The Christian Right is in Decline

[toobfreak]

I can't get past the NYT paywall

Can't afford it, eh?

Only idiots pay for subscriptions

Kinda harsh on yourself but true. YOU picked the site.

when 90% of the time you can find the same story for free somewhere else in a split second.

Except in a Dr. Gloveass thread.

 

[marvin martian]

View attachment 511831
Franklin Graham march in DC...

Franklin Graham has been very instrumental in converting Christianity from a religious group to a political group. He's nothing like his father was.

You hated his father, too.

 

[DrLove]

CRT is every bit as divisive and illiberal as the Domionists are.

The funny thing is that Evangelicals are not, and have never been, the majority Christian sect. If Dominionists want a solely Christian nation, they are in the wrong country because this county is founded on the principle all faiths and religions are welcome here.

As for Critical Race Theory: I have done a lot of family genealogy. There are branches tracing back to the Puritans and the Mayflower; branches that arrived after the Civil War; branches that were early settlers of Canada and moved south into the USA, again after the civil war. One branch (with the same immigrant ancestor as Abraham Lincoln was in the South at the time of the civil war.

Slavery began in the US with indentured servants. One mixed group of whites and black that were early Southerners were to serve from 7 to 15 years. Whites were able to serve their allotted time and move on. The blacks were denied freedom because...plantations needed free labor and the reason given is that the Blacks were not Christian.

Who gave that reason and who went along with it? Big businesses of the day (plantation owners, cotton, tobacco, indigo industries) who lobbied and got consent from the government. It has never been a fight of white against black as much as it was then as it is today--the fight of both black and white against big business and government overstepping its bounds.

In the South at the time of Civil War, I cannot find any proof that the families owned slave (too poor), and in fact only 1 in 4 families had slaves (or 1 in 5 of Southern individuals). However, I do know that part of that line was either okay with slavery or in favor of states rights (maybe both). One of my great-great-greats was called out onto his front porch and shot over his position on the civil war. (Don't know what that position was, because his children appeared to be divided. In my particular family, his son-in-law and oldest grandson fought for the Confederacy, the middle grandson for the union. His daughter was thrown in jail for singing Confederate songs, came down with a virus and died.)

I am Catholic. Both theologically and politically, I have disagreements and agreements with Evangelicals. While I may not agree with all their political views, they speak out and I favor that. Now--as ever--we as individuals have got to stand up against big business and big government. Individual voices are needed to push back--to tell corporations and governments who we are--not go along with them telling us who we are.

Good for your genealogical research. My daughter sent me an Ancestry.com kit for Christmas but didn't save the receipt and sent it to me in a different state. I sat on it for too long, finally returned it and heard nothing so I called. They refused to admit receiving it and essentially told me I was out of luck. Pissed me off, who did you use on yours?

 

[Meriweather]

Good for your genealogical research. My daughter sent me an Ancestry.com kit for Christmas but didn't save the receipt and sent it to me in a different state. I sat on it for too long, finally returned it and heard nothing so I called. They refused to admit receiving it and essentially told me I was out of luck. Pissed me off, who did you use on yours?

I started out with my grandfather who was working on the main patriarchal line; my grandmother did her father's patriarchal line. From a kid I was interested in tracing some of the matriarchal lines. I started out with LDS genealogy, Ancestry.com USGenweb, Rootsweb, and about any other genealogy search engine available down through the years.

It has been a few years since I've done any further work (waiting for new information to become available) but I believe you can still start without using an actual kit--just build your own tree(s) online. While I almost always work on my own, whenever I needed assistance, the online community has been of tremendous help.

I am sorry to hear of your difficulties with Ancestry.com. When they first started, they were helpful and it is too bad it is no longer the case.

 

[XponentialChaos]

I believe it. Church attendance has been declining for decades and people are less likely to identify as Christian compared to 20 years ago.

 

[Votto]

I can't get past the NYT paywall, but as usual I found the same thing somewhere else. Great read - Sad what Trumpism has done to Evangelicals.

<few snips>

Activists imagined a glorious future. “Home-schoolers will be inordinately represented in the highest levels of leadership and power in the next generation,” Ned Ryun, a former Bush speechwriter, said at a 2005 Christian home-schooling convention. Ryun was the director of a group called Generation Joshua, which worked to get home-schooled kids into politics. The name came from the Old Testament. Moses had led the chosen people out of exile, but it was his successor, Joshua, who conquered the Holy Land.​

​

But the evangelicals who thought they were about to take over America were destined for disappointment. On Thursday, PRRI released startling new polling data showing just how much ground the religious right has lost. PRRI’s 2020 Census of American Religion, based on a survey of nearly half a million people, shows a precipitous decline in the share of the population identifying as white evangelical, from 23% in 2006 to 14.5% last year. In 2020, as in every year since 2013, the largest religious group in the United States was the religiously unaffiliated.​

​

In addition to shrinking as a share of the population, white evangelicals were also the oldest religious group in the United States, with a median age of 56. “It’s not just that they are dying off, but it is that they’re losing younger members,” Jones told me. As the group has become older and smaller, Jones said, “a real visceral sense of loss of cultural dominance” has set in.​

​

White evangelicals once saw themselves “as the owners of mainstream American culture and morality and values,” said Jones. Now they are just another subculture.​

​

From this fact derives much of our country’s cultural conflict. It helps explain not just the rise of Donald Trump, but also the growth of QAnon and even the escalating conflagration over critical race theory. “It’s hard to overstate the strength of this feeling, among white evangelicals in particular, of America being a white Christian country,” said Jones. “This sense of ownership of America just runs so deep in white evangelical circles.” The feeling that it’s slipping away has created an atmosphere of rage, resentment and paranoia.​

​

QAnon is essentially a millenarian movement, with Trump taking the place of Jesus. Adherents dream of the coming of what they call the storm, when the enemies of the MAGA movement will be rounded up and executed, and Trump restored to his rightful place of leadership.​

​

“It’s not unlike a belief in the second coming of Christ,” said Jones. “That at some point God will reorder society and set things right. I think that when a community feels itself in crisis, it does become more susceptible to conspiracy theories and other things that tell them that what they’re experiencing is not ultimately what’s going to happen.”​

​

I was frightened by the religious right in its triumphant phase. But it turns out that the movement is just as dangerous in decline. Maybe more so. It didn’t take long for the cocky optimism of Generation Joshua to give way to the nihilism of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. If they can’t own the country, they’re ready to defile it.​

Full:

The Christian right is in decline

The presidency of George W. Bush may have been the high point of the modern Christian right’s influence in America. White evangelicals were the largest religious faction in the country.

www.standardspeaker.com

Oh look, another democrat ridiculing and bad mouthing evangelicals.

Looks like they should all vote democrat, then they will be loved by the democrats and media like no other.

 

[MisterBeale]

Good for your genealogical research. My daughter sent me an Ancestry.com kit for Christmas but didn't save the receipt and sent it to me in a different state. I sat on it for too long, finally returned it and heard nothing so I called. They refused to admit receiving it and essentially told me I was out of luck. Pissed me off, who did you use on yours?

I started out with my grandfather who was working on the main patriarchal line; my grandmother did her father's patriarchal line. From a kid I was interested in tracing some of the matriarchal lines. I started out with LDS genealogy, Ancestry.com USGenweb, Rootsweb, and about any other genealogy search engine available down through the years.

It has been a few years since I've done any further work (waiting for new information to become available) but I believe you can still start without using an actual kit--just build your own tree(s) online. While I almost always work on my own, whenever I needed assistance, the online community has been of tremendous help.

I am sorry to hear of your difficulties with Ancestry.com. When they first started, they were helpful and it is too bad it is no longer the case.

Ancestry vs. 23andMe: Which DNA Testing Kit Should You Choose?

Ancestry DNA and 23andMe are two of the most popular DNA testing kits. Here's how they stack up in terms of cost, privacy and results.

www.cnet.com

“Rulers” of the Gene-Sequencing Industry

A “Leap” toward Humanity’s Destruction

The world’s richest medical research foundation, the Wellcome Trust, has teamed up with a pair of former DARPA directors who built Silicon Valley’s skunkworks to usher in an age of nightmarish surveillance, including for babies as young as three months old. Their agenda can only advance if we...

unlimitedhangout.com

"In contrast to the overt DARPA, Silicon Valley, and Wellcome connections of the others, the chairman of the board of directors of Wellcome Leap, Jay Flatley, has a different background. Flatley is the long-time head of Illumina, a California-based gene-sequencing hardware and software giant that is believed to currently dominate the field of genomics. Though he stepped down from the board of Illumina in 2016, he has continued to serve as the executive chairman of its board of directors. Flatley was the first to be chosen for a leadership position at Wellcome Leap, and he was responsible for suggesting Regina Dugan for the organization’s chief executive officer, according to a recent interview given by Dugan.
Illumina Campus. Source: Glassdoor

As a profile on Illumina in the business magazine Fast Company notes, Illumina “operates behind the scenes, selling hardware and services to companies and research institutions,” among them 23andMe. 23andMe’s CEO, Anne Wojcicki, the sister of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and the wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, told Fast Company, “It’s crazy. Illumina is like the ruler of this whole universe and no one knows that.” The report notes that 23andMe, like most companies that offer DNA sequencing and analysis to consumers, uses machines produced by Illumina.

In 2016, Illumina launched an “aggressive” five-year plan to “bring genomics out of research labs and into doctors’ offices.” Given the current state of things, particularly the global push toward gene-focused vaccines and therapies, that plan, which concludes this year, could not have been any better timed. Illumina’s current CEO, Francis DeSouza, previously held key posts at Microsoft and Symantec. Also in 2016, Illumina’s executive teams forecast a future in which humans are gene tested from birth to grave for both health and commercial purposes.

Whereas most companies have struggled financially during the coronavirus pandemic, some have seen a massive increase in profits. Illumina has witnessed its share price double since the start of the COVID crisis. The company’s $1 billion plus in profits during the last tax year was obviously helped by the quick approval of the NovaSEQ 6000 machines, which can test a large number of COVID samples more quickly than other devices. An individual machine has a hefty price tag of almost $1 million, and thus they are mostly found at elite facilities, private labs, and top-tier universities. . . . "

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Sad what Trumpism has done to Evangelicals.

True – they have only themselves to blame.

 

[DrLove]

I believe it. Church attendance has been declining for decades and people are less likely to identify as Christian compared to 20 years ago.

We all know this based on 20 years of history. And yet, look at the responses in my thread … Total Denial

 

[DrLove]

Good for your genealogical research. My daughter sent me an Ancestry.com kit for Christmas but didn't save the receipt and sent it to me in a different state. I sat on it for too long, finally returned it and heard nothing so I called. They refused to admit receiving it and essentially told me I was out of luck. Pissed me off, who did you use on yours?

I started out with my grandfather who was working on the main patriarchal line; my grandmother did her father's patriarchal line. From a kid I was interested in tracing some of the matriarchal lines. I started out with LDS genealogy, Ancestry.com USGenweb, Rootsweb, and about any other genealogy search engine available down through the years.

It has been a few years since I've done any further work (waiting for new information to become available) but I believe you can still start without using an actual kit--just build your own tree(s) online. While I almost always work on my own, whenever I needed assistance, the online community has been of tremendous help.

I am sorry to hear of your difficulties with Ancestry.com. When they first started, they were helpful and it is too bad it is no longer the case.

Ancestry vs. 23andMe: Which DNA Testing Kit Should You Choose?

Ancestry DNA and 23andMe are two of the most popular DNA testing kits. Here's how they stack up in terms of cost, privacy and results.

www.cnet.com

“Rulers” of the Gene-Sequencing Industry

A “Leap” toward Humanity’s Destruction

The world’s richest medical research foundation, the Wellcome Trust, has teamed up with a pair of former DARPA directors who built Silicon Valley’s skunkworks to usher in an age of nightmarish surveillance, including for babies as young as three months old. Their agenda can only advance if we...

unlimitedhangout.com

"In contrast to the overt DARPA, Silicon Valley, and Wellcome connections of the others, the chairman of the board of directors of Wellcome Leap, Jay Flatley, has a different background. Flatley is the long-time head of Illumina, a California-based gene-sequencing hardware and software giant that is believed to currently dominate the field of genomics. Though he stepped down from the board of Illumina in 2016, he has continued to serve as the executive chairman of its board of directors. Flatley was the first to be chosen for a leadership position at Wellcome Leap, and he was responsible for suggesting Regina Dugan for the organization’s chief executive officer, according to a recent interview given by Dugan.
Illumina Campus. Source: Glassdoor

As a profile on Illumina in the business magazine Fast Company notes, Illumina “operates behind the scenes, selling hardware and services to companies and research institutions,” among them 23andMe. 23andMe’s CEO, Anne Wojcicki, the sister of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and the wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, told Fast Company, “It’s crazy. Illumina is like the ruler of this whole universe and no one knows that.” The report notes that 23andMe, like most companies that offer DNA sequencing and analysis to consumers, uses machines produced by Illumina.

In 2016, Illumina launched an “aggressive” five-year plan to “bring genomics out of research labs and into doctors’ offices.” Given the current state of things, particularly the global push toward gene-focused vaccines and therapies, that plan, which concludes this year, could not have been any better timed. Illumina’s current CEO, Francis DeSouza, previously held key posts at Microsoft and Symantec. Also in 2016, Illumina’s executive teams forecast a future in which humans are gene tested from birth to grave for both health and commercial purposes.

Whereas most companies have struggled financially during the coronavirus pandemic, some have seen a massive increase in profits. Illumina has witnessed its share price double since the start of the COVID crisis. The company’s $1 billion plus in profits during the last tax year was obviously helped by the quick approval of the NovaSEQ 6000 machines, which can test a large number of COVID samples more quickly than other devices. An individual machine has a hefty price tag of almost $1 million, and thus they are mostly found at elite facilities, private labs, and top-tier universities. . . . "

What in the holy F are you yammering about Beale?

 

[surada]

View attachment 511831
Franklin Graham march in DC...

Franklin Graham has been very instrumental in converting Christianity from a religious group to a political group. He's nothing like his father was.
[/QUOTE]

Franklin isn't very bright.. I can't imagine why anyone would follow him.

 

[BULLDOG]

View attachment 511831
Franklin Graham march in DC...

Franklin Graham has been very instrumental in converting Christianity from a religious group to a political group. He's nothing like his father was.

Franklin isn't very bright.. I can't imagine why anyone would follow him.
[/QUOTE]
Because they trusted his father.

 

[MisterBeale]

Good for your genealogical research. My daughter sent me an Ancestry.com kit for Christmas but didn't save the receipt and sent it to me in a different state. I sat on it for too long, finally returned it and heard nothing so I called. They refused to admit receiving it and essentially told me I was out of luck. Pissed me off, who did you use on yours?

I started out with my grandfather who was working on the main patriarchal line; my grandmother did her father's patriarchal line. From a kid I was interested in tracing some of the matriarchal lines. I started out with LDS genealogy, Ancestry.com USGenweb, Rootsweb, and about any other genealogy search engine available down through the years.

It has been a few years since I've done any further work (waiting for new information to become available) but I believe you can still start without using an actual kit--just build your own tree(s) online. While I almost always work on my own, whenever I needed assistance, the online community has been of tremendous help.

I am sorry to hear of your difficulties with Ancestry.com. When they first started, they were helpful and it is too bad it is no longer the case.

Ancestry vs. 23andMe: Which DNA Testing Kit Should You Choose?

Ancestry DNA and 23andMe are two of the most popular DNA testing kits. Here's how they stack up in terms of cost, privacy and results.

www.cnet.com

“Rulers” of the Gene-Sequencing Industry

A “Leap” toward Humanity’s Destruction

The world’s richest medical research foundation, the Wellcome Trust, has teamed up with a pair of former DARPA directors who built Silicon Valley’s skunkworks to usher in an age of nightmarish surveillance, including for babies as young as three months old. Their agenda can only advance if we...

unlimitedhangout.com

"In contrast to the overt DARPA, Silicon Valley, and Wellcome connections of the others, the chairman of the board of directors of Wellcome Leap, Jay Flatley, has a different background. Flatley is the long-time head of Illumina, a California-based gene-sequencing hardware and software giant that is believed to currently dominate the field of genomics. Though he stepped down from the board of Illumina in 2016, he has continued to serve as the executive chairman of its board of directors. Flatley was the first to be chosen for a leadership position at Wellcome Leap, and he was responsible for suggesting Regina Dugan for the organization’s chief executive officer, according to a recent interview given by Dugan.
Illumina Campus. Source: Glassdoor

As a profile on Illumina in the business magazine Fast Company notes, Illumina “operates behind the scenes, selling hardware and services to companies and research institutions,” among them 23andMe. 23andMe’s CEO, Anne Wojcicki, the sister of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and the wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, told Fast Company, “It’s crazy. Illumina is like the ruler of this whole universe and no one knows that.” The report notes that 23andMe, like most companies that offer DNA sequencing and analysis to consumers, uses machines produced by Illumina.

In 2016, Illumina launched an “aggressive” five-year plan to “bring genomics out of research labs and into doctors’ offices.” Given the current state of things, particularly the global push toward gene-focused vaccines and therapies, that plan, which concludes this year, could not have been any better timed. Illumina’s current CEO, Francis DeSouza, previously held key posts at Microsoft and Symantec. Also in 2016, Illumina’s executive teams forecast a future in which humans are gene tested from birth to grave for both health and commercial purposes.

Whereas most companies have struggled financially during the coronavirus pandemic, some have seen a massive increase in profits. Illumina has witnessed its share price double since the start of the COVID crisis. The company’s $1 billion plus in profits during the last tax year was obviously helped by the quick approval of the NovaSEQ 6000 machines, which can test a large number of COVID samples more quickly than other devices. An individual machine has a hefty price tag of almost $1 million, and thus they are mostly found at elite facilities, private labs, and top-tier universities. . . . "

What in the holy F are you yammering about Beale?

You just reminded me of an argument that I had with a good friend of mine.

. . . I wanted to address that argument and bookmark that topic with your post, so I wouldn't forget it.

It is something that is well beyond your comprehension. . . so don't worry your pretty little head about it.

I have the facts now to back up my position, the connections in the interlocking directorate now to prove my point.

You are, well, too inured in your cognitive bias, to ever understand the world which I understand is developing around us. . .

Don't worry about. . . continue your illusions till the end.

You've taken that jab? Right? You will have other things to worry about soon enough.

 

[Crepitus]

I can't get past the NYT paywall, but as usual I found the same thing somewhere else. Great read - Sad what Trumpism has done to Evangelicals.

<few snips>

Activists imagined a glorious future. “Home-schoolers will be inordinately represented in the highest levels of leadership and power in the next generation,” Ned Ryun, a former Bush speechwriter, said at a 2005 Christian home-schooling convention. Ryun was the director of a group called Generation Joshua, which worked to get home-schooled kids into politics. The name came from the Old Testament. Moses had led the chosen people out of exile, but it was his successor, Joshua, who conquered the Holy Land.​

​

But the evangelicals who thought they were about to take over America were destined for disappointment. On Thursday, PRRI released startling new polling data showing just how much ground the religious right has lost. PRRI’s 2020 Census of American Religion, based on a survey of nearly half a million people, shows a precipitous decline in the share of the population identifying as white evangelical, from 23% in 2006 to 14.5% last year. In 2020, as in every year since 2013, the largest religious group in the United States was the religiously unaffiliated.​

​

In addition to shrinking as a share of the population, white evangelicals were also the oldest religious group in the United States, with a median age of 56. “It’s not just that they are dying off, but it is that they’re losing younger members,” Jones told me. As the group has become older and smaller, Jones said, “a real visceral sense of loss of cultural dominance” has set in.​

​

White evangelicals once saw themselves “as the owners of mainstream American culture and morality and values,” said Jones. Now they are just another subculture.​

​

From this fact derives much of our country’s cultural conflict. It helps explain not just the rise of Donald Trump, but also the growth of QAnon and even the escalating conflagration over critical race theory. “It’s hard to overstate the strength of this feeling, among white evangelicals in particular, of America being a white Christian country,” said Jones. “This sense of ownership of America just runs so deep in white evangelical circles.” The feeling that it’s slipping away has created an atmosphere of rage, resentment and paranoia.​

​

QAnon is essentially a millenarian movement, with Trump taking the place of Jesus. Adherents dream of the coming of what they call the storm, when the enemies of the MAGA movement will be rounded up and executed, and Trump restored to his rightful place of leadership.​

​

“It’s not unlike a belief in the second coming of Christ,” said Jones. “That at some point God will reorder society and set things right. I think that when a community feels itself in crisis, it does become more susceptible to conspiracy theories and other things that tell them that what they’re experiencing is not ultimately what’s going to happen.”​

​

I was frightened by the religious right in its triumphant phase. But it turns out that the movement is just as dangerous in decline. Maybe more so. It didn’t take long for the cocky optimism of Generation Joshua to give way to the nihilism of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. If they can’t own the country, they’re ready to defile it.​

Full:

The Christian right is in decline

The presidency of George W. Bush may have been the high point of the modern Christian right’s influence in America. White evangelicals were the largest religious faction in the country.

www.standardspeaker.com

The ones that are left are still some rabid motherfuckers

 

[DrLove]

View attachment 511831
Franklin Graham march in DC...

Franklin Graham has been very instrumental in converting Christianity from a religious group to a political group. He's nothing like his father was.

Franklin isn't very bright.. I can't imagine why anyone would follow him.

Because they trusted his father.

Billy had more integrity in the head of his Helmut von Schmidt than Franklin possesses in his entire being.
Interestingly, Donald’s Devil Spawn may hold true to the trend assuming that is theoretically possible.

 

[metalwolf]

I wonder if it is because most religions teach hate and bigotry towards Lesbian, Gay,Bisexual,Transgender people and tell them that they are going to hell.

 

[DrLove]

I can't get past the NYT paywall, but as usual I found the same thing somewhere else. Great read - Sad what Trumpism has done to Evangelicals.

<few snips>

Activists imagined a glorious future. “Home-schoolers will be inordinately represented in the highest levels of leadership and power in the next generation,” Ned Ryun, a former Bush speechwriter, said at a 2005 Christian home-schooling convention. Ryun was the director of a group called Generation Joshua, which worked to get home-schooled kids into politics. The name came from the Old Testament. Moses had led the chosen people out of exile, but it was his successor, Joshua, who conquered the Holy Land.​

​

But the evangelicals who thought they were about to take over America were destined for disappointment. On Thursday, PRRI released startling new polling data showing just how much ground the religious right has lost. PRRI’s 2020 Census of American Religion, based on a survey of nearly half a million people, shows a precipitous decline in the share of the population identifying as white evangelical, from 23% in 2006 to 14.5% last year. In 2020, as in every year since 2013, the largest religious group in the United States was the religiously unaffiliated.​

​

In addition to shrinking as a share of the population, white evangelicals were also the oldest religious group in the United States, with a median age of 56. “It’s not just that they are dying off, but it is that they’re losing younger members,” Jones told me. As the group has become older and smaller, Jones said, “a real visceral sense of loss of cultural dominance” has set in.​

​

White evangelicals once saw themselves “as the owners of mainstream American culture and morality and values,” said Jones. Now they are just another subculture.​

​

From this fact derives much of our country’s cultural conflict. It helps explain not just the rise of Donald Trump, but also the growth of QAnon and even the escalating conflagration over critical race theory. “It’s hard to overstate the strength of this feeling, among white evangelicals in particular, of America being a white Christian country,” said Jones. “This sense of ownership of America just runs so deep in white evangelical circles.” The feeling that it’s slipping away has created an atmosphere of rage, resentment and paranoia.​

​

QAnon is essentially a millenarian movement, with Trump taking the place of Jesus. Adherents dream of the coming of what they call the storm, when the enemies of the MAGA movement will be rounded up and executed, and Trump restored to his rightful place of leadership.​

​

“It’s not unlike a belief in the second coming of Christ,” said Jones. “That at some point God will reorder society and set things right. I think that when a community feels itself in crisis, it does become more susceptible to conspiracy theories and other things that tell them that what they’re experiencing is not ultimately what’s going to happen.”​

​

I was frightened by the religious right in its triumphant phase. But it turns out that the movement is just as dangerous in decline. Maybe more so. It didn’t take long for the cocky optimism of Generation Joshua to give way to the nihilism of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. If they can’t own the country, they’re ready to defile it.​

Full:

The Christian right is in decline

The presidency of George W. Bush may have been the high point of the modern Christian right’s influence in America. White evangelicals were the largest religious faction in the country.

www.standardspeaker.com

The ones that are left are still some rabid motherfuckers

Can we vaccinate them for rabies?

 

[Esdraelon]

White evangelicals once saw themselves “as the owners of mainstream American culture and morality and values,” said Jones. Now they are just another subculture.

I didn't have the time to really go in-depth in reading this piece but I doubt the writer was himself a "white evangelical". I actually fit that characterization as it is defined by most churches. Perhaps I missed the memo or improperly decoded it, but I don't recall ever being in a church that thought it was right and proper to control others against their will.

I also missed the sermon on "taking pride in owning morality and values". Evangelicals are accused of a lot of nefarious actions and goals. Those who actually investigate these claims will almost always find that at the very center of the charges, the belief falls apart as a 'personal issue between the stated beliefs of the group and the accuser's own disdain for them for reasons entirely their own.
Any follower of Christ that attempts to subjugate others or to take pride in their own sense of superiority of morality, isn't representing the Christ I learned of.

I find it kind of sad that people so hate the evangelical label that they take joy in the demise of a group whose only real goal was to try to bring America back from the abyss of lawlessness and perversion. Well, anyone who really worries that Christians are a danger to our culture, should be satisfied that the church in America is failing and falling apart - just as predicted in scripture - here in the "last times". Many of these congregations, just like the rest of our culture, have gotten comfortable with lies and lawlessness, with surrender and defeat.

Thankfully, the death of a corrupt body will not stop the salvation of countless souls in the horrors that lie in our immediate future:

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;10And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

All that's required to stand with them in that day is the humility to call on the Lord for His forgiveness and to admit that we, like all others, are transgressors of His law and that we need to be renewed in spirit.
Yes, the "Christian-right" is in decline. Neighbor, if one looks around themselves anywhere in this country today, it's difficult to find an area that ISN'T in decline. Those who call themselves by Christ's name will be the first to be judged for their hypocrisies unless they repent of them. They'll be first in line but that line is very long, indeed.

 

[DrLove]

Good for your genealogical research. My daughter sent me an Ancestry.com kit for Christmas but didn't save the receipt and sent it to me in a different state. I sat on it for too long, finally returned it and heard nothing so I called. They refused to admit receiving it and essentially told me I was out of luck. Pissed me off, who did you use on yours?

I started out with my grandfather who was working on the main patriarchal line; my grandmother did her father's patriarchal line. From a kid I was interested in tracing some of the matriarchal lines. I started out with LDS genealogy, Ancestry.com USGenweb, Rootsweb, and about any other genealogy search engine available down through the years.

It has been a few years since I've done any further work (waiting for new information to become available) but I believe you can still start without using an actual kit--just build your own tree(s) online. While I almost always work on my own, whenever I needed assistance, the online community has been of tremendous help.

I am sorry to hear of your difficulties with Ancestry.com. When they first started, they were helpful and it is too bad it is no longer the case.

Ancestry vs. 23andMe: Which DNA Testing Kit Should You Choose?

Ancestry DNA and 23andMe are two of the most popular DNA testing kits. Here's how they stack up in terms of cost, privacy and results.

www.cnet.com

“Rulers” of the Gene-Sequencing Industry

A “Leap” toward Humanity’s Destruction

The world’s richest medical research foundation, the Wellcome Trust, has teamed up with a pair of former DARPA directors who built Silicon Valley’s skunkworks to usher in an age of nightmarish surveillance, including for babies as young as three months old. Their agenda can only advance if we...

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"In contrast to the overt DARPA, Silicon Valley, and Wellcome connections of the others, the chairman of the board of directors of Wellcome Leap, Jay Flatley, has a different background. Flatley is the long-time head of Illumina, a California-based gene-sequencing hardware and software giant that is believed to currently dominate the field of genomics. Though he stepped down from the board of Illumina in 2016, he has continued to serve as the executive chairman of its board of directors. Flatley was the first to be chosen for a leadership position at Wellcome Leap, and he was responsible for suggesting Regina Dugan for the organization’s chief executive officer, according to a recent interview given by Dugan.
Illumina Campus. Source: Glassdoor

As a profile on Illumina in the business magazine Fast Company notes, Illumina “operates behind the scenes, selling hardware and services to companies and research institutions,” among them 23andMe. 23andMe’s CEO, Anne Wojcicki, the sister of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and the wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, told Fast Company, “It’s crazy. Illumina is like the ruler of this whole universe and no one knows that.” The report notes that 23andMe, like most companies that offer DNA sequencing and analysis to consumers, uses machines produced by Illumina.

In 2016, Illumina launched an “aggressive” five-year plan to “bring genomics out of research labs and into doctors’ offices.” Given the current state of things, particularly the global push toward gene-focused vaccines and therapies, that plan, which concludes this year, could not have been any better timed. Illumina’s current CEO, Francis DeSouza, previously held key posts at Microsoft and Symantec. Also in 2016, Illumina’s executive teams forecast a future in which humans are gene tested from birth to grave for both health and commercial purposes.

Whereas most companies have struggled financially during the coronavirus pandemic, some have seen a massive increase in profits. Illumina has witnessed its share price double since the start of the COVID crisis. The company’s $1 billion plus in profits during the last tax year was obviously helped by the quick approval of the NovaSEQ 6000 machines, which can test a large number of COVID samples more quickly than other devices. An individual machine has a hefty price tag of almost $1 million, and thus they are mostly found at elite facilities, private labs, and top-tier universities. . . . "

What in the holy F are you yammering about Beale?

I have the facts now to back up my position, the connections in the interlocking directorate now to prove my point.

Priceless Beale ^ My LORD whadda clown!

 

[Esdraelon]

I wonder if it is because most religions teach hate and bigotry towards Lesbian, Gay,Bisexual,Transgender people and tell them that they are going to hell.

Possibly. Any Christian that stands in judgment over the sin of others, will be made to account for their own sin. THAT is a theme that is carried through every version of the Gospel. That "good news" is consistent on the issue of forgiveness. Followers of Christ are told to carry the message of hope to all the world but we are equally told that IF we make ourselves the judge of the sin of others, we will be judged by that same standard.

You'll note a subtle difference there. It does not say we have a duty to accept the lawbreaking or have to ignore the sin we see. We have to love those who sin but we must never go so far as to love the sin itself. Put simpler, love all, but remove yourself from their company as long as they continue in their lawbreaking.
The scripture DOES teach that homosexuality is an abomination before God. It ALSO teaches that it is neither the worst sin nor that any other sin is acceptable. Gluttons, alcoholics, adulterers, liars, thieves, ALL are guilty of transgressing God's law and He makes no distinction between them in that sense.

Every human that ever took a breath of life is guilty of breaking God's laws. ALL OF US. It will surprise those who seem to hate Christians for their hypocrisy, that of all sins, the one most hated by God is the sin of pride. I have no trouble admitting that I am a man in need of a savior.