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Moving away from the criminal aspect of justice. If I get divorced, end up paying alimony and child support, start gambling, then lose my house because I can’t make the payments anymore - is that justice or injustice? Is there any difference from my point of view, or the banks point of view? It is ...

I don't know which model would describe conservative Mennonites. In some ways, since the leaders are chosen from among the church membership, they are representative, but not really, because once ordained, there is no further formal mechanism for the membership to inform the leadership. Because lea...

[l Might as well bring the Mormans into this mess. “The Lord told the brother of Jared to build barges to take his people to the promised land.” -Ether 2:16 Was the promised land the lighthouse? They had no need of lighthouses to keep them off the rocks. In fact they loaded the rocks onto the barge...

I know of churches that basically operate as: Direct Democracies Representative Democracies Democratic Republics Totalitarian Democracies Monarchies Autocracies Oligarchies Puppet states In each of the above, it is assumed that Jesus is the head of the church and that the Holy Spirit is working thr...

I heard yesterday about a guy I met years ago, a friend of friends, who was now a tow truck driver. He towed a car with a flat tire; the owner came in to pick it up, and argued about the $50 towing fee. When he wouldn't hand over the keys without being paid, the guy pulled a gun and shot him point ...

A recent topic on MN was whether or not negligent parents should be punished. One of the worst acts of negligence any parent can do is decide to have a child out of wedlock; it has been proven over and over how much worse the outcomes are. Choosing to be a single mother is a very poor choice. If ne...

The ship that hit the Key Bridge in Baltimore wasn't a barge. In my lexicon, anything that carries cargo above decks falls into the category of barge. Parsing of terminologies can run into interesting exchanges. Time to get a new lexicon. Also, btw it's not at all surprising that it's the "thi...

Ships are self-propelled. Barges are not. And no, whether or not goods are stacked above decks has nothing to do with it. I live on the Columbia River and I see grain barges go by all the time. They carry the grain inside, not stacked on top. The barge in Texas was an oil barge which carry the oil b...

The Quaker method of governance by consensus doesn't really fit into any of your above categories. It is not direct democracy. Consensus is something different. I suspect churches truly move forward only by consensus regardless of the governance model. There must be a common vision and those who di...

With respect to some of the previous comments above, this thread doesn't seem to be about whether war is justified on the part of unregenerate geo-political entities or not, aggressively or defensively. As I understand Josh, the question is specifically about using bombs that inherently target inno...