I just started reading the new book by my friend @collincornell.bsky.social (name drop!) He thoroughly critiques a model that never really resonated with me - reading the Bible like an unfolding start-to-finish drama - and presents a non-linearized "geometric" concept. Worth a read!
a.co/d/56QTHxh
Yes. I have told many aspiring grad students that they should pursue a PhD if they want to try to tailor their career to be a specialist rather than generalist. But not for money or prestige or anything like that.
White supremacy and sexism!
Yes, the Bible describes this, and for sure, ancient people believed evil spirits come on people. Now, I don't believe evil spirits are real, but that's a tangent to the discussion. Dumb choices, bigoted foolishness, and superstition (all of which perpetuate the Jezebel trope) are still widespread!
"Biblical model" is subjective. The Bible is full of evil spirits coming on people. "The spirit of" is used metaphorically, frequently. And naming occurs as in "the spirit of the Egyptians within them" [רוּחַ־מִצְרַיִם - Is. 19:3] could be read metaphorically or literally as a supernatural influence.
Pentecostals commonly name spirits to describe unwanted behaviors, invoking a Biblical model:
Rev. 2:20 "But I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols."
Hey corporate America, this is what you want? If he decides he doesn’t like the name “Goldman Sachs” will you change it? What about law firm names? Suppose Trump wants you to drop the names of certain founding partners?
When is it enough?
Trump is now calling for the deportation of American citizens.
This is fascism
Trying to imagine Hitler and Goebbels preening for photos at a concentration camp, wearing stupid little hats like these.
Non-Jewish Zionist Trump Supporters: America should support Israel, not tell it how to run itself.
Trump: Nope. I get to meddle in Israel's internal affairs.
Ruin a book’s title by replacing one word with butthole:
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Buttholes
Pretty interesting to read about other historical periods when Christianity became a tool of the state (or the Empire) in service of advancing the state (or Empire).
""God” then was not a one-sized-fits-all category either within or across cultures. The prototypical anthropomorphic masters of the universe certainly qualify as deities but so do a host of other things that today we might hesitate to call animate, let alone divine."
anetoday.org/god-ancient-...
No evidence Paul thought of himself as a "Christian" (I'm more of a Paul within Judaism guy). But that aside, the first generation of Jesus people thought they were the last generation and didn't anticipate their movement adapting/evolving for 2,000 years. Discipline and polity practices correspond.
I tend to agree with @mpgphd.bsky.social. I argue that there is an ideological, theological Christianity, the Catholic Church, and its institutionalized version - one could get excommunicated from that. Practically there is Christianity as a socio-religious construct including Christian Nationalism.
I wonder what dirt Netanyahu has on Trump to escalate from status quo proxy support to direct military action.
Much as I would not dare to predict the consequences of this war, I do think we can summarize it thusly so far:
A smart and evil man manipulated a stupid and evil man into a war against a fanatical and evil regime.
"At Downey Memorial Christian church on Thursday, officers reportedly arrested a man in the parking lot then pointed a gun at senior pastor Tanya Lopez..."
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Far past time to accept that there's nothing magical there...no magic ever-pure barrel to spoil. CCM isn't safer than any other genre, and evangelicals shouldn't be trusted more than anyone else.
Apart from deaths like famine, war, or infant mortality rates, I can't even fabricate a scenario where I care about falling US birthrates.
Just some creepy armed Mad Max guys trying to gain entry to Dodgers Stadium.
ICE says it wasn’t them. DHS says they were Border Patrol. But honestly who the hell knows? They’ve given permission for any psycho to put on a ski mask, point a gun, grab people & throw them into an unmarked vehicle.
BREAKING @prri.org poll.
My disturbing take: It’s virtually impossible to write a survey question about the treatment of immigrants that is too brutal for Republicans to support.
1) 8 in 10 Republicans support renditions of immigrants to foreign prisons without due process.
prri.org/spotlight/ne...
🤢🤮
The L.A. protesters have really gone too far this time… 🌼
I strongly oppose Israel’s attacks against Iran and Iran’s attacks against Israel. Both endanger civilians and risk all-out war.
If you’re like my opponents and only condemning one side, I hope you find a spine and some moral clarity.
REMINDER: Black ppl are ✨so✨ intrinsic to this [fucked-up] U.S. society, our decision to intentionally abstain from these street-level protests of racist fascism—which, mind you, is counter-intuitive to most of us—is SAVING the nation from the Martial Law of Project 2025.
Follow for more reminders!
BREAKING: Judge Breyer orders Trump to return control of the National Guard back to California, saying the call-up was illegal. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Dem strategy: cross fingers and wait for enough voters to get tired of MAGA by the time the next election rolls around.
Robert E. Lee and his men killed over 110,000 US Army soldiers. Here's why that same Army must rename its military bases after him.
by Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth
