Transgender Catholics — as well as a priest who welcomes them to his parish — expressed disappointment Monday with a new Vatican document rejecting the fundamental concept of changing one’s biological sex....
Elon Musk‘s erratic posting on X, formerly Twitter, has come back to haunt him once again as a 22-year-old Jewish man pursues a defamation case over tweets in which the tech mogul baselessly suggested the recent college graduate was an undercover federal agent posing as a neo-Nazi during a street fight between far-right...
When his name first became popular, I was like others thinking, hey, this guy sounds like a genius, maybe I should pay attention. Then I did pay attention and he ventured into my industry: comp sci and user experience. That’s when I realised he was an utter moron. When you know more about what he’s talking about than he does, it becomes obvious.
Why would they? They know they have the nearly 30% support it takes to overwhelm a society and, crucially, they know roughly 30% are complacent enough to allow their takeover and whatever atrocities they think are required to ‘fix’ society.
Remember that when fascism threatened to overwhelm us in the 1930s, only about 30% of society were onboard with it; 30% were actively against it, and roughly 30% were in denial, didn’t want to talk about it, or were just hoping it would go away somehow if they just ignored it.
Those of us who grew up without it literally can’t imagine scenarios like this, though I’ve heard disturbing things from people who seem otherwise sane that make me understand what drives some to do these things. When you’ve internalised fables of good vs evil and that’s how you define reality, it’s a small step to think you have to commit atrocities to save the innocent. You don’t have to have a very divergent mentality to convince yourself of this.
We will all be better off when the vast majority of people give up these fables and begin to live in the real world.
Religion isn’t a scapegoat, and it has nothing to do with IQ. Very smart people are roped into it, and that’s what I mean by it being a social cancer.
Very smart people are raised with stories that they take as reality – that supplant their ability to judge reality for what it is – and it at best colours how they interpret everything for the rest of their lives, and at worst amplifies and gives focus to mental conditions they already have.
Religion is a warped lens through which people are forced to see reality from such a young age, they are incapable of seeing actual reality, and in some cases it just amplifies the otherwise mild mental illness they’d likely have had already.
Without it, some people would already have been disturbed, but with it those people are given a purpose for their delusions.
My point is that religion is uniquely capable of taking the delusions of the mentally ill and nurturing them into violence.
Even for the mentally stable, it often leads to fantasy. But when mental illness and religion coincide, people who would otherwise be relatively benign in their delusions very easily become convinced their delusions are divine and their violent instincts are justified by scripture. It happens so often, we need to begin acknowledging it.
Once you’re old enough, there’s no difference. My doctor’s admin keeps calling me to schedule a colonoscopy, and we’ve been playing phone tag. That’s the closest I’ve come to foreplay in years.
Members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have warned America for three years to take former President Donald Trump at his word....
Jokes aside, if the US falls to fascism, it’s gonna be a massive problem for Europe. Imagine fascists in charge of the biggest nation with a history of colonialism, and the world’s largest stockpile of nukes.
It would be awesome if the other first-world nations started taking this threat seriously, before it’s too late.
I’m not talking about trump, actually. He’s just a carnival barker. If he wins the next election, he’ll do whatever his handlers want him to do, which will hasten things. But him losing will not stop the fascist movement in progress. There’s a group of actual fascists who have been working on this for decades. Some are in Congress, some are high up in organisations like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society (writing bills and selecting judges), and others are consultants and advisers.
I’m actually concerned that when trump loses, people will think the threat has passed. His loss will mitigate it somewhat, but it won’t stop them. A large part of the threat is Christian nationalists in Congress, the Supreme Court, and in many other seats of power throughout the country.
Conservative ideology is based on the fundamental belief that society is a thin veneer over our base instincts towards self-destruction, and the only way to maintain the façade is with a strictly enforced hierarchy in which power is maintained by a ‘deserving’ ruling class. Conservatism was born during the bloody death of feudalism, in which Ye Olde Ruling Class learnt they must repackage their ideals tied in a bow of capitalism if they’d have any hope of maintaining their wealth and control.
It’s no coincidence that many of the same familial names holding power carried forward through that transitional period. It’s also no coincidence that the basis of much of that power is rooted in systems of religion.
The core belief it puts forth is that without a strict hierarchy in which every person knows their place, society will collapse into chaos. That if you’re ‘deserving’, the system will grant you comfort, and if you’re struggling and destitute, that is your lot.
It’s the ‘just world’ hypothesis, and deviating from it isn’t just bad, it can unravel the very foundations of society. It’s why someone like Obama being elected to the highest office was such an affront. It wasn’t just racism (though that was a big part of it), but perceived as a very dangerous subversion of the system.
The people who subscribe to this would disagree, and they can’t consciously articulate any of this. It’s in the subtext of their existence – they absorb it via osmosis, through their religious upbringing in the form of fables, and via cultural maxims surrounding family values and patriotism.
If it were just projection or logical fallacy, it could be reasoned with. But it isn’t and it can’t be.
Some online friends called 911 on my son when he was just a few weeks shy of 18 and he was placed on a psych hold for a week for self-harming thoughts.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful they saw signs he’d managed to hide from us, but since the paperwork took a few weeks to process, he not only had to deal with his mental health issues, but also got an 18th birthday present of a $20,000 bill for inpatient services under his name. That definitely didn’t help his mental state at all, and it took years to sort it out.
Later, he told me all he learned from the whole experience was to never tell anyone what he really thinks. As a mom, that scares the shit out of me.
The Mackinac Bridge is exactly the same. Built in 1957, with one concrete and one metal grate lane in both directions, and in winter, it’s sheer ice. It’s so long over a strait prone to high winds, you can feel the sway. I’ve had panic attacks halfway over it as a passenger – and I’m always a passenger even if I was driving in the lead-up because it scares me so much, I was too terrified my first time driving across it and was shaking so badly, I could barely steer. Maybe I’m a pussy, and they say it’s well-maintained, but I’ve read Michigan DOT’s state-wide bridge health report, and it’s less than exemplary.
Christ, there’s no game. You misunderstand one thing I said and immediately jump to me playing games – which I must be honest, only shows you have a tendency to read a fictional and paranoid layer into everything you hear.
I have no such layer. I say exactly what I mean, sometimes to a fault.
I say this with a true concern for your well-being and absolutely nothing beyond that: have you sought professional help? I strongly think you should. Most people don’t immediately think strangers have ulterior motives as strongly as you do. That’s just not normal, and there are a few mental issues that is a strong indicator of. Given our very limited conversation, you jumping repeatedly to that assumption is not usual.
I’m happy to continue our conversation, but maybe we should talk about something else that has nothing to do with religion, since that topic seems to be too emotionally fraught for you. Maybe we can chat about your favourite tv show instead? I’m really into Star Trek: Lower Decks right now. I also like Resident Alien, and the live-action One Piece on Netflix. What do you think?
I’m not pretending. If you think I misunderstood you, perhaps I did.
I’ll keep saying this until you understand me: There. Is. No. Game.
Good lord, I have much better things to think about. Everyone does. Stop thinking the world revolves around you, and please, for the love of Pete, stop thinking anyone has the mental bandwidth to think about playing games when we’re all just trying to figure out how to live our lives.
Are you constantly playing games, or are you just trying to get through every day?
The red pill idiots are lying to you. I don’t know how to get this across to you, but you’re not important enough for people to be playing games with you. We’re all trying to figure ourselves out. Think about it for five fucking minutes.
What’s your favourite serial show right now? I’m on the fence between Lower Decks and One Piece.
It’s awesome. It’s like if Star Trek (all the best serials) and Rick & Morty had a baby that wasn’t full of itself. It’s got regular cameos from TNG, VOY, and others, and the main characters did a crossover live action episode in Strange New Worlds last season. It’s on Paramount+.
So very many stories where parents deprive their child of food until they’re nearly dead, or beat them until they’re nearly dead, or lock them away from society, or teach them they’re horrible to the point they nearly kill themselves – then you hear they were fundamentalist Christian.
How many of these stories have we heard where they were atheists? I’m really struggling to find any. I’m sure there are plenty of atheist child abusers, but I’ll can’t find many, and it seems like the abuse is so much worse when they think their kids are possessed by the devil and their religion tells them to fix it based on their twisted beliefs, or to kill their kids because god says so.
I want to compile statistics, but this just makes me so sad.
Reading about the current events got me looking into the history of Palestine and Israel, and I noticed a lot of Israel’s politicians (like Yitzhak Shamir, Menachem Begin, and Ariel Sharon to name a few) were Zionist terrorists (using the word literally, not subjectively) since before the establishment of Israel. The groups...
I’m 54. When people ask my opinion of this war, I change the subject. I’m not proud of that, but I’ve seen this war more than once.
I have strong opinions about many things, but I’ve seen what this particular war does and I’ve learnt there’s no winning it. I donate to Gaza, but nothing I can say will change the horror the latest flare up of this war will bring. Im sorry.
Transgender Catholics say new Vatican document shows no understanding of their lives (apnews.com)
Transgender Catholics — as well as a priest who welcomes them to his parish — expressed disappointment Monday with a new Vatican document rejecting the fundamental concept of changing one’s biological sex....
Musk Admits He Doesn't Fact-Check Himself and Has Two Burner Accounts on Twitter (www.rollingstone.com)
Elon Musk‘s erratic posting on X, formerly Twitter, has come back to haunt him once again as a 22-year-old Jewish man pursues a defamation case over tweets in which the tech mogul baselessly suggested the recent college graduate was an undercover federal agent posing as a neo-Nazi during a street fight between far-right...
Saying prosecutors should focus on Antifa, judge frees white supremacist in beating (www.usatoday.com)
In his sentencing memo Thursday, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney made it clear why he was letting Tyler Laube off lightly....
Florida woman shoots interstate drivers, says God told her to because of the eclipse, police say (abcnews.go.com)
Thousands of years ago *smoke machine activates* (lemmy.world)
Trump says he’ll jail his opponents. Members of the House Jan. 6 committee are preparing (www.seattletimes.com)
Members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have warned America for three years to take former President Donald Trump at his word....
How to open a textbook (lemmy.world)
The Far Right Is Crawling With Eclipse Conspiracy Theories (www.rollingstone.com)
Some people are being given thousands of dollars with no strings attached in universal basic income trials. They mostly spend the cash wisely. (www.businessinsider.com)
That'll teach ya (lemmy.world)
‘The Wire’ Creator David Simon Rips Into Baltimore Bridge Conspiracists, Calls Marjorie Taylor Greene A “Complete Submoronic Pratfall Of A Human Being’ (deadline.com)
The Ksar Draa in Timimoun, Algeria (sh.itjust.works)
Its not unconditional if it has conditions (midwest.social)
But Mommy, that's horseshit. (midwest.social)
It just gets worse the more you read (suppo.fi)
Reading about the current events got me looking into the history of Palestine and Israel, and I noticed a lot of Israel’s politicians (like Yitzhak Shamir, Menachem Begin, and Ariel Sharon to name a few) were Zionist terrorists (using the word literally, not subjectively) since before the establishment of Israel. The groups...
We have found it. (lemm.ee)