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[nenjin]

I love it when there's a queue for a store, and someone walks in and, totally fucking oblivious to the rest of the world, just cuts in front of the queue and starts ordering, then makes some weak ass apology after the fact. "Heuheu, sorry, I'm totally self-absorbed haha."

Pull your head out of your ass, open your goddamn eyes and observe your surroundings before you lizard brain your way through life. You are not the center of the world.

[ChairmanPoo]

Having trouble finding accomodation so this new job offer might be moot. Cant fly if I will be homeless

[TD1]

I will admit a bias here--

That trailer makes me cringe.  Not because I consider religion "wrong". (I am agnostic, and honestly accept that I do not know. I would go so far as to say that there is evidence that it cannot BE known.) It makes me cringe because it is intellectually in-bred in a way that causes revulsion of higher reasoning.  It is a blatant depiction of the heroic triumph over a strawman. It is as such, rhetorical masturbation, and equally incapable of engendering anything new.

As I recall, the movie had some decent acting in it. But yes. Its main purpose seemed to be to bolster the spirits of the already devout, rather than add anything to the discussion.

[kaijyuu]

The big thing I hate about proselytizing religions is that they're abusive in the same way an abusive partner is. They'll tell you you're bad, evil, corrupt, immoral, etc and then tell you the only thing that can help you is the religion itself. This is 100% identical to an abusive partner that uses emotional and physical harm to tear someone down and make them reliant.

I had the misfortune of watching a christian sermon a few months ago when visiting a grandparent, and it entirely consisted of criticizing the audience followed by claiming the religion can fix their alleged flaws.

People talk about religion offering moral support and coping mechanisms, but the really nasty ones engineer the need for it. Unorganized religions that are entirely indifferent as to whether you participate or not are much, much better in my opinion. If they do have morality to convey, they don't claim they're the sole source of it.

[hector13]

I firmly believe organized religion is one of the most disgusting things humans have come up with.

[Eschar]

It's all Beelzebub's fault, of course. Organized religion was just a prank by the Lord of Flies that got out of hand and started running on its own steam of confirmation bias and unfalsifiability.

[Reelya]

The big thing I hate about proselytizing religions is that they're abusive in the same way an abusive partner is. They'll tell you you're bad, evil, corrupt, immoral, etc and then tell you the only thing that can help you is the religion itself. This is 100% identical to an abusive partner that uses emotional and physical harm to tear someone down and make them reliant.

On that note, I watched a little debate between an atheist and a preacher the other day, and the preacher said that if there was no God, then murder wouldn't be wrong. To me, that was conflating different points. Firstly, is something only wrong if you can get caught or punished? Secondly, how do we know something is wrong? Lastly, would this thing still be wrong even if God didn't exist?

For example if you murder and rape, is that ok because you didn't read the bible yet. After all, if it's only wrong because God says so in the bible, then naturally anyone who hasn't read the bible yet shouldn't be held accountable. The preacher conflates wrongness with punishment for doing wrong, and knowledge of right/wrong, whereas I'd argue that things are inherently wrong in and of themselves, regardless of whether God exists or whether he wrote laws about it, and regardless of whether you get caught and punished in this life, or caught and punished in the afterlife.

Additionally, if a preacher says that right/wrong comes from the Bible, then literally anything is ok, if it's not specifically banned in the bible. No matter how heinous or self-destructive. There's no wishy-washy "God wouldn't like that" speech allowed here, if they're claiming that all moral value comes from God and is specifically outlined in the bible. Any loophole the bible allows is a legitimate thing you can do.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

To that they would argue "natural law", i.e. all humans know and understand Biblical morality inherently, and as such can be expected to follow it even if they aren't actually familiar with Christianity.

[Iduno]

Having trouble finding accomodation so this new job offer might be moot. Cant fly if I will be homeless

Yeah, I can see it being a bad time to try to do things.

To that they would argue "natural law", i.e. all humans know and understand Biblical morality inherently, and as such can be expected to follow it even if they aren't actually familiar with Christianity.

Yeah, that does sound like the sort of thing they'd say.

[Eschar]

Because of course it couldn't be that natural law ^TM is simply a bunch of common human reactions and moral ideas which then influenced the original writer(s?) of the OT.

[kaijyuu]

The old testament's morality is pretty damn fucked up, if you ask me. Genocide and patriarchy abound.

[Rolan7]

There are threads for all these topics, people.  It'd be nice if I wasn't the one bumping Railgun & Spirituality for once.

[Fire and Glory]

A tip for if you or anyone you know discover that they are hearing impaired and need hearing aids to get the full range of sound:

Don't get the behind-the-ear version.

For reference:

Spoiler: Behind-the-ear (BTE) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: In-the-ear (ITE) (click to show/hide)

When I was 12 I was presented with these two options, ITE as being inconspicuous and BTE as being easy to handle. Being a cool kid who doesn't care if anyone knows if I have hearing aids or not, I chose BTE and have been kicking myself for that choice since.

What I found out later was that BTE hearing aids barely cooperate with anything that goes on your head. Headphones will fit poorly over your ears, sunglasses or regular glasses will rub constantly. Speaking over the phone becomes unintuitive and doesn't fit well near your ear either way*.

All in all behind the ear hearing aids have not been worth it and I have rarely worn mine since.

*Some hearing aids have bluetooth functionality now so this isn't quite so bad with a smartphone but that can be fiddly and does nothing for house phones.

Edit. On a side note considering that ears are designed to direct sound inwards I'm not sure on the wisdom of putting the microphone outside of the ear. Seems a bit dumb.

[Eschar]

Too late for me! Guess I'm using BTE during college and beyond.

[Yoink]

Man, apart from some technical difficulties (i.e. the left one mysteriously ceasing to function) I haven't had any problems with my current "BTEs".   
They fit pretty well under most headphones in my experience, while sunglasses take a bit of getting used to but are mostly doable. On the other hand, yeah, phone calls are a pain what with having to kinda balance the phone up above your ear to keep its speaker close to your mic - but then, talking on the phone tends to be a drag at the best of times, hearing impairment or no hearing impairment.   

I think these ones are a massively improved model compared to the ones I was fitted with several years back, though, which I used briefly and then gave up on since they were utterly useless when faced with the slightest bit of background noise. These ones have served me well, even if they're well overdue for a service/tune-up at this point (and I'm unsure if my healthcare covers it anymore).   
Also they have snazzy purple moulds. Heck yeah.   


...Of course, I've never tried ITE. I'm can't recall if those were offered as an option.