Christian Nationalism Has Captured the Republican Party
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View original on pawb.socialhttps://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/christian-nationalism-has-capturedOpen linkView original on pawb.social
54 replies
The default in 'Murica is to be Christian
I had people assuming that because I'm white and speak English, that I was religious
People would cordially invite me to their churches, like it's a social event
Religion is everywhere there
It's bizarre to me, but most yanks are indoctrinated from birth into all sorts of stupid shit
It’s not like that everywhere here but there’s definitely a lot of it.
watch a doco called "god forbid"
it's been a 40ish year long corruption
i just wonder what will happen when this regime crumbles now they've had a taste of real power
Oh, I'm old
I've been watching it happen
It's genius, unfortunately
Very carefully and successfully engineered
The civilised world has always sneered at 'Murica, with good reason
It was born of cruelty, ignorance and hate. It has never changed, but the PR campaign got better.
@FistingEnthusiast @ThefuzzyFurryComrade
Definitely not that way in New England. Although if you bring up that you are an atheist, some people do seem a little nonplussed.
I was as well. You likely were too. Ask yourself why it didn't stick.
I wasn't
I was lucky enough to be born in a country where the poison of religion doesn't have the same stranglehold
That's good and very fortunate.
Some of us had to mask for a bit but ultimately, even the people that "believe" still do everything they can to 'circumvent' god.
It's insanity.
god is an all powerful all knowing all loving vengeful god, but you can fool him out of eternal damnation by utilizing simple logical failings of human language
I am an American. I am very not religious and not conservative. I love my family but when the conversation veers from the weather or other such mundane things I feel very very lonely.
Um you know African Americans and Latinos are also Christian...
So yeah it's not that.
Uh, what? Try as I might, I cannot make sense of this statement. The implication being: other races or cultures are not religious? Precisely the opposite of what's closer to truth.
They assumed that I was a part of their particular cult
I'm American. People who assume my religion are weirdos and I rarely interact with someone like that. I'm pretty sure your assertion about it being related to your race is just a random ass assumption.
Depends what part of the country of they were in.
In the north east, there aren’t many mega churches, and the small old churches are often pretty empty or have closed. But down in the Bible Belt, Texas lower Midwest, it’s fucking different and very prominent and very culty.
On the coasts it looks more like granola churches for networking and much more humanist/unitarian. There are still Lutheran, Catholic and Baptist churches around, but not like the south.
Even in the south what they described is weird.
Meanwhile, more news from 1998…
This is hardly news. It's captured the Democrats too, just a bit less blatantly. Just look at the "religion" column on this table, there's one unknown and then just a solid stack of crosses regardless of party.
Feel Clean, Vote Green! Who wins doesn't matter, bOtH sIdEs.
When the options are a greater evil and a lesser evil, hold your nose and vote lesser evil. Just don't think that makes them good.
We kept doing that and then not organizing between elections, for at least 40 years.
I don't see what your point is here. I'm not saying that things are going great in the US and they shouldn't be changing their approach to things. I'm literally just saying that when you're faced with a ballot where there are only two viable options (as is the case under the American electoral system) then you should pick the less evil option. Even if it has elements you don't like, such as also being captured by Christian nationalism. Your only other option is the greater evil, why would you vote for the greater evil?
As I said, that doesn't make the lesser evil a good option. If you want a good option then sure, keep working on that. In the American system that means vote in primaries, participate in local elections, get involved in various other ways. Try to influence what shows up on that ballot. Do that between-election organization as well.
And then when the election rolls around, hold your nose and vote for the lesser evil. I literally can't fathom what else you think should be done at that point.
If you keep picking lesser evil, then they keep getting more and more evil. This isn't going to change by any mechanism other than voting differently - we don't actually use this time between elections to organize more, especially not while moderates are out to brunch. If a party's primary system is undemocratic, then your only choice is to vote for another party - even if that party is currently losing very badly.
The American left is losing so hard that we consider blatantly pro-corporate controlled opposition to be on our side at all. They're not - they support FPTP because they'd rather see Greater Evil win than see Actually Good win. This has been obvious since 2000. So obvious that we say only two parties are viable, but for some mysterious reason the Democrats don't support fixing it. Why should they?
Every national election, we're encouraged to hold our noses, vote for the immediate short term goal, to "buy time". We've squandered that time consistently and here we are now, after 40 years of iterating the ratchet effect. What should be done at that point, and every election thereafter, is to vote for someone who opposes FPTP. A vote for FPTP is a vote for Greater Evil winning in the long term, and that's exactly what has happened.
When you go into that ballot booth there are exactly two options in front of you. Well, technically, three. They are:
So, you're crossing out "pick the lesser evil." I assume you're also not advocating for picking the greater evil. So you're saying just abstain?
Ah, you're suggesting voting for a third party. Under first-past-the-post electoral systems that's part of the "throw your vote away" option.
Yes, because by the time you get to the election itself those are the only two options left. It's been winnowed down to that by the electoral process and it's too late to have any other options by that point.
Lesser evil, or greater evil? That's it.
In primaries, sure. For local candidates and so forth. It'd be awesome to get rid of first-past-the-post. I've pushed for it in my own country, where there's at least a little chance it might happen.
But at the end of the campaign when it's voting day and you're standing there in that voting booth, and there's the D vs R choice sitting there in front of you, there's no "get rid of FPTP" option as an alternative. Just D and R.
Yeah, you don't like to hear that. Tough, it's reality. Believing in a preferred reality and insisting that it must be real simply because you want it to be real isn't really our thing here, is it?
You're usually a pretty smart person so I'm not going back and forth reiterating that lengthy explanation. Please consider my words in earnest before the next time you vote for someone who wants you to have this dilemma.
Lol yeah ok
The only difference is that they've lost all shame about saying the quiet part out loud.
Nothing christian about republicans
Hateful, stupid, ignorant, reject reality,
Sounds like a religious bunch to me
I get they call themselves Christian, but let us not pretend they follow any teachings of Christ
Let's not pretend whe have any reliable record of Christ's teachings they could refer to.
The records we do have, reliable or not, show what they should be following. Certain versions of the source material even set his words in a different color for clarification. They do not follow these super basic teachings of "be kind to everyone", "be kind to strangers to your land especially since you were once strangers", "don't listen to people who try to lead with fear mongering", "help those who are less fortunate instead of following fortune", etc
We can debate the reliability of the sources for the teachings but that is the standard they themselves say they follow. And they do not.
Things the character of jesus did in the bible:
Looks like trumps following Jesus's actions pretty well.
Yes we do… you may not
Id be fascinated to hear what record you claim there is.
The Vatican has miles of archives just to name one source. Do you have access, no. Do you know ancient Hellenistic Greek or Hebrew, Aramaic, Coptic, etc. to warrant granting access to study? No.
I belong to a host of Orders and Societies that keep the secret stream and pass that knowledge to the next generation.
If this knowledge is true and good, I dont see why it should be gatekept. Why is it not uploaded online and disseminated for everyone to benefit. Pointing to "secret knowledge" as a source of truth is incredibly silly
Although it's not traditional, it still is a religion. Only difference is title.
They're the same as Islamic extremists, uncannily in every single way, like it's intentional.
Au contraire
No shit
Happened decades ago.
Like 50 years late on that
Headline from 15 fucking years ago
Longer. Y'all remember 9/11?
There are kids born after that at the pub, right now. Legally.
Not a lot, because most people under 30 either don't have free time or aren't spending their (very) hard-earned cash on beer of all things.
But some of those rich entitled shits are out getting money and drunk.
Fuck those guys.
Wait what are we talking about?
A Zionazi, Israel chosen people first, rule over the US version of Christian nationalism, because that is bestest version to support war on Iran.
You can't be a good Christian without first being persecuted against.
Hence the subservience to the guys who killed Jesus.
Seriously...Christians cucking for christ-killers is the epitome of Christian suffering.
(Just to clarify, I know the idea of "Jewish Deicide" is, itself, an antisemitic trope and doesn't have historical backing. I just couldn't resist the alliteration. I apologize).
Jesus's message was a sharp contrast to the divine right of kings to steal from and kill anyone the voices in their head said they could. Jesus absolutely had to be as politically delicate as possible in his humanist contradictions to Moses, but like Socrates, it wasn't enough, and Jewish elders definitely lobbied to kill him. The Catholics would erase Jesus under Constantine by declaring that God and Jesus were of the same matter, and so go back to Moses, voice in head, warmongering against any heretic who would say "but Jesus said... ". This went further under Charlemagne, where the holy spirit became co-equal matter, making it illegal for any person to use their conscience to question evil. Protestant movement simulatenously condemned the fascist supremacist evil of the erasing of Jesus and conscience, as the basis for their reform, while also keeping the trinity in tact, afterwards.
Since God's story was written by the victorious King David line of El's children, the supremacist nazification of the church must rely on ZIonaniism for their divine rights. Only a heretic would ask WWJD, when they should instead be proactively funding their Pastor's G6 before he asks, because that is helpful (pro church/empire) independent thought.
Religious Nationalism. Nothing Christian about them unless you include idolatry, charlatans, and whatever the bible said to keep an eye out for.
No true Scotsman
They're plenty christian. Its just Christianity is far more about authoritarianism and arbitrary acts of vice signalling than people want to admit.
Can't be captured by what you keep.
Exactly as Bush 1 warned about.