@UntimelyRippd
I've found it a bizarre ritual for decades. The flag is a piece of plastic (used to be cloth). I have allegiance to my family and close friends. I don't have to say a pledge to them. Saying a pledge to an inanimate object is bizarre to me.

Re: JWs, I found their belief in the literalism of the passage, "The meek shall inherit the earth" pretty fascinating. 144,000 chosen ones go to heaven, and the meek shall inherit the earth. My calm coworker and her husband agreed that when one of them died, the other would remain unmarried so there wouldn't be a third wheel once they inherited the earth.

Same fascination with abstaining from blood. They can have plasma but not whole blood in an emergency. No undrained meat either -- do people actually eat animals that haven't had the blood drained?

As for the things you listed about Jesus, those are the exact things I see people claiming to be Christians ignoring. I might have met 3 or 4 true Christians in my life because I believe they should walk the walk, not just get baptized, put on a cross necklace or lapel pin and call themselves Christians. A quick glance at my Facebook relative's posts reflect I'm not reall related to any real Christians, only CINOs.

#2.2.1
one thing upon which I agree with the JWs: I believe that the Pledge of Allegiance is idolatry, in violation of the pertinent commandment. I also happen to believe that this particular commandment is deeply wise. Making the material sacred is seriously self-destructive, because it exposes you to manipulation and psychological torture from anyone who is happy to desecrate that which you have sanctified.

The Jesus of the New Testament is such a remarkable and inspiring moral philosopher. Judge not that ye be not judged. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. When you did not feed the starving man, you did not feed me. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Pray in private, not in public. Etc.

How tragic, that he has been co-opted from the start by sociopaths and psychopaths, by self-hating humans determined to punish all of us for the things the hate in themselves, by all the worst of the worst.

@thanatokephaloides

But for those of us not immersed in the chemistry of dynamite, it felt intentionally misleading.

#3.1.1

is that really true?

TNT has killed a fuck of a lot of people.

First of all, TNT isn't dynamite. The substances have different properties, different histories, and different Karmas. For various reasons related to chemistry and explosive physics, TNT is a much more effective people killer than dynamite, as evidenced by the fact that the former is in major military demand while the latter (dynamite) is not.

Secondly, my remark wasn't snark. Trinitroglycerol (nitroglycerine) is some seriously nasty shit. In Alfred Nobel's largely pre-refrigeration days, it was much worse than it is today. The mere transportation of nitroglycerine, much less its attempted use, routinely killed the transporters. From the Wikipedia article :

Nitroglycerin was later adopted as a commercially useful explosive by Alfred Nobel, who experimented with safer ways to handle the dangerous compound after his younger brother, Emil Oskar Nobel, and several factory workers were killed in an explosion at the Nobels' armaments factory in 1864 in Heleneborg, Sweden.

[.....]

In April 1866, three crates of nitroglycerin were shipped to California for the Central Pacific Railroad, which planned to experiment with it as a blasting explosive to expedite the construction of the 1,659-foot-long (506 m) Summit Tunnel through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. One of the crates exploded, destroying a Wells Fargo company office in San Francisco and killing 15 people. This led to a complete ban on the transportation of liquid nitroglycerin in California. The on-site manufacture of nitroglycerin was thus required for the remaining hard-rock drilling and blasting required for the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in North America.

Liquid nitroglycerin was widely banned elsewhere, as well, and these legal restrictions led to Alfred Nobel and his company's developing dynamite in 1867. This was made by mixing nitroglycerin with diatomaceous earth ("Kieselguhr" in German) found in the Krümmel hills.

It is these lives that the invention of dynamite saved.

@thanatokephaloides
TNT is evidently safer and more stable, but more expensive and less powerful than dynamite.

Have you ever scene the film Sorcerer, with Roy Scheider? These guys have to drive a truckload of old dynamite across mountainous terrain in Central America. Very tense, as the nitroglycerin has started oozing out of the absorbent.

#3.1.1

is that really true?

TNT has killed a fuck of a lot of people.

First of all, TNT isn't dynamite. The substances have different properties, different histories, and different Karmas. For various reasons related to chemistry and explosive physics, TNT is a much more effective people killer than dynamite, as evidenced by the fact that the former is in major military demand while the latter (dynamite) is not.

Secondly, my remark wasn't snark. Trinitroglycerol (nitroglycerine) is some seriously nasty shit. In Alfred Nobel's largely pre-refrigeration days, it was much worse than it is today. The mere transportation of nitroglycerine, much less its attempted use, routinely killed the transporters. From the Wikipedia article :

Nitroglycerin was later adopted as a commercially useful explosive by Alfred Nobel, who experimented with safer ways to handle the dangerous compound after his younger brother, Emil Oskar Nobel, and several factory workers were killed in an explosion at the Nobels' armaments factory in 1864 in Heleneborg, Sweden.

[.....]

In April 1866, three crates of nitroglycerin were shipped to California for the Central Pacific Railroad, which planned to experiment with it as a blasting explosive to expedite the construction of the 1,659-foot-long (506 m) Summit Tunnel through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. One of the crates exploded, destroying a Wells Fargo company office in San Francisco and killing 15 people. This led to a complete ban on the transportation of liquid nitroglycerin in California. The on-site manufacture of nitroglycerin was thus required for the remaining hard-rock drilling and blasting required for the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in North America.

Liquid nitroglycerin was widely banned elsewhere, as well, and these legal restrictions led to Alfred Nobel and his company's developing dynamite in 1867. This was made by mixing nitroglycerin with diatomaceous earth ("Kieselguhr" in German) found in the Krümmel hills.

It is these lives that the invention of dynamite saved.

@thanatokephaloides TNT potentiated the modern explosive artillery shell, and thus most of the casualties of the two world wars.

That's a lot of people.

#3.1.1

is that really true?

TNT has killed a fuck of a lot of people.

First of all, TNT isn't dynamite. The substances have different properties, different histories, and different Karmas. For various reasons related to chemistry and explosive physics, TNT is a much more effective people killer than dynamite, as evidenced by the fact that the former is in major military demand while the latter (dynamite) is not.

Secondly, my remark wasn't snark. Trinitroglycerol (nitroglycerine) is some seriously nasty shit. In Alfred Nobel's largely pre-refrigeration days, it was much worse than it is today. The mere transportation of nitroglycerine, much less its attempted use, routinely killed the transporters. From the Wikipedia article :

Nitroglycerin was later adopted as a commercially useful explosive by Alfred Nobel, who experimented with safer ways to handle the dangerous compound after his younger brother, Emil Oskar Nobel, and several factory workers were killed in an explosion at the Nobels' armaments factory in 1864 in Heleneborg, Sweden.

[.....]

In April 1866, three crates of nitroglycerin were shipped to California for the Central Pacific Railroad, which planned to experiment with it as a blasting explosive to expedite the construction of the 1,659-foot-long (506 m) Summit Tunnel through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. One of the crates exploded, destroying a Wells Fargo company office in San Francisco and killing 15 people. This led to a complete ban on the transportation of liquid nitroglycerin in California. The on-site manufacture of nitroglycerin was thus required for the remaining hard-rock drilling and blasting required for the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in North America.

Liquid nitroglycerin was widely banned elsewhere, as well, and these legal restrictions led to Alfred Nobel and his company's developing dynamite in 1867. This was made by mixing nitroglycerin with diatomaceous earth ("Kieselguhr" in German) found in the Krümmel hills.

It is these lives that the invention of dynamite saved.