Evangelical Christian leader Russell Moore revealed this week that many evangelical pastors have become alarmed that their Trump-loving congregants have become so militant that they are even rejecting the teachings of Jesus Christ.In an interview with NPR, Moore said that multiple pastors had told h…
Jepp. Ever heard the argument from for instance atheists that you don’t need the bible to know right from wrong? They are unfortunately incorrect. These guys definitely need some higher power telling them.
I was just talking to my son about this last weekend. We were discussing the merits of organized religion. He said “I don’t need the threat of eternal punishment to act morally”. I said “you’re right, and neither do I, but there seems to be a great many people who do. So although the church is largely an instrument of control, it’s a necessity for a great many people”. It is going to have a profoundly negative impact on our society when these people are completely unleashed.
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I think you missed the point. The threat of eternal punishment is the only thing holding a lot of people in check.
Can we just swap that for enforceable threats of NOW punishment? We have laws. Let’s start using them.
Apparently it’s not enough for some people. You can still be a really terrible person without breaking any laws.
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You’re getting lost in your own wank.
Agree.
“The only thing keeping kids from being naughty is Santa Claus.”
Christians will sit in pews, worship their God, listen to a parabol about feeding the hungry then in unison vote republican. God and the church have no influence here other then maybe incouraging their shit behavior.
I would rather have people act morally because of empathy and even social pressure, versus “master told me to.”
Granted, if the church and its teachings disappeared today, things may get a bit more rough in the near future. Religion works on some people because they were raised in it and need it to stay normal. But if they weren’t indoctrinated since birth, it would not have such a hold on their morality.
Also granted, I’m sure there are plenty of people who would still act better with it than without it. Just speaking in general terms here.
I would also prefer if people just acted out of empathy but I believe some people just can’t. Ironically while many claim that autistic can’t they are often more empathetic than others.
What I really dislike with this kind of Christians is that they have so much text regarding compassion but they still just care about the parts that can be used to judge others. even though they claim to read the Bible literally. Which of course they don’t.
Yeah, I would say that it’s another example of those Christians cherry picking the parts of the Bible that are convenient for what they already believe, but they aren’t even doing that. The majority are just repeating lines they were fed.
Jepp, it’s quite impossible to discuss with them even though I keep on trying. Many of them can’t even admit that their reading of the text is also an interpretation or that interpretations also has been made during the translation of the texts.
I much prefer the traditional Jewish tradition to argue with the text (and god) for the benefit of human kind. But that takes a deep knowledge and understanding of the texts that most people lack.
We’re in agreement.
Aw, how sweet that you think a negative impact on society from religion is something that will happen in the future.
Problem is that the morality taught by Christianity, and most other large organized religions, is extremely outdated and has spent many hundreds of years being corrupted by those in power to oppress others. I mean these people literally believe that God will punish our entire society if we don’t eradicate LGBTQ groups. I actually think these people would be much more tolerant of others if they had never encountered organized religion and just learned to coexist with others organically.
While I partly agree with you, my point was not so much the content of the laws but that some people need an invisible all seeing power to make sure that they’re following them.
They have trouble empathising with others unless it also directly affects them. There are for instance a number of republican politics who only supported the LGBTQ after their own child came out as gay or what ever. And that’s the best case scenario.
Religion in the US is weird though. You got the extremist kicked out from Europe and you southern state branches where pastors either moved north or stopped talking about equality for all men. What remains is non of the kindness and only cruelty and punishment that some people seem to get off on.
My own take on the morality of the laws in the Bible is that we would be better off if we more looked to the reason for the why of the laws than just reading what the law said. What spoken of in tanakh (or old testament) regarding men having sex for instance isn’t about to consenting adults but a question of rape of the penetrated man. Or in an interpretation from a Danish theology, incest of a male relative. Except for the question of rape and incest, it doesn’t have any bearing today regarding same sex relationships.