They literally would be, though. Prophets are god’s virtual (non-physical) private (he speaks directly to them) network (they are joined in spirit).

That’s literally the definition of a vpn.

The ballot presented the status quo (which is far less than ideal, sure, but included a normal human) vs outright Fascism with a Capital F, and millions of people shirked their civic duty because they didn’t like the dem candidate enough.

When Fascism is setting fires on your doorstep and you’re too busy arguing about the feng shui in the living room to bother calling in firefighters, yeah, it’s your fault.

Like it or not, the biggest group to sway 2024 were abstainers. If the number of voters who turned out for dems in 2020 had fucking bothered, we wouldn’t be staring down the barrel of historic progressive policy rollbacks, cuts to social services that will kill the disabled and elderly, the funnelling of your own money into the pockets of billionaires on a scale never before imagined, the systematic dismantling of democracy, and the institution of a theocracy.

If you are one of those who couldn’t be bothered for whatever reason, congrats, and you need to sit down and shut the fuck up for the next 4 years or so. You surrendered your right to have your opinion considered when you failed to do the bare minimum to stop a convicted felon, conman, and traitor from gaining power over us all again. We fucking warned you.

e: just saw your other reply. If you were disenfranchised, my comment is not meant for you, and I’m sorry for my vitriol – that’s a travesty, and that should not have happened to you. My comment is meant for the ‘both-siders’ who were (and still are) everywhere leading up to the election.

Johnson also hinted at tying aid to debt ceiling negotiations

Some of us here will be directly affected by Johnson’s debt ceiling concessions. How does it feel to be commoditized like this, to the point of your household becoming a bargaining chip?

You, personally, are worth no more to Johnson &co than the number of services Newsom is willing to cut (and thus how many citizens will be pressed) in order to meet Johnson’s demands.

That’s infuriating, and it flies in the face of humanitarianism. Slaps it right in the face.

e: I can’t spell

I’ve been gaming since the late 1970s, and have never considered any sort of cut off date. I just play what interests me (lately that’s been VR games in various genres).

I can’t imagine ever losing interest in new games or platforms, because there’s always a new experience out there and, for me at least, that’s the point. I can’t play everything, obviously, but I can prioritise my time where I think I’ll have the most fun.

His eyes are too close together and his nose is weirdly scrunched. Not too much, and it wouldn’t be an issue if he weren’t so ridiculously ugly on the inside.

I’ve seen plenty of people who aren’t conventionally attractive and who are beautiful people. But when you’re that ugly on the inside, your outward appearance becomes a symbol of your inward rot. He’s not conventionally attractive, but that’s nothing compared to the evil he brings to every interaction. That’s why he’s ugly.

I gave up on this conversation years ago.

Fine, for the sake of argument, I’m a liberal, because I don’t want to give you 45 extra minutes of my time in this comment section to try and explain the difference when I know you’ll ignore most of what I say anyhow, and derail us from the point I was actually trying to make. If I’m a liberal in your mind, so be it. My point stands.

Also, toddlers make for amazing meat shields. Nobody can deny that. What sort of monster would shoot you in the head when there’s a toddler protecting it? That’s just simple logic.

There’s nothing wrong with relying on one another so long as we can, you know, rely on one another.

That’s the whole point of society and why we’ve been so successful as a species. Division is our only real weakness.

Oh, are we counting treasons again? I guess mid-century modern is actually a thing now. Good, it’s a nice aesthetic. Bell bottoms and protest, fuck yeah.

Maybe this time we can follow through, eh? We’ve seen what happens when we don’t.

I tried out for that, but I couldn’t get the tonguing right. Took up violin, because fingering is just more natural to me.

He was raised by parents who made their money on slave labour in an apartheid state, sooooo…

Again, do you believe in leprechauns? How certain are you that mermaids don’t exist?

How dogmatic are you in your lack of a belief in mermaids? Or fairies? How much are you bending to the will of anti-Tinkerbell propaganda?

Do you hear how insane that sounds?

eta: you said:

Also the organization, dogma, and a sense of hierarchy in regards to authorities on atheism.

What authorities on atheism? What dogma? What organisation? Do you mean the clubs such as this comment section? There’s no central group or organisation. Atheism is the opposite of that. Your answer makes me think you don’t understand atheism at all.

If that’s the case, please ask me anything. I love answering questions. :)

You also said:

the amount of atheists who subscribe to the religion.

I’m not going into the rest of what was obviously wrong in the bits I cut off, but I’ll just stop you right there, lol.

I am a dumbass.

?

Sorry, not following you, I couldn’t actually care less what Richard fucking Dawkins thinks tbh.

How is it any different than claiming with near certainty that leprechauns aren’t real?

I’m nearly 100% certain leprechauns aren’t real. Is my disbelief in leprechauns a religious belief? I similarly don’t believe in the Greek or Roman or Egyptian gods. Is that a religious belief, too?

The Christian god is a positive claim, and my near 100% certainty it’s not real is not a ‘belief’ unless you’re operating from a baseline that assumes it’s true, which is not how anything works. Strong atheism is a strong unwillingness to believe anything for which there isn’t evidence. That’s the opposite of faith – faith being the belief in things without evidence.

Something about doors and arses.

He lost all credibility and relevance when he piled into the bigotry clown car. Atheism doesn’t have saints.

(Copying my comment on a similar, older post, because I really want to share this info again since I think it’s fascinating:)

The notion that the early formation of societies was based on security rather than empathy is outdated. Compassion has many evolutionary advantages, especially in primate species where offspring are born vulnerable. It’s clearly evident in other primates who live in groups (or ‘societies’), as a driving force of cooperation and group cohesion.

Here’s a recent paper (2022) by Penny Spikins, PhD at the University of York, Department of Archaeology, that explores how compassion shaped early human evolution and the formation of societies: The Evolutionary Basis for Human Empathy, Compassion and Generosity.

And here’s another from 2011 by Goetz et al that explores in detail the evolutionary advantages of compassion: Compassion: An Evolutionary Analysis and Empirical Review.

Those papers are both fascinating reads, and I highly recommend them for a deeper understanding of why and how empathy is crucial to our success as a species.

(For a couple of centuries, the narrative has been humans are warlike and that’s what dominated our development, but that’s simply not true. We’ve been that way for the past couple thousand years, but largely not before that. I’ll leave up to the reader what significant ‘development’ coincided with that shift in our overall behaviour.)

I’m so insecure I always buy 2x any sticker I like in case I decide wrong. I have a drawer with backup stickers. I’m being completely serious.

My response isn’t showing because I’m a dipshit: I said:

I’m with you.

I don’t think I meant to delete my comment; I’ve been drinking too.

😊

I’m with you.

I don’t think I meant to delete my comment; I’ve been drinking too.