Kangaroos and Creationist Fan Theories

Kangaroo, with a baby kangaroo in its pouch. Image source.

Here's a fun video from Joel Duff: New Solution to the Marsupial Migration Problem? Divine Action vs Natural Laws. (Also, Duff's blog post, and the Slacktivist's post about it, The Long March Of The Koalas Revisited.) The video is 1 hour and 24 minutes long, and is probably only of interest to people who are obsessed with the details of young-earth creationism. I LOVED it, that's why I'm blogging about it here.

Basically, it's about this question: During the Flood, all of the land animals died, except for the ones on Noah's ark. [According to young-earth creationist ideology.] The bible says the ark eventually came to rest on Mount Ararat, and then from there all the animals dispersed. Now we see that Australia is home to many species of marsupials, while the rest of the world has placental mammals. How did this happen? Marsupials got off the ark and walked to Australia, and didn't stop anywhere along the way to establish populations in other places? All of the marsupial species walked from the Middle East to Australia, and none of the placentals did that? How on earth could that happen?

(Adding the caveat here that there are marsupial fossils in Antarctica, and also there are marsupials native to South America- so it's not *just* Australia. But mainly Australia.)

I used to be a young-earth creationist, and I don't remember ever hearing about this question back then. But wow, it's a good question! Why on earth is Australia full of marsupials, and other places aren't, if all the animals started out in the ark and dispersed from there?

(The fossil record adds another complication- because young-earth creationists believe that the overwhelming majority of the layers of fossils were deposited during the Flood. So, before the Flood, you have marsupials living in Australia- we know that's where they lived before the Flood, because we find fossils there deposited during the Flood. And then 2 of each "kind" of marsupial ["kind" has a specific meaning in young-earth creationism, it's similar to a genus or family- NOT a species] traveled from Australia to wherever Noah was. Then, the Flood came, and all the marsupials in Australia died. Then, after the Flood, the ones on Noah's ark came all the way back to Australia. That's a bit, uh, odd, right? Why do we see such continuity between the fossils found in a certain place, and the animal species that currently live in that place, if the Flood basically reset everything? After the Flood, the whole landscape of the earth would be completely different than before. So many layers of mud covering everything. Why would animals end up going back to the same places where they lived before the Flood?)

Thinking about it now, it feels to me like a case of "the writer of the 'Noah's ark' story just kind of glossed over the part." If you're going to have a global flood, it makes sense to say "Oh but what about the animals? Oh, we can save a male and female of each kind of animal, there ya go"- that's a first attempt to address the problem of how to save the animals, and the "Noah's ark" story doesn't go any deeper than that on this issue. (Maybe because it wasn't the point of the story!) But if you start to think about it, you realize the problem is MUCH more complicated than "save a male and female of each kind of animal." How do you gather the animals and get them all onto the ark? How do you feed them all during the Flood? How do you make sure that *none* of them die, and *all* of them reproduce? And how do they spread out to the whole world after the Flood, to the locations where we see these species of animals living today?

In Duff's video, he discusses a creationist article written by Graeme Taylor, Marsupials in Australia—an act of God?. (Duff does not believe in young-earth creationism, but he takes it extremely seriously, and his entire blog is about going through the little details of things found in the fossil record, etc, and asking whether it's possible to explain them from a young-earth perspective.) Taylor's article presents the idea that maybe God supernaturally directed all the marsupials to travel to Australia.

The way I see it, there are 4 possible young-earth creationist explanations for marsupials living in Australia:

1. Some natural explanation that makes you go "oh, that makes sense" for how all the marsupials would travel to Australia, while none of the placentals would. No one has come up with such an explanation.
2. The marsupials all just decided to cross mountain ranges and climb onto vegetation rafts that floated to Australia, for no real reason, just a wild coincidence. This is what most of the young-earth creationist scientists have been saying, and Taylor's article is challenging this and pointing out that it is very unrealistic.
3. The marsupials all decided to cross mountain ranges and climb onto vegetation rafts that floated to Australia, because God supernaturally made them want to do that. God intervened constantly during their journey, in small ways, to make sure they survived and arrived in Australia. This is the theory that Taylor presents in his article.
4. Maybe God just teleported them straight to Australia. There aren't any creationist scientists actually advocating this explanation, but Duff brings it up in his video and asks "why not?" If God was going to do a bunch of small miracles to help the marsupials along, all throughout their trip to Australia, why not just do one big miracle instead? Wouldn't that be easier?

Watching Duff's video, the thing that really strikes me is how, in Taylor's theory, God really really wants marsupials to live in Australia. God intervened in so many little ways, to make sure Australia's animals were different than animals you find elsewhere. This must have been really important to God, or else why would They go to all that effort, doing all those small miracles, overriding animals' instincts to not get on vegetation rafts floating out into the open ocean?

In explanations 1 and 2 (which I listed above), you don't have to believe that God really really wanted marsupials to live in Australia. In explanations 3 and 4, you do. And, like, why? Why was it so important to God that marsupials live in Australia, and not establish any other populations anywhere else along the way?

And even if you're fine with claiming "God just really really wanted Australia to be *different* and have marsupials," there's another problem, which Duff points out: What about the dinosaurs? Young-earth creationists believe that dinosaurs were on Noah's ark, but they all died out very soon afterward. Why? Wasn't the point of Noah's ark to save every kind of animal? Why would God do the work to ensure that 2 of every kind of dinosaur got on the ark, and then just let them die out anyway right after? If God is so invested in marsupials living in Australia, willing to do all these tiny little miracles to guide them on their journey and make sure they survive, then it must also be true that dinosaurs went extinct because God just really really wanted them to go extinct. What? What was the point of bringing them on the ark then? Is God just really bad at planning?

Actually, this question isn't just about obscure creationist fan theories. It's also about how God intervenes in the world now. Plenty of people claim that God healed them from this or that sickness- and what they mean is, God guided them to find doctors who were able to help them, etc. We don't have evidence of God doing *obvious* miracles (like my "explanation 4" above), like growing back amputated limbs.

When people pray and ask God for help, they expect that God will answer that prayer by doing a series of little, subtle "miracles", each of which is unremarkable by itself, but they add up to the result that God wanted. God causes you to be late for work because of traffic one day, and that causes you to meet someone who has some important effect on your life, and so on. People don't expect that they pray and then God answers with some glowing magic like in a Disney princess movie. But, why not? Wouldn't it be easier for God to just do 1 big miracle instead of a bunch of complicated small miracles?

And Duff brings this up in his video too. He says it's not just about Noah's ark, but it's about the nature of how God intervenes in the world, and all theists (including himself) have to think about this question. Yeah... I'm a Christian, so I have to think about this too.

Personally, my answer is that God does NOT intervene in the world. And the biggest reason that I believe this, is the existence of systemic racism and other systemic injustice. If I believe that God is doing all these little tiny things to help me because They have this elaborate plan and They really want me to get this or that job and meet this or that person, then I also have to believe that God really really wants black people to get denied mortgages, and not believed by their doctors, and pulled over by cops for no real reason, and sent to jail for drug use at higher rates than white people who are doing the same things. WTF? Why would God want that??? Not cool! So I just can't believe God intervenes at all. How could it be the case that "God has a plan" and God is always doing these intricate little actions to influence people and carry out the plan, and it adds up to a world with systemic injustice? WTF? 

(Which is basically the problem of evil.)

It's the same as the situation with the marsupials and the dinosaurs. If you believe God really wanted the marsupials to live in Australia, and did miracles to make sure this would happen, then you also have to believe God really wanted the dinosaurs to die.

In conclusion: I loved the video, and it's so delightful to imagine creationists doing the math about how far a kangaroo can hop in a day, and all of the other weird implications of this fan theory. But it goes deeper than that; it's about our beliefs about how God acts in the world now. Does God do big or small miracles? Does God avoid big obvious miracles because They want to allow people to not believe in Them? (This is the reasoning I have ALWAYS heard from Christians, but I don't buy it.) Does God have a specific "plan for your life"?

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Related:

I used to be a young-earth creationist 

I Didn't Like the Ocean in "Moana" Because it was Too Much Like God

I Would Love to Know If God Intervened to Stop Covid From Spreading in Churches 

My Racist Personal Relationship with God

Does God Use Miracles To Take Sides?

The Great Sex Rescue: Be Normal!

A pride parade. Image source.

Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"

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We are still in chapter 10 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link]. I've split up this chapter into 3 parts; this post will cover the last part, pages 197 to 198.

So, this is the last little bit of chapter 10, a chapter which has had a lot of very important things to say about marital rape, consent, coercion, and painful sex. I'm reading along, basically agreeing with the whole chapter, feeling sad for how Christian culture makes it necessary to say these things which should be very obvious... and then we get to this last part, about "Holding Your No Responsibly." It's a little 1-page section about how you can't just not consent to sex forever; there's a "tension" because "we are also the only proper sexual outlet our spouse has." (They make an exception for abuse though- if your spouse is abusive, you don't have to work your way toward being able to consent to sex.) 

Take a look at this bit:

If your no relates to something the vast majority of people consider a healthy part of a sexual life, such as intercourse or touching various parts of the body, seek appropriate professional help so that if you're healthy and it is possible, your no can turn to a not yet, but soon.

O.O

Give me a minute to pick my jaw up from the floor.

...

Okay.

So, my first reaction to this is, oh my, this whole chapter has had such important and true things to say about rape and coercion, and then suddenly there's this. I very much disagree with this. They're saying that if you're married and your spouse wants to do some sexual thing that most people see as very normal, well, basically you do have to do it. You don't have to do it every single time they ask for it, but overall, in general, you do have to be doing it.

It should be very obvious why I- as an asexual- do not like this!

But, let me step back for a moment and say I do understand why Gregoire and the other authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" are saying this. One of the common criticisms she gets is from men who don't like her message of "it's wrong to coerce your wife into having sex", because, these men say, how can you ever get your wife to have sex if you don't coerce her? (In other words, these men are announcing to everyone that they are bad at sex, and they can't imagine any woman would actually *want* to have sex with them.) So they criticize Gregoire and say that her message will lead to sexless marriages.

As we saw in chapter 8, Gregoire doesn't think it's okay to have a sexless marriage. So there is a "tension", as the book says here. On the one hand, consent is hugely important! It's not okay to coerce or rape anyone. But on the other hand, you [supposedly] can't just never have sex with your spouse. (Unless your spouse is abusive.) So... how does this work?

I think the way she solves this contradiction is like this: If you have a healthy marriage, if you treat each other right, if you both treat each other as equals during sex and care about it being a good experience for both of you, THEN both spouses will naturally enjoy sex and want to have sex- you won't have a situation where one of them doesn't want to have sex.

This is just simply not right. Asexuals exist. Gay people exist- what if it's a gay person married to an opposite-sex spouse?

But anyway, that's the motivation for this bit of "The Great Sex Rescue." Apparently, a sexless marriage would be so incredibly bad, and we must reassure everyone that if they follow our advice correctly, such a dreadful outcome will not happen. Uh, okay.

This is one of the main things I've criticized about this book- the way it tries to make everyone fit into this narrow heteronormative allonormative ideal (ie, everyone is straight, and no one is asexual). If you're married, you have to be straight and you have to have PIV [penis-in-vagina] sex. I was actually really shocked to see this part of the book say it so directly- if it's "something the vast majority of people consider a healthy part of a sexual life" then in the long run, you do need to consent to it... I just... wow.

I agree that it would suck if you get married expecting to have sex with your spouse, and then your spouse discovers that they are asexual and they never want to have sex. 

It would also suck if you get married expecting that you will enjoy sex, because everyone always talks about how it's the best thing ever, even though it doesn't make any intuitive sense, but you assume that it will become more clear when you're actually doing it, and then you figure out you're asexual and you don't want sex at all, and then what do you do about your spouse expecting to have sex with you frequently?

It would also suck if you get married, to an opposite-sex partner, and then you discover you are gay.

What all of these scenarios have in common is people not being allowed to explore and know themselves before marriage. In purity culture, you're not supposed to have any sexual experience before marriage, and you have to repress your sexual desires as best you can. You can't know yourself; your Christian leaders dictate to you what your desires will be. You go into marriage just assuming that you're sexually "normal" and that your spouse is "normal"... you have to assume this, because you're not allowed to gather any information that can help you get a more accurate read on it.

So what do you do if you then discover that you and your spouse are not sexually compatible? "The Great Sex Rescue"'s solution is that the partner who is farther from "normal" is the one who needs to change. (Okay the book doesn't use the word "normal." The one who is farther from "the vast majority of people" needs to change.)

I very much disagree with this. Why does it matter what "the vast majority of people" think? You're in a monogamous marriage- "the vast majority of people" are not involved in your sex life at all; it's just the two of you. And you both equally matter, and ideally you can discuss it and invent some sequence of sexual and/or intimate actions that you both enjoy, regardless of how close they are to "the vast majority of people." Or, unfortunately, sometimes people do break up because of this. But regardless, the idea that you should just automatically rule in favor of the partner whose desires are closer to "the vast majority of people" is not a good solution.

I will say, however, that I believe there is value in at least being aware of what is "normal." I don't really like it when people (queer people, sex educators, etc) say there is no normal, normal doesn't matter, and things like that. I guess because I'm coming from an extremely sheltered purity-culture background... when I hear people say that you shouldn't even care what's normal, that normal doesn't matter at all, it sounds to me like this kind of scenario: Someone who is so sheltered that they don't know anything at all about the practical ways that people have sex. They've never watched porn, never masturbated- they heard that women sometimes fake orgasms, but they're confused about how that would even work- like, how do you even know what an orgasm is supposed to be like, in order to fake it? All they know is their own desires. And then their partner says they want to do some sexual thing- and it's something that the more sheltered partner has NEVER heard of. It seems to come out of nowhere, and they have no context for understanding whether it's reasonable or not. And all they know is this very theoretical "normal doesn't matter, only your desires and your partner's desires", no practical experience at all... How can you make a good decision about whether to consent or not?

(Reminds me of the part in "50 Shades of Gray" where Ana was researching BDSM on her computer, to decide if she wanted to enter into a contract about it. Like WHOA, SLOW DOWN, she has no experience with sex at all- she should definitely NOT be entering into a BDSM contract. This is NOT the kind of decision you can make by just reading stuff on the internet. That scene really freaked me out a lot, because I am one of those "reading about everything on the internet" people, and I can easily imagine an alternate universe where I falsely believed that my internet research made me totally ready to do sexual things that I definitely would not actually want.)

It's useful to have a general idea of the landscape of what's "normal." (And I think I shouldn't necessarily blame the people who say you shouldn't care about "normal" at all- they were likely not thinking about the possibility that someone could be so sheltered they really don't even know what "normal" is.) Or, going beyond that, to see examples of practical ways that this plays out in people's actual lives, even if it's different from "normal." If you're ace, it is very helpful to hear from other aces about their experiences and their choices and what works for them- just to give you an idea of what the possibilities are, and help you figure out what choices you want to make. That's more helpful than the very theoretical "you can do whatever you want, as long as you and your partner both consent."

If you're extremely sheltered, and your partner suggests something, and it sounds so weird and you're not sure about it- if it's something that many people enjoy doing, then maybe you decide to try it and see if you like it. Obviously you don't *have* to, but this is useful information to help you decide. But if it's something like, your partner wants to hurt you during sex, and your first reaction is "I hate this idea, but... I should care about what my partner wants, so I should at least consider it..." then it could be very helpful to know that most people would say no to that.

The problem, of course, is that there can be things that are seen as normal even though they are unhealthy. People think it's normal if the man has an orgasm and the woman doesn't. People think it's normal if sex is painful for women. Believing that something is more likely to be reasonable/healthy because it's "normal" can be a problem! Still, I think it's better to at least know what "normal" is, and use that as a reference point, than to have no reference point at all.

In summary: I very much disagree with this line from "The Great Sex Rescue," which says you ultimately need to consent to something if "the vast majority of people" think it's normal. This idea is a result of not being allowed to have sex or explore your own desires before marriage, and it very much does NOT work for aces and/or queer people.

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One more interesting thing from the end of chapter 10:

Using a code word can help both of you know that you are staying within each other's boundaries while giving you an easy way to speak up if you're getting uncomfortable. Choose a code word that will mean "I'd like to stop now," whether it's uncle or something innocuous, like pineapple or Appalachian. Then, when you hear that code word, stop what you're doing. Reassure one another of your love, and decide together what you want to do next. While code words are great tools for healthy marriages, they will not stop an abusive spouse from harming you. Again, if you are in an abusive marriage, please enlist outside professional help.

Yes, this is a good idea! And I also think it's really good that they said this won't help if your spouse is abusive. I can easily imagine someone in a bad relationship, reading a lot of books, looking for some little trick that will make their relationship better, when the truth is that if your partner is not interested in having a healthy relationship, there is literally no way to fix it on your own.

But here's why I'm pointing out this paragraph and blogging about it: Umm, what they're talking about here is called a safe word. The book calls it a "code word," but this is the exact same thing as a safe word. Why don't they call it a safe word????? I am FASCINATED by this question. 

I *guess* it's because safe words are related to BDSM, and there's a very real risk that good evangelical Christians will attack this book if they find out that it mentions something related to BDSM. You know how evangelicals are about that kind of thing- getting all culture-war-y, blowing things way out of proportion rather than engaging with what's actually being said.

Anyway, the advice about safe words is good. Too bad they didn't actually call it a "safe word" though.

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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue" 

Related:

The Great Sex Rescue: The Chapter Where It's Not Okay To Be Asexual 

The Great Sex Rescue: Sex Drive

Scripts

Why would it be bad news if ancient Romans had loving gay relationships?

Ancient Roman painting of 2 women. Image source.

Here's a thought I had when I was writing my review of the book "Slaves, Women & Homosexuals":

So, for Christians who view the bible as inerrant, as the authority over our lives, and who therefore believe it is very very important to carefully analyze all the rules in the bible, to research ancient Near East culture and ancient Hebrew and Greek languages, to really really figure out what *exactly* the writers meant, and how we must put those things into practice in our lives now- for Christians who are coming from that perspective (and, full disclosure, I do NOT view the bible that way, though I did when I was evangelical), the discussion of "what the bible says about homosexuality" goes like this:

On the one side, you have the traditional view, which says that the bible says same-sex sexual relationships are DEFINITELY sinful. There are 6 "clobber passages" in the bible which mention homosexuality, and all of them portray it as bad.

On the other side, you have Christians doing queer apologetics, making the case that these passages can be interpreted differently, and that the bible does NOT say that all same-sex sexual relationships are sinful.

(Queer apologetics were extremely helpful to me, years ago, but now I no longer believe the bible is an authority over our lives, so I don't really need the "queer apologetic" approach now. But yes, I really needed it back then, and I'm glad there are Christians doing this work. Back then, I was mainly influenced by Justin Lee and Matthew Vines.)

Here's the main queer apologetics argument: Whenever the bible condemns homosexuality, it's condemning homosexual practices which were clearly immoral for other reasons. For example, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is an attempted gang rape. Gang rape is wrong. Just because it was men trying to rape men doesn't mean all gay relationships are wrong; it really has nothing to do with that at all. And in passages like Romans 1, same-sex relationships are characterized as being driven by overwhelming lust- in ancient Roman times, they didn't view people as having a "sexual orientation"; they viewed homosexual behavior as caused by an excess of lust. Also it was common for adult men to have sexual relationships with boys. All of this is, uh, not healthy. The bible isn't condemning loving, consensual, committed same-sex relationships between equal partners, because that wasn't really a concept they had back then. 

(Ya know, hetero relationships back then were also not very healthy/consensual/equal...)

(Other key components of the queer apologetic are: Genesis 2, where God says "it is not good for the man to be alone"- therefore, since in modern times we know that it's natural for some people to be gay, we should allow them to have same-sex relationships, rather than requiring them to be single. Also, Jesus' teaching about "a good tree cannot bear bad fruit"- what is the "fruit" of preaching that being gay is wrong? It's BAD- queer people are at a high risk of things like hate crimes, being rejected by their families, depression, and suicide. But if you accept and support queer people, everything is so much better. Jesus said you will know them by their fruit.)

So anyway, the argument very much depends on the idea that there wasn't really a common relationship structure in ancient Roman culture (when the New Testament was written) which is similar to same-sex marriage today. So when the apostle Paul, or the other biblical writers, were condemning homosexuality, they weren't condemning our modern version of it.

Anyway, that's the background information that sets the stage for what I want to talk about:

I remember one time I was reading someone's argument about the bible and same-sex relationships, and they talked about all this, and then they said, "But, it turns out, there were loving same-sex relationships in bible times. And, yes, Paul would have known about them. So, when we read the bible passages condemning same-sex relationships, it means all same-sex relationships are wrong."

Reading that, it was like... like it just deflated the whole argument. Like, oh, there were healthy gay relationships back then. Oh. So, all the gay people nowadays who want to date are just out of luck. And that's that.

(Queer Christians and allies have pushed back against this; I seem to recall I read something by Matthew Vines arguing against the idea that "oh they totally had equal gay partnerships back then and Paul would have known about it"- here's a link along those lines. Though personally, like I said, I don't care because the bible is not in charge of me.)

Anyway, recently when I was reading "Slaves, Women & Homosexuals," (and wondering why straight Christians want to spend so much time and energy barging into gay people's lives and telling them what they're allowed to do) it brought up that memory of when I read someone saying there were loving gay relationships back then, and how discouraged I felt when I read that.

And, can we just take a minute and marvel at how BIZARRE that is?

Like, suppose we find out that there were same-sex couples in ancient Roman times that had happy, loving relationships. Wow, good for them! Right? Let's be happy for them! But somehow, "traditional" Christians turn that into "and that means gay people now are not allowed to get married" which is bad news. What is going on here? How are we turning this into bad news?

Why not just be happy for people? Why not just let people live their lives? How can historical information about the existence of healthy relationships be used to forbid people from having healthy gay relationships today?

The authority of Scripture is a hell of a drug.

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Related:

"Slaves, Women & Homosexuals" (What is this book actually about?) 

The "Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic" Argument for Queer Acceptance

We Need Queer Theology

"The Author of Leviticus Would Have Been Cool With It"

"The Authority of Scripture" is One Hell of a Drug

Blogaround

1. 40-year ban on gay clergy struck down (May 1) "Without debate, General Conference has removed The United Methodist Church’s ban on the ordination of clergy who are 'self-avowed practicing homosexuals' — a prohibition that dates to 1984." Good news!

2. The Protest Derangement Class: A Response to John McWhorter (April 30) "We're back to just calling loud people violent. I truly don't understand how one person can milk a truly meaningless talking point for this long. I don't know how to keep responding to it, it's too dumb." (18-minute video)

3. How a beloved worship song became the theme song of Christian nationalism (May 1, via) The song is "How Great Is Our God" (youtube link) and I actually still really like this song, even though I'm ex-evangelical and I don't go to church. But yeah really gross to find out Christian nationalists are using this song.

4. China launches historic mission to retrieve samples from far side of the moon (May 4) Cool!

5. Alphabetical Cartogram (May 1) Very useful map from xkcd.

6. Man or Bear Discourse Might Feel Familiar to Atheists (May 4) "Being calm, rational people, the atheist community received this message thoughtfully, in its intended spirit, and took Rebecca's words into consideration during future interactions with-- I'M KIDDING, obviously that's not what happened at all." (12-minute video)

7. No, Paul Won’t Teach Seminaries of the Future through the Miracle of AI (April 29) "It’s Paul plus an imaginative recreations of what Paul might be like. If we take that part out, we just have the letters, and ChatGPT is not necessary for an encounter with Paul. If we add it in, we’re not engaging with Paul anymore."

8. The Supreme Court is breaking America’s faith in the law (April 29) "I truly believed that at least seven members of the court would take the potential failure of democracy as a proposition seriously enough that the partisan valence of this case went away. That didn’t happen."

9. Mr. Yuk (April 30) "He saw first-hand the impact of the lack of information on poisonings and decided to do something about it. He started collecting information on poisonous substances and filling it on these little index cards. He ended up accumulating information on roughly 9000 different substances, and by the 1950s he was the go-to poison expert."

10. All the time (May 6) "Holiness was distinct from goodness, distinct from love, or mercy, or justice, or patience, or presence. And it often seems to be — for my dad as for so many of his fellow Calvinist believers — something almost opposed to those other attributes."

11. Is China Ready for Hospice Care? (May 1) "Questions like how to broach the topic, with whom, and how to hold family meetings are all issues that require a soft touch. If family members are concealing a condition from the patient — a not uncommon practice in China — it is even more difficult to have these conversations."

12. 'Dance Your Ph.D.' winner on science, art, and embracing his identity (May 4, via) "'It means the time I did my kangaroo research,' says Menário Costa. 'But [it] also means the first time I lived as a gay man. It's the first time I lived as an immigrant, five years without going home. The time of reconnection to myself, of exploring my sexuality, of bridging these beautiful communit[ies].'"

13. Our Campus. Our Crisis. Inside the encampments and crackdowns that shook American politics. A report by the staff of the Columbia Daily Spectator. (May 4, via) "We had been briefed on what to do if we got swept by the police. The plan was to form two concentric circles: people of color on the inside, white people on the outside. We were informed that it’s harder for cops to arrest you if you’re sitting. So the plan was, once we knew cops were coming, to sit in your circle."

"Desiring God" says God wants women to be scared of men

Gaston corners Belle against a door. Image source.

So uh, here's a post on "Desiring God", written by Greg Morse: The Future of Masculinity [via]. The whole post is such utter nonsense, it's hard to even believe someone wrote this and took it seriously, and it was posted in 2020 so why am I even blogging about this? I'm blogging about this just so you know what the organization "Desiring God" is about. And just in case you ever come across something else that Greg Morse wrote, so you don't make the mistake of taking it seriously, lol.

Or, in other words, I'm writing for myself, little Perfect-Number-from-15-years-ago, who thinks that "Desiring God" is a really good Christian organization, and I have to believe what they say. Little Perfect Number who believes in complementarianism, that God made men and women different, and God wants women to be barred from certain leadership positions, and this is good and godly and I must conform myself to it, because that's what it means to be a Christian.

(Wait a minute, we've talked about Greg Morse before! Wasn't he the one who wrote a post about how real men don't use plastic forks, and I was so boggled by that? Fellas, is it gay to eat potato salad at a picnic?)

(Wait, Morse is also the one who wrote the post about how it's good to stand up at a funeral and announce that the dead person is in hell.)

Okay so let's talk about Morse's 2020 post. It's based around a scene from a sci-fi novel by C. S. Lewis, "That Hideous Strength." I haven't read that, so I can't speak to whether Morse's interpretation is actually what Lewis was trying to say. (I am a fan of C. S. Lewis though.) Apparently, in this scene in the novel, a character called "the Director" is talking to a woman named Jane, about how she has been trying to avoid men who are truly masculine, because she sees them as unpredictable and dangerous, but it's wrong for her to do that. Masculinity is supposed to be a little aggressive and dangerous, and women just have to accept that, rather than try to get away from it. Rather than marry a safe and trustworthy man. Like, what on earth? The post literally says "She had chosen a husband, Mark, accordingly. He 'really understood' her — meaning that he posed no threat to her self-government and asked nothing of her she was unwilling to give." As if that's a bad thing!

This reads like Morse lives in a fantasy world, where action heroes and movie villains are so cool because they're badass and violent. Like he doesn't know anything about the reality of what it's like for women who are victims of men's violence. Like he's romanticized it, like a little danger is exciting but at the end of the day you don't *really* have to be scared because masculine men are good. Like he doesn't know what it's like to be a woman and feel vulnerable and eventually realize that no one is going to come and save you- you have to make yourself stronger and protect yourself.

And then there's this extremely bizarre section which says that God is so incredibly masculine, that even men are feminine in comparison. What??? That's not in the bible anywhere- Morse just made it up! (Or he got it from someone else who made it up.) What on earth???

I will say, though, I do like the section in Morse's post where he takes bible verses about God and changes the "he/him" pronouns to "she/her"- that's my religion. My God is male and female and nonbinary. Makes me want to go change more bible verses to she/her, what a great idea! So ridiculous when people try to limit who God is, and say They are male and not female. Morse changes the "he/him" to "she/her" in an attempt to show us how that would sound wrong (???) and therefore God is a "he/him"- but really it says more about him than it does about God.

Anyway. What really struck me, while reading Morse's post, was thinking about myself back when I was a good evangelical. What if I had read something like this, back then, saying that masculinity is inherently possessive and dangerous, and that's the way it should be, and as a woman I am supposed to let scary manly men rule over me? (I did read articles from "Desiring God" back then.)

Also, what if a woman marries an abuser, and she's scared of him, but she thinks that's normal and doesn't realize the way he's treating her is wrong? What if she didn't even know that it's possible to marry a good and trustworthy man and have a healthy marriage? What if she doesn't know that it's NOT healthy to be scared of your husband? OMG. She thinks to herself, "He's a great guy, so loving and kind to me. Sometimes he gets angry and I'm scared of him, but that's normal, that's just what masculinity is, that happens in every marriage sometimes." 

!!!! OMG, if you've never heard this before, you need to hear it: Many many women are in healthy marriages where they are NEVER scared of their husbands. NEVER. It should happen NEVER. If it happens "sometimes," that's a red flag.

Anyway. Back then, I wondered what "wives submit to your husbands" really meant. I had heard it in church my whole life, but I didn't feel that it made sense to restrict people based on their gender, but I still believed that Christians were required to be complementarian (ie, required to believe in "wives submit to your husbands," and that women can't be leaders to the extent that men can, and that the man has to be the "spiritual leader" in a romantic relationship). So I was very much looking for an explanation of how this was supposed to work- what *is* godly masculinity, or godly femininity, and how can it make sense that as a woman I'm made for a role that feels restrictive to me, but the restrictions are right and good and how God wants it to be.

I was looking for answers, answers to help me believe in complementarianism. I know I'm required to believe this- make it make sense! (Forever grateful to Rachel Held Evans for presenting an argument that it's possible to be a Christian and NOT be complementarian- finally an answer that makes sense!) What if I had found an article like this back then? Saying that masculinity *is* aggressive and dangerous and I need that in my life. Saying that God wants me to be with a man who makes me feel unsafe. Saying that God is so extremely masculine, so different from me, a woman. Men are like God, and I am not. (I am sure Morse would say this is a misinterpretation of his article- but, come on, this is necessarily how it comes across when you make a big huge deal about how it's so important to believe God is masculine and not feminine.)

So when I read this, first of all it's just so much nonsense, so laughable, so obviously out of touch with reality- but then I think about where I was back then, 15 years ago or so, and how something like this could have really affected me. I understand how it feels to have a mindset that would take this seriously. I had been told my whole life that Christians have to believe that God made men and women different, for different roles, and that it's super important that we all follow the correct roles- and it made no sense but I tried to believe it... If I had come across some horribly misogynist hot take that genuinely did the world-building to make it make sense, like Morse's article, I might have believed it.

---

Related:

"Desiring God" Goes Full Toxic Masculinity 

Men have no idea what it's like for women in complementarian churches 

This May Be The Most WTF Christian Article On Sex I've Ever Read 

Don't Invite Anybody From 'Desiring God' to Your Funeral 

"The Authority of Scripture" is One Hell of a Drug 

And this post from the Slacktivist: Brief Interludes With Hideous Men (Part 1)

Also please enjoy this song, "God is a Girl." This is my religion.

Christian Nationalism / Faith Without Works Is Dead

Image text: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth." Image source.

Here's a post from Hemant Mehta about Christian Nationalism: Doug Wilson has ludicrous ideas for how the U.S. could become a Christian Nation. I'm writing about this because there's one line in it that's just so completely bonkers I can't get it out of my head. 

So, it's a post about Doug Wilson. If you don't know who Doug Wilson is, first of all, I'm happy for you. But anyway, I recommend this 2018 post from Libby Anne: It Is Long Past Time For Evangelical Leaders To Condemn Doug Wilson’s Views On Slavery And The South. Wilson says that slavery was a good thing, and he has a bunch of other terrible opinions too. (Gross, how will I explain Doug Wilson to my children?) 

Mehta's post is about how Wilson is advocating Christian Nationalism. Wilson has a bunch of suggestions for what the US government should do, and one of them, the one that's so bonkers I need to blog about it, is this: 

Or, Wilson suggested, “the Apostles’ Creed could be incorporated into the Constitution.”

... The Apostles' Creed? Uh, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth..." You know that's how the Apostles' Creed goes, right? Like it starts with "I believe" and lists out the basic things that Christians believe, mostly about what Jesus did. How on earth would that go into the Constitution? I'm objecting to this from a grammatical perspective- if you plop this into the Constitution somewhere, what would the pronoun "I" even be referring to? And how does it relate to anything else at all in the Constitution? It's a bunch of belief statements. That's not what the Constitution is.

(Obviously I also object to it because the government should not have a religion.)

I *guess* what Wilson means is that the Constitution should say that government officials are required to recite the Apostles' Creed, or something like that. (Ugh how am I gonna explain that to my children?) But when I read that in Mehta's blog post, the first thing that came to mind was some bizarro universe where you're reading the Constitution and it's talking about the responsibilities of Congress or whatever, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." ???

And actually, now I'm realizing that everything about Christian Nationalism feels like this. Wanting to take symbols of Christianity and paste them onto the US government, without caring about what they actually mean. Making a big deal about how it's so important to be a Christian, without talking about what it actually means to be a Christian, what Christians are supposed to do, what it means to follow Jesus. You ever notice how Christian Nationalists talk a lot about Christianity and not about Jesus? 

It's about selling "God Bless the USA" bibles just because the bible is a symbol in a culture war, not because you actually care about reading the bible and following what it says. (I agree with all the comedians who made jokes about "I'm surprised that bible didn't burst into flames when Trump touched it.")

It's about using your Christian identity to create an "us vs them"- like Christians are better than non-Christians, and Christians should control the government. (And there's also racism mixed in with this- like only white people count as real Christians.) Is that how Jesus lived? Is that what he told us to do? Do Christian Nationalists even care about what Jesus said?

The apostle James said, "Faith without works is dead." If you identify as a Christian, but you don't do any of the good things that Jesus said we should do, then what does it matter? Your Christianity is meaningless. 

If we really want to make political policies consistent with what Jesus said, I have a few suggestions. Immigration: The bible says we should help immigrants. Health care: The bible says we should help sick people. And yet, strangely, the Christian Nationalist position on those issues is the opposite of that. Like they just think "Christian" is a cool thing to be, and makes you better than other people, but they never think about how to actually follow Jesus.

Faith without works is dead.

The apostle James also said, "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder." If you believe in God, if you recite the Apostles' Creed, well, whatever, I'm not impressed with that. Even demons believe in God. Who cares? Jesus certainly doesn't care. What matters is what you do.

And Christian Nationalists take the Lord's name in vain when they say this is what Christianity is about, with no mention of the things that Jesus actually taught. No mention of "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Taking Christian things and sticking them onto the government, using them as symbols for why we're better than other people, without understanding what those symbols actually mean. Putting the Apostles' Creed into the Constitution because it sounds like a very Christian thing to do, even though it makes no sense. Faith without works is dead.

---

Related:

In Some Alternate Universe, I'm Writing a Post About Masks and "Causing to Stumble"

Blogaround

1. I laughed so hard

Does anybody else think it was a missed opportunity that Jesus’s carpentry knowledge never came into play later in the story? It would have made for a good setup and pay off

— Trey the Explainer (@Trey_Explainer) April 27, 2024

2. Republican Officials Openly Insult Women Nearly Killed by Abortion Bans (January 9, via) [content note: pregnancy loss] "[The] groups leading the charge against reproductive rights liked to claim that they loved pregnant women and only wanted them to be safe and cozy, stuffed chock-full of good advice and carted around through extra-wide hallways for safe, sterile procedures in operating rooms with only the best HVAC systems. Then Dobbs came down and within minutes it became manifestly clear that these advocates actually viewed pregnant people as the problem standing in the way of imaginary, healthy babies—and that states willing to privilege fetal life would go to any and all lengths to ensure that actual patients’ care, comfort, informed consent, and very survival would be subordinate."

3. Net neutrality is back: U.S. promises fast, safe and reliable internet for all (April 26) 

4. What I'll remember about Daniel Dennett (April 20) "The first is his book Breaking the Spell (affiliate link) from 2006. It’s the book I’ve always recommended to anyone curious about atheism but who still had a foot on the side of religion."

5. Last Stop: Looking Past the Stigma Facing China’s Morticians (April 30) [content note: descriptions of dead bodies]

6. "One Of The Best Puzzles I Ever Solved": WARNING: VERY Hard! (April 30) 2-hour-45-minute nurikabe solve video. I love these super long videos of extremely hard puzzles.

The "Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic" Argument for Queer Acceptance

Image text: "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. - MLK" Image source.

In my post about the book "Slaves, Women & Homosexuals," I said that while reading the beginning part of the book, I felt surprised at the way it introduced its "redemptive-movement hermeneutic" and then claimed that this line of interpretation does NOT lead to acceptance of same-sex relationships- I was surprised because I've heard queer Christians and allies make an argument along those exact lines. How could the book say such an argument wouldn't work? (Turns out the answer is, the sections in the book on homosexuality are extremely shallow. There's a lot to be said, and the book just doesn't say it.)

In this post, I want to point you to where you can read about the "redemptive-movement hermeneutic" in support of queer acceptance. (Not just related to same-sex relationships, but acceptance of all queer identities.) For the most part, I've learned about this from the Slacktivist (Fred Clark), so I want to post a whole bunch of links from his blog here:

Overview of what it means to read the bible from this perspective:

Don't Look At The Finger 

‘Are We Capable Of Welcoming These People?’ 

Come hear the music. Come join the dance. "He heard the music and he wanted to join the party, but those 'scriptural prohibitions' wouldn’t let him. I’ve heard that same frustrated, constrained longing to dance in many other voices over the years."

Maybe God Is A Better Person Than You Think

"You can't pick and choose people":

‘You Don’t Get To Pick And Choose’ "I simply do not agree with those who say that love is not the fulfillment of the law. They’re simply wrong. Paul said they were wrong. Jesus said they were wrong. The entire church in the book of Acts said they were wrong."

Jesus Is Not At All Like That (My Video For The NALT Christians Project) 

J.R. Daniel Kirk On The Heart Of The Gospel (This Is Not An Official Statement Of A Stance On An Issue) "The gospel means that no one is excluded. The gospel means that everyone can be a part of the people of God."

Peter's vision of the sheet full of animals:

‘God Has Shown Me That I Should Not Call Anyone Profane Or Unclean’ "'Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?' Peter asks. LGBT Christians have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. To withhold the water for baptizing them, to call them profane or unclean, is wrong — it is disobedient, unloving, hurtful, harmful, unbiblical. It’s a sin."

‘God Has Shown Me That I Should Not Call Anyone Profane Or Unclean’ (No. 2) "'It is unlawful,' Peter said, 'but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.'"

Selfish Gentiles And ‘Shellfish Objections’: Timothy Dalrymple Vs. The Apostle Peter "Peter says that God sent him a vision telling him to welcome the outsiders that his Bible told him should be shunned as 'unclean.' Dalrymple says, No, God was merely telling him that a narrow portion of dietary Mosaic law was henceforth nonbinding for Christians."

Erick Erickson Says That The Apostle Peter Is An Idiot Who Doesn’t Understand The Vision God Gave To The Apostle Peter

Al Mohler Says The Apostle Peter Was Wrong And That’s Why Evangelicals Should ‘Focus On Homosexuality’ 

Evangelical Alliance Responds To Simon Peter’s Dangerous Sermon In Acts 11 

Slavery, Seafood, Sexuality And The Southern Bible "But Peter unsettles things by changing those words, saying instead that, 'God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.'"

The Ethiopian eunuch:

I’m Guessing It’s Named After The Other Philip "'So, OK then,' the man says to Philip. 'I’m a queer black foreigner who works for the government of a Gentile queen. Is there any reason I can’t be baptized?' And Philip baptizes him."

Religious Gatekeepers Would Not Like Philip The Evangelist "Philip knew his Bible. He knew that there were dozens of clobber texts that would have authoritatively answered the eunuch’s question. 'What is to prevent me from being baptized?' But Philip did not recite those clobber texts. He hopped down and got in the water with his new friend."

Circumcision/ it's really rich when gentile Christians try to exclude people:

The Ugly Ingratitude Of The ‘Nashville Statement’ "Here’s the thing though: Paul’s opponents here were not wrong about what the Bible says. They insisted that 'the Bible is clear' in its teaching about circumcision, and it is. (Just ask Zipporah.) This was something that was never, ever optional. Everybody knew this. Everybody had always known this."

Titus Was Not Compelled To Reparative Therapy "The texts on circumcision are not ambiguous and they are too numerous to count. The Bible is eminently clear. It says that people like Titus cannot convert unless they are circumcised and pledge to follow the rules. Paul says no to that. He says people like Titus are his brothers and sisters, his full equals. Paul isn’t just contradicting a handful of obscure clobber-texts, he’s swimming against a powerful main current of scripture."

When Gatekeepers Attack (First-Century Edition) "If the gatekeepers of the circumcision faction and 'the biblical view of everything' had managed to bully Peter and Paul into submission, then Gentiles like myself would be in precisely the same predicament that LGBT Christians are today within evangelicalism."

‘I Would They Were Even Cut Off Which Trouble You’

---

Those are the links I have where the Slacktivist goes into detail about this argument. But I've also seen plenty of queer Christians and allies say things along similar lines, though not in as much detail. Basically, the idea that Jesus' message was about inclusion, especially among groups which were marginalized and rejected by society, and therefore in our culture that means acceptance of queer people.

I went to the GCN conference in 2017. (GCN is the Gay Christian Network- it later changed its name to Q Christian Fellowship.) And one of the songs we sang there was "Draw the Circle Wide," and, wow, that was really powerful, that was amazing. It was astounding to me to have a song about inclusion and acceptance of people be sung in a Christian setting like it was a worship song. That's... it's hard to even explain how different that is from my experience with worship songs, growing up evangelical. All the worship songs we sing in evangelical land are about how amazing God is and how we love God so much and we will do anything for God. Not really anything about, uh, the importance of treating people right, or anything along those lines at all. In evangelical land, they always say worship is "just about you and God."

Anyway, here's a youtube video of the song "Draw the Circle Wide":

My point is, queer Christians tend to believe that one of the most important foundational teachings of Christianity is love and acceptance, especially toward marginalized groups. This is the gospel, this is good news, this is the message Jesus preached, this is what Christians should proclaim to the world. This is, ahem, very DIFFERENT from how I understood the main message of Christianity when I was evangelical. And specifically, this is connected to the idea of a "redemptive-movement hermeneutic" because it's about continuing to expand the circle, continuing to accept more and more groups within society and welcome them into the church as full people.

---

One more note about "inclusion"

I always hear queer people talk about "we should accept everyone"- but actually, we shouldn't accept "everyone." We should not accept abusers, Nazis, etc... If some leader from the NRA shows up at your church, okay you should welcome them but they will need to repent or else they can't fully participate. You gotta "hate the sin, love the sinner" them.

When people talk about "accepting everyone" what they mean is, being accepting of people's differences *when those differences are personal identities/decisions that don't harm other people* (and/or when those differences are related to health/disability issues that require us to give some extra support so that people are able to fully participate). I guess this is assumed to be obvious, and that's why I don't hear people explicitly spelling it out. Personally, though, I feel that this is a step that is frequently missing in people's logical arguments about acceptance of queer identities, so I'm mentioning it here. 

And anti-queer Christians often make comparisons that are along these lines- like "well if we accept homosexuality then we have to accept bestiality too" really missing the point that acceptance of queerness is about changing from a "we follow these rules because the bible says" paradigm to a "we should act in ways that support other people so they can live good lives, and not harm anyone" paradigm. As if it's about changing from a "here are the bible's rules" paradigm to a "whateverrrrr, there are no rules" paradigm. But, fair enough, because queer people and allies really do go around saying "we accept everyone" when they don't actually mean that- they mean "we accept that everyone can make their own decisions in their own personal lives about things that do not harm others." 

And when I was evangelical and I first heard queer Christians presenting the idea that "sin" should be defined as *things that hurt people* (as Romans 13:9-10 says) rather than just *things the bible says not to do* that was MIND-BLOWING to me. The idea that "sin" could and should be defined that way was not on my radar AT ALL as an evangelical. (I believed that an important component of "faith" was following rules that somehow make sense to God even though they make no sense from a human perspective. Blah. No. Jesus said "by their fruit you will know them." MIND-BLOWING.) So I'm sorta inclined to cut them a little slack if they missed that implicit logical step when they heard people arguing for queer acceptance.

For Christians who accept queer people, a big component is DEFINITELY being able to see with your own eyes/ being able to read scientific research which says that accepting queer people's right to define our own identities and make our own decisions is so GOOD and LIFE-GIVING, while requiring us to repress ourselves is really terrible. I think this plays a huge role, but oddly it's not often mentioned in these arguments about why Christians should accept queer people.

The Slacktivist has some posts which address an aspect of this- specifically, the "why won't you tolerate my intolerance" nonsense. Here's a link: Shaving The Intolerant Barber (A Continuing Series).

---

Related:

"Slaves, Women & Homosexuals" (What is this book actually about?) 

Why would it be bad news if ancient Romans had loving gay relationships?

The Christianity of GCN Conference 

We Need Queer Theology

How to Pretend to Welcome Trans People 

Blogaround

1. This tweet

veggietales taught me not to bow down to a giant chocolate bunny. which is why i’m not a christian nationalist

check out my new youtube video about christian nationalism! https://t.co/8ip94pkbX0 pic.twitter.com/zkdJe6n4jX

— Mason Mennenga (@masonmennenga) April 22, 2024

Also related to VeggieTales: ‘VeggieTales’ Co-Creator Phil Vischer Shares Sneak Peek of New ‘Phil & Mike Show’ Idea (April 23)

2. This thread from Amanda Held Opelt. It's been 5 years since Rachel Held Evans died. I still miss her writing. Her blog was a big influence on me.

May 4th will mark 5 years since Rachel died. That is the day her death certificate was signed, the day we started planning her funeral…

(A thread 🧵) pic.twitter.com/aTMUWMxuL6

— Amanda Held Opelt (@AmandaHeldOpelt) April 25, 2024

In 2019 I rounded up all the posts I could find that people wrote to honor Evans: Link Roundup of Posts Honoring Rachel Held Evans

3. Uncovering of mass grave at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital: What you need to know (April 24, via) [content note: genocide] Wow this is really bad.

4. Fare Game: Why China’s Ride-Share Boom Is Leaving Drivers Behind (April 25) "Another screenshot, this one from Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport the same month, showed an even starker disparity: 868 vehicles competed for just 39 passengers. 'Getting even one order feels like amazing luck,' he says."

Also from Sixth Tone: In China’s Array of Dialects, Emerging Writers Find a New Voice (April 19) "With over 10 million speakers, the Shanghainese dialect is widely used in the metropolis and surrounding areas, and has a unique vocabulary that led to the creation of the official Shanghainese dictionary in 2008." Please note, these Chinese languages are called "dialects" but they're actually different languages. I understand Mandarin but I don't understand Shanghainese. A few words here and there which are similar to Mandarin, but overall no I don't understand it.

5. This thread [via] about the Passover sedar at the pro-Palestine protest at Columbia University:

Explaining the seder plate at the Columbia encampment. These students truly embody the meaning of Passover in their provisional seder and their commitment to liberation. pic.twitter.com/5dOT46IeF1

— Arielle Angel (@ArielleLAngel) April 22, 2024

6. Ohio May Soon Jump On Hot Trend Of Making It Illegal To Rape Your Spouse! (April 25) "I’m sorry if any of this sounds flip, but I really am just trying to pull my jaw up off the floor here as I try to imagine the thought process that went into carving out those exceptions in the first place."

Also from Wonkette: That Nex Benedict Died By Suicide Doesn't Let Anyone Off The Hook (April 25) [content note: anti-trans violence, suicide] "Prominent Oklahomans have chosen again and again and again and again and again to spread the lies that trans children are morally inferior, lying about who they are, or less valuable, or constitute a threat to fellow students."

Blogaround

1. Mandisa, Grammy-winning singer and 'American Idol' alum, has died at 47 (April 19) Oh my goodness, very shocked to hear this. Here's my favorite song from her:

2. Surprising No One, All 3,878 of Elon Musk’s Cybertrucks Are Being Recalled (April 20) "The brake pedal was still functioning and would override the accelerator if it became stuck. However, lifting one’s foot briefly off the pedal would result in the car instantly rising to dangerous speeds. That was particularly dangerous because the Cybertruck can go from 0 mph to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds." Holy crap.

3. The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat (April 16, via) "Fortunately, there is enough redundancy in the world’s cables to make it nearly impossible for a well-connected country to be cut off, but cable breaks do happen. On average, they happen every other day, about 200 times a year. The reason websites continue to load, bank transfers go through, and civilization persists is because of the thousand or so people living aboard 20-some ships stationed around the world, who race to fix each cable as soon as it breaks."

4. Daniel C. Dennett, Widely Read and Fiercely Debated Philosopher, 82, Dies (April 19) 

5. This SMBC comic [via]. "Come to think of it, why are we even having this specific conversation when we're never going to have this exact conversation again later!?"

6. The Cass Review: Hey, What Does UK NHS Trans Report Mean? (April 18) "The Cass Review is a wonky, sciencey, jargony document that gives every appearance of being a Tory project intended to justify cracking down on medical care for trans people in the name of non-trans people who feel icky when forced to think repeatedly for weeks on end about surgeons coming for their genitals — but it nonetheless contains a few good things."

7. NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth (April 22, via) "The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. They sent it to its new location in the FDS memory on April 18. A radio signal takes about 22 ½ hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22 ½ hours for a signal to come back to Earth."

8. The ‘Progressive Evangelical’ Two-Step (April 23) "So Slaves, Women & Homosexuals starts with slavery because that establishes the possibility that clobber-texts may not be quite so indisputably authoritative after all. And then, as perfectnumber notes, it ends with an abstract discussion of the 'issue of homosexuality' as a way saying yesbutofcourse some such clobber-texts are still authoritative so, fear not, we’re not just saying that anything goes." The Slacktivist responds to my post on the book "Slaves, Women & Homosexuals" and connects it to the history of the organization Christians for Biblical Equality.

9. FTC bans contracts that keep workers from jumping to rival employers (April 23, via) "The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday banned noncompete agreements for most U.S. workers, a move that will affect an estimated 30 million employees bound by contracts that restrict workers from switching employers within their industry." Wow this sounds like a big deal! When I first read this, I thought, but isn't there an important business reason for non-compete agreements? Surely you can't just ban them- yeah they're a problem for workers, but solving it should be more complicated than that... right? But the article says, "Noncompete agreements have been prohibited in three states — California, North Dakota and Oklahoma — for more than a century. In recent years, 11 states and D.C. have passed laws that prohibit the agreements for hourly wage workers or those who fall below a salary threshold."