• Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    You gotta remember, despite everything we say, everything we’ve written, the laws in place, the rapidly growing atheism, the US is a theocracy first and foremost. The religion is just as important as the economy, employment rate, or the opinions of the ruling class.

    • HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      The only thing that has really kept religion in check in this country is, ironically, their enmity toward each other due, ostensibly, to differences in eschatology. That has melted away as they have come to the realization that they are in danger of becoming irrelevant. Fortunately, the laity is extremely stupid and easy to manipulate (religion will do that to you) and have no idea what they really believe or what the differences are, so they are being led as if they are more monolithic by focusing their worship on what they all agree they love: money. They are also too stupid to realize that this is ironic.

    • saltesc@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      So weird for one of the world’s youngest nations to hijack one of the world’s youngest religions from a place they so frequently fear, hate, and bomb.

      They really are just the plebeians of an empirical nation that never quite got to empirical level, unless your factor corporatisation of the society.

      And they accuse the English of not speaking English…

    • forgetfulmeat@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      Yeah. I am Chicano but identify more with my indigenous side and am friends with plenty of Native Americans. I’ve always personally blamed Judeo-Christian thinking. The whole manifest destiny mindset is insane.

      I mean read just a piece of how different things were before those religions came to this land.

      A second, related factor was the absence of large domestic animals in North America, which meant that instead of the ‘intensive’, ploughing-and-manuring agriculture practised in Europe, Native American farmers used ‘extensive’ techniques, cultivating an area for a few years and then moving on to let the soil recover. Most groups - hunters and plant-gatherers as well as agriculturists - viewed land as a common resource rather than a commodity that could be owned. Tribes and families had the right to hunt, fish or grow crops in defined places, but the concept of a fenced-off parcel of land being the exclusive property of an individual would have been utterly alien to most, if not all, Native Americans. The Indian attitude towards land was part of a broader, more fundamental understanding of reality which underpinned the whole of native life. Although, again, there were enormous local variations in mythology and ritual, some of the essentials of this world-view were shared by many, if not most, cultures. Perhaps the most basic element was the belief in sacred power: the idea that everything in the universe was interconnected and possessed a spiritual force or energy that could affect the lives of ‘the people’ and of all other living things. Gaining power and the aid of powerful beings was absolutely vital: for success in hunting, plentiful crops, good health, thriving children and victory in battle. But power was also dangerous.

      Source: Chapter 2 of The Earth Shall Weep by James Wilson.

    • Xerxos@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      A theocracy that only believes in Supply Side Jesus and ignores the real teachings of Jesus. The GOP would look a lot different if their religion wasn’t just a tool to manipulate their Christian base.

  • Triumph@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    Early Christianity was nothing anyone would recognize today. It was more like if Diogenes was blissfully happy instead of being a little shit.

    • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      Early Christianity was nothing anyone would recognize today. It might have been more like if Diogenes was blissfully happy instead of being a little shit.

      we can’t really understand the social influences that shaped individual experience and personality in an age with such low literacy. whatever we know is a pixel in a 4k video.

      • Triumph@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        I meant “little shit” as a single descriptor, which I believe is apt (in modern parlance). I concur that Diogenes was a great and wise “little shit”.

  • ashenone@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    Just speaking as someone who grew up in a hyper conservative cult, I think sowing cognitive dissonance in the minds of religious youth is a great way at getting them to realize they are being taught bullshit. Hearing that Jesus’s views didn’t align with the views that had been forced upon me made me want to read the Bible and make my own decision about God and religion. I started my read fully expecting to end up with deeper faith and ended up crashing out and losing all religious belief, which was my first step towards me being a leftist today. All because of people pushing back on what Jesus would think of religious conservatism.

    • FrChazzz@lemmus.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      This. I went through a similar thing, but wound up in a different place (grew up in fundie-leaning Southern Baptist world with a pastor that turned out to be a sexual predator and abused people I am close to; decided to revisit the Bible and all that and wound up a priest in the Episcopal Church). Regardless of how folks end up, breaking people free from their control is paramount. If a meme manages to dent the armor, so be it. And if it annoys OP, they can always just mute it and move on. I do it a lot with posts that are openly hostile to my beliefs.

  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    Considering that the majority of vocal Christians vote Republican, Jesus being very explicitly leftist presents an opportunity to nudge them left. It certainly won’t convince all of them, but there are those who actually value their prophet more than their politicians.

    Anyone who cares about diminishing the Republican stranglehold on America should care that Jesus was a leftist, even if they didn’t personally care about Jesus.

    • FrChazzz@lemmus.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      The fact that weʻve seen a few MAGA pastors openly say stuff like “Well, Jesusʻ teachings were more applicable in the first century and we have to adapt now” is proof enough that itʻs not Jesus they believe in. I want to see this pushed more and more to get them to finally admit that theyʻre not actually Christians, but are actually like Cartman in the South Park episode where he starts a Christian band (“You donʻt know the first thing about Christianity!” “I know enough to exploit it.”)

      • BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        I’m not one to wear tin foil hats, but I think if I wanted to obliterate a society, I’d focus on the family.

  • cRazi_man@europe.pub
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    Is this a concern anywhere other than USA? WTF is wrong with those guys? “This guy from 2000 years ago would have been on my team”… WTF. He would have lived in the middle east and preached to all these people that they’re all wrong. Might as well debate what football team he would have supported as well.

  • CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    ☕️ Jesus wasn’t a real person but an amalgamation of several different holy men and ideologies cobbled together hundreds of years after the fact to help specific groups of men wield more power and advance their agendas, change my mind

  • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    Yeah it’s not like the majority of people in the wealthiest and most powerful parts of the world (and a plurality elsewhere) literally worship the guy.

    • Nalivai@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      Not really, no. America is unique among wealthy and powerful countires, it’s the only theocracy on the “west”, and it’s almost the only one where christians are majority. Except Vatican maybe.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        I mean first theocracy implies rule by the clergy, which isn’t the case in America even de facto. The only theocracies in the world are Iran and the Vatican. That aside, 66% of EU citizens are Christian. The “our Christian way of life is under attack” rhetoric isn’t in any way unique to America, and there’s merit to tackling that on theological ground. For true believers (admittedly rare in the West), this can actually get them to change their minds about things.

  • DigDoug@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    I mean, at least two billion people are Christian, so presumably they care. And that doesn’t even include the rest of us who get screwed over by Christian-conservative doublethink bullshit.

    It absolutely matters.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    Come on. Virgin pregnancy, yeah right. Her husband not even knowing and the 3 wise men coming to see the child, sure thing.

    Jesus wouldn’t be alive for long if born today. He would have been thrown into Lake Michigan shortly after birth.