Res

In UK high schools religious education is also compulsory for at least two years; I hear it is not in the US? My husband says he received no religious education in school. However, it is not confined to the Church of England. We spent a semester each on Judaism, Hindu, Islam and another major religion, as well as Christianity in general (including other denominations) (I forget which). We also visited a mosque and a church in our town (we didn't visit any other places of worship, but I don't believe the town had any others at that time - it's overwhelmingly white and Christian). These requirements also apply to religious schools, as far as I am aware (I attended catholic school and a CofE school, but not at the high school level).

That meeting with Kremlin-affiliated lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016, also included Trump’s de facto campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and longtime close adviser to the candidate (and future senior adviser to the president) Jared Kushner. Exactly. It's the hypocrisy that continues to stun, not merely the actual actions (the legality of which I'll leave to the lawyers, seeing as I am not one).

Donald Trump Jr. had denied participating in any campaign-related meetings with Russian nationals when he was interviewed by The Times in March. We then heard it was about Russian adoption, but these emails are explicitly clear that Donald Trump Jr at least expected to be given political information (even if it was not actually delivered). As for the legality, a former Defense Department special counsel and current legal editor certainly believes Donald Trump Jr's actions are illegal. And really, Trump Jr only released the emails because the NY Times was about to publish them. I hardly think he deserves a pat on the back for that.

I love the Dragon Quest series; it has some of my all-time favourite games. The gameplay is simple and can grow a little dull at times, there's not a lot of strategy and usually some grinding is required (although it's easy enough to grind while watching TV). However, the games are packed with charm, fun characters and cute stories. Personally I'd probably start with DQ5; it has one of the more unique and well-regarded stories, it was also my introduction to the series and I remember it being a good one. I also don't remember too much grinding being required, whereas DQ8 has a steep leap in difficulty that almost requires a little grinding (unless you strike very lucky). DQ8 and DQ7 are my second and third favourites respectively, although Interdimensional Observer is right about DQ7 being very slow to get going (the introduction was cut much shorter for the DS version, from what I hear, and it's still rather slow!).

Doesn't everyone's?! I look forward to hearing more of his voiced lines!

Here's some research on why people leave religion. 60% cite 'no longer believing' as a reason while fewer than 1/5th of the respondents point to scandal or a traumatic point in their lives as a reason.

You're not seeing anything wrong with the continuous lies, hypocrisy, layers of childish back-and-forth that would be absolutely, without-a-doubt, creating all kinds of scandal if it weren't originating from the Republican party? (For that matter, why all of Trump's children are continually getting involved is anyone's guess, is this democracy or nepotism?) And yeah, U.S. politics are a mess. Both parties are awful. I get the political fatigue and why most people have stopped caring altogether (although I'm trying to stay aware myself - it's how all the dangerous bills keep getting passed). I have no idea why political campaigns focus so heavily on trying to dig up dirt on the other candidate (probably because to do otherwise would not only highlight how similar the parties actually are, but show just how flimsy the basis of most campaigns are).

And Donald Trump Jr is now posting the evidence himself. (And yet, still crickets). Edit: Poor Jared Sexton.

Surely strong faith should stand up to rigorous questioning, though (this is what I was always taught). If people are being persuaded by higher education institutions to drop their religion, maybe they would never have been religious if not brought up in their religion to start with. My dad was a regular attendee at church and a lay preacher up until he obtained a theology degree (as a related side interest) and formed an interfaith group in his town. He's now atheist; was that the fault of his university, or did his faith just not stand up to scrutiny? That's not to say that people don't have strong faith and aren't educated and religious, just that there's a substantial number of people in-between, imo, who are casual-religious people who believe more for cultural reasons. I had no idea my bff of 22 years was religious until she chose to get married in a church and if questioned, she might leave her religion. On the other hand, my mom has very strong faith; she regularly engages in theological debates with my brothers and nothing has ever caused her faith to waver.

I bought my brother Awakening for his birthday last year. He married Chrom off to the villager (quite a feat) and got halfway through the game before running into problems because he had no real idea how to play, haha. I don't believe he ever completed it.

Same with me, nobody, I just didn't make my point clearly enough. I dislike the word bitter because it implies anger, or that there was a cataclysmic event that caused someone to leave religion, and that begets the stereotype of the angry atheist who could be persuaded to return to religion if they could only work past their anger, which in turn begets more prosthelytizing from religious people, and that's one reason why I said many ex-religious people I know have less-than-warm feelings towards religion. Families that have been non-religious for a longer time tend not to get bothered by friends and family in the same way. Another reason is that sometimes the strong feelings come from having been subject to abuse, in which case describing someone as bitter undermines the effects of that abuse. Edit: Measuring how many people who have left religion are bitter is kind of impossible, but for what it's worth, studies have shown atheists are no more angry than any other group. Of course Dawkins, Harris et al don't exactly give atheism a good name, which is why I haven't read any of them, but they no more represent all nonreligious people than the best-known evangelists represent Christians, etc.

Yes the dragon room on level 9 was... interesting.

After reading this thread I was a little scared of attempting Thabes, but I beat it today on Hard/Classic. I had done some grinding but you definitely don't require the overclasses to beat the dungeon - and I'm far from being a great player. First attempt I got all the way to level 9, had three groups of enemies attack at once and lost Celica to a devil ax - my fault for being so careless. Next attempt was much easier since I took care not to be blindsided by enemies, but I didn't avoid them, either. I do know I missed the chest with the boots the second time round, though. Alm and Celica were maxed level 20 before I started, so I tried not to use them. I only used Celica for healing and Alm helped fend off some enemies in the last battle only. Final team was Genny (lvl 10 Saint), Mathilda (lvl 14 Gold Knight), Lukas (lvl 5 Baron), Python (lvl 12 Bow Knight), Clair (lvl 18 Falcon Knight), Grey (lvl 14 Dread Fighter), Delthea (lvl 12 Priestess) and Kliff (lvl 18 Bow Knight). Delthea and Genny had maybe one kill each, they were mostly relegated to healer status.

Conquest Hard/Classic was really tough for me (granted, I did a no-grind run). Several maps took me 15-20 tries and the end battle saw half my team die. So yes, compared to that, Hard/Classic SoV has been a breeze. I did a little grinding but mainly just to bring up a few of the low level characters (i.e. Est and Delthea). I used the turnwheel sparingly and only got a game over once, early on in the game. I think the only map I had pause on was Sonya's.

Not a surprise to me personally (although I do actually belong to the rare group of people who left religion for no particular big reason) but I've often come across people who don't understand why people are sometimes anti-religion, and I've also seen it misunderstood that people are anti-religion because they haven't been exposed to religion/had militant atheist parents.

I definitely see distaste for religion coming from ex-religious people, whereas the people I've known to be non-religious all their lives often have quite warm feelings towards religion.

I'm kind of immune to the effects of caffeine I definitely can enjoy tea alone, but to be perfectly honest, there's also a laziness factor. Putting on the kettle for several people? I can do that. Putting on the kettle for myself alone? I usually choose to pour a glass of water instead.

Mm, tea I miss the culture of tea drinking, not that anything is preventing me from enjoying tea by myself, but it was partially a social thing for me

That's a good question where's my manual for 'how to act like a human' Thank you! I do you, too, I'm just wary of imposing on people!

Thank you, friend!

It's not necropostin; the last post in this thread before yours was only made last Saturday. :) And it's really nice; he is probably the most explicitly ace/aro character I've come across!

I...I don't think I have any

Ah, I love it. It looks fantastic!

It'd be nice to have a younger, attractive-looking villain. Berkut was a step in the right direction in that regard. Someone charismatic, so it's easy to understand why the protagonist might believe their lies, or have a hard time believing them to be truly evil.

Right here! But yes; the DLC is great. Fernand also benefits from the expansion of his character. It was good to see Clive realize that his defence of the king might be misplaced, yet be forced to kill the traders anyway.