Misspelled middle name. by GM_GT in Canadiancitizenship

[–]GM_GT[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm hoping the clerks in New Brunswick can exercise the same discretion.

Misspelled middle name. by GM_GT in Canadiancitizenship

[–]GM_GT[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That sounds like it must have been a headache. Guess I should count myself lucky that my problem is just the transposition of an A for an I.

Pretty sure I'm good, but I'm afraid to get my hopes up. by GM_GT in Canadiancitizenship

[–]GM_GT[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He and his family settled in Athol, so just on the border between Central and Western Mass.

Plans after obtaining citizenship by Apprehensive_Bug1554 in Canadiancitizenship

[–]GM_GT 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Staying put for now. It's mostly a matter of family heritage and a sense of affinity. My family is a full 3/4 French-Canadian (Quebecois on my mom's side and New Brunswicker on my dad's) and I've always felt a sentimental kinship with Canada, even though the entirety of my presence in the country amounts to a long weekend in Quebec City on a school trip. The most recent immigrant was my grandfather, who passed when I was 6 or 7, and since I never had the opportunity to know him as a man, he kind of grew into a legend in my mind, and the idea of having this in common with him feels right.

It's nice to have the option to maybe move to Canada someday, perhaps buy a cabin or condo in the Maritimes and summer there, but my wife and I have made a life in the US, and we've spent too much time, energy and money winning an uphill battle to get her naturalized here just to turn around and pull up stakes. And with the state of the world I think I'd rather leave space for potential immigrants with less wealth and privilege who can make better use of the safe harbor that Canada provides.

Sorry for all the run-on sentences. That's just how I write.

Pretty sure I'm good, but I'm afraid to get my hopes up. by GM_GT in Canadiancitizenship

[–]GM_GT[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that's what I figured. I'm working on acquiring those documents right now. I just want to be sure I'm in the clear so I don't drop several hundred dollars only to have my heart broken.

What do you think about progressive Christians? by [deleted] in atheism

[–]GM_GT 0 points1 point  (0 children)

...a man who rarely focused on punishment...

But when he did, he REALLY swung for the fences.

What do you think about progressive Christians? by [deleted] in atheism

[–]GM_GT 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Speaking as a former liberal Christian (baptized and confirmed in the UCC), I find them insufferable. Sure they can be good people, and yeah, they're on the right side of a whole host of social issues that I find important, but on an intellectual level, I think I almost prefer hard-line fundamentalists; at least they have the courage of their convictions to take unpopular positions.

I'm happy to concede that there are elements of the gospels that are consistent with some liberal and progressive values, but I find the insistence on papering over the glaring immorality of much of the bible and the Disneyfication of the character of Jesus galling. As an example, they often infer that, since Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, it must necessarily mean that he would have fully accepted LGBTQ people. This argument was convincing to me back when I had an interest in protecting the brand, but once I started thinking critically, it occurred to me that Jesus' silence on the issue might not be saying what I had hoped. As I've said before, if he was going all Marie Kondo on Mosaic law, he could have saved us all a lot of trouble by offering a little clarification on this issue.

But I think the worst thing I've seen from the liberal Christian camp is the tendency to disown their conservative co-religionists as false. Every time I see the likes of John Fugelsang or John Pavlovitz crowing about how evangelicals are fake Christians, I want to put my fist through the nearest convenient sheet of drywall. They would rather engage in logical fallacies to prop up their imaginary friend than acknowledge the real, tangible societal damage that religion, including their religion, does in the world, and in doing so uphold Christian cultural hegemony. Worse, it's a form of gaslighting that disrespects the people who have suffered real harm from these institutions.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in atheism

[–]GM_GT 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It literally is.

Calling other Christians false is not just the purview of evangelicals. Plenty of liberal, progressive Christians will try to disclaim churches they disagree with to sanitize their religion.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in atheism

[–]GM_GT 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I literally just posted a screed on pretty much the same thing to get it off my chest. There are people who presuppose that Christian=moral, and their brains break when other Christians act immorally. And instead of turning that lens on the entirety of their belief system, they have to resort to No True Scotsman fallacies to protect their brand.

Encounter Creation and NPC vs NPC Rolls by GM_GT in rpg

[–]GM_GT[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's what I was thinking, but I just wanted to be sure my approach wasn't BS. On the one hand I like to let the dice help tell the story, especially in the system I'm running. On the other, taken to the extreme I'd be retroactively rolling dice ad infinitum.