You’ve touched on a number of the things that give religious organizations cohesion and strength. The indoctrination is important when it comes to reinforcing those things and building on them. Health cooperatives, college scholarships, support when life circumstances hammer you into the ground… there’s a lot of benefits to being a part of the system. Most people never realize how much they’ve lost by being a part of the system. Why? Because they’re kept ignorant of the things they’ve lost. Keeping that knowledge and experience away from them is important to maintain the desired control.

PS. I’m truly sorry that your nephew didn’t get to realize his dream. I’m in a similar circumstances where I gave away decades of my life to these kinds of teachings and beliefs. Goodness, what I would give to go back and make different choices. But… I’ve still got a lot of years left, so I’m trying to gain my footing and make the best of this life.

Christianity is quite broad and this question will yield a different answer depending on the variant.

The example tract you shared looks like a Chick tract (or similar). That’s a specific breed of American Evangelicalism. Unfortunately, the number of followers in this brand of theology is quite numerous in the United States.

Evangelicals are definitely proponents of education, but very specifically things that align with their theology. So education in dogma, apologetics, and their brand of theology is heavily pushed.

Unfortunately, education in the sciences (particularly biology) is actively fought against because their theology and the sciences conflict on a number of matters. So long as the science agrees with their theology, they’re okay with people being educated in it. That which disagrees with their interpretation of scripture, is interpreted as lies from Satan polluting people’s minds and turning humanity from God.

These Christians will always speak of how important education is, but it takes the form of indoctrination. The more they can solidify people in their beliefs, the better and more “truly” educated they are as a result. If you believe in the sciences of evolutionary biology, then you’ve been deceived and misled.

With that said though… it’s important to remember that there are quite a number of Christians that are not adherents of this form of evangelicalism and who are strong proponents of the sciences.

Religion is about control. The more fundamental the religion is, the stronger that control needs to be. This isn’t a Christian problem or even an evangelical problem. It’s common with numerous religions and why so many devastating wars I’ve been rooted in religion. This problem is a religious problem.

sighs

Yet something else to disable in Windows. I’m losing track of each thing at this point.

But what happens next?!

Trunk Monkey Mobile would have been better. 🐒

😭😭😭

I honestly find this incredible, but yeah… I know people who enjoy being advertised to… and who like “shopping” even though they start out with nothing in mind. Advertising works on them and probably those spam emails I can’t believe people click, which only perpetuates the problem. And apparently it’s worth billions to keep up the commercialization.

Haha. Are you telling me that we all don’t mutually love these attempts to personalize advertisements? There’s nothing better than knowing our personal information is being used for our benefit this way. Look at films like Blade Runner. I can’t wait to have bright fluorescent ads on every corner and open space.

Without these things, how else am I going to know which medication I should be insisting my doctor prescribe me? And clearly this insurance company with the funny ad is totally going to be there on my side when something happens. That’s why they made the commercial, duh. So I would absolutely be certain I can trust them to quickly and fully process a claim.

There’s nothing cozier than the snug embrace of consumerism, where we find a peculiar warmth, as if cocooned in a comforter spun from the very fibers of advertising’s allure.

I love ads. I love what Microsoft and the likes are doing.

Said no one ever

Makes unfortunate sense. I was also hoping somebody figured out how to liberate it, but I imagined it might be highly tied to the Google app.

• ChatGPT 3.5 isn’t bad.
• Copilot is… undecided.
• Gemini I think I like the best in the realm of free AI, but I need to use it in a separate browser (Firefox nightly) and would prefer an app or even a PWA.

Anyway, I felt confident this was the case but people surprise me with how they can manage freeing apps and/or providing separate frontends altogether.

This is the best thing. Evar!

No worries.

And there really isn’t a whole lot to elaborate on. I simply want to be able to attach a telephoto lens to my OnePlus 11.

I know third party solutions sometimes require a special case, which I’m open to, but the only popular one I found didn’t have a case for this model phone.

Any recommendations on “most phones” variant?

So weird that so much is integrated into a web browser.

I logged on to my father’s computer today to fix a few things for him and was immediately overwhelmed with all the Windows bloat. This includes copilot and… so… much… more… 😖

Yes, I see the tension has become worse. I just found and read this beehaw document on the matter.

For what it’s worth, I want to continue to be a part of Beehaw. I really appreciate the value that they stand for.

I created this alternate account and stopped using my Beehaw account because it seemed like they’re departure from Lemmy was imminent. Today, it seems they’re departure is still on the horizon, but not anytime soon. I guess one can only watch and see.

Lack of federation? My understanding was that Beehaw planned to migrate away from Lemmy altogether. Has that changed?

This is really great info. Thank you.

How I might I determine if “the fused branch is already presenting an increased risk.” I don’t see any evidence of anything strange currently. Only some tree lichen in some spots.

There is a ton of info there. Thank you! Adding to my resource list.

Thank you! The link was also helpful. It reminded me how I saw spots on the leaves and I want to get a good close look this year and figure out what I can do about that.