The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: August 15, 2020
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In honor of one my all-time favorite character actors (and diabetes spokepersons)…
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Is this what the future of American religion looks like?
Kamala Harris filled two criteria that Joe Biden wanted in a running mate: She is a woman and she is Black, two critical Democratic constituencies ahead of the November elections.
But Harris, the 55-year-old junior senator from California, has other advantages in the 2020 presidential race. She embodies the future of American religion: In a time of expanding religious pluralism, the country’s younger generation, many of them children and grandchildren of immigrants, will recognize in Harris a kind of multifaith and spiritual belonging unfamiliar to the mostly white Christian majority of past decades.
Harris, who was born in Oakland, California, to a Jamaican immigrant father — Donald Harris — and an Indian immigrant mother — Shyamala Gopalan — is both Black and South Asian. She grew up in a home that accommodated both Christian and Hindu religious practices.
As an adult, she married Douglas Emhoff, a Jewish, Brooklyn-born lawyer.
“There are a lot more young Americans who, identity-wise, are like Kamala Harris — mixed race, with a background of lots of different cultural, ethnic and religious experiences,” said Eboo Patel, founder and president of the Interfaith Youth Core. “That’s just a demographic fact.”
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What of college football 2020?
The 2020 college season remains uncertain because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
COVID-19 concerns contributed to four of the 10 FBS conferences canceling their season in 2020. The Big Ten, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West Conference and Pac-12 are out. A total of 54 schools have postponed their fall football season.
That leaves 76 of the 130 schools still in. The ACC, American Athletic Conference, Big 12, Conference-USA, SEC and Sun Belt, along with a few independents, still planning on playing.
What does that mean for the college football landscape?
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Nature strikes back…
A nudist bather who chased a wild boar near a Berlin lake after it stole his laptop was applauded by onlookers after a successful pursuit.
The photographer who captured the drama said the unidentified nudist was happy for her to share the images, which show him in bare-bottomed pursuit of the boar and her two piglets while fellow bathers look on in amusement.
“Nature strikes back,” wrote Adele Landauer, a personal coach, on Facebook. “I showed the man the photos, he laughed heartily and gave me permission to make them public.”
The man was sunbathing naked at the Teufelssee in west Berlin, a popular and perfectly legal practice in the German capital as part of what is known as FKK, or Freikörperkultur (free body culture).
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Now here’s where people have every right to fear the government…
HONG KONG – Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai became the highest-profile person arrested under a new national security law on Monday, detained over suspected collusion with foreign forces as around 200 police searched the offices of his Apple Daily newspaper.
…His arrest comes amid Beijing’s crackdown against pro-democracy opposition in the city and further stokes concerns about media and other promised freedoms when it returned to China in 1997. China imposed the sweeping new security law on Hong Kong on June 30, drawing condemnation from Western countries.
…Apple Daily posted on its Facebook page a livestream of police officers roaming through its newsroom and rifling through files, and asking staff for identity documents.
Some executive offices were sealed off with red cordons. The police later wheeled in stacks of empty plastic containers. Lai himself was brought back to the office, initially in handcuffs.
“We can’t worry that much, we can only go with the flow,” Lai said, before being escorted into a police vehicle.
Police said around 200 officers entered the premises with a court warrant and collected 25 boxes of evidence after finishing the search. The law allows police to search premises without one “under exceptional circumstances”.
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MLB Play(s) of the Week…
Three in one game!!!
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Mr. Q goes to Washington…
QAnon is an online movement fueled by an anonymous poster (“Q”) that subscribes to a baseless, shameless conspiracy theory. It alleges there is a “deep state” run by political elites, business and cultural leaders, and Hollywood celebrities that are engaged, in cooperation with governments around the world, in a worldwide child sex-trafficking ring and are working tirelessly to bring down President Trump.
If that sounds like kooky and idiotic fringe thinking to you, well, it is. Well, then again, maybe it isn’t.
This week, QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene won a Republican primary runoff election in Georgia. She will likely end up in Congress. According to research done by Politico, Greene has:
…suggested that Muslims do not belong in government; thinks black people “are held slaves to the Democratic Party”; called George Soros, a Jewish Democratic megadonor, a Nazi; and said she would feel “proud” to see a Confederate monument if she were black because it symbolizes progress made since the Civil War.
…In recordings obtained by POLITICO, Greene described Islamic nations under Sharia law as places where men have sex with “little boys, little girls, multiple women” and “marry their sisters” and “their cousins.” She suggested the 2018 midterms — which ushered in the most diverse class of House freshmen — was part of “an Islamic invasion of our government” and that “anyone that is a Muslim that believes in Sharia law does not belong in our government.”
In other videos, she directly compared Black Lives Matter activists to the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members who marched at a white nationalist rally three years agoin Charlottesville, Va., denouncing them all as “idiots.” And Greene forcefully rejected the notion there are racial disparities in the U.S. or that skin color affects the “quality” of one’s life: “Guess what? Slavery is over,” she said. “Black people have equal rights.”
In a tweet congratulating Greene for her victory, the president called her “a rising star in the Republican party,” even though many Republicans have condemned her rants and have tried to distance themselves from her. A recent story in the Washington Post describes how the Trump campaign has been actively courting and legitimizing this band of crazies. Another WaPo piece observes that:
So far this election cycle, more than 50 supporters of the conspiracy theory have run or are running for national office. Most QAnon-supporting candidates are unlikely to win. But several have attracted supporters — even though they are endorsing a conspiracy theory that the FBI considers a domestic threat and that has spurred alleged acts of terrorism and violence.
Related article: See how QAnon is hijacking on the #SaveTheChildren movement.
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And now, let’s hear from the Christian conspiracy theorists…
BROOKFIELD, Wis. — The Elmbrook School District will reopen five days a week to in-person learning. The decision came after three and a half hours of discussions by school board members.
Along with returning to in-person learning, the board also made a decision on requiring students to wear masks. However, not everyone liked that idea.
“Six-foot distance and wearing masks are pagan rituals of satanic worshipers,” said parent Heidi Anderson. “My kids are Christian they are not subject to wearing masks.”
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Canary in the coal mine…
Greenland’s ice sheet may have shrunk past the point of return, with the ice likely to melt away no matter how quickly the world reduces climate-warming emissions, new research suggests.
Scientists studied data on 234 glaciers across the Arctic territory spanning 34 years through 2018 and found that annual snowfall was no longer enough to replenish glaciers of the snow and ice being lost to summertime melting.
That melting is already causing global seas to rise about a millimeter on average per year. If all of Greenland’s ice goes, the water released would push sea levels up by an average of 6 meters — enough to swamp many coastal cities around the world. This process, however, would take decades.
“Greenland is going to be the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is already pretty much dead at this point,” said glaciologist Ian Howat at Ohio State University.
…“We are still draining more ice now than what was gained through snow accumulation in ‘good’ years,” said lead author Michalea King, a glaciologist at Ohio State University.
The sobering findings should spur governments to prepare for sea-level rise, King said.
“Things that happen in the polar regions don’t stay in the polar region,” she said.
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Music, the elixir of life…
Please, take time to breathe deeply and let this generous gift of music soothe your spirit today.
The Internet Monk Archives 
Hey, I’ve known Germans with great sense of humor! But they tend toward a very dry, ironic way of saying things – it’s something alien to most of us in the US.
I worked for a bookstore owned by a German immigrant for a while. She had a wonderful sense of humor, but in a low-key way that people didn’t always get.
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Yeah, I understand during the last of the Roddenberry years, The Great Bird was vetoing every script except for Holodeck and Q scripts (“We can’t do that! By the time of Star Trek, we’ll have evoloved beypond all that!”), and DeLancie refused to do Q more than once every season.
He said he didn’t want to get typecast as Q, and that after his death all anyone would remember of him would be “But He Was On Star Trek” and Trekkies would be making pilgrimages to his grave.
Apparently he reconciled himself to the fact by the time Q became Pony-fied as Discord….
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After a generation of such a Perfect CHRISTIAN Nation, the name “Jesus Christ” will have acquired the exact same baggage as the name “Adolf Hitler”.
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+10
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“Kasich would likely answer with #3”
Yes, no doubt, but Kasich is not, and has never been, identified with Trumpism. The really compelling answers would be those of Trumpists/Relig Right types.
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It’s part of the Q-Anon WORLDVIEW.
A Totally Utterly EVIL Vast Conspiracy justifies Any Means Whatsoever to “Cleanse” it from the face of the earth. LIterally COSMIC-level justification once you add God vs Satan talk into the mix.
Just this morning while commenting on Eagle’s latest re Anti-Mask and revival of The Satanic Panic, I had a revelation:
Q-Anon is the bridge between The Satanic Panic and Trumpism. The three fuse together almost like the Three Persons of a New Trinity, One in Substance with each other.
* Q-Anon’s Secret Illuminati of Satanists (and their Secret Satanic Sex/Sacrifice Rituals) is a straight retread of The Satanic Panic, which itself echoed Malleus Malificarium and its WITCHES Here/There/Everywhere under every bed.
* Q-Anon also names Donald Trump as a Savior Figure, THE Conquering Messiah upon the White Horse who is the Special Target of the Satanists’ Persecution, their Greatest Threat. (Just like “Born Again Bible Believing Evangelical Christians” were during the initial years of The Satanic Panic.)
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At the time, anti-abortion was associated with Those Catholics over there, and a lot of Protestant churches (the more Prot, the better) had a knee-jerk Defiance Culture reaction to anything even vaguely connected to Romanism. If Romish Papists were X, they had to be the opposite of X — “NO POPERY!”
Then came the Civil Rights Act (more than Roe v Wade) and oceania suddenly had always been at peace with eurasia.
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Up to and including Voting/Support for Trump becoming a Litmus Test of Salvation.
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I remember the original Marvel Comic, a tongue-in-cheek parody series of the Seventies:
HOWARD THE DUCK —
Trapped in a World He Never Made!
And it would get bizarre, usually parodying a lot of pop culture and media of the time.
The original Howard the Duck design (comics, not movie) was straight Fifties/Sixties Disney Duck, right out of Donald Duck or Duck Tales; we used to joke Howard was Donald’s grubby evil twin.
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Or were there several sub-types among bikers and the ones who stood between the Phelps Clan and their targets were a minority sub-type?
And as a lot of the Q-Anon coverage has shown, Q-Anon is both highly contagious and highly addictive. They may have become infected between then and now.
And social media algorithms tend to select for addiction to a given sub-type of social media newsfeeds, recommending more and more of the specific subject matter based on past browsing history until it becomes an echo chamber. And Q-Anon stuff seems to be especially good at triggering this.
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And John de Lancie was perfectly cast as Q. A perfect foil for Picard.
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Yup. Sunk Cost Fallacy.
It worked for the Concorde SST Project (and many many other things).
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Christiane, point taken, but as Robert mentioned, there were and are numerous sorts of gnosticism, and some were persecuted relentlessly.
One could argue that by the 3d c., the church was itself gnostic (not capital-G gnostic), given that catechumens weren’t permitted to attend the communion part of services until they were received into the church and were permitted to witness and take part in the Eucharist.
Every religion seems to have “inside knowledge” that’s supposed to be protected from outsiders, it seems. As with everything else, YMMV. Some religions are gnostic at their core, others less so. Certainly, these *rump-worshipping “evangelicals” are a case in point. (I also think they aren’t Xtian, but are practicing an entirely different religion, especially the very way out “prophetic” type charismatics. Been there, though not for 20 years, done that – sort of, don’t have a t-shirt, just some mostly heal3d wounds/scars.)
But i wholeheartedly agree on Jeff Sharlet’s investigative journalism! He’s been writing d8spatches from the field for over 20 years now. We need more folks like him.
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Yes.
The guy who slammed you for this needs to put on *his* glasses, instead of taking potshots at presumed typos.
Something i know more about (typos) than the average IM commenter. 😉 If only i could correct mine!
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I guess for me it is just not simple enough to trust in God’s providence. I do not know what that makes me-but in his immortal words-“It is what it is.”
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Kaisch would likely answer with #3.
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Why do we think that we’re prophets? As I recall, the only place Jesus may have possibly likened his followers to prophets was when he told them that, like the prophets, they would be persecuted and killed…
It’s not about “winning them over”. It’s about keeping my heart right, and trusting in God’s Providence.
The problem may not be “demonic” – again, fear and pain and fear. All the more reason to pray and be kind. If people are going to come down on me, let it be because I am living the Beatitudes.
Dana
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Been watching too many “Weird Sh*t” videos on YouTube, but a lot of “Missing 411” mystery disappearances (and general paranormal weirdness) are said to happen in areas that have “Devil” or “Devil’s” in their name.
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“WHERE’S THE REAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE?”
— Birther billboard on Route 15 between Gettysburg and York Springs a few years ago.
The sponsor logo in the lower right corner read “WND” — World Net Daily
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There was NO BASEMENT in the McMartin PreSchool, either.
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And when that Vast Conspiracy is so Totally Utterly EVIL and DEPRAVED, it justifies Any Means Whatsoever to wipe them from the face of the earth. A Cause So Righteous justifies Any Atrocity Whatsoever to bring it Victory.
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TWO MILLION if it behaves the same as the 1918 Spanish Flu.
“It Is What It Is.”
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Well, debunking won’t, that’s for sure. Why not? Because I’ve noticed something about conspiracy theory people: they’re practically “religious” (in a secular sense) in their beliefs, and, like Calvinists, they’re always trying to convince you why you need to believe in things exactly as they see them.
This kind can only come out with prayer.
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Yes, I am not confident that prayer will win them over.
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All in the name of Jesus. Dear Lord please keep these people out of power.
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It may not be worth it to you to get mad, but i have been mad since 2015 when Trump some how or another convinced “christian” folks that they should follow him, and not worry too much about Biblical living.
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Yeah, it got a little wearing, after a while. He was on Voyager once, also, I think.
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Jon, let’s see around 170,000 COVID-19 deaths, but let’s all vote in person so we can increase the death total-because according to Trump this virus is just going to go away-might be a million deaths by then-but it will go away.
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Me, too.
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No and No and No!
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I really want to know what has changed, or were these people just pretending to be something good before Trump came along. And then they showed their true colors?
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It ought to make the theory a whole lot less likely, since there IS NO BASEMENT in Comet Ping Pong, but none of the nutcases seemed then, or seem now, to care.
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Right, Robert. Which is why Democrats abso-freaking-lutely have to win this election. We still have a chance to turn around and find our way to democracy again–unless we lose to Trump.
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That seems to be the case with her and her husband–at least I hope so. I’d hate to think that they were carefully, deliberately, knowledgeably, voting for Trump.
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@Eeyore, One of the problems is the so-called liberal Main Stream Media has been tiptoeing around and falling all over itself trying not to use the word lie, or any variant thereof, regarding the many things our Prez lies about and the many lies he tells. It’s past time to call the liar a liar. Wait much longer, and it may be too late, if it isn’t already.
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14th through 17th. But not total. You say neether, and I say nyther. Tomeyto, tomahto. And then there’s the southern U.S. which furthered the process, and the ongoing shift in midwestern vowels.
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I’d have put odds on the pig.
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It knows worthless stuff when it sees it.
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60,000 baptist denominations or is it 600,000 baptist denominations ???
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you can be an ill-informed, mis-guided Christian and vote for Trump
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‘good people’ on both sides?
he!! no
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was a time them bikers stood between the families burying their dead soldiers and the ‘Westboro’ bullies;
but now
they ride for THE bully who didn’t have the courage to fight for his country
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He just wanted his laptop back.
Pigs are smart, they steal containers like bags so they can root through them – expecting food I assume.
Only this one grabbed the bag with the guy’s laptop.
It eventually dropped the bag.
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“Yes, debunk lies. And be careful with tone, so we aren’t contributing to the problem.”
The Prophets sure weren’t “careful”. They were quite… Strident.
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“I try to help folks here see the other side of the issue without assuming and accusing the worst motives possible.”
Given the President’s performance record to date, we have little choice but to assume the worst, of both him and his fervent supporters. At best, his supporters have been grossly misled. At worst…?
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If its the DS9 version, I’m all for it. He only appeared there one time. He kept coming back in TNG.
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Tom,
I used what you said as an example of what is at best a half truth. If that makes you mad, I guess you can be mad. No where did I say that Trump doesn’t lie. He lies. Are you happy now? But that doesn’t change the truth of what I said. There are a variety of Trump voters. Not all are Trumpers. Are you a Bindener? Many people vote for Trump because they are scared to death of the democrat party. And they are also scared the democrats will try to steal the election through voter fraud. You may think this is ludicrous. But it is not the case that his christian supporters are cheering him for trying to steal an election. They will cheer him for trying to prevent an election from being stolen. Again, you may think this is insane, that there is no proof that voter fraud occurs or will occur and that Trumps motives are nefarious. But to accuse those supporting him as cheering for stealing an election is a slanderous accusation with no support. I try, don’t know why, but I try to help folks here see the other side of the issue without assuming and accusing the worst motives possible. But it is pointless. We disagree. I’m not going to change any of you, and you aren’t going to change me, on some online forum. And it certainly isn’t worth getting mad over.
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Well, then at least it’s not speaking in tongues anymore.
You’ve gotta count your blessing where you find them.
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People who subscribe to conspiracy theories are generally very afraid. For that level of fear to persist, a person must have suffered somewhere along the way. I suggest praying for those people for the same amount of time as one spends writing comments about them. The Jesus Prayer is simple and doesn’t try to tell God what to do to those other people; try a few repetitions of that.
Yes, debunk lies. And be careful with tone, so we aren’t contributing to the problem. Here’s a useful question I’ve put to myself a lot lately: Will this thing really matter the day after I’ve died? One could argue it might not matter for me, but it will matter for my children, and that’s legitimate. But again, the most important contribution in all of this is prayer.
Dana
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There is no evidence of voter fraud as a serious problem with mail-in voting. r
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Without enough poll workers, which there won’t be because the mostly older folks who are the main contingent of poll workers are afraid of exposure to coronavirus, there won’t be enough polls open to accommodate everyone who would be willing to vote in person. Anticipate long lines, few polling places, people jammed together for hours — not safe, unless you wear a hazmat suit. Oh, and why is it okay to have extensive mail-in voting in Florida, as Trump says it is, but not in NYC and LA?
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I find it humorous that the place where he was sunbathing was “Devil’s Lake”…
Like another commenter upstream, I wonder what the guy was going to do if he caught the pig. Those critters are mean, and strong.
Dana
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Do you know that a couple years after that incident where the guy shot up his business based on those fabricated child-trafficking accusations, the owner of Comet Ping-Pong and his staff, and other businesses on the block thought to be complicit in the imagined crimes, are still receiving threats via social media and phone? They still can’t go on with their lives, these theories continue to live even after police investigation of the shooting clearly indicated that nothing was happening in the basement of Comet PIng-Pong.
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He’s not giving them ideas. They’re already talking about mass arrests, military tribunals, and mass executions of liberals and Democrats in QAnon World, and also among Christian followers of people like the so-called Fireman Prophet, Mark Taylor.
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Right, but it also may be asked by reporters, and it may be asked p.ex. to Trump, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Marsha Blackburn, Louie Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, etc, etc, hope you see my point. BTW the most recent example of a Republican taking option 3 was John McCain in 2008. I really hope I may have missed any occasions since then because if not, it would be awfully too long a period since the last blimp of bipartisanship.
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it is only ok to worship Trump, nothing else is allowed to even question him.
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The Beast (corrupt political system) always leads The False Prophet (corrupt religious system) around on a leash, while The False Prophet constantly yap-yap-yaps “I’m The One In Charge!”
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Is there some type of Stepford factory that is producing these people or is this an infestation of Body Snatchers. I never new such folks existed so openly till around 2016.
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Nobody knows who Q-ANON is?
Has anybody checked Russian Intelligence Agitprop/Cyberwarfare Division?
Because if they’re not Q, they’d be idiots not to jump on the bandwagon and keep things boiling away.
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Do not give them ideas.
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“Slay them all, the Lord will know His own.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caedite_eos._Novit_enim_Dominus_qui_sunt_eius.
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The revivalism that evangelicalism/fundamentalism has its roots in spread like wildfire across the south and the frontier (especially in the southern Midwest), primarily through the Baptists, as our friend Richard Hershberger has reminded us in recent day.
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Take it from someone who grew up with a Sociopath Manipulator:
They will ALWAYS have a Plausibly Deniable fallback position for gaslighitng.
Sometime many layers of them.
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Right, meant to type 1800s
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BINGO!
That was how “False Memory Syndrome” was first discovered.
The Hard Way.
The “interrogators” implanted it in all Righteousness.
And the CHRISTIAN media of the time were the biggest fanboys of their GUILT GUILT GUILT. Believed every word. Fitted right into their Grand Unified Conspiracy TRVTH!!!! of SATAN!!! running everything outside the four walls of their church.
“Could it be… SATAN</B?"
— The Church Lady, Saturday Night Live
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yes, at some deeper level, for a while, best to let God judge the heart
loyalty to one Master? That’s where things get weird with these cult folks, so ‘Christian’, okay,
but there must be a lot of ‘looking away’ and ‘keeping silent in the face of wrongs done to others
OR
Christian in name only as in those who will say ‘Lord, Lord’ on the Day, and be rejected (?)
let the Good Lord sort us out, there are some who follow Trump out of fear, more than hate
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in late summer
the green leaves droop —
too soon they fall
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It’s already happening:
https://theconversation.com/the-church-of-qanon-will-conspiracy-theories-form-the-basis-of-a-new-religious-movement-137859
At which point, the only reaction possible for a True Believer is to Double Down and SCREAM LOUDER! And/or get violent.
Sunk Cost Fallacy, the con man’s greatest friend. Get the mark so emotionally involved in the con to where he can’t back out. Because backing out would mean admitting to himself that he got conned, that He Was Wrong. And that cannot be.
i.e. They have inherited the mythological mantle of Hillary Clinton.
PROOF of being “shapeshifting cannibal alien lizards from the Hollow Earth” will be next.
And will be BE-LEEEVED as a Litmus Test of your Salvation.
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Diverse on the macro-level maybe.
Evangelicals are always splitting existing “Fellowships”.
Or splitting from them to plant a New One True Church.
Yet inside this macro-level anarchy, on the micro level each One True Church demands lockstep conformity and blind obedience within.
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As earth-shaking and total as the Great Vowel Shift in English pronunciation of the 17th Century.
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In the USA, a combination of “Southern influenced model” and basic Fundamentalism has come to dominate. Hence the term “Fundagelicals”. To the point of redefining “Christian” without any specific adjectives to mean Fundagelicals and Fundagelicals alone.
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What happens when they start smelling out and burning all Heretics in Triumph?
“DEUS VULT!”
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Except to Evangelical Culture War Christians, where every word from His mouth (or Twitter Finger) is Inerrant SCRIPTURE(TM)!
Just Parse Q_Anon postings through Bible Code numerology (not making that up)!
“IT’S IN REVELATIONS, PEOPLE!!!”
— Celebrity TV news anchor on The Simpsons
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If that’s Gallagher the Sledge-o-Matic Comedian, he said the same about his hair:
“Does God have a sense of humor? Here is Proof:”
(Doffs hat, shows himself long-haired below the ears and totally bald above.)
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T-shirt shown when Dr John Campbell (England) reported on the Sturgis Rally (quarter MILLION attendees) in one of his recent COVID Updates:
SCREW COVID!
I’M GOING TO STURGIS!
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Let’s not bad mouth all Gnostics. They were not morally worse in ancient times than the Orthodox/Catholics in the first centuries of the Church, and in the Middle Ages the Cathars, who were the Gnostics of their time, were brutally massacred by the Church’s armies, even though all they wanted was to be left in peace. Incidentally, their immediate Catholic neighbors had nothing against them, and a good number of them died fighting against the Pope’s armies alongside the Cathars.
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But we both know that if really want to understand the Grand Master Conspiracy from which all others spring from, they need to join the Church of the SubGenius.
“All Hail Dobbs!”
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With Barr at the head of the DOJ, unfortunately, it will be Trump’s lackeys who will be doing the questioning, and it won’t be of the Religious Right or the fanatical QAnon devotees. This November is the most crucial American presidential election of our era.
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I’ve heard those bells on a clear autumn morning in the Catskills calling the sangha to morning meditation before breakfast in the zendo, and also been glad for them.
in late summer
the green leaves droop —
soon they fall
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“believing as they do that liberals and Democrats are definitionally evil and depraved”.
Unfortunately I think that’s exactly the position of most Trumpangelicals, as represented by Graham & Falwell & Jeffress and the like.
In fact, this should be a question to be clearly put to all public figures associated with the Relig. Right and with Trumpism (and to be insisted upon until they provide a clear answer): what are, in your opinion, the motives of Libs/Dems/Leftists?
Because there are three options available only:
1) they are simply evil & immoral people. Consequence: they have to be treated as clear and present dangers to US/democracy/republic/whatever we hold dear.
2) they are not evil, only inherently more dishonest and immoral than Cons/Reps/Rightists. Consequence: they have to be ignored/discredited/unmasked, or in other words to be kept as far away as possible by governing the country at ANY level.
3) they are as good and moral as Cons/Reps/Rightists, but simply misguided as to which policies work best for the country. Consequence: they have to be treated as honest political opponents and issues should be negotiated to achieve the best outcome for the nation.
How many of the questionees would you think would choose option 3?
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But see how insidious this kind of smear is? You can immediately back down on the claim as leading Republicans have done but the idea has been planted in their followers’ heads that her citizenship is up for question. Same with the election. The Republicans will attempt to suppress voter turnout (they’re a minority party) but the real damage is questioning the legitimacy of the election.
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+1
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One and the same. Evangelicalism, White Supremacy, and Anti-Communism are a kit-n-kaboodle. There is no disentangling them. This is has been documented seven ways from Sunday.
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Yes, they always follow the new 2016 Bible-do unto to others before they do unto you. It is the best selling version of the 81%
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don’t you?
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I wonder if Jon believes Kamala is not a US citizen? It may have changed but not one of Kamala’s fellow Senators have refuted this. But this is how the ball rolls with Trump and his ugly crowd.
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a fear-based religion: the far right ‘conservative’ Christianity
strange, though, nothing about trumpism is ‘conservative’ OR old-time Republican
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Jean: I do not doubt that at all. I doubt the last Southern Baptist Church I pastored if they would have tolerated me supporting the democratic candidate. You can mention Trump without any consequences in most SB churches, but supporting or being a Democrat as a pastor will help you become an ex-pastor. And BTW many of my Southern Baptist church Friends I have known for more than 30 years.
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Jon: There is no voter fraud? How do you believe anything Trump says-He is a serial liar IMO.
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I accepted on November 9, 2016 that by the new Trump-“christian” standard I had become a heretic by the new standard. I sleep well at night.
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that ‘special belief ‘ thing is what started the heresy called ‘gnosticism’ and Q-anon is a modern form of it:
” If you believe that, it’s not much of a leap to imagine the child trafficking is taking place inside an overpriced armoire. The danger escalates with the next logical leap: If that’s what the powerful are doing, what wouldn’t be justified in challenging them? QAnon has inspired its adherents to plot kidnapping “raids,” stage a standoff with an armored vehicle at the Hoover Dam, and attempt a citizen’s arrest that ended with a killing. The FBI’s Phoenix field office issued a memo last year about QAnon posing a potential domestic terrorist threat. None of this has kept QAnon isolated on the fringes; in fact, the group is now becoming a force in what passes for the mainstream of American politics.
The shared beliefs and attendant rituals of QAnon are core to the president’s base. The journalist Jeff Sharlet traveled to many Trump rallies over the course of months for a story in Vanity Fair and found “dozens of Trump supporters who believe that the Democratic establishment primarily serves as a cover for child sex trafficking.” Some of these Trump supporters, he writes, were familiar with QAnon’s ideology and worldview, “but most were not. It was, they told me, simply known.” Sharlet reads Q as a form of American gnosticism, “the gospel of Trump,” and like the Christian gnostic gospels, it represents “a form of secret knowledge reserved for the faithful, a ‘truth’ you must have the eyes to see in order to believe.” The “truth” of what QAnon adherents believe isn’t the point: It’s that they belong to the sect to whom “the truth” has been revealed.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/158500/dark-obsessions-qanon-merging-mainstream-conservatism
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Jon, look it up-it is easy. I am SB, and the SBC had a different view about abortion.
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Jon:
You said about me:”Further down the list here Tom says that Trumps christian supporters will cheer him for trying to steal the election. I understand that is how many anti-Trump people will view it, but that is not something he is being cheered for by his supporters. They will cheer him for trying to prevent voter-fraud using mail in ballots.”
That is complete Bull S H T! Prevent what fraud! He said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and people would still vote for him–Was he speaking of you and yes I am mad as I am typing this. Would you even deny he is a serial liar?
I can be civil with a Trumper, but not for long!
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Edenton was prime for this kind of witch hunt. It took ONE woman, a disgruntled mother, to start the ball rolling, but the towns’ people lapped it up like minions as the grimness of the accusations got worse and worse.
Sadly, some of the young assistants’ lives were ruined as they were also charged with horrendous crimes against the children.
Edenton is a lovely river town in North Carolina with grand old houses and families who have lived there for generations;
but something was harbored in that town that allowed that one woman to create such division and persecution, simply because she had been offended (slighted) and that was all it took to unleash her venom. A sad story, yes. But the underlying lesson is this: even in the sleepy, dignified traditional Southern towns, something lies waiting to be unleashed, whether by a vicious woman, or a ‘minister of the gospel of trump’, or a cult of Q-anon wackos. . . . . . and there in those lovely old towns, the crazies find soil primed ready to harbor the mean-spirited, ‘satanic-panic’ thinking that carves up any and all it attacks until its fury is completely exhausted:
people charged with no proof, convicted by ‘jurors’ often their own neighbors who have known them all their lives, and sentenced to sometimes lengthy jail terms . . . . . . and only after the ‘madness’ passes and people ‘calm down’ to they awaken to what they have done to the victims of these accusations, and also what they have done to the children who were prompted and trained to accuse innocent teachers of horrific abuse. . . . it all came out in time, in that lovely town on the river in North Carolina named ‘EDEN-TOWN’. Good Christian people, doncha know. God have mercy. Christ have mercy.
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Somewhere, I’m sure, there are websites explaining the difference from each side, and the importance of those differences.
I’m glad for the websites, but not as glad as I am for the bells.
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It must be “christian” to try and steal an election.
Best I can tell it now matters more to WIN than to follow your values and rules. After all IF WE WIN we can then implement our values and morals.
It always works this way. Right?
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Again, I was under the impression that the American context of our use of the term would have been obvious.
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Jon’s point, as I understand it, is historical. Evangelicalism was a movement that arose in Britain in the 18th century, along with the closely allied Pietist movement in Germany. Slavery was not originally a topic within Evangelicalism. When it became one, Abolitionists in both the UK and the US largely were Evangelicals. So no, Evangelicalism wasn’t founded to support slavery.
On the other hand, the descendants of the Abolitionist wing of 19th century Evangelicalism are no longer classified as Evangelical. Wheaton is classified as an Evangelical school, while Oberlin is not. This is why I emphasize the Great Reclassification of the mid-20th century. It is at once true and misleading to talk about Evangelical Abolitionists without also talking about the Great Reclassification.
And it’s not as if this makes modern Evangelicalism look better, whether we take the descendants of the Abolitionists as having been run out of camp or running from it, not wanting to be associated with those people.
The further complication is the Pentecostals, who traditionally were entirely distinct from the Evangelicals. The modern movement started out racially integrated, but most sorted themselves out pretty quickly. Then the white half got caught up in the Great Reclassification, now being included in Evangelicalism. On the one hand, this wing clearly was not founded on supporting slavery. On the other hand, these were people who, finding themselves in a position of racial mixing, put a stop to that as quickly as possible and happily associated themselves with the slavery-supporting wing of Evangelicalism.
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Yep.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
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Sorry, I meant SBC (Southern Baptist Convention).
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Yes, but over the decades the Southern influenced model has basically swamped the distinctions of the other regions.
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Here are a few proofs:
– SBA platforms in the ’60-’70s before Roe;
– W.A. Criswell’s comments on the Roe decision;
– length of time between Roe (Jan. ’73) and Jerry Falwell’s first anti-abortion sermon (sometime in 1978).
All these are public records and can be easily looked up.
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The term “evangelical” is indeed older, but we’re talking specifically about the American version here. I had thought that would be obvious.
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I thought I had replied to this, so if it comes up later and there are two responses I apologize.
“So, you don’t deny the fact that Christians are turning a blind eye to Trump’s lying about not knowing if Harris is eligible to be VP, just to get some conspiracy theory going?”
While I know what you are referencing, I never mentioned it and have no idea why you brought it up.
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Jon, to my knowledge, Trump has never cited any studies that show voter fraud is a serious problem with mail in voting. Can you?
Here in Colorado, we have mail in, drop box, and in person voting since 2014.
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/05/24/mail-vote-ballots-colorado-coronavirus/
Click to access Briefing_Memo_Debunking_Voter_Fraud_Myth.pdf
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Is evangelicalism a strictly southern american thing? Were there not evangelicals in other parts of American and in England as well.
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I didn’t bring up anything about Harris so I’m not really sure what you are talking about. So Trump applied for an absentee ballot. Do you have to apply for a mail in ballot? Do you deny the trouble that has already occurred for much small elections using mail in ballots? There is no reason we can’t take precautions to safely vote in person.
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Mike, it is before my time, but I know that there were many in the South who were against integration. However, evangelicalism is older than that and also older than the Christian Right. My argument is that it didn’t spring forth from defense of slavery. As far as most Southern Baptists being in favor of abortion rights, what is your source for that? Again, this is before my time and I honestly don’t know what the opinion of most Southern Baptist was on abortion back them.
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That is where the mother and son who ran the pre-school went to jail for years until it was learned/exposed that the interrogators of the children actually planted the ideas in the minds of the kids?
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If you reject the idea that birthright citizenship is permissible, then yes, she is ineligible. Fortunately, the 14th Amendment is crystal clear on that point, and no legal or legislative mandate exists to overturn it.
https://thebulwark.com/kamala-harris-is-the-birthright-citizenship-candidate/
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It was evangelical Christians who generated and energized the Satanic Panic at the end of the last century, and the resultant false accusations and repercussions for those falsely accused. They will also be involved in the new QAnon Panic, believing as they do that liberals and Democrats are definitionally evil and depraved, and assuming they must be guilty of the worst crimes they are accused of. Only this time it will be worse, if we have a man in the Oval Office who exacerbates and encourages their worst nightmarish fantasizes of the QAnon Panic, and a DOJ willing to follow any false accusation he says it should. Hold tight.
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As the articles state – the hermeneutic that lies behind the defense of slavery also stands behind the emphasis on individual salvation, YEC, the laser focus on patriarchy and anti-LGBTQ rights – so much of the American Evangelical project. You can’t separate the two.
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Exactly, CM.
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I’ve been lectured to at length about the TRVTH!!! that THE DEMOCRATS THE DEMOCRATS THE DEMOCRATS are Sabotaging The Election, about how DEMOCRAT DEMOCRAT DEMOCRAT politicians are sitting on warehoused of Republican mail-in-ballots since 2016.
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I fully expect anything from cancelling the election and proclaiming President-for-Life to armed uprisings to an “I’LL SHOW YOU!” nuclear arm-and-launch.
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Don’t forget the McMartin Pre-School in SoCal.
I remember Christian radio cheering on the witch hunt. Including claims of “so much more THEY won’t tell you”, knowledgeable hints about Satanic Sex Rituals in the (nonexistent) basement of the pre-school all silenced by court gag orders. Calls to Christians for Spiritual Warfare against Principalities and Powers and Spiritual Wickedness In High Places.
Even level-headed talk show host Rich Buhler got taken in by it for a while.
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Remember they guy who shot up Comet Ping-Pong in DC to liberate the children hidden in the basement for Hillary’s Pleasure?
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how about the Qanon followers plan to round up people who opposed Trump and put them all down in Guantanimo and execute them for ‘treason’ against Trump?
not kidding, this is out there in their ‘predictions’
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Why stop there?
“Fire up the Ovens…”
— Pink Floyd, The Wall(?)
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Like I said farther down, Q-Anon fuses very well (and revitalizes) The Satanic Panic.
Any Means Necessary to fight SATAN and his WITCHES!
No.
A Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory is literally IMPOSSIBLE to debunk.
* Any debunker has shown themselves to be part of The Conspiracy.
* Lack of evidence for The Conspiracy is PROOF The Conspiracy Can SIlence Anyone and Anything (Conspiracists excepted; up to “I Am Protected By The Holy Spirit”)..
* Evidence against The Conspiracy is Disinformaion/FAKE NEWS planted by The Conspiracy.
* Anyone who doubts the existience of The Conspiracy is part of The Conspiracy.
“THE DWARFS ARE FOR THE DWARFS! WE WON’T BE TAKEN IN!”
One of the Inner Ring of specially-enlightened Illuminati who KNOW What’s REALLY Going On.
(Isn’t “Gnostic” old Greek for “He Who KNOWS Things”?)
A Live Role-Playing Game, whether Luke Skywalker against The Evil Conspiracy Empire or High-level Clerics and Paladins against hordes of DEMONS! DEMONS! DEMONS!
(Cue early Frank Peretti novels…)
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I said tumorous , not humorous!
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That is all too possible.
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Edenton NC, ‘satanic’ panic
and a lot of ruined lives of innocent people
https://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2015/04/14/hysteria-over-day-care-in-edenton
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Um. . Chaplain Mike, I think you mean “that was developed in the 19th Century.”
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He sees clearly that they are like him; he is the main advocate of Birtherism, and is now giving credence to the utterly untrue belief, the lie, that Kamala Harris is not eligible to be VP.
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As I should have made clearer, this is a response to Tom Parker’s question, “Can you be a Christian and vote for Trump?”
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“Trump Said It,
I Believe It,
THAT SETTLES IT!”
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Chorusing “AAAAAA-MENNNNNN!!! HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON!!! AND HIS KINGDOM SHALL HAVE NO END!!!”
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Like the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Trump is incapable of seeing beyond “THEY ADORE ME! ME! MEEE!”
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And Litmus Test of Salvation.
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Corrected blockquotes:
That’s what I heard, too.
In “New Testament” Star Trek, wasn’t “Q” the name of their Resident Mad God?
A “Transcendental” Trickster like an omnipotent Loki?
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Either way, he gave everybody else in that Berlin park some entertainment.
“Hey, Hans, guess what just happened in the park!” (Viral video upload….)
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Isn’t that the same rationale that shot up Comet Ping-Pong?
When The Vast Conspiracy is so Vast and So EVIL, it justifies Any Means Necessary to destroy that EVIL.
Up to and beyond genocide.
Any. Means. Necessary.
Any. Means. Whatsoever.
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NO, because Trump is LORD.
Ask 81% of White Evangelicals and their Celebrity Leaders.
(And yes, the White qualifier is there for a reason; White and Black Evangelical cultures are very different, and this is one of the most blatant differences.)
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Didn’t Chesterton write that when a part of the Church ties itself to a cultural tradition, it has entered int Time, made itself “mortal”, and will age and die with that cultural tradition?
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Nudism (also called “Naturism” after “a state of Nature”) has been a thing in German culture for at least 100 years. I remember mention of Nudist Camps and a”Naturist Movements” in Germany dating back to shortly after WW1.
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Looks like Baby Yoda (from The Mandalorian) without the ears.
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1) Note the similarities to The Satanic Panic of the Eighties — a Vast Conspiracy of Ritual Child Sex-Abuse to which EVERYBODY except US belong. Not surprisingly, Q-ANONism is crossbreeding with Christian Conspiracy Theories and Resurrecting The Satanic Panic.
2) Another thing in common: Both Q-Anoners and Christians worship Donald Trump.
3) All that’s needed to merge the two is to claim the Deep State is the latest alias of The Vast Satanic Conspiracy controlling ALL Government and Media (except for CHRISTIANs, of course) headed by SATAN himself and staffed by WITCHES and WITCHCRAFT. Next thing you know, Q-Anon will be joining Anti-Vaxx and YEC as THE Litmus Test of Salvation.
4) I have always been sure “Deep State” is just the latest Code Word for “The JOOS!”
Anti-Mask has become the new LItmus Test of Salvation.
See points 1 & 3 above.
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And they are lending “credibility” to his lies about Kamala Harris’ being ineligible to be VP.
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There are people who believe in it, and if they acquire enough power, they will arrange for job losses and criminal charges against people are completely innocent, just as happened in the Satanic Panic.
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Voter-fraud by mail-in ballot? Except in Florida, where the POTUS is in favor of it? He applied for his own absentee ballot in that state just a couple days ago; I think the grounds for his application was that he had bone spurs.
So, you don’t deny the fact that Christians are turning a blind eye to Trump’s lying about not knowing if Harris is eligible to be VP, just to get some conspiracy theory going?
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But Jon, there was an entire theological argument for slavery that was developed in the 1800s. Mark Noll writes about this in his book The Civil War as a Theological Crisis. The South saw pro-slavery as the Christian, biblical position.
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It has been argued, however, that the modern “Christian Right” did arise with strong influences from the south (Falwell, et al) and that many of its leaders were fighting against the anti-segregation forces and the Federal govt in the 60s and 70s, particularly when it came to integrating Christian colleges like Liberty and Bob Jones University. Many of us in the north heard much more about Roe v. Wade and the evangelical reaction to that, but most Southern Baptists were actually in favor of abortion rights and didn’t initially have a problem with Roe v. Wade. The issue was integration.
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I’d prefer to think of Q as the obnoxious know-it-all alien from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, playing a vast joke on humans in the United States.
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I just let out a large sigh of relief. Thank you.
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I still want to know what he thought he was going to do if he caught the mama pig.
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I thought it was a reference to Q (quartermaster) in the James Bond series.
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This QAnon garbage isn’t funny either, after you’ve gotten over a snicker at their belief in a giant child-trafficking ring run by Democrats in DC. It’s both sad and dangerous, because, like the Satanic Panic, no matter how many ways it’s debunked, there are still people who believe in it. As Fred Clark, over on Slacktivist, explains it, plenty of people want to believe in something that others don’t, because it makes them feel special, in-the-know, superior to people who don’t believe it. They can feel that they are fighting the forces of darkness, doing brave things that other people can’t. And now at least one of them is likely to be elected to Congress, from Georgia.
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‘evangelicals’ do not like to be ‘labeled’ in one group but like to think of themselves as ‘diverse’
sadly, that ship has sailed
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How do you separate southern evangelicalism of the mid 19th century from their support of slavery as God’s will? Do you think somehow they scrubbed from their presentation of the Gospel?
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Indeed you can. One of the nicest, most caring people I know is a Baptist minister’s wife. Both she and her husband are avid Trump supporters. For the life of me, I cannot see how they manage the cognitive dissonance–unless they choose to remain willfully ignorant of Trump’s actual doings. I haven’t seen her for a while, so I do wonder if Trump’s response to the pandemic has changed her mind, or if she has somehow rationalized it.
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One example would be the conversation Eeyore and I just had. Are there theologians who supported slavery and also influenced evangelicals? Yes. Did evangelicalism arise from a defense of slavery? No.
Further down the list here Tom says that Trumps christian supporters will cheer him for trying to steal the election. I understand that is how many anti-Trump people will view it, but that is not something he is being cheered for by his supporters. They will cheer him for trying to prevent voter-fraud using mail in ballots.
This is just a couple of examples from today. If I see some more I’ll let you know.
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If it rests on “self identification” then it’s a free for all: Christian & slave owner, Christian & wife beater, Christian & gun worshipper, Christian & anything. Maybe it’s better to have “showing Christ-like attitude and behavior” as foundation.
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Just as a reminder, since I seem to be on a book kick today, Lewis Thomas wrote some superb books, too–which don’t seem to be available on Kindle, but don’t let that stop you. _The Medusa and the Snail_ is my favorite, but there are several others, all of them wonderful. Lewis’ first book, _The Lives of a Cell–Notes of a Biology Watcher_ is a great place to start.
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+10
You think the platypus is weird–have a look at some of the creatures in the Burgess Shale, where God, or evolution, or Whatever, was still working out the most practical designs. They’re amazing! Stephen Jay Gould wrote a terrific book about them.
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“A lot of negative things are said on here against conservatives and evangelicals, most of them just half truths.”
Jon, would you please list four or five of these examples and explain why you consider them to be half truth?
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dry summer heat
cool autumn nights
soon the leaves will fall
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I am sincerely afraid I might get shot wearing something like that were I live. I definitely could not get anywhere near a local Southern Baptist Church wearing it.
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It must be “christian” to try and steal an election. I am not sure what verse in the Bible allows this? His “christian’ supporters will applaud him for attempting to do this. If the Dem’s were doing this the streets would be full of heavily armed folks and there would be blood in the streets.
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I am trying to be funny, but where I live many of the obituaries will say something like so and so-went to be with his Lord and Savior.
Joking again, it is almost required also that you put your faith in the obitiuary-he was of the Baptist Faith and that you also put the name of the church you were affiliated with.
Doing this should keep anyone locally from believing you were not a Christian and make it easier for the minister that “preaches” your funeral.
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What’s humorous is not being able to tell one’s “t” from “h”. Note to self: put the glasses on before you type.
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The Satanic Panic wasn’t so humorous to the folks who lost their jobs and reputations and went to jail for years.
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Real baby platypusses (I think).
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Well all you have to do to be a Christian is self-identify as one. Millions of self-identified Christians voted for Trump and undoubtedly will this fall.
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He’s doing his best to make sure he doesn’t lose by impeding the delivery of the mail, and mail-in votes. Also expect many usual polling places to be closed as a result of coronavirus fears on the part of poll workers, which will disproportionately effect densely populated blue cities, i.e., people that would vote against him, even for those who show up to vote. Every state should be allowing universal mail-in voting this coming election, but he’s making that impossible.
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They call it the Assumption of Mary, although, and you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, in Eastern Orthodoxy it is held that Mary died before the assumption of her body, but in Roman Catholicism the wording of the dogmatic statement on the matter leaves open the question of whether she died beforehand or not.
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They are going to be some mighty angry folks if he loses in November.
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Maybe this “horror of a movie” also proves that God has a sense of humor, at times a little perverse.
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Thanks for this comment, Mule. Greatly needed the reminder of that today.
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If you could be a Christian and hold slaves, then you can be a Christian and vote for Trump. But you’d be keeping bad company.
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Can you be a Christian and vote for Trump? I say yes.
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Ah, I see! Q clearance! Maybe Q = Donald Jr.
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QAnon is the metastasized and universalized expansion of the tumorous Satanic Panic of the 1980s/90s. Trump, as a master conspiracy-theory advocate himself (a la Birtherism), sees how this movement merges his fanatical, conspiracy mongering Christian right supporters with his other less religious but no-less fanatical secularized supporters, and will lean on it with all his weight. In this last week he already started fanning the expanding conspiracy theory flames of the idea that Kamala Harris is not eligible to be VP, even though he knows that is a blatant lie, because he knows that it feeds directly into the fevered QAnon believers’ mindset and benefits him politically. He will build this fire as high as he can.
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This does not mean it “arose” our of a defense of slavery. It arose out of a desire to spread the gospel. Personally I don’t believe the biggest problem the defenders of slavery had was their hermeneutics, but allowing the culture they grew up in to sway their interpretation on this particular issue. A problem which we all have to continually deal with.
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Mainly because it is true and also just to be ornery. A lot of negative things are said on here against conservatives and evangelicals, most of them just half truths. Sometimes I just like to give a shot back. I know that is not a good attitude, but sometimes the flesh wins. As far as being a Christian and a democrat, yes that is possible. There are plenty of people who are. I don’t think they are right about a lot of things, but I don’t doubt their faith. Now I ask you, can you be a Christian and vote for Trump?
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See also the Rice University paper I linked above.
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“Does God have a sense of humor? Look at a platypus, I think so!” – Gallagher
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Gnat Encrusted Camel Patties – the next trend in Evangelical diets.
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That’s an insult to the Continuum.
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“The poster’s username implied that the anonymous poster holds Q clearance,[50][51] a United States Department of Energy security clearance required to access to Top Secret information on nuclear weapons and materials.[52] This claim cannot be substantiated due to a lack of reliable evidence.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon
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I assume it relates to the character Q in Star Trek Next Generation
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Speak not of that eldritch horror of a movie. 😦
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The hermeneutics of evangelicalism dovetail with the hermeneutics used to defend slavery.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2017/06/29/defenders-slavery-taught-us-bible/
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2016/04/18/what-if-we-learned-about-the-bible-from-the-people-who-got-it-right/
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Absurd conjecture for comic effect: Q = disgruntled and underpaid Biblical scholar moonlighting as mercenary troll for Vladmir Putin.
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I suppose gnat strainers and camel seasoning are readily available in the sanctuary gift shop.
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Depends on how rich and dumb the person I’m betting with is.
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All the money that exists in this world. There is no bottom.
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The bells are ringing at the Catholic church three blocks over for the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, although I think they call it something else.
It is good to know that there is great beauty and sanctity that our stupidity and savagery cannot blemish.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
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Jon:
Honest question, why bring the democrats into this. Can you be a Christian and a Democrat?
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I don’t know why the man called himself Q. Perhaps he is aware of the word quelle, but I don’t think most people are or would have caught such a reference. I’m not sure who officially gave it the name QAnon, but my guess would be they were just combing him calling himself Q with the fact that he is anonymous
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in late august heat
the green leaves start to droop with
autumn’s gravity
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Looks a little like Howard the Duck (the movie version) before he started smoking cigars.
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Okay, but did those who named it QAnon use the q as shorthand for the word source? In that case, QAon = anonymous source?
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While the SBC certainly rose out of a defense of slavery, you are going to have to do a little explaining to show that all of evangelicalism rose out of a defense of slavery. Honestly it sounds more like the history of the democrat party than evangelicalism.
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So, standing six feet apart and wearing masks are parts of Satanic rituals? This must be where Defiance culture and Christian piety intersect for those intent on straining out the gnat — and a fake gnat at that! — but swallowing the camel.
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I saw a youtube video about this, so I’m not sure this is right, but according to the video the whole thing was started by a guy posting a conspiracy theory on some internet forum under the name Q. No one knows his real name so it is called QAnon
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Good question and better guess. I have no idea.
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And of those fifty Q believers who’ve run for national office, how much are you willing to wager that every single one of them is a HUGE supporter of the current POTUS?
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Maybe he wasn’t German.
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Does the Q in QAnon stand for the German word for source, quelle, as it does in modern scholarly studies of the Gospels? Does anybody know?
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“Evangelical” today denotes the present-day end of a cultural tradition dating to the 18th century. I say “cultural” rather than “theological” because it has never had any but very loose theological boundaries. On the one hand, this theological flexibility is a big part of why we still talk about Evangelicalism. On the other hand, it also means that it drifts with the cultural currents. The Great Reclassification of the mid-20th century, when the non-Fundamentalist Evangelicals were reclassified as “mainline Protestant,” left Evangelicalism especially susceptible to the worst impulses of American culture, with what we see today the culmination (I hope).
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“I showed the man the photos, he laughed heartily and gave me permission to make them public.””
A German with a sense of humor?!?
That’s TWO stories today about the nearness of the apocalypse. 😛
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Sadly, I think the Qanon will grow and it will grow especially among our christian trump worshippers… I’m beginning to see more of them in my small circle beginning to peddle this stuff on social media… and it usually comes with this idea expressed or implied in some way, “Why is everyone piling on Trump? THIS (ie global pedophile ring of Dems) is MUCH WORSE! or “Here is the EVIL trump is fighting against. So Trump = good. Those others = evil and/or abetting evil by not supporting trump or being “afraid” of covid-19… ” (somehow that’s getting mixed into it as well!)
Here’s my theory on why this is and will grow. I think they, Trump worshippers, know that a majority of the country considers him a failure… they know that without the electoral college and other election shenanigans, he’s likely not going to be reelected. They know that in a free and fair election or a popular vote election, he’d be toast… Maybe they’re starting to see the Lincoln Project or Republican Voters Against Trump… maybe they’re bumping into a few people who, in the past, were toe-the-line GOPers but are now wavering, because of Trump’s failures or behavior these 3+yrs… Outwardly I’m sure they project the same bluster/confidence as before, but I bet in the dark recesses, they’re feeling anxious. Afraid that maybe the movement is running out of gas…
And so they need something to Deflect and Comfort their anxiety about that. The Qanon fits that need pretty well. It helps to keep their minds focused on the thing they believe most; that those opposed to Trump, especially the Dems, are the worst, EVER!..an evil embodied by and now supposedly, “exposed” to be a part of a global pedophile ring… It won’t surprise me a bit, as we draw closer to the election, that trump or his court evangelicals or Qanon man-on-the-street types begin to more explicitly say things like, “a vote for Biden/Harris is a vote for this vast child sex-trafficking ring”
If we thought the pizzagate incident was crazy, I suspect we’re in for more like it and maybe worse…
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The word evangelic IMO means nothing. People love to say they are evangelical, it covers a multitude of their sins-they use this to cover all their unchristian like behavior.
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I live just down the road from Latrobe, Tasmania, the “Platypus Capital of the World”. Platypus thrive in Tasmania where their natural habitat has not been as badly mucked up as on mainland Australia, and where there are fewer introduced predators (no foxes).
I’ve seen platypus in the wild. They’re so graceful in the water. I’m convinced God created/allowed to evolve creatures like this as a way of telling us we can’t put him or his creatures in a nice neat box.
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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133
https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/16614
Hell, even the “purity movement” was a manifestation of it…
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/how-evangelical-purity-culture-helps-explain-trumpism
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Trivia of the morning – baby platypuses are called “puggles” – which is also the name for a pug-beagle crossbreed.
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When biologist Lewis Thomas was asked what message he would choose to send into outer space in the Voyager spacecraft, he said: “I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach … but that would be boasting.”
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“For a subculture like Evangelicalism which appears to value marriage and “traditional” family above all else you’d expect some effort to come to terms with this information. I wonder why we don’t?”
Well, bearing in mind that evangelicalism arose out of the defense of slavery, and the religious right arose out of the defense of segregation, you tell me…
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> “There are a lot more young Americans who, identity-wise, are like Kamala Harris
Yep. We are just under 1 in 5 (~18%) of marriages being inter-racial, nationally. In some localities inter-racial marriages are the norm.
For a subculture like Evangelicalism which appears to value marriage and “traditional” family above all else you’d expect some effort to come to terms with this information. I wonder why we don’t?
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Would they recognize him?
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Real baby platys are even cuter!
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Bach is wonderful.
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Right, you win the prize! “Baby Platypus is actually a small sculpture made by Serbian fantasy artist Vladimir Mati?-Kuriljov.” (https://www.sciencealert.com/the-incredibly-cute-baby-platypus-that-went-viral-has-a-dark-secret-you-ought-to-know)
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Not a baby platypus. Hate to break it to you.
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Wonder what would have happened to anyone who had Joe Biden painted on their chest and walked the streets of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally?
It was not a good week again for “Christianity” IMO.
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