For me, voting is one of the *most* religious activities in the sense of its eternal moral weight. It’s a small action, but it has long-lasting effects on others, and so is an immense moral burden. Otherwise put in one of the Qur'an's depictions of the Day of Judgment (surah 99):

My two hierarchs, standing on the right side of things, as usual (Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America) Photos from: orthodoxobserver.org

⚡️Media reveal alleged Russian plot to influence Moldovan parliamentary elections. The documents seen by Bloomberg outline a multi-layered strategy reportedly coordinated directly by the Kremlin.

I think LLMs (and AI image and video) are going to be like digital kudzu; it’s not actually going to solve any problem or serve any function, but now that it’s out there we’re always going to have to deal with it

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

There are few things in this world I love more than Viennese modernism

The concept of “cringe” is bad, like what’s the point of stigmatizing sincerity

Local classical music station (101.3 WBAA FM, out of Purdue)

My soul doth magnify the Lord

Hagia Sophia by Gaspare Fossati (1852) From "Aya Sofia, Constantinople, As Recently Restored by Order of H.M. the Sultan Abdul Medjid, from the original drawings by Chevalier Gaspard Fossati, lithographed by Louis Haghe, esq"

Standing above the clouds, watching the sky change colors yesterday morning

Kaveh Akbar reads at University of South Carolina Thursday, 6 pm. Details here: sc.edu/about/office...

This applies to the Constitution as well:

Reminds me of the great quote by Khaled Abou El Fadl: “the meaning of the text is often only as moral as its reader.”

This is theology at its finest imo

Join us for a historic evening at Fordham! We are deeply honored to welcome His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the "Green Patriarch" and spiritual leader to 300 million Orthodox Christians.

Another ocean made of trees

*buggies

This is actually a great way to think about any personal reading list, I hope this becomes widespread

Small Islamic Studies win, unread 1976 printing for $7.95

Liberals need to recover their faith in exactly this:

alhamdulillah

Excited to announce my book that is forthcoming in January. I’m looking forward to sharing more soon. Let me know if your faculty, students, or community would be interested in a talk or class. Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt | Princeton University Press. Description at: bit.ly/PerrySlavery

Highest level of support since Gallup started asking this question a quarter century ago

Yes, this is a statement by Pope Leo in support of liberalism over authoritarianism. He has vocally advocated against authoritarian populism.

Schleiermacher on hope:

I am not a disorder caused in utero or anywhere else. I’m a person who comes from a family of successful people who behaved like me but didn’t have the word autism to explain why

I am fascinated by this guy who was a Higher Ed administrator and has now moved into teaching classes as a faculty member. He is documenting his whole journey on TikTok. Over the summer, he had so much excitement 🧵

These are all ways of making the same point imo

This is maybe the top structural fact about the world I’d like everyone to absorb

A prayer for the AI age: "We ask God to protect us from seeing the false in the guise of the true, and the true in the guise of the false" -Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. 944; one of the great Muslim doctrinal theologians)

Completely indistinguishable from common Islamophobic arguments just a few years ago. Amazing.

I need to read this book; his Crisis of German Ideology is one of the great masterpieces of intellectual history imo

hot take: religiosity is declining and all these mainline denominations keep trying to pass themselves off as social clubs but you can't sell people on christianity if you can't sell them on christ the same is true of liberalism: if we can't sell people freedom all the other stuff is inessential.

This entire argument is just a mirroring of the postmodern ethos that its criticizing- an abandonment of universal principles and narratives in favor of some kind of particularism. The problem for both positions is that the founding documents of the US are statements of universal principles!

The Soothingly Blue Ridge Mountains

The second review of Martyrs and Migrants @nyupress.bsky.social written by Helana Marie Boutros has just been published in @amanthro.bsky.social. I have so much gratitude for this engagement with the book that centers its theological aspects and methodological-conceptual work.

My article about the category of "münevver" in 1930s Turkey is finally published. I dedicate it to my cat Nuri—who always politically intervened in the name of his enlightenment. journals.openedition.org/ejts/8764

God is not One Who requites evil, but Who sets evil right. — St. Isaac of Syria

View yesterday from Looking Glass Rock in Pisgah National Forest (outside Brevard, NC)

Pope Leo XIV met with one of the most prominent advocates for greater LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church. The Rev. James Martin said Leo told him that he intended to continue Pope Francis’ policy of LGBTQ+ acceptance in the church and encouraged him to keep up his advocacy.

It’s an incredible museum- highly recommend to anyone in the area. I’m looking forward to going again and again over the years.

And if you’re Orthodox, you get named for a dead relative that is also a saint’s name, and you only have 5 to choose from in any given language

Preached today that we visit and give to the prisoner, when we give to those who can’t repay us, we do it not to earn anything, but because that is what humanity united with divinity does—and humanity united with divinity is what salvation looks like.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

⚡️75% of Ukrainians are ready for a ceasefire only if security guarantees are provided. A survey by the Rating Group, conducted Aug. 21-23, found that the majority of Ukrainians polled want peace & are open to concessions, but only if their country receives security guarantees.

The rebirth of the phoenix BL Harley 4751; Bestiary; 13th century; England, S.; f.45r

This is a really important point imo; if I had to summarize the problem with *all* politics right now, I would literally say that our passions are totally out of control, and no political option has anything to say about restraining the self