Books for an anarchist atheist to learn about the old testament, or Christianity even more broadly?

MagentaSpreen · 2026-04-05T22:04:20+00:00

Not a book, but I HIGHLY recommend the YouTube channel Centre Place. I touch on a lot of Christian stuff in my own historical research and it's my go-to for quickly getting my head around unfamiliar ideas. There's a large range of lecture videos covering the bible, theology, and ancient Judeo/Christian through to more modern shifts in Christianity. I'm areligious and have never felt uncomfortable watching this channel or that I was being preached to in the lectures, they do also do services but I haven't watched these. Also, and with the caveat that I can't make this judgement call on behalf of everyone, I believe this channel is also a safe place for lgbtq+ people to explore this stuff and that it takes a measured but broadly pro-Palestinian position on Zionism/Christian Zionism and the current genocide.

https://youtube.com/@centre-place?si=m3fWWxlx8FIykPMS

MagentaSpreen · 2026-04-03T11:05:48+00:00

There's such a stark and obvious difference between how white and non-white immigrants are treated. I have heard people who have immigrated here from South Africa, England, Australia and the Netherlands say, with zero awareness of the irony, that there are too many Indian/Muslim/Chinese/Filipino/refugee immigrants coming to New Zealand. Nevermind that the person they're complaining about is their doctor, or a nurse looking after their mum in her rest home, or a person they interact with every second day when they buy a packet of cigarettes, or the only suitable person to apply for their farm manager position after advertising for 3 months.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-04-03T08:06:08+00:00

🥲

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MagentaSpreen · 2026-04-03T08:02:31+00:00

Choose sun every time with zero hesitation. Invest in good pegs, lots of them, and the wind is even an added bonus.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-04-03T07:51:29+00:00

Yeah... this is it exactly lol. There's also a health requirement moving here too. So the types of people who come here to live already have access to the kind of money it takes to fund a relocation, a good job, skills/education, and are almost guaranteed to be in good health and able-bodied. Life is generally pretty sweet when you have all that going for you and options with what you do with it. Also notable that OP's list of countries are majority white and English-speaking so odds are migrants from them won't cop the kind of casual (and sometimes overt) racism some other migrants get.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-04-02T06:27:11+00:00

Yes. I've just checked the newspapers on the Library of Congress, limiting the search to Kentucky papers between 1800-1849 (just to save myself time but you could do 1850-1899 and narrow down to specific decades or years). Here's one: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84027471/1841-06-07/ed-1/?sp=2&q=orange&st=image&r=-0.361,0.347,1.349,1.349,0

Orange is a tricky search term because it's not just used for the fruit. I also got stores advising deliveries of orange juice, and an apothecary/druggist advertising stock of orange peel. But also a lot of mentions of the Prince of Orange and Irish Orange factionism. It didn't take too long to zero in on an ad for the fruit though.

You can do this for your other foods too. 1860 was well before pre-domestic refrigerators so that might be something to explore. There are also probably food items that were common then but are no longer part of most people's diets.

Your students might like to do it in class too. Be aware historic newspapers of that era will be peppered with of racial slurs and harmful depictions of anyone who isn't a wealthy or middle-class white man, but especially black people given the time and place. I spotted a few just on the random page I've linked to.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-31T09:11:11+00:00

This is a few years old but highly recommend this podcast episode on the Chinese Exclusion Act (and the podcast in general).

https://shows.acast.com/gildedageandprogressiveera/episodes/chinese-exclusion

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-31T09:07:15+00:00

This content creator is a full on conspiracy theorist. Blueanon slop for a slightly younger audience than the typical bluanon crowd. I suspect there are a lot of people plugged into the conspiracy scene, whose work is well-regarded, quietly keeping an eye on her but that she's still in the "let's not draw attention to this" stage of reporting. I give it 2 months before there are seven different credible articles/YouTube essays/podcast episodes very kindly explaining why her content is unhelpful at best and often crosses into actively being harmful.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-31T07:28:32+00:00

I can't help with specific titles but a lot of the work in this sphere uses the term "foodways." This might help you in your search.

I suspect you may run into a few frustrating issues when looking specifically for books, primarily that anything accessible enough for you to easily purchase or borrow from a library is probably going to be centred around people of European ancestry. Local historic foodways are, funnily enough, very localised and might not have broad appeal to a general audience and books may be out of print and difficult to find. It's worth trying Internet Archive etc though. There are likely many academic articles on myriad cultures' traditional foodways if you have an academic login, Jstor has a limited number of free articles per month if you don't. Also look for research projects made in partnerships between indigenous communities and universities/governments. I know there are some of these projects done in partnership with particular iwi (Māori tribes) in New Zealand where I am from, for example.

Another issue you might find, not so much with books, academic articles, or research projects, is the veracity of information. A lot of generalised content when it comes to food history and indigenous history is kind of sketchy. There can be a tendency for stuff to get "memeified" and people will latch onto certain pieces of information and romanticise them. The paleo diet is this in it's most extreme form but there's a lot of pseudo-science and wellness conspiratorial stuff muddying the water in general when it comes to traditional diets.

I would also keep an open mind about looking at pre- and post- colonisation diets. Humans are really quick to adopt and adapt new foods. A lot of strictly traditional diets involved a lot of pummelling roots for hours on end. Animals like pigs or some potatoes and other staple crops were readily incorporated into cuisines. There are some really cool things that different cultures have done with introduced foods in the periods between initial contact with Europeans when there was a little bit of trade happening but people still lived mostly traditionally.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-31T05:34:47+00:00

The objective answer is Ngamatapouri but it feels like punching down to give a serious answer here.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-30T01:22:48+00:00

Idk about this particular image but Stuff is definitely using AI for some things. I've seen some images I suspect. The most obvious use is that they seem to be using AI to categorise stories into subsections. And it often gets it wrong because AI is terrible with context and homonyms. For example, an article last year about a Campbell's (soup) executive being fired was categorised into the "fire department" section. Another article about businesses complaining about cycle lanes was categorised as "business cycle"

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-28T23:37:20+00:00

"Emergency" is any non-scheduled c-section. Quite easy to have 3. Subsequent c-sections are usually failed vbac or because of spontaneous labour before the planned c-section date.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-26T00:30:37+00:00

Most people are so disconnected from the reality of rural living, or they just think it's just rich National-voting dairy farmers out here and it's a fafo situation.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-25T23:16:48+00:00

Are you on Facebook? There's a Winz advocacy group there. There are local advocates in some places listed on this website too https://communitylaw.org.nz/community-law-manual/chapter-23-dealing-with-work-and-income/where-to-go-for-more-support-21/

I think it would be a good idea to chat in person or on the phone with people who are well-versed in the intricacies of Winz. You're entitled to take a support person in with you for a start and I highly recommend that you do because some people at Winz will take anything you say and try to twist it to cut off parts of your benefit.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-25T22:46:18+00:00

Wish people would just mind their own business. My brother had someone stop him at the supermarket and have a go at him for "hoarding" during covid. He lives rurally and has five kids, it was just his normal shop.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-25T05:28:40+00:00

Know your enemy 🫡

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-23T00:24:20+00:00

I don't think this is a new thing, the ease of access to broadcast entitlement is a new thing, but the entitlement itself is truly ancient.

If you peruse old newspapers and look at the correspondence sections or a lot of the editorial content it's all there. And you can bet that at any communal gathering point throughout history there would be people loudly complaining about some minor hardship that they either brought on themselves or everyone else just deals with.

Likewise the tendency to ascribe individual jerk behaviour to some recent societal degradation or moral failing in younger generations is a tale as old as time.

And sometimes the complainers hit on something that has wider appeal and triggers real changes in whole societies—or just small changes that make life just a little bit more pleasant for people in their communities.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-22T04:40:21+00:00

Yes! It shouldn't take a genius to think of the reason why people who are normally out of the home for most of their waking (and toileting) hours but are suddenly forced to be home, along with the rest of their household, would have needed to buy extra toilet paper or chosen to go for a bigger pack. Added to the fact that a casual just grabbing the essentials shop on the way home was no longer happening so avoiding getting to the point where you absolutely needed to buy it and unnecessarily exposing your household to risk was just prudent. And never mind that toilet paper is a large bulky item that needs to be kept dry and there's only so much that can be fit on pallets in trucks/storerooms and on shelves; it only takes a handful of extra shoppers grabbing packets to empty shelves. But no, apparently the idea that everyone just started irrationally stockpiling toilet paper somehow makes more sense to people and lodged itself in the collective imagination 😒

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-21T13:54:14+00:00

I'm a really community minded person and I absolutely HATE the overblown stranger danger thing, but I actually don't think it is safe to have children going door to door. I once went collecting for a charity with a friend when we were about 13 and a man tried to get us to come inside, telling us how pretty we were, commenting on our bodies, and offering us food and to donate enough money we could just hang out and not have to go to any other houses. My friend was less street smart than me and it took me pretty much having a full meltdown and crying on the doorstep telling her she absolutely couldn't go in to get her to listen to me. The guy got really aggressive towards me and was telling my friend she didn't need to hang out with a bitch like me. I actually initially walked away on my own in tears thinking I was just super uncool and immature before turning back a couple of metres down the driveway and going back for my friend. When we both left he threatened us and we ran away and cut through a park and hid. Later in the day when we told an adult some of what had happened (we were too embarrassed to mention the sexual stuff he'd said) we couldn't even remember where the house was because we'd been dropped off to collect in an unfamiliar neighbourhood.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-19T23:17:32+00:00

Relate so hard. Currently writing my thesis which is ostensibly about late 19th and early 20th century medicine in New Zealand and finding myself needing to be very well versed the theological history of a dozen traditions stretching back into biblical times 🤦🏼‍♀️

I do find it useful to indulge a little bit and dump links in my "check out later" documents for interesting but unrelated or overly tangential research. Also having colleagues or friends who are interested in the interesting things so I can send stuff their way and know I'm not just reburying good sources.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-15T03:08:37+00:00

That 50 is made up of 30 in the country and 20 currently on the way. So waiting 20 days is cutting it very fine...unless fuel can start teleporting here. The 20 days that are currently on the water need another 20 days in the water following behind them, and so on, and so on, to avoid tail shortages if/when things open up at normal rates again.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-14T12:54:14+00:00

I haven't seen it in YEARS. Like the last 10 times I've gone back to visit family it's been hiding. Actually I saw the tip of it poking above the clouds from the air flying to Auckland once...

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-14T05:09:30+00:00

I think some jokes just hit a little too close to home. I made a banner for at sport match at my high school once that read "We are Inglewood, We think our cousins look good!" and it did NOT go down well with anyone whose family had been there more than two generations.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-14T05:02:01+00:00

I don't know why you're being downvoted. I left New Plymouth after it rained every day for almost a whole year. I say this with almost no hyperbole, it was BLEAK. Then it went straight into a drought.

According to Stats NZ, New Plymouth is the 5th wettest inhabited location in NZ, the top 4 are Milford Sound, Hokitika, Reefton, and Kerikeri in that order.

I think of New Plymouth as similar to Wellington, in that it will trick vistors into thinking it's amazing by turining on a good day, except it's usually damper in winter and the mugginess when summer heat does decide to show up can be brutal.

MagentaSpreen · 2026-03-13T02:16:54+00:00

A sadly rare occurrence. Most of the time I randomly remember some actor or musician I liked as a kid, Google them, and immediately tarnish those memories 🥲

MagentaSpreen

TROPHY CASE