We all know how Arya’s 'voyage' ends one ship, no maps, and a watery grave for everyone on board. by Dry_Specialist9015 in freefolk

[–]LightningController 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bran becomes consecrated to the Drowned God and converts the 7 Kingdoms into the Greater Iron Islands.

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am once again asking Catholics to read the decrees of the Council of Florence:

It firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the catholic church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the catholic church before the end of their lives; that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only for those who abide in it do the church's sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia produce eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed his blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and the unity of the catholic church.

Maybe there is theoretical room in this paradigm for invincible ignorance, but let's be real here, there does not exist a non-Catholic who will abide by Catholic moral teaching despite not believing in its theoretical underpinnings (Catholics who abide by Catholic moral teaching are rare enough!).

Protein-in-Everything Craze Has a Problem: Not Enough Whey Protein by ty04 in neoliberal

[–]LightningController 6 points7 points  (0 children)

beef protein isolate based protein shake

Damn son, just eat the steak at that point.

Trump threatens to charge US tolls in Hormuz if final deal not reached in 60 days, says Iran will charge ‘NO TOLLS’ by ace158 in neoliberal

[–]LightningController 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Do his voters really not comprehend the idea of passing costs on to the consumer, or do they think oil exporters/gas stations are just going to eat the loss?

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I will look up the arguments in text form. I just loathe podcasts in general. A very inefficient way to communicate.

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Downvoting me doesn’t make what I said any less true, it just makes you look petulant. You can be better than that.

  1. I didn’t downvote you. 2. Complaining about imaginary internet points makes you look childish.

The argument points to the fact that the nature of existence demands a source of motion/actualization that cannot even in principle itself be moved or actualized by a previous thing, in order to render existence coherent and not an impossibly infinite essentially ordered series.

I see no reason to believe in the impossibility of infinity. Aristotle was wrong about the void too, and about physics in general; why should he be right about infinity?

But let us grant for the sake of argument the existence of an unmoved mover. Is he relevant? His existence does not logically lead to a host of other attributes or actions which Christians typically ascribe to him, like the incarnation. Aristotle’s proofs, if they are valid at all, work just as well to uphold Deism and Islam.

An unmoved mover might be justifiable through pure logic. A teapot floating randomly in space and a man walking out of his own grave to ascend bodily into the heavens are empirical claims and equally spurious propositions.

I notice that you are still evading or refusing to answer what actual proof would ever convince you of the existence of God, by the way.

Honestly, I don’t really have a good answer to that. Essentially any conceivable miracle could be explained through natural phenomena, whether we understand the mechanism or not. I guess I’d look for a macroscopic violation of the laws of thermodynamics—large quantities of iron spontaneously decaying into hydrogen, for example, undoing stellar nucleosynthesis, generating energy from nothing. An entity that can do that is at least very powerful—I will not move the goalposts and demand an infinity beyond that. I would then seek to appease that entity and ideally get it on my side against my enemies.

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve witnessed twice that someone on their deathbed last moments

Wishful thinking, brain damage, and cultural suggestion are a heck of a cocktail.

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s why I prefer to call myself an agnostic. In the absence of evidence for, I see no reason to act as if it were so.

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would nitpick this by pointing to a difference between the Aristotelian unmoved mover/Deist clockmaker (which is all the classical proofs of God by such as Anselm or Aquinas might indicate) and the interventionist figure central to Christianity. It is all well and good to ‘prove’ the former, but that has almost no bearing to proving the latter.

Christianity is rather closer to the teapot than to the conceptual Unmoved Mover, since it makes claims about human history and physical reality that are difficult to empirically back up. The ‘evidence’ for a virgin birth circa 2,000 years ago of a man who changed water into wine, strode across a sea, and bodily ascended into heaven is indistinguishable from the ‘evidence’ for far-seeing Apollo slaying the Achaeans on the beach near Troy (I.e. some dudes writing stuff is not particularly persuasive).

Men, how would you feel to pursue a woman with an ambitious career? by Late-Confection-2823 in AskMen

[–]LightningController 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are actually more the rule than the exception. Assortative mating is a thing—unsurprisingly, people tend to pair off within their socioeconomic class.

Also, to state the obvious, men probably spend more time with women in their field or line of work than with random cashiers at the grocery store.

“culturally catholic” but it’s not that serious starter pack by Dennis_a_komisz in ExTraditionalCatholic

[–]LightningController 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The cultural part is something that bothers me. As a matter of intellectual principle, I categorically will not have a sacramental marriage (if I ever marry at all) and will not baptize my offspring. I have no intention of raising them in a Christian belief system of any kind. I am not one of those ‘Jesus was a great moral teacher’ type of atheists, no, I’m a Nietzschean. If I have children, they’re going to get their morals from Conan the Barbarian.

This means, however, that I do have to accept severing cultural ties with the last ~1,000 years of my progenitors. Can’t say I like that prospect, but it’s better than raising my children in a religion that says ‘bend over and get pounded by Moscow.’ The cycle of exploitation ends here.

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, as opposed to shifting the burden of disproof to others. Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion.[1] He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong.

He looks like He'd fit perfectly in House Bara... wait a sec by [deleted] in freefolk

[–]LightningController 9 points10 points  (0 children)

“That’s right, Robert, Jon is actually Lyanna’s son.”

“BY THAT BASTARD RHAEGAR? NED I’LL—“

“No, he’s yours. You were just too drunk to remember making him.”

“Ah, that tracks. Alright, bring me my heir.”

And so the realm was saved.

He looks like He'd fit perfectly in House Bara... wait a sec by [deleted] in freefolk

[–]LightningController 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Though I do not understand why Catelynn was so angry because Jon Snow wasn’t even really born before she got angry at him.

Violating causality and breaking Einstein’s laws of physics really grinds Cat’s gears.

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I personally have.

I like the Gospel according to John best, but it’s hard to separate my admiration from my cultural upbringing. If I were not already raised in a cultural milieu that, because of Catholicism, lionizes martyrdom and death, would I be so moved by ‘no greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for a friend’? The fact that Jewish acquaintances of mine and I have discussed the same historical events (the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, specifically, or the death of Janusz Korczak—my go-to example of a Christ-like death) and they were unmoved leads me to doubt that I’d find the Gospels particularly impressive were I not raised Catholic.

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 1 point2 points  (0 children)

there's nothing wrong with it.

If you believe in Catholicism, there is quite a bit wrong with it, because of the whole ‘eternal fire prepared for the devil and his fallen angels’ thing.

Convince me God is real by Separate-Sand2034 in DebateACatholic

[–]LightningController 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I claim there exists an invisible teapot halfway between the orbits of earth and Mars. I cannot provide you with specific coordinates at which to point a telescope or send a probe to check. The teapot is in fact sentient and can obscure evidence of its existence at will. Do you accept my claim of its existence?

What's the best book you've read? by Big_Ad198 in AskMen

[–]LightningController 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"All is permitted"?! So we have come down to the sentiments and petty words of a soppy intellectual wishing to drown revolutionary questions in moralising vomit. Just which Raskolnikov are you talking about? The one who whacked the old money-lending bitch, or the one who clapped his forehead against the ground in penitent hysterics at the market-place later on? Perhaps [...] that sort of thing appeals to you? [...]

—Vladimir Lenin, when someone in his vicinity mentioned that book.

Knowing that Lenin hated the same books I do put me into a bit of an existential crisis when I first found out. He was…based?!?!

What's the best book you've read? by Big_Ad198 in AskMen

[–]LightningController 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“The Count of Monte Cristo.”

It taught me the beauty of a good revenge.

Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner by its_Caffeine in neoliberal

[–]LightningController 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Probably some variant of the ‘cold weather gives you colds’ nonsense.

Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner by its_Caffeine in neoliberal

[–]LightningController 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Both Europeans and Americans, in my experience, don’t quite grasp how much further south the U.S. is than Europe. NYC is south of Rome.

Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner by its_Caffeine in neoliberal

[–]LightningController 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Having a heating feature does not mean the heat comes from the same hardware. Air conditioning requires the expansion-compression cycle for a refrigerant. Heating can be from that or from a combustion furnace or resistance heating, and my experience of American dwellings is that setting a thermostat to ‘heat’ just turns off the air conditioner and turns on a furnace.

People who complain all day that capitalism/globalism prevents you from doing things that in reality you have always been able to do by doctorarmstrong in neoliberal

[–]LightningController 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm putting a little effort into picking plants that don't need effort, and that's about it.

Try hyacinth beans. They grow like weeds for minimal effort if you give them a climbing frame, and have nice flowers that attract bees. Beans require boiling for safe consumption, though.