OSUViking

This is what I was addressing with the "idolatry" comment. I am addressing Christianity here not out of spite for the religion itself, but because I grew up in Christian schools, around Christians, and it's the one I'm most familiar with. I imagine a similar concept can be applied to Judaism and Islam, among others. Christians in the US aren't following the moral codes they claim to. It's horseshit, they say they are as a means of virtue signaling to other people so they will be accepted or so they seem better than they really are. How many Christians in the US actually give a damn about poor people? I'm not pretending I'm a virtuous person who cares for the plight of poor people more than others, but I'm not hiding behind the Christian label and pretending I'm a good person. It's a sham. Caring for the poor was one of the most important aspects of Jesus' teachings, yet it seems to be at the bottom of most people's priorities. I don't think the basics of Christian values are that bad, but that's mostly going off the Ten Commandments. But going back as far as we can really tell people have warped Christianity (and other religions) into something horrible that is a means of discriminating. I don't buy for a second that these people care about Christian values, they're projecting their own views and insecurities onto everyone else.

Literally a post above yours addressing that. Like I said I need to familiarize myself with the system in general but my quick search of the child welfare system indicates it's a govt institution and that argument falls apart as soon as you get into the realm of someone's religious views interfering with services provided to another person who doesn't adhere to those views. People can have their religion all they want, keep it and whatever warped values they have out of government. I'm not one to say religion is totally bad but speaking from anecdotal experience it really seems like the mainstream Christianity in the US is more idolatry than it is actual Christianity.

Think I watched Stranger than Fiction (with Will Ferrell) at the most appropriate time in my life. Really loved that movie.

I need to familiarize myself with the child welfare system before taking a "hard" stance on this, but if they're government agencies through and through they should have absolutely no ground to refuse service based on religious convictions. 1st amendment guarantees freedom from religion just as much as it guarantees freedom of religious practice.

I didn't bring that statistic up to generate that debate. I brought up to highlight the flawed logic in extrapolating conclusions from complex stats by looking at a single factor.

You are pointing at a single data point and a single factor that goes into suicide and extrapolating a pretty extreme conclusion. You don't even consider the effects of social stigma and the way that growing up in a hostile household could affect these things. Your logic is tantamount to people looking at the 23% pay difference between men and women and assuming it's only because of gender.

Emotions are how we navigate our environment. They're not the only bit of information we should go off of, but properly developed emotions are crucial for successful and lasting social interactions and self-satisfaction. To say they mean nothing or little is wrong; they're an inherent, important part of our biology. Now I agree they shouldn't be the only factor to rely on, and a lot of people stray in the wrong direction in this regard. This is just going to cycle back to the lack of emotional development a lot of people face. So many think it's a trivial issue but it's not. People wonder why millennials are "narcissistic" (still unbelievably hypocritical to say this if it comes from the parent of a millennial), and it's because many parents at best don't spend time teaching kids these skills and at worst they are directly causing maladaptive behaviors. I feel like we revert back to square one of the transgenderism being a mental illness argument every time this discussion comes up. It's like we make progress and then it resets.

What are you saying? You've just posted pure gibberish comprised of made up words with no intrinsic meaning. Fuck, now I'm doing it too.

I can see where my stance went too far. I certainly agree that a parent plays a huge role in how the kid develops and naturally will impart their values, for better or for worse. Even well adjusted individuals will likely have many similarities to their parents. That is still a farcry away from suggesting conversion therapy, though itt seems you weren't addressing the conversion therapy with respect to my post so I will drop that. There are plenty of parents who raise their kids appropriately but also plenty who take things too far or hardly interact with their kids' development at all. What I am referring to are the parents who have black and white perspectives of reality (basically by default not a healthy approach) and force this on their kids (in the conversion therapy example, that reality is gay is bad). Affection comes when they satisfy mommy and daddy. That's not how to raise a kid. Unconditional might seem too far, especially if the kid makes some shit decisions on their own end, but in the early years it's pretty crucial for them to explore emotions and learn about themselves. I see a lot of parents act like their kids are just extensions of their own identity. That's not right. I agree that the parent must play a huge role in shaping their children into socially/emotionally competent adults, but in circumstances like conditional affection/support that's not happening.

The way society treats gay people generally speaking has nothing to do with the homes that these kids grow up in. Society of course plays a sizable role in how an individual turns out (in terms of values and such), but their core values, perceptions of themselves as human beings, and ability to regulate their emotions/self-esteem will be primarily decided by the environment they grow up in (which means their caregivers). There is no reason to feel ashamed of being gay. Absolutely none. Parents who suggest their kids go into conversion therapy are stuck in a time when being gay is seen as bad. People who feel ashamed of being gay were raised in environments or communities where homophobia is still prevalent. I would agree that a gay person who grows up in a sensible community with respectful parents would turn out fine in terms of how they view their sexuality, but that isn't the case we are talking about. We're talking about parents who suggest conversion therapy to their gay kids; these are toxic homes and there's no way around it.

There is a MASSIVE difference between a parent doing their job, and teaching a kid/teen how to handle their emotions and responsibilities, and treating them like a blank slate that exists for them to project their own desires onto. I don't give a damn who the parent is. Celebrity, politician, some person no one knows about. That child/teen/whatever is their own person. The parents are there to show them how to be a competent human being, not to dictate a course through life for them. That's awful parenting and literally every person I know who had parents like this has problems with their parents and self-esteem. Of course that's anecdotal, but a parent should be helping their kids foster their own identity and paths through life, not dictating it or projecting their own desires onto them. Parents who do that are shitbags, and the grandparents who raised them probably weren't much better (and so on, and so on, etc, I think you get the point). EDIT: There are some circumstances that involve homosexual thoughts that I would believe someone would seek therapy for. With OCD (or just obsessive thought patterns in general), someone might have unpleasant thoughts about homosexual acts despite not actually being homosexual. Being distressed by this wouldn't indicate homophobia, I think it'd indicate a great deal of confusion for the individual, and so I would certainly support these individuals seek treatment to help with those thoughts. But that's not the same as being homosexual.

Kids are not malleable dolls that parents get to shape to their liking. You throw in the caveat "if the kid objects"... if the kid has reached a point that their parents are suggesting conversion therapy of all things, it's not a healthy home, and it's highly unlikely that they feel safe objecting to their parents demands. "Unwanted same-sex attraction" sounds a lot like internalized self-hatred from homophobic parents.

Can only speak for myself but I've seen it 3 times now and I enjoyed it more each iteration.

I hadn't heard of this but your last line is interesting. I like movies that make me despite a character without removing me from the movie. In fact, if they can achieve that while getting me to invest, then I think it's very interesting. I'll have to check it out. Have you watched it multiple times yet? It's kind of surprising how much foreshadowing they spread throughout the movie. Especially with the house they're in towards the end.

I liked TLJ the second time around more than I thought I would. I figured I would outright hate it because I would know when my least favorite parts were coming. I stand by my admiration of the Kylo/Luke/Rey part of the film. That's not to say that I think it is perfect, but I enjoyed it quite a bit the first time and I didn't feel that changed. I am still pretty indifferent to everything else. I tried to pay more attention to Holdo this time around, and I did not come away thinking there was any agenda. I still wasn't all that invested in it, but certainly did not warrant the rant that I went on.

I need to vastly improve budgeting and saving before I pre-order it. I probably won't get around to it for a month or so.

The preorder is already available? Will need to get on that.

We do have an example in ATOC where Obi-Wan basically warped a dude's mind so that he'd get his life together haha.

Neymar has to be one of the most irritating athletes to watch. I can't bring myself to root for Brazil despite liking some of their players because he annoys me so much. I am pulling for Croatia at this point, would love to see Modric bounce back from the Denmark game and pull a Ballon d'Or out of thin air. .

It took me a while to realize why Delores cared so much about those user algoeithms. I think she read through enough to realize all those people would react with such tremendous fear to the host's sentience that they would just slaughter the hosts. Kind of like how Delos' simulations always resulted in him rejecting his son which lead to the relapse and overdose, Delores could map out how they would react with that algorithm. Or maybe not. Thoughts?

Regarding the last paragraph, there are still many people opposed to contraceptives of any kind. I come from a Catholic school and they never taught us responsible sex, only abstinence and how dangerous premarital sex is. The closest we had to legit education was someone coming to talk about STDs, but even she resorted to bullshit facts and scare tactics. I'm all for increasing sex education to reduce the instances of abortions. Again it's not like women want to go through that experience. But I'm against legislating the body and I view pregnancy as circumstances that affect a woman's body. If I can't come to see eye to eye with you guys on that aspect of it then so be it, agree to disagree.

I know that was directed at Razor, but if the baby will never be able to survive on it's own then I view it in the same light as pulling the plug on someone in a vegetative state who's only kept alive by machines. I think there is a huge difference between this example and the early stages of pregnancy that Razor mentioned. What you've described I'd imagine is pretty rare, especially in developed countries like the US. Most often the baby will be able to develop into a somewhat autonomous being, whereas this is never the case for a fetus terminated in the usual window.

They're bringing naval exploration and combat back to Assassin's Creed in Odyssey. If they keep up the momentum they built from Origins then that game is going to be awesome. Like a combination of all the things that worked in Origins with the naval aspect of Black Flags. Something I wish AC did in general though was let us re-play the big extra boss battles. With Black Flags it was the legendary ships and with Origins it was the war elephants. I'd love to be able to play those battles again with leveled up opponents based on what level I'm at.

I don't pay much attention to the NBA but calling Lebron a Laker sounds kind of dirty. I think it would be funny if the Lakers end up flopping big time with Lebron on the roster, but I don't see that happening.

I do not care about abortion and I will admit that I can be insensitive to people who have a strong moral opposition to it. I will do my best to not let that happen here. I very much view a fetus as part of a woman's body. It is entirely dependent upon her and she pays the majority of the price of birthing a child. I can understand men who become closely in-tune with their pregnant wives, but at some point there is a clear distinction between empathy and actually dealing with the physical consequences of carrying a child. I strongly, strongly disagree with your perspective of punishing irresponsible people by forcing them to learn responsibility on the fly, by raising a child. That is almost inevitably going to make the child suffer. This isn't just a "young person" problem, either, because the young people who are irresponsible were probably raised by irresponsible people in the first place. This results in punishing the child because the parents were idiots. Despite the cynicism in your view, it's incredibly idealistic to think that baptism by fire is going to be a universally effective learning approach. With an iterative problem, yeah, that might work. A new employee is going to learn quickest by immersing themselves in things they don't know. But parenting? I question whether you understand the intricate nature of actually raising a child. The first few years are crucial. There is room for error, certainly, but two irresponsible individuals are highly unlikely to adapt their behavior to accommodate a child within the first few years of their life. By that point, the patterns will have been established, and the child's approach to the world will be significantly shaped by those interactions. Ngata's anecdote is encouraging, and I am sure there are more stories like that, but it's idealistic to think that'd be the majority of cases. People are shitty and irresponsible and that extends way further than just young people. I fully agree that we can and should reduce the instances of abortion, because I think most women will view this as an incredibly difficult time in their lives; why not do what we can to make it so women don't need to get to that point to begin with? It's not like women are going out and getting knocked up and thinking "I can just abort it afterwards, don't worry", that's ridiculous. The stigma attached to the procedure alone would rule out that possibility for all but the most shameless of individuals. (Good luck reaching those ones, by the way.) The strong opposition against contraceptives, condoms, and safe sex from the more... "moralistic" corners of this country is downright idiotic and harmful. I can't comprehend how they don't see the link between lack of sexual education and higher instances of abortions.