Pulling things out of context let’s you think and justify just about anything. The letter to Timothy is in response to particular people in a particular church at a particular time. Go research it.

But the main point of the whole text is: the world is full of suffering, people are good and people are bad, but we should work to be better and lessen suffering. -Forgive those who trespass against you. Love even your enemies. Those who are not against us are with us. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

The Christian right are literally the kind of judgmental people Jesus criticizes. All good forces should work together, rather than creating strawmen that can split progressives.

You clearly have issue with the old cartoon. It seems it generates a lot of anger in you, or perhaps disgust might be the most accurate sentiment. And you feel a need to distance yourself from it consequently. And so you have. My point was that there is something to be learned from the passage, even if it is fiction. It is my opinion that the quoted section reveals something about the nature of power politics. How the wants of those with power can override principle and justice. If I had quoted Voltaire or Marx, with the same message, you likely would have nodded in agreement.

Well they’re pretty determined to get one now!

Cause stupid people buy games on pre release and there’s apparently a lot of them.

Norwegian here. I can still hear the gasping from the laughter of the nobel committee in Oslo. And I’m on vacation abroad.

I’ve wanted Kyle to be right about just about everything he says, but sadly it’s rarely so. There are plenty of countries that have no problem going from liking the US for its role in the world, to being sycophants who coddle up to power. Others will respond by playing nice to not have the administration turn their eyes towards them, and others still have leaders who have no objection to what’s currently going on. Just because you want something to be true, doesn’t make it so. There’s a definite shift happening, but I doubt it’s size and effect will result in any short term results. Just my opinion.

Compensating for relative lower income with low cost of consumer products is a bit like pissing your pants to get warm. The underlying issue is declining wages, caused by the loss of labor power. If people had decent wages a rise in prices would not be a problem. But while scraping by a rise in prices is a huge problem.

I love this part. John 18:28 Pharisees: This man is a criminal!
Pilate: which law did he break? Pharisees: We would not have brought him here if we wasn’t a criminal. Pilate: Then judge him by your law. Pharisees: We don’t have the right to execute anyone. In other word, we just want him dead. Then after you execute him, he will be a criminal.

Half your age +7 is the formula. Anything within that is fine. Of course, that’s a guideline, not a law. Or let me put it like this, do you believe a woman of 30 to be capable of making her own choices? If so, go on the date and see if there’s anything there. If not, slap yourself and rethink your answer.

The Empire podcast goes quite deep into some of the issues and roots of partition. It was very clear that the English wanted out ASAP. One reason was the sectarian violence they could no longer contain.

Yeah, his name was Simeon bar Jonah, Simon, son of Jonah, or by modern style, Simon Johnson. Then Jesus pops up and starts calling him the Rock… Simon the Rock Johnson. (also fun gravy, Dwayne means fishhook)

Multiply by nr of persons and years…

I get that, had the same initial reaction, but I felt it picked up and got good.

I would just fucking love it if there was discovered a correlation between autism and microplastics, or between autism and stress during pregnancy, or between autism and some food coloring or whatever. Just to see RFK shut the fuck up cause he would never challenge the owners of the country.

Read a book. Some light fantasy usually.

Roman emperors didn’t flee from battle. is one way to read this.

I’ve been thinking about that particular event. Leonard Cohen has a song about it as well that put me on this track.

Now, as a historical fact, back in those days, sacrificing ones children was a not uncommon thing to do. The old testament god in several places tells the israelites NOT to put their children to the fire, as the term was. But if you read the texts you find that the israelites weren’t very good at following commands, and one could guess that god knew that.

So he puts his favorite follower through the worst nightmare imaginable, demanding that he sacrifice his beloved son. Put him through the ringer, of doubt, despair, fear, and sorrow, let it sink in what it actually means to sacrifice a child. Then stop him. It’s basically show don’t tell. Put the experience of the evil of that action into his heart, and vaccinate him against such ideas. And while Abraham took that lesson to heart, I’m reasonably certain that Isaac took the lesson even more, and taught it well to all his descendants.

Is it a shit thing to do? In one man’s perspective, yeah. But to set a people on a path away from human sacrifice, I’d say it wasn’t a very high price to pay.

And that’s if you take the story and all literally. If you take it figuratively, as a demonstration of what is the path to goodness, to people in a bronze age culture, I’d say the story carries the message across exceptionally well.

I’m a history teacher, and the first thing you learn is that history must be understood by its own time and standards, not by ours. The story of Isaac is a great example of what in our modern eyes is pure malice, but to its original culture it was a story that had the function of making a culture better.