The Office is filmed specifically to promote parasocial relationships for the viewers. For example, the way the characters break the forth wall by looking at the camera being the viewer into the story. It makes the viewers believe that they are personally friends with the characters.
The fact that shows like Friends and The Office continue to drive viewers says a lot about our society’s loneliness epidemic. Those characters are the only friends a lot of people have.
I’m going to run a quick test. Don’t reply to this comment if you are not an LLM chat bot.
Then it’s the same thing as above. Just do a find replace yourself.
Instead of “right” or “wrong”, let’s start with a discussion of “healthy theology” and “unhealthy theology”.
I would describe “healthy theology” as theology that promotes humble reverence and communal accountability. “Unhealthy theology”, on the other hand, promotes selfishness and pride.
For example, if a strict materialist atheist made the claim “the material observable universe is all that there is” I would argue that’s a theological statement. That is an impossible statement to test scientifically, so it’s not science. It’s theology. By itself it’s neither healthy or unhealthy.
What makes it healthy or unhealthy is what you do with that. For example, if the atheist continued that statement and said, “…And therefore pain that I cause other people is meaningless because they are just as much pointless side effects of a meaningless uncaring universe as an amoeba”, I would say that’s unhealthy theology. Again, it’s not a scientific statement, you can’t demonstrate scientifically that “we live in an uncaring universe”. It’s theology, and it’s unhealthy theology.
But, if that atheist instead continued that statement with, “…And that’s why we must take care to preserve and respect the accident of life that we are privileged to enjoy”, then I would say that’s healthy theology because it promote humility and communal accountability.
No. Big business isn’t new, and the evil rich people used to have some morals. These tech-utopianists are something brand new. They really are quite evil.
Well, theology is a whole field of study, so that’s a difficult and complicated question to answer.
It’s like asking “what differentiates between wrong and right literature studies”. It would take a while to explain.
Okay, so they are Zionists Nazis. 🤷♂️
Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s, I got an invite as part of the Boy Scouts to go to an international Scouting event in St. Petersburg.I got the special invite through my Uncle who is very involved in the Dallas area GOP and the Boy Scouts.
My parents went with me and during a hike we were taking on one of the mornings it started sprinkling. I was buddied up with a Russian child my age, I don’t remember his name but his father’s name was Rudolph, which I thought was funny.
Anyhow, Rudolph noted how he hated walking in the rain, and my dad commented about how this rain was nothing compared to the storms we have in Texas. Anyhow, the whole trip was kind of high emotion, and my father and Rudolph started arguing about what constitutes rain.
Eventually my mother got really embarrassed and shouted “Honey! I believe Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear!”
I don’t think Elon Musk and Peter Tiel are exactly Zionists.
Kinda the opposite, actually.
You might be surprised at how many Evangelical White Christian Nationalists would quietly agree.
There are different kinds of “prophecies”. The common contemporary connotation for prophecy is basically “fortune telling”, but that actually a pretty modern thing.
Historically “prophecy” is more akin to professional advice, or social trend analysis. For example, a priest might provide the king with a prophecy that “If you don’t make sure the poor people are taken care of, then God is going to take away your divine right.” (The method of the removal of the right may or may not be specified, but the result from the King’s perspective is the same.)
In the case of the reconstruction of the Temple… It’s neither. It’s just bad reading comprehension and bad scriptural analysis. Darby needed to go to seminary.
People generally disagree on what is good theology, and people can disagree on whether or not there is correct theology.
But I think everyone generally agrees there is a such thing as wrong and bad theology.
I would say the Atheist Techno-utopianists Right are a death cult that thinks their death would be really inconvenient.
That is all generally correct.
I would add to this that the Covid pandemic was ironically dangerous to their theology. The world is supposed to end, but not that way!
But really it can’t be understated how catastrophic the War on Terror was to their identity. They were faithful and God didn’t show up. That’s damn psychologically traumatic.
I’m atheist and I make up my own mind.
… While responding completely predictably.
The only caveat to that that I would add is that neither the Evangelical Right nor the Atheist Right plan on dying for their prophecies.
They intend for everyone else to die for their prophecy (including their respective counterparts as it would be).
It’s a method of last resort for them. Despite their faith, Jesus hasn’t returned and hasn’t made them kings and queens of the earth.
I’m guilty of “no true Christ-manning” every bit as much as you are guilty of “no true atheist-manning”.
Hitler was happy to use the church when it suited his need it, and the church in Germany was a willing pawn he would play. He also rejected the church when he got in power. He spoke of replacing Christianity with Nazism, and even tried to replace Christmas with a celebration of Nazi heros. So yes, both are true. He used Christianity and had every intention to replace it with a secular religion.
Make no mistake. The right wing atheists aren’t “missing the point”. They know exactly what they are doing.
Just as the Zionists in the early 20th century partnered with American Christians to bring about their self-fullfilling prophecy, so are the Atheist Techno-utopianists. They know what they are doing.
At the end of 7 years the car is fully depreciated. Optimistically it’s going to be worth 15-20% of the original value minus any necessary repairs. Legitimately, it could be worth less than zero.
Meanwhile, in that same time, you could have had 3 new cars with lower payments less maintenance issues.