frank

I give you the whole enchilada and you're playing with a pinto bean. I'm sure you understand that religion is real people, real wounds, and real cultu...

Pharisees. So if you understand QAnon, you understand one of the major facets of the Christian diamond, and a recurring motif in human life. The unive...

Q is providing them with revelations about secret truths. Q promises that a great day of reckoning will come soon and a great evil will be dealt with....

Why is their faith so strong?

They're scholars.

If you don't know it's false, it could be entirely reasonable. Depends.

This is an example of an embryonic religion. It's similar in many ways to early Christianity. What role is faith playing here? "For years, believers o...

Oh good. What does it mean?

There are a number of fantastic scholars of religion to rely on. Save the dubious speculation. I don't know what you're trying to say.

Yea. It's fascinating.

I don't know why you think that. Faith is frequently shaken, lost, regained, etc. It can be strong or weak. So? Eh, for the majority of religious peop...

If it was completely indeterminate, we couldn't rule out horses the size of buildings.

I don't own universals though. The idea of a horse has no owner as far as I know.

How is a universal indeterminate? Do you mean because horses come in a range of sizes? Isn't that range a determinate property of the idea of a horse?...

@"Banno" This is a combination of bad philosophy and poor understanding of religion: Do we even need to explore what that statement is supposed to mea...

This is a spitball thrown at the Grand Canyon. Can we not have philosophy of religion where the participants know something about religion? Yes.

Sure. A tenet of Protestant Christianity is that there is no intermediary between you and God. You are your own priest. I think the point you're makin...

Faith frequently does mean unwarranted belief. We all have those.

I wouldn't point anyone toward Nietzche for an understanding of Christian history and values. You're right. But I think he knew that (considering his ...

I would say no. The idea of a horse is more than an outline on the horizon. The specifications can include a huge amount of detail. A specific horse i...

Impeachment isn't about justice. It's about whether a certain person should be removed from the office of president. I feel like you were insulting me...

How so?

It wasn't a show trial, you know what he did. Apparently he won't be running again tho. He'd have to reveal incriminating records to do so?

That's weird.

Which one says it's all an illusion?

Probably. Politics is more important than people's lives, though Cuomo says he won't run in 2024. Really? I wouldn't have thought so. But you're proba...

Yea, that doesn't even make sense. He also screwed up NY's vaccination drive by handing responsibility for it to large hospitals instead of local heal...

ER staff are immersed in other people's suffering. It's part of the environment. Up to a point, joking is unavoidable, but it can be a sign of burnout...

Not yet. I'm waiting for the i-torch 9, they say it has a better camera.

Where I live, a torch is a piece of wood with oily rags tied on one end. The peasants use them to burn down the governor's mansion.

I think Nietzschean resentment is a psychological stance embraced by those who have no avenue to overt power. It's for when, as a slave, you sing "We ...

The world doesn't need to be saved. That's positive nihilism. Is that Buddhist?

I thought it was just richer people who buy lots of crap.

True. I think the generation that conquered smallpox was more youthful, ambitious, and optimistic. I don't know if It's just me, but I feel some heavy...

Are you asking for a definition of life? Or the criteria for feeling truly alive?

Yes, so it's totally doable. It's a matter of will and means.

No. Change and time are pretty much the same thing.

We actually did eliminate smallpox, polio, in some places, cholera, measles, mumps, almost pertussis except it's trying to make a comeback. Were these...

That makes sense. Public votes keep the ruled in a relationship with the rulers. So the politicians I've been thinking of as 'held hostage' are just s...

I don't really care what other people think of my choices in that regard. There are almost 8 billion people, so hanging around could be considered sel...

Doesn't the vote about Liz Cheney's position show that Republicans vote differently when it's a secret vote?

@"Hanover" it seems like Trump supporters continue to hold Republican politicians hostage. Is this a permanent thing? Or will it fade in the next few ...

Matt O'Dowd calls Australia "the event horizon" This is giving me an idea.

There was. It involved getting a buttload of sane people to the polls. It worked!!!

:grin: Mars: where the greenhouse effect is a good thing!

We need someone to terraform mars. It could be a global initiative.

So all you have to do is ignite the boosters and blast spaceship Australia and NZ into space. Then you'll be free!

Super lethal organisms and viruses don't blow up into pandemics because they kill off hosts too fast to spread. You need a moderately deadly super tra...

So far. This collection of viruses is with us long-term now. It's easily conceivable that from the vantage point of a century, it will make little dif...

It'll be summer before you know it. It'll be better then.