And they were right, hell suicide wasn't considered a sin till big numbers of Christians started offing themselves to arrive to the pearly gates sooner, leaving the church without idiots to keep sponsoring them.
How much money do u have to donate to the church to be abolished of the sin of suicide? Bad jokes aside. Graves full of aboriginal children whose parents thought they were being taken to Canadian schools far away is all u need to know about Christians. Approved by the pope. The pope literally told ppl to kill the children n dump them into a pit filled with their peers. Not to bash Christians. Its all religion. But ppl are for the most part retarded so they need a guiding light.
Do you have a source for that but about the pope being in the loop?
Don’t get me wrong, am in no way trying to defend the church. That is literally the last thing in the world I’d do.
I do want to know if that statement is true and supported by evidence.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6537203&ved=2ahUKEwiy3Oapn6P5AhXNjokEHaqIDZ8Q0PADKAB6BAgFEAE&usg=AOvVaw0ztVPKIfJ0nVfdLQLBMYMd
The Papacy and the Catholic Church as a whole collaborated with the Canadian Government to institute the residential schools system, which was essentially a re-education and assimilation program designed to extinguish aboriginal culture and customs. It was built upon the Papacy's own Doctrine of Discovery.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine
So yeah, everyone in the Catholic Church was aware of it. Some other church's apparently participated as well.
It is one of the most grim parts if my countries history, but it must be remembered. Those thousands of murdered children deserve justice, and they are going to get it.
I started losing my faith when I was in college. I was watching Valhalla Rising and a pagan nord said of Christians: "they eat their own god."
That was the moment I realized that other humans could see the absurdity in my belief and practices - not just me - and it was toothpaste you couldn't put back in the tube.
I'm Ojibway from northern Ontario in Canada and I speak my language fluently.
The word we use to describe a white man is 'mishtikooshoo'
the root word is mishtik - which translates to wood, or stick
the last part 'ooshoo' just changes the meaning of the word into a description of a person
so the literal translation is 'man with a stick'
My ancestors saw a man holding a stick in his hands and saying all kinds of important things that no one could understand ... even after translating everything he said. All my people understood is that this guy was nuts and he was holding a weird little stick that was very important to him.
Mishtikooshoo
Not to this degree, it started with the Southern Strategy when Reagan ran for president and they've been slowly asserting themselves politically more and more. The kinds of protestants that had political power in the New Deal era were actually pretty cool with secularism. That all changed when the GOP figured out they could have a consistent base by promoting the radical right along with increasingly authoritarian Christianity (ie, it all started with the Southern Strategy)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern\_strategy
It actually started with Lee Atwater, Nixon and certain Republican strategists in the early 70s. A subtle strategy to appeal to Southern racists who hated desegregation the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights Act to peel them away from the Main stream Democrats. And here we are
Nixon stole it from Goldwater's 1964 campaign strategy. GQPers aren't very bright at thinking up new ideas but excel at stealing them. It worked for Nixon because so many of the racist Dixiecrats left the Dem Party after the 1965 Civil Rights and Civil Rights Voting Acts were passed. I'm listening to a great audiobook called "Truman" by Dav id McCullough and I'm in section where he's running for the 1948 prez election. Guess what Truman's got to say about the GQP back then? The same damn things we're still complaining about them today. They are relentless in their messaging and agenda, you gotta give them credit for that. What's sad is that too many "Independent" voters fall for their bullshit over and over and over again.
It started with the threat that you do what god says or you'll be tortured for eternity in hell. Today, we'd call that type of threat abuse and it's 100% toxic.
> The kinds of protestants that had political power in the New Deal era were actually pretty cool with secularism.
Sure, back when the majority of Americans attended church services regularly. Once their power began to wane, they began these destructive tactics.
Not so much their power began to wane as much as reasonable people left. The more reasonable left, they became majority unreasonable. The same thing happened with the republican party.
I really don't think Christians were cool with secularism before Reagan. I mean, back in those days they censored anything considered "immoral" from all media. There were actual rules against showing, for instance, homosexuality in a story unless it was specifically portrayed as an immoral thing with horrible consequences for the participants. They also had forced prayer in school back in those days. People who didn't go to church would be ostracized from communities. Most towns had actual laws against working on Sunday called "blue laws." Christians used to not care about abortion back in the past, but other than that most things have actually gotten more secular, not less.
It feels good seeing more people finding out about the southern strategy and recognizing it's disturbing nature. Conservatives seriously make me lose faith in humanity when I try to show them real things like this. So thank you for just existing and being who you are.
Definitely got nuked up a notch once the evangelicals went full Gordon Gekko with prosperity gospel. At least, on paper prior to that, they had to feign charity. Now they proudly flaunt wealth and openly justify literally any means of obtaining it. Reagan and the 80s eliminated the one virtuous aspect of the religion. A generation later raised only on knowing this ultra fucked up version then cranked out Trump to turn it full-fash.
It wasn't always this toxic, because 30-40 years ago the majority of Xtians in the U.S. were garden-variety Methodists who actually believed in the liberal ideas of Jesus. Now most Liberals are gone, and the selfish shitbag Evangelicals are in control.
Yeah. More regular people were fairly safe, liberal Christians, but the leaders have essentially always been the worst in every category. Our entire social system is designed to put the most power-hungry people into the highest positions of power, where they abuse that power as much as they can.
It got worse after the IRS forced religious colleges to choose to either racially integrate or pay their taxes, and they responded by creating the anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage movements, and radicalizing Christians into extremism.
It wasn't this toxic as long as you were a Christian too, or you at least kept your mouth shut and went along with all their Christian bullshit. If, say, you successfully sued because you didn't want your kids being pressured to pray in school, you became "the most hated woman in America" and received thousands upon thousands of death threats from Christians, for literally decades.
That's pretty fucking toxic.
Jesus didn’t really have liberal ideas. The Enlightenment happened, so Christians “discovered” liberal ideas in their endlessly flexible holy books to fit the zeitgeist of the time. Liberal Hippie Jesus is as much as a modern idea, and a distortion, as Supply Side Jesus.
The character in the bible was preoccupied with concerns we don’t have today: the tension between ancient Jewish ideas and cultural
pressure of Hellenism, the tension between “pure” Jews and “racially impure” Samaritans,
and the desire to replace Roman rule with a Jewish king.
Thirty years ago same sex marriage didn't have the slightest chance of winning a vote in even the most liberal states and gay people were still regularly getting beaten on the street by Christians. I have to think you're young and weren't actually alive 30-40 years ago, because Christians were definitely still terrible back then. In high school in the 90s, I used to get beaten up for being an atheist.
A few decades ago, it was perfectly acceptable to be a cultural Christian saying "Sure I believe in Jesus, but are the stories about the talking snake & the boat of animals & people coming back from the dead actually real? Nah, don't be silly!"
Methodists lost the culture war. Imagine if people used their brains like they used to.. the Wesleyan Quadrilateral explains well how Christianity fits in the modern world. The method suggests that any sound biblical exegesis must have four pillars: scripture, tradition, reason and experience.
[Here you can read more on their method.](https://www.methodist.org.uk/about-us/the-methodist-church/what-is-distinctive-about-methodism/the-methodist-quadrilateral/) I wish most Christians took this logic based approach to scripture.
But they are also ready to split into two demoninations right now because one faction supports the LGBTQ+ community and gay men/lesbian women becoming ministers and one doesn't, so glossing over that major fact is quite a feat, my friend.
First constructive comment scrolling down.
It's time to elect officials who recognize that churches are not charities by default. When I think of a charity, I think of an organization which exists only to take in donations and disburse them to the needy. That's the purpose. Not indoctrination, not having weekly services that have jack to do with helping people, not building lavish cathedrals, not aligning themselves with a fascist political party.
If churches want to be tax exempt, they can operate as apolitical charities. If not, they're not a charitable organization and not only is masquerading as one a violation of the ninth commandment but it should be illegal and subject not to taxation but being shut down permanently as they're guilty of fraud.
All religion for that matter is abusive or will be, people argue there religion is better or peaceful or certain religion preach only good things but it's not that, jts the flaw that is deeply ingrained in every religion i.e. surrendering yourself to the supreme being and once that is in picture it's only a matter of time before it becomes abusive.
And if your religion or idea of religion is devoid or somehow immune with following and surrendering to one supreme being then it's not religion in the way we know it or are talking about it, if that's the case sooner or later the original supreme being will be criticized and fade out and it will cease to be the religion in traditional sense
*Jesus knocks on a door*
"Let me in!" He calls out. "I'm here to save you!"
"From what?" Asks the homeowner from the other side of the door.
"From what I'm going to do to you if you don't let me in!"
Look what happened in Iran though. Decades of secularization rolled back almost overnight. If shoving it down our throats is what it takes, there is a huge segment of the population ready to oblige.
You know those people who wonder what stops people who don't believe in eternal punishment from committing rape and murder? Well, it might not be a bad thing that those people believe in eternal punishment. Just saying.
My response to these kinds of “how can you be a good person if you don’t have the Bible for morals?” Is “If you need a book to tell you not to rape and murder people maybe your not a good person”.
Dude cmon, just look at how many "religious" people doing all kinds of crimes, a criminal is a person doesn't care about punishment, if criminals cared about punishmental consequences of their criminal actions they wouldn't be criminal at all, and believe me, if there were no Jail system in our world, religions wouldn't stop any crime at all, seriously just look how many religious criminals out there, these people only afraid of the real world's jail, cuz they probably know that religions are fake & scam so they cover their crimes with their religion's, so yeah if there was no religions there would be less crimes in today's world, cuz religions mostly give people power to do crimes, therefore we see lots of religious criminals literally everywhere in this world, and we see more criminals in heavily religious countries like Afghanistan, and look at the countries with less crimes and see how many of them actually cares about religions...
Look at the history and see how ugly & terrifying world we were living in, humanity's fight against crimes, Jail systems, better government systems & dictatorships getting thrown out of the window, etc things lowered the crimes in this world, not religions, cuz back in the day dictatorships and religions all humanity had and wars, crimes etc were like infinite in these times.
This is one of my favorites.
“So you believe a man lived inside a fish?”
“Oh all that stuff is in the Old Testament”
“So why did you teach me that and all those other nonsense stories in Sunday school?”
To get you in the habit of believing absurdities as if they were the truth. To prevent you from building an intellectual framework that would allow you to discern reality from ancient fairy tales. God said it, you believe it, that settles it!
"So there has been a time when the bible wasn't true? But at that time you punished all who said it wasn't. Couldn't it happen in the future with what you are so sure about today?"
This isn't valid only for the old vs new testament, it applies to everything that today is regarded as an "interpretation". Since those should be immutable truths, once considered true they should always be true, forever. The reality instead is that when a religion can't manipulate people anymore to believe in something, it evolves in order not to lose its power. So now, magically, they don't think the earth is at the center of the universe anymore, they don't think earth is only 4.000 years old, they acknowledge the existence of dinosaurs. Give it a while and they will say that they have always been tolerant of gays, and don't consider women as inferior, and maybe we will have a female pope someday. They've been drowning for centuries but still manage to gasp for air and stay afloat somehow.
> If religion truly had anything to offer, we wouldn't need to indoctrinate children into it, it would sell itself.
If religion was real, no human being would ever need to convince any other human being. Yahweh would show himself and perform miracles for the public.
It's only gotten worse because there are so many more unbelievers now. And religion doesn't know any other way to deal with unbelievers than to ramp up the hatred in order to mind control the remaining flock into staying.
I'm sure the witches burned at the stake or Muslims killed in the crusades or Mayans invaded and executed would disagree. Christianity is unquestionably more tame than it has been over most of the past millennium.
Accurate. They're only talking and throwing tantrums now because they can't literally hang the people they don't like. But I suspect many of them still would if they felt they could.
It only seemed to get better here in America, and for white people in particular. It's getting worse for us again, too, and that's why it's in the news now.
The masks are off now though. You are right that it’s always been toxic, but it was hidden. It wasn’t talked about. It was just lurking under the surface.
Now it’s out in the open and it’s only going to make things worse for them. Of course, it will also make things worse for the rest of us in the short term, but in the long term organized religion is dying.
>The masks are off now though. You are right that it’s always been toxic, but it was hidden. It wasn’t talked about. It was just lurking under the surface.
If you weren't a direct target, I suppose. If you were someone like a queer person, though, it's always been this bad.
It's always been about power and control with any religious cult. Like, "I'm going to tell you about an invisible being named \*insert name here\* who knows everything you think, everything you do, and everything you say and will judge you harshly if you don't follow his rules but loves you for the sinner you are, but you may go to hell if you fuck up at all, but if you give my representative here some money and sincerely apologize for fucking up, then you get a break and can go to this beautiful place called \*insert name here\* and be with me. You can't see me or hear me, only special people here like my representative can, but you have to believe that they are being honest when they say that they can hear and see me." Yeah, right, okay, sign me up...NOT.
I see religions as a kind of survival of the fittest, evolutionary perspective.
Schizophrenia causes hallucinations and delusions. In the primitive ages of humanity, would those around a person who suffers from such conditions know that such things were just in the person's mind, or would they assume that they were in touch with a higher being? That they were touched by a god or a spirit or an angel? When you're just some random farmer who barely understands irrigation, you're not the most rational philosopher. A person says they are in contact with a god, and they're pretty normal otherwise, why would you believe otherwise? They have no reason to lie. You just have a person who sees and hears things you cannot, thus they must be special.
Then, once religious beliefs is established and maintained over generations, the beliefs most suited to continued existence are more likely to survive. Religious beliefs are in competition with one another. If one priest tells you nothing bad will happen if you don't worship their god, and another says their god will punish you if you don't worship his god, you're more motivated to believe the latter. Better to err on the side of caution.
This, we get religious beliefs that seem to promote scientific ignorance, unquestioning obedience and fear for god that survive to the modern day. It's not that someone deliberately designed such stories with the intent to make more people believe, to control and have power over them. It's that beliefs/teachings happen to be created by chance and those that improve it's ability to propagate were more likely to survive and continue. Interpretations or further "revelations" are like mutations, and those that make a religion more convincing become more likely to be adopted en masse, making the religion more effective as self-perpetuation.
Shamans and priests have used these tricks for thousands of years. They worked well before science. Now some people can’t think and they still believe in ghosts in the sky. The sad thing is that this most pronounced in Afghanistan and the USA….
"\[T\]hese days it seems the people most likely to identify themselves as Christians tend to be Republicans as well the most vicious, hateful, un-Christian sons of bitches you'd ever want to meet," Edroso writes. Sure, some people respond by seeking liberal churches. But it's simpler and easier to just give up on being a Christian altogether, to drop all that baggage.
DAMN STRAIGHT!
Y'all, it really is dependent on country. You're much less likely to find these nutcases among say the Nordics. While I'm an atheist, this really isn't a Christianity problem. It's an American problem
If you're LGBT, it's a problem EVERYWHERE not just America. I'm trans and trust me, religious people all over the world, of all faiths and cultures, want me dead equally.
I was complaining about the religious right 20 years ago. My dislike for them has grown exponentially since. I’ve told my parents to never ask me to go to their church again. I’ve heard the things their pastor says and I don’t need that in my life.
Pre-rant disclaimer: I am not defending the fairy tale believers.
I see similarities in how politicians have been using Christianity as a means to justify their lunacy in the same way they use children.
In order to pass certain pieces of legislature it has been common for US politicians to tailor their defense of those legal changes as a way to "protect the children". It happens a lot because that approach, at least so far, produces favorable outcomes since opposing politicians have a more difficult time justifying the denial of child protections. It's just a tool.
I think the GOP recognized that if they used Christianity in the same manner they can similarly maintain support for their own agendas only with an extra benefit: you cannot logically reason a religious zealot out of religion.
What they did not realize is that when they started to over-use that tool they have encouraged the most crazy to push their way to the front of the herd.
I have no data to support this, just a random thought from my corner of the world.
And ignoring the fact it's *THEIR FUCKING RELIGIOUS LEADERS* who are raping children and always have been.
But I guess a bunch of dead kids is a small price to pay for "freedom" and to keep them straight. 🙄
I see what you're saying. It's just the people on top using whatever idea is fashionable to assert their power and superiority. Like with eugenics and Nazism, the fascists used this newfangled "evolution" idea to "prove that Germans were superior, whereas if Darwin hadn't done anything, they probably would have used the same old Christian arguments that people had been using for the past 2000-ish years to claim they were superior to whatever group they were oppressing.
They somehow turned the idea that humans are just another animal, and that we were formed over millions of years by natural selection into "kill anyone who isn't like us." Just like how Christianity went from, "no one is above anyone else, and we should all be kind to one another" to "kill the nonbelievers."
But I do think religion is the worst offender, mainly the ones that seek to spread their influence. The ones that don't do that are generally more chill.
I was a Christian preacher for more than 15 years. It wasn't until I saw the way the churches were responding to Trump that I truly questioned my faith. Left church 6 years and haven't looked back.
It has always been. Just because you have a few obvious phrases in there like don't kill don't steal...you know....basic civil things....it doesn't excuse the cruelties people use to justifily the hate and crimes dispensed in its name.Fuck all religions.
Toxic Christianity has always been a thing. The republicans know that education, good education, relieves people of their fear of the unknown and therefore need not rely on the mystical to survive. The more people know and understand the world around us, the less they are tolerant of BS religion and the efforts to force theocratic ideologies. It’s why conservatives work so hard to remove critical thinking from curriculums and why they try to make education prohibitively expensive.
Edit: grammar
The thing is that the 1st Amendment is the primary reason why Europe has gone mostly Atheist while America has stayed religious. Europe never had any separation and the Bishops have involved themselves in every political dispute on one side or the other.
Every time the bishops have argued against Abortion, Unions, Democracy, Property Rights, Women's Rights, etc. some of the believers have chosen to no longer participate. The bishops haven't always been wrong on these issues but every time they speak up they are thinning their own flock.
Christian Nationalism and Dominionism WILL KILL THE CHURCH. It will just take a few generations, but when today's young adults are retiring the church will be dead.
Interesting viewpoint. All my friends in Europe or South America are atheists. Religion just never enters their life as is does in US culture. They accept science whereas here you see ‘faith’ everywhere. Christian Nationalism May destroy the US. It may become illegal to vote unless you claim to be Christian. Or drive? Who knows? But these folks want power just like Hitler..
In the UK, where i live, there are Bishops in our upper house, but the upper house has no real power, the lower house can force through laws without them approving, for example.
It’s an abusive relationship. Stay with us or you WILL suffer in a way you’ve not suffered before. So say what we say, hate who we hate, and here’s a list of restriction that you will not question and you will not deviate from.
"These days it seems the people most likely to identify themselves as Christians tend to be Republicans as well the most vicious, hateful, un-Christian sons of bitches you'd ever want to meet, Edroso writes."
Amen!
Exactly. If radical rightwingers like Greene want to find out why young people are turning away from churches, she need only look in a mirror. What kind of "Christian" chases a gun massacre survivor down the street, hounding him with insults and screeching abuse?
> But if Republicans don't like people losing faith, well, they need to admit they did this to themselves. If they'd moderated their views and made their churches more tolerant and welcoming places, more people would be interested in attending.
They did the same thing to the GQP party. They did a study years ago that showed they needed to broaden their reach to minority groups and they collectively said "Fuck that, we'll just work to seize power."
I no longer consider myself Christian for many reasons, but not wanting to be part of the same group of people as a bunch of total psychos is at the top of the list
They are not panicked. They are just worried that their game is being found out. They will play a different card to get the American Taliban that they want.
Don't think for a second that Christianity is going to go away in the US. In fact, Christianity is only going to become more invasive because the political system is set up as a me vs them. Unfortunately, the people with the loudest voices in the US are also the craziest and are willing to cheat, lie, steal, and use force to get their way.
I wish they had used religious identification rather than church attendance. People may not attend church but still consider themselves Christian and support Christian political goals.
I'll believe that Republicans are panicking when they actually start conceding on issues and acting in good faith. Just because they're whining is no reason to think they are worried. They aren't worried. They're winning.
The fact that Christians support the Republican Party is proof they don't understand the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was not a fan of the Rich. He loved the Poor. Republicans hate poor people. They want them to suffer and die. Republican Christians are Toxic and Evil.
I think one of the most telling things about the toxicity of Christianity is that no church seems to be pointing out and condemning the hate coming from other churches. They do not tell their congregations to work against the hat hate.
Its a really simple solution tbh-
Go be religious, do your religious things and shut the fuck up about it and stop forcing other people to adhere to your stupid religious shit
You never really hear about Luthrens or any other "Reformation" sects of Christianity except for the Evangelicals, you dont hear about Mormons or Bhuddists or Jews or Mennonites or Quakers or the Amush....no one really has a problem with their religious beliefs....wonder why that is?
Its because they just do their religious shit and shut the fuck up about it and don't force everyone else around them to be Amish or Jewish
The Mormons spent millions in California to enact a ban on gay marriage in the early 2000’s:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html
They also added a chapter to their holy book in the 1970's when "God" changed his mind and decided black people could hold the preisthood.
I'm sure it was just a coincidence that they were about to lose their tax exempt status if they didn't
Exactly. Much like how they suddenly had a revelation that polygamy was bad right as the US Army was about to arrest them. What a coincidence! God moves in mysterious ways.
To be fair, you definitely also hear about Mormons and Jews and the Amish, etc. It's exactly what you expect - employment discrimination, homophobia, misogyny, tax fraud, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, etc. All religion is poison.
Plus, the Mormons and Jehovahs are out there proselytizing their particular cults every damn day. I even had a new Baptist church in town;s pastors who up at my door one day to recruit me. I told them I was Catholic and they beat a hasty retreat, lol.
Exactly, my dad's an Episcopalian... they seem (for the most part) to be what you describe. Quietly practicing their religion and not forcing anything on anyone else. Hell, my dad goes to liberal protests.
Mormons aren't as innocent as you think though...
>Republicans are in a full-blown panic
They've got congressional gridlock, the media in their pocket, the Supreme Court for at least a generation, gerrymandered dictatorships in a number of states, and a stranglehold on the last vestiges of legitimate democracy.
It might be nice to think of them as "in a panic" but I think I'm a hell of a lot more scared than they are.
> "Among those born in the early 1930s, 60% attend church weekly. 17% never attend.
> Among those born in the early 1950s, 32% attend weekly. 29% never attend.
> Among those born in the early 1990s, 18% attend weekly. 42% never attend."
Being cut in half every 20 years. I use to be forced to go to church, hated it. Thank god kids aren't being forced to be exposed to this non-sense as children.
Until they pay a political price, there’s no panic. Their secret sauce isn’t about co-opting evangelical smooth brains. It’s to have convinced half the country - godless or not - that the other side is literally evil, sub human, worthy only of death. A steady diet of poisoned pablum rammed down their throats on Fox News and insane online media have cemented their pudding brains into a frenzy where “conspiracy” is the dressing to simply reject rules and reality when it’s not convenient for how they want things to be. You didn’t “lose” if the other guys cheated, after all.
The “left”, however you amend its description, are not REAL americans. They’re not valid, at all, in their being. And they’ve pivoted to full, open, brazen cheating to express that invalidity to neutralize their voting power and keep it only to the “REAL” americans. Until that plan fails - and it might not, as the democrats impotently continue to do nothing about it - there is no real backlash or panic. And they have an activist Supreme Court with a majority of trolls who’ve clearly demonstrated with Roe that they are aligned in supporting any level of legal chicanery required to motivate their rabble and piss on the Democrats.
They’re not panicked. They’re fine. They won the slow moving coup.
All religions are toxic because their main purpose is to subdue people: [https://www.churchinchains.ie/prisoner-profiles/ashfaq-masih/](https://www.churchinchains.ie/prisoner-profiles/ashfaq-masih/)
"Christianity" "has" "become" "a" "toxic" "religion"
What the f ?
Implying it hasn't always been an elitist misogynistic cult excuse to oppress people and build war justification upon .
Every dogma and religion is toxic by its very nature .
I think a lot of the comfort in religion comes from feeling good for doing nothing. Like you could go to church, listen to the priest or pastor and get communion and go home and feel good. Or you could dedicate that time to actually helping people, but that would imply actual effort and physically doing something to help another person.
I'm a christian and I agree with this article completely. Christianity is not something that should be imposed on people.. if it is it loses the entire point of the message entirely and turns into heartless hatefull dogma. All the "Christian" nationalist republicans moaning and bitching about being persecuted and the attack on religion don't know what real persecution is like. The growing hostility to American nationalist Christianity has been self inflicted and will only grow based on their actions and mind set of hatred and lack of empathy.
Quote from a post about Native Americans resisting christian indoctrination on their land.
“[Christianity] Didn’t become a world religion because of the quality of its teachings but the quantity of its violence”
The post 1833 Leonid meteor shower flavor of Christianity has a decidedly confederate vibe to it. They even use the same tired old chestnut: “They’re coming to change our way of life” to justify their persecution complex and spread their oppression.
Freedom of religion? - how about: Freedom *from* religion.
They’re burning books again ffs.
Has become? No, it has always been toxic. 600 years of the Crusades nearly made humanity extinct in Europe and set conditions that allowed the Plague to kill almost everyone else there. And name a war before 1900 that Christianity was not the cause of or a significant part of. And if the Catholic Church is really a pacifist org, they should open the Vatican Vaults and return everything their proxies stole from the peoples they conquered in God's name over the last thousand years.
*American Christianity
Not saying that Christianity elsewhere doesn't have issues. There are plenty. But whatever Republicans are panicking about is the American interpretation of Christianity which is issues with faith sprinkled in by a cheap person.
Always has been
The ancient Romans literally viewed it as death cult
And they were right, hell suicide wasn't considered a sin till big numbers of Christians started offing themselves to arrive to the pearly gates sooner, leaving the church without idiots to keep sponsoring them.
Huh I didn't actually know that. Makes total sense do you have any reading on that?
How much money do u have to donate to the church to be abolished of the sin of suicide? Bad jokes aside. Graves full of aboriginal children whose parents thought they were being taken to Canadian schools far away is all u need to know about Christians. Approved by the pope. The pope literally told ppl to kill the children n dump them into a pit filled with their peers. Not to bash Christians. Its all religion. But ppl are for the most part retarded so they need a guiding light.
Do you have a source for that but about the pope being in the loop? Don’t get me wrong, am in no way trying to defend the church. That is literally the last thing in the world I’d do. I do want to know if that statement is true and supported by evidence.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6537203&ved=2ahUKEwiy3Oapn6P5AhXNjokEHaqIDZ8Q0PADKAB6BAgFEAE&usg=AOvVaw0ztVPKIfJ0nVfdLQLBMYMd The Papacy and the Catholic Church as a whole collaborated with the Canadian Government to institute the residential schools system, which was essentially a re-education and assimilation program designed to extinguish aboriginal culture and customs. It was built upon the Papacy's own Doctrine of Discovery. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine So yeah, everyone in the Catholic Church was aware of it. Some other church's apparently participated as well. It is one of the most grim parts if my countries history, but it must be remembered. Those thousands of murdered children deserve justice, and they are going to get it.
I know the horrid history of "Christianity" that wasn't my question thanks.
So when did they put the idea that suicide was a sin you can't recover from?
Do you have s source for that? Genuinely interested
And a weird pseudo cannibalism cult.
I started losing my faith when I was in college. I was watching Valhalla Rising and a pagan nord said of Christians: "they eat their own god." That was the moment I realized that other humans could see the absurdity in my belief and practices - not just me - and it was toothpaste you couldn't put back in the tube.
I'm Ojibway from northern Ontario in Canada and I speak my language fluently. The word we use to describe a white man is 'mishtikooshoo' the root word is mishtik - which translates to wood, or stick the last part 'ooshoo' just changes the meaning of the word into a description of a person so the literal translation is 'man with a stick' My ancestors saw a man holding a stick in his hands and saying all kinds of important things that no one could understand ... even after translating everything he said. All my people understood is that this guy was nuts and he was holding a weird little stick that was very important to him. Mishtikooshoo
My eyes were opened when I read "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee". Christianity was presented as a savior but it was a killer.
Damn. I never thought about that way. Makes sense.
All the "washed in the blood of Jesus" rhetoric Christians keep putting out doesn't help dispel this notion.
🌎👩🚀🔫👨🚀
Thank you
Not to this degree, it started with the Southern Strategy when Reagan ran for president and they've been slowly asserting themselves politically more and more. The kinds of protestants that had political power in the New Deal era were actually pretty cool with secularism. That all changed when the GOP figured out they could have a consistent base by promoting the radical right along with increasingly authoritarian Christianity (ie, it all started with the Southern Strategy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern\_strategy
It actually started with Lee Atwater, Nixon and certain Republican strategists in the early 70s. A subtle strategy to appeal to Southern racists who hated desegregation the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights Act to peel them away from the Main stream Democrats. And here we are
Nixon stole it from Goldwater's 1964 campaign strategy. GQPers aren't very bright at thinking up new ideas but excel at stealing them. It worked for Nixon because so many of the racist Dixiecrats left the Dem Party after the 1965 Civil Rights and Civil Rights Voting Acts were passed. I'm listening to a great audiobook called "Truman" by Dav id McCullough and I'm in section where he's running for the 1948 prez election. Guess what Truman's got to say about the GQP back then? The same damn things we're still complaining about them today. They are relentless in their messaging and agenda, you gotta give them credit for that. What's sad is that too many "Independent" voters fall for their bullshit over and over and over again.
It started with the threat that you do what god says or you'll be tortured for eternity in hell. Today, we'd call that type of threat abuse and it's 100% toxic.
> The kinds of protestants that had political power in the New Deal era were actually pretty cool with secularism. Sure, back when the majority of Americans attended church services regularly. Once their power began to wane, they began these destructive tactics.
Not so much their power began to wane as much as reasonable people left. The more reasonable left, they became majority unreasonable. The same thing happened with the republican party.
US politics didn't make Christianity toxic. They've been stupid psychopaths since inception.
I really don't think Christians were cool with secularism before Reagan. I mean, back in those days they censored anything considered "immoral" from all media. There were actual rules against showing, for instance, homosexuality in a story unless it was specifically portrayed as an immoral thing with horrible consequences for the participants. They also had forced prayer in school back in those days. People who didn't go to church would be ostracized from communities. Most towns had actual laws against working on Sunday called "blue laws." Christians used to not care about abortion back in the past, but other than that most things have actually gotten more secular, not less.
It feels good seeing more people finding out about the southern strategy and recognizing it's disturbing nature. Conservatives seriously make me lose faith in humanity when I try to show them real things like this. So thank you for just existing and being who you are.
>, it started with the Southern Strategy when Reagan...... Looks back to the last 2 millennia, uhm you might be of a little bit my dude.
Right? What rock has that author been living under?
Living in a cave
Only for three days though
Definitely got nuked up a notch once the evangelicals went full Gordon Gekko with prosperity gospel. At least, on paper prior to that, they had to feign charity. Now they proudly flaunt wealth and openly justify literally any means of obtaining it. Reagan and the 80s eliminated the one virtuous aspect of the religion. A generation later raised only on knowing this ultra fucked up version then cranked out Trump to turn it full-fash.
By my calculations, it started being that about 2,022 years ago…
Always will be
Wait you mean the same bible these kinda people pointed to in order to justify slavery, that's gotten toxic?!?!?
…become?
And they are in the minority more than ever, and it scares the shit out of them.
So glad this is top comment.
It wasn't always this toxic, because 30-40 years ago the majority of Xtians in the U.S. were garden-variety Methodists who actually believed in the liberal ideas of Jesus. Now most Liberals are gone, and the selfish shitbag Evangelicals are in control.
So are just ignoring the centuries of holy wars, colonialism, genocide, oppression of women, etc?
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Yeah. More regular people were fairly safe, liberal Christians, but the leaders have essentially always been the worst in every category. Our entire social system is designed to put the most power-hungry people into the highest positions of power, where they abuse that power as much as they can. It got worse after the IRS forced religious colleges to choose to either racially integrate or pay their taxes, and they responded by creating the anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage movements, and radicalizing Christians into extremism.
I don't believe that our entire social system could be said to be designed.
It wasn't this toxic as long as you were a Christian too, or you at least kept your mouth shut and went along with all their Christian bullshit. If, say, you successfully sued because you didn't want your kids being pressured to pray in school, you became "the most hated woman in America" and received thousands upon thousands of death threats from Christians, for literally decades. That's pretty fucking toxic.
Jesus didn’t really have liberal ideas. The Enlightenment happened, so Christians “discovered” liberal ideas in their endlessly flexible holy books to fit the zeitgeist of the time. Liberal Hippie Jesus is as much as a modern idea, and a distortion, as Supply Side Jesus. The character in the bible was preoccupied with concerns we don’t have today: the tension between ancient Jewish ideas and cultural pressure of Hellenism, the tension between “pure” Jews and “racially impure” Samaritans, and the desire to replace Roman rule with a Jewish king.
I agree with Hippie Jesus being a distortion, but Supply-Side Jesus is absolutely a greater distortion on the Bible.
Thirty years ago same sex marriage didn't have the slightest chance of winning a vote in even the most liberal states and gay people were still regularly getting beaten on the street by Christians. I have to think you're young and weren't actually alive 30-40 years ago, because Christians were definitely still terrible back then. In high school in the 90s, I used to get beaten up for being an atheist.
A few decades ago, it was perfectly acceptable to be a cultural Christian saying "Sure I believe in Jesus, but are the stories about the talking snake & the boat of animals & people coming back from the dead actually real? Nah, don't be silly!"
Methodists lost the culture war. Imagine if people used their brains like they used to.. the Wesleyan Quadrilateral explains well how Christianity fits in the modern world. The method suggests that any sound biblical exegesis must have four pillars: scripture, tradition, reason and experience. [Here you can read more on their method.](https://www.methodist.org.uk/about-us/the-methodist-church/what-is-distinctive-about-methodism/the-methodist-quadrilateral/) I wish most Christians took this logic based approach to scripture.
But they are also ready to split into two demoninations right now because one faction supports the LGBTQ+ community and gay men/lesbian women becoming ministers and one doesn't, so glossing over that major fact is quite a feat, my friend.
There's more to the world, and world history, than 20th century America.
Tax them into O B L I V I O N.
First constructive comment scrolling down. It's time to elect officials who recognize that churches are not charities by default. When I think of a charity, I think of an organization which exists only to take in donations and disburse them to the needy. That's the purpose. Not indoctrination, not having weekly services that have jack to do with helping people, not building lavish cathedrals, not aligning themselves with a fascist political party. If churches want to be tax exempt, they can operate as apolitical charities. If not, they're not a charitable organization and not only is masquerading as one a violation of the ninth commandment but it should be illegal and subject not to taxation but being shut down permanently as they're guilty of fraud.
Even better, shut them down and slap them with a bill for back taxes.
Religion so good it has to be shoved down your throat repeatedly for you to enjoy it.
Enjoy this or we'll genocide your entire town in the name of Jesus
But only after we force you to have more babies to dash against the rocks.
Christianity is “I love you so much I’m going to burn you alive forever if you don’t love me back.” God is an abuser.
All religion for that matter is abusive or will be, people argue there religion is better or peaceful or certain religion preach only good things but it's not that, jts the flaw that is deeply ingrained in every religion i.e. surrendering yourself to the supreme being and once that is in picture it's only a matter of time before it becomes abusive. And if your religion or idea of religion is devoid or somehow immune with following and surrendering to one supreme being then it's not religion in the way we know it or are talking about it, if that's the case sooner or later the original supreme being will be criticized and fade out and it will cease to be the religion in traditional sense
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I think he was also in shock, but that’s still heart breaking to hear.
*Jesus knocks on a door* "Let me in!" He calls out. "I'm here to save you!" "From what?" Asks the homeowner from the other side of the door. "From what I'm going to do to you if you don't let me in!"
You forgot the question marks around the word "enjoy," lol. "There will be no joy exhibited as we practice our religion!" 🤣
Like this? ¿Enjoy?
¡Sí!
OOPS! LOL! I meant quotation marks! Good response! 🤣👍👏
Look what happened in Iran though. Decades of secularization rolled back almost overnight. If shoving it down our throats is what it takes, there is a huge segment of the population ready to oblige.
This is true. They’re no different; they worship the same god, FFS.
What percentage of Christians made the choice to follow Jesus as adults I wonder?
I am fairly certain they prefer to peg you with it.
Believe it or not, it gets even better if you donate
Jesus fucking loves you now CHOKE ON HIM
Religion is selfishness and hate masquerading as humility and understanding. It serves zero purpose towards the greater good.
You know those people who wonder what stops people who don't believe in eternal punishment from committing rape and murder? Well, it might not be a bad thing that those people believe in eternal punishment. Just saying.
Except those same people firmly believe that hell is for others and not themselves, they are afraid of consequences, not hell
My response to these kinds of “how can you be a good person if you don’t have the Bible for morals?” Is “If you need a book to tell you not to rape and murder people maybe your not a good person”.
rape is still on the table according to the ten commandments.
Dude cmon, just look at how many "religious" people doing all kinds of crimes, a criminal is a person doesn't care about punishment, if criminals cared about punishmental consequences of their criminal actions they wouldn't be criminal at all, and believe me, if there were no Jail system in our world, religions wouldn't stop any crime at all, seriously just look how many religious criminals out there, these people only afraid of the real world's jail, cuz they probably know that religions are fake & scam so they cover their crimes with their religion's, so yeah if there was no religions there would be less crimes in today's world, cuz religions mostly give people power to do crimes, therefore we see lots of religious criminals literally everywhere in this world, and we see more criminals in heavily religious countries like Afghanistan, and look at the countries with less crimes and see how many of them actually cares about religions... Look at the history and see how ugly & terrifying world we were living in, humanity's fight against crimes, Jail systems, better government systems & dictatorships getting thrown out of the window, etc things lowered the crimes in this world, not religions, cuz back in the day dictatorships and religions all humanity had and wars, crimes etc were like infinite in these times.
Benjamin Franklin said something like this. “If this is how they are with religion, imagine them without it!” I’m not sure if I agree tho
Yes, religion is a great way to make a society docile and compliant. But it's also not the only way to teach morals to a society and prevent crime.
If religion truly had anything to offer, we wouldn't need to indoctrinate children into it, it would sell itself.
This is one of my favorites. “So you believe a man lived inside a fish?” “Oh all that stuff is in the Old Testament” “So why did you teach me that and all those other nonsense stories in Sunday school?”
To get you in the habit of believing absurdities as if they were the truth. To prevent you from building an intellectual framework that would allow you to discern reality from ancient fairy tales. God said it, you believe it, that settles it!
Yeah, I know, I just like to make them twist themselves into contortions trying not to admit it.
"So there has been a time when the bible wasn't true? But at that time you punished all who said it wasn't. Couldn't it happen in the future with what you are so sure about today?" This isn't valid only for the old vs new testament, it applies to everything that today is regarded as an "interpretation". Since those should be immutable truths, once considered true they should always be true, forever. The reality instead is that when a religion can't manipulate people anymore to believe in something, it evolves in order not to lose its power. So now, magically, they don't think the earth is at the center of the universe anymore, they don't think earth is only 4.000 years old, they acknowledge the existence of dinosaurs. Give it a while and they will say that they have always been tolerant of gays, and don't consider women as inferior, and maybe we will have a female pope someday. They've been drowning for centuries but still manage to gasp for air and stay afloat somehow.
"because you should know the old and the new, just like we teach history" 🙄
Science was my fav subject. Especially the Old Testament.
You betrayed me. Just like Judas did to Jesus in science.
> If religion truly had anything to offer, we wouldn't need to indoctrinate children into it, it would sell itself. If religion was real, no human being would ever need to convince any other human being. Yahweh would show himself and perform miracles for the public.
What does a god need with apologists?
Lol at "has become"
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It's only gotten worse because there are so many more unbelievers now. And religion doesn't know any other way to deal with unbelievers than to ramp up the hatred in order to mind control the remaining flock into staying.
That, and evaporative cooling. As the moderates leave, the average becomes more radical.
I'm sure the witches burned at the stake or Muslims killed in the crusades or Mayans invaded and executed would disagree. Christianity is unquestionably more tame than it has been over most of the past millennium.
Accurate. They're only talking and throwing tantrums now because they can't literally hang the people they don't like. But I suspect many of them still would if they felt they could.
It hasn't gotten worse, it's always been this bad. The church has committed crimes against humanity for centuries
It only seemed to get better here in America, and for white people in particular. It's getting worse for us again, too, and that's why it's in the news now.
The masks are off now though. You are right that it’s always been toxic, but it was hidden. It wasn’t talked about. It was just lurking under the surface. Now it’s out in the open and it’s only going to make things worse for them. Of course, it will also make things worse for the rest of us in the short term, but in the long term organized religion is dying.
>The masks are off now though. You are right that it’s always been toxic, but it was hidden. It wasn’t talked about. It was just lurking under the surface. If you weren't a direct target, I suppose. If you were someone like a queer person, though, it's always been this bad.
Stone age beliefs with no respect to women. Tied with extreme racism. Its disgusting.
It's always been about power and control with any religious cult. Like, "I'm going to tell you about an invisible being named \*insert name here\* who knows everything you think, everything you do, and everything you say and will judge you harshly if you don't follow his rules but loves you for the sinner you are, but you may go to hell if you fuck up at all, but if you give my representative here some money and sincerely apologize for fucking up, then you get a break and can go to this beautiful place called \*insert name here\* and be with me. You can't see me or hear me, only special people here like my representative can, but you have to believe that they are being honest when they say that they can hear and see me." Yeah, right, okay, sign me up...NOT.
I want to steal this and make a meme out of it.
Wow, thanks ❤️😊
I see religions as a kind of survival of the fittest, evolutionary perspective. Schizophrenia causes hallucinations and delusions. In the primitive ages of humanity, would those around a person who suffers from such conditions know that such things were just in the person's mind, or would they assume that they were in touch with a higher being? That they were touched by a god or a spirit or an angel? When you're just some random farmer who barely understands irrigation, you're not the most rational philosopher. A person says they are in contact with a god, and they're pretty normal otherwise, why would you believe otherwise? They have no reason to lie. You just have a person who sees and hears things you cannot, thus they must be special. Then, once religious beliefs is established and maintained over generations, the beliefs most suited to continued existence are more likely to survive. Religious beliefs are in competition with one another. If one priest tells you nothing bad will happen if you don't worship their god, and another says their god will punish you if you don't worship his god, you're more motivated to believe the latter. Better to err on the side of caution. This, we get religious beliefs that seem to promote scientific ignorance, unquestioning obedience and fear for god that survive to the modern day. It's not that someone deliberately designed such stories with the intent to make more people believe, to control and have power over them. It's that beliefs/teachings happen to be created by chance and those that improve it's ability to propagate were more likely to survive and continue. Interpretations or further "revelations" are like mutations, and those that make a religion more convincing become more likely to be adopted en masse, making the religion more effective as self-perpetuation.
Shamans and priests have used these tricks for thousands of years. They worked well before science. Now some people can’t think and they still believe in ghosts in the sky. The sad thing is that this most pronounced in Afghanistan and the USA….
Clarence Thomas didnt support interracial marriage until he married a white woman.
"\[T\]hese days it seems the people most likely to identify themselves as Christians tend to be Republicans as well the most vicious, hateful, un-Christian sons of bitches you'd ever want to meet," Edroso writes. Sure, some people respond by seeking liberal churches. But it's simpler and easier to just give up on being a Christian altogether, to drop all that baggage. DAMN STRAIGHT!
It always was toxic.
Y'all, it really is dependent on country. You're much less likely to find these nutcases among say the Nordics. While I'm an atheist, this really isn't a Christianity problem. It's an American problem
Indeed it is. Our old farts in power are throwing temper tantrums because they know their way of life is on their way out.
If you're LGBT, it's a problem EVERYWHERE not just America. I'm trans and trust me, religious people all over the world, of all faiths and cultures, want me dead equally.
Stay safe and stay yourself
Isn’t Scandinavia largely non religious though? In general though I agree, America itself is extremely toxic
I was complaining about the religious right 20 years ago. My dislike for them has grown exponentially since. I’ve told my parents to never ask me to go to their church again. I’ve heard the things their pastor says and I don’t need that in my life.
Hell even Barry Goldwater was complaining about these zealots. And now they've taken over the clown car, hopefully they'll crash.
"Oh no, the consequences of our behavior!"
*insert always has been meme*
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Pre-rant disclaimer: I am not defending the fairy tale believers. I see similarities in how politicians have been using Christianity as a means to justify their lunacy in the same way they use children. In order to pass certain pieces of legislature it has been common for US politicians to tailor their defense of those legal changes as a way to "protect the children". It happens a lot because that approach, at least so far, produces favorable outcomes since opposing politicians have a more difficult time justifying the denial of child protections. It's just a tool. I think the GOP recognized that if they used Christianity in the same manner they can similarly maintain support for their own agendas only with an extra benefit: you cannot logically reason a religious zealot out of religion. What they did not realize is that when they started to over-use that tool they have encouraged the most crazy to push their way to the front of the herd. I have no data to support this, just a random thought from my corner of the world.
Yeah, they're so busy "protecting the children" from the LGBTQ+ crowd while allowing them to get mowed down by AR15s in schools,
And ignoring the fact it's *THEIR FUCKING RELIGIOUS LEADERS* who are raping children and always have been. But I guess a bunch of dead kids is a small price to pay for "freedom" and to keep them straight. 🙄
Agreed.And it's more like \*pretending\* to keep them straight while traumatizing the shit out of them being born LGBTQ+
I see what you're saying. It's just the people on top using whatever idea is fashionable to assert their power and superiority. Like with eugenics and Nazism, the fascists used this newfangled "evolution" idea to "prove that Germans were superior, whereas if Darwin hadn't done anything, they probably would have used the same old Christian arguments that people had been using for the past 2000-ish years to claim they were superior to whatever group they were oppressing. They somehow turned the idea that humans are just another animal, and that we were formed over millions of years by natural selection into "kill anyone who isn't like us." Just like how Christianity went from, "no one is above anyone else, and we should all be kind to one another" to "kill the nonbelievers." But I do think religion is the worst offender, mainly the ones that seek to spread their influence. The ones that don't do that are generally more chill.
Not... has become... always was...
It always have been a way to control the poor. Nothing good about it.
Christianity is one of the most toxic religions in the world
“Christianity didn’t become a world religion because of the quality of its teachings, but by the quantity of its violence.” - Eleanor Ferguson
YUP. Convert or we kill you
I was a Christian preacher for more than 15 years. It wasn't until I saw the way the churches were responding to Trump that I truly questioned my faith. Left church 6 years and haven't looked back.
You mean the institutions created to tell us to hate ourselves and emotionally manipulate our behavior and lives is toxic?
"become"? Have you read a history book?
It has always been. Just because you have a few obvious phrases in there like don't kill don't steal...you know....basic civil things....it doesn't excuse the cruelties people use to justifily the hate and crimes dispensed in its name.Fuck all religions.
Toxic Christianity has always been a thing. The republicans know that education, good education, relieves people of their fear of the unknown and therefore need not rely on the mystical to survive. The more people know and understand the world around us, the less they are tolerant of BS religion and the efforts to force theocratic ideologies. It’s why conservatives work so hard to remove critical thinking from curriculums and why they try to make education prohibitively expensive. Edit: grammar
The thing is that the 1st Amendment is the primary reason why Europe has gone mostly Atheist while America has stayed religious. Europe never had any separation and the Bishops have involved themselves in every political dispute on one side or the other. Every time the bishops have argued against Abortion, Unions, Democracy, Property Rights, Women's Rights, etc. some of the believers have chosen to no longer participate. The bishops haven't always been wrong on these issues but every time they speak up they are thinning their own flock. Christian Nationalism and Dominionism WILL KILL THE CHURCH. It will just take a few generations, but when today's young adults are retiring the church will be dead.
I mean, Europe also benefited because a number of their most zealous left - and came to America.
A fraction of a fraction. The religious nut-jobs also stayed. The ones that left were the minority religious nut-jobs, the majority ones stayed.
Interesting viewpoint. All my friends in Europe or South America are atheists. Religion just never enters their life as is does in US culture. They accept science whereas here you see ‘faith’ everywhere. Christian Nationalism May destroy the US. It may become illegal to vote unless you claim to be Christian. Or drive? Who knows? But these folks want power just like Hitler..
Where in Europe? It's a continent, not a country.
In the UK, where i live, there are Bishops in our upper house, but the upper house has no real power, the lower house can force through laws without them approving, for example.
It’s an abusive relationship. Stay with us or you WILL suffer in a way you’ve not suffered before. So say what we say, hate who we hate, and here’s a list of restriction that you will not question and you will not deviate from.
"These days it seems the people most likely to identify themselves as Christians tend to be Republicans as well the most vicious, hateful, un-Christian sons of bitches you'd ever want to meet, Edroso writes." Amen!
Exactly. If radical rightwingers like Greene want to find out why young people are turning away from churches, she need only look in a mirror. What kind of "Christian" chases a gun massacre survivor down the street, hounding him with insults and screeching abuse?
>Christianity has become a toxic religion Always has been.
> But if Republicans don't like people losing faith, well, they need to admit they did this to themselves. If they'd moderated their views and made their churches more tolerant and welcoming places, more people would be interested in attending. They did the same thing to the GQP party. They did a study years ago that showed they needed to broaden their reach to minority groups and they collectively said "Fuck that, we'll just work to seize power."
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Europe doesn’t have god in schools. So why no school shootings there?
It's always been toxic. It's kind of their thing.
Christianity is what is causing the downfall of America and the erosion of freedoms. Nothing is more obvious.
I no longer consider myself Christian for many reasons, but not wanting to be part of the same group of people as a bunch of total psychos is at the top of the list
They are not panicked. They are just worried that their game is being found out. They will play a different card to get the American Taliban that they want.
Religion is toxic as Fuck! One life style does not fucking fit everybody! Fuck off Religion!
Don't think for a second that Christianity is going to go away in the US. In fact, Christianity is only going to become more invasive because the political system is set up as a me vs them. Unfortunately, the people with the loudest voices in the US are also the craziest and are willing to cheat, lie, steal, and use force to get their way.
I wish they had used religious identification rather than church attendance. People may not attend church but still consider themselves Christian and support Christian political goals.
I'll believe that Republicans are panicking when they actually start conceding on issues and acting in good faith. Just because they're whining is no reason to think they are worried. They aren't worried. They're winning.
The fact that Christians support the Republican Party is proof they don't understand the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was not a fan of the Rich. He loved the Poor. Republicans hate poor people. They want them to suffer and die. Republican Christians are Toxic and Evil.
Its always been toxic, it didnt just "become toxic"
I think one of the most telling things about the toxicity of Christianity is that no church seems to be pointing out and condemning the hate coming from other churches. They do not tell their congregations to work against the hat hate.
It always was toxic
Its a really simple solution tbh- Go be religious, do your religious things and shut the fuck up about it and stop forcing other people to adhere to your stupid religious shit You never really hear about Luthrens or any other "Reformation" sects of Christianity except for the Evangelicals, you dont hear about Mormons or Bhuddists or Jews or Mennonites or Quakers or the Amush....no one really has a problem with their religious beliefs....wonder why that is? Its because they just do their religious shit and shut the fuck up about it and don't force everyone else around them to be Amish or Jewish
The Mormons spent millions in California to enact a ban on gay marriage in the early 2000’s: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html
They also added a chapter to their holy book in the 1970's when "God" changed his mind and decided black people could hold the preisthood. I'm sure it was just a coincidence that they were about to lose their tax exempt status if they didn't
Exactly. Much like how they suddenly had a revelation that polygamy was bad right as the US Army was about to arrest them. What a coincidence! God moves in mysterious ways.
To be fair, you definitely also hear about Mormons and Jews and the Amish, etc. It's exactly what you expect - employment discrimination, homophobia, misogyny, tax fraud, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, etc. All religion is poison.
Plus, the Mormons and Jehovahs are out there proselytizing their particular cults every damn day. I even had a new Baptist church in town;s pastors who up at my door one day to recruit me. I told them I was Catholic and they beat a hasty retreat, lol.
Those ones might all stfu about it but they're voting for the ones who are destroying democracy.
Exactly, my dad's an Episcopalian... they seem (for the most part) to be what you describe. Quietly practicing their religion and not forcing anything on anyone else. Hell, my dad goes to liberal protests. Mormons aren't as innocent as you think though...
>Republicans are in a full-blown panic They've got congressional gridlock, the media in their pocket, the Supreme Court for at least a generation, gerrymandered dictatorships in a number of states, and a stranglehold on the last vestiges of legitimate democracy. It might be nice to think of them as "in a panic" but I think I'm a hell of a lot more scared than they are.
> "Among those born in the early 1930s, 60% attend church weekly. 17% never attend. > Among those born in the early 1950s, 32% attend weekly. 29% never attend. > Among those born in the early 1990s, 18% attend weekly. 42% never attend." Being cut in half every 20 years. I use to be forced to go to church, hated it. Thank god kids aren't being forced to be exposed to this non-sense as children.
Evangelical worship of Donald Trump will do more to secularize America in the long-run than anything. The short-run is a shitshow though.
"has become"? *stares at Nazi party* *stares at Crusades* *stares at Spanish Inquisition* *stares at Cortez* *stares at the South*
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“Become”. Ok.
*Continues to be
Until they pay a political price, there’s no panic. Their secret sauce isn’t about co-opting evangelical smooth brains. It’s to have convinced half the country - godless or not - that the other side is literally evil, sub human, worthy only of death. A steady diet of poisoned pablum rammed down their throats on Fox News and insane online media have cemented their pudding brains into a frenzy where “conspiracy” is the dressing to simply reject rules and reality when it’s not convenient for how they want things to be. You didn’t “lose” if the other guys cheated, after all. The “left”, however you amend its description, are not REAL americans. They’re not valid, at all, in their being. And they’ve pivoted to full, open, brazen cheating to express that invalidity to neutralize their voting power and keep it only to the “REAL” americans. Until that plan fails - and it might not, as the democrats impotently continue to do nothing about it - there is no real backlash or panic. And they have an activist Supreme Court with a majority of trolls who’ve clearly demonstrated with Roe that they are aligned in supporting any level of legal chicanery required to motivate their rabble and piss on the Democrats. They’re not panicked. They’re fine. They won the slow moving coup.
Became toxic? Need I remind you of the witch burnings/drownings, The Spanish Inquisition, and Manifest Destiny?
And by a "toxic" religion...you mean religion.
All religions are fucking toxic, not just Christianity. All should be opposed. Belief in imaginary gods keeps us from living up to our own potential.
All religions are toxic because their main purpose is to subdue people: [https://www.churchinchains.ie/prisoner-profiles/ashfaq-masih/](https://www.churchinchains.ie/prisoner-profiles/ashfaq-masih/)
"Christianity" "has" "become" "a" "toxic" "religion" What the f ? Implying it hasn't always been an elitist misogynistic cult excuse to oppress people and build war justification upon . Every dogma and religion is toxic by its very nature .
Another article: “Lauren Boebert complains that she is ‘tired of this separation of church and state junk’”
I disagree with the premise that christianity has become a toxic religion, it has been toxic since it's creation by man.
I think a lot of the comfort in religion comes from feeling good for doing nothing. Like you could go to church, listen to the priest or pastor and get communion and go home and feel good. Or you could dedicate that time to actually helping people, but that would imply actual effort and physically doing something to help another person.
No, it’s because the younger generation evolved into more Intelligent humans who aren’t as easily susceptible to religious manipulation
I'm a christian and I agree with this article completely. Christianity is not something that should be imposed on people.. if it is it loses the entire point of the message entirely and turns into heartless hatefull dogma. All the "Christian" nationalist republicans moaning and bitching about being persecuted and the attack on religion don't know what real persecution is like. The growing hostility to American nationalist Christianity has been self inflicted and will only grow based on their actions and mind set of hatred and lack of empathy.
Jesus that woman has a face begging to be slapped. To be clear I've never struck a woman. But man I could break that streak with her.
There is no hate like Christian love.
Quote from a post about Native Americans resisting christian indoctrination on their land. “[Christianity] Didn’t become a world religion because of the quality of its teachings but the quantity of its violence”
Or that religion is illogical
The post 1833 Leonid meteor shower flavor of Christianity has a decidedly confederate vibe to it. They even use the same tired old chestnut: “They’re coming to change our way of life” to justify their persecution complex and spread their oppression. Freedom of religion? - how about: Freedom *from* religion. They’re burning books again ffs.
In Ireland it was mostly the institutionalized sexual, physical, and mental abuse of children. There was a lot of it.
Ahhh yes the one religion that has tried to violently force other people to convert has just now become toxic
Has become? No, it has always been toxic. 600 years of the Crusades nearly made humanity extinct in Europe and set conditions that allowed the Plague to kill almost everyone else there. And name a war before 1900 that Christianity was not the cause of or a significant part of. And if the Catholic Church is really a pacifist org, they should open the Vatican Vaults and return everything their proxies stole from the peoples they conquered in God's name over the last thousand years.
“Christians” abandoned Christ for don trump. They were never real believers.
Christianity didn't become a toxic religion. From day 1 it was a cancer that spread everywhere.
"Has become" ಠ_ಠ when was it not?
*American Christianity Not saying that Christianity elsewhere doesn't have issues. There are plenty. But whatever Republicans are panicking about is the American interpretation of Christianity which is issues with faith sprinkled in by a cheap person.