QAnon Conspiracies Are Tearing Through Evangelical America

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
David Gilbert
@daithaigilbert
I worked with @Vegastenold and @AmandaPisetzner for the last few months on this video looking at how QAnon conspiracies have taken hold in the evangelical community and the pastors who are spreading it.

Give it a watch:

QAnon Conspiracies Are Tearing Through Evangelical America
It’s been almost a year since we heard anything from the shadowy figure behind QAnon, yet the wild conspiracy is gaining a foothold in evangelical churches. ...
youtube.com
11:06 AM · Oct 19, 2021

[bluesbassman]

1. Surprised it's taken this long.

When you think about it, Evangelicals are perfect prospects for conspiracy theories.

[llashram]

2. Pharisees

and hypocrites...these idiots. Gd knows them not

[Thomas Hurt]

3. Only a matter of time before these whackjobs start blowing up "targets"...

they think are part of the conspiracy. Pizza places might want to be wary.

[Runningdawg]

8. Hospitals have already increased security and should probably be doing more.

There is a ARMED group going around harassing pharmacists. In August they shut down the Walmart in Springfield MO, after the pharmacy had to go in lockdown mode following threats of execution.

"Over the course of almost 30 minutes, Key and his "Missouri crew" taunted and jeered at the pharmacists through the door window — all captured through Key's Facebook livestream. Key said 'if you allow one more shot to go into one more person's body, you yourself can be executed,' Once police arrived at the scene, Key and his group changed their story — telling the police the group had come to Walmart to get vaccinated and were refused. Key claimed to be a victim of "discrimination" and threatened to sue both Walmart and the police officers present. "The police really, I don't know, I think they should have taken it more seriously. I don't know if you could have arrested someone for harassment or the fact that he said 'hung and executed.' I mean, that's a threat."

NO ARRESTS WERE MADE

[link:https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/18/man-tells-springfield-walmart-pharmacy-they-executed-vaccinations-christopher-key/8160309002/|

[Hamlette]

4. thanks for posting, hope the good guys win.

[Gore1FL]

5. Unhinged speculation is happening in churches?

Imagine that!

[Hortensis]

6. Not just individuals and families are doing severe damage to self

through QAnon, but very possibly to evangelical religion and the Republican Party from within. A "clever" attempt to politicize religion to serve RW powers gone terribly wrong and out of control.

Those who fall under the influence are increasingly estranged from the others and may view them with increasing hostility and suspicion. I've read that among others also affected, but not so strongly, there's an insidious undermining of their collective sense of identity and conviction.

Then there are the rest, still lanchored in reality, at least "conservative reality," who are horrified at what's happening but unable to reach them.

Many of us here know what that's like. Hillary Derangement cultism wasn't yet developed into an international pedophile ring run by Democratic leaders, and the seduction not as sophisticated or the rabbit hole as steep, but recruitment through social media preyed on many of the same people with the same vulnerabilities. Have to say, what the far right's since done with what the far left started makes our cultists' efforts a positive embarrassment in comparison, but researchers have an explanation.

...the YouTube advertising model is based on you watching as many videos as they can show you (and the ads that appear before and during those videos).

Whether the subject of the original video selected was right-leaning or left-leaning, or even nonpolitical, the algorithm tends to recommend increasingly more extreme videos — escalating the viewer from videos of Trump rallies to videos featuring “white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials, and other disturbing content.”

Watching videos of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, led to videos featuring “arguments about the existence of secret government agencies and allegations that the United States government was behind the attacks of Sept. 11."

Of course QAnon's conspiracies about HRC are, sometimes literally, out of this world.

We are all the inheritors of the whirlwind, but if I weren't so anxious I'd enjoy watching it tear through the right who so richly deserve it.

[harumph]

9. Evangelicals are taught to believe LITERALLY in the bible.

It's NOT taught as partially symbolic or metaphorical as it is in some other Christian groups.
Insistence on this literal interpretation causes them to be susceptible to
all kinds of nonsense. Their susceptibility to nonsense makes them dangerous.

[hunter]

10. Yep, we shouldn't be surprised when anti-intellectual religions...

... spawn conspiracy believing anti-intellectuals.

[Hortensis]

11. Absolutely. Some are born into fundamentalism, but others choose

it because it's right for people who lack a mix of capabilities that normal cognition requires. It must be a great comfort to find a group to belong to with a belief system that promises them with absolute certitude that they're the only wise and knowledgeable ones. They don't question it, of course. That susceptibility to nonsense.

Reminds me of a fundie minister neighbor who used to combine a polite manner with heated, hostile eyes when we inoccasionally crossed paths. I'm sure he thought I was a demon stalking his family's souls because he raised all kinds of fuss when his wife brought his kids up to sell us cookies, last time we ever saw them. To be fair, atypical.

[StarryNite]

7. kick

Everybody should watch this.

[Initech]

12. Evangelicals fall for con artists, hucksters, and scammers every damn time.

It's unbelievable.

[hunter]

13. I could never be a reporter like that guy.

My "Good God you are stupid! " face would betray me.

[Duppers]

14. Jesus f'n hell!

It's bloody scary that there are so many insanely ignorant people.