Sphinx: You there, knight. I am the guardian of this place and cannot allow you to pass without a battle.
Me: My name is Ender, Sir Ender to you. And I'm a bit weary from my long journey here, would you accept a pun battle?
Sphinx: Aye, Sir Ender.
Me: Thank you, please move aside
For me, they manage to trigger the "SNAKE!" and "SPIDER!" panic responses simultaneously. The rational part of my brain likes them, the instinctual part tells me to smash it with a rock
Lol, I swear I can read
While I like the comparison between Trump's legal troubles and Julius Caesar's, my inner pedant needs to point out that Caesar was not part of the fall of the Roman Empire. Depending on how you break up the timeline, Caesar was the beginning of the end for the Roman Republic and his heir Augustus was the beginning of the Empire.
The EEA shows up in the list of places it does not apply. They worded it strangely, first calling out the US as a place where it does apply. Then they change it up and say it also applies to anywhere not on this specific list of places
The national guard is part of the military, so funded and supported by the feds. Unlike normal army units though, each state or territory has its own national guard unit under the command of the governor. The intention is to give each state the power to quickly respond to emergency situations without needing federal approval. They're the successors to the old state militias, but have much stronger federal ties now.
How do you reconcile the idea of a good God worthy of worship with the God who created a bunch of sentient people just to torture them for eternity.
An all-powerful deity can create any universe they want. An all-knowing deity knows exactly how it will all turn out. Then this deity creates a bunch of people they know will misbehave and then punish them for that misbehavior with eternal torment.
To me this sounds an awful lot like leaving a kid in a room with candy, telling them "don't eat this, it's bad for you", then beating them senseless when they eat it anyway.
In what way do these things "plainly point to a creator"? Is it just that you believe that complex things must be created by something equally complex? Does that also mean that since God is complex that something created God as well?
I'd agree that biological processes are complex and fascinating, but they are also very prone to errors. The kind of errors that result in disease, disability, and death. I have a hard time seeing that as plain evidence of an omnipotent creator.
Big Strong City, on their homeworld Pakled Planet
This feels overly pedantic. "Practicing edible recipes without the weed" is more specific than just baking. They are saying what they are baking and why. This is like someone saying "I'm frying some fish for dinner" and getting the response "so...cooking".
It also seems to imply that it's not baking anymore if you add the weed.
Not even close. Any spot on the Maine coast should be within an 8 hour drive. The populated areas should only be a couple hours. Florida is like 30 hours of straight driving from Vermont
To make the setup work, aye