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Cake day: July 12th, 2023

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  • There’s plenty of great commentary here about why Christianity is divided up into different sects, but I think you’re primarily interested in the narcissism of small differences. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences)

    Basically, if you’ve read about Dr. Suess’ Starbellied Sneeches, you get the idea. Human brains are exceptional pattern recognition machines, and when a society is so homogenously Christian then those small differences become the cleavages along which identities form. That leads to things like Catholic / Christian divisions and the formation of the best joke in The Guardian history:

    Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”

    He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

    He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”

    Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.

    https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion





  • Thanks for the detailed break down! One thing I really do miss about old Twitter is how easily I could get a huge variety of great news sources at the same place.

    There were always problems with the site, but nothing has come close to that level of centralized convenience (that I’ve found so far at least). It may just be the new normal since that same centralization makes any site vulnerable to the same fate twitter has met with. But man I sure underestimated how much worse twitter could get…

    I’d love to give bluesky a shot for a bit, but their invite policy has me disappointed having waited for nearly a year now without any sign of opening up for regular users like me. Mastodon is good, tildes better (but tiny) so far, but I still miss having all the journalists who cared about journalism practices in one place…

    Sigh…