Artifice of Eternity

 [This is a place holder for when family leaves after New Years’s so I can spend time addressing Jesse’s ideology-protecting, sophomoric simplicities.] Why did Matthew and Luke use the same word? And WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST USE THE WORD DAILY?!

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DWGn2Ucuu/?mibextid=wwXIfr Answer the question he puts to you, Jesse: did God, the eternal God, go to a plan B for salvation because - God didn't know, or  - did God go to plan B after wasting time since with the expulsion from Paradise and Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and David, and exile, and the whole Israel thing, or - wasn't plan A - the Incarnation - simply the eternal plan of God's faithfulness with His Creation all along? 

In fact, anyone can comment here.  Definition of non-anxious faith and humility. Jesus tells us: “Do not fear; only believe.”  Jesse can’t live into that.

1. God is eternal. 2. God is eternally active such that His being is always manifesting Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. 3. There is no change or quit in God, and therefore no change or quit in His attributes. Therefore, if Jesse maintains that God’s Justice is retributive - reactive to wrongdoing - then he logically assumes that wrongdoing is eternal. But that violates the scriptural and orthodox representation that through Christ’s sacrifice, eternal redemption or eternal redemption & eternal damnation will be accomplished once for all eternity. So what happens to an eternal God’s eternal attribute of Justice if wrongdoing has been stopped by perfection of retributive justice? And for that matter, was this attribute just dormant before creation? Only to be wakened up by the eating of an apple? Or prior to that the rebellion of angel? This notion violates the necessity that any attribute of God is eternally expressed. In God, being and act are the same.  Therefore the Church Fathe...

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“We’re taking about raising a fence; why don’t we work together to solve our mutual problems.” https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1UZdwEfCYJ/?mibextid=wwXIfr

In their unconscious, they don’t think they deserve to be healed. But their conscience knows better. In this contradiction, they don’t know where to turn. Their “faith” and their “faithfulness” isn’t the healing kind. Barbs and hooks and spears are habits of hate. “Grant, we pray, almighty God, that the coming solemnity of your Son may bestow healing upon us in this present life and bring us the rewards of life eternal.Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

You should shoot yourself in your head. If you voted for Trump, you’ve already shot yourself in your soul. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/17erAJ6CuR/?mibextid=wwXIfr

  Born Deaf and Blind, She’s Caught in Trump’s Anti-Diversity Crusade A program for deafblind children helped 3-year-old Annie Garner, born with poor vision and no ears, learn to communicate. The Trump administration cut the program’s funding over diversity goals. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/us/trump-dei-funding-deaf-blind.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

 … we are lost. And our democracy is lost. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CvLutDsZc/?mibextid=wwXIfr

1. Concerning devotion to Mary, it serves to pay attention to the Annunciation.   The angel Gabriel doesn’t say “Hail, Mary.” Gabriel says, “Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη!” “Greetings, you-who-have-been-fully-graced-forever.” The verb turned into a pronoun, κεχαριτωμένη, is in the perfect imperative passive form. Meaning an action received that permanently characterizes the receiver.  Mary is not just full of grace or blessing. She was the recipient (passive) of a command, (imperative) completed action (perfect) that was permanent. She is always fully-graced, fully-blessed one. Because Mary, by faith, humility, and in righteousness, agreed with God to bear God. She is the faithful Theotokos. 2. And this unfamiliar news to radical protestants or non-Koine  Greek readers, reminds me of another possible shock to Jesse and Glenn and… (you know): The Greek word for “daily” isn’t there in the Lord’s Prayer. Not even close. The Greek word, which doesn’t appear anywhere in all of Greek lit...

Again, Jesse foists an absolutized, 16th century rationalistic ideology on an OT character. This time on Jehoshaphat because he prays in 2 Chron 20 and God gives him the victory.  But what did Jehoshaphat say on the verse right before Chapter 20?! Deal courageously, and may the Lord  be with the good!” And what exactly did God see Jehoshaphat DOING in Chapter 19?! “ King Jehoshaphat of Judah returned in safety to his house in Jerusalem.  Jehu son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the  Lord ? Because of this, wrath has gone out against you from the  Lord .  Nevertheless, some good is found in you, for you destroyed the sacred poles out of the land, and have set your heart to seek God.” Jehoshaphat resided at Jerusalem; then he went out again among the people, from Beer-sheba to the hill country of Ephraim, and brought them back to the Lord, the God of their ancestors....

Jesse remains intent on projecting a 15th and 16th century absolutizing (thus, morality absolving) In OT figures. Odd, since St Paul is the most persuasive Christian voice in claiming Christ’s accomplishment of a new covenant and making us a new creation. He wants to say that Job has nothing to offer but faith. And yet, at the end, God honors what Job has claimed. Job in chapter 31: “I made a covenant with my eyes      not to look lustfully at a young woman.   For what is our lot from God above,      our heritage from the Almighty on high?   Is it not ruin for the wicked,      disaster for those who do wrong?   Does he not see my ways      and count my every step?   “If I have walked with falsehood      or my foot has hurried after deceit—   let God weigh me in honest scales      and he will know that I am blameless— ...

Why do those on the raging right always retreat to their lair to keep lying when they just couldn’t keep up with and marry themselves to truer things? This is why they never grow up. Radical protestants deny the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. “After me, the Father will send the Holy Spirit, and he will teach you everything…”

  OPINION  |  LOVE, ACTUALIZED Ode to the Core By  Marcus Bui  / Staff Photographer BY  HAMID DABASHI  • DECEMBER 9, 2025 AT 10:55 AM Soon after I earned my Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1984 and concluded my postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard in 1986, I managed to land two adjunct visiting professorships, one at Columbia and the other at New York University. Within a year, both appointments had evolved into tenure track offers, of which I had to choose one.  One day our home phone rang and a voice from the other side said, “May I talk to Professor Dabashi?” I was not yet used to being called by that title. I said, “This is he.” The next sentence coming from the other side was opened with the most endearingly abrupt expletive you can imagine, asking what I was doing waiting to join Columbia. I said, “Excuse me, who is this?” The voice said, “This is Edward Said.”  After we hung up, I called George Saliba, chair of the Middle...

A Scientific Pipeline to the Nobel Prize Fueled by Immigrants As three immigrants claim Nobel Prizes in science for the United States this year, experts warn that immigration crackdowns could undo American innovation.

Jesse quit the discussion because he refused to answer whether he believes sin to be eternal. I hope he realized that claiming the eternal God’s eternal Justice is retributive destroys the eternal character of God… unless wrongdoing is also eternal. He should look to the Old Testament Psalms, where God’s retributive justice toward the “nations” *serves* to restore Israel’s place: to be a light to the nations. This is how God had perfectly ordered it, as is always God’s right and authority to do so. ___ It turns out that Jesse was off truncating scripture in a radical protestant blindness, otherwise: He claims that Daniel 9:18 is “ An Overlooked Witness To Sola Fide” Which, in the midst of Daniel’s prayer to God, reads, “ O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see  our desolations, and  the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.” Sole fide? How blind. How quickl...