To record their version of "truth." There was no distinction between fact and fiction, they were written to establish the "official" history with the political and religious (again, no distinction) agenda they wanted people to follow. The idea that history should involve accurate facts of what actually happened is a relatively new phenomenon in human culture.
Did the people of the time understand that nuance? I honestly don't know. I assume most of the uneducated masses didn't, which is why the elites wrote that way.
What a bizarre thing to say.
The Christian right has become an increasingly powerful force in American politics at every level, from school boards to the presidency. Its roots trace back decades.
The annual Rod of Iron Freedom Festival was as absurd as it was terrifying.
> In 2017, Rod of Iron Ministries splintered from the Unification Church, a Korean cult founded by Sean Moon’s father, Sun Myung Moon. Adherents are called Moonies and believe that Sun Myung Moon is the messiah. Two of Sun Myung Moon’s sons, Sean and Kook-jin, or Justin, founded Rod of Iron Ministries. The church has many of the same core beliefs as the Unification Church—but it claims that AR-15s are the “rod of iron” that Jesus wields in the Book of Revelation. Perhaps not coincidentally, Justin Moon founded Kahr Arms, a firearms manufacturer that produces a commemorative Donald Trump AR-15.
Biden is the one deciding US policy, and the responsibility for our foreign policy failures rest with him. There are two viable candidates running to replace him. One candidate promises a less conciliatory approach with Netanyahu, the other promises to help escalate the atrocities.
Which do you think will get you closer to your stated goals?
When you start engaging in good faith, you will get good faith in return.
No, your second point doesn't make your case. Biden isn't running now, or did you forget? Not to mention, it doesn't change anything about what the author has to say about the political goals of evangelicals and how Trump would deliver for them, which is the topic of the article.
I hear Putin calling. You better check and see what he wants.
You still haven't explained how the author is wrong here. All you've told me is why you think the author is icky.
My point stands.
...I'm not seeing anything explaining how the author is wrong. Ad hominem is not an argument.
A desperate plea from a former pastor who knows what's coming
From a former pastor who knows what the insiders talk about: a warning we would be foolish to ignore.
Okay, but what about the not-kind things Jesus said? How are the people following those words somehow not Christian?
So please answer the question: what evidence do you have that these people aren't "Christian?"
He said more than that, though. They're probably following the other Jesus who called a foreign woman a dog, along other things. Let's take a closer look.
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Jesus fails to "turn the other cheek" and instead gets violent: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+21:12-13
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He threatens eternal torture in fire to anyone who doesn't accept his teaching:
https://biblehub.com/matthew/10-28.htm
https://biblehub.com/matthew/7-19.htm
https://biblehub.com/matthew/13-41.htm and https://biblehub.com/matthew/13-42.htm
https://biblehub.com/matthew/13-49.htm and https://biblehub.com/matthew/13-50.htm
https://biblehub.com/matthew/25-46.htm
https://biblehub.com/mark/16-16.htm
https://biblehub.com/luke/12-5.htm
https://biblehub.com/john/3-18.htm, etc. -
He kills a fig tree for not bearing fruit that he knew was out of season: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+11%3A12-25
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He endorses racism: https://biblehub.com/matthew/15-24.htm
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When a gentile woman begs for his help he calls her a dog: https://biblehub.com/matthew/15-25.htm and https://biblehub.com/matthew/15-26.htm
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He plays favorites: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+4%3A10-12
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He destroys a village's livelihood: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+8
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He teaches Christians to have a persecution complex: https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-11.htm
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He teaches thought crime: https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-28.htm
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He disputes the concept of personal responsibility: https://biblehub.com/matthew/6-25.htm
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He condemns skepticism: https://biblehub.com/matthew/14-31.htm and https://biblehub.com/john/20-27.htm
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He teaches self-harm in the cause of religious purity: https://biblehub.com/matthew/18-8.htm
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He sends his disciples to steal a man’s donkey: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+19%3A29-34
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He was not a peacemaker: https://biblehub.com/matthew/10-34.htm
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He was divisive: https://biblehub.com/luke/14-26.htm and https://biblehub.com/luke/14-33.htm
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He was a liar: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+7%3A8-10
Do you have evidence to the contrary?
I hope you checked again and made sure you're still registered this weekend.
Pro-Trump Christian nationalists are on tour to recruit election workers
Sick and tired of all the political content in forums like this? The authoritarians and theocrats are hoping you won't pay attention to how they're organizing to steal the next election.
Right. I don't believe is my position as an atheist. I don't know is why.
How is this so difficult for you?
That's pretty weak tea, especially considering how so many Christians (but not all, I know) insist that Jesus and Yahweh are the same person, just different aspects.
Sure, but the text claims he was already dead by that point. So we're back to my original claim.
You're using the modified definition of "agnostic" that believers favor. We have no reason to accept that.
"Agnostic" literally means "I don't know." "Atheist" means "I don't believe." I don't know that gods are real, and I have no reason to believe they do.
No faith required.
When it comes to the Christian God, that's easy.
https://biblehub.com/judges/1-19.htm
The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had chariots fitted with iron.
https://biblehub.com/1_kings/6-7.htm
In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.
While the Bible never says what was used to fix Jesus to the cross, tradition says it was three iron nails. There are two reasons why the account of the crucifixion is atypical of normal Roman executions: first of all, they didn't usually waste good iron nailing victims to their crosses. They tied them to the posts. Secondly, crucifixion victims normally took days to die of dehydration and suffocation, which is why the Romans did it that way. But Jesus allegedly died in hours, not days.
So clearly, Yahweh has a weakness to iron. I fear no gods I know how to kill.
Underneath all the buzz about the (allegedly) extremely corrupt and definitely just plain weird NYC mayor Eric Adams, the devastation of hurricane Helene, Israel’s operations in Lebanon, and the other major news stories of this week, you may, if you didn’t blink, have noticed the following headline ...
For the first time since people started looking at demographics, more young women are leaving churches than young men. Naturally, the people most responsible for this trend have no idea what to make of it.
A changing political mood among evangelicals has many believers imagining the end of the world differently than they used to.
Since the advent of the Trump era, the evangelical landscape has undergone rapid shifts, often in turbulent and dangerous directions. To be sure, there are still plenty of evangelical premillennialists out there faithfully waiting on the Rapture. But their sequestering, defensive posture is becoming outmoded. Remarkably, the most prominent and powerful new leaders—the ones dedicated to fully recentering evangelical politics on Donald Trump, and who have grown their power and influence through their association with him—are overwhelmingly anti-Rapture. They believe Christians have a more active and forceful role to play in the end of the world.
Do you think they’ll go away if Trump fails to take the White House?
These extremely online young Christian men want to end the 19th Amendment, restore public flogging, and make America white again.
Deconstructing Worship | When God Needs to be Praised
Kristi Burke is doing an excellent series of videos on Christian deconstruction. Here's her latest, posted yesterday.
They're using this to provoke challenges against the wall of separation between church and state. They feel confident, with good reason, that the christofascist majority on the Supreme Court will reinterpret our Constitution to eliminate that law.
The state is giving millions in taxpayer dollars directly to private schools to help them renovate and expand their campuses. It may be the next frontier in the push to increase the use of school vouchers, proponents say.
The march to theocracy continues.
Religious indoctrination doesn’t promote progress:
This paper studies when religion can hamper diffusion of knowledge and economic development, and through which mechanism. I examine Catholicism in France during the Second Industrial Revolution (1870–1914). In this period, technology became skill-intensive, leading to the introduction of technical education in primary schools. I find that more religious locations had lower economic development after 1870. Schooling appears to be the key mechanism: more religious areas saw a slower adoption of the technical curriculum and a push for religious education. In turn, religious education was negatively associated with industrial development 10 to 15 years later, when schoolchildren entered the labor market.
Atheism doesn't mean I know there are no gods. I suspect there aren't, because religious claims about gods and reality don't stand up to scrutiny. The more excuses you have to make for why reality doesn't work the way you insist it should, the less inclined I am to believe you know what you're talking about. Arguing for a prime mover or appealing to consequences doesn't convince me either. I'm intellectually honest enough to say that I don't have concrete knowledge that there are no gods the way I know there's no money in my wallet, but not being able to prove there are no gods isn't enough for me to believe that there are. Wanting to believe there are gods is no more useful than wanting there to be money in my wallet. It's still a claim that requires validation, not a default assumption.
Fleeing Christian patriarchy: "They raise women who don't even know the sound of their voices"
Former fundamentalist Tia Levings speaks out her new memoir and why evangelical women speak with "fundie baby voice"
Few people have an easy time escaping Christianity, because it's ubiquitous in Western society. But it can be done.
The Christian Nationalist Vision for America
There are a lot of good overviews of Project 2025 and the threat it poses to everyone who lives in America as well as beyond our borders. Here's a look at the Christian Nationalist intent behind it.
A look at Leonard Leo’s American theocracy
...pay attention to Leonard Leo. He is the judicial kingmaker responsible for the list from which Trump selected Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Leo has shaped this Court and acted effectively to keep its Republican justices from abandoning his – and their – sectarian-right vision of America.
A look at Leonard Leo’s American theocracy
...pay attention to Leonard Leo. He is the judicial kingmaker responsible for the list from which Trump selected Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Leo has shaped this Court and acted effectively to keep its Republican justices from abandoning his – and their – sectarian-right vision of America.
Donald Trump's support from white evangelicals and other conservative Christians is as strong as ever.
We're not going to be able to fix these people. The only hope we have is to outlast them.
'There's been so many' - Pedophile priest's eye-opening testimony in church sex abuse case
Just when you thought it was safe to back into the pew.
Johnson met evangelical leader of Ukraine’s National Prayer Breakfast before last week's press conference.
It should surprise no one that Dominionist Mike Johnson's change of heart on Ukraine was bought by suggesting to him that it could serve his religious agenda.
We lost a great man today
Well, this is unexpected, and details will be forthcoming. He was 82. I have lots of stories about Dan, and found him amiable and charitable, though sometimes he could be domineering, especially wh…
Daniel Dennett, philosopher, atheist, and one of the tongue-in-cheek "Horsemen" of atheism, died today. He was 82.
An Oklahoma man has been arrested after authorities accused him of throwing a pipe bomb at the headquarters of a group in Salem, Massachusetts, called The Satanic Temple.
Surveillance cameras showed a man walk up to the building soon after 4 a.m. on April 8 wearing a face covering, tactical vest and gloves, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI. The man then ignited an improvised explosive device, threw it at the main entrance then ran away. The bomb partially detonated, resulting in some minor fire damage, authorities said.
I am a journalist who has covered the Christian right for two...
FTA:
> The bottom line is that Christian nationalism takes on different forms, and despite organizational or even ideological differences, ideas can penetrate the often porous borders between different camps. Someone who receives the daily email blast from the Family Research Council might also be drawn to Wolfe’s book, for example. On a more unnerving, macro level, major right-wing and GOP figures, including Marjorie Taylor Greene and the CEO of the Daily Wire, the podcast consortium run by conservative influencer Ben Shapiro, have embraced the rabidly antisemitic, Hitler-admiring antagonist Nick Fuentes, who is Catholic but also is accurately described as a Christian nationalist. The increasingly influential Catholic integralist movement, which seeks a Catholic-inflected replacement for the “liberal order,” is yet another unique form of Christian nationalism.