This is exactly why there needs to be a separation between church and state. How can you trust someone to run the country, when all their decisions are grounded in magical thinking?
In the UK you can even make an affirmation if you are not religious or your religion forbids you from taking an oath. This as brought in originally for the Quakers but anyone who objects to Christian oaths has this option.
When I did jury service I took the secular route, though I wouldn't have strongly objected to swearing the traditional oath either. I quite like the idea God is personally nosing into the daily business of HM Courts and Tribunals, although judging by the backlog he abandoned the justice system long ago.
Separation of church and state is different from separation of state and religious laymen. The majority of the population are religious so excluding them would be worse democratically than excluding women. What's actually meant by separation of church and state is that people working in the church (priests, Bishops, popes) shouldn't meddle with the running of the state. Nothing to do with religious laymen.
If a religious layman is motivated by his religion to make policies that you don't agree with you should not vote for that person. If anyone else agrees with his religiously motivated policies then they should be allowed to vote for that person. I don't think this is too crazy of a concept. Now if that specific religiously motivated policy happens to be unconstitutional that is a totally different matter.
Is religious persecution and pogroms allowed in the constitution? Also systematically disallowing religious people from office is a form of religious persecution.
Mmmm, no that's what the First Amendment is partially for. The government shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. I have a right to be a Satanist in peace without yokels shoving their way of life down my throat
If a lawmaker bans satanism or enacts a law that otherwise discriminates against satanists. Then that's not allowed. But what wouldn't be a problem would be a religious lawmaker on a totally secular subject. Like the example I gave in another comment how one could in theory loosen immigration restriction by quoting the parable of the good Samaritan. That law would not be religious law, even if the law maker was motivated by his religious belief.
It’s not too crazy of a concept but is absolutely not what separation of church and state means. It’s crazy that you think this is what it means.
You can’t have the majority forcing their religion onto the minority. That’s the exact reason we have separation of church and state. To protect the people who will never win an election.
Separation of church and state is different from separation of state and religious laymen.
Fucking lies!. And it’s a bald faced lie that results in “In God We Trust” on our money.
There is either a separation or there is not. There is no in between. It is binary and that’s the end of it. Anyone who attempts to negotiate an in-between is a FUCKING LIAR
E PLURIBUS UNUM
And if you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with democracy
It's not a lie. That's how the very inventor of the term "separation of church and state" defined it and how it has been used for hundreds of years after. Roger Williams, who first used the term, was a puritan, later baptist, pastor. What you're describing would be an innovation and expansion of what separation of church and state means. It seems what you really want is a separation between religion and state. That is a totally different issue. In the future it would be advantageous for you to be clear on that and explicitly say that it's religion, not just church, that you want to exclude from the state.
I'm curious though. Which people would you want to exclude from the government. Church goers are obvious. But what about the "spiritual but not religious" people? Or people who believe in ghosts but not god? What about natives who believe their native religions? The non god believing buddhist? Who would define if someone is religious enough to be disallowed from running for office? Whoever that person was, that person would get immense power.
I'm fine with you insulting me. However I'm still interested to learn where you would draw the line between the non religious and the religious in your proposed ban of religious people in political office.
If I'm fine with having religious laymen in government and you're also fine with having religious laymen in government then I'm not sure on what we disagree.
I have no problem with people having religious beliefs...in private. But, as far as I'm concerned, as soon as those religious beliefs start dictating your policy priorities...you have lost your ability to make objective decisions on behalf of the rest of us. That goes equally for "laymen" as well as "professionals".
This case is a perfect example. Anyone openly saying that they're just going to "follow their faith", even if it leads us all to total destruction, needs to be removed from office. Yesterday. I wouldn't even trust that person to drive a city bus, let alone guide policy for the entire population.
I agree that if a religious laymen uses religion to make bad policies then he shouldn't be in office. However democracy is supposed to represent the people and if the people want to elect a religious nutjob then that's a failure of the people, not the democratic system. You can't make a law that says religious people can't run for office as that would be extremely undemocratic and go against religious freedom.
You can't make a law that says religious people can't run for office...but you can make a law that says they can't make policy based on their religious beliefs.
That's what the 1st amendment is supposed to prevent.
I'm not American so correct me if I'm wrong. But wasn't the first amendment about disallowing the government from establishing or favoring a specific religious establishment. Meaning it would be illegal to say make a law that favors or teaches baptism in school at the expense of another Christian flavor. What I understand of the history behind freedom of religion in the US was that people were sick of the UK mandating the very specific theology of the Anglican church and instead wanting a system where people were allowed to practice any flavor of Christianity that they wanted. From this it would be no problem being a religious person in office but it would not be okay for that person to give benefits or favor to their specific church while in office.
Not making policy based on religious belief would be impossible however. One's religion would impact one's entire morality and value system. So one could say we should enact policy X because the bible says so. But one couldn't say we should enact policy X because the southern baptist Convention just made a ruling that policy X should be enacted and now we have to make a law that matches that ruling.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
It is as you said...primarily as a freedom to practice whatever religion you want...but this also effectively prohibits any government official from enacting any policy or legislation that promotes their own religious beliefs over any other, since it may conflict with the free practice of someone else's religion.
In essence, it prevents the state from getting involved in religious matters altogether.
prohibits any government official from enacting any policy or legislation that promotes their own religious beliefs over any other, since it may conflict with the free practice of someone else's religion.
Okay, so Christianity says we can't kill people. But jihadism exists in Islam. Then the law must allow killing by Islamists to avoid being based on Christian beliefs and restricting jihadists' practice?
But I could in theory promote a secular policy based on my theoretical religious belief. Say I want to lower barriers to immigration and as motivation I quote the parable of the good Samaritan saying that even foreigners should be treated as ones neighbour. Now in doing this I'm letting my religious belief affect my policy making. However I'm not inhibiting anyone else's free practice of religion since this is secular policy.
The original comment said: " How can you trust someone to run the country, when all their decisions are grounded in magical thinking?"
This in regards to the need to have a separation of church and state on a post about JD Vance being religiously motivated in the decisions he's making. I interpret this as the person seeing the existence of JD Vance as a failure of "separation of church and state" and that this separation needs to become stronger. However JD Vance is not part of the clergy. He's simply a religious layman. No church is running this government and therefore the current separation of church and state doesn't apply.
So then my question to you is, how would you by law prevent another JD Vance from being elected, for the explicit reason that he uses religion to make decisions, without banning religious people from political office ?
I can't find a good solution to this without making thought crime a thing. A religious person would be unable to see certain issues without some kind of perspective from their religion.
Holy fuck do you think separation of church and state only means that we can’t have the equivalent of the Holy Roman Emperor? Like
You actually think the first amendment is about stopping the church from running the government?
The down votes on this are insane to me. He just gave the original definition of the separation of church and state.
Every elected representative should only be bound by existing laws and their own conscience. That means that if someone chooses to listen to sky daddy or the flying spaghetti monster while in elected office, that's up to them. It sucks, but you can't have a democracy in which you tell people what the basis for their decisions must be. If the people elect an Astrologer to office that person should be free to base their decisions on the movement of Jupiter through Sagittarius or whatever.
Democracy is designed to empower the statistical average will of the people. Not produce "best" (by whatever measure) outcomes for the country. Just what people want.
No. Democracy is definitionally "Vote what you want to vote for."
Ideally people vote for what they think is best for the country/the world/your peers.
But part of democracy (and a rather important part) is that NOBODY GETS TO TELL ANYBODY WHAT TO VOTE FOR AND WHY (within the legal confines of what allowed political expression is). So yes. A lot of people vote for what they think will be best for them. And people often make fun of people that vote for things that will be bad for them (see the whole leopards eating faces meme culture).
So "voting to benefit one self" can not be a crazy concept to you...
Of course. But I'm obviously not talking about advertisement or debate. I'm talking about coercing votes or decisions. I figure that's pretty obvious from context.
Which makes a lot of sense when you remember a lot of the North American population hailed from families who had a specific beef with a specific church and state; the role of bishops was one of these many axis of opposition during the conflict in Britain and Ireland.
The English Civil War and its aftermath is barely taught on either side of the Atlantic, yet it's so important to understanding both countries' history. The per capita casualty rate was worse than WW1, no wonder people felt rather strongly about religion and in some cases still do
If you say the things these people say, but in Arabic, they are indistinguishable from bin laden, Khomeini, KSM, and all the other religious extremists that the US fears.
You know... this might be in bad taste perhaps. But maybe.. taking what these dipshits say, translating it to Arabic and overlaying it on a photo of the aforementioned, then putting it on Facebook, but be like "Can you believe what they're saying..." or "Not in my country!" or something. Once it's big enough, it'll come out naturally that Bin Laden didn't say it, the quote is some MAGA member saying it... idk, I think it might at least reach a few people once the messages are reframed/re-contextualized.
You give far too much faith on the general population's ability or willingness to actually read (and for the social media sites willingness to allow it to spread)
The gotcha style of persuasion doesn't really work in terms of getting people to reconsider their stance. It doesn't change people's opinion because it's a cheap and obvious gimmick. Feels good for you and people who already are aligned, basically the perfect example of an ideological circle jerk.
While it's hard to change some ones mind if they aren't open to change, it's also easy to turn people away from your cause if they see you aren't being genuine.
According to the Bible, there will be some sort of ultimate showdown between good and evil when the world ends. “Good” is preordained to win. Therefore, some religious nuts think that by helping the world to end, they’re helping fulfill god’s plan.
In my opinion, they’re just giving themselves license to be cruel, hateful bastards.
I don’t know the motivation of nuts who don’t claim to follow the Bible, but I suspect the previous sentence still applies.
I find it interesting that humans need to "fulfill gods plan". Clearly that god is not all powerful or it would not need a plan, it would just do as it pleases. That's what being a god is.
And this is why religion is so stupid, it's all made up and most of it is violence, suppression, repression, discrimination, hate & ignorance.
Rarely is there "love" or compassion coming from a religion.
When you tell yourself “It’s for the greater good”, you can make yourself do anything - especially when you believe in a god that allows war, and sits idly by while children die of cancer and starvation. You’re already doing a lot of mental gymnastics, so it just becomes one more trick.
I don't want to hear anyone ever again try to tell me that women can't be good leaders because they are too emotional or delusional. Look at this weirdo.
He is just playing to the base. This weasel will say anything and turn on a dime if it suits his purposes. Remember what he said about Trump before he became vice president...
The unknown is scary. Prophecy fills in that anxiety. Religion, especially the Abrahamic religion, is for the spiritually lazy. The jewish God (YHWH, God, Allah) is a usurper, a thief, and dominator of the material. We're all spiritual beings and we don't need lesser gods to connect with each other within this universe. I know it sounds kinda cheesy, but loving kindness should be our spiritual path in this material world.
Hard agree with you on this. YHWH was just a god of war and thunder before the other gods of the Judean pantheon got dropped. YHWH is violent, mean, needlessly cruel, and seems to genuinely relish in death and destruction. Death and destruction is pretty much the only tool YHWH knows how to use for the entire OT, and employs a "chosen people" to simply go about doing YHWH's killing for him. I have no idea where all the "love and peace" stuff is supposed to come from, it's a total 180 from YHWH's entire existence up to Jesus being some grassroots radical hippie. Who is, let's recall, killed in a needless cruel and terrible way because that's what suits YHWH's needs. No other reason.
Soul is a gestalt word that points to various conscious experiences and behaviours. Science still hasn't been able to find out what consciousness and qualia are. These are things that exist, yet can't be quantifiable. If you don't want to use the word "soul", that's okay, but to me it's a beautiful word that sometimes bites off more than it can chew.
I don't need a soul to understand that everything is connected, and to value a habitable planet. Not knowing exactly how to define consciousness doesn't imply you or I, or anyone else has a soul. I don't even find it comforting. In fact, the universe (excluding humans) is a whole lot more interesting without the idea of a soul.
If I wanted to "feel" a connection to the world I'd do drugs, but I'd much rather "understand" things empirically. Ecology is fascinating and important and I don't need a guru to see how everything is interconnected.
I'm not talking about wishy washy woowoo. I simply mean the connection from the external world to the inner. Even empirical data needs to connect and pass through your "soul/essence" to make any sense of it. You can use different words if you want to, but it's simply our own personal consciousness and behaviours that interact with existence.
Because their religion tells them they can fuck up this world and when it ends, they get into paradise because God will give them a universal Mulligan.
Reality: nothing happens, they become high fat worm food, then high fat worm shit.
I'm pretty sure most of them do. It's what they want. They think they're going to get spirited away to paradise and get to watch all the people they hate suffer through armageddon.
Went looking for context, and he just made that connection without prompting. They asked if we were in the end times and he rambled a bit using many words to say "don't know, but maybe" and basically took credit for hypothetical end times being because of him as if it were a cool outcome...
It's bad enough when these folks assert their work is "god's" work, but the "it'd be cool if my work causes the end time" angle is just....
It's because the context is 2 layers down. FactPostNews is anti-Trump and covering batshit crazy stuff like this. But the interview itself was with an Evangelical podcaster named Bryce Crawford. He directly and specifically asked Vance about the End Times. From an article on the interview and that specific quote:
"What do you think about the end times?" Bryce Crawford asked, referring to the Christian belief that the world as we currently know it will someday end, and that Jesus will return. "Do you think it's here? Do you think it's coming?"
Vance replied that he has "always been fascinated" by eschatology and stated that the Antichrist, a figure in Christian lore who will allegedly pose as a Jesus-like figure, may be "walking among us." The vice president also added that he is "ok" with his actions leading to the end times if that is what happens:
"Do I think that we're in the end times? I don't know. And I think that it's probably bad for me spiritually to focus too much on it because there are like, things that you gotta do. I gotta be good to my wife. I gotta be good to my kids. I have to be as good of a leader as I can for the United States of America. And so, I think that focusing on – while I'm fascinated by it – focusing on it is, too much of it can be very bad. I think that there are like, things about the world that make me feel like not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us. But again, I try not to focus too much on it....So, I tend to think like, while I wouldn't be shocked if we are living in the end times, what I'm trying to focus on is doing as much of God's work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, ok. And if that leads to you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I'm gone, that's great too."
As I said, Vance was asked if we were in the end times, not saying that Vance or anything Vance did. Vance's rambling answer came up with the little part about his actions specifically being responsible without that being suggested.
Like even if he were directly asked if he was causing the end times, that answer would have been batshit crazy, but even worse a prominent thought on that front is "I might be causing the end times, and that would be a decent outcome".
I don't understand about what any of that is supposed to "correct" for anti-Trump coverage, the coverage was absolutely accurate. That wasn't some scenario where the reporting manipulated the context to make him look worse, it was a very accurate reflection of his sentiment. If his answer didn't have "if that leads to the end times, ok", then fine ,the answer is just a generic "I don't know, but I'm doing my best", but the "leads to the end times" in the context is hard to take any other way than the unstated rest of what he perceives as "God's work" leading to the end times being prominently in his thoughts.
Yes! Out of all creation, god has chosen those nitwits as the special ones who are exempt from his wrath. 4 billion years of evolution and continental drift have inexorably culminated in producing a handful of rural morons on a single continent who represent the exact set of beliefs and behaviours god was looking for when he created life.
Oh I know, don't fret it, just pointing it out mostly cause I dont want to get harassed by someone who just skims posts instead of reading them and thinkin I'm some right wing end of days evangelical from your post, lol
They're deeply closeted gay people and they want to die and go to heaven before they're found out for being giant pieces of shit.
Now I don't believe God exists.. But every single person right or left who talks about God misunderstands the idea of Omnipotence and omnipresence..
They want to say God loves everyone but hates gay people.
They want to say that their ideas are right and everyone else is wrong.
Omnipotence and omnipresence god means he decided to create all the billionaires years ago and he knew everything they were all going to do for the entirety of their lives and he still did it. The idea that a god would exist and just decide that Trump and the Kardashians are somehow important and starving and dying children are somehow unimportant.. it makes me uninterested in the idea of a god.
I don't believe God exists.
Life is pain and no idea of a god will make me feel better about this world.
Oh but there's a perfect plan where all this was required and all are saved if they say the right words with enough sincerity! Sarcasm of course. It's easy to see how all the supernatural systems evolved and used parts from earlier ones to make the newest one the most amazing, to benefit those in power especially men, and the same high-control methods are used in all areas of life, unhealthy, but still pervasive.
Because in the end of world situation it kinda pointless to ask for accountability , responsibility , or something related to those pos which they like because they do that every time.
Sure but if someone says: "I'm just trying to focus on doing god's work. If that leads to Vance's neck doing the same thing that Charlie Kirk's did, that's ok.", then they get a visit from the SS.
The Bible starts and ends with the slaughter of the unrighteous, which means you.
When Jesus returns, He will be accompanied by legions of angels, and they will butcher every non-believer. The resulting lake of blood will be miles wide and "as deep as a horse's bridle".
Then, they will cast all of the non-Christians into Hell for eternal torture.
That is Christianity.
(Islam and Judaism are no better, they all revel in the murder of the non-believers)
For the beginning part:
Genesis 6:5–7
Genesis 7:21–23 (Where all humans except Noahs family, die)
For the ending:
Matthew 13:40–42 (Where angels come and cast the wicked into fiery furnace)
Matthew 13:49–50 (Same)
Matthew 16:27 (Jesus comes with an army of angels to serve people based on their deeds)
Matthew 25:31–46 (The final judgement)
2 Thessalonians 1:7–10 (Jesus brings punishment to those who do not obey the gospel)
Revelation 19:11–21 (Jesus defeats armies of those opposing, depicting corpses getting eaten by birds, etc)
And there are like 20 other at least.
And in Judaism, basically, instead of the son of god doing the killings, it's the jews which are sent by god to slaughter the rest, similar as in Islam.
No, they don't. The same lack of insight and self-reflection that might contribute to being fervently religious, also contributes to them not understanding how anything that they do could be wrong.
Jesus was a hypocrite, and likely a schizophrenic.
Christ was rubbing oil on His feet. Someone commented about Him giving that to the poor (oil was valuable). Christ said (paraphrase) "There will always be poor, and there's only one me".
It would be the only concrete proof for them that their religion isn't a lie. If I was Israeli I don't think I'd be comfortable with the "support" I get from Evangelical Christians.
It would be the only concrete proof for them that their religion isn’t a lie.
Evangelicals have an entire grab-bag of faith healing and "I saw Angels in my oatmeal" testimonials and apocryphal accounts of magic golden tablets that you can only read inside a man's hat. FFS, there's an entire Ark Adventure exhibit in Kentucky. Nevermind the crushing volume of religious artifacts and icons and reliquaries scattered all through Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. No shortage of things religious people can point to as "proof" enough to satisfy themselves.
Modern Millenarianism isn't just proof, it's vindication. It's a final triumphant Fuck You to the heretics, as you're wisked off into the box seats at the right hand of the Correct Kind Of Jesus to point and laugh at all the infidels who didn't do the correct religion correctly.
If I was Israeli I don’t think I’d be comfortable with the “support” I get from Evangelical Christians.
Zionists have their own spin on things, wherein they're proven right and all the goys get humiliated. In their version, the Israelis rule humanity for a thousand years from a Utopian Kingdom occupied by the Correct Jews. And then God showers them with blessings so long as they do the correct number of animal sacrifices on the correctly sanctified big stone table in the correct big stone building using the correct magic words.
Everyone's thinking they've got the magic beans and the other person is being stuck with the dried up milk cow. That's what keeps the engine turning.
The actual answer is that they believe that The Dome of The Rock must be in the control of Israel in order to bring about the prophecies from Revelations.
Moreover, S/he is either androgynous or intersex. The rabbis supposedly had a whole debate about it, and androgyne with two faces like Janus won, but there are good arguments on either side, assuming this story is real and/or not lifted from other traditions around the same time, since all the religions seem to borrow liberally from each other, including philosophies that aren't officially religions, like Buddhism or Taoism.
I always wondered about the sex of monotheistic gods. Like... if there's only one, then why the implied sex organs? They presumably don't reproduce or could do so just by willing it. It seems pointless to even have any sex-linked traits if you're the only if your kind, eternal, and omnipotent.
Everything is a reflection of the infinite, and the infinite a reflection of everything. So both asexual, asexual reproduction must be reflected in the all.
You'd have to go deep into both Hermetic and Jewish Kabbalistic lore to understand it, but the shattering of the vessels (mazel Tov!) and trees of life and death are as good a place as any.
I guess that makes sense. It still seems like a contrived question that just needed an answer. Any answer that would fit, like a scientist actively looking for results that confirm a theory.
I don't mean that in a derogatory way, btw, just that it always seemed naive to me.
I know you didn't. Council of Nicea had an emperor's whims to justify and imperialism to uphold, so cutting out about half of the debates (because that's what judeocristian scriptures were, before they were made into the infallible word and will of the Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnibenevolent, One True.
This is around the first century, and checking other religions for borrowed ideas was a little more time and labor intensive. I just don't take claims at face value and go with the deeper psychological and psychosocial (if any) value of the message. Storytelling with rich language helps lessons stick, and psychology wasn't always a science and has it's own issues and agendas. Human needs, psychological and physical, are real.
There's a whole weird Evangelical belief that once a bunch of checklist items have been fulfilled, then it sets the stage for the return of Jesus and the rapture. As if Jesus is up in heaven like "Gosh, God and I are powerless to do anything down there! If only these people would complete my scavenger hunt!"
The parts that I remember from being raised like this was that Jewish religious leaders need to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, then there's something with a cow with 100% red hair that needs to be sacrificed and the ashes used to do some ritual. Decades ago, there was already some silly "breeding program" for red cows, just to have one always ready, and so now they're churning out red heifer ashes, as if it's Jesus fertilizer or something. Here's a website that if it wasn't describing a widely-held belief, would just be the ravings of a lunatic.
I may be wrong, but I think it is that end times represent God saying "ok, everyone gets to skip ahead to heaven or hell and no more earthly living". All the good Christians get to a nice afterlife and everyone they don't like get sent to hell to suffer and they don't have to be around them anymore.
They can't suicide their way to heaven, so if they are impatient then the end times are the only way they can work towards getting in early
Former evangelical here, it’s actually not skipping ahead. Once the rapture happens all the faithful will ascend to heaven and the rest get to live on earth while the battle of good vs evil takes place basically.
How funny would it be for them to die in the climate apocalypse, meet their god at the pearly gates, only to be told "Technically you brought this about yourself, so it's suicide. Straight to hell with you."
Flooding the world, complete destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, murdering every single firstborn child in Egypt because the pharaoh kept slaves. The list goes on. Dude canonically loves to destroy and smite, including actually destroying the world in order to start from scratch.
Anything can be a blessing or punishment depending how they spin it. Like the punish/reward cycles high-control systems use to hook people, make them fear then offer the solution, how convenient.
so it's not that i disagree, it's just that i've been hearing that for my entire life. i feel a little like the parent of the boy who cried wolf. tired. and that's a goal of theirs.
Sorry the page is actually pretty... well. Old myspace maybe? lol. Substack seems to be a popular site for academics who have something to say about the absolute clusterfuck today but don't really have big technical experience. People who don't get invited by the mainstream media and are not sexy enough for the the popular youtube streamers either. Anyway this is a substack from various people (https://nuclearinsanity.substack.com/about) and https://www.wagingpeace.org/who-we-are/. Among them:
Peter Kuznick, Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute, American University
Because (a) they are narcissists. Being right about the end game would mean (b) they were the smartest people in the room about the most important topic in their lives.
Might as well inject that right into their veins, you know?
Many of them believe they will make it through the tough times unscathed because the narcissist tendency to assume they are better and holier than most.
EOTWAWKI has always been a mythical fantasy, including the futuristic interpretation of Revelation regarding the second advent.
This is really the only way that cults in their late and isolated stages can hold together, not only that the end is neigh, but that it is imminent, a few month's away at longest.
And that is because the devout are expected to be squeezed. They're expected to toil to breaking for sake of the community and their leader.
In the cases of communes like Jonestown and the Branch Davidian compound, there's always a dire labor shortage. There's consistently more work to do than can be done by the labor force available to make sure everyone is fed, housed, treated for illness, clothed and so on.
Exploited labor cannot work under pressed conditions for super long, but giving them a hard deadline weeks or days away, helps a bunch. Doubly so if it comes with a guarantee of eternal bliss (or a UFO ride to join the space aliens).
Naturally, at least for all cases so far, the deadline comes and goes. This is usually when the prophets recompute and provide another deadline. Again it can only be a little bit longer. Even a year later and it's too much to ask.
With each passing doomsday that doesn't manifest, the cultists get more antsy like the crew of the Abraham Lincoln. Suicide and apostasy rates rise, then soar. Discontent heats up in the community, as each false apocalypse deteriorates confidence in the next one.
Eventually, something has to crack. In the 20th century US, reports leak to the authorities about the poor conditions and the abuse (there always is, in a large enough population), and in the face of intervention, the cult leader goes scorched earth like the Nero Decree.
Because there would be nobody left to laugh at how weird, pathetic, cringey they all were if everyone died. Nobody left to fully document their failures, convict them for their crimes against human and teach future generations about their evil and incompetence in the fullest context.
Many will laugh at this, but trump is a child with a broken brain and a toddler's sense of what impresses him and what he fixates on - he very likely will not be able to leave office without pressing the "big red button" and launching one or many nukes. And even though the sequence isn't triggered by one giant red button, he'll have them make him a giant red button to press so he has the feeling. And his dad still won't love him after that.
Wow what happened to separation of church and state. Was that one of the foundations that built America and the constitution? If I'm wrong let me know.
Maybe because they have some buried understanding in their subconscious of how history will remember them, and they'd prefer that there was no one around to know
Christianity is a death cult and a doomsday religion. A big reason we don't have any first person accounts written by anyone with first hand experience of Jesus' life and times is that anyone that believed him, also believed the end of the world was coming so fast writting things down would be a waste of time.
As a side not for everyone. All religions were designed to get rid of the masses once we have the means for it. It was tried multiple times in the past but now we are reaching a stage where the military industry has the technology to "bring gods from the heavens". There will be 2 kinds, the ones who accept their faith and "will be sent to heaven" and those who oppose and will be slaughtered just like the rest.
They will bring the biblical events to life through technology, get rid of the masses and have this heaven for themselves.
Chosen people empires, while based on Moses (Jesus contradictions ignored), were integral to Rome and US (manifest destiny) empires. Chosen people are immune from anti-civilization/human atrocities, but there are 2 approaches. The 1000 years of peace model made famous by Hitler, but the basis of Crusasdes, and neo-liberal naziism of cold war is about converting and administering enemies to chosen people rules based order.
Zionazi capture of US rulership/politics post JFK, started with taking the chosen people Christian/neo-liberal supremacism, and equivocating Zionism into the neo-liberal equivalence.
The 2nd approach to Chosen people anti-human permission, is end times prophecy. Instead of conquest/conversion, pure extermination of every heretic who would not approve of end times mission is "necessary". Zionaziism is integral in right wing Christofacism, pastor influence, and even has demons like Ted Cruz expressing Israel first chosen people status over American Christians.
End times supremacism is far more dangerous than neo-liberal naziism, because the former justifies perseverence in the face of defeat, which is specifically why JD Vance is expressing the psychosis.
I get a bit confused listening to some a Christians talk about the end times. According to the Bible, we already live in the end times. The end times are not some dial some people are twisting one way and some people are twisting the other.
I think some people believe that God has a checklist, and he's waiting for all the monkeys to essentially random chance Hamlet of of a typewriter, with all the hoops and conditions needed to bring about the end of the world. If your eschatology is Twitch Plays Pokémon, try again.
It was about Rome in power and stuff back then, not a future prediction, but they ignore the truth, as usual. They keep people in basic thinking right/wrong rather than grow and learn the truth about the universe. This is the one time to be the cosmos looking back at itself. There is no supernatural coming to save us on this one habitable planet, and no reward later for suffering now.
220 Comments
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca · 160 pts · 4d
This is exactly why there needs to be a separation between church and state. How can you trust someone to run the country, when all their decisions are grounded in magical thinking?
blazeknave@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 3d
Umm.. we have that. What we lack is law enforcement.
AngryPancake@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 3d
Don't you have to swear on the bible?
abfarid@startrek.website · 26 pts · 3d
You can swear on anything you want.
mobyduck648@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 3d
In the UK you can even make an affirmation if you are not religious or your religion forbids you from taking an oath. This as brought in originally for the Quakers but anyone who objects to Christian oaths has this option.
When I did jury service I took the secular route, though I wouldn't have strongly objected to swearing the traditional oath either. I quite like the idea God is personally nosing into the daily business of HM Courts and Tribunals, although judging by the backlog he abandoned the justice system long ago.
Malica@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 3d
No, it specifically says you do not because of separation of church and state, you can swear on the constitution or a take out menu, whatever you want
charonn0@startrek.website · 1 pts · 3d
You can take a religious oath (Bible optional) or you can make a non-religious affirmation.
blazeknave@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Big man really soft with those lightning bolts these days
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -58 pts · 4d
Separation of church and state is different from separation of state and religious laymen. The majority of the population are religious so excluding them would be worse democratically than excluding women. What's actually meant by separation of church and state is that people working in the church (priests, Bishops, popes) shouldn't meddle with the running of the state. Nothing to do with religious laymen.
danc4498@lemmy.world · 40 pts · 3d
Are you saying it’s fine for elected religious laymen to force religion into our government and onto its people because they’re not church officials?
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -30 pts · 3d
If a religious layman is motivated by his religion to make policies that you don't agree with you should not vote for that person. If anyone else agrees with his religiously motivated policies then they should be allowed to vote for that person. I don't think this is too crazy of a concept. Now if that specific religiously motivated policy happens to be unconstitutional that is a totally different matter.
zikzak025@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 3d
This is how you end up with religious persecution and pogroms.
Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org · 1 pts · 3d
This is how you end with child rapism being legal in islamic countries, or how you get anti-queer and anti-atheist policies in most places.
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -20 pts · 3d
Is religious persecution and pogroms allowed in the constitution? Also systematically disallowing religious people from office is a form of religious persecution.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 3d
Your "contitution" isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Go read a history book.
Tiger666@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 3d
https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/what-god-has-put-asunder.pdf
Read this, its from James Madison(he was one of your founding fathers).
Also:
https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/madisons-memorial.pdf
And from Thomas Jefferson:
https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/with-sovereign-reverence.pdf
IzzyJ@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 3d
Mmmm, no that's what the First Amendment is partially for. The government shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. I have a right to be a Satanist in peace without yokels shoving their way of life down my throat
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -10 pts · 3d
If a lawmaker bans satanism or enacts a law that otherwise discriminates against satanists. Then that's not allowed. But what wouldn't be a problem would be a religious lawmaker on a totally secular subject. Like the example I gave in another comment how one could in theory loosen immigration restriction by quoting the parable of the good Samaritan. That law would not be religious law, even if the law maker was motivated by his religious belief.
danc4498@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
It’s not too crazy of a concept but is absolutely not what separation of church and state means. It’s crazy that you think this is what it means.
You can’t have the majority forcing their religion onto the minority. That’s the exact reason we have separation of church and state. To protect the people who will never win an election.
eurodyne@piefed.world · 32 pts · 3d
FUCKING LIES!
Fucking lies!. And it’s a bald faced lie that results in “In God We Trust” on our money.
There is either a separation or there is not. There is no in between. It is binary and that’s the end of it. Anyone who attempts to negotiate an in-between is a FUCKING LIAR
E PLURIBUS UNUM
And if you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with democracy
Zier@fedia.io · 10 pts · 3d
*E Pluribus Unum
And I agree, LIES!! But christians are hypocrites.
chillhelm@lemmy.world · -8 pts · 3d
Am I understanding you correct that you think no person with religious beliefs should be allowed to hold office?
As long as none of the pluribus hold any religious belief?
eurodyne@piefed.world · 4 pts · 3d
No
chillhelm@lemmy.world · -8 pts · 3d
Do you want to help me understand you or are you just trolling?
Tiger666@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 3d
You feing learning so you can keep proselytizing; you are the troll you accuse others of being.
eurodyne@piefed.world · 3 pts · 3d
Also no
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -17 pts · 3d
It's not a lie. That's how the very inventor of the term "separation of church and state" defined it and how it has been used for hundreds of years after. Roger Williams, who first used the term, was a puritan, later baptist, pastor. What you're describing would be an innovation and expansion of what separation of church and state means. It seems what you really want is a separation between religion and state. That is a totally different issue. In the future it would be advantageous for you to be clear on that and explicitly say that it's religion, not just church, that you want to exclude from the state.
I'm curious though. Which people would you want to exclude from the government. Church goers are obvious. But what about the "spiritual but not religious" people? Or people who believe in ghosts but not god? What about natives who believe their native religions? The non god believing buddhist? Who would define if someone is religious enough to be disallowed from running for office? Whoever that person was, that person would get immense power.
eurodyne@piefed.world · 11 pts · 3d
lol, nice try, fuck bag. That bullshit doesn’t work here anymore.
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -13 pts · 3d
I'm fine with you insulting me. However I'm still interested to learn where you would draw the line between the non religious and the religious in your proposed ban of religious people in political office.
IzzyJ@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 3d
Noone advocated for banning religious people. We want to prevent religious policy
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -10 pts · 3d
If I'm fine with having religious laymen in government and you're also fine with having religious laymen in government then I'm not sure on what we disagree.
Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org · 0 pts · 3d
Simple definition: anyone that believes in anything not falsable, nor empirically and scientifically demonstrable.
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca · 23 pts · 3d
I have no problem with people having religious beliefs...in private. But, as far as I'm concerned, as soon as those religious beliefs start dictating your policy priorities...you have lost your ability to make objective decisions on behalf of the rest of us. That goes equally for "laymen" as well as "professionals".
This case is a perfect example. Anyone openly saying that they're just going to "follow their faith", even if it leads us all to total destruction, needs to be removed from office. Yesterday. I wouldn't even trust that person to drive a city bus, let alone guide policy for the entire population.
liuther9@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3d
I don't trust those who prefers afterlife to rule my life
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -9 pts · 3d
I agree that if a religious laymen uses religion to make bad policies then he shouldn't be in office. However democracy is supposed to represent the people and if the people want to elect a religious nutjob then that's a failure of the people, not the democratic system. You can't make a law that says religious people can't run for office as that would be extremely undemocratic and go against religious freedom.
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 3d
You can't make a law that says religious people can't run for office...but you can make a law that says they can't make policy based on their religious beliefs.
That's what the 1st amendment is supposed to prevent.
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -9 pts · 3d
I'm not American so correct me if I'm wrong. But wasn't the first amendment about disallowing the government from establishing or favoring a specific religious establishment. Meaning it would be illegal to say make a law that favors or teaches baptism in school at the expense of another Christian flavor. What I understand of the history behind freedom of religion in the US was that people were sick of the UK mandating the very specific theology of the Anglican church and instead wanting a system where people were allowed to practice any flavor of Christianity that they wanted. From this it would be no problem being a religious person in office but it would not be okay for that person to give benefits or favor to their specific church while in office.
Not making policy based on religious belief would be impossible however. One's religion would impact one's entire morality and value system. So one could say we should enact policy X because the bible says so. But one couldn't say we should enact policy X because the southern baptist Convention just made a ruling that policy X should be enacted and now we have to make a law that matches that ruling.
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 3d
It is as you said...primarily as a freedom to practice whatever religion you want...but this also effectively prohibits any government official from enacting any policy or legislation that promotes their own religious beliefs over any other, since it may conflict with the free practice of someone else's religion.
In essence, it prevents the state from getting involved in religious matters altogether.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 3d
Okay, so Christianity says we can't kill people. But jihadism exists in Islam. Then the law must allow killing by Islamists to avoid being based on Christian beliefs and restricting jihadists' practice?
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -5 pts · 3d
But I could in theory promote a secular policy based on my theoretical religious belief. Say I want to lower barriers to immigration and as motivation I quote the parable of the good Samaritan saying that even foreigners should be treated as ones neighbour. Now in doing this I'm letting my religious belief affect my policy making. However I'm not inhibiting anyone else's free practice of religion since this is secular policy.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 3d
Man either you're trolling (propaganda spreading) or you're so dense it's worthless to try to explain anything to you.
Separation of church and state isn't that hard a concept. Even a child can understand it.
But u: sHoUlD wE BAN rEligious pEoPle??!!!
Common grow up, it's actually a cool place here if you do want to discuss.
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz · -7 pts · 3d
The original comment said: " How can you trust someone to run the country, when all their decisions are grounded in magical thinking?"
This in regards to the need to have a separation of church and state on a post about JD Vance being religiously motivated in the decisions he's making. I interpret this as the person seeing the existence of JD Vance as a failure of "separation of church and state" and that this separation needs to become stronger. However JD Vance is not part of the clergy. He's simply a religious layman. No church is running this government and therefore the current separation of church and state doesn't apply.
So then my question to you is, how would you by law prevent another JD Vance from being elected, for the explicit reason that he uses religion to make decisions, without banning religious people from political office ?
I can't find a good solution to this without making thought crime a thing. A religious person would be unable to see certain issues without some kind of perspective from their religion.
Space_Cowboy92@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
Holy fuck do you think separation of church and state only means that we can’t have the equivalent of the Holy Roman Emperor? Like You actually think the first amendment is about stopping the church from running the government?
Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org · 0 pts · 3d
That's not democracy, that's demagogy and ochlocracy.
slackassassin@piefed.social · 3 pts · 3d
I see what you're saying. You can't exclude everyone from every religion from running for office.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 2 pts · 3d
Are you sure? I think maybe we should try that and see how it goes.
chillhelm@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
The down votes on this are insane to me. He just gave the original definition of the separation of church and state.
Every elected representative should only be bound by existing laws and their own conscience. That means that if someone chooses to listen to sky daddy or the flying spaghetti monster while in elected office, that's up to them. It sucks, but you can't have a democracy in which you tell people what the basis for their decisions must be. If the people elect an Astrologer to office that person should be free to base their decisions on the movement of Jupiter through Sagittarius or whatever.
Democracy is designed to empower the statistical average will of the people. Not produce "best" (by whatever measure) outcomes for the country. Just what people want.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 3d
Wow you think That is what democracy is?
Like vote to benefit yourself? It explains the state of some places in the world rn but that's wild if you come from a democratic country.
chillhelm@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 3d
No. Democracy is definitionally "Vote what you want to vote for."
Ideally people vote for what they think is best for the country/the world/your peers.
But part of democracy (and a rather important part) is that NOBODY GETS TO TELL ANYBODY WHAT TO VOTE FOR AND WHY (within the legal confines of what allowed political expression is). So yes. A lot of people vote for what they think will be best for them. And people often make fun of people that vote for things that will be bad for them (see the whole leopards eating faces meme culture).
So "voting to benefit one self" can not be a crazy concept to you...
crazyslinkz@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 3d
All advertising for elections are about this:
chillhelm@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Of course. But I'm obviously not talking about advertisement or debate. I'm talking about coercing votes or decisions. I figure that's pretty obvious from context.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 3d
Okay sure one part is you get to vote on who/which party you want, but that wasn't what I was arguing about.
vote is not to get what you want, it is to kick out the bad person, replace them.
getting active in politics is what you do to actually change something.
Both these are subdued or erased in dictatorships, but not in functional democracies.
mobyduck648@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Which makes a lot of sense when you remember a lot of the North American population hailed from families who had a specific beef with a specific church and state; the role of bishops was one of these many axis of opposition during the conflict in Britain and Ireland.
The English Civil War and its aftermath is barely taught on either side of the Atlantic, yet it's so important to understanding both countries' history. The per capita casualty rate was worse than WW1, no wonder people felt rather strongly about religion and in some cases still do
betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world · 62 pts · 4d
Main-charactering. Obviously it has to happen during their lifetime because otherwise it would mean they're just as unimportant as the rest of us.
PattyMcB@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 3d
Which is ironic because Vance is basically that NPC whose dialog everyone skips all the time because it's so poorly written.
Agent641@lemmy.world · 58 pts · 3d
If you say the things these people say, but in Arabic, they are indistinguishable from bin laden, Khomeini, KSM, and all the other religious extremists that the US fears.
CaptPretentious@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3d
You know... this might be in bad taste perhaps. But maybe.. taking what these dipshits say, translating it to Arabic and overlaying it on a photo of the aforementioned, then putting it on Facebook, but be like "Can you believe what they're saying..." or "Not in my country!" or something. Once it's big enough, it'll come out naturally that Bin Laden didn't say it, the quote is some MAGA member saying it... idk, I think it might at least reach a few people once the messages are reframed/re-contextualized.
NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 3d
You give far too much faith on the general population's ability or willingness to actually read (and for the social media sites willingness to allow it to spread)
CaptPretentious@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
I've certainly seen this type of deliberate misinformation spreading before. People making fake stories to see how far/fast they spread.
NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 2d
It was a big thing a few years back to post a Mao quote over Nixon's face, usually with more comedic intent than any actual message
temptationscattreats@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d
The gotcha style of persuasion doesn't really work in terms of getting people to reconsider their stance. It doesn't change people's opinion because it's a cheap and obvious gimmick. Feels good for you and people who already are aligned, basically the perfect example of an ideological circle jerk.
While it's hard to change some ones mind if they aren't open to change, it's also easy to turn people away from your cause if they see you aren't being genuine.
Malica@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 3d
magnetosphere@fedia.io · 38 pts · 3d
According to the Bible, there will be some sort of ultimate showdown between good and evil when the world ends. “Good” is preordained to win. Therefore, some religious nuts think that by helping the world to end, they’re helping fulfill god’s plan.
In my opinion, they’re just giving themselves license to be cruel, hateful bastards.
I don’t know the motivation of nuts who don’t claim to follow the Bible, but I suspect the previous sentence still applies.
betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 3d
Don't have to preserve the environment for future generations either if you think you're getting raptured out of it.
magnetosphere@fedia.io · 2 pts · 3d
Exactly
copygirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 3d
Doesn't the Bible also say that there's nothing you can do to bring the end times around faster?
So why not do objectively good things until then, instead?
Maybe it's one of gods tests, and he wants to see if you're a good person even in the face of inevitability.
I can't with these religious people.
Zier@fedia.io · 4 pts · 3d
I find it interesting that humans need to "fulfill gods plan". Clearly that god is not all powerful or it would not need a plan, it would just do as it pleases. That's what being a god is. And this is why religion is so stupid, it's all made up and most of it is violence, suppression, repression, discrimination, hate & ignorance.
Rarely is there "love" or compassion coming from a religion.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 3d
"we don't have time to help people now, we are saving their souls!!1!"
Sigh
Malica@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 3d
I feel like God left specific rules you cannot break, according to God. How do you convince yourself to do evil in God's name I don't know.
magnetosphere@fedia.io · 2 pts · 3d
When you tell yourself “It’s for the greater good”, you can make yourself do anything - especially when you believe in a god that allows war, and sits idly by while children die of cancer and starvation. You’re already doing a lot of mental gymnastics, so it just becomes one more trick.
newton@feddit.online · 2 pts · 3d
But murica are the badys
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 1 pts · 3d
Weird that an all-powerful god needs so much help...
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 38 pts · 3d
I don't want to hear anyone ever again try to tell me that women can't be good leaders because they are too emotional or delusional. Look at this weirdo.
phx@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
But he's not being "emotional". Just, y' know, an everyday fucking psycho
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
There are definitely times we have all seen him get his feelings hurt.
MadBits@europe.pub · 32 pts · 3d
Because they are in death cults, fantasizing about death.
myyass@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 3d
And they're too chicken to zero themselves.
UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 3d
Evangelicals are fucking nuts
hexdream@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 3d
He is just playing to the base. This weasel will say anything and turn on a dime if it suits his purposes. Remember what he said about Trump before he became vice president...
pilferjinx@piefed.social · 19 pts · 3d
The unknown is scary. Prophecy fills in that anxiety. Religion, especially the Abrahamic religion, is for the spiritually lazy. The jewish God (YHWH, God, Allah) is a usurper, a thief, and dominator of the material. We're all spiritual beings and we don't need lesser gods to connect with each other within this universe. I know it sounds kinda cheesy, but loving kindness should be our spiritual path in this material world.
IzzyJ@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 3d
A Gnostic in the wild?
pilferjinx@piefed.social · 8 pts · 3d
Not quite. I prefer the word "source" than "monad". I try to practice buddhist-like non-dualism in my meditations.
Insekticus@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 3d
You sound like my kind of people.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3d
Hard agree with you on this. YHWH was just a god of war and thunder before the other gods of the Judean pantheon got dropped. YHWH is violent, mean, needlessly cruel, and seems to genuinely relish in death and destruction. Death and destruction is pretty much the only tool YHWH knows how to use for the entire OT, and employs a "chosen people" to simply go about doing YHWH's killing for him. I have no idea where all the "love and peace" stuff is supposed to come from, it's a total 180 from YHWH's entire existence up to Jesus being some grassroots radical hippie. Who is, let's recall, killed in a needless cruel and terrible way because that's what suits YHWH's needs. No other reason.
Soggy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Skill issue tbh
Speak for you damn self, my world view has no place for spirituality and the supernatural.
pilferjinx@piefed.social · 0 pts · 3d
You don't have a soul/spirit? Do you not have the ability to develop a feeling of connection with anything of this world?
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
Nobody has a soul. It's just a comforting thought. If we had souls science would have found it by now.
pilferjinx@piefed.social · 1 pts · 3d
Soul is a gestalt word that points to various conscious experiences and behaviours. Science still hasn't been able to find out what consciousness and qualia are. These are things that exist, yet can't be quantifiable. If you don't want to use the word "soul", that's okay, but to me it's a beautiful word that sometimes bites off more than it can chew.
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
I don't need a soul to understand that everything is connected, and to value a habitable planet. Not knowing exactly how to define consciousness doesn't imply you or I, or anyone else has a soul. I don't even find it comforting. In fact, the universe (excluding humans) is a whole lot more interesting without the idea of a soul.
Soggy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
If I wanted to "feel" a connection to the world I'd do drugs, but I'd much rather "understand" things empirically. Ecology is fascinating and important and I don't need a guru to see how everything is interconnected.
pilferjinx@piefed.social · 1 pts · 3d
I'm not talking about wishy washy woowoo. I simply mean the connection from the external world to the inner. Even empirical data needs to connect and pass through your "soul/essence" to make any sense of it. You can use different words if you want to, but it's simply our own personal consciousness and behaviours that interact with existence.
Soggy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
You are though, there is no soul. The concept of such is wishy washy woowoo. Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of electrochemistry.
pilferjinx@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1d
Ah, so you're a soulless electrochemical robot deluding itself of being? I actually like that idea, it would make for some good writing.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 19 pts · 3d
Because their religion tells them they can fuck up this world and when it ends, they get into paradise because God will give them a universal Mulligan.
Reality: nothing happens, they become high fat worm food, then high fat worm shit.
Tiral@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 3d
Ahhhh I see you're familiar with Leroy 69:69. Great Bible verse.
weps@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 3d
how can you be evangelical and not think that Trump is the antichrist in that story
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 3d
Because they're all really really really stupid?
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
I'm pretty sure most of them do. It's what they want. They think they're going to get spirited away to paradise and get to watch all the people they hate suffer through armageddon.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 3d
Went looking for context, and he just made that connection without prompting. They asked if we were in the end times and he rambled a bit using many words to say "don't know, but maybe" and basically took credit for hypothetical end times being because of him as if it were a cool outcome...
It's bad enough when these folks assert their work is "god's" work, but the "it'd be cool if my work causes the end time" angle is just....
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 3d
It's because the context is 2 layers down. FactPostNews is anti-Trump and covering batshit crazy stuff like this. But the interview itself was with an Evangelical podcaster named Bryce Crawford. He directly and specifically asked Vance about the End Times. From an article on the interview and that specific quote:
Edit: article: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/jd-vance-says-doing-god-223836378.html
NEZ27@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 3d
Even with context that is pretty alarming for a world leader to be saying.
Clanket@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 3d
He's walking among us alright, and his name is Donald
jabeez@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 3d
Such a lame name for an anti-Christ too
jj4211@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
As I said, Vance was asked if we were in the end times, not saying that Vance or anything Vance did. Vance's rambling answer came up with the little part about his actions specifically being responsible without that being suggested.
Like even if he were directly asked if he was causing the end times, that answer would have been batshit crazy, but even worse a prominent thought on that front is "I might be causing the end times, and that would be a decent outcome".
I don't understand about what any of that is supposed to "correct" for anti-Trump coverage, the coverage was absolutely accurate. That wasn't some scenario where the reporting manipulated the context to make him look worse, it was a very accurate reflection of his sentiment. If his answer didn't have "if that leads to the end times, ok", then fine ,the answer is just a generic "I don't know, but I'm doing my best", but the "leads to the end times" in the context is hard to take any other way than the unstated rest of what he perceives as "God's work" leading to the end times being prominently in his thoughts.
tutter@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 18 pts · 3d
Death cult!
FluidBeef@quokk.au · 18 pts · 3d
Because everyone in this life hates them, including their own family.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 3d
You know your administration is doing a bad job when you use the end of the world as a selling point.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 16 pts · 3d
I mean, christianism was an apocalyptic cult that though that the world was going to end at around 100 aD
They are almost 2000 years late with their gran finale.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 3d
because they think they'll be the last ones standing, and all the gays, trans, brown people, and other undesirables will be the ones dying.
lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
Yes! Out of all creation, god has chosen those nitwits as the special ones who are exempt from his wrath. 4 billion years of evolution and continental drift have inexorably culminated in producing a handful of rural morons on a single continent who represent the exact set of beliefs and behaviours god was looking for when he created life.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
how about you switch out "you" for "those", so it doesnt feel like your ranting at me like I'm the one that belives that shit.
lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
100% not targeted at you, haha. i was apostrophizing
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Oh I know, don't fret it, just pointing it out mostly cause I dont want to get harassed by someone who just skims posts instead of reading them and thinkin I'm some right wing end of days evangelical from your post, lol
BigBoyShuanzee@aussie.zone · 15 pts · 3d
They're deeply closeted gay people and they want to die and go to heaven before they're found out for being giant pieces of shit.
Now I don't believe God exists.. But every single person right or left who talks about God misunderstands the idea of Omnipotence and omnipresence..
They want to say God loves everyone but hates gay people. They want to say that their ideas are right and everyone else is wrong.
Omnipotence and omnipresence god means he decided to create all the billionaires years ago and he knew everything they were all going to do for the entirety of their lives and he still did it. The idea that a god would exist and just decide that Trump and the Kardashians are somehow important and starving and dying children are somehow unimportant.. it makes me uninterested in the idea of a god.
I don't believe God exists. Life is pain and no idea of a god will make me feel better about this world.
Alexfire@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Oh but there's a perfect plan where all this was required and all are saved if they say the right words with enough sincerity! Sarcasm of course. It's easy to see how all the supernatural systems evolved and used parts from earlier ones to make the newest one the most amazing, to benefit those in power especially men, and the same high-control methods are used in all areas of life, unhealthy, but still pervasive.
MasutaHarada@thelemmy.club · 14 pts · 3d
Because in the end of world situation it kinda pointless to ask for accountability , responsibility , or something related to those pos which they like because they do that every time.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 3d
Sure but if someone says: "I'm just trying to focus on doing god's work. If that leads to Vance's neck doing the same thing that Charlie Kirk's did, that's ok.", then they get a visit from the SS.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 3d
The Bible starts and ends with the slaughter of the unrighteous, which means you.
When Jesus returns, He will be accompanied by legions of angels, and they will butcher every non-believer. The resulting lake of blood will be miles wide and "as deep as a horse's bridle".
Then, they will cast all of the non-Christians into Hell for eternal torture.
That is Christianity.
(Islam and Judaism are no better, they all revel in the murder of the non-believers)
GeorgimusPrime@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
*citation needed
**asking for a friend
MadBits@europe.pub · 13 pts · 3d
For the beginning part: Genesis 6:5–7 Genesis 7:21–23 (Where all humans except Noahs family, die)
For the ending: Matthew 13:40–42 (Where angels come and cast the wicked into fiery furnace) Matthew 13:49–50 (Same) Matthew 16:27 (Jesus comes with an army of angels to serve people based on their deeds) Matthew 25:31–46 (The final judgement) 2 Thessalonians 1:7–10 (Jesus brings punishment to those who do not obey the gospel) Revelation 19:11–21 (Jesus defeats armies of those opposing, depicting corpses getting eaten by birds, etc) And there are like 20 other at least.
And in Judaism, basically, instead of the son of god doing the killings, it's the jews which are sent by god to slaughter the rest, similar as in Islam.
Taleya@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 3d
These guys do know that ol' J canonically considered their misanthropic money grubbing to be highest orders of magnitude"wicked", yah?
5318008@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 2d
No, they don't. The same lack of insight and self-reflection that might contribute to being fervently religious, also contributes to them not understanding how anything that they do could be wrong.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Jesus was a hypocrite, and likely a schizophrenic.
Christ was rubbing oil on His feet. Someone commented about Him giving that to the poor (oil was valuable). Christ said (paraphrase) "There will always be poor, and there's only one me".
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
I love you
MadBits@europe.pub · 3 pts · 3d
Thank you, my mom used to say that as well.
Doomsider@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
Bible is absolutely full of insane ramblings.
Georgimus, "Can you, like, qualify the Bible is fucking bonkers?"
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 3d
These wackos want the world to end.
kboos1@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 4d
Because the end of the world means that if they die then it's get out jail free card and they get their gold ticket to heaven.
likebudda@reddthat.com · 10 pts · 3d
It would be the only concrete proof for them that their religion isn't a lie. If I was Israeli I don't think I'd be comfortable with the "support" I get from Evangelical Christians.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 3d
Evangelicals have an entire grab-bag of faith healing and "I saw Angels in my oatmeal" testimonials and apocryphal accounts of magic golden tablets that you can only read inside a man's hat. FFS, there's an entire Ark Adventure exhibit in Kentucky. Nevermind the crushing volume of religious artifacts and icons and reliquaries scattered all through Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. No shortage of things religious people can point to as "proof" enough to satisfy themselves.
Modern Millenarianism isn't just proof, it's vindication. It's a final triumphant Fuck You to the heretics, as you're wisked off into the box seats at the right hand of the Correct Kind Of Jesus to point and laugh at all the infidels who didn't do the correct religion correctly.
Zionists have their own spin on things, wherein they're proven right and all the goys get humiliated. In their version, the Israelis rule humanity for a thousand years from a Utopian Kingdom occupied by the Correct Jews. And then God showers them with blessings so long as they do the correct number of animal sacrifices on the correctly sanctified big stone table in the correct big stone building using the correct magic words.
Everyone's thinking they've got the magic beans and the other person is being stuck with the dried up milk cow. That's what keeps the engine turning.
kibblebits@quokk.au · 9 pts · 4d
The best time to leave was a while ago. The next best time to leave is now.
EatMyPixelDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 2d
Because religion is a mental illness.
fucmm@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 2d
It baffles me how many people don’t realize this
lyrial@anarchist.nexus · 9 pts · 3d
The actual answer is that they believe that The Dome of The Rock must be in the control of Israel in order to bring about the prophecies from Revelations.
Leviathan@fedinsfw.app · 8 pts · 3d
Maybe it's the only way they imagine their impotent god can affect people they hate. It hasn't showed up for anything else, so... Leroy Jenkins?
HubertManne@piefed.social · 8 pts · 3d
yeah so I was helping the antichrist to start the end times for jesus so im totally going to heaven.
Vandals_handle@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 3d
Is end times what evangelicals call anal?
Strider@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Sort of, it's thst time when all false prophets get tortured.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 3d
Shithole country.
Professorozone@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2d
Yeah, they never say something like, "if that leads to peace on earth, so be it."
Sunflier@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
They are really looking forward to the killing off of the people they hate
Maeve@kbin.earth · 7 pts · 4d
Obviously because The Almighty can't do their own job.
PattyMcB@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Careful not to misgender God. It might bring about the end times. (Big old /s)
Maeve@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 3d
Moreover, S/he is either androgynous or intersex. The rabbis supposedly had a whole debate about it, and androgyne with two faces like Janus won, but there are good arguments on either side, assuming this story is real and/or not lifted from other traditions around the same time, since all the religions seem to borrow liberally from each other, including philosophies that aren't officially religions, like Buddhism or Taoism.
PattyMcB@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
I always wondered about the sex of monotheistic gods. Like... if there's only one, then why the implied sex organs? They presumably don't reproduce or could do so just by willing it. It seems pointless to even have any sex-linked traits if you're the only if your kind, eternal, and omnipotent.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 3d
Everything is a reflection of the infinite, and the infinite a reflection of everything. So both asexual, asexual reproduction must be reflected in the all.
You'd have to go deep into both Hermetic and Jewish Kabbalistic lore to understand it, but the shattering of the vessels (mazel Tov!) and trees of life and death are as good a place as any.
PattyMcB@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
I guess that makes sense. It still seems like a contrived question that just needed an answer. Any answer that would fit, like a scientist actively looking for results that confirm a theory.
I don't mean that in a derogatory way, btw, just that it always seemed naive to me.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 3d
I know you didn't. Council of Nicea had an emperor's whims to justify and imperialism to uphold, so cutting out about half of the debates (because that's what judeocristian scriptures were, before they were made into the infallible word and will of the Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnibenevolent, One True.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 3d
Rather than edit, I will add:
https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/646205
This is around the first century, and checking other religions for borrowed ideas was a little more time and labor intensive. I just don't take claims at face value and go with the deeper psychological and psychosocial (if any) value of the message. Storytelling with rich language helps lessons stick, and psychology wasn't always a science and has it's own issues and agendas. Human needs, psychological and physical, are real.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 7 pts · 3d
its an evangelical boner, they conceptualize the rapture, and it has pervaded in media that portrays christians in anyways.
JamieDub86@piefed.social · 6 pts · 3d
Why would gods work lead to the end of times? Whats the logic here?
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 3d
There's a whole weird Evangelical belief that once a bunch of checklist items have been fulfilled, then it sets the stage for the return of Jesus and the rapture. As if Jesus is up in heaven like "Gosh, God and I are powerless to do anything down there! If only these people would complete my scavenger hunt!"
The parts that I remember from being raised like this was that Jewish religious leaders need to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, then there's something with a cow with 100% red hair that needs to be sacrificed and the ashes used to do some ritual. Decades ago, there was already some silly "breeding program" for red cows, just to have one always ready, and so now they're churning out red heifer ashes, as if it's Jesus fertilizer or something. Here's a website that if it wasn't describing a widely-held belief, would just be the ravings of a lunatic.
Edit: here's another site that explains the red heifer ashes in more insane context.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Imagine the writers 2500 years ago: lol let's add something impossible to the prophecy
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 10h
Some batshit crazy dude in a cave writing goth poetry 2000 years before it was cool: "yeah, the moon becomes as black as sack cloth...yeahhh...."
jj4211@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 3d
I may be wrong, but I think it is that end times represent God saying "ok, everyone gets to skip ahead to heaven or hell and no more earthly living". All the good Christians get to a nice afterlife and everyone they don't like get sent to hell to suffer and they don't have to be around them anymore.
They can't suicide their way to heaven, so if they are impatient then the end times are the only way they can work towards getting in early
Space_Cowboy92@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
Former evangelical here, it’s actually not skipping ahead. Once the rapture happens all the faithful will ascend to heaven and the rest get to live on earth while the battle of good vs evil takes place basically.
It’s psychotic either way.
NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 3d
How funny would it be for them to die in the climate apocalypse, meet their god at the pearly gates, only to be told "Technically you brought this about yourself, so it's suicide. Straight to hell with you."
NEZ27@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 3d
Odd how they seem certain suicide will keep them out of heaven, but actively trying to bring about the apocalypse guarantees a VIP pass.
MBech@feddit.dk · 4 pts · 3d
I mean, in the old testament he had a tendency to just absolutely destroying everything for no apparent reason.
JamieDub86@piefed.social · 0 pts · 3d
Was God doing the destroying, though?
MBech@feddit.dk · 4 pts · 3d
Flooding the world, complete destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, murdering every single firstborn child in Egypt because the pharaoh kept slaves. The list goes on. Dude canonically loves to destroy and smite, including actually destroying the world in order to start from scratch.
JamieDub86@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1d
Clearly i should have paid more attention in RE.
Alexfire@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Anything can be a blessing or punishment depending how they spin it. Like the punish/reward cycles high-control systems use to hook people, make them fear then offer the solution, how convenient.
aurelar@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 3d
Because they hate their lives and want their suffering to end.
theacharnian@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 2d
Traitors to humanity.
peaceful_world_view@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3d
I say let him meet his god early.
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 3d
https://nuclearinsanity.substack.com/
The danger is greater than ever today than it's ever been
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
so it's not that i disagree, it's just that i've been hearing that for my entire life. i feel a little like the parent of the boy who cried wolf. tired. and that's a goal of theirs.
PagPag@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Tf is this source?
Reminds me of those tabloids that they used to sell in checkout lines at grocery stores lol.
cannot disagree there.
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 2d
Sorry the page is actually pretty... well. Old myspace maybe? lol. Substack seems to be a popular site for academics who have something to say about the absolute clusterfuck today but don't really have big technical experience. People who don't get invited by the mainstream media and are not sexy enough for the the popular youtube streamers either. Anyway this is a substack from various people (https://nuclearinsanity.substack.com/about) and https://www.wagingpeace.org/who-we-are/. Among them:
So mostly these seem to be serious people.
PagPag@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
There’s a reason why the technical and academic are an entirely different group than advertisers…
I’ll be honest, I just saw some of the thumbnails and quickly judged it.
Taleya@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 3d
Yeah nah, that shit is some weird American fetish.
Raging nihilist, but these cunce make some part of me hope there is a god just so they can see how pissed it is at them
lemmelemmy@feddit.org · 5 pts · 3d
Everytime he comes up there should be his couch humping video
angband@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
Self loathing from development in an environment of mental and physical abuse.
fucmm@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 2d
Keep your god out of the government you stupid brainwashed fucktard!
khepri@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
Because their book promises them the slaughter of everyone they don't like once a certain series of events kicks off.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 3d
They want to see their god/s. I agree with them, they should go see god asap.
BillCheddar@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
OOH OOH i know
Because (a) they are narcissists. Being right about the end game would mean (b) they were the smartest people in the room about the most important topic in their lives.
Might as well inject that right into their veins, you know?
temptationscattreats@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d
Many of them believe they will make it through the tough times unscathed because the narcissist tendency to assume they are better and holier than most.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 2d
EOTWAWKI has always been a mythical fantasy, including the futuristic interpretation of Revelation regarding the second advent.
This is really the only way that cults in their late and isolated stages can hold together, not only that the end is neigh, but that it is imminent, a few month's away at longest.
And that is because the devout are expected to be squeezed. They're expected to toil to breaking for sake of the community and their leader.
In the cases of communes like Jonestown and the Branch Davidian compound, there's always a dire labor shortage. There's consistently more work to do than can be done by the labor force available to make sure everyone is fed, housed, treated for illness, clothed and so on.
Exploited labor cannot work under pressed conditions for super long, but giving them a hard deadline weeks or days away, helps a bunch. Doubly so if it comes with a guarantee of eternal bliss (or a UFO ride to join the space aliens).
Naturally, at least for all cases so far, the deadline comes and goes. This is usually when the prophets recompute and provide another deadline. Again it can only be a little bit longer. Even a year later and it's too much to ask.
With each passing doomsday that doesn't manifest, the cultists get more antsy like the crew of the Abraham Lincoln. Suicide and apostasy rates rise, then soar. Discontent heats up in the community, as each false apocalypse deteriorates confidence in the next one.
Eventually, something has to crack. In the 20th century US, reports leak to the authorities about the poor conditions and the abuse (there always is, in a large enough population), and in the face of intervention, the cult leader goes scorched earth like the Nero Decree.
In the meantime, the list of failed apocalypse predictions grows ever longer without any yet coming to fruition.
altphoto@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 3d
Crazy lunatic!
Snapz@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
Because there would be nobody left to laugh at how weird, pathetic, cringey they all were if everyone died. Nobody left to fully document their failures, convict them for their crimes against human and teach future generations about their evil and incompetence in the fullest context.
Many will laugh at this, but trump is a child with a broken brain and a toddler's sense of what impresses him and what he fixates on - he very likely will not be able to leave office without pressing the "big red button" and launching one or many nukes. And even though the sequence isn't triggered by one giant red button, he'll have them make him a giant red button to press so he has the feeling. And his dad still won't love him after that.
Eddbopkins@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
Wow what happened to separation of church and state. Was that one of the foundations that built America and the constitution? If I'm wrong let me know.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 3d
The same thing that happened when we decided to not tax churches, or when we put a little prayer on the dollar bill.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 3d
You are not a servant of god, you're a servant of Mammon.
You should be a servant of the people.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3d
They aren't even serving Mammon. They've gone back to idolatry, but this time they are worshipping the Almighty Dollar.
FanciestPants@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
Maybe because they have some buried understanding in their subconscious of how history will remember them, and they'd prefer that there was no one around to know
minty@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 3d
Very the onion like
KombatWombat@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
It's already been posted on the NotTheOnion community.
https://lemmy.world/post/51409472
Steve@startrek.website · 3 pts · 4d
Its the only way to get to heaven without waiting for the end of your natural life.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 3d
most of them will get sent to purgatory, or hell or the abyss.
x00z@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
They did a lot of God's work during the crusades.
manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 3d
New converts seem like newly out queer people, they speak way too confidently about their newfound identity
wallwood@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 2d
Every religion and therefore every god forbids killing babies. If you worship anything, it is ultimately Satan that you worship.
Snowclone@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Christianity is a death cult and a doomsday religion. A big reason we don't have any first person accounts written by anyone with first hand experience of Jesus' life and times is that anyone that believed him, also believed the end of the world was coming so fast writting things down would be a waste of time.
Stolas@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 2d
We've never been closer to it and it's all their fault.
I hate the world we live in.
BigBoyShuanzee@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 3d
MadBits@europe.pub · 1 pts · 3d
As a side not for everyone. All religions were designed to get rid of the masses once we have the means for it. It was tried multiple times in the past but now we are reaching a stage where the military industry has the technology to "bring gods from the heavens". There will be 2 kinds, the ones who accept their faith and "will be sent to heaven" and those who oppose and will be slaughtered just like the rest.
They will bring the biblical events to life through technology, get rid of the masses and have this heaven for themselves.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 3d
Chosen people empires, while based on Moses (Jesus contradictions ignored), were integral to Rome and US (manifest destiny) empires. Chosen people are immune from anti-civilization/human atrocities, but there are 2 approaches. The 1000 years of peace model made famous by Hitler, but the basis of Crusasdes, and neo-liberal naziism of cold war is about converting and administering enemies to chosen people rules based order.
Zionazi capture of US rulership/politics post JFK, started with taking the chosen people Christian/neo-liberal supremacism, and equivocating Zionism into the neo-liberal equivalence.
The 2nd approach to Chosen people anti-human permission, is end times prophecy. Instead of conquest/conversion, pure extermination of every heretic who would not approve of end times mission is "necessary". Zionaziism is integral in right wing Christofacism, pastor influence, and even has demons like Ted Cruz expressing Israel first chosen people status over American Christians.
End times supremacism is far more dangerous than neo-liberal naziism, because the former justifies perseverence in the face of defeat, which is specifically why JD Vance is expressing the psychosis.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 3d
That's literally what he was voted in to do, voting majority actively wants to speedrun to the end of the world. Country is fucked.
pachrist@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
I get a bit confused listening to some a Christians talk about the end times. According to the Bible, we already live in the end times. The end times are not some dial some people are twisting one way and some people are twisting the other.
I think some people believe that God has a checklist, and he's waiting for all the monkeys to essentially random chance Hamlet of of a typewriter, with all the hoops and conditions needed to bring about the end of the world. If your eschatology is Twitch Plays Pokémon, try again.
adhdsergio@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Because that's the only way for them to claim any relevance
Alexfire@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
It was about Rome in power and stuff back then, not a future prediction, but they ignore the truth, as usual. They keep people in basic thinking right/wrong rather than grow and learn the truth about the universe. This is the one time to be the cosmos looking back at itself. There is no supernatural coming to save us on this one habitable planet, and no reward later for suffering now.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 3d
Also Marxists.
echodot@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 3d
Well he said he does win the award for the most American thing any American has ever Americaned.