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If you read a textbook-style account of conflicts centering around the Protestant Reformation(s), it'll probably focus on theological disputes: justification by faith, the lay chalice, baptism, the meaning of "hoc est corpus meum," predestination... kind of thing.

But a lot of the most persuasive work – at least IMHO – on religious conflicts in the 16th and 17th cautions against focusing too much on "ideational content."

There are a variety of pitfalls here. One of them is that most of the people fighting over religion probably didn't to that point by carefully weighing the finer points of theological disputes. Dynamics of community, identity, and ritual probably played a more important role.

I've been thinking about this as we approach election day. American politics scholars understand very well that, for most Americans, partisanship drives ideology. Scholars of ethnic politics see familiar patterns in U.S. political polarization (cc @sstroschein2).

Political movements embrace conversion (!!) narratives as validations of their beliefs, and the converted stress ideas and epiphanies. But it doesn't take much poking around to see the crucial role if identity, belonging, and social affirmation.

There are times in church we must yield to the move of the Spirit simply because there are certain things He wants to handle personally.

I once attended a church where if sin and hell isn’t preached, the service was not considered “hot”.

The Pastor was a good man but he really wanted to bring people to Christ but his approach was worrisome.

He would bring up certain OT teachings and tie it to issues church members were facing.

After the service, everyone was somber and “cut to the heart”.

People would come for altar call but after that service, you won’t see them again.

“The wages of sin is death...” and under my breath, I’ll whisper “and the gift of God is everlasting life”.

The church wasn’t growing and even the ministers were weary.

I was weary too because I saw the Pastor’s heart and I knew he just wanted to do well for the Master.

I asked the Holy Spirit to help us because on many levels, the church wasn’t meeting up.

The Holy Spirit said “On Sunday, I’ll show you something simple yet profound”.

On Sunday, a brother who was made an altar minister was to preach in the Pastor’s absence.

He was a sound teacher and a man of both the Word and the Spirit.

He started with a song and everywhere changed. Immediately, the Holy Spirit said “Pay Attention”.

I did.

When we look back at the past we see eras associated with family, household, respectfulness, faith and order and we know them as "traditional" eras. These eras are also unequivocally associated with male domination and power.

When we look back we identify eras that we've naturally associated with a break with this that happens every so often and tends to invert what's associated with traditional eras. Including who has power.

This is no accident.

Indeed, be it that it is one group or multiple sharing power the fact remains that the traditional power holders are characteristically (in these eras) powerless and those who hold power are always the same.

The first anarchist, Proundhon, wrote about what happens when women have power and called it "Pornocracy". He argued that men should do everything in their remaining power to prevent this including using their natural superior physical strength.

He had argued for using everything to usurp a society and establish proper order. Nothing was off the table.
He argued to same towards women for the same reasons.
The debilitating sort of power both possess and the cruelty with which they use it.

SOUTHERN KADUNA PEOPLE'S UNION YOUTH WING.

Press Statement

ENOUGH OF THE BIGOTRY AND SENSELESS ATTACKS ON BISHOP MATHEW HASSAN KUKAH.

The attention of the Youth Wing of Southern kaduna People's Union (SOKAPU) has again been drawn to an eleven (11) point press statement issued

and signed by one Professor Isa Mohammed Maishanu on behalf of Muslim Solidarity Forum Sokoto on Tuesday the 12th day of January 2021, asking Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah to leave the Seat of Caliphate (Sokoto), and also trying to incite the peace loving people of Sokoto and the

North against the Bishop over his Christmas message where the Bishop out of passionate patriotism voiced out the obvious truth when he said " Every honest Nigerian knows that there is no way any Non-Nothern Muslim President could have done a fraction of what President Buhari has

done with his Nepotism and gotten away with it."

We are however dismayed and pained that a Professor will condescend this low, throwing caution to the wind and towing the path of religious rascality and bigotry by deliberately attempting to window dressed the Bishop's message

with religious colorations and further inciting the general Muslim Ummah against the Bishop.

The demeaning call by the so-called Professor for Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah to "apologise to the Muslim Ummah or quickly and quietly leave the Seat of the Caliphate" is not just

Instacart is a great example of a company that as it exists today is a interim, not end state business. There will be opportunities to change that positioning, but they will face some critical choices ahead.

Supermarkets are built purposely in prominent locations to catch retail eye & the layout is designed to offer a wide range of SKUs while drawing attention to the highest margin and/or velocity ones.

1st problem: the supermarket's sprawling layout is suboptimally designed for efficiently picking & packing your order.

2nd problem: Instacart doesn't have perfect visibility into the SKUs at a given supermarket in a given day, so the inefficiency for a picker is twofold-can't find items, then have to wait for your approval for replacement goods before checking out.

So what is Instacart? The two things they do efficiently are:

1) own the customer & monetize the data that comes along w/ that.

2) Efficiently deliver last mile logistics.

How Dark Forces Hurt & Influence People.
Dark v Light.

A THREAD.

There are two equal & opposite errors into which our race can fall about Evil, or the devils.
1. to disbelieve in it or their existence.
2. to believe, and to feel an excessive & unhealthy interest in them.

18 EVERYDAY ITEMS YOU DIDN'T KNOW THEIR PURPOSE

Thread..

1.The Mini Pocket On Your Jeans

When you buy a Jean trouser, don't you wonder what this pocket is for? Well, today is your lucky day! It's where you were supposed to keep your pocket watch when jeans were first invented

2. The Hole In Your Pan Cap

Kids might likely put this covers in their mouths so manufacturers took measures to prevent them from suffocating by placing a hole in the cover so that if it gets stuck in someone's throat, they'll still breathe air into their lungs

3. The Hole In Your iPhone

You'll notice a little hole next to the camera on your rearfacing camera. It is actually a microphone. It allows you to record sound when your camera is turned around

4. Hole in padlocks

The hole is made for pouring engine oil inside the padlock to enable it to be lubricated if rusty

5. They basicaly let your fingers know where the home key is without looking down so you can type quicker than usual

The new pooled testing initiation for MA schools is a game changer. Looking forward to seeing how this is going to roll out. Initial plans seem to call for pooled PCR testing for classes, followed by rapid antigen testing for pools that are positive. 1/

This is NOT exactly what colleges are doing. MA colleges are screening with individual testing, not pooled testing. BTW, this has been very successful. It's not just screening, it's also going all in on tracing, isolation, distancing, masks, education. 2/

But no question that infection rates are much lower than the general population. Check out this graph from Dec 19. Percent positivity is much lower in higher ed.

I don't think this is because college students stay at home all day and never have risky social interactions! 3/

But there are a LOT more K-12 students than college students. So use of pooled PCR tests is crucial to keep costs down. Also intrigued by the proposed use of rapid antigen tests to find the infectious member of a positive pool. 4/ @michaelmina_lab

One of the lessons from higher ed is that regular PCR testing is really the best test to detect asymptomatic infection, which will be even more common in K-12 than college-aged students. 5/ @mbebinger @RanuDhillon

I was asked to tell my story. so here we go. Long story short version.

1)My Muslim neighbours. 12 years. The 1st few years were good. Broke bread. Many discussions over coffee on the deck. Kids were young, in school. Then the oldest boy married a girl from Lebanon, had children, who I loved with all my heart. And they loved me.

2)Oldest girl off to University in Edmonton. Social Justice studies. THAT’S when things started to change. Went to work for Omar Khadr’s lawyer. I noticed things. The little ones were not allowed to come and visit me. Hug me. They would whisper in Arabic right in front of me.

3)I was like WTF is going on here? Then 2nd son married a Russian Muslim. Many problems with getting her here to Canada. Offered a lot of moral support through that. When I welcomed her and her child, she turned away and went in the house. 🤔🤷🏻‍

4) I talked with my other neighbour about the changes. She had been a VERY good friend of Zalfa’s. Zalfa did not wear a hijab, wore jeans, sweatshirts. THEN. New Imam. Over night. Hijab, Arabic dress, etc. Wouldn’t go to her house. Kids not allowed over if they had eaten pork.

I've noticed a kind of tribal individualist that's common online. They move in mobs, make nearly identical objections, claim not be a group or believe in groups, and are extremely hostile to the identities of others.

They've also been REALLY BAD for online scientific discourse.

Many people believe in individualism so strongly that they seem incapable of perceiving anything to do with groups. They don't understand sociology as a category of knowledge or social problems as anything more than a collection of the unique challenges of individuals.

Many individualists don't believe in sociology. They see it as a false science. Since groups don't exist for them, only individuals, they don't think sociological can exist either. After all, how can one scientifically study groups when groups aren't real?

Many individualists don't understand public health. Inherent in the idea of public health is the idea that you personally might have to sacrifice for the well-being of others. That doesn't sit well with them so they reject public health as a false ideal.

Since many individualists claim not to be part of groups, they often substitute group identity with pledges of allegiance to ideas. They might say "I believe in logic and reason". They will say this even when they've long since abandoned logic and reason.

Kicking off the afternoon session of the #RewildingSymposium is @JCSvenning talking about 'restoring the role of megafauna in European ecosystems'

He begins by highlighting that current megafauna is unusually poor. Last at this level >30 million years ago. Historically, super diverse megafauna was the norm.

He points out that most current species are 100,000 to >1m years old. Meaning they have a complex evolutionary background with the landscape and complex ecological characteristics

The presence of megafauna promotes biodiversity and provide crucial ecosystem services and trophic effects through, predation, seed dispersal, grazing, browsing, carbon diversification and non-trophic disturbance. Promoting heterogeneity both vegetation and abiotic

The absence of large herbivores is also threatening species depended on open and semi open habitats in Europe. Including species which are specifically adapted to megafauna effects. Europe has a far lower levels of herbivore biomass compared to what would be considered normal

Somerset Loves Europe
#EveningwithSeanDromgoole
Starting at 8 live tweets:

Sean Dromgoole is Chair of CLP Somerton and Frome
Sean joins as Talk of West Country Bylines commending article about David Warburton

Introductions by Matt Geen
Sean pleased to become acquainted with pro EU group.
Somerset born and bred

Love affair with France began at age 6-7 on a family holiday and broken down Rover in a small village: amazing food + great play mates. School exchanges rendered Europe ordinary.

Then making a film -with Anthony Hopkins in France. Sean became the go-between both languages. France became a place where he could earn a living.

#HS2 locks #TreeProtectors 🌳in tunnels. The latest tactic employed by NET bailiffs is to install locked & barricaded doors within the tunnels beneath Euston Square Gardens, trapping those inside with no fire exit. Have they forgotten the Bradford City stadium fire?

Yesterday, one such barricaded door was installed by #HS2 a few metres into the tunnel known as 'Kelvin' & earlier today, another was screwed in & locked shut over the mouth of the tunnel known as 'Crystal'. This is a picture of it.

At around 8am on Thursday 11 February a #HS2 bailiff known as Dan entered Kelvin & wedged a door in place a few metres into the tunnel. He used a wooden brace to tightly secure it in place, preventing any outward passage by the occupants.

Over the course of the day, there followed an epic struggle between Desperate Dan the big bailiff and Blue, our brave nature defender, for possession of these few metres of tunnel leading to the downshaft, with Blue ultimately prevailing. #GoBlue #StopHS2

Battle commenced when Desperate Dan attempted to swap in a new door for the one originally installed. It is thought that the new door was one which could be screwed in and locked, rather than wedged & barricaded, much like the one now over the mouth of Crystal.

thread/

tomorrow is holocaust memorial day. it’s not the jewish day of commemoration. that is later on in the year. it is a day for the non-jewish world to consider the memory of the holocaust and what it means to them.

i’m wondering a lot lately about what the holocaust means to non-jews, considering how much it’s been divorced and decontextualized from jewish storytelling.

from where i’m standing the non-jewish world fetishises the holocaust to use it as a metaphor for bad things; things that don’t need a holocaust comparison in order to be understood as bad.

it makes me sick. why? the holocaust is in recent memory for jews. it is a horror that disproportionately affected jews. it is a historic atrocity that attempted to end jewish life on earth, and it took far too many jewish lives to bear thinking about. we have to think about it.

if we don’t think about it, we let those souls perish forever and we let go of the duty we have to ensure ‘never again’.

1 - Today marks the fifth anniversary of the mass sexual attacks in Cologne.

Around 1000 Muslim men, most of whom had only arrived in Germany a few months before, claiming to be refugees, subjected 100s of German women celebrating New Years Eve to savage racial + sexual assault

2 - Working in groups, the men systematically encircled and separated their prey – the white, Christian women that their religion and culture deem racially and religiously inferior – from their

3 - Once isolated, they tore at their clothes and groped them.

They stuck their fingers up their vaginas and anuses, and inside their bras.

They shot fireworks at them.

They robbed them.

Some were raped.

4 - It took days for the attacks to come to public attention as the authorities and media scrambled to downplay or lie about them.

The truth came out on social media + when the scale could no longer be denied, they tried very hard to pretend that it was nothing to do with Islam

5 - Some of the most revolting excuses came from feminists – those ‘wh*res for Islam’ that @patcondell so aptly describes - insisting it was all about ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘patriarchy’ and all the other meaningless mantras they use.