"I began this post with the (now laughable) intent of offering a few brief comments on Marc Andreessen’s Techno-Optimist Manifesto published in October of last year...
I would frame the manifesto as a revivalist sermon, or more specifically perhaps, a jeremiad, calling for repentance and a return to the religion of technology. Such a sermon is a response to the process of secularization, which has accelerated in the last decade."
"To basically offer me hush money or threaten me into silence, it just shows that they really do not care about their people, which is really sad," Crenshaw told 60 Minutes.
"This has never been about money for me. It was about justice and accountability and a hope that no one else would be treated the way I was treated."
Crenshaw first told 60 Minutes about her Hillsong hell in 2021.
Worshippers attend the Day of the Spiritual Indoctrinator, annual celebrations at the Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn) community in the Planaltina neighbourhood of Brasilia, Brazil. REUTERS/Adriano Machado
An orthodox faithful Monk attends the Good Friday prayers at the Wukro Cherkos Rock Hewn church in Wukro, Tigray region, Ethiopia. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri
The Far Right’s Campaign to Explode the Population >>
"The threat, we are told here this weekend, is existential, #biological, epoch-defining. Economies will fail, #civilizations will fall, and it will all happen because people aren’t having enough #babies.
“The entire global #financial system, the value of your money, and every #asset you might buy with money is defined by leverage, which means its value depends on growth...." >>
>> ...#natalist#ideology become dominant quickly in the United States — everyone in this room has to have more #kids, and fast.
Keenan, who has previously celebrated her sense that it is now acceptable to say “#white#genocide is real,” says better means #conservative. Pat Fagan, the director of the #Marriage and #Religion Institute at the #Catholic University of America, says good #children are the product of stable, two-parent #Christian households,...>>
"I’m having a nightmare, can you please wake me up? I’m dreaming that they fooled the Jewish people to do the bidding of western imperialism. To feed their tech, their #fascism, their bank accounts, their global death squads for the expansion of empire."
An activist I interviewed today, a #UTAustin alum, shared this powerful piece with me:
The Bugis are Muslim, but their belief is strongly influenced by their ancestral #religion.
One #belief centres around the Monitor lizard. The animal is believed to have a human #soul & to be the twin of children. They are treated with respect.
Bugis also categorize people into 5 genders. Each is needed to keep the universe in balance.
Bissu, the #gender which is neither man nor woman, is the intermediary between humans & #gods.
In a new memoir, Christa Brown, one of the nation’s best-known clergy abuse survivors and #SBC whistleblowers, shares the shocking story of her escape from Baptistland.
"While it may come as a surprise to many, most religious groups today favor the legality of abortion. In fact, there are only four (out of 16) religious groups in which a majority say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases: white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Latter-Day Saints. Even combined, these four outlier groups only constitute one in five Americans."
I don't specifically care about the future or the well-being of the Methodist church, but I recognize that this is an important statement of a significant sector of Americans who are religious and who are interested in the way the church impacts culture in positive ways. #religion#USPolitics
Sometimes when we walk, we pass by this statue of Jesus at the Queen of Angels Church right off Welles Park in Lincoln Square. We often call him Bangra Jesus. Put on some Bangra music and look at the photo - ROFL
Born of Rhea, last of her children
A young god from the womb of an eldeer
Fathered by Kronos, king of the heavens
Of an era long gone now
Destined to be consumed were you
For your father feared the future
Not knowing he was the cause
Of his very own demise
Raised on Crete, that sacred land
Where spirits of the land were tasked with you
Fed the milk of Amaltheia, the goat
And kept hidden by the songs of the Kouretes
Destiny was no match for your mother saved you
A stone she gave your hungry father
Who subsumed it into himself
As he would have done to you
A young and powerful god you were
Told tales of your father’s guilt
And your mothers desperate gamble
You grew to beauteous godhood
Destiny once more exerted her power
You rose to high Olympus
And to your father presented yourself
A cupbearer to serve him as he ruled
A scheming god, wise and patient
A cup you prepared for your father
Herbs and spices in his beloved wine
To induce in him a need to set off your plans
Destiny spun its threads
And into the tapestry of life set your story
As god after god was born anew
From the father’s body expelled
With divine power and righteous anger
The children went to war with their father
From the depths others released
To fight for you in this holy time
Destiny wove your righteous actions into fate
The great mother advised you and yours
Thunder was forged for you
To win this holy war in the heavenly realm
The war won you took a wife
And betrayed the children of Earth
Whose weapons helped your cause
And into the dark pits did you send them
So Destiny once more turned its spindle
The threads once more she wove into life
A new perophecy, a new fate
One we pray will not come to pass
And so you rule, O Heavenly Zeus
God of the mountain peaks
Stirring the clouds to storming
Bearer of the thunder that none yet dare face
Report: Pastor testifies on the reason evangelicals support Republicans: We “made a deal with the devil”
"That deal was, we would support everything on the conservative agenda," says Robert Schenck and they would give us Roe. Taking rights away from half the population.
In that meeting that I participated in, the conversation went something like this: 'You guys want Roe v. Wade overturned, we can do that for you, but you take the whole enchilada, you take the whole thing,"' he said. "You take everything else that comes with it. Because if you want Roe gone, you have to work with us."
"From that point on that community that I had served, and still do, made a deal with the devil," he said. "That deal was, we would support everything on the conservative agenda, whether or not we had conscientious conflict with them.
Christian Nationalists Are Trying to Gaslight You.
Christian nationalism is a threat to both democracy and Christianity. The gaslighting is just a strategy designed to advance that threat.
Christian nationalism –in the contemporary American context – is an attempt to merge American identity with Christian identity. It is “less accurate to think of Christian nationalism as a coherent belief system than as a movement; a joint venture between religious and political actors seeking power.” Two corrupt groups join forces to take over American government. The fascist have captured the #scotus corrupt court.
Everything in this story is leading somewhere amazing. It's emotional, beautiful, touching, surprising and so incredibly moving. Sniffed, snuffled and out and out cried my way through the last part of this book.
@kcfromaustcrime@bookstodon Finally got hold of this beautifully written multi-levelled love story. Like her other two brilliant novels of #historicalFiction, she shows she has done the research and thinking and internalized the stories and feelings of the time and place as well as the relentless control and persecution of the feminine and the 'other'. This 3rd novel is personal for Kent. Highly recommend it.