It's because they believe(d) he can(could) tear the whole thing down, so they can rebuild a theocratic empire on its ashes.

I was listening to Ian Masters' Background Briefing from sometime in the past few days, and he had some lady on who said it. She was speaking about the idiotic ruling from FLA on the mask mandate, then pointed out that this judge was one on the approved list from the Council for National Policy. Apparently Trump agreed only to appoint judges from this list, among other concessions, in order to gain evangelical support. And then she said, they want to tear down all American institutions, so they can install a theocracy instead. It finally all made sense.

This is terrifying to me. I was brutalized by evangelical fundamentalist religion growing up, and am still severely impeded by the trauma in my adult life. I would much rather live in a world where every lunatic open carries a fully automatic submachine gun than live in a theocracy.

I was recently informed about the Council for National Policy. They're a force for evil. A highly effective force, that his been working mostly in secret since at least the 80's to turn America into a Spanish inquisitors pipe dream.

This still doesn't quite explain why middle class Baptist Jane would vote for Trump, I guess maybe racial fear? Paternalistic conditioning?

I try to be solutions focussed generally speaking, but I don't see one right now, sadly. I aim to start looking and thinking..

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, today is the hiemal solstice. Today is the shortest day of the year, and for the next half of the year, the period of daylight will only get longer.

Since ancient times, people have marked this day each year, through celebration and through the construction of buildings that line up with the sun or stars on this day; for instance, Stonehenge in Britain and Newgrange in Ireland both act as solstice indicators. Celtic, Chinese, Indian, ancient Roman, and even ancient Hebrew solstice ceremonies are recorded in various forms, with some (such as Newgrange) dating as far back as 3200 BC.

Today, many of these solstice ceremonies have been wrapped up into the Christian winter holiday of Christmas. For instance, the Celtic tradition of hanging evergreen plants, such as holly and ivy, as a sign of hospitality became the British Christian tradition of hanging mistletoe. Even the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah bears a striking resemblance to the Celtic idea of the Yule Log, a fire that was meant to burn for twelve days without re-fueling.

In addition, the solstice itself remains meaningful to many, both in mainstream religions and in neo-Pagan revival movements. So, to all of you who celebrate, happy Solstice, and may the sun shine warm on your face for the rest of the year.

I recently started an excellent series on Wondrium that is a PBS documentary from 1988: Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth and I figured this series would be of interest to the Tildes crowd. In this series, Joseph Campbell sits down for a discussion with Bill Moyers discussing the way mythology has influenced our lives from the day-to-day to religion, and how these common motifs present themselves throughout our history and culture. In addition, there is a lot of examples and comparisons of these tropes within the Star Wars original trilogy that is discussed.

It is a very eye-opening and thought-provoking series that I would really love to have a discussion about if others here find it interesting as well.

Transcripts of the individual episodes can be found on this site:

https://billmoyers.com/content/ep-1-joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth-the-hero%E2%80%99s-adventure-audio/

I personally prefer listening/watching as there are a lot of visual examples that are used during the discussion that helps make the topic more clear.