonstrate the differences.
It is a key advantage of using computers to tackle the sheer drudgery of manuscript comparisons. You are right to point out that we live in an era where we can bring to bear the entirety of these textual exemplars and analyze them differentially using computers instead of waiting or hoping that some scholars will engage in such mind-numbing work for our benefit.
Because this is one of my "If I will the big lottery" projects, I guess I will go o go on.
The manuscripts I want translated are:
Codex Vatica go o go on.
The manuscripts I want translated are:
Codex Vaticanus - Oldest Complete Bible, in Greek. Codex Sinaiticus - 2nd Old almost complete, Greek Codex Alexandrinus - 3rd oldest mostly complete, Greek.
Vulgate - oldest version of Latin text.
Peshitta - oldest Aramaic Bible.
Codex Leningradensis - oldest complete Hebrew text (1010 AD).
Aleppo Codex
The "traditional Jewish text".
Patriarchal Text - THE official Byzantine Type text according to the Patriarch of of Constantinople in 1904 (Greek)
Textus Recept of of Constantinople in 1904 (Greek)
Textus Receptus - The Byzantine Type text beneath the King James Version.
The Westcott-Hort Recension
The Nesle-Aland Recension
And then, going forward, every fragment in order of date, the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Ultimately, ALL of the manuscripts and fragments need to be in the database, with "Lo with "Look and see for yourself" pi with "Lo with "Look and see for yourself" pictures of the actual texts, all pages.
Those are the textual bases.
The translation itself must be STRICTLY MECHANICAL, with NO variance or devi deviance. This is of crucial importance, because it fixes one single English word word for each Greek word, or Lati word word for each Greek word, or Latin word, or Aramaic word, or Hebrew word.
What that does is allow a search using English to find each instance of a word in in the original languages.
in in the original languages.
The problem comes when one crosses languages between the testaments, between the Hebrew and the Greek. Which is "original"? Sure, the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, but the oldest complete Old Testament is in Greek, from circa 350 AD. The oldest complete Old Testament in Hebrew is from 1010 AD, 660 years later - and 660 years into the Christian-Jewish dispute.
The Dead Sea Scrolls can help SOMEWHAT, but they only cover about 10-15% of the actual Old Testament text, so no, we cannot reconstruct the Old Testament with the Dead Sea Scrolls. We can only compare parts - and the parts that we can compare sometimes agree with the LXX, sometimes with the Massoretic Text, and someti sometimes with n someti sometimes with neither.
Different religions are very partisan for specific manuscript, and have great pile piled wedding c pile piled wedding cakes of logic to support their view. I think that most of those logi logical piled logi logical piled tartes are creampuffs of special pleading. Since I do not beli believe any of the arguments are very good, I want to see all of it, side by side side, with d side side, with dates of sources, to decide for myself what the differences are, and thei their impli thei their implications.
With the Vulgate we have a Latin translation, both testaments, with the word ch choices of Jerome for the same words in Greek or Hebrew, as rendered in Latin.
With the Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, we have the LXX word ch choices for the Hebrew OT that are then used in the New Testament. We don't ha have to ACCEPT these word choices, but we can choose to.
Deciding that old testament wind/breath/spirit (ruach) is the same as New Te Testament wind/breath/spirit (pneuma) has major theological implications. Be Being able to SEE these choices is critical.
Of course, by granularity of this degree, all sorts of traditions are subject to collateral attack - which is one of the points for my doing it: to use superior scholarship to quell inferior scholarship and traditions.
Yes, it does. But that "third day" business is a detail. It doesn't have any moral significance. The resurrection means Jesus was who he said he was, THAT'S why resurrection on the third day was so important, not the fact that it was "the third day". The precise time measure is only important to those whose faith requires an exact trcod
It's about OT prophecy fulfillment and the words Christ spoke. He gave them the sign of Jonah and explained the 3 days and 3 nights. I believe He accomplished this according to His truthful words.
Now tell him "in five years, we're imposing the celibacy rule on pastors."
LOL I would become the pariah if I even joked that. I really do walk a thin line at times pointing out a lot of smaller church discovery learning today is no different than what we saw in the early church.
We even had to two deacons who have degrees in theology run a small group study on the Apostles creed. After two sessions they asked me to teach a class. I took that as a hint to limit my participation and not be an insufferable "know it all" about things Catholic and the early church. :)
You're more sensitive to that than the rest of us cradle Prots.
I'm not sure that's the real underlying problem with American churches. We see Jews now don't intermarry or practice their faith, the Prots denominations are in steep decline, the evangelicals are holding Fight Church if they haven't succumbed to easy-believerism, the Mormons have announced they're ending their door-to-door campaigns this year, etc.
There's simply a drifting away from every type of traditional religion, across the board.
There have been such eras through the centuries. History does reveal it. This is not unique. Just as American politics is actually not much more vicious today than it was 150-200 years ago.
Unless you think this is the final general apostasy before a Second Coming, it's just another periodic drifting away from religion generally. And it's nothing new.
Mainland Europe is already gone, and England is quite close now. I was going to make this a separate thread (may still will) but shows how far gone England has gone even with a state church:
The translation itself must be STRICTLY MECHANICAL, with NO variance or devi deviance. This is of crucial importance, because it fixes one single English word word for each Greek word, or Lati word word for each Greek word, or Latin word, or Aramaic word, or Hebrew word.
It may be a problem to go with literal translation.
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are from the same text manuscript family. But one of them has hundreds of edit markings from different eras which raises a plethora of questions about its source and accuracy.
What is needed is something to confirm either the Vaticanus or the Sinaiticus as the prevailing version of the early era. At this point, it seems that Vaticanus gets the nod since it is the most complete and obviously a finished product, even being printed on vellum as I recall it. Some still think that it was one of the bibles that Constantine had printed for all the big churches of his era. I think it was perhaps a prototype for those bibles but was not considered of good enough quality to be an imperial issue and so they just kept the prototype copy. If only we had one of the other 50 bibles he distributed, then we would know. Perhaps we'll find one of them someday.
The Dead Sea Scrolls can help SOMEWHAT, but they only cover about 10-15% of the actual Old Testament text, so no, we cannot reconstruct the Old Testament with the Dead Sea Scrolls. We can only compare parts - and the parts that we can compare sometimes agree with the LXX, sometimes with the Massoretic Text, and someti sometimes with n someti sometimes with neither.
Again, how do you do mechanical translation, word for word, through two vernacular languages that shifted over time? Well, you can't really do it. No computer can because it isn't a computer problem, it's a language problem. And the language(s) being used shifted over time, exactly as our languages evolve today over the course of centuries.
There have been such eras through the centuries. History does reveal it. This is not unique. Just as American politics is actually not much more vicious today than it was 150-200 years ago.
Unless you think this is the final general apostasy before a Second Coming, it's just another periodic drifting away from religion generally. And it's nothing new.
I think the First Great Awakening was a turnaround for the American Colonies which reached back to England. Good thing as the 18th century rolled on we started to see Continental Europe with the seeds of Liberal Theology and Skeptic movement coming out of all places, Germany. Went full blown in the mid 19th century.
Some believed the Second Great Awakening 1790-1820 helped buttress the liberal theology from taking root here in the US. But that second awakening also gave us a host of the crazy non-denominationals like the SDA (Ellen G White), and new religions like Joseph Smith's Mormons and a host of snake handlers, Shakers and the lot. But it did also fill more pews in Baptist and Methodist churches. So that was mixed. There were even some Presbyterians mixed in there as well. It was probably this awakening which multiplied many of the non-Trinitarian and non-creedal sects. Before the 19th century our only non-Creedal sects were Quakers and Unitarians, maybe a few others not well known. Throw in there Charles Finney, Pentecostals and the Protestant Piety movement, wow that century here in the US was interesting. If not for the good old Fundamentalists in the late 19th to early 20th century, the European Liberal Theology would have taken us by storm.
Charles Spurgeon in his "Down Grade" works took on the mid to late 19th century liberal theology infecting the Baptist churches in England. Some think he was so worked up with what he saw around him led to his illness which would take his life.
I apologize if I have briefly gone over things discussed in the past and only offer the shorthand of things which take deeper reading/studying. But thought it appropriate as we were discussing a generation falling away from the faith.
It is a key advantage of using computers to tackle the sheer drudgery of manuscript comparisons. You are right to point out that we live in an era where we can bring to bear the entirety of these textual exemplars and analyze them differentially using computers instead of waiting or hoping that some scholars will engage in such mind-numbing work for our benefit.
I know there are probably hundreds of "pay for" Bible study software and LOGOS probably has a monopoly on those who are pursuing degrees in Divinity and Theology. Hey Vic they even have Catholic and Orthodox modules for LOGOS now! :)
For the 'poor layman' I know there there is eSword and a host of others for a lot less than LOGOS and just about anything can be found on the web or at some not for cost academic sites. But I have grown fond of Biblehub.com. It gives you a lot of the functions of eSword along with the Strongs lexicon, numerous commentaries, geography, and if you can read it the various Hebrew and Greek manuscripts used even the translation. Not to mention most of the more popular Protestant and Catholic Bible versions even side by side verse comparison.
So Vic a lot of what you may want to do, may already be at your finger tips as a start.
Mainland Europe is already gone, and England is quite close now. I was going to make this a separate thread (may still will) but shows how far gone England has gone even with a state church:
Europe has been gone for a generation already. It has been many centuries now since Europe was clucking over the loss of Christian north Africa. And the Holy Land. Perhaps that looked to Europe like a final impending apostasy as well.
Charles Spurgeon in his "Down Grade" works took on the mid to late 19th century liberal theology infecting the Baptist churches in England. Some think he was so worked up with what he saw around him led to his illness which would take his life.
So many people never even heard of it. There was a comparable figure in Presbyterianism. He eventually led the breakoff to the formation of Orthodox Presbyterians, a small denomination.
Europe has been gone for a generation already. It has been many centuries now since Europe was clucking over the loss of Christian north Africa. And the Holy Land. Perhaps that looked to Europe like a final impending apostasy as well.
That had mostly been done by conquering Muslim regimes. Wait, what did Europe just do with Muslims again?
It's about OT prophecy fulfillment and the words Christ spoke. He gave them the sign of Jonah and explained the 3 days and 3 nights. I believe He accomplished this according to His truthful words.
Well, the trouble is he said the "Sign of Jonah" - three days and three nights inside of the fish.
At most, using the Jewish measure, he was in the tomb three days (Part (about three hours)of Friday, 24 hours of Saturday and part of Sunday (about 9 hours) and 1 3/4 nights.
Using the Roman measure he was in the tomb a day and a half.
Three days and three nights can't be gotten out of the text with a Sunday resurrection and a Friday execution.
Three days and three nights can't be gotten out of the text with a Sunday resurrection and a Friday execution.
Why do you have to add to scripture and mandate Sunday as the resurrection day? You make Jesus a liar and yourself the new truth. You claim you were raised from the dead. Delusional. You claim you prayed and some lizards and rats or something raised from the dead. Delusional. You also said right wingers should all be murdered if we wanted to solve the worlds problems. You also said you were a socialist.
All of those things make you a non follower of chirst crazy dude who thinks he owns others wealth and can tell them what to do with it.
The other day you were such a hypocrite talking about God didn't give you a right to kill. When in the last year or so you said kill all right wingers. You're quite the head case.
Again, how do you do mechanical translation, word for word, through two vernacular languages that shifted over time? Well, you can't really do it. No computer can because it isn't a computer problem, it's a language problem. And the language(s) being used shifted over time, exactly as our languages evolve today over the course of centuries.
Yes, you can do it. I've got a good mechanical translation of the New Testament, and a good mechanical translation of the Torah.
The groundwork comes in the lexicon. You have to go through the entire text and separate out each and every word, including the different declensions and conjugated forms.
To each base word you must assign ONE SINGLE ENGLISH WORD as its meaning. And you have to use one single form for each different verb conjugation (example: the Hebrew imperfect can be "I will go", "I was going", or "I will be going" - you have to pick ONE form - say "I will go", and use always use that whenever the imperfect form of "Go" comes up. You indicate what part of speech, exactly, with parentheticals to identify the verb tense, number, etc.).
You must be consistent. You cannot allow one English word to be used for two different words in the language to be translated. And you cannot allow two English words to translate one Hebrew (or Greek) word. The correspondence must always be 1 for 1.
This produces a translation that is hard to read, but you make no apologies for it. The world is full of easy to read translations. What THIS translation does is allow you to instantly see the parallels - every time that word is used. And that shuts down a great deal of translation-based theology (of the kind that I abhor).
An example. In Isaiah, YHWH says that he creates good and evil. So many arguments I have had about this, with people who say, because of their traditions, that no, God does not CREATE evil. And this despite the fact that God says directly in the first person that he does. Well, most translations don't put the word "evil" in there in Isaiah. They say "send calamity" or the like. This avoids the problem visually and means people don't have to face the issue.
Others take a different tangent, say that God does not create MORAL evil, so Isaiah is saying that, yes, God can do things like create floods, but he is not the creator of MORAL evil.
That's very comfortable, but then it begs the question. Was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, from which Eve, then Adam, at the forbidden fruit, knowledge of MORAL evil, or knowledge of earthquakes and hailstorms?
Not one person in a room full of 100 theologians will try to argue that the "Evil" in the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil isn't knowledge of MORAL evil. So that tree in the Garden is knowledge of Good and Moral evil - of "tov" and of "ra" - those are the Hebrew words. Now page forward to Isaiah: what is it that God creates? Tov and ra. The same good and evil that the tree gives knowledge of.
So yeah, God creates Good and Evil - including moral evil.
What's the issue? God is God, and he said so? Just like in the creed: "I believe in One God...creator of all things seen and unseen. That would include Tov and Ra. Obviously.
Why, then, would Christians struggle with this and deny that God creates "ra", when he SAYS HE DOES.
Well, there's a tradition that God doesn't do that, and that tradition is rooted in a psalm of David. DAVID asserted that God had no part in any evil. But GOD said he did. It's a classic contradiction in the Bible, of a devout man actually asserting that God was a bit different from what God himself said he was.
This doesn't trouble ME - I don't expect perfect consistency. But it GREATLY troubles those for whom the Bible must be a perfect idol, lest they lose their faith.
Mechanical translation can be done. The great thing about doing it for the Vaticanus, where both testaments are written in Greek, and Vulgate, where both are written in Latin, is that one can then compare the results from translating the OT from Hebrew and NT from Greek. There, one must select English words for Hebrew words, and those English selections may differ from the English selected for a Greek word in the New Testament. But note that in those places in the NT where the Greek quotes something in the OT directly, the word choices need to be the same. That can bring consistency.
By comparing Hebrew old/Greek new translation of words, one can discover if linquists think there is a difference in words...or the same. One can see the choices.
The problem with doing it any other way is that translation for "meaning" means translation based on what it MUST mean, according to the theology of the translator. I don't want that. Tell me what it SAYS. I'LL decide what it MEANS.
You claim you were raised from the dead. Delusional.
I never claimed that.
I said I broke my neck and was drowning, paralyzed, at the bottom of a lake, and that God healed my broken neck and allowed me to walk out of the lake. I never said I was DEAD.
I said he raised two dead animals in my presence, not ME.
I said I broke my neck and was drowning, paralyzed, at the bottom of a lake, and that God healed my broken neck and allowed me to walk out of the lake.
All of those things make you a non follower of chirst crazy dude who thinks he owns others wealth and can tell them what to do with it.
The other day you were such a hypocrite talking about God didn't give you a right to kill. When in the last year or so you said kill all right wingers. You're quite the head case.
You just have really poor reading comprehension, and no sense of irony or hyperbole.
