@ReZero_En While your point is completely valid, we must keep in mind that in that loop, Otto did not know Subaru in any capacity other than as his patron and they were being chased by the White Whale, one of the 3 most deadliest creatures in that world.

@jeffreyatucker In the end, it is all a natural consequence of a very human foible, namely that we all do everything we can to blame anybody or anything else for our problems, if we can get away with it. It's the reason why rulers start wars to squelch domestic dissent - macro and micro the same

The very notion of the germ theory of disease revolves around this and while it is good for selling medical interventions, treatments and pharmaceuticals, it is no good for either personal health, or public health in any way. We need to start looking at health on a holistic level

More of a systems approach to health would get us to see that the whole instinct to stamp out viruses, like the very counter-factual notion of "zero Covid," and other nonsense, are driven by this need to blame somebody or something else for our problems, so we can have our cake

and eat it too, i.e. we can pass the blame to others and go and kill them, be they bugs or other people (lockdowns???). The results are disastrous for health on both a personal and a public level, and we continue on a path of assured self-destruction. But times are changing, now.

Lifestyle Medicine @aclifemed provides the new paradigm, more of a systems approach to health, in which personal responsibility for our habits comes first, starting with nutrition. Immune systems become depressed by fatigue, stress, inner conflict, malnutrition and so on. Change

Nonlawyer Explainer Thread: On Keeping One's Mouth Shut

It occurs to me that certain private-jet-flying seditionists who continue to yammer on Twitter about their DC excursions provide us with the opportunity to do a little hypo to explore the benefits of silence.

So let's explore what a hypothetical law enforcement interview *might* look like in this situation. I'm not - I want to make clear - drawing from experience as a lawyer here.

I AM NOT A CRIMINAL LAW ATTORNEY.

Instead, I'm mostly drawing from discussions with my father-in-law.

My father in law is a now-retired homicide cop, and we've had a lot of discussions (especially since I started law school) about criminals and interviews over the years.

So with that in mind, let's look at this hypo.

ALSO - Simplifying for Twitter character counts.

*Knock*
*Door opens*
Agent: Ms [Name]? I'm Agent Smith, and this is Agent Jones. We're with Agency. We'd like to talk to you if you've got a minute.

Ms X: Oh? Is this about that thing at the Capitol?

[Yes, it seems insane but if you're worried about something specific and the cops show up, blurting out something like that is totally a thing that can happen.]

the strange reality of strict calvinism is that it makes a mockery of God's claims to hate, abhort, or even be theoretically opposed to evil

the calvinist solution to the problem of evil, which I have *literally heard from the lips of a faithful well-catechized Presbyterian* is, "well, all that happens is God's will, and to do His will is to manifest goodness, and goodness gives God joy, so God must rejoice in evil"

The hypothetical I gave was, "Suppose that there was a city of Christians, and a bomber flew over the city, and the guy at the controls tripped and accidentally armed and dropped a bomb, and wiped out the city: is that God's will? What does God think of that?"

His answer in addition to the above cited the Flood, Soddom, and Nineveh.

Because we all know that God's response to the Flood was, "I REALLY liked that, it was AWESOME, it satisfied my will and purposes to obliterate my creation!"

Once you have drunk the "but muh sovrintee" Kool-Aid you cannot escape the argument that literally everything that happens is not just God's will in some philosophical sense, but His will in the sense of "things that bring him pleasure."

Thread: One of the things demons and fallen spirit beings want to do is replicate their torment in your marriage and family. Part of that strategy is to encourage us to treat each other with the same savagery they treat each other, since they have no capacity for love or...

compassion, even for their fellow fallen spirit beings. Even when a demon helps another demon it is only in self interest, never loyalty or love. This is what they hope to do in your family and marriage. Marriage is the foundation of culture. If you can destroy marriage, you can

destroy culture. If they can destroy the relationship between husband and wife, they can destroy the spiritual formation of the children. Demons are keenly aware of the social structure put in place by God and where to launch their attacks against it.

Marriage is properly defined as a solemn contract in which a man and a woman confer bodily rights, among other things, for the sake of procreation. This is strictly a formal theological definition of marriage. Marriage is solemn because it is formalized in public, and witnessed..

by a minister of the church. It is a contract because there is a conferral of bodily and other rights. Now some might ask, isn't marriage a covenant? Yes and no, depending on how you define the word. If we define a covenant as a solemn contract, then yes. In any valid contract,..