Making music. I’ve been collaborating with a buddy off and on, but I used to have a strong drive to work on music daily and now I’m just passively consuming media and generating little creative output. I watch from the sidelines when cool new tools warrant a look, but I wish I still had the drive.

Good.

Yeah, temporarily, I think. You ever indulge in a food repeatedly until it stops tasting good? I have, many times. It resets after a while, but the difference, I think, is that the light and sound are actually doing physical damage to your retina and ear follicles / ear drum. You could blow up a fire cracker in your mouth to get that outcome, but that’s not what you’re asking.

This is my favorite posts this morning. Made me smile and silently laugh internally.

Graduated reduction under the supervision of a medical provider. I went off a medication without supervision, once, and it was a disaster.

That I could love myself. That I’d be a productive member of society. That I’d be a square.

Though I want to sneer and deride him (I don’t like him), mental health troubles are pretty terrible. I hope he can find the ability to love himself. I hope everyone who feels this way can come back.

Apologies, I’m going to do something that I think is kind of a jerk move and paste my standard argument for a very specific point. It’s a jerk move because I see that you wrote a genuine reply and I appreciate that. I don’t know enough about the specific points that you raised to discuss them directly, so I’m falling back on my broader thinking. To that end, I’m truly trying to contribute to the discussion (even though I’m pasting a repeated(-by-me) blurb; see my sibling post; I’m pretty into this topic). I respect your views even if we disagree, so long as you don’t try to impose them on others, which I’m not saying you do / did.

Jesus is an ahistorical figure who was originally crucified in the firmament above the earth. Notice no mention of an earthly ministry in the Pauline epistles; Paul is arguing for salvation from a heavenly figure. In his letters, Jesus is still to be revealed, rather than returning. Only decades later did the stories about a human man get written.

The Didache was most likely part of the letter written by the “pillars in Jerusalem” (James the Just, Peter, and John) after their meeting with Paul. This was the meeting to discuss the matter of preaching to gentiles and whether circumcision ought to be required for christian converts. It contains many of the tenets later ascribed to Jesus, but doesn’t associate him with teaching them.

The reason the earthly story was embraced by the church was to stop people like Paul from having visions of Christ that the church couldn’t control. By pointing to a real guy on earth, they could control the message. Otherwise, any yokel on the street could teach that Jesus revealed new teachings and the church risked being undermined.

Marcion was probably the first to create a collection of writings associated with christianity: he collected some of Paul’s letters and had his own gospel. It was thought that he had a shortened version of Luke (as testified by Eusebius and Tertullian). Marcion, however, claimed that his gospel had been “judaized”; this suggests that his shorter version was the original gospel before others modified it.

Acts was written as a direct response to Marcion’s scripture. It was written to harmonize Paul’s high-jacking of the religion by making he and Peter appear to be in alignment when actually he was at odds with the leaders in Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem pillars (James, Peter, John), were strict adherents of Judaism, whereas Paul taught that Jesus made the Law / Torah unnecessary. They were almost certainly Essenes, one of the three flavors of Judaism at the time (the other two were the Pharisees and Sadducees mentioned in the new testament). John the Baptist was clearly also an Essene. He’s said to wear camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and honey. His practice of baptism also aligns with daily ritual water immersion believed to be a core practice of the Essenes.

This is a very long way of saying that Jesus first appeared in visions and spoke to the early leaders without walking on earth. It’s a fringe belief about which I was quite skeptical, but damn if the evidence doesn’t line up. See Robert Price, Earl Doherty, and Elbe Spurling for more info. Elbe’s online book is free and contains a huge amount of historical information about the region at the.

As David Cross said, “They didn’t have science back then so everyone was even stupider…” or something approximating it.

The best part, in my opinion, is the extra ending in Mark. This was the original ending, which is an absolute banger:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'”

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

This is in later versions, likely because someone copying the text found the ending to be insufficient:

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

But remember, kids: the bible is all true and infallible and the word of god and whatever other crap they tell you.

Criticism aside, I’m a hardcore atheist and reading about the history of early christianity (first ~300 years) was absolutely fascinating and I’d recommend checking out the subject to others who oppose organized religion. Bart Ehrman would be a good starting point, though can you go down quite a rabbit hole beyond his writing. This might be a good jumping off point: How Jesus Became God

Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.

Invisible Women

I’ll take cash, please. Thanks!

Woooooh! Go Sheeran! Get the racists to buy all the tickets that would have been sold if the other bands were there.

Sriracha for my noodles, please.

A far-right activist with connections to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir also urged protesters to identify the filmmakers if they saw them in public.

“They won’t sit in any restaurant or any place,” Ben Gvir’s close ally said, referring to Szor and Abraham.

I believe it because a lot of (most?) Israelis are fucking lunatics, but not naming the person discredits the work, imo. Name and shame. Give these people no place to go when boomers are dead and policy in the USA (and Europe) changes and recognizes their crimes. Hold them accountable.

Used to be Memmy for Lemmy. That’s gone, so I’ve been using Arctic and the web.

This just inspired me to download the source code for Memmy for Lemmy. Whether I spend time updating it for personal use or not, at least I have it if I need it. Sorta like how I plan to keep a derivative of Pocket going if I decide Wallabag isn’t enough (also code available on github).

Just because their goal may not be explicitly pushing far right nationalism doesn’t mean it’s ok to ignore. They must be shunned. Their political messaging is hate and none of us should support or condone that.

This is good messaging. I’m glad someone is making it explicit. I’ll bookmark this page and share it.

Now we need to muster all our strength for further reforms that will then generate tangible investment and growth impulses.

A+ at saying a lot of words that only have meaning to a select class and no one else.

I might hate the AI companies and SpaceX (while enjoying AI-coding), but this is some bs.