Offside Chat Archives (2014-2021)

steelharbor9 said:Haha. Well, I'm actually in theology ☕

(It's basically just heavy-duty math. No social sciences involved, I guess ☕ )

In that case, you might want to pick up The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow. ☕

restlesssurfer97 said:Does anyone happen to have any intel on whether Milanovic is up yet?

I guess Sincica is busy plotting how to stop the Republican Party from totally overshadowing Josipovic☕

Keith Miller30 said:In theory, if science were to provide proof of God, I think I would find it rather disappointing; though, honestly, I don't believe such proof is even necessary, given that faith is fundamentally about belief. Wouldn't it be a bit disheartening to discover that God is something so elementary that it could be captured by the scientific method? I have always felt that God exists far beyond those bounds, so if some are able to grasp that mystery, then so be it.

You’d actually be a whole lot happier if science proved He didn't exist rather than proving He does.

restlesssurfer97 said:You’d actually be a whole lot happier if science proved He didn't exist rather than proving He does.

When you frame it that way, aren't you actually quite close to the truth? 🤣

brightpilot6 said:Indeed, and he shall be crowned once again today, shall he not?☕

Back in July 2014, the coronation already happened 🤷

What we're seeing today? It's nothing but a formality ☕

The second science actually hits that level where it can provide absolute, undeniable proof regarding whether God exists or not, that’s going to be the exact moment we witness the beginning of the end for civilization as we know it.

restlesssurfer97, 12-01-2105.

Kolinda has stepped into the presidency, and it looks like restlesssurfer9 is finally being constructive.

I’ve been trying to keep things constructive since my very first post on this forum, because honestly, I just can't stand trolling or the people who do it.

Keith Miller30 said:Kolinda has stepped into the presidency, and it looks like restlesssurfer9 is finally being constructive.

Carlamarko.

James Anderson5 said:You can't claim the New Testament is the only important book for Christianity when the Old Testament is cited at almost every mass and is a core part of the Bible. You can't just cherry-pick the parts you like when looking at a religion. For instance, Moses is just as vital to Christianity as Jesus is, even if he plays a different role...

And what's this idea that the Crusader Wars were just liberating territories? How could unified forces—mainly from Western Europe—be "liberating" lands in the Middle East and North Africa when Arabs had already been ruling those areas since Roman times?

Have you even heard about the Cathars and the Crusades against them? There was a moment where a papal envoy told commanders to kill everyone, including women and children, saying God would sort the good from the bad. That kind of thing happened right in the heart of Europe...

Plus, you're forgetting the Inquisition, which wasn't even abolished until the 19th century...

Then there's the early Church era around 300 AD, when certain factions physically wiped out their rivals until the Council of Nicaea finally decided once and for all what actually made it into the New Testament...

Or look further ahead, when the West was carving up colonies in Africa while the Church stayed silent—even while Belgians were responsible for the deaths of ten million people over a 23-year period...

And nobody raised an eyebrow when Americans were committing genocide against Native Americans, yet those same Americans are lecturing the rest of the world on democracy today...

The history of the West and Christianity is just as bloody as the history of Islam, surpassed only by Communism in terms of sheer ideology-driven casualties...

The New Testament is the only thing that truly matters for Christianity; it is the foundation, whereas the Old Testament merely foreshadows what is to come. The point lies in the New Testament...

Yes, the Crusader Wars were an attempt to liberate territories from Muslim conquerors. It doesn't require that European nations already rule those areas for it to be considered a liberation—to draw a parallel, do you consider the American invasion of Normandy an act of liberating Europe or an act of conquest? Originally, the Crusaders were called by Byzantium to assist against the Turks, though it later evolved into protracted warfare. And frankly, the idea that Arabs ruled those lands eternally is nonsense. They conquered those regions from someone else, though I'll leave it to you to figure out who... 😉 Besides, no one rules a territory forever; everyone is a conqueror somewhere. The only difference is the era and the duration of their reign. I hold no particular sympathies; throughout history, everyone has been a conqueror, arriving and departing as they please...

The Inquisition is such a massive exaggeration that it isn't even a faithful historical account; in the 10th century, only a few thousand people were executed by the Inquisition...

Congo? Please. Even the most intense opponents of the Belgians don't bring up the Belgian Sin as often as they should. Congo was essentially the private property of the Belgian King, where he did exactly as he pleased and no one even knew what was happening... 🤣

Good grief, how on earth did you decide to classify Native Americans as victims of Christianity... 😁

The history of the West is bloody, much like any other history of the human race; no one denies that. But the history of Christianity... well, that’s a different story entirely. I wouldn't dare claim Christianity had violent beginnings, given that for the first five centuries, being a Christian was essentially a death sentence. And yet, it spread across the entire known world. If anyone in such a community sees the capacity to spread faith through fire and sword, then by all means, write a scientific paper and revolutionize the history we think we know...

If you assume the Spaniards were out there in the New World, obsessed with hunting down gold and forcing their faith upon everyone they met at the edge of a sword, well, that’s just an accurate description of reality. It's just that we're looking at a discrepancy of about fifteen centuries...

So, did they finally head off to college?

On's traveling. I guess thanks to all those nerds, I can keep an eye on things through Tap ☕

dick 😂

Man, you totally won me over with how constructive you were, so I guess I just went ahead and subscribed to the thread ☕

There’s nothing quite like riding the light rail while scrolling through these forums... those were the good old college days ☕

What kind of Tap are we even talking about? It’s clearly just high-stakes, pure Safari. 🙂

Robin Fox2 said:The New Testament is the only thing that truly matters for Christianity; it is the foundation, whereas the Old Testament merely foreshadows what is to come. The point lies in the New Testament...

Yes, the Crusader Wars were an attempt to liberate territories from Muslim conquerors. It doesn't require that European nations already rule those areas for it to be considered a liberation—to draw a parallel, do you consider the American invasion of Normandy an act of liberating Europe or an act of conquest? Originally, the Crusaders were called by Byzantium to assist against the Turks, though it later evolved into protracted warfare. And frankly, the idea that Arabs ruled those lands eternally is nonsense. They conquered those regions from someone else, though I'll leave it to you to figure out who... 😉 Besides, no one rules a territory forever; everyone is a conqueror somewhere. The only difference is the era and the duration of their reign. I hold no particular sympathies; throughout history, everyone has been a conqueror, arriving and departing as they please...

The Inquisition is such a massive exaggeration that it isn't even a faithful historical account; in the 10th century, only a few thousand people were executed by the Inquisition...

Congo? Please. Even the most intense opponents of the Belgians don't bring up the Belgian Sin as often as they should. Congo was essentially the private property of the Belgian King, where he did exactly as he pleased and no one even knew what was happening... 🤣

Good grief, how on earth did you decide to classify Native Americans as victims of Christianity... 😁

The history of the West is bloody, much like any other history of the human race; no one denies that. But the history of Christianity... well, that’s a different story entirely. I wouldn't dare claim Christianity had violent beginnings, given that for the first five centuries, being a Christian was essentially a death sentence. And yet, it spread across the entire known world. If anyone in such a community sees the capacity to spread faith through fire and sword, then by all means, write a scientific paper and revolutionize the history we think we know...

If you assume the Spaniards were out there in the New World, obsessed with hunting down gold and forcing their faith upon everyone they met at the edge of a sword, well, that’s just an accurate description of reality. It's just that we're looking at a discrepancy of about fifteen centuries...

I noticed you left out the persecutions and those moments where Christians were actually clashing with one another during the early days of the Church... ☕

Wait, were the Crusaders actually invited by Byzantium to defend them against the Turks? What kind of twisted history book have you been reading... Because during the Fourth Crusade, they actually looted and nearly destroyed Byzantium themselves. The First Crusade really kicked off when the Pope declared a holy war to liberate the Holy Land from Muslims. On their way, the Crusaders marched through Byzantine territory claiming they just wanted to help the Emperor free his lands from Turkish tribes, but then they conquered Antioch and pushed toward Jerusalem, taking it despite resistance from both Jewish and Muslim fighters (specifically Palestinian Arabs). Once they took the city, the slaughter was so intense that even Christian sources say the blood reached people's knees...

After the first Crusader War, four different states popped up on the conquered territory, which pretty much proves how little that whole campaign actually had to do with defending Byzantium. Most historians today agree it was mostly just a series of looting expeditions, with death tolls ranging anywhere from 1 to 9 million people...

The American invasion of Normandy didn't end up creating any new countries under U.S. rule over in Europe, so I think that comparison just doesn't hold water...

When you bring up the low casualty counts of the Inquisition, you're comparing it to the victims of radical Islamist terrorist attacks, which is an even smaller number if we're talking about casualties within Western nations. The civilian death tolls from the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were incomparably higher. It really should be obvious that these terrorist attacks mostly serve as a convenient excuse to justify the massive U.S. military presence, which needs a constant enemy to ensure huge amounts of taxpayer money keep flowing in every year...
It used to be communism, but now we call it the War on Terror. The first one actually made sense, while the second one is a bit of a stretch...

Historians definitely point to the Congo as a Belgian Sin, and if you haven't looked into that, you're missing out. Aside from a few decent colonists like Germans or Italians, the rest was just pure horror...

Now, obviously, Christianity wasn't responsible for what happened to Native Americans in the West or the crimes of colonialism, but there wasn't much pushback against it since colonialism was exactly how new believers were brought into the fold...

And yeah, much to your disappointment, the Old Testament is still part of Christianity. Just pick up any Bible and you'll find both the Old and New Testaments inside. If you actually need proof for that, then I don't know what to tell you... 🙂

Christianity contributed a lot to Western civilization, but Islam did too. Both religions have their dark sides, though that’s primarily down to the followers rather than the faiths themselves...

Given that being a Christian for those first five centuries pretty much meant certain death, I have to say... if anyone in a community like that sees an opportunity to spread their faith through fire and sword, more power to them. They should just write a research paper and revolutionize the history we know...

Could you explain something to me? If Constantine issued the edict of tolerance in 313 and the church became the official religion and state institution of the Roman Empire by 380, how could being a Christian mean almost certain death during those first five centuries? Are you sure you haven't mixed up the years and centuries?

The truth is, even starting back in the 3rd century and continuing through the reign of Emperor Julian, the priesthood held massive authority, including free travel across the entire empire at the state's expense and access to significant material wealth...

We can really only talk about that romantic era of the early church during the first two or three centuries. After that, especially in the West, things mostly turned into politics...

Oh sure, because Qatar in the 12th century was basically the birthplace of the Church itself...

I’ve studied actual history—the kind available to anyone in 2015 through a mountain of primary sources, not some cherry-picked version. Yes, the Crusaders looted Byzantium during one of their campaigns. They even looted Zadar, so what? How does that change the fact that Byzantium called upon the West for help against the Turks, or that the primary objective of the Crusader Wars was to return the Levant to Christian hands? That was the fundamental goal of all those wars: reclaiming lost territories. That’s just basic history. No one is claiming the Crusaders came specifically to conquer land on behalf of Byzantium. Are you actually surprised that Byzantium reached out to the West? It’s hardly shocking; they called for help several times, though by then it was mostly too little, too late... even one of our own kings suffered a defeat trying to assist Byzantium against the Turks. Why did you jump straight to the Fourth Crusade? Besides, I see you finally agreed that those weren't originally Arab lands, so we’re making progress... we’ve admitted someone else conquered them from someone else, which is a start 😁

The Congo isn't a Belgian Sin; the Congo was the direct sin of a Belgian king who held absolute power and total control over it. Under his reign, the Congo faced a catastrophe, and when the truth came out, it caused a scandal that forced Parliament to take over, at which point the Congo officially became a colony. Do you see the distinction?

Frankly, I couldn't care less about the American War on Terror, so where did you even get that idea? And how could Christianity be blamed for what happened to Native Americans? By what logic 🤣 everyone knows exactly who colonized North America first...

And who says it isn't a part of it? It's simply unimportant when compared to the New Testament. The New Testament established the core of Christianity; that is what defines the religion...

James Anderson5 said:

Given that being a Christian for those first five centuries pretty much meant certain death, I have to say... if anyone in a community like that sees an opportunity to spread their faith through fire and sword, more power to them. They should just write a research paper and revolutionize the history we know...

Could you explain something to me? If Constantine issued the edict of tolerance in 313 and the church became the official religion and state institution of the Roman Empire by 380, how could being a Christian mean almost certain death during those first five centuries? Are you sure you haven't mixed up the years and centuries?

The truth is, even starting back in the 3rd century and continuing through the reign of Emperor Julian, the priesthood held massive authority, including free travel across the entire empire at the state's expense and access to significant material wealth...

We can really only talk about that romantic era of the early church during the first two or three centuries. After that, especially in the West, things mostly turned into politics...

You're right, it wasn't five centuries, but somewhat less than that; a significant error on my part, apologies 👍