“Can't we look to Mary Magdalene as simply an early church leader whose rightful place next to Christ should have been acknowledged? There are no Scriptures to place her anywhere but right next to Jesus. Even a cursory reading of the Bible shows her to be a godly woman responding wholeheartedly to a message that must have appealed to her greatly. But the fastest way to rob a woman of her power is to make her a sexual suspect. It certainly has worked all these years for MM.”
Source: Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl
“When Jael questioned her about what the whales said, Eroica usually replied, "They love me. They love the sea. They love each other. They love God." Always love was their message, and Jael knew her daughter was telling the truth as she heard it. Love was the truth, whether it came from a whale, a human, or God in heaven.”
Source: Magdalena's Demons
“The I.S.L.E. ISt inna LikE: Kit Inna kiT, Keep Inna seT Keys Inna lisT”
“The Isle Kit: kit Inna kit keep Inna set keys Inna list”
“The I.C.S.L.E.S., In A World Needing A Brand New Idol? INNA CIRCLE SET LIKE SQUARE, Explanation = Like^2 list key keep”
“As a child abuse and neglect therapist I do battle daily with Christians enamored of the Old Testament phrase "Spare the rod and spoil the child." No matter how far I stretch my imagination, it does not stretch far enough to include the image of a cool dude like Jesus taking a rod to a kid.”
Source: King of the Mild Frontier: An Ill-Advised Autobiography – The Riveting, Laugh-Out-Loud Funny Young Adult Coming-of-Age Memoir
“Girls may be suffering more than boys [mental illnesses] because they are more adversely affected by social comparisons (especially based on digitally enhanced beauty), by signals that they are being left out, and by relational aggression, all of which became easier to enact and harder to escape when adolescents acquired smartphones and social media.”
Source: The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure
“The first thing totalitarian leaders do is make sure their voices are the only ones left.”
Source: The Psychology of Totalitarianism
“With its sign system, totalitarianism tries to imprint its logic on reality, to permanently link it to the real world. Importantly, the assignment of signs and stigmas is usually the first step in the process of destruction.”
Source: The Psychology of Totalitarianism
“Jung Chang said that Mao ruled by getting people to hate each other: ‘Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship. That was why under him there was no real equivalent of the KGB in China. There was no need. In bringing out and nourishing the worst in people, Mao had created a moral wasteland and a land of hatred.”
Source: Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century