Smoking is bad, but prohibition of drugs just drives them underground and denies freedom. Bad call UK

Fuck that sounds weird and uncomfortable of a place. I need some sketch to feel comfortable.

And it can be compared to modern antiretroviral drugs which are mass manufactured. They can absolutely be difficult to afford and to ensure compliance, but they’re relatively accessible as far as any long term medication is in most places, thanks in large part to the queer community in first world countries and NGO-governmental cooperation to deal with the third world HIV epidemic. We still have a ways to go with it, but HIV+ people who have proper treatment are able to live long and full lives and have no risk of transmission once viral loads are undetectable.

Fuck yeah go Hungary!

Oh, Cuba resisting foreign imperialism even when suffering to do so? Who ever saw that coming aside from everyone who’s heard literally anything about Cuba‽

3. Oh sorry, you said divisions, not continents worth of countries each with their own armies.

Ok really 2 halves (Europe and Africa) and a whole (South America).

If a Christian is neither catholic nor orthodox they’re protestant unless they’re in some small middle eastern sect that predates all that

Catholics in America are mid schism and form two voting blocks. But yes, protestants are even more divided

American catholicism has been on the verge of schism for years. The anti woke side hates Leo, the other side is proud of him, but were also proud of Francis. They (we at the time) were proud to have a pope from our hemisphere and one intent on reform and fighting the far right faction. It’s hard for American Catholics of any stripe to be proud for the past few years given the archbishop being excommunicated over schismatism and the fact that that’s not even close to resolved.

Yeah, but at least two are opus dei, which will gladly oppose the pope if they feel he’s in their way.

Well, they’re clearly aware enough to feel threatened by it, given that that’s all the power the Vatican holds

Because it requires a lot of biological investment to eat it. It’s rough on teeth and requires rumination or similar calorically expensive techniques to extract much nutrition. We evolved in the opposite path and optimized heavily for easily digested foods. We then take it a step further and cook them breaking the difficult to digest parts into an easer to digest form.

Also we do eat grasses, but only their seeds and fruits. Wheat, maize, rice, and bananas are all grasses

It’s weird to me as well. A base understanding of their history shows that while they’ve been having a really bad time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, for most of history they’ve been one of the major cultural, financial, and generally civilizational hubs of the Eastern Hemisphere. Discounting them is like discounting China or India.

A common claim is that they’ve been at war with each other for thousands of years. This is really funny coming from Europeans and their descendants, considering we were the savage backwater hell bent on killing the shit out of every neighbor we saw and also them for the entire middle ages, meanwhile they spent the period with some armed conflict against each other, but far more focused on peaceful trading.

Fucking hell, Iran and Iraq were working together and not even really against anyone we dislike and we got mad at that too…

Why can’t we just treat the middle east better‽ Things would likely improve for their citizens if we treated them well. And they wouldn’t hate us if we didn’t keep fucking killing them, especially if we did shit like helping.

Of fucking course we’re just bombing Iraq now too.

It really needs to be a punishable offense to attack a country without congressional approval, treaty mandate, or proof of immediate threat

Unless you lump all protestants together it is by a lot at least according to the first link I found. They make up a little over a quarter of American Christians.

None of the gospels are thought to even claim to be by an apostle. John was just a common name

So voting puts you in the wrong mindset. Think of it more as consensus decision making of a group of bishops who have the special honor of being the ones who get to vote on this (that’s the only official difference between a regular bishop and a cardinal), but with everyone secluded to prevent campaigning or discussing their votes.

Theologically this is supposed to ensure that everyone ignores politics and spends the days praying to try to figure out who their god wants.

Practically this does what good consensus aims to do and generally gets someone everyone can live with. Francis was generally seen as pretty radical, but everyone seemed to understand that Benedict had gone very poorly and that the church needed increased modernization and appeals to the international community. The fear last year was that a far right cardinal would be chosen to try to halt the rising schism in the church, but instead Leo was chosen as someone who had been in Francis’s camp but was seen as more moderate.

And yeah, because of the isolation at conclave they’re supposed to be incapable of campaigning. In reality, as the pope gets older and sicker you start seeing increased campaigning from cardinals and by the time the pope dies it’s known who the main candidates are. Upsets can still happen, especially if the main candidates are all unacceptable to another faction, but we knew Leo was a possibility when Francis died.

Because he’s the voice of the largest denomination in the US and he’s the head of the vice president’s religion and loudly condemning him.

I don’t love the church, I left it over the homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia. But I recognize how influential the pope is and that his preaching may be able to reduce how fucked my country is right now.

That’s just original sin talk. Also, Leo is American. For an American to be a good Christian takes extra work, “it’s not my fault but it is my responsibility” and whatnot, but I’ve met Americans who are good Christians, and yeah they’re involved in attempting to right the wrongs that can be righted here