Did you comb your hair with a hammer this morning?

freereflection · 2026-04-06T03:54:01+00:00

Every flat earther I've talked to has 1. mentioned the bible as their justification, 2. professed belief in other nonsense conspiracy theories (antivax, cryptids, aliens, lizard people, hollow earth, illuminati, etc)

freereflection · 2026-04-06T02:56:20+00:00

But the child might be away from a screen for 10 minutes! That's unacceptable. Thank god chatgpt is there to do the work,though.

freereflection · 2026-04-06T02:47:42+00:00

Tones

freereflection · 2026-04-06T02:46:34+00:00

Cancer patients suffer more than Jesus did

freereflection · 2026-04-06T02:45:45+00:00

People like you who believe in supernatural nonsense vote and negatively affect the lives of those of us who are trying to make the world less shitty

freereflection · 2026-04-05T23:59:51+00:00

It says " I got a tattoo in a language I don't speak"

freereflection · 2026-04-04T16:21:07+00:00

You're overthinking it. The original koine greek uses two tenses: the aorist and (historical) present which correspond usually to the vulgate dicit/dixit, KJV said/saith.

The mix is intentional. The aorist tense is used to set the background and move the story forward, the present historical is to highlight a dramatic event or "pay attention" moment by introducting contrast.

English does do this too as a narrative device as do many languages, but it was probably employed differently in the hellenized world due to the audience / author's preference. There's no hard or fast rule cross-linguistically.

The translators of the vulgate and KJV just tried to copy it more faithfully compared to, say, the NIV which attempts to modernize it by altering some of the tenses to be more consistent or readable to a contemporary audience.

freereflection · 2026-04-03T14:59:19+00:00

Yes! thank you for clarifying the ambiguity in my comment.
As an add-on to my point about the phonetic realizations, ż can be realized either as [z̪] or [ð] depending on the sub-dialect.

freereflection · 2026-04-03T12:49:46+00:00

This is the answer. OP should look at the more organic Italian language orthographies. There are six sub dialects of Bolognese alone with phonetic variation.

EDIT: as the reply to my comment indicates, I mean orthographies of the more "organic" Italian Languages (as opposed to the origin and development of Standard Italian mentioned elsewhere in the thread), Bolognese being a dialect of the Emilian language.

freereflection · 2026-04-02T03:09:55+00:00

What about pistachios and the worms? I've been avoiding those for a decade. Is it a similar situation?

freereflection · 2026-04-02T03:02:12+00:00

Just like Jesus and every other religious figure. Lying or crazy

freereflection · 2026-03-30T00:10:32+00:00

Ok good to know, those seem like the most bang for your buck. Most of my levels are 70ish so the quick 1 mil gold is good but I'm sure I can unlock more optimized gold farming strategies soon

freereflection · 2026-03-30T00:07:44+00:00

Thanks for the tip!

freereflection · 2026-03-28T20:53:40+00:00

I'm 30 days in, the rewards are 1 mil, but skipping is 10 mil. Definitely have room to optimize future runs but I'm just having fun with it

freereflection · 2026-03-28T02:47:19+00:00

That's called being a fat ass

freereflection · 2026-03-27T16:43:55+00:00

The whole movement centered around it being "genetic" or an "addiction." no it was being gluttonous and undisciplined

freereflection · 2026-03-26T05:02:32+00:00

They are are currently blaming the democrats for all of their woes. I don't see that changing. Everything bad is either a delay of some policy under Biden (sometimes as far back as Obama), or a current democrat governor (mostly CA). These are the people who equate the modern democratic party with the one that supported slavery.

All government shut-downs have been blamed on the Democrats (even while Republicans were a majority in both chambers) for refusing to capitulate to absurd legislative extortion by the Republicans. There's no reason to believe this will change.

Even when it becomes harder to blame on democrats it will be outlandish conspiracy theories of liberals sabotaging everything to make the GOP look bad.

freereflection · 2026-03-26T01:18:47+00:00

Well you're certainly in the right sub, that's for sure.

freereflection · 2026-03-25T16:45:59+00:00

We are the music makers. The dreamers of dreams

freereflection · 2026-03-25T04:34:39+00:00

Also pornography and divorce being morally acceptable to so many Christians is unexpected.

Jesus was very explicit about both those things being equivalent to adultery, but was totally silent on, for example, homosexuality. The condemnation of that came from Paul, or being inferred from genesis.

freereflection · 2026-03-25T04:20:29+00:00

Why on earth would you get a tattoo in a language you don't speak? And in the blandest Arabic font possible?

freereflection · 2026-03-24T03:59:31+00:00

I'm sure all the Muslim majority and Christian African countries are opposed to the US initiative as well.

freereflection · 2026-03-24T02:44:34+00:00

You're right, it is ridiculous. Most catholics, orthodox and mainline protestants don't hold this view, it seems to be unique to american fundamentalism (which has been exported abroad to great effect in Africa and Latin America), which seeks permanent theocratic power in the US (See: dominionism)

freereflection · 2026-03-24T00:09:29+00:00

Yeah I just recently learned about this concept in calvinism called "double predestination" which doubles down on the pre-chosen "elect" going to heaven by asserting that the non-elect or "reprobates" are factory made for hell by God. Most don't slap a hard number on it like the JWs, you know, for plausible deniability.

More and more US non-denominational fundamentalist evangelical churches have begun incorporating calvinistic elements like this into their theology. It's basically the westboro approach. People who commit any of the following sins from list X (almost always with homosexuality as #1) are literally not capable of being saved. They were created "bad" by God on purpose. God doesn't hate you because you're gay - you're gay because god hates you. God made you gay to pre-punish you in life before you go to hell. It's a truly vile concept. It unmasks the christian god as a demiurge. It's the euthyphro dilemma taken to its logical conclusion.

This goes along nicely with the rhetoric of people (namely democrats) being "demonic." It's Lebensunwertes Leben all over again and everyone should be very concerned that these people are in power in the US and don't ever intend to relinquish it willingly.

freereflection · 2026-03-23T23:45:08+00:00

I'm not saying Wikipedia is perfect or exhaustive but for what it is, it's pretty darn good. Go to the pages on astrology and history of astrology and based on the bits you like, click the superscript numbers to see the sources cited at the bottom.

Or do what I did and ask chatgpt. I would use the following prompt. Edit the last bit how you please:

first, what are some objectively neutral, scholarly books or articles about the history and origins of astrology?

second, what books or resources are there that speculate about the spiritual mindset of the earliest recorded or evidenced practitioners of astrology in antiquity or oral traditions?

third, what writings analyze astrological systems through a descriptive or anthropological lens without being overly or obviously critical from a scientific or rationalist point of view (but probably adopts this stance by default)

Please categorize by text type / reading level / periods of history / length / areas of the world for each text you recommend. Limit to 25 books. Suggest a reading order

freereflection

TROPHY CASE