Bay 12 Games Forum

"Hurr durr destroy religions" is neither the point nor a goal, fruitperson. It's to stop using excluding language when possible, particularly for general use stuff. Things like this topic is small potatoes... but it is potatoes. And every little bit helps break a cultural belief that it's okay to just casually disregard huge swathes of the human population without good reason. Even just suborning a previously established system with more currently palatable terminology is pretty good -- what christians did to winter solstice is a pretty good example case of how to do this sort of thing, in general.

People get influenced by subconscious junk all the ruddy time, and stuff like the AD/BC thing is precisely the sort of venue that sort of thing works through. Few singular instances are major influences, but the issue is in congregate -- thousands of little things working together to foster, say, xenophobia or bigotry or whatever particular strain of virulent ignorance is in vogue at this moment. With this one, it's one tiny message saying, "We don't give a fuck about anyone not part or descendant of the christian cultural hegemony" and another tiny one saying, "Christian terminology in our culture is normal and acceptable, even if it's effectively snubbing parts of our population". Sure, it's just tiny ones, and singular instances, but in the face of dozens or hundreds of similar messages, it adds the zog up.

Is it really not evident why things like that shouldn't be changed, when possible?

Quote from: Frumple on October 25, 2014, 06:03:36 pm

... something about that line coming from someone with your avatar is making my brain twig out a lil', hawk.

Hey man, Berserk has better pacing AND characters than Fate/stay Night.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree (though, imo, the FS/N fanfiction kicks 'zerk's ass And the worldbuilding is much more appealing, t'me.), but the thing I remember most about that character is

... because most people aren't actively trying to be terrible human beings. That's why.

I'm not even sure if there are active judaism worshipping B12 members. We've got an israeli or two, but the more vocal one is an atheist. Not that it would be terribly surprising if there aren't -- there's not really very many worshipers of judaism out there, world wide. Something like 14 mil, a couple years ago. Which. Y'know, florida outnumbers that. Only slightly more adherents than ruddy Illinois has people.

Don't really have much in the way of interaction with them, myself. Got some family that are (non-practicing/former) adherents, but outside of a (kinda' half-hearted) Hanukkah celebration or two when I was much, much younger it never really came up. Think I've got one of those spinny-top things shoved into a box in some closet or another, I'unno.

Honestly, if it weren't for the connection to the other abrahamic religions and israel regularly ruining everything around it, I don't think Judaism would really matter that much, these days. You're not doing too well when you're outnumbered by Juche.

E: I'd again recommend avoiding Islam, though. Another thread would be fine, but probably better to keep that discussion separate from others. Unfortunately, the vitriol directed toward it is another magnitude above that directed at christianity.

FD, I believe you're underestimating the resilience of religions against progress and the religiousness of large parts of the world.

... I'd say probably not. I'm not even sure the majority of people my age, nevermind younger, actually know what AD means. Last time I remember hearing someone being asked, I think they said "After Death" (shit, critical education failure but I'm pretty sure that's what I was originally taught in freaking school) -- and the area I grew up in was/is about as religious as western culture gets. Doesn't help that neither the BC nor AD (or BCE or CE, or whatever) thing is ever actually used outside of certain parts of academia/history related stuff. It's honestly kinda' useless for every day needs, which is another way of saying it's straight up doomed to fade into obscurity within a handful of generations.

I'm actually kinda' surprised no one here's just suggested PH and H for appellations -- prehistory and history. The latter can start however far back it was we found the first writing bits, and the former can be everything before that. Sure, it would technically make our years a bigger number, but it's not like the vast majority of its use isn't shortened to two digits anyway.

Nabbed up ZQHXB-EQVHV-WGCAQ. Cheers, AP. E: Nin nin!

Until we find evidence of something that adds more chromosomes than it already has to itself and alters I won't believe that kind of evolution exists

Yes? That's just intraspecies, but it's an explicit example of additional (or removed) chromosomes leading to physiological changes. Several (if not, perhaps, all) of the mechanisms behind chromosome addition or subtraction are known and observed.

If you're looking for some examples of observed speciation, including some that occur through change in chromosomal number, you can check here -- it's about a decade old, but that doesn't really mean much. The list starts about half way through, with explanations of what's going on in each, and the sources are at the bottom for your perusal.