Spzi

@Spzi@lemm.ee

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Spzi,

What do you mean? Of course they do. It’s not a contradiction, because they are adversaries.

Spzi,

The day this country’s tensions between conservatism and liberalism die is the day the USA ceases to exist. That tension is at the core of our republic, literally since its founding, and it’s what makes us great, unlike any other nation on Earth.

That sounds as if this tension was somehow unique to the united states. It’s not, it’s everywhere. Even worse, the US have less of a political spectrum than most other nations, just shy of dictatorships.

Spzi,

In Germany, whenever the discussion about wether to deliver a specific weapon system or not extends to a “new” weapon system, this usually is an argument against. Hurr durr, it could be used to poke too deep into Russian-held territory, or beware, even strike native Russian soil. Russia might not like that and pull Germany into the war or throw a nuke or whatnot.

Spzi,

One is multiple parallel goals. Makes it hard to stop playing, since there’s always something you just want to finish or do “quickly”.

Say you want to build a house. Chop some trees, make some walls. Oh, need glass for windows. Shovel some sand, make more furnaces, dig a room to put them in - oh, there’s a cave with shiny stuff! Quickly explore a bit. Misstep, fall, zombies, dead. You had not placed a bed yet, so gotta run. Night falls. Dodge spiders and skeletons. Trouble finding new house. There it is! Venture into the cave again to recover your lost equipment. As you come up, a creeper awaitsssss you …

Another mechanism is luck. The world is procedurally generated, and you can craft and create almost anything anywhere. Except for a few things, like spawners. I once was lucky to have two skeleton spawners right next to each other, not far from the surface. In total, I probably spent hours in later worlds to find a similar thing.

The social aspect can also support that you play the game longer or more than you actually would like. Do I lose my “friends” when I stop playing their game?

I don’t think Minecraft does these things in any way maliciously, it’s just a great game. But nevertheless, it has a couple of mechanics which can make it addictive and problematic.

Spzi,

In these threads I often get the feeling people use “evidence” as a synonyme for “proof”. I think, there can be lots of evidence, even contradicting evidence, without there being a proof.

I think the HVAC maintenance guy just destroyed my relationship

Edit: Last night she attempted suicide. I was in the living room while she was showering. She got out of the shower, went to the bedroom, and about 10 minutes later I heard her call my name. She was holding a large handful of her medicine in one hand, and the bottle in the other. She told me she almost took it, but decided to...

Spzi,

at that point it will become clear that this is a stupid thing to do

While you’re technically right, I’m afraid things don’t work that way. Pushing people into a corner can have the paradoxic opposite result of strengthening their position, even if it is “clearly” wrong.

Spzi,

Some few believers probably think most atheists are just NPCs to test their faith or whatever.

Spzi,

Yes, but they could / would say exactly the same things about our side. This symmetry of how each side perceives the other, I find it both fascinating, infuriating and frustrating.

Spzi,

Maybe “right” just points to the right in this case.

Spzi,

Emma Smith smart smart smart.

Except never poisoning her husband.

Maybe other Emma Smiths did exactly that, which is why we never hear from them. When they stop the insanity before it spreads, there is no story to be told.

Spzi,

Equating Christianity with Nazism is bad taste and shows a warped picture of history.

I guess this is an attempt to counter slurs by Christians saying Hitler was an atheist or whatever.

Still, this meme not only lowers you to the level of these Christians, but also to the level of Nazi propaganda.

Spzi,

If Nazism grew in a Christian monoculture, where did all the Jews come from?

For the sake of debate, please refrain from personal attacks. We don’t have to agree, but can we do so in a civil manner?

I get your point: Assuming Nazi Germany was nothing but Christian, the picture would be correct.

But that was not the case. Some were even atheists! And some Christians were some of the fiercest resistance fighters.

I also think it’s dishonest to reduce the picture to just that. It’s also an example of connecting your political enemy to some monstrosity in an undifferentiated way, just like the Nazis did.

Spzi,

The majority of Germans were Christian, the official state religion was Christianity and it was recently revealed the Vatican was aware of the Holocaust well before the Allies were.

Nazis were Christians. Christians supported Nazis from the highest levels of the Church.

Yes, that’s all correct, broadly and roughly speaking. If you insert ‘all’ or ‘every’ like the picture in question, it becomes false, strictly speaking.

Any attempt to say otherwise is to whitewash the Catholic Church’s involvement and is unacceptable.

Agreed. I think our statements don’t contradict each other.

Still, this meme not only lowers you to the level of these Christians [who throw slur memes at atheists], but also to the level of Nazi propaganda.

If you want civil discussion this is not how you get it.

Maybe I did a poor job at delivering my point. Maybe someone else can do better. I think, at least, I contributed some new viewpoint to the discussion, and if only as something to which others can respond with “no, because …”. None of that justifies personal attacks.

Maybe others are happy with /c/atheism being an uncritical echo chamber for memes. I’d find that pretty sad and boring.

I regard it as my civil duty as a German anti-fascist to point out Nazi aesthetics and methods when I see them. There are so many ways to rightfully criticize Christianity, and even the interconnections between Christianity and Nazism. But doing so in the style of Goebbels is not the way. Maybe I should have clarified the similarities I see:

  • The colors resemble the Flag of the German Empire and were the favorite colors in Nazi propaganda
  • They too used generalizations over nuance
  • They too cared more about the narrative to deliver, even if it meant to exaggerate or distort historic facts
  • Connecting the disfavoured ‘others’ with emotionally laden pictures, equating them with monsters, stylizing them as ultimate enemies
Spzi,

just point out that according to the Bible, we are made in God’s image, and since he has a sense of good and evil, therefore so do we.

I think in Christian lore, that’s supposed to be the role of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2–3). It’s fruits are forbidden. Serpent, original sin.

Bottom line it does not change your argument, since all humans after that point in the story have that ability. Just the reason is different.

Spzi,

Blasphemy day is in 6 weeks, on Sept 30th :)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_Day

Spzi,

From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_determinism#Fre… and www.theopedia.com/compatibilism:

The answer is theological compatibilism. The idea that people actually have free will, while some fate or divine plan exists.

people will always choose what they want-- and what they want is determined by (and consistent with) their moral nature. Man freely makes choices, but those choices are determined by the condition of his heart and mind […]. God’s involvement: God is said to influence our desires, and thus is able to have exhaustive control of all that goes on.

The paragraph about moral responsibility was interesting:

In general, people agree that the one with uncaused action is held responsible for an action. Not the ball that was caused to roll, but the person who was not caused to push is held responsible for the rolling of the ball. However, according to this worldview, the same does not apply to humans. Although a man is considered unable to choose against his desires, which are caused by his sin nature or God’s intervention, the moral responsibility of sin lies with him. He chose to do it, therefore he is held responsible. Not what caused him to choose, but he that chooses is held responsible.

This understanding of moral responsibility absolves God of authorship of sin; man, as caused by fall, is naturally “inclined to all evil” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q.7).

I guess in the end it does not have to make sense anyways, because belief.

Spzi,

having a small footprint is just a matter of choosing how miserable you’re willing to make your life.

In many areas yes, but not when it comes to food. A plant based diet is in no way miserable. There are still too many places with bad kitchens making it seem that way, but that’s just a lack of skill on their part.

I’d say my food experience rather became less miserable when I stopped eating meat, and my footprint decreased by a lot.

Eventually it reaches equilibrium.

In this case, the faster we get to the edge of the abyss, the quicker the situation will solve itself.

If you open the window to ventilate for 20 minutes that’s different from replacing the air in your room in 2 nanoseconds. The violent shockwave of the latter will probably damage your stuff and harm your health.

Similarly, the speed of climate change matters a lot. It is required for plants and animals to migrate and adapt, for people to migrate and adapt, for infrastructure to be built. It makes all the difference between a devastating blow and adaptation, while the reached equilibrium is the same in both cases.

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