You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

As you pretty much confirmed in your own reply, it’s both an inherently political and legal process. While this isn’t technically a mandatory step, it’s effectively a necessary one.

This is an important step in the long and arduous process to disallow a party, though.

Germany, like most countries, does have issues with law enforcement. But, as you noticed, so far our checks and balances hold - at least when it comes to fatal violence.

I don’t think you can extrapolate any trend from the extremely low annual numbers. 2024 was indeed an unusually violent year (even though official stats haven’t been finalized afaik), but looking at 2025s numbers so far, this does not appear to indicate any trend.

No, it really doesn’t. German shoots and kills, on average, fewer than 10 people per year. The total amount of bullets discharged at people hovers around 50 to 60.

In a country of 83 million.

The US population is four times larger and the number of victims of police shootings is literally 100 times higher. An estimated 1173 in 2024 and the US internationally doesn’t even properly track this number.

Heck, even France’s police kill significantly more people than Germany’s “trigger happy nazi cops”.

And that sample size is pretty small. I wouldn’t count on the US losing a war.

Small Gods is indeed a great choice. I never thought of it as a “book for atheists” and it’s quite unlikely to turn someone religious into a non-believer - but it’s clever, funny and one of my personal favorite Terry Patches books. So, worst case scenario: you’ve read a highly entertaining book.

“The Bible” is the book that ultimately turned me into a convinced atheist. If you actually read it, without having it filtered and read to you by religious people with agendas, it’s hard to continue believing in any of its insane ramblings. But it’s a really tough, slow and often immoral and revolting read. Mostly, it’s just really stupid.

“The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” is the opposite. It’s a funny, light and often silly read. It’s not exactly deep, but neither are the books it’s parodizing. As a satire of other religious text it works reasonably well in putting the finger in the wound.

“The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever” is just that: a collection of texts and letters on the subject by some brilliant minds: Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Lucrecius, Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins and many more … collected and edited by Christopher Hitchens. As an anthology it allows you to dip your toes in and read the texts you are interested in. Maybe my first choice as serious “atheism for beginners” literature.

I was going to add stupidity, but they usually go hand in hand.

To be fair, neither do most Lemmyngs.

Of course. But on the other hand: Who else would?

It’s not like Bob from Des Moines is going to find $100 billion behind the sofa cushions to buy it. There aren’t that many companies with much higher valuations.

… nobody ever says Italy.

The writing was on the wall for this one, development had effectively ended two years ago and had already slowed down significantly before that.

It’s a bit pricey (and likely only going up in price with the upcoming licensing changes), but by far the best there is.