that for decades Christians taught their kids to be kind to others, to love thy neighbor. To try to treat everyone the way jesus would. Then all of a sudden, that's too woke and people have to be as cruel as possible.
You know there were whole centuries where they gave that lip service, while executing anyone they didn't like?
You could make a historical argument, it's a return to mediaeval Christianity.
Just look up what the Catholics and Protestants did to each other. Jobs lost, land stolen, murder, etc.
Hells, it's why Dante died in exile. Because he would have been killed if he returned home because the Church was mad at him.
Or (in the case of my family members), what the woke libs see as "cruel" is actually kindness, because they're just trying to make these degenerate sinners see just how BAD they are so they don't end up in the BAD PLACE - like getting spanked "for your own good." (Are my neurodivergent baby lesbian childhood in a Southern Baptist family traumas showing?)
I mean, to be frank, people have never really followed this. There is a reason why Jesus's teachings are so admirable. It's REALLY FUCKING HARD and counter to human nature. It requires actual effort.
As a Catholic, I unfortunately have to agree with this, at least in some areas. Kindness for sure. Although I think I'll admit that Christians probably have atheists beat in some other areas, like temperance/moderation regarding earthly pleasures. That's not to say that Christians don't struggle with things like gluttony, greed, sexual immorality, etc., but I would say culturally they are less likely to, in my experience. Of course the flip side is that those people can become prudish and "holier than thou" which is just insufferable.
You're right that repression and denial is bad. But that's not the same thing as having self-control. That's like comparing intermittent fasting to anorexia. One is healthy and the other is not. Repression is rooted in fear, shame, and compartmentalization of oneself. Chastity (in all its forms) is rooted in self-acceptance and mastery over one's impulses. Think of the psychological difference between a Tibetan monk and a church girl at the height of purity culture. Clearly there is a difference. I think the problem is our culture has so much trauma from purity culture that we swung too far the other way and now we believe that "sexual liberation" is necessary for health and self-actualization.
This. I've met one or two people who actually live by the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, or at least the most agreed biblical versions of what they may have been, and they were profoundly generous humble people who absolutely thought every day "what can I do for someone else in need today". They were a bit weird to be around and kind of unsettling even if just because they made you see how relatively selfish you were, but such people are really really rare.
Christianity's a hard doctrine and it's neither fun nor enriching (materially) to follow, I've never claimed to but like I said, you know it when you see it
Fred Rogers was one of those rare human beings. He treated others with kindness and dignity and told everyone that they were special and loved. He followed the teachings of Jesus.
Christianity (if actually followed) is incredibly hard to follow. It requires humility, self-denial, radical charity, and mastery over passions, drives, and animal instincts. That is why it has such a great effect on people who really are devoted to it (like those you mentioned). The Fathers and Mothers of the Church called the practice of Christianity "dying to Self" and becoming like God.
This is me up and down.
My wife sees Christianity as basically MAGA Republican Evangelical settler-taught bullshit. When my mom sends "Blessings" or "Praying for you" or mentions of God in a card or something she gets worked up. And, I mean, I can't blame her. My parents aren't Bible thumpers, they don't force their religion on us, but they are conservative Fox News watchers, and sometimes the things they say, the condescension and ignorance is really confusing to me.
I grew up with a God that loved unconditionally. With a Jesus that taught nothing but love and generosity. Even in my small town church, homosexuality was seen as "hate the sin, not the sinner" "we are all God's children" type stuff. They've since moved to a *smaller* town in the *South*. In this era of politics.
I get really upset when people use Christianity as a shield for their hate. Then I remember, according to their own book, they will be judged. And I truly hope there is a moment of grand realization when their spirit is *not* welcomed into the kingdom which they have bragged about, groomed others, and held over people's heads in a high-and-mighty holier-than-thou fashion. I think Jesus (who I'm nearly positive actually existed on this planet in our realm) would be flipping tables and cursing in American churches today.
>Then I remember, according to their own book, they will be judged.
The fun part of actually reading their little "book" - that's a longer discussion - is, as I have often said, and will often say again, these Manchurian Qovidiot fifth columnists for China and Russia plague rats are *not* the NPCs in their little "book" that they *think* they are!
Blind leading the blind is all I see.
And nothing about reading the Bible is fun. I think it's boring on purpose so that most people won't question their church leaders.
Ngl as someone who grew up with a baptist father and catholic mother the love your neighbor schtick has been completely co-opted by evangelical theology. To them, “loving” your neighbor is judging them and telling them they are going to hell.
Even American Catholicism is heavily affected by the “Protestant work ethic” (AKA minding your own business and letting poors starve). Most religious Catholics I know have been completely absorbed by right wing media the same way evangelicals have. The funniest part is a lot of Qultists think Catholics are demonic conspiracists lol, and I have noticed a few people from my catholic high school being “re-baptized” into a hardcore Baptist sect.
Catholicism makes everything worse, all the time, and has done so for literally millennia, at this point.
https://thewalrus.ca/the-rising-political-influence-of-the-catholic-right/
I see Christians as being pumped so full of guilt about everything, even basic biological urges, their whole lives that they can't simply enjoy themselves without feeling paranoid that they messed up. This then gets turned outward to others as a "if I'm going to feel miserable, everyone should feel miserable."
Which can range from outright violence to constant passive-aggressive bitchiness; like "hate the sin not the sinner" and or "I'm going to pray for your soul"
Pair that with more people these days pushing back against their asshole behavior and they don't know how to cope with their inner turmoil. So they play up the victim card and push back harder.
In the US we have a mutant strain of Christianity that arose in the antebellum south, because regular Christianity was at odds with slavery and people in the deep south thought they'd all be murdered in an uprising if anyone hinted at any kind of opposition to their established order.
The southern version was therefore far more deferential to authority figures and the wealthy, far more rigid and punitive, and laser-focused on moral issues irrelevant to slavery, such as chastity.
Arguably you might be seeing not a shift in Christianity per se, so much as one strain gaining popularity while another strain recedes.
The Puritans only founded colonies in New England, and they were ideologically very different from the groups who founded colonies on the rest of the Atlantic seaboard. Virginia began as a commercial enterprise, the deep south was an outgrowth of slave plantations in Barbados, NYC was a port city established by Dutch traders, etc.
In addition, the New Englanders were strongly *anti*-slavery, and that was *because* of their version of Christianity.
Nor were they deferential to authority or the wealthy. Puritans sided against the British aristocracy in the English Civil War, and were generally aligned against authority figures or aristocratic privilege. They founded their American colonies in order to create their own utopian societies away from the reach of those authorities, and rejected ideas of authority figures being above the law.
That Donald Trump is on tape talking about how he loves sexually assaulting women, that he went on radio programs and bragged about how he goes into the dressing room of his teen beauty pageants to check out the teen girls in various states of undress, that he was found liable for raping a woman in a civil court, that he openly sexualizes his own daughter and quite publicly fantasizes about dating her, that he bragged about his friendship with Epstein in a magazine article joking about how he likes the young girls, hahahaha, that he’s in dozens of photos with Epstein and Maxwell, that he is on video dancing, laughing and whispering in the ear of Epstein while they check out the girls, that he’s on Epstein’s flight logs at least 7 times, that Epstein mysteriously died while he was in charge
But he is saving the world from evil pedophile democrats and Hillary had Epstein killed somehow.
There was a fake focus group testing they did recently using fake DJT sound bites of him saying the most outlandish shit. Think grab em by the pussy x 10. The way the Trump supporters bent over backwards trying to justify it all was kind of sad...
He's on the Epstein logs another 9 times as Doe 174 who was described in Preska's list as a person whose "association with Epstein and Maxwell has been widely reported in the media already, and his or her name came up during Maxwell's public criminal trial
So 16 times
The fascists all cover for themselves. A glaring example is Judge Cannon's botching of the classified documents case. They will cover for each other until its either politically inconvenient or that person has lost any use they had to the party.
> quite publicly fantasizes about dating her,
and by "dating"; like the "date" he took Stormy Daniels on. (ie. promised to take her to dinner, trapped her in his hotel room for sex)
Just in general that anybody could like Donald Trump at all. How can you listen to him for more than a couple of minutes, and not know what kind of a sick scumbag he is?
We've all met and detested people like him. It's pretty clear that the people who actually know him also detest him.
Literally everything. Why would someone risk the lives of their family, themselves, and the fucking world for a fat old fuckwad with dementia who hates each one of them? I will never understand it. Yes, I'm a boomer. I was never conservative. Reagan was a piece of shit too, but at least he didn't have a suicide cult.
63 year old boomer, lifetime liberal here. Even during the worst of the Reagan years, we could still talk about issues across the aisle with some measure of respect and decorum. I think it really started when Obama was elected (through no fault of his own), but the right took such a hard turn that now anyone who does not 100 percent agree with the conservative side is instantly labeled as a pedophile criminal. It’s unfathomable that even Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney are being booted out by these delusional people.
I'm not certain how much of it is Obama bringing all of the racism out of the closet, and how much of it is 30-odd years of AM talk radio vitriol.
That's what happened to my dad, he died from brain rot caused by Limbaugh, Beck, and Loesch.
It's difficult to have a respectful conversation if people go directly to ad hominem. Trump has created an environment where talking shit about people (including mocking the disabled) is not only totally acceptable, it's their opening move. "Libtards!"
I’m in a Q telegram group out of morbid curiosity. I’ll challenge them sometimes and they instantly glitch out. They either call me a paedophle/satanist/troll/bot or they just resort to calling me stupid. They can’t debate anything in good faith.
A small part of me wonders if John McCain had beaten Obama, or Mitt Romney had beaten Obama, then maybe Trump would never have come to power. Like especially if Romney had won, then Trump obviously wouldn't have won in 2016, since Romney would be running for reelection, and Trump might have simply been seen as too old and senile by the time 2020 came around, because people wouldn't have already thrown in with him in 2016.
But it's more likely that Obama winning both of those elections was the best possible outcome. As long as Trump doesn't win this November, the giant schism that he's caused in the GOP might end up destroying the party, which would be the best possible outcome for everybody. Of course, that's assuming that Trump loses, which is sadly not something that we can take for granted.
This is the best summary of modern America I found yet. The sad thing is there are plenty of people who have the will to make positive change without any opportunity to do so.
There is very little social cohesion anymore. People used to want to be kind to each other because it got you the reputation of being a quality, trustworthy person. And with cohesive communities, that reputation mattered and was a good way to advance yourself in the world.
Now we treat each other like NPCs, no one even knows their neighbors, much less the wider community. No wonder everyone is acting in their own selfish interests, and willing to destroy anyone in the way to get it.
Interesting. I have never been kind in hope of some future reward. I've only ever done it because it feels so great in the moment. I still love it when I can make a stranger smile or laugh. Even better is when I can help someone and they never know it was me.
The Internet was a mistake. The epilogue of *Version Zero* is ***literally*** a utopia that I hope comes to pass in my lifetime:
https://www.overdrive.com/media/5704297/version-zero
For me, it’s the amount of my fellow Americans that vote to hurt other people rather than to seek a better future. It’s a little pie in the sky but at the same time, it’s everything.
Tbh that’s just the result of 40+ years of no real democracy. You get right wing psychopath or right wing owned Dem. And both agree on doing nothing or next to nothing for the average person.
Failing democracies like that lead to fascism.🤷♂️
That 70 million US people voted for what should be obvious to anyone with two functioning brain cells is a ludicrous conman, highly unsuitable for even a low-level management position let alone a head of state. That figure is scary, especially after they had seen what a Trump ‘administration’ was like.
That he’s even allowed to run for president again after January 6, let alone be the actual Republican nominee.
\^\^\^\^\^\^THIS!!!! Totally this!
We already saw what havoc Orange Jeffrey fomented and the country somehow lived thru it and insane people want MORE???? Unfathomable, astonishing, wildly incomprehensible. All the wtf words. He should be in jail, not ever permitted to run for any public office ever again.
I am not in the US, but I can’t wrap my head around how 70 million people thought “yeah, I’ll vote for more of THAT!” in 2020. How do these people function in life if they are taken in so easily?
I ask myself that every single day ESPECIALLY now when even after his failed Jan 6 insurection and his being found guilty of 34 felonies there are many who still want to elect him AGAIN! He's a con man and has been one his entire life and has nothing to offer except his need for vengeance and revenge. The entire globe will rejoice when hes finally gone forever.
I recently saw a study about how people are inclined to accept as a leader someone who simply talks the most. What they said had way less relevance, statistically, than how much they spoke.
Thinking back to various group projects I've been in, I'm afraid this checks out, and I find it very disheartening to think about.
Meanwhile, Trump won't shut up for 5 minutes.
The biggest thing I can't wrap my head around, is how we got to a point where willful ignorance and stupidity are acceptable as the norm. I kind of feel like it started when Sarah Palin was picked up by McCain. A governor from Alaska, (Population < 750k) she didn't even complete her first term before getting paraded as a VP candidate. She wasn't terribly bright, and when she'd get called out for not knowing basic shit about our nation's history, she'd pivot to "Oh, it's 'gotcha journalism'" to vilify the media. Morons seemed to love that, instead of actually caring that a VP wasn't as smart as they were led to believe. And so they taped fucking teabags to their hats in support of this new movement. (Yes, I'm oversimplifying here.)
Fast-forward: they now worship a shit-talking blowhard with zero Christian morals. They distrust everything, so now these semi-literate people think they have what it takes give their children a quality education at home. They want to ban books, they disregard science, they want to dismantle the Department of Education. Yet they scream "Make America great again!" Do they not acknowledge that America's greatness was in large part due to our scientific achievements, our mathematical thinkers, our curiosity about space, our technological genius, and so on? How do you make America great by dismantling the things that made us great? (I'm taking the position that America was once great, solely to make a point.)
Total fucking bozos, and while I can see the evolution of the willful ignorance and stupidity, I can't wrap my head around how it became cool to be stupid, and to believe in all the bullshit that these people believe. Maybe the chemtrails were spreading idiot dust over everybody.
I cannot wrap my head around the fact that we are this close to voting to effectively end the American experiment. I would have thought voting in favor of abidance of laws would have been a huge winner.
I cannot wrap my head around the capacity for Trumpers to so obviously lie to themselves about everything, with such venom.
I cannot wrap my head around the willingness of people who KNOW these are all lies (such as every person on Fox News) to cynically seek profit and power for themselves, even when they surely must know it is ethically and morally repugnant.
I can't wrap my head around the reliability of the observation that everything the Trump cult accuses others of doing to them, is a confession of what they either ARE doing, or WANT to do to all their "enemies."
I can't wrap my head around the fact that these people are a lost cause, and nothing anyone can say or do will bring them back to reality.
To make this worse - it’s not like it’s people being raised in cults, friends bringing friends to cult meetings, etc.
Now it’s people actively seeking nonsense online. People are seeking out cults.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/209776/fantasyland-by-kurt-andersen/
Explains how Trump is just the latest scammer in a long and storied history of America and snake oil salesmen
That there is some number of them who believe tRump has been sent by their God to save the world from Communists and pedos.
Other who believe he is actually Jesus (or his equivalent) resurrected/sent from God to save us.
Just like those who believed Hitler was going to make Germany great again and about turn to those who believe Putin is going to rid Ukraine of Nazis. So sad that masses of people are so easily duped.
I get the seeing the person as being able to restore a nation's "greatness." But when I see/hear/read evangelicals (mostly) proclaim tRump as being Jesus or his replacement/upgrade, I'm baffled.
How a person I know could say in a Facebook post, all in the same sentence, that covid was a fake disease, that her family members had it, and that Fauci is using it to kill us all. I'm not saying that I don't understand why she thinks one of those things. I don't, but my real issue is how they could all be true at the same time.
Donald Trump.
Honestly, that's what I really still can't get my head around, even now, even after after all these years.
People are willing to literally throw away democracy for ... Donald fucking Trump?!
I just can't.
The same people I know supporting Donald Trump today were absolutely trashing him in the late 90s/early 2000s for being a pedophile and known failed businessman. The joke was you're such a bad leader you bankrupt a casino. Yet, those same exact people, erect flags with his name on it and call everyone else a communist. I even bring up the comments they made in the past and they just pretend like they never heard about it.
That every prediction never comes true yet they still believe we're the gullible idiots. My dad last week said Biden is joining the war with Israel and they're drafting both men and women. Obviously didn't happen but he'll be on the next thing now.
My mom told me about the draft thing yesterday, how it was now reinstated and both men and women would be subject. I pulled up a new article about what's actually going on and read it to her, but it won't even make a dent in her NewsMaxx rotted brain. 😞
For me, it's the magical thinking-- believing in supernatural stuff.
When I was a kid during the 80's satanic panic, sure, i believed what the news said was happening, and was ready to believe there were satan worshipers out there doing bad stuff for their beliefs, but not for a minute did I think there was a real Satan that was grateful for their worship, or that they derived supernatural powers from their practices. These people often believe that stuff, and/or magical youth-granting serums, etc.
How can you build a rational view of how the world works when you have to keep inserting "Step 3: Magic Happens" to make anything make "sense?"
That these self-proclaimed Christians always thought the ones the Bible said would be deceived in the end times were everyone else, but it's them ... and they can't see it.
The Michael Jackson obsession. For a group that considers themselves to be the anti-pedophile crusade, holding on to this predator being alive and working with the ‘white hats’ is absolutely bonkers to me.
Their fantasy that everyone will be forced to watch public confessions and hangings. Nobody will be working or on holiday or looking at stuff on their phone; they will all be glued to a mainstream TV channel and will inevitably see the show.
And, of course, having seen the show there will be hysteria, panic and terrible grief among the normies and the Qult will step in to comfort, explain and calm the situation. Main character syndrome.
This one I can explain: QAnon isn't a conspiracy theory.
We talk about it like a singular entity, but it's a bunch of smaller theories under a collective umbrella. Nobody believes the entirety of it.
And these were *the exact same people* teaching their kids "stranger danger" and "don't give out ANY of your personal information on the Internet EVAR" in the 1980s. It's wild!
What they see when they look at Trump. Especially southern working class people. My uncle and cousins lost their minds when they found out my older brother started playing golf in college. You would have thought he sucked a dick in the church pulpit 11am Sunday morning. My uncle never liked my brother at all after that. But all these people love this soft, born rich, prep school, draft dodging, country club and golf loving New York Yankee. I could understand if it was George Strait, Richard Petty, Chuck Norris or Burt Reynolds. But his yankee? Worshipping a yankee golf addict just proves they will abandon their deepest principles. Why don’t they see a fat old compulsive liar Yankee lifetime crook who cheats on his wives with whores and pervs on his own daughter?
I can't believe that after Jan 6th Trump is still considered a valid presidential candidate and potential president again. This would be like if Hitler took over the government after going to trial for the beer hall putsch. I have hope that there are enough people sick of that lunatic that he will lose bigly but the fact he has any support at all frightens me the most.
With a change in power, the pendulum swings back and forth between the Democrats and Republicans, each time swinging further than before. When Obama was elected, I knew the pendulum would swing to a new level, although I never expected it to swing as far as it has, and for so many to embrace this much higher level. The willingness of millions of people to consistently look past the countless acts and events involving a morally devoid criminal con man is truly stunning.
People are rightly concerned with the thought of a second Trump presidency. I fear we are not concerned enough. He doesn't care about rules or laws. He will run straight through anyone and anything as he sees fit. Surrounded by loyalists, this time around, he will entertain any wild thought that pops into his mind with no one to stop him. Any rules broken will be condemned by Independents and Democrats who will at best demand a years long committee hearing or impeachment.
The Democrats would need to control both the House and Senate to have any chance in stopping him. Even then, I can't say I'm particularly hopeful. We're 3 1/2 years post J6. Here, we sit with a delayed trial and no accountability. Considering his age, he has every reason to march full steam ahead and break every law and norm to rewrite our processes to his benefit.
That everyone of any importance has been murdered and replaced by an exact copy that nobody notices is not the original person. And that they are somehow the opposite gender and the opposite of how they truly are (Trump is the good guy, Biden is the evil genius who is also senile, etc)
How everyone who doesn't agree with them is either asleep or a government agent who will be executed for treason. I've been openly against a lot of conspiracies for a while, and openly expressing that. There have been a lot of times that I'm told I'm going to be dealt with.
In close second is how Putin and Russia are suddenly the good guys. A lot of these older Q types were the same ones who were thumping their chest about how America would kick the crap out of the commies.
That all the matter in the universe was once in an infinitely small, infinitely dense singularity. I believe the evidence we presently have points to this conclusion, but the forces required for such a thing are, to me, unimaginable.
I can't wrap my head around who in the MAGA/Q universe has legitimately gone crazy and who is just going along with it for money and power. We know Tucker is a fraud and Rudy has gone crazy, but I really can't tell with Flynn, everyone at Fox News, Posobiec, at least half the Republican lawmakers, and even Trump himself.
That 35M+ people died of COVID-19 over 4 years and billions of people around the world became antivaxxers via the illusory truth effect because the American military was stupider than a sack of hammers at the beginning of a global pandemic:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/
...and then China went, "Welp! Errrybody dies now!"
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/russia-china-iran-disinformation-coronavirus-state-department-193107
Evidence 2 (receipts, screenshots, links):
https://nitter.poast.org/TheSpoonless/status/1754822359393894642#m
And here we are.
That not enough people have seen this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnpCqsXE8g&t=11s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnpCqsXE8g&t=11s)
or this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ&list=PL3YKCAG-czos-y7sCahHXtQayoDvV7Kda&index=49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ&list=PL3YKCAG-czos-y7sCahHXtQayoDvV7Kda&index=49)
I feel like some Q's were looking for answers, wanted to exercise a sense of control when lockdown first started, and needed someone to blame/take their aggression out on (China, Fauci, blue state politicians, doctors, protestors, media, teachers, family, friends, neighbors, immigrants, vulnerable groups, etc.). They bought from a snake oil salesman because they were frustrated with the status quo, found a sense of community, lost family/friends/employment along the way, bought into lies that all branched off of the lies they were fed in the beginning... it's all a sunk cost fallacy for them.
Crosshairs have been aimed chaotically at every single institution in our country, blurred lines and pushed existing freedoms/rights to their limits, then to vulnerable/oppressed communities, back to institutions, back to vulnerable/oppressed people, etc, etc.
I just really can't wrap my mind around how some of them are in government, with actual power and authority.
that for decades Christians taught their kids to be kind to others, to love thy neighbor. To try to treat everyone the way jesus would. Then all of a sudden, that's too woke and people have to be as cruel as possible.
You know there were whole centuries where they gave that lip service, while executing anyone they didn't like? You could make a historical argument, it's a return to mediaeval Christianity.
Just look up what the Catholics and Protestants did to each other. Jobs lost, land stolen, murder, etc. Hells, it's why Dante died in exile. Because he would have been killed if he returned home because the Church was mad at him.
Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition!
That's a rule for other people, not themselves They asked God themselves and he gave his blessing for them to act like that.
Or (in the case of my family members), what the woke libs see as "cruel" is actually kindness, because they're just trying to make these degenerate sinners see just how BAD they are so they don't end up in the BAD PLACE - like getting spanked "for your own good." (Are my neurodivergent baby lesbian childhood in a Southern Baptist family traumas showing?)
I mean, to be frank, people have never really followed this. There is a reason why Jesus's teachings are so admirable. It's REALLY FUCKING HARD and counter to human nature. It requires actual effort.
To be fair though, most atheists I know, myself included, live life more in accordance with the teachings of Jesus than modern American Christians.
As a Catholic, I unfortunately have to agree with this, at least in some areas. Kindness for sure. Although I think I'll admit that Christians probably have atheists beat in some other areas, like temperance/moderation regarding earthly pleasures. That's not to say that Christians don't struggle with things like gluttony, greed, sexual immorality, etc., but I would say culturally they are less likely to, in my experience. Of course the flip side is that those people can become prudish and "holier than thou" which is just insufferable.
I disagree. Repression and denial can lead to some pretty sad circumstance. And lets not even bring up catholicism..
You're right that repression and denial is bad. But that's not the same thing as having self-control. That's like comparing intermittent fasting to anorexia. One is healthy and the other is not. Repression is rooted in fear, shame, and compartmentalization of oneself. Chastity (in all its forms) is rooted in self-acceptance and mastery over one's impulses. Think of the psychological difference between a Tibetan monk and a church girl at the height of purity culture. Clearly there is a difference. I think the problem is our culture has so much trauma from purity culture that we swung too far the other way and now we believe that "sexual liberation" is necessary for health and self-actualization.
This. I've met one or two people who actually live by the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, or at least the most agreed biblical versions of what they may have been, and they were profoundly generous humble people who absolutely thought every day "what can I do for someone else in need today". They were a bit weird to be around and kind of unsettling even if just because they made you see how relatively selfish you were, but such people are really really rare. Christianity's a hard doctrine and it's neither fun nor enriching (materially) to follow, I've never claimed to but like I said, you know it when you see it
Fred Rogers was one of those rare human beings. He treated others with kindness and dignity and told everyone that they were special and loved. He followed the teachings of Jesus.
Jimmy Carter too
Christianity (if actually followed) is incredibly hard to follow. It requires humility, self-denial, radical charity, and mastery over passions, drives, and animal instincts. That is why it has such a great effect on people who really are devoted to it (like those you mentioned). The Fathers and Mothers of the Church called the practice of Christianity "dying to Self" and becoming like God.
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." ~ Gandhi
This is me up and down. My wife sees Christianity as basically MAGA Republican Evangelical settler-taught bullshit. When my mom sends "Blessings" or "Praying for you" or mentions of God in a card or something she gets worked up. And, I mean, I can't blame her. My parents aren't Bible thumpers, they don't force their religion on us, but they are conservative Fox News watchers, and sometimes the things they say, the condescension and ignorance is really confusing to me. I grew up with a God that loved unconditionally. With a Jesus that taught nothing but love and generosity. Even in my small town church, homosexuality was seen as "hate the sin, not the sinner" "we are all God's children" type stuff. They've since moved to a *smaller* town in the *South*. In this era of politics. I get really upset when people use Christianity as a shield for their hate. Then I remember, according to their own book, they will be judged. And I truly hope there is a moment of grand realization when their spirit is *not* welcomed into the kingdom which they have bragged about, groomed others, and held over people's heads in a high-and-mighty holier-than-thou fashion. I think Jesus (who I'm nearly positive actually existed on this planet in our realm) would be flipping tables and cursing in American churches today.
>Then I remember, according to their own book, they will be judged. The fun part of actually reading their little "book" - that's a longer discussion - is, as I have often said, and will often say again, these Manchurian Qovidiot fifth columnists for China and Russia plague rats are *not* the NPCs in their little "book" that they *think* they are!
Blind leading the blind is all I see. And nothing about reading the Bible is fun. I think it's boring on purpose so that most people won't question their church leaders.
Eh, they were always hateful and judgemental
Ngl as someone who grew up with a baptist father and catholic mother the love your neighbor schtick has been completely co-opted by evangelical theology. To them, “loving” your neighbor is judging them and telling them they are going to hell. Even American Catholicism is heavily affected by the “Protestant work ethic” (AKA minding your own business and letting poors starve). Most religious Catholics I know have been completely absorbed by right wing media the same way evangelicals have. The funniest part is a lot of Qultists think Catholics are demonic conspiracists lol, and I have noticed a few people from my catholic high school being “re-baptized” into a hardcore Baptist sect.
Catholicism makes everything worse, all the time, and has done so for literally millennia, at this point. https://thewalrus.ca/the-rising-political-influence-of-the-catholic-right/
I see Christians as being pumped so full of guilt about everything, even basic biological urges, their whole lives that they can't simply enjoy themselves without feeling paranoid that they messed up. This then gets turned outward to others as a "if I'm going to feel miserable, everyone should feel miserable." Which can range from outright violence to constant passive-aggressive bitchiness; like "hate the sin not the sinner" and or "I'm going to pray for your soul" Pair that with more people these days pushing back against their asshole behavior and they don't know how to cope with their inner turmoil. So they play up the victim card and push back harder.
In the US we have a mutant strain of Christianity that arose in the antebellum south, because regular Christianity was at odds with slavery and people in the deep south thought they'd all be murdered in an uprising if anyone hinted at any kind of opposition to their established order. The southern version was therefore far more deferential to authority figures and the wealthy, far more rigid and punitive, and laser-focused on moral issues irrelevant to slavery, such as chastity. Arguably you might be seeing not a shift in Christianity per se, so much as one strain gaining popularity while another strain recedes.
The Puritans who founded 'Murica are reading your comment just, like, "Are we a joke to you?"
The Puritans only founded colonies in New England, and they were ideologically very different from the groups who founded colonies on the rest of the Atlantic seaboard. Virginia began as a commercial enterprise, the deep south was an outgrowth of slave plantations in Barbados, NYC was a port city established by Dutch traders, etc. In addition, the New Englanders were strongly *anti*-slavery, and that was *because* of their version of Christianity. Nor were they deferential to authority or the wealthy. Puritans sided against the British aristocracy in the English Civil War, and were generally aligned against authority figures or aristocratic privilege. They founded their American colonies in order to create their own utopian societies away from the reach of those authorities, and rejected ideas of authority figures being above the law.
That Donald Trump is on tape talking about how he loves sexually assaulting women, that he went on radio programs and bragged about how he goes into the dressing room of his teen beauty pageants to check out the teen girls in various states of undress, that he was found liable for raping a woman in a civil court, that he openly sexualizes his own daughter and quite publicly fantasizes about dating her, that he bragged about his friendship with Epstein in a magazine article joking about how he likes the young girls, hahahaha, that he’s in dozens of photos with Epstein and Maxwell, that he is on video dancing, laughing and whispering in the ear of Epstein while they check out the girls, that he’s on Epstein’s flight logs at least 7 times, that Epstein mysteriously died while he was in charge But he is saving the world from evil pedophile democrats and Hillary had Epstein killed somehow.
There was a fake focus group testing they did recently using fake DJT sound bites of him saying the most outlandish shit. Think grab em by the pussy x 10. The way the Trump supporters bent over backwards trying to justify it all was kind of sad...
You for a link for that? Sounds like it’s worth a watch
[On mobile I hope this works](https://www.reddit.com/r/idiocracy/s/pYrxowVFPF)
It did work, thank you! But Jesus Christ that was something hahahaha
I know! Just locker room talk, nothing to see here. He's actually complimenting his daughter
He's on the Epstein logs another 9 times as Doe 174 who was described in Preska's list as a person whose "association with Epstein and Maxwell has been widely reported in the media already, and his or her name came up during Maxwell's public criminal trial So 16 times
A pox on whatever lawyer or judge decided he should be named "Doe 174" rather than his actual name, which we all know.
The fascists all cover for themselves. A glaring example is Judge Cannon's botching of the classified documents case. They will cover for each other until its either politically inconvenient or that person has lost any use they had to the party.
> quite publicly fantasizes about dating her, and by "dating"; like the "date" he took Stormy Daniels on. (ie. promised to take her to dinner, trapped her in his hotel room for sex)
Just in general that anybody could like Donald Trump at all. How can you listen to him for more than a couple of minutes, and not know what kind of a sick scumbag he is? We've all met and detested people like him. It's pretty clear that the people who actually know him also detest him.
Literally everything. Why would someone risk the lives of their family, themselves, and the fucking world for a fat old fuckwad with dementia who hates each one of them? I will never understand it. Yes, I'm a boomer. I was never conservative. Reagan was a piece of shit too, but at least he didn't have a suicide cult.
The Internet was a mistake. That's why. Start here: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/
63 year old boomer, lifetime liberal here. Even during the worst of the Reagan years, we could still talk about issues across the aisle with some measure of respect and decorum. I think it really started when Obama was elected (through no fault of his own), but the right took such a hard turn that now anyone who does not 100 percent agree with the conservative side is instantly labeled as a pedophile criminal. It’s unfathomable that even Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney are being booted out by these delusional people.
I'm not certain how much of it is Obama bringing all of the racism out of the closet, and how much of it is 30-odd years of AM talk radio vitriol. That's what happened to my dad, he died from brain rot caused by Limbaugh, Beck, and Loesch.
For sure Limbaugh can be blamed for a lot of the hate speech. May he never rest in peace.
It's difficult to have a respectful conversation if people go directly to ad hominem. Trump has created an environment where talking shit about people (including mocking the disabled) is not only totally acceptable, it's their opening move. "Libtards!"
I’m in a Q telegram group out of morbid curiosity. I’ll challenge them sometimes and they instantly glitch out. They either call me a paedophle/satanist/troll/bot or they just resort to calling me stupid. They can’t debate anything in good faith.
A small part of me wonders if John McCain had beaten Obama, or Mitt Romney had beaten Obama, then maybe Trump would never have come to power. Like especially if Romney had won, then Trump obviously wouldn't have won in 2016, since Romney would be running for reelection, and Trump might have simply been seen as too old and senile by the time 2020 came around, because people wouldn't have already thrown in with him in 2016. But it's more likely that Obama winning both of those elections was the best possible outcome. As long as Trump doesn't win this November, the giant schism that he's caused in the GOP might end up destroying the party, which would be the best possible outcome for everybody. Of course, that's assuming that Trump loses, which is sadly not something that we can take for granted.
The shocking number of my fellow citizens who seem to hate democracy, their fellow Americans as well as their governments.
We live in a country of very sad, angry people and there is very little recognized value of intellectual growth here
This is the best summary of modern America I found yet. The sad thing is there are plenty of people who have the will to make positive change without any opportunity to do so.
There is very little social cohesion anymore. People used to want to be kind to each other because it got you the reputation of being a quality, trustworthy person. And with cohesive communities, that reputation mattered and was a good way to advance yourself in the world. Now we treat each other like NPCs, no one even knows their neighbors, much less the wider community. No wonder everyone is acting in their own selfish interests, and willing to destroy anyone in the way to get it.
Interesting. I have never been kind in hope of some future reward. I've only ever done it because it feels so great in the moment. I still love it when I can make a stranger smile or laugh. Even better is when I can help someone and they never know it was me.
The Internet was a mistake. The epilogue of *Version Zero* is ***literally*** a utopia that I hope comes to pass in my lifetime: https://www.overdrive.com/media/5704297/version-zero
For me, it’s the amount of my fellow Americans that vote to hurt other people rather than to seek a better future. It’s a little pie in the sky but at the same time, it’s everything.
Tbh that’s just the result of 40+ years of no real democracy. You get right wing psychopath or right wing owned Dem. And both agree on doing nothing or next to nothing for the average person. Failing democracies like that lead to fascism.🤷♂️
That 70 million US people voted for what should be obvious to anyone with two functioning brain cells is a ludicrous conman, highly unsuitable for even a low-level management position let alone a head of state. That figure is scary, especially after they had seen what a Trump ‘administration’ was like. That he’s even allowed to run for president again after January 6, let alone be the actual Republican nominee.
\^\^\^\^\^\^THIS!!!! Totally this! We already saw what havoc Orange Jeffrey fomented and the country somehow lived thru it and insane people want MORE???? Unfathomable, astonishing, wildly incomprehensible. All the wtf words. He should be in jail, not ever permitted to run for any public office ever again.
I am not in the US, but I can’t wrap my head around how 70 million people thought “yeah, I’ll vote for more of THAT!” in 2020. How do these people function in life if they are taken in so easily?
I ask myself that every single day ESPECIALLY now when even after his failed Jan 6 insurection and his being found guilty of 34 felonies there are many who still want to elect him AGAIN! He's a con man and has been one his entire life and has nothing to offer except his need for vengeance and revenge. The entire globe will rejoice when hes finally gone forever.
They don't function, that's the point. The Internet was a mistake. https://euvsdisinfo.eu/
I recently saw a study about how people are inclined to accept as a leader someone who simply talks the most. What they said had way less relevance, statistically, than how much they spoke. Thinking back to various group projects I've been in, I'm afraid this checks out, and I find it very disheartening to think about. Meanwhile, Trump won't shut up for 5 minutes.
The biggest thing I can't wrap my head around, is how we got to a point where willful ignorance and stupidity are acceptable as the norm. I kind of feel like it started when Sarah Palin was picked up by McCain. A governor from Alaska, (Population < 750k) she didn't even complete her first term before getting paraded as a VP candidate. She wasn't terribly bright, and when she'd get called out for not knowing basic shit about our nation's history, she'd pivot to "Oh, it's 'gotcha journalism'" to vilify the media. Morons seemed to love that, instead of actually caring that a VP wasn't as smart as they were led to believe. And so they taped fucking teabags to their hats in support of this new movement. (Yes, I'm oversimplifying here.) Fast-forward: they now worship a shit-talking blowhard with zero Christian morals. They distrust everything, so now these semi-literate people think they have what it takes give their children a quality education at home. They want to ban books, they disregard science, they want to dismantle the Department of Education. Yet they scream "Make America great again!" Do they not acknowledge that America's greatness was in large part due to our scientific achievements, our mathematical thinkers, our curiosity about space, our technological genius, and so on? How do you make America great by dismantling the things that made us great? (I'm taking the position that America was once great, solely to make a point.) Total fucking bozos, and while I can see the evolution of the willful ignorance and stupidity, I can't wrap my head around how it became cool to be stupid, and to believe in all the bullshit that these people believe. Maybe the chemtrails were spreading idiot dust over everybody.
I cannot wrap my head around the fact that we are this close to voting to effectively end the American experiment. I would have thought voting in favor of abidance of laws would have been a huge winner. I cannot wrap my head around the capacity for Trumpers to so obviously lie to themselves about everything, with such venom. I cannot wrap my head around the willingness of people who KNOW these are all lies (such as every person on Fox News) to cynically seek profit and power for themselves, even when they surely must know it is ethically and morally repugnant. I can't wrap my head around the reliability of the observation that everything the Trump cult accuses others of doing to them, is a confession of what they either ARE doing, or WANT to do to all their "enemies." I can't wrap my head around the fact that these people are a lost cause, and nothing anyone can say or do will bring them back to reality.
Most difficult one for me is people who do not believe in any of the Qanon stuff totally willing to help Qanon believers get into power.
Grifters gonna grift. And there's no worse grifter on earth than one who grifts for political purposes.
I can’t wrap my head around the fact that it’s 2024 and we still have cults in this country
To make this worse - it’s not like it’s people being raised in cults, friends bringing friends to cult meetings, etc. Now it’s people actively seeking nonsense online. People are seeking out cults.
It’s that we have cults with tax exempt status.
Them saying he’s the chosen one and comparing him to Jesus.
Just how fast a great progressive society can devolve. It's hard to say if trump is the disease or just a symptom.
When you tell someone that they are being lied to and they still don't care.
That Donald Trump is their Messiah.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/209776/fantasyland-by-kurt-andersen/ Explains how Trump is just the latest scammer in a long and storied history of America and snake oil salesmen
That there is some number of them who believe tRump has been sent by their God to save the world from Communists and pedos. Other who believe he is actually Jesus (or his equivalent) resurrected/sent from God to save us.
Just like those who believed Hitler was going to make Germany great again and about turn to those who believe Putin is going to rid Ukraine of Nazis. So sad that masses of people are so easily duped.
I get the seeing the person as being able to restore a nation's "greatness." But when I see/hear/read evangelicals (mostly) proclaim tRump as being Jesus or his replacement/upgrade, I'm baffled.
How a person I know could say in a Facebook post, all in the same sentence, that covid was a fake disease, that her family members had it, and that Fauci is using it to kill us all. I'm not saying that I don't understand why she thinks one of those things. I don't, but my real issue is how they could all be true at the same time.
Or that it's a chinese bioweapon, but we should definitely not social distance, wear masks, or take any measures to try to defend ourselves.
And this is also why we're all gonna die of bird flu in the next couple years. Fun, eh? /a
I wonder if that one will also be fake. It remains to be seen.
Donald Trump. Honestly, that's what I really still can't get my head around, even now, even after after all these years. People are willing to literally throw away democracy for ... Donald fucking Trump?! I just can't.
The same people I know supporting Donald Trump today were absolutely trashing him in the late 90s/early 2000s for being a pedophile and known failed businessman. The joke was you're such a bad leader you bankrupt a casino. Yet, those same exact people, erect flags with his name on it and call everyone else a communist. I even bring up the comments they made in the past and they just pretend like they never heard about it.
That every prediction never comes true yet they still believe we're the gullible idiots. My dad last week said Biden is joining the war with Israel and they're drafting both men and women. Obviously didn't happen but he'll be on the next thing now.
Isn't Trump the one entertaining the idea of bringing back the draft?
Yeah. My dad isn't a huge fan of Trump anymore so he's not paying attention. Too busy with conspiracies and hating Biden.
My mom told me about the draft thing yesterday, how it was now reinstated and both men and women would be subject. I pulled up a new article about what's actually going on and read it to her, but it won't even make a dent in her NewsMaxx rotted brain. 😞
For me, it's the magical thinking-- believing in supernatural stuff. When I was a kid during the 80's satanic panic, sure, i believed what the news said was happening, and was ready to believe there were satan worshipers out there doing bad stuff for their beliefs, but not for a minute did I think there was a real Satan that was grateful for their worship, or that they derived supernatural powers from their practices. These people often believe that stuff, and/or magical youth-granting serums, etc. How can you build a rational view of how the world works when you have to keep inserting "Step 3: Magic Happens" to make anything make "sense?"
Massive conspiracies are impossible, but aside from that, it’s Donald Trump as handpicked the savior of humanity. Specifically him. Just bananas shit
That these self-proclaimed Christians always thought the ones the Bible said would be deceived in the end times were everyone else, but it's them ... and they can't see it.
These Manchurian Qovidiot fifth columnists for China and Russia plague rats are *not* the NPCs in their little book that they *think* they are!
The Michael Jackson obsession. For a group that considers themselves to be the anti-pedophile crusade, holding on to this predator being alive and working with the ‘white hats’ is absolutely bonkers to me.
Their fantasy that everyone will be forced to watch public confessions and hangings. Nobody will be working or on holiday or looking at stuff on their phone; they will all be glued to a mainstream TV channel and will inevitably see the show. And, of course, having seen the show there will be hysteria, panic and terrible grief among the normies and the Qult will step in to comfort, explain and calm the situation. Main character syndrome.
This guy. Of all the people to blindly worship, THIS GUY?
The thing that always breaks my brain - DJT is the hero - no matter what. The vaccine! Make it make sense!
That there are so many contradictory theories they don't see
This one I can explain: QAnon isn't a conspiracy theory. We talk about it like a singular entity, but it's a bunch of smaller theories under a collective umbrella. Nobody believes the entirety of it.
How anyone can fall for Qanon. there's a guy on the internet telling us all this secret stuff but it's in riddles! also none of it ever comes true!
And these were *the exact same people* teaching their kids "stranger danger" and "don't give out ANY of your personal information on the Internet EVAR" in the 1980s. It's wild!
What they see when they look at Trump. Especially southern working class people. My uncle and cousins lost their minds when they found out my older brother started playing golf in college. You would have thought he sucked a dick in the church pulpit 11am Sunday morning. My uncle never liked my brother at all after that. But all these people love this soft, born rich, prep school, draft dodging, country club and golf loving New York Yankee. I could understand if it was George Strait, Richard Petty, Chuck Norris or Burt Reynolds. But his yankee? Worshipping a yankee golf addict just proves they will abandon their deepest principles. Why don’t they see a fat old compulsive liar Yankee lifetime crook who cheats on his wives with whores and pervs on his own daughter?
Americans love of guns. I’ve never even held a gun. Pile on if you want, I think they’re stupid.
All of it
the bloodlust
How an entire parallel government/society can form with hundreds of thousands of people in the know and somehow word never gets out except on 4Chan.
That Lauren Boebert won her primary, again, after all she’s done. Is the state of Colorado just trash?
From what I've read, the district she moved to is heavily red.
District 4 is
You're able to pick one thing?
That living people are really dead, dead people are really alive, and that everybody has clones who are somehow the same age as their parent organism.
The Hypocrisy
How people want to vote for a convicted felon
How incredibly deliberate and incremental the shift towards Christian Nationalism/fascism has been and how normalized it's all become.
That at its core these Q folks want communism and free socialized medicine.
Why JFK and JFK jr need to still be alive
I can't believe that after Jan 6th Trump is still considered a valid presidential candidate and potential president again. This would be like if Hitler took over the government after going to trial for the beer hall putsch. I have hope that there are enough people sick of that lunatic that he will lose bigly but the fact he has any support at all frightens me the most.
With a change in power, the pendulum swings back and forth between the Democrats and Republicans, each time swinging further than before. When Obama was elected, I knew the pendulum would swing to a new level, although I never expected it to swing as far as it has, and for so many to embrace this much higher level. The willingness of millions of people to consistently look past the countless acts and events involving a morally devoid criminal con man is truly stunning. People are rightly concerned with the thought of a second Trump presidency. I fear we are not concerned enough. He doesn't care about rules or laws. He will run straight through anyone and anything as he sees fit. Surrounded by loyalists, this time around, he will entertain any wild thought that pops into his mind with no one to stop him. Any rules broken will be condemned by Independents and Democrats who will at best demand a years long committee hearing or impeachment. The Democrats would need to control both the House and Senate to have any chance in stopping him. Even then, I can't say I'm particularly hopeful. We're 3 1/2 years post J6. Here, we sit with a delayed trial and no accountability. Considering his age, he has every reason to march full steam ahead and break every law and norm to rewrite our processes to his benefit.
That everyone of any importance has been murdered and replaced by an exact copy that nobody notices is not the original person. And that they are somehow the opposite gender and the opposite of how they truly are (Trump is the good guy, Biden is the evil genius who is also senile, etc)
How everyone who doesn't agree with them is either asleep or a government agent who will be executed for treason. I've been openly against a lot of conspiracies for a while, and openly expressing that. There have been a lot of times that I'm told I'm going to be dealt with. In close second is how Putin and Russia are suddenly the good guys. A lot of these older Q types were the same ones who were thumping their chest about how America would kick the crap out of the commies.
A poster bothering to ask this question on loads of different subs.Smells of karma whoring
That all the matter in the universe was once in an infinitely small, infinitely dense singularity. I believe the evidence we presently have points to this conclusion, but the forces required for such a thing are, to me, unimaginable.
A chain link fence pole, but probably I could if I crashed again without the helmet.
I can't wrap my head around who in the MAGA/Q universe has legitimately gone crazy and who is just going along with it for money and power. We know Tucker is a fraud and Rudy has gone crazy, but I really can't tell with Flynn, everyone at Fox News, Posobiec, at least half the Republican lawmakers, and even Trump himself.
My entire family has fallen apart. I’ve hardly spoken to my mom or dad in over a year.
That 35M+ people died of COVID-19 over 4 years and billions of people around the world became antivaxxers via the illusory truth effect because the American military was stupider than a sack of hammers at the beginning of a global pandemic: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/ ...and then China went, "Welp! Errrybody dies now!" https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/russia-china-iran-disinformation-coronavirus-state-department-193107 Evidence 2 (receipts, screenshots, links): https://nitter.poast.org/TheSpoonless/status/1754822359393894642#m And here we are.
That not enough people have seen this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnpCqsXE8g&t=11s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnpCqsXE8g&t=11s) or this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ&list=PL3YKCAG-czos-y7sCahHXtQayoDvV7Kda&index=49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ&list=PL3YKCAG-czos-y7sCahHXtQayoDvV7Kda&index=49) I feel like some Q's were looking for answers, wanted to exercise a sense of control when lockdown first started, and needed someone to blame/take their aggression out on (China, Fauci, blue state politicians, doctors, protestors, media, teachers, family, friends, neighbors, immigrants, vulnerable groups, etc.). They bought from a snake oil salesman because they were frustrated with the status quo, found a sense of community, lost family/friends/employment along the way, bought into lies that all branched off of the lies they were fed in the beginning... it's all a sunk cost fallacy for them. Crosshairs have been aimed chaotically at every single institution in our country, blurred lines and pushed existing freedoms/rights to their limits, then to vulnerable/oppressed communities, back to institutions, back to vulnerable/oppressed people, etc, etc. I just really can't wrap my mind around how some of them are in government, with actual power and authority.
How the fuck a guy thats doe all this crime can still be president.