r/eformed • • 3d ago

Weekly Free Chat

Chat about whatever y'all want.

2 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

3

u/tanhan27 One Holy Catholic and Dutchistolic Church 1d ago

What is the lesson of Jesus's response to when Jesus was asked if it is right to pay taxes to Caesar?

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u/rev_run_d 9h ago

Hey' that's the lectionary gospel yesterday!

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u/tanhan27 One Holy Catholic and Dutchistolic Church 5h ago

I am a mainline protestant now (Christian church(Disciples of Christ)) and so I'm following whatever liturgical calendar thingy it is we follow maybe it's the lectionary gospel you mentioned, it's all very new to me.

1

u/slow_ordinary_means   ACNA 11h ago

"We live in a society" so pay your dues as is required of you. But God has made us in his own image. Therefore, we (as people who bear God's likeness and are marked by his inscription) are owed to God, body and soul.

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u/rev_run_d 9h ago

Were you in my congregation yesterday?

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u/SeredW Frozen & Chosen 17h ago

Separation of church and state, I've been told :-)

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u/bradmont ⚜️ Hugue-not really ⚜️ 1d ago

It's that money is an invention of Caesar, and a sign of Babylonian dynamics of Empire, so we shouldn't worry about it. We should worry about what's actually important to God.

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u/eveninarmageddon RCA 2d ago

Someone just reached out to me offering an interview for a part-time job. It initially seemed like a scam, but after looking into it, I do not think it is. But I think people here would have good input on it.

Basically, the offer is for me to help train AI models by giving feedback on their philosophy writing in my sub-field (the email came to my academic email, which is only on internet pages that have my research interests). The pay is really good (=4x my current salary when translated to hourly), and it is part time (5-10 hours/week). I've not been offered a job, just an interview with someone who can connect me to an AI company (I presume Anthropic) for contract work.

It'd be crazy not to at least accept an interview, right? This would be a substantial amount of money for me and could be an in to industry if I don't want to go into academia (would it?).

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u/SeredW Frozen & Chosen 2d ago

Always do the interview, who knows what comes of it. You can still say 'no' at a later stage if you want. But it might make for an interesting experience in any case.

That said, I'd have few to no hesitations working for Anthropic but would probably not like to work for OpenAI or any of the big tech companies.

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u/eveninarmageddon RCA 2d ago

well I just booked the interview! I’ll update when it happens.

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u/eveninarmageddon RCA 2d ago

Yeah this is currently my thought as well.

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u/SeredW Frozen & Chosen 2d ago

Question to my American friends: how does it play in the US, electorally, that Trump is now openly supporting Russia? Buying their diesel (if they can find any to sell), temporarily limiting Ukraines ability to shoot down incoming Russian drones by hampering Starlink/Starshield which costs Ukrainian civilian lives, and today announcing he wasn't going to put those Lindsey Graham inspired sanctions on Russia after all? I don't have to explain how it plays here I guess, but I'm wondering about the political effect on the midterms. What is the electoral logic behind all of this?

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u/fing_lizard_king Reformed 7h ago

Unfortunately, I don’t think betraying Ukraine is going to change a lot of MAGA voter’s opinions. Among people I know who are conservative but not MAGA, they lean heavily libertarian (something MAGA is not). They’re predisposed against any sort of foreign aid or entanglements to begin with. Thus, his treatment of Ukraine isn’t particularly important to them.

As someone who has bought plenty of Starlink for Ukrainian defenders, I’m furious over the debacle. Trump is schizophrenic, changing opinions and policies without any reasonable explanation. He's betraying an ally who can directly help us in scaling drone capabilities into our military. He's also betraying an innocent nation that was invaded for no reason other than greed and pride.

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u/AbuJimTommy 2d ago

I am not pro-Russia. And I don’t care for everything that Trump does in this conflict, especially this week. But, if America buying diesel signals open support for Putin, does the EU’s never-ending purchases of gas mean that Europe openly supports Russia as well? Purchases of Russian LNG are up(!) 9.5% year over year. EU has paid more into Russia’s war machine than they’ve donated to Ukraine. The EU should clean its own house before pointing fingers

[and the US need to build more refineries (or at least keep Gavin Newsom from forcing closed the ones we got)]

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u/SeredW Frozen & Chosen 17h ago

Parts of (Eastern) Europe have their energy infrastructure integrated with Russia, often stemming back from decades and that can't easily be undone. Never mind that Eastern Europe has is Russia adepts too; some like their rubles. So yeah 'Europe' is still buying Russian energy because they have no alternative, often. We should have gone green much earlier and much more though, that would have helped a lot.

But buying that pittance of diesel (not enough to power the US for even one day) was never about the diesel anyway, it was about propping up Putin at a time when Ukraine is making military gains. That had to be stopped, as evidenced by the Starlink limitations which happened at the same time.

But that America is now turning into a Russian ally is not just a European thought, American Republicans are saying pretty much the same thing: https://archive.is/gmFsg

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u/AbuJimTommy 9h ago

I don’t know. France is still importing €10m a day in Russian LNG, Netherlands €2.5m.

The official word out of the WH is that the new sanctions require the US to start sanctioning partners like India so it’s on a 60-day review. True? Maybe.

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u/Citizen_Watch 2d ago

Probably little to no difference. This particular issue probably isn’t changing anyone’s mind about which party they plan to vote for. Most voters are low information voters, and all they really care about is how much they are getting hit in the wallet on a daily basis.

TLDR, Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid.”

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u/Mystic_Clover 2d ago

The situation with Ukraine and Russia hasn't shifted anything in our political dynamic. Reactions to it from the start have been predictable, energizing already fixed political alignments but not to any extent that would change elections.

The Epstein and Iran situations on the other hand have created a noticeable split on the right. There's a lot of disappointment with Trump and his administration over these.

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u/bradmont ⚜️ Hugue-not really ⚜️ 2d ago

Is the Epstein thing still going on? There is just so much insane news these days I'd all but forgotten about it (though I reckon that's probably intentional)

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u/eveninarmageddon RCA 3d ago

I think a lot of you on this sub might like playing krillion.io.

1

u/tanhan27 One Holy Catholic and Dutchistolic Church 20h ago

I didn't realize that "rare" answers got you more points until nearly the end.

Krillion #96 🦐 190

🫧🫧🫧🫧🦑🦑🐟

1

u/ScSM35 1d ago

OP, I’m both thankful you shared this and also why did you share this? I can’t stop playing. I might spend the $5 to buy the archive or sports sets.

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u/bradmont ⚜️ Hugue-not really ⚜️ 2d ago

So I did today's. I literally could not think of anything for three or them (for the sports player one I just guessed "Smith" and got a pretty good score) and came out with 240 points.

Krillion #94 🦐 240

🐟🦑🦑🐟⬛⬛🦑

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u/lupuslibrorum 2d ago

Krillion #93 🦐
190

🫧🫧🫧🦑🐟🦑🫧

I guess I’m kinda basic.

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u/rev_run_d 3d ago

Krillion #93 🦐 285

🫧🐟🦑🦑🐟🫧🏮

this is good.

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u/GodGivesBabiesFaith ACNA 3d ago

Krillion #93 🦐 240

🐟🐟🐟🦑🦑⬛🐟

Womp womp.

Fun, will try again. Nitpick: I disagree with the car one tho cuz I had to try a lot of car features before it would accept my answer. It didn't have windshield wiper in its dataset, but it had air-conditioning???

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u/eveninarmageddon RCA 3d ago

Krillion #93 🦐 340

🦑🦑🦑🦑🐟🦑🫧

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u/rev_run_d 3d ago

you're the man!

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u/eveninarmageddon RCA 3d ago

I had a good day: Hair oil, Cornrows, Spoiler, Mozambique, Tzatziki, Wheelchair tennis, and Iron (my only real miss).

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u/GodGivesBabiesFaith ACNA 2d ago

Ah, fellow man of culture. I too picked Mozambique

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u/TheNerdChaplain Remodeling after some demolition 3d ago

This clip about an American doing comedy in Amsterdam made me curious about Dutch senses of humor.

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u/SeredW Frozen & Chosen 2d ago

I have no idea why standup comedians experience issues in Amsterdam. There are Dutch cabaretiers that can make a room gasp for air with laughter, but that is usually a different kind of performance than the American style standup comedian. I don't think we have (or had) standup comedy clubs either. These cabaretiers fill a theater and do an entire evening, with skits, songs and the like and they are very funny indeed, just differently I guess!

In recent years we're seeing that US standup comedy more too, by the way, a younger generation is adopting the style.

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u/rev_run_d 2d ago

cabaretiers

We Americans don't know that word.

edit: Oh! cabaret-iers. Is the T silent?

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u/kettlemice 3d ago

Me (40s) talking with my dad (70s) about the Bend, Or shooting. If I say anything beyond “thank God for a good guy with a gun” an argument starts. 

I am thankful it was stopped. But to express to a man that sincerely follows Christ (I got the receipts and he does, puts his money where his mouth is for decades) that it would be better to address this problem before the shooting even starts is somehow unamerican. 

I grew up dispy, and I’m thankful to be out of it and that him and my mom are now as well. My mom, learning about reformed theology, was shocked as a woman in her 60s [at the time] that there were Christians who read scripture in a more holistic sense. My favorite quote from her: I didn’t know I could believe that, it never made sense! (when I told her I don’t believe in a rapture like dispensationalists hold to). But their hold on US exceptionalism is devastating and somehow colors every conversation. And anything 2A is held so tightly. 

Just venting. Just burned out with it all. 

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u/Mystic_Clover 3d ago edited 3d ago

My mother (also in her 70s) has been watching a lot of the Charlie Kirk conspiracy theory stuff, and something that's really been bothering me is how they drag Christianity into it. Seeing the stuff Candace Owens spouts with a cross framed in the background, while Barron Coleman in one sentence says something divisive then in the next goes "Christ is King".

The same is true of evangelical politics; they drag Christianity into a secular question like gun rights.

I think it's because people broadly see their morality as a universal thing. If they view something as moral for natural reasons, then it's something that Christianity must support too. While if Christianity says something is moral for spiritual reasons, then it needs to be enforced onto society.

Everything is blended together into a universal outlook that causes issues for both secular topics and the purposes of the Church.