Dravin

Members
  • Posts

    12216
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Dravin last won the day on November 30 2014

Dravin had the most liked content!

About Dravin

  • Birthday February 3

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Indiana
  • Religion
    None

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

Dravin's Achievements

  1. If you really want to delve into an atheist or agnostic mindset I suggest that this board isn't a very good place for it. This board isn't really awash in atheists or agnostics and those who are here are mindful of the faith based nature of the board and thus are unlikely to engage with any boldness. This is a faith promoting board and an atheist or agnostic response to your questions aren't faith promoting. The Straight Dope Message Board, the Great Debates sub-forum, would be a wonderful place to get honest responses that aren't concerned with the nature of the board they are responding on and there are many atheists and agnostics there. There is also a fair number of religious individuals but the board does lean towards the atheist/agnostic as far as the membership numbers are concerned. If you wanted more neutral territory (as even I would classify the SDMB as being on the antagonistic side as far as religion is concerned) I bet with sufficient effort you could probably find a board with a more even split/neutral attitude to ask your question on.
  2. You'll find "I'm not religious" used by atheists, agnostics, and even theists or spiritualists who mean it to indicate they don't adhere to a defined or organized religion. Heck, I've heard those words uttered by self-professed Christians. What people mean by the phrase is varied.
  3. Do he not get your argument? Or does he not agree with it? Understanding and agreement are often conflated by people (on both sides of many an argument). That is not to say that lack of understanding is never the case, just that it's an easy and common conflation; particularly if passion is involved.
  4. Your quote sounds like a reference to an address given by Boyd K. Packer entitled The Mantle is Far, Far, Greater Than the Intellect. Relevant quote below:
  5. God does not play Monopoly with the universe.
  6. As long as you don't try and respond to his phone conversation and he thinks you're the one trying to chat people up in the bathroom.
  7. Be the strange you wish to see in the world.
  8. Heh, as long as they aren't trying to start a conversation with me in the restroom I'm happy. Someone trying to chat you up from the next urinal over is just awkward.
  9. I find that generally when people feel better about the idea of a gun free environment it's because they fear someone doing something stupid with a (legally present) gun over someone intentionally, and illegally, bringing in a gun to cause murder and mayhem. One can of course debate if the weighting of fears is grounded in the statistics (fears being very subjective things it won't matter for some people), but no belief in signs preventing someone intent on murder and mayhem using a gun from entering the premises are required to feel as Bini does. Ultimately she'll have to explain her particular situation.
  10. Have you talked to him specifically about how you feel like he'd benefit from the occasional friends/guys night out? If he doesn't want to get out and about and it's not causing any problems (or stemming from them) I'd be inclined to just let him know that you're happy to support him if and/or when he gets an itch for a monthly (or what have you) evening of X with friends. If he's an introvert* then over encouraging him to get out there and jump in with friends where relationship dynamics may have changed significantly may make him feel pressured and a bit grumpy. *That he had friends and went out regularly doesn't necessarily mean he's an extrovert. However, you know your husband better than anyone else here on the board.
  11. At it's heart a union is the freedom of association and the right to control your own labor (aka if you're going to work or not). I'm disinclined to pass laws preventing people from associating with other individuals in their field (or even workplace) and telling them they can't quit en mass (we seem to have no problems letting employees cut people loose en mass). Now where today's unions go past this conceptual nugget is where they have legal protections that essentially change the balance between employer and employees and change it to employer versus employees + government, I think lively and healthy debate can be had about those legal protections and advantages and if they should be eliminated. I can even see lively and healthy debate over if a particular union is doing more harm than good for it's members. I find generally speaking people hone in on those last two subjects, but they are somewhat different than discussing if unions themselves should be allowed. It would take what they offer, short-term and long-term, to be equal to or greater than the investment (monetary and time) they would require of me. In short, they must offer a net value.
  12. English doesn't necessarily need to be particularly compact. Translations often take more space/time than the original. Even skilled translators can find themselves having to take a two or three word idiom and turn it into a sentence to properly communicate the meaning fully in another language. Also consider if you want to do a standard video that it needs to account for the translation that takes the longest for each particular scene. If German needs an extra 5 seconds for a scene, Spanish an extra 23 seconds , and Norwegian an extra 13 seconds it doesn't really mater if the audio is actually shorter in Japanese ( compared to English ), the scene needs to give room for the 23 seconds extra needed by the Spanish audio.
  13. What are your thoughts on stipends for clergy?
  14. The OP made a slight mistake (unless it's some UK variant), it's pedantry not pedancy (). The root word is pedant.
  15. According the Mayor: From: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2015/March/City-Under-Fire-for-Requiring-Church-Business-Licenses/ Going to the Lake Worth Municipal website does appear to have it set-up as a dual form, at least it does mention Use & Occupancy ( https://www.lakeworth.org/business/business-tax/ ). That might explain some church seeing the form and complaining but it doesn't really explain the investigation. Even if it was intended to be an investigation into if safety and maximum occupancy requirements were being met the snippets of the report available online don't make it sound like that at all. Which makes it sound like someone or someones decided to do a little axe grinding. As far as the general question instead of the specific incident: I'm comfortable with for profit business ventures of churches requiring a license if a secular one would as well, but I'm not comfortable with requiring some sort of church license (be it a unique to churches license or requiring them to get a business license). I am okay with buildings that hold large regular public to semi-public meetings being required to meet certain safety requirements such as maximum occupancy and sufficient points of egress in case of emergency. That'd be something that applies to the building though not the church itself.