This one’s even easier than the toilet roll direction conundrum - Eggs came first, as there were lots of creatures born of eggs before the first chicken came along (unless you believe, as was once explained to me by a very devout religious person - that God buried the dinosaur bones to cause us to question our faith! Their God really does come across as a bit of a dick sometimes…)
20 Likes
When it says unaffiliated, does that mean with evangelicals or a religion in general?
Is there a link I can look at?
Religion in general
7 Likes
Yep…Curse of Ham and all that…
The chosen issue, like abortion, is rather like…well, as what will probably be an unpopular analogy, but I think accurate and illustrative…it’s like people going nuts about demanding we add umpteen new pronouns to the language for every gradient of gender fluidity that can be somehow ascertained. It’s not really the goal for either group. Some may be convinced in it and believe it a worthwhile goal and something that will actually help (but really won’t)…there’s always people who will believe all kinds of batshit…but others are just going along to some extent because of what it really means in an underlying symbolic sense. The REAL goal is achieving some sort of evidence that they are able to either control or at least influence society…some evidence that despite being an overwhelmed minority, they still wield some power and haven’t been fully, completely and irrevocably marginalized. Now, obviously, despite sometimes or even usually being silly or impractical, the goal can be laudable or despicable, so I don’t mean to equate the two examples in terms of whether or to what extent they’ are well-meaning versus harmful to society, but the illustration stands in terms of the invention of a McGuffin to chase…a Holy Grail as it were…for the purpose of obtaining assurance that, well, almost like assurance that they still exist. Sometimes it leans more heavily towards the ability to exercise power…like anti-abortion or cancel culture (viv la Franken!)…other times, somewhat less of a threat to society one way or another, and maybe rather silly, like a load of made-up pronouns for everyone to suddenly try to remember and then use correctly despite there being no outward sign of which one is applicable to any given “zim” you encounter.
If there’s any silver lining in these circumstances, it’s vindication for me. Since the early 80s I’ve had a deep seated disgust for these Christian moralists / cultists / hypocrites, and I would have given anything for them to get a glimpse that their leader would one day be Donald Trump.
13 Likes
Considering that that god, along with many others, was made in man’s image, it’s illogical to expect otherwise.
9 Likes
Actually, the answer to that one, as I was explaining to my secretary today, lies in the answer to another question: do you have kitties?
12 Likes
The full quote:" ‘man, the same people that led me to Jesus have led us to Donald Trump.’ To me, that’s really problematic.”
4 Likes
“Listen. The only people we hate more than the Democrats are the fucking Christianity Today folks.”
“Yeah…”
“Splitters.”
“Splitters…”
“And the Popular Christianity Today folks.”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters…”
“And the Christian Post people.”
“Yeah. Splitters. Splitters…”
“What?”
“The Christian Post. Splitters.”
“We’re the Christian Post!”
“Oh. I thought we were the Christian Popular Post.”
21 Likes
a 5 or 10% shift would mean a lot. I know the Christian Right has given these people a safe space to be zealously political, but many of them aren’t hard-hearted bigots and don’t really get off on vilifying 1/2 of the country. Many of them know in their hearts their religion isn’t “real” and they don’t live by all it’s precepts and know that constantly kicking other people in the teeth over a religion they don’t follow well and are only about 70% sure about doesn’t sit well with them. The Evangelicals and Christian Right voting bloc has got much much more radical and is doubling down on crap even the worst of them don’t really believe but they can’t stop now. Some of that bloc is backing away from the edge. They don’t know how to ‘quit’ them, and are afraid of the backlash…but voting is private and even if they don’t have a public break with the bloc…they may not pull the lever for them.
I still feel Chump hasn’t gained a single voter since 2016 and he won’t. Many who voted for him took a chance, gave him a chance, and now they see what a piece of human wreckage he is…how he has humiliated America and they have to try to cover for all his filth and they are exhausted. If this is what ‘winning’ looks and feels like, then something else is required. They have seen their public officials behave despicably to cover for him, and probably been privy to many backroom conversations or meetings and that is some ugly truth.
25 Likes
Very very mixed bag there. 42% of Dems saying issues matter most is good, not great…I’d like to see it higher…but good. But then “for each issue surveyed, roughly 30 percent or more of folks said they didn’t know which candidate was best” sort of collapses any attempt to extrapolate it to how it relates to each candidate. Sanders coming in slightly above Biden and Warren against Trump is interesting and a first, but seems to be well within the statistical noise range at less than 1%. Still, Biden maintains a large lead in terms of the primary itself and “folks thought Biden was more likely to “unify the Democratic party” than his more progressive counterparts Sanders and Warren.” So yeah, I know Team Unicorn would love nothing more than to spitefully work to prove that Biden unifying the party is a bad prediction, but at some point you either come back to practical reality or you’re not any good to any of us, including yourselves.
6 Likes
It’s amazing. The people who profess biblical literalism think the values that their church claims to profess are not to be taken at face value.
But not surprising. Anti-trumper: “Trump is racist scam artist.” Follower of Falwall, Swaggart, Bakker, Copeland, and Osteen: “What’s not to like?”
4 Likes
My apologies - but your analysis was correct on what I posted.
Wanted to send you this one instead. Thought it was interesting - but not entirely as it relates to Bernie. There appears to be an endless and fascinating number of creative ways to screw the pooch.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-bernie-blackout-is-just-getting-ridiculous-now/
1 Like
Yeah, I dunno I buy into a “Bernie Blackout” conspiracy or anything, but I certainly think it’s absurd to use a 6 week old poll like that. Sloppy just doesn’t cut it and neither does acting on some of the bridge-burning Bernie did back in 2016. Journalists should just do their fucking jobs and stop trying to play influencer. I harp on acting according to what practical reality is telling us, and we can’t do that if the media is fucking up left and right with the data they provide.
ETA: As for the Newsweek article, what you should really be worried about is this…
“If their top choice were to drop out, 26.7 percent indicate they would vote for someone besides the long list of Democratic candidates provided, perhaps Trump.”
if you know anyone voicing sentiments even remotely like that, please drown them in a bathtub, nearest birdbath, their cereal…really…just get rid of them for us. THEY are why Trump will win a second term and why we will forever be wondering where democracy went.
10 Likes
There is a faction within Evangelicalism who are still one issue voters.
Know of a number personally. These are people who would not be at risk of losing any kind of status, nor would I consider them racist. But Roe vs Wade is, for them, the prize. Trump is as close as they can get to overturning the law-- now.
OTOH-- any voters that have an ‘into the light moment’– are welcome in the tent.
Next election isn’t a purity test. Just a support the nominee test.
jw1
13 Likes
So is spite.
1 Like
What their belief really means is the baseline to me. I have known people who deeply embraced their faith and those who simply were one step removed from Pascal’s Wager. The latter were more a faith of trepidation, concerned they would miss out if they didn’t follow the steps and perform as their peers did. Add in the “it is what my father told me” factor and I cannot see their belief as anything more than reaction and not a real connection to something beyond them. But still, they internalize it as their belief. These are the people who can be led and driven by an evangelical leader and not question what it really means. They just want to hit all the marks because that guy up on the stage said to.
5 Likes
Imagine a social gathering and someone links Trump with one’s hypocrisy.
Meaning hurt feelings and a further retreat of WE into greater homogeneity: like-minded and like skin-colored people who feel the same way
Meaning more and more social isolation, which GUARANTEES more extremism.
Barack Obama tried mightily to be conciliatory to everyone in both his Administrations and I do not believe that it was time wasted.
But sometimes it seems that way.
13 Likes
“It’s been said that Donald Trump didn’t change America, he revealed America and I think the exact same thing is true of the evangelical church,” he continued. “Donald Trump didn’t change evangelicalism, but he certainly revealed it and he surfaced some really, really troubling things. For folks like me you go, ‘man, the same people that led me to Jesus have led us to Donald Trump.’ To me, that’s really problematic.”
What? Is this person 10 years old? Where have they been? They’re just figuring this out now?
Face palm…
3 Likes
I hope he goes during a Democratic President’s term, then we’d get a national holiday.
7 Likes