Something about the stories following the January 6 attack on the Capitol bothers me, and I ask your opinion if you feel this is just my overactive imagination playing tricks on me and bias.
A very big part of Donald Trump’s supporters have been staunch Christians who strongly push for stopping abortion and for making other changes which …
Something about the stories following the January 6 attack on the Capitol bothers me, and I ask your opinion if you feel this is just my overactive imagination playing tricks on me and bias.
A very big part of Donald Trump’s supporters have been staunch Christians who strongly push for stopping abortion and for making other changes which will ultimately have the effect of herding women in back into a narrow place in society.
They pushed so hard that they got a large enough number of supporters in government who have gotten their ideologues into the Supreme Court. They also have a number of fringe groups who have attacked abortionists, abortion clinics, and threatened those who fund them.
With this in mind, why haven’t they been specifically listed as a presence amongst the other Capitol-attacking groups? Did I miss something because haven’t seen a single story about involvement of Christian extremist groups.
Here is where my bias is likely going to offend people, and I apologize in advance.
I have long suspected that a significant number of people who practice a religion might be more susceptible to getting caught up in a cult. I feel it is because of the way religions are practiced, that the marriage of dogma, social acceptance (or rejection as punishment), of flattening complex problems (like abortion) into a simply a black or white situation, and so forth, just lends itself towards a type of mind control. When practiced with tolerance and moderation in mind, it is probably very helpful in keeping people working together for the good of society, but when intolerance and extremism is in mind....
Well, I just feel it could be at the heart of this big problem we have in America. This is why I think it is worrisome that it’s not being specifically called out in regards to the attack.
**Disclosure: I was raised with Judeo-Christian ethics and believe in G*d as Creator of the universe, but perhaps not as a being who watches over people. I was also not raised with religion (both sets of grandparents fought over which branch of Christianity their first grandchild should be raised, so parents finally decided their children would choose when they were old enough.). So my viewpoints of religion come as an outside observer.
This may not be politically correct, but as a scholar, I must note: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" K. Marx
And a further note to a previous comment. "Christianity" in practice is centered on white, male domination, dominion over the Earth, and oppression of 'the other'. IMHO of course.
So are the other major religions. Women are just servants. I recall my parochial school days when the "mysteries of transubstantiation" were taught. If you didn't get it then you weren't smart enough. Religion is definitely a cult. It destroys critical thinking.
I was raised Jewish in a Southern Baptist town by Holocaust victims. There was a church on every corner town... 1st Baptist Church, 2nd Baptist Church, 3rd, etc. I love my heritage but not necessarily the religion. I am of the faith that if you have found something that speaks to you, gives you peace and contentment, then go for it. What I object to are missions to try and persuade the downtrodden to follow them. Jehovah’s Witnesses cones to mind.
A tool of the demagogue is to ask for faith in them and them alone. It’s easier to do this when people have already done this in their spiritual lives. It is a vulnerability that power has exploited.
We see this manifest in the population of LDS and Evangelical doctors and nurses refusing to wear masks, sabotaging their own family’s health, the health of their patients, community and hospital guidance and Covid protocols. It is unbelievable to me this day as I continue to hear doctors and nurses I know say things like, the pandemic is not that big of a deal. We don’t need to wear masks. We need herd immunity, etc, etc. It makes me sick to my stomach.
Church of Latter Day Saints, Mormons ( not all, but a lot, but too many, and still to this day when 4,000 a day are "dying in a Leadership vacuum".
A danger of demagoguery is the erosion of professional ethics. The doc or lawyer who is either a true believer in the demagogue's lies, or just scared to loose your business, so they go along with the lie so as not to upset you, to say in the "we group".
This has a greater damaging effect when it reaches those on your school board and County's health district, and City Council. When enough believe in the lie and enough just go along with it, a critical mass develops, and common sense, common decency, and democracy are then decayed.
We cant have science and professional ethics in conflict with what the dear leader says.
Note, I am not bashing any one religious group. I was raised Catholic, and I have friends and family guilty of the same short comings everywhere in our country. They are prey to the lie, to a demagogue, to propaganda, and everything that comes with it. DT's demagoguery has made them fools, and even the educated are vulnerable. Scroll down to the links in the Atlantic ( doctors & Lawyers making the crisis worse) and New England Journal of Medicine criticism of leadership)
You know you have a serious problem when doctors and lawyers, our most educated people believe the big lie. To witness professionals betray their professional oaths is really quite shocking.
I can't remember where I read that early Christianity was a cult that eventually killed off Greek & Roman established religions. It was a bit jarring to me, having been raised Catholic, to read of Christianity in that light.
If you had acknowledged the presence of the likes of the Quakers, Black churches, Catholic Workers, and the slew of urban religious communities as a force for justice, I would feel that your analysis was more fair. I don't believe that members of churches are any more susceptible to cults than, say, sports fans or LARPers. I am an atheist, myself, but I do value the work of many religious organizations. I think we are short-sighted to lump all people of faith into a "cult" mentality. Anti-abortion, insurrectionist, "handmaiden" style organizations are created through the force of patriarchal ideology and it deserves more "outing" as a force behind so much of our historical messes.
Not all people, but a lot, too many I think, but especially the Christian Right leadership to hold onto a single issue instead of truth, integrity, democratic values instead of Demagogic tactics. I wish they would collectively censure DT and his tactics. DT spell is stronger to these people than their faith in God and in the Christian values they espouse.
“The Church is the Church only when it exists for others . . . not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
2. Christianity is generally considered the dominant form of religion in America so i used it as my example, particularly as it has been used in our current political problem.
3. I lumped Quakers in with Christians as I thought it was a Christianity-based religion. Sorry if that is incorrect.
4. Black churches? Do you feel churches attended predominantly by Black people are a separate religion than Christian-based ones?
5. Aren’t Catholic workers Christian?
6. Patriarchal based society in America largely stems from Christianity.
My thought was that Quakers, Black churches, Catholic Workers and a slew of urban churches of various names ARE "Christian" and are the exception to your belief that all christian churches are cults. Also, I believe that Christianity stems from patriarchy, not the other way around.
Do you think that Christians are more susceptible than other populations, like sports fans, political parties, Scientologists, John Rogerites, "Stop the Steal," the Greens, etc. I'm not arguing that Christians aren't susceptible to cults, I am arguing that anyone is susceptible to a cult. Steve Hassan is a cult specialist, and has managed to bring many out of cults. His books on cults offer a look into the mind of someone who can be brought into a cult. It is a very specific phenomenon.
I think you’re missing the entire point of my original post, that of the varied groups of attackers at the Capitol, disgruntled religion-focus groups were not specifically named in the reports.
There has been foreign in efforts/like a marketing campaign on SM to harden three conservative groups: Christian Right, pro gun, white supremacy groups. Aligning their goals to support Republican candidates.
Dogma is a killer. They work, until they don't work any more. History is 20/20 hindsight.
I'm frightened by the people I know who cling to the abortion issue over and above of any political discussion, even if the discussion is about fixing potholes and quickly try to shift the justification of their exceptionalism to vilify the Democrat in charge. They are very insecure. Perhaps (and I do now) we need to kindly and peacefuly treat them like children who awoke in the middle of the night after a bad dream. It might take years. It is what it is. I don't know everything either.
I'm going to go off and watch some videos about John Lewis and MLK today.
I saw the fallacy of religions as a teen in high school and have vacillated between agnosticism/atheism ever since. If you are able to believe that the mythology of bronze age goat herders is factual then your grasp on reality is not too strong. So, from Mainstream Religion to Cult Following is not a great leap.
I wouldn’t quite say their grasp on reality isn’t strong, just that perhaps because religious beliefs became entrenched before science came along, they became a coping mechanism and social rulebook which was passed on to future generations.
I think where it tends to go wrong is when there’s a bad leader or a significant number followers are rigid-minded, intolerant, etc.
Re Capitol involvement by Christers. Here's an enlightened perspective in "The Terrorism in Jesus' Name" by John Pavlovitz. "What we're witnessing in our nation is not protesting, it is not fighting for freedom, it is not a defense of life--and it is certainly not reflecting Jesus.
"This is white domestic terrorism that was born in the Church and has been weaned on a theology of supremacy and it needs to be destroyed." Read on
Even in the 1830s Diplomat and French historian Alexander de’Tocville observed how naive/gullible Americans could be. Victims of their own freedom to pursue their passions and freedom of speech. SM has accelerated all of it.
Agreed. One the most obvious books that could be used to teach and illustrate critical thinking skills is the Bible, written by many authors with a variety of motivations long after a history of oral story-telling. I used to work in public education and going anywhere near the Bible to educate students about the fallacies inherent in non-evidential belief systems is absolutely taboo.
Something about the stories following the January 6 attack on the Capitol bothers me, and I ask your opinion if you feel this is just my overactive imagination playing tricks on me and bias.
A very big part of Donald Trump’s supporters have been staunch Christians who strongly push for stopping abortion and for making other changes which will ultimately have the effect of herding women in back into a narrow place in society.
They pushed so hard that they got a large enough number of supporters in government who have gotten their ideologues into the Supreme Court. They also have a number of fringe groups who have attacked abortionists, abortion clinics, and threatened those who fund them.
With this in mind, why haven’t they been specifically listed as a presence amongst the other Capitol-attacking groups? Did I miss something because haven’t seen a single story about involvement of Christian extremist groups.
Here is where my bias is likely going to offend people, and I apologize in advance.
I have long suspected that a significant number of people who practice a religion might be more susceptible to getting caught up in a cult. I feel it is because of the way religions are practiced, that the marriage of dogma, social acceptance (or rejection as punishment), of flattening complex problems (like abortion) into a simply a black or white situation, and so forth, just lends itself towards a type of mind control. When practiced with tolerance and moderation in mind, it is probably very helpful in keeping people working together for the good of society, but when intolerance and extremism is in mind....
Well, I just feel it could be at the heart of this big problem we have in America. This is why I think it is worrisome that it’s not being specifically called out in regards to the attack.
**Disclosure: I was raised with Judeo-Christian ethics and believe in G*d as Creator of the universe, but perhaps not as a being who watches over people. I was also not raised with religion (both sets of grandparents fought over which branch of Christianity their first grandchild should be raised, so parents finally decided their children would choose when they were old enough.). So my viewpoints of religion come as an outside observer.
This may not be politically correct, but as a scholar, I must note: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" K. Marx
And a further note to a previous comment. "Christianity" in practice is centered on white, male domination, dominion over the Earth, and oppression of 'the other'. IMHO of course.
So are the other major religions. Women are just servants. I recall my parochial school days when the "mysteries of transubstantiation" were taught. If you didn't get it then you weren't smart enough. Religion is definitely a cult. It destroys critical thinking.
Along with patriotism and law enforcement, all religions must also be de-politicized. We cannot be come a Christian Iran.
Gilead?
I was raised Jewish in a Southern Baptist town by Holocaust victims. There was a church on every corner town... 1st Baptist Church, 2nd Baptist Church, 3rd, etc. I love my heritage but not necessarily the religion. I am of the faith that if you have found something that speaks to you, gives you peace and contentment, then go for it. What I object to are missions to try and persuade the downtrodden to follow them. Jehovah’s Witnesses cones to mind.
Yep. Repress the oppressed. Especially those heathens.
A tool of the demagogue is to ask for faith in them and them alone. It’s easier to do this when people have already done this in their spiritual lives. It is a vulnerability that power has exploited.
We see this manifest in the population of LDS and Evangelical doctors and nurses refusing to wear masks, sabotaging their own family’s health, the health of their patients, community and hospital guidance and Covid protocols. It is unbelievable to me this day as I continue to hear doctors and nurses I know say things like, the pandemic is not that big of a deal. We don’t need to wear masks. We need herd immunity, etc, etc. It makes me sick to my stomach.
LDS?
Church of Latter Day Saints, Mormons ( not all, but a lot, but too many, and still to this day when 4,000 a day are "dying in a Leadership vacuum".
A danger of demagoguery is the erosion of professional ethics. The doc or lawyer who is either a true believer in the demagogue's lies, or just scared to loose your business, so they go along with the lie so as not to upset you, to say in the "we group".
This has a greater damaging effect when it reaches those on your school board and County's health district, and City Council. When enough believe in the lie and enough just go along with it, a critical mass develops, and common sense, common decency, and democracy are then decayed.
We cant have science and professional ethics in conflict with what the dear leader says.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejme2029812
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/lawyers-and-doctors-making-americas-crisis-worse/617673/
Thank you
Latter Day Saints. Mormon.
Note, I am not bashing any one religious group. I was raised Catholic, and I have friends and family guilty of the same short comings everywhere in our country. They are prey to the lie, to a demagogue, to propaganda, and everything that comes with it. DT's demagoguery has made them fools, and even the educated are vulnerable. Scroll down to the links in the Atlantic ( doctors & Lawyers making the crisis worse) and New England Journal of Medicine criticism of leadership)
You know you have a serious problem when doctors and lawyers, our most educated people believe the big lie. To witness professionals betray their professional oaths is really quite shocking.
Should have typed, you know WE have..... ( sorry bout that :))
Thank you!
A little funny for a middle-eastern religion, that was "europeanized", officialized by a roman emporer when he made catholicism the state religion!
I can't remember where I read that early Christianity was a cult that eventually killed off Greek & Roman established religions. It was a bit jarring to me, having been raised Catholic, to read of Christianity in that light.
And the doctrine was fixed by roman emporer Constantin!
Excellent comment and accurate, in my opinion.
If you had acknowledged the presence of the likes of the Quakers, Black churches, Catholic Workers, and the slew of urban religious communities as a force for justice, I would feel that your analysis was more fair. I don't believe that members of churches are any more susceptible to cults than, say, sports fans or LARPers. I am an atheist, myself, but I do value the work of many religious organizations. I think we are short-sighted to lump all people of faith into a "cult" mentality. Anti-abortion, insurrectionist, "handmaiden" style organizations are created through the force of patriarchal ideology and it deserves more "outing" as a force behind so much of our historical messes.
Not all people, but a lot, too many I think, but especially the Christian Right leadership to hold onto a single issue instead of truth, integrity, democratic values instead of Demagogic tactics. I wish they would collectively censure DT and his tactics. DT spell is stronger to these people than their faith in God and in the Christian values they espouse.
“The Church is the Church only when it exists for others . . . not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1. I did not deny my bias
2. Christianity is generally considered the dominant form of religion in America so i used it as my example, particularly as it has been used in our current political problem.
3. I lumped Quakers in with Christians as I thought it was a Christianity-based religion. Sorry if that is incorrect.
4. Black churches? Do you feel churches attended predominantly by Black people are a separate religion than Christian-based ones?
5. Aren’t Catholic workers Christian?
6. Patriarchal based society in America largely stems from Christianity.
My thought was that Quakers, Black churches, Catholic Workers and a slew of urban churches of various names ARE "Christian" and are the exception to your belief that all christian churches are cults. Also, I believe that Christianity stems from patriarchy, not the other way around.
I did NOT say any or all Christian churches are cults.
I DID say that I suspect people who follow a religion might be more susceptible to getting caught up in a cult.
Do you think that Christians are more susceptible than other populations, like sports fans, political parties, Scientologists, John Rogerites, "Stop the Steal," the Greens, etc. I'm not arguing that Christians aren't susceptible to cults, I am arguing that anyone is susceptible to a cult. Steve Hassan is a cult specialist, and has managed to bring many out of cults. His books on cults offer a look into the mind of someone who can be brought into a cult. It is a very specific phenomenon.
I think you’re missing the entire point of my original post, that of the varied groups of attackers at the Capitol, disgruntled religion-focus groups were not specifically named in the reports.
I would argue that Christianity largely stems from patriarchy. Not the other way around.
Hmmm. That might be a case of ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg’. Either way, men decided:)
There has been foreign in efforts/like a marketing campaign on SM to harden three conservative groups: Christian Right, pro gun, white supremacy groups. Aligning their goals to support Republican candidates.
Clint watts
Malcom nance
Mueller report
Andrew Weisman
NRA Maria Butina
David duke moscow condo and speaking fees
Thought provoking and initial reaction is that it is spot on.
Dogma is a killer. They work, until they don't work any more. History is 20/20 hindsight.
I'm frightened by the people I know who cling to the abortion issue over and above of any political discussion, even if the discussion is about fixing potholes and quickly try to shift the justification of their exceptionalism to vilify the Democrat in charge. They are very insecure. Perhaps (and I do now) we need to kindly and peacefuly treat them like children who awoke in the middle of the night after a bad dream. It might take years. It is what it is. I don't know everything either.
I'm going to go off and watch some videos about John Lewis and MLK today.
Well said.
I saw the fallacy of religions as a teen in high school and have vacillated between agnosticism/atheism ever since. If you are able to believe that the mythology of bronze age goat herders is factual then your grasp on reality is not too strong. So, from Mainstream Religion to Cult Following is not a great leap.
I admit the same thoughts did cross my mind.
I wouldn’t quite say their grasp on reality isn’t strong, just that perhaps because religious beliefs became entrenched before science came along, they became a coping mechanism and social rulebook which was passed on to future generations.
I think where it tends to go wrong is when there’s a bad leader or a significant number followers are rigid-minded, intolerant, etc.
Re Capitol involvement by Christers. Here's an enlightened perspective in "The Terrorism in Jesus' Name" by John Pavlovitz. "What we're witnessing in our nation is not protesting, it is not fighting for freedom, it is not a defense of life--and it is certainly not reflecting Jesus.
"This is white domestic terrorism that was born in the Church and has been weaned on a theology of supremacy and it needs to be destroyed." Read on
https://johnpavlovitz.com/2021/01/09/the-white-terrorism-in-jesus-name
Thank you. I will read it.
Ur right!
Even in the 1830s Diplomat and French historian Alexander de’Tocville observed how naive/gullible Americans could be. Victims of their own freedom to pursue their passions and freedom of speech. SM has accelerated all of it.
Fantasyland, Kurt Anderson
SM?
social media, I think.
Ah, yes. That fits Thank you!
This doesn't exactly address your point, Lisa, but I found this interesting this week.
https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/2021/01/13/955801878/how-did-we-get-here-a-call-for-an-evangelical-reckoning-on-trump
And this.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/how-white-evangelical-christians-fused-with-trump-extremism.html?searchResultPosition=1
Thank you. I don’t subscribe to NY Times, but I will check out the NPR article.
Agreed. One the most obvious books that could be used to teach and illustrate critical thinking skills is the Bible, written by many authors with a variety of motivations long after a history of oral story-telling. I used to work in public education and going anywhere near the Bible to educate students about the fallacies inherent in non-evidential belief systems is absolutely taboo.