Jealous. I love high quality dice. Can I ask where you got ‘em?

My grandpa is from Denmark, and I have a Danish sister-in-law and niece, so learning about viking/Norse lore is pretty much essential. They’re a very... assertive people. ;)

Hah! That’s actually legitimately possible! In a lot of ways, humanity essentially boils down to a game of “telephone” writ large. We’re very social animals who tend to let details slide in favor of a feeling of connectivity. It isn’t necessarily a good or a bad thing, it’s just interesting. The further back our…

Sincerely, thank you. I’m thirty now, and while I’ve recovered quite a lot from the... bizarre teachings I was exposed to, there are still some psychological wounds floating around. I’ve tried to throw myself into being a force for education and acceptance (I feel tolerance is a cop-out. I tolerate a headache, I accept…

Yup, just gotta keep hammering away.

Ancient cultures just passed down sets of rules and recommendations for survival techniques, as well as genealogical records and historical accounts, through oral tradition. Once they developed written language, they started recording this information in a more “permanent” manner, by writing or inscribing it. Time…

Potential to bring people together — and to tear us apart.

I was very much the same way for about ten years. At the time, I fancied myself a “buffet-style Deist.” I hung out with some Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans, read a bunch of myths and legends of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse, Hindu, etc. gods, and read up on some ancient Jewish mysticism. Eventually I just kinda settled…

Living in a thoroughly Trumper-filled area, this is my take as well. They’re all dumb as mud, to be sure. But for a lot of them, it’s more that they’re gullible and easily swayed than actually evil. I’d say about a third of them are straight-up pieces of shit who should just be written off as a lost cause, but the…

Wisconsinite here, I’m seeing that same attitude in my neck of the woods as well. It’s infuriating that the DNC just. Doesn’t. Get it.

Heh, fair enough.

Not necessarily. My sister-in-law is Danish, and basically as non-pigmented as a person can be without being translucent. She’s been harassed by a coworker at a former job for having the audacity to raise her daughter with two languages.

Right? I’ve been suuuuper drunk many times, and I mostly end up either being completely kumbaya I-love-everyone we-are-all-one hippy-esque, or I give breathlessly excited physics lectures to any audience I can get, even if it’s inanimate objects. Not once has alcohol ever made me go on a racist rant or assault people.

This class over on edX is completely free, if you’re interested. It’s a 7.5 week crash course on Western history, which I find interesting anyway, but the units on Jewish history/Judaism and Arab history/Islam just had me completely enthralled. The next class starts in March, so you have plenty of time to consider it.

It’s a time sink to be sure, but so very fascinating.

You’re welcome! I’m not religious myself, but I’ve always been fascinated by the beliefs and legends passed down from ancient cultures. Not sure if you saw the link I just posted for DrugstoreGlasses, but if not, here it is again. The Midrash is a collection of Rabbinical texts that give context and addenda to the…

If you want to go down a rabbit hole of Rabbinic lore expanding on the Tanakh (original Hebrew Bible, consisting of Genesis through Deuteronomy), a good place to get an overview is the wikipedia page on the Midrash. There’s a ton of supplemental material debating and explaining the minutia, logical gaps, and confusing…

Based on interpretations I’ve read, the various gods go their separate ways about the time Yahweh starts up a private Eden for the simultaneous creation of both Adam and Lilith. A bunch of the other gods start founding their own human civilizations, including what wound up as the land of Nod (where Cain’s eventual…

Yeah, I should have been more clear on that. Sorry.

I’m ultimately on the side of Jamie Wallace. The kid was serially abused and did what he had to do to survive. Then while in prison for what was essentially self defense, he put his own health and safety on the line to fight for better mental health care for a severely underserved community. He died while fighting for…