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FlyingLionWithABook

Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.

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joined 2022 October 25 19:25:25 UTC
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FlyingLionWithABook


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 October 25 19:25:25 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The benefit is leverage in peace negotiations, and if there is peace the strait won’t be closed anymore. The Karg island facilities are extremely valuable to Iran in peacetime, which makes them worth taking in times of war.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Controlling the island gives you leverage in negotiations. You want your oil refineries back? Then play ball. Or in the best case scenario you can hand it over to a new friendly regime.


And yeah, Iran can launch all kinds of things, if they’re fine up blowing up their own refineries in the process.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ha! One did, back in my college days.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Eh. Depends on your definition. I’ve been at small churches and bigger churches over the years. Current church is on the big side, but I don’t know if it’s “mega”. I’m not sure how many members we have exactly, but there are two different service times and several hundred people at each service. Plus there’s a “satellite campus” on the other side of town, and another one up in the valley.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The Trump admin is consistently giving the American people the runaround as for why the war started, what they hope to achieve, and what the end conditions are.




I see people making this argument everywhere and I’m baffled. The have made it very clear why the war started and what our war goals are. They’ve been holding press conferences every day where they explain it! Proper press conferences, where they actually take questions! It’s like seeing someone argue that we shouldn’t land on the moon because it’s too purple. It’s…it’s obviously not! The Trump admin has not been shy about this! I mean just two days ago Pete had this to say:




”On day ten of Operation Epic Fury, we are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives, which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic Fury. They're straightforward and we are executing them with ruthless precision.






One: destroy their missile stockpiles, their missile launchers and their defense industrial base; missiles and their ability to make them. Two: destroy their Navy. And three: permanently deny Iran nuclear weapons forever. It's a laser focused, maximum authority mission delivered with overwhelming and unrelenting precision, no hesitation, no half measures.”




I feel like I’m going crazy. People really do love in different worlds.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


like duh, megachurch Evangelicals do not want to engage in philosophical political discussion.




Speak for yourself! Some Evangelicals get C.S. Lewis-Pilled.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My understanding is that while Xi purged Zhang and Liu in January, the National People’s Congress have so far declined to remove their delegate status. Normally purge victims are stripped of their status pretty quick, and it was expected that would happen during the NPC’s February meeting, but it didn’t. So either they didn’t vote on it, or they voted on it and it didn’t pass. Legally speaking NPC delegates can’t be formally investigated the way Zhang and Liu have been. So this could be an act of resistance against Xi, refusing to make his actions against the generals retroactively legal, the way they usually have in the past.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This analysis is nuts.  Xi just purged his top two generals, and the CCP looks like it’s actually going to stand up to him about that. China is in no position to go to war, especially after finding out from Venezuela and Iran that Chinese radars can’t beat American stealth. Before the war we were assured that Iranian missiles would quickly overwhelm our interceptors, and we’ve instead found that we can wipe out Iranian missile launcher sites while keeping our carriers safe and sound. Iran is getting crushed, and they resorted to putting the impotent son of the old Ayatollah in charge, the one who is so incompetent that his dad specifically ordered in his will that he not be put in charge. Oil is cheaper now than it was in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, and it looks to stay that way.


The only part of this analysis I agree with is that the Iran war makes war with China much less likely, because China would be crazy to try to take Taiwan now that they’ve seen how outmatched they would be, and that Trump is willing to break things and let the chips fall where they may.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Cake and Pepperidge Farm brand bread products are luxuries you have to earn.




I mean…obviously yes? I don’t even buy store bought cake or Pepperidge Farm bread, and I’m not on the dole. Why should my tax dollars pay for your luxuries? Nobody has a moral right to cookies!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 15, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


How fast can you now build a house if it's all AI?




Funnily enough, it seems like the task that makes house construction take the longest is getting permits to build, and filling out or approving applications seems like something LLMs might actually be able to make faster.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And I’m saying that the people saying that China has a superior military to Russia may be the same “morons” who said that Russia would win the war within a month.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If a nuclear exchange has happened, there are no longer 1.3 million Chinese. Not even close. We have more than 10 times as many nukes as they do, and if they launched even one of theirs at us then we would have launched most of ours in response. Second, we’d most likely partition it like we did Germany, I imagine Australia taking a bite, Japan and Korea taking some large bites, and probably India will jump in and take most of western China once it’s clear the CCP is about to lose.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It led to Russia needing several years of grinding combat to potentially gain some Ukrainian territory, maybe more if they stick it out longer instead of settling, instead of them cruising into Kiev and victory within a month as they and everyone else expected them to do. We all thought their military was so powerful that Ukraine would be steamrolled. Instead their military is just about capable of beating Ukraine, eventually, at the cost of exhausting their war machine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I dunno: how many of their missiles do you think are filled with sand instead of explosives? Corruption is a real problem in China, and you saw what that led to in Russia: huge amounts of military equipment that was not maintained properly and broke down almost immediately.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If PLA nukes have hit cities, the West's peace demand would be along the lines of "denuclearise/demilitarise China, free Tibet/Xinjiang, formally cede Taiwan" with little room to budge (particularly given the need to prevent the PRC trying again later).




If our cities get nuked then our peace demand will be “There is no PRC”. We won’t stop until we’re writing a new constitution for China in Beijing. We did that to Japan and Germany and they didn’t destroy even one of our cities.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We have no idea if Chines stuff is actually better than Russian stuff: they haven’t been tested in a war in decades. Russian stuff seemed like it was better than Ukrainian stuff until the war actually started, and Russia fell on its face and revealed it was a paper bear. China might do the same.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
China can’t win WWIII: it is too dependent on foreign trade, which the US navy is more than capable of cutting off. Without ocean trade China cant supply the oil, iron, coal, or copper it needs to run that massive industrial base of theirs, and can’t supply the food it needs to feed its people. Nor does it have a blue water navy that can escort oil tankers from Iran: forget about escorting iron and coal freighters from Australia, there’s no way the Aussies will be trading with China if China attacks a NATO member. They’ll die on the vine without global trade, and don’t tell me they’ll bring it in by rail from Russia and India: they don’t have nearly enough throughput with Russia to supply even a quarter of their import needs, they have even less throughput with India, and India hates China and would love nothing more than to see them wither. They’ll probably jump in near the end and take Tibet while they’re at it.


In other words, the First Strike option is China committing suicide.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


just email the hospital and say “I don’t want to pay $10,000, how about $500?” and then…they just say “yeah sure, you got us,




YesChad.jpg


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As someone who works in medical admin: you definitely have to sign documents like that, but we probably won't enforce them. Like, we could take you to court and say "here's the contract, he signed it, he's responsible" and get a court judgement against you, but nobody has time for that, and I don't know of any medical provider who does it. Besides, the court isn't guaranteed to agree with us: they might reasonably rule that because the client was not informed of the exact prices, he can't be responsible for paying them even if he signed a doc agreeing to be responsible. Since most medical companies get the vast majority of their revenue from insurance company payouts, it's just not worth the manhours to go to court against one guy and get a judgment against him that might not even be practicably enforceable.


The best advice is to call their billing department up, say you can't pay, and negotiate a lower price with them. There is a high probability that they will write most of the bill off if you agree to pay pennies on the dollar while you're on the phone with them, because otherwise they know they'll probably get nothing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I work in medical administration and billing, and have for many years. This is good advice!


If you have a bill you don't think is fair, or simply can't pay, call up their billing department and tell them that. Say you can't pay this, and ask them what they can do. 9 times out of 10 they will negotiate the bill down (often by more than 50% if you keep poking), or if they're a larger hospital they might direct you to their financial relief program. For a lot of the larger hospitals applying for financial assistance can be well worth it: I make well over the median wage, yet in two different situations I applied and they wrote off my bill, accepting what insurance paid as the full amount.


The secret of medical billing is that there is very little we can do to someone who calls us up and says "I'm not going to pay", so it's worth it to negotiate you down to an amount you are willing to pay. Because otherwise we get nothing. Are there things we can do? Technically yes: we could sue you and try to get a court order to repo your stuff or garnish your wages. But that's complicated, and takes a long time, and isn't guaranteed to work: and more importantly, we get over 80% of our revenues from insurance companies anyway. Any bill a patient is getting is a small piece of the pie, and most medical billing man hours are better spent getting insurance companies to pay up. For one thing, the insurance companies actually have the money!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As someone who works in medical admin and billing: this is 100% correct. Anybody who calls me and says they can't pay, I start talking to them about how much they can pay. Because if they decide to just not pay anything there is pretty much nothing practical I can do about that, and we make most of our money from insurance companies anyway so it's not worth the trouble.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most women aren't having children




56.7% of women between the ages of 15 and 49 in the USA have had at least one child. 71.8% of women aged 30-34 have had a child, and 81.2% of woman aged 35-39 have had a child. Most women who are capable of having children (in the fertile window) are having children.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Because of the fact that the conservative branch of Christianity (even many Protestants, like the extreme Southern Baptists) continued to be staunchly against mysticism, ultimately they acted as a foil to the Protestants who wanted more of this mystical, experiential relationship with God.




This analysis is missing the Charismatic churches. You know, the churches who are all about mystical and experiential relationships with God? Talking in tongues, prophesying, miracle healing, all that? They are pretty conservative! Pat Robertson was a Charismatic, and Charismatics seem pretty hooked into MAGA (Paula White-Caine, Trump's "Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office" is a Charismatic, for instance).


Meanwhile the mainline churches, who are pretty progressive, have been very hard on people claiming to have had mystical visions, God inspired prophecies, and the whole talking in tongues things!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, you're not wrong about the aesthetics. We Evangelicals famously have bad taste! Fortunately that doesn't seem to have watered down the message too much.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Tell us how you really feel!


If you define a Christian as someone who believes the Nicene Creed, then Evangelicals qualify. And they seem pretty good at following Christian practices: 72% of Evangelicals pray daily, compared to 51% of Catholics, 53% of Orthodox, and 45% of Mainline. 51% of Evangelicals read scripture (outside of religious services) weekly or more, compared to 14% of Catholics, 15% of Orthodox, and 18% of Mainline. 30% of Evangelicals participate in weekly prayer or bible study groups, compared to 8% of Catholics, 6% of Orthodox, and 9% of Mainline. And of course (true to their name) 32% of Evangelicals discuss their religion with nonbelievers monthly or more often, compared to 13% of Catholics, 12% of Orthodox, and 13% of Mainline.


When it comes to Christian beliefs, 93% of Evangelicals agree that "God is a perfect being and cannot make a mistake" compared to 75% of Catholics and 80% of Mainline. 92% of Evangelicals agree that "God is unchanging" compared to 76% of Catholics and 79% of Mainline. 82% of Evangelicals believe in hell, compared to 69% of Catholics, 60% of Orthodox, and 59% of Mainline. 91% of Evangelicals agree that "There will be a time when Jesus Christ returns to judge all the people who have lived" compared to 72% of Catholics and 76% of Mainline. 82% of Evangelicals agree that "Sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin" compared to 49% of Catholics and 55% of Mainline.


And as far as "surrendering to secularism", 61% of Evangelicals say that homosexuality should be discouraged in society, compared to 23% of Catholics, 39% of Orthodox, and 25% of Mainline. 64% of Evangelicals believe that greater social acceptance of transgender people has been a change for the worse, compared to 26% of Catholics, 20% of Orthodox, and 22% of Mainline. 65% of Evangelicals believe that abortion should be illegal in most cases, compared to 39% of Catholics, 37% of Orthodox, and 29% of Mainline. 84% of Evangelicals are in favor of allowing prayer in public schools, compared to 63% of Catholics, 63% of Orthodox, and 57% of Mainline.


Overall, despite your dislike of Evangelical worship aesthetics, Evangelicals seem to be doing a better job of keeping to Christian practice and beliefs than anyone else in the USA.


And as someone who has been in Evangelical churches my entire life, I was completely taken aback by your claim that Evangelicals believe Christ was crucified, but never experience the spirt of that.  I mean...I feel like it got pounded into us quite a bit! I've heard a lot of sermons trying to drive home how much pain and suffering Jesus went through on the cross. Usually they went a bit overboard, in my opinion, but that's the better side to err on I suppose. And while the lack of centralization leaves individual churches more vulnerable to bad actors, it also prevents bad actors from taking over the whole movement. We're too decentralized to all agree to follow a single flim-flam man!