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Mole

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Everything posted by Mole

  1. Here’s the solution:
  2. Nothing of consequence, but I noticed a quirk in how Pete speaks. I don’t watch a ton of talking political heads, but I watched the Pete clip and have seen a one or two others recently and notice that he rarely/never says Kamala Harris’ name; he’ll say the awkward “her and Tim Walz” and of course he’ll contemptuously say Trump’s name over and over, but the only time I heard Kamala Harris’ name in the CNN interview was “Harris/Walz” one time. Maybe I missed another, but the point remains. Im not sure if it’s just a Pete quirk or something else, but it caught my ear.
  3. I don’t think he wins GA. Statewide races have consistently rejected MAGA since 2016. MAGA has largely lost in republican primaries to those pretending to be reasonable republicans and when MAGA makes it to the general election (see Herschel), it loses.
  4. On 1/6/21 I realized that garbage in garbage out applies with him and that hearing him speak is harmful; for evidence, see what’s become of many of our previously normal parents. Since that day, I turn off or down anything where he speaks, so I haven’t heard more than one word in 4 years with one exception: I did listen to Jon Stewart’s bit on the Gettysburg Wow Address.
  5. Regarding the attacks on Waltz’s’s’ services and my perspective as a veteran: it makes me angry that republicans would lie to denigrate any veteran’s service. It’s just about the most anti-veteran, unpatriotic, and unAmerican thing I could imagine. It’s not surprising coming from a movement with no moral compass, but it still is anger inducing.
  6. This election has a Sorry ma, I forgot to take out the trash vibe to me.
  7. To be honest, the only way I’d watch a debate is if Trump doesn’t show. I don’t want to expose my family to the filth that comes out of that degenerate’s mouth.
  8. So EBITDA isn’t a fermented Argentinian tea that has caught on with Austin hipsters?
  9. He’s not wrong, but I don’t think this is compelling for those susceptible to falling into Christian nationalism. There are large groups in theologically conservative evangelical churches that can be moved away from this garbage — they were manipulated into it to begin with — but I think the case needs to be a spiritual/biblical one, not a-good-for-society one. This movement is damaging churches too and is contrary to anything but the most tortured reading of the Bible. The remaining religious leaders whom haven’t fallen into this need to be hammering on this point. Their message should be saving the church. Arguing against the idea of “America as a Christian nation” accepts it on the the nationalists’ terms. Sure, it’s good to provide a counter-narrative, but it’s too easy to muddy the waters and lead too many to believe that America was actually founded as a Christian nation. It starts to feel like a game picking and choosing gotcha quotes that leave too many to revert to whatever feels comfortable. For the rank and file evangelical, they need to be reminded that the thing they profess to most value — the propagation of the Gospel — is being destroyed by the Christian nationalist movement. Lust for power and hurting any and everyone is clearly evil in itself, but it’s very practically also damaging the relevance of the need for Jesus. The cynical religious leaders probably can’t be reached. They are seeking their reward on earth and appear to not believe in the hell that they are preaching, but there are lots of regular folks who could probably be saved.
  10. The stupidity of the culture war is that it begs and pleads for us to get angry about moronic conversations that no one — not even the culture warriors themselves — are remotely interested in having. But we all must have and share our suddenly strongly felt, moronic opinions. The more unrelated to the topic at hand, the better; semper nonsequitur, semper stultus.
  11. 1. It’s almost impossible to discuss this without implicitly breaking rule 3; character in leadership, moral clarity, and thoughtfulness about the issues are far more important than specific positions on issues. If a national crisis strikes over the next four years, we don’t always have the foresight to come up with policy ahead of time, but we can look at the character, moral clarity, and thoughtfulness of our leaders to see if they are prepared. We didn’t vote on COVID policies in 2016, but we could have easily seen how a crisis would be handled. 2. Sane, boring government is good government. 3. Her parents — particularly her mom — were extremely impressive people. It’s a small thing, but apples and trees and all. I like a good immigrant story. 4. Faith and government has come up several times already in this thread, but I look at it from the other direction. My faith is very important to me and I think a healthy church is good for communities. The past decade has been really bad for the health of the church and caused incredible damage to any sense of its moral standing. It’s hard to preach the Gospel when “Christian” rightly becomes synonymous with wickedness. Church involvement in government corrupts both. Voting for people who value separation makes for a better, more effective church and also keeps the government from descending into whatever is happening these days. 5. Family values, the economy, sane foreign policy. It’s nice to be able to let my son hear the president speak without worrying about answering lots of grown up questions about disgusting, degenerate things (with no disrespect to present company).
  12. To be fair, a nation giving in to their worst desires (doing what’s right in their own eyes in terms of hatred, cruelty towards foreigners, etc.), demanding a plainly wicked leader so as to embrace their degeneracy, and then having a series of catastrophes destroy the nation is the plot of large portions of the Old Testament.
  13. Sorry about your hearing problem.
  14. Bob Evans noodle soup goes hard.
  15. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not very found of OU.
  16. Clearly you never met my old commanding officer.
  17. I get that it’s a handy way to encapsulate a lot of loosely related activities and people, but the rise of the term “content creator” speaks to the commodification of everything that drives this problem — art, music, film, written word, and criticism has become merely a product to be consumed. At least when it comes to music, the application of IP law is insane and comes from a place of total musical ignorance that is only possible once it’s been relegated to just a commercial venture and the creation of some product rather than an act of community that we engage in together. I’m looking at you, Marvin Gaye’s estate.
  18. Proverbs 21:15 seems relevant as we watch the response to this bigly, beautiful news: When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.
  19. It’s a good chance to remind them that family values and character in leadership used* to be core conservative values. This case lays bare the reality that conservatives have abandoned** their core values. *in some mythical past, perhaps **embraced, but we like to lie to ourselves
  20. Mole

    Israel

    I don’t see how they are necessarily related or in opposition. It’s a question of why that’s being missed here. Missing the why leads to connecting dots that simply don’t connect. Support for Israel is more based in a general support of “God’s chosen people,” which has little to do with end times stuff. There’s a reasonable biblical case to support this view of Israel, assuming you accept the connection between modern Israel and biblical Israel. The view is that you support Israel because God will bless those who support Israel and curse those who don’t — or something along these lines. The support for Israel isn’t specifically connected to the belief concerning the believed imminent return of Jesus anymore than any other view or belief. This is the case even for the view that somehow the creation of modern Israel checks some end times box in the sky. The idea that support for Israel is due to some Kirk Cameron-fed desire to bring about the end of the world (let’s help check those boxes) is decidedly not mainstream. I’m come from many years in evangelical environments and have never heard a preacher or believer express dominionist-like views in person. From my experience this is a minor (and certainly problematic) view that is amplified on the internet. It doesn’t reflect mainstream evangelical views, even relatively conservative ones. Most end times talk centers around the perceived decay of society (I’d say the perception of decay is accurate, but often too outward looking as to why the decay is happening) and of course the general scariness of our modern world — wars and rumors of wars in end times parlance. Christians have believed in the imminent return of Jesus long before the creation of modern Israel.
  21. Mole

    Israel

    The mainstream evangelical support of Israel is theological, but not because of end times stuff. That article is making huge leaps in order to connect the dots to paint a dishonest picture. The theological reason for evangelical support of Israel mostly has to do with supporting “God’s chosen people” and seeking God’s blessing. The suggestion that it has to do with speeding up end-of-the-world beliefs is mostly nonsense that people on the internet say to feel superior. There are surely those who believe that way, but they are far outside the mainstream, even in conservative evangelical circles. Any suggestions otherwise are simply not truthful. If the issue is specific to the Christian or white nationalist position, I can’t speak to that since I avoid those types of environments. Belief that we’re in the end times has probably been the mainstream position (or among the mainstream positions) since the death of Jesus.
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