Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

MAGA Policies and Christian Nationalist rhetoric: America First Policy Institute fills Trump’s Cabinet.

Trump signals he will start pushing for a new world order in first 100 days.

Texas GOP chair claims church-state separation is a myth.

RFK Jr. failed to disclose the income he made from his anti-vax crusade. He presents a clear and present danger to American lives.

America’s changing pews: Who shows up at church on Sunday?

How religion’s brand became unpopular in Canada.

A repeal of the blasphemy law in Spain is being considered.

World of Woo: Should alcohol be stuck with a Cancer Risk label?

Environment: NASA on shifts in the global water cycle.

How to disrupt misinformation with the “ladder of misinference”.

Your brain is lying to you about the “good old days”.

Is reality shaped by our observation?

Astronomers capture the highest resolution images ever taken of a black hole.

Long Reads: White Christian nationalists are poised to remake America in their image during Trump’s second term. A look at the lies spreading about the LA fires.  Science misinformation is about to engulf the White House. Pete Hegseth’s War on Religious Freedom and the Constitution. Are Americans especially distrustful of Religion? The next-level escape from the human condition. You can be a materialist and find meaning in the universe.

Sunday Book Club:  The Age of Reason (download as a pdf).

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos: Five things to know about Pat Bondi. TED: How to escape the cynicism trap. The Rise of the Right is the Left’s fault – Stephen Fry. Ian Hislop’s unfiltered take on Elon Musk.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week!! Enjoy the New World Order!

[StregaModerator]

Thanks, Reg!  We have a bit of snow coming through tonight 🥶⛄️

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

How does Tyranny begin.

[_Robert_Participant]

Yeah, it’s 1933 all over again. So fucking stupid.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

My mother used to say of me that I “would argue with a bishop”. But yesterday I found myself in agreement with one!

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

“When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.”

“We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.”

All above from Desmond Tutu. (Johan, you think he had die antwoord).

 

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@strega Just catching the temperature where you are…..17F but feeling like only 8.6F……….Yikes, stay warm!!

[StregaModerator]

It is a tad chilly overnight – but I have two fluffy old dogs with me when I go to bed – cosy!

[jakelafortParticipant]

The Bishop lumped in gays, lesbians and transgender. I am not aware of any threat made by Trump against gays and lesbians. To that extent i disagree but otherwise reluctantly agree.

I really wish experiments would be conducted on people who identify as transgender. AI can distinguish male from female brains. If the results did not correspond to the person’s identity then i would want the experiments to be unpublished. But if corroborated then shine a light and shine it bright. It would be a great way to combat the discrimination.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I don’t think someone needs a “female brain” to feel like they are female.  Who knows where gender identity resides?  The body is a complex system.  Biological sex is one thing.  Psychological and social gender identity can be separate from that.

Where’s the relationship between being trans, and being gay?  Is there one?  How would that even be defined?

[_Robert_Participant]

Washington is an Oligarchy. Half the wealth of the nation was present in just a few individuals at the coronation. Enlightened Europeans crossed the ocean to get away from kings and lords and to revive democracy, at least to a degree. That’s all over now. The judges and congress and executive are all bought and paid for. Release the face-eating leopards.

[_Robert_Participant]

Gays and lesbians for Trump think he’s an ally, LOL. He just banned pride (and BLM) flags from Fed buildings and embassies. With merit-based hiring and firing, the minority employment party is done and over. My white male privilege is back baby! I may need that card when they kill retirement benefits. Oh shit, being old as I am, well that’s no good either. Sorry, we don’t hire old folks, even the white ones. Or atheists. No, we don’t want any of those.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Simon,

I was not addressing a relationship between being gay and being trans. I assume if someone has male plumbing but identifies as a female then they are straight if they are attracted to males and gay if they are attracted to females. I also assume the multiple causes contributing to sexual orientation are independent of identifying as male or female and yet having the wrong plumbing.

Calling or characterizing anything real as psychological is imo BS. Psychiatry went down a rabbit hole for some hundred years when it departed from science in embracing psychoanalytic nonsense and Jungian nonsense et al that benefited pocket books but not patients. Implicit in the departure from evaluating biology as the cause of biological disorders is a sort of mysticism and dualism that has no evidential or logical basis. Western society has benefited from medical evaluation of medical issues. Free will is injected and weak characters when we are overcome by the aforementioned mysticism. Stigmas attached to mental illness may remain as abhorrent and retrograde in the Muslim world and other primitive societies but a great many modern people understand it is not your fault. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. Yeah i am doing that movie Good Will Hunting. No more free will to prevent the onset of fill in the blank mental illness than pancreatic cancer or multiple sclerosis.

As far as i am aware ALL neuroatypicals have a physical biological indication that substantiates their issues. It is certainly true of schizophrenia and depression and even something like PTSD that is precipitated by severe trauma or an environmental cause that has clear biological impressions.

Cause of transexualism? F. if i know. Nor have i researched it. But when i read about how AI utilizing i think it was MRI’s could not only distinguish Blacks from Whites but males from females it immediately occurred to me that trans people should be tested.

No argument that the body is complex. Every year new things are learned. But the first place to look for markers if you will of transexualism is the brain. And very likely it is multifactorial causation. Perhaps the enteric nervous system in our guts has some bearing. Bacteria, viruses, fungi? Hormones? Gene variants? Who knows? But the brain is the captain obvious locus to investigate. In any event as long as it can be established that the onset of transexualism is biologically based we take out the free will BS and that diminishes societal condemnation of trans people.

[_Robert_Participant]

I felt that the ferocity of gender/identity rhetoric by the trans community and allies on social media and in the news was gonna work heavily in the Republicans favor. And it did.

Accidentally misgendering with wrong pronouns is not an act of violence. If you are in a bank wearing a flower dress and have a full beard, guess what, some people are gonna stare at you. It’s confusing. I saw this happen recently and the 250lb trans woman stormed out of the bank, cursing like a linebacker.

And if you are a trans female competing against non trans females in athletics, I’m sorry that you think this is somehow fair.

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