I swear Iâd not seen the term âchristofascismâ until this year. Itâs an apt term for all the talk about the new speaker of the house, rolling back of Roe v Wade, banning books and increased persecution of LGBT+ rightsâŠ
But if I was Christ Iâd be pretty darn upset right now. I talk about love and tolerance and peace and youâre going to use my name to make shitty, power grabbing, political, oppressive moves? The fuckin audacity. Iâd be flipping tables and calling out the hypocrites.
I know itâs a conversation as old as time. I also donât believe Christianâs should be able to point at it and say âyeh but thatâs not MY Jesus.â Doesnât fucking matter, theyâre identifying as a You so if You donât do something about it then itâs as good as doin it yourself.
Sigh.
You are right. Real Christianity is practically the opposite of fascism. But anyone can just call themselves Christian and we canât do anything about it.
Iâm not even sure I like real Christianity, but I would like the opportunity to see it and decide for myself. Iâm not sure Iâve ever seen it!
If you want to know real Christianity, read the Bible. I would recommend starting with the gospel of John.
I canât tell if thatâs an atheists POV or a Christians. John seems like a narrow view.
You might be interested in âThe Law of Love and the Law of Violenceâ by Tolstoy. He makes the same argument, that most Christians are terrible at following the actual teachings of Christ.
Thereâs also Dostoevskyâs story âThe Grand Inquisitorâ from The Brothers Karamazov, in which Jesus returns only to be told that the church no longer needs him or his ideals.
Great example! Just read the book recently and loved it. The whole tavern conversation between the two brothers was very philosophically dense and insightful.
Why give a flying fuck to follow such when forgiveness, as a protestant, is a forever freebie if you ask but once and get that death promise.
Alternatively you can simply accept that the mouth runner will rape your kids and thatâs just fine.
Theyâre both lies. Catholics ainât special. There are more changes to the new testament than there are letters.
Oh and whatâs true to you?
Facts.
What a specific answer
Better than nothing but proven an edit since the claim with no substantial reality.
âIf a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?â
â 1 John 4:20 (King James Version)
I fucking hate the King James version so much. I grew up with NRSE and itâs like âwhy are you still using this archaic shit?â
Hereâs the same passage in language normal people can understand:
Those who say, âI love God,â and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
Generational thing, maybe? Plus conservative churches love holding onto archaic customs, like the old KJV translation.
Honestly doesnât make sense to me either way.
Of course I can love something I canât see over something I can see. The reason I hate them is because I can see them.
Thatâs not the point he was trying to make. :)
Itâs hard to make sense of it now, let alone two thousand years ago.
Here goes nothing:
God is in everything, so you cannot love God without loving each and every part of Him. Itâs easy to love something you donât experience in your everyday life â the true challenge is to love that which you do experience, like your âbrothersâ and âsistersâ. If you have hate in yourself at all, you do not completely love God.
Makes sense now?
There are more edits to the new testament than there are letters. I just cannot consider any sense of any canonic status to entire set of make-shit-up books.
If itâs anything I guarentee it isnât a prediction. Itâs a fucking plan.
Well it is an oxymoron. At least in the way people use the term. Say someone said someone was an âanarchocommunistâ. The person wouldnât think they are âperfectly Marxâ or âperfectly anarchistâ because then that wouldnât be the term. I wouldnât even give Paul the pass on this, I doubt any ruler good or bad can say they stay true to the lord who made his stance on government clear.
Though I disagree with him, in the end heâs probably going to end up more normal than people make him out to be.
You shouldnât use another oxymoron
What do you mean?
âanarchocomunismâ
My very point is that itâs not one or the other and it doesnât claim to be, itâs a straddle.
Christianity isnât a book or a simple code of ethics, it is an evolving culture composed of living individuals and historical actions. Itâs also composed of subcultures, many contradictory. Saying âChristians should be thisâ isnât very useful, Christianity is what it is, and itâs up to Christians to determine where it goes.
As an atheist this is just a grossly superficial reading of Christianity.
Christianity isnât about being non political itâs about political expediency. Christians were told to obey the government for survival (i.e no needless rebellion, unlike prophesied in Judaism), there is no part of the Bible that says that you canât enforce Christian morality if you are in power. (âJudge not yaddaâŠyaddaâ- thatâs about hypocrisy, it is infact encouraged to judge and purity test others, Christian or not).
Infact moral systems require some obligation to to follow them, as much as people want to circle-jerk about how they donât obligate others to do what they think is right, nobody actually believes this. The sheer fact that you believe something to be good or bad means that there is some property that makes this distinction relevant, this property is the obligation to do good and not do bad. People who assert that they donât think others have this obligation as well are engaging in special pleading that only they are obligated to do good and not do bad. In other words, individual moral relativity is universally rejected, the few people that claim to ascribe to it would object to being stabbed as a good action simply because the perpetrator felt it was.
âI donât believe Christians should be able to point at it and say âyeh, but thatâs not my Jesusââ
I agree. If people donât believe in Jesus as described in the Bible, they shouldnât characterise it as âJesusâ.
Your objection on the other hand is ridiculous. If someone identifies as X, and it is physically impossible for others that identify as X to force them to stop identifying as X (not exactly sure how you think people can âdo somethingâ greater than repudiating them, which you already characterised as insufficient), then the problem of categorisation falls on the observing third-party. Well it always was the problem of the third-party, the unreliability of self-reporting is simply more obvious in this case.
âIf I was Christ, Iâd be pretty darn upset right nowâ
Seems weird that the purported Son of God would not be more explicit in social critique. Jesus as described would probably be far more conservative than any public figure nowadays. I donât remember him advocating for democratic voting, freedom of speech, LGBT rights, or universal education.
He probably would be upset, just not in the same way you are.
theyâre identifying as a You so if You donât do something about it then itâs as good as doin it yourself.
Thatâs an interesting idea. Would you apply this rule evenly across all groups, or only in special cases?
To give an example, the rate of people with Tourette Syndrome is around 0.5% (less than 1 in 200). The rate of people who fake Tourettes is much higher.
Applying your rule, if a person with Tourettes doesnât speak up against the larger group of people faking Tourettes, is that as bad as them faking Tourettes themselves?Iâm not sure. Maybe the difference is that Christianity is something you choose to align with, Touretteâs is a medical issue.
Thatâs a good point.
People with Tourettes donât get a choice in having tourettes and they donât try and spread tourettes actively to other people because you canât. Ideologies are different. If you create a group defined by an idea then the make up of the group includes contradictory information then those outside the group will either expand the definition of the ideology to reflect itâs actual makeup or the inside needs to police itâs own borders or be content to deal with people using that definition. What âChristianâ means is malleable, what tourettes is not.
Hmm, thatâs a great point. It reminds me of fandom groups where most people are just trying to have fun and enjoy the fan content, but then a vocal group of unpleasant people will also designate themselves part of the fandom and damage its public image.
In that situation, the only thing that really seems to fix the public image of the group is having an authoritative leader (such as a creator of the original work, or a fandom conference organizer) making a public statement like âWe do not condone persecution, we support the right to abortion, LGBT+ people are welcome at our fandom conference, etcâ.Tying back to the original topic, maybe the equivalent would be if well-known Christian leaders were to make statements like that?
Probably not? A fandom has a âcanonâ with usually a creator who has an authorial intent. Religious leaders are more like secondary interpreters of a work something more akin to like youtube critics. Even if you got the heads to all agree on something if the rest of the group continues as they always have or disowns or changes their leader then people on the outaide looking in will still expand their definition to fit the best and worst of a thing. What peopleâs personal experiences are with a group are also a formative thing.
Like for me my most regular everyday experience with visible Christianity is a guy near my train station with a megaphone and a Jesus paste board sign who I try not to make eye contact with or draw attention from because he has attacked other visibly queer people in the past. My definition of Christian is gunna include him just as much as like the Pope or the Sisters of Perpetual indulgence. The difference being that I donât really have to worry about what the Pope or the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are doing.
