A small tool to view real-world ActivityPub objects as JSON! Enter a URL
or username from Mastodon or a similar service below, and we'll send a
request with
the right
Accept
header
to the server to view the underlying object.
{
"@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
"type": "OrderedCollectionPage",
"orderedItems": [
{
"type": "Create",
"actor": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"object": {
"type": "Note",
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:998745621615140864",
"attributedTo": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"content": "For reference, the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God:<br /><br />1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.<br />2. The universe began to exist.<br />3. The universe has a cause.<br /><br />[image stolen from the William Meme Craig facebook page]<br /><br /><a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=Kalam\" title=\"#Kalam\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#Kalam</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=philosophy\" title=\"#philosophy\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#philosophy</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=religion\" title=\"#religion\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#religion</a> ",
"to": [
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"url": "https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/998745621615140864",
"published": "2019-07-19T00:18:31+00:00",
"source": {
"content": "For reference, the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existence of God:\n\n1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.\n2. The universe began to exist.\n3. The universe has a cause.\n\n[image stolen from the William Meme Craig facebook page]\n\n#Kalam #philosophy #religion ",
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}
},
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:998745621615140864/activity"
},
{
"type": "Create",
"actor": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"object": {
"type": "Note",
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:996961075623591936",
"attributedTo": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"content": "My guess as to the reason that people reject beauty as an ideal, objective thing is that it might first unmake a lot of things about our lives. It makes the trinkets of self-expression that we hold onto feel like trash by comparison, if we are looking honestly. We've invested so much of our lives into worthless things, and it feels like tearing out a part of us to let them go. We could have it so much better, but we don't want to acknowledge that so many of our pursuits have been a waste.<br /><br /><a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=beauty\" title=\"#beauty\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#beauty</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=architecture\" title=\"#architecture\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#architecture</a>",
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"url": "https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/996961075623591936",
"published": "2019-07-14T02:07:22+00:00",
"source": {
"content": "My guess as to the reason that people reject beauty as an ideal, objective thing is that it might first unmake a lot of things about our lives. It makes the trinkets of self-expression that we hold onto feel like trash by comparison, if we are looking honestly. We've invested so much of our lives into worthless things, and it feels like tearing out a part of us to let them go. We could have it so much better, but we don't want to acknowledge that so many of our pursuits have been a waste.\n\n#beauty #architecture",
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},
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:996961075623591936/activity"
},
{
"type": "Create",
"actor": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"object": {
"type": "Note",
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:995500284256505856",
"attributedTo": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"content": "\"To have understood the polymorphous character of pleasure and happiness is of course to have rendered those concepts useless for utilitarian purposes; if the prospect of his or her own future pleasure or happiness cannot for reasons which I have suggested provide criteria for solving the problems of action in the case of each individual, it follows that the notion of the greatest happiness of the greatest number is a notion without any clear content at all. It is indeed a pseudo-concept available for a variety of ideological uses, but no more than that.\"<br /><br />--Alasdair MacIntyre<br /><br /><br /><a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=philosophy\" title=\"#philosophy\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#philosophy</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=virtue\" title=\"#virtue\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#virtue</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=AlasdairMacIntyre\" title=\"#AlasdairMacIntyre\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#AlasdairMacIntyre</a><br /><br />Image shamelessly stolen from \"The same Ｍｏｒａｌ Ａｒｇｕｍｅｎｔ everyweek + some ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃｓ\" facebook page.",
"to": [
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],
"cc": [
"https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/followers"
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"tag": [],
"url": "https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/995500284256505856",
"published": "2019-07-10T01:22:43+00:00",
"source": {
"content": "\"To have understood the polymorphous character of pleasure and happiness is of course to have rendered those concepts useless for utilitarian purposes; if the prospect of his or her own future pleasure or happiness cannot for reasons which I have suggested provide criteria for solving the problems of action in the case of each individual, it follows that the notion of the greatest happiness of the greatest number is a notion without any clear content at all. It is indeed a pseudo-concept available for a variety of ideological uses, but no more than that.\"\n\n--Alasdair MacIntyre\n\n\n#philosophy #virtue #AlasdairMacIntyre\n\nImage shamelessly stolen from \"The same Ｍｏｒａｌ Ａｒｇｕｍｅｎｔ everyweek + some ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃｓ\" facebook page.",
"mediaType": "text/plain"
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},
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:995500284256505856/activity"
},
{
"type": "Create",
"actor": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"object": {
"type": "Note",
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:994308660341825536",
"attributedTo": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"content": "I should point out that I am not particularly troubled by Colin Kaepernick's opinions or his kneeling, I don't care that Nike has subordinated the management of their business to his opinions. I don't care about the \"Betsy Ross\" flag shoes; I wasn't going to buy them anyway.<br /><br />I'm just here to observe that puritanism has usually been thought to be a strictly religious phenomenon, but surely, in the middle of this most recent PR dust-up, we can now all see that it is not. With \"woke\" politics and outrage culture, we are in the middle of a secular puritan age full of un-fun people who will not allow anyone else to enjoy things.<br /><br />Tennis player and LGBT advocate Martina Navratilova was expelled a few months ago from Athlete Ally, an advocacy group, over accusations of transphobia for suggesting that trans-women should not complete in women's sports. No person, no matter how progressive-minded they believe themselves to be, will be pure enough in all opinions to maintain his or her reputation tomorrow.<br /><br />Statues must be torn down, the names of the unpure stricken from universities and schools, and lives and livelihoods ruined. The new puritanism is not quite the same as the old, but they seem to me to be the same kind of thing<br /><br /><a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=wokeness\" title=\"#wokeness\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#wokeness</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=CurrentEvents\" title=\"#CurrentEvents\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#CurrentEvents</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=puritanism\" title=\"#puritanism\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#puritanism</a>",
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"url": "https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/994308660341825536",
"published": "2019-07-06T18:27:37+00:00",
"source": {
"content": "I should point out that I am not particularly troubled by Colin Kaepernick's opinions or his kneeling, I don't care that Nike has subordinated the management of their business to his opinions. I don't care about the \"Betsy Ross\" flag shoes; I wasn't going to buy them anyway.\n\nI'm just here to observe that puritanism has usually been thought to be a strictly religious phenomenon, but surely, in the middle of this most recent PR dust-up, we can now all see that it is not. With \"woke\" politics and outrage culture, we are in the middle of a secular puritan age full of un-fun people who will not allow anyone else to enjoy things.\n\nTennis player and LGBT advocate Martina Navratilova was expelled a few months ago from Athlete Ally, an advocacy group, over accusations of transphobia for suggesting that trans-women should not complete in women's sports. No person, no matter how progressive-minded they believe themselves to be, will be pure enough in all opinions to maintain his or her reputation tomorrow.\n\nStatues must be torn down, the names of the unpure stricken from universities and schools, and lives and livelihoods ruined. The new puritanism is not quite the same as the old, but they seem to me to be the same kind of thing\n\n#wokeness #CurrentEvents #puritanism",
"mediaType": "text/plain"
}
},
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:994308660341825536/activity"
},
{
"type": "Create",
"actor": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"object": {
"type": "Note",
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:993538311575429120",
"attributedTo": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"content": "No America worship happening around these parts today. No sir.<br /><br />Just so you know, it's not America worship when you're quoting an Englishman:<br /><br />\"It may have seemed something less than a compliment to compare the American Constitution to the Spanish Inquisition. But oddly enough, it does involve a truth, and still more oddly perhaps, it does involve a compliment. The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish Inquisition in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things.\"<br /><br />--G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America",
"to": [
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"url": "https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/993538311575429120",
"published": "2019-07-04T15:26:29+00:00",
"source": {
"content": "No America worship happening around these parts today. No sir.\n\nJust so you know, it's not America worship when you're quoting an Englishman:\n\n\"It may have seemed something less than a compliment to compare the American Constitution to the Spanish Inquisition. But oddly enough, it does involve a truth, and still more oddly perhaps, it does involve a compliment. The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish Inquisition in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things.\"\n\n--G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America",
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"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:993538311575429120/activity"
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{
"type": "Create",
"actor": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"object": {
"type": "Note",
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:992886094369091584",
"attributedTo": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"content": "Scientism is the pretension of certain scientists to attempt to explain in scientific terms things which are not at all scientific in nature. At its root is a desire for power. If you are a scientist, and you can convince others that you can explain what is really going on when people have religious beliefs, or explain altruism by talking about its evolutionary benefits, or our reaction to a beautiful painting or scene from nature by explaining what is happening in our brains, you can make your own discipline be seen to be more important than the ones you are explaining. Scientistic thinkers have no time for religion and increasingly no time for philosophy, but it affects other disciplines as well.<br /><br />Roger Scruton, in one of my favorite lectures of his, addresses scientism and how it affects the humanities. Toward the end of the lecture he takes aim at Richard Dawkins's idea of the meme: a self-replicating cultural unit that uses human brains to multiply. For example, a song that gets stuck in your head, which you then sing for someone else. Scruton explains this is a debunking theory of culture, to say that the elements of culture such as art, music, or religion are just mind viruses, the strongest of which survive. What this actually does is not explain any of those things, but explain them away.<br /><br />So scientism closes the doors to areas of human knowledge rather than opens them. In a charge that would surely make them squirm, Scruton accuses Dawkins and other scientistic thinkers of using magic: of attempting to reassemble human life in order to exert control over it.<br /><br />The talk is not something you can just sit down to watch in a couple of minutes, but it is worth watching.<br /><br />#philosophy#culture#education<br /><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF5X9amkH2s&fbclid=IwAR3pjlne5o8NY4url97RVXGjHBno4urrLC5naiyfVAfQVH858VhYlCPYyPg\" target=\"_blank\">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF5X9amkH2s&fbclid=IwAR3pjlne5o8NY4url97RVXGjHBno4urrLC5naiyfVAfQVH858VhYlCPYyPg</a>",
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"url": "https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/992886094369091584",
"published": "2019-07-02T20:14:51+00:00",
"source": {
"content": "Scientism is the pretension of certain scientists to attempt to explain in scientific terms things which are not at all scientific in nature. At its root is a desire for power. If you are a scientist, and you can convince others that you can explain what is really going on when people have religious beliefs, or explain altruism by talking about its evolutionary benefits, or our reaction to a beautiful painting or scene from nature by explaining what is happening in our brains, you can make your own discipline be seen to be more important than the ones you are explaining. Scientistic thinkers have no time for religion and increasingly no time for philosophy, but it affects other disciplines as well.\n\nRoger Scruton, in one of my favorite lectures of his, addresses scientism and how it affects the humanities. Toward the end of the lecture he takes aim at Richard Dawkins's idea of the meme: a self-replicating cultural unit that uses human brains to multiply. For example, a song that gets stuck in your head, which you then sing for someone else. Scruton explains this is a debunking theory of culture, to say that the elements of culture such as art, music, or religion are just mind viruses, the strongest of which survive. What this actually does is not explain any of those things, but explain them away.\n\nSo scientism closes the doors to areas of human knowledge rather than opens them. In a charge that would surely make them squirm, Scruton accuses Dawkins and other scientistic thinkers of using magic: of attempting to reassemble human life in order to exert control over it.\n\nThe talk is not something you can just sit down to watch in a couple of minutes, but it is worth watching.\n\n#philosophy#culture#education\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF5X9amkH2s&fbclid=IwAR3pjlne5o8NY4url97RVXGjHBno4urrLC5naiyfVAfQVH858VhYlCPYyPg",
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},
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:992886094369091584/activity"
},
{
"type": "Create",
"actor": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"object": {
"type": "Note",
"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:988242252774641664",
"attributedTo": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948",
"content": "\"Creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.\"<br /><br />--Romans 8:21-22<br /><br />In spite of what it might look like in the western world, demographic projections show the world becoming more religious in the coming years, not less. And so I know that the communist regime's days are numbered in China, I just don't know for certain how long it will remain.<br /><br />The great totalitarian states of this world have desired a population that does not believe in God. Why? Because transcendent truth necessitates a transcendent authority. The kind of authority that tells us that the state is not the primary fact of our existence, is not the arbiter of truth, and does not make the primary demand upon our conduct. The communists know belief in God is an incredible threat. This is why a million Uighur Muslims are in concentration camps in China's Xinjiang region. It's why the government has sharply increased its crackdown on the practice of Christianity, by closing churches, arresting churchgoers, and dictating what can be sung or said in meetings.<br /><br />The communists don't understand that they're sowing the seeds of their own destruction. The Christian God is a God of suffering people. The reason Christianity languishes among comfortable people is the reason it is spreading like a fire in China today.<br /><br />I didn't imagine \"Sing Hallelujah to the Lord\" would be a song of resistance when I sang it as a child around campfires in the summer. But I suppose it always was, especially the verse that says \"Jesus is lord of Heaven and Earth.\" It's a reminder to anyone claiming ultimate authority that they have usurped it.<br /><br /> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=religion\" title=\"#religion\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#religion</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=Christianity\" title=\"#Christianity\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#Christianity</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=China\" title=\"#China\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#China</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=communism\" title=\"#communism\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#communism</a><br /><a href=\"https://time.com/5608882/sing-hallelujah-to-the-lord-protestors-hong-kong-extradition-anthem/?fbclid=IwAR0cx6u-sjTSBSLkZc86Ih3HtUExvNy2uDFYZ2pF7fVJqmigm4jbSBiBXwk\" target=\"_blank\">https://time.com/5608882/sing-hallelujah-to-the-lord-protestors-hong-kong-extradition-anthem/?fbclid=IwAR0cx6u-sjTSBSLkZc86Ih3HtUExvNy2uDFYZ2pF7fVJqmigm4jbSBiBXwk</a>",
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"url": "https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/988242252774641664",
"published": "2019-06-20T00:41:53+00:00",
"source": {
"content": "\"Creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.\"\n\n--Romans 8:21-22\n\nIn spite of what it might look like in the western world, demographic projections show the world becoming more religious in the coming years, not less. And so I know that the communist regime's days are numbered in China, I just don't know for certain how long it will remain.\n\nThe great totalitarian states of this world have desired a population that does not believe in God. Why? Because transcendent truth necessitates a transcendent authority. The kind of authority that tells us that the state is not the primary fact of our existence, is not the arbiter of truth, and does not make the primary demand upon our conduct. The communists know belief in God is an incredible threat. This is why a million Uighur Muslims are in concentration camps in China's Xinjiang region. It's why the government has sharply increased its crackdown on the practice of Christianity, by closing churches, arresting churchgoers, and dictating what can be sung or said in meetings.\n\nThe communists don't understand that they're sowing the seeds of their own destruction. The Christian God is a God of suffering people. The reason Christianity languishes among comfortable people is the reason it is spreading like a fire in China today.\n\nI didn't imagine \"Sing Hallelujah to the Lord\" would be a song of resistance when I sang it as a child around campfires in the summer. But I suppose it always was, especially the verse that says \"Jesus is lord of Heaven and Earth.\" It's a reminder to anyone claiming ultimate authority that they have usurped it.\n\n #religion #Christianity #China #communism\nhttps://time.com/5608882/sing-hallelujah-to-the-lord-protestors-hong-kong-extradition-anthem/?fbclid=IwAR0cx6u-sjTSBSLkZc86Ih3HtUExvNy2uDFYZ2pF7fVJqmigm4jbSBiBXwk",
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"id": "https://www.minds.com/api/activitypub/users/958447906824658948/entities/urn:activity:988242252774641664/activity"
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"content": "\"Above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins.\"<br /><br />-1 Peter 4:8<br /><br />The title of this article is a little misleading. The focus is on the satisfaction of women in marriage while looking where the couples fall on progressive/traditional and secular/religious axes. While people put a lot of importance on their political and social positions, when it comes to marital satisfaction for women, religion seems to be the biggest factor. But we're not talking an Easter-and-Christmas sort of religious devotion. That level of religious practice has no real effect of marriage satisfaction:<br /><br />\"In studying women who report above-average satisfaction, commitment, closeness and stability in their relationships, we find that women at both ends of the ideological spectrum enjoy comparatively high-quality marriages, compared with women in the religious and ideological middle, as well as secular women who lean right culturally. Data from the Global Family and Gender Survey (which Mr. Wilcox helped conduct) indicate that 55 percent of secular progressive wives in the United States — who embrace egalitarian family values and do not attend religious services — report such high-quality marriages.<br /><br />By contrast, fewer than 46 percent of wives in the religious middle — who attend only infrequently or don’t share regular religious attendance with their husbands — and only 33 percent of secular conservative wives — who think men should take the lead on bread-winning and women on child-rearing but don’t attend church — have such marriages.<br /><br />And it turns out that the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives, followed by their religious progressive counterparts. Fully 73 percent of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages. When it comes to relationship quality, there is a J-curve in women’s marital happiness, with women on the left and the right enjoying higher quality marriages than those in the middle — but especially wives on the right.\"<br /><br />If you've followed this page for very long, you know where I am on this spectrum, but whatever my personal views, it doesn't seem to matter as much for marriage satisfaction as being part of a community of like-minded people who are supporting one another in their lives together, and who do not simply see marriage as the moral equivalent of a business partnership that can be dissolved when one or both parties feel they no longer personally benefit.<br /><br /> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=culture\" title=\"#culture\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#culture</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=religion\" title=\"#religion\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#religion</a> <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=marriage\" title=\"#marriage\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#marriage</a><br /><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/opinion/sunday/happy-marriages.html?fbclid=IwAR0DyqheCHbYOTIi9prOhvXjoVNXMrI_foN2F09q8MhZgoM4uVb-LWkzFuQ\" target=\"_blank\">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/opinion/sunday/happy-marriages.html?fbclid=IwAR0DyqheCHbYOTIi9prOhvXjoVNXMrI_foN2F09q8MhZgoM4uVb-LWkzFuQ</a>",
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"published": "2019-06-12T08:48:15+00:00",
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"content": "\"Above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins.\"\n\n-1 Peter 4:8\n\nThe title of this article is a little misleading. The focus is on the satisfaction of women in marriage while looking where the couples fall on progressive/traditional and secular/religious axes. While people put a lot of importance on their political and social positions, when it comes to marital satisfaction for women, religion seems to be the biggest factor. But we're not talking an Easter-and-Christmas sort of religious devotion. That level of religious practice has no real effect of marriage satisfaction:\n\n\"In studying women who report above-average satisfaction, commitment, closeness and stability in their relationships, we find that women at both ends of the ideological spectrum enjoy comparatively high-quality marriages, compared with women in the religious and ideological middle, as well as secular women who lean right culturally. Data from the Global Family and Gender Survey (which Mr. Wilcox helped conduct) indicate that 55 percent of secular progressive wives in the United States — who embrace egalitarian family values and do not attend religious services — report such high-quality marriages.\n\nBy contrast, fewer than 46 percent of wives in the religious middle — who attend only infrequently or don’t share regular religious attendance with their husbands — and only 33 percent of secular conservative wives — who think men should take the lead on bread-winning and women on child-rearing but don’t attend church — have such marriages.\n\nAnd it turns out that the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives, followed by their religious progressive counterparts. Fully 73 percent of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages. When it comes to relationship quality, there is a J-curve in women’s marital happiness, with women on the left and the right enjoying higher quality marriages than those in the middle — but especially wives on the right.\"\n\nIf you've followed this page for very long, you know where I am on this spectrum, but whatever my personal views, it doesn't seem to matter as much for marriage satisfaction as being part of a community of like-minded people who are supporting one another in their lives together, and who do not simply see marriage as the moral equivalent of a business partnership that can be dissolved when one or both parties feel they no longer personally benefit.\n\n #culture #religion #marriage\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/opinion/sunday/happy-marriages.html?fbclid=IwAR0DyqheCHbYOTIi9prOhvXjoVNXMrI_foN2F09q8MhZgoM4uVb-LWkzFuQ",
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"content": "An appeal to a return to proper federalism, in light of the abortion fight:<br /><br />I'm not sure if the current Supreme Court would actually overturn Roe v. Wade, but it seems like people on both sides of the debate think its possible, and so we have states like New York eliminating all restrictions on the procedure up to the point of birth, and states like Alabama restricting it completely. I don't think I need to reiterate my position on abortion, but I would like to suggest we step back from our tendency to want to achieve a top-down, one-size-fits-all win from government for our side, especially on such a divisive issue.<br /><br />That's where federalism comes in, which is the idea that most legislation ought to be delegated to the states. The idea is to keep New York from interfering with the lives of Alabamans, and vice versa. Beyond the abortion debate, it permits the United States to be a laboratory of democracy in which great local successes and failures can be observed by others. If you'd like to turn your own community into a socialist utopia, knock yourself out, but don't impose it on the entire country. Hey, if it's a great success, others will surely imitate your example.<br /><br />Personally, I'd like to see abortion end. I'd like to see a return to the acknowledgement that the family is the chief stabilizing force in our society, and that government cannot fill the void in people's lives when the family is undermined. I think a people whose priority is to live their best life rather than passing down what is good and noble and worthy to another generation is a society that wants to die. However, a winner-take-all aim in this political fight only increases the stakes. When you increase the stakes, you make desperate people do drastic things. It's bad now, but it can get a whole lot worse.<br /><br />#civics#abortion<br /><a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/abortion-debate-no-longer-about-policy/590323/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2019-05-28T10:00:47&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&fbclid=IwAR2R7qOH6H88kZH4NFJVYw_CMrgbLeCd7A29ntBXAU4mKIynnVmQ0nkr0po\" target=\"_blank\">https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/abortion-debate-no-longer-about-policy/590323/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2019-05-28T10:00:47&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&fbclid=IwAR2R7qOH6H88kZH4NFJVYw_CMrgbLeCd7A29ntBXAU4mKIynnVmQ0nkr0po</a>",
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"published": "2019-06-03T17:44:09+00:00",
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"content": "An appeal to a return to proper federalism, in light of the abortion fight:\n\nI'm not sure if the current Supreme Court would actually overturn Roe v. Wade, but it seems like people on both sides of the debate think its possible, and so we have states like New York eliminating all restrictions on the procedure up to the point of birth, and states like Alabama restricting it completely. I don't think I need to reiterate my position on abortion, but I would like to suggest we step back from our tendency to want to achieve a top-down, one-size-fits-all win from government for our side, especially on such a divisive issue.\n\nThat's where federalism comes in, which is the idea that most legislation ought to be delegated to the states. The idea is to keep New York from interfering with the lives of Alabamans, and vice versa. Beyond the abortion debate, it permits the United States to be a laboratory of democracy in which great local successes and failures can be observed by others. If you'd like to turn your own community into a socialist utopia, knock yourself out, but don't impose it on the entire country. Hey, if it's a great success, others will surely imitate your example.\n\nPersonally, I'd like to see abortion end. I'd like to see a return to the acknowledgement that the family is the chief stabilizing force in our society, and that government cannot fill the void in people's lives when the family is undermined. I think a people whose priority is to live their best life rather than passing down what is good and noble and worthy to another generation is a society that wants to die. However, a winner-take-all aim in this political fight only increases the stakes. When you increase the stakes, you make desperate people do drastic things. It's bad now, but it can get a whole lot worse.\n\n#civics#abortion\nhttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/abortion-debate-no-longer-about-policy/590323/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2019-05-28T10:00:47&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&fbclid=IwAR2R7qOH6H88kZH4NFJVYw_CMrgbLeCd7A29ntBXAU4mKIynnVmQ0nkr0po",
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"content": "You can't entirely write off a civilization, at least not yet, in a renewed talk about rights, which the abortion debate has provided us. I actually think rights are like a photo negative of something more true: our duties and our obligations to others. I'll concede that the negative is easier to enforce by law than the positive, or we'd all be arrested for not loving our friends and families enough.<br /><br />Rights are the last \"sky fairy\" of a society that doesn't want to acknowledge the idea of God. Of course, if nothing can be philosophically true, and the only things that can exist are things that can empirically be observed to exist, then we will eventually have to throw rights out along with God, too. Or has someone seen their rights running in the wild? Observed under a microscope? The idea of rights being forgotten with God isn't just a prediction: it actually happened. Or at least it did with the elites of the Western world. We reeled from the catastrophe they brought in two World Wars by running in the opposite direction for a time. But we are forgetting ourselves again.<br /><br />I gather there was plenty that might have annoyed Chesterton about America when he visited, but he did pay us a compliment in the Declaration of Independence: \"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.\"<br /><br />It should be clear, I hope, that a right (if it exists), does not come from the state. Rights say nothing about the state, they say something about us and our nature. They are not affected by the state our bodies are in. One does not have more rights if he is bigger, or stronger, or smarter. One does not have fewer if he has a disability. Whatever is human has them, from the largest to the very smallest of us. Since our bodies do not affect them, they seem, at least to me, to speak to the dualism of human nature: part physical, part metaphysical. Or spiritual, if we can stomach the word.<br /><br />When people can only perceive the physical nature of humanity, and not the spiritual, you get something very ugly indeed: eugenics. But that is for another post.<br /><br />#philosophy#abortion#religion#rights",
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"published": "2019-05-31T03:43:10+00:00",
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"content": "You can't entirely write off a civilization, at least not yet, in a renewed talk about rights, which the abortion debate has provided us. I actually think rights are like a photo negative of something more true: our duties and our obligations to others. I'll concede that the negative is easier to enforce by law than the positive, or we'd all be arrested for not loving our friends and families enough.\n\nRights are the last \"sky fairy\" of a society that doesn't want to acknowledge the idea of God. Of course, if nothing can be philosophically true, and the only things that can exist are things that can empirically be observed to exist, then we will eventually have to throw rights out along with God, too. Or has someone seen their rights running in the wild? Observed under a microscope? The idea of rights being forgotten with God isn't just a prediction: it actually happened. Or at least it did with the elites of the Western world. We reeled from the catastrophe they brought in two World Wars by running in the opposite direction for a time. But we are forgetting ourselves again.\n\nI gather there was plenty that might have annoyed Chesterton about America when he visited, but he did pay us a compliment in the Declaration of Independence: \"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.\"\n\nIt should be clear, I hope, that a right (if it exists), does not come from the state. Rights say nothing about the state, they say something about us and our nature. They are not affected by the state our bodies are in. One does not have more rights if he is bigger, or stronger, or smarter. One does not have fewer if he has a disability. Whatever is human has them, from the largest to the very smallest of us. Since our bodies do not affect them, they seem, at least to me, to speak to the dualism of human nature: part physical, part metaphysical. Or spiritual, if we can stomach the word.\n\nWhen people can only perceive the physical nature of humanity, and not the spiritual, you get something very ugly indeed: eugenics. But that is for another post.\n\n#philosophy#abortion#religion#rights",
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"content": "People who hold to a pro-life position often get called \"pro-birthers\" pejoratively, but if I'm being honest about my point of view, I'll own the pejorative. I am for children being born. Motherhood is going out of style these days. Arguments abound for not having children, from feminism, from environmentalism, and from economic security. If I get the time I'd like to make a case against each of those arguments.<br /><br />Modern conventional wisdom is to adopt a policy of Malthusianism without people realizing that is the position they are taking. Think about Thanos from the recent Avengers movies, if you've seen them. When you begin to think \"there isn't enough space\" or \"there isn't enough money\" or \"I don't have enough personal freedom\" as objections to welcoming people into the world, your response tends to result in destructive behavior. Acceptance of Malthus's theories led to England's justification of their brutal treatment of the Irish.<br /><br />Overpopulation was an English concern with the Irish (Anyone read Swift's \"A Modest Proposal\"?), and it has been a worldwide concern since at least the sixties since Paul Ehrlich's book Population Bomb, but, as the article points out, Ehrlich has been wrong about every prediction he made.<br /><br />Excerpt from the article:<br /><br />\"the cult of overpopulation takes no notice of the facts. Abortion advocates such as Representative Sims habitually present their case in Malthusian terms: He demanded of the elderly woman he was bullying whether she herself would provide for the material needs of the unwanted children who were being chopped to bits and stuffed into medical-waste containers inside the Planned Parenthood facility. Never mind, for the moment, the fact that there are far more American families looking to adopt children than there are abortions performed or children eligible to be adopted — the imbalance is so great that Americans go all over the world looking for children to adopt — and just consider the implicit argument there on its own merits, which is this: 'If we think that there might be some inconvenience involved in seeing to the needs of these children, then it would be better to put them to death.'\"<br /><br />#prolife#overpopulation#philosophy<br /><a href=\"https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/case-for-being-born/?fbclid=IwAR2ajXAtnYB7z-tPScAkaTPX8nDUrfYhPO5Kgqb7QJpj445W_SMPMQMDbcw\" target=\"_blank\">https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/case-for-being-born/?fbclid=IwAR2ajXAtnYB7z-tPScAkaTPX8nDUrfYhPO5Kgqb7QJpj445W_SMPMQMDbcw</a>",
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"published": "2019-05-16T23:54:57+00:00",
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"content": "People who hold to a pro-life position often get called \"pro-birthers\" pejoratively, but if I'm being honest about my point of view, I'll own the pejorative. I am for children being born. Motherhood is going out of style these days. Arguments abound for not having children, from feminism, from environmentalism, and from economic security. If I get the time I'd like to make a case against each of those arguments.\n\nModern conventional wisdom is to adopt a policy of Malthusianism without people realizing that is the position they are taking. Think about Thanos from the recent Avengers movies, if you've seen them. When you begin to think \"there isn't enough space\" or \"there isn't enough money\" or \"I don't have enough personal freedom\" as objections to welcoming people into the world, your response tends to result in destructive behavior. Acceptance of Malthus's theories led to England's justification of their brutal treatment of the Irish.\n\nOverpopulation was an English concern with the Irish (Anyone read Swift's \"A Modest Proposal\"?), and it has been a worldwide concern since at least the sixties since Paul Ehrlich's book Population Bomb, but, as the article points out, Ehrlich has been wrong about every prediction he made.\n\nExcerpt from the article:\n\n\"the cult of overpopulation takes no notice of the facts. Abortion advocates such as Representative Sims habitually present their case in Malthusian terms: He demanded of the elderly woman he was bullying whether she herself would provide for the material needs of the unwanted children who were being chopped to bits and stuffed into medical-waste containers inside the Planned Parenthood facility. Never mind, for the moment, the fact that there are far more American families looking to adopt children than there are abortions performed or children eligible to be adopted — the imbalance is so great that Americans go all over the world looking for children to adopt — and just consider the implicit argument there on its own merits, which is this: 'If we think that there might be some inconvenience involved in seeing to the needs of these children, then it would be better to put them to death.'\"\n\n#prolife#overpopulation#philosophy\nhttps://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/case-for-being-born/?fbclid=IwAR2ajXAtnYB7z-tPScAkaTPX8nDUrfYhPO5Kgqb7QJpj445W_SMPMQMDbcw",
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"content": "Asia Bibi has safely arrived in Canada, though she may spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. If you aren't aware of who she is, or how dangerous it has been to defend her:<br /><br />\"Bibi, a Roman Catholic from the village of Ittanwala near Lahore, was accused by Muslim villagers of insulting the prophet in a row over a cup of water in June 2009. The supreme court judgment said there was no evidence to support the charge.<br /><br />Five days after the altercation, a local mosque broadcast allegations she had committed blasphemy and Bibi was dragged from her home by a mob and beaten in the presence of police officers before she was taken into custody.<br /><br />Bibi was sentenced to death in 2010 in what became Pakistan’s most infamous blasphemy case. She always maintained her innocence.<br /><br />One of Bibi’s highest-profile supporters, the governor of Punjab Salman Taseer, was killed by one of his own security guards in January 2011 after he publicly appealed to the president of Pakistan to pardon Bibi.<br /><br />Taseer was shot 27 times at close range by Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, who was showered with rose petals by supporters when he appeared in court. He was executed in 2016.<br /><br />Pakistan’s first federal minister for minority affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti, who also supported Bibi and called for the reform of blasphemy laws, was killed by self-described Taliban gunmen in March 2011.<br /><br />The only Christian in the cabinet at the time, Bhatti had predicted his own death and recorded a farewell tape that was released to television channels after he was killed, in which he vowed to fight for Christian and other minority rights whatever the cost.\"<br /><br />After being released from prison after eight years, she was refused a request for asylum from the UK, a denial which reportedly came from as high as the prime minister over concerns that granted asylum might cause unrest from Pakistani Muslims living in the UK. This leaves us to consider two unpleasant alternatives: One, that Theresa May has been pretty uncharitable in her assessment of Pakistani Muslims in her country, or Two, (much bigger problem) that she is actually fair in her assessment, and the stability of the United Kingdom might be put in jeopardy by accepting one Christian woman into the country. Kind of puts a thumb in the eye of the \"diversity is our strength\" platitudes of the politically correct, yeah?<br /><br />#Christianity#Religion#news<br /><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/08/asia-bibi-arrives-in-canada-after-leaving-pakistan?fbclid=IwAR0pETbGGEPOjW8BENBUN4vz2YGFfAuaJe1F9Yb6zWISJA-2Gtkyr0eHQZc\" target=\"_blank\">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/08/asia-bibi-arrives-in-canada-after-leaving-pakistan?fbclid=IwAR0pETbGGEPOjW8BENBUN4vz2YGFfAuaJe1F9Yb6zWISJA-2Gtkyr0eHQZc</a>",
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"published": "2019-05-09T22:19:22+00:00",
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"content": "Asia Bibi has safely arrived in Canada, though she may spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. If you aren't aware of who she is, or how dangerous it has been to defend her:\n\n\"Bibi, a Roman Catholic from the village of Ittanwala near Lahore, was accused by Muslim villagers of insulting the prophet in a row over a cup of water in June 2009. The supreme court judgment said there was no evidence to support the charge.\n\nFive days after the altercation, a local mosque broadcast allegations she had committed blasphemy and Bibi was dragged from her home by a mob and beaten in the presence of police officers before she was taken into custody.\n\nBibi was sentenced to death in 2010 in what became Pakistan’s most infamous blasphemy case. She always maintained her innocence.\n\nOne of Bibi’s highest-profile supporters, the governor of Punjab Salman Taseer, was killed by one of his own security guards in January 2011 after he publicly appealed to the president of Pakistan to pardon Bibi.\n\nTaseer was shot 27 times at close range by Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, who was showered with rose petals by supporters when he appeared in court. He was executed in 2016.\n\nPakistan’s first federal minister for minority affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti, who also supported Bibi and called for the reform of blasphemy laws, was killed by self-described Taliban gunmen in March 2011.\n\nThe only Christian in the cabinet at the time, Bhatti had predicted his own death and recorded a farewell tape that was released to television channels after he was killed, in which he vowed to fight for Christian and other minority rights whatever the cost.\"\n\nAfter being released from prison after eight years, she was refused a request for asylum from the UK, a denial which reportedly came from as high as the prime minister over concerns that granted asylum might cause unrest from Pakistani Muslims living in the UK. This leaves us to consider two unpleasant alternatives: One, that Theresa May has been pretty uncharitable in her assessment of Pakistani Muslims in her country, or Two, (much bigger problem) that she is actually fair in her assessment, and the stability of the United Kingdom might be put in jeopardy by accepting one Christian woman into the country. Kind of puts a thumb in the eye of the \"diversity is our strength\" platitudes of the politically correct, yeah?\n\n#Christianity#Religion#news\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/08/asia-bibi-arrives-in-canada-after-leaving-pakistan?fbclid=IwAR0pETbGGEPOjW8BENBUN4vz2YGFfAuaJe1F9Yb6zWISJA-2Gtkyr0eHQZc",
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