428
u/Standard-Fishing-977 4h ago
I'm a non-believer, and what really gets me is that the Christian nationalists' theology is so stupid and divorced from the Bible/tradition. Jesus wouldn't be cool with them at all.
231
u/FreeFortuna 4h ago
They wouldn’t be cool with Jesus either. It’s painfully ironic that these so-called Christians are against everything that Christ stood for, and would literally hate him if he were alive today.
92
u/accidental_superman 3h ago
I'd go further and say they would crucify him a second time. He's a ln illegal Arab jewish hippy with long hair preaching socialism and hating on conservative self serving worshippers.
66
u/MunkyDawg 3h ago
He also said mean things about rich people. They hate that.
38
u/Ktan_Dantaktee 2h ago
“No no it was just an analogy he doesn’t actually mean it”
They said about the incredibly poignant and flat out statement Jesus made to his disciples after they thought he didn’t actually mean it the first time
It was literally a conversation about how you have to give up your wealth and never horde it if you want to go to heaven; his followers laughed and assumed he was sarcastically exaggerating. In response, Jesus doubled down and flat out said “it is easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven.” If you’re not going to heaven, you’re going to Hell.
Jesus said and then said it again for emphasis that all rich people are going to Hell. No exception, no room for interpretation.
30
u/Zjarrr 2h ago edited 2h ago
It goes even further than that, Jesus's brother (or cousin depending on what theologian you believe) James, who was the first leader of the church in Jerusalem bc his beliefs were considered to be in line with Jesus's, stated;
"Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you."
Essentially saying that you will be killed for being rich and stealing from your workers
→ More replies (3)2
3
u/Uglyfense 1h ago
> If you're not going to heaven, you're going to hell
And where did he say that lol. Maybe modern Christianity may say it, but what happened to rejecting modern Christianity then lol
4
u/Unhappy-Initiative-8 1h ago
There's more to the lesson than "rich people bad"
Matthew 19:25-26 CSB
[25] When the disciples heard this, they were utterly astonished and asked, “Then who can be saved?”
[26] Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
If it was just about not being rich, why would Jesus acknowledge that he was asking the impossible, since there are plenty of poor people? The lesson is more about how the "what can I do to get in" mindset is wrong because what you have to do is impossible.
7
7
u/AKAFallow 2h ago
He probably didn't have long hair as it wasn't well seen at the time, plus the bible always mentioned how he never stood out whenever he had his people around him, making it harder for the romans to pick him out.
3
u/Uglyfense 2h ago edited 1h ago
> Arab
Is there any evidence he'd be an Arab? It's far more likely he'd be an Aramean speaker, not an Arab
u/AKAFallow Since this is locked, while Arabs were in the Levant, that didn't mean they'd have necessarily dominated it by this time
5
u/AKAFallow 2h ago
Ethnicity, not language.
4
u/Sex_And_Candy_Here 1h ago
Why would he be ethnically Arab and not ethnically Jewish?
1
u/AKAFallow 1h ago
Because he literally grew up in an arab dominated region, while being jewish. Arab jews are a thing today as well, and have been living in those lands for hundreds of years. If you want, you can just call him a semite if you think fits him better than just arab.
3
1
1
u/Uglyfense 1h ago
A key component of the Arab ethnicity as generally defined is shared language. It's muddied in the modern day because of imposed lingua francas, but ethnography back then relied a lot on one's mother tongue.
3
1
u/Emperor_Games 1h ago
Not illegal, not a hippy, not a socialist. He would find fundamentalist Protestantism distasteful though.
12
u/fuckedfinance 2h ago
They are not Christians.
This isn't even a "no true Scotsman" thing anymore. Like you said, pretty much every thing that they believe and pretty much every way that they act is in direct conflict with the Bible.
They should be corrected at every opportunity.
3
u/Uglyfense 2h ago
Most of everything is in direct conflict with the Bible cause it says a lot of different things lol.
Like per your logic, no one would be a Christian, especially not those who oppose slavery, note that Dan McClellan a Christian(Mormon) Bible scholar himself thinks that the Bible consistently condones slavery
4
u/fuckedfinance 1h ago
no one would be a Christian, especially not those who oppose slavery
First, the literal definition of Christian is "follower of Christ". A group of people that actively rallies against social welfare programs, is pro war, and intentionally excludes people are inherently not a follower of Christ, nor are they remotely Christ-like.
Feel free to skip if you don't want to read my diatribe about your slavery comment.
I don't know why people bother referencing the Bible while completely ignoring the context.
You can see the evolution of attitude towards slavery in the Bible. In the OT, Hebrews were allowed to sell themselves into slavery to clear debt (with some rules). At that time, Hebrews were also allowed to take slaves from other nations. Later, in the NT, kidnapping style slavery is explicitly banned (i.e. you couldn't just take slaves from other countries anymore). In other passages, masters are instructed to treat their slaves with respect and dignity, which was unheard of at the time.
Following that trajectory, it's not unreasonable to think that later chapters of the Bible (if they existed) would have banned all forms of slavery. You can see that a bit in history, as the different denominations banned the practice. The big bans were against the enslavement of Christians in the 11th century, indigenous people by the 15th, African beginning in the 18th.
1
u/Uglyfense 1h ago edited 1h ago
Firstly, you said Bible, not Jesus
> social welfare programs
Jesus advocated for private charity, when did he say that the Roman Empire should be the one feeding the poor? And in terms of private charity, some leftists oppose it, seeing it as a way to keep the proletariat dependent on the bourgeoisie, and conservatives actually donate *more* to church programs than at least liberals(and I'm guessing surveys like that count leftists and liberals despite the two being instinct).
> unheard of at the time
Source? Do you think no one at the time would have claimed that they treated their slaves with dignity?
> if they existed
would've, could've, should've, didn't.
> You can see that a bit in history
You're saying MAGA's not Christian, but colonial European empires who were far more brutal are? Like, the British Empire was also pro-war, and anti-slavery advocates like William Wilberforce mistreated their workers.
2
1
2
u/Superb_Writer6612 1h ago
I mean there are tons of guys named Jesus today, MAGA ain't big fans of them either.
2
u/mechengr17 1h ago
He was an illegal immigrant and probably brown.
They would be sending ICE after him constantly
2
1
u/MsMercyMain 1h ago
There's a fascinating piece in a Christian newspaper about how MAGA folks were telling pastors to stop being woke by... preaching about the Sermon on the Mount
1
u/NRMusicProject 1h ago
They wouldn’t be cool with Jesus either.
I read an article a year or so ago where a pastor was told to lay off on "liberal Jesus's" teachings, and that isn't the Jesus they believe in.
-2
u/Ao_Kiseki 2h ago
There is so much vengeance and fire and brimstone in the Bible. You can absolutely argue Jesus would be for or against just about anything, because it's full of contradictory morals and lessons. For every lesson about loving your neighbor, there is a statement about enslaving your neighbors or killing them for sinning.
Ultimately people just pick and choose the parts that confirm their existing biases.
5
u/Academic-Ad7818 2h ago
You're mixing up the old testament with the new. Jesus himself has been pretty unswerving in the 'be nice to everyone' 'don't condemn people for their lifestyles' and 'the rich are terrible' rhetoric.
→ More replies (7)1
u/jacobningen 1h ago
All the mother and bird filliality metaphors are in the old testament most of the apocalyptic literature is Christian and the god forsaken book of revelations is Christianity not Judaism.
1
u/jacobningen 1h ago
The old testament has gathered to your ancestors. The new testament is where fire and brimstone hell comes from.
4
u/Aramis633 2h ago
For the sake of other readers:
For every lesson about loving your neighbor, there is a statement about enslaving your neighbors or killing them for sinning.
is verifiably untrue.
Whether or not one believes what the scriptures have to say about the origin of the universe, humanity’s place within it, history, and moral law: they are abundantly clear that the highest good is loving and selflessly caring for others and that selfishly using others, abusing others, or even just ignoring the plight of others is wrong.
Yes, the scriptures record many heinous acts of violence, sexual abuse, etc. Yes, they present a creator who punishes his creation’s for breaking his laws, and, yes, the agents of those punishments are at times human beings themselves. None of that justifies the argument that the scriptures are ambiguous about loving one’s neighbor or caring for the poor, the immigrant, and so on.
0
u/Ao_Kiseki 1h ago
What a dishonest way of framing this. You use the word "record" when I'm actuality many of thos hei out acts of violence, sexual abuse, etc. Are explicitly condoned or even commanded by God. Love thy neighbor, unless they happen to worship a pagan deity. Then you're encouraged to kill them to a man and take their virginity daughters as wives.
Yes, that's the old testament, but no Christain contents that any of this was wrong on God's part. I don't deny the Bible teaches good aspects, but if Jesus is God in the flesh, and we accept that God was not evil in the d testament, then we either accept that Jesus condemns his past actions or that he sees them as just. No Christian would ever suggest God made a mistake, so I guess all that murder and rape was okay when he allowed it and often commanded it.
2
u/Aramis633 1h ago
Either you haven’t actually read the entire 66 books of the Bible, you read them completely divorced from any kind of hermeneutical method, or you are being dishonest.
I’m genuinely not sure which is the case so I don’t really know what to say to you other than to tell you that you are grossly mistaken.
1
u/Ao_Kiseki 1h ago
I've read the Bible cover to cover 4 times I my life, once as a child, once as a questioning teen, and twice as an atheist. The only parts I skipped were the begets because there is no point in reading those. But I won't engage in this any longer.
39
u/lieuwestra 4h ago
Jesus was darn near an anarchist. Jesus would not be cool with most people calling themselves his followers. But on a scale of uncoolness he sure would be far less cool with nationalists than with the current papa.
6
u/Gussie-Ascendent 4h ago
Jesus, "pay onto Ceasars what is ceasars" the anarchist? Jesus the guy who spent his ghost time telling Paul to tell the slaves to obey even cruel masters, the anarchist?
Let's be real a second
15
u/FenrisTU 4h ago
I am an atheist and not well versed in christian lore, but my understanding is Paul probably took a lot of artistic liberties about who jesus was as a person? I agree, it’s a stretch to call jesus an anarchist, but idk if we trust paul’s visions after jesus died as a source for jesus’s opinions.
13
6
u/G00dSh0tJans0n 3h ago
Paul was the Fox News of the new testament. Render unto Caesar was actually subversive and anti-imperialist at the time, indicating that the coins belonged to Caesar but humans, people, those belong to and give allegiance to God. It was a cleverly ambiguous answer that avoided their trap.
1
u/Uglyfense 2h ago
> that the coins belonged to Caesar
Which is not an anarchist sentiment, if anything, it's closer to a moderate one, not glorifying the emperor, but still advising obedience to him. Like a "You don't have to like the government, but still give them your dues"
1
u/Abuses-Commas 1h ago
I see it more of an active distancing from authority. let them have their coins, let them have their laws, and share food freely without ever involving Ceaser. rendering fat out of meat is a slow process
1
u/Uglyfense 1h ago
That's not anarchist, an anarchist would want to agitate against their laws and coins
1
u/Kitchen-Pass-7493 2h ago
I’m a lapsed Catholic but I used to always view quotes like from Jesus in the context of him essentially being an extreme pacifist. He didn’t want people to harm/oppress others, but he also wanted those who were being harmed/oppressed to not concern themselves with ever fighting back, because the reward for their pacifism (and the faith in him that inspired it) would be eternal life in heaven; whereas those committing the harm/oppression would face God’s judgement when they themselves die.
1
u/Uglyfense 2h ago
Not an anarchist sentiment, more an apolitical one
2
u/Kitchen-Pass-7493 2h ago
Yeah I didn’t say I was necessarily agreeing with the anarchist classification. I think apolitical may be a good way to put it. He thought politics shouldn’t concern people whose sole focus is getting to heaven. One could make the argument that the only modern people living somewhat close to the way Jesus actually advocated are monks/nuns.
2
u/Fakjbf 3h ago
If we aren’t going to take the words of the Gospel at face value when those are the only words we have then at that point we are just making up whatever personality we want him to have had.
2
u/Gussie-Ascendent 3h ago
Funny how seriously they want us to take testimony unless it says something they don't like
2
u/Uglyfense 2h ago
To be fair, Paul's words are the Epistles not the Gospels, but the Gospels were likely written *after* the Epistles anyway
9
u/AmonBrant 4h ago
…wasn’t Jesus dead before Paul converted? I didn’t think Paul and Jesus met, unless you’re counting visions.
9
1
11
u/bamacpl4442 3h ago
Paul wrote a lot of stuff that seems to be his personal opinions.
His views on women, for instance, don't seem to line up with how Jesus treated them.
I take Paul with a whole handful of salt. The man was a dyed in the wood zealot who simply changed flavors of zealotry.
5
u/IllDescription5229 3h ago
Gospels are the most important, if anything contradicts the gospel imo I just ignore it.
7
u/bamacpl4442 3h ago
This is it.
I now call myself a heretic. If it's not in Jesus' words, I view it as that person's opinion. If it conflicts, I ignore it. If it doesn't conflict but is in some gray area, I take it under advisement.
Paul was a zealot who MURDERED CHRISTIANS until his conversion. He then became a zealot with a new flavor.
He was asexual, and wished everybody could be like him and think of nothing but God, but he allowed that it was "better to marry than to burn". That... doesn't sound like Jesus.
The "women should be silent" doesn't sound like Jesus, who made a really big deal to not deny the women in His life.
Don't get me started on how Paul looked an actual miracle in the face - the earthquake to free him from prison - and said "thanks, God, but I need to prove a point. The Romans owe me an apology, and I will die to prove this point."
7
u/IllDescription5229 3h ago
The most obvious example going against women should be silent sit that Mary was the first one to proclaim Jesus’s return, his mother Mary song the Magnificat to him and was so important it was in the bible. Jesus can’t be defined by human terms especially human political terms but he was a lot more hippie then people give him credit for. Love your neighbor, love your enemy, peace and kindness.
1
u/Abuses-Commas 1h ago
I'm of the opinion Saul converted because making more martyrs wasn't stopping the movement
and I agree entirely. the bible for me starts with the gospels. everything before is historical context, everything after is opinion
2
→ More replies (8)2
u/brydeswhale 3h ago
I watched a video by a pastor once about Paul and the gays, and the dude essentially said that Paul’s only experience with homosexuality in his culture was essentially rape, which, if you actually read an about Greeks, Romans, and sex, absolutely makes sense. I don’t know too much about christian mythology, tho.
7
u/bamacpl4442 3h ago
If you look at the old testament prohibition against "gay sex", the actual translation is that a man should not lay with a boy - not a man should not lay with a man.
It's anti pedophilia.
3
1
u/miradosamurai 1h ago
That's kind of a myth, however the actual interpretation from Hebrew would likely be more that a man/person should not lay with a married man, rather than prohibiting gay relationships completely. This interpretation also makes more sense on why it doesn't mention woman regarding gay/lesbian relationships, since other parts already cover not sleeping with married women.
Source (contains 2 possible interpretations, I'm talking about the second, the first interpretation is that it may only prohibit gay sex but not gay relationships): https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/jmurj/vol9/iss1/4/
2
u/DadJokeBadJoke 2h ago
Let's be real a second
This got a legit LOL out of me. It's all fanfiction.
0
u/Gussie-Ascendent 1h ago
The funny part to me is the comment talking about how Jesus was dead by Paul's conversion. Uh yeah, that's why I said ghost time lol
2
u/Karatekan 2h ago
That is completely missing the point lol. The Pharisee is concerned about money, and so cares deeply that a hated Roman is on the coins, and questions why Jesus doesn’t care.
Jesus replies “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”… God owns everything worthwhile, so by definition anything that belongs to Caesar isn’t worth worrying about. He isn’t saying you must pay your taxes, he’s saying money doesn’t matter.
1
u/lieuwestra 3h ago
Let us not forget the Bible as we know it was compiled threehundred years after the fact by an imperialist organisation.
0
1
u/tallboyjake 3h ago
After the ICE executions, a lot of people decided it was time to bust out things like the scripture you referenced- claiming that it is clearly more important to obey the law. But that's not Christ was saying.
Lots of times obeying the law is the right thing to do, but Christ taught that laws were made for us not the other way around.
So, probably not an anarchist. But also not a boot licker by any means
1
u/Academic-Ad7818 2h ago
The full quote is "Render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's. Render unto God that which is God's." The point of the quote is that the church and the government should be separate. That living a life of spiritual health and following the tenets of christianity can't mix with running a government. These people never conceived that they'd be the state religion back when they wrote this, they were a plucky little cult in a society that was full of cults.
So yes I do think it's fairly anarchic for a religion to be like "let the government do it's own thing. If you want to be a good christian you can't be a bureaucrat."
1
u/Abuses-Commas 1h ago
not pay, render
rendering is an active process, it's cooking that meat without burning slowly over a long period, until ever bit of ceasarian fat is removed and all is left is a holy rind
and Paul was a plant that realized that killing a martyr converts three more, so corrupting the doctrine from the inside was the only way to stop the movement
9
u/TheSunIsDead 3h ago
As a stoat Catholic my entire life, that's what fuckin gets me too dog
3
u/Standard-Fishing-977 3h ago
I was raised Catholic, and I just don't get how Vance, Ross Douthat, and a couple members of the SCOTUS can claim to be Catholic. The guilt has its problems, but it's meant to keep you honest and ethical.
EDIT: ...and humble.
6
u/Born_Abies_6658 3h ago
"Christian" nationalist want control under the guys of peity.
And by that I mean, they are bottoms who cosplay as tops.
3
u/Coulrophiliac444 3h ago
As someone who left religion because of religious intolerance....I wish I was shocked but frankly those who practice the Gospel tend to be the ones hung out to dry or chased out by people more aligned to the Romans than Christ.
3
u/Boojum2k 2h ago
Same here. Not a believer but damn if they aren't following the antichrist description like a playbook. Prominent leader preaching values opposite to Christ, starting a meaningless war in the Middle East, fucking wearing their leader's symbol on their foreheads. . .
4
u/xSwampxPopex 1h ago
I’m currently an atheist but I was raised Roman Catholic and went to all Catholic school. The wild thing about modern American Christians in general, but especially non denominational Protestants, is how little they actually know about the faith they claim to follow. The best example of that, I think, is the general proliferation of talking points from and references to the Old Testament, but never the New Testament. How are you a Christian that doesn’t have any familiarity with the part of the Bible that Jesus is actually in?
2
1
1
1
u/blahblahblerf 1h ago
To be fair, the same is true for Catholicism. That shit's also completely incompatible with the teachings of the "Jesus" character.
1
u/PlsSayPlease 1h ago
It’s a damn shame because both my gf and I are atheist, but people like this have completely tainted the Christian religion as a whole in her and many other’s minds. There are still good ones out there!
2
u/Tylendal 1h ago
Saw a performance of Godspell last month. You best believe that the guy who took Jesus away was dressed like ICE.
143
u/Awkwardukulele 4h ago
Ex Catholic American here and I’m less shocked than I’d like to be. The religious right in this country was throwing a fit ever since Pope Francis was telling people being gay ain’t all bad and sneaking out of the church building to feed homeless people at night. They HATE what little bit of kindness and generosity they see in the church because it goes directly against their beliefs that God wants them to destroy their enemies and lay waste to the world for their own “glory.”
If you had asked me while Pope Benedict was in office I’d never have guessed something like this would happen, but the last decade of change makes it more understandable.
→ More replies (1)48
u/Carl_Marks__ 4h ago
They think the New Testament applies only to them, but Old Testament for everyone else. The funny part is that in the Gospels (forget where exactly); Jesus criticized the Pharisees for a similar thing, but they don’t know that bc they never read their Bibles.
22
u/AdorableOutcome3483 4h ago
Probably somewhere in Mathews if I were to guess. That book touches a lot on performative Christianity and how calling yourself Christian doesn't mean Jesus will recognize you as Christian if you aren't doing his work (feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, etc)
1
u/Krisis_9302 3h ago
This is arguing Semantics, but Christianity didn't exist at the time. Jesus and the Pharisees were Jews
8
u/Harddaysnight1990 3h ago
Yes, but the Gospels were written to be the religious texts of Christianity and each writer of the Gospels weaves their own dogma into the text. Monks later compiled parts of the Torah, the Gospels, and later texts into a more concise Bible.
1
u/00owl 3h ago
It wasn't monks, it was a council of the church
2
u/Harddaysnight1990 3h ago
I meant that monks did the work, which is what I've been taught. If that's incorrect, I apologize.
2
u/00owl 3h ago
Ok, I suppose that is technically correct but they didn't really put any thought into it. They just copied word for word and were so strict in their copying that a single error would often result in the destruction of the entire manuscript and not just that page.
The actual decision about what writings to include in the Bible was done through a series of councils that were held in response to various heresies.
The comparison of the monks today would be the printing press and not the writer
7
u/CAPSLOCKANDLOAD 3h ago
The seven woes to the pharisees. Jesus at his angriest, calling out the temple leaders for their hypocrisy calling them blind guides and a brood of vipers.
We love dead prophets so much we kill the living ones and build monuments to them. Dead prophets can't bother you, they can't ask questions or point to wrongdoings. You can remind people of the words of the prophet you want them to remember. And you can skip over the ones you wish to forget. And all the while you can sing their praises.
A living prophet though, they ask something of you. They point to cruelty and corruption. They hold up a mirror to the ugliest parts of us and society. Look at yourselves. Look at what you're doing. Not everyone likes that. That's why they prefer the dead ones. You can say you love them and follow them and they're not around to contradict you.
53
u/aoeuismyhomekeys 4h ago
Trump, to the pope: you better act right, did you see what JD did to the last pope? Tsk tsk tsk
24
u/smeeeeeef 4h ago
Pentagon threatening Leo with invoking the Avignon Papacy again was not on my bingo card
5
29
u/walmartbonerpills 4h ago
Is there a poly market on the Pope ex communicating anybody in the Trump administration yet?
10
5
u/Renbarre 3h ago
Only Catholics, and only for very specific reasons.
7
u/here-i-am-now 2h ago
“The person is helping pedophiles” isn’t a charge the Catholic Church is in a position to make these days
7
u/Jargon2029 2h ago
You know what? I wouldn’t exactly be happy but I think I could excuse a little hypocrisy in this case.
2
u/xSwampxPopex 1h ago
Trump himself isn’t a Catholic but Vance and Hegseth are, if I’m not mistaken.
1
u/ShameSudden6275 1h ago
Well excommunication is a heavy charge and a very rare thing to proclaim, and for it you have to either be spreading huge amounts of heresy, causing a schism, performing abortions, or breaking the seal of confession.
Most of the last few excommunications have been breaking the seal of confession, let me tell you they don't fuck around with that, a priest who does that has committed a sin worse and more vile than murder, he is excommunicated, his robes taken and forced to live a "life of prayer and penance" which basically means you'll forever be shunned from the Catholic community, something they only levy on pedos otherwise, so let's be honest, not impossible Leo would proclaim prayer and penance on some trump admins.
1
u/Alypius754 1h ago
Pfft. If Biden and Pelosi skated, then Trump and co. (if they were Catholic) will be just fine
2
22
u/MsPMC90 3h ago
Omg, ain’t it the truth. Dark day in hell when my religiously traumatized ass is thinking, “ppl, pls listen to this major organized religion leader!”
3
u/readwithjack 1h ago
Never thought i'd be fighting side by side with an elf.
What about side by side with a friend?
Aye. I could do that.
24
15
u/amitym 3h ago
Why is this such a surprise? Christian Dominionists have been after the Catholic Church for half a century, since they had a name.
When people said "they're not just coming for abortion rights, they're coming for everyone," wtf did everyone think they meant?
When will "but I thought that was just hyperbole" wear off? What will it take?
8
u/BartholomewFrodingus 2h ago
The Pope being opposed to self proclaimed Christians is peak lore. As a self proclaimed atheist I totally stand with the new Pope.
1
u/ShameSudden6275 1h ago
When you study the lives of the saints, aka the people you're meant to look up to for spiritual guidance, it makes a lot of these people look really pathetic.
Saint Father Damien comes to mind, he helped take care of a leopard colony when no one else wanted to; he basically gave up his life to be part of their community until he got it and died.
3
u/xSwampxPopex 1h ago
I know you meant “leper” colony but the image of St. Father Damien contracting leopardsy from spending too much time around leopards is a funny image.
10
u/coolcoolcool485 2h ago
Strange bedfellows, and all that.
I'm not converting any time soon. But it's nice to see someone have a spine, and it makes me feel better that he's from the U.S.
8
5
6
u/shutupimrosiev 2h ago
I grew up being spoonfed some of the most conservative "christian" bs on the planet, then grew out of it, and nowadays my online interactions with atheists are really just a lot of:
6
u/MomsOfFury 2h ago
Lmao not me being an atheist for 30 years and lately all I can think is “if only the people in power would follow the teachings of Jesus Christ” 😭
It truly is weird times bro
6
u/DuntadaMan 2h ago
GOP: The pope is woke!
My Atheist Ass: Their fall from grace will pave their path to damnation!
4
u/Valirys-Reinhald 2h ago
When you think you know what hypocrisy looks like but then competitive hypocrisy enters the room and you realize there's levels to this shit.
6
u/Strict_Space_1994 3h ago
Even being an edge teenage atheist is no excuse to ever say “obviously we’re on the side of the government”
3
u/jordon4ca93 2h ago
As an atheist I will defend the Catholics right to religion. I'll also defend Muslim, Hindu and even Jewish faiths. Scientology can suck a fat one though.
1
u/Digital_Bogorm 1h ago
Honestly, if somebody wants to believe in the scientology stuff, that's whatever. It was blatantly made up by a mediocre sci-fi author turned con artist, but if people can find comfort in it, then fine.
But the institution of scientology has a track record of being abusive to its members, and dangerous to everyone else. That thing should be torn apart, and all of its outrageous wealth given away to... honestly, short of donating it to someone like the KKK, it's not like it could end up in worse hands than it currently is.
3
u/Kitchen-Pass-7493 2h ago
I feel like Leo is trying to avoid yet another situation where future Catholic leaders will have to apologize for complying with and/or not doing enough to stand up to oppressive regimes, like it’s had to do many times before .
3
u/LittleBigBamboo 2h ago
Teenage militant atheist me singing along to Pat the Bunny “lately I’ve been thinking about how I love jesus, because Jesus was a dirty homeless hippie peace activist, who said drop out and find god to anybody who would listen”
2
3
u/lordbuckethethird 1h ago
My Jewish ass siding with the Catholic Church was not the timeline I expected.
8
u/Burakku-Ren 4h ago
What is this post about? What battle are the government and the church waging?
27
30
u/Practical-Class6868 3h ago
So…
The Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby summoned the Vatican’s representative to the US, Cardinal Christophe Pierre. He allegedly demanded that Pope Leo XIV pick a side on the war with Iran, even hinting that the US would remove the Pope from power in the same fashion as the Avignon papacy in the fourteenth century. The Pentagon has denied the exchange took place.
SecDef Pete Kegsbreath is a very particular pro-war anti-Catholic Christian. He has been purging the chaplain corps of dissent and keeps the counsel of an anti-Catholic pastor. He has gone so far as to deny Catholic servicemen religious services on Good Friday, the day of Christ’s crucifixion.
So if you are an atheist and anti-war, you have more in common with the Roman Catholic Church (“the dictator of Rome”) than with the democratically elected government right now.
15
u/Embarrassed_Neck9829 3h ago
hinting that the US would remove the Pope from power in the same fashion
Okay, I definitely thought this was either an exaggeration or a misreading, but I looked it up...
Colby purportedly told Pierre that “the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,” adding: “The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
On Wednesday, independent journalist Christopher Hale on his Letters From Leo webpage confirmed that the meeting took place, adding “that some Vatican officials were so alarmed by the Pentagon’s tactics that they shelved plans for Pope Leo XIV to visit the United States later this year.” The pope, 70, who hails from Chicago, was expected to come to the U.S. this July as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
HOW is this real. Absolutely nuts...
1
u/Alypius754 1h ago
He didn’t deny Good Friday services. The entirety of what is known reads like a schedule conflict; Mass is not celebrated on Good Friday.
7
u/DuntadaMan 2h ago
For those unclear of how the Avgnon papacy went:
The pope was beaten to death by mercenaries, the conclave was equal parts threatened with violence and bribed with goods to vote for a Pope allied with the king that had the previous Pope killed, and everything was moved to Avignon so the government could control the policy of the church.
A member of the US government threatened to kill the pope, insert MAGA puppets and move conclave to the US so they can declare any other pope an anti-pope.
3
u/NoMansSkyWasAlright 3h ago
That's crazy. I wonder how the guy feels about Orthodoxy. Hell, I'll bet he thinks it's "only a Jewish thing"
...of course, Ortho-bros are apparently a thing now. So who knows? Maybe he's all about it.
4
u/Practical-Class6868 3h ago
Kegsbreath probably does not think about Orthodoxy because it is, for the most part, decentralized and lacks a vocal anti-war patriarch.
The Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow is a tool of Putin. They enjoy proximity to power, and in exchange, the Patriarch of Moscow has claimed authority the church in Kyiv, despite Kyiv being older than Moscow.
Born Again Evangelical Protestantism and Methodism from George Whitefield onward is less concerned with church structure. The focus is on a “personal relationship with Christ,” something not discussed in Roman Catholicism. The upside is that this encourages literacy and critical thinking; the downside is that it lacks a control mechanism against potential heresy.
3
u/00owl 3h ago
I would suggest that it discourages literacy and critical thinking because there are no restrictions on how people can interpret Scripture and therefore don't need to be critical or literate as they rely on feelings and vibes
2
u/Practical-Class6868 2h ago
That would be a modern take. At the time of the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century, Catholic mass would be conducted in Latin. The translation of the Bible into contemporary European language was mostly the result of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. Vatican II effectively ended Latin mass in the 1960s.
2
2
u/Advice_Thingy 2h ago
Sometimes it's just "Both sides are bad, but right now one side is the greater danger, so I need to fight alongside the other until the danger is put down."
2
u/StarFire24601 2h ago
This is so true.
I'm an atheist, but I look at Trump and his maga and can't help but think of false prophets and antichrist, as melodramatic as it sounds.
So called christians worship him and he's fucking evil.
1
1
1
u/varyingopinions 2h ago
You don't need to be religious to be a good person, and you DEFINITELY aren't a a good person just because you're religious.
1
u/Atheist_3739 2h ago
I've literally been saying how odd it feels to be taking the Pope's side so frequently 😂
2
1
u/JeffHorlick 1h ago
My introduction into religion came in 2000 I believe on my first day of 1st grade when, unprovoked, I was approached by a fellow student and asked if I believed in Jesus Christ. I wasn't raised religious or with the illusion that Santa and the Easter Bunny were anything but mascots for the holidays so I viewed Jesus the same way and still do so I told him I didn't. I was then very politely informed by said fellow 5-6 year old that "Jesus was going to come down from heaven and kill you." Which led me to going to sleep with nightmares of Jesus on wing armed with an M16 descending from heaven to unload his mag into my chest. Needless to say I've had a very complicated relationship with all religions ever since and have always been an outside observer...
Personally I feel that spirituality or some sort of belief in a higher power or concept [such as the general goodness of your fellow man] is highly important. Spirituality answers the questions that we can not answer such as what happens after we die, or even things like divine justice. Where things go wrong is when these spiritualities become industrialized like most of religion and the church system. Are there good churches/temples/synagogues etc? Yes. Are they the majority? No. So I reject them. That being said, if you truly walk the walk of the love that your religion claims to preach you're at least a tentative ally in my book.
1
1
u/BiggieBigs34 1h ago
Nah, I’ll won’t be on the side of the Catholic Church until there’s a massive reformation. They’re too stuck in their old ways on a wide scale. But, the current Pope is a step in the right direction I’d say.
1
1
u/Wolf_Hreda 1h ago
What kind of a world do we live in when the lesser of two evils for an anti-theist is backing the fuckin' Pope?!
1
u/r0ndr4s 1h ago
Thing is, while I'm obviously on the side of the pope/church in this "fight". Its pretty obvious this is just a way to try to get people to be christians again and join their cult. What is the best opportunity for the church in a world that hates Trump? Be vocal against him.
At the end of the day, both belong to pedophile rings and both of them use religion as a tool to brainwash idiots.
1
2
u/xSwampxPopex 1h ago
I’m not active in the church any longer, and haven’t been for much time, but it consistently blows my mind how far from actual Christianity most Protestant sects are. There’s obviously work to be done still but the Catholics have been closer to getting it for a little while now. Just let women be ordained and cool it with the homophobia.
2
2
u/Pots-and-pansexuals 1h ago
Well yeah I'm not a Catholic but Catholic vs evangelical American I'm picking Catholic every time.
2
1
2
u/GSilky 4h ago
Why would someone be on governments side, ever? Since the fall of Rome, the Catholic Church has positioned and promoted itself as the defender of the people against the powerful who use government to exploit and persecute. It wasn't always perfect, and many times the church acted in lieu of a government. At the same time, it is the primary reason European Jews, Roma, and a host of other ethnic and religious minorities survived to modern times. The main reason the king of France was badmouthing a Pope is the Pope wasn't on board with what the king was getting ready to do to the people. Yes, the instances of the church failing in the role are well known, and have been weaponized in a modern culture shaped by anti-catholic sentiment, but just as often the church was preventing the excesses of secular leadership. It shouldn't be lost on anyone that capitalism required the Reformation to have Calvin declare god likes wealthy people more. The merchant class was kept in check by church prohibitions against banking activity and the exaltation of poverty. Once religion could be for middle class people, global capitalism was a skip away.
7
u/OratioFidelis 3h ago
The amount of misinformation in this comment is staggering. Medieval Jews that had to undergo countless occasions of blood libel, forced baptisms, kidnappings, massacres, Talmud burnings, expulsions, etc. would be surprised to hear the Catholic Church was their stalwart defender.
I don't know which "King of France" you're referring to, but the one canonized by the Church (Louis IX) was one of the most vicious Jew persecutors of them all.
Calvin never declared "God likes wealthy people more." You are probably confusing him with Max Weber, who wrote an essay that suggested that Calvinists worked harder than Catholics because of the psychology behind double predestination (which the Catholic Church also teaches, Calvin got it from Augustine, it's just lay Catholics at the time weren't generally taught deep theology).
The Catholic Church has never condemned capitalism. It condemned charging interest on loans (usury) which existed before and after capitalism. Capitalism is about private ownership of corporations for profit, not the same thing. The Church also endorsed the trans-Atlanic slave trade and placed books critical of Catholic slavery on the index of forbidden books.
0
u/GSilky 3h ago
Oh, you are well versed in internet history trivia! Learn more about each of those subjects. Capitalism requires the ability to make interest, without it, capital is pointless. The elect and grace absolutely were about god deciding who is going to hell before they were born, and evidence of being the elect was found through material prosperity. The Calvinist sects that still exist have softened this in the 19th century. You should go read more, look at memes less.
3
u/OratioFidelis 3h ago
I have a degree in theology. Augustine absolutely taught that God decided the reprobate would suffer eternal damnation before they were ever born. I read it in the original Latin.
0
u/GSilky 3h ago
If you did read it, you would know that he was addressing pagan denials of free will. The formula he decided on is God's foreknowledge also knows what that person could have chosen, but decided not to.
2
u/OratioFidelis 3h ago
That's what Calvin believed as well, since again, he took the belief directly from Augustine.
1
u/GSilky 3h ago
And then removed the formula Augustine derived to maintain free will. He went back to stoic concepts of god Augustine was trying to combat.
2
u/OratioFidelis 3h ago
Calvin believed in the same kind of "Free will" that Augustine did.
"[Peter] Lombard ultimately declares (lib. 2 Dist. 25), that our freedom is not to the extent of leaving us equally inclined to good and evil in act or in thought, but only to the extent of freeing us from compulsion. This liberty is compatible with our being depraved, the servants of sin, able to do nothing but sin. In this way, then, man is said to have free will, not because he has a free choice of good and evil, but because he acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion. This is perfectly true"
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. I, Bk. II, Chp. 2, #6-7
-1
u/Ok-Onion2905 3h ago
Sorry but I don't see churches disowning their politicians on mass. Infact the majority of them will benefit from the white supremacists who want no separation between church and state. They get to pretend it's suuuch a bad thing while they benefit from it. Denounce white supremacy and say anyone who supports the pedophiles running our country isn't a real Christian and I'll accept your church isn't bad. But unless it's repeated every Sunday people aren't going to care so it's never going to happen. Clutch your purls while raking in the cash and followers
2
u/reichrunner 2h ago
You know the Roman Catholic church is the largest Christian denomination in both the US and world, right?
3
u/ShameSudden6275 1h ago
We are only at... 1.3 billion, I think. So not too too many, ya know?
But I think this comment is funny because most Catholics aren't white, our biggest populations are non white countries like the Philippines.
1
u/Ok-Onion2905 1h ago
What does that have to do with churches not holding their believers accountable for their actions and words? Nothing, nothing at all
2
u/reichrunner 1h ago
This topic is referring to the Catholic church. Your comment seemed to have some confusion on that topic.
How exactly do you want a church to hold their believers accountable? Would you like for them to have actually, legal power over their followers?
→ More replies (1)
•
u/AutoModerator 4h ago
Just a reminder that political posts should be posted in the political Megathread pinned in the community highlights. Final discretion rests with the moderators.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.