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Fixed the fix: “Leaders of Religion That Relies on Internalized Cognitive Dissonance Surprised When A More Insidious Manipulation Out-Manipulates Them”
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Internalized cognitive dissonance?
I’m always amazed that anyone actually thinks Donald Trump is a Christian lol
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According to my grandfather, the fact that he’s supposedly anti-abortio makes him a “man of god.”
I want to reduce abortions by providing easy access to sex ed and free condoms. Abortions should still be 100% legal and easy to get, but there ought be less of them cause they suck to go through.
Anyway, hail Satan.
Hear! Hear!
Ironic and apologies for your dumbass grandfather; Trump has probably paid for enough abortions and NDA’s related to fund the capital of a small town
Bet he wouldn’t vote for a conservative Muslim even if they opposed abortion.
Is your Grandfather aware there are people of other religions that are also anti-abortion or does his thought process not extend that far?
He’s 95 and I’m positive he’s autistic. I have no idea what his thought process is.
He posed for a photo with a bible once (just after having a peaceful protest violently disbanded), and he occasionally says the “God Bless America” platitude.
That’s all most conservative religious people need
As I recall he also managed to hold the bible upside down for that entire shoot.
I mean, he probably is a christian, he’s just not very good at it.
So he’s a Christian?
No. He would show up holding the Quran, the Torah, or even the Satanic Bible if he thought it would get him a single extra vote. The only person Donald Trump worships is Donald Trump. He is incapable of believing that there could ever be any authority higher than himself.
a) Being a christian really only requires a declaration of belief, AFAIK b) I’m genuinely convinced a lot of grifters believe their own bs. Not all of it, obviously, but I think he really does believe that he is a christian paragon and that the US should be returned to being christian nation, and any falsehood he knowingly advances is justified because it advances those goals. Not to say that this wouldn’t change if the tides in US politics turned, but I’m pretty sure that most professional liars like him genuinely eat their own manure.
Ain’t no way. The only “religion” that shitbird subscribes to is the narcissism of self-adoration. He doesn’t believe in anything, his life is eternally rooted in being seen. So yeah, a classic GOP Christian, right on
I’m 100% convinced that if Christ came today the majority of white American Christians would call him a demon and one of them will end up shooting him. Especially if he came back as a man of color that spread anti-capitalist ideas and hung out with the poor, sick, and unwanted. They’d never, ever, tolerate that.
IF Christianity is true, a large amount of souls of self-proclaimed “Christians” are in danger of damnation. They are actually doing Satan’s work for him. The issue are the ones 100% certain they are “saved” while spouting racist, evil things at the same time. How do you talk to people like that? How do you convince them that they are in fact 100% wrong and likely going to the same hell they claim everyone else is going to? I’m an atheist, so most wouldn’t even take me seriously.
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You forgot the best part. He hung out with a group of men and one woman, and the one woman wasn’t any of the men’s girlfriend. Conservative Christians would perhaps thought this was an unnatural arrangement.
There was actually an opening to an episode of American Gods that has that exact scenario. He literally walks across the Rio Grande and after he gets to shore a bunch of hilbillies with religious iconography alongside their confederate flags roll up in their lifted trucks and shoot him with a fully automatic weapon.
LOL wow.
Makes me wonder how many racists watched that episode and thought to themselves “that would never be me” while fully supporting the mentality behind it.
So what you are saying is that now is the time to invest in gold AR-15 necklaces?
I mean look what happened to MLK Jr…
The FBI would probably investigate him and then he’d be murdered by white supremacists.
Yeah, that’s what I always think. For me (German), Christianity is mostly acceptance of other people, empathy, caring for people who have it worse than you, loving your next, etc. Which in policies is… being for welfare, donating, accepting LGBTQ+ and supporting them, etc.
Evangelicals have always confused me because they are against everything Jesus stood for.
That’s basically what Jesus said.
Christianity doesn’t have hell or damnation. It has Sheol, which is a waiting room for souls
A lot of Christian denominations would disagree with you on this. It is also a bit absurd to make absolute claims about what Christianity is and is not because it varies greatly from denomination to denomination (none of which has a monopoly on their interpretation of the bible).
Better take another look at the Bible, because Jesus disagrees. In fact, he is kind of a fetishist about all the suffering he will visit on those who don’t worship him.
Mark 9:
47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where
“‘the worms that eat them do not die,
and the fire is not quenched.’[d]
Trump isn’t -The- Antichrist, because that was likely just a bible story warning of populist leaders. But he is -an- antichrist.
He’s not the first and probably not the last, but he has the power to make deeply “Christian” people openly forsake their religion…and if that’s not an antichrist, I don’t know what is.
Agreed.
If I was a Christian (I aint but just work with me here), I’d honestly believe Trump was being used by Satan to lead the Shepard’s beloved sheep astray.
Every King is AN antichrist.
If Jesus came along today, they’d cast him out as a socialist and probably kill him in a botched police raid.
Modern fundamentalist American Christians would have been in the crowd shouting for barrabas to be released, make no mistake.
Like modern fundie American christians know who Barabbas is or have actually read the bible.
Some have, my own father has read it multiple times and is as conservative Christian authoritarian as they come.
The real problem is they have this issue where instead of actually reading it as one would any other book, they lightly skim the words of the text while using the book as a channeling device to try and achieve some greater meaning/interpretation of the text given to them mentally by God. Reading it for what it says isn’t good enough, it’s not even the true purpose. They genuinely believe that it’s meant to be “understood” on a higher plane of thought than just READING THE DAMN WORDS.
Which is fucking hilarious if you know church history, the protestant faith is literally based on the idea that reading the text is good enough and you don’t need any human to explain it to you, you don’t need some esoteric understanding of the text that you can only gain through additional seminary/linguistics education or personal revelation from God. The written word is the message itself, and just being able to read an accurate translation of it in your own language without someone else’s interpretation is supposed to be the only necessary thing for someone to understand God and the sacrifice of Jesus.
Except the written word isn’t good enough, the ecumenical councils were democratic in nature and even the three major divisions of the faith can’t agree on which is canonical and what is heretical/apocryphal after thousands of years of deliberation. So now you get pumped full of interpretation from day one. The snake is Satan, not a talking snake (too close to other mythology for their liking.) The cosmological beliefs of this faith included after lives from the get go, even though Sheol translates to grave and most Jews (including Jesus, if his line about “outer darkness” is to be believed) simply thought of death as the end unless spiritual resurrection took place. Turns out afterlives were mostly included when the Greek converts started bringing their traditions into the faith, and it was deemed necessary since it keeps people from leaving the religion. You get told countless things that aren’t from the text, but rather a “what could have happened/what could have been intended” and how it applies to
your pastors agenda/tithesyour life.“Barabbas? Isn’t that the Italian restaurant?”
There’s no question that he would be apprehended and faced with terrorism charges.
“He’s tuning the other cheek!”
“Stop resisting!"
I stopped going to church when I realized how hypocritical the people who attended churches are. “Love thy neighbor, except those gays, brown people, liberals, pro-choicers( except when I need, or my teenage daughter needs an abortion), anyone who lives on the west coast, drives a Tesla, eats an avocado, believes in vaccines, voted for Biden, didn’t vote for Trump, wants raise minimum wage, oh and definitely those climate change believers. They can all go rot in hell. 'Merica!!! Fuckin Yeehaww!! Pew pew pew!!!”
This guys a pastor and I figured this out when I was 15…I’m 41.
I wasn’t raised with a religion (parents were both atheists), but when i was around 15-16 I got curious. I started attending the youth group at the local feel good church up the street and literally every single sermon was about how teenagers have urges, but we must resist them as sex before marriage was a terrible sin.
Well after a couple months of weekly don’t have sex meetings the cops showed up to arrest the youth pastor for something like 27 counts of statutory rape. He had been sleeping with all the girls in the youth group ranging from 18 all the way down to the 13 year-olds.
The only reason he got caught was because two of the girls got into an argument about how they were his one true love, and one of them called the cops on the other one because she got called a bad name. That ended my very short experiment with religion, bunch of fucking hypocrites pretending they’re better than other people while doing exactly what they tell others not to… at least the sex I was having was legal.
It sounds like the sum total of your experiments with religion were experiments with Christianity. That isn’t a very sound methodology for experimentation.
I’ve looked into many other religions since then, but I was able to satiate my curiosities through purely academic means. In other words I didn’t find it necessary to drink the flavor aid in order to scratch an itch.
Are you trying to sound legitimate by using scientific terminology to attack someone’s opinions on religion?
Yes, I’m a scientist, and my scientific views have lead me to adopt religion. I’m always interested in correctly applying the scientific method to find the truth
Well my interpretation of the Bible tells me that you’re wrong in doing so. Seems disingenuous.
The Bible was written by humans, it’s not an authoritative text.
Which religion do you follow that wasn’t conceived of, had a holy text written by, and teachings propagated by humans?
Over the known course of human history there have been at least 18,000 different gods, goddesses, various animals, or objects that have been worshipped by mankind. What they all share in common is they’re all fictious constructs created by ignorant humans in an attempt to explain natural phenomenon that were beyond their ability to make sense of through logical scientific means.
That being said I will concede that I still believe in the possibility of a higher power as I think it is just as ignorant to claim nothing exists as it is to claim something does without any verifiable evidence. However if such an entity does exist it is so far beyond our ability of comprehension that any claims to know its motivations or what it expects of us are ludicrous fiction at best, or intended as tools of manipulation at worst.
The truth of the matter is we will never know one way or another for certain. So why live life based on outdated beliefs/morals from ages past?
I operate on the principle that if a God exists, and they are a just God, then I’ll be judged by my actions, how I lived my life, and whether I was a good person who has done right by others, and not based on whether or not I professed my faith in and worshipped their existence. If a God exists that would punish me for all eternity for not believing in, or worshipping them, then they’re not a just god and would be unworthy of said worship.
Your comment makes no sense
Sense is made by the observer. Let me illustrate with an example. Suppose I were trying to determine whether pills can really cure illnesses. So I ask my friends where I can get some pills to do this experiment, and they refer me to their ecstasy guy. I try experimenting with ecstasy to find if it can cure the common cold, covid-19, and cancer. After rigorous trials, I correctly determine that ecstasy cannot cure any of those illnesses. And then I read the incorrect conclusion that pills don’t cure illnesses. My mistake was over generalising. It was a bad methodology.
Likewise, many people experiment with only one religion and determine religion is bad. Just like in the example I experimented with only one pill and determined pills aren’t useful. It’s the same mistake.
If there’s one thing everyone can say about Trump, it’s “this guy isn’t on my side”.
It just takes longer and comes as more of a surprise to some than others.
Well, some say money talks, and I’m sure Trump’s on the side of the Dollar 😛
But considering how many people he have thrown under the bus so far, it’s amazing how many that are still waiting in line
I can’t see how any lawyers work for him without prefacing any contracts with “money up front”.
Oh look, subverting a message of peace and love with one of violence and hatred created a monster, how shocking.
“He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very weak boy!”
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“Jews” for Jesus and Messianic “Judaism” were invented to lure Jews into Christianity. They are Christians who want to be quirky.
Jesus intended his movement to be for Jews, as a Jewish reformation of their own faith. Paul was the one that changed it and made it for gentiles.
Jesus seemingly believed himself to be a prophet. He titles himself “son of man” which God called the prophet Jeremiah, and he says “a prophet is not welcome in his hometown” when he went home and no one took him seriously. He was mislabeled, and only the gospel written over a hundred years after (John) made him out to be literally God. Nowhere in the first and oldest (Mark) does he ever make any claims of the sort.
Paul was likely a Roman plant (he was Herodian, and converted suspiciously quickly while simultaneously preaching contradictory messages compared to Jesus.) So his attempts to keep the movement alive were focused primarily on outsiders, since it was clear that the Jewish people weren’t convinced and converting to “the way” in significant numbers.
Funny that, the people who are literally from the place where it happened don’t consider it to be true but a metric fuck ton of people who got second or third hand accounts do. Hmmm… If that was anything but Christianity, Christians would be able to see the flaw in that a mile away.
What would the Romans have hoped to gain by letting someone proselytize that notoriously incompatible-with-the-pantheon religion to the layfolk?
Nothing, they hoped Paul would (and if you compare his teachings with the gospels, he was successful) subvert the movement from the anti-organized religion countercultural message of Jesus into something that would either die out or become a tool for them to weaponize.
Every Messianic Jew I’ve ever met has been born into that religion. Maybe there are some Jews who convert and become Messianic Jews, but I think it’s rare.
I mean, every Satanist is also a Christian in a way.
Modern satanists don’t believe in Satan or Jesus
Depends on which Satanist, for there are two
Jesus was a Jew.
say this to some christians and watch their brains melt.
Nope.
Had a couple of conversations with randoms about this. They know and don’t care. I guess Jesus is “one of the good ones”.
by “some” christians, I meant “certain” christians. I should have been more clear.
I’ve heard Christians claim he was the first Christian. Which… I guess means he worshipped himself?
There is still hope that those pastors get smart and actually voice against Trump. From a Christian perspective, Trump leaves a lot to be desired. Just point out a sin or two of the orange-haired idiot in each of your weekly sermons to make the congregation see the light. You will not run out of fresh sins until the next decade.
I don’t think so. The flock will migrate to a different church more in tune with what they want to believe.
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That’s how you get to “evangelicals think Jesus is a leftist pussy”.
Christians lost the plot long long ago.
I’m not familiar with Raw Story, can anybody confirm their reliability in general? This article seems solid but the name makes me think of all of those weird right wing “news” websites. Looking over it a bit it definitely doesn’t seem to be one of those though so idk.
It’s a progressive new site, and this story links to an NPR interview with the pastor who says Christianity is in crisis:
“It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
So it’s definitely a real story.
I take all articles with a grain of salt. Look at the person who wrote the article, look at what they post and think for yourself if that person has bias or not.
Most of the time people will have a bias which is normal for humans, we tribilize into groups.
This story links to an NPR interview with the pastor who says Christianity is in crisis:
“It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
It’s a real story.
Yes, thanks for pointing that out.
I went on a tangent.
And there’s also Occam’s razor. MAGA shitheads are hateful. This is probably true on that alone. But I’ve also seen a couple other articles of Christian’s alarmed at the same trend. The truthiness is strong. I can feel it.
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Look at the person who wrote the article, look at what they post and think for yourself if that person has bias or not
ahem…
Yes?
Information is information until more is learned.
