Goliath was killed by David using a rock. Do these people even read their own books?

Also, we're declaring ourselves the loser bad guys of the story

I think it's more an attempt to replace income tax since it acts like a sales tax like they've been drooling to do for years but now they don't have to say the word tax

Facebook. You can find a lot of them on Facebook. My family included....

My interpretations of the Bible are as useful as my interpretations of any other fantasy series. Just because something has a deeper meaning doesn't mean it is useful, correct, or should be followed. Every episode of South Park ends with what lessons they learned. It's also more up to date and in tune with the realities of the world around it. The reason people don't worship South Park is because they haven't been systematically brainwashed to do so.

How I know this: god told me so

The Bible's track of history is unique in that it doesn't just show when the people written about did good, it also shows when they did bad. David was good, until he got into that affair with Bathsheba, and indirectly got her husband killed in battle. He was called out on that part by a prophet speaking in behalf of God, and the only reason he lived was that he repented, but he still lost their first child because of it.

Solomon was the king with a thousand wives. He asked God for smarts when presented with an option to ask for anything and be granted it, and he was granted that and more for thinking spiritually and not materially, but then he started getting into the whole wives and concubines thing. Another example of "started out good, but then got sucked into doing bad", as he was given advance prophecy that Israel would be broken into pieces over this. Which happened when his son took over and made things worse.

Sure, their fundamentalist, militant beliefs are not rooted in any intelligent reading of their scripture, but, in my opinion, just like humans can not evolve out of our ancestry (humans are apes, are monkeys, are primates, are mammals, are chordates) movements cannot escape the roots of their religion. And they constitute a vast, but for it's size relatively homogeneous, culturally distinct sect of Christianity. So let's not create a "true scotsman" here, just because they don't abide by your (or my) interpretation of their faith doesn't mean they aren't Christians, similar differences in belief exist in many religious sects in many different religions. And at least they violently "claim" to be Christians and will defend that position with vigor. Something apparent in all the big american sects that, from the outside, seeem to have little to nothing to do with the teachings in the New Testament. Like Mormonism.

Just like Christianity, Judaism and Islam are still abrahamic religions, those new american sects will always remain christian in their roots.

For this sect, Christian trappings have fused with the American Civil Religion, the Red Scare and the "Lost Cause"-myth. In this worldview, the defeat in a holy war (American Civil War) facilitated the struggle between evil, socialist, secular, globalist, minority-loving, weak liberalism and the good, pious, capitalist, nationalist, exceptionalist, (mostly white) red-blooded conservatism.

This might actually constitute a new kind of religion, but it is heavily blanketed in pseudo-christian trappings and lots of old-testament fire and brimstone. And this mind-virus relies on the widespread christian beliefs in the US to spread into new hosts. A lack of (objective, comparative) religious education with, at the same time, a deeply religious habitat is the fertile ground that allows this to spread. What you or me would interpret as a "correct" (or "less wrong") christian faith, if followed culturally or blindly and without haven given it enough thought, actually aides in the spread of this militant, nationalistic, chauvinist movement that has infected the US and is (imho) at the root of Reaganism, the Tea-Party and the entire Maga-Movement. It has been mutating and getting more malignant for a while now and I honestly have no idea how this could ever be excised from the US.

Many of them could pretty accurately be called Mammonites.

Bad, I'm lucky and live in a fairly afluent area of the south (but outside of London) but decades of conservative cuts have left our local government councils broke. My best friends moved to Europe because one of them worked in the arts and there's not enough jobs to support them in just the UK. The new Labour government is an improvement but has shifted significantly to the right in their policies and feels like Conservative Light and is actively persecuting Trans and immigrant people through it's policies to appeal to ex-conservatives. They're starting to seek closer ties to Europe again but everything feels pretty hopeless.

Bit chilly today, otherwise fine.

Imports and exports have largely been the same before and after Brexit, with a dip as people figured out the bureaucratic mountains of paperwork involved that wasn't needed before.

Source: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf

Section 3 for the graphs.

I dare say we've lost a lot of influence across Europe over it. We didn't get any of the supposed "benefits", but trade didn't just drop off a cliff either. For all the bluster over the hardness of the Brexit we'd like, it mostly seems to be business as usual.

The more I read the Bible (having read multiple versions) as a teen the more I realized that people who claim to walk as Christ did, in fact do not walk as Christ did. There are exceptions, such as the pastor who I met volunteering at a soup kitchen, but a vast majority only prove my point.

Christ walked among sinners, the down and destitute, tax collectors, sex workers and the "unclean". The same people these self proclaimed men and women of Christ will rebuke and spit on.

I always think back to that scene from Castlevania between the Bishop and the Demon: "my life's work is in his name!" "Your life's work. Makes him puke."

It really is just a bunch of silly stories from farmers thousands of years ago

Can you imagine how twisted the guy who wrote Revelations was? Why did he just make all that shit up? Why did he try to pass off his own shit as Yahweh's shit? Since he knew that Revelations was his own made up bullshit, he must have known that the entire bible was made up bullshit too. Why did he think it was okay to be a gigantic liar and for him to contribute to the mountain of bullshit started by others?

I don't know about other churches, but the Methodist Church I used to go to with my grandma never had a pastor out of the 2 I witnessed that did stuff like that. Maybe it depends on the region, but I've never heard of those type of manipulative strategies where I live, so I'd say I'm pretty lucky on that front. Closest I've probably heard of something like that in my area are the Mormons, but that's a whole nother can of worms that I don't wanna touch.

Regardless, that doesn't sound right or like a very Christian thing to do. Even if the verses tell of similar things, context for those verses are real important, just like with any other readings (religious or otherwise).

I think strategically used tariffs (i.e. used in trade negotiations for specific sectors or items, not unilateral tariffs) can convince a country to export items at a price that benefits one country more than the other, usually in tandem with an agreement to reciprocate. Basically, countries agree to trade at certain rates or exclusively sell. Tariffs are the “bad cop” of trade negotiations.

The tariff isn’t what lowers the price, it’s the threat of the tariff that lowers the price or keeps it stable.

Imagine Canada exports maple widgets at $10 a piece to reflect the true cost of manufacture. The US says that is too high, our people can’t afford that price once it’s on the shelves, so how about you export them for $8? To sweeten the deal, we’ll export freedom widgets to you at reduced cost.

Canada responds saying $8 for maple widgets is too low, $10 is firm and we’ll deal with the current cost of freedom widgets. The US threatens a targeted tariff on maple widgets at 25% which doesn’t affect the price of maple widgets in Canada or their sale price to importers in the US, but importers in the US have to pay $2.50 in tax on top of the purchase cost for maple widgets which drives up the cost for US consumers.

This results in the price of the item increasing in the US $4.50 over the price determined to be “affordable” which will result in reduced imports and reduced purchases of maple widgets by consumers. Canada now has to find somewhere else to sell their maple widgets since the US isn’t buying at the same rate which drives down the value of maple widgets in Canada.

And if the US was feeling particularly vengeful at being denied their cheap steady supply of maple widgets, they could convince other countries to not buy Canadian widgets at all or impose a blanket ban on all Canadian goods (see: how the US obliterated the economy of Cuba because of “communism” which was really just Cuba not wanting to be the US’s sugar plantation anymore).

Canada will evaluate this and determine that selling maple widgets is essential to their economy and less profit for their maple widget industry is an agreeable trade compared to the US not buying at all.

Only 300 meters? A gravity trebuchet is sufficient, though large bore naval guns can reach your enemies miles away.

Would a catapult do the trick?