Not all early Christians followed Paul. The church in Jerusalem under James was at odds with Paul on a number of subjects. There were also more radical groups outside Jerusalem that combined Christianity with Greek philosophy, having women preaching and leading congregations, and incorporating various mystical beliefs that didn’t originate in Judaism or the teachings of Jesus.

The Muslims have never had a big, convoluted End Times mythos like the Christians, at least not in the Qur’an. At some point in the indefinite future, there will be Judgement Day, and everybody living or dead will get hauled in front of Allah and the recording angel will play back your scorecard. Then it’s Jinnah (heaven) or Jehenna (hell).

There are quite a number of hadiths (extra-scriptural reports of things Muhammad said or did) that talk about the end times. Hadiths are assessed by Islamic scholars based on their provenance and general credibility. Those originating from people close to the Prophet are ranked higher; those that contradict the Qur’an are downgraded. Most of the non-Qur’anic end times narratives sound very similar to Christian eschatology, except that the Mahdi, the successor prophet to Muhammad, appears. Jesus (Issa) returns (and maybe he’s the same guy as the Mahdi?), there’s the Antichrist (the Dajjal) stirring up mischief, there are signs and portents, the giants Gog and Magog running amok, the stars fall from the sky as meteors, etc, etc.

It’s not as entertaining as Ragnarök, but it’s more coherent than the Christian fundies’ fanfic.

According to mainstream Christianity, that’s trying to force God to do something. And the Bible is clear that nobody, not even the faithful, will know when the end times will come.

Not that I care, being an atheist. But these people make shit up without even bothering to see if it’s consistent with the shit that’s already been made up.

Why do you think they hate birth control and abortion so much? They want cannon fodder, and desperate people who will work for starvation wages.

Jill Stein has caused untold damage to the environmental movement and should go away and never come back.

The Supremes will find a way to abuse logic and precedent to uphold anything oppressive that Texas comes up with, just watch.

What left? All the US has in its major parties is center-right or far-right.

So what is China trying to extract from Zambia and Tanzania?

I have a crappy beard, but at least it doesn’t make me look like a hamster like Vance’s does.

Germany just elected their first far right government since WWII

In one German state, Thuringia. That’s the German equivalent of Mississippi. It’s bad, but not bad on the national level yet. In France, the FN (the extreme-right party) lost in the run-off, though their leader has been pretending to be less of a jackbooted thug than her father, the previous FN leader.

You’re correct that the return of fascism is a global problem. If something were to happen to Putin, many of those rightwing parties would collapse back into the squabbling gangs of hooligans and racist goons they were before they started getting Russian advice, funding and help from troll farms. That’s why Russian propaganda outlets like RT and Sputnik have been so anti-Harris. They know Trump will sell out Ukraine and gut NATO, and that’s the only way Putin can keep his job and his head.

and/ot entertainment

I believe the more precise term is cocaine.

And Trump plays to that. He’s a macho hero who plays by his own rules and doesn’t take crap from anyone.

Except he’s not. He’s a lard-assed con artist, appearance-obsessed but ridiculous: fake hair, fake tan, trying to exaggerate his height and hide his obesity, a bully, a coward, a liar, and anyone who’s seen the video of him grovelling in Putin’s presence wouldn’t say he doesn’t take crap from anyone. He’s a servile, fawning toady who would have been nothing without his daddy’s money. If this society were a meritocracy, he’d be pounding farts out of shirttails in a steam laundry in New Jersey, if he could be employed at all.

Society isn’t set up to keep them away from anything: that’s paranoid rationalization. They’re just shit at relating to people and lack discipline and intelligence. Once you make the empowering realization that the world doesn’t owe you a fucking thing, you have a realistic starting point. Blaming other people, or “society,” is just an excuse for inaction.

The few women in that scene are strictly for the alphas! Your beta ass won’t even get scraps.

The reality is that in humans, there’s no such thing as alphas and betas. The ethology that claimed that’s how wolves organize their societies, and that meme-level social darwinists tried to apply to people, was wrong too.

Yet whenever there’s an opportunity to cut taxes on high earners, the Republicans are on it like flies on shit.

It’s ending DEI initiatives.

Name the “endless DEI initiatives” that Harris has been promoting in her platform.

Most of the DEI that people encounter in real life originates from their workplaces. It’s being pushed for marketing reasons, or because it’s the only way the employer can recruit qualified staff. It’s the free market in action. And in my experience, it’s the marginal performers who are adversely impacted. The people who are good at their jobs keep their jobs, or quickly find another.

I’m a hiring manager, have been for a very long time. I’ve got two recruiting campaigns going right now, The field of applicants we interviewed was highly diverse. And the last two offer letters I’ve sent out were to middle-aged white men. That’s because they were the best candidates. And you know what? The DEI Police are not going to come and kick down my front door at 3 AM because of my hiring decisions. DEI is a nonexistent problem, just as “woke,” just as the Great Replacement lies, just as the anti-trans hysteria is. The reality is that, if you’re not getting offers or someone is being promoted ahead of you, it’s because your management think they’ll do better than you. Suck less and you’ll do better. Nobody in my job assesses me based on DEI compliance. But if I hire people who wash out because they can’t do the job, or if I can’t retain high performers, my ass is on the line.

And just to declare my own perspective: I’m an able-bodied older white male myself.

“Architects” sounds so much more professional than “plotters.”

You can if you’re building out technology to wean yourself from that critical resource at the same time.

That was all entirely altruistic? Then it must be coincidental that it sounds exactly like the infrastructure the Brits built in India (minus the 5G), whose sole purpose was wealth extraction.

They don’t ask, but they want to extract all the resources they can. and never mind the people living there.

The US is not the only imperialist power.