Communicating trauma through art is fine, as long as you don't remind the Christian fundies that their beliefs and practices are a prime source of religious trauma for lots of people.

It's mostly good news all around. Evangelicals are the only ones who are managing to hold their ground, so that's bad. But "Unaffiliated" which includes atheists, agnostics, and "Nones" are up from 21% in 2013 to 26% in 2023. We continue to be the fastest-growing demographic in the US. Furthermore, an increasing number of Americans simply find religion irrelevant or otherwise unimportant, and those numbers are growing as well.

There is hope for the future, should we survive so long.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10870025 >> Salem police said someone threw an explosive device onto the porch of the Satanic Temple.

Captain Cassidy examines yet another Christian expressing pity for non-believers who must be somehow deficient to explain non-belief.

> A trailer full of bibles appears to have been intentionally set on fire at Greg Locke's Global Vision Bible Church before Easter service, police say.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10581116 >> 3-year-old Arely Proctor was tortured to death by her grandfather, uncle, and mother during an exorcism. They were convinced she had…

It's always a weird day, Easter was when my family found out I had fully left the church. I remember I just said I wasn't going that day and my mother had a meltdown, saying there was no point in celebrating if I didn't go to church. She cancelled the family dinner and all the activities for the whole family because she found out I didn't go.

20 years later we're better but I still remember that, I'm willing to admit that her cancelling a holiday because of me was traumatic for me, Easter used to fill me with dread.

Now I eyeroll at every big public he is risen post and continue on with my day. Today coffee, a good pastry shop, then enjoying a nice spring day.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10506910

> ...it's time to consider the strong possibility that Trump's disdain towards the practice and theological beliefs of Christianity is not a surprise to his followers. It's likely a selling point that Trump's version of "Christianity" is void of faith and morality. His pitch to his followers has a certain appeal: They can have the identity "Christian," and all the power that goes with it, minus the parts they don't like. No boring church services or Bible study. No tedious talk about "compassion" and "grace," which only gets in the way of the gay-bashing and racism. And definitely no need to worry about that Jesus guy, with all his notions about "loving thy neighbor" and "welcoming the stranger."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/13633704

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10259127

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10212589 >> Who needs theology when you have Trump?

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10212463

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10140175

> Courthouse News reports: Arizona’s House Education Committee advanced a bill Tuesday that would allow public school teachers and administrators to post and discuss the Ten Commandments in the classroom. State Senator Anthony Kern [photo], the bill’s sponsor, says the Ten Commandments shaped the country’s heritage. “Our history is the Ten Commandments,” the Republican from Glendale …

> "I would actually suggest that conservative folks are less concerned about sex and more concerned about the performance of gender," Gibson told me. "Sex just happens to be the vehicle" they are currently using, he explained, to push a rigid gender ideology where "men are expected to be the leaders" and "women are supposed to be submissive." He pointed out that much "tradwife" content may be sexually provocative, for instance, but it still pushes the notion that "women aren't sexual people" because "the purpose of a heterosexual relationship is for a woman to please a man."

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10081186

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10075272

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10067687 >> A grim murder story illustrates why it's so incredibly easy for predators to fool evangelicals into thinking they're good Christians.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10044851 >> In some of those images, Fautz allegedly used yearbook photos of two female students whose faces were then "transposed by means of Photoshop or morphing technology onto a different nude female’s body," according to a criminal complaint.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/10026298

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/9981212

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/9868888 >“The government doesn’t make the law. The people rise up, power rises up from the people and the people make the law. And that law should be in accordance with God’s word and the conscience. And these federal laws are restricting both of those things. So when this authority – namely the federal government – …

This is an exploration of some of the things they teach in seminary, but not in the pulpits. Why don't they want their congregations to learn about them? The author suggests that it would severely cut into their income by turning people off Christianity, even though these facts are foundational to the religion.

Every movement to oppose Christianity had its place. In the 80s they called themselves Satanists, even though they didn't believe in a literal Satan. In the 2000s we saw the introduction of "militant" atheism, externally dubbed the "new atheists." Now we have a new generation of ex-Christians who can speak to conservative Christian beliefs because they were able to get out. And they can remind everyone that it wasn't easy.

I am still a "militant atheist" in that I'm willing to speak my mind. I don't bring up my atheism unless someone makes their religion my business. The same for these people.

Lemmy's code doesn't allow me to link to a .txt file, even though it's available through the web. So here's the original link: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/gish-rutgers/gish-draft.txt

Rationalwiki's page on the pious fraud also has a good section on the practice of lying for Jesus and its history.

Today, we watch Mike Winger struggle to answer what should be a fairly simple question, ultimately resulting in him attacking the sincerity of the person asking the question rather than providing an actual answer.