It was for a time, back in the 50s & 60s. From what I’ve heard bosses would try and set up their unmarried junior employees with a ‘good match’ too, sometimes.

Assuming we’re discussing the Abrahamic God, He used to be much smaller in scope; in fact, He was the ancient Jewish War God, back when they had a full polytheistic pantheon. So if we’re going back to the original myths, He didn’t really create humans, nor was He all-powerful or all-seeing, or ‘above-it-all’ in general.

(This is back in the days when Gods were more seen as local clan/town sponsors, like how Athena is the patron God of Athens. He was just a tribal patron god, one they prayed to in order to be safe and successful in war.)

Also, back then Gods in general were written as being much closer to humans, in term of emotions and motivations—again, Greek mythology gives a good showing of this, but you can read a lot of ancient myths and see it in play.

As Jehovah became more and more popular (due to all the wars in the region), He started to absorb many of the myths and abilities of the rest of the pantheon, which is why He seems kind of schizophrenic in the older stories. YHWH was actually the head of the pantheon, and as Jehovah supplanted Him as the ancient proto-Jewish tribes moved towards monotheism, the two Gods ended up essentially being merged with each other.

Still, back then, while Gods were seen as powerful, they were still somewhat seen as limited and fallible. In fact even today there is a strong Jewish tradition of questioning God (albeit politely and a bit indirectly so as not to get turned into salt or whatever).

But, as Judaism grew, and split off into Christianity and Islam, God’s followers began tack on more and more powers and abilities to make Him sound cooler (and increase the power of the Church). So that’s where the ‘all-seeing’ and ‘all-powerful’ Great-God-of-Everything business comes from, really.

TL;DR ‘God wasn’t all-powerful and was ‘written’ to have emotions much closer to humans when those creation myths were first being told.

Trans women are women. Therefore they should be allowed to play women’s sports. Seems simple enough. I don’t understand where the problem is.

Race swapping if it goes against, say, the description of a character, irritates me a little—The whitewashing of the main characters of Avatar: the Last Airbender in the live-action movie was pretty immersion-breaking for me.

Uh-huh. Seems you already know your stance is wrong.

Say it, you coward. You’ve already been blowing all the dog-whistles you can find, surely you have the guts to actually say the things you’re thinking.

‘Ultra-woke garbage’ like what, precisely?

In my city the homeless run a newspaper. Good on-the-street reporting and homeless people can also sell the paper to get money.

Anyways, got to talking to a paper-seller. His story was rough; had a job, a house… and then a major medical event that took his house and all of his savings away in bills. His job fired him for ‘poor attendance’. At least the people at the paper were helping him get back on his feet.

Bought his last few papers so he could go home, but figured he was probably cold and hungry after standing around all day, so I bought him dinner and some new warm socks too.

Hope that guy is doing all right.

Thankfully, Pony, now 21, was rescued by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, and now lives at one of their rehabilitation centres.

I take solace in the fact that she was rescued and is now living a safe, happy life.

Yes, yes, we should totally be understanding of the people who want to see my cousin dead and my uncle run out of the country.

/s because there are sadly a lot of people who legitimately think this way

Dude… these guys go there because us western women are ‘too woke’, ‘too feminist’, ‘don’t understand traditional gender roles’ (i.e. we refuse to be a housebound sex slave) etc, etc.

They’re told that women in X country (Mexico, Japan, and Thailand are the usual culprits listed) are submissive, traditional, uneducated, and you can just buy one, instead of, you know, actually working at building a relationship.

They don’t bother to learn the culture. They don’t bother to even learn the language. They believe that, because they’re white, all they have to do is show up and wave money around and every woman will fall all over their epic alpha maleness.

These guys are just gross.

Be great for getting things off the top shelf ;)

I would imagine (if they’re savvy, and the people running Project 2025 definitely are) they’d be more likely to keep him around as long as he was a useful distraction, then have him assassinated at a key point, and blame a liberal.

That would not only get him out of the way so the real work could begin, it would do double-duty of riling up his murderous base and giving them a ‘legitimate’ excuse to start sending the military after blue states and political rivals.

Isn’t just the aging ones sadly. Lots of young people, especially young men, went for Trump. Andrew Tate has taught them well.

More damning? I would think trying to overthrow the government and trying to install himself as a dictator would be just as bad.

I’d say yes… except he does it to smart and digital watches too.

My snake likes to wrap around and ‘strangle’ watches. Not bracelets, just watches.

Like others here, I was drawn to anime and manga for the varied storylines that had arcs that mattered, and an ending, and then stopped. And wrote something totally new.

Whereas comics would reboot the same story, and reboot it, and reboot it… Or they’d have a big arc that dramatically changed things… and two issues later suddenly its status quo all over again.

All of this made it hard to really get invested in their characters or stories. Why even do a story if you’re going to erase it all in the next storyline? Why care if so-and-so died if they’ll just be back in next week’s issue?

The other reason was strong female protagonists that weren’t all sexualized to the wazoo. In western comics it was all tight spandex and butt-boob shots and shots framed by women’s thighs… and most of the non-super women were just plot points to be stuffed in a fridge.

Meanwhile there were piles of strong, well-rounded, independent women of all different ages in manga and anime. Even the sexy women were developed characters first and sexy second. With western comics it definitely felt the other way around.

I grew up on Magic Knight Rayearth and Slayers and Iria and Cowboy Bebop. Watching those was like a breath of fresh air compared to Batman Reboot #242 or whatever.

And I really liked the varied art styles. Western comics were pretty much all of a muchness, the same style or close to it. Manga, meanwhile, had everything from Clamp’s super-detailed art to Dragonball’s more simplistic style. It gave them a much more unique feel.

The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want?

And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero.

The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.

I don’t want to do that. Right now, without any god, I don’t want to jump across this table and strangle you. I have no desire to strangle you. I have no desire to flip you over and rape you.

-Penn Jillette

If you’re into cooking, history, or both, Tasting History with Max Miller is great. Lots of wonderful history, from the common to the obscure. He works hard to find primary sources for every story he shares, as well as calling out fake stories. He also corrects himself when he gets something wrong. And the recipes are fascinating!

Been getting into Bonsai Mirai lately. Very educational, in-depth videos about how to do Bonsai, with tips for everyone from a beginner to an expert. Also very relaxing to watch.

I first saw it as ‘coop’ and immediately thought, ‘hell yes, I’d support a community-owned coop, but only if there were lots of fluffy chickens and a 24/7 camera on them’.

Then I realized what you really meant. Which I’m also not opposed to, if it was set up well.

This, basically