And somehow, despite ideology, superstition, fear, bigotry, isolation, ignorance, testosterone, greed, and even sugar and saturated fats, we made it out of the caves to today. Increasingly it seems to me that humanity is a bell-shaped curve, with 10-20% at one end clinging to ideology, superstition, fear, etc., while 10-20% at the other end don't. The rest of us muddle through. Mostly, most of the the time.
I believe you but it is still hard for me to underdtand that anyone who knows anything about Christ’s teachings could believe trumps cruelty is a gift from God.
How could the human race claim divinity at all? So silly. We are the chosen species with chosen ethnic groups with chosen religions with chosen blah blah blah......insane and delusional
Human beings have an astonishing ability for twisting what Jesus taught (like The Beatitudes) into what they want it to mean. The church I grew up in had sermons with specific Bible verses that rationalized greed, taking what you want from others and even incest. It was disgusting in content and even more so that they declared it to be true.
As Kasumii mentions here, it is a real thing. I grew up in it, though my parents were not really down with the end of days stuff. The attitudes toward “nonbelievers” were straight out of Revelation. Honestly, I remember that more than learning the Gospels. The Big Four - Muslims, Jews, gays, and abortionists - were going to hell. I decided in my mid-teenage years that these people do not know how to read the Bible.
My fundamentalist in laws see me (a nonbeliever) as some sort of mutant that must be fixed to attain normalcy. It's religious bigotry pure and simple. They have exalted themselves to a higher plane of morality than a mere nonbeliever like me. It's supercilious and just builds walls between people.
I’m glad your parents weren’t into the End Times stuff. Mine were. I couldn’t tell you how many times I had to read the Bible cover to cover and especially Revelations. That was some scary shit to a child.
I grew up hoping the Rapture would hold off so I could be an adult. I know that sounds crazy but when those beliefs are beaten into you almost daily and backed up by six church services a week your entire childhood and you’re kept isolated from “all those hell bound nonbelievers” - it’s all you know. Not long after I turned 18 I skipped school and went straight to the Army recruiter’s office. I didn’t tell anyone I had signed up until a week before I left. Holding that secret, knowing I was going to escape, was everything!
And Tulsi Gabbard made a recent comment about the elite wealthiest in the US have (I’m paraphrasing what she said) underground nuclear bomb shelters so they will be the only survivors when the Earth is destroyed as is the rest of humanity.
If suffering is one of the “requirements” that humanity must endure to reach this Evangelical Christian Rapture and second coming of Christ, then what this administration is doing is placed in a context that follows this ideology.
But I think the story goes that the Christians who remain are the victims of the suffering, not the perpetrators. That would be a huge flex. I thought the perpetrators of the suffering are the Antichrist and his minions.
I’m no Bible expert or it’s many interpretations, but I can’t imagine Christians are to be the only ones who are supposed to suffer in that story line. That misses out on everyone else who are the targets of this admin.
My teachers in India do say humanity’s population will be greatly reduced.
Definitely! They are whipping up a false narrative of Christians suffering bc that matches the end times stories but the reality is they are causing as much suffering as possible for everyone who either doesn’t fit into their worldview or doesn’t subsidize their efforts. Their targets are very on point with those of fascist regimes.
Having had an uncomfortable amount of exposure to rapturists, I can't say I think they are Christians. Some are lost cultists. Some are seeking cheap dopamine spikes. Cherry-picked, obscure, often downright bizarre interpretations of the Bible are the norm, not the exception. Christ's role (if mentioned) seems strangely more totemic than dynamic. It's an odd phenomenon that is getting more virulent by the day.
Yes. They have a transactional relationship with a Christian faith tradition that is accustomed to white men in power. Look at the fruits of the spirit—many would be denounced as “woke”. In fact, if Jesus should come back, there’s no way they would recognize him. But he would know them—he met their precursors changing money in the temple. That also was a transactional relationship with a faith tradition. It’s about power.
People living in a diminsion of non reality; difficult to understand what happened in their lives to cause this fantasy view of the world.. can anyone explain this?
No... and I've been posing the same question. The only time religion played such a huge role in society it was called the Middle Ages. There are numerous competing religious edicts that have shattered our societies into separate moral communities and have caused so much human conflict.
There is nothing "Christian" in the far right, white Christian nationals and evangelists who support Trump. Christians who believe "we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us" need to find their voices and exert their power or be forever condemned by association.
I was wondering how soon this toxic Evangelical End Times delusion would turn militaristic. There’s nothing more dire to this atheist than what lies ahead. As Luke Skywalker famously intoned - “I have a bad feeling about this.”
"and Orthodox Jewish fundamentalists and the various strains of Israeli fundamentalists " . . . "Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is an Orthodox Jew" - appreciate the separating of Orthodox Jewish fundamentalists and the various strains of Israeli fundamentalists above; perhaps Smotrich would also be considered an Orthodox Israeli; as a dyed-in-the-wool Jewish woman, I shudder at the thought of being identified with him.
I feel that the scariest part of the religious connection to authoritarianism is the fact that these believers seem to feel that violence, inhumanity and cruelty are "OK" as long as it serves the greater purpose of the Christian Nationalists' goal or end times prophesy. I can't help feeling that things will get worse quickly once people fighting to keep democracy start to REALLY push back.
Yes, it's called Christofascism for a reason. Fascism is all about "us vs them". When Christians start seeing the world in an "us vs them" mentality, they take on the main facet of fascism and embrace authoritarianism.
I’m waiting for the part where you analyze Iran’s obvious totalitarianism rooted in its particular brand of Islam. In other words it takes two religious doctrines to fight a Holy War.
When the Colonists claimed Independence from the British Crown, it was both the king the Church England that they were saying goodbye to.
It was (is) the Church of England that anoints the monarchy and that is why there is so much work in the Constitution to keep formal religion out of our democratic workings.
It was not just the possibility of a rouge president and a feckless congress and judiciary that the Founders were concerned about, it was the Church being used as supreme power over a democratic republic.
The satanic brilliance of the far right wealthy class is that they have commandeered GOD as theirs , leading all the poor uneducated class to vote for them for religious reasons, even though voting for republicans does nothing for them
I don’t believe in the end times business, and I don’t appreciate a large group of religious zealots trying to make their nihilistic rapture dream come true by causing wide ranging destruction. Keep your stuff to yourself.
This idea of the religious zealots pressuing the autocrats does make sense. It is a convenient excuse for the tyrants.
For all the talk around this event it boils down to simple authoritarian tactics. What motivates an authoritarian? 1) Dominance: control the narrative, control people, ... 2) Fear: staying in power consolidating power, losing control, see #1. 3) accumulating wealth, see #1 and #2.
For Netanyahu it was #2. The far right threatened to dissolve the government a couple weeks ago. For Trump it was #1. With the No Kings protest and recent court decisions he hasn't been dominating the narrative lately. He had to show he's the biggest dick on the block.
Sad the people have to die just to salve the pride of a couple of psychopaths.
Your #1, 2 and 3 above drscribe the rinse and repeat cycle of many evangelical churches in the Southeast. Additionally, they mimic the cycle used in Trvmps (and other) autocratic endeavors. They are a marriage made on heaven, no pun intended.
What 47 is doing with Israel and the far right evangelical community is exactly why I no longer want anything to do with Christianity. My beliefs are ingrained, for better or worse, but I no longer trust the church. I cannot fathom seeing the bombing of Iran, or what Israel is doing to Gaza as reason for celebration. Cruelty and stupidity are never cause for celebration.
This is so Orwellian. What happened to separation of church and state in our Constitution? We need to remind people that religious freedom is a necessity for peace. The religious wars in the middle east will continue as long as there are state religions.
You mean a shit fight between crazy cults!
And somehow, despite ideology, superstition, fear, bigotry, isolation, ignorance, testosterone, greed, and even sugar and saturated fats, we made it out of the caves to today. Increasingly it seems to me that humanity is a bell-shaped curve, with 10-20% at one end clinging to ideology, superstition, fear, etc., while 10-20% at the other end don't. The rest of us muddle through. Mostly, most of the the time.
I believe you but it is still hard for me to underdtand that anyone who knows anything about Christ’s teachings could believe trumps cruelty is a gift from God.
They don't care about Jesus's teachings, they care about the power structure of the Church.
I have read where Christian Nationalists are quoted as saying, Christ was "too WOKE!"
How could the human race claim divinity at all? So silly. We are the chosen species with chosen ethnic groups with chosen religions with chosen blah blah blah......insane and delusional
My thinking exactly. Clearly anyone who believes that trump's cruelty is a gift from God doesn't have a clue who God is. Or who Jesus is/was.
Or, who Jesus was suppose to be....
We made/make God... in our image...
These days that's exactly what so-called Christianity is.
Yes we also made/make Jesus in our image………seems to ba a trend here……
That's how Jesus became white…
Yes.
Human beings have an astonishing ability for twisting what Jesus taught (like The Beatitudes) into what they want it to mean. The church I grew up in had sermons with specific Bible verses that rationalized greed, taking what you want from others and even incest. It was disgusting in content and even more so that they declared it to be true.
God and Jesus and..... et al, were and are, who/what we twist it all into.
As Kasumii mentions here, it is a real thing. I grew up in it, though my parents were not really down with the end of days stuff. The attitudes toward “nonbelievers” were straight out of Revelation. Honestly, I remember that more than learning the Gospels. The Big Four - Muslims, Jews, gays, and abortionists - were going to hell. I decided in my mid-teenage years that these people do not know how to read the Bible.
My fundamentalist in laws see me (a nonbeliever) as some sort of mutant that must be fixed to attain normalcy. It's religious bigotry pure and simple. They have exalted themselves to a higher plane of morality than a mere nonbeliever like me. It's supercilious and just builds walls between people.
I’m sorry you have to deal with that.
I’m glad your parents weren’t into the End Times stuff. Mine were. I couldn’t tell you how many times I had to read the Bible cover to cover and especially Revelations. That was some scary shit to a child.
I grew up hoping the Rapture would hold off so I could be an adult. I know that sounds crazy but when those beliefs are beaten into you almost daily and backed up by six church services a week your entire childhood and you’re kept isolated from “all those hell bound nonbelievers” - it’s all you know. Not long after I turned 18 I skipped school and went straight to the Army recruiter’s office. I didn’t tell anyone I had signed up until a week before I left. Holding that secret, knowing I was going to escape, was everything!
Dear Ann, Please see my post from today (626/25). Thanks for yours!
Peter Gerler
And Tulsi Gabbard made a recent comment about the elite wealthiest in the US have (I’m paraphrasing what she said) underground nuclear bomb shelters so they will be the only survivors when the Earth is destroyed as is the rest of humanity.
If suffering is one of the “requirements” that humanity must endure to reach this Evangelical Christian Rapture and second coming of Christ, then what this administration is doing is placed in a context that follows this ideology.
But I think the story goes that the Christians who remain are the victims of the suffering, not the perpetrators. That would be a huge flex. I thought the perpetrators of the suffering are the Antichrist and his minions.
I’m no Bible expert or it’s many interpretations, but I can’t imagine Christians are to be the only ones who are supposed to suffer in that story line. That misses out on everyone else who are the targets of this admin.
My teachers in India do say humanity’s population will be greatly reduced.
Definitely! They are whipping up a false narrative of Christians suffering bc that matches the end times stories but the reality is they are causing as much suffering as possible for everyone who either doesn’t fit into their worldview or doesn’t subsidize their efforts. Their targets are very on point with those of fascist regimes.
Having had an uncomfortable amount of exposure to rapturists, I can't say I think they are Christians. Some are lost cultists. Some are seeking cheap dopamine spikes. Cherry-picked, obscure, often downright bizarre interpretations of the Bible are the norm, not the exception. Christ's role (if mentioned) seems strangely more totemic than dynamic. It's an odd phenomenon that is getting more virulent by the day.
Yes. They have a transactional relationship with a Christian faith tradition that is accustomed to white men in power. Look at the fruits of the spirit—many would be denounced as “woke”. In fact, if Jesus should come back, there’s no way they would recognize him. But he would know them—he met their precursors changing money in the temple. That also was a transactional relationship with a faith tradition. It’s about power.
People living in a diminsion of non reality; difficult to understand what happened in their lives to cause this fantasy view of the world.. can anyone explain this?
No... and I've been posing the same question. The only time religion played such a huge role in society it was called the Middle Ages. There are numerous competing religious edicts that have shattered our societies into separate moral communities and have caused so much human conflict.
That was called the DARK AGES for a reason
Yes, when people embraced the preposterous...
Weakness, ignorance, brainwashing, and greed.
Many are raised from birth or childhood in these beliefs.
There is nothing "Christian" in the far right, white Christian nationals and evangelists who support Trump. Christians who believe "we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us" need to find their voices and exert their power or be forever condemned by association.
I was wondering how soon this toxic Evangelical End Times delusion would turn militaristic. There’s nothing more dire to this atheist than what lies ahead. As Luke Skywalker famously intoned - “I have a bad feeling about this.”
"and Orthodox Jewish fundamentalists and the various strains of Israeli fundamentalists " . . . "Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is an Orthodox Jew" - appreciate the separating of Orthodox Jewish fundamentalists and the various strains of Israeli fundamentalists above; perhaps Smotrich would also be considered an Orthodox Israeli; as a dyed-in-the-wool Jewish woman, I shudder at the thought of being identified with him.
I feel that the scariest part of the religious connection to authoritarianism is the fact that these believers seem to feel that violence, inhumanity and cruelty are "OK" as long as it serves the greater purpose of the Christian Nationalists' goal or end times prophesy. I can't help feeling that things will get worse quickly once people fighting to keep democracy start to REALLY push back.
You are right on both counts. It is scary and it will get much worse if the “believers” get their way.
Yes, it's called Christofascism for a reason. Fascism is all about "us vs them". When Christians start seeing the world in an "us vs them" mentality, they take on the main facet of fascism and embrace authoritarianism.
I’m waiting for the part where you analyze Iran’s obvious totalitarianism rooted in its particular brand of Islam. In other words it takes two religious doctrines to fight a Holy War.
When the Colonists claimed Independence from the British Crown, it was both the king the Church England that they were saying goodbye to.
It was (is) the Church of England that anoints the monarchy and that is why there is so much work in the Constitution to keep formal religion out of our democratic workings.
It was not just the possibility of a rouge president and a feckless congress and judiciary that the Founders were concerned about, it was the Church being used as supreme power over a democratic republic.
The satanic brilliance of the far right wealthy class is that they have commandeered GOD as theirs , leading all the poor uneducated class to vote for them for religious reasons, even though voting for republicans does nothing for them
I don’t believe in the end times business, and I don’t appreciate a large group of religious zealots trying to make their nihilistic rapture dream come true by causing wide ranging destruction. Keep your stuff to yourself.
How can you fight back if you don’t know what you’re up against? Knowledge can be the fuel to help you fight against the craziness.
So true!
This idea of the religious zealots pressuing the autocrats does make sense. It is a convenient excuse for the tyrants.
For all the talk around this event it boils down to simple authoritarian tactics. What motivates an authoritarian? 1) Dominance: control the narrative, control people, ... 2) Fear: staying in power consolidating power, losing control, see #1. 3) accumulating wealth, see #1 and #2.
For Netanyahu it was #2. The far right threatened to dissolve the government a couple weeks ago. For Trump it was #1. With the No Kings protest and recent court decisions he hasn't been dominating the narrative lately. He had to show he's the biggest dick on the block.
Sad the people have to die just to salve the pride of a couple of psychopaths.
Your #1, 2 and 3 above drscribe the rinse and repeat cycle of many evangelical churches in the Southeast. Additionally, they mimic the cycle used in Trvmps (and other) autocratic endeavors. They are a marriage made on heaven, no pun intended.
What 47 is doing with Israel and the far right evangelical community is exactly why I no longer want anything to do with Christianity. My beliefs are ingrained, for better or worse, but I no longer trust the church. I cannot fathom seeing the bombing of Iran, or what Israel is doing to Gaza as reason for celebration. Cruelty and stupidity are never cause for celebration.
This is so Orwellian. What happened to separation of church and state in our Constitution? We need to remind people that religious freedom is a necessity for peace. The religious wars in the middle east will continue as long as there are state religions.