Or some people are genuinely that dumb?

Haha. You joke but that is theist belief in a nutshell. Rather believe in anything to save one’s soul in the afterlife than nothing at all and not to go to heaven or some paradise.

In my experience, theists would just want an individual to believe in anything instead of nothing.

Not to be apologetic for John Cena, but it is technically correct that Taiwan is not an independent nation. I’m not going into too much details but I think the broader implication for not supporting Taiwan at any capacity is that Mainland Communist China’s dominance in Asia will get more credence, and signaling that the world will not support a democracy to sustain their way of life.

Thank you for sharing. This corroborates with what I have heard that he can be arrogant.

I have less respect for Neil then.

I love listening to Neil’s podcast but I can see why some might find him insufferable as you say. Some scientists chided him for getting some things wrong but I don’t mind him as long as he doesn’t say or do anything egregious.

He started dating Demi Lovato when she was 17 and him at 29. But Wilmer never got any reprimand for this unlike others. Her song “29” is dedicated to him about grooming…

Kevin Spacey probably wasn’t acting as he often portrayed psychopathic characters in TV and films.

Same with Danny Masterson and Wilmer Valderrama as they played as creepy guys in “That 70s Show”.

I definitely hope Tom Hanks isn’t a perverse person!

I don’t know about the other cases, but one of Kevin Spacey’s case ended up in a settlement.

However, the fact that so many came out accusing him of sexual misconduct and how Kevin Spacey reacted after being questioned is itself a charge of guilt. Once or twicely accused is questionable. But I am a firm believer that “where there is smoke, there is fire”. A genuinely nice person would not be defamed by so many just like that, especially with serious allegations. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was accused once, but the charges were dropped when the accuser proved to have made false allegations. We haven’t heard anything egregious about Neil before and after that scandal.

I didn’t meant to type a long wall of text but here goes anyway.

Yeah, people here are dismissive of the news headline, but I have a similar experience coming out as agnostic atheist. Luckily, I did not get as much as negative experience as you have, but when I came out, I was tried to be invited twice on separate occasions into Christian prayer meetings. Naive me didn’t realise that both invitations are more like trying to get me “back into the flock”.

On the second invitation, I went along just to see how it was. After the second prayer session I attended, I said don’t want to go anymore. I had a long “debate” with the pastor on the phone to try to make me at least a believer in any religions. There was a bit of condescension in the conversation and kind of implied I am going to hell. The thing is, or rather problem for him, is that I don’t feel or see whatever religious folks see even when I was going to church. So, I don’t feel at least bit intimadated by threat of hell. The OG Judaism and Old Testament don’t even believe in hell so why should Christians and Muslims do as well?

Not to mention, religions across the world have conflicting claims of historical and scientific realities. If they all conflict with each other and could not agree which is the correct one, then religions themselves are false. If there are universal scientific truth to each of their claims and basis, then one religion in one part of the world should have the same or similar accounts to another religious belief on the other side of the world. But that is not the case.

I told the last paragraph to the pastor and we were pushing back each other. I do not like to de-convert people from religion but he was trying to re-convert me so I laid down all the heavy stuff to him, despite signalling that I don’t want to continue the conversation in the first twenty minutes.

I admit that I have had cognitive dissonance the following day and think “what if I’m wrong?” I simply re-think back that religious accounts conflict with each other and therefore not real. Also, it dawned on me that my emotions is probably more that I feel offended trying to be re-converted and being condescended. Conversely, the pastor must have thought I am a devil tempting him away from religion, lol.

Since then, I don’t tell people I’m agnostic atheist. Christians (and Islam) feel religious obligations to convert as many people as possible. That’s how they survive. I didn’t think much about proselytising before but I realised that the practice is rather condescending and gives them superiority complex. This is not to say that there aren’t militant atheist, but the religious zealots are more adamant from what I observed.

I quite remember it, Macron and other French diplomats were humiliated by Putin and gang.

Good thing the west would never invade anything if they don’t have a defensive pact. Ow wait!

You did.

Did Iraq and Libya invade any democracies or NATO? Plenty of coping and short term memories in this thread. Or it could be something else?

You got downvoted but you’re not wrong. NATO is getting good PR at the moment because of Ukraine, but the invasion of Iraq and Libya are examples of how god-awful NATO is. Iraq was invaded out of trumped up accusations but the real reason is gaining access to Iraqi oil. I remember it was France and UK who were antsy to invade Libya while US refused initially but eventually caved in. Look at the long term implications of such invasions. ISIS sprung up, and Libya is in a civil war causing thousands of refugees which Europe absorbed.

NATO is getting good image at the moment because of recency bias

I’m from a developing country and while I agree that leaders of former colonies tend blame their former colonial masters to distract the public from internal corruption, the case of Haiti is unique and the unquestionably exploited. Long after independence, they have been subjected to economic imperialism both by France and US.

The New York Times wrote a report detailing the history of Haiti being forced to pay by France at gunpoint after independence, as “reparations” for damaging French properties, i.e. slaves being freed. France then increased the amount and few decades later, the responsibility of creditor has been passed on to American banks, in which the debt doubled-- or double indemnity.

Haiti became independent in 1804 but the debt only became fully repaid in 1930s. Over 130 years after Haitian independence. Imagine that, 130 years being in debt! It is almost as good as being a slave but in a different name. They became free from physical servitude but became slaves by finance.

Haiti’s debt burden made them desperate from invading Dominican Republic in early years to totally exhausting their natural resources to service the debt. You could see the massive deforestation in Haiti compared to neighbouring DR as a result.

If you’re still not convinced at US and French direct influence on Haiti’s downfall of its well-being, it is too much of a coincidence that the democratically elected former Haitian president, Jean Paul Aristide, was supported militarily by France and US to return to power. But when Aristide asked France and US to return the $22 billion worth of assets to Haiti due to double of indemnity, paramilitary groups stormed the presidential palace and Aristide was forced to go on exile to Africa. And France and US never returned their support to him.

If you’re still not convinced, look at neighbouring Dominican Republican as comparison. It shares the same island as Haiti; were both former colonies; both underwent dictatorships; and both got invaded by US, and yet the DR is projected to become a developed country by 2030. It is unquestionable that Haiti was intentionally screwed and the world isn’t paying enough attention to it.

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Yahweh told Adam and Eve not eat the fruit of knowledge. Why and what is bad about the apple of knowledge?

Coming from Philippines, there are plenty of gold diggers who see foreigners–especially white people-- as easy cash machine. And lonely white Westerners come to lap up the attention, whether or not they realise they are being sought after for money.

Then on the much darker side, foreigners exploit the extreme poverty that locals suffer to exploit trafficked individuals–many of whom are minor pimped by their own family.