David Simmons
@frdavid.org
930 followers 390 following 650 posts
Episcopal Priest, Presbyterian Pastor, Ecumenist, LGBTQIA+ Ally, Oblate of the Order of Julian of Norwich, Chief Election Inspector, Tolkien Nut, Percussionist and Gaming Dork. http://www.frdavid.org
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Reposted by David Simmons
"AI" is an entire FIELD of computer science and there are specific *highly developed and Human monitored* tools for sorting huge amounts of data and things, that can be extremely useful to scientists.

Generative slop and "I'm going to have it think for me" hallucinated trash are poisoning the term.
"Dr. Barth, when was the exact moment when you were saved?"

Karl Barth responded, "I was saved at 3 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem, in the year 33 A.D."

Karl Barth
1886-1968 Swiss Theologian ⚓️
The Rev. David Black, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Chicago, being pepper sprayed in the face at a peaceful protest. ⚓️
The traditional Christian Just War principles of “Discrimination” and “Proportionality” are what our Secretary of Defense rejected today. There is nothing Christ-like about this at all. If you’d like to know more about Just War theory, I did four one-minute videos on it, linked in the comments. ⚓️
— A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life by Thomas Merton
“A magnificent line from Karl #Barth: ‘Everyone who has to contend with unbelief should be advised that he ought not to take his own unbelief too seriously. Only faith is to be taken seriously, and if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed, that suffices for the devil to have lost his game’” ⚓️
Superman (2025) is great. But why does the movie industry insist that all people who live outside of cities have southern accents, like his adopted parents in KANSAS? As a native Kansan, raised in Kentucky, THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.
The story and practice of our faith tell us that we are one community and that God loved us so much that God sent God’s only beloved Son to reconcile us. Considering this mighty work of God that unifies us, our human-created differences are petty. ⚓

medium.com/@frsimmons/j...
Jesus, Social Identity Theory, and Charlie Kirk
“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who…
medium.com
Reposted by David Simmons
the rapture isn’t happening tomorrow but we can still have a little fun and pretend our christian coworkers don’t exist
Yes, the “two swords” theory was a Medieval innovation out of the Universities of Germany that became hard baked into Lutheranism, but also German Catholicism. Lutherans have done a lot of painstaking, difficult work since WW2 addressing this.
Note that the problem here is NOT Erika Kirk's speech, but the theology implied in Allie Stuckey's tweet.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “The Bible does not recognize an unconditional obedience to authority. It is the God-given authority itself which demands that obedience should be conditional upon justice.” (DBW 6:342)
There are NOT two separate realms of forgiveness and punishment envisioned by Jesus. The entire world is his kingdom, and justice and grace cannot be separated.
While only a small portion of the population of Germany became part of the actual German Christian movement, they succeeded in creating enough of a "both-sides" argument that average Christians in Germany were mired in inaction, even as atrocities and suppression increased.
I wanted to understand the process by which the teachings of Jesus became so distorted that people could support the actions of the Nazi state. German Christian Theologians like Hossenfelder and Hirsch routinely used Romans 13 to claim that Christians should uncritically support the state.
Risking Godwin's law, This echoes Nazi Christian theology and is very dangerous. For the past decade or so, I've spent a lot of time studying the "German Christian" (Deutsche Christen) movement in Germany in the 1930s, which was the part of the protestant church that overtly supported the Nazis.. ⚓
Are fandoms religions? It depends on whether you take an essentialist or functionalist view of religion. It is hard to deny that fandoms and religions carry out many of the same functions. ⚓️ youtu.be/eU8w4KxoyRk?...
Fandoms are Religions
YouTube video by ReligionForBreakfast
youtu.be