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#21

Politics / Re: "Christendom"

Last post by Icarus - April 12, 2026, 01:18:43 AM

I had high hopes that Vance had some degree of integrity. In his favor, he was one of the few people in the Trump cabinet who  opposed going top war with Iran. Before he became a high ranking politician. he was publicly opposed to Trump.  Ah well...so much for the integrity part.

#22

Politics / "Christendom"

Last post by Recusant - April 11, 2026, 06:04:14 PM

Though I briefly considered posting this in the "Dominionists" thread, it clearly deserves its own thread because it addresses an international phenomenon. Basically the same ideas the Dominionists find so compelling are motivating power hungry god-botherers around the world. Hungary is a country in which a conservative Christian autocrat has made some of their dreams a reality.

"J.D. Vance Is Stumping for a Dictator. The Reason Should Make Us Very Nervous." | Slate

On a stage in Budapest, Hungary, on Tuesday afternoon, Vice President J.D. Vance had a remarkable request for the Hungarian people: reelect a dictator.

Vance knows that country's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has fostered rampant corruption, curtailed the independence of the country's judiciary, attacked its universities' academic freedom, spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, and promoted racial homogeneity. But Vance had one major justification for flying to Europe to personally campaign for Orbán's reelection, as Orbán flags in the polls: Orbán was the United States' partner in morality. "Because what the United States and Hungary together represent under Viktor's leadership and under President Trump's leadership is the defense of Western civilization," Vance said on that stage. At another event that day, he called on people to vote for Orbán to preserve that morality: "Will you stand for Western civilization? Will you stand for freedom, for truth, and for the God of our fathers?"

. . . Orbán isn't just leading the most corrupt country in Europe; he's also Russia's primary asset inside of Europe. As recent reporting has found, Orbán has repeatedly called Russia's foreign minister after closed-door meetings of European leaders to fill him in, leaking sensitive information. Orbán's foreign minister has reportedly worked on Russia's behalf to get an oligarch's relative off of European sanctions lists. Publicly, Orbán portrays the E.U. as a sinister organization, and has even blocked military aid to Ukraine, which he has made out to be Hungary's enemy. And as a result, Russia is working to keep Orbán in place. So when the Trump administration goes to bat for Orbán, they're allying themselves with Vladimir Putin—and against pro-democracy politicians in Europe.

It's an odd place for the United States' presidential administration to intervene. But Vance articulated one primary reason why he would drop everything to fly to Hungary to help the prime minister there: to fight for Christendom.

There's been a lot of talk, in recent years, of Christian nationalism in America. But Christendom, as an idea, dreams much bigger, beyond national borders. In its benign use, Christendom is an archaic label for the Christians of the world. But among a certain small cadre of conservative intellectuals and theologians, its relevant definition is its geopolitical one. In that use of the term, the regions populated by Christians unite as one single and powerful civilization. Doug Wilson, the prominent theologian behind Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's church, for example, has written a book advocating for a new Christendom in which laws are based on the Bible, and reward virtue and faith. (In a different book, in 2005, he called the Confederate South "the last nation of the first Christendom.") He and other theologians have discussed the possibility of a "Christendom 2.0," a term that has been used for certain patriarchal Christian conferences and ministry programs. Hyper-traditionalist Catholics sometimes use it to mean a return to strength of the old Catholic Church. Charlie Kirk, an evangelical, called Christendom the "American way of life," a root to Western civilization, and something to wage "spiritual battle" over. (The conservative writer Rod Dreher in turn called Kirk a "man of Christendom.") And as one popular commentator for Blaze Media wrote on social media, "Western civilization is another name for Christendom," and "Christendom existed because Christian rulers held power and defended their people against the enemy."

There are other code words that mean the same thing: "Christian civilization" or "Western civilization," if you're a certain kind of right-wing Christian, and "ethnonationalism" if you're an academic. But Christendom most accurately captures the spirit of the idea: organizing the world along medieval civilizational lines. Christendom, as these conservative thinkers use it, is both a propagandistic way of describing majority-white countries as they exist now and an aspirational way of describing white countries in their ideal world: whole swaths of the Earth governed by Christian values, peopled by Christians with a European cultural background, and intolerant of secularism and of other faiths. Christendom, in the medieval world of the Crusades, was Europe against the Islamic world. Today, these traditionalist intellectuals are hoping for the same worldview to take over, but with atheists thrown in with the infidels. Christendom proposes a new international order, no longer built around shared concerns for democracy and human rights, and ties together any countries seen as having that same Christian DNA, regardless of their behavior.

As Vance put it in his speech, what unites the U.S. and Hungary, more than anything, is their "defense of the idea that we are founded on a certain Christian civilization and Christian values that animate everything."

There have long been indications that Vance's part of the MAGA movement—what some call the new right or post-liberal right—would prioritize such religious issues when it comes to foreign policy. But never before have we seen it stated so baldly and made so abundantly clear: Because of this shared image of a Christian world, Vance is advocating for Moscow's interests over those of America's more secular traditional allies. In his address to Hungarians, he accused Brussels of trying to "destroy" Hungary's economy in "one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I've ever seen." (This was in reference to the EU's decision to freeze funds to Hungary over concerns about corruption. It's a topic central to the election, but there's no evidence the EU is meddling in Hungary's elections.) It was a shocking attack on European democracies.

[Continues . . .]

As mentioned in the article, among the chosen enemies of this militant "Christendom" are atheists, of course.

#23

Religion / Re: Who Would Have Thought?

Last post by zorkan - April 11, 2026, 01:00:46 PM

I could never be a Baptist as I'm a bit aquaphobic.
I need water but not too much of it.
Not only just plain stupid but the guy who started the baptism craze (John the Baptist or whatever was his real name) fed on locusts.
I couldn't do that either as I don't like swarming insects.
Orthopterophobia is fear of locusts.
Even worse, maybe dousing yourself in water attracts them.
Of course, some believe he didn't.
https://couragewithgrace.org/2021/04/07/did-john-the-baptist-actually-eat-locust/

According to Reverend Robert Taylor, the priest imprisoned for blasphemy, Taylor argues that John the Baptist is a mythological figure, representing the astrological sign of Leo and the sun's passage, rather than a historical person.
I'll believe that instead.

#24

Religion / Re: Who Would Have Thought?

Last post by Recusant - April 10, 2026, 05:11:51 AM

Couple of news items yesterday.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15716197/Female-pastor-charged-gross-negligence-manslaughter-man-drowned-baptism.html

Makes me wonder.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2e4eqqq7lo

They are of course so "deeply sorry".

The born again believer apparently had Parkinson's. Details are being withheld because the unfortunate pastor is facing charges, but I surmise that the candidate went under and there was nobody there who was strong enough to rescue him. That would jibe with the charge of "gross negligence" I believe. A tragedy in my opinion and I think Christians would agree. However they can comfort themselves with the notion that he went straight to Heaven.

* * *

Forced adoption is a particularly ugly manifestation of Christian misogyny. That misogyny goes back to the very earliest days--see the book of Paul in the Bible. Not forgetting the Old Testament of course.    

#25

Religion / Re: Who Would Have Thought?

Last post by zorkan - April 09, 2026, 11:55:18 AM

Couple of news items yesterday.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15716197/Female-pastor-charged-gross-negligence-manslaughter-man-drowned-baptism.html

Makes me wonder.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2e4eqqq7lo

They are of course so "deeply sorry".

#26

Social Issues and Causes / Re: Perceived Rudeness in a Se...

Last post by Ecurb Noselrub - April 08, 2026, 02:23:19 AM

The nicest people I have ever dealt with were from Madison, Wisconsin. Everyone was friendly. I met a Madison guy in Santa Fe last month. Friendly like the others. Americans can be congenial in their home town, but overall they become less so abroad. Very entitled bunch, overall.

#27

Science / Re: Nothing That is Faster Tha...

Last post by Recusant - April 06, 2026, 12:45:36 AM

As I understand it, no particle (or any other physical thing) can travel faster than light, regardless of the medium. The speed of light in a vacuum is the highest possible velocity in our Universe, but in any medium the speed of light remains the upper limit on velocity. The experiment used a medium through which light travels considerably slower so that they could make their observations.

#28

Science / Re: Nothing That is Faster Tha...

Last post by Ecurb Noselrub - April 05, 2026, 11:44:52 PM

It was this paragraph that gave me pause:

The vortices (dark points) were measured in a specific material (hBN), prepared by Prof. Hanan Herzig Sheinfux of Bar-Ilan University. In this material, light waves become special "light-sound" waves (polaritons). These can be thought of as light waves that move unusually slowly, about 100 times slower than the speed of light in a vacuum, or as sound waves that move unusually fast. It is within these "slowed" waves that light vortices can "leap" and exceed the speed of light.

The dark points were moving faster than light that had been slowed down 100 times. Isn't this a bit like me saying that I can run faster than Usain Bolt, as long as Bolt has a several hundred pound backpack on while he is running? 

#29

Laid Back Lounge / Re: Atheist Image Dump II

Last post by Recusant - April 05, 2026, 05:13:44 PM

She is risen!

[Dr Silver]

#30

Science / Re: All things brain...

Last post by Recusant - April 04, 2026, 10:06:00 PM

This item appears to connect (maybe somewhat indirectly) with research that Dr Silver was/is doing.

"These overlooked brain cells may control fear and PTSD" | ScienceDaily

magine a star-shaped cell in the brain, reaching out with long, thin extensions to surround nearby neurons. This cell is called an astrocyte. For years, scientists believed astrocytes mainly acted as caretakers, helping hold neurons together and keeping brain circuits running smoothly.

New research is now challenging that idea. These widely distributed "support cells" appear to be just as important as neurons when it comes to forming and controlling fear memories.

"Astrocytes are interwoven among neurons in the brain, and it seemed unlikely they were there just for housekeeping. We wanted to understand what they're actually doing -- and how they're shaping neural activity in the process," said Lindsay Halladay, assistant professor at the University of Arizona Department of Neuroscience and one of the study's senior authors.

[. . .]

The study, published in Nature, focused on the amygdala, a key region involved in processing fear. Researchers found that astrocytes in this area play a direct role in how the brain learns what to fear, retrieves those memories, and importantly, learns when those fears are no longer relevant.

"For the first time, we found that astrocytes encode and maintain neural fear signaling," Halladay said.

This discovery challenges long-standing views that placed neurons at the center of fear processing and suggests new ways to approach conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder.

[Continues . . .]

The paper is open access:

"Astrocytes enable amygdala neural representations supporting memory" | Nature

Abstract:

Brain systems mediating responses to previously encountered threats provide critical survival functions. Fear memory and extinction are underpinned by neural representations in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) but the contribution of non-neuronal cells, including astrocytes, to these processes remains unresolved.

Here, using in vivo calcium (Ca²⁺) imaging and causal astrocyte manipulations, we find that BLA astrocytes dynamically track fear state and support fear memory retrieval and extinction. By combining astrocyte manipulations with in vivo BLA neuronal Ca²⁺ imaging and electrophysiological recordings, we show that astrocyte Ca²⁺ signalling enables neuronal encoding of fear memory retrieval and extinction, and readout through a BLA–prefrontal circuit. Our findings reveal a key role for astrocytes in the generation and adaptation of fear-state-related neural representations, revising neurocentric models of critical amygdala-mediated adaptive functions.