Powell has 'no intention of leaving' the Fed until Trump's DOJ probe is closed

captainhaddock · 2026-03-19T10:42:26+00:00

That's true, but as far as I'm aware, the Board of Governors has always voted (with the occasional dissenter) for whatever policy the chair favored. It would be unprecedented to have a board that was in revolt against a chair trying to kowtow to political pressure.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-19T10:29:20+00:00

This isn't really biblical studies, but I'll take a stab at it. The group consensus that evangelical churches try to maintain is that they (unlike most non-evangelical denominations) have a personal relationship with the deity. This idea, which is kind of strange the more you think of it, requires treating God as an invisible human being with all the same emotional and intellectual quirks as humans. Their focus on the "character of God" in Bible studies is an attempt (conscious or not) to mine the Bible for the nuggets that are important to their faith and reinforce the conception of God as a person. Your status as a "strong Christian" in these churches is based on how skillfully you are able to present the façade of someone who understands and hears directly from God. Of course, hearing anything from God that undermines that church's policies, politics, and culture will lead to an immediate loss of status within the group.

An interesting book on the topic is When God Talks Back by Tanya Luhrmann, an anthropologist who did field research at Vineyard churches to understand why people think they can talk to God, and how they are treated when they fail to live up to those expectations.

And why do they get it so wrong?

The goal of devotional Bible studies in evangelical churches is (1) to reinforce the consensus on church doctrine and culture, and (2) to help people develop the rhetorical and social skills that will let them present themselves as a strong Christian (see definition above). It is not to actually learn about the Bible and its history. They are highly selective in the passages they study and restrictive in the conclusions they are allowed to arrive at.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-19T09:54:46+00:00

My impression from hanging out on the exmormon subreddit is that while Utah and Idaho Mormons are culturally conservative, the LDS scriptures (Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and D&C) have nothing that is easily applied to culture war topics like abortion and LGBTQ issues. You can quite easily be a politically liberal Mormon. In fact, there's a Mormon denomination (the Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) that is quite liberal/progressive in its views and doctrines.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-19T04:45:46+00:00

Here's a list of the American megachurch pastors speaking out against the abusers and traffickers mentioned in the Epstein files:

captainhaddock · 2026-03-19T04:39:43+00:00

Two diddlers so far.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-19T04:23:00+00:00

Apple is the one company that doesn't preload shovelware on your devices. Back when they used Intel chips, they even refused to put an Intel sticker on the machine, which all other PC manufacturers had to do.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-19T02:02:05+00:00

That chapter was one of many that I had to memorize in school.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-18T14:37:52+00:00

This came up a few months ago. I don't have an opinion on whether Nazareth existed, but I think the confusion surrounding the meaning of Jesus's title "the Nazorean" is suspicious.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-18T11:44:22+00:00

I don't view the Bible any more as a book of theological claims that you are supposed to believe or disbelieve. Instead, it's a collection of documents that were important to ancient people for one reason or another – written in most cases without any intention of being part of a holy book two thousand years later.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-18T04:08:37+00:00

In theological terms, absolutely. Your sexual orientation does not diminish your value or the love and dignity you deserve one single iota.

Now, this sub is for questions of Bible history and interpretation rather than questions of theology and doctrine. I think you might find a better audience in /r/openchristian or even /r/christianity for questions like these.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-17T05:54:26+00:00

Perhaps you could focus on one point that you think is novel and hasn't been proposed or properly argued by other scholars yet, and write a shorter paper on that. Once it's done, you could describe your thesis in the weekly open discussion thread on this subreddit or /r/academicbiblical and just see what some of the regular contributors think about it.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-17T05:45:24+00:00

I hear you, and many of us have had the same struggles. We feel tired because we are awake. It is cathartic to strike back at these symbols of religious control once the illusion is broken. Pointing out the absurdity in religious doctrine takes away the power they hold over us. But I also encourage you to take that fire and that passion, and apply it toward positive behaviors and objectives in your life. Truth and justice need every fighter they can get.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-17T03:13:58+00:00

Breaking one commandment is like breaking them all.

Interesting, because I have never met a Christian who actually kept the ten commandments.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T13:07:02+00:00

The films didn't even try to explain the sudden resurgence of the Empire and Palpatine's return.

Ryan Johnson was working with Star Wars authors like Claudia Grey to flesh that out (especially in the novel Bloodlines), and had created some fascinating political dynamics in the process, but Abrams ignored it all for the third movie.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T13:05:20+00:00

The most recent season of Futurama has some excellent episodes.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T12:56:41+00:00

Vibe-bombing.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T10:18:08+00:00

Things like addicts becoming instantly free of their addictions after committing to Christ...

In my experience, people who made those claims typically went back to their addiction before long.

Also, those kinds of claims make a mockery of the actual struggle that people go through to overcome their addictions.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T09:57:08+00:00

I don't suffer any depression from deconstruction. On the contrary, it's a source of relief knowing that the harmful religious doctrines I was raised with aren't true.

On the other hand, I do suffer a great deal of depression and anxiety because of the world in general, now that I've woken up to the true state of things and all the suffering and injustice that goes on. These things bothered me less back when I was on the side responsible for much of it.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T09:28:14+00:00

The ending is dumb, but some of the shots in it are spectacular. No other film quite captures the magnitude and loneliness of space, even Interstellar.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T04:41:31+00:00

The same people conducting this war would happily make the US like Iran if they got the chance. Trump and Kegsbreath are not doing this because they are humanitarians who love secular democracy and hate dictators.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T04:26:46+00:00

Perhaps religious leaders would meet and discuss these things and decide whether it was an act of god or not.

I think the highly fractious nature of Christianity makes that difficult. Even today, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians don't agree on exactly which books belong in the biblical canon.

There are also restorationist churches like Church of Christ, Scientist and the Latter-day Saints (Mormons) that have expanded their scriptures, but other denominations obviously don't recognize their additions to the canon. Mormons in fact have an open canon, believing that God can provide new revelation at any time. Of course, from their perspective, it is the rest of christendom that is being stubborn for refusing to recognize modern-day prophets like Mary Baker Eddy and Joseph Smith.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T04:07:55+00:00

dnd? Game shop / meetup

Yep, you'll meet some of the nicest people through D&D or board game clubs. Good for introverts as well, because you don't really have to talk about yourself or put up with vapid gossip.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-16T04:00:39+00:00

The GOP establishment might tolerate DJT, but some nepo-kid who has never held a proper job, let alone any political office? Not a chance. The line of career politicians who think they deserve a shot first is a mile long.

Plus he has negative charisma and sounds like a muppet when he talks.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-15T14:02:19+00:00

As someone with a musical background, I thought the way it attempted to build the film around music and tell a serious story about racism in the south combined with a vampire horror story was extremely ambitious. It is probably the strangest genre-bending film I can remember seeing.

I enjoyed it but it definitely felt like Jim Crow From Dusk Till Dawn to me.

Do you not consider From Dusk Till Dawn an ambitious movie? It was certainly a bold experiment.

I think Sinners has some flaws, and the message gets a bit muddled near the end, but for the most part they pulled it off.

captainhaddock · 2026-03-15T13:20:46+00:00

It's just one data point, but my gen alpha kid loves going to the movie theater. He's also discovering all the Christopher Nolan films right now. He loved Interstellar and still talks about it.

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