People are really underestimating how many accelerationist dominionists are now at high levels of the US government.
The Heritage Foundation, authors of Project 2025, is chock full of them, and their aim is to bring on the rapture and apocalypse.
Several of them were in Israel recently for a practice run of the red cow sacrifice that’s meant to bring Jesus back. The Jews and evangelicals want this for different reasons, but this is why US evangelicals are supporting Israel. Because in order to summon Jesus, evangelicals believe Palestine must be destroyed, the mosque at the temple mount must be razed (part of why they’re also hot for muslim skin), and the original temple rebuilt.
This is not fringe conspiracy bullshit – they’re serious enough that several senators have been funding the breeding programme for a perfect red cow, and some (including Mike Johnson IIRC) were in Israel for their practice run last year.
It all sounds insane, but they’re serious about this. It’s also why they don’t care about climate change. It’s not that they don’t think it’s real, but that they think it’s one of the signs zombie Jesus is coming back to give them a paradise from which they can watch the rest of us burn. This is all very, deadly serious to them. It’s a death cult, and they’ve been given the means to kill us all for their apocalyptic fantasies.
Hey @homosapien@lemmy.dbzer0.com wanna scientifically research and reason this?
1 Thessalonians 5:2 For you yourselves thoroughly understand that the day of the Lord shall arrive much like a thief in the night.
This is what happens when you go astray from the Universal Church (Catholic Church)
Luke 6:39 Now he told them another comparison: “How can the blind lead the blind? Would they not both fall into a pit?
Lol. I knew you would show yourself as a massive idiot. But this went beyond my expectations
I never knew they were founded during and deeply involved in the Reagan presidency. Go figure
The 70s and 80s saw a conservative Renaissance and we are living in the conservative golden age. The reason the world is on fire and threatening humanity with extinction? Conservatives.
Yip just more death cult bs
Yeah, this shit has been burning for decades, with prominent evangelicals infiltrating government for a long time. Watch the docuseries The Family on Netflix if you really want to get angry and depressed.
They’re the ones responsible for the White House prayer breakfast (the one with the creepy photos where they lay hands on trump).
It’s hard to pick what our single greatest existential risk is at a moment in time with such an embarrassment of choices, but if I had to pick one, it’s probably Dominionist Evangelical Christianity as exemplified by Heritage and the 7 Mountain Mandate - please click on that if you’re unfamiliar.
The movement’s theology is based on biblical passages like Revelation 17:9 and Isaiah 2:2, promoting the idea that Christians should actively take control of the seven societal mountains to establish God’s kingdom on Earth.
Because it’s a people powered nexus for a lot of the other bad shit that competes for it on the list.
Zionism and antisemitism yes at the same time, AI, capitalism, and climate change, all intensified and utilized by the 7MM.
To be clear, those seven mountains are family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government.
family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, government, and a fanatical devotion to donald trump.
Everyone expects the American Inquisition!
Judges 7:1-9 where god wants gideon to use a smaller army so god can get credit
Paraphrased:
I’m god, and your military is too strong. Do stupid shit and make it weaker and win anyway so that I get credit. Uh…warrior ethos or something.
People make fun of anime and comic con but Christianity has the worst fandom.
I never understand the mentality of accelerationists.
They truly believe all of the evil crap they do is somehow absolved because they’re bringing on judgement day faster as if that has any relation on what you did as a person. And not just to Muslims, they trample over their own Christians living around Jerusalem because they want to see the return of Jesus.
It’d be like a guy speedrunning crimes so that the justice department makes him a high priority to arrest and prosecute, but that will also somehow nullify all of his crimes because… the court trial was scheduled early???
Even if you ignore that they clearly don’t like reading or following Jesus’s own teachings, it is absurd logic to think that funding a genocide and the destruction of the west bank would never be questioned in morality.
Also crime and punishment
I’m not sure how they justify getting on the wrong side of humanity. It strikes me as an explain this to St Peter type of thing.
Religion is a mental illness and should disqualify people from anything higher than a garbageman.
discrimination but its cool
“Religion is bad” is a very unscientific statement that is usually spoken by people who do not want to research and actually reason
Keep coping. You sound like a child with your “a very unscientific statement”.
Religion is a delusion. They can’t all be right. Science your way out of that.
Religion is a belief that there is a higher power that rewards good and punishes evil. A place a person can look at the dark times in life to believe things will get better, and the world isn’t as dark and awful as it can feel. Religion is also not for everyone, and some use religion to lie and manipulate others. But someone looking to religion for guidance in a time when they feel lost isn’t some “mental illness”.
Religion is a belief that there is a higher power that rewards good and punishes evil.
Are you claiming all evil in the world is being punished and all good is being rewarded? What is good? What is evil? Are you aware that different religions across time and space had different notions of it? Are you claiming this omnipotent entity decided and some how bothered to communicate it to a human?
If I would have told you that this being and me spoke earlier, how would you respond?
Imagine being an omnipotent entity, and what you do for ages is meddling in human drama. Human centric much? What about different life forms? We are not the only intelligence in this planet. What about lifeforms on different in the universe? Are they also under the same scrutiny?
A place a person can look at the dark times in life to believe things will get better, and the world isn’t as dark and awful as it can feel.
Yeah, that is completely delusional. But even worst, it’s causing a lot of harm to others. Back to the earlier point - what if I told you that the omnipotent being told me religion is evil? I can find a lot of arguments to support the moral claim that it is evil and thus makes its practitioners do evil. Just so you could live in some little lie thinking you are better the all the rest.
Religion is also not for everyone, and some use religion to lie and manipulate others.
See? You support evil doers
But someone looking to religion for guidance in a time when they feel lost isn’t some “mental illness”.
Of course it is, what possibly could be solved by clinging to a full blown manipulative delusion?
Edit - some formatting
You’re born evil and without religion you die that way, as is the belief of many.
The Earth isnt real, it can’t be all the shapes people think it is?
Earth is a sphere? haha thats a mental illness lol how do you know its not a cuboid
science, bitch
expand
There are people that have been and actively are in space looking at the earth, nobody is making that up, it’s just a simple fact, the earth is round. (Spheroid, if you want to be a pedant) There is no requirement of belief nor faith, just basic observation and understanding. Stupidity is quite literally the only reason to argue otherwise.
And as we can reason that Earth is a spheroid, we can reason that Christ is God.
Cool story
seems very Christiany type of explanation.
Damn it’s almost like we should separate religion from politics.
Religions have a very large part in creating the population’s morals, opinions, and values, so I think that’s practically impossible.
Clearly religion is doing a shit job of it, judging by the results. Throw it in the trash can
They aren’t necessary for that role.
They aren’t, but I don’t see religions as a whole getting anywhere close to dying out. People are going to be shaped by what they’re taught as children, for better and worse.
That’s objectively untrue. Religious leaders want you to believe that, and it’s a major part of their propaganda. But no, religions co-opted morals and human values; they did not invent them by any stretch of the imagination.
You’re making the false assumption that there are universal morals and human values here. That’s immediately falsifiable by noting that different societies don’t, in fact, have the same morals or values. You’re also making the other false assumption that religions never (or essentially never) challenge their host societies’ morals or values when the two biggest religions in the world (Islam and Christianity) provide ample evidence to the contrary. You’re then deriving from those two false assumptions the false conclusions that religions don’t shape the values and morals of their host societies when, for example, it’s not a coincidence that Americans regardless of religion tend to find polygamy morally unacceptable.
I think you’re confusing Morality - things like “I shall not harm others” - with social norms - like your polygamy example.
Morality derives from Empathy - the higher a person’s Empathy the less likely they are to do things to hurt others because due to Empathy they actually feel bad (mainly guilt) when exposed to the hurt in others which they caused.
Social norms on the other hand are things which we in society have agreed are better done that way for the good of all. Some do indeed overlap with Morality, but others are just the product of figuring out over centuries that societies are more stable and last more if those things aren’t done (for example, polygamy as a widespread practice - rather than when only done by very few and very rich men - yields societies with lots of angry young men unless such a society is constantly at war and hence most young men die in it, so generally being against polygamy is just logical). In simple terms, societies with social norms that don’t work or without some social norms quickly self-destructed or were destroyed by other societys which were more prosperous (or even more violent)
There is no necessity of people being told not to hurt others - it’s a natural thing for people who aren’t high on the Psychopathy, Sociopathy or Narcissism spectrum and hence have empathy, plus even for those there is the fear of reciprocation by others, which is why most hurting of others is people with more power doing it to those with less power (something, which by the way is inconsistent with the “Morality comes from Religion” theory - if that was the case, the powerful being just as Religious would do no more harm to others than the powerless).
There is no necessity of people being told not to hurt others - it’s a natural thing for people who aren’t high on the Psychopathy, Sociopathy or Narcissism spectrum and hence have empathy,
Counterpoint: Slavery. A good chunk (probably a majority) of societies before the 19th century saw slavery as just and natural, so either holding people in bondage doesn’t quality as “hurting” or morality is in fact dependent on social norms. Other counterexamples would include the death penalty, acceptable conduct in warfare (compare wherever you live to Israel for a modern example), domestic violence, the use of certain criminal punishments (i.e. corporal punishment), the whole concept of crime, illicit sexual relationships, drinking alcohol (viewed as morally wrong in most Muslim societies), etc. These are things that by most definitions would be included under “morality,” so while there’s a basic core of morality that’s mostly independent of culture, beyond that it’s all socially contingent.
Social norms on the other hand are things which we in society people have agreed are better done for the good of all […] (for example, polygamy as a widespread practice - rather than when only done by very few and very rich men - yields societies with lots of angry young men unless such a society is constantly at war and hence most young men die in it, so generally being against polygamy is just logical).
I strongly doubt the average American is going through that thought process when saying “polygamy is bad.” That’s a claim that requires evidence.
(something, which by the way is inconsistent with the “Morality comes from Religion” theory - if that was the case, the powerful being just as Religious would do no more harm to others than the powerless).
I didn’t say that being moral stems from being religious, but that the moral values observed in many societies (including Western ones) stem from religious ones, but also: You’re assuming the powerless don’t act like the powerful due to better morality rather than lack of ability. Usually people who transition from powerless to powerful act basically like the already powerful do, with maybe some benefit of perspective.
Mate, if the only reason you won’t cause suffering or even murder others is because religion told you so, you have deep, deep personal character issues, being either a Sociopath or Psychopath - normal people feel guilty when they see the hurt they caused to others and thus refrain from doing it further because it feels bad, no need to be actually told not to do it.
I agree. I’m not one of those people that needs to be threatened with hell to keep myself from hurting people. My point was more about how religions have a lot of impact on what people think, especially around issues like queer rights and reproductive rights. Fewer people would care if their religious institution didn’t. Those religious people aren’t suddenly going to stop being impacted by their religion while they’re voting.
Separate it from society.
That’s a hard sell for anyone who actually believes in their religion, for the same reason you’d find it a non-starter to ignore your own concept of morality when doing politics. “Keep religion out of politics” is a nonsensical statement, for the simple reason that to a religious populace (which is most of them) their morality will to some degree come from their religion.
To be fair, when I’m my most cynical, I see human beings as intrinsically flawed, in that we’re trying to develop into a space-faring global society, but still have instincts that only function for tiny bands of hunter-gatherers.
And that would be fine if we were all on the same page, pursuing an all-inclusive pluralistic liberal democracy. (Or, really, any social system that allowsus to massively organize. Those tend to be pretty egalitarian.) But there’s a small faction of us who got lucky and got the sweet drops early or hacked themselves into wealth and power, and they want to keep their (ill-gotten) gains. And they hate the rest of us. (They might hate each other. J.P. Morgan did.)
And they are willing to exploit human instincts in the rest of us to keep us from seizing their sweet drops and wealth and power. And in the meantime, they don’t listen to experts who can advise them how to not ruin the world for human life, while trying to accumulate everything at the expense of what’s necessary to sustain them.
So we’re likely going to die out soon, or go through a millennia-long low population phase where we try desperately not to get eaten by new-world screwworm.
I can’t say we don’t deserve better, but our history teems with atrocity done to gain power or keep power or stay adjacent to power. We are a writhing knot of violence who can’t seem to break free of our madness, even to save our lives. We a seem unable to create better for ourselves.
I don’t think it’s sin because there’s nothing else that really cares what we do, or how we conduct ourselves. We do what we are going to do, and reap the consequences.
Liberal society doesn’t change any of the underlying capitalist system, for an egalitarian system, you need a system more like democratic or stakeholder socialism.
religion is a blight on humanity and should be left behind if we want to survive as a species. it has no inherent value and serves only to hold us back and harm us. feel free to out yourself as one of the intellectually negligent by disagreeing with me.
American atheists’ favorite hobby is reconstructing christian cosmology from an unexamined base of fundamentally christian assumptions about the world. Look at roko’s basilisk.
Understanding religion gives you a better context for the culture you emerge from, how it got to be where it is, and what underlining assumptions drive it ideologically. You can wish for a clean break from that historical context all you want, is isn’t gonna actually happen.
Understanding it is why I don’t believe it
understanding it doesn’t make it true. it isn’t real, but the harm it perpetuates definitely is.
But that is literally what they believe, though. Most Christians don’t know or care about theological deep cuts
understanding isnt believing. people need to be educated about the dangers and failures of religion if we ever want to move past it. i would never advocate for forgetting it. but sure put words in my mouth.
I’m not sure it’s possible to move past it, at least not in any of our lifetimes. Some long tail where specific faiths wither away bit by bit with each generation, maybe. Though, I find it hard to imagine that space not somehow being filled with some other form of spirituality.
More to the point, surely you don’t mean all religions?
yeah all religions. believing in made up bullshit is dangerous and wrong.
Hm. You wanna go to tribal land and tell them we’ve once again decided they can’t practice their culture? Cus that’s what your arguing for.
you just keep putting words in my mouth. you cant end religion by forcing people to stop. you end it by educating people and teaching them critical thinking, so they can see the inherent flaws of religion for themselves and decide for themselves to leave it behind. its not a coincidence that more educated people tend to be much less religious. clearly the solution is more education for everyone, which would also help human society in innumerable other ways.
That would certainly curtail the most reactionary elements of religion, but I don’t think that would end it. Maybe for some. But faith, like any institution cultural or otherwise, evolves with its environment.
I love how you folks always assume that if anyone doesn’t agree with your religion then they just don’t understand it yet. It’s not hard to grasp, it’s really fucking simple, and it’s not hard to see that every religion is just the same stupid woowoo bullshit.
Ah, but you see I am an atheist.
Sure.
Seriously, have you seen the “rokos basilisk” thing? Buncha self-identified “rationalists” recreating god from first principles and a network connection.
Yeah, I’m very familiar with the Rationalists, and the Zizians, they don’t understand that science-fiction is fiction, just like how other cults don’t understand fantasy is fantasy, cults are going to cult. If anything, they are a further call to reject religious/cult reasoning and culture. It’s a mindset that seeks an intentional and deliberate misunderstanding of reality.
Really the only prerequisite to falling into a cult is thinking oneself too smart or moral or whatever to fall into a cult.
“Anyone that disagrees with me is bad” > “I will never change my views nor reason with an open mind”
Yeah as opposed to other modes of self-identification such as the famously wholesome nationalism.
More serious, something tells me you only have one or two (definitely not more than three) religions in mind with that massively broad statement.
Oh my God y’all have to be kidding me this is utter nonsense when you think about it for five seconds. Off the top of my head:
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Christians believe they’re redeemed by believing in Jesus, so even if this applied to non-Christians it wouldn’t apply to them. So in an American context they’d still want better public health and a better environment for them.
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TF you mean “cleansed with fire and destruction” that’s not how Abrahamic eschatology works at all. The trials of the end of times aren’t there to make people better (not a Christian so I could be wrong on that one, but I really doubt it).
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This hypothesis fails when tested against populations who aren’t white American Evangelicals or Mormons. Most famously the Pope himself seems to disagree.
This literally is what Christians believe, though. They say it out loud
What people believe and what’s in the scripture are two different things. Selective enforcement goes back a long time.
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If this was the fate of humanity there was no need for the whole Jesus arc. He could have just said holy fuck you people are corrupt and ended the whole planet at once but didn’t, and the end times crap was not endorsed by his teachings. Not that I expect internal consistency in Christianity but I like to bring it up when they start ranting about Revelations like it’s a policy position.
To be fair, that whole story is obviously nonsense. Why would an omni god need to make himself human in order to sacrifice himself to protect us from himself? It’s ludicrous.
This is exactly the sort of story superstitious people in the Iron Age would invent to tell each other why their suffering during war and famine was righteous, though, to prevent uprisings and further societal collapse.
Yeah the whole thing is so stupidly convoluted, and I guess impressive if it’s the only book you’ve ever read…
God makes the rules, why does he need to be a human sacrifice to stop his own creation from going to hell (also his creation and insanely abusive)? Why even invent the stupid rules that apparently require that in the first place?
I feel like a lot of the revelation stuff happened at the turn of the 20th century great awakening when the church was sort of co-opted by the wealthy to prevent the spread of socialism, though you could probably make a good argument about the great awakening and the downfall of the divine right of kings.
The Jesus arc was a problem from the beginning. That’s why everyone was sort of fine with, or onboard, the original arthors killing him off so early in the storyline.
A lot of modern fanfiction authors would make the same choice.
why not just make heaven and skip the whole test-you’re-definitely-gonna-fail-without-me garbage. it all falls apart under the tiniest scrutiny, just so not compelling.
We call it the bloody death cult for a reason.
Nah always believe that every human inherently good, there will be always hope, do not despair, sun will always rise, don’t worry be happy.
live, laugh and love.
Im not even religious and i believe all that shit just from observing humans for 40 years.
When you’re an edge lord that fantasizes about being the bad guy in the bible and lord of the rings, it tends to warp your world view into desiring scifi dystopian survival horror.
