eyestrain

@CowperKettle How do churches support themselves in Russia? In the U S contributions are tax deductible.

Oddly enough, the fall of the E. German communist government was preceded by candlelight vigils at a Lutheran church in E Germany.

The religious network is a way to reach a lot of people across communities—outside of government-run institutions.

Leipzig, I think it was. Celebrated with Beethoven’s Ninth.

With Freude changed to Freiheit.

In Germany the castle and the church are always near each other.

Used to be!

But religion is slowly dying in the rich countries.

Also in America. It just began later.

And in East Asia it never was very important anyway.

@Xanne I believe they exist on donations, and they are exempt from taxes.

There are many rich priests, rolling around in luxury cars

Solzhenitsyn wrote that it were the religious people who really went through the Soviet concentration camp system "with flying colors", so to speak. Religion gave them strength and there were less turncoats among them, at least that's what he thought.

@CowperKettle It's one form of that rather common argument about the religion that it's for the poor saps who need institutionalized hope, and likewise an important reason rich countries are becoming secular is people are no longer starving or killing each other because of what some general said.

I dunno how much meat there is to it. I mean, it 'feels' like it would be right, but human societies are pretty complicated things and there are lots of things about them that ended up counterintuitively disproven

I mean, you could also make the intuitive counterargument that poor people would feel neglected by God and rich people would be grateful

No atheists in foxholes. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_no_atheists_in_foxholes

+4°C. The snow mound is still there.

But it will not survive till weekend

Word of the day: guige

lol

Russian military build-up near Ukraine numbers more than 150,000 troops, EU's Borrell says

@MattE.Эллен: So we're watching another Brit series, this one set in Belfast, and there's a character named Niamh. The other characters variously pronounce it "Neev*, Neef, Naif, and a few other ways. What's up with that? Does the alphabet mean nothing in Northern Ireland?

@Xanne Yeah that, thanks

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly non-latin answer (50): "Referenced in" or "referenced from"? by Mohammad yarmohmmady on english.SE

@Robusto Irish is entirely consistent in its sound-to-spelling correspondence. It's just not consistent with anything you'd naturally expect.

'bhfaighidh' is pronounced /wai/, means 'will receive'

@Robusto I would pronounce it neem.

But I don't know what the official pronunciation is.

What series are you watching?

@CowperKettle "attacked and invaded"?

@Robusto do you have any pets? I forgot

I'd never get close to any pets in my life, the risks are too great. It does seem though that cats are smarter than dogs

Even if they plot your murder on a daily basis

@Cerberus It's called Bloodlands.

BTW, the cat on the right, the Count, is actually pretty smart. He tries to open doors by scratching at the knob, and he knows the word "snack" ... "Do you want a snack?" I ask, and he goes "ack ... ack," which is as close as he can get to that word.

Which is much different from his other vocalizations.