Why the focus on Christians in particular? There are a lot more religions in the US than just Christianity.
Also, a lot fewer people would have something against Christians if Christians quit trying to infringe on everyone else’s rights. Gay marriage, abortion, and unnumerable other things are only an issue because Christians make it one.
Before anyone says it, yes, I know that’s not all Christians, but it is the “Christians” controlling the government right now. The kind of Christian who doesn’t understand or care about the teachings of Jesus.
There are a lot of Christians, but until the twenty-first century (specifically the 9/11 attacks) they were all separate churches and the first to say so. All the mainline and fundamentalist churches insisted they were the one true faith and extra ecclesiam nulla salus, no salvation outside the Church.
Then the attacks happened, and all the faiths learned that Islam was a greater threat than each other. Also, soon after, the New Atheism movement surfaced, organized through the nascent internet, and so the fundamentalist pastors, when they spoke of conservative values and politics (which was still naughty at the time), they would pretend to speak for all of Christendom, even when the mainline faiths did not concur (and the liberal faiths, in their dwindling numbers, staunchly disagreed.)
Nowadays in the US, fundamentalist Christianity is so loud, it has drowned out all others, and white Christian nationalism (which is a subset that includes some of multiple denominations) is the loudest and most arrogant, to the point of hubris, with major figures even challenging the authority of the Holy See.
i wish we could leave religion behind as a species. believing in made up bullshit has held us back for thousands of years, regardless of what flavor of made up bullshit people happen to believe in at the moment. anything positive about religion can be had without the made up bullshit.
I fear though that leaving behind religion just means people will find other things to religiously latch onto. Look at techbros with technology, cults who kiss the feet of the regular vanilla human who leads them, analysts with market systems.
The need to believe in something bigger and more powerful than us that can save and guide us seems to be built into a lot of humans on a fundamental level, sadly.
It’s not even sad if you approach it right. We are each an expression of our species. Our species is an expression of life on this planet, which is an expression of the sun, which is an expression of the galaxy, which is an expression of the universe.
We are part of something bigger. Will that something bigger swoop in with a giant hand and save us from our mistakes and tragedies? Probably not. But faith in something bigger can help the background subroutines in the brain run better, and that could actually provide useful guidance.
A good religion is probably the best thing to latch onto like that, since the main focus is living a harmonious and moral life. Better than worshipping the machine god at the end of time. Granted, bad religions can twist that devotion into tribalism, and cast off the moral and harmonious focus. That’s definitely a problem. But I think that problem casts all religion in that light, which the older I get seems unfair and short-sighted.
To me it reads as a right-wing attempt at being inclusive while still saying that Christians and gun owners are being persecuted just as much as the rest of these groups.
Why the focus on Christians in particular? There are a lot more religions in the US than just Christianity.
Also, a lot fewer people would have something against Christians if Christians quit trying to infringe on everyone else’s rights. Gay marriage, abortion, and unnumerable other things are only an issue because Christians make it one.
Before anyone says it, yes, I know that’s not all Christians, but it is the “Christians” controlling the government right now. The kind of Christian who doesn’t understand or care about the teachings of Jesus.
There are a lot of Christians, but until the twenty-first century (specifically the 9/11 attacks) they were all separate churches and the first to say so. All the mainline and fundamentalist churches insisted they were the one true faith and extra ecclesiam nulla salus, no salvation outside the Church.
Then the attacks happened, and all the faiths learned that Islam was a greater threat than each other. Also, soon after, the New Atheism movement surfaced, organized through the nascent internet, and so the fundamentalist pastors, when they spoke of conservative values and politics (which was still naughty at the time), they would pretend to speak for all of Christendom, even when the mainline faiths did not concur (and the liberal faiths, in their dwindling numbers, staunchly disagreed.)
Nowadays in the US, fundamentalist Christianity is so loud, it has drowned out all others, and white Christian nationalism (which is a subset that includes some of multiple denominations) is the loudest and most arrogant, to the point of hubris, with major figures even challenging the authority of the Holy See.
i wish we could leave religion behind as a species. believing in made up bullshit has held us back for thousands of years, regardless of what flavor of made up bullshit people happen to believe in at the moment. anything positive about religion can be had without the made up bullshit.
Imagine.
I wonder if you can
I fear though that leaving behind religion just means people will find other things to religiously latch onto. Look at techbros with technology, cults who kiss the feet of the regular vanilla human who leads them, analysts with market systems.
The need to believe in something bigger and more powerful than us that can save and guide us seems to be built into a lot of humans on a fundamental level, sadly.
It’s not even sad if you approach it right. We are each an expression of our species. Our species is an expression of life on this planet, which is an expression of the sun, which is an expression of the galaxy, which is an expression of the universe.
We are part of something bigger. Will that something bigger swoop in with a giant hand and save us from our mistakes and tragedies? Probably not. But faith in something bigger can help the background subroutines in the brain run better, and that could actually provide useful guidance.
A good religion is probably the best thing to latch onto like that, since the main focus is living a harmonious and moral life. Better than worshipping the machine god at the end of time. Granted, bad religions can twist that devotion into tribalism, and cast off the moral and harmonious focus. That’s definitely a problem. But I think that problem casts all religion in that light, which the older I get seems unfair and short-sighted.
Not all Christians, but always Christians
Here in the south, it is all christians.
I’m guessing the ubiquity.
To me it reads as a right-wing attempt at being inclusive while still saying that Christians and gun owners are being persecuted just as much as the rest of these groups.
I can see that, but i didn’t read it that way.