A lot of people are trying to figure out what UCP means by putting this biblical quote out into the twitter verse at Christmas.

Many have piped up with commentary and criticized the mix of religion and politics. A convention long held in Canada.

The quote is often repeated at Christmas. “A child is born...” makes reference to the birth of Jesus. Makes sense.

But what does it mean?

Christians (and other religious observers with their religious texts) have made an art form out of interpreting what passages mean.
To those most radically devout (some might say zealously faithful), hidden divine meanings are gleaned from “correctly” reading the bible.

That’s what Dominionists believe. That god himself wrote the bible. Through inspiration of the actual authors, & only they can interpret.
And thus, the “inerrant“ bible serves as a strict road map to save ones soul.

Many devout Christians view the passage as a prophecy made centuries before the birth of Christ. A promise made by god through one of his prophets. Jews interpret the passage very differently.
The Anglican Priest is (obviously) correct about this being supersessionism, and a form of Anti-Semitism.

Troublesome as it is for a Canadian provincial govt to be tweeting out Anti-Semitic propaganda, that’s not the only meaning this passage has for Dominionist Christians.
First I must preface this with the declaration that I am not an expert in Christian scripture or dogma. But I can read and interpret what others write relatively accurately.

Perhaps @profagagne, @C_Stroop, or @MindShift2018 can fact check. They have far more expertise than me.
The passage tweeted out by the sock puppet account for Jason Kenney, premier of Alberta, Canada is relatively popular at this time of year. Isaiah 9:6 is a reference to a child being born and the characteristics he will possess.
But the passage can be interpreted numerous ways about government, theonomy (theocracy’s more rigid application) and what is expected of “true believers.”

The passage also prophesies the establishment of god’s Kingdom on earth. Where Jesus is the supreme ruler.
This is where the delusional zealotry of Dominionism becomes evident. As the supreme ruler of all of earth, Dominionists believe Isaiah prophesied the expectations for the Messiah’s human subjects; complete obedience and full subjugation to his rule and commands. No exceptions.
Those who don’t obey will be shown the “correct” way of living and worship by the “iron rod” wielded by Jesus during his forever rule of earth.

As well, Jesus is going to simplify politics for everyone to ensure peace.
He’s going to dumb it down so even the least educated can easily interpret his will.

Humans are sinners and their only hope for salvation is unyielding faith and total subjugation to the rule of god (or his earthly regent). Those who don’t yield suffer the iron rod.
Establishing the Kingdom of god on earth is a primary goal of Dominionist Christians. There is no need to wait for the arrival of Jesus. The Kingdom can be established and a temporary regent can be appointed until Jesus arrives. Many Dominionists believe his arrival is imminent.
So there is no need to express caution regarding climate change. God can fix any climate issues which threaten all life because he’s omnipotent. He created the whole universe, earth & it’s living & inanimate inhabitants in 6 days. Clearing the atmosphere is child’s play. For god.
Jesus will fix the climate, COVid, the economy; whatever it takes to protect the faithful, & then rule for eternity. (Presumably with regular climate cleansing to enable & maintain the abundant fossil fuels god provided.
So, not only is this passage an Anti-Semitic dog whistle for Christian White Nationalists, it’s also confirmation that the UCP stands behind the Dominionist Christian community and continues to work towards establishment of the Kingdom of god in Alberta, & UCP rule in perpetuity.
Or at the very least, until Jesus returns. I’m guessing that means Kenney is considered another divinely appointed ruler who will take care of this part of the Kingdom until Jesus comes again. Or maybe it’s Harper who is the unseen ruler behind the curtain.
Either way, the fact the Alberta government sent out this passage is a wake up call.

Dominionist Christian ideology, beliefs and values are dangerous, threatening and delusional. Like Trump, Kenney is harnessing fanatical beliefs to control politics and policy in Alberta.
Experts in Christian faith can confirm these beliefs and values are extremist and menacing. It’s an abandonment of democracy, human rights and logic and reason. There are no valid challenges to a deity. It’s futile to try reason and rationale.

Nothing will alter these beliefs.
I’ve attached a video from Frank Schaeffer. He’s a former evangelical leader. He and his father actually inspired much of the rhetoric and beliefs being perpetrated by the Dominionist Christian community in contemporary politics. Please watch.

https://t.co/qhKAxEzHD5
Schaeffer is one of the experts who know Dominionism from the inside. Ex evangelicals know the ins and outs of Dominionism because they’ve lived it. Schaeffer is a trusted source of information about the objectives of Christian nationalists. He helped perpetuate it.
Please watch the 9 minute Scaeffer video. It explains the mindset of the people who are Dominionist Christian faithful believers. It explains why so many churches are refusing to follow COVid protocol.
The video explains how dangerous a provincial government that fosters and responds to the policy demands of the Dominionist community truly is.

Close to 50 UCP MLAs are full fledged members of the Dominionist community, including the premier.
The Isaiah biblical passage is an assertion of Christian righteousness that UCP believes they represent. It’s a warning that UCP believes they have god on their side and that liberalism, socialism and humanism is the work of Satan and those who believe it, the enemy.
It’s indication that logic, reason and science are useless tools to sway the premier’s beliefs, policies and allegiances.

Let that sink in.

It means most of UCP are delusional and beyond the reach of reasonable discourse.

It means Alberta and Albertans are in grave danger.
It means a reasoned logical argument is useless to influence policy in Alberta.

It means we ignore the taboo of questioning religious beliefs or continue banging our heads against a brick wall.

We must expose the delusional thinking and fanatical beliefs shaping AB policy.
The fact that a prominent Anglican priest felt the need to publicly voice concern about the use of this religious passage is a huge warning to the rest of the Albertan population.
When have you witnessed a member of the clergy warning citizens of the significance of the government’s chosen Christmas message?

This is the first time in my lifetime. I’m 53. This is an enormously significant warning from an actual Christian priest.
Take heed of the warning.

The mentally unbalanced are in charge of the province with unfettered power to legislate, in the middle of a pandemic.

That’s reality that needs the public’s attention.
https://t.co/GhCJ67wRJW

More from Sunshiny AKA Cassandra

ENTITLEMENT. https://t.co/PmdZEUd3us


Seems conservatives have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

How does it feel to the average Albertan to be considered second class? Apparently UCP, CPC and other conservatives across Canada are exempt from COVID public health orders.

I wonder if that means anti maskers are first class citizens? What about church pastors and parishioners? Are they first class status too?

But teachers, physicians, police, first responders, grocery workers, and every other Albertan is considered second class.

We don’t get exemptions to avoid public health orders.

What kind of government flouts law and order?


This is not explained by the confused and poorly informed “freedom” focussed Q’Anon and the fanatical Evangelical Christian’s who evidently can’t manage to worship at home.

These are fully informed political aids and politicians. Refusing to be limited by public health orders.
This is one of the most important threads I’ve read in the last year. Maybe more.

@PaulDoroshenko hits the ball out of the park!

This is exactly what we need to do.

And remember, Harper stacked public service with loyalists. RCMP, judiciary, senate, government departments.


We need Denazification in Canada too!

There can be no tolerance for intolerance.

Many are opining about free speech. In Canada we have freedom of expression and it comes with some caveats. Harmful hate speech is not free.

We have been inundated with hate speech for decades.

It must stop. We must remove the fascists from power and eradicate the platforms they use to build support.

I’ve taught both my children by age 9 what fascism is and what it looks like. I can be done.

School based education is a must to nullify hatred.

But what about the adults? First we remove the ability to indoctrinate through the internet. Mainstream media needs to be purged of nazi sympathizers. And the internet needs regulation. Because some people cannot be trusted to refrain from hate speech.

You got a problem with restrictions on speech, take a look at the US where any form of speech is free. Lying, disinformation, promotion of hatred and psychological manipulation propaganda. And the result is January 6, 2021 attempted “patriot” insurrection.

More from Twitter

So regarding to my "bombshell"...it's perhaps a bit less dramatic than many presumed, yet it still troubles me a lot, to the point that I wondered whether I should stop posting on certain things


You see, I realized in the last few months that, by translating information and news related to one of the fastest growing spaceflight powers of the world...I inadvertently became a spreader of PRC propaganda.

And with me exactly 180 degrees away from them, I feel scared.

It actually started a few years ago - it's not hard to meet Chinese Twitter users interested in spaceflight, either those living overseas or find a way to climb over the wall. Not surprisingly, many of these S/F enthusiasts are interested in their own military too.

This steadily grew with my followers' count until the flagship Chinese spaceflight missions of 2020 (Chang'e 5 especially but also many others) brought in dozens of them liking/re-tweeting my info tweets sometimes, and similar no. of such followers every month.

I do casually check these new followers/users sometimes. To my horror, far too many of them routinely insults, attacks, mocks others who they see as "anti-China" or spread potential mis-information, even blatant attacks, that started off w/ their state media/spokesperson.
1/

Thinking about this tweetstorm, one of the issues I’ve run into as an engineering leader is what to call the software engineering stuff that’s “agile” given that the Agile Community(tm) has killed the brand.


2/

And by & large, I’ve taken to call it “DevOps”, because the DevOps community have taken up much of the mantle @KentBeck & the XP community started with. & Kent has independently focused on safe small changes deployed to production. Which is DevOps.

3/

Much of the art here is making changes safe enough to deploy to production continuously. And to do that, we need to design incrementally, test obsessively, take architecture seriously so we decompose dependencies. & we need to automate everything & do it all the time.

4/

It turns out that this is what Kent & @RonJeffries @GeePawHill & many other folks have been nattering on about & being broadly misunderstood. @KentBeck has some brilliant essays (scattered across FB & his site alas) & @GeePawHill has amazing twitter threads on the topic

5/

When you look at *what it takes* to get to the DORA measures that @nicolefv & team write about in Accelerate, the input metrics for the DORA outputs, it’s making small changes safe.

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Trump is gonna let the Mueller investigation end all on it's own. It's obvious. All the hysteria of the past 2 weeks about his supposed impending firing of Mueller was a distraction. He was never going to fire Mueller and he's not going to


Mueller's officially end his investigation all on his own and he's gonna say he found no evidence of Trump campaign/Russian collusion during the 2016 election.

Democrats & DNC Media are going to LITERALLY have nothing coherent to say in response to that.

Mueller's team was 100% partisan.

That's why it's brilliant. NOBODY will be able to claim this team of partisan Democrats didn't go the EXTRA 20 MILES looking for ANY evidence they could find of Trump campaign/Russian collusion during the 2016 election

They looked high.

They looked low.

They looked underneath every rock, behind every tree, into every bush.

And they found...NOTHING.

Those saying Mueller will file obstruction charges against Trump: laughable.

What documents did Trump tell the Mueller team it couldn't have? What witnesses were withheld and never interviewed?

THERE WEREN'T ANY.

Mueller got full 100% cooperation as the record will show.