Also Peter Thiel.
EOTWAWKI has always been a mythical fantasy, including the futuristic interpretation of Revelation regarding the second advent.
This is really the only way that cults in their late and isolated stages can hold together, not only that the end is neigh, but that it is imminent, a few month’s away at longest.
And that is because the devout are expected to be squeezed. They’re expected to toil to breaking for sake of the community and their leader.
In the cases of communes like Jonestown and the Branch Davidian compound, there’s always a dire labor shortage. There’s consistently more work to do than can be done by the labor force available to make sure everyone is fed, housed, treated for illness, clothed and so on.
Exploited labor cannot work under pressed conditions for super long, but giving them a hard deadline weeks or days away, helps a bunch. Doubly so if it comes with a guarantee of eternal bliss (or a UFO ride to join the space aliens).
Naturally, at least for all cases so far, the deadline comes and goes. This is usually when the prophets recompute and provide another deadline. Again it can only be a little bit longer. Even a year later and it’s too much to ask.
With each passing doomsday that doesn’t manifest, the cultists get more antsy like the crew of the Abraham Lincoln. Suicide and apostasy rates rise, then soar. Discontent heats up in the community, as each false apocalypse deteriorates confidence in the next one.
Eventually, something has to crack. In the 20th century US, reports leak to the authorities about the poor conditions and the abuse (there always is, in a large enough population), and in the face of intervention, the cult leader goes scorched earth like the Nero Decree.
In the meantime, the list of failed apocalypse predictions grows ever longer without any yet coming to fruition.
Keep your god out of the government you stupid brainwashed fucktard!
Every religion and therefore every god forbids killing babies. If you worship anything, it is ultimately Satan that you worship.
Because religion is a mental illness.
It baffles me how many people don’t realize this
Traitors to humanity.
Because that’s the only way for them to claim any relevance
I get a bit confused listening to some a Christians talk about the end times. According to the Bible, we already live in the end times. The end times are not some dial some people are twisting one way and some people are twisting the other.
I think some people believe that God has a checklist, and he’s waiting for all the monkeys to essentially random chance Hamlet of of a typewriter, with all the hoops and conditions needed to bring about the end of the world. If your eschatology is Twitch Plays Pokémon, try again.
I don’t want to hear anyone ever again try to tell me that women can’t be good leaders because they are too emotional or delusional. Look at this weirdo.
But he’s not being “emotional”. Just, y’ know, an everyday fucking psycho
There are definitely times we have all seen him get his feelings hurt.
Sure but if someone says: “I’m just trying to focus on doing god’s work. If that leads to Vance’s neck doing the same thing that Charlie Kirk’s did, that’s ok.”, then they get a visit from the SS.
Yeah, they never say something like, “if that leads to peace on earth, so be it.”
They are really looking forward to the killing off of the people they hate
Because they are in death cults, fantasizing about death.
And they’re too chicken to zero themselves.
If you say the things these people say, but in Arabic, they are indistinguishable from bin laden, Khomeini, KSM, and all the other religious extremists that the US fears.
You know… this might be in bad taste perhaps. But maybe… taking what these dipshits say, translating it to Arabic and overlaying it on a photo of the aforementioned, then putting it on Facebook, but be like “Can you believe what they’re saying…” or “Not in my country!” or something. Once it’s big enough, it’ll come out naturally that Bin Laden didn’t say it, the quote is some MAGA member saying it… idk, I think it might at least reach a few people once the messages are reframed/re-contextualized.
The gotcha style of persuasion doesn’t really work in terms of getting people to reconsider their stance. It doesn’t change people’s opinion because it’s a cheap and obvious gimmick. Feels good for you and people who already are aligned, basically the perfect example of an ideological circle jerk.
While it’s hard to change some ones mind if they aren’t open to change, it’s also easy to turn people away from your cause if they see you aren’t being genuine.
You give far too much faith on the general population’s ability or willingness to actually read (and for the social media sites willingness to allow it to spread)
I’ve certainly seen this type of deliberate misinformation spreading before. People making fake stories to see how far/fast they spread.
It was a big thing a few years back to post a Mao quote over Nixon’s face, usually with more comedic intent than any actual message
deleted by creator
Because their religion tells them they can fuck up this world and when it ends, they get into paradise because God will give them a universal Mulligan.
Reality: nothing happens, they become high fat worm food, then high fat worm shit.
Ahhhh I see you’re familiar with Leroy 69:69. Great Bible verse.
The Bible starts and ends with the slaughter of the unrighteous, which means you.
When Jesus returns, He will be accompanied by legions of angels, and they will butcher every non-believer. The resulting lake of blood will be miles wide and “as deep as a horse’s bridle”.
Then, they will cast all of the non-Christians into Hell for eternal torture.
That is Christianity.
(Islam and Judaism are no better, they all revel in the murder of the non-believers)
*citation needed
**asking for a friend
For the beginning part: Genesis 6:5–7 Genesis 7:21–23 (Where all humans except Noahs family, die)
For the ending: Matthew 13:40–42 (Where angels come and cast the wicked into fiery furnace) Matthew 13:49–50 (Same) Matthew 16:27 (Jesus comes with an army of angels to serve people based on their deeds) Matthew 25:31–46 (The final judgement) 2 Thessalonians 1:7–10 (Jesus brings punishment to those who do not obey the gospel) Revelation 19:11–21 (Jesus defeats armies of those opposing, depicting corpses getting eaten by birds, etc) And there are like 20 other at least.
And in Judaism, basically, instead of the son of god doing the killings, it’s the jews which are sent by god to slaughter the rest, similar as in Islam.
I love you
Thank you, my mom used to say that as well.
Bible is absolutely full of insane ramblings.
Georgimus, “Can you, like, qualify the Bible is fucking bonkers?”
This is exactly why there needs to be a separation between church and state. How can you trust someone to run the country, when all their decisions are grounded in magical thinking?
Umm… we have that. What we lack is law enforcement.
Don’t you have to swear on the bible?
Big man really soft with those lightning bolts these days
You can swear on anything you want.
In the UK you can even make an affirmation if you are not religious or your religion forbids you from taking an oath. This as brought in originally for the Quakers but anyone who objects to Christian oaths has this option.
When I did jury service I took the secular route, though I wouldn’t have strongly objected to swearing the traditional oath either. I quite like the idea God is personally nosing into the daily business of HM Courts and Tribunals, although judging by the backlog he abandoned the justice system long ago.
No, it specifically says you do not because of separation of church and state, you can swear on the constitution or a take out menu, whatever you want
You can take a religious oath (Bible optional) or you can make a non-religious affirmation.
Separation of church and state is different from separation of state and religious laymen. The majority of the population are religious so excluding them would be worse democratically than excluding women. What’s actually meant by separation of church and state is that people working in the church (priests, Bishops, popes) shouldn’t meddle with the running of the state. Nothing to do with religious laymen.
Are you saying it’s fine for elected religious laymen to force religion into our government and onto its people because they’re not church officials?
If a religious layman is motivated by his religion to make policies that you don’t agree with you should not vote for that person. If anyone else agrees with his religiously motivated policies then they should be allowed to vote for that person. I don’t think this is too crazy of a concept. Now if that specific religiously motivated policy happens to be unconstitutional that is a totally different matter.
This is how you end up with religious persecution and pogroms.
This is how you end with child rapism being legal in islamic countries, or how you get anti-queer and anti-atheist policies in most places.
Is religious persecution and pogroms allowed in the constitution? Also systematically disallowing religious people from office is a form of religious persecution.
https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/what-god-has-put-asunder.pdf
Read this, its from James Madison(he was one of your founding fathers).
Also:
https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/madisons-memorial.pdf
And from Thomas Jefferson:
https://www.au.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/with-sovereign-reverence.pdf
Mmmm, no that’s what the First Amendment is partially for. The government shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. I have a right to be a Satanist in peace without yokels shoving their way of life down my throat
If a lawmaker bans satanism or enacts a law that otherwise discriminates against satanists. Then that’s not allowed. But what wouldn’t be a problem would be a religious lawmaker on a totally secular subject. Like the example I gave in another comment how one could in theory loosen immigration restriction by quoting the parable of the good Samaritan. That law would not be religious law, even if the law maker was motivated by his religious belief.
It’s not too crazy of a concept but is absolutely not what separation of church and state means. It’s crazy that you think this is what it means.
You can’t have the majority forcing their religion onto the minority. That’s the exact reason we have separation of church and state. To protect the people who will never win an election.
FUCKING LIES!
Separation of church and state is different from separation of state and religious laymen.
Fucking lies!. And it’s a bald faced lie that results in “In God We Trust” on our money.
There is either a separation or there is not. There is no in between. It is binary and that’s the end of it. Anyone who attempts to negotiate an in-between is a FUCKING LIAR
E PLURIBUS UNUM
And if you have a problem with that, then you have a problem with democracy
*E Pluribus Unum
And I agree, LIES!! But christians are hypocrites.
Am I understanding you correct that you think no person with religious beliefs should be allowed to hold office?
E pluribus unum
As long as none of the pluribus hold any religious belief?
Am I understanding you correct
No
Do you want to help me understand you or are you just trolling?
You feing learning so you can keep proselytizing; you are the troll you accuse others of being.
Also no
It’s not a lie. That’s how the very inventor of the term “separation of church and state” defined it and how it has been used for hundreds of years after. Roger Williams, who first used the term, was a puritan, later baptist, pastor. What you’re describing would be an innovation and expansion of what separation of church and state means. It seems what you really want is a separation between religion and state. That is a totally different issue. In the future it would be advantageous for you to be clear on that and explicitly say that it’s religion, not just church, that you want to exclude from the state.
I’m curious though. Which people would you want to exclude from the government. Church goers are obvious. But what about the “spiritual but not religious” people? Or people who believe in ghosts but not god? What about natives who believe their native religions? The non god believing buddhist? Who would define if someone is religious enough to be disallowed from running for office? Whoever that person was, that person would get immense power.
It’s not a lie.
lol, nice try, fuck bag. That bullshit doesn’t work here anymore.
I’m fine with you insulting me. However I’m still interested to learn where you would draw the line between the non religious and the religious in your proposed ban of religious people in political office.
Noone advocated for banning religious people. We want to prevent religious policy
If I’m fine with having religious laymen in government and you’re also fine with having religious laymen in government then I’m not sure on what we disagree.
Simple definition: anyone that believes in anything not falsable, nor empirically and scientifically demonstrable.
I have no problem with people having religious beliefs…in private. But, as far as I’m concerned, as soon as those religious beliefs start dictating your policy priorities…you have lost your ability to make objective decisions on behalf of the rest of us. That goes equally for “laymen” as well as “professionals”.
This case is a perfect example. Anyone openly saying that they’re just going to “follow their faith”, even if it leads us all to total destruction, needs to be removed from office. Yesterday. I wouldn’t even trust that person to drive a city bus, let alone guide policy for the entire population.
I don’t trust those who prefers afterlife to rule my life
I agree that if a religious laymen uses religion to make bad policies then he shouldn’t be in office. However democracy is supposed to represent the people and if the people want to elect a religious nutjob then that’s a failure of the people, not the democratic system. You can’t make a law that says religious people can’t run for office as that would be extremely undemocratic and go against religious freedom.
You can’t make a law that says religious people can’t run for office…but you can make a law that says they can’t make policy based on their religious beliefs.
That’s what the 1st amendment is supposed to prevent.
I’m not American so correct me if I’m wrong. But wasn’t the first amendment about disallowing the government from establishing or favoring a specific religious establishment. Meaning it would be illegal to say make a law that favors or teaches baptism in school at the expense of another Christian flavor. What I understand of the history behind freedom of religion in the US was that people were sick of the UK mandating the very specific theology of the Anglican church and instead wanting a system where people were allowed to practice any flavor of Christianity that they wanted. From this it would be no problem being a religious person in office but it would not be okay for that person to give benefits or favor to their specific church while in office.
Not making policy based on religious belief would be impossible however. One’s religion would impact one’s entire morality and value system. So one could say we should enact policy X because the bible says so. But one couldn’t say we should enact policy X because the southern baptist Convention just made a ruling that policy X should be enacted and now we have to make a law that matches that ruling.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
It is as you said…primarily as a freedom to practice whatever religion you want…but this also effectively prohibits any government official from enacting any policy or legislation that promotes their own religious beliefs over any other, since it may conflict with the free practice of someone else’s religion.
In essence, it prevents the state from getting involved in religious matters altogether.
prohibits any government official from enacting any policy or legislation that promotes their own religious beliefs over any other, since it may conflict with the free practice of someone else’s religion.
Okay, so Christianity says we can’t kill people. But jihadism exists in Islam. Then the law must allow killing by Islamists to avoid being based on Christian beliefs and restricting jihadists’ practice?
But I could in theory promote a secular policy based on my theoretical religious belief. Say I want to lower barriers to immigration and as motivation I quote the parable of the good Samaritan saying that even foreigners should be treated as ones neighbour. Now in doing this I’m letting my religious belief affect my policy making. However I’m not inhibiting anyone else’s free practice of religion since this is secular policy.
That’s not democracy, that’s demagogy and ochlocracy.
The down votes on this are insane to me. He just gave the original definition of the separation of church and state.
Every elected representative should only be bound by existing laws and their own conscience. That means that if someone chooses to listen to sky daddy or the flying spaghetti monster while in elected office, that’s up to them. It sucks, but you can’t have a democracy in which you tell people what the basis for their decisions must be. If the people elect an Astrologer to office that person should be free to base their decisions on the movement of Jupiter through Sagittarius or whatever.
Democracy is designed to empower the statistical average will of the people. Not produce “best” (by whatever measure) outcomes for the country. Just what people want.
I see what you’re saying. You can’t exclude everyone from every religion from running for office.
Are you sure? I think maybe we should try that and see how it goes.
Which makes a lot of sense when you remember a lot of the North American population hailed from families who had a specific beef with a specific church and state; the role of bishops was one of these many axis of opposition during the conflict in Britain and Ireland.
The English Civil War and its aftermath is barely taught on either side of the Atlantic, yet it’s so important to understanding both countries’ history. The per capita casualty rate was worse than WW1, no wonder people felt rather strongly about religion and in some cases still do
