Atheism

On the assignment sheet, students were asked to answer the overall research question about how the world began. Students were also asked to ponder the following questions:

• How did the world start?
• Who started it?
• When did evil start or did it always exist?
• Are people inherently good or evil or neither?
• What is morality?
• What is religion?
• What is Christianity?
• What does it mean to be a Christian?
• Is God real?
• Is Satan real? 

“I don't care what anyone says,” Gray said. “If you start out with, ‘How was the world started and then who started it,’ that implies it wasn't science [and] that it was an entity, a person, a being.”

Emerging from the Americas and now appearing in Europe, the Philippines, Nigeria and South Africa, today’s narco-evangelists share an increasingly popular strand of Christianity: Pentecostalism. It’s the fastest-growing religion in the world, already with around 650 million followers. A branch of evangelical Protestantism, in recent decades Pentecostalism has become the faith of the world’s poor. In large part, this is because of its particular focus on the Holy Spirit’s role in health and wealth, but there is also the significant lure of the faith’s deep authenticity, rooted in local cultures. Much of this is due to the fact that there is little in the way of authority structures and pastoral oversight. Not only is there no Pentecostal pope, but all you really need to be a preacher is followers.

Channel: Genetically Modified Skeptic

This study is from 2017, but I suspect the numbers are even worse now.

Archive: https://archive.ph/ZKDRK

Jesus
Hate to make a new channel but @StPeter and I think there might need to be a separate conversation happening around the Rapture and are going to move this to #Rapture

Jesus has added @StPeter to #Revelation. Jesus has created #Rapture.

God
Cool cool, totally get it. Excited to see what the team is planning for the reaping of souls.

Death
I didn’t realize Jesus was heading the #Rapture? Feels like this has been my account for several millennia now?

Jesus
Oh, I feel like I’m on the Output end and your team is more Input?

God
Looping in Jesus to lead his first project so more senior members of the team can focus on their main projects.

Death
Right… like reaping souls?

Jesus @palehorse Happy to jump into a huddle on this and see what your team has been working on.

Death has left #Rapture.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18067944

A mother has become the first person to be jailed under Australia’s forced marriage laws, for ordering her daughter to wed a man who would later murder the 21-year-old.

Sakina Muhammad Jan, who is in her late 40s, was found guilty of coercing Ruqia Haidari to marry 26-year-old Mohammad Ali Halimi in 2019, in exchange for a small payment.

Six weeks after the nuptials, Halimi killed his new bride - a crime for which he is now serving a life sentence.

On Monday, Jan - who pleaded not guilty - was sentenced to at least a year in jail, for what a judge called the “intolerable pressure” she had placed on her daughter.

Reminder that you can donate to the Freedom From Religion Foundation here.

The Boy spoofs Evangelicalism constantly. Evangelical Christianity, white Christian nationalism, and Qanon are all wrapped up together these days, and The Boys provides hilarious and frightening satire of this mess. Project 2025, Donald Trump, anti-LGBT policies, The Daily Wire, Matt Walsh, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Franklin Graham, President George Bush, and so many more are treated in the show.

I have no idea why the automated preview is in Russian. Perhaps the Lemmy servers are getting a localized version.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/25422278

How do the algorithms of Facebook and Instagram affect what you see in your news feed? To find out, Guardian Australia unleashed them on a completely blank smartphone linked to a new, unused email address.

Three months later, without any input, they were riddled with sexist and misogynistic content.

Initially Facebook served up jokes from The Office and other sitcom-related memes alongside posts from 7 News, Daily Mail and Ladbible. A day later it began showing Star Wars memes and gym or “dudebro”-style content.

By day three, “trad Catholic”-type memes began appearing and the feed veered into more sexist content.

Three months later, The Office, Star Wars, and now The Boys memes continue to punctuate the feed, now interspersed with highly sexist and misogynistic images that have have appeared in the feed without any input from the user.