Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Politics and Religion
Monday Miscellany, 12/15/25

Monday Miscellany, 12/15/25

Last updated on: December 15, 2025 at 8:11 am by Gene Veith

0 Comments

Monday Miscellany, 12/15/25 2025-12-15T08:11:14-05:00 Gene Veith

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The end of the metaverse. The font wars. And science shoots down medical marijuana claims.

The End of the Metaverse

We have blogged extensively about the “metaverse,” the virtual reality realm in which we could go to work, send the kids to school, socialize, and basically live our lives. We could pick our own avatar so we could “present” as anything we wanted and interact with other people’s avatars in a computer-animated world, like living inside a video game.

Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg claimed that the metaverse would someday be our “primary” reality. He was so excited about the possibilities that he renamed his whole company Meta.

Well, despite all the hype and prognostications about how the metaverse was the future, the idea didn’t quite catch on. It seems that human beings for the most part prefer actual reality to virtual reality.

Now Zuckerberg is pretty much scrapping his metaverse business. Reports Victor Tangermann at Futurism:

All told, the company has lost more than $70 billion since the beginning of 2021 on its enormous long-term VR bet, a staggering sum that has left investors itchy and unimpressed as Zuckerberg has failed to convince the public of the high-fidelity virtual spaces he long insisted we’d be choosing to spend most of our time in.

Now, as Bloomberg reports, the company’s executives are eying gigantic budget cuts, as high as 30 percent, for the teams responsible for its Meta Horizon Worlds product and Quest VR headset — another nail in the coffin for Zuckerberg’s obsession that has been a major thorn in the sides of investors for years now.

Now Zuckerberg is pivoting to a new obsession: Artificial Intelligence. “The company has committed to spending an astronomical $72 billion on AI this year,” says Tangermann, “roughly as much as the company’s lost on the metaverse, coincidentally.”

Please, God, may the company lose that money also. May AI be another overhyped failure! Amen.

The Font Wars

Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a decree that all state department documents must use the New Times Roman font instead of the Biden-era Calibri.

He said that the font switch in word processing programs would “restore decorum and professionalism to the department’s written work.” New Times Roman, he said, evokes “tradition, formality and ceremony” better than the more modern, unadorned Calibri.

The main difference is that New Times Roman is a “serif” style. That refers to the tiny lines, dots, and flourishes added to the strokes on a letter. Calibri is “sans-serif,” meaning without serifs.

See the difference?

Elle Purnell at the Federalist sees serif styles like New Times Roman as being more like cursive handwriting, while sans serif is more like the dumbed-down printing used in public schools that have thrown out cursive. She relates this shift to the rise of the “Corporate Memphis” style of computer illustration–“flat, geometric, figurative, and usually made up of solid colours”–and to the bland ugliness of so much contemporary architecture. She throws in a discussion of Cracker Barrel’s attempt to change its logo. She concludes,

The dumbing-down of visual aesthetics — from font to logos to illustrations — is not without consequence. It would be foolish to assume the aesthetics we surround ourselves with have no effect on how we perceive the world. Official correspondence should be professional, not infantilizing. Sans serif is the medium of corporate jargon and DEI trainings. Fonts like Calibri are literally stripped of their character, reduced to their simplest and most utilitarian form. So are graphics and illustrations that erase shading, detail, and even faces in favor of blob art.

I would say that the main difference of New Times Roman and other serif fonts is that they make the text look like the printing in a book, nearly all of which have always used serif type.

While it is true that the Cranach blog appears in a sans serif font–something that is outside of my control–that does not mean that we have sold out to liberalism. When I write these posts, from within the blog’s dashboard, they are in properly conservative serif.

Science Shoots Down Medical Marijuana Claims

Forty states have legalized medical marijuana, which has been hyped as a cure-all for all kinds of afflictions. States took this action in the absence of scientific testing. Finally, a large-scale study of the medical benefits of cannabis has been completed. The findings: with certain exceptions, medical cannabis has few medical benefits.

From the New York Times:

To treat their pain, anxiety and sleep problems, millions of Americans turn to cannabis, which is now legal in 40 states for medical use. But a new review of 15 years of research concludes that the evidence of its benefits is often weak or inconclusive . . .

“The evidence does not support the use of cannabis or cannabinoids at this point for most of the indications that folks are using it for,” said Dr. Michael Hsu, an addiction psychiatrist and clinical instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the lead author of the review, which was published last month in the medical journal JAMA.

Researchers found no conclusive evidence that marijuana helps with acute pain, anxiety, or sleeplessness.

There is, however, some evidence that certain formulations of THC (the component of cannabis that gets you high) and CBD (the component that doesn’t) can help with chronic pain. Some prescription medications available in pharmacies that contain cannabis are indeed effective in stemming nausea from chemo-therapy, improving appetites, and easing pediatric seizures.

Also, CBD gummies can indeed help with anxiety. (In my day, marijuana was thought to make you paranoid, but that must have been the THC.)

One big concern raised by the report is that almost 30% of patients who use medical cannabis have cannabis use disorder.

My takeaway from this study is that cannabis needs more study but that it can be used to make effective medicines for certain conditions. But, like other medicines, they need to be thoroughly tested and, if found effective, sold only in pharmacies with a doctor’s prescription. As opposed to how it’s done in my native Oklahoma: claiming a condition, getting a medical cannabis card on demand, and buying your “medicine” at a “dispensary” that looks like a head shop.

Previous Post

December 12, 2025

Candlelight & Advent

Next Post

December 16, 2025 What Changes in Pop Music Tell About Us

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"And all tools are made of media, thus making language and literature a tool (see, ..."

Steve Bauer

Luther on Tools

"You all are real tools."

Steve Bauer

Luther on Tools

"That is my main reason as well. But I also think there are other problems ..."

kerner

On Trump’s Political Ads That You ..."

"That explains why I have not received one either."

kerner

On Trump’s Political Ads That You ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category America Apologetics Art baseball Bible Blog Christ Church crime Culture Economics Education Ethics Family Food Football Government History Holidays Holy Week Humor International Islam Language Law Life Issues Literature Media Medicine Movies Music Nature News Personal Philosophy Politics psychology Reformation Religions Sacraments Science sex Social Science Sports technology television terrorism Theology Uncategorized Vocation war

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: James states that the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE

Books by This Author Books by Gene Veith

See All Titles »