Twitter Questions, The Boss, The Pope, and More Ethnic Gnosticism

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday. Just programming note, it won't be on Thursday this week. We need to move it to Friday this week for various and sundry reasons. Got various and sundry in there right from the start, which I think is helpful to a lot of folks so you can start your counting.

There are certain people who actually count these things. I'm not sure what else they're doing in life, but possibly they're in the slammer for life so they have nothing better to do. I don't know. But anyway, just programming note there that we'll be moving the program to Friday this week for the second program.

I actually thought I would really quickly answer two tweets, tweet questions, because they're somewhat interesting. I'll admit I've tried to take Twitter back over the past few weeks after issues and we'll talk about those later.

But people ask questions on Twitter that you should just never ask on Twitter. I mean it either needs to be answerable on 140 characters or you need to recognize you're asking me to write you an entire small book on TweetShort or something like that, which I obviously don't have time to do.

So I've been getting a lot of, you know, they're decent questions, but it's just sort of like, you really? The one that honestly bugs me the most is when people want me to be an online bibliography. You know, could you tell me, could you give me five books on this subject or that subject?

And you know, I suppose once in a blue moon if it's actually in the subject that I've studied, but most of the time it's just on some really interesting stuff. And so I skip most of those. But 15 hours ago, Jeremiah North asked, what is your opinion of the Orthodox Church?

That's one of those, not a Twitter question, but we get enough of people always going, you need to start doing debates on Orthodoxy. Folks, let me tell you something. I determine what I need to do. It's so many people.

You need to say that's what you need to say. You need to say that. It's like, no, no, I'm afraid. I'm not sure why people think that they get to determine what I need to do. I have to, you know, I have to answer for it.

So I sort of have to be the one that is responsible for that. And no, I've never done a debate. I don't ever expect to do a debate on the subject. And here's why. I had a lot of interaction with some serious Orthodox folks quite some time ago, actually.

And the vast majority of American Orthodoxy is, A, wholly unlike Orthodoxy as it exists culturally. And B, wholly unlike the rather zealous forms of Orthodoxy that exist in the United States rather than what exists in places like Russia, you know, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, et cetera, et cetera.

On one level, nominal cultural Orthodoxy is simply a dead human religion. It's just a dead human religion. There's no gospel. There's no changed life. It's a dead, externalized, cultural thing because Christianity can never be cultural.

Every time a culture has tried to make Christianity its thing, it's not the culture that gets changed, it's Christianity gets changed. You end up with popes and inquisitions and in Orthodox countries, the Orthodox Church is primarily a dead, dying, decaying, external, ritualistic thing.

But there are some active Orthodox folks, but they're going to be the ones that are going to tell you that most of the, for example, the reasons that there's almost never any reason to have a meaningful debate with Eastern Orthodoxy is because the whole perspective on how you define theology is fundamentally different within Orthodoxy than it is in Western thinking because Eastern thinking and Western thinking are very different.

You can go to the universal catechism of the Catholic Church, you know, I'll move my second treble here. You never hear them because we keep them quiet. You can go to the universal catechism of the Catholic Church, here is a written source.

Now, I know in light of the new papal document, I've got that queued up too. If we get to it, I think we should, that even written documents have to be interpreted and get interpreted in different ways.

I get that too. But in the West, you have this long history of councils, development of dogma. You know, there are some major differences in the focus of things between East and West. East, for example, focuses upon incarnation rather than crucifixion.

West tends to be the other direction around, though I think there needs to be a balance. But there is a forensic, legal way of thinking that Protestants and Roman Catholics share, and hence we argue about specific issues.

And Eastern Orthodox, in general, the real Eastern Orthodox, look over at us and go, y 'all have missed about completely. And I'm not even talking about stuff here like issues of authority, collegiality versus one leader in the papacy, and the other things, or division.

I'm not even really talking about the filial clause and the spirit sent by the Father and the Son, or the Father only, and stuff like that. But just an entire mindset where in Orthodoxy, you have much more.

Well, the concept in Orthodoxy is that the prayers and the liturgy define the theology. So you don't go to a systematic theology. You go to the practice, the prayers, the liturgy. And so coming up with specific definitions, it's extremely difficult to do.

Well, as Maximus wrote, or as John of Damascus wrote, or something like that, and you get this sort of a, it's much more vague. It's not as easily defined, and hence it's really difficult to debate issues where you don't have clear definition, and where one side basically says, we're really not into that kind of thing to start with.

It's just sort of not how we do stuff. And so when you realize sort of where historic Orthodoxy is along those lines, you can sort of see why, for example, in the 15th century of the Council of Constance, and it was a complete disaster, complete disaster.

And why there's so much difficulty in even when Rome and Orthodoxy tries to do their thing. There's just a completely different way of thinking that makes the normative kind of debates that we do, just not all that helpful, just not all that helpful.

And so, you know, what is your opinion of the Orthodox Church? Well, there is a complete imbalance in regards to the doctrine of man. In the vast majority of instances, it is a dead externalism. Are there saved people in the Orthodox Church?

Yeah, I think there are. Just I think there's saved people in the Roman Catholic Church, but not because specifically of that, but because they've been exposed to the gospel and that's what their trust is in.

They may not know a whole lot about the rest of it. So, but the Americanized version of it can become rather aggressive as far as proselytization is concerned and starts sounding very much like the Roman Catholics attacking solo scriptura and things like that.

But that's where it becomes different than the native forms, I guess, would be the phraseology we could use there, the native forms elsewhere. So there's thought about that. I actually got a private message here and I might as well, you know, give us your upcoming overseas travel line.

Well, it would be, we've already posted the conference information for Cape Town. I know that I'm debating Bashir Varnia in the mosque in Lanasia again. That'll be a third time we've been there. We're looking forward to meeting with Bashir.

Hope we can have dinner with him again. Bashir is just one of the nicest men you'll ever meet. Rudolph and I had the opportunity of having dinner at his home once and I'd love to get a chance to do that again.

Oh, the food was wonderful. And I'm the one saying that. You got to understand, I'm the McDonald's guy. So for them to be able to give me food that I was able to eat is a great tip of the hat to Bashir's wife, who's so very gracious to us.

But so we've got debates there in the Joburg area as well. I think one day I'm out at Pachtesthrum and I'm going to be lecturing on Bart Ehrman and some of his fundamental theological errors, especially his, and we've talked about some of this here on The Dividing Line, but especially his error in regards to Galatians 4 as the key Christological text and all that kind of stuff.

And then we come back to the UK and I have been asking for, but I believe I will be doing a conference in the UK on the evening of the 13th. I can't give you all the details on that though, but I'm pretty certain I will be.

And then I'm waiting for a church to get back to me on the 15th as far as where I might be preaching. If I'm only doing one service there, then I know of at least one church in London that might have me in the evening if I can get there.

And then I do have at least the city and maybe the folks there in, I'm not going to be, I'm flying to Belfast, but I'm not going to be in Belfast proper. I'm going to be about an hour outside of Belfast, right up toward the North Sea for a conference on the night of the 16th.

So there you go. That's sort of where I am right now. Hopefully we'll get all the details of that. Normally we post some sort of a blog article or something that lays all of that out. And so that's what we're looking at there.

There was one other Twitter question real quickly here. One of the Twitter responses when I held this up was, are we sure that was a Tribble and not a Trump head? I'm not sure. Let's see here. Well, see, this one doesn't look that much like that.

And this one's the one that goes, my Tribble's dying. I can see there is, oh, Velcro. Okay. Sorry about that. There is a way to extend its life. We'll have to have to do that. Let me see here. Boy, it's hard to dig through your feed right now.

You can tell it's together for the gospel time. The 12 of us that are not there, I'm seeing some pictures and it's like they're in some a sports arena or something with these interesting messages going around.

We are Protestant. We stand in Christ alone, no other mediator. And that's interesting. Someone asked, why aren't you preaching there? Well, I don't think you're ever going to see me preaching at any of the big conferences, to be perfectly honest with you.

Never have, probably never will, not because I've ever been asked. I think I scare people too much. Here it is. Justin asked, what's the best way to respond to the fallacy that I can't follow Calvin's teaching because he was sinful and I read his full biography?

I think, and I read his full biography as a second statement, different from the first. You know, this idea of following a man, the irony is that someone who says that is probably following Jacob Arminius, who likewise was a sinful human being.

And then there are others that would say they're Augustinian. Well, Augustine has his problems and Pelagius had his problems and etc, etc, etc. It is not an issue of the character of the individual. It is an issue of the biblical nature of what was taught by that person.

And outside of inspired scripture and outside of, well, the Lord Jesus himself, I mean, Paul said to imitate him insofar as he imitated Christ, but he called himself the chief of sinners. So even then you would recognize that you don't follow Paul in those areas where he's chief of sinners, right?

That would seem to me to be rather obvious. And so, you know, when people get hung up on that one, I'm just sort of like, well, we're talking about the content of the teaching, not the character of the individual.

And people always love to, you know, Dave Hunt went after Augustine. And, you know, when I started the church history series at PRBC on Sunday morning, one of the things I pointed out is people just love to take people out of context in church history and attack them on all sorts of grounds.

And yet most of us would not want to be judged by history with the standards that we ourselves apply to people from history. So in other words, you have to judge people in church history in the context in which they live, not the context in which we live today.

A lot of people are not willing to do that. So yeah, there you go. So with that said, real quickly, an interesting story was dropped into the chat channel last night. Story out of Tel Aviv. Eliashib, the quartermaster of the remote desert fortress, received his instructions in writing notes inscribed in ink on pottery asking for provisions to be sent to forces in the ancient kingdom of Judah.

The request for wine, flour, and oil read like mundane if ancient shopping lists, but a new analysis of the handwriting suggests that literacy may have been far more widespread than previously known in the holy land around 600 BC toward the end of the first temple period.

The findings, according to the researchers from Tel Aviv University, could have some bearing on a century old debate about when the main body of biblical texts was composed. To Eliashib, and now give the kitiyim, three baths of wine, and write the name of the day, read one of the texts composed in ancient Hebrew using the Aramaic alphabet and apparently referring to a Greek mercenary unit in the area.

Another said, and a full homer of wine bring tomorrow. Don't be late. If there is vinegar, give it to them. Well, now, and then there's a picture of these, what would again seem to most people to be mundane, irrelevant things.

But you need to understand the issue of literacy. Liberals have a vested interest in a minimally literate Israel and society at the time of the New Testament. Part of the reason for that is when you actually read the Bible, there seems to be a lot about reading scripture.

There seems to be a lot about passing scripture on to your children. And certainly amongst the Jews, you had synagogue schools. You had a vested interest in need in having literacy amongst the people.

And so if you can say, well, nah, they were just all a bunch of primitives. Nobody could read, write, or anything else. Then you're minimizing the role that scripture could have played amongst them. And you're also minimizing the argument for the accuracy of the transmission of scripture over time.

So every time I see one of these, I'm sort of intrigued because, you know, obviously part of the synagogue worship in the New Testament was the passing of the scrolls around. We can see, for example, in Acts when Paul and Silas or Paul and Barnabas, whichever period of time, go into a synagogue, they are asked to give exhortation, asked to comment upon the scriptures, things like that.

And that would require an ability to interact with those scriptures. And so these types of stories I find rather intriguing, rather interesting. That one just popped up yesterday. I've got to read this because it absolutely, you know, nearly a decade ago, I was to the point of being without words to describe what was going on in our society.

That was a decade ago. That was nothing compared to today. As you, my fans know, I'm scheduled to play in Greensboro, North Carolina this Sunday. As we also know, North Carolina has just passed HB2, which the media are referring to as the bathroom law.

HB2, known officially as the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, dictates which bathrooms transgender people are permitted to use. Just as important, the law also attacks the rights of LGBT citizens to sue when their human rights are violated in the workplace.

No other group of North Carolinians faces such a burden. To my mind, it's an attempt by people. Now listen, to my mind, it is an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.

Right now, there are many groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and overcome these negative developments. Taking all this into account, I feel this is a time for me and the band to show solidarity, listen, for those freedom fighters.

Freedom fighters. As a result, with the deepest apologies to our dedicated fans in Greensboro, we have cancelled our show scheduled for Sunday, April 10th. Some things are more important than a rock show, and this fight against prejudice and bigotry, which is happening as I write, is one of them.

It is the strongest means I have for raising my voice in opposition to those who continue to push us backwards instead of forwards. Bruce Springsteen, the E Street Band's Sunday, April 10th show is cancelled.

Oh, wow, the Lord's Day. Anyway, tickets will be refunded at point of purchase. It should not be surprising to any of us that the Hollywood elite is absolutely in love with moral anarchy because they're pushing it.

It's part of their agenda. Here you have a man who obviously has a completely upside down moral compass, a broken moral compass, and you may love the boss. I don't have a single song by Bruce Springsteen anywhere in my iTunes library, and I've got a fairly wide variety.

Not a fan, never have been, and certainly now never will be. But you may be, doesn't matter, don't care. Singing songs, playing a guitar does not mean that you have ever invested anywhere near sufficient time in developing a meaningful, moral, and ethical worldview.

But if you actually think that transgenderism, now let's talk about transgenderism for just a moment. I believe that there is a small small, small percentage, very small percentage of the human family that includes individuals who are confused concerning gender.

I believe in minimally 98 of the situations that is due to specific instances of sin, abuse, non-functional families, which is a function of sin, in the experience of those individuals. No question about it.

I think there is very little evidence of any kind of natural, genetic, wired situation where someone who is genetically male will only experience happiness by wearing dresses and being mutilated by surgery, lives cut short, and being forced to take massive doses of hormones their entire life.

And it is mutilation of the body, going either direction, whether it's a female trying to morph into a male or a male into a male. As most people recognize, it is a destructive thing to do. You're not allowed to say this if you hold positions of authority.

I guess that's why I get to say this because it's just us chickens here in the old bunker. But the reality is that it's a small percentage of people and it is a mental issue. It is a sickness issue. It is a disease issue for those individuals.

I mean, for someone who, for example, is actually has body dysphoria and feels like their left arm is somebody else's. And there are people who will actually cut their appendages off. If you can cut an appendage off, you have a serious mental problem.

Okay. There are people like that. But I believe that is a very small percentage of what's called the transgender movement or community or whatever. I would say in the vast majority of instances, transgenderism is simply sinful rebellion against God and nothing more.

It can have all sorts of motivations and reasons, but it is an individual standing up and saying to God, I will not fulfill the duties that have been given to me by my creator in the way that I have been made.

I won't do it. I won't do it. So to say that we now live in a society where the safety of our daughters and granddaughters must be sacrificed on the altar of leftist, socialist, moral stupidity and arrogance.

To say that we have to bow to that is a clear indication of the abject insanity of the left. In our society, it truly is. It's judgment. It's abject judgment. Now, the funny thing is, I fully support Bruce Springsteen's right to cancel a show.

Hey, give the money back. And if you have made that, if you think these people are freedom fighters. Now, by the way, I find that I cannot find it within myself to work up an ounce of respect for identifying someone who wants to abuse bathrooms as a freedom fighter.

That shows a moral decrepitude that is shocking and shameful. And I will not apologize for that. But if Bruce Springsteen is so morally decrepit that that is the commitment he's made, then he has the right to not be forced to utilize his, what some people consider musical talent, in a context that would violate his beliefs.

But what that also means is that if you're a baker and you use your artistry in the celebration of marriage, you shouldn't be forced to do that against your beliefs either. And if you're a photographer, you should not be forced to go into a context of the profaning of marriage to invest the use of your skills and your artistry to promote that either.

But you see, the left says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Equality and freedom is only for us. It's not for you. Isn't that what's being said here? Because I can guarantee you, Bruce Springsteen isn't going to support a Christian photographer or a Christian baker.

No way. So in other words, Bruce Springsteen is a glowing hypocrite. Yeah. As is the entirety of the movement. Freedom fighters, freedom fighters, prejudice and bigotry. So if I want my granddaughter to be able to use the ladies room without running into a six foot four genetically male man in a dress doing whatever you do in a restroom, I'm prejudiced and I'm no, that means I'm a human being with a brain that's still functioning.

That's what that means. I haven't had my moral and ethical common sense eroded by the constant exposure to the stupidity of secular humanism. That's what that means. It's not it's not prejudice. It's not bigotry.

It is simple common sense. It's simple common sense. Now, people are saying, well, when are we just all going to wake up? Well, from a Christian worldview, don't you think after a while all of this stuff might show what's really going on here, that this is this is a supernatural blinding?

You know, we ought to you know what I had to do? Just thought about this. I ought to have Dr. Hartley on. It's hard to get him. He's busy, but I have him on to talk about his book on the judgment passages, especially the Isaiah six passage, which is used so often in the New Testament.

It's one of the most often used Old Testament texts is the blinding of the hearts and making the heart hard and so on and so forth. And I ought to see if I should if I can get him on to talk about that text, because it's quite relevant in a number of New Testament passages, especially today as we're looking at what's going on in the world around us.

That might be a rather useful thing. So anyways, there's the there's the Bruce Springsteen. I really wondering where Bruce is going to perform next. Is he going to use this newfound power to force every state that has laws that he doesn't like to change those laws?

I mean, popular people, you know, Arius used music to promote his heresy. And if we live in a day where people think that because you can strum a guitar or memorize lines and act in movies, that that gives you, you know, tremendous moral authority.

Well, you get you get what you pay for, you know, you get what you pay for. I I don't know. I don't know. So anyhow, I had to had to address that. That was that was just absolutely amazing. I was sent, you know, there's there's a bunch of things coming out on the growing popularity of incest and things like that in Western media.

Yeah, I know that that doesn't shock me at all. I did want to just briefly and then move to the last subject here. It's could take a little while longer. I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing.

And to be honest with you, it's just so yesterday morning was yesterday morning, sometime over the weekend. I listened. Actually, it was it was the one it was Monday morning briefing when Dr. Moeller spent the entire time.

Talking about the new papal document, papal exhortation from Francis regarding the family, and it was interesting to hear a lot of people describing it as studied ambiguity, as an obvious attempt to hold a middle line and, you know, throw a bone over here and a bone over there, a little bit for the conservatives, a little bit for the liberals.

And, you know, which obviously never makes anybody actually happy. Oh, by the way, I I just realized looking up at this that because of the bug thing there, you can't actually read this. This is someone sent me this shirt because I mentioned on the program.

And but you can't see the you can't see the bottom. So you don't really necessarily know what it says. It says, if you see me collapse, pause my Garmin. And so I guess I need to explain that very quickly before I go on here.

What? Well, yeah, OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See me collapse. Pause my Garmin. Yeah. I do use this is a Garmin right here. I use the Garmin Edge 1000 on my bike. And my soul is pretty well owned by Garmin because they've they've made it so you can go cross platform on everything between running and and everything.

It's it's pretty cool. Anyway, for it's for a cyclist. The idea is, yeah, if you see me collapse, pause my Garmin because I don't want to mess up my stats. And when I come to I'm going to get back on the bike.

So so don't stop it. Pause it. Didn't say stop. It says pause so that I can get started again. And it really does say something to us. Anyway, I just looked up there and saw that and said, you know, someone's going to speculate as to what that actually says.

And I don't want any speculation because normally the speculation goes really awry. Back to Pope Francis. One of the things that struck me was. The argument that I've heard over and over and over and over again is how, you know, Sola Scriptura leads to all this ambiguity.

All this confusion. It's unclear. We have the living voice of the magisterium. But if the living voice, the magisterium answers questions about as clearly as Donald Trump does, which is normally it's going to be huge, huge.

I'm good. Read my book. What good is that? How does that help? I mean, there is a day in the past when, you know, the pope, you know, the papal syllabus of errors that, you know, it was easier to debate and to talk to somebody who would be a papal syllabus of errors type guy, you know, because there's there's a there's a position there and you can examine it and they're not going to weasel their way out of it and use weasel words and say, well, I'm not really saying this and I'm not really saying that.

It's sort of like, you know, the old time Mormons, man, give me an old time Mormon in comparison to this new new time. Is she squishy, postmodern, touchy feely type Mormon that's that's out there now?

And you have no idea what they believe because they have no idea what they believe. So it is interesting that most of the people, even those that are friendly toward Francis, are like, yeah, it's a study in ambiguity.

Well, that's that's a strong argument against Sola Scriptura. But then Moeller focused upon one section and it's 296 and 297 in it. I addressed various situations of weakness or imperfection here. I would like to reiterate something I sought to make clear to the whole church lest we take the wrong path.

There are two ways of thinking which recur throughout the church's history, casting off and reinstating the church's way from the time the Council of Jerusalem has always been the way of Jesus, the way of mercy and reinstatement.

The way of the church is not to condemn anyone forever. It is to pour out the balm of God's mercy on all those who ask for it with a sincere heart for true charity is always unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous.

Consequently, there is a need to avoid judgments which do not take into account the complexity of various situations and to be attentive by necessity to how people experience distress distress because their conditions.

These are almost all quotes. By the way, this isn't Francis. It's almost all quotes. Then Francis says it is a matter of reaching out to everyone of needing to help each person find his or her proper way of participating in the ecclesial community and thus to experience being touched by an unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous mercy.

Here's the phrase. No one can be condemned forever because that is not the logic of the gospel. Here, I am not speaking only of the divorced and remarried, but of everyone in whatever situation they find themselves.

Naturally, if someone flaunts an objective sin as if it were part of the Christian ideal or wants to impose something other than what the church teaches, he or she can in no way presume to teach or preach to others.

This is a case of something which separates from the community. Compare Matthew 18, 17. Such a person needs to listen once more to the gospel message, and it's called a conversion. Yet even for that person, there can be no way of taking part in life of the community, whether in social service prayer meetings or another way that his or her own initiative together with the discernment of the parish priest may suggest.

Wait a minute. Yet even for that person, there can be some way of taking part in life community, whether in social service prayer meetings or another way that his or her Okay. So there's been a focus immediately on no one can be condemned forever because that is not the logic of the gospel.

Is that a statement of universalism? Well, it sounds like it, but the context isn't about eternal destinies. The problem is the context is extremely nebulous, and that's why the whole issue is coming up, I suppose.

But even right afterwards when it says if someone flaunts an objective sin as if it were part of the Christian ideal, even that person can still find some way of taking part in the life of the community.

So it's, it seems to be talking about the life of the community and being excluded from that, which is the whole issue of if you're a divorced Catholic, then you'd be excluded from the life of the community, excluded from the sacraments, which is the foundation of the community and all the rest of that stuff.

I don't know. Isn't it weird that, you know, well, the scriptures are so unclear that we just need to have the Pope tell us. Yeah, when the Pope talks, we go, but I don't know. And even Roman Catholics say, I don't know.

I don't know what he means by that. Just another example of the fact that the Magisterium of the Roman Church does not, in fact, help us to understand things any better and, in fact, only creates a lot of confusion.

All right. With all that said, one last thing to address here in the last 16 minutes of the program. As I was flying back from Dallas yesterday, I was sent a link to a article that had been posted. No, it wasn't by you, actually.

And over the weekend, I guess, there was a interaction on Facebook, evidently on the Alpha and Omega page, on your page. Okay. Well, to be accurate, it, a link popped up in my feed. Is your mic on? My mic should be on, yes.

Oh, okay. I'm not wearing my thing, so I don't know. A link popped up in my feed, and I followed it over to the other fellow's page. So this took place on his page. Oh, okay. All right. Anyway, I don't know because I didn't see it.

I saw something pop up at one point, and you had posted something about white man, black man stuff that someone had said to you. And I was getting ready to go out of town. I think I was, was that on Friday?

Okay, so that was on Friday. I was leaving Saturday morning. Didn't know. And I looked at the name. The name did not ring a single bell with me at all. But people use handles and names like that online.

So, you know, I didn't know. Well, it turns out that this individual has a website called blackcalvinist .com and was known to me long, long ago. I don't know. I don't remember last time, but we have had a chat channel called Prasapalagian since 1996.

So this is our 20th anniversary, actually, of the founding of the chat channel. And this fellow was a regular for a while. In fact, was an op. An op is an operator. There's different levels of operators, but he was an op for a while.

And here's one of the problems. As soon as I saw in the article here, let me see where it is. I'm scrolling past the bazillion references to all the stuff that's already been posted all over the place.

As soon as I saw the names, the nicks that have been used in channel, I went, oh, yeah, I think one was XArminian and the other one had something to do with OSX or something. I don't I can't find them right here right now.

But here it is. OS, OS, underline X or XArminian. There it is. As soon as I saw that, I remember the nicks. And had a positive thought in my mind of the individual. And then I had to sit there and go, he's black?

I went, yeah, I guess I vaguely remember that. But and here's the problem. I don't think of race first. I don't think of people by their race. I don't and I don't understand who people about people who do.

I had to sit there and go, yeah, I remember the guy. And my my recollection was based on what the person said in channel. But it's it's sort of like the most famous line from Martin Luther King about people being judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Seems that that is no longer an allowable perspective because you're not allowed to do that. I had to sit there and go, oh, OK. Yeah, yeah. All right. Had no idea that the guy that Richard had the run in with over the weekend was someone that I knew from the chat channel from long ago.

I did not make any of the connections because blog articles, titles you use for yourself over there, Twitter handles. Nixon and IRC channel. I'm sort of consistent with most of them, but even I've had different stuff over the years.

So until I actually scan through this on the drive to DFW, I had no earthly idea. Point of order. This happened last Monday. Point of order. It happened Monday. Oh, last Monday. Oh, OK. Well, OK. The thing did.

But OK. All right. So he I don't know when he posted his article. Oh, OK. Well, this says April 11th. So I think so. Anyway, just a couple of factual things for I read a few things and I'm not gonna spend too much time on this.

I my block list on Twitter has become huge. OK, I block two kind of people right now and I will not apologize for blocking you because you do not have the right to put your stuff on my screen. OK, I will not apologize for that.

If someone wants to block me, block me. No skin off my nose. It's OK if you don't like what I have to say. Fine. It's OK if you're a Christian. Fine. I don't care. That's not the church. It's social media, for crying out loud.

I blocked every single person who came after me a couple of weeks ago about that article and started doing the racist stuff. Don't want it. Don't need it. Bye bye. Blocked it. Do not apologize. Don't ask me to apologize.

I'm not going to. Oh, but you have to dialogue because you talk to Muslims. We'll talk about that amazing category error in a moment. I also have a huge list of blocked Trump bites. OK, I've been blocking Trump followers for a long time now because I just it it just makes me go, yeah, to listen to the lack of reasoning.

And so I just block, block, block. And it helps to keep the blood pressure lower and the birds sing more, more, more regularly. And life, sunrises are prettier and sunsets are too. OK, I am not under any biblical mandate to engage in social media.

There is nothing in the Bible about blocks or anything else. It ain't the church. Quit acting like it is. If you don't want to follow what I put on Twitter, then go away. It's OK. No skin off my nose.

But why does everybody get all upset if I block you? I don't want that on my screen. I don't want to have to be dealing with that. But you have to. No, I don't. No, I do not. And the funny thing is, this particular individual would have known that in our chat channel, there were certain things that just were not to be discussed.

And if you question the ops on that, kick, goodbye. I'll bet you anything he probably kick banned a few people himself. So it's nothing new. It's nothing new. So I wasn't involved in the conversation at all.