How come Republicans are the most fervent Christians?
[Disclaimer] - I am not an American and I consider myself atheist, I am Caucasian and born in a pre-dominantly Christian country.
Based on my limited knowledge of Christianity, it is all about social justice, compassion and peace.
And I was always wondering how come Republicans are perceiving themselves as devout Christians while the political party they support is openly opposing those virtues and if this doesn't make them hypocrites?
For them the mortal enemy are the lefties who are all about social justice, helping the vulnerable and the not so fortunate and peace.
Christianity sounds to me a lot more like socialist utopia.
There's a real cognitive dissonance there. Their version of Christianity takes a back seat to politics because they've been told all these visions of grandeur about how "Jesus is coming back" and how they are the "sheep" and all those godless liberals are the "goats. They've been trained to look for reasons to feel persecuted even if they don't come directly out and say it, even if they don't realize it themselves. There's a real "us vs. them" mentality in a lot of those types of churches and they'll gladly go rub one out to stuff like where Jesus said to his disciples in one of the gospels that if people aren't for him then they're against him. Nevermind that one of the other gospels says the opposite. A lot of Christians I've come across just have this persecution fetish where any slight inconvenience or call for accountability from pretty much anyone (because their church won't take them to task over things) turns into a 'righteous' cry to their lord about how the godless Philistines around them are normalizing oppression and sodomy and trans rights or whatever and these holy little Christian's are the only beacon of hope in society even though they insist on treating anyone who isn't like them like absolute garbage. I'm not a social scientist or anything like that, hopefully people smarter than me chime in. But conservatives treat equity in a community like a zero sum game, you know? If poor people are given a hand up by the government then it's interpreted by these (at best) middle class Christians as an affront to their hard earned money. They worked for their income but "these filthy poors just get handouts at MY expense?" You can tell by their actions that they have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus regardless of how they try to present themselves. They're full of crap and they deserve to be treated as such.
Source: Grew up in a very conservative farming community, did all the church stuff, then moved away and found myself.
Also, I know I abused quotation marks but my bad on any grammar or spelling errors or general incoherence. I treated myself to vodka for dinner.
I enjoyed your vodka-fueled walk of text. I’ve had a lot of the same observations of religious people in my state.
I have made similar observations in a rural area in Germany. Christian Traditions are highly valued. Christian Values do only apply to non-immigrants, people that work a lot and therefore are considered worthy and other conservatives in general. I consider myself a christian myself somehow and these people gave me the creeps. How can they go and listen to someone preaching about humbleness and being kind and whatever and afterwards keep on being racist and prejudiced against anyone?
Honestly, it’s because conservative politicians found a group of people who are susceptible to manipulation and uncritical support of anyone and anything that their church tells them to be.
They worship supply side Jesus https://www.beliefnet.com/news/2003/09/the-gospel-of-supply-side-jesus.aspx
Abortion and the "southern strategy".
Abortion access has been used for 60ish years as a wedge issue to drive religious people to the right wing party.
Yeah, conveniently that's about the time that it got real offensive to be openly racist. Closet racists hated abortions as the new code. Then kids grew up learning AbOrTiOn StOpS a BeAtInG hEaRt and that it's always murder. And here we are.
As an American Christian who was a Republican as a stupid teenager, I will confirm that your description of Christianity (social justice, compassion and peace) is correct. There are a couple of factors that lead to it being the cudgel they've chosen:
In the early 20th century, there was a fringe Christian belief called "dispensationalism" that gained power because southerners who had been solidly defeated in the Civil War thought that their defeat and the subsequent emergence of some tiny modicum of civil rights for Black people represented the end times; and the very faithful in the South pivoted from avoiding politics into being active in politics.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a group of Republicans realized that they could use the Christian base in America to gain more power; so they created the myth of a "Christian nation" and set up Ronald Reagan as the "Christian candidate" against Jimmy Carter (who actually was a Christian, ironically).
Republicans, as nominal conservatives, are trying to capitalize on an illusion of "restoring a lost America"—one which never existed in reality, but which has a strong nostalgia factor as a result of its presence in movies and TV shows set in the 1950s. It's very enticing for baby boomers, who were very young during that time and thus have rose-colored glasses for it. This illusion includes Christianity as a cornerstone.
In short, Republicans warped the religion into something they could use to exert power. Something that evil people have been doing for 2,000 years (see also: the crusades).
If you're interested in further reading about the topic, I recommend Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.
Was literally going to recommend that you read that book before I got to the end of your comment :)
It was a mind-blowing revelation when I read it a few years ago. I recommend it to anyone I can.
Funny thing, Jesus was the biggest socialist world wide. He only lost his shit for real 2 times in the bible and both were because of capitalists.
Pretty ironic for the good 'ol Republicans. Evil fuckers.
The gambit of American Christianity is just the wildest snarled mess of hair splitting bullshit one can hope to theologically take seriously (there are actual church splits over folding chairs vs pews).
"BROADLY" you can understand American Christianity as being one of two flavors, what you're observing is Evangelical Christianity, which emphasizes a "born again" experience and a "personal relationship with God", basically they all but come right out and say that they believe what's convenient to their already existing worldviews because these are the Christians that derive from trying to preach a religion that holds the story of Exodus as a core myth to slave oligarchs and also to their slaves.
The other flavor of American Christianity is "Mainline Christianity", this is not to mean mainstream, Mainline refers to how these are the denominations that found the most traction along rail towns. This is the group of denominations closest to what you consider to be what Christianity is meant to be, and they're currently having severe retention issues because the evangelicals are making the mainliners' younger members disgusted with Christianity altogether.
Great answer!
This is interesting, but I don't think it attempts to answer the question. I think there's a correlation between people that can so passionately believe in a obvious bullshit, whether it be the Bible or Reaganomics/MAGA.
I mean if you're looking for a nature answer you're probably not gonna find it with me.
I don't trust these people, I believe they wish harm on me, but I don't believe in the slightest that there's a facet to them as a fact of their biology or anything else of that unchangeable nature that makes them into these zealous lunatics.
A toxic community will begin to warp even the most innocent souls into something far more vile and ugly, and these places and churches have been incestuously reinforcing toxicity for hundreds of years now.
Grew up in a religious household with 8 years of private school operated by a religious institution in the states.
Never really believed and went full atheist around 13 years old.
Good feelings about something not on the bad list (usually something sexual) they take as a message from god. In other words, if they want something that benefits them, those feelings are used to justify their shit behavior because its some divine touch making them feel that way.
At least that's been my experience. I wouldn't trust them either.
The Bible isn't obvious BS.
Yeah, it's nice fantasy book from back there.
one way fascism thrives is by co-opting the aesthetics of religion to further itself, and it does not limit itself to only one religion. other commenters have noted correctly that the dichotomy you perceive isn’t real; what you identify as the “fervent” are actually just “the most loud and outspoken.”
this is not to “no true scottsman” my way out of the situation. republican christians are christians, it’s just that they are also complicit in using their religion as leverage to gain power as white nationalists.
Because during the Civil Rights era, the parties flipped ideologies and the new southern Republicans embarked on "the southern strategy" which led to the courting groups like hard-core Christians and racists into the fold.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Right wing Christianity is aesthetically and morally performative and in practical terms, absolutely fascist. The term "bleeding heart" as in the politically perjorative "bleeding heart liberal" is a reference to the image of the crown of thorns on the heart of Christ.
You're talking about a group of people who intend to use the second amendment to destroy the first. Study the Crusades and you'll see history repeating itself.
Study the holocaust for the same reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism
You probably don't want to read all that so here's a what I think is the important take away as far as your question is concerned. American Christians have always been a bit different from the mainstream religion elsewhere. The largest Christian group to come to America in the early colonial period were called the Puritans. They believed that the English Reformation did not go far enough. They were staunchly anti-Catholic and were very upset that the Church of England had adopted so much theology and tradition from the Catholic Church.
The Puritans believed that the Bible is the complete revelation of God rejecting the papacy, the concept of continuing revelations, and the related concept of the Divine Right of Kings. They believed that individuals forged their own covenant with God and that their belief and acceptance was all that in required for their salvation. That sin is so pervasive in our corrupt world that it was unavoidable, no person can be "good" or worthy of salvation and so salvation is only available through God's mercy. They believed that it was their role as Christians to fight against the corruption of the world by spreading their theology and enforcing their concepts of sin and redemption on each other and on the greater community. The narrative is that they fled Europe to avoid religious persecution. The persecution that they faced was that they were not allowed to make laws banning things like alcohol or "revealing" clothing that they considered sinful or forcing people to go to their churches.
They adopted most of there theology from a reformist movement called Calvinism that sought to expand the Protestant Reformation further stripping away the power of the clergy and empower believers to enforce theology. Calvinists adopted an extremely socially conservative interpretation of the Bible and supported strict adherence to their moral ideology and severe punishment for violations of their concept of morality.
The modern Christian movements that trace themselves back to that foundation are still the largest Christian groups in the US. In the 1960's the Republican party began the "Southern Strategy" which was shift of political focus to conservative social issues and attacking secular institutions. Republicans used this strategy to unite the philosophical descendants of the Puritans under a political ideology that is strongly focused on conservative social issues and on pushing their concepts of religion and morality into all aspects of society enforcing adherence through government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
Prosperity theology is a newer theological concept that was popularized by Oral Roberts, has been embraced by the Republican party, and allowed the rise of the megachurch and celebrity preachers. Basically Prosperity theology gives an answer to the question of how you know that that someone is "living right" and a solution to the problem of evil. You know that someone is "living right" because God rewards their righteousness with material wealth. Evil exists as a punishment for the corruption of the secular world. Bad things primarily happens to the unholy but evil spills over to the righteous because secular corruption is so pervasive as to make sin unavoidable in our fallen world. Poverty is the primary form of punishment God visits upon the unholy.
You say you are from a predominantly Christian country so I assume that you are sufficiently familiar with the Gospels to recognize that this is a significant departure from the teachings of Jesus as presented in the Bible. I dare say that the departure is significant enough to be called an outright rejection of the teachings of the purported source of their morality and salvation.
They aren't. Most are just just cosplaying as Christians.
A lot of atheists end up with that impression, maybe from unfamiliarity. That Jesus was just a dope socialist who loved everyone.
But the religion has been absolutely shitty for pretty much as soon as he was dead (at least).
For example, the other day I saw someone cite Acts 4 as an example of how Christianity was a commune, where people pooled their assets.
It conveniently left out the part where Peter had an older couple who didn't pay him everything they owned who were both struck dead after meeting privately and being confronted (allegedly killed by God). Which was a reference back to the book of Joshua where a guy kept some loot for himself and was outed and killed.
Women were told to be silent and subservient (in spite of 'heretical' sects and texts of Christianity where Jesus was instructing female disciples and they were acting as teachers - ironically the only extant sect that claimed Jesus was talking about Greek atomism and naturalism was one of these).
The religion was canonized right after the emperor of Rome converted, so guess what was canonized? A bunch of shit about how patriarchal monarchy is the divine plan. The saying attributed to Jesus about how someone who succeeded in life should rule and should only hold power temporarily obviously gets excluded and eventually the collection of sayings is punishable by death for even possessing it.
Even a lot of that stuff about "blessed is the poor" was probably from Paul who was separating fools from their money. Originally there's sayings about how those ministering shouldn't collect money, but this gets straight up reversed in a later edition of Luke and you can see Paul in 1 Cor 9 arguing that he is entitled to make a living off ministering and encouraging donations "for the poor in Jerusalem." But then elsewhere we see Paul was accepting expensive fragrant offerings from people. But that's ok, as then in the gospels you see Jesus keeps an expensive fragrant offering and yells at the people who criticize him for not selling it and giving the proceeds to the poor.
It's a bunch of feel good BS to con people out of their money. I don't think it was always that from the very start, and probably even had some interesting things going on initially, but almost immediately after Jesus is out of the picture the errant early tradition gets morphed into a traditional cult where power and wealth consolidates at the top and it preaches subservience and obedience and self-hatred so you beg for the idea of salvation and trade all that you have for a promise the people you turn everything over to can't fulfill.
So why would a group that wants power and wealth concentrated and to destroy democracy in favor of patriarchal authoritarianism be attractive to Christians? Because they've been being fattened up for that slaughter going on near two thousand years at this point.
Also: Jesus was made up by these early Xtian founders. He wasn’t a real person.
https://youtu.be/LTllC7TbM8M?si=oDMJJxBdAFsY3RFo
Yeah, and even if he was to some degee based on a real person every single detail recorded about him is clearly false as can be demonstrated to be literary devices, copied from somewhere else, or just clearly impossible. It makes a lot more sense he was invented whole cloth, if early Christians believed he was a real person they sure made up a lot of stories about him - and the most devout Christian will have to agree with that because of the endless apocrypha and insertions.
He was like Santa Claus for the masses at the time.
Look, there are some basic precepts of New Testament Christian thought (don’t be an asshole) that are good things. It gets rather muddled quickly after you mall be away from that.
Yeah, like how scientology has some good stuff in it like try to improve yourself and the world but then they force a path that doesn't lead in that direction and use it all as an excuse to take money from you.
The first thing we really know about the early church is Paul walking around collecting money and telling people things they wanted to hear, like you don't need to chop off your foreskin to get saved - and saved from the horrors of an event they very clearly taught was coming in their lifetime.
How they managed to keep such an obvious scam going for almost two thousand years is honestly the most impressive miracle
There are no mentions of Jesus outside of the bible until a lot years after his supposed death. Complete invention.
Almost no one respectable in the scholarship, including atheist scholars, thinks that's the case.
And it would be the only instance I'm aware of where someone at the nascent stages of a cult made up a leader and immediately had major schisms around what that made up leader was saying.
Literally the earliest Christian documents we have are of a guy who was persecuting followers of Jesus suddenly going into areas where he had no authority to persecute, literally "if you can't beat them, join them," and then telling people not to pay attention to a different gospel "not that there is a different gospel" or to listen to him over alleged 'super-apostles.'
The next earliest document is a gospel that's constantly trying to spin statements allegedly said in public by Jesus with secret teachings that only a handful of their own leaders supposedly heard.
Not long after that is a letter from the bishop of Rome complaining his presbyters were deposed in the same place Paul was complaining about them receiving a different gospel, and how young people should defer to the old and women should be silent (so we know the schism was supported by the young and women, who just so happen to be at the center of a competing tradition which has extensive overlap with Paul's letters to Corinth).
For all of the above to have occurred within just a few decades of a made up person would be even less believable than that said person walked on water. Personally, I don't believe either of those scenarios.
P.S. Carrier is a history PhD, not a biblical studies PhD, and a bit of a pompous moron. For example, he managed to miss one of the most interesting elements of early Christianity regarding the Gnostic references to cosmic seeds because his head was so far up his own rear that he couldn't see past a (straight up bizarre) theory they were talking about a cosmic sperm bank. Nope - it has to do with Lucretius's "seeds of things" but that's a long discussion for another comment. Point is, I'd be wary of taking anything he says too seriously.
The point he makes about the only evidence for JC’s reality as a person is other people much later pointing at each other and saying “he said so”.
If, as he said, any real evidence beyond hearsay can be produced it might he credible.
They aren't much later on. A number of the texts are composed within decades of his death. It's much later in that we have copies, and they definitely had some edits along the way, but they are pretty early.
There's arguably much better evidence a historical Jesus existed than a historical Pythagoras, for example. Do you doubt Pythagoras existed?
Or even Socrates - we only have two authors claiming to have direct knowledge of events around what he said, and the earliest fragments of their writings comes from the same collections of texts as early Christian writings, and the only full copy of Plato is centuries older in production than the earliest full copies of both canonical and extra-canonical texts.
What evidence for Socrates or Pythagoras do we have beyond hearsay?
Ok that’s fine, but please examine the differences in motivation.
Let’s say Plato etc are indeed made up. There’s little money to be made or social control gained via their fictitious being.
Let’s go further down that path.
The ideas and examinations of nature, and the basic sciences of understanding our universe, even if done by one or more people under the guise of some fictional characters are still incredible foundations for rational thinking over the next two and a half thousand years. Again: advancing understanding and what we know as ‘science’, not direct social control and making money off the punters.
Religion… well… That’s something else.
There are huge profits to be made from telling people stuff about how various magical creatures can inflict punishments, heal illnesses and forgive bad behaviour.
The motivations are clear. Humanity hasn’t changed a crumb in several thousand years.
Follow the money.
Which text do you think was written within decades?
The historicity of Jesus is that there was a Christian movement that was suppressed by Rome. But I'm not sure we can verify, even, it was led by an apocalyptic prophet. There were no texts before Mark, as the movement was entirely word of mouth, and as per all games of telephone, evolved with each retelling.
What scholarly consensus does assert is the scripture is not univocal, inspired or inerrant, and the narrative bends with every era to affirm the morality of the time. This is to say, it's not a source for right or wrong, but a tool used to give authority to external beliefs. Whether that is to justify charity and compassion or to justify genocide against gays and Palestinians is up to the individual.
I completely agree - Paul is certainly apocalyptic, but something like the Gospel of Thomas has very different ideas, such as:
You see a similar notion opposed in the Epistles:
(It's worth noting that while 2 Timothy is classically considered to be forged, it is the only disputed letter to have the same relative amount of personal reference as Paul's undisputed letters - he happened to talk about himself a lot like a covert narcissist is prone to, and that may offer another perspective on authenticity that's been missed by scholarship to date.)
That's a spurious claim based on an argument from silence and at odds with Papias's description of a sayings work we don't have, as well as a number of scholars estimating the date of a early core for the Gospel of Thomas, which Paul even seems to quote from as among the collection of resources in Corinth, potentially even as a written document.
Even an earlier form of Mark probably predated the version of Mark we have today. And the Pauline Epistles are documentary evidence that predate Mark (and likely even informed it).
While the first part is true, the second is a gross oversimplification. The morals of some people at the time. For example, there was a massive women's speech movement going on in the first century that the church was opposing, including regarding women's speech in early Christian circles. So the scriptures that are misogynistic in the NT don't necessarily reflect the broader morals of the time so much as the reactionary morals of a select few controlling that version of the narrative.
Same with how Jesus was suddenly talking about marriage being between a man and a woman in a gospel whose extant version is dated after 70 CE, relevant to gay marriage having become an institution in Rome after Nero married two men in the 60s CE, but much less relevant in the 30s CE when he was allegedly saying it.
So keep in mind scripture only reflects morals of a select few of the time (and at the time of various edits).
Anyone attempting to make the 'everyone agrees' argument about a religion instantly loses all credibility, like if you can't understand why that's a fallacious argument then you've got zero chance understanding the evidence.
"Most credible scholars, including most secular scholars agree" is different from "most people agree."
You might want to actually look into why they agree before talking about understanding evidence.
For very obvious historical reasons there has long been a huge bias in this field of study, it's currently very clearly still a hot water issue with most scholars not wanting to cause problems for themselves.
Regardless the old consensus is rapidly changing, even the faithful are having to accept that more and more of the Bible is clearly not based in history for a multitude of reasons. You can try and be snarky all you like but I've looked at a lot of the debates and the reality is the argument for a historical Jesus is very weak and the argument for a mythic creation is pretty good.
Would it be an assholish move to point to the religion of Jesus himself in this context? I believe it would, and thus I won't.
Not at all. There's a very good case that the historical Jesus was extremely outspoken about the grift of Temple Judaism.
Not only do you have tidbits like him prohibiting carrying anything (including sacrifices) through the temple after throwing out the merchants in Mark (theologically problematic given he isn't dead yet and supposedly that's what invalidated the need for animal sacrifices, so you see this line left out when Matthew copies from the passage).
But you have one of my favorite apocryphal lines:
(The work also uniquely has a parable about a son inheriting a treasure in his parent's field, selling it not knowing a treasure was buried within, and then the person he sells it to finding the treasure and lending it out at interest - and I can't think of better description for the grift of selling salvation for tithes than "lending a buried treasure out at interest".)
Which is again in the vein of another part of Mark left out of the other Synoptics, when he responded to a complaint about eating from a crop on the Sabbath with "was the Sabbath made for man or man for the Sabbath?"
So out of the many things I'm not sure about a historical Jesus, at very least "dude wasn't a fan of the religious grift" was one I'm pretty sure of, particularly when both early canonical and heretical sources agree about the subversive position.
The story as I understand it (explained by Neil Stephenson in Snow Crash ) was that living Jesus preached universal mutuality: Love your neighbor as yourself. Everyone is your neighbor. The myth of the empty tomb was to show that it was the people's religion, independent of temples and priests.
But then...
A disorganized movement was too much for the people (or more likely the apostles wanted sociopolitical power) so they created a myth of the resurrection and the founding of the church. Zombie Jesus has way different opinions than living Jesus.
If there really was a post-crucifixion Jesus, it was likely an impostor, a show. But Church tradition teems with miracles and hagiographs with only the word ofnthe Church itself as evidence.
Not the most accurate information in there. He messes up the Sumerian stuff a bit too. Better than the average person, but roughly what you'd expect being found in a fictional work.
The myth of the empty tomb likely had more to do with a divide over physical resurrection. You can see this in 1 Cor 15, a debate over whether physical resurrection was believed or not. The group denying it was associated with both female disciples and later Thomas, so you see in Mark the women "totally saw the empty tomb, they just didn't tell anyone." Just like Thomas in John "totally saw the physically resurrected Jesus and believed."
The other group was instead of having a Jesus where you needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood to embody him, portraying a Jesus saying "Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him." They were also talking about there being non-physical twins ('Thomas') for physical originals, such that resurrection was mechanically the recreation of the physical in non-physical form, with a first Adam that was physical but a second Adam that was spiritual (this idea appears as early as 1 Cor 15, only about two decades after Jesus was dead, in what Paul is arguing with to position a physical resurrection as plausible).
Yeah, what a coincidence that Jesus had to come back from the dead to appoint the people claiming to have seen him do so as the proper torch bearers to carry on his message. Not at all suspicious.
If you look closely you'll notice republicans are only fervent about certain things that they have linked to the christian religion but the link is usually tenuous, sometimes the subject not mentioned specifically in the bible at all. Jesus supposedly said "live by the sword, die by the sword" - those were not instructions but a warning. And other things in the christian religion they fully ignore. I posit that they are not fervent christians at all but rather wolves in sheeps clothing.
If you want to see really fervent christians, there are many in Africa and Asia. Being actually persecuted, or even just poor in education tends to ratchet up the ferventcy in true believers.
Conservativism is not an ideology, it is narcissism wearing the skin of a stoic. They believe they are inherently virtuous, and therefore anything the conservative thinks, does, says, or wants will be righteous.
Christianity feeds this by reinforcing the idea that the conservative is personal friends with the Almighty Creator of the Universe and Final Arbiter of Absolute Justice. They claim to speak for the divine, and therefore they are divine.
This is all the justification a conservative requires for whatever they want to do. Bigotry? No, God is the one passing judgement. Selfishness? No, it is God's plan for me to hoard wealth. Violence? My arm is the right arm of the Lord. And when I sin, I shall be personally forgiven by the only person who matters: myself.
It is not possible to be a hypocrite, because whatever the conservative does is justified by their identity. When they do something, it is good, and when they do not adhere to their own stated ideology, it is good. When the "other" does anything, it is bad because the other is not the self and the self is good. So therefore the other is evil.
When the other does the same thing as the self, it is bad when the other does it and good when the self does it.
You don't have to be religious to be a conservative, but it helps.
Because Religion is the ultimate tool of self-righteousness.
It can be used and twisted to justify their every behavior, no matter how vile.. While conversely being used to demonize everything they hate, no matter how righteous.
Thats why most fervent right wing christians dont even know whats in the bible, they are only capable of regurgitating the hate and vague justifications for it that they hear from their cohorts, their extremist evangelical leaders, and their politicians. Because they don't care about the actual tenants of the religion they've co-opted, They only care about the authority claiming ti be faithful gives their words and actions in their own eyes and opinions. . They are addicted to it, like a drug.
I think the main principle behind it is what conservatives call "virtue signaling" - associating with things that make them appear pious, strong or respectable to signal to others how virtuous they themselves are.
From my PoV your observation seems spot on. A good portion of Amerca's religious community these days is just appropriating religion for the respect and authority it brings while practicing almost none of its virtues.
I think, as a big picture view, any religion is very prone to drift. If you demand utter reverence and obedience to a god that is at the same time also the weakest possible being (one that doesn't exist), you get a plaything that stands for everything and for nothing - aka whatever the general mood of the population wants or what those who are most adept at assuming its authority want it to be.
Consider "Prosperity Theology,," popular in Nigeria, for example, where an entire subculture has assumed the belief that the god from Christianity rewards the pious with material wealth, thus, the richer one is, the more faithful and holier they must be.
I think the question is backwards. I think Republicans market themselves as being the 'christian' party because they rely heavily on religious and emotional arguments to support their positions ( because they're wrong )
To add to this, religious people are told from an early age to be credulous and believe in top down authority and not to question authority.
These "values" line up perfectly with authoritarians/assholes.
This is not just a Christian / Republican problem. Throughout history, authoritarians and religion have walked hand in hand.
They're not. But they're leaching off of Christians money
They like that they can use Confession to clear their concious of all their crimes every week. As if it were a super hideout in Grand Theft Auto
A lot of people are answering half of your question: offering theories about why conservatives are Christians, or vis versa.
I've always been curious about the "fervent" part: why do the liberal Christians out there (statistically there are lots) seem to be so much less passionate and outspoken about their religion and its tenets?
Not a Christian but I’ve read the Bible and Jesus is very much not about shoving your beliefs down people’s throats.
“ When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men … but when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen.” Matthew 6:5
Because the people who are more interested in the reality of Christianity are more likely to be out in the world doing the things Jesus talked about than they are to be standing in front of a camera shouting about Jesus.
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stolen out of Holy Writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
If they actually were Christians, this would totally not be an issue. But they aren't. They are trying to "look Christian" to get gullible voters. But most of them, if not all, are CINOs (Christians In Name Only), like Trump who had a road and church closed for a foto-op in that church where he held up a bible upside down...
Which is also true for the C level suite in Church as well.
Religion is just a vessel they occupy. Power is the end goal.
It's always been the case the powerful push Christianity for their own causes without believing in it.
Because they're actually very bad at Christianity and the teachings of Jesus, they're not informed, and they have something to prove.
There are all kinds of people who are Christian. Their worldviews and interpretations are as varied as anyone else. Most of the ones I know aren’t the type to go cherry picking passages to use as an excuse to mistreat others. Many quietly lead their lives as an example of Christian faith. It’s often acknowledged among Christians that no one - Christian or otherwise- is perfect and no one but God can judge others.
There are others who didn’t get that memo. They take it all very literally. It’s like they completely missed the point of the four gospels in which one of the themes is Jesus at odds with the Pharisees who are so stuck on the Old Testament that they forget love and compassion. It’s not that the New Testament contradicts the Old Testament so much as it’s teaching that going through the motions and following the rules exactly as written is not the same as living with God and showing humanity towards others.
In my experience, this latter group is often comprised of people who grew up being taught strict adherence to the Bible, with a particular focus on the Old Testament, and born again types whose rigid compliance keeps them on the straight and narrow.
Not all Christians are Republicans or conservative. You really have all types, from the ones you’re talking about to some pretty liberal, polar opposite ones. Some identify with conservative politics because of their Christian views and others are avowed liberals for the same reason.
Most of the Christians I know are good people, and their happiness and just how they live their lives is something you want for yourself. They lead by example. I’ve been around the other ones too and I’m not particularly fond of hanging out with them. Ironically, those were the ones whose outward attitudes and behavior in private were completely contradictory. Basically, they were the kinds of people you probably don’t want to be around regardless of religion.
A group of people raised from birth to not question what they believe and why is going to be incredibly susceptible to being lied to.
I wouldn't call their brand of Christianity, Christian. They're idolators, they worship Trump, money, and guns. The praying to God is just a smokescreen.
Religion isn't about what it preaches, it's about what it does.
Christianity pretty much only ever pushes conservative bullshit and rigid social structures, so conservatives like it.
So, there is a lot of history here, but basically back in the day, there was an extreme sect of christanity known as the Puritans, and they were basically chased out of England, facing religious persecution and ran to the (at the time) new colonies in North America. This underpins why there is a separation of church and state in the US, but also why an above average number of the christians over here are insane.
They aren't. They claim to be. But their words and actions prove otherwise.
For the same reason that the January 6 protesters call themselves "patriots", dumb anti-vaxxers call themselves "smart", violent people call themselves "peaceful", naive conspiracy theory believing idiots call themselves "woke", etc. It is easy to think that you know the answer, and really, Really, REALLY hard to acknowledge how little we truly know. Likewise we all want to think of ourselves as the "good" people, and it's a super tough pill to swallow that we are not.
Which ironically is what many people say that Christianity is truly about:
- Jesus
Yeah, but Jesus only said that because he hadn't met Mike Johnson yet.
(/s, obviously)
That's exactly what it makes them. By the Biblical definition of a hypocrite. Jesus literally talks about what that means.
There’s also a lot of very religious African American voters on the left, politically. Black churches, I know for sure, focus on social justice and non-violence. (I’m white but I’ve only lived in majority black cities so I’m well aware of their organizing.) You’ll notice many civil rights leaders, both today and in the past, are or were preachers and so have the Reverend title (obvious example: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. but modern civil rights leaders are very often preachers).
This is an aside but Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) was the reverend at Ebenezer Baptist Church, MLK’s former church. He also has a Ph D and now I want to know what title formal invitations use for him.
Conservatives/Republicans support power structures external to government for guidance on morality and charity. This gives religions power. Democrats/liberals support using the government directly for everything. This reduces the power of religion.
Republicans have no morality or ethics whatsoever. The entire Party is in service to the billionaire oligarchy that funds them. Their job is to do a denial of service attack to prevent legislation from passing that would close the loopholes that the billionaires exploit. They do this by trying to control the conversation in the legislature using divisive and offensive bills and stances. The USA has a tenth of the laws and protections in other advanced economies.
Anyone with half a brain can see that nothing Republicans do is for the benefit of the public or average person. So if they can't attract the attention of intelligent humans they must develop their power base from the imbeciles. The best source of imbeciles is within religion. Religion's underlying power mechanism is isolationist social networking and institutionalized rejection of an evidence based ethos. These religious teachings are learned at a very young age when humans are the most gullible, they then exist in little social isolated networks that reject outside influences as some equal but opposing system. Even many intelligent people that realize how religion is a myth still can't break away from it because if they do, they will lose their entire social network and support system. Collectively, this is how you institutionalize stupidity on a large scale. This is how the Republican party exists, it is a party of the billionaire oligarchy, that uses the institutionalized stupidity of collective imaginary friends and magic to operate. There are some well intentioned convenient idiots thrown into the mix, but those are no excuse.
Because moral values don’t come from religious texts. They are transmitted socially and economically. The texts are then used to justify whatever belief system the believer subscribes to.
The real origin of these right-wing beliefs is an interesting question. They arise from a complex cultural and historical process that stems from the material conditions of both ancestral and present-day cultural groupings. My suspicion is that they arose because in these societies, the most successful reproductive and political strategies center around dominance hierarchies. Materially successful people are able to out-compete, out-reproduce, kill, or otherwise coerce people in their societies to adopt values and norms that justify and protect their social dominance and oppression. Even those on the bottom of these hierarchies, like women or the poor must adopt such values or be excluded or attacked.
There are also competing groups that either oppose such hierarchies or have adopted them to a lesser extent. It is from these groups that many Christian ideas originated. In general they tend to originate in urban areas—I suspect this is because there are more opportunities for people to escape from others who wish to dominate them as compared to agrarian societies where access to land or livestock can be monopolized by the powerful. Anonymity and cultural diversity in cities also allow the weak to more easily inflict violence on their dominators without suffering social consequences.
But over time, Christianity spread widely enough that people with different values adopted them. In other cases, the descendants of these anti-hierarchical Christians adopted hierarchical values for various reasons listed above. As the economic and political conditions of society change, people must adapt or die. Unfortunately, some of these adaptations can be harmful to society as a whole even as they benefit their adopters.
Very smart take
I got a lot of these ideas from the What is Politics podcast/YouTube series. If you’d like to hear more like this, I highly recommend it. Kind of an odd presentation style, and I don’t agree with all of the takes but overall it’s very well researched and thought provoking. It’s not specifically about Christianity but the same forces are at play.
Well well, a new thing for me! Hopefully we can trade: have you heard of 'some more news' also of youtube? I really like the cody showdy
They don't believe what you assume Christianity is. They believe in Calvinist predestination. They think that whenever something bad happens to someone, that person deserved it.
Because if you wear your religion on your sleeve and are highly observant then that means you are conservative and rules focused by nature. People who belong to liberal Christian denominations, like Unitarianism, are rarely heard from because they aren't vocal by nature.
People who are very religious also want to believe that what they follow is the truth but the very existence of nonbelievers casts doubt on this either consciously or subconsciously. "If my beliefs are self evident then how can so many nonbelievers exist?" So they rationalize this as either thinking of you as a sinner who deliberately refuses to accept the "truth" or a poor lost soul in need of saving. Christianity, and some other faiths, is also missionary minded in nature. They are called upon in the New Testament to "spread the word". If you want to grow your numbers and/or your income (i.e. Mormon church) then you are aggressive with missionaries and hunting for converts.
People are also very good at rationalizing their views and cherry picking data to force things to fit their emotionally driven beliefs. Look at conspiracy theorists who dismiss anything that contradicts them as "lies" and "propaganda" but their sources are never questioned.
They aren’t.
They are the best “Christian”s
One of Jesus’s teachings was about not showing off your faith just to be seen.
Something about not praying in public just so you can be seen and that instead you should go to your closet/room and pray in private where no one can see you.
The one’s following that rule are the ones you will never see but that will still be helping their neighbors, quietly and to no fanfare.
Very, very true. I have met many so-called “Christians” who are only interested in moral authority/power. They usually drive cars with a fish on them, or a bumper sticker with some cliche about god.
I worked with ONE person who was probably the most faithful Christian I’ve ever met. He didn’t talk about religion. He didn’t wear a cross (or if he did, it was on a chain beneath his shirt and tie). He never judged people. He was genuinely pleasant to everyone.
I think there’s a significant overlap in Christianity and Republican thinking because many people are okay with hypocrisy and disdain critical thinking.
This isn't really true. A lot of Democrat voters are also Christian. If by "fervent," you mean "hateful," this may be more true. A large percentage of Democrat voters are also Christian, but not as hard-line about LGBT issues, and perhaps not as hard-line about abortion.
The type of Christians that Republicans court are easy to persuade and control. Religion has historically been used to create in-groups and out-groups, and as a form of control.
If one were to take the Christian bible at face-value, they would oppose things like sexual freedom. Most leftists/socialists think about intersectionality, so they would be opposed to people who have the "morals" of many Christians.
Control and conformity. Pseudo-morality.
The control is pretty standard stuff that goes with the authoritarian nature of religion. They place a person in charge who, like the deity, has all the answers and solves all the problems, so long as you believe and support them unquestioningly. If you’re not smart enough to sort out the system that you’ve been told is deliberately complicated and “rigged” you just listen to the Big Man and he’ll sort it all out for you.
Conformity is making the in-group and out-groups. The in-group demands loyalty and support. The out-groups are anyone else you want them to be. Immigrants. Minorities. Other religious groups. Political opponents. It’s ridiculously blatant in US republicans where even if their wives or themselves are personally insulted by their leader they still support and vote for the group. You must conform. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. Very binary thought.
Religion offers the moral angle as well. Despite American Christians, particularly evangelicals, claiming to support Christian ideals they objectively and subjectively do not. The list is too long to process here, but basic greed, hatred, violence, and all the rest of what most of us would consider anti-Christian values are at the forefront of the more outspoken religious Right. Yet they’ve been raised and told that the “godless Left” have no morals, if you’re not religious you can’t have morals, and whatever other tripe that allows them to accomplish the mental gymnastics they go through to claim moral superiority while doing things like making sure migrants drown in rivers trying to cross illegally into the US.
The hypocrisy and mental gymnastics engaged in by the American Right in many facets of their workings, not just their feigned religion, is mind-boggling. They’ve gone so far past the available superlatives describing their hypocrisy and greed that you just have to throw up your hands in disgust and walk away before it drives you crazy.
It's just a trick to get votes they are as heathen as they come. Since Christians believe in made up bullshit they are easy to trick out of money and votes. It's really not any deeper than that.
They're the most fervent Protestant Christians certainly. I'd say the Catholic demographic probably leans more heavily toward the Democratic party, and the Orthodox will vary by jurisdiction.
I've seen both kinds of people from both parties. Joe Biden and John F Kennedy were the only two Catholic presidents, the other forty-four have been Protestant. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did communion on the moon. Every talk show host has spoken about holding faith. Most singers and football players blend their divine devotion with who they are in public. There is no strict dichotomy like you describe.
Aren't they (popular people) more or less forced to "have faith" or they'd lose lots of followers in the USA society? I mean talkshow multi millionaires aren't known for having real Christian values...
Edit: imagine a president candidate turning down "in god we trust"
They are. An agnostic president would be unthinkable. Or just one that doesn't proclaim his faith in public.
It was just Buzz Aldrin who did communion, Armstrong was a deist.
Aren't they (popular people) more or less forced to "have faith" or they'd lose lots of followers in the USA society? I mean talkshow multi millionaires aren't known for having real Christian values...
In a sense you might say that, though it was more or less my point in response to the OP. The strict dichotomy it mentions is destroyed by this very perception.
Can you rewrite that in plain English please 😊
The OP asked why one side tends to seem stereotypically flaunty with devotion to God while the other side is associated more with actual compassionate work, and I pointed out it's not an opposites thing and that both observations are all over the place, and the reply to that was "well isn't that because of peer pressure", to which I was implying doesn't change what I was saying.
That's expected. That's what they say they are about. However, one only ever needs to open their book, the bible, or just observe history the past 2000 years, to see that is NOT at all what they do.
You have a very GOOD understanding of Christianity. You're seeing it for what it really is. That hypocrisy is intentional, and obscured by the mythology of: "I dunno, god's weird, right?"
It's by design that Republicans, considering all those observations, would claim they were. Because they are the real christians. [My best MAGAT impression]: "Not like these liberal hippies that just want everyone to be kind to one another. That's socialism!" And on and on.
Every week they gather and listen to a man telling them what to believe, unquestionably, and without evidence.
Then a politician comes along and tells them more things to believe, unquestionably, and without evidence.
As a Christian (albeit not American), no clue. I think it's mainly on single issue problems such as abortion or sexual immorality, to be honest.
Although it could also be a loud minority problem, where the actual Christians are less outspoken. Who knows.
Personally I think the single issue stuff is just a bonus to the actual connection. My opinion is that it's entirely performative at the top, and the people at the bottom have been fooled.
It isn't Christ-ianity, as benJoseph, himself, was the wokest guy in all the new testament.
It is wearing the appearances of "their" religion while pushing animal-reaction-with-no-moral-responsibility that is going-on.
The genociders of Russia & Israel are doing the same thing, just with different appearances.
The Great Filter.
Read Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast & Slow", which is the most important psychology book on the planet, right now, & see how all these return to fundamentalism, where we are inherently valid, and genociding all "others" is our "GOD-given" Right rabids are..
pushing Kahneman System-1 ( imprint->reaction, aka animal-reaction, the limbic "reasoning" of herdbeasts & pack-animals, and gangs, and ideology-addiction/prejudice-addiction, which are 2-sides of the same "coin" ) to be displacing considered-reasoning, Kahneman System-2, from the world, is the consistent underlying-commitment in all of these fundamentalists.
They may wear the appearances of "the communist party", or whatever Putin's party is, or the republican party, or zionism, or the Confucian Marxist Leninist Kapha-metabolism anti-spiritual ideology of the CCP, but the underlying motivation is murdering/obliterating alternative-to-their-ideology/prejudice from our world, for their herd/gang's global totalitarian supremacy.
This is natural, in The Great Filter, when humankind's unconscious fights to beat/break/obliterate moral-anxiety from its domain, and animal-reaction can't have moral-responsibility, so that is The Answer(tm), according to our unconscious-ignorance.
Faction against faction, until the polycrisis/metacrisis has "justified" exterminating our world's life, is how unconscious-ignorance wants to play it out, for the "mythic" "importance" or "significance" of being THE "important thing" that beat God, broke God's plan, & made God obey ( toddler-tantrums are always aimed at making the parents OBEY: that is their point ).
Universe, however, can't care, and .. no obeying/catering-to our unconscious-ignorance's narcissism/entitlement is going to happen, so..
..
WHEN you encounter an addict systematically denying facts, whether a smoker denying that their smoking has anything, whatsoever, to do with their endless coughing, or a crack-addict denying that their utterly-corroded-health has anything to do with the crack that's using their life, or an ideology-addict/prejudice-addict denying that evidence shows ClimatePunctuation exists, let-alone is still-accelerating ( as it must, for decades-more ),
THEN you are seeing Kahneman System-1's fighting-off of objectivity/considered-reason, protecting animal-reaction, and the no-moral-responsibility condition that unconsciousness/ignorance wants to rule all, while narcissistically being catered-to by God.
The most central piece of evidence in this mechanism is .. actually so old that it probably is from about the time of the sudden-collapse of the last Ice Age, 11,750-ish years ago:
In the Christian bible, the story in Genesis, of woman eating "the fruit of the Knowledge of Good & Evil" means woman ate Morality.
It's RIGHT FSCKING THERE.
( altruism is generalized-mothering, as researchers from Exeter & Bristol universities found hard-evidence of, in studying wasps' altruism, in Panama )
Morality is what women ate, & then shared it with us guys.
Moral-anxiety is the "downfall" the "loss of (animal-ignorance) grace".
Herdbeasts do not have our moral-anxiety, they live in the "grace" of mere-animal-ignorance.
Notice, however, that for millenia, religion-men have distorted the story to convict women of "sin" that somehow downfell our entire species.
Gaslighting on that scale may never have been equalled, for significance of evil.
Think, though: *it's the same thing as what the "Christians" are doing!
Kahneman System-1 is fighting-off considered-reasoning, and all the "women, who (supposedly) caused humankind's downfall, ought be uneducated, barefoot, & pregnant, at home, obeying their LORD, a man" scammery is just male-ego trying to occupy the earthly place of lord, or trying to be the proxy "god".
Israel's claiming that Ezekiel 39 asserts that it is going to be successfully eradicating its neighbors, gaining supremacy..
.. while creating such absolute-hatred among all the region surrounding them, that their "deterrent" is being corroded-away ..
.. so that in a few years the Muslim region won't care how much damage Israel does to them, while they're annihilating Israel ..
Ideology-addiction/prejudice-addiction has strategic consequences.
Israel's going to be annihilated, exactly as benJoseph stated, 2 millenia ago.
It's the same, everywhere: animal-ignorance of ideology-addiction/prejudice-addiction is committed to genociding "others", and arranges its own annihilation, whether through political reaction, or through assumption-river/religion reaction, or through impersonal forces like ClimatePunctuation, or food-chain-collapse, both terrestrial & marine ( late this century ), the same won't think, because God obeys the local Ideology/Prejudice .. the same mechanism.
Imagine humankind turning into herdbeasts, & through the different factions vying for supremacism, the entirety of herdbeast-humankind stampeding off a giant cliff, becoming all dead, broken at the bottom.
That is The Great Filter's probable outcome, at the moment.
the "politics" of Leninism, which uses brainwashing "education" to produce/enforce "proletariat dictatorship",
and the "politics" of Murdochism, which uses brainwashing TV to produce/enforce "populist dictatorship",
they're really both fighting to obliterate considered-reasoning from all authority, for their exclusive dominion.
They're the same thing, under the appearances.
Same with the assumption-river/religion of legalism, which benJoseph railed-against 2 millenia ago, notice that the "Christians" pushing christofascism are legalists, who play exactly the same games that the "Jews" of the Pharisees who convicted benJoseph played..
No shame, no accountability, no responsibility, only machiavellian narcissism & sociopathy/psychopathy..
Another assumption-river/religion underlying many "religious" gaslighters is the class-based-"validity" one, which both monarchy & oligarchy are examples of.
Every time you see the narcissism-body-language of a doctor, condescending to their inferiors ( use video to capture it, watch it in slow-motion, as it becomes much more visible, then ), you're seeing that religion.
Dad was a medical-researcher & doctor: I grew into presuming the same upper-middle-class "validity" that he presumed.
7+ years of homelessness, total, throughout my life, finally broke that identity-underlying-ego, to some extent. Cracked it.
Read the book by researchers Logan, King, & Fischer-Wright, named "Tribal Leadership", on the 5 levels ( not stages: they're mistaken. Stages are irreversible & sequential, like caterpillar->moth. Cultural-process-levels are not irreversible-sequential. ).
They use doctors as the exemplars of narcissism-culture, identifying a simple experiment we all can do:
Wearing a suit, & belonging in it, walk into any hospital, & count the % of junior-staff who still have enough human-validity/human-dignity left in them, to meet your gaze.
Only 1 hospital, that those researchers ever encountered, had junior-staff who still had equal-human-validity in them.
Then consider narcissism-culture outside of medical-culture..
the US had over 600 mass-shootings in 2023.
Mass-shootings are narcissism, lashing-out against others' lives, to "get even" with their wounded-narcissism.
The 4 false-religions underlying much "politics" and much "religions" are:
Notice how grabbed-authority-is-the-LORD is taking-over politics..
Notice how legalism is wedging-out accountability, everywhere..
Notice how psychopathic corporate-moneyarchy is fighting to prevent living-wage from existing among more & more of the world's population, joining sadism & nihilism to psychopathy..
Notice how the narcissistic-birthright-entitlement of class-status-based-"validity" is more & more & more obviously becoming central to the fundamentalists who're highjacking the whole world.
The "politics" and the "religions" are just makeup.
The real underlying drive, is breaking/obliterating considered-reasoning from having any authority, anywhere, so rampaging nonaccountability can be the alpha-bull, or "lord".
It's our limbic-brain fighting-off the cortex, or human-brain, one final time.
Never mistake the symptoms for the underlying-condition.
see the fundamentalism underlying it all.
It's sooo simple, sooo clear, sooo .. immense.
_ /\ _
I likes you. Imma read them books now. Thank you for the recommendations.
For a bunch of guys always talking about prophets, their belief system has zero predictive power.
Part of the issue with many religions is that they exists in multiple components. There is
the religion as the nebulous idea of a culture as adopted by word of mouth generational teaching.
religion as depicted and codified by a holy script.
the popculture adoptions of religion through time that become traditionally indistinct.
the branches of philosophical thought inside the religion changing the window of interpretation and creating schisms
The economic and power structures involved in maintaining physical sites of worship and a guiding priesthood.
The political stances the powers inside the religious complex adopt to adapt to specific historical events.
These different factors are generally all at play though there are exceptions like some religions do not have a holy text or sites of worship for instance. Religions are kind of aggregates of time, tradition and thought and distorted by time as well. For instance linguistic and technological drift makes it very hard to appropriately understand a text in it's proper context. Like David and Goliath becomes a very different story when you understand that a sling weilded appropriately is like firing a pistol at short range.
Christianity is kind of a mess in the concept of time. A lot of belief brought into Christianity predated it. Hell for instance predates Christianity (it is not explicitly mentioned in the text but was passed down linguistically) and the conception of it borrowed off of Buddhist, Norse and Grecco/Roman ideas of the underworld. Other things like the Seven Deadly Sins, Lucifer, Monastic living and so on were often inventions of single people who essentially just started fads. Priesthoods have always been tied into concepts of authority through study and internal structures around property. Becoming an abbot was basically just another way to gain the ruling autonomy of nobility for land use. The political structure inside the Church has changed it's relationship with things out of fear as well. The idea of abortion as murder is tracable to the black death when priests worried that a population collapse would cause disaster for society so it changed it's teaching from the concept of "ensoulment" and being very abortion neutral to facilitating a literal witchunt destroying existing systems of female led midwifery to gain reproductive control.
Christianity has at some level always been about power, control and resources... But there are also multiple Christianities. For instance a person who reads the book but rejects the church or the built up dogma of traditions is still a Christian. You can also adopt just the institution or the popculture understanding of Christianity and still be a Christian. Adopting every peice of a religion is itself optional.
The problem being is that understanding the text and history requires a lot of effort, intellectual savvy and time in study. Just like the medieval times people tend to get their understanding from people who did that work for them (or say they did) to supply the missing context. A lot of the time people accept whatever "feels" right and people also tend to be self centric. Feeling superior by category of beliefs we have been handed is something we are all potentially susceptible to.
I fucking knew it. Now of course it's a conspiracy theory, but I 100% believe that the major push "recently" against abortion and having that argument go into overdrive is being brought on by assholes that subscribe to the "replacement theory" idea that dark skinned people are reproducing faster than white people as they tend to use contraception more and therefore will make "us" the minority. They want to force white women to have every baby possible to try to prevent that from happening...
In part. The other half is that Conservatives started courting Evengelical groups to make voting for them the "correct" thing to do. Abortion legalization was championed by the left but the Catholic Church had some remaining abstention held over by essentially a political decision that had been cannonized as an official spiritual stance on the idea of the soul. Conservatives tend to think like marketing experts and they know abortion and the nature of the soul is a core belief not easily shaken thus they were able to make their platform a matter of "life and death" harnessing the empathy people had for the idea of babies... Very specifically the idea of babies, the soft squishy humans whom we are programmed instinctually to protect.
It also dovetailed nicely into purity doctrine. The idea you are enabling the sexual deviancey of loose women... The idea that a fetus is a souless empty blob as the majority idea was for the first thousand years of Christianity got in the way of the advertising campaign and the Catholic Church wasn't about to roll back the precedent decision it has upheld for centuries. That would make the idea seem kind of arbitrary... and once you start unpicking the history of Catholic control measures it weakens the vwey idea of them as a spiritual authority.
Because Abrahamic faiths are first and foremost built on deciding a truth and working backwards to “prove”(convince yourself and brainwash your kids) it.
This works well for right wing ideologies built around social classes and believing whatever you’re told without question.
Add to that that Christians are on average significantly dumber, then all you have to do is tickle their confirmation bias and they won’t give anything you do a second thought.
Because they stopped maturing when they were 8 years old and mommy and daddy were dragging them to church every weekend.
>socialist utopiamore like fascism
Theocratic confusion. Republicans worship Supply-Sidr Jesus. Christians model themselves after Jesus of Nazareth, Christ. The similar names are a source of confusion.
Also neither is related to Jesus that sells tamles at the farmer's market, tho I hear he is a pretty good guy.
Because a wolf in sheep's clothing eats better than when it's seen for what it really is.
Republicans are a lot of things.
Christian isn't one of them.
All organized religions are about an elite controlling everyone else. Unlike some other ways to organize people it depends highly on ignorant people who breed quickly to produce lots of grist for the mill.
Perfect target for fascists
Found the Sith
Do it
The bible is full of so many contradictions and so much vague bs. They use it with their pretzel logic to justify whatever atrocity they're into at the time. A lot of them are also narcissists. They're self-important because they're trying to do "god's will."
At its core religion is based on fearing people who are different, and modern right wing politics is based on fearing people who are different.
The fuck are you on about? That isn't what religion is at all, hell that isn't even what the Abrahamic regions are
Yeah, that is Not what religions are about, that is what people are abusing religion for. It could be different.
Fear.
Are you actually from the Caucasus, like Georgia, Armenia, etc, or do you use the word to mean "European or descendent of Europeans"? Because the USA likes to use the word to mean European-like, which is incorrect, as the caucasus is a very specific region in the border of Europe and Asia.
It reads like op used the common American euphemism for 'white'. Which is the correct usage as he's addressing an American audience.
That's right, but I wasn't aware of this either. Thanks for correcting me.
The usage of the word as it is common in the USA is incorrect. OP might not be aware of this, hence my comment.
Do you know why US-americans don't use the appropriate word "European"? I've always wondered. They do say African, Asian, Latino, but not European, to describe ethnic origins.
Etymological prescriptivism is not really a tenable point in linguistics. You can argue that, for instance, in American English the Dutch word 'rekening' (bill) is abused as reckoning. And you can find literally thousands of examples like that.
I'm this case a non native speaker used the American English vernacular correctly. You argue that the word is used incorrectly in this vernacular, and it is very peculiar and steeped in the racial discourse of the country. However it's usage was correct in this case.
I mean, sure, you Japanese person you. No silly, being called Japanese has nothing to do with being from Japan, why would you even think that?
You are not adressing my argument at all and being obtuse.
I am trying to demonstrate how absurd it is to use the demonym for one region of the world to refer to the inhabitants of a completely different part of the world
I understand that, and I don't dispute that either. I only point out that that is how language works. Your free to discuss the intricacies and weirdness of how that term became to mean that.
However you can't berate a language user (certainly a non native speaker) for using the term in it's connotation. It's like shaming someone calling the Magyar people 'Hungarian'.
It all started with a dude looking at skulls, he saw one that was the most symmetrical, the best looking skull he ever saw. He decided it must belong to a white European, as they are the best people (/s). He finds out that the skull was that of a person from the Caucus mountains.
Caucasian has been used to describe the ‘superior’ white Europeans since. So, OP is using the word correctly really. They say African, Asian, Latino because those are other races… with unpleasant skulls.
This is a gross oversimplification, but one of the modern excuses for racism and race superiority. Also, why ‘Caucasian’ is used to say white European.
Two reasons spring to mind:
You're right about where the Caucasus is, but the generally accepted meaning - both in the US and Europe - is white European ancestry, not just those from the Caucasus.
I am from Europe, and fluent in several European languages. In all of those Caucasian means person from the Caucasus. The usage to mean European is exclusively an USA thing.
Thank you for your assumption that I am not, in fact, European.
However, given I'm from one of the few European countries that speak English as their primary language, I can categorically say you're wrong.
Alright, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Link me to a dictionary of your country's version of English that lists "caucasian" with the exclusive meaning of "European or descendent of Europeans", or something to that effect.
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=caucasian+meaning
Oh wow, that first result sure does say exactly that
Edit: interestingly, lmgtfy actually gets a different response to googling it directly in the UK for me 🤔
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/caucasian#:~:text=Caucasian%20in%20British%20English&text=adjective-,1.,noun
Not a dictionary, thus not a credible source.
Let me help you out:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race
"The Caucasian race is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. [...] In the United States, the root term Caucasian is still in use as a synonym for white or of European, Middle Eastern, or North African ancestry, a usage that has been criticized."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race
I understand why you might think Caucasian to mean something else despite person from the Caucasus despite being European: the US version of English is influential, due to the size of the country and the popularity of their media. Some British people have started saying "TV series" instead of "programme", for example, due to the influence of the US. You probably heard and read the adjective almost always in the incorrect US usage, because a) other nations don't obsess over ethnicity and b) the actual Caucasus not exactly being a common topic in the media. Hence, when you do hear the word, it is used the way the USA does, incorrectly.
I additionally linked to the specifically British edition of Collins as well for your benefit, which is, in fact, a dictionary. Seriously, trust me, if you go up to 5 Brits and ask them what Caucasian means, they will almost certainly all answer "white".
Wikipedia, also, is not a dictionary.
It's also pretty damn rude to classify the American usage as "incorrect", you're not the arbiter of what "real" English is.
Well, they're wrong. The Caucasus is where Georgia, Armenia and other countries are. Caucasians are people from the Caucasus.
Another academic source: "White, European, Western, Caucasian, or what? Inappropriate labeling in research on race, ethnicity, and health." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1509085
There is more: "Though discredited as an anthropological term and not recommended in most editorial guidelines, it is still heard and used, for example, as a category on forms asking for ethnic identification. It is also still used for police blotters (the abbreviated Cauc may be heard among police) and appears elsewhere as a euphemism. Its synonym, Caucasoid, also once used in anthropology but now dated and considered pejorative, is disappearing."
https://books.google.com/books?id=_hZHAAAAMAAJ
The United States National Library of Medicine discontinued usage in favor of the more narrow geographical term European, which traditionally only applied to a subset of Caucasoids. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd03/nd03_med_data_changes.html
What happened to "show me one dictionary"?
Looks like your goalposts have grown legs.
So, the common usage in both the country with the greatest number of English speakers AND the country the language originated in is incorrect? Because crispy_kilt says so?
Language is a socially negotiated system, so what the word means to the people who use it is what the words mean.
That paper is about what terminology should be used in academic work, who gives a fuck for people talking on lemmy?
The scale of annoyingness:
Pedants -> incorrect pedants -> incorrect pedants who insist they're right, regardless of the evidence in front of them
----------------------------------------------------| you are here
I was honestly surprised with it listing the term with its common, but incorrect meaning, without as much as a hint to that end. You got me there!
No. Please refer to the three academic sources I provided.
That's like arguing "could of" to be correct English just because some people do it. Correctness is thankfully not what some believe, but something that has to be demonstrated with some rigour. If you discredit academic sources in favour of a popular misconception then I guess we will never agree.
I mean, I provided several sources for my claim
But your sources have multiple flaws:
So my source - despite being a highly reputable entity whose entire reason to exist is to define words - is "incorrect"?
"Could of" is different, because the social consensus is that it's grammatically incorrect. Your argument is more like arguing that antisemitic refers to Arabs as well, just because Semitic includes Arabic peoples. Just because a term is derived from another doesn't mean that it permanently must only be understood by its etymological roots.
Christianity is not about compassion and peace.
Forget utilitarian ethics altogether. Think of a twisted version of virtue ethics, where the only virtue is power.
Narcissism and sociopathy flows downwards from the top, submission and people-pleasing flows upwards from the bottom.
From the top down, having power makes you virtuous, and exercising power reflects that virtue.
If you are in a position of privilege and power, if you can kill people and take their stuff and get away with it, that marks you as powerful and to-be-feared, and therefore admirable.
If you are some kind of peasant, the opposite applies: you must be a submissive people-pleaser or face severe punishment.
If you're somewhere inbetween, you do both: oppress those below you, and grovel to those above you. This is virtue on both fronts.
That's conservative morality in a nutshell.
Christianity endorses this structure wholesale. It pats the peasants on the head and tells them they'll be rewarded (one day, not today) for being good little people-pleasers, and puts a final boss at the very top of the org chart so that the powerful can do some token groveling-upwards, and so the peasants have someone else to grovel to when nobody's around. It fits hand-in-glove with everything conservatives love.
Compassion-mercy-and-peace is just marketing spin clipped from the instructions for people-pleasing. Go along to get along, be helpful, don't rock the boat.
You'll notice that the core concept of christianity is earning tolerance from the powerful despite complete degradation. You are utterly worthless garbage and deserve to be tortured with fire forever; only via the sacrifice of an actual god can you can be promoted to salvage - though of course this status remains a completely undeserved gift that you should be overwhelmed with gratitude for.
Like a cop deciding not to murder you this time round: you are so blessed, now pick up that can.
Of course they love it.
That's a very simple and incorrect view of Christianity. Has the overwhelming majority of Christian history been an example of all the antisocial behavior you described? Yes.
That said, whoever the historical Jesus was, the early followers of his movement were radicals who were opposed to the existing power structure and who said you should love your neighbor as yourself. That if someone strikes you on one cheek you should turn and let them strike the other. That might sound trite now, but that's because it's been a very successful idea. And I'm not saying that it's original to Christianity or whoever Jesus was. But Christianity certainly did a lot to popularize it.
That strain of radical pro-social behavior has been woven all throughout Christian history, but at the same time every type of atrocity and abuse of power has been done in the name of Christianity because it was very quickly adopted and co-opted by the powerful.
Even if we grant that Christianity had a powerful message of love, it was inevitable it wouldn't be sustainable, because having an incorrect model of the world ("there is an all powerful creator of the world who is personally interested in my day to day life") will result in counterproductive behavior ("I should follow directions from this guy who says he's in direct communication with the creator"). But I wrote all this because the idea of loving other people and offering them grace is valuable, it's one thing we can think of as positive from Christianity, and it can thrive in other ecosystems of ideas besides theism.
"Slaves, obey your masters" is not radically opposing the existing power structure. Nowhere will you find a single instruction to disobey the powerful, or hold them to account.
Like I say, people-pleasing behaviour is definitely in there; Matthew 5 is all about not having any boundaries. But you'll notice it's not aimed at powers or principalities, nowhere does it suggest that masters should not beat their slaves or that kings should not retaliate to acts of war - and they're certainly not for god himself, who absolutely would not forgive anyone for their ancestors' disobedience without a major blood sacrifice, thus that whole crucifixion thing you might be vaguely aware of (though admittedly it's pretty niche, hidden deep in the lore somewhere). Those instructions are for the little people, to keep them in their lane.
Which is not, to be extremely clear, to suggest that I'm some kind of randroid fuck who considers altruism to be a weakness; very much the opposite. We could have a much better world if more people would be nicer to each other even when they didn't have to be.
It's just that one-way altruism imposed in the context of a rigidly-endorsed social hierarchy just ain't it. If the poor have to do all the heavy nice-peopling while a bunch of rich untouchable assholes work them to death and torture them for lulz, that would fit more into your whole late-stage-capitalism kind of bullshit - and christianity does not one fucking thing to combat that, while actively propping it up round the edges.
To be clear, I'm an atheist now, and don't endorse Christianity.
You're right that Jesus was not calling for violent resistance. Neither was Gandhi or MLK, but that wasn't an endorsement of those in power.
Christian teachings were radical in their time because they rejected eye for an eye and taught that it wasn't enough to love someone who loves you, but to love your enemies.
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’"
Of course then he goes on to talk about people who didn't help those in need being punished in the afterlife.
As I commented and you're well aware, Christianity does not result in an overall sustainable world view. And if you want someone who says "we should forcefully overthrow those in power" then no, Jesus didn't say that. But his ideas (or whoever they really came from) are transformational, and the OP is justified in asking, "hey why is Christianity like this now?" My argument is that it's because the set of ideas was flawed from the start, rather than that it's a set of ideas made with the intention to dominate and exploit from the beginning.
In my experience lefties in America only claim to be about helping the most vulnerable. When it actually comes down to it, the lefties are perfectly willing to screw over a vulnerable person so long as they are of a certain race or political affiliation.
[citation needed]
Example?
You leftists and your proof /s