[Disclaimer] - I am not an American and I consider myself atheist, I am Caucasian and born in a pre-dominantly Christian country.
Based on my limited knowledge of Christianity, it is all about social justice, compassion and peace.
And I was always wondering how come Republicans are perceiving themselves as devout Christians while the political party they support is openly opposing those virtues and if this doesn’t make them hypocrites?
For them the mortal enemy are the lefties who are all about social justice, helping the vulnerable and the not so fortunate and peace.
Christianity sounds to me a lot more like socialist utopia.
I think the question is backwards. I think Republicans market themselves as being the ‘christian’ party because they rely heavily on religious and emotional arguments to support their positions ( because they’re wrong )
To add to this, religious people are told from an early age to be credulous and believe in top down authority and not to question authority.
These “values” line up perfectly with authoritarians/assholes.
This is not just a Christian / Republican problem. Throughout history, authoritarians and religion have walked hand in hand.
Religion isn’t about what it preaches, it’s about what it does.
Christianity pretty much only ever pushes conservative bullshit and rigid social structures, so conservatives like it.
Republicans are a lot of things.
Christian isn’t one of them.
They don’t believe what you assume Christianity is. They believe in Calvinist predestination. They think that whenever something bad happens to someone, that person deserved it.
All organized religions are about an elite controlling everyone else. Unlike some other ways to organize people it depends highly on ignorant people who breed quickly to produce lots of grist for the mill.
Perfect target for fascists
Found the Sith
Do it
At its core religion is based on fearing people who are different, and modern right wing politics is based on fearing people who are different.
The fuck are you on about? That isn’t what religion is at all, hell that isn’t even what the Abrahamic regions are
Yeah, that is Not what religions are about, that is what people are abusing religion for. It could be different.
There’s a real cognitive dissonance there. Their version of Christianity takes a back seat to politics because they’ve been told all these visions of grandeur about how “Jesus is coming back” and how they are the “sheep” and all those godless liberals are the "goats. They’ve been trained to look for reasons to feel persecuted even if they don’t come directly out and say it, even if they don’t realize it themselves. There’s a real “us vs. them” mentality in a lot of those types of churches and they’ll gladly go rub one out to stuff like where Jesus said to his disciples in one of the gospels that if people aren’t for him then they’re against him. Nevermind that one of the other gospels says the opposite. A lot of Christians I’ve come across just have this persecution fetish where any slight inconvenience or call for accountability from pretty much anyone (because their church won’t take them to task over things) turns into a ‘righteous’ cry to their lord about how the godless Philistines around them are normalizing oppression and sodomy and trans rights or whatever and these holy little Christian’s are the only beacon of hope in society even though they insist on treating anyone who isn’t like them like absolute garbage. I’m not a social scientist or anything like that, hopefully people smarter than me chime in. But conservatives treat equity in a community like a zero sum game, you know? If poor people are given a hand up by the government then it’s interpreted by these (at best) middle class Christians as an affront to their hard earned money. They worked for their income but “these filthy poors just get handouts at MY expense?” You can tell by their actions that they have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus regardless of how they try to present themselves. They’re full of crap and they deserve to be treated as such.
Source: Grew up in a very conservative farming community, did all the church stuff, then moved away and found myself.
Also, I know I abused quotation marks but my bad on any grammar or spelling errors or general incoherence. I treated myself to vodka for dinner.
they are the “sheep” and all those godless liberals are the “goats”
How is that supposed to be a good thing…? Goats are way smarter than sheep, make better cheese, and can eat almost anything and climb trees and almost vertical surfaces!
It’s a religious reference used in the Bible, emphasizing the obedience of sheep and the stubbornness of goats. I don’t think I’ve ever had sheep cheese but I know I don’t like goat cheese so I’m gonna call that part a draw. Goats are absolutely better climbers though!
But being stubborn is much better than being obedient! (And don’t get me wrong, sheep cheese is good, better on average than cow cheese, but you clearly haven’t tried a good goat cheese…)
I enjoyed your vodka-fueled walk of text. I’ve had a lot of the same observations of religious people in my state.
I have made similar observations in a rural area in Germany. Christian Traditions are highly valued. Christian Values do only apply to non-immigrants, people that work a lot and therefore are considered worthy and other conservatives in general. I consider myself a christian myself somehow and these people gave me the creeps. How can they go and listen to someone preaching about humbleness and being kind and whatever and afterwards keep on being racist and prejudiced against anyone?
I am Caucasian
Are you actually from the Caucasus, like Georgia, Armenia, etc, or do you use the word to mean “European or descendent of Europeans”? Because the USA likes to use the word to mean European-like, which is incorrect, as the caucasus is a very specific region in the border of Europe and Asia.
You’re right about where the Caucasus is, but the generally accepted meaning - both in the US and Europe - is white European ancestry, not just those from the Caucasus.
I am from Europe, and fluent in several European languages. In all of those Caucasian means person from the Caucasus. The usage to mean European is exclusively an USA thing.
Thank you for your assumption that I am not, in fact, European.
However, given I’m from one of the few European countries that speak English as their primary language, I can categorically say you’re wrong.
Alright, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Link me to a dictionary of your country’s version of English that lists “caucasian” with the exclusive meaning of “European or descendent of Europeans”, or something to that effect.
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=caucasian+meaning
Oh wow, that first result sure does say exactly that
Edit: interestingly, lmgtfy actually gets a different response to googling it directly in the UK for me 🤔
Not a dictionary, thus not a credible source.
Let me help you out:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race
“The Caucasian race is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. […] In the United States, the root term Caucasian is still in use as a synonym for white or of European, Middle Eastern, or North African ancestry, a usage that has been criticized.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race
I understand why you might think Caucasian to mean something else despite person from the Caucasus despite being European: the US version of English is influential, due to the size of the country and the popularity of their media. Some British people have started saying “TV series” instead of “programme”, for example, due to the influence of the US. You probably heard and read the adjective almost always in the incorrect US usage, because a) other nations don’t obsess over ethnicity and b) the actual Caucasus not exactly being a common topic in the media. Hence, when you do hear the word, it is used the way the USA does, incorrectly.
It reads like op used the common American euphemism for ‘white’. Which is the correct usage as he’s addressing an American audience.
The usage of the word as it is common in the USA is incorrect. OP might not be aware of this, hence my comment.
Do you know why US-americans don’t use the appropriate word “European”? I’ve always wondered. They do say African, Asian, Latino, but not European, to describe ethnic origins.
The usage of the word as it is common in the USA is incorrect
Etymological prescriptivism is not really a tenable point in linguistics. You can argue that, for instance, in American English the Dutch word ‘rekening’ (bill) is abused as reckoning. And you can find literally thousands of examples like that.
I’m this case a non native speaker used the American English vernacular correctly. You argue that the word is used incorrectly in this vernacular, and it is very peculiar and steeped in the racial discourse of the country. However it’s usage was correct in this case.
I mean, sure, you Japanese person you. No silly, being called Japanese has nothing to do with being from Japan, why would you even think that?
You are not adressing my argument at all and being obtuse.
I am trying to demonstrate how absurd it is to ise the demonym from one region of the world to refer to the inhabitants of a completely different part of the world
They aren’t. Most are just just cosplaying as Christians.
Because Abrahamic faiths are first and foremost built on deciding a truth and working backwards to “prove”(convince yourself and brainwash your kids) it.
This works well for right wing ideologies built around social classes and believing whatever you’re told without question.
Add to that that Christians are on average significantly dumber, then all you have to do is tickle their confirmation bias and they won’t give anything you do a second thought.
Because they stopped maturing when they were 8 years old and mommy and daddy were dragging them to church every weekend.
Trick question. They are not.
Ok, that’s disingenuous. They are Christians. Except, they are nothing like christ.
I know each person will find a different quality of christ that is most like themselves and attribute that as his defining feature but to me christ was radically liberal. Christ saw the hurting in the world and said I won’t submit to it but give myself to it freely. In doing so he freed himself. Christ saw the labrythian rules and dogmas of the prevailing religion of his time and saw how it was punishing people and fought to reform. He knew he has just as much authority over God’s word as any prophet or religious person and give himself to make the needed changes that would ease the suffering of everyone. It was that and a dash of magic; the world was changed. Slowly but thoroughly.
He was a brown middle eastern liberal. Nothing like the Christians we see today. If there was a christ for today they would reform again and the cycle of religous power struggle would continue.
This isn’t really true. A lot of Democrat voters are also Christian. If by “fervent,” you mean “hateful,” this may be more true. A large percentage of Democrat voters are also Christian, but not as hard-line about LGBT issues, and perhaps not as hard-line about abortion.
The type of Christians that Republicans court are easy to persuade and control. Religion has historically been used to create in-groups and out-groups, and as a form of control.
If one were to take the Christian bible at face-value, they would oppose things like sexual freedom. Most leftists/socialists think about intersectionality, so they would be opposed to people who have the “morals” of many Christians.
Because during the Civil Rights era, the parties flipped ideologies and the new southern Republicans embarked on “the southern strategy” which led to the courting groups like hard-core Christians and racists into the fold.
They’re the most fervent Protestant Christians certainly. I’d say the Catholic demographic probably leans more heavily toward the Democratic party, and the Orthodox will vary by jurisdiction.
