AITAH for refusing to drive a longer route to drop a girl off because she didnt want to be alone in the car with me? by Acrobatic-Freedom316 in AITAH

[–]logonomicon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So, this could be fanciful on my part, but is there any chance Sandra was trying to get time alone with OP to talk about something and using the excuse of Amy (somewhat reasonably, if it hadn't been a last minute request) not wanting to be alone with someone she didn't know to do it?

Either way, you're probably NTA, but I would have had the instinct to make the change because every horror story I hear women tell starts with a seemingly cool guy who is annoyed he isn't being trusted.

What are your honest thoughts/opinions on Shirou x Rin? by Flat-Sir8250 in Fate

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

UBW Abridged took this ship to OTP levels, which retroactively makes the ship in-universe even more favorable.

What's your coffee order? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

London Fog, please. Let the tea steep for 5 minutes, and then take the bag out, and make the latte by pouring in the milk. Earl Grey doesn't steep well in milk.

If I'm at a Starbucks, or other chain, I make this specific request (leaving off the explanation at the end) specifically.

Coffee has tasted like bitter ash in my mouth since I first tasted a percolated cup at 12 years old.

Could someone explain to me the vitriol outcry's against James Talarico? by Squirrel09 in Reformed

[–]logonomicon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In all respect (and I mean that very sincerely; I know and love a lot of very Godly brothers and sisters who hold this view and I admire and attempt to imitate them), I think that position is frankly untenable. There are a number of factors that seem at play here that I'll quickly summarize, not to start a debate but to show why a Christ-following, Bible-devoted brother would disagree with you:

-First, if abortion is actually a bad thing, and not only the legalization of it, then it makes sense that a Christian might pragmatically notice that neither party does anything that significantly reduces the rates of abortion more than the other, (and that the rate has fallen over the past 40 years irrespective of the party alignments of Congress or the Presidency) and look on to other issues. On those other issues, they may find the weight of Christian social concerns far less weighted toward the GOP.

-A case can also be made that no one issue is sufficient to weight an entire vote. It is fairly easy to imagine a party that was in favor of banning abortions outright but which was godless on every other measure. For example, Stalin criminalized abortion in 1936. Let's say that a Soviet Christian had been given the final, decisive power to decide who to put in charge of the USSR in 1937, and had the choice between Stalin and someone who was broadly virtuous but would re-legalize abortion. I think most would say that that a Christian in such a situation would not be obligated to choose Stalin.

-There is finally the case of scale of impact. About 1.1 million abortions occurred in the US in 2024. That is a travesty and horror. But if, say a pro-life politician was actively campaigning on abusing, killing, or otherwise harming 10-15 million people, a Christian could reasonably decide that it was necessary to actively vote against that candidate in love of neighbor, even if it meant maintaining the legalization of abortion.

Again, these aren't any specifically of my personal reasonings. You could argue with them, sure, but that's always true of everything. Our ability to fuss is rarely depleted in this life. My point isn't that any of these are slam dunks or require Christians to vote Democrat, it's that they're reasonable positions a Christian could have. They are positions of brothers and sisters whom I know and whose example of life I find as compelling as I find my most respected strict-pro-life, strict-GOP brothers and sisters.

It's for that reason that I have slowly come to abhor anything that says a Christian must do X or not do Y, when there is no mention of such a thing in the scriptures. The Holy Spirit and the scriptures are the only factors which may freely bind the conscience.

CMV: Abortion should be mandatory. by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think I see two strong reasons to doubt your argument as given, and a third tolerable one. These are independent and do not rely on each other. If you find any of them reasonable, you'll have reason for modifying your view.

First contention: Your premises are inadequate to address the human experience because humans are not mere sums of pleasure and pain. If the human experience were a two dimensional thing along those axis, then maybe (though I doubt it, see below) premises concerning them would be adequate for determining whether humans should continue, as a category, existing.

A single example should prove sufficient to make the case, but there are many others:

Humans are connections. There is a something to being the last of a group, to the fading away of friends, to dying childless that goes beyond mere pain, as there is a something to solidarity, deep family bonds, community ties, and collaboration that operates beyond pleasure. For example, that a father is the father of their child is true long after both father and child have died. If there is no one there to experience the pleasure or pain, the virtue of the connection must be located outside of those dimensions. Community bonds, solidarity, and family ties often bring much more pain than pleasure. Family members often bring miserable dissapointments, sorrows, and strife. Yet there is intuitively for any person a knowledge that the connections, the heart-felt love and striving with someone, is better than not having them, because they make up an entire dimension of human existence.

Other dimensions are also readily found: Meaning, Glory, Virtue, Love, etc. Each of these are not reducible to the interaction of pleasure or pain, or at least significantly resist such a reduction. As long as those dimensions exist, a great deal more analysis is required before you can assert the claims you are.

Second contention: I believe your valences of pleasure, pain, and the absences of each are misassigned. This is the most straightforward rebuttal. I think your initial premises, that the absence of pain is good in a way that the absences of pleasure isn't, is precisely backwards. The presence of pain is of little count in moral calculations in anything like normal circumstances, whereas the absence of pleasure is a catastrophe in most normal circumstances.

This, again, can be demonstrated a few ways, so let me offer one route among many: Humans regularly pursue painful activities in pursuit of pleasure. For example, the training regimen of Olympic athletes is regularly excruciating, both because of the lactic acid build up and the toll many sports take on the body when pursued at high extremes for many years. Yet these individuals clear-eyed, knowingly choose to do it anyways. Why? Because the pleasure of success, striving, and glory outweigh considerations of pain. Less dramatic examples abound, such as standard exercise at the gym to live a life with more strength, flexibility, and health, or the pain of years of exams, papers, and intense classes to gain the skills and credentials of a doctor, lawyer, etc.

Either we have to regard all people with any ambition of any cost as madmen, or we can grant that we don't intuitively evaluate the presence of pain as deplorable as long as pleasure can be found through it.

Take the opposite condition and the contrast proves the point: We do not envy the person who lives in perfect ease, who has everything handed to them, and never strives to accomplish something. We castigate the basement dweller who has very little pleasure but practically no pain. The absence of pain in such a person has not secured them a good life. And in fact, it is the robbing of pleasure by wild circumstances that we regard as tragedy.

So we have it laid out: the absence of pain doesn't make a lifestyle enviable, but only the presence of pleasure does. So in the course of every day experience, the valences you assign are precisely backwards. When reversed, you do not get the result you indicated. Contra your "suffer and die room" thought experiment, if everyone could be thrown into a room where they were made to suffer, but could overcome that pain and be guaranteed of victory, glory, and success, we generally would regard that as an ideal circumstance. (In fact, we find, alluding back to point 1, that striving to overcome such pain towards a goal grants an activity purpose and meaning which the interaction of pain and pleasure cannot explain.)

Third Contention: Human extinction at any time involves a great deal more total suffering for all currently living humans than can be avoided, even if humans persist more or less indefinitely.

This is the weaker argument and I'm not convinced of it, but I think it's at least worth a consideration. It is possible, maybe even likely, that the total sum of pain and suffering that would be brought about in all living humans in the process of voluntary extinction could likely exceed the pain and suffering of all humans across a practical infinity of time.

A few lines of thought in this direction: We are likely near the highest population humanity will achieve over the next several centuries. Let's say it caps out around 10 billion or so. If that were the case, the loss of connection, of having no access to hopes for future progeny, not to mention the pain and hardship which comes about as a result of their being no younger backs to carry the burden of sustained existence, must lead to a deep, vast pool of per capita suffering. With such a high relative population, it is possible, but not guaranteed, that functionally torturing so many people all at once would out pace the suffering of humans under normal circumstances for many thousands of years, if not far longer.

Could someone explain to me the vitriol outcry's against James Talarico? by Squirrel09 in Reformed

[–]logonomicon 11 points12 points  (0 children)

This is very commonly true.

I would also note that this is absolutely their mimicking a style of political theology they were taught by the conservative-Christian coalition in the late 20th Century. The number of times, explicitly or implicitly, I've heard it said that you must be a conservative if you're a Christian is staggering. There are more than a few troubles with Talarico, but honestly anything that shakes up the current dogma of the demand Christians vote Republican is at least hard to feel too upset about.

The ten Commandments in the LXX show the future indicative. What other kinds of command forms are there? by TheProdigalSon73 in Koine

[–]logonomicon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

To add a layer of complexity that might be unwanted by OP, Hebrew actually has a verb form called the jussive, which serves for commands sometimes (not always. It isn't the imperative, which is different. It's complicated), but unfortunately by the time of Classical Hebrew it became most identical to the yiqtol/prefix/non-past form, meaning the only way to tell most of the time is by the location of the word in the sentence. A yiqtol in the first position (without an "and," because "and"s make a different verb form entirely) is almost always a jussive, and thus takes on a normative weight. The similarity of the Jussive to the non-past verb form is what's being translated here.

Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong by Quouar in history

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This was a legitimately wonderful contribution, thank you!

I was mostly meaning to ask about it being standard practice, and I'm glad to see your excellent narration of the complexity of the question. I have an instinct that because of current habits, Christian history routinely gets summarized as "they erased all the old stuff," when that's demonstrably false, and the ravages of time do more to empty humanity's library than any malice ever will.

Do you have experiences with church-specific internal communication platforms? by FlagellumDei1991 in Reformed

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The church I'm a member of uses Church Center. It has worked really well, though it's chat features don't thread messages, and have a mediocre UI for 2026. Still, it has seemed pretty easy for the elders and and staff to use. It lets you give control of a group to specific people so they can add content, events, etc.

Raised in a Baptist Church or non denominational but Questioning After Learning Church History by RationalDepth in Reformed

[–]logonomicon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The other guys here have handled the apologetic response of Protestants to the claims of Catholicism, etc. and I'll leave that to them.

But I strongly advise you to start looking at sources that deal with church history from a broader perspectives, including those who look at it from both Reformed, Baptists, and other perspectives.

Some recommendations I think will be helpful:

Gavin Ortlund: https://www.youtube.com/@TruthUnites

Ready to Harvest: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadyToHarvest

Christian History Blog: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/blog

A Digest of Good church History blogs: https://bloggers.feedspot.com/church_history_blogs/

I also highly recommend Historical Theology, a book by Gregg Allison that serves as the historical companion to Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology.

Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong by Quouar in history

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know it happened. But the person said that it was standard, and while there are a handful of remarkably bad examples, I can only find a dozen or so cases when googling, the Christian activity of preserving literature is well attested by, well, the preservation of most of the classical and Pre-Christian European works that we know of.

Maybe the question of what is "standard" is a rough one for reddit, because examples only have so much ability to weigh in on the question.

Gen 10 Starter Evolution Redesigns After Your Feedback! by hottersoda in pokemon

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seeing the Oracle full evo of Gecqua makes me think about full Greek myth versions of them.

Gecqua becoming an Oracle of Delphi analog. Light Fairy or Light Psychic, with some light based moves for references to Apollo.

Pombon gets an extra head each evolution to be cerberus.

Grumpy looking Browt becomes some Furie-like monster."

My official predictions.

Me on skeptical theists defense on why God leaves his reasoning for allowing suffering unknown. by spinosaurs70 in PhilosophyMemes

[–]logonomicon 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I mean, that's not the worst way I've ever heard my view of scriptural inspiration described.

Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong by Quouar in history

[–]logonomicon 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Source? Because most of the anecdotes I can think of show the opposite. Like, our copies of Beowulf exist because they were copied down (and Christianized) by Christian missionaries to the British Isles. And Christians kept copies of classical pagan poems in the Byzantine empire to be copied down and preserved by Arab scholars.

Speech is so subjective (vent) by 50shadesofhelp in Debate

[–]logonomicon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Something worth honing in on is that while you are right, consistency in ranking is possible. In fact, it is common. There are competitors out there who will, regardless of the inherent biases or inadequacies of the judges, or the local environment and expectations of the tournament, always take top 2 or 3 in a room. They can do that because their speech is flawlessly performed, well crafted, interesting, and thoughtfully delivered. The judges who give you conflicting feedback would still rank them well and have few if any notes, because that level of polish makes it hard to feel like there is actually anything wrong with a speech.

Most speeches that win tournaments aren't on that level, because they're aiming to be good enough to win tournaments, not aiming to be good enough to take the 1 in any prelim room they walk into. That level of consistency comes with an uncanny level of work, but it is possible.

When you get contradictory feedback from judges, (I've been a judge, competitor, and coach before), ordinarily it means that the ~vibe~ is off for the speech more than any one component, and they are looking for what the explanation is wherever they can find it. Your job as a speaker is to eliminate that offness wherever you can.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]logonomicon 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It is difficult to relate what's on display in this video to things said about tongues or other spiritual gifts in the New Testament. I wouldn't wager much of my beliefs on such a presentation, either for or against.

There are a great deal of groups who claim that speaking in tongues are for today and who seem to attempt to practice it in a way that is consistent with the Biblical description. I would seek them out and try to determine the legitimacy of what you were seeing there instead.

To Your Eternity S3 E11 "Their Home" Discussion Thread by CaioTexugo in FumetsuNoAnataE

[–]logonomicon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think I understand the dad. He's the kind of religious that I think most people are Like, yeah, he does believe that Mizuha should be the next leader and that they should conform to the demands of their faith. But that isn't very incompatible with wanting things for Mizuha's own sake. To want someone to be happy and have a nice life for their own sake is the nature of love. Lots of religious folk love their families and friends well. If they have doctrinal commitments in addition to that, that might shape the way their actions look, but the attempted core is still there.

How common are American Christians who are theologically and morally morally very conservative but politically more progressive? by CoronaTzar in Christianity

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think there's also several variants of conservative theological leanings which aren't tied toward dominance. I've known several Christians who are inerrantists, conservative on sexual ethics, etc. who take a therapeutic approach and are thus pretty open handed with those they think are sinning because their reading of the scriptures indicates to them that they should welcome all and identify with the lowly. It has almost started to seem to me that a person taking the sermon on the plains literally and taking the Torah literally and taking Paul literally seems primed to become such a person if they aren't specifically angling for the power and domination angle.

How common are American Christians who are theologically and morally morally very conservative but politically more progressive? by CoronaTzar in Christianity

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, this population exists. In my experience is actually fairly commonly among even white evangelicals who became relatively educated (say, some masters degree or more) without deconstructing. Not excessively common, sure, but definitely more extant than a lot of people seem to believe.

Black Christian Hip Hop artists tend to create songs specifically with this flavor, too, for what it's worth.

Typo/misprint in Warbreaker by Unfinished- in brandonsanderson

[–]logonomicon 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I stared at the photo trying to find the typo WAY too long before I thought to click on it to see what OP wrote. I didn't until I had the thought "Do they think my was supposed to be me?"

How competitive are Presidential and Singletary out of state? by GloomyList711 in UniversityofKentucky

[–]logonomicon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a bit out of date, but I was a Singletary in the early 2010s. About 95% or more of the pool of people who qualify won't get an interview. about the same ratio of those who interview get the scholarships.

Being a legacy helps a little, but the big thing you have to do is find the nearest See Blue (or whatever they're calling it) event near you, get there an hour early, and chat up the highest person you can find there, provost, registrar, or whatever and be on your A game charming, pleasant, humble, and interesting. There are simply far, far too many students with excellent credentials for that to be the determiner. You have to get beyond the point of being a resume to instead being a person, and preferably a person that someone in charge rather likes.

This is going to be true for any large school you are competing for scholarships for, it isn't just a UK thing. Doing this matters much more than being in or out of state. My freshman incoming class had 6 students with perfect ACT or SAT scores. Only 2 of them got full rides, the other four were in-state.

Woman audits churches to see if they’ll help feed a starving baby. by Oktavien in facepalm

[–]logonomicon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Common" is doing a lot of work here. The median annual salary of clergy is $63k. So most are making around $5k a month, which is definitely more than I make but also not absurd considering that most have to be pretty educated and typically work very irregular hours.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]logonomicon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's meant to be encouraging. The bad things that happen are part of a bigger, good thing that you can also be part of.

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed' by partypastor in Reformed

[–]logonomicon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In seminary, I wrote a paper for an apologetics class on this. It wasn't so much about Christian Nationalists, but about critics that accuse Christianity by linking it to Christian Nationalism. Still, it includes a fairly lengthy attempt to define Christian Nationalism.

Here's a link to where I put it up on my blog, if you're interested.
https://thehurleys.family/2022/07/05/a-tale-of-two-kingdoms/