To say “yes” to Christian Nationalism in any form or to culture war ... is to say “yes” to the offer Satan made to Jesus at the Mount of Temptation.

To the citizen there is no difference between being "arrested" and being "detained". This is a legal fiction created by our system. The National Guard should not be allowed to even detain someone except when they themselves witness an obvious, and imminent dangerous crime being committed.

Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · yesterday

"Get away from me right now," King, a retired U.S. Army captain who served in Iraq and earned both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, can be heard telling the three male guard members in the video as they approach her on the bench. "You have absolutely no authority to detain me."

Also, and this is going to make some people very uncomfortable, it is okay to get rid of your disintegrating Bible. The Word of God endures forever and does not need that particular iteration of the physical printed text to do so.

Solar, wind, and farming are not mutually exclusive. They can be mutually beneficial! A path forward.

Laki@lakitukl.bsky.social · 3d ago

Damn... 300% higher yields for peppers 200% for tomatoes. 65% lower water use for jalapenos. #agsky #agrivoltaics ,🌱🌞🔌..

Also, Jesus willingly goes to his own death, it’s his entire plan! I never understood this bizarre fixation on responsibility for Jesus’ death, it’s him! “No man taketh it from me” John 10:18. If you believe in his divinity then you can’t say “It’s a real shame Jesus was martyred.” Thats the point.

If you’re a Gondorian soldier your experience with hobbits is a tiny guy shows up with a wizard and is immediately taken in the Steward’s counsel. He saves Faramir when the Steward goes mad. A second tiny guy arrives with the Rohirrim and kills the Witch King. The first one then goes on campaign …

If you want to know what participating in technofascism looks like, it’s play-acting that computers have agency in order to construct the social belief that corporations and governments aren’t responsible for their own decisions because they were commissioned via a computer.

They are trying to use AI as an ‘agency tumbler’, like a cryptocurrency tumbler which is a mechanism that attempts to obscure the originator of crypto transactions by using a disguising function (typically transaction pooling) for purposes of money laundering. This is responsibility laundering.

The idea that automation breaks the chain of responsibility of human decision-making is an intentional choice to obscure this reality, and which is being imposed via propaganda and other social construction by media, influencers, and corporate executives.

That's white America's whole problem. They other white supremacists by making them into stupid ogres. So they don't have to examine white supremacy in themselves. Or consider that the erudite & intelligent founders of their country were white supremacists.

Soraya Nadia McDonald@soraya.press · 4d ago

Here's the thing. The people who had these massive plantations were not dumb. Thomas Jefferson was not dumb. They modeled themselves after British gentry, complete with elite education for the sons, down to the Southern genteel accent that is a cousin of the English one.

Here's the thing. The people who had these massive plantations were not dumb. Thomas Jefferson was not dumb. They modeled themselves after British gentry, complete with elite education for the sons, down to the Southern genteel accent that is a cousin of the English one.

Alexander Clarkson@aphclarkson.bsky.social · 4d ago

Well...

My ancestor came to America as Jan Wolfensberger (Swiss German name) and became John W. Spargur when he arrived!

Davedette@davedette.bsky.social · 5d ago

There's nothing as American as getting your name changed by a government bureaucrat and being told to suck it up

If the information in a book is literally inaccessible because of bad copyright law it might as well be destroyed. The mushy middle of copyright—where nobody technically owns the work but it’s still “copyrighted”—is worse than physical books getting destroyed, IMHO.

This is why I think the best result we could get is for the Republican party to go the way of the Federalist and Whig parties that preceded them. (IE, no longer exist) Let a new party then be formed free from the current parties history same as the Republican Party did in the past.

Better Things Are Possible@internethippo.bsky.social · 6d ago

One drum I keep beating is that the Trumpification of the Republican Party is irreversible. Even after he's gone it will be exclusively cranks, charlatans, and malevolent antisocial goons. "It was always like that"-it wasn't! It's gotten steadily, measurably worse, and he was the nail in the coffin

When many young people look at the church’s embrace of Trump, they’re not rejecting the church because they’re afraid to shed their sin and become better people. They’re rejecting the church because they refuse to embrace sin and become, well, worse people. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/o...

Opinion | Gen Z Thinks Religion Got Too Political

I wonder why that could be.

nytimes.com

I think part of the "solution" to the "culture wars" is to expand our definition of "religion" for 1st amendment purposes. I prefer the term freedom of concience for this reason. My definition: "A closely held belief about morality and the human condition"

Guardian US@us.theguardian.com · last wk.

Progressive faith communities are increasingly leveraging religious freedom laws to protect civil liberties across the US

For America to "experience revival", the church must first experience it. The politically conservative church has shown through their actions and words that they do not follow Christ. They follow after Mammon (money/power). Revival starts (and ends) in the church, not the nation.

Right Wing Watch @rightwingwatch.bsky.social · last wk.

Rep. Lauren Boebert insists that public Christian worship events are necessary for America to experience revival: "I don't think that Jesus ever called for any Christian to pray only silently or to keep their faith hidden only in the prayer closet."

When you worship power, compassion will look like a sin.

One of the ironclad maxims of game design is "Players are amazing at knowing that something is wrong and terrible at knowing what is wrong and how to fix it", and that applies to any opaque and complex system - like the economy. People are reacting to *something*, the trick is finding what.

Kasey Kagawa@punkey.org · last wk.

When I try to think of what lay people mean when they're mad about graphs about wage growth and purchasing power and affordability, housing costs outpacing wages is always a strong contender for what people are really reacting to

While this case did not involve AI, this type of mistake could have and is one of the reasons I am skeptical of its use. One small mistake in a user name for a warrant led to him being arrested and convicted for a crime someone else committed! (Many other issues in this case tbh though)

Ars Technica@arstechnica.com · last wk.

You can consider yourself whatever flavour of the month, but in the end it is your actions and the principles those actions are made of that define you. Not your nationality, race, sex, religion or political identity. If you work, not talk, but act to benefit humanity as a whole, you are my people.

I've figured out why they are building a shelter when a log cabin is nearby. The women kicked them out of the log cabin for being too annoying.

Lyse@lyse.myatproto.social · 2w ago

Men? You guys okay?

One thing I haven't seen in the discourse around the question around "would you choose a guaranteed 50k or a 50/50 chance at 1M?" Question is morality and ethics. For those who view gambling as sinful/unethical the choice is simple even though their answer is "not mathematically correct"

These cultural narratives are particularly useful to families at the upper end of the economic spectrum. Instead of feeling guilty over any good fortune & economic advantage, they feel assured that they are worthy of their wealth, as these blessings are only achieved through hard work & sacrifice.

This is a wholesale rejection of "Biblical law" by this administration. (Not that I want our nation to institute it) In the OT "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" is a LIMITING principle of punishment not exceeding the "crime". To go beyond this was specifically prohibited!

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · 2w ago

Sec. of State Marco Rubio: "Our policy is a head for an eye. Iran will pay a heavy price." “It seems that Iran is not willing to reach an agreement; the price it will pay will rise every night until it returns to the right path.”

Watching as the concepts of Ayn Rand's Objectivism become mainstream in not just society but also some parts of Christianity is horrifying. Rejecting the moral goodness of empathy and self-sacrifice for the sake of others is core to those beliefs and was a wholesale rejection of the gospel.

If you put a child sexual abuse offender in a position where they can offend again you are failing to protect children (millstone territory here) but also you arent actually helping "reform" the sinner. There are some temptations that should be fled from rather than withstood.

ProPublica@propublica.org · 2w ago

The church’s forgive-and-forget approach to handling allegations of child sexual abuse likely only does further harm to the victims. “Forgiveness without accountability is not healing,” said one expert. “And you can’t pray away a crime.”

Stumbled onto the cool part of Facebook again:

If our Christianity causes kids to go hungry, the sick to go without healthcare, the stranger to be unwelcome, the needy to be called "parasites," and our planet to be ravaged, all while billionaires get richer, we've profoundly misunderstood the most basic elements of Jesus' teachings.

"Comply or die" is not a "pro-life" position. Your position on when the state should be able to kill tells me a lot about your actual morality. Except for the fetus in abortion*, the Republicans are now a pro-death party. Life is too important to kill merely for lack of compliance.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Homan on people getting killed by ICE: "It comes down to one simple fact -- these people failed to comply with law enforcement ... all they had to do is comply. If they did, they'd be alive today."