Why do fundamentalists hate America?

[gowlerk 2,249]

Quote from a well known right wing religious zealot:

2021 was a year of unexpected consequences, beginning 6 January.

Maybe its time to stop accepting the things we cannot change and change the things we cannot accept.

It seems this man so disapproves of all the US constitution stands for that he would rather it be overthrown and a theocracy replace it. Perhaps he would like to join the rest of the traitors in prison.

 

[ryoder 1,590]

Seems to me if you want to live under a theocratic autocracy, it would be simpler to just move to one, instead of trying to overthrow a democracy.

[gowlerk 2,249]

  On 1/1/2022 at 9:46 PM, ryoder said:

Seems to me if you want to live under a theocratic autocracy, it would be simpler to just move to one, instead of trying to overthrow a democracy.

America, love it or leave it?

 

[Phil1111 1,149]

  On 1/1/2022 at 9:46 PM, ryoder said:

Seems to me if you want to live under a theocratic autocracy, it would be simpler to just move to one, instead of trying to overthrow a democracy.

Are you in cahoots with the National Association of Realtors?

[kallend 2,106]

Seems to me that if you're so uncoupled from reality to believe  that an omniscient  Jewish zombie sky god has absolute power over the universe, then you'll believe anything.

[gowlerk 2,249]

  On 1/1/2022 at 11:44 PM, kallend said:

Seems to me that if you're so uncoupled from reality to believe  that an omniscient  Jewish zombie sky god has absolute power over the universe, then you'll believe anything.

Jesus loves me this I know. For the Bible tells me so.  But the Bible says nothing about hatred being a good thing for anyone's soul.

Edited January 1, 2022 by gowlerk

[BIGUN 1,405]

  On 1/1/2022 at 11:44 PM, kallend said:

Seems to me that if you're so uncoupled from reality to believe  that an omniscient  Jewish zombie sky god has absolute power over the universe, then you'll believe anything.

Wait. What? She's a Jewish zombie?!?!?

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

  On 1/2/2022 at 2:22 PM, BIGUN said:

Wait. What? She's a Jewish zombie?!?!?

No, silly.

The son, who was sent to earth to suffer and die so that our sins (our own behaviors) would not condemn us to hell.

The one who said (paraphrased) Accept me as your savior because I love you. Or don't and burn in hell for all eternity.

That's the zombie.
And God too, at the same time (along with that "Holy Spirit" thing, which has not ever been accurately defined).

The mental gymnastics required for this are Olympic level.

[gowlerk 2,249]

  On 1/2/2022 at 4:13 PM, wolfriverjoe said:

The mental gymnastics required for this are Olympic level.

Many people have made a living performing these gymnastics. Some have even been declared "Saints". 

Edited January 2, 2022 by gowlerk

[billvon 3,070]

  On 1/2/2022 at 4:13 PM, wolfriverjoe said:

The mental gymnastics required for this are Olympic level.

In defense of that, the various Christian religions had a lot of baggage to overcome in the early days.  They had to take over from several pantheistic religions, and one way to accomplish that was to have more than one God; that would be more acceptable to the pantheists of the time, and would help the new religion survive.  But that didn't fit with what Jesus said, so their compromise was the Trinity for the majority of Christian religions, which was a way to have three Gods but unite them into one entity.  (A few Christian religions, like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, kept the single God.)

[JerryBaumchen 1,436]

  On 1/2/2022 at 4:13 PM, wolfriverjoe said:

No, silly.

The son, who was sent to earth to suffer and die so that our sins (our own behaviors) would not condemn us to hell.

The one who said (paraphrased) Accept me as your savior because I love you. Or don't and burn in hell for all eternity.

That's the zombie.
And God too, at the same time (along with that "Holy Spirit" thing, which has not ever been accurately defined).

The mental gymnastics required for this are Olympic level.

Hi Joe,

Sin - IMO what a total waste of letters of our alphabet.  

To me, it is:  Do you morally accept what you or someone else did or do you not? 

The old, 'It's OK if between consenting adults.'   I think most of can & do accept this concept.  Therefore, IMO we should only discuss things not as a 'sin' but rather, is it legal or not. 

IMO the whole concept of 'sin(s)' is just another way for Christianity to try to keep us in shackles.

YMMV,

Jerry Baumchen

Sin Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

[billvon 3,070]

  On 1/2/2022 at 6:42 PM, JerryBaumchen said:

The old, 'It's OK if between consenting adults.'   I think most of can & do accept this concept.  Therefore, IMO we should only discuss things not as a 'sin' but rather, is it legal or not. 

I think there's more to it than that.

Sneaking into a NICU without washing your hands or wearing a mask?  Probably not illegal.  But I think most people here would consider that pretty deplorable.

Not helping a woman with three kids through the door?  Taking a good parking spot away from a handicapped guy who doesn't have a handicapped sticker yet?  Letting your trash blow away on the beach?  Also not (always) illegal but again - sort of makes you a dick.

You don't have to call it "sin" but there's definitely a category between "legal" and "bad."

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

  On 1/2/2022 at 6:32 PM, billvon said:

In defense of that, the various Christian religions had a lot of baggage to overcome in the early days.  They had to take over from several pantheistic religions, and one way to accomplish that was to have more than one God; that would be more acceptable to the pantheists of the time, and would help the new religion survive.  But that didn't fit with what Jesus said, so their compromise was the Trinity for the majority of Christian religions, which was a way to have three Gods but unite them into one entity.  (A few Christian religions, like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, kept the single God.)

Great. 2000 years ago, scientific understanding was very low.

So they had laws against eating certain things.

They had no idea that pigs carried a variety of parasites & microbes that could be very dangerous.
They just knew that people who ate it often got sick & died.

So "God said they're unclean and don't eat them".

We know a lot more now.

Yet 'social inertia', combined with heavy duty brain-washing keep these myths alive and kicking. Marx was right. Take kids, indoctrinate them heavily and you have a convert for life. The same applies to those who are in very desperate straits. 

How anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence can believe in "creation" or in the story of Noah (and most of the rest of the Bible) continues to amaze me.

THAT is the 'Olympic level mental gymnastics' that I'm referring to.

[ryoder 1,590]

  On 1/2/2022 at 8:17 PM, wolfriverjoe said:

Yet 'social inertia', combined with heavy duty brain-washing keep these myths alive and kicking. Marx was right. Take kids, indoctrinate them heavily and you have a convert for life. 

That didn't work for my parents. They hammered fundamentalism into me from the day I was born, and by the time I was 15 I was an atheist.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

  On 1/2/2022 at 8:20 PM, ryoder said:

That didn't work for my parents. They hammered fundamentalism into me from the day I was born, and by the time I was 15 I was an atheist.

You're an anomaly.

The cliched 'exception that proves the rule'.

[gowlerk 2,249]

  On 1/2/2022 at 8:20 PM, ryoder said:

That didn't work for my parents. They hammered fundamentalism into me from the day I was born, and by the time I was 15 I was an atheist.

You had the advantage of easy access to reliable information. And besides, some people are just plain contrarians. 

 

[lippy 918]

  On 1/2/2022 at 8:27 PM, gowlerk said:

And besides, some people are just plain contrarians. 

 

No they’re not 

[ryoder 1,590]

  On 1/2/2022 at 8:52 PM, lippy said:

No they’re not 

Yes, they are!

[gowlerk 2,249]

  On 1/2/2022 at 8:56 PM, ryoder said:

Yes, they are!

Now see here, I paid for an argument and all you are giving me is disagreement!

[ryoder 1,590]

  On 1/2/2022 at 9:00 PM, gowlerk said:

Now see here, I paid for an argument and all you are giving me is disagreement!

If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five minutes.

[Coreece 190]

  On 1/2/2022 at 6:32 PM, billvon said:

  They had to take over from several pantheistic religions, and one way to accomplish that was to have more than one God; that would be more acceptable to the pantheists of the time, and would help the new religion survive.

But even the OT references ideas like the Spirit of God, God's begotten son, His equality with God and what would happen to Him.  So it's just a matter of how to conceptualize it all - it's not like it had to be specially tailored for pantheists. 

[billvon 3,070]

  On 1/2/2022 at 9:38 PM, Coreece said:

But even the OT references ideas like the Spirit of God, God's begotten son, His equality with God and what would happen to Him.  So it's just a matter of how to conceptualize it all - it's not like it had to be specially tailored for pantheists. 

I agree it did not have to be.  But again, it was - in part because they needed to get pantheists interested in their new (and struggling) religion.  Same reason they moved Christ's birthday from 4 to 6BC during the fall to 0BC on Dec 25th - to better align with the existing pagan celebrations (while not being on _exactly_ the same day, to demonstrate their difference.)

And to make it clear this doesn't make any of that fake - it just means that religions evolve in the environment they find themselves in, not on a tabula rasa.

[Coreece 190]

  On 1/3/2022 at 4:13 AM, billvon said:

  On 1/2/2022 at 9:38 PM, Coreece said:

But even the OT references ideas like the Spirit of God, God's begotten son, His equality with God and what would happen to Him.  So it's just a matter of how to conceptualize it all - it's not like it had to be specially tailored for pantheists. 

I agree it did not have to be.  But again, it was - in part because they needed to get pantheists interested in their new (and struggling) religion.

There's a rich history, can you provide a bit more context and/or references?  I'm having trouble finding where the concept of the trinity was taught as 3 different Gods and how that would relate to pantheism.  Did you mean polytheism?

And again, the concept of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit existed well before actually calling it the Trinity, and doing so wasn't very popular in the beginning, or so I read.

[billvon 3,070]

  On 1/3/2022 at 3:42 PM, Coreece said:

There's a rich history, can you provide a bit more context and/or references?  I'm having trouble finding where the concept of the trinity was taught as 3 different Gods and how that would relate to pantheism.  Did you mean polytheism?

And again, the concept of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit existed well before actually calling it the Trinity, and doing so wasn't very popular in the beginning, or so I read.

Sorry, typo - yes, polytheism.

At the time that Christianity came into being as an organized religion (around 200 AD) there were two main religious umbrellas in the Middle East - Judaism (i.e the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and several other sects) and the Roman religions, polytheistic and led by Jupiter or Jove.  

Any new religion would have to succeed and grow in this climate.  Going to a three-God structure would have alienated the Jews - and for centuries Christians hoped that Jews would see Christ as "the Lord our righteous savior" as foretold in Jeremiah (very much central to Judaism.)

Likewise, going to a simple monotheistic approach would have made the existing polytheists less likely to accept conversion; polytheism was simply what they knew.  It should also be noted that for the early centuries of the Church's existence, there was much emphasis placed on deified beings like archangels and saints, and on anti-deities like Lucifer.  This was familiar to people used to Roman polytheistic religions.

As you mention it wasn't always clear how this would end up; Arianism was an early Christian sect that taught that Jesus was effectively separate from God.  That wasn't reconciled until the First Council of Nicaea.  And since _then_ there have been offshoots of Christianity that have changed it yet again (i.e. the Mormons.)

[gowlerk 2,249]

  On 1/3/2022 at 9:39 PM, billvon said:

Sorry, typo - yes, polytheism.

Good Lord! Your typo made me Google pantheism. I never heard of it before, but I may just have become a pantheist. All of creation is God, God is all of creation. I already believe that we are one with everything. It is just another way of expressing it. It means nothing at all yet everything at once.

 

And one of the best things is that the church considers it heresy. Perfect! The only bad thing about it is that different people still found ways to argue about it as though is was a doctrine that needed to be formalized. It seems people never can stop arguing about theology.

Edited January 3, 2022 by gowlerk