Bay 12 Games Forum

... faith and reason are not opposites. They're different things. They don't apply to the same issues, don't work the same way, etc., so forth, and so on. They handle different epistemological problems. Basic faith claims, of the not-yet-justified sort, are also absolutely vital is such things as freaking science. You don't get to just throw faith out the window or ignore its impact and importance, nor downplay the interaction between it and other things (like reason and logic) in regards to religious beliefs. It's not a simple subject and it can't really be boiled down to something pithy.

You're welcome to state that you can't believe in something that has no basis in reason and still support reason, but in regards to a christian belief discussion, you are doing so in explicit contradiction to literally centuries of christian theology working to integrate the two. Huge swaths of the church has disagreed with your position over the years. From outright stating that the christian position is the rational one, to holding that faith and reason can stand side by side, and all sorts of related variation, christian theology and belief have a tremendous interrelation with reason and rational thought. There's a reason the relation between faith and knowledge, and exactly what faith is, is the subject it is in the fields of theology and more general religious thought. It's a tremendous freaking deal.

You're also incredibly misrepresenting things when you note christian opposition to science without mentioning christian support of science, which is very, very much a thing.

I mean, I get it, you're running of the (oft times living, to be fair) caricatures of extremist christian thought, but one of the bloody important things to remember about that is that isn't all of it. To a darn fair extreme, it's not even a notable fraction. There's a tremendous depth and breadth to christian beliefs, for all that there's some vocal schlubs out there nowadays doing their damnedest to shit all over the more nuanced parts of them.

(critical thinking skills: Martin Luther once said "reason is the enemy of religion" and you'll find that most churches and even other faiths are none too pleased if you start asking questions about what are considered unquestionable details.)

And you'll also find that huge swaths of christian theology as well as other huge swaths of churches specifically hold that reason and faith both can and must intertwine.

... you're also misrepresenting other things in there, but... blegh.

Metal cutlery is an investment. Pay a moderate price now, and never need to pay that price again. Alternatively, with the plastic things, pay a small price now, and tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, ad infinitum.

Well, it's a moderate price now, plus regular maintenance (in both time and money) until something happens to them that can't be fixed. Moderate price now, plus small price weekly or thereabouts (or after every use, depending on washing methods) and eventual repeat. Also minutely higher infrastructure costs involved (somewhere to put them -- plastics can generally just be left in their box).

The plastic alternative is small price now, and then a further small price every month or so, with less (or no) maintenance costs. Greater externalities involved, though. Probably. Not actually sure how plastic disposal stacks up against the waste involved with keeping cutlery clean.

Plastic spoons generally work just fine, by the by. Forks and knives are a bit sketchier, but spoons do alright.

... yeah, pretty sure that's not quite congruous with down here. Iirc, there's some tax relief for the business so they usually pay for it and count it as time, but I don't recall it being legally required or anything. Functionally required if you don't want people quitting on you, maybe, but not legally.

... and it's about quickbooks? Eesh. I'd say have fun with that, but there's no fun to be had.

... the young ones are the cutest things, honestly. And kinda' friendly! They seem to like being petted, anyway. Shame it's generally somewhat terribly illegal to have one as a pet. Not that it stops people, exactly, but still.

Bigger ones, you mostly just avoid. They're generally not terribly aggressive and usually fairly obvious.

Regardless, I'm fairly sure you're more likely to be killed by a snake, at least in florida, than a gator. Especially considering it looks like it's been about five years since someone got got anywhere in the states. Can't speak for other states regarding snake deadliness, though.

That more-likely-to-die-by-gator than australian by snake seems kinda' spurious, though. We've only lost about 20 folks to gator in the last four decades, country wide. Roughly similar time period's seen about double that killed by snake in aus, with a considerably smaller population...

... and yeah, just for the actually bloody important record, tasing kills and causes pretty vicious injury regularly. There is a freaking reason they're classified as less than lethal instead of non-lethal weapons. They're not casual-ha-ha weapons, they're weapons that can fairly easily end up causing broken bones and outright death.

As if the most likely senario was that black cops in the US are white supremacist... that's simply ridiculous at that point.

There is a notable, and often fairly extreme, difference between racist and white supremacist.