The Religious Void

[The Grand Nudger]

Trumpism is a polygamous marriage of convenience, for sure.

[HappySkeptic]

As you seem to recognize, the tendency of American Evangelicals to believe anything Trump says despite any factual evidence otherwise and to also be antivaxxers suggests to me that at least for that particular subgroup of Christians, their religion does not inoculate them at all from political cult-like behavior.

I'm curious as to why you included antivaxxer in your description. Insofar as any Christian is an antivaxxer,  the reasons for it seem to align with my theory. It is an over-allocation of trust in Christianity, that leads to an exclusion of trust in other organizations such as science or governments. My guess is that any overlap that might exist between them and Trump supporters, is likely due to Trump championing a mistrust in science and government, dispite him being in government.

The only reason why trust in any one religion would lead to a distrust in science, is if adherence to the religion requires antipathy with science.

Mainstream Christianity has made its peace with science.  Evangelical versions have not.  To be a bible-believing Christian, you must believe a story that contradicts science.  The more science can be marginalized, the less cognitive dissonance the believer will feel.

I know because I tried out the Evangelical thing as a teen for a few months.  I consider that time to not have been a high point of sanity.  I remember the impossible contradictions in both science and morality that I had to hold.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Mainstream Christianity has made its peace with science.  Evangelical versions have not. 

To be fair, I've never quite understood who the term Evangelical describes.

[The Grand Nudger]

You can safely exclude yourself as an evangelical if you don't know who it describes.

[HappySkeptic]

From at Atlantic article:

But the term largely took hold in the English-speaking world more than a century later during the Great Awakening, a series of revivals in Britain and the American colonies led by fiery preachers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield. Due to their influence, evangelicalism became a synonym for revivalism, or a fervent expression of Christianity marked by an emphasis on converting outsiders. By the early 1800s, it was “by far the dominant expression of Christianity” in the United States.

I was initially connected to the more Charismatic or Pentacostal groups (that believe in spiritual gifts from God), but in the U.S. includes the prosperity-gospel mega-churches, the Billy Graham crusades and offshoots.  There can be Evangelicals in regular denominations, that are focused on spiritual revival and "saving" people.

While some often focus on particular sections of the bible (the Pentacostals specifically on the Book of Acts), they all claim to believe that bible is the word of God.

Well, I read the whole bible as a teen.  I was told I had to believe it if I was a Christian.  I wonder how many Christians have actually read the whole thing?  To believe it requires an insane level of suspension of disbelief in science as well as being able to apply some sort of strange moral relativism to this OT Yahweh character.  Now, to pass off the OT as stories and allegory destroys any "reality" of the gospel.  You can't have the gospel without the story that the OT tells.  That is why I often say that I respect the honesty of fundamentalists more than that of "Jesus is Love" Christians (though I think they are crazy).

[The Grand Nudger]

If the terms genuine belief mean anything to a description of our conceptions of the sacred which cannot fail to inform our political opinions, then assertions about the sacred can only be taken to be relevant facts about a decision and the beliefs..and reasons for those beliefs..which informed it. It's not an arguable list of items ala "how can you believe that shit?"

Who knows, they don't know, they're not nueroscientists either - they do..though. They do believe them, and the fact of belief is the only relevant fact to the actual process of decisionmaking. Facts about the sacred cannot be false to those that hold them. They're inviolable.

[downbeatplumb]

Trumpists mixed Trump in with their religion. Being a Trump supporter became a part of their christianity. Their awful awful christianity.

[Mister Agenda]

As you seem to recognize, the tendency of American Evangelicals to believe anything Trump says despite any factual evidence otherwise and to also be antivaxxers suggests to me that at least for that particular subgroup of Christians, their religion does not inoculate them at all from political cult-like behavior.

I'm curious as to why you included antivaxxer in your description. Insofar as any Christian is an antivaxxer,  the reasons for it seem to align with my theory. It is an over-allocation of trust in Christianity, that leads to a deficit of trust in other entities such as science or governments. My guess is that any overlap that might exist between them and Trump supporters, is likely due to Trump championing a mistrust in science and government, despite him being in government.

Is it better to have a well defined religious structure in which religious activities can exist rather than no structure at all; and does that successfully diminish religious behavior elsewhere?

You posed the question whether a well defined religious structure diminishes religious behavior elsewhere. It seems not.

[Angrboda]

I believe the unvoiced question was, does (harmless) institutionalized religiousness help divert energy from (harmful) religiousness outside religious institutions.

The history shows that the premise of the question is flawed. If institutionalized or noninstitutionalized religiousness is harmful, then what's the point of the question?

[The Grand Nudger]

That's a big if. It can be easy to see that (and specifically how) some forms of religion are, have been, or would inevitably be harmful. Less so to insist that harm is a rule of religiousity.

Not that asserting that as a rule would settle any debates, ofc - we'd still have acceptable harm to contend with. I'd say that whenever two hands are religiously doing something good that would otherwise be engaged in religiously doing something shitty - we can chalk whatever lesser amount of misery that puts into the world as, to at least some extent, the value of that religious endeavor.

If knitting me a blanket kept grabby mc fingers off my daughter, I'd insist his ass was knitting at all times he was within a few feet of her. It would be my religion. I would make it his religion, at least so long as he wanted to be within feet of my daughter. He wants a bride, I want a blanket. Fair trade. I'm a big guy..it might take him a few years. No shitty blankets need apply, unless he thinks my daughter is trash.