#Christian business ethics

[lord-radish]

I think I'm beyond the point of an organised belief system or more far-out philosophical stance than I used to be, like I toyed with the idea of philosophical satanism for a while but learning about how shit the Satanic Temple and LaVeyan Satanism were really soured me on satanism on any level outside of aesthetic. Like fuck it I'll be a poser and dig satanic imagery while being actively critical of the institutions and foundational texts of the wider satanic/pagan movement. I'll respect the people and their own belief and adherence to an idealised version of that, but my belief in any of it, even as a transgressive counter-cultural movement, is gone.

Like for a while I just discussed satanism as a concept and talked about the tenets and how it can be a tongue-in-cheek reaction to organised religion that reflects and contrasts and is empowering and all that, and then it turns out one of the guys behind The Satanic Temple, Doug Mesicko or Doug Mesner or whatever his fucking name is, had a pro-eugenics website until very recently, chose to platform KKK members for years and is generally a very shitty, antisemitic gloryhog.

Like satanism as it exists today is a hokey novelty that some carnie came up with, and now the leading satanic org in the world take people to court because they have a copywrited version of Baphomet. It's a con, and it took the wind out of my sails, especially as more people championed TST on the grounds of religious freedom despite their consistently terrible track record in winning court cases for civil liberties.

Pro-Satan, pro-666, pro-power to the people, pro-transgression. That shit belongs to everyone. But my stance to any sort of institutionalization of that is that it should be burned to the ground. Nothing good comes from a counter-cultural institution. It's an oxymoron.

[samafricanreporter]

In Overcoming The Devourer, author Alph Lukau presents an educational and revolutionary look at the Biblical truths about the Devourer who has been destroying your God given crops and the joy of the Lord in your life. This truth shall set your life free. You will recover all that has been stolen from you so that you may begin to see the fulfillment of the promises of God in your life. In this revised and revived version of the divinely inspired groundbreaking message, Overcoming The Devourer, Pastor Alph Lukau opens the secret to enduring the devourer in a manner not yet known to many in the body of Christ today with huge depth and revelation by the Holy Spirit. These days, God is extending himself financial giants that will be pushing his agenda. In this revised and revived version of the divinely inspired groundbreaking message, Overcoming The Devourer, Pastor Alph Lukau with great depth and revelation by the Holy Spirit, unlocks the secret to overcoming the devourer in a manner not yet known to many in the body of Christ today. In these last days, God is raising himself financial giants that will push His agenda.

[prokopetz]

Not posting this as a reblog because I don't want to screw with somebody else's notes, but the whole "theological implications of Tolkien's orcs" business has some interesting history behind it.

In brief, a big part of why the Lord of the Rings Extended Universe™ is so cagey about what orcs are and where they come from is that later in his life, Tolkien came to believe that orcs as he'd depicted them were problematic – albeit not because of, you know, all the grotesque racial caricature.

Rather, he'd come to the conclusion that the idea of an inherently evil sapient species – a species that's incapable of seeking salvation – was incompatible with Christian ethics. Basically, it's one of those "used the wrong formula and got the right answer" situations.

In his notes and letters, Tolkien played around with several potential solutions to this problem. (Though contrary to the assertions of certain self-proclaimed Tolkien scholars, there's no evidence that he ever seriously planned to re-write his previous works to incorporate these ideas.) In one proposal, orcs are incarnated demons, and "killing" them simply returns them to their naturally immaterial state; in another, orcs are a sort of fleshy automaton remotely operated by the will of Sauron, essentially anticipating the idea of drone warfare.

Of course, this is all just historical trivia; any criticism of The Lord of the Rings must be directed at the books that were actually published, not the books we imagine might have been published if Tolkien had spent a few more years thinking through the implications of what he was writing. However, the direction of his thoughts on the matter is striking for two reasons:

Tolkien's orc conundrum is very nearly word for the word the problem that many contemporary fantasy authors are grappling with fifty years later. They want epic battles with morally clean heroes, and they're running up against exactly the same difficulty that Tolkien himself did – i.e., that describing a human-like species who are ontologically okay to kill is an impossible task.

After all the work he put into solving this impossible problem, one of Tolkien's proposals was literally just "what if they're not really killing the orcs, they're just sending them to the Shadow Realm?"

[spacelazarwolf]

wait you don’t have to believe in an anthropomorphic god in judaism? could you explain a bit if that’s alright?

my favorite way to explain the way jews feel about god is with the story of the oven of akhnai. basically, the sages are arguing about the halachic status of a new type of oven. there's a lot of debate and miracles to try to prove who's right, and eventually one of them is like "ok dude if ur right then god themself will say ur right." and god's like "ya ur right" but the other guy's like "fuck off god this isn't ur business." the torah is not in heaven. it's down on earth with us. we are the ones responsible for our laws and ethics.

a lot of jews i know don't believe in an anthropomorphic god. one of my rabbis believes that god is the oneness of the universe, which is an interpretation i really love. another one i love is that god is in the things we haven't been able to figure out yet, the laws of physics that don't make sense to us yet, the corners of the universe we haven't been able to reach, and the more we figure out the more we know god.

this is very different than what a lot of folks will recognize if they had a christian upbringing, because the christian god is very much seen as an authority figure, someone who is actively granting forgiveness and changing things on earth. so even for jews who do believe in something closer to what most gentiles will recognize as god, our priorities and relationship with god are still very different.

also slightly unrelated but i feel it's important to note that jewish laws were based on a time where we were a nation that was self governing, whereas with christian theology it was intended to be able to be integrated into other cultures and existing judicial systems easily because their goal is proselytizing, so god is their One Uniter. whereas there have been many services i've attended where the rabbis literally did not mention god once unless it was during a prayer or reading, which shocks a lot of ppl lmao.

[chelledoggo]

"hOw CaN yOu Be a ChRiStIaN aNd bE--"

respectfully shut the fuck up

i don't need to justify shit to you

not my sexuality, not my gender identity, not my harmless interests

nothing

i don't care if you're the fundiest fundie or the most fedora-tipping anti-theist

my life is between me and God and as long as i'm trying my best to trust in God and live a loving and ethical life it's none of your business how i live it

[wilwheaton]

In early July 2008, Samuel Alito stood on a riverbank in a remote corner of Alaska. The Supreme Court justice was on vacation at a luxury fishing lodge that charged more than $1,000 a day, and after catching a king salmon nearly the size of his leg, Alito posed for a picture. To his left, a man stood beaming: Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire who has repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to rule in his favor in high-stakes business disputes. Singer was more than a fellow angler. He flew Alito to Alaska on a private jet. If the justice chartered the plane himself, the cost could have exceeded $100,000 one way. In the years that followed, Singer’s hedge fund came before the court at least 10 times in cases where his role was often covered by the legal press and mainstream media. In 2014, the court agreed to resolve a key issue in a decade-long battle between Singer’s hedge fund and the nation of Argentina. Alito did not recuse himself from the case and voted with the 7-1 majority in Singer’s favor. The hedge fund was ultimately paid $2.4 billion. Alito did not report the 2008 fishing trip on his annual financial disclosures. By failing to disclose the private jet flight Singer provided, Alito appears to have violated a federal law that requires justices to disclose most gifts, according to ethics law experts. Experts said they could not identify an instance of a justice ruling on a case after receiving an expensive gift paid for by one of the parties.

Alito Took Unreported Luxury Trip With GOP Donor Paul Singer — ProPublica

So Harlan Crow owns Thomas, Singer owns Alito. Who owns Kavanaugh and Gorsuch? We know the Handmaid’s Association Of We Are Totally Not Fundamentalist Fanatics owns Coney Barret. And all of them invent law to get the result their owners want.

Our Constitution establishes a Supreme Court to uphold the principle that all are equal under the law, not a Star Chamber where a six person cabal create law to support the always white supremacist and christian nationalist goals of its secretive, billionaire owners. 

The current SCOTUS majority, these six, unelected political operatives who wrap themselves in the cloak of justice are corrupt, undemocratic, illegitimate, and must be nullified by expanding the court and impeaching these plainly corrupted so-called Justices.

[enarei]

After African missionaries circulated initial reports about the slave labor behind sugar in the 1790s, some consumers desisted from sugar entirely -- "anti-saccharites", mostly fervent Christians such as Quakers. As the East India importers created a market in Britain, anti-slavery societies became their free marketing teams, widely distributing pamphlets such as "What Does Your Sugar Cost?" A Cottage Conversation on the Subject of British Negro Slavery. Meanwhile, in America, the free-produce movement was led by black women, who encouraged their segregated groceries to buy only slavery-free goods.

The bind that free Black Americans faced in sourcing their food and raw materials was especially harsh. They were forced to buy "ethical" expensive cotton from white farmers instead of black slaves, which frustrated those trying to support black businesses. They sought coffee from Liberia and Haiti, hoping that the majority black demographics of these countries would support black uplift and prevent slave labor, and these created natural (and, indeed, slavery-free) coffee industries in those countries which indeed persisted for some decades.

The most surprising part of this story comes in the 1840s. After abolishing slavery in 1836, Britain had placed tariffs on slave-produced sugar in order to ensure fairness for British sugar producers who paid their laborers. This inflated sugar prices generally. Without tariffs, "free-labour sugar" would cost three times as much as its competition, defeating the East Indian importers' argument that slavery was a corrupt process which artificially inflated prices. It soon became clear that the writing was on the wall. In 1845, the primary importer of "free-labour sugar" exited the sugar market, and the following year, Britain decided to remove all the tariffs, for the benefit of consumers. Free-labour sugar completely vanished as a category thereafter.

Meanwhile in the United States, abolitionists criticized the free-produce movement as ineffective; similar to "free-labour sugar", it only placed an extra economic burden on those struggling to live ethically. It was recognized on both sides of the Atlantic that making individual consumer choices was not enough, and that systemic change was necessary to permanently eliminate slavery. As a status symbol, though, "free cotton made by escaped slaves" continued to be worn in Britain and attracted comment in aristocratic salons into the 1860s. In this final stage of the movement, free labor was considered to be part of a civilizing project, a way to train ex-slaves in useful arts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/138i5at/comment/jj04qsx/?context=3

[jessicalprice]

all hail her excellent braids

Christians: omg first century Judaism was soooo misogynistic but Jesus was like the first feminist because he treated women like people

Jews: what

Christians: like, Jewish men would cross to the other side of the street to avoid having to be too close to women

Jews: hang on do you think there were, like, sidewalks in first-century Jerusalem?

Christians: and Jewish women weren't supposed to be seen in public

Jews: that's not how--

Christians: and men weren't even supposed to talk to women, but Jesus had female followers <3

Jews: first-century Jewish women owned their own businesses and represented themselves in court and, like, how are you imagining business got done if they weren't allowed to talk?

President Jimmy fucking Carter: first century Jews were basically the Taliban

A bazillion seminary textbooks: yup, the Pharisees were obsessed with ritual purity and viewed women as inherently unclean and Jesus upended all that Pharisaic hatred of women and that's why they wanted him dead

Shlomtzion, aka Salome Alexandra, has entered the chat.

Ahem, let me tell you about the Pharisee Queen.

So back in the day, the Pharisees were a tiny, persecuted movement because the King of Judah, Alexander Jannaeus hated them. He straight-up massacred 6,000 of them when they pelted him with fruit after he mocked them by performing a Sukkot ritual incorrectly, which kicked off a whole civil war. He won the war, and slaughtered the wives and children of 800 of the surviving Pharisees as entertainment at his victory feast before crucifying the men. The remaining Pharisees went into hiding.

Just a charming dude.

Alexander Jannaeus was married to Salome Alexandra (Shlomtzion, in Hebrew).

Her brother was Shimon ben Shetach, the leader of the Pharisees. (If you're getting Esther vibes here, that's probably not accidental.

She doesn't seem to have had much power while Alexander Jannaeus was alive, but she managed to help hide and protect the surviving Pharisees.

This doesn't seem to have negatively impacted her relationship with her husband, because he named her--rather than any of his sons--his heir while he was on his deathbed.

He was in the middle of conducting a siege of Ragaba when he died, so like the incredible badass she was, became queen--and would be both only the second queen regnant of Judah and the last sovereign Jewish monarch--on the battlefield, in the midst of hostilities.

She had to conceal her husband's death until she'd won the day.

As soon as she made his death public, she reached out to the Pharisees to make peace between them and the throne, avoiding a popular uprising at his funeral. The funeral went off smoothly, and she immediately began settling other political disputes and enmities.

She also hung out and studied with the Pharisees. We know this because Josephus, an ardent misogynist, absolutely hated that she did this, just like he absolutely hated that she had ruled Judah, and wrote about it.

Josephus had been a Sadducee (main opposing party to the Pharisees), but switched to the Pharisees later in life for political expediency. He never seemed to actually like them, though.

He tells on himself so much.

"Oh, people love the Pharisees because they are humane and flexible interpreters of the law and practice what they preach and this is a BAD THING!"

Literally, on Shlomtzion: "Woman though she was, she established her authority by her reputation for piety."

Like, everyone respected her and did what she said because she actually gave a shit about ethics and somehow this is a BAD thing.

She averted war with Egypt by buddying up to Cleopatra (I am so headcanoning them as pen pals, writing each other to vent about all the men they have to deal with) and somehow this is a BAD thing.

So she takes the throne and manages to keep things running pretty smoothly in a precarious time because she's good at organizing AND military strategy AND diplomacy and here's Josephus on her relationship with the Pharisees:

"She paid too great heed to them, and they, availing themselves more and more of the simplicity of the woman, ended by becoming the effective rulers of the state... "

Ah yes, FlavJo, she sounds very "simple," what with the incredible military and diplomatic skills.

While she wasn't averse to fighting when she needed to, she mostly averted possible battles by fortifying and provisioning cities so well that neighboring monarchs opted not to attack them, so she was also just slaying at project management. She ended a bunch of the foreign wars her asshole husband started, and scrupulously kept to the terms of any treaties Judah was party to.

Her reign was possibly the most prosperous and peaceful period in Judah's history.

She gave the Sadducees (her husband's party) their own fortified cities so they'd stop feuding with the Pharisees, and took the Pharisees from a small, persecuted populist movement in hiding to one of the major political parties.

She set up a system of universal public education, putting the responsibility for educating the kids on the government, not families, to make sure it wasn't just rich kids getting a solid education. She re-established the Sanhedrin (the Supreme Court, basically) and made sure every town under her rule had access to judges.

And then one of her asshole sons, who apparently took after his asshole dad, decided HE would be a better ruler than she was, and DECLARED WAR ON HIS OWN MOM. She died, apparently of an illness, in her 70s.

She died as the last free Jewish ruler.

So then that asshole son went after the other asshole son, and they turned to the Romans for help.

(You want to get occupied? This is how you get occupied.)

Yes, that's right, they committed one of the classic blunders: inviting the Romans in.

THE ROMANS ARE LIKE VAMPIRES. DO NOT INVITE THEM IN.

Anyway, we all know how THAT turned out.

In rabbinic literature, she's almost a fertility goddess figure, or a personification the land itself, or a monarch beloved by G-d possibly moreso than any other, since the rest of them all screwed up and the Jews got punished with war or exile or famine or disease: legend claims that during her reign, rain only fell on Shabbat, so people didn't have to work in the rain. Grains of wheat grew to the size of kidneys, and lentils were the size of gold denarii. The people knew joy like we've never known since and were healthy and prosperous and at peace.

She was praised by contemporaries such as Josephus as having greater intelligence, political skill, and military acumen than the men around her (although Josephus, an ardent misogynist, later decided that it was inappropriate for her to rule), and the stories of Esther, Judith, and Susanna may have been written (or in the case of Esther, edited and codified) in her honor. 

​Anyway, the Pharisees' teachings remained especially popular among women, and the person who saved them (and thus, by extension, Judaism, when they were the ones to preserve it in exile) and brought them to power and was their beloved patron was a woman, and maaaaaaybe Christians don't know the first thing about women in first-century Judaea or the Pharisees and women and should shut up, idk.

All hail Shlomtzion and her most excellent braids.

[dykeiism]

why are radfems against sex work?

i'd like to make a post to summarize my views on pornography, prositution, and other forms of sex work. it will be useful for me to have it all in one place, and i'll continue to update it as i learn more about the topic. i've broken down my arguments into three categories: demand, consent, and intimacy. there's a lot of overlap between the categories, but i still find it helpful to have it organized in this manner. ↶ೃ✧˚demand. ❃ ↷ ˊ- sex work creates a demand that will be fulfilled with sex trafficking.

let's imagine the best-case scenario: a woman doing sex work because she wants to. she genuinely enjoys this type of work, and her clients treat her well. this is understood by some to be "ethical sex work."

as a business, sex work must actively encourage the demand for sex work to keep increasing. porn industries want to create porn addicts. they want to create a pornsick society. that’s how businesses survive. it's horribly optimistic to imagine that every person who wants to use pornography or prostitutes will do so ethically (assuming that ethical sex work is possible). but let's imagine for a moment that ethical sex work exists, and that everyone who wants to consume sex work does so ethically. would there ever be enough women who are willingly going into sex work to satisfy this demand? as long as there is a demand, there will be sex trafficking to meet that demand. the “ethical” sex worker is a very very small minority of sex workers who throws every other sex worker and prostituted woman/girl under the bus for her own gain.

sex workers need men to use porn and prostitutes, and they will encourage men to do so. is this good for feminism? do you think these are good men? do you think these men respect the women in their lives? do they have healthy sexual relationships, or are they sexually reliant on static fantasies created by strangers who they have no personal connection or intimacy with?

↶ೃ✧˚consent. ❃ ↷ ˊ- consent can't be bought. consent can’t be bought--in fact, the mainstream conception of "consent" isn't one that respects women's sexual desires. it's a copout that allows men to do whatever they want to women, as long as the woman agrees to having it done to her. sex is something you do with someone, not to them. so many women (including myself) have uncritically consented to sexual activities in the heat of the moment because our minds were clouded by confusion, surprise, or anxiety, and we didn't feel like we could take a moment to think things through. think of it from the perspective of someone who uses a prostitute, in the best case scenario (in which the woman is pursuing prostitution of her own volition and not out of necessity): you found a woman who you're sexually interested in, but she isn't interested in you. instead of offering her a worthwhile sexual experience, you use your money to blow past her disinterest and buy her consent. you then begin to touch and penetrate a woman who wouldn't be interested in you if not for the money you offered her. you see no problem with this. since you are paying this woman, she is providing you a service. you have a one-sided sexual encounter where you use someone else's body to fulfill your own desires. think about the men who do this, and the men who consume pornography. how do you think they view sexuality? how do you think they treat their own sexual partners, after consuming so many static sexual fantasies that are devoid of any personal intimacy? ↶*ೃ✧˚intimacy. ❃ ↷ ˊ- i've decided to put "intimacy" at the end, because it is the most subjective of the three. upon reading this, it may become quite clear that these views are influenced by my personal experiences with sex work, sexual trauma, and christianity.

if you’re sex positive, you’ll be against porn. porn misrepresents sexuality by completely divorcing sexual pleasure from love, intimacy, and vulnerability. witnessing such intimate imagery of total strangers will inevitably mess up the way you approach your own sexuality, and the way you interact with sexual partners. porn puts a price on sexuality and makes it into something that can be bought and sold.  porn consumption encourages hookup culture

[lumberjackloverboy-moved]

think im gonna start a business and specifically not provide my services to any christian bc as a filthy queer it’s against my moral and ethical beliefs 💕

[supermaks]

never took him seriously anyways but zak going "we need christian horner of this sport" and inviting trump, who is in the middle of a trial regarding hush money to victims of svsh like......

Read more because I don't mean to clog anybody's tl wid this bs I truly just want to vent 😐

Lemme tell u something because that's part of what's making this whole deal so deeply hard to stomach. Zak brown sees the accusations against horner as a business opportunity because horner's his adversary in this particular business. that's it. And like I was willing to put up wid his lil act because at the end of the day he's saying the right things and he's an influential voice in the sport. So like who cares if its empty and not genuine, positive net benefit etc. whtvr. BUT Zak brown was also one of the few tps/owners who backed the FIA when they clamped down on drivers voices and prohibited 'political' acts in 2022. Zak brown said, and I quote, 'We just need to find a balance there and not have every start of a race being a new political agenda for someone. I don't think that's healthy as it can detract from what everyone has tuned in to, which is they want to watch a grand prix.' 😐 which first of all everybody point and laugh great job finding that balance and not detracting from the race you fucking phony ass bitch but whtvr I digress. So this whole sad event happens right and McLaren just came out wid a statement clarifying they are not backing Trump as a candidate they simply accepted f1's request to show him around the garage out of respect for the US presidency office. And that frankly pisses me off sm because I can only swallow sm fucking bullshit being fed to me until i start vomiting bro. McLaren is based in Woking, England. McLarens two active drivers are australian and British. McLaren doesn't have to be the team that accepts that request, doesn't have to let it happen in front of cameras, certainly doesn't have to let their winner get photographed shaking Trumps hand while Trumps wearing his campaigns slogan hat. Trump is in the middle of a fucking court case, he was found liable for sa like u so rightfully pointed out, the election in exactly six months. That was an endorsement and a very public one and I just pray to God Zak brown at LEASTTT drops his fake fucking concern for ethics in the sport and never speaks another word of it because if he does bro I might go to jail over something

[determinate-negation]

The logic of cultural assimilation and the desire to climb the ladder of prestige led the Jewish bourgeoisie to send its sons to the University, especially towards the end of the nineteenth century:

“Just like the majority of German businessmen, Jews wanted to climb socially… They wanted their sons and sons-in-law to be more valued than they were. A career as an officer or as a high-ranking government official, which were the goals of a young Christian man, was closed to Jews … only university studies were open to him.”

As a result, in 1895 Jews comprised 10% of the student body in German universities, which was ten times the percentage of Jews in the overall population (1.05%). This massive presence of bourgeois Jewish youth in higher education quickly led to the formation of a new social category: the Jewish intelligentsia. Jewish intellectuals of German culture had, of course, existed since the late eighteenth century (Moses Mendelssohn), but it was only at the end of the nineteenth century that the phenomenon became so widespread as to constitute a new social fact. These Jewish intellectuals, déclassé, unstable and free of any precise social attachment, were a typical example of the sozialfreischwebende Intelligenz that Mannheim spoke of. Their condition was eminently contradictory: deeply assimilated yet largely marginalized; linked to German culture yet cosmopolitan; uprooted and at odds with their business and bourgeois milieu of origin; rejected by the traditional rural aristocracy yet excluded in career terms within their natural sphere of acceptance (the university). In a state of ideological availability, they were soon attracted to the two principal poles of German cultural life, which could be named after the famous characters from Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain: ‘Settembrini’, the liberal, democratic and republican philanthropist, and ‘Naphta’, the conservative/revolutionary romantic.

For many young Jewish intellectuals, rationalism, progressive evolutionism, Aufklärung and neo-Kantian philosophy became the primary reference, in some cases combined with a Judaism that was diluted or reduced to monotheist ethics (Hermann Cohen). From this world-view several political options were available, ranging from moderate liberalism (the ideology of the Jewish bourgeoisie itself), to social democracy (Eduard Bernstein), Marxism (Max Adler, Otto Bauer and the Austrian Marxists) and even Communism (Paul Levi, Ruth Fischer, Paul Frölich, August Thalheimer).

Nevertheless, at the turn of the century, anti-capitalist romanticism was the dominant movement within the culture of Mitteleuropa. Sociologically speaking, it was inevitable that a significant portion of the new university-trained Jewish intelligentsia would be attracted by the romantic critique of industrial civilization: ‘Naphta!’ The intelligentsia eagerly discovered the nostalgic and anti-bourgeois Weltanschauung predominant in academia – notably in the Geisteswissenschaften (Humanities), where the majority of Jewish students enrolled. These students subsequently rejected their fathers’ business careers, revolted against their bourgeois family milieu and aspired intensely to an ‘intellectual life style’. This generational break, which many Jewish intellectuals speak of in their autobiographies, opposed the anti-bourgeois youth – passionately interested in Kultur, spirituality, religion and art – to their entrepreneurial parents – merchants or bankers, moderate liberals and good German patriots, indifferent to religious matters. In a recent autobiographical interview, Leo Löwenthal, the Frankfurt School sociologist of literature, summarized the feeling that was common among many intellectuals of his generation: ‘My family household, as it were, was the symbol of everything I did not want – shoddy liberalism, shoddy Aufklärung, and double standards.’

Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe, Michael Löwy

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Kate Connolly at The Guardian:

A German aristocrat who hosted Samuel Alito at her castle in 2023 has revealed new details about her friendship with the rightwing supreme court justice, including that they share a mutual friend who played a key role in JD Vance’s conversion to Catholicism. Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, a onetime party girl turned traditionalist Catholic activist who has faced criticism for her defense of far-right politicians in Germany, told the Guardian that she first met Alito in Rome – she could not remember what year – and that both were friends of Dominic Legge, a priest and Yale Law graduate in Washington who Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, has often cited in discussions about his adult conversion to Catholicism.

The relationship between the 64-year-old noblewoman and Alito sparked media interest after the supreme court justice revealed last week in a financial disclosure form that he had accepted concert tickets worth $900 from the billionaire, who refers to herself as a princess even though Germany’s aristocracy was officially disbanded after the first world war. She later told the German press that Alito had overestimated the cost of the tickets, but did not elaborate. The supreme court justice has previously faced scrutiny for failing to report free travel on a private jet from a wealthy conservative billionaire who had business before the court, a story first reported by ProPublica that is a part of a broader ethics scandal that has engulfed the high court in recent years. Alito faced a separate controversy earlier this year after it was discovered that his household had flown an upside-down flag, a symbol of Stop the Steal campaigners who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, as well as a second flag at a beach property that was associated with the Christian nationalist movement. Alito’s disclosure about the free tickets are significant for another reason: they reveal new insights into Alito and his wife Martha-Ann’s apparent personal ties to a European aristocrat who is deeply entrenched in an international rightwing movement that is seeking to advance conservative Catholic policies.

Allies in her fight include the rightwing nationalist Steve Bannon and the ultra conservative German cardinal Gerhard Müller, who she once called the “Donald Trump of the Catholic Church”. Her circle is known to be fiercely critical of Pope Francis – who is seen as too liberal by orthodox and traditionalist sects of the Catholic church. Legge, who leads the Thomistic Institute in Washington, is a prominent member of an elite circle of traditionalist Catholics in the US capital, and sits on the board of an organization – the Napa Legal Institute – alongside Leonard Leo, the powerbroker who is widely seen as having used his influence to install Republicans’ conservative supermajority on the supreme court and reportedly recently called for conservative activists to “crush liberal dominance at the choke points of influence and power in our society”.

[...] Von Thurn und Taxis compared herself to the late British Queen Elizabeth – whose family she noted was of German descent – and said the role of the aristocracy in Germany was to unite people and “keep politics out of the salon”. She also claimed in an email not to know that the decision that overturned abortion rights is called the “Dobbs decision”. But an examination of von Thurn und Taxis’s own activities shows that the woman who was known during a punk phase – before her turn to conservative Catholicism – as Princess TNT, for her explosive personality – has deep political ties that have given her access not only to supreme court justices, but inside the Trump White House.

[...] “This is not just about the arrogance of a powerful man already embroiled in controversial ties to billionaires. It is also about the company he keeps: choosing to accept very expensive concert tickets from a woman who embraces far-right politicians who are aligned with her outspoken hostility toward abortion access and marriage equality,” said Lisa Graves, the managing director of Court Accountability and a former deputy assistant attorney general at the US Department of Justice. Graves added: “Their alliance is unsurprising though very troubling since Alito has been using his position on the supreme court to advance a parallel regressive agenda into law.” In October 2019, at a speech in Washington in which she effusively praised the Trump administration, von Thurn und Taxis personally thanked Leonard Leo for setting up meetings for Cardinal Müller, who she was traveling with, to visit the White House and meet with people who were directly advising Trump on religious liberty and free speech.

She warned that, if Trump was not re-elected, “they will come after us” and that “nothing less” was at stake than the right to worship. Democrat Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, later won the 2020 election, but neither he nor Nancy Pelosi, another prominent Democratic Catholic politician, are seen as authentic Catholics by traditionalists. During that trip, von Thurn und Taxis also met and was photographed with Alito, Cardinal Müller, the supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Brian Brown, who was then the head of the anti-LGBTQ+ group National Organization for Marriage (NOM). According to reporting by the New Yorker, NOM was actively lobbying the court on cases involving gay rights at the time of the meeting.

This year, in a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Brussels in April called Threats to Faith and Family, von Thurn und Taxis served up a series of grievances about the state of the family in Europe, complained that “only homosexuals want to get married”, while unmarried heterosexual couples were opting for pets instead of children. She also criticized – in an apparent reference to the availability of reproductive rights in Europe – how leaders continued to “finance the killing of our offspring”, which she said would exacerbate future labor shortages on the continent. “Does this make any sense? Is there some kind of racism? Are we not supposed to reproduce?” she asked rhetorically, before launching into praise of Hungary, which she said was an outlier in supporting families with children. Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian autocratic leader, has been a guest at the noblewoman’s festival.

The Guardian has a explosive report that SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito has ties to far-right German aristocrat Gloria von Thurn und Taxis.

[waitmyturtles]

Hello,

Some of your Only Friends meta sparked a question for me: You've referred to the impact of purity culture on how the boys (particularly Boston) are viewed both within the show and by fans watching. I was raised evangelical Christian (don't worry, it went poorly), so my associations with purity culture are quite specific to promise rings, abstinence-only education, and that sort of thing. However, you seem to be working from a much more expansive view that includes purity culture's downstream effects such as slut-shaming, heteronormativity, pressure to perform monogamy, etc. (and in at least one case you also linked it to colonialism).

Since your definition of purity culture is so much broader than mine has traditionally been, I'm curious: What exactly do you mean when you use the term, and what are the parameters of purity culture from your perspective?

I've been kind of squinting interestedly at your usage and trying to reverse-engineer your definition from context and it finally occurred to me that I can just ask you lol

(also I know tone can be hard to gauge on the internet so just to be safe: I'm in no way trying to start a weird fight about the meaning of the term; I'm just interested in what you're saying and seeking to understand it better)

Thank you!

Bonebag

HELLO @sorry-bonebag! WHAT A QUESTION! I don't think this is weird at all -- I think it's the fascinating basis of a conversation.

I'm not sure that I'm going to have a central, singular answer for you regarding how I view and/or define "purity culture." I think, as I generalize (massive emphasis on my generalizations in this answer) society's lack of acceptance for open sexual conduct and engagement, that we're dealing with a lot of elements of how power is managed and distributed among humans. For example, if we roll back to, say, the creation of Christianity as a religion, we have to ask: WHY does the religion have what it says about sex? Controlling sex means controlling people -- it means controlling who gets born, and who gets to pair with each other. Controlling sex means controlling behavior, and creating submissiveness to a religion allows a smaller group of people massive power over larger groups. Christianity (as an example) is a modern expression of a primal biological urge that humans have to create groups and gain power for survival. So, first and foremost, to judge someone else for having sex in modern times gives that judge a sense of power over someone else.

In a judgement against sex, and people who have unabashed sex -- let's use Khai from Theory of Love and Boston as examples -- what assumptions/judgements/behaviors are leveraged as we condemn these men (and women, and non-binary individuals) for having lots of sex? From my lens, we have the following prejudices playing into this:

Misogyny Internalized homophobia (on the part of the person being judged) Externalized homophobia (on the part of the people doing the judging) Biases against nontheistic people Jealousy (for the ease in which some people can come into sex) Competition

and so many more. All of these prejudices can and ARE leveraged to judge people for having sex, because judging people for having sex gives the judges power in greater society, as greater society ultimately looks down on the practice of having lots of sex.

I think a fantastic example of this is when Sand was talking about Boston to Ray in this past weekend's episode. Why the hell would Sand even have any business talking about Boston to Ray? Because condemning Boston's "slutty" behavior will give Sand a sense of power for Ray to acknowledge.

By calling another person a "slut" -- a person like Sand gains an upper moralistic and ethical hand. All while Sand is the person that Ray is sleeping with as Ray cheats on Mew. Calling someone ELSE a slut allows Sand (and, let's be honest, Ray, too!) to escape accountability for his own questionable behavior.

And that's what I'm calling out in my posts, especially my Morning After meta from yesterday. If a meta writer is condemning Boston for having sex, or is interpreting that SandRay have only slept together once, to fulfill some kind of shipper fantasy -- I'm going to write about those judgements in my posts, because I don't think those judgements are fair to a show that was very open and honest, at its premiere, about its premise that it would be digging into issues regarding sex and toxicity. I think "purity culture," as we're calling it, is a means by which the fandom wants to control the sexual behavior of Asian queer men. Much of the fandom here on Tumblr is Western, and as an Asian-American, it also gives me the jibbles that a Western audience would want to control with power, the behavior of Asian queer males, a much smaller demographic than a wider Western audience. That's where I bring a colonialist accusation to the table. To me, all of this keeps coming back to power. (I write about this in that post that talks about colonialism. Shipping really worries me. To force two young Asian males into a relationship fantasy -- and then to push that fantasy towards monogamy and a restriction of sex. I mean. Whoa. I very much see colonialism and racism in there, as non-Asians push Asians to behave in prescribed ways.)

This conversation circles back in part to the exhortation I made at the start of OF's premiere, that as much of the fandom as possible should watch Gay OK Bangkok. Jojo Tichakorn's and Aof Noppharnach's GOKB depicted Asian queer males in sex, love, pain, and careers. In this show, there were no condemnations for slutty behavior. (I mean, Pom expected Arm to fall in and out of love, but Pom wasn't being judgmental about it -- he ended up being there for his friend in a hilar way. Anyway!) A specter of morality and ethics, the Greek chorus or peanut gallery of chirping about not having sex did NOT permeate the show. It was just -- Asian gay males living their lives.

Only Friends is bringing up sooooo much about how the characters within the show, and the fandom external to the show, think about, talk about, and judge sex. Having these conversations, for me, is lifeblood. As an Asian-American, I WISH I could have had these open conversations about sex when I was a growing teen. Alas. The culture in which I grew up -- one that valued virginity, purity, and one that condemned sexual experimentation -- prevented me from being open in conversation about sex. I'm thankful that I grew up more and more independently as I got older, and that I had the intellectual capacity to understand and process when I was being judged, myself, for having sex. Because we've all been there, those of us who have had and enjoyed sex. We've been condemned for it, judged for it, every single one of us. We've been made to feel guilty about it.

And even as someone like Boston gets JUDGED, in every episode of OF, for HAVING lots of sex -- I SO appreciate his existence as a character and a narrative device, that he exists as a mirror for OTHER characters, like Ray/Atom/Sand/even Mew/even Top -- who do not hold themselves accountable for either similar behaviors, and/or for behaviors that are far more questionable than simple having sex. Top violated Mew's boundaries in episode 8 -- flat out. And Top's not been held accountable for a second. Top still has power, he still has an upper hand.

This was a long answer, @sorry-bonebag, but TL;DR: POWER. Power and accountability are two elements of humanity that I am forever fascinated by, and I love that we have a brilliant showmaker in Jojo to help highlight this in his art.

I very much hope I touched upon a kind of answer for your question, but at least you got to read some of my deeper thoughts on this topic! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS CONVERSATION!

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Why I Do Not Celebrate “LGBTQ+ Pride Month” But Mourn It

by Robert A.J. Gagnon

Not only is pride generally a sin, but also there is nothing to be proud of in the so-called "LGBTQ+ Pride Month." Let us love persons with same-sex attractions and gender-identity dysphoria by rejecting that facet of their existence that dishonors the persons whom God has created in his image.

We should also show sympathy for their struggle with sinful desires, and applaud the way God can use the mortification of such desires to deepen a relationship with himself and others. Yet no one should take pride in such desires or the behavior that follows from gratifying them.

I. What is there to be proud of?

Why should one take pride in being erotically aroused by the distinctives of one's own sex, which is either narcissism or self-deception (viz., the failure to apprehend that one is already fully one's own sex)?

Should people also take pride in being erotically aroused by close kin (incest, i.e., attraction to a kinship same, akin to attraction to a sexual same) or by multiple persons concurrently (which Jesus rejected based on the logic of God's intentional creation of a sexual binary)?

Why should one take pride in rejecting the messaging of one's body as designed by God by identifying with a "gender" at odds with one's biological sex? A complaint against one's Creator is nothing to be proud of, but rather an expression of idolatry.

II. Social harm and the condemnation of Scripture

The "queer" lifestyle is one marked by disproportionately high rates for sexually transmitted disease and higher numbers of sex partners (especially for homosexual males), as well as higher relational turnover and increased mental health problems (especially for homosexual females).

These risks correlate with known male-female differences; expected results when an intimate relationship lacks true sexual counterparts or complements. Same-sex unions don't moderate the extremes of a given sex; they ratchet them up; don't fill in the gaps, but widen the breach.

Scripture (including Jesus and the apostolic witness to him) views homosexual practice and transgenderism as abhorrent sexual immorality ("abominations") that can get unrepentant offenders excluded from God's kingdom. Such behaviors assault the foundation of sexual ethics as defined by Jesus himself, his Scripture, and his apostles.

III. The dangers of “LGBTQ+” politics

The "LGBTQ+" political agenda is the most illiberal and hateful agenda in politics today. It is characterized by efforts to stifle free speech and the free exercise of religion. It is the greatest threat to these freedoms in the Western world today, and has been for decades.

No political lobby has concentrated more on canceling and censoring others, indoctrinating school children, and even mandating compelled speech (the hallmark of totalitarians). People's jobs are being put at risk who dissent from "LGBTQ+" dogma: teachers, doctors, nurses, psychologists, florists, photographers, small business owners, lawyers, corporate executives, etc.

Children are being directed toward chemical castration and mutilation surgery, an obvious instance of child abuse being pushed by the state. Indeed, the state is now moving in the direction of regarding parents who fail to affirm their child's "LGBTQ+" identity as perpetrating child abuse (we know who the real child abusers are), requiring the state's intervention to take your own child away from you.

Men identifying falsely as women are invading women's restrooms, locker rooms, sports, shelters, and prisons, even being celebrated with misogynistic awards declaring them to be better women than real women.

The very idea of faithful Christian education is being put at risk, with calls for tying federal student loans, grants, and accreditation toward lock-step compliance with "LGBTQ+" ideology.

IV. Moral rot and true love

Science is suffering at the hands of a movement that teaches that men too can have periods and give birth. A gnostic spirit pervades the land, declaring entrapment in bodies not designed to express their sexually immoral desires.

This is not a month to be "proud" but rather a month to mourn. Mourn the moral rot pervading our country. It has harmed not only the nation as a whole, but especially those who in their self-delusion celebrate what is injurious to themselves, and to their relationship with others and God.

As Paul told the Corinthians, they should not be "puffed up" or "inflated with pride" over their ability to tolerate an egregious act of sexual immorality (there a case of adult-consensual incest). To support the "queer" life is a manifestation of functional hate, not love.

Therefore, I choose rather to love, to love truly, those who identify as "gay," "lesbian," "bisexual," and "transgender," rejoicing in the truth rather than in the lie, whatever the cost for doing so.

[codenamesazanka]

Its not even a matter of being a villains fan or not, the writing is just genuinely bad because it contradicts dekus character and interrupts shigarakis storyline. Deku was written to set himself apart from others by using his stablished inherent goodness to save (not kill) the "unredeemable villain", that was his narrative challange/conflict, like it was done with uraraka and shouto (except they are not the MC). This is not a overanalysis, its literally how the author was writing his mc lmao.

Hi anon, again(?)

I'm not disagreeing with you! About Deku being bad writing. Sorry if it came off that way. I think the story really did mostly tell us about Deku's attributes without showing them, and also effectively gaslit us about Deku's uniquely great drive to save and that all the stuff he did was in service of that 'saving'.

I have to point out, though, that technically killing was never off the table. Nana asked him if he had the resolve to kill, and Deku said 'Dunno. Maybe there will be no other way', and only after that says he wants to try saving first. Gran Torino gave us the "killing is salvation" and Deku never contradicts him, and now it seems like that was the thing Deku took to heart.

The thing about 'saving' is that - I think - it's in a Buddhist context that this Japanese manga takes place in. Though take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. Idk about Horikoshi's religious beliefs and HeroAca isn't an explicitly Buddhist work, but Buddhist thought is part of Japanese culture, so it's inevitable that its sensibilities and ethics show up everywhere.

'Saving' here means ending suffering, being freed from things like anger and hatred. It doesn't necessarily mean 'not kill' or 'no death'. Sort of like saving the soul. Which is why Deku smashing Shigaraki's hatred is him 'saving' Shigaraki... and then he can just let Shigaraki die. Deku even talks to Shigaraki in the latter's final moments about basically trying to end the cycle of sadness/grief/misery - with him releasing Shigaraki from it.

(I don't think this is unique to Buddhism either... Saving the soul is also a thing in Christianity, right? With death still okay. That's something I know even less about, though, so pardon me.)

Quoting @bnhaobservation :

It's similar to how Midoriya saves Shigaraki's soul and we aren't impressed, but Japanese readers are.

In the western culture when someone dies, at most, we only worry about the soul regretting his wrongdoings or he'll end in hell (that and that he won't look deserving of being forgiven by the audience if he doesn't regret them).

In Japan, when someone dies in a violent way including murder or suicide or dies leaving behind unfinished business or do not receive appropriate funeral rites upon their death, they believe his spirit remains trapped in the world of living and can't move on and this is torture for said soul.

So the idea that Shigaraki's soul was soothed, that was put to rest, is really important and equates to salvation in a Japanese mind-setting... but, to us, it's only a last smile before death.

Deku was indeed written to set himself apart from others - by even bothering to care a little bit about Shigaraki and 'not ignoring the Inner Crying Child'. (But then there was Uraraka, feeling the same way about Toga...) No one else on the Hero side cared, not even All Might and Gran Torino with their connections to the Shimura Family that Shigaraki/Tenko is part of. Deku's inherent goodness means compassion, which, again, he shows by 'not ignoring the Inner Crying Child'. He takes the extra step of trying to save Shigaraki's heart, which technically he didn't have to. He could've just killed Shigaraki from the start. And so that's his great heroism.

Furthermore, he's actually unhappy about being unable to save Shigaraki/Tenko's life. That's a sign of his amazing kindness.

I largely disagree with this. I think 'saving' should've meant also physically saving Shigaraki. I think Deku's kindness was bare minimum, and this is absolutely not "extraordinary heroism". But that's me. I've seen a few Japanese readers also take Shigaraki's ending to mean that he couldn't be saved, or disagree with Deku's violent mind-invasion actions. But most of the reactions I have seen from Japanese readers do agree with Deku having did his best and succeeded in saving Shigaraki's heart, and that was what was needed, and so Deku is a great Hero. This isn't unique to Japan either - good portion of people in Western fandom also seem to agree.

Writing is still bad, though, with Deku being so bland and boring and empty of a character and the story often insisting that Deku doing a regular old thing that other characters have also done is actually the epitome of heroism. Then there's everything else in Act 3.

Thanks for the ask, anon! Sorry you were disappointed.