The idea that Mary was a virgin predates Christianity having any sort of power. It’s more the influence of Greek philosophy (anti materialism)

This is your source.

There was some sort of ritual where young women were invited to spend a night at the temple, with priests. Due to the religious nature of this, they were still considered to be virgins (“marriable” I guess?) afterwards. Quite the opposite, it was seen as an honour. Even if they got pregnant.

I don’t think there’s any evidence of this.

The Bible has a story with a character pretending to be a temple prostitute to secure her inheritance. But when she becomes pregnant, she is supposed to be put to death. I don’t think temple prostitution was at all a thing by 700 BCE, much less 3 BCE, and it seems more like a holdover from extremely uncomfortable ancient at the time of writing practices - kinda like some of the remnants of child sacrifice that you can find in the OT. I think this is also something the Romans would have noted.

This is something I would believe about a Roman temple maaaaaaaybe. I think your source heard a garbled version of the idea of the Vestal Virgins, and got really confused beyond that.

Daggerfall is long as fuck (in universe, the adventure takes at least ten years.) The dungeons are massive serpentine mazes. Multiple guilds and factions, although they don’t feature overarching questlines - lots of radiant quests, but they never really feel boring.

It’s also fairly difficult - especially if you build a character without cheesing it with a guide. You need to be juggling multiple saves to prevent yourself being trapped in a certain death situation, mess up a quest, etc.

There’s a modern remake, Daggerfall Unity, which a lot of people say is a good way to play it nowadays. The original DOS version is quite playable through DOSBox though, and there’s lots of little quality of life tools that you can find online.

You know that discussing the Bible is not the same as apologetics?

I get religious trauma sucks, but the critical analysis of primary source texts from the ancient Near East has absolutely nothing to do with your shitty pastor giving you a hard time for being gay.

I invite you to name a 9th century BCE society that fits whatever moral requirements you think are needed to make a culture worthy of historical study.

Their far right, including the woman won a Nobel peace prize, are explicitly pro the U.S. attacking Venezuela to overthrow Maduro.

deleted by creator

Yeah, I know and knew, hence not following that path. Went for teaching where I did 80 hour weeks for a little more than minimum wage instead. But we’re talking about “perfect” lives here - which for me, would be being a professor of Chinese history or math at a small liberal arts university in a small town where no one gave a shit I was trans.

I really would have liked to have become a history or math professor at a small university. Living close enough to campus to walk, getting to go to my colleagues lectures and learn new things, keeping a dozens of books checked out from the library at the same time…

Rape in the system is a feature, not a bug.

From a report about trans inmates:

75% of respondents reported at least one instance of sexual violence by Corrections Officers (COs).

This includes: • 48% of respondents who reported violence from a single male CO. • 32% of respondents who reported sexual violence from multiple male COs.

Respondents reported numerous types of sexual assaults by COs : • 68% were touched in a way that felt inappropriately sexual while they were clothed, including 57% who had their chest/breasts touched, 43% who had their genitals grabbed, and 55% who had their bottom grabbed. • 36% were asked to strip search in front of other incarcerated people. • 36% were asked to remove their bra in front of male COs during a strip search. • 27% were forced by a CO to perform oral sex. • 18% had their naked genitalia touched by a CO. • 16% were forced to perform anal sex by a CO. • 20% were forced to perform another sexual act by a CO.

It’s kinda funny how popular Angel numbers are, when they were made up in the 90s someone who freely admits they are bullshit.

Or the crisis line.

What happens is that they “triage” you, where depending on how you answer their script you get cops at your door and a trip to hell on earth, or you are on hold for 20 minutes to speak with someone who also is reading a script and doesn’t give a rats ass about you.

Maybe states that aren’t Oklahoma have mental hospitals which are preferable to drinking yourself to sleep, but who knows.

Adult Swim predicted this ten years ago.

The Fog of War is a damn good documentary. I watched it in a college class about the Vietnam War, and that class absolutely radicalized me. There was zero reason for the US to be there.

I used to travel a lot in eastern Oklahoma, and left a lot of stickers at gas stations in the middle of bumble fuck nowhere towns. Probably less smiles and more anger honestly, but fuck them. Also did some on a trip to Missouri, where I’m pretty sure it was illegal for me to piss.

“A trans person peed here” stickers in gas station bathrooms/other public bathrooms.

The Giant’s Drink from Ender’s Game always seemed really compelling to me. The emergent gameplay reacted to your state of mind and serving as some sort of arcane test of your mind.

It’s not helping that I just got this ad

They both have a close amount of syllables. A friend gifted me some extraordinary grass and the multiple counts I have made have failed on their account, but both the English and the mandarin have around 18 syllables [CI: 17-19, p<0.05]

“Jive” is an older term for what you might call less offensively call Ebonics or AAVE. Popular in the 80’s, I remember my mom talking about having a computer program that would “translate” things into jive (while also talking about doing black face for Halloween….)

“Jigaboo” is a slur for a black person.