FourPacketsOfPeanuts @ FourPacketsOfPeanuts @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

It is a point of controversy whether non-Muslims should be made to follow Islamic law

No controversy about it at all. The more that religious fascists insist on controlling others, the more it's essential that people are free to express ridicule towards them.

I suppose the equivalent might be performing a play in which Christ is a child abuser or some musical parody of Auschwitz?

Those expressions should be avoidable though. So that if someone didn't want to see it they are free to find something else to do. Harassing people (burning a Qur'an outside their home) would be wrong.

But saying I can't do something just because that's a rule for you? Fuck that. Get the matches.

Sounds like it's time to institute international Bible, Qur'an, Torah burning day..

Looks like they have two: "Awake" and "Watchtower": https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/

In London in recent years I've only seen Awake. Maybe Watchtower is American or only in Kingdom halls?

they clarified that it was 11 tribes and one "lost tribe"

As far as I'm aware there are 10 lost tribes. Only Judah and Benjamin were not regarded as lost. They might have a different view on that of course..

They agreed that it's the gospel and many people weren't good enough Christians

They don't see the "vast multitude" (who are believers besides the 144,000) as having a bad deal in any way. They get to live on the restored earth which is basically Eden paradise. That's why all their magazines / tracts have pictures of an idyllic life in a park / nature type setting

Fairly recent (in the scheme of things) non standard Christian group

• they don't believe in the trinity: God is god, Jesus was crafted by god - used to be an angel, the holy spirit is more like an impersonal force
• they don't believe in everlasting hell, they believe the soul of unbelievers is annihilated
• believe Armageddon is imminent and have repeatedly tried predicting it and failed
• they originated from a bible study group in the 1800s and some things they are into are actually a literal reading of the new testament rather than a more pop culture or traditional view of Christianity. for example:
• they believe the future of believers is on a restored earth, not heaven (based on Revelation). (This is why all their tracts have pictures of 'the good family life' in a park or nature type setting. That's the earth restored to be like Eden)
• they believe 144000 special believers are elevated to rule in heaven (Revelation again)
• they believe a letter written by the apostle in Acts telling believers to "abstain from blood" is still in force (to be fair there isn't anything saying it isn't) which they take to mean refusing all blood including blood transfusions
• they don't believe in Christmas, Easter or birthday celebrations because they're not in the bible. Christmas trees are pagan etc
• they practice 'shunning' family and church members who won't repent of sin which sees some parents totally rejecting their children, people acting like people don't exist if they see them on the street. (Again to be fair, this is what the new testament tells Christians to do). For this they (rightly) get flak for being cultish and overly controlling
• they believe it's every believers duty to give people opportunity to repent hence going door to door (I think they've stopped doing this now) or standing on the street offering their standard magazine "Awake"
• their central organisation is called the Watchtower, again a biblical reference to keeping watch for the end of the world
• various reports of child abuse scandals typical in any organisation where you can't question or scrutinised authority

Places I've consulted at have typically gone through noun lists unconnected to the work. Noun lists like i) greek gods (project Perseus) ii) Roman gods (project Janus) iii) literally random nouns (project Rainbow) iv) precious stones (project Sapphire) and so on..

Is this a fragment of a sentence? Because it seems like an incomplete thought.

If there's further information to come in the sentence with the monkey as the subject you could use brackets to indicate your thought and write..

"The monkey (about whom I'm wondering: 'can they see my ears?') did something or other..."

This isn't strictly grammatically correct, but seems to be the most natural way it could be written and said without sounding weird.

Or is 'monkey' an answer to some other question and you're adding that other information for context? If so, you could use a semi-colon.

"What's bothering you?"

"The monkey; I'm wondering 'can they see my ears?'"

If it does then we also lose the ability to even say that that's what it's done. And if that's the case then has it really done it? /ponders uselessly

I like to think somewhere researchers are working on actual AI and the AI has already decided that it doesn't want to read bullshit on the internet

My body

Jokes on you; when technology allows, me and my partner are going to end our marriage by melding into a supermech powerrangers style and our wedding rings will fuse to become a laser cannon

Depends what it is you imagine they're taking. There comes a point in wealth when you're not really talking about monetary amounts or assets per se but raw power, measured in whatever abstract units you wish to use. The hyper wealthy care about political and cultural power (a battle very much underway and largely won). They don't care so much whether the average family has $10 left at the end of the month (or $200 or -$50). The numbers become meaningless. What's important to the hyperwealthy is that whatever that number is it not be able to purchase strategic land, production, or political power. (Elon wouldn't care if every worker became a millionaire so long as bread now cost 3 million and property a billion.) Their power is felt in their exclusive access to limited resource (certain beach fronts for example, or a presidents time).

To that end there comes a point where they're not interested in taking "money" any more, since they already entirely dominate that power dynamic. You could make the number whatever you like they're still in control. Them "allowing" a very very modest improvement in some living standards doesn't cost them anything but buys a relative amount of civil order, which is how I suspect this is likely to play out.

The pivot to far right politics over the last 20 years is part of this. When you are artificially keeping a large part of a nation on the brink, and you don't want them to accrue traditional assets like land or wealth, then a potent replacement is to "pay" them in permission to hate.

History shows that this is a foolish course and it doesn't last long. But perhaps a few "stable enough" decades is all these materialist hyper barons care about. Wealth and power is to be enjoyed now. There's no god or heaven only power and the future is someone else's problem..

Perfect lol

It's very much the same in the UK and, from what I hear first hand, also in Germany, Australia and Canada

My rough take:

The industrial revolution never stopped, we are still very much on the trajectory that accelerated in the 18th/19th centuries.

The trend is to concentrate wealth in a production owning class. WWI and WWII were temporary disruptions to this. The post war consensus saw great national projects and investment happen at just the same time that mixed skill labour was in wide demand thanks to technology's progress at that point. The baby boomers were advantaged by this and ended up with disproportionate ownership of land and production means.

The last 50 years has been a slow return to trend. With production slowly transitioning from manual labour to mental labour to fully automated labour. The freak occurrence that benefitted baby boomers has not repeated.

The trend will continue to devalue the work of most individuals. A small proportion will be able to leverage rapidly advancing technology and take a small stake in the monopoly of the 0.001%. The rest will progressively be priced out of elevating themselves into the middle class. The result being that there becomes a vast underclass characterised by renting, inability to start a family, and insecurity but just enough comfort to prevent rioting. There'll be a vast range of skill within that class, however effort with make only a token difference to wealth.

Saved you a click of the Independent's usual clickbait nonsense:

• the research is conducted by an author of a new book he would like to sell you
• 'spiritual' has such a vague definition as to almost mean anything
• one characteristic is "a yearning to connect with something bigger than myself".
• entirely unsurprising this is how a younger generation categorise the lack they feel as a result of covid isolation and disillusionment with unobtainable material life goals
• 'spiritual' in this context means 'life feels empty but I think there should be something more'
• belief in a personal god and the authority of religious leaders is at an all time low
• aside from that there's a small minority of the conservative religious seeing a small increase (muslims, evangelical Christians)

Maximum profit is extracted being in a perpetual state of "will they/won't they WWIII" which is why we'll be right here in this mood for a long time..

"and now class I would like to draw your attention to a footnote that existed between the ancient empires of Britain and the Glorious Peoples Empire of China.. for a time there was a thing called 'America'..."

if one reads the New Testament strictly, is quite socialist.

This is a popular take on Christianity that I've most often encountered on Reddit but isn't quite true. Else one would have to wonder why the early church didn't evolve into a socialist state. The reason is that people are frequently urged to be charitable, but this is ultimately voluntary and led by ones conscience. But this is consistent with being a moral voice in capitalist societies.

Jesus told specific wealthy people to give away various portions of their wealth, but he told his poorer followers to leave everything. The impracticalities of his ethic were oriented around the end of the world being imminent (Mat 24:34), not an enduring way of ordering society as they evidentally weren't self sustaining: his ministry depended on donations from wealthy women (Luke 8:3). Paul told his church when asking for aid for another church that he wanted to see "equality" (2 Cor 8:13). But, again, it was voluntary (2 Cor 8:8).

In one of the Pauline epistles, Paul talks about all of the members of a congregation holding all things in common.

This was Luke writing in Acts

When the first believers met in the temple courts they voluntarily (from time to time) donated money to the apostles care and they saw to everyone's need (Acts 2:44). But then this is never heard from again. And instead what you see in the years following is people like Paul appealing to people's conscience to give from their private possessions.

Because ultimately, right from the start, private property and private control prevailed (for example: Joseph of Arimathea was allowed to remain wealthy, Peter escaping from jail he goes to John Mark's mother who not only owns a house but also a servant girl - Acts 12:12-13 etc). And while it's certainly true church leadership urged people to be generous to those less well off, this was never compulsory (never instituted as a tax). The church in the bible did not even institute the old Jewish law of tithing (compulsory donation of 10%) despite what modern pastors would like people to believe. Instead not only was the giving voluntary but the amount was up to the giver.

Which is probably why Christianity has melded into the various systems of government seen in the West, from dictatorships to market driven social democracies. It's quite a chameleon. Because it tells individuals how they ought to behave but says very little (if anything) about how a state or market ought to behave.

Yes that is different but it's interesting, thanks. How does it work in practise? Are you not often sat around waiting for someone else to progress before you get an item you need to continue?