... caffeinated tea? Is he not dead? That's like, 500 mg after a short Google search.

It was pitch black, an empty void. The only indication that there was any end to it at all was the echoes bouncing back and forth against the walls with his first step.

The sound slowly grew in volume throughout the following minute. The man didn’t move a muscle for several seconds, while the sound amplified in volume. The echo across the walls faltered. With this, a soft humming sound shook the room, almost too low to hear it.

Jack moved his head around, reaching his hands out in the dark, with the booming quieting, he felt safe to continue figuring out where he was.

He reached towards the floor and moved his hand back and forth, feeling the grass prickle his fingers. It was damp, from a cool humid night. The blades of grass each echoed the sound of the smallest blades being unsheathed. Normally unheard, but now the sound jumped back and forth. At first the hair on Jack’s forearm stood like a scared kitten, his heart beat hastening, and the hum grew.

He carefully took his hand off the grass, but the blades soon after became real, the echoes ripping through his skin, leaving flecks of blood across his arm. He held his tongue, careful not to make a sound; to make things worse. But his heart had other plans. While it continued to beat the humming turned to a roar in the distance.

Petrified, he tried to keep still for as long as humanly possible, but the gentle roar became the voice of a lion crying out just before him.

Soon enough Jack yearned for the blades of sound to return, to rip through his skin, rather than remain in the room. As the storm grew so did his heart: he could feel every beat, perfectly in sync with the sound drumming against his chest. No longer silly little waves, but now a boulder, pushing him to the wall. With a loud thud he fell to the ground. His life flashed before his eyes even before his death, for he knew what came next.

The thud made its way across the room, shook the walls and returned to Jack while he cried in agony. He pulled at the grass with tears falling across his face. Shaking and writhing in pain, covered in a blanket of blood. His tears fell across his body, salt to a wound, he let out a final cry.

There was a silence, filled with anxiety for the next boom. And eventually it came, but no echo came with it. The walls fell to rubble, but Jack couldn’t get up. He lay in the grass kept warm by his own blood around his neck, waiting for the will to get up again.

"What this means is: We are feeding greedy treasure-loving dragons with our own data then kneeling under their lifted tails with our mouths wide open all ready to consume the shit that explodes out of their scaly, rancid assholes."

Absolutely disgusting depiction. Love it. This is super good stuff dude, keep on writing!

Thanks!

Thanks for the link, seems like an interesting read. Anarchism is severely misrepresented by the media, I knew it wasn't exactly the Purge but I always imagined it as such. Do you have any interesting fiction books in mind that represent anarchism well? Something along the lines of 1984 and that type of book.

It appears it doesn't at all! Thanks for all the replies, I have a lot of reading to do!

I'm here to take the religious meme too seriously.

I'm 100% all with preaching equality, and just as much with helping out your local sex workers (not buying their... services. You know what I mean by "helping out"). But Jesus did not incite anarchism, quite the opposite. He asks us to obey the laws, whether they're Godly or otherwise (as long as they don't go against the laws of Christ, as is demonstrated in the book of Daniel). Without the very human traffic laws that God didn't find important to discuss in the Bible, there would be actual anarchy, and coming from a country that is without traffic law enforcement, I can tell you, no Christian would vouch for this.

Other things Christ would love for you to do this Christmas (or any day of the year). Pass out food to homeless people, better yet, get to know one and invite them over for a meal in a warm home with good company and social support. Regardless of your views, support a kid who's a member from the LGBTQ+ community who might be rejected by their parents. If you're an employer, reach out to any employees who live far from family and invite them over for some baked goods, a meal, and some good conversation and fun. If you're a student (like myself), reach out and setup a mini potluck where everyone brings something.

Christ didn't ask that we hate anyone. Christ asks to spread love, and with the cold weather and festive spirits, there is plenty of room to spread love.

As others have worded it, it's a hobby. Self hosting is only necessary for a very small number of people, less than one percent of people on here, but it's a fun hobby, and I've learned a lot about software and networks from messing with self hosting stuff.

I too hate Hezballah, as most do, but issue is that I also live in the same country where they live. I used to feel bad for Americans that had to do active shooter drills. My school just did a "we're being bombed" drill.

RoadSIDE parking is chill. Middle of the road, all over the road, motorcycles zipping in between parked cars, cars parked on the little sidewalks we have in my country. I've visited actual slums in the Middle East: they feel similar.

I agree, fuck cars, but cars won't disappear and be banned overnight. Even if we begin getting rid of cars one policy at a time, parking will still be a requirement. I live in a country without any parking requirement laws (no laws at all really), and the roads are uhh... interesting. Even nicer areas have roads that feel like slums because everyone is parked all over the street.

As someone who genuinely doesn't understand American politics too much, wouldn't Trump be better for the Middle East? I live in Lebanon right now and most people that I talk to say that Trump would be far better than anyone else for the Middle East, considering what he did in his first term. They'll also back this up with "he's a business man, and war is bad for business", but I don't entirely buy that considering how profitable war is for the US. Could someone put my in the loop?

I think I've found love.

You know you messed up when a photographer can take what seems to be a long(ish) exposure shot of a highway.

I find the point you mentioned about slavery being less reprehensible than murder or theft or lying quite interesting, since my understanding of the Bible is that all sin is weighed the same, being that the wages of sin is death. Not entirely sure how the slavery that existed under Mosaic law quite worked, but I don't think it could be justified in any way. Don't worry about your previous comments, I certainly didn't take them that way! Glad to have a respectful back and forth on a topic like this.

Thank you for the quibble. I'm not the most informed on all these topics, and still growing in my faith and knowledge. The reason why I'll always argue for God despite not having all the answers is because I've had a personal experience with him, and as such will always strive to find an answer the aligns with God's existence, the same God as that in the Bible.

Firstly, animal sacrifice had a purpose, and that purpose was replaced by the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus Christ. With the pork topic, I'm not entirely educated, but I know it's a debated topic.

To the actual meat of this, how could you take "Jesus didn't abolish but fulfill the law", then say that Jesus abolished the law by fulfilling it? I've been studying this across Romans 6, 7, 8; and also the entire book of Galatians both discuss the law in full. As I'm studying, I've also been writing an essay on the topic. I'll share when I finish it. Until then, here's a mini summary. Regardless, we can at least agree that Jesus didn't contradict himself (assuming you're coming from a Christian background).

The law (Mosaic laws, Moses's laws) was created for a few purposes: firstly, to prevent us from sinning aka doing the things that distance us from God; Second, many of the laws were created for the cleanliness and safety of the people, although most of these things are considered common sense today. We're gonna focus on the former, being closer to God.

Jesus commands that the greatest 2 commandments are to love God, and love others. In loving Jesus, you don't want to sin, and avoid it as second nature. It's 2 opposing forces, desires of the flesh vs your love of Christ, as the latter increases the latter will naturally decrease. In doing so, Jesus has fulfilled the purpose of the law, but still hasn't abolished it. I could add verses if you'd like, but I'd have to double check where they are. The laws have still not been abolished though, since how are we to know what is sin unless the law shows us. Although, we still have the Spirit of discernment which allows us to differentiate the original purpose of the law, the intention of the heart, and allows us to widen our scope and know whether certain things are sin or not regardless of if they're explicitly mentioned in the Bible. This same spirit allows us to determine whether something is just against the Mosaic law for health/cleanliness reasons (some people will claim pork is under this category, but as I said I'm not entirely sure), for avoiding Pagan traditions (like the mention of tattoos), or whether it's truly distancing us from God.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

I disagree with the statement mentioned in the original comment, but this isn't a proper argument against it. In that verse, they're discussing who Jesus came for. Instead, you can look at Matthew 5, in the sermon on the mount, which says that Christ did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. As such, the laws cannot be disregarded.

The Mosaic laws are really quite interesting. These verses can work in tandem with those in Leviticus 19. There later is the understanding of why we were given the Mosaic laws, just for Jesus to disagree with them a bit later, which is explained in Matthew 19:3-8. "

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning."

Many of the things discussed in the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible, where the Mosaic laws lie), are just about how to live their day to day lives, and at the time they had many slaves, something that they wouldn't be willing to change. Instead of this, God commands how to treat these slaves. The Old Testament is full of confusing stuff, but it certainly isn't just from "the Jew section of the Bible" as suggested in another comment. It has value, but they must be understood through a specific lens, understanding the lives of the people God is talking to.

We've seen targeted attacks before in Lebanon, and they can hit an individual target with a drone without any interference. A targeted attack kills and harms its target, and only it's target. No one else.