In honor of Fixupost's self-banning from Politics, here's his self-ban announcement.

It looks like our former friend is doing well with his life and his time. (Though it's not clear whether he actually asked for this as no similar post has appeared in the ban me thread in ATF.)

Would you like to go first and start a new thread, or shall I?

You can have the honor of launching the thread if you'd like.

I'll try to get to it this weekend. I think I should have some time then.

I'll look forward to the dialogue.

The debate thread was interesting enough, but I think it should the moderated and posts by the non-debaters moved to a side-thread.

After only a couple days, I'm starting to agree. I was hoping we'd get a few posts deep on the topic before it got too divergent, but it's already going in a very different (but interesting) direction.

As far as I can tell, only the first two posts are on topic. Everything after that would need to be moved to a separate thread.

heck even *I* think this should be spun off to a new thread and I'm about always the last person willing to move an off topic convo

Okay, I'll move all off-topic posts to a new side-thread.

Thanks, OP.

Hey, Aaron. I've been real busy the last few days and have been diverted a bit by the side issue in "our" thread. Hopefully tonite I can actually make an on-topic post so the YEC discussion can move forward!

#notobsessed

#DifferentGameNow

Hey, Aaron, watch your tone!

I'm going to be backpacking for a few days, so mostly without internet service. Zeno is around if you need a moderator when I'm gone.

Have fun!

Thanks Louis, I did.

I don't know how much you guys are following the Uighur Muslim internment going on in China right now. Essentially, a province in northwestern China has imprisoned over a million Uighur Muslims (a Muslim Turkic ethnic minority based in this part of China), and maybe millions more, in "re-education" camps where under threat of torture they are forced to blaspheme their religion and repeat Communist slogans and sing Red songs for hours every day. This oppression has even spread to the US and other places outside China, with Uighur Muslims in the US being blackmailed by the Chinese government with threats against their family to keep silent and others being forced to return to China.

Those types of things are why I can’t take seriously the idea that China will overtake the US as the superpower of the future.

You should. I think the US will remain a superpower, and probably one that leads or is a member of a more powerful global coalition than China's, but my expectation is that China will be more powerful than the US in my lifetime.

I'm strangely involved in a local turkish community (through my wife's best friend) and one of the members in the community is Uighur, doing graduate work in the US. I was surprised with how strongly they identify with their turkish routes. THey were also quite surprised that I was broadly aware of the cultural genocide, and spoke with a lot of sadness about the situtation, in particular that they could never return.

hey all. Has anyone else felt beat down by life, love, experiences, etc to the point where they don't feel the ability to love anymore? Sometimes I think the only thing I love anymore is my cat ;- /

It’s a universal experience. Wisdom isn’t needed when everything is going well. It’s needed for where you are now. Open yourself up to wisdom, but understand that it’s a completely different mindset than what you’re used to doing. Listen to new music and read old stories.

ty for replying.

I googled daily Bible studying and the first one I clicked on shared this verse.

1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV)

13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Hopefully I can start loving more.