My favorite part of that is that in the original language, God used the same word “helpmate” for women that God used to describe Themselves, so if that means women must be subservient to men, God has a big problem. Somehow I think there was just a pesky translation error. However could that have happened?

I’m a Universalist, so the only problem I have with your argument is that God didn’t create religion, people did.

Oh, they are, though. Notice the Duggars? The Quiverfulls are literally trying to out-breed the rest of us, to birth and indoctrinate the most possible people for the culture wars. It’s horrifying.

So he’s like a Missing Step, but with racist vitriol instead of sexual misconduct. So far as we know, anyway ...

I mean, probably for some people, but it really, really, shouldn’t be ... SO MANY INFECTIONS

I once answered the door to the pizza delivery guy wearing an overlarge t-shirt and underwear and my boyfriend wisely chose not to address my choice of personal exposure beyond a single morose look. That’s the guy you want, friends. Not a terrifying weirdo who 1) uses sex as punishment or 2) thinks it is his role or…

Ditto

Oh my god - I just remembered these annotated Bibles my youth group used when I was a teenager! They had these weird half/page “life lesson” things wherein some spiritless, limp white kids struggle with a non-issue kind of issue - like listening to rock music from an atheist band - and then the story is tied into…

Oh my god - I just remembered these annotated Bibles my youth group used when I was a teenager! They had these weird half/page “life lesson” things wherein some spiritless, limp white kids struggle with a non-issue kind of issue - like listening to rock music from an atheist band - and then the story is tied into some…

Oh my god - I just remembered these annotated Bibles my youth group used when I was a teenager! They had these weird half/page “life lesson” things wherein some spiritless, limp white kids struggle with a non-issue kind of issue - like listening to rock music from an atheist band - and then the story is tied into some…

I want to say “Tenderness” for $1000?

And the Witch of Blackbird Pond?

Tamora Pierce. What sex there was was no explicitly described, but there were makeout scenes here and there and the combination was enough to get *cough cough* some of us going. I started reading those when I was eleven, I believe.

I actually, literally, laughed out loud when I read that, in the midst of processing this horror. Thank you.

That’s very interesting and good to know, but I can’t help but wonder that in such a case, you must be armed with a note from your child’s doctor? I know that parents of kids with osteogenesis imperfecta generally carry one, to alleviate such concerns of abuse. If someone were to make a call about you, and two police…

I’m with you. We say, “Don’t rationalize or excuse your suspicions, err on the side of your instinct,” and people said, “What about racist calls? What about the flawed system?” I’m not advocating, “Hey, call the cops on your intellectually disabled neighbors of color just because they let the kids play in the…

I think we have the lurid instinct to learn more about tragedy and horror so that, theoretically, we won’t fall prey to the same fate. The human ancestor who figured out which plant or animal killed the next tribe over survived, and the uninterested peers didn’t.

It’s a horrible social phenomenon wherein the more people who “share the blame”, the less responsible or guilty any one individual feels. That’s why I always spring into action when s**t seems to be going down - you can’t trust anyone else! Good on you for deviating from the “norm”. Google Kitty Genovese, similar to…

I know someone who’s got a number of siblings all very close in age, and the cops came by to do a wellness check - when my friend was too young to remember- because of all the screaming and crying made by multiple kids under five. The mom was so exhausted she pretty much said, “None of them are being neglected or…

Just look at Underscored6! That’s *literally* all it takes to be a bonafide, lifesaving hero - a *ONE-MINUTE PHONE CALL*. I call dispatch every few months or so over dangerously erratic drivers, weird crap on the subway, people sleeping in freezing conditions. I called 911 this summer because I saw a man beating a…