In 2016 White Protestant Evangelicals voted 80% for Donald J. Trump knowing full well the severity of his character attributes. Even before the election they had already protested everyone [Trump at least] deserves forgiveness all the while being critical of Hillary Clinton for the relationship transgressions of Bill. It was evident to the rest of us that people in the movement (what would reveal itself to be the transnational white-power / Christian nationalist movement) were forgiven where the rest of us were condemned regardless of wrongdoing.
It showed to me that Christians in massive voting blocks were disinterested in the Jesus of He Gets Us adverts rather they were either drawn to Trump because a) he was racist as fuck, and gave them permission to also be racist, or b) because he was going to appoint at least two jurists to the US Supreme Court, and would appoint Federalist Society shills, which he as good as admitted was his part of the [Faustian] bargain. for support of the OG Republican Party.
Hatred is (allegedly) not a virtue of Christianity, but a lot of Christians are glad to play to it.
Pragmatism isn’t a virtue of Christianity either. In fact doing evil that good may come is directly proscribed, and yet we’ve seen a lot of Christians are glad to explain away all the parts of the bible they don’t like.
85% of the same demographic, white Evangelical Protestants voted for Trump in 2020.
Philosophically, this all is an indictment of the whole foundation of resurrection-dependent Christianity. Forming a church to spread the word sucks if the word is love your neighbor rather than massacre the infidels This wouldn’t be the first time that the Christian establishment took to the sword and forced everyone else to convert or die. And this shows that the God-breathed bible doesn’t offer a plan that wouldn’t almost instantly be subverted by humans. It rules out an omniscient god, unless They are playing hyperdimensional chess.
At this point, the elites have long used Christianity and hate (with lots of intersection) to preserve their power, and while I can’t speak for any other faith, I am not sure Christianity can survive the coming conflict, but then I’m not confident that the human species has more than a few centuries left, and we’re gone, our gods die with us.
We’ve been too busy being kind to people, we failed to consider that being kind to their stupid ideas would do more harm than good.
As Salman Rushdie says
‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning fear of religion. Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.
