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Most IT people are used to dealing with the parents or kids. It's when it goes beyond that that it would be annoying. I knew a 12 year old a few years ago who was tearing his hair out because his parents kept clicking on links they shouldn't. He needed parental control software. But most people...

I agree that truth is a problem. As as older person, I've been around for a number of controversies. Initially Christians denied obvious truth primarily by rejecting evolution. But it seem to have spread. Now just about anything can be classified as a plot by evil scientists and scholars. Many...

Yes, I think the concensus is that Trump did better, but that it's unlikely to change anyone's mind. I wonder whether debates are a good idea. I found the single-candidate town halls more useful, because it let us see what the candidate wants to do. Debates lead to attacking each other. That's...

As I understand it, leprosy requires substantial contact with the person (or an armadillo, according to Wikipedia). Just walking among lepers briefly wouldn't spread it.

I've recently read an interesting book by Michael Gorman, "The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant: A (Not So) New Model of the Atonement." He argues what I've said many times, that Jesus' primary understanding of his death is as bringing the new covenant of Jer. 31:31. He...

Yes, I already did. It's not perfect, but there's no obvious downside. There is certainly no established effect on Covid, but there's some suggestion that it might help. https://elemental.medium.com/could-the-flu-shot-offer-protection-against-covid-19-9b2c4ecf055f I warn, however, that there...

I checked the 2016 debates. Wikipedia has a long article. They include polls following all of them. A substantial majority thought Hillary did better. It obviously didn't help. It's ot clear that people vote on the basis of the kinds of ideas that you see in a debate. I think that's particularly...

Or at least one was wrong, which is the more straightforward approach. My exegesis doesn’t depend upon whether they are completely accurate.

I think both this answer and the question are imposing modern biology on an account that wasn't written in those terms. Here's the best open (i.e. not requiring login) account of Biblical ideas on conception I was able to find: https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/opth/6/1/article-p132.xml...

That's a pretty standard exegesis of Ex 2. I think any mainline or Catholic scholar would consider it reasonable, although different people would have different details. Incidentally, there's rabbinical precedent for considering Adam or Adam and Eve androgynous...

By the way, the Methodist situation is also about economics. The conservative churches that want to split are large, well-funded churches. They don't want to pay for a denomination that is trying to support lots of struggling rural churches. There are implications in statements and actions that...

The proposed split is, as always, because of homosexuality. Covid removed focus from this. Before that, there was an agreement in principle to create a US church. At the moment, foreign Methodist churches have the ability to modify the Discipline for their own conditions. They are...

Presbyterians have official confessions of faith. For the PCUSA you should look at the Confession of 1967 and probably the Brief Statement of the Reformed Faith. The web site would be https://www.presbyterianmission.org/. (There's a pcusa.org, but it has become almost useless. Not sure why they...

I have no problem with people who find the 4th Cent approach unhelpful. I feel that way myself much of the time. However if you're going to use 4th Cent technical terms like nature, I think you have to use them in a way that is consistent with their definitions. I personally think using the...

huh? most traditional Christisns say that because of the personal union, the statement you just made isn’t meaningful. Natures don’t die. People do.

There's pretty good reason to think that Clinton had an unusually high number of people who hated her. Biden doesn't have that problem. That doesn't mean everybody is going to vote for him, but I think people in the kind of gray area you're talking about are more likely to go for Biden than...

I just read a note from an executive presbyter (office in charge of administration of a PCUSA presbytery -- roughly a good chunk of a state). He said that in the two presbyteries he knows, income has been remarkably stable, and churches have been finding ways to serve. I note that because some...

Does your law require a priest to report someone who is attracted to children but hasn't done anything?

It has been stable in NJ for a couple of months. We're slowly opening things. Restaurants are limited to 25% indoors but can also do outdoors. A majority of schools are in-person half the time, but some are all remote. Those that are still all remote have plans to open in a month or so. If we...

Being a single-issue voter based on abortion seems weird. The president has little direct effect on it. Republicans are getting votes by promising pro-life Supreme Court justices. But it is notoriously difficult to predict how a justice will vote on an issue. Anyone you actually want as a...