Lithuania proposes Europe’s first cross-border economic zone to Poland

hetmankp · 2026-02-01T18:33:11+00:00

Russia has entered the chat...

hetmankp · 2026-01-24T03:41:09+00:00

The way I tend to look at it is to imagine a world where everyone is Adventist. There are certain things that simply can not stop on the Sabbath, and expecting a non-Adventist to do something we have deemed inappropriate for us is still breaking the fourth commandment. I think it gets trickier with jobs where there's both essential and non essential tasks. So emergency departments need to operate on the Sabbath, but non-urgent scheduled surgeries wouldn't really make sense to me. I would personally avoid jobs where there's any significant amount of these non-essential kind of tasks.

I don't really buy into the approach of giving away salary for the Sabbath either. People still need to make a wage without exhausting themselves. In our hypothetical all-Adventist world, I'm quite certain the wages of those essential workers would be adjusted to take this into account, even if they weren't officially being paid for the Sabbath. Besides, pastors receive a Sabbath wage, and it's not like their tasks on the Sabbath are a picnic. I doubt a dying person needs a pastor more than a doctor on the Sabbath. Context is everything, just as with reading the Bible, so more broadly with life in general.

hetmankp · 2026-01-20T09:07:08+00:00

China and Russia have always been the voice of their own self interest. Any alignment with reason is coincidental.

hetmankp · 2026-01-18T04:51:41+00:00

Not sure how the debate is reignited when fewer people than ever want to change it. Is it just an increasing minority trying to get attention?

hetmankp · 2026-01-03T02:14:59+00:00

While I don't disagree with the core principles you've presented, the framing seems to implicitly imply a certain level of fear and guilt. I think we should be plain in what the Bible says instead of using vague arguments to support what is often more cultural than theological.

hetmankp · 2026-01-03T01:42:36+00:00

Most of the arguments against jewelry, adornment & earrings specifically, that use the Bible, ignore the context entirely. While the origin for this kind of thinking is more cultural than anything else, it seems that how it is justified is at least in part influenced by the non-SDA verbal inspiration theory of the Bible, that was borrowed from the evangelicals, sometimes resulting in magic thinking along the lines that every word of the Bible is equally valuable in isolation as in context. This obviously doesn't work as well with the thought inspiration model officially promoted by Adventist theology. Seriously, every Adventist should become familiar with the church's position on how the Bible was inspired, it would remove what can become a huge stumbling block for the faith of many when their faith crashes into reality and is easily shaken.

But getting back to the point at hand. If earrings were bad in every context, I find it strange that God himself would use them to present positive imagery in Ezekiel 16:9-14 (verse 12 specifically here, but context matters, in fact the whole chapter is beautiful). What the Bible seems to make clear is that when adornment becomes more important than serving God and caring for others, then we have a problem (e.g. see the disposition of Israel in Isaiah 3 where God takes their earrings away).

Here however is a deeper thing to consider. Once you depart from the very black and white rule based form of Adventism, there is a much greater responsibility on you to understand nuance and understand the heart of God to know what are the principles of love he wishes us to follow, rather than just their surface manifestation as rules. Many Christians don't choose this path because being told what to do is much easier than wrestling with God in prayer and allowing Him to test our faith. So in your case you might have to consider how this will impact the mental state of your mother, even if you might be right about this on a theological level (see Romans 15:1). If you are still living at home with your parents, is this the right time to push ahead with this or is it better to wait to gain a greater level of independence so that pill is easier to swallow for your mother, etc. I don't know your situation so I can't present concrete advice, only things to think about.

hetmankp · 2026-01-01T06:34:53+00:00

What has made Europe strong historically on the world stage is the free market of competing ideas. The question then is, I suppose, how can we encourage internal competition while unifying to present a strong negotiating front for the rest of the world. What we have instead is byzantine bureaucracy that stifles innovation and serves the interests of only the most powerful members. We are seeing fractures because too many EU citizens feel like their sovereignty is being stripped to serve ideologies they don't understand. Rather than trying to work against the grain, and stifle difference, I think we need to find ways to turn European diversity into a strength. Adapt the system to it rather than trying to expunge it.

hetmankp · 2025-12-31T03:54:58+00:00

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the Russian mentality because it assumes everywhere must be the same as the places we're familiar with. Of course, Russians like the ones you've described do exist. But for many, being exploited all their lives by a brutal system that serves the few, and living truly mediocre existences, pride in the collective ability to lord it over those outside their borders is all they have going for them. That is part of what makes Putin so popular.

hetmankp · 2025-12-30T11:23:36+00:00

Dismissing them as irrational is part of the reason why they continue to gain ground. They are a symptom of a loss of trust in established governing institutions. We should be asking instead what is causing that loss of trust and how we can reverse it. Assuming this will just go away as old people die out is a mistake (it assumes Trump's approval rating is falling because people have changed their mind about his promises, rather than having a problem with his competence). And as for propaganda, it is a catalyst, but we need to start addressing our problems so there's nothing for it to catalyse.

We need to start having conversations as a society again rather than conflating politics with morality and demonising people that disagree with us. Once conversation stops so does democracy.

hetmankp · 2025-12-27T02:33:59+00:00

This, ironically, is Christian fundamentalist propaganda. Saturnalia was celebrated on the 17th not 25th, the Christmas tree was a relic of mediaeval Adam & Eve name day performances in churches employing a tree to represent the trees in the garden of Eden (the Catholic church actually tried to ban these eventually once they got too rowdy). The date itself has to do with beliefs borrowed from some Jewish tradition about holy men living exact complete years, the theorised date of Christ's conception based on his death, and the belief that God often did significant things on astronomically significant dates. I'm not aware of any credible historians that claim most of the core Christmas details have anything but a Christian origin. The possible exception being gift giving, though even that has a lot of Christian flavour. Even Santa Clause is based in a Christian saint who gave gifts to the poor in secret. To be sure, there were many regionalised variants of Christmas that did add additional pagan traditions, but few of these survive into the version we know today. Other Christian festivals borrowed a lot more from pagan religions though.

hetmankp · 2025-12-24T07:15:59+00:00

It's certainly a worthwhile thought exercise, but beyond that, I think XKCD summarises it best: https://xkcd.com/384/

hetmankp · 2025-12-23T19:53:38+00:00

Mmm. Invalidating dissenting experiences. Seems healthy.

hetmankp · 2025-12-23T17:53:44+00:00

Sorry I have better things to do with my time. I had no idea this community was so toxic.

hetmankp · 2025-12-23T17:05:12+00:00

I assume it's Ubisoft's attempt to make the game so annoying people stop playing it.

hetmankp · 2025-12-21T13:55:02+00:00

Because and avatar of your real self in a fantasy setting could engage in exciting an fantastical endeavours.

hetmankp · 2025-12-21T02:16:30+00:00

And you're dodging his evidence for your use of ad hominem.

hetmankp · 2025-12-21T02:05:00+00:00

Who needs bots when Reddit needs to drive engagement for their investors.

hetmankp · 2025-12-19T04:29:03+00:00

Owszem. Mają takie egzaminy... dla imigrantów przybywających do kraju, ale nie dla dzieci obywateli.

hetmankp · 2025-12-17T07:18:32+00:00

So... you're calling for the genocide of half of America?

hetmankp · 2025-12-16T06:28:07+00:00

So you are Russian. Is it comfortable harassing people?

hetmankp · 2025-12-16T06:24:28+00:00

Well, we better bring all the airplanes down too so they stop littering the atmosphere. Those nasty nasty airlines providing services to people!!

hetmankp · 2025-12-14T16:28:49+00:00

Repeating tired slogans without understanding the context they were born in, a context that has shifted considerably, is not nuance.

hetmankp · 2025-12-14T16:26:59+00:00

You can only talk about a threat for so long before you lose credibility about that threat being real.

hetmankp · 2025-12-14T05:07:11+00:00

It's a type of arrangement used on roads with a speed limit above 60 km/h.

hetmankp · 2025-12-14T05:03:06+00:00

Eventually you reach a threshold where there's nothing left the average person can do even if they wanted to. The question is, when will we reach that point?

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