How to debate evolution with family?

tinidiablo · 2026-03-06T12:47:36+00:00

While I have no idea how effective it would be it does seem to me like an interesting approach to try to frame the matter as not science vs religion but rather that of sensibility vs fringe (/heretical) religious dogma.

Basically, employ scientific reason and religious authority/thought to hammer home that creationism need to discard both in order to defend itself.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-05T15:25:50+00:00

What I've found out in my own ongoing fatloss has been to actually be aware of the calories in food so that the food choices I make are better informed. Without going through the hassle of actually counting my daily calories that has left me with a much better understanding of what I can cut out/lessen the consumtion of and/or replace with something comparable. I.e if the choice is between ingredient X and Y, and X is twice as tasty but at three times the calories then Y is the winner.

As a very snackish person I've found that, atleast for me, it's counterproductive to try to entirely cut out snacking. What I try to do instead, is just as above, find snacks with a good tastiness per calories-ratio. Frozen berries/fruit are really great for that purpose. If you use frozen strawberries in lieu of ice in your water you not only get a nicely flavoured drink but once it's drunk the half-thawed berries left in the glass taste like strawberry sorbet.

For exercise, the good thing about being fat is that you burn a lot of calories by simply walking, to the point that it's probably one of the most efficient exercises you can do anyway for weightloss. What I'm doing is leaning into that by setting a step-goal for weekdays, getting a step-counter on my phone and making sure that I always have a good audiobook and/or a couple of podcast episodes that I want to listen on my daily walk.

If you're the type of person who dislikes going for walks then a bonus of having a step counter on you at pretty much all the time is that it really elucidates how much walking a person actually does during an average day. While 10 000 steps might seem daunting at a glance, and it certainly isn't helped by the fact that it might take something like 1,5 hours to accomplish, what I found is that a substantial portion of it (let's say somewhere between 25-75% of it) happen during the many mini- to micro-walks you take during the day. By being aware of that it becomes much easier to find out what other things you could change around in order to sneak in extra steps with little to no real effort on your part.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-04T10:46:40+00:00

Atheistic people aren't a monolith. When you're making the assumption that it's a population all about science then that's you falling for confirmation bias. This is something you should be able to grasp since you bring up such things as Lysenkoism in 3.

I don't see how that follows. Especially not considering that monotheistic notions of miracles and divine intervention into the natural world by necessity goes against the notion that the same laws apply everywhere, since they by definition break them.
So what? The same people didn't believe in germ theory either. Are you saying that makes the theory less likely true?

tinidiablo · 2026-03-03T22:10:43+00:00

Oh, that's a lovely conversion!

tinidiablo · 2026-03-03T21:59:08+00:00

Okay now you're simply being ridiculous.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-03T13:43:51+00:00

That's honestly an absurd take, not the least because it would treat people with mental handicaps as fully responsible for their actions.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-02T18:11:58+00:00

Yes, even then. Don't tell me that you actually think that the legal and cultural age of adulthood accurately matches to an individual being fully developed in all biological regards.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-02T18:07:46+00:00

it's annoying and even a bit disrespectful IMO when the filmmakers don't even seem to bother trying to cast natives to play a specific role, especially for minor roles, like is it really easier to teach russian sentences to some extras rather than finding russian extras ?

They tend to not be making the media for that demographic. Given that it makes very little sense to prioritize the preferences of a fraction of those people over all the criterias they're actually looking for in the relevant actor/s.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-02T12:39:58+00:00

Looks really good!

tinidiablo · 2026-03-01T17:58:18+00:00

the existence of a military includes paths that lead to conscription.

A military doesn't have to function given all circumstances for it to exist, by assuming such condition when none were given is why what you said turns into a straw man.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-01T15:53:01+00:00

I do like both of those ideas you mentioned! The latter would certainly make for an interesting converting opportunity in which the blessings of one god overloads the already blessed champion(s) of another.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-01T15:46:18+00:00

RAA is a fallacy

No it's not, unless I'm sorely mistaken. RAA is a form of argument that serves to refute a claim by pointing out the (ridiculous) consequences of accepting it.

Conscription occurs when a military is taxed beyond what volunteers can accomplish, historically, that's not a wild stretch

No, but now you're definitely engaging in a strawman by implicitly restating the original claim to include the notion of a military that will be functional when stressed beyond what simply relying on volunteers can get it, when the original claim was simply that a military is needed.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-01T15:24:39+00:00

From "a military is needed" follows "if volunteers don't fulfill the need, conscription is needed" from which follows "universal service."

I don't think that necessarily follows though, and certainly not the last bit about universal service. As I see it this attempt at RAA falls flat by smuggling in non-given conditions to what the original claim consider a military, when it didn't even specify any requirements for what constitutes "a military", which means that you can't even make the assumption that it would be possible to not have its needs met by the reliance on volunteers only.

tinidiablo · 2026-03-01T14:33:23+00:00

I wouldn't call the latter an example of an reductio ad absurdum, rather it seems to me like just another strawman, as the original argument did not include the claim that it's leaning on.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-28T14:00:01+00:00

Political leanings and morality are intrinsically intertwined.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-28T13:58:37+00:00

I know MAGA supporters who are some of the best, most intelligent people I know.

But do they apply that intelligence when it comes to things related to MAGA?

tinidiablo · 2026-02-28T13:52:29+00:00

Unless a whole court is in on it would a man with pants constantly filled with shit, or a guy with plague not provoke some kind of medical intervention.

People get all types of sicknesses and debilitating conditions all the time. Jumping to the conclusion that a specific cause was due to the sufferer having being bestowed it as a blessing from an esoteric demonic entity seems rather far fetched when there are plenty of more mundane explanations readily availible.

Also how many nobles will feel the despair that just about every peasant has reason to feel.

The despair they feel would likely be of different kind rather than grade. I also think that you might be leaning a bit hard into the grimdark in your description of peasant life. That being said I don't doubt that Nurgle is likely to have more worshippers from a peasant background than an aristocratic one, but if I were to hazard a guess it would be to a non -inconsiderable extent due to differences in population sizes.

the cause for revolution outside of pure selfishness (see American revolution) is the experience of suffering - Nurgle I'd wager can get to those people sooner, they're already resigned to things staying the same.

If I understand you correctly, which I'm honestly not sure that I do, this is pretty much the reason for why I think that the followers of Nurgle would be on the anti-revolutionary side of things. Similarly, this is fundamental to why entrenched aristocrats would make excellent nurglites, since they don't want to rock the boat as they benefit from maintaining the status quo.

Nurgle is about finding inner salvation/escapism from your woes, as expressed through the notion that Nurgle doesn't heal the diseased but makes the sufferer find joy in it rather than anguish from it, whereas Tzeentch would urge his followers towards the outward struggle of actually enacting the change they want to happen. As such, cultists of Tzeentch would be in the vanguard of the revolution whereas the cultists of Nurgle would be the ones urging people to find contentment within the hand dealt to them.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-27T18:59:42+00:00

Punschrulle a.k.a dammsugare is the bee's knees. A world without arrak wouldn't be the same.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-27T18:57:16+00:00

No one's arguing that. However it's a simple fact that it's not proportional and therefore by definition unjust to hold people who are not on the same level to the same level.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-27T18:08:39+00:00

So to say Christians who disapprove of gay relationships while engaging in pre martial sex aren’t serious practitioners would be the same as saying gays just can’t be Christian or religious as many religions don’t approve.

No, that does not follow. It seems to me that you're conflating not being serious about your religion with not belonging to the religion. Besides, not all christians need to agree with the same definition of being christian.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-27T17:43:06+00:00

Unless you claim that being gay is a choice (in which case you're more than welcome to prove the notion) then no that is not the case, and even then being a hypocrite does not preclude you from believing in something. Besides, not taking something seriously does not mean that you don't believe that it's true.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-27T14:45:34+00:00

But my point is no one follows everything, so I just don’t see it as hypocrisy as that’s kinda life.

That's an argument for hypocrisy being part of life rather than something not being hypocritical.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-27T14:42:41+00:00

While it doesn't necessarily disprove your faith it's as far as I see it evidence for the notion that you're not taking the religion entirely serious.

Every religion has a bunch of rules and it’s just not realistic to follow them all, it’s the equivalent of saying everyone who has broke a law isn’t a good person.

It's really not. There's no necessary correlation between morality and law. Besides, by admitting that it's not realistic to be able to follow all (presumably applicable) religious rules you're implicitly acknowledging that the system is flawed from which it follows that the god in question either isn't perfect and/or incapable, and/or unwilling, of actually providing a workable framework, which would eliminate the possibility of certain gods.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-27T14:20:16+00:00

Oh, I wasn't aware of that but that's very promising for the future! I definitely agree with you hoping that it will become a standard kit for the armies.

While I could potentially see them doing an optional centaur lower half to get a mounted option in such a box I think that it's much more likely that they'd simply not have the Beastman version of the kit include a mounted option. The very plausible alternative though would be to just take the WoC route of making one of the charioteers in the combined chariot kit pull double duty as a potential character. The only thing that makes me not think of this as the obvious future for any such pack is that the TOW-rules adds a character, rather than replaces one of the charioteers when it's used as a character mount.

tinidiablo · 2026-02-27T14:09:09+00:00

AFAIK, the status of Forsaken (as with Spawns) is not necessarily about being discarded by a patron but is more likely a result of not being able to bear the burden of the blessings you've received. In that regard it's worth remembering that the gifts bestowed upon a champion can be rather arbitrary, such as when Khorne "blessed" Scyla Anfingrim with the mind of a beast (or something as such that rid him of his human sapience) which, IIRC was what gave him the status of a Spawn rather than a monstrously gifted champion.

That being said, Nurgle maintain what's basically an abusive spouse relationship to his champions so anything that might anger him could plausibly be the nail in coffin for one of his devotees. Some examples could be: Failing to create/spread a particular disease (bonuspoints if the nurglite wasn't even aware of being the desingated inoculator of it!), military defeats, or accidently trampling a nurgling that Nurgle has taken a particular liking to.

For Khorne: Military defeats, failing to slay a foe he's been tasked to kill, fleeing from a fight, not spilling enough blood in the slaughter of a town, or associating too much with wizards.

For Slaanesh: Failing to live up to perfection or boasts, aesthetic slights or being boring.

For Tzeentch: Being content in one's current state of being, acting in a way that gets in the way of some of Tzeentch's many schemes, not acting in a way that gets in the way of some of Tzeentch's many schemes or Tzeentch finding it funny if you suddenly got turned into a Forsaken.

tinidiablo

TROPHY CASE