Christianity is in crisis

[Free]

Oh my, "Evangelicals"...

We told you reformation was the way to heresy and hell...

... not that we Catholics are any better...

BUT WE F*IN TOLD YOU 500 YEARS AGO... JESUS F*IN CHRIST!

 

[WolfEyes]

They have a pretty cool youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/@pbsspacetime

You'll probably want to/have to watch their YouTube channel, starting from the beginning since the episodes sort of build on each other (although they're reasonably understandable out of order as well).

Me watching YouTube isn't a good idea. I'd have to do that on my pc which never works out well.

 

[Soen Eber]

Me watching YouTube isn't a good idea. I'd have to do that on my pc which never works out well.

What do you have right now for a PC?

 

[Fionalein]

It might not be the PC but the predatory YT algorithm. It tries to ruin my day every time I go there to watch one single video...

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

What the ancient Romans did to early christians put them really into a crisis because: being a Christian in Rome can seriously damage your health!



And how to get out of your purgatory fast... by paying money!

 

[Free]

Me watching YouTube isn't a good idea. I'd have to do that on my pc which never works out well.

Maybe they have a newsletter you can subscribe to...

 

[Innula Zenovka]

“—Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant?

—I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?”

James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man.

 

[Free]

James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man.

I can't quote Joyce, so I'll quote Anthony McAuliffe, Commander of the 101st Airborne division at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge:

"Nuts!"

 

[Essence Lumin]

I can't quote Joyce, so I'll quote Anthony McAuliffe, Commander of the 101st Airborne division at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge:

"Nuts!"

 

[Free]

Christians Explain Why Jesus Was Too Liberal

Thanks to The Onion...

 

[WolfEyes]

What do you have right now for a PC?

That's not the problem. The only "tv time" I get these days is when I fall asleep to Universe.

I live in a tin can (aluminum siding on a mobile home). I shouldn't have even had my pc booted up for the last three days because of the heat. That means outside temps dictate what I can and can't do inside. Lights stay off during the day etc.

There are other, personal reasons I won't go into.

We used to have the YouTube stream but cancelled due to having to cut costs.

 

[Soen Eber]

That's not the problem. The only "tv time" I get these days is when I fall asleep to Universe.

I live in a tin can (aluminum siding on a mobile home). I shouldn't have even had my pc booted up for the last three days because of the heat. That means outside temps dictate what I can and can't do inside. Lights stay off during the day etc.

There are other, personal reasons I won't go into.

We used to have the YouTube stream but cancelled due to having to cut costs.

OK, there are some blogs and other material you might find useful then:

phys.org is a good free science news aggregation service. Since it is news, it's written at a useful level for non-scientists but the content also gives you good starting material to lauch from for deeper investigation.

Science without the gobbledygook | Sabine | Substack is Sabine Hossenfelder's science blog. You might know her from her "Science without the gobblygook" YouTube channel and she is quite respected. She also hosts a podcast named "Science with Zabine"

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Pope says 'backward' U.S. conservatives have replaced faith with ideology

Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church. He says they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.

apnews.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Meanwhile in the UK (and no surprise to anyone)

Britain is no longer a Christian country, say frontline clergy

Key pointsHistoric shift on gay marriage and questions of sexAn end to the rejection of women‘Leave slave trader statues in place but be honest about their past

www.thetimes.co.uk

Evernote link

 

[Free]

These sorts of stories don't help Christianity much.

Lawsuit settled over widespread abuse of former students at shuttered West Virginia boarding school

A second lawsuit that alleged widespread sexual, physical and mental abuse at a now-closed West Virginia boarding school for troubled youths has been settled for about $50 million.

Attorneys for 32 plaintiffs described what happened to children over decades at the former Miracle Meadows School in Salem as gruesome and unfathomable.

“No one would believe it in a movie,” Jesse Forbes, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

The lawsuit had named the school’s co-founder and its operating entities. Among the abuse alleged by the former students, who are now adults, included being chained and shackled to beds, being kept in tiny isolation rooms for long periods, routine beatings, sexual assault, starvation, and being forced to perform manual labor. The children at times were not given toilet paper, requiring them to remain in their own filth or use their clothing to clean themselves.

“This institution actually had a handcuffing policy and issued handcuffs to the staff members for kids as young as 6 years old,” Forbes said.

Miracle Meadows was founded in 1988 and operated as a ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Seventh-day Adventists could be called one of the goofier sects, but they all seem to provide stories like this.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Only 13% of Church of England priests back the Tories

Survey puts Conservatives in fourth place behind Labour, Lib Dems and ‘don’t know’

www.thetimes.co.uk

Evernote link

Interestingly, there's a perhaps somewhat unexpected disjuncture between both the political and social attitudes of Anglican clergy and laity:

Professor Linda Woodhead, head of the department of religious studies at King’s College London, said the survey had found that priests occupy an unusual “middle ground” on a lot of issues.

“It is very interesting and shows that [Church of England priests] are a very distinct cohort in British society,” she said. “They are more left-wing politically [than Anglicans worshippers and average Britons] but more conservative on personal morality.” She added that Anglican worshippers tend to be more “right-wing on politics but socially liberal on personal ethics”.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Only 13% of Church of England priests back the Tories

Survey puts Conservatives in fourth place behind Labour, Lib Dems and ‘don’t know’

www.thetimes.co.uk

Found the pedos!

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?

Damn, I'd forgotten that line, it was such a burn.

I was raised Anglican (catholic lite for political reasons, not derived from Luther's little protest, and only classified as protestant to piss off the pope).

 

[Innula Zenovka]

What Really Happens When Americans Stop Going to Church

People hold on to their politics when they stop attending church.

www.theatlantic.com

Evernote link

As white Catholics left church, they continued to practice the values of the Social Gospel that perhaps they or their parents or grandparents had learned there, and they channeled those energies into the political community. Although perhaps breaking with the church on issues of sexuality, gender, and abortion, they continued to embrace the ethic of concern for the poor and marginalized, and insisted that the government champion these causes. But among dechurched white evangelicals (a group heavily concentrated in the South and rural Midwest), the political values that remain are focused on culture wars and the autonomy of the individual.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

What the Ruby Franke story says about the Christian right

Behind another beatific white "influencer" mom was an alleged hellscape of child abuse

www.salon.com

The police, social workers and teachers are not to blame, however. They're often prevented from doing anything to interfere in child abuse, because Republicans, at the behest of the Christian right and under the guise of "parents rights," implement laws that make it very hard for authorities to deal with abusive parents. In many states, for instance, it's against the law for one adult to hit another adult, but you are allowed to hit a child so long as it doesn't bruise or break the skin. The teacher may not like watching a kid go hungry at lunch, but until the kid is in medical danger, it's not against the law in Utah. Republicans are so hostile to laws protecting the safety and well-being of children that they've even blocked the U.S. from ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, making ours the only nation in the world that doesn't recognize the human rights of children.

As Human Rights Watch explained in a recent report, "US states overwhelmingly fail to live up to key standards" on "the issues of child marriage, corporal punishment, child labor, and juvenile justice." As Jill Filipovic explained in her write-up of the report, "Over and over again, the worst states for children are clustered around the 'pro-life' Bible Belt, and the map of the states that are the worst for children looks a lot like a map of red state America." The same religious right that treats women like second-class citizens takes a similar view of the humanity of children, treating them more like property than people.

In contrast, the UK's Children Act 1989 (introduced under Margart Thatcher, that well-known woke liberal), states