offa

This has happened in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Blue

I do believe we are talking about slightly different things here - you put an emphasis on God's love and His care for the world, while I focus on the human (Abraham's, etc) need to renounce the world and (by extension) the ties and moral responsibilities that bind us to it, in order to fully embrace God. Regardless, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to chat - I've had fun trying to work through and structure my thoughts on the topic.

I'm not arguing that God's morality is somehow inferior to mine - I'm arguing that by trusting and obeying Him over my own moral judgement (I know murder is wrong, yet God tells me to kill someone), I am shifting responsibility for my own actions onto Him - Abraham's greatness is that he does not doubt the Lord. The ultimate accountability to God is inherently at odds with my responsibility for those around me.

"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Would you look your son in the eye as you lower the knife?

I don't mean to start a "religion versus atheism" comment battle, but just wanted to discuss the idea of moral responsibility. For context, I grew up in a Christian (Eastern Orthodox) household and attended church for some twenty-five years of my life - that is to say, the perspective of a believer is not lost on me, even though I am now agnostic.

For me, responsibility is irrevocably linked to the idea of care - caring for those other than myself makes me responsible for my actions, inasmuch as they impact those around me. That ranges from those I love (my partner, family, friends) to strangers on the street that I nonetheless "care" for, by recognizing our shared humanity. Care itself comes from the idea of finitude - specifically, the idea of fragility of life in the face of our mortal existence. If I'm being poetic, "living rightly" means a life that is spent caring for others, strengthening the bonds that link us in face of death. The consequences of our actions are felt precisely because of the finitude of our lives - all we've got is each other, and our responsibility is towards one another.

Religious morality of the other hand is best expressed in the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son (it's no wonder the three major religions are called "Abrahamic"). For a deeper dive into the idea, I recommend reading Kierkegaard's retelling of this story in Fear and Trembling - to recap however, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, they travel to mountain where Abraham binds Isaac and lifts up the knife to kill him. At the last moment, God interrupts Abraham, and a ram is offered as sacrifice instead. This story, perhaps one of the most well-known stories from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, goes directly against the idea of responsibility in moral judgments - Abraham does not falter, for he fully trusts his Lord, giving up his son in devotion to God's command. The idea of care or responsibility for ones actions is superseded by the belief that the will of God is, in fact, more important than caring for those around you. A true belief in an everlasting life presupposes a detachment from the world (as any cursory reading of writers such as Saint Augustine shows), in a way protecting and insulating the believer from truly coming to terms with the consequence of their actions (in this case, murdering their only son).

To sum it up, I just can't get behind the idea that a final judge is somehow required for having responsibility in moral judgments. In fact, the opposite is true - only through the secular faith that there is no better everlasting world can we form meaningful relationships and take full responsibility for our actions.

From what I understand, the "safe drinking water was a pain in the ass" thing is largely a myth. Some good information available in this r/AskHistorians Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1svj1q/how_d...

OK, but to be fair, it's hard to suggest a meaningful alternative to "hate speech" to describe the conversations happening on Voat and other such platforms.

What subreddit would that be, if you don't mind me asking?

Let's not forget that the 'wrong ethnicity' invaded Estonia in the 1940s and occupied it until 1991. As someone who has spent enough time in Russian communities which outright refuse to learn the language of their host countries, it's a little hard to sympathize with those of my fellow countrymen who cannot even take a language exam while also wanting citizenship thanks to the Soviet Union's occupation of the Baltic states. But yes, I agree that my particular situation is, of course, different.

"The Citizenship Act provides the following requirements for naturalisation of those people who had arrived in the country after 1940, the majority of whom were ethnic Russians: knowledge of the Estonian language, Constitution and a pledge of loyalty to Estonia. The government offers free preparation courses for the examination on the Constitution and the Citizenship Act, and reimburses up to 380 euros for language studies."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see anything particularly bad about this policy. Considering the fact that the Baltic countries were under Russian occupation for a while, I don't have much of a problem with them making those Russians who decide to stay learn the language. This is coming from an ethnic Russian whose family used to live in Latvia, and who now resides in Canada - learning English was also required here since I wanted to obtain Canadian citizenship.

Switching the theme from the Default to Dark/Light does the trick for me, but yeah, definitely a minor nuisance.

Wow, you weren't kidding, this indeed looks much nicer.

Perhaps you mean group calls? Group chat is available in Telegram.

Not OP, but unfortunately YouTube Red isn't available in places like Canada last I've checked.

Agreed. Just got mine a couple of days ago, and I'm enjoying it so far.

Thank you for your reply. I can read a little bit of French, so Mediapart is something I'll keep an eye on in the future.

What 'real subscription journalism' big-name newspapers that don't do advertising can you name? I am honestly struggling to think of any.

What would HN recommend for a news source that is worth paying for lately?

Am Russian, so I can tell you that the saying not exclusive to Russian culture, seeing how it is from the Bible.

Upvoting because I'm interested in the discussion of the ethics surrounding 'leaking' scientific papers out into the Web, not so much in this particular case itself but as a general sort of act.

HN, what is your opinion on all this?

What add-ons were those? Just curious, since Firefox feels sort of slow on MacOS for me.

How much is it usually advisable to limit the upload speed, in terms of a percentage of the total?

Unfortunately it's only available for five countries in the world, and mine is not one of them.

Not really related, but I greatly prefer VK's design and features over Facebook. Wish it was more popular outside of Eastern Europe.

I must have been doing something wrong then... Elementary school was exactly where the subtleties of human conflict first appeared to me. IMO, it's as good of a place as any to have some of your first (and due to that, perhaps the most important) encounters with what it means to exist within a society.

Neat! I use Telegram on a daily basis, so this seems interesting.

What books/essays would you recommend to start with?

Is Vimeo failing? I don't know much about it, but doesn't it have its own niche?

Am Russian, can confirm. I actually had an argument about that with a friend of mine a few days ago, in his eyes (and many other Russians both home and abroad) we are the ones who have saved the world while the Allies stood by and watched. The notion is deeply engrained in the Russian cultural memory now, and seeing how WW2 is still tremendously important to the majority of the population I do not see it changing any time soon.

OnePlus 3 doesn't require invites to buy outright though (unlike 1 and 2).

I was just going to say the same for Russian, but you beat me to it. Never really thought about why we have named it that way though, it was always something I just accepted... seems weird now.