"Mainstream Christianity in America has failed. It looks nothing like Jesus."

https://sojo.net/articles/american-christianity-has-failed


For the last few years Christians have been singing worship songs that include lyrics like “ keep my eyes above the waves, when oceans rise …” and yet have rejected refugees who’ve seen loved ones die beneath waves, who themselves have literally struggled to keep from drowning in oceans. Those American Christians — particularly white evangelicals — continue to sing the words: “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders …” but fail to realize the shameful irony that they’re largely responsible for refusing shelter and opportunity to some of the world’s most helpless and oppressed people.

This represents a predominant theme of Westernized Christendom: proclaiming Christian rhetoric while actively — or passively — practicing the opposite in reality.

Because while the gospels instruct followers of Christ to help the poor, oppressed, maligned, mistreated, sick, and those most in need of help, Christians in America have largely supported measures that have rejected refugees, refused aid to immigrants, cut social services to the poor, diminished help for the sick, fueled xenophobia, reinforced misogyny, ignored racism, stoked hatred, reinforced corruption, and largely increased inequality, prejudice, and fear.

I think Christianity has failed. Period.

The Crusades
The Inquisition
The Holocaust
Genocide of Native Americans
KKK murders
Witch hunts

https://www.thetoptens.com/atrocities-committed-name-religion/

Theism has failed.

"JERUSALEM—Talking of the deep satisfaction they feel when slipping on a gilded robe and chilling out with devotees, world leaders from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and every other major religion admitted Friday that they just love getting to wear frilly little gowns and having a blast.
“Yeah, what can I say? We just love wearing our cool dresses, lighting candles, and singing along with the crowd. It’s awesome,” said eastern orthodox elder Maikls Balodis, who claimed that every imam and priest in the world loves nothing more than prancing around on stage and putting on a fun show for worshipers while decked out in jewels and big ornate hats.
“People give you tons of money, and you get to drink wine from crazy-ass gold chalices. The gowns all have cool designs and pretty chains and necklaces to wear with them. Everybody claps for you, too. We’re just hanging out and having the time of our lives.”
Balodis added that dressing up and partying was so much fun that he takes part in the festivities despite getting no real spiritual satisfaction from his job."

This is a parody, right?

https://www.theonion.com/world-s-religious-leaders-admit-they-just-love-getting-1828418018

the Onion is definitely satirical.

Your right on Dave. The problem is theism and it isn't just Christianity. The problems are inherent in most religions. The more radical the beliefs the more problematic they become.

As for O P's comments; mixing "failed Christianity" with the immigration issue is messy at best and shouldn't be attempted here. This forum hasn't laid down the proper ground rules for this kind of discussion.

When given free rein, the hierarchy of Needs puts the Self first. Evolution has seen to it that this trait is primary.

So even without theism, we are predisposed to be selfish, even virtuously selfish. (shellfish! No wonder the bible is against shellfish; it's a simple misunderstanding!)

Those without resources came up with the idea of the rich (which they weren't) sharing with the poor (which the poor wanted to stop being). Mostly it hardly ever worked.

But occasionally it did, and the poor became rich! And 'shellfish'!!

And thus it shall always be. Unless you are Bill & Melinda Gates, whom the rest of us will probably never understand.

In Mexico, there is this almost universal cry from the underprivileged (comparatively speaking):

"Arriba los de abajo!"

No matter who the 'abajo' are, they want to be the 'arriba'.

I blame it on Catholicism. That’s how you got from Aztec to today’s Mexican. But you don’t fix your country by running away from it. Maybe they need a home grown religion. I say bring back the mushrooms.

Yeah, but the Catholic church took over nascent homegrown religion, Narco-traficanteism...

The mota might not lie, but neither does it tell you the truth. Maybe empire building will always be the game. So good for Pablo, but why are we making Pablos?

My point, if I have one, is that you have to be damn cold for that kind of empire. It takes religion to make you that cold. Nobody is born that way. On the other hand, we come from a mighty brutal world. I can’t fault religion for getting us here, but it still sucks to be human when it shouldn’t.

Which is why I say Mormonism is just an excuse. An excuse to be very good or an excuse to be very bad. But we don’t need excuses. We need ways of being that work. Love finds a way. It is the way.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2018 01:35PM by babyloncansuckit.

They knew how to give with all their heart. And it was wonderful when they opened their homes to those lonely, often misunderstood refugees from Spain. Things turned out for the best, as they always do when people share and practice altruism.

In this best of all possible worlds. . .

And I for you, Candide!

I think it's a different vision of Christianity and charitable works. For instance, I was recently reading about a couple of immensely wealthy families who give a great deal of money to higher education -- specifically schools that tend to reflect their particular brand of Christianity and outlook. It would be difficult to argue that those families are not charitable, but they are redirecting their dollars to places that may not be traditional Christian avenues.

This article from the U. of Chicago School of Divinity discusses why evangelicals are generally opposed to socialized medicine:

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/three-reasons-white-evangelicals-hate-obamacare

We've also discussed many times on this board why Mormons tend to help only their own (often with a lot of conditions attached,) and devote relatively few dollars to charitable works for the community as a whole. It seem that for the Mormon church leaders, "charity" is generally perceived as providing religious buildings and instruction, not in doing a lot of social works.

This is a topic that I've been spending time thinking about lately, as I am trying to more fully understand the point of view of people who think very differently from myself. I was raised in Catholicism where charity is seen as helping the poor, refugees, etc., but not all churches are oriented that way.

World wide theism has failed.

Who practices theism? People, that's who!

And people also practice atheism!

I think it could be that it's the people who suck, not the theories behind what they claim to practice.

I blame tribalism/herdism. "We're Number One!"

Someone has to lose for there to be a winner.


I was always happy when I fed the cat...

I don't practice Atheism nor do I practice not eating spam.

What, you haven't received an invitation from the local Atheist Lodge yet?

That's too bad. They have THE best rituals, and the Atheist Home Evening activity book can't be beat.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.
Arthur Schopenhauer
​

HH =)

Also, it works if you substitute 'ignorance' for 'darkness', but then the fireflies are superfluous!

Amen Brutha OldDog! Amen!

HH =)

So, he kills the fire flies and says: "My word, isn't dark in here?" :D

Fake news. Christianity is like Jell-O. Is it a Hebrew sect? Is it a Roman invention? Is it more American than Apple Pie Puritanical-ism?

Most Americans reject the idea of open borders and ILLEGAL immigrants.

Jesus didn't like immigrants either. That is why he said so much about the sanctity of territorial borders in the gospels.

If ye love me keep away from my borders?

In case you don't remember eighth grade social studies class, there were virtually no immigration laws in America until 1924.

This was only for "whites" of course -- depending on what the shifting classification of "white" meant at particular point in time. Remember the "White Australia" policy?

Forty years later, the laws changed again in the 1960s to help the relatives of the previous wave of (mostly Irish and Italian) immigrants -- who were grandfathered in now as "white."

Now that white christians are a minority in America, they are using every trick in the book to stop both legal and undocumented immigrants and to suppress the votes of anyone else who does not look like them.

If you are a christian person of faith, you should think long and hard about what is done now in the the name of your faith.

***************************************************************

Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election

https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article/79/2/147/4825283

Abstract
Why did Americans vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election? Social scientists have proposed a variety of explanations, including economic dissatisfaction, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. The current study establishes that, independent of these influences, voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage. Data from a national probability sample of Americans surveyed soon after the 2016 election shows that greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for Trump, even after controlling for economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as measures of religion, sociodemographics, and political identity more generally. These findings indicate that Christian nationalist ideology—although correlated with a variety of class-based, sexist, racist, and ethnocentric views—is not synonymous with, reducible to, or strictly epiphenomenal of such views. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America’s distinctively Christian heritage and future.

“the perceived Christian heritage of the United States”

Yes perhaps the heritage of the invaders who ruthlessly slaughtered millions.

People always seem to forget that arbitrary nature of heritages. We all come from the same group of people out of Africa and thus all have the same heritage. All I can tell you about my heritage is that it is ambiguously Northern European and white, and given that I am a male, it means I have the best possible shot in this country of doing anything I want. Not that that is either here nor there; just the culture of America bears this out as being the truth.

I say that not to disparage the true heritage that may originate from whatever my real countries of origin are, or people who have a much more straightforward heritage or have a much more profound attachment to it. It’s just people seem to forget that these attachments that they have to their groups and clans and religions and perceptions should never supersede the betterment of humanity in general.

Unfortunately we (I) live in a country where nationalism is on the rise. I just heard on NPR about the president talking about how he thought it was a misunderstood word and it should be used more and that nationalism was great and that we should remain isolated from the rest of the country, seeming to ignore the fact that international trade and foreign relations ns are in large part responsible for humanitarian, technological, and social advancements that have occurred in the past 140 years.

Maybe it’s bad, maybe it’s ignorant, I don’t know, but I really care a lot more about being a person- and trying to be better- then being an American, or being white, or coming from Christian (Mormon) backgrounds.

None of us are chosen or special.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2018 11:14PM by midwestanon.

is important to their sense of self dominance.

The same goes for the Nephi myth and the Soltrean hypothesis.

None of these are true, but it makes them feel superior and special.

Christianity has never been about helping each other. It's about being right, chosen, and better than the next person. If christianity were truly about loving others as we love ourselves, the world would be a better place.

"I was born a Samaritan..."

Oh, man, it would suck to be you!

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "I was born a Samaritan..."
>
> Oh, man, it would suck to be you!

Because of the inbreeding problems?

Samaritans were not the elite. And probably were seen and never having a possibility of becoming 'elite'.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Samaritans were not the elite. And probably were
> seen and never having a possibility of becoming
> 'elite'.

True (although singer/actress/TV announcer/politician Sofi Tzedakah, born into the Samaritan community, who later converted to Judaism at age 18, is a genuine Israeli celebrity).

In recent years, some women from countries of the former USSR were literally recruited so they could marry Samaritan men (there are intense inbreeding problems in the Samaritan community--to the point where potential marriages today have to be genetically evaluated before marriage), but my sense is that this small influx of new, Russian/Slavic, genes into the Samaritan community has been a less than satisfying endeavor for most everyone.

At present, there are less than 800 Samaritans in Israel, and these are, at present, down to four families. (There was a fifth family throughout the 1900s, but it has since died out.)

So: obviously aside from Sofi Tzedakah, your observations are correct, EOD.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2018 06:42AM by Tevai.

It doesn't have the answers.
It can't pass the test.