Random thoughts...

I took our youngest for a stroll through the neighborhood a couple days ago and passed by a man and his father putting up Christmas lights.  I wasn't going to say anything... but they were obviously aware of the absurdity and claimed they were only doing it now because they didn't want to be up on the roof in the snow.  Seems legit; I'll give 'em a pass I guess...    

Finally got back in the gym after several months of not having access to one. Feels good.

Was going to complain because they’re playing Red Hot Chilli Peppers on the sound system, but even that’s better than what my university gym would play. So I guess I will count my blessings

Tomorrow is Reformation Day, so don’t forget to leave out beer and sausages for Martin Luther tonight!

Pethead wrote:Tomorrow is Reformation Day, so don’t forget to leave out beer and sausages for Martin Luther tonight!

The dude with the sausages during the fast was Zwingli. And he supposedly didn't even eat any. 

Tbh, I have an issue with celebrating Luther, the antisemite, and Zwingli the anabaptist murderer, and Calvin who coined the doctrine of predestination to eternal damnation. All of those dudes were corrupted by power eventually, sucking up to the rulers and governments of the states protecting them because that gave them an excuse to get rid of their obligations towards the pope.

If we celebrate the reformation, we should think of the martyrs who died for their beliefs, such as Felix Manz, Michael Sattler and the countless others to whom we owe stuff like freedom of religion, separation of church and state, believer's baptism, etc.

I'll get off my hobby horse now.

You realize that was a joke, right? 

Further, being a Baptist myself, I am well aware that Zwingli, for example, would’ve likely drowned me in a river for my beliefs. But that doesn’t mean that I deny that God accomplished great good through the magisterial reformers. Martin Luther is not solely responsible for the reformation, of course, not by a long shot. But for better or for worse, nailing the 95 Theses to that door in Wittenberg became a flashpoint for the reformation as a whole, and so I have no issue remembering its significance. I can assure you that I don’t idolize Luther.

And I did mention it was joke, right?

For some reason I’m craving candy corn…

Pethead wrote:You realize that was a joke, right? 

Further, being a Baptist myself, I am well aware that Zwingli, for example, would’ve likely drowned me in a river for my beliefs. But that doesn’t mean that I deny that God accomplished great good through the magisterial reformers. Martin Luther is not solely responsible for the reformation, of course, not by a long shot. But for better or for worse, nailing the 95 Theses to that door in Wittenberg became a flashpoint for the reformation as a whole, and so I have no issue remembering its significance. I can assure you that I don’t idolize Luther.

And I did mention it was joke, right?

Yeah I got that, just wanted to check out how it feels to be on the moral high ground for once. Sucks, tbh.

Raegoul wrote:

Pethead wrote:You realize that was a joke, right? 

Further, being a Baptist myself, I am well aware that Zwingli, for example, would’ve likely drowned me in a river for my beliefs. But that doesn’t mean that I deny that God accomplished great good through the magisterial reformers. Martin Luther is not solely responsible for the reformation, of course, not by a long shot. But for better or for worse, nailing the 95 Theses to that door in Wittenberg became a flashpoint for the reformation as a whole, and so I have no issue remembering its significance. I can assure you that I don’t idolize Luther.

And I did mention it was joke, right?

Yeah I got that, just wanted to check out how it feels to be on the moral high ground for once. Sucks, tbh.

In all seriousness, you and I would’ve been thrown in the river together.

Pethead wrote:

Raegoul wrote:

Pethead wrote:You realize that was a joke, right? 

Further, being a Baptist myself, I am well aware that Zwingli, for example, would’ve likely drowned me in a river for my beliefs. But that doesn’t mean that I deny that God accomplished great good through the magisterial reformers. Martin Luther is not solely responsible for the reformation, of course, not by a long shot. But for better or for worse, nailing the 95 Theses to that door in Wittenberg became a flashpoint for the reformation as a whole, and so I have no issue remembering its significance. I can assure you that I don’t idolize Luther.

And I did mention it was joke, right?

Yeah I got that, just wanted to check out how it feels to be on the moral high ground for once. Sucks, tbh.

In all seriousness, you and I would’ve been thrown in the river together.

Ironically, our church baptises in that same river.

That’s actually pretty neat and a testimony to God’s grace. 

I take it your church is in the anabaptist tradition?

Pethead wrote:That’s actually pretty neat and a testimony to God’s grace. 

I take it your church is in the anabaptist tradition?

Yes and no, it's an Evangelische Täufergemeinde. They go by Apostolic Christian Church in the US. The denomination was only founded in the 1830s by a Swiss dude, however, he was influenced by older Anabaptist congregations parts of which also integrated his church. But yeah, baptism is a big deal.

Who else has leftover Halloween candy?  

Kerrick wrote:Who else has leftover Halloween candy?  

I always do because I get way more than I can eat in one day. More about the amount I'd eat in a month (or at least a few weeks)

Nice!  We didn't go trick-or-treating ourselves, but our kids had a blast handing candy out to those who did.  I think last year we had more trick-or-treaters; this year we had about 60.

My kids went trick or treating at my SIL’s work and then we had our church’s Trunk or Treat. Being the pastor’s kids let’s just say they loaded up.

I got all mine from my church's trunk or treat (without actual trunks)

I won I jar of smarties from my churches fall fest. I was technically the second closest guess, but you weren't allowed to go over. My guess was 50, the answer was 54 I think, and the first closest had 57.

Lucky. Smarties are the best candy

Not sure if this belongs here or in the theology realm, but is the Bible in the Public Domain? You'd think it is, but I've seen bibles that have copyright pages and the "do not reproduce without express written consent" message that copyrighted books have, so I'm not sure (maybe that part is just talking about the commentaries or the intros to the books or the footnotes, those can be unique to different bible versions).

The short answer is that some translations are copyrighted, some aren’t.

Copyrighting any translation of the Bible seems very immoral to me

I get that, but think of it this way. If you’ve translated something a certain way, how would you like someone to come along and misrepresent it under the name of your work?

This is helpful: https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-copyright.html