Bicycle

@needGod_net Whereas Catholics believe you can reject God after accepting Him, so there's no confusion. If you're in a state of grace with God, you are assured of Salvation.

@needGod_net You have it completely backwards. Since according to you guys people that become apostates were never saved to begin with despite the fact they thought they were, you have no way of knowing if you are saved or just a pre-apostate.

Basing your salvation on “obedience to law” leads you to “I'm not sure, but I hope I’ll make it.” While basing your salvation on “Christ has done it all, his promise is sure” leads to “I know I’ll make it!”

@LatFilosof For example, you can get the need for the efficient first cause to have Will and Intellect. At that point it looks an awful lot like what most people mean by God.

@LatFilosof Well yes, it's the corollaries that get you to other traits. What would be the necessary properties of an efficient first cause? You can pull lots of natural theology just from that alone.

My gripe with this argumentation is that the concept of "God" that most people have in mind is not what the argument arrives at and it needs several other arguments to arrive at. An atheist could fully accept 1 through 4 without accepting 5. Aquinas would not support this.

@equezchristi If you are cursed with truly supernatural pride*

Once you are gifted with a truly supernatural faith, it becomes evident that few are saved. Bad will is so prevalent among men that it is more of a wonder that any at all are saved than that most are not. I find it a probable sign of unfaithfulness if one takes issue with the teaching of our Lord on this matter.

@odellproperties @FICMBondTrader I literally learned how to frame a home in one afternoon

No. You absolutely could not. Go climb a power pole and see how fast you get killed by electricity. Go frame a house when you don’t even have a clue where to begin. Wire an electrical panel and see how fast your house burns down. Build a septic system, see if the County passes your inspection.

The thing is: 1. I can walk in and do your blue collar job 2. You can’t walk in and do my white collar job The blue collars are there for a reason (convicts or illegals mostly)

@jkimballcook Do you believe that Genesis asserts Adam and Eve became deities? Or does this line mean something else possibly?

I mean

@Trevorsaxiom @lymanstoneky TRT doesn't affect fertility if you pair it with HCG or enclom.

@lymanstoneky Those who've never had tanked T levels don't know despair. This is a good thing, but they should also test when everyone feels great at 20 to set the individual baseline, and anyone who still wants kids can just get on non-T HRT and it's fine.

Since 2017, the birth rates for married American servicemen have fallen by about 15%. And now the Secretary of War wants them to obliterate their sperm by taking medically contraindicated testosterone supplements they don't need.

@lymanstoneky If he's talking about a general regimen, why are they doing blood screening for low testosterone?

Yes I know there are some cases where testosterone supplementation is useful especially for military personnel in extreme deployment situations, don't @ me with your "what about this exceptional case where it's indicated" he's clearly talking about a general regimen

@lymanstoneky How is taking testosterone for hypogonadalism contraindicated? Also you can maintain fertility by adding another drug like HCG or enclom to the stack.

@Romy_Holland @cybelethebest Life insurance at your ages should be very affordable and can definitely increase peace of mind.

yeah it’s true. if my husband died i’d be stressed af and some amount of money would eliminate this. i do wonder if the number that equals this sense of security perpetually goes up for ppl though. i know 5 years ago i would have predicted that my current net worth would have made me feel secure and it doesn’t fully.

i feel envious of all of my friends who work at anthropic, but what’s interesting is my husband and i can’t identify any significant things we’d change if we were on the cusp of infinite money. we’d get more childcare, and i guess we’d do things like uber to SF when we didn’t wanna deal with parking. but we wouldn’t move or even buy a new car. i can’t quite figure out what it is i envy then. i guess a sense of absolute security? or maybe desire for resources is just so innate it is hard to see a mountain of gold and not want some, even if you have nothing to trade it for.

@SpeedWatkins What? The intelligibility of the universe is explained much more successfully by theism than atheism.

Or its the success of methodological naturalism, which is surprising on theism but a matter of course given atheism. Hence, that fact about science is some reason to believe theism is false.

@Noahpinion Are you claiming that blood levels of testosterone don't correlate with symptoms, and that increasing those levels don't alleviate symptoms and/or result in performance enhancement? I can't follow your point.

Rightists are idiots, so of course they think "T levels" is not just a Gen X slang metaphor, and is literally actually about the concentration of T in your blood. They have never read about testosterone sensitivity or anything else related to the *action* of testosterone.

@Noahpinion You literally just take another drug to maintain fertility while on TRT. That's it.

LOL yup. Hegseth is gonna make soldiers infertile. We are truly ruled by retards.

@MaryBowdenMD Because they're the ones paying for it.

Can we please outlaw prior authorizations? Everyday I get a notice from the pharmacy requiring me to justify why I want to use a medication… and it’s for things like doxycycline. Why does a nameless third party who has never seen or examined the patient have any say in what treatment my patients receive? They also have no accountability if their decision results in patient harm. @HHSGov

@iron_redux Men and women have different healthy testosterone levels.

What is the point of doing this when the CNO, CCD SOUTHCOM, CCD USTRANSCOM and Commandant of the Coast Guard are all women? Like what then? Why are we testing T levels when we have literal women serving in the ranks at the highest and lowest levels?

@johnkonrad @MCCCANM Subjecting civilians to risks they didn't consent to is not in fact based.

This is one of the most brilliant moves Hegseth has made. Here’s why: Experienced pilots are freaking out in my DMs about these close flybys. Even some based people I follow and love, like @MCCCANM, are questioning them while my son’s class of young student aviators can’t stop talking about how cool it is but also everything that could go wrong. The truth is, we don’t want every flyboy buzzing beaches and towers like Maverick. What made that scene in Top Gun cool was that Maverick truly was the best of the best. That scene would not be funny if some shaky pilot who just got his wings ripped past the tower in a T-6B. The irony is in the contrast between the best of the best and some desk jockey who out ranks him worried about spilling his coffee. This scene is so important to the plot the directors included it twice! It’s more important to understanding Top Gun than the combat scene with migs because it’s more relatable. Every Blue Angel is as good as Maverick. But what is the purpose of the Blue Angels? It’s not combat. It’s to show the American people, and our adversaries, how good we really are. Go back and read my post from the 4th of July at how difficult it was to see the blue angels and navy ships which Mamdani requested, and the admirals foolishly agreed, to stay at a “safe distance” from Manhattan. You can’t boost recruitment, get voters to support spending & send a message to our enemies at anchor 10 miles from the tip of Manhattan or 1,000’ above them. Proximity matters. I write books. Every mentor I’ve ever had says the same thing: “Show, don’t tell.” That’s what @PeteHegseth just did with the Blue Angels. By having BA do flybys, he did not write a long memo explaining his intent, he showed them that it’s time to stop blowing safety out of proportion and start taking risk again. And better still he trusts they are smart enough to understand the broader implications. And our pilots are smart. Pete is pushing the Overton window back toward the center on safetyism. Now every Army SGT who’s told to make his guys wear stupid reflective belts on PT & every Navy Chief who’s told he can’t send a man over the side in a harness to paint the ship has a new tool: “The flyboys can buzz the beach but I can’t paint the hull because a sailor might fall 25 feet into the water & get wet? Make it make sense Lieutenant.” But he’s also giving the officers of flying squadrons a way out: “Colonel, Hegseth has authorized flybys so can I buzz the Empire State Building?” asks some brand-new F-35 pilot. Now his colonel has an answer: “Sure can sport. Right after you get your invite to the Blue Angels.” And this Blu Angles flyby gives that CO some extra room to maneuver. “Ok colonel, but can we at least stop flying 20 miles around that bogus safety exclusion zone near the theme park?” “Yes, let’s try 5 miles for now.” And this solves a real conundrum. Those helicopters flying down the beach got monumental amounts of public support. Why? Did those clips really get shared because Joe Public wants helicopters roaring over his kid’s head? Not really. They resonated because they’re cool as heck, and because absolutely everyone is sick and tired of creeping safety regulations. Punishing them harshly would have killed morale and resulted in public outrage and would have accelerated the creep of safetyism. Having the Blue Angels buzz the beach in response to that helicopter flyby does many things at once: It gives the public cool AF photos. It gives squadron commanders flexibility and a way out. It shows our adversaries how talented our pilots really are. It’s relatively low risk, because the Blue Angels really are that good. It moves the Overton window on safetyism. And it pisses off every low T troll on Bluesky and Reddit. And it tells admirals the days of kowtowing to pinko mayors like Mamdani are over. That’s not a win-win. That’s a long string of wins for the price of half a tank of jet fuel.

@ryancduff @zamoose Plowing planes into civilians is not an essential ingredient of greatness.

@zamoose Prudence is coded language for managed decline. I’m not advocating for total recklessness, but the degree that the US has reduced risk is a driving force behind the lack of greatness

I’m getting to the point that we just revoke the citizenship of these people who refuse to deal with their low-T issues We are living through an administration that is restoring American greatness and these people are pissing their pants because they can’t have managed decline

@ryancduff Should soldiers randomly use a beach full of people for a shooting range without warning or consent? Risking civilian lives recklessly is not high T. That's not masculine.

@QuetzalThoughts Generally agree but I would say that due process is in society's best interest.

Unironically yes. As a defense attorney you will be advocating against society's best interests as part of making an effort at a fairer system. It's necessary but shameful. They should care about the life of their client as professionals, but not at a personal level.