Divorce law firm in bucks county | | Corporate business lawyer

I’ve changed a key details in the premises of this scenario in the next paragraph (so please go along with it) for my protection.
I work at a law firm as a legal assistant. I would like to become a paralegal. Here a paralegal has significantly more responsibilities and a bigger salary than a legal assistant. Where I live you need to take a formal paralegal course in order to qualify. The course is expensive and my firm is willing to pay for it. I work in a great department at this firm but they do not have capacity for a dedicated paralegal at this time. However, there is another department full of paralegals that has room for more. In fact, the head of this department has a reputation for turning legal assistants into paralegals.
This department is also a very toxic work environment. Paralegals are expected to work after hours, sometimes on weekends, sometimes on public holidays with a salary of a regular 9-5 M-F job with very occasional overtime (in the country I live in, extra pay without extra compensation is huge no-no). The management in this department are known for not being supportive of their employees. One of the star paralegals in this department is on the brink of a nervous breakdown, and firm management haven’t even told the head of this department because he’s a somebody in his industry and they’re afraid he’ll leave the firm (and take his clients with him) if accused of misconduct. Classic office politics.
I’m basically being told that because the firm would be paying for this paralegal course, that I should go into this department because that is where I would get the best experience. The firm wants to protect their investment, I get it.
Alternatively, I can pay for this course myself (again, it is A LOT). I can put myself through school and probably just stay in my current department. I may need to leave the firm eventually if they continue not to have capacity for a paralegal in this department, but in the meantime I would in fact add value to my current department with a few added skills.
So what would you do? Should I suck it up or train up on my own terms?

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All these knives are either like new or very gently used, have never been disassembled, and have their factory edge. I am the original owner. No trades and if you don’t like the price shoot me an offer. Some are automatic so as always you are responsible for knowing your knife laws. All prices are PP G&S, shipped, CONUS only.
Off-Grid Knives Scorpion $190
BNIB bought it, looked at it, put it in drawer lol. Great action, solid lock up.
North Arms Skaha II $220
Like new, never carried. Great little knife and very light weight. Rockets out and super smooth action.
Benchmade 87 Balisong $450
Like new, never carried. I had fantasies of learning at least one trick …. Perhaps one of the more impressive knives I’ve handled from Benchmade, action is super smooth, centering is great, and firm in the hand.
Boos Blades Smoke TM1 &150
Like new. Great size for edc, disappears in the pocket. Everything about this is awesome I just don’t really like front flippers
We Knives Array $150
Great action, very slim
Protech Godfather $175
Wanna feel like you’re in the mob? Fantasize about being a double agent? Ever wonder if a knife could make you more attractive? This is your knife. Solid lock up, fires with force, great condition.
Piranha Predator $110
Carried only a few times, beautiful anodizing and dlc blade.
ZT 0609 & tool $200
Never carried, great little knife.
ZT 0452 cf $190
Only signs of wear are on the pocket clip. Great action and lockup.
Microtech UTX-70 $150
Looks almost new … not bad for a knife over ten years old. Rarely carried as you can see my the lack of wear marks. The action has always been a little on the stiff side, something microtech improved upon over the years.
Microtech Stitch $370
Blacked out version with bronze hardware and maybe my favorite blade finish they’ve ever done with the dlc stone wash. Action is amazing, lockup is secure. This knife is a beast. Lightly used with no wear marks of note.

Was an international student graduated in 2019 with a physics degree, but didn’t get my green card until the beginning of 2020. While I was searching, the pandemic happened, so a lot of places stopped hiring.
I couldn’t get anything so I picked up trading. I wasn’t doing bad, but not to the point where I can support myself with trading alone, so I started a side business. The business was doing well because I didn’t have to pay rent, my in-law was nice enough to let me run the business out of her home. 2021 comes, I wanted to focus more on the trading side as I was getting more and more interested, so I applied a bunch of prop trading firms and was able to make to the last round of the interview, but unfortunately I didn’t make the final cut. At that point, the business was growing as well, to the point I can’t handle all the delivery volume and needed to scale up so I asked one of my close friends to get into business with me and he agreed.
Fast forward to 2023, it turns out scaling up a business is much harder than we had expected, to the point now we still can’t be profitable after paying rent and the workers (almost a year since we signed the commercial lease), hence why I’m trying to find a job again.
Since I just recently got naturalized, I started thinking maybe work for the federal government for a couple of years and save some money for graduate school. But as I apply, I have a couple of questions I hope y’all can help me out:

When it comes to reference, who should I put down since I’ve been basically my own boss? And I have graduated too long to contact my professors?
When the jobs says “opens to public” and “recent grads”, does it mean either of group can apply or do I have to satisfy both categories to apply?
I have been trying for gs5-gs7 (based on SAA), should I include my self-employment experience or just use my academic background?

Much appreciated for any input!

My son and my ex-daughter-in-law in law have had a 14 year long marriage where they haven’t been in love. They recently told me that they’re done and are getting a divorce.
A major reason for their unhappiness is their daughter (14F) whom is just a monster to be around. I don’t mean to speak ill about children but it’s the truth.
My granddaughter recently had a week which she refused food for 4 days in a row and had an outburst ending in my ex daughter in law getting scratched.
It’s just her parents who she has a problem with. It’s me as well. Once I drove her to a concert to be with her friends but she disappeared and I searched for hours and called the police. Just for her friends to admit that she was with them. No heads-up or anything.
The worst part is that many of the daughter’s issues weren’t reported by either side because my ex daughter in law and son both don’t want full custody of her because they fear what she could do to them.
My my son and daughter-in-law are at their breaking point. They both are arguing that they don’t want custody. They have both threatened to do vile and illegal things just to get arrested rather than getting custody.
They turned to me and begged that I take custody. It’s been non-stop calling asking for me to get her. My ex daughter-in-law even contacted my husband begging him to change my mind and went to his work place.
I finally messaged both of them and said that I was almost 60. I don’t have the capacity or the time to take care of a child and that i’ll be in my retirement years.
I ended by saying that if they both don’t want their daughter the they should put her in foster care.
My ex daughter-in-law has called me an asshole because I told her at the beginning of her pregnancy that she could rely on me. But, I don’t want to deal with the monster they have created so AITA?

I'm posting this with genuine curiosity and in answer to a lot of backlash I have gotten lately for my own possible theories posted. At least I'm not afraid to voice them like some seem to be. One person sarcastically demanded to know if I am an attorney and claimed I am speaking "beyond my scope". No, I am not an attorney, only have an MBA. There are no attorneys in my immedate family, one in my extended family, but only scientists and educators closely related to me. I qualified for Mensa when I was 12, so while I am not Einstein, I am also not the dullest pencil in the box.
I was accepted into two law schools after undergrad, but mistakenly married someone who claimed to support my endeavor, yet clearly did not. I was then basically running a one parent home with two children as my spouse pursued their goals. Finally divorcing, I spent 11 years as a single parent working my tail off to support my two children, get an MBA, become a paramedic, etc. I had no time to devote to law school, nor did I have the money for it. Later when I had both, I was diagnosed with cancer.
So, no I am not an attorney, but I doubt the members of a jury, if this case if it goes to trial, will be attorneys, yet it will be their decision that will seal the fate of the defendant.
I have proposed various theories of who else other than the accused could have committed this crime and every one was met with disdain or insults. I also posted some theories on how BK could build a defense and again was met with hostility.
I read over and over people saying it doesn't add up, doesn't make sense, etc. but they offer no alternate scenario. I also read people saying they want a dismissal, yet they offer no plausible defense strategy that would warrant a dismissal. Merely shouting it's wrong without offering an alternative explanation of who you think committed the crime is meaningless. Why do you think the accused is innocent? What points to innocence rather than guilt?
I am leaning toward the possiblility of innocence, but one thing that does bother me is so far, no talk of any alibi. The defendant sounded very strong when arrested, telling the PA attorney and yes, the attorney said, these are Bryan's words he wanted me to say to the public, that he looks forward to being exonerated. So, where is the evidence to exonerate him? I hear crickets. If defense attorneys have something airtight that can get their client out of jail, stop the process, they would use it, right?
This is what I meant when I said this is becoming an echo chamber, repeating the same meaningless, empty things over and over. Every single theory that I or anyone else, for that matter, has proposed has been shot down in this sub and another one, whose moderator is using this case as a platform to protest the death penalty and not because they are concerned with truth and justice.

Something that's been on my mind lately that I wanted to address.
Firstly, congratulations to all the men who have somehow, somehow gotten this far without being constantly depressed, dejected, sad, upset, etc.
I think it takes a tremendous amount of willpower, emotional strength and insight to keep your mental health in an okay state today.
And that brings me to the second part: good god how do men stay alright in today's societial atmosphere?
You get unfairly treated as a boy in school, educated that being a male is bad, be discriminated against by unfair programs that leave you by the wayside for being a boy, have the constant threat of social outcasting from middle to high school and worse, in the form of false rape claims, false abuse claims, and faculty taking sides.
You can be ostracized and mocked for your social standing, your income, your genetics, your genetalia, your sexuality- you can get cheated on, you can be divorced and lose everything. Your job, your house, your children- and for what?
There are facebook groups that hate you're a man, twitters that hate men, subreddits that hate men, youtubes and forums and blogs that all hate men. Hell, the media and the government hate you too! Poorly conducted studies get made to demonize men. Unfair laws that work against men exclusively are being installed.
Generalizations can be somehow made against you that you're not important or that you're weak or wrong for having emotions. In fact, if the opposite gender feels like it, they can post about wanting the genocide of your gender and most likely face zero repercussion.
And you can't even go to a gym and look in the general direction of the opposite gender without trouble. In many circumstances, casual nearby glances in the general direction but not fully looking at the opposite gender is grounds for a bad time.
Those are just a few examples of what can go horribly wrong for simply being a male. You can get ostracized, demonized, bullied, unfairly treated, etc.
It's astounding to me how much is there to kick us when we're down- but I also wonder, are you doing fine? Has the unfair bias against men gotten to you in some way? What's your method of dealing with it all? Are you worried about your male children having to go through all this?
I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on all this.

I mean, take a look at these articles:

First Republic shares tumble to a new low
First Republic’s stock fell 47% to a record low Monday, as the bank struggled to persuade Wall Street it could remain viable.
Shares were halted several times for volatility, and they sank further after a report from the Wall Street Journal said rival banks led by JPMorgan (JPM) are trying to work on yet another rescue plan for First Republic.
JPMorgan and First Republic declined to comment on the report.
In a statement, a spokesperson for First Republic said the bank “is well positioned to manage short-term deposit activity.”
Despite having received a $70 billion loan from JPMorgan a week ago and another $30 billion lifeline from a consortium of banks on Thursday, investors apparently weren’t optimistic about the bank’s prospects.
Other regional bank stocks jumped on Monday, following their European peers, on news that Swiss authorities had orchestrated a takeover by UBS of its embattled rival Credit Suisse.
Thursday’s government-arranged deal amounted to a big cash deposit that would allow First Republic to meet customers’ demands for withdrawals.
‘It doesn’t solve this profitability problem’
That deposit may have helped alleviate the bank run for the time being, said Patricia McCoy, a law professor at Boston College.
“But it doesn’t solve this profitability problem,” she said in an interview Friday. “Its expenses may be bigger than its revenues.”
The latest talks are “fluid and fast-moving” but could involve the banks converting some of the $30 billion in deposits into a capital infusion, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Moody’s downgraded First Republic’s credit rating to junk status Friday night and S&P followed suit Sunday. Moody’s cited a deterioration of the bank’s financial profile and “significant challenges” from its reliance on shorter-term and higher-cost funding as customers yank their cash out.
What’s more, Thursday’s $30 billion infusion didn’t increase First Republic Bank’s capital — the safety cushion funds that banks use to absorb losses — “so that’s a separate weakness that we need to keep our eyes on,” said McCoy, who helped establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
McCoy added that there’s “every reason to think that the capital has shrunk,” given First Republic’s heavy paper losses on its bond portfolio.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/20/business/first-republic-stock-falls/index.html

First Republic Bank woes mount despite Wall Street rescue
Shares of First Republic Bank continued their free-fall despite a rare move by the biggest U.S. banks to pump $30 billion into the regional lender.
The company's stock plunged more than 47% on Monday, while trading was halted numerous times because of volatility. The shares, which have dropped around 88% in the past two weeks, closed at $12.18 after hitting an all-time low of $11.52 last week.
The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on March 10, along with New York's Signature Bank two days later, has shaken investor confidence in regional lenders like $213 billion First Republic. In particular, concern has focused on such lenders' uninsured deposits, or account funds exceeding the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s $250,000 cap.
In other banking news, the bidding process for the successor of Silicon Valley Bank is being extended by the FDIC to give more time to work out a potential deal.
The FDIC said Monday that there's been "substantial interest" from multiple parties for Silicon Valley Bridge Bank. The agency said it's going to allow parties to submit separate bids for Silicon Valley Bridge Bank and its subsidiary Silicon Valley Private Bank in order to simplify the bidding process and expand the pool of possible bidders.
Qualified insured banks and qualified insured banks working with non-bank partners will be able to submit whole-bank bids or bids on the deposits or assets of the institutions. Bank and non-bank financial firms will be allowed to bid on asset portfolios.
Bids for Silicon Valley Bridge Bank must be submitted by by 8 p.m. ET on Friday, while bids for Silicon Valley Private Bank are due by 8:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
On Friday the parent of Silicon Valley Bank filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and Silicon Valley Bridge Bank was not included in the Chapter 11 filing.
SVB Financial Group is no longer affiliated with Silicon Valley Bank after its seizure by the FDIC. Its collapse was the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history after the demise of Washington Mutual in 2008.
The shuttering of Silicon Valley Bank and of New York-based Signature Bank has revived bad memories of the financial crisis that plunged the United States into the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
The federal government, determined to restore public confidence in the banking system, moved to protect all the banks' deposits, even those that exceeded the FDIC's $250,000 limit per individual account.
The turmoil in the banking industry spread to Europe and forced a deal under which UBS will acquire troubled rival Credit Suisse for almost $3.25 billion. The deal was orchestrated by Swiss regulators. Shares of UBS rose 4.4%.
The FDIC said late Sunday that New York Community Bank agreed to buy a significant chunk of the failed Signature Bank in a $2.7 billion deal.
Shares of New York Community Bancorp jumped 33%.
Despite all of the concerns swirling around the banking sector, Wall Street is rising on Monday following all of the moves being made to restore confidence in the banking sector.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/first-republic-bank-credit-suisse-silicon-valley-banking-fdic/
Based on these articles, First Republic Bank was a regular bank that wasn't focused on cryptocurrency or technology like previous 3 failed banks were, meaning that this one failing could cause every single banks in the United States and rest of the First World to fail, causing these countries to fall into an infinitely worse version of the Great Depression and turning all of them into what Venezuela has become, allowing China and North Korea to invade and take over Taiwan and South Korea within a day without any resistance whatsoever - and same goes for the United States, in which the country gets invaded and taken over by Russia within a day without any resistance whatsoever followed by Russia conquering the entire Europe in less than a day.
So with that in mind, when are you planning to evacuate to China or at least to Central Asia to live with/as nomads? I mean, unlike Russia, China doesn't randomly drag you to the military and with nomads, at least you could still survive while starting a new life.

The small business I work for invoiced a client for services rendered. Client paid us but we did not receive money. Finally after weeks of back and forth and them claiming they sent the money to the correct account we find that their third party contracted firm that completes their vendor payments had some glitch with the ACH transfer that caused our account number to round up and therefore the money was sent to a different account.
Because the money did not bounce back we know, per the advice of our banks, that the money went into an existing account.
This money was initially due in September of 2022 and while the client claims to be acting in good faith they have been extremely slow to respond and rude at points. They say this could take up to 2 years to resolve because of how slow these things move, but it's over $50,000 and I want to pay the independent contractors who helped render the services for this client.
So, my question is, are there specific laws or resources that I can reference to understand whether or not it is the responsibility of the client to make good on their payments despite the banking fiasco. Is it reasonable or lawful for my business to have to wait indefinitely for their error to be rectified?
I'm not sure if this is enough information or clear enough to advise on. Appreciate any feedback and can elaborate if needed. Thank you. And I wasn't sure what to flair this post with so apologies if that was not the best selection!

I got an “official” (as far as I can tell) letter from a law firm that claims I owe 50,000 to a victim of a property damage/personal injury incident on April 15th, 2021. The incident itself is not mentioned, and I have no recollection of any accidents that I caused (I did cause a minor car accident that following December, but all payments were settled and didn’t even break a thousand dollars). I also didn’t have a car at the time of the supposed incident, which is the only way I could have injured someone or damaged property.
Interestingly enough, the claimant’s name doesn’t show up as a resident of the city I live in, and the location in which the incident supposedly took place in doesn’t exist. Is this a scam? I’ve contacted the firm, but have received no response, and not even the phone operator can get ahold of the partner who sent the letter.
EDIT: it’s been solved. It was a clerical fuckup on the part of the firm.

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Oversee all aspects of software, hardware, networking, A/V, and coordination of IT support in our New York, NY office, including managing procurement partners.
Oversee all aspects of our Microsoft Azure software, hardware, and endpoint device management including testing, deployment, and updates via Endpoint Management.
Play a lead role in developing, planning, documenting, and implementing infrastructure enhancements and policies in collaboration with vendors and the infrastructure team.
Actively monitor, optimize, and respond to infrastructure issues and incidents to maintain overall health and security of infrastructure services.
Manage relationships with certain IT contractors, vendors, and escalate issues as needed to relevant specialists.
Provide business context, guidance, and SLA review to our primary MSP support partner.
Work independently and as part of a team to support organizations on incidents, support requests, projects, and other initiatives.

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I'm 46 F and I had never been a problem drinker until I got into an emotional abusive relationship after my divorce 5 years ago. I NEVER had a problem....until I began self medicating.
I began hiding wine in the closet and go drink after he unleashed on me....it was a toxic cycle.
I got the courage to leave finally 2 years ago....and my therapist believed that I would be able to go back to normal drinking. And I did.....couple of glasses of wine a night instead of a BOTTLE OR TWO a night.
But then I began dating a man who loved his wine....and then the cycle began again. I eventually got sober for a couple of months and he didn't enjoy being with me ... and he ended it. He said I wasn't fun any more... and I worked too much.
So I am 2 days sober again. And up until a few days ago.... I switched from wine to light beer.... and I got to a 6 pack a day...thinking I could reduce it and taper off
yet on Friday I was a bit hung over so I began drinking (again) at 7am. I had at least 4 beers by 11am. And I proceeded to have over 15 beers throughout the day. I did an audio message to a client that was spot on ...regarding business...but I heard it the next morning and I could hear the slurring.
Then I thought a massage was a good idea to keep me from drinking more... and I don't even remember it and it was 250 bucks. god only knows what my BAC was.... but I remember walking in.driving.....and holding conversations and I honestly don't think I seemed drunk.
Then I came home and drank more. The next morning I knew ....this has got to stop.
WHY do I still question if I'm an alcoholic? I drank 18 beers that day...and my rationale was that it was so much better than wine because the alcohol content is so much lower by volume/
Just want some support and wonder why I can't understand that this must be permanent. thanks in advance

If you ask Christians to sum up their faith in one sentence, most will give you some variation on "Jesus died for your sins." This idea is called 'substitutionary atonement' - Jesus atones in our place and acts as our substitute. Everyone has sinned and deserves harsh punishment, but Jesus offers to take that punishment in their place. In this post, I will argue that this is unjust.

The Tale of Jeffrey Lundgren
Warning: not for the faint of heart.
In 1987, self-proclaimed Christian prophet Jeffrey Lundgren started a cult. It soon grew to include about 20 people, including a family of five called the Averys. Lundgren did all sorts of terrible things with his influence: He had his cult members move into his farmhouse and give him all of their money. He forbade members from talking with each other without his presence and convinced them that he could read their minds. He began planning a violent takeover of the local Kirtland Temple, from which he had stolen tens of thousands of dollars, and pressed his followers into preparing to rob the temple and kill its inhabitants.
However, in 1988, Lundgren became unhappy with the Averys. The Avery family were loyal followers - they sold their house and moved states in order to join him, and they believed and trusted in him. But Lundgren felt their faith was weak because they decided not to live in his house and only gave him most of their money while setting aside a small sum for family use. So on April 17 of 1989, Lundgren had his followers dig a pit in his barn, and then lure the Averys there one by one, from oldest to youngest.
First the father, Dennis Avery, who was hit with a stun gun, gagged, and dragged before Lundgren, who shot him twice in the back.
Then the mother, Cheryl Avery, who was gagged and had her eyes duct taped before Lundgren shot her three times.
Next was 15-year-old Trina Avery who Lundgren shot twice in the head.
Then 13-year-old Becky Avery, who was shot twice but did not die instantly and was left to bleed out.
Finally 6-year-old Karen Avery, who Lundgren shot once in the chest and once in the head.
For his crimes, Jeffrey Lundgren was given the death penalty, and after exhausting his appeals he was executed on October 24, 2006.

The Lesson
Jeffrey Lundgren did terrible things, and he received punishment for these things. We call this 'justice'.
Now imagine for a moment Lundgren's trial in an alternate reality where substitutionary atonement is practiced. His lawyer says, "Your Honor, no doubt the death of the Averys is a terrible thing, and justice demands my client pay with his life. But one of my client's followers has stepped forward and said they are willing to die in his place." The judge agrees, and a cultist is executed while Lundgren walks free.
I ask you - is that justice?
No! Justice doesn't demand someone be punished - it demands punishment on the perpetrator! Lundgren's cultists would have no doubt been willing to die in his place, but we would never allow it, because it would be deeply unjust.
However, by the Christian account, we are all sinners. Just as Lundgren has sinned, so have the rest of us - and justice demands we all face punishment. By many accounts of Christianity, we deserve even worse punishment than Lundgren received. Just as it would be unjust for a cultist to be punished in Lundgren's place, it would be unjust for Jesus to be punished in a sinner's place.

Aims of Punishment
Why do we punish people when they do something wrong? There are five generally recognized aims of punishment:

Deterrence: providing motivation for the perpetrator and others not to commit similar acts in the future (e.g. charging a fine for illegal parking).
Incapacitation: preventing future transgressions by removing the perpetrator's ability to commit them (e.g. locking up a person planning a murder).
Rehabilitation: giving aid to the perpetrator to resolve the cause of their transgression (e.g. mandating anger management classes for someone who started a bar fight).
Retribution: taking pure vengeance on the perpetrator (e.g. secretly slashing the tires of someone who hurt your friend).
Restitution: compensating the victim in order to partially or completely reverse the harm (e.g. making a thief give back what they stole).

All punishments are issued to achieve one or more of these aims. For substitutionary atonement to serve justice, it would have to achieve these aims just as the original punishment would have. Let's examine them one at a time.

Deterrence
A deterrent punishment aims to prevent similar transgressions in the future by making people fear the consequences of committing them. For example, we fine people who illegally park their cars to dissuade them from doing that. If someone knows that an act will result in punishment, they are less likely to commit that act. Most of our laws act for deterrence; when we ban an act - public urination, copyright infringement, wire fraud - we don't just say it's illegal, we add a punishment to encourage people not to do it.
Deterrence is not transferable. If you punish someone other than the culprit, you don't give the culprit any motivation not to transgress again. Imagine a rich brat who often gets drunk at restaurants and smashes up the place. Each time they do this, their parents deal with the fallout and pay the restaurants for the damage. As a result, the brat has no reason not to keep doing the same thing - the punishment affected the parents, but it failed to deter the actual perpetrator.

Incapacitation
An incapacitative punishment aims not to punish a transgression that has already happened but to prevent one from occurring. For example, if we find someone planning a murder, we lock them up to prevent them from carrying out the murder. This helps prevent transgressions directly by removing the perpetrator's ability to transgress.
Incapacitation is not transferable. Imagine we find someone planning a murder, but we lock someone else up in their place: this does not prevent them from carrying out the murder. Punishing a substitute is entirely useless and does not accomplish the aim of preventing the transgression.

Rehabilitation
A rehabilitative punishment aims to help the perpetrator and remove their reason for transgressing. For example, if someone starts a bar fight, we might mandate they take anger management classes to help them control their anger. If an employee's negligence causes an accident, their company might require them to undergo additional training. Some people consider this not to be punishment at all since it aims to benefit the perpetrator, not to harm them. Regardless, rehabilitation aims to prevent transgression not by making people afraid to transgress but by addressing the reason they would transgress in the first place.
Rehabilitation is not transferable. If a perpetrator commits a transgression, we must help them in particular to help them not do so in the future. If the person who started the bar fight sent someone else to the anger management classes in their place, their anger problems would not be addressed, and they would be likely to transgress again. Rehabilitating a substitute does nothing to accomplish the aim of rehabilitation.

Retribution
A retributive punishment aims to hurt the perpetrator for no other reason than that they deserve it. For example, if someone hurts your friend, you might feel that they deserve to be hurt back and secretly slash their tires. In this case the punishment does not act as a deterrent (since neither they nor anyone else knows what caused it). It also doesn't act to incapacitate them - they are fully capable of hurting your friend again - and does not act to rehabilitate them - as it does not address the reason they hurt your friend. The aim of the punishment is pure vengeance; when someone does something bad, we want bad things to happen to them.
Retribution is not transferable. If we punish someone other than the perpetrator, then we don't inflict harm on the perpetrator. For example, as we saw in Lundgren's case, punishing a cultist did not serve justice and Lundgren did not get what he deserved.

Restitution
A restitutive punishment aims to undo harm to the victim or offset it by compensating them with something else. For example, if a thief steals some money from a victim, we make them give it back. Restitutive punishments aim to return the state of affairs to what it would have been had the transgression not happened.
Restitutive punishments are the only kind of punishment which is transferable. Restitution has everything to do with the victim and nothing to do with the perpetrator; so long as the victim is restored, it doesn't matter who's doing the restoring. For example, if a child breaks a school's window, their parents can pay the school for the broken window on their behalf. The school doesn't demand the money come from the child in particular because they simply want to be compensated for what was lost, not to punish the child (and will likely institute another form of punishment to accomplish the other aims, such as detention or suspension, which they wouldn't allow the parents to take in the child's place).

Substitutionary Atonement & Jesus
As we have seen, substitutionary atonement is impermissible in most cases. It's only permissible in punishments levied entirely for restitution. That's why our society widely practices substitutionary atonement for restitution - we call it 'insurance'. Insurance companies are punished on our behalf when we crash our cars, and they pay restitution to the victims of the crash in our place. The victims don't care whether the money comes from us or from our insurance company; they just want to be compensated. Notably, we don't have insurance for any other kinds of punishments - you can't pay someone to go to jail on your behalf or take remedial driving classes on your behalf, because non-restitution punishments are not transferable.
So what transgression did we commit, and what kind of punishment is Jesus taking in our place? Depending on which Christian you ask, you'll get wildly different answers to this question, but the vast majority of answers boil down to retribution - we did something wrong, or inherited some sin from someone else who did something wrong, and we deserve to be punished for it. However, no answers aim for restitution. Remember that restitution involves restoring the harmed victim and reversing their harm. The punishments of the afterlife - be they eternal conscious torment, oblivion, separation from God, or something else - certainly don't restore the actual victims of our acts. The old lady you cut in line or the man you bore false witness against don't gain anything from you going to hell, except perhaps the satisfaction that you were punished (which falls under retribution, not restitution). Your punishment does not restore anything that was taken away from them or undo any harm done to them. Therefore, in all Christian conceptions, the aims of the punishment we face are non-transferable. Jesus can't die for your sins because justice would not be served.

Objections
So what, you'd rather go to hell?
Yes! If I have truly done something so horrible and vile that justice demands I suffer hell for it, then I ought to go to hell. It would be wrong for me to avoid the punishment I deserve just because someone in charge agreed to look the other way.

The victim of your sins isn't the actual person you hurt - it's God, and Jesus pays restitution to God in your place.
This view maintains that you harm God when you sin, and that your punishment aims not to affect you in any way but only to restore him. But God cannot be harmed - in almost all versions of Christianity, God is perfect and unchanging. You can't steal fifty bucks from God and then be forced to give them back.
Even if your acts displease God, they do not take something away from God - and a punishment of hell or oblivion doesn't give anything back to God. Remember that restitution is entirely about the victim and has nothing to do with the perpetrator; in Christianity, punishment for sins definitely has something to do with the perpetrator.
Many people think that sins are not just crimes against your fellow man, but an offense against God. If you think that sins are deserving of punishment because they are an offense against God, then that falls under retribution, not restitution - this view aims to punish people for offenses they committed against a victim, not to restore that victim.

Your argument doesn't address this particular theology or theologian!
This is true - given the extreme diversity of theological views in Christianity, it would be impossible for me to address them all here. However, the vast majority of Christians believe in a commonsense view of substitutionary atonement and don't base their understanding on any complex theology. As a result, I offer a commonsense analysis to rebut their beliefs. People often get upset that I 'misrepresented the Christian view,' forgetting that their view is not the Christian view, but one of many Christian views.

Jesus's sacrifice wasn't about punishment, it about grace/love/mercy/conquering death/something else.
If you have a different idea about the purpose of Jesus's sacrifice, that's fine. There are many alternative models that explain why Jesus died on the cross, such as moral influence theory and the Christus Victor view, and they are outside the scope of this post. I am specifically rebutting here the idea that Jesus died in our place. If you agree that Jesus did not die to take on some punishment in our place, then my argument has succeeded in what it set out to do.

Surprisingly good content on Nextdoor. The post:
Let's laugh at local politics.
"Unpolitically Correct Voters Guide for Real People"

*Much like Tucker Carlson's TV show, this post is for entertainment purposes only. (Side note: my lawyer is also Tucker Carlson's lawyer and he told me to say that so I can't be held accountable for being legally braindead)*
Wayne Williams - Do you love water restrictions? Do you love traffic? Do you love the establishment? Do you love puppet politicians? Then you'll love Wayne Williams. Directly in the pockets of developers, Williams is the choice for anyone who wants unregulated growth that will force those in charge of our water infrastructure to make difficult decisions when our supply reaches a critical point. In his defense, he may actually be a good guy but a ventriloquist dummy is only as good as the person with their hand up his ass.

John "Tigger" Tiegen - You know that family member that ruins every thanksgiving dinner with endless schizophrenic rants about the deep state? This is who they would vote for if they weren't so woke to know that the voting machines are being controlled by the spectre of Mao Zedong. But they know a workaround to ensure their candidate gets into office: drive around with flags flying from their truck. And obviously if that doesn't work then the back up is just claiming election fraud.

Kallan Rodebaugh - The only good candidate. Not tainted by any Facebook narratives. Doesn't attack his opponents. All campaign donations go to Springs Mission. He has way better hair than any other choices. Can lift more than any other choices.

Daryll Glenn - This is the only candidate who will end the COVID lockdowns that Obama has inflicted on this country. Okay, sure, they have ended, but he'll travel back in time and end them. And sure, Obama isn't in office, but anyone who likes Glenn knows that Obama is teamed up with George Soros and Bill Gates to implant 5g chips in the populace and control them. Glenn will also fight back against the controllers of the Jewish space lasers that have been the cause of wildfires. Voting for him gets you a coupon code for MyPillow, so that's awesome.

Yemi - You know that warm fuzzy feeling you got when you voted for Obama because of all the hope and change and what not, then under Obama we drone struck a Yemeni wedding and it and we all were just like, "yeah, I definitely believe that I'm a leftist by voting for that" and then you were all like "orange man put kids in cage, I'm voting against him" and then the new guy just got nicer kids for the cage and you were all like "yeah, that's awesome I definitely think I'm a leftist for that"? Remember? Pepperidge farm remembers. Well, you can revive that feeling of neoliberal fetishistic disavowal by voting for a guy whose business was involved in wage theft and ignored sexual harassment allegations. Thank God (who he has personally spoken with, so there might be some collusion there) his supporters are telling people he wasn't to blame for those incidents because I haven't seen any evidence of him addressing the issue and clearing the air.

Christopher Mitchell - Finally, a candidate who has briefly skimmed the cliff's notes of the Constitution and is running a campaign based on a 4th graders understanding of said Constitution. He claims he'll handle things objectively, which, one can very well infer from reading about him that his version of objectivity will hew so close to subjective that you'll question the definition of either term. Also, wtf is the cowboy revolution? Does that mean this guy owns a Ford f-150 that's never left concrete?

Andrew Dalby - The dude took out a $400,000 loan for his campaign and his largest expenditure, the largest single expenditure among any of the candidates, is a $275,000 transaction to Dark Money Advertising LLC. The joke writes itself folks. A true caricature of politics. And listen, as a straight white male, I'm just as excited as the next straight white male for the possibility of the ideals in Handmaids Tale being the law of the land, but dude, chill. Side note: When Yemi claims he talked to God he was actually talking to Dalby.

Lawrence Martinez - I feel like if I try to add any coherent thoughts to this guy's platform, people will accuse me of being involved with his campaign. Considering that incoherence has been the preference for the executive branch of our federal government since 2016, he should be the frontrunner. But it's very likely that reading this is the first time you've heard of him.

Sallie Clark - The "i WoN't vOtE fOr cArEeR PoLiTiCiAnS" crowd aren't voting for her, so that is one out of two good things going for her. Of the viable candidates, she's probably the best choice when it comes to the real issues Colorado Springs faces (the ones Wayne Williams will make worse). But, as evidenced by her attack ad on Williams (which, by principle I don't vote for candidates who run attack ads) which juxtaposed Williams as someone who would dare reach across the aisle in bipartisan fashion, she is representative of the plague that is American entertainment politics. In a race that is supposed to be non-partisan, she has assured us that she is a conservative republican who is fine with alienating an entire voting demographic. I also heard a rumor that she talks to Margaret Thatcher with a Ouija board but I can't prove that.

Jim Miller - Jim Miller will increase the distance that sex offenders can live from schools. Jim Miller will increase the distance that sex offenders can live from playgrounds. Jim Miller will increase the distance that sex offenders can live from Chuck E Cheese. That's pretty much the platform. Oh, he doesn't like potholes either. We can all get on board with that, right? Just deport the pedos to Teller county and fix the potholes? We should probably just vote for this guy.

Longinos - You know that joke, "How do you know if someone's vegan? Don't worry, they'll tell you." Well, that's how Longinos is with his military career. And just like any panhandler that makes a dubious claim about being a veteran on their cardboard sign, he knows it's a strategy that works in this setting. He also makes the noble claim that he is the candidate for "the people" while being adamantly against everything half of "the people" want. He'll get up to 3% of the vote, which will at least beat Tiegen so that's fun.

Strand - Again, this is probably the first time you've heard of him. I think at this point it's probably a waste of time to waste my breath on someone all of us just heard of today because of this post. (The joke is that you all should have heard of him but he's been pushed far aside in this election)

Should I Hire a Private Investigator to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse
When we think about private investigators, most of us imagine something out of a movie: The private investigator sits in his car, chomping a sandwich and smoking a cigar while he tries to catch a cheating spouse and lover in a clandestine embrace. But is this the way it is in real life? Yes and no.
How a Private Investigator Might Help
Private investigators are often hired to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse, and they can be very helpful for a variety of reasons. However, more often than not, the evidence they collect is more circumstantial than what you see in the movies. When the case involves extramarital affairs, the couples are usually discreet enough that the film is PG-rated at best. Still, every P.I. has stories of catching people in the act and capturing some very private, revealing moments on film.
The Illusion of Privacy
Most people close the blinds unless they’re on an upper floor in a building where they believe they can’t be seen from the ground. But what if a private investigator manages to take video from an upper floor in the building across the street? If a house is in a secluded area, the spouse who has hired the private investigator can give the P.I. permission to walk onto the grounds of the house. The illusion that the lovers can’t be seen because of the seclusion of the house is just that; an illusion. The investigator can easily record their activity through the windows.
Example One: Video Recording
In one case, a male client knew his wife was having an affair, but the investigator hadn’t been able to get any real evidence. So, the P.I. suggested that the client go on a short trip. It wasn’t long after the client went out of town that a strange car appeared at the house. The P.I. called the client and asked him to come back to town, after which the client and P.I. entered the house together and retrieved the client’s gun.
They could hear the wife and her lover in a downstairs bedroom, but the door was locked. The investigator stood by with the gun visible on his hip and a video camera in his hand while the client removed the door to the room and yanked the bed covers off of his wife and lover. The investigator had rehearsed with the client what to say because it was important that he not threaten his wife’s lover in any way. Needless to say, this relationship ended in divorce, and the investigator’s film was instrumental in the husband’s case.
Example Two: Setting Your Spouse Up to Admit Guilt
In another situation, a male client was able to intercept his wife’s emails and learn that she was seeing a man who was arriving in town the next evening. She told her husband that she was going out with the girls, but when the investigator followed her, she ended up at a hotel. He observed her coming out of the hotel with her boyfriend, and while they were gone in the boyfriend’s car, the client moved his wife’s car from the parking lot. The investigator contacted the police to let them know that even if the car was reported stolen, it wasn’t actually stolen. Of course, if the wife reported the car stolen, she would have to admit that she had parked it in a hotel parking lot.
When the wife returned and frantically looked for her car, the client drove up in a van and threw all of her clothes onto the ground. He had gathered them in garbage bags just for this purpose. She was now officially caught and could no longer deny her affairs.
Example Three: Workplace Monitoring
In another case, an employer was related to the spouse of an employee who was suspected of having an affair with a coworker. The employer hired an investigator to place a hidden video camera in the office, which caught the married employee and lover having sex numerous times during the day. So, this couple was not only guilty of avoiding work, but they were committing acts of illicit sexual behavior
Most of the time, people have affairs with just one person that they’ve met at work. This is why the first question an investigator usually asks a client is: Where does your spouse work, and who works with your spouse? Investigators say it’s much less common for a married person to pick up several lovers in bars or to be caught involved in prostitution. But it certainly isn’t unprecedented.
Example Four: Following Someone
In one case, it was discovered that a man had placed a profile on a dating website, stating that he was separated. He began dating women in the area, and the investigator was surprised to find the man out with different women on different evenings. Eventually, the man picked up a woman at a bar and engaged in a sexual act with her in his car in a parking lot. The private investigator was able to shoot video of the couple through the window of the car.
Avoid Hiring Friends to Watch Your Spouse
What if someone asks a friend to follow the spouse or place a wiretap on the spouse’s telephone? This is a recipe for disaster. First of all, wiretapping is illegal a violation of both federal and state law. There are trespassing and harassment laws as well that the average person might not understand, so a friend could be criminally prosecuted for making an inadvertent mistake. Besides criminal charges, the injured parties could take the friend/amateur investigator to court for monetary damages.
Even if the friend stays within the law, a non-professional is much more likely to tip off the party who is being followed. Once the spouse knows they’re being watched, obtaining evidence is next to impossible. This mistake can be costly since private investigators generally charge by the hour. Tipping off the spouse may require considerably more time on the part of the professional investigator, resulting in added cost. One private investigator likens it to getting an estimate on a malfunctioning transmission only to go home and take the transmission apart. When you have to return the transmission to the mechanic in dozens of pieces, the estimate will be higher because it will take the mechanic longer to put the mess back together again.
When Should a Private Investigator Be Hired?
Even if there is nothing more than a suspicion of something amiss in the marriage, consulting with an hacker is a good idea. If the matter ends up in court, the evidence gathered by the P.I. is much more likely to be admissible in the case if it has been gathered with the guidance and direction of an hacker.
Some people believe they can confront their spouse and find a way to work on the marriage. While this is certainly a possibility, if the cheating party is unwilling to work on the marriage, it’s helpful to have the evidence before the confrontation takes place
Feel free to contact us at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for expert guidance

If you ask Christians to sum up their faith in one sentence, most will give you some variation on "Jesus died for your sins." This idea is called 'substitutionary atonement' - Jesus atones in our place and acts as our substitute. Everyone has sinned and deserves harsh punishment, but Jesus offers to take that punishment in their place. In this post, I will argue that this is unjust.

The Tale of Jeffrey Lundgren
Warning: not for the faint of heart.
In 1987, self-proclaimed Christian prophet Jeffrey Lundgren started a cult. It soon grew to include about 20 people, including a family of five called the Averys. Lundgren did all sorts of terrible things with his influence: He had his cult members move into his farmhouse and give him all of their money. He forbade members from talking with each other without his presence and convinced them that he could read their minds. He began planning a violent takeover of the local Kirtland Temple, from which he had stolen tens of thousands of dollars, and pressed his followers into preparing to rob the temple and kill its inhabitants.
However, in 1988, Lundgren became unhappy with the Averys. The Avery family were loyal followers - they sold their house and moved states in order to join him, and they believed and trusted in him. But Lundgren felt their faith was weak because they decided not to live in his house and only gave him most of their money while setting aside a small sum for family use. So on April 17 of 1989, Lundgren had his followers dig a pit in his barn, and then lure the Averys there one by one, from oldest to youngest.
First the father, Dennis Avery, who was hit with a stun gun, gagged, and dragged before Lundgren, who shot him twice in the back.
Then the mother, Cheryl Avery, who was gagged and had her eyes duct taped before Lundgren shot her three times.
Next was 15-year-old Trina Avery who Lundgren shot twice in the head.
Then 13-year-old Becky Avery, who was shot twice but did not die instantly and was left to bleed out.
Finally 6-year-old Karen Avery, who Lundgren shot once in the chest and once in the head.
For his crimes, Jeffrey Lundgren was given the death penalty, and after exhausting his appeals he was executed on October 24, 2006.

The Lesson
Jeffrey Lundgren did terrible things, and he received punishment for these things. We call this 'justice'.
Now imagine for a moment Lundgren's trial in an alternate reality where substitutionary atonement is practiced. His lawyer says, "Your Honor, no doubt the death of the Averys is a terrible thing, and justice demands my client pay with his life. But one of my client's followers has stepped forward and said they are willing to die in his place." The judge agrees, and a cultist is executed while Lundgren walks free.
I ask you - is that justice?
No! Justice doesn't demand someone be punished - it demands punishment on the perpetrator! Lundgren's cultists would have no doubt been willing to die in his place, but we would never allow it, because it would be deeply unjust.
However, by the Christian account, we are all sinners. Just as Lundgren has sinned, so have the rest of us - and justice demands we all face punishment. By many accounts of Christianity, we deserve even worse punishment than Lundgren received. Just as it would be unjust for a cultist to be punished in Lundgren's place, it would be unjust for Jesus to be punished in a sinner's place.

Aims of Punishment
Why do we punish people when they do something wrong? There are five generally recognized aims of punishment:

Deterrence: providing motivation for the perpetrator and others not to commit similar acts in the future (e.g. charging a fine for illegal parking).
Incapacitation: preventing future transgressions by removing the perpetrator's ability to commit them (e.g. locking up a person planning a murder).
Rehabilitation: giving aid to the perpetrator to resolve the cause of their transgression (e.g. mandating anger management classes for someone who started a bar fight).
Retribution: taking pure vengeance on the perpetrator (e.g. secretly slashing the tires of someone who hurt your friend).
Restitution: compensating the victim in order to partially or completely reverse the harm (e.g. making a thief give back what they stole).

All punishments are issued to achieve one or more of these aims. For substitutionary atonement to serve justice, it would have to achieve these aims just as the original punishment would have. Let's examine them one at a time.

Deterrence
A deterrent punishment aims to prevent similar transgressions in the future by making people fear the consequences of committing them. For example, we fine people who illegally park their cars to dissuade them from doing that. If someone knows that an act will result in punishment, they are less likely to commit that act. Most of our laws act for deterrence; when we ban an act - public urination, copyright infringement, wire fraud - we don't just say it's illegal, we add a punishment to encourage people not to do it.
Deterrence is not transferable. If you punish someone other than the culprit, you don't give the culprit any motivation not to transgress again. Imagine a rich brat who often gets drunk at restaurants and smashes up the place. Each time they do this, their parents deal with the fallout and pay the restaurants for the damage. As a result, the brat has no reason not to keep doing the same thing - the punishment affected the parents, but it failed to deter the actual perpetrator.

Incapacitation
An incapacitative punishment aims not to punish a transgression that has already happened but to prevent one from occurring. For example, if we find someone planning a murder, we lock them up to prevent them from carrying out the murder. This helps prevent transgressions directly by removing the perpetrator's ability to transgress.
Incapacitation is not transferable. Imagine we find someone planning a murder, but we lock someone else up in their place: this does not prevent them from carrying out the murder. Punishing a substitute is entirely useless and does not accomplish the aim of preventing the transgression.

Rehabilitation
A rehabilitative punishment aims to help the perpetrator and remove their reason for transgressing. For example, if someone starts a bar fight, we might mandate they take anger management classes to help them control their anger. If an employee's negligence causes an accident, their company might require them to undergo additional training. Some people consider this not to be punishment at all since it aims to benefit the perpetrator, not to harm them. Regardless, rehabilitation aims to prevent transgression not by making people afraid to transgress but by addressing the reason they would transgress in the first place.
Rehabilitation is not transferable. If a perpetrator commits a transgression, we must help them in particular to help them not do so in the future. If the person who started the bar fight sent someone else to the anger management classes in their place, their anger problems would not be addressed, and they would be likely to transgress again. Rehabilitating a substitute does nothing to accomplish the aim of rehabilitation.

Retribution
A retributive punishment aims to hurt the perpetrator for no other reason than that they deserve it. For example, if someone hurts your friend, you might feel that they deserve to be hurt back and secretly slash their tires. In this case the punishment does not act as a deterrent (since neither they nor anyone else knows what caused it). It also doesn't act to incapacitate them - they are fully capable of hurting your friend again - and does not act to rehabilitate them - as it does not address the reason they hurt your friend. The aim of the punishment is pure vengeance; when someone does something bad, we want bad things to happen to them.
Retribution is not transferable. If we punish someone other than the perpetrator, then we don't inflict harm on the perpetrator. For example, as we saw in Lundgren's case, punishing a cultist did not serve justice and Lundgren did not get what he deserved.

Restitution
A restitutive punishment aims to undo harm to the victim or offset it by compensating them with something else. For example, if a thief steals some money from a victim, we make them give it back. Restitutive punishments aim to return the state of affairs to what it would have been had the transgression not happened.
Restitutive punishments are the only kind of punishment which is transferable. Restitution has everything to do with the victim and nothing to do with the perpetrator; so long as the victim is restored, it doesn't matter who's doing the restoring. For example, if a child breaks a school's window, their parents can pay the school for the broken window on their behalf. The school doesn't demand the money come from the child in particular because they simply want to be compensated for what was lost, not to punish the child (and will likely institute another form of punishment to accomplish the other aims, such as detention or suspension, which they wouldn't allow the parents to take in the child's place).

Substitutionary Atonement & Jesus
As we have seen, substitutionary atonement is impermissible in most cases. It's only permissible in punishments levied entirely for restitution. That's why our society widely practices substitutionary atonement for restitution - we call it 'insurance'. Insurance companies are punished on our behalf when we crash our cars, and they pay restitution to the victims of the crash in our place. The victims don't care whether the money comes from us or from our insurance company; they just want to be compensated. Notably, we don't have insurance for any other kinds of punishments - you can't pay someone to go to jail on your behalf or take remedial driving classes on your behalf, because non-restitution punishments are not transferable.
So what transgression did we commit, and what kind of punishment is Jesus taking in our place? Depending on which Christian you ask, you'll get wildly different answers to this question, but the vast majority of answers boil down to retribution - we did something wrong, or inherited some sin from someone else who did something wrong, and we deserve to be punished for it. However, no answers aim for restitution. Remember that restitution involves restoring the harmed victim and reversing their harm. The punishments of the afterlife - be they eternal conscious torment, oblivion, separation from God, or something else - certainly don't restore the actual victims of our acts. The old lady you cut in line or the man you bore false witness against don't gain anything from you going to hell, except perhaps the satisfaction that you were punished (which falls under retribution, not restitution). Your punishment does not restore anything that was taken away from them or undo any harm done to them. Therefore, in all Christian conceptions, the aims of the punishment we face are non-transferable. Jesus can't die for your sins because justice would not be served.

Objections
So what, you'd rather go to hell?
Yes! If I have truly done something so horrible and vile that justice demands I suffer hell for it, then I ought to go to hell. It would be wrong for me to avoid the punishment I deserve just because someone in charge agreed to look the other way.

The victim of your sins isn't the actual person you hurt - it's God, and Jesus pays restitution to God in your place.
This view maintains that you harm God when you sin, and that your punishment aims not to affect you in any way but only to restore him. But God cannot be harmed - in almost all versions of Christianity, God is perfect and unchanging. You can't steal fifty bucks from God and then be forced to give them back.
Even if your acts displease God, they do not take something away from God - and a punishment of hell or oblivion doesn't give anything back to God. Remember that restitution is entirely about the victim and has nothing to do with the perpetrator; in Christianity, punishment for sins definitely has something to do with the perpetrator.
Many people think that sins are not just crimes against your fellow man, but an offense against God. If you think that sins are deserving of punishment because they are an offense against God, then that falls under retribution, not restitution - this view aims to punish people for offenses they committed against a victim, not to restore that victim.

Your argument doesn't address this particular theology or theologian!
This is true - given the extreme diversity of theological views in Christianity, it would be impossible for me to address them all here. However, the vast majority of Christians believe in a commonsense view of substitutionary atonement and don't base their understanding on any complex theology. As a result, I offer a commonsense analysis to rebut their beliefs. People often get upset that I 'misrepresented the Christian view,' forgetting that their view is not the Christian view, but one of many Christian views.

Jesus's sacrifice wasn't about punishment, it about grace/love/mercy/conquering death/something else.
If you have a different idea about the purpose of Jesus's sacrifice, that's fine. There are many alternative models that explain why Jesus died on the cross, such as moral influence theory and the Christus Victor view, and they are outside the scope of this post. I am specifically rebutting here the idea that Jesus died in our place. If you agree that Jesus did not die to take on some punishment in our place, then my argument has succeeded in what it set out to do.

Sorry for the length. This is more therapy for me than anything else.
I've been married 14 years. When we married, my wife and I lived in a pretty basic apartment where we just kinda got by. Young and broke but in love. We stayed in most nights; watched basic rabbit-ears TV and ate dinner in bed together. I was happy . . . but also not really. I had major depression and was practically suicidal, but that was why I loved my wifeso much. She was always very patient and supportive. She really seemed to understand that my mental illness wasn't something I could just snap out of. She knew all my flaws and didn't judge for me them. Eventually, with her support, a lot of therapy, and the right anti-depressants, I got to a place where I was fairly stable.
I realized, though, that my wife and I really weren't on the track to having the life we wanted to have together. We always talked about having a house and kids. My wife actually wrote out a document of our relationship goals and those were the top items she put--a house with a yard, in a safe neighborhood, that was somewhere scenic/nice. But we both had jobs that paid nothing, had no savings, and had a mountain of student debt. She worked in a field that paid peanuts, so I realized that, if we were going to have the house and kids we wanted, I needed to take an entirely different course in my life, something that would put us into an entirely new tax bracket.
So I abruptly dropped my shitty job and went to law school, following the career of my father. I didn't particularly want to be a lawyer. I had in fact said growing up that I never wanted to do what my Dad did. But it was the best possible job I could get that would earn the largest amount of money. I finished law school, clerked for a judge, then went to work at one of the giant law firms that pays ridiculous amounts of money.
With my signing bonus and help for my parents, my wife and I bought a house right after law school. Then we had our first kid and then our second.
The grind at the law firm was hellish. Most people quit these jobs in six months. The work and stress is constant. The types of people that you work with are also uber-competitive and constantly critical of anything. I was always tired because I started work at 8 am and finished at 9-10 pm.
The thing that made the job worth it--which allowed me to do it for 6 years instead of 6 months--was my wife and kids. I still struggled with my depression on a daily basis, but it was so much easier when I could see that my hard work was providing for my wife and kids to have a good life. It wasn't just good for them, but it was good for me--being a provider despite my mental illness was a huge boost to my confidence and self-esteem.
My wife and I also had what most people would say is a great relationship. We almost never fought, and when we did, it was patched up quickly. I deferred to her on nearly everything ("happy life happy wife") but she didn't push it when I said I wanted to do things differently. We were both devoted to our children and always put them before ourselves or anything else. After 14 years of marriage, I still found her insanely attractive and would often fantasize about her. Our sex life was, if not spectacular, very good and healthy for late 30s...or so I thought.
After five years, when our kids were 3 and 5, I couldn't take the firm job any longer and, financially, it wasn't strictly necessary, so I jumped to an in-house job. The time pressure on my work disappeared; suddenly I was free to help around the house and with the kids all the time. At the same time my wife's career had started to take off and now she was earning about as much as I was.
Between our balanced salary and my newfound time to help around the house, it felt like things had never been better for my wife and I. We were equals at home and in our career. We had gone from having a net worth of -50k to ~$1.4 million in a mere ten years. My entire goal in going to law school had been to make our dream life come true, and it looked like we had reached that point. and then some. The rest of life would be smooth sailing.
My wife and I started trying for a 3rd kid (which we had talked about for years) and pretty soon, my wife was pregnant. At the same time, we looked for a better home where we could put the kids in public school. Just when we had a bid accepted on a great place, we had a miscarriage and lost the baby. We were crushed but never even discussed the possibility of not trying again. We moved houses, and started trying to have a 3rd kid again.
We didn't get pregnant after 3 months of trying, though. When my wife found out that she was not pregnant the last time, she told me that she was actually feeling relieved and needed to think about that feeling. It wasn't a big surprise to me . Her heart had not seemed into it, compared to our first and second kids. I still really wanted a 3rd but I obviously wasn't going to ask her to have one if she didn't.
She spent a week thinking. Then she told me she wanted to talk. I assumed she was going to tell me she didn't want to have a 3rd kid anymore, and indeed that is what she said. I said that it was ok, that I would be sad for a while but it would be alright. I expected that she would say "thank you" or something and we would hug and move on with life...
Instead, she said (paraphrasing), "And I think there are a lot of problems with our marriage. I want to go to counseling. I'm thinking about separating."
I was completely speechless. We had never discussed marriage counseling at any time in our marriage. Neither of us had ever talked about leaving. The "problems" that she brought up came out of nowhere--she said that I was snapping at the kids (no, I wasn't), that I was very sad (that had been true since the day we married ), that the two of us were distant and not intimate with each other (I didn't feel that but I would be happy to do more if she did); and, finally, that she had to get high just to have sex with me (I knew she was getting high–she seemed to enjoy having sex that way–but I had no idea she felt like she “had” to).
Over the next few weeks, my wife backpedaled from some of these complaints before ultimately settling on a catchall explanation for why she wanted separation: she wasn't attracted to me and hadn't been since before we had children (six years ago). Again, I was speechless. She had never said anything about not being attracted to me before. We had been having sex multiple times a month for years. I never pressured her to have sex; if she said no, then that was it. Our sex life had seemed fairly good considering we had been married so long and were in our late thirties. She was having orgasms during sex (I asked if they were fake and she said no).
I pressed her to explain what it meant that she was not attracted to me. A few times she said "I don't owe you an explanation" (after 14 years of marriage?) but then, she listed off various aspects of my personality as things that made me not “attractive”--I'm not happy when we go out places, I don't make friends and socialize, I don't use my down time for productive things (i.e., not TV, video games, etc.), I'm distant and uncommunicative, and I don't take good care of my hygiene. Most of these things are more or less accurate--but they were true when she married me. I had no idea that my wife was bothered by them. Also, disturbingly, all of these things were byproducts of or closely related to my mental illness. I had thought that she had always accepted me despite my depression, but it was like I was discovering that she in fact resented me for it, and had resented for it for almost half of our marriage.
I asked her if there was something I could do to make these problems better, and she said no. I suggested things anyway, and she rejected them. She said it was "too late" or "we tried that before." It made no sense to me. We hadn't worked in any serious way on any of these “issues.” We hadn't been fighting about them at any time during the marriage.
After 10 years of relative stability, my mental health collapsed. I genuinely wondered if I was insane. Why was my wife saying all these things that were so contrary to anything she had ever said before? In just a few weeks, she went from always smiling at me and being warm and happy around me, to being cold and aloof, like she didn't even want to be in the same room as me. I kept asking for an explanation for why she was bringing all this up now--when we were trying to have a baby just a few weeks ago, when we had bought a new house a few months earlier--and she steadfastly refused to concede that there was anything unusual or surprising about the timing of it. Her gaslighting made me think that I might just be deluded; maybe somehow I never realized all the problems were building all this time.
Four weeks after my wife told me for the first time ever that she was considering leaving, she officially told me she wanted a separation. We had only had two marriage counseling sessions, and they were so preliminary that we hadn't actually discussed why she wanted to leave in either of them.
As soon as she had decided she wanted to separate, she wanted me to get onboard with the decision pronto. She wanted to talk about the details of moving--she said she would move out if I wouldn’t. She wanted to move out in four weeks, a mere two months from when she first brought up separation (I asked for more time). She wanted me to read a book on co-parenting that she had already bought and started reading. I know I keep saying this, but again, I was speechless. It was like she was trying to set a landspeed record for demolishing a marriage. From having a 3rd child to become strangers in 2 months flat.
While I was looking (at her prompting) into how we would split our assets/expenses, I discovered (as I’m sure some of you saw coming) that she had exchanged thousands of text messages recently with an attractive, single male co-worker. Specifically, in the three weeks between when my wife and I had last had sex to try to conceive our third child and the date when my wife suddenly announced there was something wrong with the marriage, she exchanged 4000 text messages with this co-worker. This was almost three times as many messages as she sent to all of her other family, friends, and co-workers combined during the same time period. Virtually all of the messages to this man were at night around the hours of 8-10 when she usually lies in bed on her phone, typically with one of our kids falling asleep next to her.
I almost talked myself into believing there might be some innocent explanation for the messages, but then I noticed a charge on our credit card for “Planned Parenthood” for $20. I sent my wife a text to ask about it, and she said it was a “donation.” I was suspicious now though. I checked our insurance records. There was no record of a visit to Planned Parenthood. But there was a record of a prescription being filled out: Junel. Birth control.
I confronted my wife in our next (and it turned out, last) marriage therapy session. She insisted that she was just friends with the co-worker and said the birth control was just to control her period (she supposedly lied because she just didn’t want to discuss it with me). After the session, she wanted to talk in private. She angrily told me that I was wrong about there being someone else and said that “this is just about YOU!”
I was done fighting for the marriage at this point. We settled up the details of the separation. She moved out within two months. She sold off most of our baby stuff from our garage to pay for moving expenses. She left almost everything related to our marriage in the house–wedding albums, framed photos, her wedding dress. She stopped wearing her wedding ring almost as soon as she left. She continued to pretend that she was not sleeping with this co-worker; she claimed that she just “wanted to live alone” for a while after moving out.
That was bullshit of course. She tried to hide it from me, but while we were still living together, she got new lingerie, sex toys, etc. We have phone calls with the kids regularly so they can see the other parent and she often has to do the calls early in the day because she is "having dinner with a friend [no gender]" that night.
I've been hanging on by a thread since all this happened. My depression is worse than it has ever been. For a while, I was very matter-of-factly planning my suicide. I had a detailed plan for how I would do it, and I started writing letters. I’ve snapped out of that, but its required a lot of help. Most of my existing medications have been increased and I have a new one, so I take four total medications now. I took a 6 week course of TMS. I’m supplementing with fish oil and creatine, which supposedly can help. And I’m in therapy of course. I spend about $1000 a month on my mental health.
My dream of living in a house with my wife and kids is in ruins. The house we were in has to be sold because the mortgage isn’t affordable without two incomes. If my wife had left me before we sold our old house and bought this house, I could have held onto the previous house because it had a very affordable mortgage. Now I can't afford a house at all. I get to see my kids, which is good, but I get to see them 50% less than I would have before. When the kids aren’t with me, I’m bored and very lonely. I don’t have friends or interests because my family was the focus of my life. I actively avoided making friends to spend more time at home.
Sometimes during the day I’ll be doing something routine and automatic, like going to the restroom, and I’ll forget about what’s happened. Then when I remember, it feels like this isn’t real and I’m in a nightmare.
Probably the most painful thing about it all, though, is that I have to see and talk to my soon-to-be ex-wife (divorce petition has about 4 months left) on a regular basis. She acts as though she has done nothing wrong and, in fact, seems to think I am the one being unreasonable and difficult by not making this shockingly fast separation smoother. She still won’t admit that she is sleeping with someone. She tries to send me photos of her time with the kids, like we are friends, and I have asked her to stop, because we are not friends, and also because it pains me to see how much of their lives I am missing out on just because she wants to screw some other guy. My mind also can’t shake the feelings I have from 14 years of marriage, so when I look at her, I feel extreme pain and betrayal--but also desire and longing.
I really don't have any idea where things go from here.
(Thanks anyone reading. Felt good to get this off my chest.)

Should I Hire a Private Investigator to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse
When we think about private investigators, most of us imagine something out of a movie: The private investigator sits in his car, chomping a sandwich and smoking a cigar while he tries to catch a cheating spouse and lover in a clandestine embrace. But is this the way it is in real life? Yes and no.
How a Private Investigator Might Help
Private investigators are often hired to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse, and they can be very helpful for a variety of reasons. However, more often than not, the evidence they collect is more circumstantial than what you see in the movies. When the case involves extramarital affairs, the couples are usually discreet enough that the film is PG-rated at best. Still, every P.I. has stories of catching people in the act and capturing some very private, revealing moments on film.
The Illusion of Privacy
Most people close the blinds unless they’re on an upper floor in a building where they believe they can’t be seen from the ground. But what if a private investigator manages to take video from an upper floor in the building across the street? If a house is in a secluded area, the spouse who has hired the private investigator can give the P.I. permission to walk onto the grounds of the house. The illusion that the lovers can’t be seen because of the seclusion of the house is just that; an illusion. The investigator can easily record their activity through the windows.
Example One: Video Recording
In one case, a male client knew his wife was having an affair, but the investigator hadn’t been able to get any real evidence. So, the P.I. suggested that the client go on a short trip. It wasn’t long after the client went out of town that a strange car appeared at the house. The P.I. called the client and asked him to come back to town, after which the client and P.I. entered the house together and retrieved the client’s gun.
They could hear the wife and her lover in a downstairs bedroom, but the door was locked. The investigator stood by with the gun visible on his hip and a video camera in his hand while the client removed the door to the room and yanked the bed covers off of his wife and lover. The investigator had rehearsed with the client what to say because it was important that he not threaten his wife’s lover in any way. Needless to say, this relationship ended in divorce, and the investigator’s film was instrumental in the husband’s case.
Example Two: Setting Your Spouse Up to Admit Guilt
In another situation, a male client was able to intercept his wife’s emails and learn that she was seeing a man who was arriving in town the next evening. She told her husband that she was going out with the girls, but when the investigator followed her, she ended up at a hotel. He observed her coming out of the hotel with her boyfriend, and while they were gone in the boyfriend’s car, the client moved his wife’s car from the parking lot. The investigator contacted the police to let them know that even if the car was reported stolen, it wasn’t actually stolen. Of course, if the wife reported the car stolen, she would have to admit that she had parked it in a hotel parking lot.
When the wife returned and frantically looked for her car, the client drove up in a van and threw all of her clothes onto the ground. He had gathered them in garbage bags just for this purpose. She was now officially caught and could no longer deny her affairs.
Example Three: Workplace Monitoring
In another case, an employer was related to the spouse of an employee who was suspected of having an affair with a coworker. The employer hired an investigator to place a hidden video camera in the office, which caught the married employee and lover having sex numerous times during the day. So, this couple was not only guilty of avoiding work, but they were committing acts of illicit sexual behavior
Most of the time, people have affairs with just one person that they’ve met at work. This is why the first question an investigator usually asks a client is: Where does your spouse work, and who works with your spouse? Investigators say it’s much less common for a married person to pick up several lovers in bars or to be caught involved in prostitution. But it certainly isn’t unprecedented.
Example Four: Following Someone
In one case, it was discovered that a man had placed a profile on a dating website, stating that he was separated. He began dating women in the area, and the investigator was surprised to find the man out with different women on different evenings. Eventually, the man picked up a woman at a bar and engaged in a sexual act with her in his car in a parking lot. The private investigator was able to shoot video of the couple through the window of the car.
Avoid Hiring Friends to Watch Your Spouse
What if someone asks a friend to follow the spouse or place a wiretap on the spouse’s telephone? This is a recipe for disaster. First of all, wiretapping is illegal a violation of both federal and state law. There are trespassing and harassment laws as well that the average person might not understand, so a friend could be criminally prosecuted for making an inadvertent mistake. Besides criminal charges, the injured parties could take the friend/amateur investigator to court for monetary damages.
Even if the friend stays within the law, a non-professional is much more likely to tip off the party who is being followed. Once the spouse knows they’re being watched, obtaining evidence is next to impossible. This mistake can be costly since private investigators generally charge by the hour. Tipping off the spouse may require considerably more time on the part of the professional investigator, resulting in added cost. One private investigator likens it to getting an estimate on a malfunctioning transmission only to go home and take the transmission apart. When you have to return the transmission to the mechanic in dozens of pieces, the estimate will be higher because it will take the mechanic longer to put the mess back together again.
When Should a Private Investigator Be Hired?
Even if there is nothing more than a suspicion of something amiss in the marriage, consulting with an hacker is a good idea. If the matter ends up in court, the evidence gathered by the P.I. is much more likely to be admissible in the case if it has been gathered with the guidance and direction of an hacker.
Some people believe they can confront their spouse and find a way to work on the marriage. While this is certainly a possibility, if the cheating party is unwilling to work on the marriage, it’s helpful to have the evidence before the confrontation takes place
Feel free to contact us at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for expert guidance

I feel as though I should post this here too.
Growing up there were a couple moments that I feel may have truly altered how I am today but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know my biological father as he abused my mother and was a constant drug user. From then on I spent some time with my grandparents only for later down the line my grandfather tried to harm us all. Then I went back to live with my mother and the man who would become my stepfather but I see him as my dad. I hadn’t realized then that he had SA’d me quite a lot when I was younger but now we are all a family. Yes, I did tell my mother and another family member about the situation. I apologize for how this may just come out abruptly but I don’t know how else to get this out of my system than just saying it.
I’m in college now and I have zero motivation to do anything. For the last three semesters I have ranged from dropping down to two classes and even then skipping those lectures to doing zero work and skipping exams. I procrastinate from work and even now I am skipping my classes to write this.
Last semester I went through a therapy program called DBT 12 hours a week just so that I could learn skills to further talk with my therapist. At first she seemed very helpful but now I am not sure if she is overworked as she is a part of the University’s counselors or she genuinely does not care to help me. The advice she gives me always boils down to me joining weird groups— for example she recommended I join a BIPOC Yoga group? She knows of my trauma though not exactly who is to blame for my SA as I don’t want law enforcement involved. And continues to not have time to dive into those topics.
It’s really difficult as I need to speak about this. I need to get it out my system. I don’t know if my PTSD is to blame for my lack of motivation but it weighs on my mind everyday that the man who is my father could do something so gross to me. My mother is still with him and I don’t want them to divorce but I feel an awkward sense of resentment because I ruined the life they had. I do have a little brother as well and I don’t want him to grow up with divorced parents. I wanted to tell them I lied and that I must’ve been dreaming.
All so that they can live in peace.
But I feel the possible effects of it all. I have horrible memory loss that it took trying my first edible to remember my childhood bedroom, there is a lot of SI in my life and attempts of suicide, and genuinely I feel like crawling in a hole to do nothing. I cannot and don’t even go to classes though my parents pay for it. I do zero work and only want to do what I enjoy. And I just don’t know what to make of it all.
I am not sure what to do for now and the coming days/weeks. Could anyone who has read this share some advice or how to overcome the state of my life. Thank you for reading.

Growing up there were a couple moments that I feel may have truly altered how I am today but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know my biological father as he abused my mother and was a constant drug user. From then on I spent some time with my grandparents only for later down the line my grandfather tried to harm us all. Then I went back to live with my mother and the man who would become my stepfather but I see him as my dad. I hadn’t realized then that he had SA’d me quite a lot when I was younger but now we are all a family. Yes, I did tell my mother and another family member about the situation. I apologize for how this may just come out abruptly but I don’t know how else to get this out of my system than just saying it.
I’m in college now and I have zero motivation to do anything. For the last three semesters I have ranged from dropping down to two classes and even then skipping those lectures to doing zero work and skipping exams. I procrastinate from work and even now I am skipping my classes to write this.
Last semester I went through a therapy program called DBT 12 hours a week just so that I could learn skills to further talk with my therapist. At first she seemed very helpful but now I am not sure if she is overworked as she is a part of the University’s counselors or she genuinely does not care to help me. The advice she gives me always boils down to me joining weird groups— for example she recommended I join a BIPOC Yoga group? She knows of my trauma though not exactly who is to blame for my SA as I don’t want law enforcement involved. And continues to not have time to dive into those topics.
It’s really difficult as I need to speak about this. I need to get it out my system. I don’t know if my PTSD is to blame for my lack of motivation but it weighs on my mind everyday that the man who is my father could do something so gross to me. My mother is still with him and I don’t want them to divorce but I feel an awkward sense of resentment because I ruined the life they had. I do have a little brother as well and I don’t want him to grow up with divorced parents. I wanted to tell them I lied and that I must’ve been dreaming.
All so that they can live in peace.
But I feel the possible effects of it all. I have horrible memory loss that it took trying my first edible to remember my childhood bedroom, there is a lot of SI in my life and attempts of suicide, and genuinely I feel like crawling in a hole to do nothing. I cannot and don’t even go to classes though my parents pay for it. I do zero work and only want to do what I enjoy. And I just don’t know what to make of it all.
I am not sure what to do for now and the coming days/weeks. Could anyone who has read this share some advice or how to overcome the state of my life. Thank you for reading.

The USCIS priority date for my sister was prior to her 21st birthday. Although the case was approved by USCIS, upon receiving the CEAC login, I came across the following text.
Due to the numerical limitations on immigrant visa issuance prescribed by law, this petition is not eligible for further processing at this time. The National Visa Center (NVC) will retain the petition until an immigrant visa becomes available. The NVC will notify the petitioner, principal applicant, or attorney of record when this petition is eligible for further processing. The principal applicant should not make any firm plans such as disposing of property, giving up jobs, or making travel arrangements at this time.
The visa class is F24.
Any information would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance