supply side jesus.
yeah, in jesus’s image, right. I wonder if jesus gave a fuck about other people…
I’m an atheist, but I would probably guess that those type of Christians aren’t real Christians at all. It seems to be common in America for people to associate “traditional family values” with Christianity. Which very basically translates to racism and homophobia. So they hide behind Christianity like they’re holyier then thou. These people aren’t Christians, their bigots with disassociative disorders. You were raised by bigots.
It’s like the challenge was how to hold in one’s mind “being Christian” and simultaneously going down a checklist of actions and words listed as defining Christianity and doing the exact opposite. Though, By 320 CE, that was the status quo.
Jesus’s whole way at talking truth to power was to acknowledge and show compassion for those marginalized and hated by the Romans and the Pharisees. His main problem with the Pharisees was literally the hypocrisy of them saying they follow the laws of the religion, and then not doing any of that. It was dangerous to call them hypocrites due to their political power.
Sound familiar yet?
I don’t agree when you say “racism and homophobia”. American Christian values are racism and homophobia and misogyny.
Oh I was raised by bigots. Both full narcissists. Its why democrat and republican mean nothing to me. My democrat dad switched to a republican without changing one racist bigoted opinion. Made sure everyone knew how generous he was. Only he was generous when no one was around to see. Then he was cruel and mean. When I stopped being his victim he disowned me. Of all those christians he was hanging around ninety percent of them were just like him. They were incrediblly mean to people and always justified it using the bible. If their afterlife were a real thing then they wouldn’t be that way. The reason why they can be that way is that they know its all a scam. If jesus ever existed that jewish dude wouldn’t be someone they cared for.
I long for the day they are taxed for their donations and then we will see how christian they are. Whats left might be worthy of my repsect. But I doubt it.
Yeah so I was raised in a reasonably devout household, and I’ve never really been able to resolve this.
Its related to the fundamental attribution error - we judge others by their actions but ourselves by intentions. Except its more than that because religion creates this us vs them dynamic, where anyone who is “us” has good intentions, but anyone who is them does not.
Let’s suppose a “good” person is one who performs acts of altruism, has integrity, and a high level of emptiness self awareness.
In my experience these “good” people are a small part of any group. Any race, creed, city, social group, whatever.
With that in mind, I don’t think religion makes people good - rather its a system of beliefs that allows people to perceive themselves and their friends as good.
Really I think this explains why religion is so prevalent. Ultimately being “good” isn’t a very good gig. Imagine doing destitute because you’ve spent your life performing acts of altruism. OTOH if it merely allows one to form a cohesive group of “good” people, i can see how that would be perpetuated.
I only realised this after I was well past my “Angry Atheist” phase: There are good verses in the Bible and there are also bad verses. Most of the Christians cherry pick. How they cherry pick depends on who they are. In my opinion, there aren’t any real or fake christians. There’s only good christians and bad christians.
The toxic manipulation of how American Evangelical churches teach the Bible is to intentionally remove context and just point to a through-line of whatever supports the topic of the week. The same out of context OT verse can mean 30 different things to these people.
You can be all of those things and be Christian.
It’s almost like those words mean exactly the opposite. Like with Doublespeak.
Literally so hard this. I was raised by christians and they were disappointed when I turned out to not be a christian adult. I tried so hard to point out the hypocrisy of them teaching me to always treat others with respect and to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” but being hardcore right-wingers and trump supporters, being racists af and hating trans and queer people. They still don’t seem to get it.
“If Jesus was here, he would join the front lines”, my incredibly Catholic relative that needs to re-read the sermon on the mount.
After decades of arguments, the best I managed was slightly changing the language used. Now around me my dad calls black and brown people Democrats instead of slurs. Thinks he’s damn clever too.
I’ve often wondered if I would have grown up to be as vehemently atheist if I had grown up in a place without american “christians”
Don’t worry. There’s plenty of other diseased religions in other areas!
This was one of the fundamental experiences of whiplash that shot me straight out of the Christian community. Giant pile of child-fucking hypocrites.
Meh for me it was the child fucking.
Man, I think I was an atheist for years before I actually knew it. I disagreed with several things without even noticing for a long time. I’d skip going to church, (hell I would show up sometimes for the beginning and leave just so people would know they saw me that day). I hated LGBT people for a good chunk of it. That kinda stopped after I met some.
Then when someone close to me came out as trans, I didn’t even blink or feel weird about it. But the old beliefs still kinda hovered there for a while still.
That shit is hard to shake when it’s indoctrinated as bad as it was, mostly because of the fact that the fear of hell is reeeeal. It took a movie bringing up the fact that something that I believed was original to the Bible has been around well before it got put into the Bible. That finally shattered holding onto it, and everything else has been catching up ever since.
I’m finally becoming someone I’m not ashamed of.
That started 9 years ago. I still have a group of friends to get back to that tolerate me back then somehow and I need to reintroduce the new me.
Then when someone close to me came out as trans, I didn’t even blink or feel weird about it.
Calling bullshit on that, mate. Anything out of the ordinary, you are going to be curious about. People blink and feel weird when someone swaps playstation for xbox. If you had said that you didnt hate them just because, that would fine. But this “I totally didnt blink at something Im not used to” is a cheap virtue signal.
I dont care who you are, or what the issue is. If some suddenly isnt who you thought they were in some way, youre going to blink. Youre going to have questions. Wanting to understand things isnt bad. And honestly utterly fucking sick of every single person on the internet pretending that they arent the same human being that the rest of us are. If nothing else, youd at the very least be worried about them because of all the stories you hear about shitty parents disowning their kids for being LGBT. But not you, you didnt even blink…
I was “raised Christian.” The top reasons I despise religion is the a) hypocrisy from top to bottom, b) a person can go through life wrecking others others in ways that may be devastating, permanent, and/or traumatic that they have to live with forever and are supposed to just accept it like some mind of lesson from god, yet the person who does all the damage gets to go to heaven if the ask for forgiveness in just the right way.
Yeah, the whole “love each other and forgive everything” lessons of my youth have been replaced by “fuck you, I’m getting mine” christians.
E: also, the victim complex. Constantly fuck with other people, try to force your religious rules and views on them, and then when criticized or those people otherwise defend themselves or their position: “You’re attacking me! You’re attacking our faith! You won’t let us practice our religion!”
Actually American Americans are the “Pharisees”. They just hate to be called to be called out by Jesus.
They act like Pharisees. They talk like Pharisees. I hope they will be judged like Pharisees.
Does anyone actually think these pseudochristians are actually pure in any way?
They do. That’s why they’re so hateful to anyone who contradicts them.
I figured most of them for the “religion is a useful tool to manipulate others” instead of actually believing in any sort of purity - other than rationalizing their shitty treatment of others.
I think the rationalization of shitty behavior is key. Everyone is the hero of their own story, and there is no end to the mental gymnastics or cognitive dissonance people will go through to remain the hero.
It’s almost Occam’s Razor. It’s easier to believe someone is a selfish hypocrite than some kind of moral-less grifter.
That’s not to say there aren’t grifters, just that the vast majority have drunk the kool-aid and keep drinking it because of a warped sunk-cost fallacy scenario. If I stop drinking, I have to admit I was bad and wrong, so I double down and stay the good guy.
Of course, everyone will be judged eventually. Pretty sure it says that in the Bible too.
Yeah, the whole “love each other and forgive everything” lessons of my youth have been replaced by “fuck you, I’m getting mine” christians.
Ah yes, the Boomer Christians.
point B was my favorite part of The Brothers Karamazov.
Ya you nailed it. Good people are punished and bad people rewarded.
You need to read your Bible more often if you think you’re the first person to have noticed that.
I recommend Isaiah 30:8-17.
Lol, the Bible is full of contradictions that are all rationalized and interpreted by the wants of the individual and leader. No desire to dig into that any more than I already have.
So… it’s just like people are then?
Not quite? You can have a person that does all those things on their own, sure… they aren’t part of a “club.” But when religion using that bible makes a group of people all doing the same thing it can be very destructive.
I guess the real question is whether using a Bible makes people more likely to mess up, and less likely to notice, or vice versa.
I understand that the former is what you are currently experiencing, but in order to form a statistically valid conclusion, you’d kinda have to be scientific about it and do a proper null hypothesis test, wouldn’t you.
Social media, that’s why. The brain being cooked in dopamine all the time by algorithm and fake news fries the brain. People forgot how to be nice.
Grew up in the south before social media existed. It’s the cause of a lot of problems, but this one predates it by a wide margin. It definitely made it worse, but there is no greater hate than Christian love.
No one forgot how to be nice. They just dont have to be online, because they know they can get away with being a cunt. Social media has outed a lot of people for being cowards.
There are anecdotes of people changing for the worse. I remember a poster who said his parents became Trump supporting bigots, even though growing up they taught OP not to be racist.
I have no doubt thats true. The problem is that people are complex and just because they support one thing, doesnt mean they support all things. Id bet if you asked most people in 2016 why the voted for Trump, most would say something about the state of politics and “draining the swamp” sounded like a good thing.
I guess its up to you if you see a difference between not caring/not being aware and supporting. I suppose the end result is the same, but it might make a difference when you talk to them?
I saw someone else post in here about talking to their dad about the someone being raided by ICE. The dad said “maybe they were criminals?” and the commenter then launched into a tirade swearing and abusing their own father. Now, maybe the dad was a big Trumper, I dont know. The comment didnt make it clear. But IMO, if you want to change peoples minds or open their eyes past what their own self interest, then calling them names is the wrong way to go. Its only going to force them to double down, and well, we already saw what happens then. We got another 4 years of Trump…
Social media has really made it so that most of us, are just unfiltered mega cunts. We dont talk to people most of the time. We talk at them, looking for any kind of small mistake, so we can jump on them and abuse them. Looking at Reddit for example when Trump won, when Brexit happened, when Trump won again, and you can see the utter shock and surprise because the echo chamber convinced them that they were in the right, and everyone else was wrong. IMO, what happened was that anyone who supported Trump or Brexit was just shouted down, abused, called names. So no one ever took the time to explain to them why these things were bad. One of the worst things that ever became popular to say on line was “Its not my job to educate you!”.
Maybe the poster you remember, wasnt being 100% honest. Maybe his parents became Trump supporters because they fell for his bullshit? Maybe they supported some idea of what he was saying(draining the swamp/lowering taxes/etc etc) and the other stuff they didnt know about or care about? We need to learn to talk to each other again, without being snarky, or cunty, or even just feeling attacked because someone disagrees with us. We need to get out of the habit of assuming the worst, and a lot more of us need to get out of the habit of taking out years of repressed anger from being bullied onto other social media users.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk lol. Sorry about the long read. Have a great weekend!
They often operate on the “just-world fallacy” too. I.e. if people are poor, starving, arrested, deported, raped, it’s because they deserve it.
But if something bad happens to them, it’s because God is “testing them.”
‘Its all part of gods plan sweetie’. Had my mom feed me this line when I wanted to help a homeless person
“Yeah part of Gods plan is me helping him Mother. Now be a good woman and obey like the book says you should.”
Sometimes I wish I could do that, just ignore all logic and believe what you want.
So those people starving in Africa? Oh no God’s plan.
People getting killed in Gaza? Also God’s plan
That Kirk guy getting shot? Evil left, nothing to do with God.
Immigrants trying to find a better life in a different country? The worst people, nothing to do with God.
Aunt Marget died of cancer? Poor Marget, she was just unlucky,
It did not help she had no health insurance? No thats not it, that’s communism
Maybe evangelicals who preach the prosperity gospel believe in “just world”? However in the Book of Job it is made pretty clear that doing everything God asks of you doesn’t help you at all, and might even be a reason that you get shit on. Jesus repeatedly says that his kingdom is not on earth. Anyway…
Reminds me of being a pastor’s son at ~5 and asking the Sunday School teacher if Satan could be saved, since God wants everyone saved. I was sincere–it troubled me that there was a creature that was without hope. Now I understand I should be happy that fucker is burning eternally. He should’ve never messed with God! That’s just normal adult stuff! You live and learn!
Lucifer/Satan never even actually kills anyone in the Bible, whereas Yahweh commits literal genocide on multiple occasions.
It should also be noted that the serpent never even told Eve that she should eat the fruit, just that she COULD.
Side note that always puzzled me… 1) why would God create a tree that has fruit that teaches you the difference between good and evil? 2) why would god put this tree in the garden in the first place? 3) why would anyone (particularly an omniscient) ever think that the people who have no concept of right and wrong (before eating the fruit) are going to be able to resist it? And finally, 4) WHY IS KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL A BAD THING??
It’s all just so fucking idiotic that it hurts my brain.
The biggest one for me was, “Why doesn’t he want them to know they’re naked?”
He gets all pissy because Satan ruins his perverted, non-consensual peep-fest and decides to curse literally everything for all time. Fucking gross.
Yeah. He loves you so much. But also, if you don’t do exactly as he says, you will literally burn in a lake of fire for all eternity. Why? Because a couple people ate some fruit that I tempted them with and, let’s be real, always knew they were going to eat anyway.
That’s an abusive relationship if I’ve ever seen one.
Don’t even get me started on how stupid it is that he had to send himself to earth, as his son, to die painfully, in order to save humanity? Like what dude? Do you not literally make the rules? Why would you make it so you have to do such bizarre convoluted shit? Just wave your hand.
Also weirdly into the importance of being willing to sacrifice your children as an act of necessity sometimes (literally both Abraham and Jesus, plus the plagues, David, etc…).
“The plagues will continue until morale improves” kind of vibe, hey?
Yeah… If you start looking at the Bible with Yahweh as the bad guy, and Lucifer as, maybe chaotic good or just chaotic neutral, it starts to make a little bit more sense.
Edit: To be clear, it’s still all bullshit lol
IIRC, Yahweh evolved out of El, who the OG hebrews considered the best god of the Canaanite pantheon.
The Old Testament starts making more sense when you realize that there were other gods in the pantheon at one point. Like all the whining about Ashera is because she was El’s ex.
He did. Pretty much everything about that shit was taken from somewhere else.
Christianity stole from Zoroastrianism too.
lmao Satan is chaotic neutral and God is lawful evil. Jesus, assuming his character is different from Yawheh, is neutral good.
If we believe that the various Satans (in the original Hebrew, literally “adversary,” and rendered without the definite article so there are probably multiples of them) are in fact one and the same with the Devil (singular), this link-up doesn’t even occur until the Book of Revelation which is firmly a new testament thing and wholly unsupported by any of the old testament or ancient Hebrew sources from which it’s derived. Making all the assumptions required on basis that this is so, then whoever he was killed a lot of people in Revelation. But not until then.
In old Hebrew tradition, the Satans are sort of the prosecuting attorneys for god. They work for him in order to tempt the faith and righteousness of various people. Several mortal people are also given the moniker of “Satans” when they’re working against the interests of god or various other individuals.
Meanwhile, the notion that Lucifer is also one and the same with the Devil or any kind of Satan is a much later interpolation made when the church(es) of the era wanted to insert a bogeyman into their religion and they needed a justification for it, some time in the AD 200s. Lucifer is identified as the king of Babylon, a mortal, when he has attracted god’s ire in his sole appearance in Isaiah 14. The situation has become so warped that his name was finally removed in the New International Version of the bible and he’s simply referred to as the “morning star, son of the dawn.” (Isaiah 14:12, if you want to go have a look.)
Modern pontificates will also insist that the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 is also somehow the Devil, which is dubious. Even if he were, and god were speaking allegorically for precisely half of his rant as we are thus demanded to believe, god smokes him at the end of the passage anyway so it’s a moot point.
Maybe.
On the other hand, there’s no actual evidence that any of this is real in any way. So there’s that…
Oh, one other point of order on that as well: Obviously even if it’s not all bullshit (spoiler: it’s all bullshit), Revelation is supposed to be a prophecy of the end of times which obviously hasn’t happened yet. I’m pretty sure we would have noticed if it did, what with the sounding of the seven trumpets, the worldwide earthquake, the 200 million horsemen slaying a third of mankind, etc.
So even if it’s all somehow inerrantly true, the Devil hasn’t killed anyone yet.
Revelation just reads like a dude who got dosed and is tripping without knowing why. John probably ate some bad mushrooms.
Also, if I recall, many people attribute his apocalyptic vision to what was happening in Rome at the time with Nero.
Buddhism has a more Christian example of Christ-like behavior concerning a “living being Satan”. That is to say, if “living being Jesus” was real, he would be a Bodhisattva, perhaps akin to Kṣitigarbha.
In the story, Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha vowed:
“Until the hells are empty, I will not become a Buddha.
Only when all sentient beings are saved will I attain enlightenment.”
It is a vow to never abandon any being regardless of their state.
I like that idea. Boundless love and compassion doesn’t stop at the bounds of some hell. It is boundless. It has boundless time, so it will spend an eternity reaching out to even cyclic hells.
I’m a Buddatheist who grew up with both cultural Catholicism and later Christian Evangelicism.
I like how this hints at the nature of the self. If I leave someone behind am I not also leaving myself behind?
For me, ethical acts are those that increase the freedom of the self and others. We all suffer. That’s a fact of life. If we dissolve our concept of the self and acknowledge our link to others and the world itself we can see ourselves more as threads going through human experience. If we are kind to ourselves and “others”, we have a better chance at reducing that suffering.
Imagine the time a stranger forgot their wallet and you paid for their coffee. A version of that experience could still exist in that person’s mind long after you die. It could get blended with other experiences and reinterpreted. It could be told as a story to a friend who was inspired by the act. The cascading effects of that person being properly caffeinated on that day could have world changing effects. In a similar way, I carry the shared experiences of my own ancestors and even strangers who have shared their stories with me. They are still alive as a small part of me because my true self is humanity or even some animating life force of the universe or something like that and the name that people call me just refers to the limited perspective and incomplete view I have of existence. Essentially I see existence as blinders limiting my perspective like a race horse, but the true self is a satellite view of the track. When I act, I do so based not only on my experience, but the collective experience of every perspective and experience that has been conveyed to me in every way, but I am still one human body, in physical space, subject to time. I hope that when I die, those blinders will be lifted and I’ll exist as pure conscious perception of everything that ever was is and will be. Able to see through anyone’s eyes, in any time. To feel any and every feeling felt my an animal or human. To view the entirety of existence as a completed masterpiece from outside time itself.
You can probably see why I like the Buddhists.
I find that when you acknowledge the interconnection of things compassion becomes easier.
I hope that people rediscover that within themselves and others.
I will join the first religion that allows me to re-unite with my beloved cat, after I die. Stupid christianity tells me that my animals don’t have souls, when in fact, they are far better beings than most humans.
Buddhism sounds like this incredible ascetic ideal to the Westerner, until you hear about Buddhist terrorists.
Buddhism in the western world is a sanitized and very narrow part of the positive aspects of the religion. Like taking the teachings of Christ and ignoring absolutely everything else about Christian religions and what they have actually practiced.
Really if you look at any religion and pick only the good parts of their teachings, it doesn’t matter much which one you choose as they’re basically all promoting nice things like love, compassion and self-control. The problem is none exist in a vacuum; they’re all affected by their histories and the societies where they’ve been practiced, and knowing humans… it’s always a huge mess no matter where you are.
I find that when you acknowledge the interconnection of things compassion becomes easier.
A universal truth.
Nice. I like 99% of what I’ve encountered from Buddhism.
Like so much else, the religion in theory strays from the religion in practice
U Rarzar works for the Ma Ba Tha (Association for the Protection of Race and Religion), a Buddhist organization comprised of both monks and laity. The organization is well-known for its social welfare programs and its advocacy of Buddhism. It is also known for its persecution of the Rohingya Muslims. Buddhist organizations such as the Ma Ba Tha have circulated pamphlets and flyers espousing the dangers of Islam and the imminent Muslim threat. U Rarzar is in charge of the organization’s bi-weekly magazine. In his mind, Muslims, no matter their ethnicity, are a threat to Buddhists. According to U Rarzar, “Muslims and ISIS are the same. It is just the difference of a name."
I said 99% for precisely that reason. Because I haven’t encountered much of it, but know it exists. Now I read another article, so let’s say like 94% now.
Of course! Because heaven and hell are made up and facts don’t matter!
That’s an interesting take.
Let’s confine the statement to the bounds of a materialist’s reality for a moment and see how it holds up.
A child somewhere in the world just had their arms blown off withnessing their mother and father evaporating before their eyes. In the mind of this child, is it in: a) normal Earth life b) heavenly Earth life c) hellish Earth life
A woman somewhere just discovered their partner has been cheating on them with just about everything that moves, and they have HIV. She has always been loyal for all the many years they’ve been together. In the mind of this woman, is she in: a) normal Earth life b) heavenly Earth life c) hellish Earth life
A soldier somewhere just fired on a little kid they mistook for an enemy. They go to sleep that night haunted by what they’ve done, finally realizing they are the bad guys and everything they are is a lie. They’ve done unspeakable horrors to so many innocent people, and it is all rising to awareness. Is this solder’s mind in: a) normal Earth life b) heavenly Earth life c) hellish Earth life
Heaven and hell are manifested here in Earth within the hearts of all beings.
You’re talking about two different things. They were talking about heaven and hell as real, physical places that you go to after you die. You are using heaven and hell as metaphors for the real things that happen in life.
They are the same thing.
Holy shit, I’m not religious at all, but 5 year old u/potoooooooo is the CUTEST fucking thing.
Ugh, children really are innocent/wholesome, and its the adults around them that inject poisonous ass ideas into their minds.
Helps if you read it as “care about others[parishoners]” not “care about others[foreigners, minorities, and other faiths]”
Ministers love to talk about charity when they’re passing around the collection plate. It never comes up on tax day.
That is a good point while honestly I can’t think of a vague group like “others” without thinking of including my e.g. mom and also a random person from who knows where. We are brothers and sisters. And I don’t understand how i could have learn anything else from Jesus’ teachings and I am now a non believer.
Jesus was a manual laborer who became homeless to travel and preach his message. He made a point to spend time with lepers and the dregs of society, tax collectors being the worse of them all, because they served the occupying army.
His message was for everyone to love each other. It wasn’t open to interpretation. He made no exceptions. The less fortunate and oppressed were even more deserving of love and support from individuals and from the community.
It wasn’t open to interpretation.
And yet, 2000 years later, here we are.
Thats what happens when people decide to interpret. Suddenly Jedus is white, despite that making NO sense, and the bible gets a sequal full of contradictions.
Jedus Chrisp
The problem is that you actually read the Bible. These “Christians” never have. They interpret all right but read…nah.
This isnt entirely true. In the fundie circles i grew up in, it was heavily encouraged to ready the bible cover to cover as many times as possible, on top of that required to memorize entire chapters. They know whats in there and they dont care. Thats even scarier imo.
Apparently they even have apps now that will pull out random quotes from their Bible to justify their attitudes.
You know how the Romans collected taxes in there less “Roman” providences? They have rich guys a contract to basically raise taxes and the rich guys payed up front what was owed for their division of it. Then they were allowed to collect taxes beyond what they paid the Romans to make a profit. This is mainly why they were hated so much. Many people might imagine some official going around and collecting taxes fairly, but the reality was they were operating much more like a Mafia extorting protection money out of people, and taking more then most people owed, often to peoples ruin or near ruin. You can also imagine how nepotic this becomes. People who have loyalty to the dominant ruling class would often catch a break, while those disfavored by the dominant faction would often be harassed.
Well that would certainly explain why the tax collectors get such a bad rap in the Gospels.
It’s also the origin of some anti-semitic tropes. After Christianity rose to prominence in the Roman Empire, Christians considered lending money with interest to be a sin, so they were forbidden from working related jobs. This resulted in Jews, who were forbidden from owning land and many other professions, taking up the role of merchants, money lenders, and tax collectors. In the Christian view of the time, they were doing the “dirty work” because they were immoral and sinful, and the nature of the work made them easy scapegoats for many of society’s ills. The reputation has followed Jews into modernity.
I’m honestly not sure how you’re helping defeat any stereotypes here because no one was even talking about Jews until you brought it up.
You know Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, right? How early roman christians viewed and treated Jewish people is reasonable context to include in a conversation about the history.
Sure it is, in the same way that Satanism is an offshoot of Christianity, I guess.
Perhaps that is not how it is practiced these days, but that IS how Christ intended it to be. Just read Matthew 23 in case you have any doubts. If that is not a scathing repudiation of any Rabbinic teaching that was around at the time, then IDK what is. If you can find a more eloquent way to say “shove all this crap up your own ass and die from it”, I can’t wait to hear it.
Remember, they had the guy killed just for saying that.
It was open to interpretation from the very beginning. Exemplified in the fact that the four canonically approved gospels (we will ignore all the non-canon gospels) are contradicting each other in various ways.
Fine if you choose the interpretation in your comment, but perhaps it would be even better not to let your life be ruled by what random persons made up in their fan fiction 2000 years ago?
I’m sorry but in which one of the “canonical” Gospels does Jesus say fuck the poor and love yourself more than anyone else?
I mean if you believe in God knowing everything and everything is happening because of his will, then that gives you the ability to rationalize everything, doesn’t it?
Oh you have cancer? God gave it to you, if you didn’t deserve it he’d have cured it. Done, use that everywhere: poor, homeless, immigrant, race, sick, traffic, lightening, flood, airplane crash, school shooting, …
That’s why blind faith is dangerous. And the idea of afterlife because they just do whatever now.
All to true.
None of the four gospels are in contradiction at all with what [email protected] said. Not sure what your point is
I’m European. My mother tried to get me into Christianity. When I was 7 or 8 I asked “If God created everything, then who created God?” I got no answer, ever since that moment, I didn’t want to be religious. My mother tried until I was 14. It failed.
Also, I find american Christians weird. They twist and contort Christianity into something to suit their ideological needs, racism, homophobia, capitalism, nationalism, unilateralism, etc.
That’s not just Americans that do that… That’s pretty much anywhere with any religion.
“If God created everything, then who created God?”
There’s a lot of places where one can poke holes into faith/the concept of a God, but I don’t think this is one.
The reason being that God’s existence doesn’t actually change anything about the question or the answer. You can rephrase it as “If everything came from the Big Bang, what came before the Big Bang and what created the preconditions of the Big Bang?”
So you could use the same argument to “disprove” literally any world view, including science, or even hypothetical scenarios like the simulation theory (“If we live in a simulation, who is running the simulation?”).
But you can not only “disprove” every potential answer to “where does everything come from”, but you can also rephrase the question to “If atoms are made of quarks, what are quarks made of, and what are their components made of?” or to “If there’s an end to the universe, what is outside of it?”
If you are smart enough though, you will see that none of that is actually disproving anything, because if you rephrase the question further it becomes “Why don’t we know everything?” and that’s a rather simple-minded question to ask. One befitting of a 7 or 8 year old, but not really of an adult.
Before the circumnavigation and the discovery and charting of all of the world, people also didn’t know what was on the other side of the planet and still it would have been dumb to doubt what we knew (e.g. that the British Isles existed) only because there were large white spots on the map elsewhere.
And don’t forget, those are the people who tell us atheists that “without the Bible, where do you get your morals from?”
Well, we can see what these biblical morals are - you mentioned it: homophobia, racism etcetera. It makes people hateful, while claiming it is charity and compassion.
Religion poisons everything.
People who ask that question are really telling on themselves; they’re saying that without religion they would have no qualms stealing, murdering, and raping. They’re very dangerous people.
Oh absolutely. That’s the scariest part about this whole line of argument.
Christians do not believe people are inherently good. We are all sinners. And even scarier, you can be excused for anything if you confess. Three Bloody Marys and one Hello Dolly and you’re golden. Still get into heaven.
The whole religion is just a thinly veiled framework designed to allow bad people to do bad things - and even make good people do bad things.
35 For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. 36 I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’
37 “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? 39 When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’
40 “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,[a] you were doing it to me!’
There are many parts of Christianity, but these are among the clearest words of its founder. Wherein this admonition do you find a framework to do bad?
Want me to list all the parts of the Bible where it commands Christians to kill gays…?
But that’s not even the point. You know just as well as I do - Christians of each century have always cherry picked the Bible. There’s a currently fashionable interpretation of the same book that keeps changing over time. Pick a different country and a different century, suddenly people are burning witches.
The exact contents of the Bible don’t even matter that much, it’s the fact that Christians are free to interpret it to their liking.
The Bible isn’t the framework I was talking about. The framework is the Bible plus the man with the funny hat can tell you whatever the fuck he thinks it means and what makes you blindly serve his current agenda.
They are not all dangerous. Most are just ignorant. Sometimes willfully so. They have been conditioned to never even think about questioning the rules, so they never had that moment where they thought “wait none of this makes any sense”. We should be more compassionate towards these folks. Most of them are not bad people they are just incapable of questioning their place in the universe.
Ignorance is dangerous
I’m not saying all religious people are dangerous, just those who ask how someone can have a moral compass without religion. In order to ask that question genuinely they have to believe that they, without their religious rules, would have no qualms with harming others for their own gain.
I think it’s broader than that:
You also see plenty of people delegating their sense of Right and Wrong to, for example, political leaders.
A great example is people who would look at what’s going on in Gaza putting aside politics and going “yeah, knowingly killing tens of thousands of children is objectivelly a bad thing” but as soon as their favorite political leaders start opinating about it, all of the sudden they’re all “I don’t believe that’s a Genocide” (even after the UN officially deemed it a Genocide) and claiming that people criticizing Israel are anti-semites.
I’ve seen it happen in the country were I live - people who previously admitted that what was happening was bad, suddenly when their favored rightwing politicians took an interest in it and openly sided with Israel, start voicing quite different opinions which ape what those politicians are saying. You get further confirmation that they’re driven by politics when they start framing the whole thing with local politics - which has pretty much zero influence on the actions in Gaza - hence that framing means they’re looking at it through the eyes of local tribalism rather than using a personal sense of Right and Wrong.
As I see it, the problem isn’t specifically Religion or Politics, it’s people with high Tribalism (hence easilly swayed by the leaders of their tribes, such as religious or political tribes) and lacking or with a very weak moral compass.
FFS I hate that. “Religion poisons everything” no! No it doesn’t! Think if christianity wasn’t a thing they wouldn’t find something else to twist? After all it’s not like any other good thing got twisted, no? Communism, patriotism, charity, heck, even local communities?
Christianity says: Do not do to others what you don’t want done upon yourself. No matter if sinner or faithful, treat all with respect (nagging about becoming christian is ok tho, sadly). Do not fall for greed, lust or pride.
American “Christians” aren’t Christians, same like most of the local Patriots are actually Nationalists and Communism is mostly used as a another tool for simply stealing power.
I know I am pretty much shaking my fist at the sky here, sorry, but I really needed to let it out ._.
Edit: I don’t have much time - sorry - so I will say it here.
- Christianity has defined core tenets - the ten commandments. If you routinely not follow them, you’re not chrisitian, you’re a blasphemer/sinner (if you considered yourself christian in the first place), case closed. So stop with the “No True Scotsman” fallacy, because at this point it’s fallacy fallacy.
- Another thing - some of you all mentioned that Christianity has various differences and all that. True. And honestly good catch. If Americans didn’t break the core tenets.
- And last thing, someone mentioned pedo priests. Yes, I believe they shouldn’t be considered christians and in the spirit of the faith they should, at best, be considered lost lambs. But there’s a difference between Church as in Community and Church as in Institution, and the latter one likes to shield it’s buddies, which is disgusting.
Best of all, I don’t think I am even christian. xD
American “Christians” aren’t Christians
I got bad news for you, Christians have been hypocrites for alot longer than the US has existed.
American “Christians” aren’t Christians
Classic defense by religious apologists and still a fallacy. You don’t wish to associate all the bad Christians with Christianity, so you pull the old “they aren’t real Christians” card. No, only you, a good and righteous and kindhearted person, you are the only one who is a true Christian. Of course. We’ve heard it countless times.
Of course they’re Christians. You don’t get to whitewash Christianity by simply declaring they aren’t.
Which fallacy is this? It’s not the “No true Scotsman” one as explained here: https://lemmy.world/post/37452533/19987098
For example, let’s turn that argument around:
- Person A: “No true atheist believes in God”
- Person B: “But I call myself an Atheist and I strongly believe in God”
- Person A: “Then you aren’t a true Atheist”
Did person A argue fallaciously to you? Or is person B just an idiot who took on a wrong label?
“No atheist believes in God” is a factually correct statement. It’s like saying “One does not equal two” - a verifiable, objective truth that does not rely on anyone’s opinion.
Therefore, person B made a contradictory statement, and person A would be correct in responding “Then you aren’t an atheist”, because person B stated a verifiable falsehood. Same as saying “One equals two”. We all know it’s wrong.
Christianity has a much looser definition. You quoted it yourself:
A Christian (/ˈkrɪstʃən, -tiən/ ⓘ) is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
So anyone who follows this religion and calls himself a Christian is a Christian. Nothing in the definition says “You must follow the Bible to the exact letter” in order to be one. There wouldn’t be ANY Christians if that were true.
So that leaves us with a whole bunch of people who all claim to be Christian, but have different opinions on…
- how strictly you have to follow the Bible,
- whether racism is condoned or forbidden by the Bible,
- whether slavery is forbidden by the Bible,
- who you can fuck,
- what kind of funny hat you have to wear,
- what food you can or can’t eat,
- whether you have to kill any non-believers,
… et cetera, et cetera.
And all of these people claim the others aren’t the true believers.
Now here’s a very simple question: What gives you the confidence, why should we believe you that it’s YOU, out of all these people, who follows the correct interpretation of the Bible?
That’s why the No True Scotsman fallacy applies to the whole bunch, including you, when you claim the others are no true Christians. Not a single Christian can objectively, verifiably prove that their individual view of Christianity is the correct one.
According to Christ himself, this one is pretty central:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
If someone denounces this baseline (and not fails to follow it, but denounces it), there’s not much left to a claim of following Christ.
If someone denounces this baseline (and not fails to follow it, but denounces it), there’s not much left to a claim of following Christ.
And that is not an objective statement that’s verifiably and objectively true. It DOES depend on personal opinion and interpretation. Other Christians might say other stuff in the Bible is more important. Like killing homosexuals. Or burning witches.
There is no clear definition of an ideal Christian. Never was. Never will be. Every century has its own view on what Christianity has to be like, we just happen to live in one which tends to agree with your views.
In other words, according to your statement, there were almost no Christians a few centuries ago, which is verifiably untrue.
Person B is an idiot who doesn’t understand words because atheist is a simple label with a singular meaning.
To be a Christian someone just needs to identify as a Christian. They don’t actually have to do anything specific with that self identification that aligns with the Bible or any particular denomination’s practices. That is because belief and faith and religion have a massive spectrum of beliefs and practices wrapped up into one. A large number of people who attend religious ceremonies don’t even believe in the deities or take things literally, they are there for the community.
According to Christ himself, this one is pretty central:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
If someone denounces this baseline (and not fails to follow it, but denounces it), there’s not much left to a claim of following Christ.
A large number of people who attend religious ceremonies don’t even believe in the deities or take things literally, they are there for the community.
And these people are people who attend religious ceremonies, not Christians.
Same as someone attending a meeting about Atheism doesn’t become an Atheist by attending the meeting but by being convinced that God doesn’t exist.
Person B is an idiot who doesn’t understand words because atheist is a simple label with a singular meaning.
Is that so? A lot of agnostics call themselves atheists. In general, if you ask atheists specifically about what they believe, quite a few of them actually describe agnosticism, as in they do not firmly believe that god doesn’t exist, but rather believe that there’s no basis in believing that god exists.
The difference between atheism and agnosticism has no practical meaning to the vast majority of unbelievers.
You can’t positively state that something does not exist. You can’t logically be 100% certain there is no God. We know that. So if you love going by definitions, yes, most unbelievers are agnostics, not atheists.
So why do we keep calling ourselves atheists? Because we view the likelihood of God’s existence as so infinitesimally small, the difference between agnosticism and atheism becomes negligible. If we rate the odds of God’s existence at 0,000000001% we can as well just call it zero.
In other words, stop whining about atheists not using the term you’d prefer. We don’t tell you what you should call yourself either.
American “Christians” aren’t Christians
No true Scotsman fallacy.
No true Scotsman
Knowing a name of a fallacy doesn’t mean you understood what the fallacy means.
The No true Scotsman fallacy is a very specific thing and it doesn’t mean what you think it does.
Here’s the name-giving example of the No true Scotsman fallacy:
- Person A states an absolute statement: “No Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge.”
- Person B disproves that by offering a counter-example “Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar in his porridge.”
- Person A declares “But no true Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge.”
So for an argument being the No true Scotsman, there need to be three elements. If one or more are missing, the fallacy doesn’t apply:
- Person A does not retreat from the original statement
- Person A offers a modified assertion that excludes all counter-examples by definition (this turns the argument into a tautology: “No true Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge, and a true Scotsman is a Scotsman who does not put sugar in his porridge.”
- Person A uses rhetoric to signal that change
So why does the no true Scotsman fallacy not apply here?
Because it’s about this change, not about whether something can be classified as something.
Take for example this exchange:
- Person A: “A true Scotsman is someone who lives in Scotland, holds a Scottish passport and identifies as a Scotsman.”
- Person B: “But Angus, who was born in the USA, and holds an US passport and who’s only connection to Scotland is that his great grandma was from there claims that he is a true Scotsman.”
- Person A: “He can claim what he want, he is no true Scotsman.”
In this case Person A
- Did not retreat from the original statement
- Did not modify the original statement
- Did not use rhetoric to signal a change, because no change existed.
That’s what @[email protected] argued:
- A true Christian is someone who follows the teachings of Christ.
- American “Christians” claim to be Christians but are largely against the teachings of Christ.
- Hence they are no true Christians.
The “no true scotsman” fallacy is about changing your argument into a non-falsifiable tautology. It’s not about using the words “true” or excluding some group from some definition. And it certainly doesn’t mean “Everyone who calls themselves X surely and irrefutably belongs to group X”.
I follow your logic, and it does make sense, but I think the problem might be that those arguing against you are American, not Scotsmen /s
Can we agree that there can be good and bad, or perhaps generous vs selfish Christians? Another issue is “Christian” is sometimes used adjectively, “that’s pretty Christian of you”, which is generally used to mean generous, but has nothing to do with someone’s belief in God, Jesus etc.
Probably a person’s belief in supernatural beings has nothing to do with their ethics, morality or generosity, it’s just that in some societies at certain times there are perceived correlations, and irrespective of whether these reflect reality or not, they, through deliberate conflation of religion, morality, politics etc. can color people’s opinions of those belonging a specific religion.
No-True-Scotsman-Fallacy Fallacy
The “no true scotsman” fallacy is about changing your argument into a non-falsifiable tautology.
That is what you do when you say “They aren’t real Christians because they do X.” It is the poster child of the no true Scotsman fallacy.
Unless you think it requires changing after the start of the conversation in which you are completely wrong.
Ok, let me put it in a way that you might understand:
- Person A: “You aren’t an Atheist if you believe in God.”
- Person B: “But I identify as an Atheist and I believe in God.”
- Person A: “Then you aren’t an Atheist.”
You: “No true Scotsman! Anyone who calls themselves an Atheist is an Atheist, no matter if they believe in God.”
Do you see how this makes no sense?
An Atheist is a person who doesn’t believe in God, not a person who calls themselves an Atheist. And saying you aren’t an Atheist if you believe in God isn’t a fallacy but just purely the definition of the term.
Here’s the Wikipedia definition of a Christian:
A Christian (/ˈkrɪstʃən, -tiən/ ⓘ) is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christians)
So someone who does not follow or adhere a religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ is not a Christian. Not by fallacy, but by definition. And it doesn’t matter what they call themselves.
What you are doing is saying they are not really Christians because they do or don’t do X and that is exactly what the fallacy is.
Are priests who molest children not real Christians?
Atheist is different because it is a singular thing, like calling that priest a child molester. He did the thing so that is what he is.
Communism is mostly used as a another tool for simply stealing power.
People who use Communism as a tool for simply stealing power are called Bolsheviks. Not all communists are like that.
The answer that any person who has thought about it and not rejected the idea is: If a being that has created and shaped our universe exists, it exists (at least partly) outside of our universe. Like a programmer doesn’t have to follow in his life the limitations of his code in programming, such an entity’s existence would be so far outside our modes of thinking that “who created him?” would simply fall flat as a question.
To begin to answer such a question one would have to have some knowledge of the plane of existence where the divine resides, and as that is outside the realm of what we can understand through physics and the natural world we live in, the question becomes unanswerable.
The question then becomes, can something exist on another plane of existence? The answer is of course, we can’t examine anything outside our universe, so, the answer must be, we don’t or can’t know.
I suppose then, the next question becomes, do you want to believe that there is something /someone outside the natural universe that gives meaning to our existence?
The question itself doesn’t really make sense, because it just boils down to “Why don’t we know everything?”.
The same question would lead to the same answer (“We don’t know”) if we ask it about e.g. the Big Bang. “If everything was created by the big bang, what created the big bang?”
It also applies literally in every field where we don’t know something yet (“What’s beyond the stars/beyond the universe?”, “What are quarks made of?”, “What’s past infinity?”). We don’t even know what’s in the dark at the edge of the solar system. Judging by orbits and gravitational patterns, there’s likely an entire large planet that we don’t know of because it’s too far from the sun and thus too dark.
It would be idiotic to summarily dismiss every field where there are things we don’t know, and where there are edges to our knowledge that are so far away that we cannot know or understand them.
My point is not that we don’t know yet, my point is that we can’t know. All our knowledge is based on studying the natural universe, if something is beyond it, then by definition it would not be knowable by studying our universe. Perhaps at some stage we could reach a way of examining and understanding the supernatural, but for our intents and purposes it’s outside the box, while we are inside, and our only way to relate to it is to choose whether we believe in there being something outside the box or not.
If we can examine and understand the ‘supernatural’ then it just becomes knowledge and natural, or at least our perspective of it does.
The easiest example is natural phenomenon like flooding, volcanoes, storms, fire, and tons of other things were or are seen as supernatural and had beliefs and religions built around them. Some were considered supernatural, or to have supernatural causes.
Did our understanding of them make them not supernatural or were they natural the entire time and we just didn’t understand them yet?
‘Supernatural’ is not a real thing. It is human speculation about why and how natural things happen. There are no gods as described by any belief system, just things we don’t know or understand yet.
I don’t really agree with that. A program could break out of the sandbox and get to know the things around it. In fact, there are many programs that interact with the real world, gathering information about it and acting on it.
If there was something like an actually sentient program, it would be totally conceivable that said program could use cameras, microphones and other sensors to get to know its programmer.
The difference between the science and things considered supernatural is that one is something we have a solid understanding of and the other is speculation.
If there’s an unexplained phenomenon and we find a solid explanation for it, it becomes science. Weather and other natural phenomena used to be in the realm of the supernatural, same as dragon bones, mermaid bones and the kraken. Until we found out what they really were and how they worked.
If magic were to exist in reality, it wouldn’t be magic but instead just a branch of science.
A lot of things we can do nowadays would be called magic a few centuries ago. I mean, we can literally make frogs float in thin air. We can make incredible amounts of power from some magic rocks (nuclear power). We can even inscribe magic patterns into sand to make it think and talk (computers).
So coming back to the beginning: If we talk about something like a Simulation Hypothesis scenario (which is de facto identical to a scenario where God exists outside of our plane of existence, however that is defined), it’s totally in the realm of possibility of that scenario that the simulated could break out of the simulation.
Or in case of the Big Bang Theory, it would be theoretically possible to peek before the big bang.
I’m not saying that it is actually possible, but I’m saying that we can’t summarily dismiss the possibility.
But, here’s the kicker, if we don’t know anything about this other plane of existence, then how can we know that our universe couldn’t spontaneously arise from it without the intent of a creator? That’s the crux of the question: We have a mystery about the origin of our existence, and “solving” the mystery by saying, “God did it,” is just sweeping the mystery under the rug and pretending it’s not there. What OP was able to see at 7 or 8 years old was that the mystery was still there, but with an unexplained extra step added.
Christianity (and most religions) always has been a way for people to cope with their fears and guilt. ‘what happens after we die?’ -> ‘its heaven dont worry’. ‘Am I a bad person?’ -> ‘no Jesus died for you dont worry fam’
It sounds like we were similarly inquisitive children, perhaps to the point of making adults uncomfortable.
My European mother is the reason religion didn’t fuck me up worse than it did. I was also forced to go to church as a kid, but even within our own family there were differences in thought and opinion that still managed to exist in civil dinner table discourse. My mother seems to have gone through her own questioning process, it just didn’t take her to extreme atheism but rather she arrived at more of a mystical Abrahammic monotheism. When I was older, I fell into the trap of religion on my own (Evangelical Christianity) and it’s changed the course of my life significantly in both good and bad ways.
A decade to a decade and a half later I’m mostly over it. I’m comfortable with my current belief system and I live life openly and honestly with 95% of people I meet. If I had to describe myself I’d call myself a self-rolled Buddhist-Atheist.
I’m not envious of those Christians with enough of a conscience to realize what’s going, but who are reliant on “American Christians™” for their community, support, spirituality/philosophy/introspection. They have difficult and painful decisions ahead of them. You can only ignore your conscience for so long, but the first to defect will be shunned and hated and will likely lose their entire social circles. That happened to me. They will also be susceptible, as we all are, to similar tactics and abuses as those doled out by their former religion. You don’t leave and suddenly become a mastermind at spotting abuse of power and become immediately immune. If anyone reading this falls into that category, I would recommend finding a nice, non-religious hobby where you see people from different walks of life on a regular basis. Bicycling groups, social dances, gardening collectives, etc. People are pretty nice outside of the bubble. You’ll be okay.
Christianity is OK, until it interferes with a billionaire’s interest…
This is kind of like game of thrones when the lannisters aligned with the church. Inevitably, the fanatics try to seize power.
But, in GoT, the Lannisters were the fanatics
I think they’re referring to the later plotline when that old preacher dude makes a power grab and has Cersei walk through town naked and shit.
Honestly it’s been so long since I’ve seen it (and even longer since I read it) so I’m prob getting it wrong.
that old preacher dude makes a power grab and has Cersei walk through town naked and shit.
Cersei had committed a litany of horrific crimes and was forced to pay penance. The walk of shame was intended to reprimand her and to wake her up to the degree to which her people reviled her for her corrupt leadership.
She could have come out of it wiser. She could have returned to the palace, experienced contrition, and looked to repent further for her abuses and excesses. Instead, she bombed the church and killed thousands of people.
I don’t know how else you describe that except as fanaticism.
She wasn’t a fanatic, she was cold and calculated.
The “fanatics” were the religious faction that was gaining power.
She wasn’t a fanatic, she was cold and calculated.
Eh. She was detached (often because she was drunk) and ruthless. But she was also obsessed with the Targaryans, initially because Rhaeger rejected her for Lyanna Stark but eventually because she needed to justify incest with her brother. She was absolutely a fanatic. A racial purest, obsessed with the perpetuation of her bloodline. The “at least she was a loving mother” line others attributed to her was far more about her fixation on continuing a permanent line of Lannisters.
The “fanatics” were the religious faction that was gaining power.
The Sparrows were a branch of The Church of the Seven composed of impoverished working people ravaged by the endless wars between the Houses. They were certainly orthodox in their beliefs. But the “fanaticism” tended to be described as disrespect for the aristocracy and militant organization outside of the major Houses.
Hell, the most notable aspect of the Sparrow leadership was that it was not beholden to the throne. The High Septon under King Barathon was as much a party to the intrigue and debauchery as anyone else in the council, and this passed as normal behavior. He wasn’t above having people tortured or executed for apostasy. He just knew when to look the other way as it served the King. Breaking from the corrupt practices of the captured church was only labeled “fanatical” in so far as it ran afoul of the demands of a weakened central government.
Stannis and the Red Lady were significantly more fanatical in practice, given the number of people they burned alive and the amount of out-and-out witchcraft they performed. The Sparrows were just factional in so far as they refused to “bend the knee” in the same way as their predecessors.
As I said, It’s been years (decades even? fuck) since I’ve read the books and watched the show, so I’m a bit out of my league here.
I will concede your points as the material is clearly fresher in your mind.
