Religion, weaponized religion, and the separation of church and state

[cactusflinthead 27598]

22 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

I’ve said my piece and even where I would like to respectfully respond, the snowflake heathens who will neg a post telling someone the time to someone who asked it, makes it not worth the effort anymore on these types of threads.

Other than that, not sure what your quote is saying and what it is you want from me to respond or why you think I’m scared in defense of my beliefs and POV.

Bro you injected yourself in the convo. When you started talking again you were at 52. You are at 49. Quit fucking whining. 

This is what name 6 or 7?

 

[Captainant 27660]

4 hours ago, HamsterHookah said:

I’ve said my piece and even where I would like to respectfully respond, the snowflake heathens who will neg a post telling someone the time to someone who asked it, makes it not worth the effort anymore on these types of threads.

Other than that, not sure what your quote is saying and what it is you want from me to respond or why you think I’m scared in defense of my beliefs and POV.

This thread isn't about faith and beliefs, which are personal things. Per the title, it's about weaponized religion and the separation of church and state. 

If your contribution to this conversation is how persecuted christians are, and how persecuted you are for sharing your beliefs, you're kind of missing the point of this thread. Your brothers in Christ are seeking to cause harm and pain and hardship to those who they don't see as part of your tribe. The """anti-theists""" that you are so eager to other and uncritically ignore are those who just don't want your pastor and religious leader telling them how to live their life or raise their kids. 

What you believe has fucking nothing to do with how people should be treated, unless you're a hateful bigot. Treat humans with dignity and respect, and don't judge them. That's explicitly commanded of you by your God. Maybe if you were less worried about culture wars and getting led by the nose by the chris rufo's of the world you'd be able to see how much harm is being done in God's name. 

[troph 24788]

5 hours ago, HamsterHookah said:

I’ve said my piece and even where I would like to respectfully respond, the snowflake heathens who will neg a post telling someone the time to someone who asked it, makes it not worth the effort anymore on these types of threads.

Other than that, not sure what your quote is saying and what it is you want from me to respond or why you think I’m scared in defense of my beliefs and POV.

Not sure who is the snowflake but I guarantee you a snowflake ain’t making it out their front door let alone walking a mile as a trans person in this society.  

[Pods 7552]

10 minutes ago, troph said:

Not sure who is the snowflake but I guarantee you a snowflake ain’t making it out their front door let alone walking a mile as a trans person in this society.  

He can't imagine what y'all have to go through. He can't even handle being rejected by this community countless times. He'd fucking crumble if he had to face 5% of what y'all face. 

Edited April 30, 2023 by Pods

[Mdhorn 5949]

On 4/29/2023 at 8:14 AM, troph said:

You don’t get it, it’s not semantics, Christian politics have intentionally and actively made much of America an enemy. When you actively create enemies, you bred hostility. I’m hostile, but you know what? It’s not offense it’s defense. I don’t have an issue with you being religious or having a faith or wanting to pray on Sunday or pray on Tuesday. I have a problem with your people saying they want to make it more difficult for me to be me Monday through Friday, Saturday and twice on Sunday.  Christians are adept at claiming we are persecuting them but it’s textbook gaslighting, I don’t  know a single queer person that wants to stop your personal right to be you, we just want the attacks to stop and they won’t and we are fucking angry and Christian’s are like, “why you mad bro?”

fuck that noise. 
 

From the Dean of Students from the University of Dallas--8 Rules for the Dean of Students:

7. We need to get the complementarity of the sexes right. If we get the anthropology right, this should follow quite naturally. Yet most universities refuse to recognize this. They fight against it, and do not benefit from the great advantages that can come from acknowledging the reality of differences between the sexes—in programming, in the built environment, in the way disputes are handled. 

Yeesh, talk about cancel culture.  This isn't just LGBTQ unfriendly, it's also a bit misogynist.  How this isn't getting called out, is a mystery.  They're fundraising off this message.  

[Mdhorn 5949]

On 4/29/2023 at 9:34 AM, troph said:

Oh let’s play let him who has ears to hear let him hear…

note: these passages are hidden by the quote feature but they are so on point PLEASE READ THEM. Especially the second one, you want to hear a refreshing gospel message the beatitudes have long been forgotten but are central to Jesus’ message. Please read them.

As you know the Pharisees and the scribes were the religious leaders and Jesus had the strongest rebukes of his time on Earth for them. 
 

these word apply to the legislators, the pastors, and those that follow and repeat their words. These rebukes are for those that are killing trans people by governmental fiat, by spreading lies, by preaching and following the gospel of hate and war. Jesus will not be kind to you. 

 

long gone is the gospel of the Beatitudes and in is the gospel of the Pharisees.  I know more “homos, fags and queers” that check the “blessed are” box than many Christians and they don’t profess to be followers of Christ.

You actively rebuke today’s Pharisees in the open public square with your vote, your money, your attendance (or refusals to attend) and your words, and you embrace, preach and you live the gospel of the beatitudes and we can be friends. 

Fucking A - walk the fucking walk and lay off the bullshit semantics and gibberish. 
 

Hamster isn't in this to learn something, and using anything in the Bible to try and prove a point, is giving it credence, and it doesn't deserve this. There's a whole history of killing others in the name of Christianity (not Christ--Christ would never do such things, not even picking up arms against the Romans, who were coming to crucify him).  But the Bible is no more poignant to those that claim it than those that don't.  If you were going to use it, love would be its higher power, love thy enemies--and turn the other cheek, love the poor--give the shirt off your back, love thy neighbor, love, love, love.  In fact, since the Kingdom of Heaven is their reward for the trials and tribulations of this life, then they shouldn't need to arm themselves, but embrace the trials and live guided by mercy and love, as they would want the same for themselves from their heavenly father.  But this isn't what they practice, believe or want.  They want guns, money and for Liberals to suffer.  If there's a christianity that encompasses this, I have yet to find it.  Nevertheless, these are their religious tenets.      

Edited April 30, 2023 by Mdhorn

[hpslugga 4058]

2 hours ago, Captainant said:

This thread isn't about faith and beliefs, which are personal things. Per the title, it's about weaponized religion and the separation of church and state. 

See, that’s the thing. There are people who cannot for the life of them understand the difference between the two. Interestingly, they who are guilty of this overwhelmingly tend to be on the same side of the aisle of this bullshit. It’s almost as if it’s an institutional blind spot.

Edited April 30, 2023 by hpslugga

[troph 24788]

40 minutes ago, Mdhorn said:

Hamster isn't in this to learn something, and using anything in the Bible to try and prove a point, is giving it credence, and it doesn't deserve this. There's a whole history of killing others in the name of Christianity (not Christ--Christ would never do such things, not even picking up arms against the Romans, who were coming to crucify him).  But the Bible is no more poignant to those that claim it than those that don't.  If you were going to use it, love would be its higher power, love thy enemies--and turn the other cheek, love the poor--give the shirt off your back, love thy neighbor, love, love, love.  In fact, since the Kingdom of Heaven is their reward for the trials and tribulations of this life, then they shouldn't need to arm themselves, but embrace the trials and live guided by mercy and love, as they would want the same for themselves from their heavenly father.  But this isn't what they practice, believe or want.  They want guns, money and for Liberals to suffer.  If there's a christianity that encompasses this, I have yet to find it.  Nevertheless, these are their religious tenets.      

I’m not particularly interested in it either but very few of their people will stand up and say stop it - in their language - and I spent years in it so I have no issue in a weaponized religion thread using their very gospel to show politicized and weaponized Christianity is actually much more of an anathema to their Lord than my tranny ass. 

Edited April 30, 2023 by troph

[Mdhorn 5949]

12 minutes ago, troph said:

I’m not particularly interested in it either but very few of their people will stand up and say stop it - in their language - and I spent years in it so I have no issue in a weaponized religion thread using their very gospel to show politicized and weaponized Christianity is actually much more of an anathema to their Lord than my tranny ass. 

I just don't understand why the small government folks care about the sex lives of others so much.  Society is fully against the underage stuff, but the consensual adult relationship stuff is none of their damn business.  And for some reason, that's an affront to them. 

[troph 24788]

49 minutes ago, Mdhorn said:

I just don't understand why the small government folks care about the sex lives of others so much.  Society is fully against the underage stuff, but the consensual adult relationship stuff is none of their damn business.  And for some reason, that's an affront to them. 

Because they are ashamed they wear panties. 

[Fastbreak 3985]

I just don't understand why the small government folks care about the sex lives of others so much.  Society is fully against the underage stuff, but the consensual adult relationship stuff is none of their damn business.  And for some reason, that's an affront to them. 

They use a fake and imagined “god” to justify their own insecurities and faults. It’s been that way since the dawn of civilization and the indoctrination of these terrible cults.

[SKJ 1311]

I would like to add one thing.

Nowhere in the bible does it say to force your beliefs on another.

Nowhere in the bible does it say to be political and try to mold the world into its morality.

In fact, this:"Giving to God what belongs to God means seeing the face of God in every human being and respecting the dignity of each person and defending his or her right to life...”

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://dphx.org/give-to-god-what-belongs-to-god/%23:~:text%3DGiving%20to%20God%20what%20belongs,He%20has%20begun%20in%20us.&ved=2ahUKEwjnr8rHvdP-AhVommoFHf5OCPsQFnoECAMQBQ&usg=AOvVaw1-2Nw2hpQ-Kl6WtTQP8SWM

 

O Could go on, cut there's no reason

[hpslugga 4058]

1 hour ago, SKJ said:

I would like to add one thing.

Nowhere in the bible does it say to force your beliefs on another.

Nowhere in the bible does it say to be political and try to mold the world into its morality.

In fact, this:"Giving to God what belongs to God means seeing the face of God in every human being and respecting the dignity of each person and defending his or her right to life...”

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://dphx.org/give-to-god-what-belongs-to-god/%23:~:text%3DGiving%20to%20God%20what%20belongs,He%20has%20begun%20in%20us.&ved=2ahUKEwjnr8rHvdP-AhVommoFHf5OCPsQFnoECAMQBQ&usg=AOvVaw1-2Nw2hpQ-Kl6WtTQP8SWM

 

O Could go on, cut there's no reason

That’s all well and good, but here’s the problem:

Far too often, religious people will read into their holy texts things they do not say, and then they will not read what it does say. So they read in between the lines, but they don’t read the lines.

[WhatTheBuck 28779]

14 hours ago, Mdhorn said:

Society is fully against the underage stuff

The clergy running the churches — not so much. 

[WhatTheBuck 28779]

22 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

That’s all well and good, but here’s the problem:

Far too often, religious people will read into their holy texts things they do not say, and then they will not read what it does say. So they read in between the lines, but they don’t read the lines.

The scripture is a spiritual Rorschach Test. People have their beliefs and interpret their scripture in a way that validates what they already believe. Nobody gets their values from their scripture. 

[Pancho 44769]

 

[Mdhorn 5949]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

The clergy running the churches — not so much. 

That was another point in the University of Dallas Dean of Students Rules that made me cringe:

4. We need to get the built environment right. No one flourishes in a drab institutional building isolated with a narrow age group. Such a building can never have memory, never have mentorship, never have living traditions. Instead, we need beautiful dorms with multi-age communities—plenty of freshmen, yes, but also well-chosen upperclassmen, graduate students, and even young professors and their families. Younger students can see how a life can be lived two years, five years, even twenty years into the future. (Something of this sort happens on our Rome campus, where professors and their families, twenty-something Rome Coordinators, and students all live together, travel together, eat together, play and pray together.) And of course, this system goes back to the great Oxbridge colleges of the past, in which “dons” lived with layers of different students. In such an environment, students learn hospitality, adult encounter, and yes, adult suffering (and thus misericordia).

 

[Brisketexan 105119]

From the Dean of Students from the University of Dallas--8 Rules for the Dean of Students:

7. We need to get the complementarity of the sexes right. If we get the anthropology right, this should follow quite naturally. Yet most universities refuse to recognize this. They fight against it, and do not benefit from the great advantages that can come from acknowledging the reality of differences between the sexes—in programming, in the built environment, in the way disputes are handled. 

Yeesh, talk about cancel culture.  This isn't just LGBTQ unfriendly, it's also a bit misogynist.  How this isn't getting called out, is a mystery.  They're fundraising off this message.  

Huh. I didn’t read it that way (and yes, I’m aware that there’s baggage here being that it’s a Catholic institution). And to be clear, I am firmly in the camp of “weaponized religion is a huge evil and a problem that may actually destroy us.”
But I’m also a parent of children of two genders, and I’ve seen firsthand how our educational system does not really gear itself for common differences in how the two dominant genders process information and learn. Our educational systems and approaches (every one sit still with your bright and shiny faces and learn!) are failing our boys.
Boys and girls - and yes, we’re speaking in generalities - learn and process information differently. I think we’d be much better off if our educational institutions took that into account.

It’s not anti-LGBTQ, or even anti- any gender, to acknowledge that reality and be thoughtful about how we educate people.

Sorry for the threadjack, it’s just a topic that rouses some strong feelings and experiences in my family.

[Mdhorn 5949]

51 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Huh. I didn’t read it that way (and yes, I’m aware that there’s baggage here being that it’s a Catholic institution). And to be clear, I am firmly in the camp of “weaponized religion is a huge evil and a problem that may actually destroy us.”
But I’m also a parent of children of two genders, and I’ve seen firsthand how our educational system does not really gear itself for common differences in how the two dominant genders process information and learn. Our educational systems and approaches (every one sit still with your bright and shiny faces and learn!) are failing our boys.
Boys and girls - and yes, we’re speaking in generalities - learn and process information differently. I think we’d be much better off if our educational institutions took that into account.

It’s not anti-LGBTQ, or even anti- any gender, to acknowledge that reality and be thoughtful about how we educate people.

Sorry for the threadjack, it’s just a topic that rouses some strong feelings and experiences in my family.

If it's educational about how society operates in relation to gender, then we agree. My fear is labeling followed by know your roles. Hopefully, I'm just overly skeptical. 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Mdhorn

[UpperWestside 6163]

On 4/29/2023 at 9:31 AM, Patricio Swayze said:

Chrispy is too dumb for words.

If you get offended by your religion, a faith, is referred to as a fairytale, YOU are the snowflake.

Here is the funny part:

Everyone of us in this thread, from the believers, to the agnostics and atheists want you to be able to practice your faith. What we don’t want is your faith dictating laws that affect people’s lives. How fucking dumb do you have to be to not get that through your thick skull?

This is the side of the fence I am on. Believe in whatever you want to believe, but do not bring those beliefs into places where the laws of the land are written. Live and let live and treat people with respect and kindness. 

[Satchel 6938]

4 hours ago, Pancho said:

 

So, nothing about eradicating health care access disparities in Texas? How about making sure it’s safe for Tarrant county teens to sleep in their beds at night without being shot in their heads? Does he even know Tarrant County is the road rage capital of Texas? 

[UpperWestside 6163]

4 minutes ago, Satchel said:

So, nothing about eradicating health care access disparities in Texas? How about making sure it’s safe for Tarrant county teens to sleep in their beds at night without being shot in their heads? Does he even know Tarrant County is the road rage capital of Texas? 

That video was cringe-worthy, but more importantly it showcased what hate sounds like while invoking God’s name into the equation. When you meet people like that who espouse the things that absolute cretin said just walk away and realize you just dealt with a hateful religious zealot, because make no mistake, that video was pure hatred for your fellow human beings.

[mchookem 16330]

On 4/29/2023 at 8:26 PM, Pods said:

Jane Goodall is a wonderful anthropologist and her work is foundational for a lot of current primate studies. You can cite her for almost anything chimp related, but she bonded with the chimps in Gombe. She helped us see that chimps are far more complex than we'd thought, but had/has a really hard time seeing them for the violent, shitty creatures they actually are. It's a huge blind spot for her when it comes to aggression and violence. 

Among other things, Goodall was resistant to the idea that chimps routinely hunt smaller animals and eat the meat they kill all the way to the end of the 1990s, when the evidence became utterly overwhelming. In the mid-70's, she observed a war now called the Gombe War between a chimp troop that had splintered into 2 groups. The chimps had all known each other and gotten along before the split, but the split left one group with very few females, so they systematically killed every male in the other group and forcibly kidnapped the females. This included at least one instance where the chimps killed an older chimp that had previously been friendly with and mentored the younger ones. Barbaric shit. She had spent almost a decade watching this troop and was convinced they were peaceful, so she was not comfortable with the implications, which is certainly understandable. Most of what Goodall has said about the Gombe War has come out in the 2000's, after other evidence clearly showed chimp on chimp hyper violence is common. 

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/a-brief-history-of-the-gombe-chimpanzee-war

Every modern anthropologist I've met that works on chimps is respectfully afraid of them. Chimps are hyper-violent, malevolent, manipulative and flip aggression on a dime. Chimps can go years knowing people, or an other chimp, then suddenly attack, ripping the victim's lips, ears, nose, other skin on the face, hands, feet, and/or genitals off. 

Evil is a human construct, so we can't test for it. Hate is really hard to test for, so it's really hard to say conclusively that chimps experience either one.

That said, we know that chimps form groups to seek out and hunt other chimps (usually an individual separated from their own group) intending to kill them. We know they have wars and raiding parties, where they capture females and kill all the males. They celebrate the kill afterwards hooting, shaking branches and desecrating the corpse. We know that they sometimes cannibalize each other, something that is nearly universally considered evil in humans. In the Nat Geo example below, the former alpha was displaced. He remained on the periphery of their group for several years. When he tried to return, the other male chimps killed him, desecrated his corpse and ate part of it. Murder and cannibalism are usually things we associate in humans with hate and evil. Desecration of corpses is usually associated with hate between groups, or at a minimum, significant animosity. 

Paleontologists have a principle we call Extant Phylogenetic bracketing. In a nutshell it says if the living relatives of a group all have the same traits, you can assume that the common ancestor of those groups did as well. This strongly implies that the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans was a hyper-violent animal that attacked things it considered "other", killed the males and kidnapped the females. We both inherited these traits from a common ancestor. 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/chimpanzees-murder-cannibalism-senegal

 There is also recent evidence of at least 2 unprovoked chimpanzee group attacks on smaller troops of gorillas. Both ended with the chimps isolating and then beating a baby gorilla to death. 

https://www.livescience.com/chimpanzees-kill-gorillas-first-ever.html

Robert Sepolsky has done some fascinating work on the subject. He was looking at stress and hormonal responses of a troop in the wild. The troop he was watching had high levels of intra-troop violence for years where the hierarchy was clearly enforced by casual brutality. The hormonal data he collected showed that it's beneficial for the aggressive and competitive ones under normal conditions. The aggressive members had lower stress hormones and health complications. 

After years of him observing them, a virus swept through and nearly wiped out the troop. The individualistic, violent and competitive chimps died off at a much higher rate, while the ones that had previously been observed to be more cooperative with the others lived much more frequently. When the members of that group fell sick, the other cooperative chimps helped them. They ignored the asshole chimps and let them fend for themselves. Following this event, the chimps that had cooperated and survived the disease were the dominant group and began to enforce cooperation rather than competition. From then on, if a new chimp tried to join the troop, they would only accept ones who cooperated and cooperatively drove off the competitive and violent ones. 

FYI, Sepolsky has some awesome videos on Youtube. He puts up lectures from his classes at Stanford. 

I've mostly focused on violence and this is a long post already so I won't go into empathy too much, but it's very important too, though likely less common. Given the extant data, it's conclusive that the typical common ancestor of humans and chimps was hyper-violent, but there were still members of the species that had empathy that some of us have also inherited. That combination of many hyper violent individuals and some empathetic ones is likely key to our evolutionary success. 

 

Elephants also do similar, along with a few other species. It's hard to say why, but some things like the last possibility can be eliminated. Biological instinct and natural selection should drive them to avoid the dead, because whatever killed it is likely still nearby. That's the response of the vast majority of animal species on Earth. Something is overriding that, but it's impossible to test what unfortunately. Studies of corvids (crows, ravens and jays) show they are very intelligent. It's certainly plausible that they are marking the deceased crows passing in some way that is meaningful to them.

An aside before I end. There's an awesome study on crow intelligence and how they teach the next generation. Researchers had people wear masks and interact with crows on the University of Washington campus. The initial study had a person wearing the "caveman" mask be mean to them. A person wearing a Dick Cheney mask ignored the crows. The crows started to scold the caveman mask no matter who wore it. They also taught this behavior to hatchlings and to other crows who had not interacted with the mask themselves. The researchers stopped wearing the mask for 2 years. When the caveman mask reappeared, considerably more crows scolded it than had before. The researchers mixed in some other masks and got the same results. Crows remember, they carry grudges and they teach those grudges to other crows. 

My own take on all the above is that animals are FAR more complex, and similar to us, than we had previously thought, it's just really damn hard to test it. Humans often act like our common ancestor with chimps would have, by being violent, but both chimps and humans have the choice to chose to be better. Violence has likely played a key role in the evolution of both chimps and humans and was likely selected for pretty heavily by natural selection, but is now counter-productive for humanity as a whole. Hopefully we get better at recognizing empathy and selecting leaders that embody it. 

 

[SKJ 1311]

16 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

That video was cringe-worthy, but more importantly it showcased what hate sounds like while invoking God’s name into the equation. When you meet people like that who espouse the things that absolute cretin said just walk away and realize you just dealt with a hateful religious zealot, because make no mistake, that video was pure hatred for your fellow human beings.

The worst part about people like that is that they believe they're supposed to be like that. They believe that to their core. True believers.

They reframe the arguments in such a way that they're the heroes. They're the ones with the knowledge and the truth and they're gonna fix us all with their righteousness... Because they think they're actually saving us from ourselves.

Mutilating surgeries? Banning sexually explicit materials? They believe they're right so much that they take those arguments to almost unrecognizable places so they can exist in their heads as love.

Pieces of shit want us all to be saved

[Stilicho 1397]

20 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

That video was cringe-worthy, but more importantly it showcased what hate sounds like while invoking God’s name into the equation. When you meet people like that who espouse the things that absolute cretin said just walk away and realize you just dealt with a hateful religious zealot, because make no mistake, that video was pure hatred for your fellow human beings.

"I prefer to die with a bottle of wine, without the comforts of religion."

- Ray Wylie Hubbard

[HamsterHookah 112]

46 minutes ago, Stilicho said:

"I prefer to die with a bottle of wine, without the comforts of religion."

- Ray Wylie Hubbard

That's nothing, when she was a kid....she danced with the dead at the pyramids.

[bolverk 29671]

full text of tweet below

BREAKING: A federal judge in Pennsylvania has just ruled that the Satan Club, sponsored by the Satanic Temple must be permitted to convene at schools.

The judge who made the ruling, Judge John M. Gallagher stated:

“When confronted with a challenge to free speech, the government’s first instinct must be to forward expression rather than quash it. Particularly when the content is controversial or inconvenient. Nothing less is consistent with the expressed purpose of American government to secure the core, innate rights of its people.” 

For those who will now say I support the devil, note that the Satan Club does NOT educate on Satanism or seek to sway club-goers towards its ideology. 

- Rather, it promotes rationalism and encourages comprehension of the natural world. 

- The program opposes teaching religious practices in schools. 

- The Satanic Temple renounces supernatural beliefs and views Satan as a figurative representation of defiance against authority, rather than an otherworldly entity.

In other words, the club teaches people to be good people based on morals and rational thought, not supernatural stories and claims.  

I support the Satan Club 100%

Thoughts?

 

[WhatTheBuck 28779]

Hail Satan!

Just a guy trying to get ahead and he got shot down for it. 

[HamsterHookah 112]

Turnabout is fair play.

Which is why one should always shop around and vet the best school for your child based on the family value system you have installed and by which you run your house.

Edited May 2, 2023 by HamsterHookah

[nbmishoid 949]

And how would you vet the PA school, if the only difference were the presence of the Satan Club or no?

[mchookem 16330]

the tenets of The Satan Club sound awesome and 100% kinder, more empathetic, and respectful of my fellow humans than Christianity. hope all the kids join. 

 

also...Hamster once said he'd be most comfortable sending his kid(s) to Baylor, so i'd take his opinion on how to select a school with a canister of salt.  #hopehedidntmeanhisdaughter

 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Lulz. Chrispy is such a tool.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33869]

please just neg him into Bolivia so we can have a respite until his next stupid username

[Pancho 44769]

There are more clips too but here are a few

 

[mchookem 16330]

hooboy she was totally not prepared to be smacked with some real Jesus-talk. he handled that excellently.

 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

please just neg him into Bolivia so we can have a respite until his next stupid username

He thinks he is an alpha, but in reality he is the ultimate beta. The very definition of a snowflake.

[mchookem 16330]

i have a friend who is the lead pastor at a methodist church in Oregon.

she was a pastor in Austin for over ten years. i guess at some point there was a big rift in the methodist church? primarily over lgbtq issues. she became so disillusioned and disappointed in the Texas methodist church organization that she quit (her husband quit his job too) and moved her entire family first to Washington, then to Oregon. 

she is a devout Christian. her church does so much wonderful work - feeding and clothing the homeless, building actual tiny homes for them, work supporting lgbtq youth, engagement in the arts... she is just so full of love and acceptance of her fellow humans. she's on social media, as a pastor, a representative of her church, and has no hesitation sharing both her righteous anger/heartbreak over all the hatred (politics, guns, women's health, etc.) and especially anti-lgbtq agendas, as well as so much positivity and warmness towards everyone in her community. 

after she shared something particularly moving a few months ago, i DMed her to tell her that although i myself had become a rather 'detached' christian (for all the reasons in this thread and then some), that i found her inspiring and a true beacon for Christ - that she is what Jesus hoped mankind could/should aspire to.

i made her cry. i felt it was important for her to know that yes, even someone like me, could 'see' her works and that they exemplified her faith.

not sure why i'm sharing that story, other than the words of Rep. Talarico above resonated deeply in the same way. 

there really are genuine good ones out there. 

[TwiceHorn 31457]

On 5/1/2023 at 9:47 AM, Brisketexan said:

Huh. I didn’t read it that way (and yes, I’m aware that there’s baggage here being that it’s a Catholic institution). And to be clear, I am firmly in the camp of “weaponized religion is a huge evil and a problem that may actually destroy us.”
But I’m also a parent of children of two genders, and I’ve seen firsthand how our educational system does not really gear itself for common differences in how the two dominant genders process information and learn. Our educational systems and approaches (every one sit still with your bright and shiny faces and learn!) are failing our boys.
Boys and girls - and yes, we’re speaking in generalities - learn and process information differently. I think we’d be much better off if our educational institutions took that into account.

It’s not anti-LGBTQ, or even anti- any gender, to acknowledge that reality and be thoughtful about how we educate people.

Sorry for the threadjack, it’s just a topic that rouses some strong feelings and experiences in my family.

UD is not only Catholic, but is becoming quite a hotbed of Integralism, see, e.g. Gladden Pappin.  I'm not sure any of that is an expression of it, but UD is an institution of which to be wary at this juncture, when it was previously pretty solid.

[Satchel 6938]

18 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

UD is not only Catholic, but is becoming quite a hotbed of Integralism, see, e.g. Gladden Pappin.  I'm not sure any of that is an expression of it, but UD is an institution of which to be wary at this juncture, when it was previously pretty solid.

It was always very conservative, even during the Cowans years, although it enjoyed a stellar liberal arts reputation.

[crash_davis 23108]

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/texas-religion-politics-schools-commandments-republicans-abbott/273-d3039d88-24dc-48cd-b3db-121e76f4eed6

“We think there can be a restoration of faith in America, and we think getting Ten Commandments on these walls is a great way to do that,” former state Rep. Matt Krause testified last month. “We think we can really set a trend for the rest of the country.”

 

It's the latest battle in what Barton and other Christian leaders have framed as a long-running and existential war with the secular world, rhetoric that has helped fuel Republican movements to crack down on LGBTQ rights, ban books, push back against gun control and limit the teaching of American history in classrooms, among other oft-framed "culture war" issues.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqhuXfIIdEm/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

[Celery Man 20943]

Trump found liable for sexual abuse of E Jean Carroll

 

[Foosters 17855]

Essay from evangelical pastor on his "walkaway" from the GOP and conservatism. Interesting to hear from someone who spent 30 years supporting all things GOP

https://kevinyoung.substack.com/p/i-voted-for-trump

 

Quote

I was raised Republican, indoctrinated into the Grand Ol’ Party from a young age, and baptized into the waters of latent McCarthyism. I sipped at the fountain of Pro-Life Rallies and Reaganomics.

One of my earliest memories was joining my grandfather in a voting booth so he could teach me how to vote “straight ticket.” It was a decade before I would be of legal voting age, but he wanted to be sure I was ready.

Red, of course.

Was there any other color?

I bled red.

We bled red.

Why?

Well, because God bled red …or so I was told.

And I bought it.

Why wouldn’t I?

Every influential voice in my life reinforced the narrative that conservative Republicans were the party of God, doing his work in this world. With one voice, pastors, parents, grandparents, and fellow parishioners regularly reminded me that a Christian could only vote for one party and be a follower of Christ. No exceptions.

Thus the wall was built—one row at a time—as each person I respected and trusted laid their brick upon the mortar of my impressionable mind.

“Democrats are evil.” … another brick laid.

“Christians are Republican.” … another brick laid.

“Jesus was Conservative.” … another brick.

Every sermon.

Every Bible study.

Every conversation inside the Christian bubble.

Bible College. Seminary. The Pastorate. Row after row of bricks.

Year after year.

Decade after decade.

Quote

So to be clear: In the 2016 Presidential Election, I cast my vote for Donald J. Trump in both the Primary and General Election.

Proudly.

I did my best to support and defend Trump in the years that followed, but my conservatism was increasingly at odds with how Jesus treated marginalized communities… and it was increasingly at odds with Trump’s bombastic behavior.

Compassionate Conservatism was out, having been replaced by a more caustic brand of conservatism within the Republican Party.

As COVID took hold in 2020, I didn’t recognize my Christian and Conservative brother and sisters. Their callous response to the health of others shocked me. All told, I lost 19 people to COVID. All of them would be alive had Conservatives and Christians practiced “Love Thy Neighbor.”

Though I could not see it at the time, the wall that had taken a lifetime to erect was dangerously close to collapse.

 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13584]

Evangelical dude wants access to your kids at schools. For a job. You pay him for.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/19/legislature-chaplain-bill-rocky-malloy/

[WhatTheBuck 28779]

On 5/19/2023 at 4:00 PM, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Evangelical dude wants access to your kids at schools. For a job. You pay him for.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/19/legislature-chaplain-bill-rocky-malloy/

Sounds like a groomer. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

On 5/10/2023 at 2:22 PM, Foosters said:

Essay from evangelical pastor on his "walkaway" from the GOP and conservatism. Interesting to hear from someone who spent 30 years supporting all things GOP

https://kevinyoung.substack.com/p/i-voted-for-trump

 

 

Quote

So to be clear: In the 2016 Presidential Election, I cast my vote for Donald J. Trump in both the Primary and General Election.

Proudly.

I did my best to support and defend Trump in the years that followed, but my conservatism was increasingly at odds with how Jesus treated marginalized communities… and it was increasingly at odds with Trump’s bombastic behavior.

Compassionate Conservatism was out, having been replaced by a more caustic brand of conservatism within the Republican Party.

As COVID took hold in 2020, I didn’t recognize my Christian and Conservative brother and sisters. Their callous response to the health of others shocked me. All told, I lost 19 people to COVID. All of them would be alive had Conservatives and Christians practiced “Love Thy Neighbor.”

Though I could not see it at the time, the wall that had taken a lifetime to erect was dangerously close to collapse.

Maybe this guy saw the light but it wouldn't take much for a guy like him to jump back to the GOP. Either a GOP candidate will be someone a bit less egotistical than Trump or this pastor will hate the Dem candidate for any one of 10 reasons. His justification would come swift.

He PROUDLY voted for Trump in 2016 after it had recently come out how Trump grabbed women by the pussy? In a recording! He proudly voted for Trump when Trump bragged how bad he was going to treat immigrants, all Catholic/Christian, who were just seeking a better life.

This pastor can only recognize evil when faced with a global pandemic? It took that much?

[Celery Man 20943]

https://apnews.com/article/pat-robertson-dead-christian-broadcasting-700-club-91299d0953c014ca6860fe545cac793e
 

gone home to his master

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Good riddance. Fuck that piece of shit.

[DigglerontheHoof 21195]

9 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

https://apnews.com/article/pat-robertson-dead-christian-broadcasting-700-club-91299d0953c014ca6860fe545cac793e
 

gone home to his master

[Gap03 3304]

Rush and now Pat Robertson. Can we haz Pat Buchanan to complete the trifecta?