AN INTERESTING QUESTION....

[ProudMNDemocrat]

Last edited Mon Jan 15, 2024, 03:28 PM - Edit history (1)

As I was on my way to Costco this morning, my husband had on The Stephanie Miller show on our local Progressive radio station.

She was talking about being Christians and what Jesus Christ was preaching about in The New Testament. She asked this question..."How can Americans who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, who preached about Love, Forgiveness, Acceptance, Tolerance, doing right by others, and brought out the BEST in us, turn around and FOLLOW and VOTE for a man who is the TOTAL OPPOSITE?"

The phone lines are open.

[FalloutShelter]

1. Interesting discussion about that on Kos today-

Donald Trump is filling the God-shaped hole in Republicans’ lives

For many Americans who consider themselves Christian, it seems impossible to square the behavior of Donald Trump with any form of the religion they hold dear. It’s not just that Trump has little understanding of the core tenets of Christianity or its roots in Judaism: It’s that Trump’s actions seem to be the polar opposite of everything Christians are supposed to believe.

This is a man who has made vengeance the core of his latest election campaign. Whose philosophy is to return any blow 10 times over. Who regularly calls for violence, on levels large and small. A man who is eager to kill people by the thousands. Who declares that those who refuse to follow his every order deserve death. And that’s before even dipping into a personal life filled with accusations of fraud, adultery, theft, and rape.

Where Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” Trump declares, “I am your retribution.” How can anyone who claims to follow one of these men support the other?

The answer, according to The New York Times, is simple: Trump supporters have redefined Christianity. For them, it has little to do with religion, and even less to do with Christ. Christianity is now just another synonym for MAGA.

Much more at link and worth the read:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/15/2216360/-Donald-Trump-is-filling-the-God-shaped-hole-in-Republicans-lives?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_2&pm_medium=web

[ancianita]

27. It's a power worshipper club. Not Christianity.

[usonian]

2. A short observation.

Christianity is generally counter to capitalism, in the aspect of greed.

Capitalism is pretty hard to carry on without greed (IMO)

I read "The Enchantments of Mammon" by Eugene McCaraher, and other books.

In the end, business and politics are about power, not principle, other than regulations, which many are eager to get rid of.

Balancing the two is more than most people can handle, let alone societies, because money is basically power.

Some Buddhists will say that wealth is OK if properly used, i.e. shared. (not the starving mendicants)

But when wealth is mostly symbolic, as in fame, opulence and so on, then it's without limit, unlike food. And someone will always have more, so it is a race to ever-moving goalposts.

But back to the OP, it's all about power, not principle, and power corrupts.
What we are seeing is a popehood of Medici's.

I see a lot of projection in this movement --- What one can't achieve in oneself (i.e. virtues), one projects onto others, as "the devil".
And also, in my opinion, fears and weaknesses.
A strong person helps others to succeed.
A weak person tries to cut others down to their own size.

enough for now.

[getagrip_already]

16. organised religion is hard to carry on without greed....

at least that has been the result since pretty much the beginning of organized religion, so it has to be true.

[SarahD]

3. He hurts the people we hate.

Pro-choice, woke, Trans, Black, the list goes on. They see it as a zero sum game. If someone not in my group benefits, it means something was stolen from me. When I was eight years old, if my sister got a new toy, it meant one less toy for me. It never occurred to me that we now had two toys that we could share.

[Jim__]

4. That is an interesting question. My thought is that their Christianity is cultural.

Most of the people they know identify as Christian, and being Christian to them means going along with their culture. Their culture idolizes Donald Trump now, so, of course they go along.

It's a bit too easy though to say, oh those hypocritical Christians. Most of us follow our culture where it leads us. Very few people can actually stand alone behind their beliefs.

[Mysterian]

5. They think whatever the angry man on TV tells them to think

They are brainwashed zombies.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. They don't care if you call them hypocrites. So now what?

[ancianita]

29. Now they can be called a club of power worshippers. A cult for the antichrist.

[GuppyGal]

7. Not only that but the abhorrent policies they support and advocate. #FakeChristians nt

[Ms. Toad]

8. People have been asking that quesiton since 2016.

The short answer is that there are those who live their faith - and don't support Trump - and those who like the rigid rule-based structures and selectively read the new testament - who support Trump.

For them, the appeal is to the superficial law and order he represents. I participated in a faith-diverse focus group on religion. One of the questions asked was what would happen if all of the churches suddenly vanished. My answer was "nothing." But a substantial number of people in evangelical churches (generally small, non-denominational) was that there would be murder and mayhem. My initial reaction was that they were being sarcastic, but the rest of the conversation indicated they weren't. They actually believed that it is churches (and I think the threat of hell) which controls the behavior of those around them. It makes no logical sense - since church attendance is entirely voluntary. And I don't think that they would say their own tendency to bad behavior is kept in check by the existence of churches. But they focus much more on the don'ts of the old testament (which Christ didn't abolish) than the dos of the new testament. Because they are not internally motivated by good - and believe humans are inherently weak and give in to temptation absent external controls, Trump's talk of law and order - and consequences - apeals to the retributive/don't form of Christianity, with the threat of hell as punishment for those who stray.

I know lots of people who actually try to follow the example of Christ who are all about love, forgiveness, acceptance, and tolerance - and they find Trump disgusting.

[AllaN01Bear]

9. get thee to the greatest page , ding, ding.

[otchmoson]

10. Why?

Why hasn't some reporter--in front of all the Evangelicals Trump purports to love--ask him: How many times did you attend church services during your four years in the White House? And how many Sundays did you play golf?

[erronis]

17. Because he doesn't take those types of interviews/questions, and if it happened

he'd go off into one of his arm-flailing blathering word-salad blaming the interviewer modes.

Ever noticed how few times he has a real town hall type of meeting? They are all staged with paid actors and goons to keep out real people.

[KS Toronado]

11. Did the open phone lines bring death threats for being mean to Der Fuhrer?

[bernieb]

12. The majority

of those people have either "fallen away" from their beliefs or never went to church at all. Their leaders are charlatans who are fake Christians. As a practicing Episcopalian, when someone starts this kind of discussion, I invite them to MY worshipping community to experience the difference.

[erronis]

18. Thanks for stating what I think. They have lost their belief - if they ever really had it.

[BaronChocula]

13. It's a power and character thing

They want the finger-pointing of the OT under the guise of love in the NT. Very few of those people do the real work of withholding judgement, feeding the poor, and loving thy neighbor. Instead they do what most people have been doing with religion since time immemorial - they use it to justify whatever it is they damn well wanna do.

[progressoid]

14. I asked that of one of my relatives who is an evangelical Christian back in 2016.

She stopped speaking to me for 2 + years.

[progressoid]

15. Also..." local Progressive radio station" What's that like?

I've not heard a Progressive radio station anywhere around here.

[erronis]

20. Pacifica Radio and some stations that carry Democracy Now, etc.

https://pacificanetwork.org/

My local station used to have an hour segment that was progressive amidst the seething RW froth. But was bought by a couple of repuglicons and I don't see it on air anymore.

[progressoid]

24. closest that carries Pacific radio is 175 miles away from me.

I did hear a show that borders on "liberal" once. But they aired it at a really odd time on a weekend when everyone else was watching football or doing other stuff.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

25. We have a radio station 1 1/4 miles from we here I live now.

Last edited Mon Jan 15, 2024, 05:29 PM - Edit history (1)

AM950. The progressive voice of Minnesota. We support the station and advertisers there too.

[progressoid]

33. Wow. Good for you!

Kinda of jealous!

[orwell]

19. It is transactional...

...He hates the same people they hate.

He delivers victories - like the defeat of Roe.

He amplifies and reflects their persecution complex.

He echoes their fear of modernity.

He gives simple answers to complex questions, similar to religious "commandments."

He stands as a authoritarian, structurally similar to the hierarchical "God" figure they worship.

Many people, at their core, are hypocrites. We often refer to it as "situational ethics."

[dlk]

21. Cognitive dissonance is epidemic in the Republican Party

They pick and choose which Christian beliefs to follow, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

[AverageOldGuy]

22. They don't pay attention to that love, mercy, grace stuff.

It's all about the Old Testament with a god who orders his followers to destroy their enemies.

[Trust_Reality]

23. My wife and I have been pondering that question for years.

We both grew up in deep fundamentalist evangelical communities/families. It took us many years to escape the brain washing.

Regarding Trump... He is a highly skilled con man. But he is helped a lot by preachers. A friend of ours said her 8 year old grandson reported that a playmate friend told him Trump is Jesus. Did a preacher help create that belief? If so, why? It is quite possible that a preacher did not. I think many evangelical fundamentalist preachers are personally (secretly) less radical than the nutty members of their congregations. So there is some hypocrisy for you, right there at the top, for not trying to reign in over the top nonsense.

Of course there are all kinds of social media permitting the distribution of craziness.

Religious people live inside a bubble based on various stories that are repeated over and over. The stories become their "facts". Their reality. ("Our facts" - Credit to Kelly Ann Conway for creating the term.) So, Trump and others create their own "facts" and repeat them. Seems perfectly normal to religious believers. MAGA is a bubble that holds people tightly, especially the religious.

Fear is a fundamental feature of Christianity. They need a savior. Trump can spot an opportunity like that from miles out.

Christianity is an either-or way of thinking. It is good OR evil. No compromising, fear of compromising, actually. God might not approve. Fear of making decisions that are not black and white. God might not approve. This way of thinking brings us absolute abortion restrictions that are totally cruel and inhumane. It brings us refusal to compromise regarding immigration policies -- that together with racism and fear.

Conservatism is basically fearfulness. So there is a natural confluence of fundamentalism or evangelicalism with conservatism.

Sad and confusing when observing from outside the bubble.

I know there are many people who are believers AND decent human beings who have the courage to be humane and try to understand and even appreciate people who are not functioning in their closed minded bubble, people who believe differently, people who look different, people who are different. So, we can hope they prevail.

And there are other religions about which I know little except when they engage in blatant brutality. So, my apologies to humane and open minded persons who benefit from some form of religious based philosophy. You deserve kindness and understanding just as everyone else - except Trump and people like Trump.

[erronis]

37. Glad you have escaped that alternative-fact bubble and can tell us about it.

I am so sorry for so many good people (and most people are good) who never get to see outside of the proscribed "facts". The Truman Show.

[ancianita]

26. They have misplaced faith in an antichrist, and think they Love, Forgive, Accept & Tolerate HIM, who

they want to believe is God's "chosen" one. But they are not listening to God, because they neither read his Word nor pray to listen to what God wants -- their god serves them, they don't serve God -- they listen just to whoever validates their belief of what their god wants.

[claudette]

30. Speaking of knowing

Last edited Mon Jan 15, 2024, 04:52 PM - Edit history (1)

the mind of God. I love a quote I read somewhere. “Talking to God is prayer. God talking to you is insanity “

[ancianita]

35. In the context of current morality politics,

that there is a pretty charitable quote!

[claudette]

28. That's always been the question

The simple answer is that those who follow Dump and vote for the orange criminal are not TRUE Christians. They are heretics

[Sneederbunk]

31. I don't always know what Jesus would do,

but l know what he wouldn't do.

[HariSeldon]

32. Consider game theory - the Prisoners' Dilemma

According to the Veratasium video on game theory and the Prisoners' Dilemma (in the formulation used by Dr. Axelrod), there has been abundant research on what strategies serve best over a long series (of not-entirely-determinative length) of interactions where the participants can cooperate or defect. In general, the strategies that performed best could be described as: nice (i.e. not defecting first), forgiving (only looking at its opponent's immediately preceding decision), retaliatory/provokable (defecting in the round immediately after its opponent defects), clear (using a simple and easily observed strategy), and generous (occasionally cooperating even when it would otherwise defect).

Some denominations of Christianity have been characterized as being maximally forgiving, based on the teachings of Jesus as related in the Bible. Applying this strategy in the Prisoners' Dilemma works well if the opponent is "nice" but fails badly when the opponent is nasty -- and the nastier the opponent, the worse the inevitable failure.

I believe some groups of Democrats may have the same misconception that consistently choosing cooperation -- even in the face of defection -- is a winning strategy. The math says not, and this is the one thing I would fault President Biden for: not clearly and strongly retaliating for the defection of the Republican Party against the (little-D) democratic nature of our chosen form of government. I truly believe this is a core reason why the Democrats lost House seats in 2022 and for the perception of President Biden as "weak."

And Republicans seem to have learned the lesson that Democrats are overly forgiving and resist provocation: they can defect with impunity because Democrats will always try to make things work. I suppose the lie was put to "always" when Democrats refused to help McCarthy keep the Speaker's gavel, but that singular case does not lay out a clear strategy where Republican voters see that they are losing out through their elected legislators' refusal to cooperate in effective legislation.

And I think this also spills over into Christianity, especially evangelicalism: those who believe that "spreading the Good News" (usually measured in attendance at services or weekly collections) is more important than Jesus' teachings of maximal cooperation will be inclined to defect in furtherance of their immediate goals.

[erronis]

38. Figuring out how to play the "prisoners game" is what master strategists do

And trump and his inner circle ain't them. Nor are the (r)epuglicon clowns in congress.

I'd look at some RW think tanks in the US allied with RW operations overseas to find out who's successful at these games. We all know the russians are pretty damn good at chess and the chinese at go/etc. Americans play slap-jack and checkers.

[JoseBalow]

34. GOP Jesus

[Ocelot II]

36. Religion at the micro level is much more about association and affiliation

than it is about dogma. The right wing co-opted evangelical Christians during the civil rights movement of the '60s; private church-based segregated schools were formed so people wouldn't have to send their kids to integrated schools. Churches, especially in small towns, are major social centers, and social and political political beliefs are reinforced in those centers, not only by sermons but in the informal associations of the members. The secular beliefs and prejudices held by the church members become central to their "religious" dogma more than the teachings of the Bible, and the groupthink takes over. No inconsistency is observed between Jesus' commands to feed the hungry and welcome the stranger and Trump's commands to hate the poor and the immigrant. Jesus is background noise; the church has become a political entity, not a religious one.

[erronis]

39. Reccing. It's social - bonding or ostracism. Jesus/religion is immaterial.

[TSExile]

40. There's a woman at my church...

...who has a heart the size of a football field. She is very active with the food pantry and we were among the few this past summer that helped fix up a house on church property for our deaconess intern and her husband to stay in. She is a dyed in the wool R. She is aware of where I stand. We have basically agreed to disagree.

On the flip side, one day I was on the treadmill at the Y when I spotted another lady from church on another treadmill. She was watching the TV on her treadmill. Guess who was on? Ali Velshi!! We were able to commiserate about our shared political values.

So, rest assured, not everyone who attends church - even the more conservative churches - are T**** zombies. I cannot speak to the others who are still voting R after all this. It's mainly the abortion thing. I swear, most people in the church would vote for Satan himself on this issue. SMH.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

41. Bloody f'n BS.

That psychopathic demigod preached some seriously sick and violent FILTH.

He considered it okay to get violent with non-violent people who offended him (see moneychangers).

He preached that he wasn't here to bring peace but a sword to divide even families against each other.

He also said that he didn't come to save people who weren't Jews, and in the very next breath went on to call a non-Jewish woman and her sick daughter 'dogs' to their faces.

When Jews at the Temple asked him to do something as basic as washing his filthy hands, he chewed them out for not murdering disobedient children.

He made it clear that he supported all of those sick and twisted laws in the first part of the Big Book of Bad Ideas, and that they would remain in effect until the earth and sun were no more.

He preached so much hate for the Jews who wouldn't follow his evil in the book of John that it created millennia of hate and violence against Jews. That hate he vomited up was the #1 cause of centuries of pogroms--and the Holocaust.

Worst of all, he supported permanent torture for people who disagreed with him. When you advocate for that, it negates anything good you might have said. Ignoring that to worship such a psychopathic scumbag would be in the same league as ignoring all the women Ted Bundy murdered and worshiping him because he worked on a suicide prevention hotline.

He's the perfect deity for MAGAts.

[Skittles]

42. just shows the phoniness of religion

with all these churchgoers, why is there always a need for blood and organs? these folk do NOT follow anything but themselves

[Hotler]

43. ALL the repug voters want is cruelty and hate for Dems & Libs. The orange one represents their best chance

to make that happen.