The philistine’s were the antagonist in the story.
Fun fact: Humans are also susceptible to rocks.
Interesting. I have to write that down.
What would you suggest, though, if I wanted to hurl a 90 kilo stone about 300 meters towards an enemy?
Would a catapult do the trick?
Never! There has to be some kind of a superior siege engine 🤔
Only 300 meters? A gravity trebuchet is sufficient, though large bore naval guns can reach your enemies miles away.
I miss trebuchet memes. The only thing Reddit ever mastered.
I think Goliath was a “giant” in the same sense that an NBA player is a giant. Not like a mythical species in the Bible, just a genetic anomaly family that was crazy big and strong. Meanwhile, the average height was back then was much shorter than it is now.
So think of a fairly average but smallish guy beating up Shaq and I think that’s what we are supposed to envision.
Oberyn Martel vs. The Mountain
I don’t know about that. Have you seen David!? He’s 20 ft tall and made of pure marble! Just imagine what Goliath looked like!!
Do these people read?
So what they’re saying is that Canada can win this fight if they’ve got good aim and a minimal arsenal of tools at their disposal. Got it.
Exactly
I assumed this was someone being funny at first but since I have learned they are serious…well it’s still funny
(edit to select the language)
Also, God is on their side!
Also, we’re declaring ourselves the loser bad guys of the story
The rest of the world: yeah we already knew that, though.
They’re not even trying anymore
Because they don’t even have to
They do not.
How does somone so stupid put something like that into the world so confidently…
stupidity begets confidence
This 100% scans.
The US has strategically used tariffs with great success over the last decades to get favorable pricing from Canada on everything from energy, softwood, potash, you name it. One item at a time, slowly, methodically they were able to bring down pricing. We have been giving the US extremely good prices, and now, because of Trump he has just flipped the board over and it’s time to restart.
America will be far worse off than before this started, and this has leveled off the playing field again with Canada.
As a Canadian I am thrilled.
Could you or someone explain this a bit further? You’re saying tariffs were used to bring down prices, but now tariffs are bringing prices back up again? What’s different this time?
Thanks for any help.
(I’m also thrilled for Canada, especially if it means shit in Donald lap.)
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.
Ah, man, thank you for this. I became just a little bit wiser today. Love you.
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
Oof. I did not know this. That’s scummy af.
Think that’s scummy, take a look at what happened with Haiti when they fought for and gained their independence.
There’s a reason one half of the same island is way worse off than the other when it comes to living conditions for their people.
I barely want to know. Nothing I can change, and I’m sure it’ll be triggering af 🫨
Short version: after gaining their independence in a slave rebellion France (in particular since they were a colony of them) was pissed and our for revenge. They got the other European powers and the USA to enforce an embargo on Haiti. They’re still poor af because they had many years of basically being isolated from international trade of many things.
I find the average atheist seems to be more familiar with the messages of the Bible than many of these people who claim to spend their Sundays studying it.
Teenage me went into reading the Bible expecting to learn more about my religion and become one of those well-versed scholars.
And then I kept reading, and the terrible truth eventually dawned on me. It really is just a bunch of silly stories from farmers thousands of years ago. It’s nearly impossible to actually read it and remain neutral about this; yet another one of life’s “emperors new clothes” situations.
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?
Money
If you’re actually curious about this, Elaine Pagels has a really great book about this. The book of Revelation was just a thinly-veiled series of jabs at specific people and the politics of the time.
Her interpretation is that it would have been blatantly obvious to John’s contemporaries, but it’s opaque to us now because we’re so far removed from that time period.
huh. Interesting.
so something similar to Dante’s Inferno, which is basically a long shitpost about contemporary politics that over time diffused into religious culture?
Yup. It’s a big fat rant propaganda against nero. And it worked - our perception of nero has been viewed through that lens for centuries
A friend who grew up an atheist recently read the Bible as part of her reading a bunch of religious texts. Her take on revelations is that she’s had fever dreams like that.
He went in for the 2000 year old schizopost.
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.”
Yeah but some of the worst Christians are the ones who do walk with the wretches. They come in with their ideas of sin and salvation and don’t bother to notice when they’ve found pockets of paradise among the damned because they’re too busy trying to convert people away from the things they like
Out of curiosity I went to one once, I am not Christian and I never believed in the Bible.
I don’t know if this how all churches do it but the one church I went to read the Bible in a manipulative way. Regardless of the book or its content, you cannot construct a narrative by selecting one or two verses from one book and another one or two verses from another book of the Bible. Sometimes the books aren’t even from the same testament.
Any book should be read in whole, and any verse has a context that explains it.
The same technique applied to anything be it a research paper or a comic will produce a false narrative.
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).
It’s also a thing based on denomination. Quakers are unlikely to pull that shit, meanwhile baptists are infamous for it.
Here’s a fun one: tell a conservative that rich people are doomed to go to hell. If they ask how you figure that, quote:
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God
Without fail their programming will kick in and you will get some lengthy blog post with stupid reasoning about how what Jesus was actually talking about was some rock formation and some other dumb shit. Meanwhile you can just read the verses before and after for context and it’s pretty damn clear what was meant: greed is a form of evil.
This is the difference between reading the Bible and having it explained to you.
Another fun one: tell them God prefers atheists to vague believers. Prepare for another programmed blog post about how Jesus was actually referring to the taste of the water at some town that completely ignores the context of the book itself.
The point is that whatever verses are picked out agrees with what the pulpit wants to believe. It makes their hate righteous.
Maybe he should blame the guy who last negotiated such a bad trade deal, which would be… checks notes… Donald Trump during his first term! 🤦
Also, Goliath was the bad guy.
Well, the antagonist of the story at least.
The Israelites genocided the Philistines every chance they got… Whose name Palestine is descended from btw.
He was referring to Goliath from Gargoyles.
No.
Books.
That’s funny.
No. But they expect everyone else to.
