(September 18, 2023 at 9:22 am)Data Wrote:(September 17, 2023 at 9:36 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: As much as I'd love to say I'm just here for the dick jokes, as long as there are people willing to use their political power to harm others just because they don't fit in with their views of what a Christian society should be, there will always need to be a sociopolitical objection. And, let me tell you, with a major political party openly embracing authoritarianism and using an extreme interpretation of Christianity as their rationale for it, it's more necessary than ever.
FINALY! We get an honest, intelligent answer without all the fucking ideological bullshit!
Thank you . . . who are you . . . Rev. rye.
And just so you have a better idea of what these sociopolitical objections we have are, here's a few pointers.
While I'm hesitant to use the word "genocide" for a number of reasons (foremost of which being that trans folk are more of a "Demos" than a "Genos"), but that's just splitting hairs. As it is right now, it reminds me of something Raul Hilberg said in Shoah:
Raul Hilberg Wrote:From the earliest days, from the fourth century, the sixth century, the missionaries of Christianity had said in effect to the Jews: "You may not live among us as Jews." The secular* rulers who followed them from the late Middle Ages then decided: "You may not live among us," and the Nazis finally decreed: "You may not live."As of right now, 22 of 50 American states have reached points where, if you're young and trans, things are explicitly in the "You may not live among us (as trans folk)" stage. And the lawmakers who passed these laws are chomping at the bit to expand these policies as far as they can get away with. And these aren't secular people pushing these policies. If there were a good secular reason, it goes against all the research (a small, but representative, portion of which can be found here), overwhelmingly concluding that trans folk are valid and that the best way to treat them is to affirm their preferred gender identity (and this also especially goes for trans children.)
And check out what's going on in the State of Florida. Ron DeSantis is running the state on right-wing Christian culture war bullshit and things are getting bad enough that multiple civil rights organizations are warning anyone who isn't a white cishet person that things are particularly dangerous there.
And on the state of Evangelical Christianity today, here's former higher-up in the SBC and current editor-in-chief of Christianity Today:
Yes, for an alarming number of Christians, even Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount (some of his better ideas) are little more than just "liberal talking points." And even being reminded of who originally (supposedly) said those words changes nothing.
Make no mistake, this is the real sociopolitical problem. Not that people disagree with us about whether or not there is a God, but that people are using their beliefs about God to make things worse for the rest of us.
* Note: Secular is a word with an extremely broad scope, and in this case, it means more "our domain is more in state matters than religious" and not "irreligious altogether." Indeed, most of the times Jews were expelled from Christian lands, it was at a time when Catholicism was the enforced default for the area.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.