On why christianity has declined in the west

[Iskar]

Ishkar,

It would be good to get into another argument on these subjects but the fact remains that people who could be helped easily are not and many are dying needlessly. You say the world needs to turn as it were and that is quite correct but it could still turn without any noticeable difference to our lives if we made a substantial push to give them clean water, why? Because it wouldn't be a short terms fix but an enduring one.

Well, within the confines of division of labour, I do make my part of the push. I donate to the church (the holy, catholic, apostolic, roman one) and the church maintains hospitals and schools and gives charity to the needy. Does the sect of reborn christians do the same or do they leave the majority of the poor to die, because, as you said yourself, most of them are not chosen anyway and will burn in hell?

PS: You might wish to spell my nickname properly. It's "Iskar", not "Ishkar".

[conon394]

Now that's funny since as far as everyone is concenrned that's exactly why it was formed.

What the UN? Will you please use quotes of my posts because half of the time I have no ideal what you are referring to? If you mean the UN it was formed one specific propose to make sure Great Powers did not fight another war on the scale of WW1 or 2. After sure it added window dressing some usefule and some not so much. But eliminating corruption is more or less just something it can report on - it certainly has no power to act on.

Try google as I did to get that information.

Then be polite and post the link

Of course it is simplistic as well as being narrow, why? Because it's a problem that needn't be one simply because we have the resources to get it done and thus save many from dying needlessly.

So you have ignored every link provided on the fact that shallow simple wells are often just as bad as surface water.

Do you actually think that these people are not capable of learning how to cope and provide for themselves if only they had the water? Are they any less human than us who also had to learn such things?

I never suggested any such thing. In point of fact that is why my my wife and I sustain a large grant at an organization that coordinates micro loans/grants to Africa. There is fee we pay so they can run the organization but the results are impressive. People apply and get a loan (in our case no interest and in general a very broad pay back time). And its been a success, in fact I can think of only one loan not repaid and since most others insist on adding interest the fund has actually grown. I have a delightful picture of a women holding a huge fat rabbit with two girls in school uniforms - her loan was to start a rabbit farm to earn the money she needed to put her girls to school. Her agency and drive not charity made that possible. Another women realized she was right by a western tourist hotel in Kenya and might benefit by adding another trailer to make more samosas and cover both drive routes. I will admit she had the easy button and we violated our rules on the size of loans because we both (wife and I) fondly remembered eating excellent samosas produced out of a metal shack in Kenya when we hiking there.

I am not patting myself on the back at all. I might though if all these peoples ever get the water they need.

And cheap shallow wells are often very much what they did not need - re my links above.

And you failed to answer two direct questions...

The source for the pricing of a shallow well.

or

Have you ever had a well and septic system?

Out of curiosity I live in a Council house which is our lot.

Which sorry mate means nothing to me I'm a Yank - please elaborate.

[basics]

Well, within the confines of division of labour, I do make my part of the push. I donate to the church (the holy, catholic, apostolic, roman one) and the church maintains hospitals and schools and gives charity to the needy. Does the sect of reborn christians do the same or do they leave the majority of the poor to die, because, as you said yourself, most of them are not chosen anyway and will burn in hell?

PS: You might wish to spell my nickname properly. It's "Iskar", not "Ishkar".

Iskar,

I do apologise for that mistake. I guess once one gets old and forgetful that's one of the hazards of life. OK didn't you know that Jesus said a man must be born again to enter heaven and that the gate is so narrow that few get in? So really what you are calling a sect is only what Jesus as God wants as He explains that with the parables of the wheat and tares or the sheep and goats. Therefore charity will be seen from both, the one an act of good works and the other the fruit of the Spirit.

conon394,

Now that's funny as the largest concentration of UN troops is in Africa so I don't think WW3 is going to begin there or maybe it might. Perhaps they are there to keep propped up the corrupt leaders of these nations who just happen to have representatives in key UN positions.

As for links, I don't know how to set them up. Besides google gives a fair spread of information so what's your problem?

You are to be congratulated for that work as everything helps but it's still not enough as we both can acknowledge, how? Because people are still dying needlessly.

Try google and no I have never had any problems with getting a good supply of water that because the house I stay in belongs to our town council which we rent.

[Col. Tartleton]

Usury is better than Charity.

[basics]

Usury is better than Charity.

Col. Tartleton,

When Jesus died on that cross He never asked for usury from any in whom He died for. The only demand for salvation is faith and even that is a gift from God given by pure grace alone. The fruit of that is love or charity as the Bible tells. A preacher worth his salt will never fail to get that message across and in doing so God will do the rest.

[Sir Adrian]

No basics. According to your doctrine somebody like Hitler could enter heaven by simply saying he believes in God.

Works are the basis of "salvation". Be a good person here on earth, follow God's commandments in accordance to Christ's teachings and don't be an arrogant/boisterous prick about it. That's how you earn "salvation" - I put quotation marks because man is not destined for hell, he goes there by his own accord.

[conon394]

As for links, I don't know how to set them up. Besides google gives a fair spread of information so what's your problem?

First just cut and past the [www.XXXXXXXX/XXXXXX/XXXX...] address from the bar in your browser of choice. Or just note the source.

My problem is that it is rude. You cite something which seeming you had found but I think willfully obfuscate as far as I can tell the source on the assumption that I won't waste time looking for it and the time to read it. To say 'just Google it' is not acceptable. I don't know about your background but I have a MA a BS and BA and spent my life working in various very adversarial Academia and or Tech Jobs and your answers on sources would have seen me fired on my second day.

Second:

Now that's funny as the largest concentration of UN troops is in Africa so I don't think WW3 is going to begin there or maybe it might. Perhaps they are there to keep propped up the corrupt leaders of these nations who just happen to have representatives in key UN positions.

They have no mandate to impose peace in general just to monitor it. but whatever you deflect and dance around my point they have no mandate to deal with corruption in a sovereign state.

You are to be congratulated for that work as everything helps but it's still not enough as we both can acknowledge, how? Because people are still dying needlessly.

True but I think in many cases helicoptering in and digging a shallow well is simply a poor answer and a waste of time money effort. I posted several links and yet you seem to ignore them.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...s-wasted-money

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...oboreholeswork

or this one a long read but does get to all the complexity you want to ignore with a shovel

http://wedc.lboro.ac.uk/resources/bo...-_Complete.pdf

and no I have never had any problems with getting a good supply of water that because the house I stay in belongs to our town council which we rent

As I suspected. Otherwise you would realize that a simple shallow well is subject to more or less all the problems of ground water - even in many cases worse has my links demonstrated. I am sorry to have both a truly clean and effective well and effective septic systems and a lifetime of maintenance and up keep cost a lot more than your 8000 dollars.

The simple fact is lacking a comprehensive sewage treatment situation and continual monitoring and factoring in agricultural run off - a shallow well is waste of time. You are better of just doing this for your charity:

http://sickontheroad.com/2011/03/14/...hen-traveling/

or better yet save and join with other charities and fund a small rural water system a send some locals to engineering programs so they can maintain them.

But since this the last post I think I'm going to on wells consider this:

http://www.greenpeace.org/internatio...oor-electroni/

and

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...es-phones.html

The second one in particular. So you funded a well - great - now kid take your water and go and work in a toxic soup because I could bother to find a reputable place that recycles (sort of) the computers or other stuff I enjoy without any thought. Or should I post about the horror that is the ship breaking business in India or anywhere else than the US and UK.

http://www.shipbreakingbd.info/Shipb...e%20world.html

Better:

https://news.vice.com/article/visiti...-of-bangladesh

Tell Massood all he needs is a new well.

[basics]

No basics. According to your doctrine somebody like Hitler could enter heaven by simply saying he believes in God.

Works are the basis of "salvation". Be a good person here on earth, follow God's commandments in accordance to Christ's teachings and don't be an arrogant/boisterous prick about it. That's how you earn "salvation" - I put quotation marks because man is not destined for hell, he goes there by his own accord.

Doctor Shuu,

No-one but Jesus Christ ever fulfilled the commandments, that's the reason Jesus had to come because the commandments only brought condemnation and death whether they be Moses' or natural. One does not earn salvation under any circumstances with but one exception and that is to believe that Jesus Christ died on a cross to take away your sin and even that is a total work of God.

So yes, someone like Hitler may well be saved and I'll give you some examples from Scripture on that. Abraham lied many times and yet was accounted righteous before God. David had a man murdered so he could have his wife. Moses murdered an Egyptian yet God chose him to lead the tribes out of that land. Paul led gangs of men to kill Christians, Stephen being the most notable and yet Jesus put him on his knees to save him. Jacob stole his brother's inheritence and yet God saved him too. Where you go wrong on this is that there is no scale of sin as one sin is as bad as many and until sin is destroyed in a person through Jesus Christ they remain sinners.

[Sir Adrian]

Are you saying the 10 commandments no longer apply? Seriously man stop posting and read the scripture.

Of course people sin, that is why Christ commanded his apostles (the first priests and bishops) to to take confession from the flock and pray for forgiveness of their sins

"And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” "

The duty of every Christian is to strive to be as much like Christ as humanly possible, and that means doing good work. Christ himself said that upon death each souls will be judged on 4 things: the evil he did, the evil he could have done but refrained, the good he did and the good he could have done but refused.

It even says so in your own presbytarian bible

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage...6&version=NKJV

[basics]

Are you saying the 10 commandments no longer apply? Seriously man stop posting and read the scripture.

Of course people sin, that is why Christ commanded his apostles (the first priests and bishops) to to take confession from the flock and pray for forgiveness of their sins

"And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” "

The duty of every Christian is to strive to be as much like Christ as humanly possible, and that means doing good work. Christ himself said that upon death each souls will be judged on 4 things: the evil he did, the evil he could have done but refrained, the good he did and the good he could have done but refused.

It even says so in your own presbytarian bible

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage...6&version=NKJV

Dr Shuu,

When people get saved or reborn all the commandments were met, especially the Law, in Christ Jesus' actions on the cross. The Law could never be brought to their door again to condemn them and as for the other commandments these too will be kept by the new creation, why? Because it is a fruit of the Spirit that they do.

James 5:16 Context

13 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. 14Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. 16Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. 17Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. 18And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. 19Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; "

No man can forgive sin but as Jesus did that for all that He died for then their sin is dead and gone in the eyes of God. Of course one must ask what happens if one does fall as will happen? Jesus' act on the cross covered all these meaning they don't have to tell anyone but God if they recognise a sin. But for everyday stumbles one is told to tell those to another because they are one body and each part is essential to keep the body going especially in the right direction. As each new creation is a priest there then is no reason to have specific priests as do Catholics in error, do that work because he cannot forgive sins.

When Jesus sent out the Apostles as well as the seventy these were extraordinary powers and subject to one thing. Forgiveness of sins had to have been enacted on the cross by the shedding of Christ's blood and that had not yet happened. Therefore sin could only be forgiven on account that the persons involved believed that the promised seed, Jesus, would die for their sin and be saved. In other words they were given power to pre-empt Christ's saving blood on the cross just as was done to all the other saints saved before Christ came.

Therefore the fruit of the Spirit is that anyone who genuinely receives rebirth will try their darnest to emulate Jesus Christ as best they can. Unlike Christ however we still retain our corrupt bodies as well as our memories and it in these things that Satan will try to influence them. It's one of the reasons that Jesus insisted His followers don't look back, rather look to Him and the promises that a future in Him will bring. Paul eloquently speaks of it as being in a race concentrating on Jesus as one runs. If all Christians were to race together at one time there would be only one winner, why? Because each regenerate will be in different states of faith, have different baggage to get rid of and have different objectives to fulfill according to the will of God. These things were all preordained before the worlds were formed.

[basics]

conon394,

Can I say that on reading your posts I asume that you are telling me the truth and so I take your word as being your word. I don't press you for sources or links and would never dream of doing so for the reasons i have just stated. I don't even get offended by what you say because I realise that is what you believe.

Now as for my academic qualifications, I have only one and that is in electrical installation and a certificate of commendation for art that the Glasgow Museum of Art gave me if that counts for anything. I left school when I was fifteen entering an apprenticeship in electrical engineering. At twenty I took over the running of my late father's sheet metal business which I left in my brother's hands to enter the sales field in paper conversion whereupon I became the factory manager. I left that to become the manager of a toy wholesalers and after some eleven years I ventured into costume jewellery manufacturing as manager introducing model soldiers to that organisation. Not wanting to move to London I then drove buses for two years before becoming the manager of a laundry group which I worked at until this illness overtook me. In each case I entered these businesses knowing nothing but by watching and learning I became the manager of each one and each one grew under my tenor.

Finally, I do not agree with your comments because where water becomes available people are being saved from death. To suggest it is a waste of time is nonsensical as well as inhuman especially since the world is awash with money. For example I read yesterday that scientists had discovered a way to cure hip joints but as usual it wouldn't be availabel for another two to three years. How often do we hear this? So for two or three years these guys are guaranteed funding that might or might not produce the goods whilst meantime people are dying for lack of something that is there and can save lives immediately and you say it's a waste of time. Shame on you!

[conon394]

How often do we hear this? So for two or three years these guys are guaranteed funding that might or might not produce the goods

I would imagine that is really likely what a short Media headline said the accompanying story said. Written somebody not an expert in the field. That is why many scientists my wife being one of the them never do news stories because of they their words can be taken out context. I not sure what particular story are referring to but right know the main knew focus is treatments strengthen hips and prevent expensive surgeries. Had my grandmothers hips been not fail a fall might not have shattered her hip led to an infection and death. So she would still be alive to tithe to her churches charity work.

I appreciate that -but I like to back up what with sources - which should you read because the fact is a simple basic wells are not panaceas like you make them out to be. Please do read the links I posted or these:

"As a result, 50,000 water supply points are not functioning across rural Africa."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...s-wasted-money

http://pubs.iied.org/17055IIED.html

Just digging a shallow well is not enough, keeping it working is the key and understanding what problems the water might have is another. Take Uganda wells were being abandoned because of iron content soil strata lead a certain kind of parasite becoming endemic. The surface was in fact safer. There is a solution (*) but it does not involve just putting nylon stoking in bore hole. Others get abounded because of mine seepage, human effluent, farm run off, or the simple fact that the one trained local expert in maintenance simple left for the city.

By itself a shallow well is simply not a silver bullet. You need solutions for treating waste, better regulation of chemical and industrial or mine waste. Dealing with all these things together in an integrated fashion is the solution. That's what I'm saying

* by the filter in question all components are ultimately descendants of the very basic research you sneer at which I don't understand? Does research into malaria or denga fever or ebola bother you? AIDs research, crop research ( I mean could say just hand out Bucket of fungicide its cheaper than the research cost of my wife's work) but fungicide is extremity difficult to apply effectively at just time in fact the majority of it wasted because often when realize you need its to late). So maybe half the projects never produce anything, She and her collaborators [many in South Africa and Kenya] may a rust resistant variety or not but people got eat to.

Now as for my academic qualifications, I have only one and that is in electrical installation and a certificate of commendation for art that the Glasgow Museum of Art gave me if that counts for anything. I left school when I was fifteen entering an apprenticeship in electrical engineering. At twenty I took over the running of my late father's sheet metal business which I left in my brother's hands to enter the sales field in paper conversion whereupon I became the factory manager. I left that to become the manager of a toy wholesalers and after some eleven years I ventured into costume jewellery manufacturing as manager introducing model soldiers to that organisation. Not wanting to move to London I then drove buses for two years before becoming the manager of a laundry group which I worked at until this illness overtook me. In each case I entered these businesses knowing nothing but by watching and learning I became the manager of each one and each one grew under my tenor.

I was really looking for a biography - I was simply pointing my career is one where you are expected to back up an any assertion with references, its simply a habit. So simply tend just expect the same.

But if really like clean water as your thing you might consider this:

http://www.vestergaard.com/lifestraw-community

[basics]

conon394,

Just about three weeks ago we had guy just in from Malawi showing us film of how great the problem is even with all the charity money that gets through. Another, a church member is just back from Madagascar, where he had been helping put up buildings. It is so frustrating to hear their stories so I guess we'll just have to continue the argument although I thank God for the part you and your better half are playing.