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• peoplebeproblems@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I don’t want to come off as pedantic, but what we’re dealing with in the US is a very strange and successful breed of “Christian Nationalism.”

  Essentially, it’s a belief that ultra-conservative Christianity is the only legitimate religion and that the USA is a Christian nation.

  It probably comes as no surprise that these people heavily influenced the Confederacy, is strongly white-supremecist, anti-vice, etc, and has been an anathema in this country since before the states actually formed.

  Christians themselves are… A problem, but not the problem. It’s these Christian nationalists. They’re loud. They want you to think all Christians believe what they do too. They also tend to drown out opposing Christian speakers by being louder than them too.

  It’s one of the reasons why MLK Jr was hated so much by Hoover, by the south, etc. He was a Christian pastor, and stood against everything they did.

  It’s important that we don’t group Christians in with Christian Nationalists. It’s very difficult but necessary.

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  • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I do agree, but I still think that all religions are a cancer on humanity, harming us, dividing us and holding us back. Religion is the enemy of progress.

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    • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Humans are the ones that are harming and dividing us. If religion is gone they’ll find a new way to do it. Us vs them mentality is part of human nature and has always attached itself to anything that can be called ours vs theirs. Religion, politics, sports, skin color, language, the fucking phone brand you use, you name it.

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    • riquisimo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah, that’s all fine and good.

      Just don’t confuse “cocaine” with “cocaine laced with fentanyl.” One is significantly worse.

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    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The best counter example I’ve seen is Shintoism.

      But on a separate note, i believe religion has an evolutionary advantage vs logic and reason, as evidenced by it being so prevalent throughout human history. So in the most literal sense, i believe humans wouldn’t have any progress without religion.

      In order to survive, humans need to build societies that can adapt to the ever changing environments we find ourselves in.

      One possibility is to use pure science, logic, and reason: educate every child on the scientific method, teach them how to not fall for logical fallacies, to be skeptical, to demand extraordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims, to repeat experiments and engage in peer review, to create ethical frameworks, and have a logical justification for the actions you take…

      Another possibility is to use religion: brainwash a kid on what “good” looks like, and show them how to put on blinders to anything that might threaten that. Johnny down the street is “sinning”? Make him stop, that hurts our society. Father Dale is touching kids? Don’t lose sight of the goal, Father Dale is a great man, this is a personal struggle that we can help him through.

      Which of those two methods of adaptation requires less energy? Because when an organism has to evolve, the organism that can do it using less energy will have the advantage. Religion, or the concept of morality in general, is a society’s selection pressure on itself. The best we can do is acknowledge this, and learn to wield it as a tool. And I believe that many leaders throughout human history, both political and religious, understood this well.

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    • rayyy@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Religion is a tool of control. Some of it is benign, even beneficial, but as with all power and money rich platforms, unscrupulous forces creep in because they see the opportunities and profit.

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    • omarfw@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I go one step further. Ideology is the enemy of progress. It all eventually corrodes and corrupts into anti-humanitarian bullshit, even if a particular ideology starts out good.

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  • matlag@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    And eventually, we always, always figure out their leaders don’t abide to the rules they set for others.

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  • slumberlust@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Was it nationalists carrying out the crusades? Diddling kids? Demonizing LBGTQ? Seems like a convenient deflection.

    The existence of good does not justify the evil, and there has been way more harm than good in the name of gods, abrahamic or not.

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    • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I do not dispute that. I am stating that this power grab is Christian Nationalism. If you read my comment, about half-way through I said Christians are a problem, but not the problem right now.

      I also would argue that MLK Jr. did much more good than any evil.

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• fuckgod@feddit.online ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Mostly because of all the stupid.

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• Deceptichum@quokk.au ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  All religions are evil.

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  • AMillionMonkeys@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Right on man. Fuckin’ Buddhists. Probably don’t even use Linux.

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    • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Buddhist nationalists do genocide all the same, like in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide

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      • SorryQuick@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        It’s almost as if it’s the nationalism part that makes them do that rather than having anything to do with their religion.

        Same with christianity, the core religion is somewhat fine, it’s the church and the people that used it as a tool that arent.

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    • TheBat@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Do you know about Myanmar?

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    • riquisimo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Met this Amish person once, didn’t even known what Linux was. The heathen.

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    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Buddhists are also capable of committing violence in the name of their religion. Look at Myanmar

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    • end_stage_ligma@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      "I use Arch, btw"

      • Richard Dawkins

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• Zorque@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Painting with such a broad brush is how these people got to where they are now, don’t make the same mistakes they did.

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  • ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Lmao thanks for the heads-up, past me.

    Image

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    • dangling_cat@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Wait, how do you get that? I also use Voyager, but not seeing that :/

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      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Press and hold on any user and you can add a tag. It is incredibly useful for a myriad of reasons. I started implementing a system for sharing/community tags but I didn’t like the implications of having a parallel voting system to the existing one and scrapped it.

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    • Draegur@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Oooh how do you do that user tag function? I couldn’t find it when I looked just now and it appears as though we’re using the same frontend…?

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    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Image

      I should have been more specific. Probably the standard pig headed refusal to acknowledge a point 🤷‍♂️

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      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Said the guy that actively endorses a fascist military coup.

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    • Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What I gather from the linked conversation: (In regards to a joke where a boy turns out to have a polygamous dad)

      Sure, but that’s universal. Most of the Islamic theocratic have this problem, and it’s a point of general focus… but Islam is their excuse, not a functional cause. It’s not like Mormons did it any better.

      Islamic theocratics are not the same as muslims. Theocracy is where the law of one’s god is seen as the ruling body, and tend to be more of the extremists of a religion - in Islam’s case, the ones more likely to use religion as a weapon of power to have multiple wives. Nothing in that conversation came across as “Being pro-Islam is being anti-feminism”.

      I’d also point out, the user made several efforts to ask for better explanation from those disagreeing, but everyone was just digging for more words from him instead of discussing openly. This is how disagreement is manufactured.

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      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        It’s a consistent pattern of behavior from that person, which is why one thread might seem like people are overbearing. At some point you get sick of the disingenuous faux-intellectual “just asking questions”.

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  • AstaKask@lemmy.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Religion is the closest thing to true evil that exist on this planet. Insane cultists shouldn’t be allowed around children. Not even their own (they tend to mutilate them in order to mark them as members of their insane cult).

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  • liuther9@feddit.nl ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    He is right you know

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• Zeusz13@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The bullshit going on in the USA under the christian name is short sighted, stupid and lacks empathy. Christianity isn’t USA fundamentalism tho.

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  • Mirshe@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    No, but we’re doing a fantastic job exporting a lot of the doctrine and repackaging it.

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• rafoix@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Its Republicans. Don’t blame the religion. Republicans want fascism and they want to control everyone’s thoughts and behaviors because they’re wired to be subservient to authoritarians. They hate that so many of us have a mind of our own.

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  • Soggy@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’ll happily blame all religion, thank you. Nobody should build a worldview where an unaccountable (and imperceptible) third party is responsible for moral decisions.

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• a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  There’s a distinctive difference between american evangelists and other christian groups, for starters that the evangelists have been integrated in the state-religion the USA has been running at least since the cold war., and they are actively utilized by the Republicans. This also means that those evangelists believe that in the US white nationalists should be in power.

  Please note that the “christian” part in this has gone pretty far from any christian roots - it’s for the most part just utilized to identify the in-group and to radicalize members. The quip “Y’all qaeda” comes pretty close to the truth - they are just as radical and socially regressive as any other islamic sect that would use terror to achieve their goals.

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