Ignoring what the passage says is akin to saying that when the bible calls homosexuality an abomination, it doesn't really mean it.
There's no two ways about what is being said, as is the case in many passages. The obvious solution here is that the Bible is right while you are wrong, and that when it says you will purchase damnation for disobeying the government, it means that government is an inherent good (when rightly ordered). Also, how can one disobey every worldly authority and then honestly claim that they'd "obey God and only God".
Further, it is patently obvious that permissiveness and "freedom to do whatever I want" doesn't lead to moral societies. Having the freedom to shoot up heroin on the streets while taking a shit has destroyed democrat-run cities, despite the fact that neither of those things "enslave, harm, steal from, or tyrannize those you love". In short, I've never seen an example of a morally permissive society that was successful long term.
Regulations are not sinful. It is not a sin for the government to require a license to fish, for example, and it is also not a sin to get such a license. Therefore, it is a sin to not obey such a law. The same goes for harmful business regulations. It's not great, and the laws should be changed, but until such a time they should be obeyed since it's not a sin to follow such regulations (generally).
Ultimately, the government compelling doctors to inject poison into people is one thing. The government doing shit we don't like is another. Whether we like it or not, and I'm sure this won't be popular around here, the Christian answer is to obey such laws, not disobey them "because freedom". Changing them is obviously preferable.
Edit to add: The Bible is perfect, unchanged, and scribes didn't mess it up. God made sure of this, since if He didn't the Bible would be useless.
Edit 2: I'd also point out that there are plenty of cases of seemingly conflicting verses in the Bible. They always can be reconciled, and in this case, the reconciliation of Romans 13 with verses like John 13:34-35 is that government is good and loving each other isn't actually the only thing to do. The point is just that without love, all the other laws are useless.
Romans 13:1-2 Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation.
Naturally, we are not to obey any laws which would cause us to sin, but outside of this, we are called to obey the government.
Romans 13 tells us that the State is good and that we are to obey it.
As if getting mad over the news every night is doing something, or the opposite of "giving up".
What value does watching news on shit we can't change provide? People who don't know it's happening need to see it, not the people who have seen it dozens of time already.
Elected representatives have to at least pretend to adhere to their constituents. This means that it may be better to have a shitty Republican as speaker vs risking a Democrat getting in, where they'll go full steam towards destroying our country. Republicans being Democrats from 10 years ago does have value, in that it minimizes the damage to our country and allows us to wise up and root out the enemies hidden within our midst.
Primary season is the time to root out these types completely, not in the middle of battle.
The senses most definitely provide ultimate proof of reality. These are the inputs God gave us, and if they aren't trustworthy, then to know any truth would be impossible.
In fact, the truth of the matter is, respectfully, the exact opposite of what you've said, I'd argue.
It's by using our mind that we come to the incorrect conclusion on the location of the sound. We "perceive" it as having come from a certain direction. But our ears perfectly perceived the sound as it was delivered. And if one was practiced enough, they may even be able to pick up on the subtle differences between a sound that bounced off a tree vs a sound that truly came from that direction.
Same with vision. Our eyes perfectly perceive what is happening in an optical illusion. It is the mind that gets confused in trying to understand, explain, or interpret what it is seeing on an intellectual level.
The solution in these cases is to further our subjective intellectual understanding of the objective sensory reality. The alternative would suggest a subjective reality where nothing truly exists except the individual and their perceptions, which is extremely anti-God.
And after writing this, I'd posit the very fact that I disagree as further evidence. You and I can have a different intellectual understanding of a given subject, but if we both went to the same forest and stood in roughly the same spot, we'd be hearing the exact same noise bouncing off the exact same tree coming from the exact same source.
Edit: To be clear, I do agree with most of what you’ve said in response to the other guy, I just like going into things in these and felt like sharing my view here since I think it's quite significant in our understanding of God and His creation.
It's not possible to get "sacrifice children to Yahweh" out of the Bible, nor out of even just the Old Testament.
No amount of intellectual contortions, desperate rationalization, nor absurdist interpretations of scripture will change this.
And the same goes to any supposed researcher who takes an "unbiased" position (i.e. the idea that God not being real is the default). If God IS real, starting from the position that He is not will inevitably lead to misunderstanding, particular in this context, since if you read a book that is infallible as a fallible recording, you will obviously come to a bunch of ridiculous thinking based on your own suppositions on what "this or that really means". Particularly so if you insert historical precedent as the basis for the writings (the secular view), rather than in spite of the writings (the religious view). In other words, sacrifice was for Yahweh and the Bible is partly a euphemism for that versus sactifice was in spite of Yahweh exactly as the text claims.
Further, being an Atheist means being biased against all religious claims, not being some perfect unbiased researcher who can be "trusted to discover the truth".
Now, with all that being said, even with a secular reading you still can't get "child sacrifice to Yahweh" out of the Old Testament.
(p.s. I wasn't the one who downvoted you)
Scattering Facebook to the wind would be an undeniably good thing for society. If the constitution prohibits doing something good, then the constitution is necessarily incorrect on that topic.
More like go to jail for praying outside of an abortion clinic.
Literal thought crime.
That's a nice sounding catch-all to dismiss any claim that someone is a false prophet because of prophecies that don't come true, but the problem is that she dates her prophecies.
Very absurd thing to do and this one's date passed long ago/
This is such a dishonest rebuttal. "You're just asleep and brainwashed".
It seems like a lot of people just conclude that everything is bullshit with no evidence.
2020 was evidently stolen. The research was done on that. Same with COVID. People have spent hundreds of hours looking into the discrepancies on these.
Not so with this case, however. At least not yet. And so it seems to me to be wholly inappropriate to act like we have the same level of knowledge on this being stolen as 2020, and to then conclude that anyone who doesn't just "see" how obvious it is must be brainwashed and still asleep.
"Monday's decision means voters in Colorado and across the country will have the final say on whether Trump deserves a second term, and here's why that's a threat to democracy".
Also, somehow Vox has the least retarded headline out of this whole lineup.
If Trump actually lost and Trump actually commanded his followers to storm the capital to take over the government, that would absolutely be an insurrection.
Unfortunately for the media and their pitiful narrative, that isn't what happened.
Depends, how much health does the average Ukrainian soldier have?
Have you looked at the original post? It's a screenshot of the graphs from the same site you just linked, kek
This is also exactly what we'd expect to see to clean out the house. There are a lot of swamp creatures, and so it makes sense that it takes several years of resignations to clear them all out.
No one said it was unique or new, just that Q told us what it means.
The funny thing is, only in our Republic is it possible to say that a vote is illegitimate. In a democracy, a vote is legitimate solely because a majority voted for it.
I do, and I agree with your point, I just felt compelled to point that out.
I's say it's also particularly interesting if Q is indeed military intelligence, as they seem to be. The idea that military intelligence would be telling us that they are fighting literal demons in a spiritual war is incredibly interesting. I'd say there's definitely something there, kek
When has this ever been practically true?
Every system of government is controlled by those who successfully take power. Yes, ours included. The only difference with our system, is that the ideal is the people taking and holding the power, rather than a class of politicians.
Practically, of course, our system is also just controlled by those who successfully took power from We the People.
And, as an aside, the entire foundation of America rests on this premise. That our founders created a system free of a king doesn't change this. They ultimately arrested power from the current ruler and chose who to put in charge in his place (We the People).
But there are coincidences, so if Q meant that literally, then Q is insane.
So the only possibility, save for us concluding that Q was full of shit, is that Q didn't mean that literally.
The art is in determining what is worth exploring and what is bullshit designed to distract us or lead us down false paths. It's perfectly possible to make false claims appear true, and we aren't immune from that. Lines need to be drawn to prevent the board as a whole from succumbing to cabal psyops.
Further, the intro text on this forum concludes with "WE ARE THE PUBLIC FACE OF Q. OUR MISSION IS TO RED-PILL NORMIES."
So it absolutely matters what normies think if our goal is to wake them up. Esoteric shit can be discussed elsewhere, rather than diluting a forum that's meant to be approachable to people whose minds are just beginning to open.
Someone who has just started their journey to awakening is not going to stay here if we're talking about flat Earth or some other wildly esoteric shit. True or not, these theories being present here don't help us achieve our stated goal.
What makes one royalty?
It's easy to say "blood" but the reality is that it's whoever takes power and keeps it, just like in every system.
People not voting for who you want isn't treason, nor is someone running in a primary against your guy.
God real
This one isn't a conspiracy, it's just a hard requirement for anything to exist.
When the media attacks something, it's very often true.
When the media gives you a list of "permitted conspiracies", you should probably ignore all of them.
Q, at it's very basic, is an extremely benign theory. It's nowhere near implausible. It's frankly more believable than most other ones out there. "Donald Trump, upon becoming president, instructed the military to run a strategic operation disseminating hidden information directly to the US public using an anonymous account online".
This, as well as the actual things Q said are not that far out there, and the idea that Q is military is perfectly reasonable. When it gets "fringe" is when we start going into anon's interpretations of Q posts that get quite out there regarding double meanings and such.
And the thing is, it doesn't matter what the mainstream thinks. If we based our views on the mainstream, none of us would be here to begin with. What matters is waking up normies. And some shit is diametrically opposed to that mission.
(I made a somewhat separate, more religious, and what I believe to be better and more concise argument at the bottom (in contrast with my original argument which is intended as more of a logical and historical argument). If my admittedly overly dense reply is too off-putting, feel free to just read that. Or just read nothing and leave if you don't think it's worth the time anymore; you do you man.)
Government defines crime. If government is itself coercion, then coercion can't be a crime. Truly, there is only one law: God's law. And He tells us to obey the government. Any other concept of "natural law", at least when not rooted in God's law, is the subjective opinion of the person philosophizing on it.
Now, knowingly injecting yourself with poison would be defiling the body. This is a sin. The only government laws that can be justly ignored are ones which require the individual to personally sin. It couldn't be any other way, because if it were, we'd be ignoring superior commands of God to not sin. But in lieu of a certain law requiring us to sin, the commandment to obey the government applies.
The Gospels take great care to consistently blame the Jews for demanding the Romans to kill Christ. The Romans aren't really blamed all that much, and Jesus shows more respect for a Roman soldier than for the Pharisees. They didn't really want to kill Him, and simply didn't care, for the most part. In this case, ironically enough, the government was coerced into killing Christ since if they didn't, they'd have a Jewish revolt on their hands. It was wrong and corrupt, but it was easier to appease the people by killing who they thought was just some man than to risk unrest.
And this extreme anti-government view is not based in reality, from my perspective at least. There have absolutely been good governments that lead to good societies. We live in extremely immoral times, things were invariably better through most of human history. The only problem is just that these good governments don't last. The thing is, they will never last. It's not about finding a good system that lasts forever, it's about finding the system that has the best trade off between how long it stays good and how bad the fallout is before recovery to a good system.
A system that produces a golden age for 1000 years but kills 3 billion people out of 8 billion when it falls is far worse than a system that produces a golden age for 300 years but only kills 12 people out of 8 billion when it collapses, for example. Still 12 people too many, but not nearly as heinous, and works much better in the long run.
Further, there's a reason you don't see societies with no or minimal government. They either don't last or don't work, though to be honest there isn't really a difference. It's the same reason we don't see any longstanding societies that tolerate homosexuality: it just doesn't work. They both inevitably lead to the same kind of moral degeneracy that collapsed the Roman Empire.
And where am I being unclear? The government can not compel us to sin. That is it. All other laws are to be followed. Get the hell out of here with this "murder children" shit.
Now, this doesn't mean we can't try to change laws, as in our system we have the ability to do so by voting in different people, but disobeying laws we don't like as an act of civil disobedience is not Christian. Disobeying laws that compel us to sin, and accepting the worldly punishment for doing so, certainly is Christian, however.
Ultimately, it's not hard. It's not subjective. It just requires the question of "would it be a sin for me to do this".
And please, since you glossed over my point on this, explain to me how a good society can run on the "peace and love" hippie crap when we have homeless people shitting in the streets and shooting up heroin in democrat run cities. These people aren't victims of government, everyone else are victims of a lack of competent government in these cities.
Again, these people aren't doing anything directly to anyone else, other than being disgusting in public. So unless you think that should be tolerated, we already have an example where government is necessary to impose decency through the legislation of morality.
-------------------Addendum-------------------
I'd also add that the extreme anti-government sentiment is wholly unchristian. Where is this in the Bible? Where does God tell us this is what He wants from us? He doesn't. It's just people imposing their will and their views onto God so that they can keep their beliefs compatible instead of choosing one.
Instead, we are told things like in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:13-17
Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.
And then there is 1 Peter 2:18-25
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if a man for conscience toward God endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently? but if, when you do well, and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is commendable with God. For even to this were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judges righteously: Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed. For you were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
We are consistently called to suffer for God, just as He suffered for us. Christ was our perfect model to live by, and He didn't revolt against an unjust government, He ceded to their authority. He allowed Himself to be killed, though not until the appointed time, for a greater purpose.
And to be clear, this obviously has to be reconciled with the commands to not sin. The only real good way to view this is that we're being told primarily to not sin, and secondarily to obey government. The Bible does this frequently. Commands are made as absolute, but there's nuance that has to be deduced to know what is actually being said.