but i'm your biggest fan, you know?

Marriage isn't a legal thing. Gay people had weddings and considered themselves married before same-sex "marriage" was legal. The only thing that changed was the way the government regarded those couples, and how the government regards something like that shouldn't matter. If the government wants treat a group of individuals specially because of their relationship with each other, they should do so based on their relationship, and if they decide to use the word "marriage" to refer to a common kind of relationship, and "marry" people to officiate that, then that's not a problem either.

I'm ok with churches refusing to perform marriage ceremonies for gay people. I don't think religion should be an excuse for discrimination in the provision of secular services, but ultimately, a marriage ceremony in a church is a religious practice. If you're forcing a church to marry you, you're forcing them to ask their god to join you in holy matrimony.

New steven in 2 weeks. Hype hype hype hype.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/ ... -breakfast

Theocracy ahead

Feeling better now; you don't care, and I'm going to take a page of the spite book.

On actual MTG canon, I've been ruminating about how each of the colours sees religion. is obviously at the top, followed by (mono- deals well enough with cults and personal spiritual expression, but needs to dive fully into standard religion) and (prefers spirituality over actual religion, but can dive into religion independently from via tradition), with generally at the bottom; the closest times mono has dabbled into religion it has been as pure spiritual self-expression and the occasional cult of personality, so I'm going ahead and consider it the least religious colour.

In , though? is all scientific and skeptical and against dogma and belief, but there have actually been plenty of mono- religions in Magic (nearly all Merfolk, Moonfolk, Rimewind and several old canon religious orders, et cetera), which makes me wonder if religious dogmatism is a feature of ... or all of these are actually and have to be mono- for mechanics' sake.

Hmmm. Pure blue is too empirical to put stock in mysticism I think. If you go just a little off course though and some weird belief becomes part of your canon, then you can veer off course pretty quickly.

American churches have a highly enviable tax status. That's why so many US conmen operate out of churches. Being designated as a place of worship is not only lucrative, it's so easy that John Stewart pulled it off as a joke. He made $10,000 as a satire about religious conmen and the taxman couldn't touch him. (He later gave it all away)
Frankly I think churches should pay the same taxes as anybody else. Not a business tax, as they aren't (or shouldn't be) businesses, but all the regular taxes at least.

For a long time I thought that it should be legal for a church to not officiate a wedding on grounds of sexual orientation. But then you realize, they used to be able to do that on grounds of race. That was pretty screwed up wasn't it? A business should be able to turn people down for a lot of reasons- but it should be a problem with the individual client or request- none of this blanket refusal targeting a particular group. Of course, actually proving what the reasons are is a real pain. If it's not feasible to determine such things, then the law may as well come down on the side of the people and not the church.

Blue religions make perfect sense in a world where gods are real or even just plausible. Or in a world like Kaladesh, where you can worship the Aether flows or something.

And don't forget the scholarly aspects that a lot of religions have. Catholic monks have done good original research, mostly by having the time and resources to do so, but also by being amazed at the world "God created." Thalmudic scholarship is encouraged in every follower of Judaism and a definite requirement for being a Rabbi. Being a Rabbi involves knowing a ton of precedents, due to how seniority works in religious arguments. Imams are supposed to be well-read and intelligent, although this isn't always the case in real life. (Due to the organisational structure of Islam, by which I mean there isn't really one.)

I miss the mystic creature type. Which was blue.
Then again, I'm pissed they slighted rebels and by rights nomad should have some presence with the damn kor instead of soldier.

Blue religions are fine, I think, but I imagine they would be more philosophical and scholarly, and less dogmatic than white or black religions.

To be fair also deals frequently with ideals and other abstract concepts.

Religion in what sense?
If it's entirely as "Belief in a higher being", then Blue is probably skeptical towards it, while Green seems most willing to accept a sense of higher order to the world. Red might be predisposed to reject religion because it feels like a restriction, or more willing to accept it because red is instinctual and emotional, and therefore more likely to buy into superstition.
I don't really see White and Black as religious colors in terms to belief itself, but rather as their social phenomena. White shows itself as religious because of the community aspect with a higher purpose, while Black has religious associations through cultist activities that often tie to demon summoning and sacrifice. Red might reject religious doctrine because it feels restrictive, while Green will either reject or propagate it according to tradition. I see Blue primarily partaking in it in order to determine its validity, or because it promises an ideal they want to pursue in a setting where it realistically exists.

I find "Mystic" to be overly vague. I guess I could get on board with it if it had a firmer identity in the cards. Like, are mystics seers, or mystical monks, or just magic users that don't fit in other categories? I have no idea.
Nomad I quite dislike. It's not really a job or class that tells us anything about the creature. It's like asking if they belong to a guild or no, or whether they come from a religious society regardless of whether they're a cleric or not. The distinction just doesn't carry a lot of weight.

Mystics believed in the holistic nature of the universe, but without the nature fetish of druids.

Nomads really do cover a very specific way of life. By rights, the kor should be nomads because their entire way of life IS who they are and they sure as hell aren't soldiers. They aren't regimented and have no martial status.

Okay, so mystics are like druids minus the nature bits. And I suppose they perform their magic much the same way, ruling out the shaman and wizard classes?
I'm still not buying nomads. Yeah, it's a way of life, but so is asceticism, and ascetic doesn't warrant a creature type (You could say monk encompasses ascetic, but I always figured monks were classified more by their martial arts). A way of life isn't enough to warrant a class, it has to be something that qualifies as a role in society.
The kor in particular could have largely been warriors. Otherwise they fall into the gap of just being regular dudes that don't match up with a creature type.

Honestly you might also say that Mystics are clerics minus the dogma -- a sort of base spiritual/philosophical pursuit.

I would say that nomad is a fine "class" type and removing Townsfolk was a mistake.

Legion starts tommorow night, new Steven thursday, logan coming, new samurai jack march 11, nintendo switch shortly after. Ahhhhhhhhhh too many things.

I know the feeling.
I've got horizon zero dawn and breath of the wild back to back with Andromeda chasing after.
On top of games I'm already in need to finish.

Also Overwatch, but that's just going to be here to stay anyways.

What you play overwatch!? Are you decent? We should plaaay.

Shame we can't play together, being in different regions and all.

What do you guys play?

i'm a filthy only-mercy main