People can be both, but generally it seems like MAGAs are more conservative-in-name-only while being genuinely and deeply reactionary. They will tell you they want smaller government (conservative) but then if you get into specific issues they’re happy to list all the things government should do, even if that makes it bigger, like tightly controlling borders and voting. However, a lot of them sincerely believe there are getting to be too many non-whites in their country (reactionary) and that anyone who’s poor deserves to be. Unless it’s them, of course; they’re just down on their luck.

Okay, her pulse is slowing, everyone behind the yellow line!

When saying goodbye to grandma, we all try to ignore the stranger standing nervously in the corner of the room with a fire extinguisher.

US/Engineer

At my first job, a fairly large firm with a few hundred people, I remember the furtive glances around the table as everyone didn’t want to be the first one to order a beer. Once a single person ordered one, several others would too. The boss was fine with it, but nobody did it in front of the boss’s boss. We never had more than one, though.

At my second job, a small, new company with 12ish people, it was pretty common. Sometimes someone would bring a six pack to share into the office on a Friday afternoon. Usually, the owners would join in.

At my current job in the public sector, the culture just isn’t there. Nobody drinks at all during work hours. I don’t drink as much anymore, anyway.

My thought always was that DDG was good to set as my default, and if I’m not happy with the results then it’s not a big deal to use Google once in awhile.

It was kind of a slow burn. Every time I heard a new argument against the existence of God, I’d repeat to myself, “Just because I can’t think of the answer doesn’t mean there isn’t one.” You can only say that so many times before it starts to feel like you’re being stubborn.

Probably the most compelling argument was, to me, the contradictory nature of an all-knowing God existing in the same reality as free will.

I decided I was an atheist (logically) a long time before I started to feel like an atheist (emotionally). What pushed me over the line there was when it was pointed out to me the sheer arrogance of looking out at the massive, incomprehensible scale of the universe and saying, “the creator of that really cares about me in particular.”

So now I say I’m an atheist, somewhere between gnostic and agnostic. I can’t rule out the existence of something that could be called God by someone’s definition, but I’m confident the abrahamic god, the one I grew up with, can’t exist.