Avatar
Marakesh 𓅦
dace63b00c42e6e017d00dd190a9328386002ff597b841eb5ef91de4f1ce8491
Christ Follower • Truth Seeker • Freedom Lover The US #GovtIsTheProblem

"And when you look at the odds against the evolution of intelligent, information-processing organisms like ourselves, even non-Christian evolutionary biologists who don't believe in God will tell you that this is so incomprehensibly improbable that it's unlikely that intelligent life exists anywhere else in the known universe. We seem to be it. Now, that's from a secular perspective, of course. God is always free to create life on another planet just as he has on this planet. So if God exists I think you actually have to be more open to the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life than you do if you're an #atheist."

–William Lane Craig

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/government-report-on-ufos

What would the billionaires do? Flee to Russia?? Or attempt a coup as with Smedley Butler and Franklin Roosevelt?

I wonder what's the date on that TIME piece? I've heard stats that there are like 900 million guns in the U.S. alone...

But Americans now live under a much worse version of the government than in Lincoln's day (okay, that is debatable), so what are YOU going to do about it?

The update is great, way more usable now! I just made a board of some Anarchy Memes, however I couldn't upload them with the image uploader. I had to use the URL upload method and first go to nostr.build to upload and then get the URL, which is time-consuming, fyi. I wonder if it's just my phone, or if anyone else has this issue? 🤔

"‘Ubeidiya spheroids are about 1 million years younger than the spheroids discovered in some parts of eastern Africa."

So they're saying humans were making these things for a million years... 😄🤔😶

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-experts-cast-light-on-mysterious-orbs-carved-by-humans-1-4-million-years-ago/

"Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum gathering in Russia’s Vladivostok on Tuesday, Putin said: “As for Trump, for us what is happening in today’s conditions, in my opinion, is good because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others democracy.

“Everything that is happening with Trump is the persecution of a political rival for political reasons. That’s what it is. And this is being done in front of the public of the United States and the whole world.”

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F9%2F12%2Fcase-against-donald-trump-shows-rottenness-of-us-political-system-putin

nostr:nevent1qqspr399mhtearg6c9wyssgaqkehe0tgkye4jr2g4jqzs9slkshhyuspzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgq3qd8gffjc5gkjrfy0plgta0fc4zt8j75xvxllq25h52uucae6pugcqxpqqqqqqzthzcjf

It's me

I was raised Protestant salvationist, went Objectivist atheist, now realist-pantheist, but all the while retained cultural sympathy for salvationists (pro-just-laws, anti-infanticide, pro-objective-truth, pro-family, etc)

I think there are a few things happening

One is salvationists vs universalists

Salvationists believe the individual needs to attune himself to God (or Nature), universalists thinks everyone is saved and the individual has license to attune the world to himself

Universalists are nominally Christian but almost culturally unrecognizable, while salvationist Protestants, traditional Catholics, Orthodox and even Mormons seem to have a great degree of shared culture.

Another possibility is conversion prior to conversion. The individual joins the leftist cult (either Marxist in particular or the broader category of Hegelian). Eventually they see that Christianity is not compatible with their new faith and leave it.

Finally I think there is deconversion prior to conversion. The individual is convinced by "secular" forces (largely post-theist Universalists like the New Atheists) to abandon their religion, and having done so seeks some other worldview to make sense of things. The dominant options in our society are Christian traditionalism and the leftist cult. Having quit one, they try the other.

I was fortunate in that I joined the stridently pro-individual-reason Randian cult, and like many adherents (though sadly not all) deprogrammed myself of the Randian components that are most cultish (eg worship of Rand & uncritical acceptance of her ideas). I think this is one of the better cults to fall into. While those who remain in the most orthodox sect tend to be virulently anti-religion there seems to be quite a castoff of people who either remained religious while embracing elements of Randianism or who partially deconverted and are culturally sympathetic to traditional social structures. Of course, there are also Randians who by virtue of Rand's focus on self-pleasure become very libertine and essentially leftist.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Can you tell me what you mean by saying that you are a realist-pantheist?

As for the cult of leftism, I think that is a worship of government/force. As G.K. Chesterston said: "Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." Perhaps the choices boil down to either: Jesus is Lord or Caesar is Lord.

As for Ayn Rand, I've never really gotten into her writings or ideas, though we may have a lot in common. I tried to start reading "The Virtue of Selfishness" once but even the title is so off-putting to me!

Yep. Sometimes it takes one or more brave souls to stick to principle and suffer until more people get the courage to stand up and help the majority see that they actually outnumber the tyrants.

Replying to 78e47dfe...

#911 was a major milestone in the transformation of the U.S.A. into a National Security State, which began with the creation of the CIA and NSA in 1947...

#NeverForget The US #GovtIsTheProblem

nostr:nevent1qqsrayuws63n2gg6qp0wsw2xv72ycps4x46k9hzv5svt6f83hdnadcspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygrcu37lu6pl4uvxnffh32jtfffdw6xhnx7cavuqn8qtr984vunlx5psgqqqqqqsve6w0p