In Swedish it’s also different. Mor is mother, far is father; mormor is the maternal grandma, farmor is the paternal grandma, morfar is the paternal grandpa and farfar the paternal grandpa. I love this system, it’s almost the only thing I remember from my study of Swedish 😅.

Of course science evolves, but that shouldn’t be a reason for a vulgarization book to teach something else than the scientific consensus of the time.

I didn’t read Sapiens, but if this book claim that homo sapiens is responsible for the disappearing of Neanderthals, you can close it. This idea was disproven by research long ago: when sapiens arrived in Europe, Neanderthals were already on the verge of disappearing.

I understand the reaction. The Bible is sold by a lot of churches as “the word of God”, and if it’s the case, God is a lying asshole. But nowhere in the Bible it is written that the Bible is the word of God; according to the Bible the word of God is Jesus-Christ so… it may not be the right approach according to the Bible itself.

I love the Bible, I read it (almost) every day, I use it as a guide in my material and spiritual lives, I studied the story of its interpretation in the university, I even thought about making that my speciality. Yet I don’t understand how someone could believe in biblical inerrancy. It’s very clearly a human work, written by error-prone normal humans. I believe that God spoke to its redactors, but it’s still a human work. And ours is (according to me) to listen to the voice of God through the human form; and that’s why we have the Church, as it’s not something one can do alone.

I do not really know. I was not raised in a practicing family, and my country is very secular.

Philosophically, I’m agnostic. I’m not convinced either by arguments for or against the existence of God. I think a being which could exist outside time and space is not approachable by our reason.

But I can’t stay neutral, the question is too important. And I feel the presence of God in my life. This feeling came first, and when I tried to understand it, I went to the culturally nearest place of worship, and it was Protestantism, and I felt at home. I read the Bible, not as a theology manual, but as the story of people who try to understand the presence of God; sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong, but their quest is mine, and theirs inspires mine.

Japan is a country that frequently practices the death penalty.

No, I love them unconditionally. But the level of affection I show change according to certain parameters, one of them being how much they are affectionate themselves. Affection is not the only way to show love, though.

I wouldn’t say the RSF is atheistic, but it’s a secular group, in a country which was islamist until 2019. Officially, the regular forces are secular too, as the religions and the State were separated after the protests of 2018-2019, so it’s not the main difference.

I’d say it’s mainly a fight between two dictators who tried to form an alliance but were not capable of sharing the power. There’s a little more ideological diversity within the regular forces though, as the RSF is deeply and strongly Arab-supremacist.

I agree with your message, which seems to confirm mine. How yours makes mine a strawman?

Only religion? The State is 1000x worse in this regard, and it doesn’t need religion.

I saw a guy dressed as a moose carrying another guy who looked stoned get almost run over by a ship.

As a very liberal and active European Protestant, I would add that, unfortunately, American evangelicalism exerts a strong influence on European Protestantism. The Lutheran Church of Latvia, for example, decided a few years ago to stop ordaining women pastors. In my (French) church, new pastors are on average more conservative than their predecessors (but the remaining liberal pastors are even more so than their predecessors). Evangelicals have the resources and use them extensively; they are winning the cultural battle, unfortunately. Protestant churches are still resisting, but we will have to learn to make ourselves heard if we don’t want sectarianism to set us back a century or two.

Me!

Oh I’d love to nerd with him about typewriters 😅

Typewriters. I love these machines, and the effect they had on our societies, and how they still have a strong influence on our keyboards and typographical likes.

And they are beautiful.

It is a matter of taste, I agree.

It’s not the same. Of course things can be beautiful if painted on a tablet, but differently beautiful.

I’m not a very experienced user, but I’m happy with it. I have mainly a static blog, an almost unused Nextcloud, a Matrix server (down since yesterday, I don’t know why) and my calendar. It works quite well!

Same here with Freedombox.