LordReed:



Okay I correct myself. It's not a god of the gaps argument even though its similar. However it is a fallacy of false equivalence. I will edit my inital post to reflect.

Aight boss

LordReed:


What do you call it when someone tries to exploit a gap in scientific knowledge to explain a god?

https://lmgtfy.app/#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=What%20do%20you%20call%20it%20when%20someone%20tries%20to%20exploit%20a%20gap%20in%20scientific%20knowledge%20to%20explain%20a%20god%3F

Maybe you should actually read the Wikipedia article itself chief.

What you are seeing from your screenshot are keywords used in search engine optimization (SEO). It's picking words from different places that matched what you searched for, that's why it's not coherent and the '...' signifies that there's a continuation to the sentence that has been cut of.

Below is the exert from the wiki article on the section on usage. You should still check out entire article though.
Usage in referring to a type of argument
The term God-of-the-gaps fallacy can refer to a position that assumes an act of God as the explanation for an unknown phenomenon, which is a variant of an argument from ignorance fallacy.[17][18] Such an argument is sometimes reduced to the following form:

There is a gap in understanding of some aspect of the natural world.
Therefore, the cause must be supernatural.
One example of such an argument, which uses God as an explanation of one of the current gaps in biological science, is as follows: "Because current science can't figure out exactly how life started, it must be God who caused life to start."

I'm guessing you might not still agree that you got the argument wrong. Was just pointing it out originally. You can disagree with OP's arguments on its own merits but it would be wrong to call it a god of the gaps argument,as he wasn't positing God as the explanation for why the universe's expansion is accelerating.

LordReed:


Jamesid29, this is the person you should be explaining to what god of the gaps fallacy means.

Actually he is correct. The gods of the gaps argument is actually not a really good theological argument. Positing that there must be a supernatural or divine explanation rather than a natural one for every phenomenon we currently do not understand is a bad theological stance to hold as dogma.
Interestingly, Christians were actually the first people to use the term against other Christians who were quick to posit divine intervention rather than natural processes for unknown physical phenomena. Afterall it's pointless to investigate a universe that has no steady laws.

LordReed:


I thought you were saying that I said god of the gaps means lack of communication. Yes his argument is a god of the gaps argument, our ignorance of dark energy is equivalent to our ignorance of god. What happens when we find out what dark energy is do we also find god or will he shift to some other unknown?

Actually, that's a bit of a misunderstanding of the gotg argument.
The god of of the gaps argument is when one postulates a divine or supernatural intervention as an explanation for a phenomenon we currently do not understand. Basically using divine intervention as the explanatory power behind a phenomenon at the expense of a naturalistic explanation. For instance if OP had said, since we currently do not understand the mechanism behind dark energy, we can just use God as a stop guard and call it a day. I.E, we do not really understand what's causing the accelerating expansion of the universe so therefore, God must somehow be supernaturally involved in it. That would have been a god of the gaps argument. Another example would be something like; since we do not currently have a clue about the origin of life, there can't be any natural explanation for it so therefore it must have been purely a supernatural one.
These are how the god of the gaps argument works boss. That was not what OP's arguments was doing.

LordReed:
Did I say it was?

You said his argument was a god of the gaps argument.

LordReed:

Another god of the gaps argument.

LordReed:


Another god of the gaps argument. You guys say your god is alive yet there is no actual communication between your god and anybody, instead you rely on a book and fallacious arguments like these. A living god who is active here on earth would not be hard to detect.

That's not the meaning of god of the gaps argument though.

haddeylium:

Yes! You're right.
Cultures, belief and people change, that's is why we have different many denomination with contradictory doctrines and differing views.You belief may be different from others you considered as you considered as a professed Christains in the Lord!

But one thing is sure God's word does not change infact it 'endures forever ' (Isaiah 40:

Jesus said that our worship of God must be based on truth​—the truth found in the Bible. (John 4:24)And like you said earlier, our salvation depends on taking in “an accurate knowledge of truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4)
Jesus Christ didn't watered down God's word, he present God's word as the truth. I can assure you that in imitation of Christ, Jehovah's witnesses based their beliefs purely on the Bible and gave no priority to man-made doctrines.
Safe to assume the same with you?

As I alluded to earlier, knowing the scriptures is the easy part(atleast relatively easy). Understanding it the way the Author intended it to be understood, now that is the hard.

The same Hebrew bible that Philips and the other evangelist read and saw the gospel of the cross, is the same Hebrew bible the Jews and experts in the law read and saw the early Jesus followers as threats to the faith. As Paul put it "Christ crucified ,a stumbling block to the Jews".
They were all reading the same Hebrew bible.

God doesn't change, but our understanding of Him does.

May God continue to open our eyes of understanding and give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

It is well

haddeylium:

This part really grab my attention, just like you quoted straight out of this part of the scripture;

John 17:3- This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God[m, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
JWs take this Jesus' word to be exactly what he said.
Coming to know him(not us) as the 'Only true God and Jesus his Messenger
Yes. Jesus was exactly who he said he was, God’s only begotten son. (John 3:16)
Thank you and have a nice day

Hmmm, I think part of problem has always been that the conversation is usually framed as an "either or" conversation with all sides looking for verses to support their position. I've seen to many debates on the subject to realize, it rarely goes one way or another.

I've come to believe that to really understand the Identity of Christ, we have to understand the entire scripture as one unified story and We have to understand how the early gospel writers understood God, how they understood the old testament and how they understood the world around them.
There's a cultural gap between us in the 21st century and the worldview of the biblical authors. Bridging that cultural gap and seeing the entire unified redemptive story of the bible from the old testament to the new testament, is essential in truly seeing how the new testament authors thought of Jesus.

In any case,It is well boss.
Have a really great day also brother.

haddeylium:


You're a grown adult. Act like one!
Learn to loosen up. JWs are not your enemies.

Not enemies at all. And in terms of good works, JWs really do good works.

Because the christian community is a universal one, there's always bound to be tension and differences in understanding within the community.

These differences, though important and legitimate often times do not cause for a breaking of fellowship. Things like, to tithe or not to tithe, divorce and remarriage, predestination or freewill, women in pastoral leadership, spiritual gifts and so on, are real issues that divide. But even though we might sharply disagree on them, for the most part, they are not issues that break fellowship.

But there are some differences that are so fundamental to the faith, that they constitute an irreconcilable difference. One of these issues is the the Identity/Deity of Christ. It's so important a doctrine and a foundational one because the very salvation of man is tied to the person of Jesus and His very Identity. This is where the break between the Christian community and Jehovah witnesses, Mormons and so on come from. The whole house stands or falls on who the person Jesus really is. Is he the one true God revealed in the bible or is He someone else?

So enemies? Definitely not. If persecution starts today and anybody who identifies with Christ is being thrown into jail, I'm guessing most people wouldn't even care what denomination or sect the other person identifies with. It's just going to be two Christ followers strengthen each other.

But in the grand scheme of things though, on the matter of who Jesus truly is, one has to take a stand on one side or the other because ones very salvation is tied to it.

Just my unsolicited two kobo.

1Sharon:


LOL.

Jesus said gossiping is a sin, but 80% of the conservations people have are about other people.

Your stats is incorrect as there are no objective/verifiable way of conducting such a survey that would be a true representation of the human population. At best what can be said would only pertain to a specific subset or demographic which would be extreme cases.

I would also take "Jesus said gossiping is a sin" as "the Bible said" cos what Jesus said is, we all would answer for every careless word we utter someday. And that was said in the context of Just pointing that out.

To the crust of the matter... There is a bit of nuance between just talking about someone and gossiping about someone. Most people intuitively know the difference.
Gossiping usually entails conversation or reports about other people's private lives that might be unkind, disapproving, or not true:
Basically it is the sharing of information about someone else that ought not to be shared.

Im betting we've both lived long enough to have atleast witnessed a few times, the real world consequences gossip has had in the lives of real people. People have lost jobs, promotions, relationships due to gossips.

In anycase, we can both agree that most people at some point have indulged in some form(both harmful & not so harmful) gossiping. Even though we mostly know that it's wrong(almost every culture & civilization has a proverb or two against gossiping), we still indulge in it.
That still butresses the point we were making: Something is broken in humans and left to our own vices, we would choose what feels good to us even at the detriment of others and even ourselves long-term. That's what the bible calls following the flesh.

Jesus said you have committed adultery already if you have a sexual thought about a woman.
Now, thoughts are automatic and cannot be controlled. Unless the feelings behind them change.

Now why would Jesus have such ridiculous rules and requirements?

I believe the first thing is to use the actual words used in the text:
But I say to you that whoever looks(blepō) at a woman(gynē) to lust (epithumeō) after her has already committed adultery.

So the word used there is to lust after a woman. Lust means to have an intense longing, craving or desire after something or someone. The word itself & it's Greek counterpart is not just a fleeting thought but longing after or intense desire for something or someone.
In the case of a someone, we have a modern English word that encapsulates the idea: Sexual Objectification.

I'm guessing as a lady, aside from the devaluation of a woman into a mere object of sexual pleasure in the man's mind, you know there a real world consequences & ripple effects of the objectification of women in society.
Alot of the struggles female advocacy group in modern times have been in trying to stop the objectification of women because of those real world ripple effects.
Sadly even though we know the real world ills that come with it, there are too many industries and people that thrive based on it. Couple that with a hyper sexualized culture, propped up by modern media and the likes, it's not hard to realize that this problem is not going anywhere soon.
We don't need to be rocket scientists to know that the only reason so many industries and societies thrive on the objectification of humans is because regardless of the wrongness of it at it's core or the societal ills that come with it, people derive pleasure in it.

So in essence, we are saying the same thing. The true biblical essence of what it means to be truly good is not something any of us can attain when left to our own strength, regardless of our modern day virtue signaling.

Truth is, the world is broken and we don't know how to fix either it nor ourselves (cos we are equally broken inside).
So where are we to go from here?

1Sharon:
There are no true Christians anywhere. The conditions for heaven are impossible and unrealistic to meet.

If there's a heaven, nobody can ever get there.

That's kinda the whole point of the bible.
On our own strength, none of us can ever meetup to the standard of what it means to be truly good. Sooner or later, we all fail horribly, fall short and left to our own vices, we would choose death.
Hence the need for a saviour...Someone who would do what none of us can do and stand in the gap in our stead. That person was God himself, in the person of Jesus.

So basically, our righteousness is not based on what we can do but in trusting in what God himself has done.

There's a lot more nuance to it, but that's the biblical story in a nutshell.

Dtruthspeaker:


When Wisdom entereth into thine heart and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, thou shalt understand the Fear of The Lord, righteousness, judgement, equity, every good path and every bad way.

There's no level of wisdom one can attain that would give one the exclusive right of Christ.

Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
- A warning all of us should be mindful of
It is well my good sir

Dtruthspeaker:


We know you are Insulting The Lord, Jesus Christ Because He Rejected You and You have No Part in Him!!!

We know We know Very Well!!!

The bolded statement is a problematic one chief.

None of us has the right to speak on matters such these let alone to condemn whom the Lord does not condemn.

SSIPON:
I used to go to a religious school, a catholic one, and we did a whole term on mother teresa, we were taught that she was a wonderfull person, someone who left her home to care for young children in Calcutta, and that we should try to be like her. Since i was young, and since i didn't have my own computer, i just believed them without question.

A few years later, around half of everyone in my year, including me are athiests. I was shocked by what people were saying about her. After some research i found out that it was true, what they were saying. I honestly can't believe that my school lied about who she was like. Anyone else educated like this?

First off, no human is perfect.
Even the best of us is flawed, hence one of fundamental truths of Christianity is the need for a saviour and God's saving grace. Left alone to our own devices we would mostly chose evil because part of the human condition is the internal brokenness every human can recognise within themselves.

Regardless of this fact, historically we've always still chosen to recognise those who devoted their lives to noble causes or in servitude of others.

What's fascinating about this modern era is this generation's moral grandstanding and constant demonization of the past and of others.
Rather than understanding history and others from a holistic view(the good, the bad, the ugly and all the nuances in-between) , we would rather just simplify things and focus on solely on the ugly (most of the times even putting spins on them).
Even those who have done immense good with their lives are not left unscathed. From Ghandi to mother Teresa.

Ironically, those who did so much evil(or ideologies that enable such grandscale evil) seem to be the ones that we tend to raise up to elevated status in this modern era (from the rise of communist ideas to the elevation of extremists and extremist ideas)..

Anyway, it is well.

It is well...
Walks away

abbeymighty:
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Tamaratonye1:

Well attested within biblical studies? LOL. If you don't mind, would you like to buy a bridge on the moon?

For the life of me, I really can't tell what the joke is about or what was taken to be funny in my post. I'm genuinely lost.

Tamaratonye1:

Thanks for pointing out that information. Indeed I have been referring to Friedmann. If you have any references or links I could, hopefully, if I have time, catch up on the latest considerations about Moses, Deuteronomy et al. I don’t claim my knowledge is special, complete or comprehensive.

Firstly, I'll like to say none of us has complete knowledge. We all know in part.... The irony is, the more knowledge one gets, the more one gets to realise that there's so much more one doesn't know. At least that has been my experience and that of those I look up to.

So to the crust of the matter, I'm not sure if you mistook my mention of the Documentary Hypothesis to mean Deuteronomy(or that it's has something to do with it) because it's abit odd that you would switch from the crust of what I was pointing out to focus primarily on Deuteronomy.
Anyway I will work on the assumption that what you meant to ask on was the documentary hypothesis.
Sources for the hypothesis is really not hard to find online, as it was the leading hypothesis for the dating and authorship of the Pentateuch for over a century. A quick Google search should provide you with more than enough resources. Also you would hardly find any modern resource on the hypothesis which would not come with a section on its criticism and why its fallen out of favour in recent times.
Two quick resources that can help situate the field though are:
1) A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism: From Benedict Spinoza to Brevard Childs by Mark S. Gignilliat : The book is a quick overview of the major players and motif of higher criticism from pre Wellhausen and beyond without being overwhelming.
2)The Making of the Pentateuch
by R. N. Whybray: It's a pretty old book but it's still considered one of the exhaustive critique of the documentary hypothesis and it's application to the Pentateuch. Coupling this book with more modern resources would give you a more holistic understanding of higher criticism. It also would be a plus for you to read (I presume) since the author doesn't even take a scriptural or fundamental stand on the Pentateuch.

Anyway, regardless of whatever resources you use, I would like to still point out a couple of things.

Scholarly consensus doesn't mean much, especially when it comes to dating and source criticism.
There are very few smoking guns and most critical analysis are based on preconceived notions and assumptions. Like prof Rolf Rendtorff states
"We possess hardly any reliable criteria for dating pentateuchal literature. Every dating of the pentateuchal "sources" rests on purely hypothetical assumptions which only have any standing through the consensus of scholars.'"

So depending on the preconceived assumptions of the time, the same data can be interpreted one way or another and alot of times one chance archeological discovery can sweep away decades and even centuries of scholarly consensus(This has happened a couple of times even in recent memory).

Secondly, because of the fluidity of assumptions in critical studies, even sophisticated papers fall into what is called by some Pseudo-Historicism. You can read more on the ideas in Dr somers paper
Dating Pentateuchal Texts and the Perils of Pseudo-Historicism - Dr Benjamin Somer: https://www.academia.edu/attachments/25197929/download_file?s=portfolio
This should give you ideas on what to look out for when reading paper on for or against any particular position.

Tamaratonye1:

However, the story about Deuteronomy really begins in 2 Chronicles and 2 Kings where the supposed writings of Moses were serendipitously discovered during renovations of the Temple in Jerusalem. “Deuteronomy” from the Greek means “a repetiton” and it was interpreted as a “second law giving” from Moses.

A bit incorrect, but it's fine

Tamaratonye1:

I’ve read several explanations regarding the arrangement of the various documents outlined in the structure of the book as we know it today, the irregular chronological writing of those documents, some of the earlier parts being written later than the main body, proposed constructions, and the myriad specialised interpretations of the book as a whole. All of them could be partly correct or correct in a general sense, I claim no special special understanding of it to suppose any one claim better than another. However using the Bible itself to explain the circumstances surrounding the discovery and later addition of the newly found Deuteronomy poses a few questions.

Okay

Tamaratonye1:

It was a very fortuitous find by the Levite priests in power at the time. Imagine, the very document that fully accorded with the Levite desire and proscribed methods to save the nation, its people, the Temple, and the priests themselves, from the depredations of the Babylonians through the destruction of the popular rival pagan religions, just happen be found while they were renovating their own temple. The sort of luck modern archaeologists can only dream of. The Levites had, since the removal of the ten tribes of Israel from history, expressed the very real possibility that jealous YHWH might use the Babylonians to repeat the Assyrian outrages. Afterall it was obvious the tribes of Israel were a bad lot.

Actually quite alot of modern archaeological finds(the ones that make the papers and big screens) are usually accidental(luck basically)... Just wanted to point that out

Secondly, the narrative you wrote is very interesting(game of thrones type of interesting) but sadly it's largely incorrect and the geo-political landscape you posited is wrong.
Anyway it's fine.

Tamaratonye1:

And not only did it condemn the worship of foreign gods and goddesses, but the ancient sensuous Canaan ones as well, like the durable agricultural Baal and productive Asherah/Istah who were both full fellow members at council in YHWHs original cosmos. There was no longer any room on the block for his former co=deities even the one was once beleived to be his wife.

Ok so there's alot to unpack here and this is actually an interesting subject area.
First thing is, technically Asherah is a different deity from Ishtar. The cannanite equivalent to the mesopotamian Ishtar is technically Ashtoreth ... but then again, that's neither here nor there anyway.

As for the question of Yahweh and his Asherah in ancient Israelite worship, again things are a bit more complex. The brief gist is, of the 40 times Asherah is mentioned in the Bible, the overwhelming bulk of the time, the name appears with a definite article. Hebrew grammar works like English in the sense that personal names don't appear with the definite article in front of them.
This puts a question of whether Asherah is to be considered a who or a what (at least in ancient Israelite conception).
A very good book that dwells well into the ancient near Eastern understanding of God and gods is
"Dr Benjamin Somer- The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel".... The book is not specifically about Ahshera but it gives the necessary background on how to understand the major motifs that deals with the arguments of how to understand the Yahweh and his Asherah debate.
Other authorities on the subject area are: Dr Erin Darby(her work is mainly on pillar figurines in ancient Israel) and Dr Judith Hadley( "the cult of Asherah in ancient Israel" ) .
You can find resources on both sides of the arguments easily online. I believe "Religion for breakfast" YouTube channel has a quick overview on the debate( Yahweh and his wife)... The channel is managed by an Agnostic scholar(I think) so it should be right up your wheelhouse I presume.

Finally, on the subject of Yahweh and his council, I'm guessing you are refering to the divine council and use of El in the Bible, specifically in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32.
If you are not yet conversant with Dr Michael Heiser's work, I would like to suggest you check some of his works out. He's one of the leading figure on this particular subject area and he has written tons of material on it.
You can check https://drmsh.com/elohim-divine-council-psalm-82-ot-monotheism-archive/ for some of his material (both scholarly and for lay readers).
His book " The Unseen Realm" is also a highly acclaimed read that delves into the subject and how it fits into the larger biblical story.

Anyway, I think it's best to stop here. The idea(at least not mine) is not have drawn out conversation on the topic(wasn't even expecting it to be this long by now. Thought it was going to be a quick reply and all
Your narratives are pretty interesting but just that they are somewhat incorrect in critical areas or at the very least, interesting overspin what of the actual stories say.
Almost every one of us are guilty of this to varying degrees (both consciously and unconsciously) though so it's all good, I guess
In any case, it is well.

Tamaratonye1:

Anyway send me some of those links or references Jamesid29.

Asides from the other references above, I think you might find these more concrete resources useful.
1)The Face of Old Testament Studies: A Survey of Contemporary Approaches by David W. Baker.... it's an informed, well-balanced entry into the excitement of current studies."

2)Old Testament History – Dr. J. Robert Vannoy
https://biblicalelearning.org/old-testament/old-testament-history-vannoy/ .... University level introduction to the old testament history and historical criticism. The site also has many other good lecture series in biblical studies which might be worthwhile to check out.... Dr Walton's lecture series on Job might be worth your while

Both resources above come from Christian scholars but that doesn't affect their validity and balanced view IMHO.

Other interesting Notable Resources
1) Dr Heiser's podcast (" The Naked Bible Podcast" ) : Heiser interacts with alot of scholarly articles and materials on his podcast.It's a good place to get a feel of what the scholarly debates are on many of the fields in biblical studies and a place to find articles that would otherwise be hard to find or even know about except for someone in those circles. His book The Unseen Realm is also a good book to read as mentioned earlier

2) The Bible project YouTube videos (https://youtube.com/c/bibleproject ). A great resource to get condensed (very short 5-8minutes) videos of major biblical motifs and themes that are easy to watch but are well grounded in real biblical scholarship. The accompanying podcast series delve deeper into the videos and are very solid in my opinion (https://bibleproject.com/podcasts/the-bible-project-podcast/)

Another Notable Mention
1) Dominion - The making of the western mind by Tom Holland ... Tom is an Agnostic but is one of the best historians of classical and medieval history and his book is a great addition for anyone who wants to understand where our culture and values of today come from.

Anyway, for whatever it's worth, hope this helps.
Enjoy your weekend ma'am.

Tamaratonye1:

Its been well established, for several hundred years, amongst Jewish and Christian academics, linguists/philologists and archaeologists following exhaustive examination of the various texts from the Jewish scriptures that Moses had nothing at all to do with the writing of the Pentateuch much less Genesis. That claim is a weary old fable and doesn’t make much sense under closer scrutiny. Scholars can show most of the earlier parts of the Torah were edited and rehashed together around the time between the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. Friedman suggests its the combined editorial work of Jerehmiah, Baruch ben Neriah, and Ezra. It’s another opinion like yours, but better evidenced.

@bolded is actually an overstatement of the facts. It is well attested(within biblical studies) that it's unlikely that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch alone in its final form. Even the the Bible itself makes no such claims. But saying that Christian and Jewish academics now believe that Moses had nothing to do it is to overstate or at the very least misunderstand the facts abit.
I believe you are basing your arguments of Richard Friedman's work, who in turn bases his book on Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis (J,E,D,P). Problem is the JEDP is no longer a really tenable hypothesis in academia. The past few decades of more recent discoveries, observed data and critical analysis has rendered it obsolete.

Past few decades have moved critical scholarship of the text to broadly fall somewhere between the supplementary or the fragmentary hypothesis. Basically the idea is that the Pentateuch was developed in its final form from earlier core oral and written traditions.
In broad terms(not meant to be taken as a systematic approach), we have
A) The Patriarchal tradition: which were most likely persevered orally till it was written down.
B) The Mosaic tradition: could have been recorded by Moses himself or someone close to Moses living during the time(the data itself is neither here nor there). This would include Moses’ life and leadership period, the exodus, Sinai, and the wilderness journey.
C)Deuteronomistic traditions: Part Mosaic and parts adapting from the mosaic tradition.
D)Genesis 1-11: Probably written down during the exilic period.

What percentage of the Pentateuch core traditions was written down by Moses himself is hard to tell, but saying Moses had nothing to do with it as a definite statement is not something that can be made.
What we do know is that, at the very least, from the period of the Persian empire, the authors of Ezra - Nehemiah and Chronicles attached some core of the traditions to Moses and then extrapolated it to the Pentateuch as a whole. This was actually not uncommon for the time period.

Just wanted to point that out.

Kobojunkie:

Parents who happen to be followers of Jesus Christ are however warned against trying to "Teach" , even their own ward, about God as God declared that He alone is Teacher to all those who belong to Him- Jeremiah 31 vs 31 -34 and Matthew 23 vs 1 -16.

Instead, what followers are enjoined in doing is to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God - not moral laws and ideas of them - to even their ward - something many a so-called Christian parent has a seriously hard time accepting since even they do not live in direct obedience of God's command that they not submit themselves to the teachings of men.

Interesting way of looking at those scriptures..
But if we are to interpret those passages do way you are doing, then that means we would have to throw away almost 2/3rd of the new testament, because most of it involves teachings to specific church groups or individuals in some form. (Alot of our foundation teachings and understanding of the gospel are fleshed out within these pages).

We would also have to throw away over 2000yrs of unbroken church history traceable all the way back to the apostolic father's(A fancy name for the direct disciples of the first apostles).
Churches require leaders, teachers and elders.

We would also have to believe that immediately after the Ascension of Jesus, all the apostles lost their way, because they went about setting up church groups all over the known world , which again requires that there be teachers, pastors and leaders.

Just to mention a few.

So it's either you are right and Christianity right from the very beginning has been a sham or you are wrong and are probably missing something when interpreting those particular texts.
Just something to ponder on though...

Kobojunkie:
if your goal is to shield your children from the world, that will never happen. In fact, time and time again, we have been taught by life itself that the more you try to control things around them,the more you "break" their minds.

It's less about control and more about protecting. it's about giving children access to the right types of information at a young age and protecting them from the wrong ones. Young children are very impressionable and constantly feeding on the certain types of information can have serious long term effects. For example most preteen children should not be exposed to the wild streets of social media at that age. Their minds are not adequately equiped to seive through the myriad of ideologies that floats around in those spaces.

As a parent, one of our duties is to give our children a solid moral foundation so that when they begin to interact with the world on their own they have enough understanding of right and wrong and a solid framework to work through the complexities of life under the sun.
Hence the saying: Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Where we tend to miss it as parents is when we go to extremes either by stifling the character and creative development of the child in our efforts to protect them or when we hold on for too long forgetting that at some point we have to let them freely make their own choices and just trust that we've provided them with the best moral foundation we could give them.

Just my two Kobo on the matter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2S-oWzk-Ns

Found this interesting counter on animal suffering..
Have a wonderful week all.

Happy new month guys. Hope this new month brings good tidings for every one.

Quick one: Does anyone have experiences with smk solar products.
How reliable are their products? Most specifically their inverter and charge controllers. But experiences with any of their products in general would be of great help.

Thanks alot guys

olopan:
So far so good, neither of our installed Growatt hybrid have had issues

The ways to avoid problem is to look at the installation from a different POV,
Let's say power comes in and goes out.

The grid should say feed your inverter L-N directly for charging and bypass and the inverter output L-N feeds the loads .. Both should never at least ideally converge.

In other terms Neutral link bar is not to be shared between Grid and Inverter.

A lot of things can go wrong in the future.

Not a problem, per say if all installation guidelines are followed

Thanks alot boss.... Really appreciate you taking out of your time to answer my questions.

Thank you once again.

olopan:
Good evening,

Your definition of pocket friendly might be different from mine but for a two years warranty covered inverter with a good review and bang for money, you should consider the growatt inverter

About a standalone LVD
Victron Bp is a good choice to give a try - Victron battery protect

You don't need other Victron components to use it.... That's the good news about it.

Thanks alot for the input boss. I've been looking at reviews for growatt after your recommendation and it really seems to be a solid next step.

If you can spare a few more minutes of your time, I would still like to ask a few more questions boss.

Based on the fact that growatt is mostly transformer less, which isn't much of a problem in developed countries due to their strict compliance with electrical wiring codes, but in a place like Nigeria where wiring is mostly done poorly and good earthing is almost non existent,, is going transformer less not going to be a problem down the stretch
and how does one compensate for such issues?
Or from your experience, its really not a problem?

Thanks alot for your time.

olopan:
As said here by mctfopt

8 batteries on the minimum, with a good hybrid inverter 5KVA or a very good premium Inverter if the pocket allows because you will need to factor idle and working consumption of the inverter as that can leech away the energy stored.

And since grid isn't always as expected sometimes, a future plan for solar should be considered and if I guess from your text, its a 24/7 running scenario.

An inverter with LVD is better consider so in case grid fails and the system is working the inverter cuts off at say 50% DOD .... Just to ensure you get yourself out of trouble.

Cheers

Which inverters with LCD that are pocket friendly do you recommend boss. Also can you recommend standalone LVD's that can be connected to already installed systems.... Thanks alot boss

ceaser:


I don't have experience with Felicity lithium beyond what we have all discussed here about it. And that is majorly the false "overdeclaration" of the capacities by the manufacturer as indicated on the product label.

Someone did capacity testing and discovered the 200ah to be truly 150ah and the 150ah to be truly 120ah or thereabout.

Beyond that, I don't know of any complaints regarding it that I have come across.

I guess the tradeoff isn't so bad then... Thanks chief.

ojeysky:


I don't think one should be worried about Felicity littium doing 5 years, they have brand new cells in them just that they are over declared. The one declared as 200AH that has 120AH will certainly serve at that capacity for many years to come. I don't expect my DIY to give me less than 5 years of service even with my fairly deep daily discharges, and it's on that path of over 7 years with its current performance unless I break it myself

Thanks alot for your inputs boss.... Much appreciated

adrusa:


Now you are not seeking for my experience, you are asking me to make a prediction, to foretell the future. That is not my area of concentration/calling. However, going by what I have seen over the last one and half years in the LFP land, I will expect it to last that long or more. About one and a half years, there is no evidence of reduction in capacity, efficiency or voltage. The batteries are still performing just like the day I installed them. It may be an indication of what to expect, but who knows what surprises are lurking in the corner.

Na fingers crossed matter we dey so boss. Abi make person just settle with the well established Lithium batteries manufacturers?

ojeysky:


My cells are just 6 months old and I do 60 to 80% DOD daily (occasionally 90%). The cells have not deviated from their performance the first time I bought them. Now 6 months is a very short time for the lifetime of the cells. I know folks here have used their littium chemistry for over 2 years, we've not heard of 5 years testimonials yet, cos it seem most of us started active use in the last 3 years.

I know the well known Lithium batteries would last more than 5yrs without much issues. I'm just a bit concerned about the felicity ones. There's almost no reviews of it online and I don't think many people have really pushed it to its limit to know how good they really are and at what point it would start to breakdown.
I guess it's fingers crossed . Though adrusa and NiyiOmoIyunade 's input does give one some hope sha.

adrusa:


I think it is a good battery. The capacity may have been overstated, but I consider it a good buy. Their 200AH 48V actually has 120AH battery in it, but it cuts of at pretty high voltage around 49V which is about 3v per cell. That is too high in my opinion and that means you are probably getting about 70-80% of useable capacity out of the battery. Bypassing their BMS can help you get a little more from the battery if you like deep discharges.

Thanks for the advice boss... Would surely look into it.

Quick one boss... From your experience, can one comfortably get 5-6 yrs on the batteries without any headaches, even while going up to 90% DoD?

Really great review and breakdown.
Kinda confirmed my suspicion as in things like this, there's always a tradeoff.
But from your breakdown and it's price, I think the tradeoff is really not that bad.... As long as they don't give issues or constant headache for a good number of years, it might not be a bad buy.

Ever heard of this Nigerian company "Pelton Battery"? Saw them online when I was looking into somethings... I'm not sure they are still operating though.

Thanks alot for your review boss. Really appreciate it

NiyiOmoIyunade:
I have installed about 10 units of the so called 48v 200ah Felicity.

The technical literature actually rates the battery at 48v 7.5kwh so I dont know how how sellers managed to call it 48v 200Ah.

I also ran a discharge test at one customer location and I was able to pull out about 5kwh measured at the inverter AC out - this equates to about 5.5kwh of DC energy before the battery started to scream low battery.

If you take this point as 90% DoD then the battery is truly rated at 6kwh at 100% capacity and you can safely take out about 4.5kwh if the desire is to stay above 20% DoD for longevity - at the point point of screaming battery pack was at 49.4v or so so 3.08v per cell.

To help put all the numbers in perspective, I do not charge a Lithium battery to 100% full - our max voltage is 56.8 vs Felicity's recommended 57.6v

In summary the battery rated 48v 200ah or better yet 7.5kwh has about 4.5kwh of useable energy in it. So really a 48v 94ah battery for effective capacity. If you buy it with these facts in mind, you won't be dissappointed. If you run the battery at the discharge rates suitable for lead acid, you should have no trouble in the near term. You really must look into a LVD mechanism at around 50v so you don't overdrain the battery

For the savvy individuals, I do not believe that there is another 1kwh+ of useable energy hiding behind that extra 0.8v of charge - it would be great to interrogate the BMS of which Adrusa who has ripped one out of the battery case has refused to volunteer any details to help us know what BMS it is and crack it open.

ojeysky:


I think either ceasar or adrusa has experience, I do not have one

Aight... Thanks boss

mctfopt:


Nah, I don't use the brand. So I've got no firsthand experience on how their battery perform.

Aight bro...Thanks for ur time