Nefara @ Nefara @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

You can achieve the same thing with a metal spoon dipped in hot water, like after stirring a fresh cup of tea. It should be hot enough to hurt but not to burn/damage your skin. I've been doing this trick for ages and it works every time :)

I went grocery shopping and realized the music was all stuff I liked and recognized. I even knew the words 😭

Haha it was a funny dynamic, we had a heavily good aligned party, I was the only one out on my own as "evil". However her whole shtick, as was slowly revealed, was that she had ambitions to take down the leadership of the cult and then replace them with herself and those loyal to her. This meant that the party, who wanted to generally find non-violent means of dealing with conflict, aligned just fine with her own goals of not killing too many of her future minions. So she always acted in what she saw as the best interests of glorifying Her Chromatic Majesty, while still working with the party to stop the cult. Our DM peppered in more dragons and encounters with dragon magic than were in the official books I think, and we all tried to solve them through stealth, negotiation and avoidance. She hated to kill dragons, but if we had no choice but to fight then so be it. If they were too weak to kill us they were culled! She didn't mind stopping the ritual to keep her from ascending because she believed Tiamat wouldn't want the world to end, and just wanted as much treasure and followers as possible. So in the end the cult of the dragon queen became the Church of Dragonology, and her influence on the material plane had a net gain 😋

Lol my first character was a cleric of Tiamat. My DM and I worked out a blend of PHB domains so that I had appropriate cantrips, spell unlocks and CD's. It was a lot of fun playing through the Rise of Tiamat with her, haha 🐉

Janelle Monae is fantastic, an all around great creative person. She's been getting recognition for her acting at least.

Don't know your other artists but I frickin love emancipator. I've listened to every album hundreds of times, not exaggerating. Have you heard Kinack? Not the same but if you like one you might like the other. I'll have to check out your list when I can use my good speakers.

Not everybody has a choice or an option, there are so many places in the US where the place you live absolutely necessitates the use of a car to do literally anything related to living your life. Living in places with actual transit infrastructure that allow independence from cars are sometimes too expensive or have high COL's

They could definitely do a fake out after a time skip, even the book does that haha.

You can call me paranoid, but the first thing I thought of when I heard about it was how excited the Nazis would have been to access a database like that when they came into power. Imagine knowing the names and addresses of whatever Undesirables you wanted to single out, and exactly what percentage of "impure" they were. Ethnic makeup information can also be used against you in things like gerrymandering congressional districts to hand select voters and disenfranchise minorities. It's pretty safe to assume that once your genetic profile has been gathered by a private company, it's vulnerable to all sorts of bad actors gaining access and using that information. Would you want the KKK or the Proud Boys knowing just what percentage black you are? No thanks.

I don't remember it ever being explicitly mentioned that they don't have first hand battle experience, I guess it's time for yet another rewatch 😋

Even Adora herself has a trail of bodies behind her if you assume she wasn't a new recruit with the horde!

Let's say for example that before there was space time, outside of the known universe that there was a giant space whale. This space whale ate dark energy and as it passed through its digestive system it created matter. Turns out, this is how the universe started. Is the space whale God? It created all life and the universe so is that all it would take to fit the description? Does it have to be intelligent? How intelligent? Does it have to have heard prayers or be aware of humans? Does it have to have directly created Earth or humanity or can it just have created all matter?

How about if Star Trek is right, and there is a race of incredibly advanced extra dimensional beings with powers indistinguishable from gods? They seem to be all knowing and all powerful and can communicate with us and can even read our minds. Are they gods, or aliens with technology beyond our understanding? What if the aliens were confirmed to have created Earth? Humans even?

Would it still be a god if you could measure it, visit it, observe it? Does a theist's idea of god have to be something beyond perception? I would argue that the line between a god and a highly advanced alien is in the deliberate ambiguity, and the need to "have faith" that it exists. The moment there is hard evidence of its existence it stops being a god. Anything that can't exist in the face of any evidence that it does might as well not.

There are probably an infinite amount of possibilities in the unknown, but without any evidence or scientific rigor then any theory people come up with are just daydreams. Being pooped out by a giant space whale is an equally valid idea to there being a god out there, and equally valid to an enormous primordial cow licking the salt from ice to create life. I don't believe in those stories because I don't have any reason to. Your saying that my lack of belief in god is emotional is pretty funny to me, perhaps your lack of belief in Superman is emotional rather than rational.

We do, however, have a framework of references regarding the other natural mysteries humans once ascribed to gods having elegant solutions rooted in the hard sciences. We searched the storm clouds and didn't find Thor. We've dug boreholes and didn't find Hades. We've studied the sun and haven't found Ra. Human history is chock full of gods and "higher powers" to explain the unknown, and as we learned more about the world the less relevant they became. We learned sacrificing goats to a god does not make it rain, and now understand the natural and mundane systems that do. There's no reason to believe that the creation of matter or "something from nothing" as you put it is any different.

I do identify as an atheist, and I would say it has nothing to do with some sort of faith in non-existence. I know there is a lot more to be found out about the universe, and as our methods of observation and tools improve so will our understanding of how everything fits together and where it all "came" from. What I dont understand is what would a 2000 year old book's character have to do with anything? Why would the Abrahamic god enter the picture at all? If you can imagine that there's some ultimate creative force that is responsible for existence, why would it resemble the "God" in the Bible? It could be something like a "white hole", spewing matter in to the universe as another interesting but ultimately mundane cosmic feature. It certainly wouldn't give a shit that you exist, or ever hear prayers, or that people are cruel to each other, and all the other stuff people made up and have been telling each other about God. I acknowledge that we don't and can't know everything about how the universe works but I don't get why that has to leave the back door open to believing in some sapient paranormal omniscient presence floating somewhere in space. The Bible is a work of fiction. There are lots of great lessons to be learned in fiction, and it can be a great comfort and an escape, but it was written and made up by people.

Yes, and in my experience it rarely if ever has the "gotcha" moment of victory that one fantasizes about. Either it was something with low stakes and the response is just "oh okay", or it's something more emotionally charged and the opposing side will deflect, change the subject, pretend that you're agreeing with them or that they believed what was correct the whole time. It never seems to matter.

Lol this is like saying I don't want Gandalf to exist because I don't like Gandalf

I hated going to the gym, and I hate running. Put me on a treadmill for 5 minutes and I'm suffering, but I can dance for hours straight. Beat Saber on VR has been great, so has going to local social dances (ballroom and swing). Maybe you could look for something that gets your heartrate up that you actually find fun and enjoy? Swimming, team sports, skating, there's lots of ways to exercise that aren't using machines or running at a gym.

There's so much clothing already made that, with the exception of underwear or socks, you could assemble a large and diverse wardrobe of good quality plant fiber clothes entirely from 2nd hand clothing bought for as cheap or cheaper than you'd find new polyester stuff. Thrift shops, Vinted, Ebay, Poshmark etc have tons of good stuff for cheaper than retail.

I've been avoiding plasticware for food for about a decade, I drink from glasses or glass bottles, never use disposable utensils etc, but I wasn't paying that much attention to fabric content until I had a baby. I was more concerned with the chemical leeching directly, but then I read more about how microplastics effect the endocrine system and how infants are especially vulnerable due to their size and how they chew on everything. That spurred me to only get plant based fabrics for the kiddo, mostly from 2nd hand shops. I think the only plastic stuff he wears is his snow gear and shoes. I know I can't protect him forever, but I'll do what I can where I can.

The audible version was decent, I reread them all on audiobook ahead of the HBO series and wasn't wowed but I wasn't annoyed either. That part in Amber Spyglass still made me cry so that's a kind of endorsement.