FuglyDuck

Yeah. OP's cat is clearly setting them up.

Ryker wouldn't see the problem. But Crusher can. Unfortunately she's become something of an expert in STIs and such. It's really too bad ST didn't have the Arnassians from Bab 5.

Dude’s totally wanking off out on the street corner.

To add to what nougat said, because that’s very much the appropriate answer…

All spiders are in fact venomous- it’s part of how they feed. Many species, the venom is not harmful to humans, or only very weakly so. (Wolf spiders qualify as “very weakly so”)

That said, you try keeping a reasonable head when you suddenly come eyeball-to-eyeball with a wolf spiders qualify and her kids.

The law of Moses demands she be stoned, right?

Like it didn’t require they not be without sin to enact punishment.

I should apologize- Magdalene was never identified as the adulteress. Some things still hold over from a fundie upbringing.

Where does it that? The “Law” with the big-L there is The Law of Moses.

It’s mat 5. I dropped it up there.

the authors of the New Testament didn’t have basic cultural understandings that Jesus or the Pharisees would have. They made a mistake. Oops.

So now you have people changing the meaning of words to explain how their scripture isn’t a hodgepodge of contradictory statements.

Statements that were written by Greek-speaking people whose knowledge of Jewish scripture comes from translated works and interpreted with broad influence from Greek philosophy.

writing about an illiterate carpenter in Galilee and Jerusalem, who grew up speaking Aramaic and may have learned Hebrew.

And to be perfectly clear…. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is one of the commandments. It’s the seventh. So even if you’re right and that’s what Jesus was talking about… he still changed the law.

I mean it’s a death cult. Basically he has to separate and isolate his followers or else they’d start to catch on that he was taking advantage of them.

I think he rather said that with a cheesy car salesmen grin and a hand out.

“You have a problem. But I’ve got a solution… gimme yo money and just don’t be rich!”

Doubtful.

His culture was not kind to anything other than the approved gender norms.

Built up gasses lead to flatulence.

I apologize, but I'm not the best to explain it, particularly to the specifics of Buddhist meditation. But really, mediation is a catchall for any sort of mental discipline or conditioning. Like practicing mindfulness or simply maintaining a state of calmness, right?

What OP asked specifically about is samatha and vipassana, which are forms of meditation from buddhist teachings. They're inherently buddhist. Samatha is itself not particularly offensive; it's basically a technique for mindfulness and focus. But vipassana? it's the pursuit of enlightnement through meditation and gaining insight into 'reality'.

I'm not particularly surprised by the OP reporting the encounters with "spirits". Deep meditation places you into an altered mental not entirely unlike that of psilocybin. Except meditation is lighter, doesn't last as long, and one has more control of where one's experiences go while on the trip.

I have no reason to believe the OP's encounters with spirits was anything other than their brain falling into an altered state and doing what it could to oblige their beliefs and expectations. not like I can very well interact with their spirits in any meaningfully or tangible way.