This is a really insightful and disturbing article.
Sobering thought: What are we supposed to do about 60 MILLION fucking people in this country who genuinely believe that Jesus is coming back any day to reign as an absolute monarch and punish the non-believers for their lack of faith and that this is a GOOD THING? No wonder democracy itself is crumbling. How are you supposed to have a functional democratic alliance with people who are praying every day for their literal god king to come reign over the earth and who eat up the bullshit of ANY and EVERY conman and grifter who feeds into that?
“I don’t understand how Christians fall for narcissists”
Pardon me, but have you read the Bible, or even just the commandments? They’ve been taught their whole lives to worship a narcissist
What narcissist is in the Bible that you are taught to worship? Are you suggesting their god, who is omnipotent and omniscient, is lacking empathy and compassion?
Are you suggesting god is omnipotent and omniscient but does nothing to keep children from getting raped? Then yes, lacking empathy and compassion.
A much more likely explanation is that there is no god, but I’ll accept evil deity if you really insist. I could also accept impotent god if you don’t think god is able to keep people from raping children.
the “god” is also known to be cruel as well, by doing nothing.
No, no, definitely not cruel. Just shits on the floor and has a mysterious plan to have children raped. It’s mysterious! How dare you call it cruel!
If the Abrahamic God was real it would be really ignorant to apply human behavioral standards to it.
Is that the current excuse for either an absent, evil, or flaccid deity? It used to be “God works in mysterious ways. Raping children is part of HIS plan.” Today is “You’re ignorant for saying raping children is bad to a god, but one sect thinks eating bacon will send you to hell.” I wonder what’s next.
If an all encompassing, omniscient, omnipotent being existed why would you judge it by human standards? Do you hold household pets accountable to the same standards as people?
So you’re saying that god is no smarter than my old dog who once ate a diaper. Then not very smart at all.
Let’s look at it another way. If I own a dog and it’s getting beat up by another dog, should I stop it? Or if my dog is humping a cat who is obviously not enjoying it, should I stop it? I’m the more powerful being here, with better tools and knowledge of good and evil.
I judge an animal’s behavior by the person who cares for it. If a god claims to watch over and care for humanity, I judge it based on humanity’s actions. If your dog is at the dog park eating smaller dogs, you’re a bad (ineffective, inattentive, or lazy) dog owner, or the dog doesn’t have an owner. If people are raping children and a god claims to be over people, then he’s either too impotent to stop it, too lazy to stop it, doesn’t care enough to stop it, or doesn’t exist. I guess the alternative is “God thinks raping children is fine” if you prefer that.
So now the argument has become “God is like a dog that eats diapers and shits on the floor.” This guy is sounding better and better all the time.
I rather tend to hold lesser creatures to lesser standards. Presumably a greater creature would have greater potential for understanding what leads to human flourishing, and the greatest would know exactly what would make humans good and kind and raping children aint it. god wants children raped (and every other evil ever committed and still in the works, whether among good or not) if he exists so be glad there’s no good reason to think he does. Sorry, you just don’t get to be all knowing, all powerful, all loving, and also allow child rape. It doesn’t work, the properties are mutually incompatible with the observed state of reality, and it’s not our fault the bronze age mythos-makers didn’t consider the logical implications of the fantasy when it was being fabricated to control the rabble.
I think you mean the Canaanite storm god Yahweh, but who can tell these days!
“God is a selfish god who only wants you to worship him” is a pretty boilerplate teaching in Abrahamic and other monotheistic faiths
See also, “women were invented from the rib bone of man, who were created in the image of god”
Because evangelicals, and by extension most followers of Abrahamic faiths to a lesser or greater extent, have never and will never have any actual principals or morals.
the fundy types,evangelicals are fundie/super alt right.
Because they are jealous?
Evangelicalism encompasses many styles and streams—fundamentalist, holiness, Bible churches—but none are as dynamic and fecund as the Pentecostal sects. Each has a singular approach to MAGA, Trump, and Epstein, but none are more ardent than the Pentecostals. Disparaged as Holy Rollers and Tongues-Talkers for their highly emotional worship and ecstatic prayers, even by fellow born-again believers, numbering approximately 600 million worldwide, with ten percent of them in the US, making them the dominant strain of evangelicals. A subset of Pentecostals, called Charismatics, form the core of MAGA’s religious adherents. Within that group is another theological variant often called the “prosperity gospel,” referring to a teaching that purports health and wealth as marks of divine approval.
Being familiar with these types of Christians here in Australia, this checks out. This particular type always struck me as being emotionally driven (rather than using reason and logic to make decisions). It makes perfect sense that they’re the majority of evangelicals that support Trump and MAGA.
All religious people use religion to warp their own reality to that of their choosing, instead of the actual reality that exists.
Of course the religious extremists are using their extremist religion to justify extremely unlawful actions. That’s what religions are for. Religions have been doing the exact same things for thousands of years.
The point? Religions and those that support them have zero morality. Their religions tell them to lie, and they do. Their religions tell them to ignore the law, they do. They flip-flop positions as their religions will them to do. They ignore all decency and common sense, as their religions tell them to do.
The religion? A giant corporation that gives impossibly huge handouts to its corporate officers.
The only real thing about religions is the damage to society and individuals. That’s very real, and it’s constant.
There’s a meaningful difference between a religion and a doomsday cult.
Christianity is a doomsday cult born out of an apocalyptic era of Judaism.
Only time, really
Yes and no. At least in my experience, it’s always used for a definitive answer to something that’s impossible to explain. From there it nearly always gets weirder. Some hold it together better than others.
Every time I see one of these evangelicals that old Metallica song pops in my head…
Send me money, send me green, heaven you will meet Make a contribution and you’ll get a better seat Bow to Leper Messiah
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Oh man I’ve not seen that one in years.
I mean, some people DID care, but they were the swing voters that pushed him over the top, not the core of the base.
