Sorry if this is too controversial or scientific for ELI5 , but I am a little bit overwhelmed after reading this article last night.

THIRTY YEARS OF RESEARCH ON RACE DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE ABILITY, authored by A. Jenson and J. Rushton

Anyone care to break this subject down for me, ELI5 style?

I had a pretty serious discussion with the spouse about this one last night, and I am not sure if I feel comfortable with the conclusions.

P.S.

As a Science Education B.S., I understand that theories and paradigms can shift. Also, I understand that you don't "prove" a theory as being correct, but that you use theories to describe observable phenomena. These theories can be used as the best description of how an observable process comes about. However, when a new theory comes along that better explains the data, scientists would be able to adopt it. This is called a paradigm shift.

Anthropomorphism is 'ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human' (dictionary.com). So what is the word that means to ascribe non-human beings' forms or traits to a human?

Edit: Thanks to Werewolfdad, NowNowGuys, and Pr0phet

As a Brit, I know that we hold many stereotypes, particularly about Americans, and I have rarely found any of them to be correct. I wonder what it's like the other way around.

Someone asked a question at r/AskHistorians about Justin Martyr's claim that skeptics could just look at records of the census (from the Gospel of Luke)

The top comment (currently a little under 430 upvotes as of this writing) over there really bothers me, and I am going to explain why.

OK the commenter notes that Jesus was probably born in Nazareth and not Bethlehem, which I agree with.

Then things start to go off the rails.

He says,

>There is another Problem, and that is that it is far from proven that the Bethlehem that is attested for the centuries after Christ is indeed the Bethlehem mentioned in the old Testament (which is also attested in the Amarna letters). There is a fair chance that that what is today Bethlehem was only ascribed as such during the period in which also Justin Martyr writes (first half and middle of the second Century).

Wait, so people in the 2nd century just decided "yeah this town is Bethlehem"? What? Why?

>On a side note, if the Marcion hypothesis holds true it would make the author of the Gospel of Luke and Justin Marty roughly contemporary

The problem with this is that GLuke cannot be contemporary with Justin Martyr, because Justin uses a Gospel harmony that already includes Luke, as our best contributor at r/AcademicBiblical, zanillamilla points out^(1)

>For one thing, the gospel cannot be contemporary with Justin Martyr because the latter is dependent on a gospel harmony of the synoptics that is possibly ancestral to the one completed by his student Tatian, see (sexual harrasser) Helmut Koester's and William L. Peterson's chapters in Ancient Christian Gospels (SCM Press, 1990), pp. 360-430. So Luke is earlier than the harmony that Justin was dependent on.

The late scholar Larry Hurtado also thought Justin used a Gospel harmony that included Luke^(2):

>Second, if we examine Justin’s references to these “memoirs of the apostles,” he often quotes from them, and what he quotes is recognizable, most often from the Gospel of Matthew, but also sometimes from Luke and (less obviously) the other familiar Gospels. Indeed, these references include narrative material, including references to the narratives of Jesus’ trial, crucifixion and resurrection (e.g., Dialogue with Trypho 101:3; 102:3; 103:6; 104:1; 105:1, 5-6; 106:1, 3, 4; 107:1). So, we’re not dealing with something like a s

It's fine to be religious, but for fucks sake astrology, crystals, manifesting, aliens, rituals to contact supernatural beings will NOT fix PTSD. You won't believe how many people tell me it can...

Side note, mods be aware that there are recruiters for alternative faiths on here trying to take advantage of desperate people. It's not any better than when Christians tell suffering people to find Jesus...

I know it can be tempting to ascribe supernatural characteristics to things in order to cope, but magic isn't real. There aren't aliens, angles, and energies waiting to heal you.

It's okay to be desperate. I'm desperate. We're all desperate. It's okay to believe in alternative religion, but don't mistake it as the way people need to heal. Even if that stuff helps you cope, it's at the cost of seeing things for what they are.

Fuck I can't believe I'm legitimate have to say magic isn't real and can't solve ptsd. Fuck it.

> u/adamschaub: To that end the more productive discussion would be: what do you find objectionable in bell hooks' writing?

Let me try.

> Males as a group have and do benefit the most from patriarchy, from the assumption that they are superior to females and should rule over us.

From anecdotal evidence, it appears to be true that men are more readily perceived as 'leaders', in the same way women are more readily perceived as 'primary caretakers'. On the other hand, the latest research from the U.S. contradicts the view that women are still perceived as less competent leaders (and to some extent even suggests the opposite):

In the Pew Research article WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP 2018 — 2. Views on leadership traits and competencies and how they intersect with genders (Horowitz et al., 2018), the authors show that "majority of adults say male and female leaders have different leadership styles, relatively few think one gender has a better overall approach than the other" even though "those who do see a difference between male and female leaders across a range of leadership traits and behaviors perceive women to be stronger in most areas, both in politics and business". Specifically, "[f]emale leaders seen as more compassionate, empathetic than men" and "[i]n politics, women are much more likely than men to be viewed as better role models; in business more see them as better able to create a safe and respectful workplace".

The research article Stereotypes have changed over time and now more people think women are superior to men than the other way around. (Eagly et al., 2019) is a meta-analysis of 16 national U.S. opinion polls on gender stereotypes (N = 30,093 adults) extending from 1946 to 2018. Traits measured were communion (e.g., affectionate, emotional), agency (e.g., ambitious, courageous), and competence (e.g., intelligent, creative). Respondents indicated whether each trait is more true of women or men, or equally true of both. The authors found that "respondents now ascribe competence in general and intelligence more often to women than men, regardless of college education and birth cohort". Women were also thought of as more communal. The only trait in which men were perceived to be higher than women was agency. "**Contemporary gender st

There has been a lot of talk about which characters have been adapted better or worse on the series. It's very human to try to order and organise them, ranking their faithfulness to the book versions. Naturally, since gender dynamics are an important aspect of both the books and the show, this approach has led many people down the path of arguing whether the women or the men of Wheel of Time, as a group, get out ahead in the characterisation race.

While I certainly understand this line of thinking, I think it prompts unproductive arguments that inevitably pull in real world issues; more importantly in the context of evaluating the show's merits as an adaptation of Jordan's writing, it hides the overall poor writing and editing of the show. The writing on the show is bad on its own merits, and it fails uniformly as an adaptation of the book characters.

I feel like the men had enough written about their issues by others to the point where I don't think I have much to contribute, so I'll I try to explain how the women have been changed as well. Let's not get tricked by a big CGI AoE Healing explosion into believing that show!Nynave is somehow faithful to the novel, or that giving her a big moment substitutes for quality writing.

I'll start with Moiraine. First, let's see how the books introduce her.

The Eye of the World, chapter 2, Moiraine is first described to Rand and the readers by an NPC.

>“She asked the Wisdom for directions this morning,” Ewin said, “and called her ‘child.’ ” Rand and Mat both whistled softly through their teeth, and Ewin tripped over his tongue in his haste to explain. “The Lady Moiraine didn’t know she was the Wisdom. She apologized when she found out. She did. And asked some questions about herbs, and about who is who around Emond’s Field, just as respectfully as any woman in the village — more so than some. She’s always asking questions, about how old people are, and how long they’ve lived where they live, and... oh, I don’t know what all. Anyway, Nynaeve answered like she’d bitten a green sweetberry. Then, when the Lady Moiraine walked away, Nynaeve stared after her like, like... well, it wasn’t friendly, I can tell you that.”

She immediately comes across as reasonable and polite. While on a first reading we can't know this, "child" is a common term of address Aes Sedai use in the setting, and doesn't quite carry the same insult as it would in contemporary real life. Nevertheless, Moiraine apologises, and acts more

I was rewatching the Ireland Trip and got to the scene where Kelly says, “Usually people of Jewish descent are sarcastic, funny, and they get jokes.” To which Heather replies, “Meaning I’m not, even though I am of Jewish descent? I’m not funny or getting jokes”. At which point, Kelly proceeds to ascribe several more personality traits to Jewish people: “They this” and “they that.” When Heather finally snaps (in her own muted way) and says, “you need to stop saying they you’re being racist, Kelly responds with “I’m not being racist! I’m Mexican.” No one said anything; I mean, crickets. Heather was the only one to call out her racist commentary, and when Kelly tried to claim she wasn’t, everyone just let it go, and they moved on to a different fight. Why did no one back up Heather and shut down Kelly’s ludicrous reasoning?? I mean, she was literally talking about a group of people the way I would describe the behavioral characteristics of a horse’s bloodline.

I see so many posts from people talking about themselves or their partners "realizing they're poly" and having a "coming out" about it, usually while in the middle of a long term monogamous relationship. And as a queer and trans person (who is myself polyamorous, currently in a triadic platonic relationship), I find it wonderful and uplifting!

Polyamory is a relationship style, an umbrella of innate characteristics and lived experiences that we partake in, regarding relationship boundaries and dynamics. For some people, it's the ideal dynamic for their particular emotional needs, and may constitute a significant improvement in their love lives, and that's great!

And yes, it can be a challenge to break away from old habits learned through years of monogamous relationships and cultural messaging, and people around you may judge you for doing so.

(And here I will deviate from script. Thank you, u/ComradeBlyat308 .)

This is called amatonormativity. Amatonormativity is the collective word for every way in which our culture expects us to behave with regards to love and romance. It includes:

• The relationship escalator.
• Viewing platonic relationships as lesser.
• Sexist attitudes towards division of labor in the home.
• Weird stereotypes of same-sex relationships.
• The expectation of monogamy.
• Cheating culture.
• The disparaging attitudes against asexuals and aromantics.
• And so on, and so on.

Amatonormativity is the sibling of heteronormativity, cisnormativity, and good old-fashioned sexism.

And as a queer and transgender person, I appreciate anyone and everyone helping chip away at that horrible amalgamation of bad ideas. The whole reason for "coming out" is to create visibility. Our inner worlds are not visible to the outside world, except when we actively show it.

"I am transgender." "I am gay." "I am polyamorous."

Polyamorous folk are closeted! Many of us live in denial, in ignorance, or worse, in mute fear that we will face consequences if it gets out that we are what we are.

Is polyamory inherent? WHO THE FUCK CARES! The Rainbow Umbrella shelters all those who experience oppression and negative cultural attitudes because of what they express themselves as and how they love. Do gay, be crime.

Transvestites wear different clothes than they're supposed to. They could in theory not do that, according to u/ComradeBlyat308 , that's just as much an "activity one can refrain from" but to that I must paraphrase the greatest transvestite

Been thinking I'd post this but then thinking maybe I should put together a few more links and then going back and forth on this. I have a decent collection of papers on this subject.

But I'm lazy and I'm mostly posting this because I do agree with Rem that sources are vital. I don't dislike MrGirl's approach exactly because he is getting people to talk about this topic but I really do wish he or Book or Destiny or any of them had a source for anything they said about pedophilia or pedophiles. It's not hard, there's a lot of free stuff out there.

But I think these two papers are good introductions to give Dggers a firmer foundation for all the discourse going on right now. For ease, I have some quotes on the more interesting and important stuff.

Understanding & Challenging Stigma Associated with Sexual Interest in Children

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348580548_Understanding_and_Challenging_Stigma_Associated_With_Sexual_Interest_in_Children_A_Systematic_Review

>Stigma is commonly defined as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting” that acts to reduce an individual “from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one” (Goffman, 1963, p. 265). Stigma can manifest in cognitive, affective, and behavioral ways (Corrigan et al., 2012; Jahnke, Phillip, et al., 2015). Regarding sexual interest in children, stigmatization manifests in stereotyping, emotional responses (such as disgust, fear, and anger), and various discriminatory behaviors (such as social distancing and supporting imprisonment as form of prevention; Harper et al., 2018). This review considers two variations of stigma: (1) public stigma, in which members of the general public sanction negative attitudes and discrimination against persons who are different and thus devalued (Vogel et al., 2013), and (2) internalized or self-stigma, which refers to the internalization of negative societal attitudes. The latter involves three phases: having an awareness of the stereotype and agreeing with the stereotype and self-application (Corrigan et al., 2009).
>
>The Jahnke and Hoyer (2013) review included quantitative empirical studies published in English, German or French. Of the 11 studies fitting their inclusion criteria, eight focused on “lay theories, stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination agains

Recap of Part 1

FVC means "field-vectored craft," i.e., UFO(s).

We learned in Part 1:

• While landed on the ground, even smaller FVC are massive, i.e., have considerable mass around 30 tons (27,000 kgs).
• FVC are about as dense as a submarine and several times denser than aircraft, having around 96 percent the density of water.
• FVC are hard, solid, physical objects similar to metal.
• We have observed FVC at velocities of 5,000 to 9,000 mph (8,000 to 14,500 kph), with straight line and angular accelerations in the region of 100 times the acceleration of gravity. Although the accelerations are large for the size of the craft, human technology from the 1950s packaged electronics into smaller projectiles capable of withstanding 7,000 to 9,000 gs.
• The reason some craft appear as orbs of different colors is because the craft's propulsion system creates ionized and excited air molecules, namely a "plasma." Larger craft that use the most energy have a blue or ultraviolet plasma, while smaller craft that use less energy appear as red, orange, yellow, or green. The luminosity of a craft will increase as it puts out more power for high acceleration maneouvers. The plasma surrounding a craft often obscures an observer's ability to see the craft itself behind the plasma.
• The observed accelerations and velocities can be achieved with a high thrust-to-mass ratio. There is no need to presume FVC use exotic technology to reduce the mass of the craft while in flight. In general, all of the observables can be explained by established physics without resorting to speculative hypotheses. Finally, acceleration is not instantaneous but rather takes a non-zero amount of time, although the craft's swiftness may appear instantaneous to the naked eye.

Section IV: Radiation from FVC in the X-ray or Gamma Range

Date: January 30, 1973

Location: Lexington, Alabama

Witnesses: Bill Rogers, APRO Field investigator, and two other unnamed individuals.

Description: Rogers went to Lexington to investigate reports of FVC in the area, which began a month prior on December 27, 1972. Rogers, along with two other members of the investigation team, observed a yellowish-orange-white light moving slowly above tree-top level.

>After about a minute, the object moved up about 40 feet, and they could see that it had a shape between a sphere and an egg (ellipsoidal). It then descended

Introduction:

The Star Wars prequels are rather maligned in certain segments of the internet. It is true that some may argue that they were lacking in many important elements, indeed Roger Ebert described the dialogue in his review of Revenge of the Sith as such:

> “The dialogue throughout the movie is once again its weakest point: The character talk in what sounds like Basic English, without color, with or verbal delight, as if they were channeling Berlitz … In many cases the actors are being filmed in front of blue screens, with effects to be added later, and sometimes their readings are so flat, they don't seem to believe they're really in the middle of amazing events. How can you stand in front of exploding star fleets and sound as if you're talking on a cell phone at Starbucks?” (Ebert).

Yet, while it has its flaws as a follow up to the critically acclaimed and beloved original trilogy (and I must confess I personally adore the dialogue of the prequels.) One cannot deny that with his second trilogy George Lucas was attempting something far more ambitious than that of his first. The attempt to tell a grandiose story, filled with how it so happens that a grand and long-standing government can fall? How is it that we went from a millennia long-standing Republic to the Evil Empire that we see in the original movies? And how did the man whom Obi-Wan spoke so highly about becoming the ruthless machine that was Darth Vader?

While it can be said that Lucas took ultimate inspiration from many places, the likes of Kurosawa and old science fiction serials like Buck Rogers come to mind., in his quest to tell the beginning of his story perhaps the greatest influence may have come from the Bard himself.

Shakespeare himself was no stranger to tragedies, his most famous works often involve tragedy. And if one were to look for influence between Lucas’ darkest film “Revenge of the Sith,” one can see the elements arise from, perhaps the darkest, Shakespeare tragedy of another fallen hero, The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice. Beyond mere parallels of the story, there are hints of the larger themes here being present. The ideas of greed, jealousy, and corruption.

Parallels with characters:

The parallels are quick to be studied by most who’ve read the play and seen the film. Both are tragedies of great men being lost, involve an innocent woman being killed (directly or indirectly) by the man she loves, and a corrupting influence pulling the string

>That money is a commodity is therefore a new discovery only for those who, when they analyse it, start from its fully developed shape. The act of exchange gives to the commodity converted into money, not its value, but its specific value-form. By confounding these two distinct things some writers have been led to hold that the value of gold and silver is imaginary.10 The fact that money can, in certain functions, be replaced by mere symbols of itself, gave rise to that other mistaken notion, that it is itself a mere symbol. Nevertheless under this error lurked a presentiment that the money-form of an object is not an inseparable part of that object, but is simply the form under which certain social relations manifest themselves. In this sense every commodity is a symbol, since, in so far as it is value, it is only the material envelope of the human labour spent upon it.11 But if it be declared that the social characters assumed by objects, or the material forms assumed by the social qualities of labour under the régime of a definite mode of production, are mere symbols, it is in the same breath also declared that these characteristics are arbitrary fictions sanctioned by the so-called universal consent of mankind. This suited the mode of explanation in favour during the 18th century. Unable to account for the origin of the puzzling forms assumed by social relations between man and man, people sought to denude them of their strange appearance by ascribing to them a conventional origin.

Chapter 2 Vol 1

So last Saturday, a few of us from /r/AcademicBiblical met up on Discord for a little casual chat and hang. Everyone was a genuine delight to talk to.

To give the meetup some structure, we had picked an article to read beforehand, as a bit of a bouncing-off point for the convo. This week the topic was the famously disputed 1 Corinthians 14.34–35, exhorting women to total silence in the churches/assemblies; and the article was Kirk MacGregor's "1 Corinthians 14:33b-38 as a Pauline Quotation-Refutation Device."

This post is both an extremely comprehensive overview of the text and scholarship on it. It also offers a number of new thoughts and interpretations, and gets pretty deeply into a bunch of other issues that we weren't able to touch on in time during the meetup.

Here's how NRSV translates these verses and the surrounding ones:

>29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to someone else sitting nearby, let the first person be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged. 32 And the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets, 33 for God is a God not of disorder but of peace. (As in all the churches of the saints, 34 women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. 36 Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only ones it has reached?) 37 Anyone who claims to be a prophet, or to have spiritual powers, must acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. 38 Anyone who does not recognize this is not to be recognized

If anyone's previously familiar with these verses and scholarship on them at all, they'll know that 1 Corinthians 14.34–35 is widely thought to be highly intrusive in its context, and many scholars have proposed this as the clearest instance of a post-Pauline interpolation that we have in the Pauline epistles. Interestingly, though, recognition of an anomaly here, and even its spuriousness, isn't modern at all, but goes back to the early church.

In one of those rare instances where we have information about the original scribes who copied an

Shave culture is one of many modes of control.

There are several “markers” that enable JWs to identify how closely a person adheres to WT policies and groupthink. We were conditioned to ascribe unrelated characteristics to people based on those markers.

Here are some arbitrary assumptions JWs make in the absence of any other evidence:

Unshaven face - unruly mind

Wrinkled shirt - disrespectful

Trendy hairstyles / clothing - love of unscriptural things

“Revealing” dresses / bright makeup - immodesty

(of women) Correcting a man - failure to submit to the arrangement of headship

Meeting absence / tardiness - weak faith

College education - improper priorities

Profanity - loose morals

Self-love - lack of love for Jah (GB)

Critical thinking - spirit of rebellion

Independent thinking - lack of trust in Jah (GB)

Questions - unfair / unfounded criticism

Belief in evolution - disbelief in ANYTHING spiritual whatsoever

Meditation / mindfulness - Satan. Pure Satan.

Anxiety / Depression - you must be doing something wrong or not enough (be it prayer, personal study or ‘attitude’)

Deciding to leave their bonkers religion behind - selfish desire to do whatever you want / satanic contempt for true family, friends and worship

My Question: is your religion the only thing keeping you from doing terrible things all the time?

If that is the case, they should stay exactly where they are - the world doesn’t need more morally bereft people that are incapable of determining what is good and bad based on experience.

Morality, logic, and reason are treasures of consciousness that are too important for me to outsource.

Having true compassion and reasoning skills will lead many to TTATT.

Edit: Fellow woke-folk shared examples that were specific to women.

Each type disowns certain qualities which seem to contradict the ego’s ideal image of itself. Since these qualities are not integrated within oneself, a schism appears within the personality. In order for the ego to maintain a coherent image of itself, it denies and represses the qualities which it cannot accept in itself and then projects it onto others.

Once projected, the person is free to deal with the rejected qualities without having to take them personally. It does this by criticizing others instead. The negative traits which you ascribe to others serve as an indirect means for working through these unresolved contradictions within yourself. Each person will project different negative traits onto others depending on what your type is. It does not necessarily have anything to do with the person being projected on, but rather, the person who is doing the projecting - everyone is projecting all the time. You do not see others for who they are. You see only what you project onto them, whether they are positive or negative qualities. The positive characteristics that you ascribe to others are simply the characteristics that you would like to ascribe to yourself.

By noticing what the negative traits are that you project onto others you can begin to accept and integrate these characteristics within yourself. The following is a small list of examples of characteristics that each type finds difficult to reconcile within themselves and therefore denies and projects onto others.

Ones

Slack, messy, disorganized, filthy, derelict, lazy, uncivilized, fickle, complacent, unstructured, disorderly, unscrupulous, dishonest, improper, inappropriate, immoral, evil, corrupt, undisciplined, irresponsible

Twos

Unkind, inconsiderate, unloving, mean, abusive, unhelpful, selfish, greedy, using, self-serving, discriminative, exclusive, rejecting, uninviting, uncaring, cold, harsh, stingy, heartless, detached, cruel, tough

Threes

Inefficient, unproductive, slow, ineffective, aimless, tardy, lazy, unorganized, unremarkable, unimpressive, unpopular, loser, failure, diffident, timid, indecisive, unattractive, lame, geeky, outmoded

Fours

Dull, bland, unimaginative, obtuse, crude, ordinary, unoriginal, predictable, boring, utilitarian, mundane, common, pedestrian, shallow, inauthentic, phoney, fake, passionless, tasteless, insincere, mediocre

Fives

Loud, garrulous, demanding, hot, passionate, foolish, silly, biased, uninform

1.

In my opinion, one can interpret Mainländer either naturalistically and in a certain sense agnostically with regard to the lost transcendental Simple Unity or more theologically, as I have done here several times. The as-if way of speaking favors the possible dual aspect of Mainländer's philosophy. And Mainländer himself sometimes speaks very religiously and sometimes scientifically very soberly, which can lead to irritations for the reader. Religious and metaphysical views would not be true in an objective sense, since this cannot be determined. Instead, the question is whether it is useful to act or speak "as if" they are true. I think that if schools were to come to Mainländer's philosophy, there would be two camps, the more "naturalistic" and the more "theological" inclined ones.

2.

Here is an article, which contains well a standard reaction to Mainlander's philosophy, already starting with the title: (newswep a-delusional-philosophical-fantasy-la-nacion)

"A delusional philosophical fantasy"

"The reading of The philosophy of redemption, now published in full by the Fondo de Cultura Económica in an edition prepared by Sandra Baquedano Jer, is uncomfortable. There are lines whose sick imagination causes astonishment; there is almost no page that does not provoke repulsion."

"Mainländer’s metaphysics, the one on which Borges paused so much, is a meticulously reasoned delusion."

"Mainländer wanted to be a poet, and it was in the few verses he wrote; but, convinced that philosophy went further, he was still more of a poet in The philosophy of redemption. The fiction of the philosopher is more fearsome than that of the poet. He (the poet?) Invented a philosophical fiction, and ended up believing in his own invention. The fantasy was so demanding that it could only be fulfilled with the noose around your neck."

The article is, of course, not philosophically well-informed, for example, about Mainländer's arguments, the correspondence of his philosophy to modern cosmology; and probably the article also proceeds from the misunderstanding that Mainländer allegedly recommends suicide to others.

But the reception of Mainländer will probably always provoke such reactions. It is at least interesting to note that Mainländer was always a poet, even during his philosophizing, and the main business of poets is, after all, the production of fictions. I think Mainländer's philosophy was once called mythopoetry. However, I think he also has a

As of 14 months ago, I no longer believe in the truth claims and worldview promoted by the LDS church. The following is a brief summary of the arguments in my research that I've found to be most convincing and influential in my loss of faith. I've split the arguments into four main sections that address (A) general religious belief, (B) general Christianity, (C) early Mormonism, and (D) modern Mormonism.

Please push back if any of these are weak, insufficient, poorly formed, or otherwise wanting arguments. I'm also happy to provide citations and/or research resources where applicable. These are all topics that I believe warrant further research for any individual analyzing their faith.

Happy reading!

____________________________________________

A. Religious belief appears to be a natural byproduct of evolutionary processes.

1. Religious belief unites groups via shared tenets and prohibits the group members from questioning those tenets. (Religious belief ‘binds and blinds.’)
2. Requiring group members to behave and think differently than surrounding populations (e.g., via dietary restrictions, work restrictions, speaking patterns, religious rites, etc.) strengthens the in-group mentality and places a barrier between the in-group and the out-group.
3. Our brains are pre-wired for finding patterns, trusting the words of our elders, confirming our own biases and beliefs, ascribing natural events to the workings of an external agent, etc.
4. We dislike having our core beliefs challenged, and we are pre-wired to engage in motivated reasoning and belief perseverance in protecting our emotional biases. Our brains reward us when we resolve the cognitive dissonance of having our beliefs challenged.
5. Religious belief provides groups with pre-made moral frameworks, purpose in life, relief from existential dread, and supposed knowledge of how things ‘really are.’
6. Feelings of peace, expansion, inner warmth, and exhilaration are physiologic and have been reported in a wide variety of scenarios; e.g., in many religions, meditative practices, group activities (secular and religious), psychoactive substance usage, experiences with nature, etc. Religious activities often use practices that stimulate these physiologic responses; e.g., chanting, singing, public speaking, abstaining from food and/or water, meditating, reflecting on others’ suffering, contemplating nature, etc.
7. The human subconscious funct

God the Father, one of the three persons of God as understood by Christians and as described in the Bible, must be Trans by the following logic:
Definitions:

Trans; A person whose identity and gender does not correspond to their biological sex.

God: the omnipotent, eternal being who created everything and is considered the Father to believers. God is good and can do no evil.

Throughout the Bible, an omnipotent God is described as a Father figure; traditional translations of the Bible refer to God with masculine pronouns.

Question 1: Does God have (functional) male genitals like those we find in animals?

Answer: No, God must not have functional male genitals, because if God did, that would imply he could reproduce sexually, and by extension was created sexually, eliminating the omnipotence and eternal existence of God. God's spirit is described as having come to Mary, resulting in a virgin pregnancy -- this further suggests God does not have functioning male genitals.

Question 2: If God does not have functional male genitals, in what way is God male?

Answer: God possesses the characteristics traditionally ascribed to a male person: His relationship to believers is as a Father, he is wrathful, powerful, and judgmental. God is described with male pronouns.

Since God is identified as male but is not biologically male, he is trans. Since God can do no evil, being trans cannot be a sin, in fact, because it's something God does, it must be good! Trans men are closer to God than any other type of person.

So why do Christians hate them so much?

Let's talk about determinism for a second. Specifically metaphysical determinism. The notion that any- every event, and the outcomes of those events, are all directly determined by preceding events. Cause-and-effect, at an immeasurably grand universal scale. It's fascinating to wonder about.

It’s also horrifying.

Horrifying because if it's true, if everything is all occurring within a rigid box, within a defined paradigm, then that would mean that we have no free will. It would mean that none of our decisions are really ours. It would mean that every word we say, every action we take, and every emotion we feel are just...artificial. It would mean that humans are victims of a species-wide and staggeringly profound act of delusion.

It would mean that there's nothing special about us, and our intelligence is a farce.

Like I said, it's horrifying.

I’m a physics major...or at least I was, and will be again if I can ever get home…My point is, I tend to believe in scientific explanations for things, and science says determinism is total bullshit. To be precise, quantum mechanics says that.

Good news for science loving free-will advocates everywhere! Right? One point for Max Planck; zilch for Democritus.

Here’s the catch. Because of course there's a catch.

Quantum mechanics certainly repudiates determinism, but don’t be fooled, this is not an endorsement of free-will. It's actually perhaps the most convincing argument against free will. The idea is this: Everything- and I mean absolutely everything- has ascribed probabilities. Every choice and consequence, every possibility and outcome, every action and reaction, all of it. It all happens according to the branch of mathematics known as probabilities.

Consider the implications of this, for our lives to be nothing other than the results of long and drawn out equations. What it would mean for math to be the single governing power behind all of our so-called “free will.”

Measurable, numerical, logical, impartial, stubborn, rule-following, old-fashioned, cut and dry fucking math.

Free-will implies personal choice, real and authentic choice. How can something as unalloyed as a genuine decision ever be made if there's nothing but an indifferent mathematical process driving it?

I feel like I know the answer, but I can’t see it. Can’t quite grasp it from my mind.

You know when you spend hours and hours studying for an exam, and you do dozens of practice problems until you get the whole fo

"No, Anarcho-Capitalists still aren't Anarchists: Part I" Transcript (Part I)

For those who have neither the interest nor the time, this is the condensed essence of the debunk. Springtime of Nations tries to claim the likes of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker to be “anarcho”-capitalists despite their firm objections to capitalism. This is done using fringe quotes from the two and a more or less deliberate ignorance of the substantial bulk of their arguments.

P.S.--This opening is not included in the present video mainly because it is extremely uncharitable to Springtime of Nations (although I do think they deserve it). SoN doesn't directly say that Proudhon and the like are Capitalists. What he does is to strike down any argument otherwise, and say things like "they were close to but not perfectly like AnCaps" and "Proudhon was basically like Molinari minus interest" (not verbatim). He also says things like "their positions are the same, but our predictions aren't!" and acting like calling Proudhon a "libertarian socialist" was a something that needed to be clarified... like the whole video was meant to tell people that they were more or less Capitalists, huh? It certainly feels that way. The catalyst for me making the video was the hoards of AnCaps that would say Proudhon was "on their side" or was "one of them" and citing this exact video! So it seems it isn't just me who got that impression. No wonder the thumbnail says "How the Communists stole our name" and includes Proudhon with Rothbard, as if they are on the same side... BUT, I do respect them saying explicitly that he wasn't, so I think I shouldn't be too uncharitable and misrepresent their position (even if it is the position that the video supports given its arguments are sound).

Start of the modern cut of the video

One of the increasingly bold attempts by “Anarcho”-Capitalists to inject themselves within the scope of Anarchism is to conflate their ideology as natural successors to Mutualists, Boston Anarchists, and other Individualist variants. Ironically, the attempt to do so has in fact proven otherwise, since the revisionist claims spewed by these right-libertarians are only further ammunition to prove that they have no place in the Anarchistic perspective, and that “Anarcho”-Capitalism, is simply another Archism.

This is in response to a video by Springtime of Nations that is propagated in many Right-Libertarian spaces. As Anarcho-Capitalists start to misuse famous

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

The process of elimination argument for moral realism:

Premise 1. Moral realism is one of four logically exhaustive alternatives. Either at least some moral claims refer to a property or nothing does, and either the property depends on observers or it does not.

Premise 2. The logically exhaustive alternatives to moral realism are false. At least some moral claims refer to a property, and the property does not depend on observers.

Conclusion 3. Therefore, moral realism is true.

Premise 1 is trivially obvious. If we say moral statements don’t purport to refer to a property at all, then we have ethical non-cognitivism (NC). If we say moral statements purport to refer to a property, but nothing has that property, then we have nihilism. If we say moral statements purport to refer to a property, some things have that property, but the property depends on observers, then we have subjectivism. Finally, if we say moral statements purport to refer to a property, some things have that property, and that property doesn’t depend on observers, then we have moral realism. Those are all of the possibilities.

I recommend breaking the question up into its discrete stages and evaluating each claim on its own in order to decide on your meta theory of morals. That is, first try to decide whether you think moral statements refer to something, then try to determine whether anything has the property in question, then whether it is observer-dependent.

Ethical Non-Cognitivism

i. Ethical statements do not purport to refer to a property/attribute/characteristic. Ethical statements are neither true nor false. Eg., to say "Murder is wrong" is really to say "boo murder" or "ewe! Murder!" (Ethical Non-cognitivism)

The Problem With Non-Cognitivism:

Pleasure is good.

How should we understand that statement? The most straightforward answer is the cognitivist one. Ethical cognitivism is the view that evaluative statements like 'Pleasure is good' assert propositions, which can be either true or false, just like the statements 'The sky is red' and 'Weasels are mammals.' Given this, the most straightforward account of what the word 'good' is doing in the sentence is this: there is a property, goodness, which the word refers to, and the sentence ascribes that property to pleasure.

Non-cognitivists deny that 'good' denotes a property, and they deny that 'Pleasure is good' asserts anything in the way that 'Weasels are mammals' does. It is thus up to them to give us

Alot of great jokes get posted here! However just because you have a joke, doesn't mean it's a dad joke.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT NSFW, THIS IS ABOUT LONG JOKES, BLONDE JOKES, SEXUAL JOKES, KNOCK KNOCK JOKES, POLITICAL JOKES, ETC BEING POSTED IN A DAD JOKE SUB

Try telling these sexual jokes that get posted here, to your kid and see how your spouse likes it.. if that goes well, Try telling one of your friends kid about your sex life being like Coca cola, first it was normal, than light and now zero , and see if the parents are OK with you telling their kid the "dad joke"

I'm not even referencing the NSFW, I'm saying Dad jokes are corny, and sometimes painful, not sexual

So check out r/jokes for all types of jokes

r/unclejokes for dirty jokes

r/3amjokes for real weird and alot of OC

r/cleandadjokes If your really sick of seeing not dad jokes in r/dadjokes

Punchline !

Edit: this is not a post about NSFW , This is about jokes, knock knock jokes, blonde jokes, political jokes etc being posted in a dad joke sub

Edit 2: don't touch the thermostat

• Part 1
• Part 2 (you are here)
• Part 3
• Part 4

Women are Wonderful Effect

According to Wikipedia — Women-are-wonderful effect: > The women-are-wonderful effect is the phenomenon found in psychological and sociological research which suggests that people associate more positive attributes with women compared to men. This bias reflects an emotional bias toward women as a general case. The phrase was coined by Alice Eagly and Antonio Mladinic in 1994 after finding that both male and female participants tend to assign positive traits to women, with female participants showing a far more pronounced bias. Positive traits were assigned to men by participants of both genders, but to a far lesser degree. > […] > One study found that the effect is mediated by increased gender equality. The mediation comes not from differences in attitudes towards women, but in attitudes towards men. In more egalitarian societies, people have more positive attitudes towards men than in less egalitarian societies. > […] > Some authors have claimed the "Women are wonderful" effect is applicable when women follow traditional gender roles such as child nurturing and stay-at-home housewife. However, other authors have cited studies indicating that the women-are-wonderful effect is still applicable even when women are in nontraditional gender roles, and the original Eagly, Mladinic & Otto (1991) study discovering the women-are-wonderful effect found no such ambivalence.

Nursery Rhyme — What Are Little Boys Made Of?

What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
  Snakes, snails
  And puppy-dogs' tails
That's what little boys are made of

What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
  Sugar and spice
  And all things nice
That's what little girls are made of

In [Are Women Evaluated More Favorably Than Men?: An Analysis of Attitudes, Beliefs, and Emotions (Eagly et al., 1991)](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6402.199

Background

Paleoart is the process of restoring extinct organisms from the remains they left behind, using every single detail to create an accurate life reconstruction.

Phylogeny is basically the study of evolution, oftentimes what is related to what.

The early years of his career

Peters once started out as an artist for books. He drew dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures for various educational texts, including From the Beginning: the Story of Human Evolution in 1991 and Raptors! The Nastiest Dinosaurs in 1996. These illustrations were quite good and relatively accurate for the time. Indeed, his illustration of assorted raptors fits 1990s knowledge of them fairly well. Indeed, the arm anatomy seems particularly birdlike, and he only made them naked because the author wanted nude raptors. From the Beginning was even written by him, and it was quite good!

Peters' downfall

In 1995, Peters criticized some reasearchers' interpretations of the pterosaur Sordes. Peters looked at the image of the fossil and reinterpreted it. While the article doesn't go into how he did so, it's likely that he saw a smudge or smear on the fossil that he decided was a different wing membrane - at least based on how he later went about his work.

In 2000, Peters decided that apparently, weird Triassic reptiles like Sharovipteryx and Longisquama, archosauromorphs that might not have been too closely related to each other, either, were now the close cousins of pterosaurs. This was done by comparing traits of all the genera to form a phylogenetic tree. Unfortunately, many of the characteristics he interpreted are actually just him painting over fossils with image manipulation software (more on that later). Longisquama is known from half a specimen. That's it. We have the front half and nothing else. According to him, he was able to find babies and a long, tufted tail, and gliding membranes. And the image shown is only his current restoration. Back then, it was...somehow even worse. (Apparently he also does the baby thing with pterosaurs, claiming that fine imprints or whatever his software c

How the hell am I suppose to know when it’s raining in Sweden?

Ants don’t even have the concept fathers, let alone a good dad joke. Keep r/ants out of my r/dadjokes.

But no, seriously. I understand rule 7 is great to have intelligent discussion, but sometimes it feels like 1 in 10 posts here is someone getting upset about the jokes on this sub. Let the mods deal with it, they regulate the sub.

Mathematical puns makes me number

They were cooked in Greece.

Two muffins are in an oven, one muffin looks at the other and says "is it just me, or is it hot in here?"

Then the other muffin says "AHH, TALKING MUFFIN!!!"

Don't you know a good pun is its own reword?

He lost May

Originally I just did an actual crosspost until I realized the rules do not permit this. So I'll just copy it in here. The following is my post from: https://np.reddit.com/r/FeminismUncensored/comments/sa8arg/criticizing_bell_hooks/

> u / adamschaub: To that end the more productive discussion would be: what do you find objectionable in bell hooks' writing?

Let me try.

> Males as a group have and do benefit the most from patriarchy, from the assumption that they are superior to females and should rule over us.

From anecdotal evidence, it appears to be true that men are more readily perceived as 'leaders', in the same way women are more readily perceived as 'primary caretakers'. On the other hand, the latest research from the U.S. contradicts the view that women are still perceived as less competent leaders (and to some extent even suggests the opposite):

In the Pew Research article WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP 2018 — 2. Views on leadership traits and competencies and how they intersect with genders (Horowitz et al., 2018), the authors show that "majority of adults say male and female leaders have different leadership styles, relatively few think one gender has a better overall approach than the other" even though "those who do see a difference between male and female leaders across a range of leadership traits and behaviors perceive women to be stronger in most areas, both in politics and business". Specifically, "[f]emale leaders seen as more compassionate, empathetic than men" and "[i]n politics, women are much more likely than men to be viewed as better role models; in business more see them as better able to create a safe and respectful workplace".

The research article Stereotypes have changed over time and now more people think women are superior to men than the other way around. (Eagly et al., 2019) is a meta-analysis of 16 national U.S. opinion polls on gender stereotypes (N = 30,093 adults) extending from 1946 to 2018. Traits measured were communion (e.g., affectionate, emotional), agency (e.g., ambitious, courageous), and competence (e.g., intelligent, creative). Respondents indicated whether each trait is more true of women or men, or equally true

Do your worst!

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

Now that I listen to albums, I hardly ever leave the house.