I worked as a pastor and professor for a global, evangelical television ministry/college. They knowingly conceal scholarship on the Bible and punish their pastors for asking any questions that undermine their most closely held traditions (including anti-evolution, mental illness is supernatural, etc.). They tell their US viewers that they can't call themselves Christians if they don't vote Republican, while still enjoying tax-exempt status. They use pseudohistorians to inspire Christian Nationalism over their network, and are one of the largest propaganda networks for the Religious Right. A U.S. Capitol police commander told me his men were fighting people who were wearing the network's brand.

It's illegal to have your remains decomposed naturally (or one of those cool new methods like composting or alkaline hydrolysis). You're legally required to be stuffed full of embalming chemicals and buried in a box, or cremated, polluting the air and wasting bioavailable nutrients, to be turned into high pH, high sodium ashes.

I think this is because the laws were mainly created by Catholics (this is Louisiana, where we have parishes instead of counties), and people are still too superstitious to make sense.

Redesign the spine for vertical use. Don't put the eating and breathing tubes on either side of the same flap.

That must've been tough to do. You have the respect of at least one internet stranger 🫡

Especially with Project 2025 (day one after the election of the next GOP candidate). The executive branch will no longer be controllable by the other two branches. Also, Schedule F will allow all "policy-related" government workers to be rescheduled as fireable employees, allowing the Prez to install loyalists throughout the entire government. It's definitely time to freak the fuck out.

As doctors continue to flee the state

Fun fact: Every Mastodon account has an RSS feed. Just add ".rss" to the end of their public profile URL.

You can make profit on and profit off

Germany, we've been over this.

Well LLMs are about to get a lot less reasonable.

You glance at other markers too, but 66 fires a special, primed network.

Y'all showed up for this post! Lemmy is looking better all the time :)

TW: Existentialism/Death

Not a funny thing to say before going out, but when I was about to do the mask I thought about what it would be like to be totally unconscious after I die, and woke up laughing and cracking jokes. It wasn't so bad during the procedure when my awareness was off 😜

The OG Wallace and Gromit three-movie VHS box set was my jam as a kid

I've had cats and dogs, and in my sample, cats have been better at navigating boundaries. Also, the beans. Also, the everything.

You handed all your data (including your browsing history) to Meta just to take a look around?

To them, it means if you're depressed, schizophrenic, or otherwise incapable of controlling your emotions or perceptions, you're being either possessed or "oppressed" by demon spirits.

It's my understanding that some of them even heal and can be torn again

Was gifted a lightly used Keurig machine. Partner started noticing little roaches everywhere in the kitchen. She was halfway through a cup of coffee when she opened the water reservoir and spotted a few floating in the water. I opened the machine and the machine was full of them.

Roaches can lay up to 32 eggs/week, and I think a roach mom had at least one good week in the Keurig.

Friend had said he didn't want it because it was attracting roaches. He claims to not have known it was carrying them.

Taking down my Yule decor, setting up for Imbolc!

Two words: Seasonal regression

Wasn't Signal getting rid of the phone number requirement?

Go Team Valor! 🍑💨💩

The quote is from Liar Liar

If some of the pastors there had their way, that's exactly what power would control this country.

Fucking hilarious

This is a brilliant piece

They could offer the slickest interface and keep people locked to their friends. That interface can use protocols that make it difficult/impossible for non-Threads instances to play ball (ooh this cool new feature is only available through the Threads app; Oh, my basement.world.ml.xyz can't read that content). There are many ways to EEE, and I'm sure we haven't even thought of some ways Threads could use.

I think defederation is our only option to protect what we have.

DISCLAIMER Meditation isn't for everyone. Meditation adverse effects are a thing. Know what's for you!

I start with box breathing (for a few cycles, until I can feel my mind and body relax), and then I go to normal breathing and focus on the breath, followed by whatever activity I find appropriate:

For general meditation, I just keep the focus on the breath, and if my focus shifts, I don't make a value judgment about it. I just return to the breath as the thought leaves on its own. These are what I do for short 5 min "resets" between things like work and school.

For grounding (when I have more time or require a deeper "reset"), I will focus on my body's connections to the elements (one at a time: the earth below me, the air through the breath, the fire in my cells, the water in my blood, and the "spirit" of my brain's awareness)

For active self-work, I will visualize a safe/protective scene (in my case, a grove), then close my "mind's eyes," losing the scene, and doing a Light Body exercise. I then re-open the scene and take notice of the differences. This way, I've been able to "spelunk" into deep parts of my mind, forgotten memories, trauma responses, etc. I will follow the scenery and see/hear whatever my brain is triggering, all in the safe confines of my little grove/surrounding area.

If you make it to a deep, meditative state, be sure to become fully aware of your body before trying to move around. You might be a bit groggy or fall over. Personally, I have to leave the deeper state and become aware of sitting in my grove, and then become aware of my actual body.

Be sure to write down or otherwise keep in memory the things you learn from your brain during meditation :)

I'm a Bible scholar. "What the Bible teaches" eludes most Christians. "What I think the Bible teaches based on my own historical-traditional interpretation" is fine. "How I approach the Bible, taking all known context into consideration" is even better. Whenever someone says, "the Bible teaches," it's a major red flag to me.

Reddit is to Lemmy what YouTube is to PeerTube. We have options!

Looks awesome to me ngl

all of them

I love the idea of reforestation through memorial trees

So glad I can block

TIL

By "I'm a scholar," I mean I have an MA and 12 years of experience studying the historical contexts and literary history of the textual witnesses, and the history of conversation on cosmology and it's influence on the history of interpretation. I know just enough to know I know very little, which is why you'll never, ever hear me say something as ridiculous as "The Bible Teaches <insert dogmatic statement>." Overconfidence in one's own interpretation without all context (which none of us have) is a red flag in ANY field, let alone one so close to our limbic needs.

I feel like Vivek Ramaswamy bought ancient political data and trained into 2011GPT.

I remember that I didn't exist before and that was fine.

A touch of humility helps too... why should I get benefits that beetles and dogs don't?

Life only exists because of death. I wouldn't want to take life away from the world by avoiding something I'm not meant to avoid.

For example, we cache and reprocess images and videos for you to view, so that the originating server cannot get your IP address, browser name, or time of access.

Yes, isolate me from those scary non-Threads instances daddy