Absurdus

A question for everyone: survey data suggests that by the end of the Covid-19 emergency trust in public health institutions had decreased significantly. If you are among the people who reacted that way, why specifically? I'm hoping for long, diverse, individualized answers.

28 March 1941. Virginia Woolf (aged 59), suffering from severe depression, drowned herself in River Ouse, Sussex. Her best-known works were The Voyage Out, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando and feminist classic A Room of One’s Own.

They’re just like us

I forget who said this, but they were 100% right that the Great Replacement is the new key issue keeping the right together in the way anti-communism used to

Dudes temper needs to be checked

Yes, the world -- outside of MAGA and Israel -- knows that the US and Israel are not winning this war right now. For that reason, they can't stop now. The damage of such a defeat would be generational. The huge risk is that the US/Israel escalate out of desperation and panic.

One advantage the Iranians have is that their entire elite seems to consist of 130 IQ polymath combat veterans with PhDs who stormed across minefields with fixed bayonets surrounded by poison gas back in the day and then spent 30 years studying philosophy, game theory, engineering and military science. Average decision-maker quality appears to be dramatically higher than elsewhere, especially qualified for shit-hits-the-fan situations

My wife was formerly promiscuous. I was a virgin. She was then radically born-again. Committed to church, evangelized constantly, Puritan books in her bedroom, prayer journals, grief over past sexual sin, etc. We got to know each other well for over a year, dated for four months, engaged for two and a half, and didn't sin sexually with one another. Our first kiss with each other was at the altar on our wedding day (reaction pic attached!). We've been married for over five years now, and she's been the most wonderful and godly wife, mother to our three children, and homemaker you could imagine. She's more pure than most virgins, as biblical purity has less to with past sins (though they certainly matter) and more to do with one's current posture of the heart and daily decisions to honor the Lord (Matt. 5:8). We're far too quick to forget the story of the woman labeled as a known "sinner" (likely a prostitute) in Luke 7:36-50 who was washing Jesus' feet with her tears while kissing them too. The Pharisees were shocked that Jesus let a public sinner do this. Jesus responded with a parable about debts being forgiven and ended with this powerful conclusion: "Her many sins have been forgiven; that’s why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little, loves little" (Luke 7:47). Everyone seems to highlight the benefits of virginity, and it certainly is a blessing. But we forget to highlight the benefits of being forgiven much as well. My wife knows the depths of Jesus' forgiveness more than most people, enabling her to more easily live out a life of passionate love for her Savior. A woman or man's past sexual sin matters. But what matters far more when it comes to deciding who to marry is if the person is truly born again, if their repentance is real, if they truly have a heart for Christ, if they truly follow Jesus and obey his commands. "God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world ​— ​what is viewed as nothing ​— ​to bring to nothing what is viewed as something, so that no one may boast in his presence. It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us ​— ​our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, — in order that, as it is written: 'Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.'" (1 Cor. 1:27-31) "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!" (2 Cor. 5:17)