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the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

raifield posted:

This must be both the best and worst time of his life, simultaneously. Best: attention! Worst: consequences! (hopefully)

I don't believe for a second that he is ever going to face a meaningful consequence for any of this.
There may be another dog and pony show about impeaching him again and a whole lot of "Tut tut, for shame" hot air that gets blown around, but he's not going to go to jail or face any true downside.

I say this because nobody wants to be the one who sets a precedent that will allow any president, current or former, to go to jail for any sort of white collar crime, because quite frankly, they all do most of what Trump did, he's just blatant about it.

Unless he does some blue collar crime, like murdering someone with a pipe, he's never going to see jail time, because yeah, no one wants to propagate the idea that the president can actually face a consequence if they can handwave it away or sweep it under a rug instead.

That's my not-really-hot take.

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BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.
There's also the whole thing with molestation, abuse and corporal punishment of kids (or women) where the perpetrators can hide behind the veneer, the power, the influence and wealth of the church. I don't think that anyone would argue that this hasn't been well documented.

I haven't seen a ton well organized, rich atheist organizations that rape kids and then use the combined wealth, political connections and social status of their belief system to shield themselves from prosecution and punishment. I mean, of course, I'm well aware that a lot of abusers and people who deal in human trafficking could care less about theocratic doctrine and aren't inspired by it but they don't get to shuffle around and hide/reassign their members nor use subterfuge and their standing in the community when they get caught either.

Plus, I doubt their personal beliefs regarding God really weigh much into it, if at all.

virtualboyCOLOR
Dec 22, 2004

Yeah I can’t imagine being the poor sap who believes Trump or any politicians that break laws to further the march towards fascism will face consequences ANY DAY NOW.

It must be a miserable experience.

Meanwhile the reality is this situation is more likely to move things closer to when America goes full fascism. When republicans take the house and (likely) the senate, there will be media spectacle hearings over this and Biden is 100% getting impeached at the very least. This is just the beginning and it’s going to be a nihilist’s laugh-a-thon.

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




Are you in reality?
Do you use constructed language and symbols to talk about reality?
Do you participate in groups that share that language and symbols that makes held in common rules (which might not be explicit )about what is okay or not okay to do with them?

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

BiggerBoat posted:


I haven't seen a ton well organized, rich atheist organizations that rape kids and then use the combined wealth, political connections and social status of their belief system to shield themselves from prosecution and punishment. I mean, of course, I'm well aware that a lot of abusers and people who deal in human trafficking could care less about theocratic doctrine and aren't inspired by it but they don't get to shuffle around and hide/reassign their members nor use subterfuge and their standing in the community when they get caught either.

Plus, I doubt their personal beliefs regarding God really weigh much into it, if at all.


I mean it's there just without the well-organized part


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_(United_States)

BRJurgis
Aug 15, 2007

Well I hear the thunder roll, I feel the cold winds blowing...
But you won't find me there, 'cause I won't go back again...
While you're on smoky roads, I'll be out in the sun...
Where the trees still grow, where they count by one...
I don't know any studies or academia related to the idea, but from my experience I swear if we focused more on teaching philosophy and more abstract thinking in general we'd have a much healthier citizenry. I think philosophy is often the "teach a man to fish" vs religions "give a man a fish"... it aids one in navigating the human experience as clearly and honestly as we are able, without a lot of the dogma and tribalism that manifests so easily with organized religion (not to mention the associated money and power hierarchies often present).

I'd even say the label atheist is these days unfairly levied against (or perhaps wrongly embraced by) non secular people, the idea that one doesn't believe in a traditional god or gods leaves a lot of room for questions that I don't think the term agnostic represents well, and being in a hurry to identify strongly with any label usually facilitates stubborn tribalism.

I guess that last paragraph is kinda just semantics, but I'm just saying the question is more important than the answer.

Anyway to my overall point a lot of the kind of sweet well meaning people who openly profess problematic/ignorant views tend to be openly philosophy averse. Seriously "I don't like to think about that", "that's just a waste of time", or "you're trying to trick me" have been responses from people young and old when I've tried to discuss, say, Bertrand Russell. The same kind of people who will say pleading, pained, unable to grasp context - "But All Lives DO Matter" (or, seriously, "Donald Trump was just critiquing Hollywood culture and saying women are conditioned to let men abuse them by liberal showbusiness!" regarding pushy grabbing).

Being "good" for a reward or to avoid punishment or simply because somebody gave you a checklist of things to ascend to "good" status is a lot less constructive than internalizing that there is no objective good or bad, and then actively and personally curating your beliefs and actions.

People need to feel like they're standing on solid ground, backed by something or somebody, it's totally natural, and it's not reasonable to ask people to embrace the frightening uncertainty of human meaning and mortality without giving them the proper tools to navigate that. A mindset bolstered by philosophical teaching surely facilitates better learning in other fields too, social sciences to quantum physics.

Anyway the sort of problems associated with human nature may always have been here and may always persist, but that doesn't mean we cannot progress, it means we need to look towards the systems that facilitate manipulate and exploit our worst tendencies. It seems to me we've never had a more successful, powerful, global system of capture before, and it doesn't seem to serve the powers that be to have a world of abstract free thinkers. It's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario and yet something must be done.

Also mandatory psychedelic/ disassociative therapy :pseudo:


Edit Shawn khahnery

BRJurgis fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Aug 13, 2022

cr0y
Mar 24, 2005



Very normal democracy

https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1558228460530810883?t=YiGRgnNnQO8Q8UjuADXKrg&s=19

Legality aside, how in the hell would that even work.

FlamingLiberal
Jan 18, 2009

Would you like to play a game?



cr0y posted:

Very normal democracy

https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1558228460530810883?t=YiGRgnNnQO8Q8UjuADXKrg&s=19

Legality aside, how in the hell would that even work.
Pretty sure socialist activist Eugene V Debs ran for President from jail

FLIPADELPHIA
Apr 27, 2007

Heavy Shit
Grimey Drawer

StumblyWumbly posted:

Counter point: Libertarians are atheist.

This is completely false. Some may be, sure, but that's not even the point I'm making. Atheism doesn't inspire people to murder apostates. Atheists don't infiltrate religious events with the goal of massacring adherents. Do atheists do bad poo poo, including murder? Of course. What they don't do is murder people for insulting atheism.

haveblue
Aug 15, 2005



Toilet Rascal

small butter posted:

Disagree. I'd take the most "devout" atheist over the most devout Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or whoever.

I dunno. A truly devout member of those religions, someone who adheres to what their teachings are supposed to be originally instead of what their modern organized base pretends they are, would be a very nice and kind person. A devout atheist probably believes a bunch of :biotruths: bullshit and loves claiming to be objectively, logically correct on a whole lot of touchy issues.

cr0y posted:

Legality aside, how in the hell would that even work.

We would find out the Supreme Court's opinions on self-pardons, at least

Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.

small butter posted:

Disagree. I'd take the most "devout" atheist over the most devout Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or whoever. Atheists tend to be more educated, more liberal, more likely to be pro-choice, and a million other things.

Well the most devout atheists would probably be the Culte de la Raison, a generally well educated and liberal bunch of folks who got together to raise some complaints about the state of society and the role of the church in it. Which had absolutely no negative aspects at all!

.....sorry I'm receiving updates from the 18th century that there was something called the "Reign of Terror", which in fact sounds not chill at all.

There is nothing special about atheists. At all. On any level, on any subject, in any way shape or form. The same hosed up losers as the rest of us. People are people.

BiggerBoat posted:

There's also the whole thing with molestation, abuse and corporal punishment of kids (or women) where the perpetrators can hide behind the veneer, the power, the influence and wealth of the church. I don't think that anyone would argue that this hasn't been well documented.

It's also been well documented at a vast number of sporting institutes. Child molesters like anything that gives them a position of authority over children, and lots of people are willing to excuse any status quo if it benefits them personally. Sure coach likes raping children, but have you seen our winning season? The issue seems to be the most tribal of all.

Slowpoke! posted:

Atheists aren’t bound together in some cult. There aren’t atheist churches indoctrinating children and atheist Facebook groups plotting terrorist attacks. It’s not really the same at all.

Your group isn't being actively tagged with this poo poo so it's better. The end.

Mulva fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Aug 13, 2022

FLIPADELPHIA
Apr 27, 2007

Heavy Shit
Grimey Drawer
Yeah I mean, believing that absolute truth exists because bronze age goatherders scribbled some incredibly toxic and lovely rules (like owning women/slaves and sanctified murder) down on a tablet is the exact same thing as rejecting those claims to truth. Same poo poo, same people!

E: dropping this derail before it spins out of control, sorry

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice
The thing is "atheist" isn't really a category of belief. An atheist is just somebody who doesn't believe in a god or gods, but it doesn't actually say anything about what the person does believe in. Said atheist could have a really humanistic view of the world or could believe "humanity is evil and all must die in fire". You'd have to look into what the person actually does believe.

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!

cr0y posted:

Very normal democracy

https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1558228460530810883?t=YiGRgnNnQO8Q8UjuADXKrg&s=19

Legality aside, how in the hell would that even work.
So the plan is, what? Trump runs his campaign from prison, wins, pardons himself as his first act and carries right on selling state secrets to the Saudis MAGA-ing?

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!

cr0y posted:

Very normal democracy

https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1558228460530810883?t=YiGRgnNnQO8Q8UjuADXKrg&s=19

Legality aside, how in the hell would that even work.
Hannity, fuckwit that he is, has stumbled into the widely held theory across the political spectrum.

Two Supreme Court cases held that the criteria the constitution lays out for the election of congresscritters are the sole limitations - that neither congress (Powell v. McCormack) nor the states (U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton) can create stricter criteria for qualification. Consider it the Air Bud theory of candidacy.

As even Elias notes in the followup to his engagement farming tweet, this has never been adjudicated at the Presidential level. With that said, the theoretical legal theory here is clear: If congress shall make no law regarding itself, it certainly does not have the ability to make the same law regarding another branch. If you hew more towards the Calvinball theory of the courts, it remains dubious: Why would the Roberts Court would invent a new constitutional theory for the purpose of excluding Trump from the ballot?

VanillaGorilla
Oct 2, 2003

In the extremely unlikely event that Trump goes to jail, runs, and is elected, then the likely reality at that point is that you'd have several blue states that drive large chunks of the U.S.'s GDP go ahead and pull the trigger on that national divorce scenario.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

haveblue posted:

I dunno. A truly devout member of those religions, someone who adheres to what their teachings are supposed to be originally instead of what their modern organized base pretends they are, would be a very nice and kind person. A devout atheist probably believes a bunch of :biotruths: bullshit and loves claiming to be objectively, logically correct on a whole lot of touchy issues.

I've certainly met my fair share of smug atheists and will confess to occasionally being one myself from time to time but, also, in every case I can think of, me being an arrogant smartass and pushing back has been against someone far more pious than me who took it upon themselves to insert their belief system into my life/conversation and claimed to represent truth from on high because some book written by god said so. Or aggressively asking (and finally telling) the god damned JW fanatic on my street who was friends with my grandmother to stop witnessing my (then) 6 year old boy. She still does it and has forced me to be more assertive with her to the point that I often feel the need to be rude.

I typically don't go around waving my agnostic logic in people's faces and telling them to adhere to my sense of reality, let alone push for laws centering around my lack of faith. I don't go randomly knocking on doors claiming to know undeniable truths or insist we all recite an homage to Christopher Hitchens before we can sit down to loving eat at a Cracker Barrel. When my friend has a serious personal problem, I don't tell him to consult the bible or become Hindu. I don't automatically associate terrorism with the Quran or insist on barring Muslims from office.

But the more fanatical and hardcore christians I've met just never talk about anything else and frame every conversation around it. Like they're trying to convince themselves and, if they can convince me or others, it validates them by proxy. I don't know how to have a real conversation with a lady telling me that angels are real because she's seen them and that letting my kid watch Harry Potter is exposing him to the work of the devil.

Dude I used to sit next to was like this.

He tried really hard and repeatedly to strike up a friendship and was a nice enough guy but when I was going through a divorce, a hard time or dealing with my mother's suicide, it was always "Jesus". As if I'd never heard of him.

Most non believers I meet, including myself, are generally content to mind their own loving business until they get poked and prodded or some aunt insists at Thanksgiving dinner that America is a Christian nation so let's join hands and pray for president Trump. Or that I should stop being bisexual because I will burn in hell. And I should give my kid this children's bible or DVD about Noah's Ark. gently caress that.

In my experience, True Believers and hardcore religious types are FAR more arrogant, hypocritical and smug than any of my agnostic colleagues or acquaintances than some loud mouth I met at a party owning religion with Scientific Facts. Full stop.

BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Aug 13, 2022

Zwabu
Aug 7, 2006

Re: religion - I wonder about the relationship between young lovely alt righters and libertarians who are, mostly, I would think, not religious at all, and how they feel about the fact that a huge portion of the GOP are Bible thumpers. In fact, the biggest and most important part of the GOP voting bloc. Are they uncomfortable at all with this? Shrug their shoulders and happy with it as long as the Bible thumpers hate most of the same people and things? View Christianity as a cultural identifier for white nationalism so it's fine?

Obviously people like Peter Thiel are perfectly fine being politically in bed with gay hating Bible thumpers since he'll probably never wind up beaten to death or at then end of a rope from one of their mobs.

Probably.

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

Paracaidas posted:

As even Elias notes in the followup to his engagement farming tweet, this has never been adjudicated at the Presidential level. With that said, the theoretical legal theory here is clear: If congress shall make no law regarding itself, it certainly does not have the ability to make the same law regarding another branch. If you hew more towards the Calvinball theory of the courts, it remains dubious: Why would the Roberts Court would invent a new constitutional theory for the purpose of excluding Trump from the ballot?

Plus, it's been done before. As was mentioned, Debs ran for President from prison. So did Lyndon LaRouche.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

VanillaGorilla posted:

In the extremely unlikely event that Trump goes to jail, runs, and is elected, then the likely reality at that point is that you'd have several blue states that drive large chunks of the U.S.'s GDP go ahead and pull the trigger on that national divorce scenario.

I am actually curious how that would even work. I mean, even the cushiest rich person jail isn't going to let him hit the campaign trail, and I doubt they're going to let him keep doing enough press conferences

Angry_Ed
Mar 30, 2010




Grimey Drawer
It should be important to note that Debs and LaRouche had not been convicted of crimes that prevented them from running for or holding office

the_steve posted:

I am actually curious how that would even work. I mean, even the cushiest rich person jail isn't going to let him hit the campaign trail, and I doubt they're going to let him keep doing enough press conferences

First you say he will never face consequences. Now you theorycraft about if he does. Make up your drat mind.

Main Paineframe
Oct 27, 2010

PT6A posted:

I think one of the most interesting details, in terms of providing context, is that the suspect is a mere 24 years old, not someone who remembers what this entire issue is/was actually about when the fatwa was first decreed. Religion has a lot to answer for right now, precisely because it drives this unthinking bullshit where either a young guy can be convinced to stab an author for essentially no reason, or, let's face it, young men who don't know a uterus from a unicycle can be convinced to attack women's rights, or entire groups of people of all ages can be convinced to downplay the most vile, heinous forms of child abuse.

I don't think you get to that point without religion, and I think as a society, we need to start religion like alcohol: sure, maybe not everyone has a capital-p Problem with it, but it's a motivating factor behind a lot of awful, awful poo poo, and we need to stop treating it as a completely harmless personal choice, culturally speaking.

It's not religion, it's cultural and political conflict under the guise of religion. There's not really a huge difference between the people shooting up abortion clinics because the local anti-abortion Facebook group God said they're murderers, the people shooting up schools to start the race war and the final battle against liberals because their Three Percenter Facebook group said so, and the people shooting up pizza places because their favorite Q Facebook group said they were feeding children's souls to Hillary Clinton.

The great mistake that angry internet atheists make is treating "religion" as something distinct from other cultural and political factors. In this day and age, we should know better than ever that you don't need to invoke religion to drive people to commit suicidal violent attacks in the name of some dumb bullshit.

cr0y posted:

Very normal democracy

https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1558228460530810883?t=YiGRgnNnQO8Q8UjuADXKrg&s=19

Legality aside, how in the hell would that even work.

You can run for office from prison, but the prison isn't going to let you out to make campaign appearances or attend debates or film campaign ads or anything like that, so as a practical matter it's quite difficult.

World Famous W
May 25, 2007

BAAAAAAAAAAAA

haveblue posted:

. A devout atheist probably believes a bunch of :biotruths: bullshit and loves claiming to be objectively, logically correct on a whole lot of touchy issues.
you based this assumption on what excatly?

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

Angry_Ed posted:

First you say he will never face consequences. Now you theorycraft about if he does. Make up your drat mind.

Just because I don't believe it will ever happen doesn't mean I can't still engage in cloud talk about it.

small butter
Oct 8, 2011

haveblue posted:

I dunno. A truly devout member of those religions, someone who adheres to what their teachings are supposed to be originally instead of what their modern organized base pretends they are, would be a very nice and kind person. A devout atheist probably believes a bunch of :biotruths: bullshit and loves claiming to be objectively, logically correct on a whole lot of touchy issues.

We would find out the Supreme Court's opinions on self-pardons, at least

I'm not so sure about this. When it comes to certain basic aspects of human decency, most religions agree because most people agree. There were laws and rules of conduct before religion. Even chimps will stop grooming a chimp who never returns the favor.

But if you're Hindu, the religious belief in reincarnation supports the caste system. If you're Christian, it's hard to argue that homosexuality is NOT wrong. If you're Muslim or Christian, you think that all other nonbelievers are going to hell, even people of sects that differ from your own. How can this kind of religious superiority--ingrained by your holy book--be any kind of foundation for kindness?

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




Zwabu posted:

Re: religion - I wonder about the relationship between young lovely alt righters and libertarians who are, mostly, I would think, not religious at all, and how they feel about the fact that a huge portion of the GOP are Bible thumpers. In fact, the biggest and most important part of the GOP voting bloc. Are they uncomfortable at all with this? Shrug their shoulders and happy with it as long as the Bible thumpers hate most of the same people and things? View Christianity as a cultural identifier for white nationalism so it's fine?

Obviously people like Peter Thiel are perfectly fine being politically in bed with gay hating Bible thumpers since he'll probably never wind up beaten to death or at then end of a rope from one of their mobs.

Probably.

The relationship is personal unrestrained freedom. They want to be able do whatever they want without consideration for or restriction by any others.

haveblue
Aug 15, 2005



Toilet Rascal

World Famous W posted:

you based this assumption on what excatly?

Self-proclaimed atheists on the internet, mostly

Lib and let die
Aug 26, 2004

small butter posted:

If you're Christian, it's hard to argue that homosexuality is NOT wrong.

Mark 7:15
It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.

:heysexy:

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!

Epicurius posted:

Plus, it's been done before. As was mentioned, Debs ran for President from prison. So did Lyndon LaRouche.
In this case, it's less running from prison specifically than it is that anyone run up under 2071 "shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States", which is what Elias was bullshitting about and, I think, Angry_Ed is mentioning.

Where it falls apart is that any crime that "prevented them from running for or holding office" is mandating an unconstitutional punishment (so long as "office" is US Rep, Senator, VP, or President).

Mendrian
Jan 6, 2013

Right.

Religion in this context is only really a problem in that it gives very flawed people a ready-made group they can control by claiming to be the mouthpiece of a supernatural entity.

I think a lot of atheist-types, especially online, have a bone to pick with religion to begin with; they see it as irrational and a source of bad memetics and bound up in other kinds of magical thinking and black-and-white thinking. But really, it's just a group; it's a group with an unprovable hypothesis at its core, sure, but you could envision a religion that preached free healthcare as easily as one that preaches anti-choice nonsense. The religious right in America, certainly, learned a long time ago that they make a lot more money telling the uneducated that they are already correct in the things they believe and are justified for doing so, which is basically the same formula everyone on the right uses to reinforce, radicalize, and indoctrinate. But there are factions of Christians who are good, generous people and their churches teach those values, though granted the nicer the church is the more disconnected it starts to feel from the source material.

The same demagogues who use religious institutions as a way to gain unelected power would simply use a different way to reach their audience if religion were somehow excised from reality.

World Famous W
May 25, 2007

BAAAAAAAAAAAA

haveblue posted:

Self-proclaimed atheists on the internet, mostly
so nothing of actual worth, gotcha

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

the_steve posted:

I am actually curious how that would even work. I mean, even the cushiest rich person jail isn't going to let him hit the campaign trail, and I doubt they're going to let him keep doing enough press conferences



It would like that ^^^ and center around the idea of a persecuted political prisoner being jailed by the atheist liberal Soros Brigade.

Main Paineframe posted:

It's not religion, it's cultural and political conflict under the guise of religion. There's not really a huge difference between the people shooting up abortion clinics because the local anti-abortion Facebook group God said they're murderers, the people shooting up schools to start the race war and the final battle against liberals because their Three Percenter Facebook group said so, and the people shooting up pizza places because their favorite Q Facebook group said they were feeding children's souls to Hillary Clinton.

The great mistake that angry internet atheists make is treating "religion" as something distinct from other cultural and political factors. In this day and age, we should know better than ever that you don't need to invoke religion to drive people to commit suicidal violent attacks in the name of some dumb bullshit.


Of course not, no, and you're largely right but the religious element adds a layer of justification, rationalization, plausible deniability and even legal and financial protection in certain circles because "nobody who worships Christ could be an evil person" and if they're inspired by "god" then it's Ok because they are doing the lord's/Allah's work. When they get locked up for it, it must be the devil.

They can't be wrong because This Book Says So and it was written by God/Allah so of course they belong in heaven for ____________ (insert horrible act of crime or terrorism). I mean...I guess the Unibomber's Manifesto is the closest thing I've read to an Atheist Terrorism Doctrine. The rest seem to be claiming to speak for god.

BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Aug 13, 2022

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

small butter posted:


But if you're Hindu, the religious belief in reincarnation supports the caste system. If you're Christian, it's hard to argue that homosexuality is NOT wrong. If you're Muslim or Christian, you think that all other nonbelievers are going to hell, even people of sects that differ from your own. How can this kind of religious superiority--ingrained by your holy book--be any kind of foundation for kindness?

Except there are Hindua who are opposed to thr caste system, Christians who are fine with homosexuality, and Christians and Muslims who don't believe nonbelievers are going to hell.

I think part of the problem is when people say "Christian " some people think of the Bible thumping, Harry Potter and D&D are satanic, let me explain why you need Jesus type, and like in this case, when some people think Muslim, they think of the fanatic murdering people thing.

Really, that's not true of most Christians or Muslims and you probably tun into Christians and Muslims all the time without even thinking about their religion. When you go to the grocery store, you don't know the beliefs of the person who checks you out. When you ride a bus, you don't know the religious beliefs of the driver or the other passengers. People here don't even know the religious beliefs of most of the people in this thread with them. The problem is, it's the hateful and obnoxious ones who stand out and get made exemplars, not the average person.

Main Paineframe
Oct 27, 2010

BiggerBoat posted:

Of course not, no, and you're largely right but the religious element adds a layer of justification, rationalization, plausible deniability and even legal and financial protection in certain circles because "nobody who worships Christ could be an evil person" and if they're inspired by "god" then it's Ok because they are doing the lord's/Allah's work. When they get locked up for it, it must be the devil.

They can't be wrong because This Book Says So and it was written by God/Allah so of course they belong in heaven for ____________ (insert horrible act of crime or terrorism). I mean...I guess the Unibomber's Manifesto is the closest thing I've read to an Atheist Terrorism Doctrine. The rest seem to be claiming to speak for god.

Look at the Trump folks insisting that nobody who supports Trump could be an evil person, and if they're working for Trump's sake then it's okay because they're helping Trump against the ultimate evil (liberals). They can't be wrong because Alex Jones said so and conservatism is the absolute truth. If they die, they die knowing they were a martyr who fought to save America from the leftists, and their last hope is that their death spurs others to similar action.

silence_kit
Jul 14, 2011

by the sex ghost

BiggerBoat posted:

Of course not, no, and you're largely right but the religious element adds a layer of justification, rationalization, plausible deniability and even legal and financial protection in certain circles because "nobody who worships Christ could be an evil person" and if they're inspired by "god" then it's Ok because they are doing the lord's/Allah's work. When they get locked up for it, it must be the devil.

They can't be wrong because This Book Says So and it was written by God/Allah so of course they belong in heaven for ____________ (insert horrible act of crime or terrorism).

Honestly this kind of language doesn't sound wildly different from how many people who hold strong political views talk about politics.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

Main Paineframe posted:

Look at the Trump folks insisting that nobody who supports Trump could be an evil person, and if they're working for Trump's sake then it's okay because they're helping Trump against the ultimate evil (liberals). They can't be wrong because Alex Jones said so and conservatism is the absolute truth. If they die, they die knowing they were a martyr who fought to save America from the leftists, and their last hope is that their death spurs others to similar action.

Well put and well worded. I agree. It's some weird self fulfilling prophecy with these people and I wrote some about it yesterday and the day before as well here and there in D&D.

They think they ARE America, that me having a tiny flag sticker on my car means I'm a MAGA christian and, quite often, just because I'm white, have blonde hair and don't act effeminate/lisp that they can make racist/gay jokes around me at work and poo poo, automatically assuming I'm cool with this poo poo and not a bisexual male who is not a bigot. It's a very narrow mindset and worldview that starts with the conclusion first and then extrapolates out from there, forcing and smashing square peg facts into the round holes of objective reality, often lubricated and sanded by bibles and flags.

I've had bosses and supervisors casually make horrible comments around me with the assumption that "I'm one of them" or, at worst, care enough about my job and income not to take exception to it. I had one boss openly making fun of me and chatting up the office about me because I had the audacity to cry on 9/12/01 during a company meeting. gently caress you, PATRIOTS. I have friends who live in NYC and have been in those buildings but I guess I'm a big weak homo with emotions about the death of 3000 people. I've heard management openly deride black and gay workers right in front of me. Almost all of them, to a man, go to church and claim to be christian.

Crespolini
Mar 9, 2014

small butter posted:

If you're Christian, it's hard to argue that homosexuality is NOT wrong.

Impossible, I'd say, while maintaining any sort of consistent or logically coherent set of beliefs. Yet, people happily do it, with every appearance of being genuine. Fom anecdotal experience, average Christians (progressive AND conservative) don't really care much about what the bible/christian tradition/academic theological consensus actually says, if it threatens to become inconvenient. They just have a personal god who by strange coincidence agrees with everything they already think is good. (I don't think this is because they're stupid, variants of the same behavior surely apply to non-christians too)

Bar Ran Dun
Jan 22, 2006




Crespolini posted:

Impossible, I'd say, while maintaining any sort of consistent or logically coherent set of beliefs. Yet, people happily do it, with every appearance of being genuine.

That’s only because you are ignorant. It’s quite straightforward to argue for it starting from the Logos.

Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Aug 13, 2022

Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.

Crespolini posted:

Impossible, I'd say, while maintaining any sort of consistent or logically coherent set of beliefs.

The argument is "We're Christian, not Jewish, and Jesus rejected Leviticus and it's tribal bullshit openly and clearly.". It's not a new one. It's older than, you know, every single nation on the Earth today.

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Crespolini
Mar 9, 2014

Bar Ran Dun posted:

That’s only because you are ignorant. It’s quite straightforward to argue for it starting from the Logos.

I'd love to read it, if so.

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