I'm not certain, though, if that level of complication would be insurmountable by our contract law.

I certainly agree we need more/better systems for establishing functional kinship than marriage.

I'm very uncertain that's correct. Newtonian physics needed a lot of very specific cultural artifacts to come together. There's even some argument that if they had had better data they would've ended up with a worse set of theories, they were very lucky the data they had and the geometry they had matched up the way it…

I'm not certain that's a great characterization of either science or religion, but it's certainly true that the thesis hinges on bad interpretations of science - which, at its best, is kinda its point.

I just report anyone who pushes an "IFLS" post at me to Facebook as having sent me pornography. I mean, it's right there in the title.

Yeah, it may also have been a weeeee bit click-bait-y.

I'm not certain it's a sadly thing. It's good that science doesn't need a faith test in any sense.

At least some of why that period did well was because it was heavily incorporated into the curriculum for imperial bureaucrats. People had textbooks upon textbooks of the stuff and they were widely distributed as well.

With the flipside being that if you haven't gotten into the trenches you might miss a lot of small but significant problems in your theory or have less ability to predict second order effects.

There are discourse realms for corollary other than math. If you endured studying math for six years in order to avoid them that's no fault of mine.

There's a supposed corollary where anything you actually know a lot about it you become oddly reactionary about.

There is so much here, but this is worthy of kicking things off:
The AV Club
a massive jangling kinetic sculpture, tumorous with jutting spikes and welded-on bits of scrap

He usually has good and very easily misquoted (and, conversely, ignored for being misquoted when not) stuff in those.

WhistlePig is, however, an extraordinarily vigorous sorrow drowning engine.

yeah, bathing is fantastic.

By the Pope's example quitting might not be the thing, but if Kim Davis had simply recused herself, which was the example, we would be having a very different discussion regardless.

Yeah, his example of conscientious objection seemed to fit way more into 'I recuse myself' territory.

Pretty good. Palpatine himself has a mixed record being very good on some points slow on others.

Well, for what it's worth, the religious official in question apparently also thinks you can't just not ask the people you have wronged to forgive you.

Indulgences are mostly percentage deals, though! Great for a bulk sin deal, but for something specific? You really gotta get into the shop.