this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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Jennifer Sandlin 4:32 am Mon Feb 12, 2024

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 6 months ago (3 children)

They've hired a PR firm to address, in the firm's words, the problem of "How did the world's greatest love story in Jesus become known as a hate group?"

More like how did "my dad's gonna torture you forever unless you believe this hogwash" turn into "the world's greatest love story?"

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (3 children)

You’re not seeing this right. He’s not going to do it, the devil is. And yeh he is all powerful so technically yes he is also allowing it to happen under his watch. But it’s only to teach you a lesson because he loves you so much. And he agrees on at least some level that burning in a pit of fire for all eternity is a fair, just and effective way for people to learn how to love him.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

According to fundie beliefs God runs hell, Satan is just another inmate.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

What a shithead

[–] OneWomanCreamTeam 8 points 6 months ago

Actually, in Christian lore the devil will be another inmate in hell, not the leader of it.

Growing up, the justification for hell I always heard was this: No one is torturing you in hell. Hell is just the complete separation from God, which is in and of itself tortuous. God doesn't want to separate you from him. But if you're sinful, and haven't accepted Jesus's washing away of your sins, he doesn't have a choice!

I don't really think this holds up, and honestly I've kinda forgotten why I was writing this comment in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's the exact playbook of abusers.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

They made up their own story because they didn't like the original with its reality of there being no afterlife + hell being a graveyard on earth for people mourning those they failed to respect, honor and love in life / heaven being a place on earth accessed via a mindset of what essentially boils down to communism - all of which is hard to exploit for power and profit without some switcheroo...

And to answer the articles question: turning on fellow christians might have something to do with it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

When he married the hooker, duh

[–] [email protected] 92 points 6 months ago (1 children)

At what point do "hateful christian nationalists" get labeled terrorists as we do with so many hateful muslim nationalists?

[–] [email protected] 83 points 6 months ago (1 children)

When they're no longer in charge

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Could you guys get on with that already? Please? Pretty please?

Signed: the rest of the world

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Believe me, we're trying ...

Signed, a non-binary American about to flee the country if somehow Trump gets elected again (my kind isn't welcome here).

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Sweden welcomes you with open arms if you don't find anywhere else ❤️

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Definitely considering it. I'm leaning towards Sweden or Germany right now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Check out Portugal as well.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

It's not easily done. The most backwards states have the most representation constitutionally.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 6 months ago (1 children)

"How can we keep playing the victim /persecuted Christian card?" says the largest religion on earth.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

isnt islam the largest religion in the world?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

It's #2 but its fairly close

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I think at this point we can just call them Christians.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Na they’re not all hateful. Labeling them all hateful takes some of the heat off the real cunts too, same goes for other religions

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The ones that aren't are not doing enough to separate themselves from the ones that are.

If there was a hate group that claimed to represent me, mine would be the loudest voice shouting them down.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

We're not listening to the ones that are trying to separate themselves from the right.

My grandparents were proper red Labour (UK) socialists their whole lives, and my grandfather was also a vicar. While in retirement they left the church he had even done some services for simply because that church wouldn't support gay marriage.

There are good people out there who are also Christian, and they are worth listening to.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Are they speaking out? I don't hear any organizations critical of the church. Nobody is buying ads to denounce hate speech and bigotry. Maybe they are out there, but they aren't being very loud.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not a lot of forthcoming money to amplify the voices of those who speak out against these churches, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

All the decent Christians are poor? Only bad Christians donate money to churches?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (7 children)

Not at all what I meant. It's just, think about the fact that, by definition, churches are organizations. It's really easy to crowdsource funding when you have an organization with lots of members (or if you've been, say, pillaging and squirrelling away filthy lucre for hundreds of years.)

Now compare and contrast with a person who leaves a church after realizing the message in their book is different than the hateful message being spewed. A singular person can't even begin to hope to fight the financial resource this campaign commands. There's no special church for "people who are Christian who just realized their church was being hateful and changed churches" and even if there was, those people would be wary of joining a new church.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Their art is so bad. If they don’t make Jesus look 60, then he just looks indiscernible. The lighting is all over the place, the stripes on the flag are so narrow there’d have to be thirty original colonies, and Jesus looks like he has double decker mouths with the OCD that makes you pluck your eyebrows bald.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Would this be allowed if Muslim? No? The it's terrorism.

Christians are terrorists. Full stop, no exceptions, no alterations.

I look forward to all the christofascists trying to "um, actually" me.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Any absolutist statement is inherently false - I've marched in pride parades with leftist Christians who use the Bible as a philosophical foundation of love and tolerance, the way it should be.

This breed of Evangelical fascists you're talking about are a scourge upon both Christianity as a whole and society at large, and have become the biggest government supported terrorist cell in the world. They are why I no longer believe in the "goodness of Christ" anymore.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I'm as anti religion as it gets, but calling every Christian a terrorist is way over board. Most are simply brainwashed and never actually spend any time thinking about religion critically, but a good percentage of them (those leading them) absolutely are evil and are exploiting the credulity of their followers for personal gain and hate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Half are brainwashed, but the other half are just really thick. They actually think the Bible is real, and even when you point out that even the church doesn't claim that every aspect of the bible is real and that quite a lot of it was written either after the fact (as in centuries later), or was always just a story to serve as a theoretical example, they don't believe you. So they don't actually understand their own religion.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Um , actually... You're absolutely right.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

For every atheist I've met who's kind and empathetic, I've met a Christian who's kind an empathetic. For every Christian I've met who's an ignorant, egocentric absolutist, I've met an atheist who's an ignorant, egocentric absolutist.

The problem isn't religion. It's people who don't prioritize empathy. Being an atheist doesn't make you a good person. Being a Christian doesn't make you a good person. Being kind makes you a good person.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

For a lot of the Christian audience a reminder that Jesus didn't teach hate is something well needed that they aren't getting in church. Maybe my expectations were too low but I was pleasantly surprised with the message considering how it could have gone regardless of any issues around who funded it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, I thought the same thing. I got really apprehensive the moment that I saw the foot washing begin, but so many different types of people were depicted having their feet washed (girl in front of a Planned Parenthood, white dude washing the feet of a Native American activist, cop washing the foot of a black dude in an inner city alley, white family washing the feet of who I assume are meant to represent immigrants because its a bus full of Hispanic people, etc), that I felt like they were doing their best to remind everyone to love even those that "society" (Republicans) deems "unfit". Now, were some of those depictions made with underlying racist undertones? Yes. But I honestly cannot determine if it was purposeful, or if this was one of those "they tried their best. More work to be done, but the effort was there" moments. Maybe I'm still just not jaded enough.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

By being shown washing the feet of the "unfit" we are still being reminded that they are infact "unfit". They are still other, lesser than and to be saved. The target audience, the Christian viewer, is the white person doing the washing, and is meant to feel empowered and that they are good like Jesus for showing compassion to these poor other people.

Noone will actually wash the feet of someone in need. They will translate their Christian compassion to help them by saving them from themselves, i.e. restrictive laws.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

"look we care about all these disgusting sinners"

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've said this before, you cannot combat a lie with a lie.

Jesus and all the things said about him are made up stories. Pretending to discuss the "real" Jesus, who we want to be nice and accepting, is a losing battle.

It's like arguing which Saiyan is the most powerful, when they are all not real.

Making better Christians means ridding them of nonsensical beliefs not trying to replace the lies in their head, with the nicer lies you would like them to believe.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Here "real" refers to "the character that's really in the Bible". It doesn't matter if it's fictional. Same as criticizing a bad fan fiction with "real Harry Potter wouldn't have done that", with "real" meaning "in the actual source material".

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Christians who buy super bowl ads rather than try to convert people through good deeds are literally virtue signaling.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

I'm honestly surprised the American version of Jesus doesn't look like Trump...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Hobby lobby founder wants to waste money on the superbowl. Let 'em.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

No please don't. Ruins the whole experience.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

No, the foot ~~fetish~~ washing commercial made me uncomfortable and ran way too long.

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