Free Republic

I guess I didn’t need to share the post about Dr. Parker. There was already an excellent example right before my eyes.

“Those weren’t my words, but the post I was responding to.
But to the topic of the thread topic, its an interesting juxtaposition of claiming to accept God into one’s heart, then turning right around and labeling a group of people as “not human”.

My thoughts exactly. I have screenshot that comment plus the tag line and will share it as a meme. It couldn’t be a more perfect example.

Dr. Willie Parker, a prominent abortion provider who identifies as a Christian. He has written and spoken extensively about how his faith informs his work. Dr. Parker believes that providing abortions is consistent with his Christian beliefs and often speaks about the importance of following the teachings of Jesus in terms of compassion and care for women.

Here are some quotes from Dr. Willie Parker regarding his faith and the importance of accepting Jesus:

1. “My work is motivated by the compassion that I believe Jesus Christ represents.”
2. “As a Christian, I believe that we are called to serve the ‘least of these,’ and I see women in need of abortion care as among the ‘least of these.’”
3. “Accepting Jesus into my heart means committing to the wellbeing of others, especially those who are marginalized and in need.”

Dr. Parker’s perspective is that his faith and his work are deeply intertwined, and he views his role as an abortion provider as a fulfillment of his Christian duty to care for others.

“I believe that the Holy Spirit guides me in my work, giving me the strength and compassion to help women in need. The Spirit calls us to love and serve others, and through that calling, I find my purpose as a physician.”

This quote captures Dr. Parker’s belief that the Holy Spirit is a guiding force in his commitment to providing compassionate care.

“Someone simply getting down on their knees and accepting God and Christ into their heart.”

This is still completely defiled if they promote wickedness all their lives

We’re doomed. This girl is trolling liberal men and asking if they will donate a testicle. Nobody says “hell no!” Instead they are all saying “umm...I will consider it.”

Then companies will hire those with lower GPAs.

There’s a lot of DEI in the company I work for and the difference between DEI and non DEI hires today is out of this world

Don’t go! You’re one of the most reasonable thinkers here!

I 100% support his presence in the 2024 election. I think Trump could be looking at a 50 state sweep

👍

“Righteous are You, O Lord, that I would plead my case with You;
Indeed I would discuss matters of justice with You:
Why has the way of the wicked prospered?”

In the case of Israel, the wicked did not prosper, because the Israelis became moloch worshipping pieces of garbage so God richly blessed the nations that disciplined those people.

In New Testament God made it clear they had served their purpose, bring his son and salvation to the world and tore the curtain in half.

Those people were wickedly persecuting the Bride of Christ, so in 70 AD, God used the Roman Empire to bring the final end.

Since then, there has not been any more 12 tribes any more, as there had been for 2000 years before. There never will be 12 tribes again.

The Lord had said to Abram...

Not to descendants of Abraham. If he did, it would seem God didn’t keep his promise. Because every nation that kicked Israel’s ass never end up any worse off than any other nation.

It’s because that promise was SPECIFIC to Abraham. Or are you saying his promise was really disappointing a dozen times in the past?

God promised Solomon wisdom. Thank God nobody has foolishly interpreted that to mean al if his descendants as well.

Gods “curse, blessing” promise was not directed to Biblical Israel, much less to Israel in the new covenant world.

No, I am pointing out that God has graciously proved those silly Bible interpretations wrong.

Really, modern USA is the only place those beliefs have taken traction. Those beliefs lack any serious Biblical context but are rather fueled by pop culture.

If God blesses those who bless Israel and curse those that Israel, then why were the conquerors of Biblical Israel greatly blessed? like Rome (1000 year empire with the blessings of birth of Christianity), while Israel’s allies were annihilated?

I copied and pasted it into chatgpt with the instructions “Remove numbering. Add punctuation and paragraphs:”

Years ago, when I was a college student studying in Rome, I visited the Abbey of Monte Cassino. I remember being impressed by my first sight of the building, poised on a steep hill against an amphitheater of snow-dusted mountains. I walked across the echoing cloister and entered the abbey church, which shone with baroque splendor. As I stood by the altar, looking up at the gilded ceiling, I had to remind myself that it was all fake.

In February of 1944, assuming – wrongly – that German troops were stationed inside, the allies dropped thousands of tons of high explosives on Monte Cassino, completely destroying the Abbey. After the war, it was rebuilt so comprehensively that a visitor who didn’t know otherwise would assume that the abbey had remained unchanged for centuries.

When I returned to Rome, I began to notice how many of the city’s iconic ancient buildings were also reconstructed. The Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum, for example, was destroyed during the Renaissance when workmen stripped its marble for re-use in St. Peter’s Basilica. The structure we see today was built in 1930 with the few surviving fragments.

The Curia, the meeting place of the Roman Senate, was rebuilt around the same time. It had served as a church for 13 centuries, and during that time part of the back wall, the upper halves of both side walls, and large chunks of the façade had been lost. Less than 50% of the building we see today is actually ancient. Even less of the Arch of Titus is original. When the monument was incorporated into a castle during the Middle Ages, the outer parts of both piers were cut away, a tower was built on top, and a ramp was cut through the foundations. The structure was so badly damaged that it had to be dismantled and painstakingly reassembled in 1822, with travertine replacing its missing marble blocks. Even the Colosseum has been substantially rebuilt. During the 1830s, Pope Gregory XVI remade a large part of the missing south side in brick. The only section of seating inside the amphitheater dates to a 1930s restoration effort, and huge parts of the hypogeum have been demolished and reconstructed.

Perhaps the most remarkable restored monument in Rome is the Ara Pacis. Shattered by earthquakes and buried in waterlogged soil under the fragile foundations of a Renaissance palazzo, this magnificent Augustan altar seemed impossible to excavate. But in 1937, in a colossal feat of engineering that involved raising the overhanging palazzo on concrete pilings and freezing the mud beneath, archaeologists dug down to the altar, recovered its decorative elements, which had shattered into hundreds of fragments, and reassembled them on a modern superstructure. The Italian government did not invest millions in this project out of some abstract appreciation for antiquity. The Ara Pacis was reconstructed to serve as the centerpiece of a Fascist exposition that celebrated the 2000th anniversary of Augustus’ birth – and hinted, none too subtly, that Mussolini was the new Augustus.

Ancient buildings have often been restored or rebuilt in the service of a political agenda. Among the earliest examples are the restorations of the Theater of Pompey, Colosseum, and other buildings in Rome by Theodoric in the sixth century to demonstrate his allegiance to the Roman elite and Roman tradition. During the Middle Ages, the citizens of Verona reconstructed parts of their Roman arena as a symbol of civic pride. In 1533, Francis I of France ordered the medieval neighborhood inside the Roman amphitheater of Nimes to be cleared, so that one of the most imposing antiquities in his kingdom would be returned to its original glory. Henri IV of France, likewise, ordered the clearing of the amphitheater at Arles and commanded a Roman obelisk found nearby to be erected in its arena. His contemporary Pope Sixtus V raised and moved a whole series of Roman obelisks, making them focal points of new avenues that connected Rome’s pilgrimage churches. This was just the beginning.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the new science of archaeology combined with the rising spirit of nationalism to drive the reconstruction of many ruins. One example is the Saalburg, a Roman fort near Bad Homburg, Germany that was reconstructed at the turn of the twentieth century under the auspices of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Roman Baths in Bath, England, excavated and rebuilt between 1878 and 1883, are a product of the same era. In their case, however, the factor behind restoration was not nationalism, but tourism – a gamble that paid off, as the hundreds of thousands who still visit the baths each year attest. With the advent of mass tourism in the second half of the twentieth century, enhancing visitor experience became the single most important factor in the reconstruction of ancient buildings and sites. A well-known early example is the Palace of Minos at Knossos, restored by its excavator Sir Arthur Evans. Evans worked at Knossos from 1900 to 1931, uncovering the most impressive center of what he dubbed the Minoan Civilization. As more and more of the vast Bronze Age palace came to light, it became clear that the newly excavated ruins needed to be consolidated and protected. Evans’ solution, controversially, was to rebuild much of the palace in reinforced concrete. Equally controversially, the restored interiors were painted with frescoes invented on the basis of a few scattered fragments.

Some sites have been even more extensively reconstructed. For modern visitors to Athens, the most prominent building in the Agora is the Stoa of Attalus. Built in the second century BC, this long, two-story portico was destroyed by barbarian raiders in late antiquity. Little more than the back wall and foundations survived to be excavated. Between 1953 and 1956, however, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens – with generous financial assistance from John D. Rockefeller Jr. – reconstructed the stoa as the agora museum. The replica is as accurate as the archaeologists could make it. Careful measurements were made of the existing ruins, and every available fragment was incorporated into the structure. Quarries were even opened in the hills around Athens, to ensure that the new stone would match the old. Only the design of the interior was modified, to accommodate the museum exhibits. Besides its contribution to the experience of an important archaeological site and tourist attraction, the reconstructed Stoa of Attalus was a clear symbol of American and Western commitment at a time when Greece stood on the front lines of the Cold War. It was also an expression of an older tradition – both western and Greek nationalist – that privileged classical antiquity over all other periods. The project’s American donors saw the new stoa as a monument to democracy, ancient and modern. Many Greek archaeologists, however, were inclined to interpret it as American colonialism.

The controversies of restoration are equally potent on the Athenian Acropolis. Over the past two centuries, every structure on the Acropolis has been at least partially rebuilt – initially in the service of Greek nationalism, and later to enhance the experience of a site visited by millions of tourists. The little Temple of Athena Nike has been completely dismantled and reconstructed three times. The Odeion of Herodes Atticus was comprehensively rebuilt in the 1950s. The Parthenon has been under reconstruction more

Teenagers.
Sucker punch.
81 year old vet.
In Chicago.

I have suspicions. But I’ll keep those to myself.