Evangelicals Are Destroying America

As an outsider, it does puzzle me how much your nation clings to the bible in the realms of politics.

If you're really religious it's always god before country.

Sky Chief said:

Maybe even more crucially, what would modern American Evangelicals think of Jesus if he lived today? My guess is he would be called a socialist, communist, open border loving libtard or something like that.

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That's actually a genius question.

DBT85 said:

As an outsider, it does puzzle me how much your nation clings to the bible in the realms of politics.

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I second that.

it's not about religion

it's about hate

the religion is just a front for the hate

My SO's dad is pretty religious and has regularly said that if Jesus was alive today he would be a democrat. Despite that he's a hardcore republican. All of my same-age religious friends (not a ton but still) are all dems since you know, love thy neighbor and all that.

Sky Chief said:

Maybe even more crucially, what would modern American Evangelicals think of Jesus if he lived today? My guess is he would be called a socialist, communist, open border loving libtard or something like that.

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Oh man... this made me laugh! Imagine how Jesus would think of all his supporters loving guns so much.

I mean, this is the country that allowed all the religious crazies to come over and do their thing after all. Unfortunately the evangelical Christianity wing is all kinds of nuts.

Sky Chief said:

what would modern American Evangelicals think of Jesus if he lived today?

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He's a brown foreigner, so they wouldn't give a shit who he was.

Evangelicalism kinda zeroed in on the oppressive "worship me or suffer" aspect of God and it makes them a prime constituency for attempts at authoritarianism

My cynical view that Jesus could literally float down on a cloud and the religious folk would promptly try to deport his holy butt.

Most Americans think Jesus was a white guy. He's a white in all the paintings, and those paintings are an accurate depiction of Jesus .

Seems like the religious right has lost a lot of ground tbh.

As a Christian, it's baffling how far Evangelicals have stuck their head in the sand.

They don't even follow the greatest commandment but call themselves Christians.

In their case, it is simply using Christianity as a crutch. It props them up to be "holier than thou" which then turns into "America should abide by my views and morals". In reality, my Christianity has no business being used or reffered to when governing a free nation. The same should go for them.

Fake Christians. One major reason why I am not religious anymore is this particular group of individuals.

Sky Chief said:

Maybe even more crucially, what would modern American Evangelicals think of Jesus if he lived today? My guess is he would be called a socialist, communist, open border loving libtard or something like that.

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"What's he doing dividing that fish to give to all those poor people!? He needs to be telling them to work harder so they can get off welfare and stop mooching our tax money!"

Religion has always been a tool for those wanting to manipulate and control the less educated among us. Modern Republicans have nearly perfected it.

Conservatives have always used it as a shield for their terrible idealogy. They're more concerned with stone tablets outside of state buildings than basic human rights of women, minorities and gay people.

The most American thing they can do is to leave and start a new country

Like many others have said, the religion angle is just a shield so they can push and support hateful policies with little blow back. A lot of these so called evangelicals dont even go to church.

I was thinking about creating a new thread after watching this video



This was on live TV. These people are grown ass adults. It's scary how they're selling the republican platform as god's wish. They are worse than snakeoil salesmen.

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Why isn't there basically a war between evangelicals and other branches of Christianity in the US?

"God and Country type of guy" is really just a codeword for person who shares political goals and interests. But God and Country can be used as a blanket term to hide those actual goals with a religious veil that blocks attempts at accountability.

Religion, at least of the monotheistic kind like Christianity, require followers to abdicate a portion of their free will and agency to an authority figure that is by design un-interactable and unaccountable. Religious leaders place themselves in the hierarchy and they can reap benefits from having a legion of followers who believe that it's God's plan that their lives either suck or are abused so much.

It's reminiscent of the way some elderly I've interacted with think. When someone commits a crime against someone else, they blame the victim for being careless or inviting the attack. When you ask them why they're blaming the victim and not the perpetrator, their response is that there will always be evil people and there's nothing you can do about that.

It's true that there will always be evil human beings, but these elderly have somehow forgotten that those perpetrators are also people that you can point to, blame, and punish. Instead, they're treated like forces of nature that you can't do anything about, like a hurricane or earthquake.

It's like a sense of learned helplessness that's been drilled into them from birth, and in order to retain some semblance of power they abuse other victims instead since they don't seem strong. And all the while this helps those in power since the masses are too busy blaming each other and have forgotten that those in authority are also people who, with enough effort, can be punished for their misdeeds.

Republicans are just Taliban in a nice looking suit.

Separation of Church and State needs to be reasserted.

American white Catholicism seems exclusively about talking down to others. Nothing more. A bastardised interpretation where they drop and the "do good onto others" stuff and just whatever they can to justify their own prejudiced views.

hydrophilic attack said:

it's not about religion

it's about hate

the religion is just a front for the hate

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This. It's a beard for all kinds of corruption.

I agree that they're awful and have done a significant amount of damage throughout America's history however they are not the primary problem right now. Trump himself is not religious and any religion he mentions is obvious pandering. The group that is outright destroying America right now is the "Anti-PC" movement. You might just refer to them as racists who want to say the n word without consequences and you're pretty much correct in that assumption. But their ideology boils down to "government is bad because it censors me" and "liberals are bad because they want censorship which is against muh free speech". It sounds ridiculous because it is but it is how Trump gained the presidency and how plenty of far right religious nutjobs gain office every year: Because they're anti government and therefore anti "censorship".

It's the new counterculture movement. Conservatives were a target of it last decade because they wanted to censor games (I'm interested in making a thread to discuss this sometime when midterm news dies down) with Fox News running plenty of segments decrying violent games like Call of Duty. But conservatives moved away from this method this decade and planted themselves firmly in the opposite "anti censorship" crowd which has caused the people who once hated them to put them in office even if they are religious nutjobs.

Edit: Also Jesus dined with lepers, prostitutes, and tax collectors since most of society hated them. It's sickening seeing conservative politicians say Jesus would choose to be with them when he would certainly spend his time today with the people they hate (refugees and "illegal" immigrants for example).

Evangelicals are an affront to both this country and to Christianity tbh

DBT85 said:

As an outsider, it does puzzle me how much your nation clings to the bible in the realms of politics.

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That wouldn't be that strange and not a complete netloss for society. It just seems that the american interpretation is far more vile and toxic, and far more about protecting whiteness

None of what you're describing is new behavior, but yeah.

I used to think that this would change and progress was inevitable as the older generations died out and younger, better educated, less religious people became the majority. But I'm less and less convinced of that every day now. Too many young people who aren't religious have just aligned with a different type of extremism.

The whole "America was founded as a christian nation" thing becomes even more hilariously awful when you realize there are literal documents written by members of the founding fathers that explicitly and clearly state that " "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." (Treaty of Tripoli)

Most people just use religion, either socially or politically

SugarNoodles said:

Why isn't there basically a war between evangelicals and other branches of Christianity in the US?

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Evangelism isn't really a branch, just like fundamentalism. It's also not like Catholicism where the whole denomination is organized.

Cruxist said:

My SO's dad is pretty religious and has regularly said that if Jesus was alive today he would be a democrat. Despite that he's a hardcore republican.

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This is completely wild to me.

DBT85 said:

As an outsider, it does puzzle me how much your nation clings to the bible in the realms of politics.

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Seriously... I was watching the conference earlier and that one reporter asked about Trumps relation to God.
Such a bizarre question to ask.

The country should be 100% secular, I'm disgusted by how much power some old ass fairy-tale has over your country.

Joliet Jake said:

Most Americans think Jesus was a white guy. He's a white in all the paintings, and those paintings are an accurate depiction of Jesus .

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That's supply side Jesus, not real Jesus.

DBT85 said:

As an outsider, it does puzzle me how much your nation clings to the bible in the realms of politics.

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We might even be in a better place if that were the case. We use the Bible as a mask to cover our nation clinging to white identity politics.

Rhomega said:

Evangelism isn't really a branch, like fundamentalism. It's also not like Catholicism where the whole denomination is organized.

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Fair, but there are still central organizations within most denominations that could be a whole lot less "I guess we have a difference of opinion" about this.

It could also come from the faith base (is that a term) in various denominations.

Religion as a ruse for tribalistic ideologues has always been the most dangerous threat to society. Religion is not bound by scientific rationality or material reality and facts, making it the perfect ideological vehicle to do anything an evil political faction wants to under the guise of legitimicy to its followers.

Coming from a very christian family, yeah, they're really screwing it up for everyone else. They just can't grasp the concept that America is filled with numerous groups of people and a free country can't, or at least shouldn't, prioritize one group over another.

As long as evangelicals are mostly white people, the GOP will do whatever it takes to keep organizations like Focus on the Family satisfied because evangelicals almost exclusively get their direction on politics from people like James Dobson or Jim Daly.

It's very much a "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" situation that won't change anytime soon.

The government has lost its way, and people just let it happen, especially after shit went crazy after 9/11.

The First Amendment does not simply say "Freedom of Religion", it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The Constitution's imperative is a neutral stance on religion, but the people not only do not enforce it, we let people actively cheat it.

We have cults openly taking over the conservative side of the government, whether they're evangelicals or nazis. They do not respect the rules, especially not for outsiders.

Sky Chief said:

We're supposed to be a secular country (one where all people are free to worship, or not, as they see fit). There's supposed to be a separation between church and state. You can believe that in your personal life but that should not be why politics happens.

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We're supposed to be. But if someone thinks an all powerful omnipotent being controls whether or not you spend eternity burning in hell, then all other considerations will be secondary.

I can sorta undertake the pro life deal. If you are "Christian."

But fanaticism about guns and hating other people for being different is insane.

What really stings is that they are so involved in politics and influence so many issues yet they are tax exempt. Also apparently above the law seeing how they can easily protect padophiles. IMO religious organizations should pay taxes and be banned from interfering in politics.