Summary
Evangelical Christians have fallen prey to the temptations offered by Donald Trump, similar to those faced by Jesus in the desert. Trump has offered evangelicals wealth, protection, and power, leading them away from the teachings of Jesus and closer to the path set forth by the devil. The evangelical church has submitted to Trump, moving further from the values of serving the poor, healing the sick, and loving neighbors.
Just curious, has everyone caught up yet? As in, have we realized and internalized that religious people don’t believe in god or heaven or anything like that?
Because just look at at-risk individuals and think about how certain contexts can shape numerous people.
Look at trauma and how it affects the psyche.
Look at how humans living in extraordinary environments radically change their behavior.
And then notice how you can’t detect any “god” or “afterlife” in a Christians psyche, or their behavior, or their flock. Just people acting similarly to everyone else, except we don’t pretend to have “the answer to life is god” and “being bad means burning in hell for infinity.” It’s so god damn obvious but to be fair it took around 30 years for me to “grok” that Christians are operating entirely on aesthetics.
I’m from the Bible belt and in my experience these people absolutely believe in God and heaven, but probably very little past that. These people mostly have a “vibes based” understanding of their religion but many of them believe it to their absolute core. Most don’t read the bible past the popular verses and even less actually analyze what the text is saying, but that by no means indicates a lack of belief. It’s important to remember that their actions may indicate a lack of belief in the morals they espouse, but that’s cognitive dissonance not secret non-belief.
And they shouldn’t bother reading anything that old and outdated, all religious texts are inadequate for addressing societal issues without regression or conservatism. Look at what’s happening to lgbt+ folk, none of this is okay, and religion is to blame
As tempting as it is, don’t lump us all together like that. There’s a good contingent of is that’s like “if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a fucking antichrist.”
I always found This article to be the most prophetic