[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[mordant]

I skimmed Russell Brand's Wikipedia page just now. He's quite a guy.

Maybe I wouldn't vote to put him in a position of power, but it looks as though our thinking is similar in some ways. Like most of us extreme left-wingers, we don't see religion per se as being the enemy. Neoliberal capitalism is what's going to kill us all, and while religion can work for good or for ill, it has been known (MLK Jr., the Dalai Lama, etc.) to be one of the few ways we can advocate values that aren't just financial.

I agree that religion has some salubrious effects at times, and much of it is well-intended. I cannot agree at all that religion is a particularly effective way to push values that aren't tied to money. I was certainly disabused of that notion by my life experience. When I was a young sprout, my religion of origin was condemning "sexual sin" and "the love of money" and thought politics was beneath their lofty spiritual concerns. The exact same group, in just a generation, has transformed itself into the core of Trump's support base, and is happy to overlook his overweening greed, sexual predation and political weaponization of basically everything. Which tells me they talked a good game but they were always for sale to the highest bidder.

My brother at least wishes Trump weren't "so brash", lol. If he had ever behaved that brashly I can guarantee you he would have died by my father's hand in pretty short order!

You will probably tell me evangelicals they are a minority in Christianity (true in terms of numbers, though not influence) and that there are people who live by the same holy book who are wonderful human beings (which calls into question whether their beliefs actually had anything to do with it).