Evangelical Christian leader Russell Moore revealed this week that many evangelical pastors have become alarmed that their Trump-loving congregants have become so militant that they are even rejecting the teachings of Jesus Christ.In an interview with NPR, Moore said that multiple pastors had told h…
Do you ever think how messed up it is people wear crosses? It really is wearing the Iron Age equivalent of a swastika. It’s almost as if they are wearing the exact opposite symbol of Jesus while actively subverting his message. Hmmmmm
This is basically the premise to a Ricky Gervais bit.
A bunch of years ago I was at my brother in laws bachelor party. It was mid summer along a river so we were drinking and enjoying the weather and a bonfire. One dude had this huge cross tattooed on his back, he was BiL’s coworker friend and I had never met him before. He was saying some pretty awful shit and then started to get into racist shit against Mexicans. I can’t remember exactly what I said but it was basically “you say these things while showing off that tattoo? Did you get it because you thought it looked cool or do you even know what the cross means?” My BiL asked me to drop it but its always reminded me of how much some of these people are complete idiots and maybe they are trying to be better but wrapping yourself in these symbols and failing to even meet a baseline of understanding is just so disgusting to me. A thousand years ago, I am sure one of us would have tried to kill each other over that moment.
Weird thing is that it started as a symbol. Believers carrying a cross, albeit a small symbolic one, was a sign of sympathy and emulation with the sacrifice Christ did, one of which was carrying his own cross, in order to save mankind from sin. But of course it was distorted and fetishized to the point of ridicule. Christians aren’t exactly the most well versed on the beliefs of their own cult.
Is it not as a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice rather than celebration of how he died?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
If I was tortured to death for some shit i didn’t do, the last thing I’d want to see when I resurrect is people claiming to love me with a little version of the torture device that killed me around their necks.
Yes, well, you aren’t Jesus are you? 🤨
I’ll ask dad.
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Supply side Jesus
Like that time one particular red state decided to ban the Bible?
Separation of church and state was created to protect both the state AND the church. Churches are not supposed to be political organizations for their own good. Dividing into camps along political lines and shouting at each other is what happens out in the world. It’s not supposed to happen at church.
Churches should be taxed though. Give unto Caesar and all that.
There’s nothing special about churches. The ACLU has the same tax breaks and associated restrictions.
It’s why the ACLU is actually 2 different organizations. There’s the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation. ACLU is a political lobbying group that is directly involved in political activities and therefore has to pay taxes and donations to it are not tax-deductible. The ACLU Foundation other is a legal services charity that is tax-exempt and donations to it are tax deductible.
Churches simply don’t have the direct political arm. If they do, then they should be taxed. I once saw a church lose it’s tax exemption when the pastor told the congregation they should vote for Obama.
If churches should be taxed then all non-profit organizations should, and you therefore shouldn’t be able to make any kind of tax-deductible donations.
If churches should be taxed then all non-profit organizations should, and you therefore shouldn’t be able to make any kind of tax-deductible donations.
That is acceptable to me. I have run two 501©3 entities, and guess what, we got audited every year and had to pay taxes if we turned a profit.
Also since those personal donations are just used by the rich to not pay their fair share, close the loopholes.
Churches literally don’t have profits. There are no shareholders or anything. There are employees, but pretty much all non-profits have staff, and paying staff (who still have to pay income tax) isn’t “profit.”
The only issue I have with auditing them is that the vast majority of small churches that are struggling to keep the doors open literally can’t afford an audit, and the big, corrupt churches enriching corrupt assholes are still technically non-profit and won’t be hurt.
Dividing into camps along political lines and shouting at each other is what happens out in the world. It’s not supposed to happen at church.
Wait, I thought this was their main feature…
The comedian Emo Philips has a well-known joke about religion that may explain some of the decline in membership… "Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over."
To the modern right, Jesus was a beta cuck socialist. Healing the sick?? Loving thy neighbor?? Sounds like some LIBERAL BULLSHIT 😤 (my wife left me)
I want that on a t-shirt. ‘Jesus was a beta cuck socialist’.
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No, the Republican party co-opted evangelicals to win votes. Abortion wasn’t a major issue for evals until conservatives started pumping it in the 70s (I think that’s the timeline?). Both are abhorrent, but we should be accurate about who tantalized who. Now, evals are in control of the Repubs.
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Trump is their messiah now.
Literally too. I’ve seen Facebook posts from an evangelical ex girlfriend of vertical lens flares on Tump saying that he’s gods chosen one and it’s liked by a bunch of other evangelicals. They really do think he’s chosen by god.
There used to be a subreddit about “Prayers to Trump” where people.would pray to him via Twitter for things.
If Trump came out and said I am Jesus his supporters would all be we know.
They never accepted his teachings in the first place…
You have a point, however, there seems to be a difference in severity. It’s like how openly and aggressively racist some of these folks have gotten. Sure, they always probably harbored those feelings, but now they are more brazen about it, and the behavior is getting worse as a result.
They just needed someone in a position of authority to tell them it was okay to be awful.
Jepp. Ever heard the argument from for instance atheists that you don’t need the bible to know right from wrong? They are unfortunately incorrect. These guys definitely need some higher power telling them.
I was just talking to my son about this last weekend. We were discussing the merits of organized religion. He said “I don’t need the threat of eternal punishment to act morally”. I said “you’re right, and neither do I, but there seems to be a great many people who do. So although the church is largely an instrument of control, it’s a necessity for a great many people”. It is going to have a profoundly negative impact on our society when these people are completely unleashed.
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I think you missed the point. The threat of eternal punishment is the only thing holding a lot of people in check.
You’re getting lost in your own wank.
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Can we just swap that for enforceable threats of NOW punishment? We have laws. Let’s start using them.
I would rather have people act morally because of empathy and even social pressure, versus “master told me to.”
Granted, if the church and its teachings disappeared today, things may get a bit more rough in the near future. Religion works on some people because they were raised in it and need it to stay normal. But if they weren’t indoctrinated since birth, it would not have such a hold on their morality.
Also granted, I’m sure there are plenty of people who would still act better with it than without it. Just speaking in general terms here.
I would also prefer if people just acted out of empathy but I believe some people just can’t. Ironically while many claim that autistic can’t they are often more empathetic than others.
What I really dislike with this kind of Christians is that they have so much text regarding compassion but they still just care about the parts that can be used to judge others. even though they claim to read the Bible literally. Which of course they don’t.
Yeah, I would say that it’s another example of those Christians cherry picking the parts of the Bible that are convenient for what they already believe, but they aren’t even doing that. The majority are just repeating lines they were fed.
We’re in agreement.
Aw, how sweet that you think a negative impact on society from religion is something that will happen in the future.
Problem is that the morality taught by Christianity, and most other large organized religions, is extremely outdated and has spent many hundreds of years being corrupted by those in power to oppress others. I mean these people literally believe that God will punish our entire society if we don’t eradicate LGBTQ groups. I actually think these people would be much more tolerant of others if they had never encountered organized religion and just learned to coexist with others organically.
While I partly agree with you, my point was not so much the content of the laws but that some people need an invisible all seeing power to make sure that they’re following them.
They have trouble empathising with others unless it also directly affects them. There are for instance a number of republican politics who only supported the LGBTQ after their own child came out as gay or what ever. And that’s the best case scenario.
Religion in the US is weird though. You got the extremist kicked out from Europe and you southern state branches where pastors either moved north or stopped talking about equality for all men. What remains is non of the kindness and only cruelty and punishment that some people seem to get off on.
My own take on the morality of the laws in the Bible is that we would be better off if we more looked to the reason for the why of the laws than just reading what the law said. What spoken of in tanakh (or old testament) regarding men having sex for instance isn’t about to consenting adults but a question of rape of the penetrated man. Or in an interpretation from a Danish theology, incest of a male relative. Except for the question of rape and incest, it doesn’t have any bearing today regarding same sex relationships.
Yup. The jokes made under their breath have turned into heckles from the crowd.
Arguable. The stories have him talk about the right price and your rights with slaves, and as commonly understood “not one jot or tittle” would directly conflict with “let he who…”, unless the second is an edict (“hey, you, sinless one, go chuck a rock at them and bludgeon then go death”).
Where the bible isn’t monstrous, it’s at best inconsistent.
Pretty insane interpretation of jesus’s teachings, ngl
Super edgy tho
Have they ever really liked Jesus?
Most of the Magats were always terrible people who never once lived like Jesus. Now they actually have someone’s name to say who they model their lives after
I recognize I’m insignificant in reality so let me just go ahead and adopt these beliefs that make me feel otherwise, that’s better, ahhh sweet hatred.
Christianity has always been a very comfy place for the worst people.
I’d just like to sit in on the closed door leadership meetings where they admit they think Paul masterfully hijacked the gospels and grew Christianity into a tool for oppression. Then watch as they divise ways to fuck over their own congregations.
They were always gonna come for the priests and pastors next, the very second they step off the playbook.
Nah there will always be plenty of bigoted pastors, churches, and congregations for these people.
This may cause (another) split amongst Christians, but there’s no way they give up religion entirely. It’s far too useful to them as a tool of control and indoctrination.
Watch it split into Trumpanalty
I have always been surprised that the Catholic Bishops have been so willing to align, politically, with the evangelicals on this issue. They haven’t historically gotten along well. And the evangelicals were agnostic about abortion, until they realized all the money they could raise by embracing the bans.
If the end-game for this is turning the country (or even the red states) into a theocracy, Catholics are going to find themselves excluded again. Some evangelicals don’t even think they count as Christian. And nobody else is going to have sympathy for them, when the ruling class imposes their belief systems on Catholics, because it’s exactly what the Catholic Bishops have been doing to other groups through their support of extreme abortion bans.
The chatolic diaconese in the US is as far as I’ve heard extremists and the Vatican seems to have trouble reining them in.
I hope so. Can they hate on people for something they chose for once? Damn
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You’re Christian, right? You’re supposed to follow the teachings of Christ! It’s literally in the name!
Christ means “messiah/anointed one” these people are following, in their eyes, the new one and he ain’t called Jesus. Seriously these fucking people are literally worshipping mr Orange.
“all my patriot friends know christianity is about burning crosses, duh!”
Lol