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wild_turkey

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wild_turkey last won the day on January 27 2020

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  1. Thank you for the post and this is more consistent with the churches I attended. We were always taught to pray about everything. Pray for your sick grandmother, pray for your test in school, pray for missing dog to be found, pray for yourself to not sin so much, pray for your plane to land safely, pray for your favorite sports team to win (always seems absurd but people legit do it). I’m still left wondering what the point is. To use the most recent example of the flooding, two families with nearly identical religious beliefs can pray equally hard to the same God for the safe return of their child. One family gets their child back, the other does not get their child back. One family says God answered their prayers and the other family says ??? Does the first family think they influenced God’s ultimate decision to spare their child? If that’s true, then what was wrong about the second family or their prayers that God decided “nice try but I have a different plan for your child”? As a poster said above, is there a prayer threshold that must be met for a request to be granted? Below that line is no good? Seems like that is obviously wrong because bad things happen to good people even when an overwhelming amount of prayer is involved. And then at the same time, non-Christian people will have good things happen without praying at all. Every day in America, a Christian family loses a child to cancer and an atheist family has their child cured. What tangible benefit do people think they are getting out of prayer any more so than just hoping good thoughts to no one in particular? It all seems so arbitrary, like a fortune cookie. Like to a non-believer, it could easily seem like no one is listening or the deity in charge is not interested in what we think. Again, I don’t mean any disrespect with my questions, but this seems like the only thread to get serious discussion on this topic.
  2. It’s a great honor to be here in Texas. I love Texas. They voted for me unlike the communist California where Gavin Newsome keeps starting fires. This flood was so bad that it happened on America’s birthday. People are saying that Cheating Obama and Crooked Joe Biden both tried to fix this river and failed. The socialist democrats missed their chance to make this river safe because they don’t care about Texas. I love Texas. And you know what? Elon should have done more to prevent this but he was too busy playing with his electric cars and crashing rockets. People should have a choice in what they drive which is why I signed the Big Beautiful Bill to get rid of electric cars. Solar too. Our bill is so beautiful and it will make sure that no ugly solar panels or windmills will ever get built at Camp Mystic. The democrats wanted this to happen so they can turn it into a wind farm but I won’t let them. You know what else is beautiful? Kristi Noem. I love her and she has helped rebuild Texas already so we can Make Texas Great Again. I’m going to make this valley more safe and beautiful than it’s ever been and then young Texas girls can work here again instead of Sleepy Joe Biden’s illegal immigrants that previously worked at Camp Mystic before they drowned. Let’s all thank Tom Homan for making sure they don’t come back. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
  3. Got busy and forgot to post upon returning. After 2 visits, this is easily one of my favorite places on Earth and I’m already looking forward to the next time. We’ve bummed around the Mediterranean a fair bit - Corsica, Mallorca, Ibiza, Sardinia, Barcelona, Saint-Tropez, Cinque Terre, Croatia - and I really love each of them in different ways, but for me, Corsica is the complete package that offers natural beauty, varied landscapes, great food and wine, cleanliness, interesting culture, and overall friendly people. If you like beaches, there is so much to offer and most of them have fine white sand, calm turquoise water, and very little seaweed or trash. Just clean and peaceful. June was still technically low season and the weather was nice (highs upper 70s, lows mid 60s) but without significant crowds. I’m hoping our next trip we will get to take our now 2.5 year old daughter. Might wait a couple years so she can handle long travel better, but then we can make it a longer trip and do more stuff. We’ve driven through the mountainous interior of the island but we haven’t done much there and I’d like to explore some of the mountain hikes, natural pools, and canyoning.
  4. Excuse me, sir. Texans love football and you sound like a loser. Quit making this political. We don’t need warning systems when we have the power of prayer.
  5. Thanks, Twice. I always appreciate your posts on everything. Regarding the bolded part, and I’ve seen a couple of similar explanations, would you say prayer could be treated more as meditation or a coping mechanism? A way of personally processing life’s hardships? If a person firmly believes their version of God exists, then someone is listening, even if the response to prayer is unclear. If a person doesn’t believe in God, then people who pray are basically talking to themselves, but at least it helps them feel better or less alone in the world. I’m probably in the latter camp at this point but I can kinda understand the former camp even if I disagree. Is that fair or completely off base? Although, my perception is that a significant percentage of Christians believe that prayer can effect actual results, which is ludicrous to me for reasons mentioned in my first post. So I still don’t and possibly never will understand that group, and that’s where I get borderline angry when people are told that prayer will help a tragedy.
  6. I was slow to start S4 due to rewatching S3, which is easily my least favorite. My biggest gripe was too much screen time given to the idiot Fak brothers. They were good for snippets of comedic relief in S1-2 but not multiple lengthy scenes per episode of childish arguments. Second gripe was what felt like manufactured drama with everyone and the odd tease of Sydney leaving for a restaurant that doesn’t exist yet with a partner she barely knows. I’m through 6 episodes of S4 and really enjoying it so far. Less time for Faks and more time elevating other characters like Ebraheim and Gary has been much appreciated. The inter-character drama seems more authentic and feels like we are actually building towards something. Also liking the addition of Ever castoffs and Luca. Good stuff. Ep 7 - Bears is over an hour. I have a good feeling about it.
  7. I’m sorry to hear about your situation. I don’t have any advice or prayers but I’m sorry you drew that card and hopefully there’s good news ahead for you.
  8. A shitty motel with 50 rooms has a night clerk throughout the night to monitor for problems. A camp with over 600 young girls sure as hell better have people awake at all hours, looking out for any potential danger. When that camp is next to a river and the forecast shows a chance of flash flooding, that should be the threat you don’t take your eyes off of.
  9. Pope Francis and Zelensky have had more to say about this than Trump.
  10. Adding onto my previous post because my thoughts shift somewhat... I'm assuming any attempt to explain this will go back to the concept of original sin, that Adam and Eve are responsible for the fall of mankind, we all deserve to die and spend eternity in hell for our sins, and anyone who isn't dead (yet) or is part of the small minority that makes it into heaven has been spared by the grace of God. So all the kids that died this weekend deserve it, their families deserve their devestation, and the others live to fight another day. The kid that dies in a school shooting deserves it. The mother that dies of cancer deserves it. That part really doesn't work for me, and likely one of the primary reasons I turned away from Christianity. If you are willing to believe that God is almighty enough to save people (especially that he can be motivated by prayer), then his unwillingness to save people is cruel. The Bible says something like "wide is the gate that leads to death and narrow is the path that leads to life." Okay cool, so his own user manual for the world he created informs us that most people will die and spend eternity in hell. But he created this, all of it. It's his game that we are forced to play. And every moment that this world continues spinning on its axis, millions more people are born who he will ultimately condemn to hell. Why allow that to continue? It's saddistic. Perhaps a willingness to accept that is an entry level requirement to being a Christian. I guess my brain isn't wired that way. It defies all logic.
  11. This post is prompted by Greg Abbott telling the people of Texas that prayer works in a tragedy and that today should be a day of prayer, but it could apply generally to many situations in life. I posted my frustration and anger over this in one of the flood threads, but those threads are very active with multiple random discussions, and this seems like a better place to pose these questions. I know these are not novel ideas or concerns, but I'm honestly curious what the posters in this thread think. For what it's worth, I was raised in a Christian household, read the Bible cover to cover at one point, attended a bible study throughout my time at UT, and then grew up and started to see a lot of cracks in the beliefs I was given, eventually deciding that none of it really works for me. So that's my starting point in these questions and I mean no disrespect towards anyone's beliefs. How can a person (elected official or otherwise) say that prayer works in response to the Kerrville floods? There are people with dead children. Did prayer work for those families? If you are someone that believes that prayer can produce actual results in this life, how do you explain a family that is praying about a missing young daughter who was attending a Christian camp of all things, and not having their prayers answered with their daughter returned safely to them? Did God only hear the prayers of certain families? Did he not love the other families? Was it simply in his plan that those families would suffer losses, prayers be damned? Assume that 2 families have very similar religious beliefs and both believe in the power of prayer. Family A gets their child home safe. They would likely say that God answered their prayers. Family B loses their child. What would family B say? The Lord works in mysterious ways? This obviously goes far beyond the tragedy in Texas this weekend. It could be applied to any horrible situation in life. If your child is killed in a school shooting, did you not pray enough? If your spouse dies of cancer, were you not praying enough? It seems like a magic 8 ball to me with completely random outcomes. Or possibly a fortune cookie where you can read into it however you want.
  12. Could someone also remind me how many billions of dollars Texas taxpayers are on the hook for to bail out energy companies in the wake of the 2021 winter storm? Perhaps a little bit of that money would've been useful for disaster prevention, which I hear is prohibitively expensive. Although obviously, a lower bailout would affect the energy industry's profits.
  13. The great thing about Texas is that those same taxpayers will pay $6.6MM for a settlement to 4 whistleblowers against Ken Paxton who is dirty, corrupt, cheated on his wife, and still got re-elected to one of the highest government offices in the state. But yeah, emergency alert systems that could save the lives of young girls, that's a bit ridiculous to ask taxpayers to cover that cost.
  14. As someone who was raised in a Christian household and is no longer of that persuasion, I really struggle with the prayer stuff in these situations. I’m not saying this to be contentious or an asshole (even though Greg Abbott can get fucked), but really just from a religious or philosophical frustration that’s on a long list of reasons that turned me away from church. How do you say prayers work when children are dead and other children are missing? Did those families not pray enough? Did God not love those children and their families? My heart aches for the families involved in this and everyone in their extended orbit. Very somber in our household and I’ve hugged my own child so much and been so attached to her and thankful for our family’s safety. I just don’t understand how such a horrific event can be followed up with “prayer works” when families are without their children. From my time in the church, I assume this goes back to the idea that all have sinned and deserve death, and it’s only by the grace of God that some people get to live and go on to heaven. So the dead people got what they deserved or something like that. I don’t know but that doesn’t work for me when God apparently made this world and everyone in it and rigged this game in a way that most people ultimately lose. If a human did that we would call them a sociopath. Sorry I’m rambling and I apologize if this is the wrong time or place or inappropriate in the immediate aftermath. Having an elected leader say “prayer works” is a little bit triggering on a topic I always struggle with.
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