Recent posts

#21

Laid Back Lounge / Re: What's on your mind today?

Last post by Tank - April 15, 2024, 11:25:17 AM

in america, we live in a world where law isnt the final arbiter for legality.

#22

Laid Back Lounge / Re: Reasons to be cheerful!

Last post by Asmodean - April 15, 2024, 08:02:56 AM

My health insurance finally approved my off-label chemotherapy in combination with immunotherapy. My first treatment will be on Wednesday.

Excellent!

Our healthcare system tends to cater to the lowest common denominator to an unfortunate degree, so quite often, the only way to get the fancy "off-label" stuff is out of own pocket. Having insurance in such instances is... Well, it can mean the difference between getting well or the alternative.

#23

Laid Back Lounge / Re: What's on your mind today?

Last post by Asmodean - April 15, 2024, 07:55:18 AM

Should it be though?

There is a reason they have trials and judges and lawyers. It may be illegal to exceed the speed limit, but you may do so in order to for example safely finish an overtaking manoeuvre. It is illegal to kill a person, but you may do so if said person is beating some fool with an baseball bat. It is illegal to launch a nuke at somebody, but you may do so if under a nuclear attack.

The law is a tapestry of prohibitions and exceptions. How and when it should apply, is up to the members of that society in which it is on the books.

#24

Current Events / Re: Israeli-Hamas war

Last post by Asmodean - April 15, 2024, 07:44:11 AM

Well Iran sent 300+ drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at Israel. About 3 got through. Defence by USA, UK, Israel and Jordan.

As of me writing this, Israel is yet to respond.

I think Iran knew that their attack would be symbolic more than anything, and may even have been aiming for something big enough to generate headlines (which it did over here for quite a few hours) but comparatively ineffective enough that Israel and/or its allies would not be compelled to respond.

There are dangerous games being played on that proverbial chessboard. Hmm... Time will tell.

#25

Religion / Re: Christian Nonduality

Last post by Asmodean - April 15, 2024, 07:37:32 AM

This thread is in the wrong section. It should be in the philosophy section. The contributors are certainly serious thinkers who post some high minded content

It's a good discussion, though with a few circle-going tendencies.

I have not checked in for a bit, so some reading and [hopefully high-IQ to live up to the compiment] replying to do. Yep.

#26

Religion / Re: Christian Nonduality

Last post by Icarus - April 15, 2024, 03:58:29 AM

This thread is in the wrong section. It should be in the philosophy section. The contributors are certainly serious thinkers who post some high minded content

One of the things that I boast about is; although we are happy "atheists" we do not discuss religion, or the absence of it, as a main thrust. We devote more space to petrol heads, photography, music, and strange antipodean stuff that Puddin brings us.

#27

Current Events / Re: Israeli-Hamas war

Last post by Icarus - April 15, 2024, 03:48:49 AM

Billy I do not think many of us are condoning the starvation of the Palestinian people.

I agree with the other statement that our country has gone off the rails. We have, of late, discovered that we now share the nation with a huge number of  religious crackpots who have gained positions of influence.

Their boisterous and sometimes politically influential presence has persuaded otherwise rational people to believe in space lasers, Orwellian type chips concealed in vaccines, socialists demons taking over our democracy, Obama secretly running the government, and a whole gaggle of other bullshit stuff to believe in.

#28

Politics / Re: Dominionists in the United...

Last post by Recusant - April 15, 2024, 03:46:13 AM

This thread is only four years old--I've been watching the progress of the Dominionists for at least a decade, but . . .

"It's a Good Time to Start Worrying About Christian Nationalism" | Mother Jones

In response to rising concern among liberals and others about the spread of Christian nationalism, conservative voices have been pressing a counterattack, claiming all this fretting is just lefty hysteria from secularists who are not willing to acknowledge the role of Christianity in American society and who want to brand all politically active Christians as extremists. Last year, the far-right Heritage Foundation published an article declaring that Christian nationalism is a term "mostly used as a smear against conservative Christians who defend the role of religion in American public life" and that the "lack of standard definition allows critics to bundle evils like white supremacy and racism with standard conservative views on marriage, family, and politics." More recently, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, addressing liberal unease, wrote, "Today's religious conservatives are mostly just normal American Christians doing normal American Christian politics, not foot soldiers of incipient theocracy." He added, "It's not clear to me that secular liberals should really fear Christian nationalism more today than in 2000 or 1980."

Really?

By now, you've heard of Project 2025, the enterprise established by the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing outfits to both set a radical-right agenda for a possible second Trump term and recruit Dear Leader loyalists for government posts in that administration. As I've noted, this venture has cooked up plans and measures with an authoritarian bent. It also has been preparing to inject Christian nationalist ideas into a Trump 2.0 presidency. One example from the Project 2025 handbook: "maintain a biblically based, social science–reinforced definition of marriage and family." That does sounds a bit Gilead-ish.

The anti-anti-Christian nationalists' effort to cast libs as the-sky-is-falling worrywarts is either naive or a purposeful effort to deflect attention from this threat to civil society. And though it usually is best to avoid dependence on one data point, allow me to zero in on a single tweet that appeared recently to highlight the danger.

Following President Joe Biden's recent State of the Union speech, William E. Wolfe, a midlevel official at the Pentagon and the State Department during the Trump administration and a Christian nationalism advocate, tweeted out his response. Here it is in full:

My response to the #SOTU:

We need to see the deeper spiritual realities at play. This ain't just a political fight, it's a spiritual war. Heaven and Hell are real. Demons exist.

And there are two main demons being worshipped in America right now:

1) Molech, who demands child sacrifice (abortion)

2) Baphomet, whose demonic goat-like representation is gender-bending (LGBTQIA+) The "Equality Act" and "Reproductive Rights" aren't just "policies" that the radical Left/Democrats support

 They are sacraments, acts of worship to their demon gods

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12 

It's time for Christians to call on America to repent of our idol worship of demons and return to the One True Living God and His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ

Maybe God raise up more idol smashers for our days yet.

This tweet illustrates a basic component of Christian nationalism: spiritual warfare. That's the notion that all that transpires in our world is a manifestation of the mammoth and eternal clash between God and Satan. The tussle over abortion is not an argument between fellow citizens with conflicting views on bodily autonomy or the question of when life begins; it is a battle between Jesus and Lucifer. Consequently, those who support reproductive freedom are demons or, at the least, in league with or controlled by demons.

[. . .]

Now why should we care about the radical view of this one fellow? Wolfe is a close associate of Russell Vought, who was budget director for the Trump White House and now is president of the Center for Renewing America, one of the right-wing organizations behind Project 2025. As Politico recently reported, "Vought's beliefs over time have been informed by his relationship with Wolfe. The two spent time together at Heritage Action, a conservative policy advocacy group. And Vought has praised their yearslong partnership. 'I'm proud to work with @William_E_Wolfe on scoping out a sound Christian Nationalism,' he posted on X, then Twitter, in January 2023."

Wolfe, who is now the executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership (which battles liberalism within the Southern Baptist Convention) and who has advocated ending sex education in schools, surrogacy, and no-fault divorce, is far from a rando. He's intimately tied to the fellow who is the architect of the next possible Trump administration and who has been mentioned as a potential White House chief of staff for Trump.

[Continues . . .]

#29

Current Events / Re: Israeli-Hamas war

Last post by Recusant - April 15, 2024, 03:34:41 AM

On paper and in self-congratulatory rhetoric. Aspirational speeches.

#30

Laid Back Lounge / Re: What's on your mind today?

Last post by billy rubin - April 14, 2024, 10:19:42 PM

in america, we live in a world where law isnt the final arbiter for legality.