Evangelical Christians - Hatred For Jesus - The Something Awful Forums

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Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

ToxicSlurpee posted:

They generally also believe in purity of choice. I don't entirely know what the name for it is but they basically believe that we all have a core part of our mind that can make decisions that is perfectly sane. People that come down with some sort of crazy are basically choosing to be crazy.

Mind, body, and soul. The mind and body are fallible created things, whereas the soul is immortal and granted free will by God.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2015 02:12

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 08:06

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

icantfindaname posted:

Pentecostal poo poo often syncretizes easily with traditional folk religions [...] basically anywhere you have ethnic or tribal groups without established nation-states.

Figures...

There's a lot more in the Pacific Northwest than I'd imagined.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2015 00:28

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

twistedmentat posted:

The idea that there is a huge active cult still exists in Evangelical circles. They see a Cannibal Corpse album cover, or anything to do with LeVey Satanism (which is pretty much objectivitism with some mysticism and goatees added in) as proof of it.

It's funny how the Satanists (whether LaVeyan or cultural) are one of the few religions that don't appear to have had an organized child abuse scandal in the past decades.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2015 09:52

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Shbobdb posted:

In America, we eliminated the noble class the noble class earlier than in other parts of Christendom but all we really did was make the merchant class an anemic version of the noble class. This was particularly pronounced in the South, for a lot of different historical reasons (many of them relating to the Southern Institution of slavery)

The most powerful landowners in Virginia and the Carolinas were all direct descendents of noble Royalist families from England, often granted their lands as a result of favors from the English Civil War/Restoration. They were also a lot more likely to prefer high church customs to the low churches of the northern states. I'd argue there was a noble class there in everything except name until long after independence.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2015 00:23

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

OwlFancier posted:

America also tends to derive more or less all power from money, whereas historically the nobility are nobles because of association, not merely money, and money cannot buy you complete access to the nobility. We still have that somewhat nowadays in the UK. Historic noble connections might be why powerful Americans got their money but it isn't why they keep power.

I dunno, within country club culture and the surrounding nepotism there is still a bit more than just how much money you have. Same goes for the 'good ol' boy network'.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2015 13:35

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

'sober adults'
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/nyregion/diplomat-calls-for-end-to-drunkenness-at-un.html

# ¿ Jul 16, 2015 17:00

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

So what was the deal with the occult in 80s saturday morning cartoons anyway?

The Evangelical overreaction about it being a plot to get devils into our front rooms is just that, an overreaction, but there was definitely more powers and crystals and speaking to spirits (all played straight) in 80s US cartoons than I recall from other decades or other countries.

Is this a case of selection bias on my part, or a case of fads coming and going and that was the one for 80s America?

# ¿ Jul 17, 2015 10:03

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

ToxicSlurpee posted:

This basically peaked in the 70's and 80's when very nearly every cartoon on TV was just reused animations, literally tracing everything, and making the shows with as little effort as possible to make as much money as possible.

Cartoons like He-Man, G.I. Joe, and Transformers were about the toys first and the shows second. They were literally half hour time slot advertisements for toys.

I think this hits the nail on the head for what I was looking for. Other ~~socialist hellholes~~ countries had laws that looked down on turning children's television into half hour action figure/sugar cereal commercials, so there was less of the "I am Musculon, by the power of my 72 accessories!" shows coming from those countries, and the 80s just happened to be the peak of them for the US before everything seemed to change to skinny anime people or whatever.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2015 19:05

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Shbobdb posted:

To be fair, anime does seem to have a corrupting influence on those who watch it. Nobody makes GI Joe part of their adult identity.

There is no cartoon that people won't take too far.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2015 20:31

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

icantfindaname posted:

Galileo was persecuted because he was a massive rear end in a top hat who was as obnoxious as possible at all times and also an open plaigarist, and even then he only had his books banned

The best Galileo moment was when he was called to present a defense of his work and wrote it in the form of a debate where the Pope stand-in was an ignorant simpleton. I'm not sure how well he expected that to go over.

icantfindaname posted:

Really the Catholic Church has always been a patron and protector of science and academia. The dumb meme about the Christian Dark Ages or whatever is the literal opposite of reality, most the of Greek philosophy was integrated into Catholic thought from the start. The anti-science is pretty much just fundie Protestant stuff

I like the achievements of the cleric-scientists. I like how the monasteries of the early middle ages developed management science and such. But even so I think it does have to be admitted that the system was classist as gently caress. A lot of them kept science in the same way that the super-rich now keep capital. It's not supposed to be something that you ever get to have access to, pleb.

Criticisms of the medieval class system fall apart from criticisms of the scientific views of the Catholic Church though, so the church hierarchy can be criticized without calling them anti-intellectual.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2015 01:37

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

FuzzySkinner posted:

What wound up happening was those groups wound up becoming probably more popular as a result, and people soon found out that these people were full of nonsense. You wind up finding out that the artists were pretty much Catholic, Jewish, or non-religious. Hell, SLAYER has a few devout Catholics in their group IIRC.

I would imagine that would just prove what they already thought about Catholics.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2015 12:12

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

happyhippy posted:

Science shows that giant humans can not exist as they would collapse or suffocate under their own weight.
Therefore Odin is a lying bitch.

Gravity is different in Jotunheim due to its position on the world tree.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2015 23:41

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

It depends if you're talking about weak agnosticism (I don't know) or strong agnosticism (the nature of God is inherently unknowable, and therefore all formal religion that professes knowledge of God is fallacious). The latter can be directly contrasted with gnosticism, that there is some hidden or mystical path to knowledge of the divine.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 11:56

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

MrNemo posted:

The strong agnosticism you mentioned there isn't agnosticism, it's Deism in that it accepts the existence of a God.

I guess I'd define agnosticism as the rejection of the question itself, the answer to a question isn't always "yes/no".

I guess in this case I'm saying 'completely unknowable' includes actual existence, to the extent that we can't even know if there is anything to know, because that would constitute knowing something. In that way it goes beyond Deism, which presupposes a creator god.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 12:24

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

However, practically speaking, if you don't live your life as though there is a God, you are an atheist. The question of "do you act according to any God's will?" can be answered with a yes or no - if yes, even if that "God" is a vague, mother-Earth spirit type God, then you are not an atheist. But if no, then you are one.

What if you strongly believe that there is a God (or more than one), but also that its Will is so above any kind of human comprehension that it is impossible to try to act in accordance with it without tying oneself in knots, therefore the best thing to do is look for a humanistic moral code like 'don't be a dick' instead?

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 15:09

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Who What Now posted:

That's a Diest.

Yup, which is neither atheist nor agnostic, but doesn't fit any of the question "The question of "do you act according to any God's will?" can be answered with a yes or no - if yes, even if that "God" is a vague, mother-Earth spirit type God, then you are not an atheist. But if no, then you are one."

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 15:25

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Who What Now posted:

If your point is that "Do you act according to God's will" isn't a great question to determine atheism or theism, then yeah you're completely right.

That was my point.

In keeping with the thread topic though, that does seem to be an Evangelical interpretation of 'theist', with everyone else being some degree of 'secular/atheist/satanist'.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 15:47

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Who What Now posted:

So let's say that God is put on trial for existing. Do you believe God is guilty or not guilty of existing?

I believe this post is guilty of existing.

You're making the argument that somebody is an atheist unless they specifically believe (presumably beyond reasonable doubt, being as you invoked the courtroom standard of evidence) in God. Does it have to be the one big God? Can you believe in only a limited fetish or river god or something, but believe in them fully or honestly? What about the Eastern religions that have a significantly different conception of what it is that is actually believed in?

You're lumping a lot of different people into the atheist tent here by not having them be active believers, which is similar (but less exclusive) to the Evangelical grouping of "people that have a personal belief that the Lord Jesus Christ died for their sins" and "heretics".

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 17:28

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Solkanar512 posted:

What the poo poo!?

Does a person have any legal recourse against a particularly obnoxious church that continues to claim they are a member when the person clearly does not want to be? Say it's a crazy church that is gaining notoriety for doing really offensive poo poo and the unwanted association is causing harm.

Hell, this happened to me in a much more amusing way - my grandparents converted to Mormonism decades ago, and raised their kids in it. Not hardcore, but they did some stuff. My mother doesn't raise us in it because she was kicked out of seminary after some pointed questions regarding the "proper roles of women". Fast forward to when I'm of a similar age, around 7th grade. Mormon kids I know come up to me one day and ask, "why weren't you in seminary today, your name was called for attendance!". I obviously had no idea what they were talking about. Hell, my mom's been called more than once by the local stake center for "not showing up to do her assigned church duties".

Maybe it has more to do with their obsession with record keeping and family trees, I dunno.

Don't LDS churches baptize the dead ancestors of converts too?

I remember hearing some Catholic friends being pretty displeased that their great-grandma had been retroactively declared Mormon because a distant relative converted.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2015 20:13

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

mediadave posted:

Oh sure, aware it exists, but aware of its tenets? I suspect not.

Nicene Creed, hymns, sometimes a choir singing in Latin, try not to be a dick to people, see you next week? Or Easter? Maybe?

# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 15:39

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

That depends entirely on who wins when their gods fight.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 21:43

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Do It Once Right posted:

So is he peeing at a urinal or getting a blowjob? I'm going with peeing because of the color scheme.

Pee for your Pissoir.

Getting a blowjob in a public bathroom might fit the Evangelical theme better though.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 23:00

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

If we're going to live by Ecclesiastes, we should have wrapped the whole thing up a long time ago.

Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 posted:

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
I saw the tears of the oppressed� and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors� and they have no comforter. And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive.
But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

Not that this would necessarily be a bad thing, it would save a lot of trouble.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2015 10:30

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Oddly enough I've actually heard the argument that if you have an opportunity for profit you absolutely must take it because God put it in front of you and you must not question His will. Even if that's something like exploiting child workers in a third world country to become a billionaire. Because, you know, sins of the father and that. Have you ever noticed that poor countries are like always not Christian?

(ignore the ones that are, they obviously suck at being Christian so they still count)

So cocaine trafficking is all cool with Jesus then? (The Christ, I mean. I know Malverde is cool with that, but not the child labor.)

# ¿ Sep 9, 2015 17:04

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

God wouldn't have created coca plants and people that want to shovel cocaine up their noses and put them on two completely different continents if he didn't want someone to traffic between the two. Remember that Noah was a drunk when God told him "listen dog there's poo poo much better than alcohol now build a go-fast boat and yell 'gently caress the Coast Guard'" [Miami 19:78]

# ¿ Sep 9, 2015 18:18

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

How are u posted:

Judeo-Christian means Christian, but Jews are ok, I'm not an anti-semite! But in terms of policy or theology or anything at all: White American Christian.

It also has undertones of "can cherry pick from the Old Testament even when Jesus says otherwise."

# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 08:32

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Plus they get to be right, while all the non-believers get to stay behind for the tribulations. Their last words as they get carried bodily into heaven will be "I told you so :smug:

".

And then they get dropped back right where they were, naked, for being prideful.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 20:22

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Lastly it also has a certain appeal thanks to how the apocalypse works. At some point the anti-Christ will give his mark to people. If you refuse you automatically go to Heaven no matter how awful you are. It gives them an easy out because sometimes they realize they're awful sinners but don't want to go through the effort of not being terrible people.

Have they applied this to Pokemon Go yet? I know they did for social security numbers, barcodes, magnetic credit cards, and RFID chips (although not QR codes afaik, maybe because nobody used them).

# ¿ Jul 15, 2016 00:07

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

I thought most evangelicals (even the Biblical literalists) handwaved that away in some way or another, like "144,000 is the number who will be closest to God but the rest will still be allowed in" and it was only the JWs and a couple others who believed in a hard limit.

I'm not sure why those churches keep growing to memberships greater than that limit, perhaps they think it's like a lottery or that some of the others definitely won't get in (but certainly they will).

Then there's the thing in JW type missionary circles where you have to evangelize to be better, and converting people makes you better while all the time reducing your odds of being in the 144,000, so you're desperately trying to get as many other people to join to stay above the others, which sounds like a pyramid scheme but somehow even dumber.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2016 18:43

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

I thought the number of God was 1 (representing unity) and 7 was the number of perfection or completeness (representing resting on the 7th day after finishing), and man is 6 because of the 6th day.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2016 19:13

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Which is the other thing that separates evangelicals from the rest of Christianity. Generally speaking your bog standard evangelical believes that you go to heaven or hell, that's it, end of story. Other varieties (Catholics believe this, if memory serves) teach that there are other places you can go. Limbo is one; that's where people who aren't quite right for heaven but not bad enough to deserve hell go. For example, people who were just never exposed to the teachings of Jesus but are otherwise worthy of heaven can easily find a spot in limbo, as can people who were minor sinners and can be made ready for heaven. Again, it varies by denomination.

If memory serves the original Jewish view was that hell wasn't even permanent; if you sinned in life you didn't get to heaven right away but had to work your sins off/be punished for them before you went there. Things like original sin and eternal damnation were kind of Christian things that came up later. This is also why evangelicals diverge so much from what Jesus actually taught; dude was all about forgiveness. Evangelical Christianity largely ignores the forgiveness part and goes whole hog on the eternal damnation part.

If Dante serves me right, Limbo is just outside of Hell and people are separated from God but aren't actively punished, and Purgatory is the pathway to Heaven where you are punished but just to cleanse you of your sins. There have been major doctrinal changes since then. A big part of the original Protestant Reformation was that the Catholic Church believed that they had so much surplus good stored up from the acts of the saints that in exchange for money they could reduce the time that a soul spent in Purgatory.
e: I remember one of the recent Popes saying that unbaptized infants and the unborn don't float around in Limbo anymore but go to Heaven. There's a loophole there that means that you could consider having a ton of abortions or committing infanticide as an act of altruism which made some priests uneasy.

Some Jews believe that a soul needs a maximum of 11 months for sins to be purged, so that's the absolute maximum that one can spend in Sheol, or maybe someplace else, before going somewhere else. I think there's a bunch of different interpretations with a fire hell and an ice hell (and maybe electric and grass and water hells, idk). I just know that 11 months is significant for mourning prayers and then there's a stone setting at the end. I think most are of the opinion that there isn't a permanent Hell.

There are about 8m Jehova's Witnesses in the world so somebody is going to end up disappointed.

Guavanaut fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Jul 15, 2016

# ¿ Jul 15, 2016 23:51

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

In Dante's take on it (which is held to be pretty much in line with medieval Catholicism on those bits, but with a lot more division of everything into layers and circles) Limbo is just above the first circle of Hell, separated from God but without punishment, so just a bunch of honorable Turks and Greek philosophers being kinda sad that they're away from God but not having flaming tar poured into their urethra. Purgatory is the pathway to Heaven for people who die imperfect but having confessed to that.

There's a view of Catholicism by skeptical (or outright anti-Catholic) outsiders that you can straight up murder someone, confess your sins, say a few dozen Hail Marys and Our Fathers and be good for Heaven, which is about as accurate as the current things from right wing Evangelical Protestants about Muslims and pork/taqiyya. The general Catholic view is that sins that are confessed but not offset (e.g. by good works) are paid in full in Purgatory, which is a place of punishment but for good reason, with Heaven as a goal.

That's where the big Protestant protest against the purchase of indulgences from the Church came from, because some of the more corrupt institutions decided that it would be a great fundraiser to sell absolutions from Purgatory using the stored good deeds of the saints as a type of bearer bond, available to anyone with the ready cash. Afaik the idea of having to pay for your sins with deeds is still very much in effect for most Catholics (and socially is a pretty good idea) but the idea of just paying them off died long ago.

So Purgatory and Limbo occupy almost opposite places along the punishment:presence-to-God axis. And one of them might not even exist anymore according to Benedict XVI, idk.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2016 00:17

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Chased by unending swarms of bees iirc. Maybe not an ironic punishment for centrists but an amusing one.

I think Limbo in Dante's construct did have mention of buildings and fortifications and something approaching civilization, although he was keen to point out that they were really super sad all the time because they were separated from a God that most of them didn't really care about while they were alive.

I like the image of a bunch of Greek philosophers sitting on the edge of an enormous hole chatting about the nature of punishment and occasionally tilting the giant concave mirror to shoot down a winged demon attempting to rise out of the pit. It probably would be a type of heaven for most of them.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2016 01:06

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

One of the things that separates a lot of Evangelical and Fundamentalist sects from all other Christians is Biblical literalism.

So it wasn't just seven long periods of time over which the world was created, it was 7 24 hour periods (quite how that worked before the day/night cycle existed I don't know).
And it wasn't just a bit of the Levant that flooded for a long-rear end time, it was the whole world for specifically 40 days and 40 nights. And the Arks, both of Noah and of the Covenant were literal things that did exactly as described, not allegories.
Guided evolution? Heresy. Old Earth made by God billions of years ago? Heresy. The Revelation not being a 100% literal description of how poo poo goes down in the end? Heresy.

Any one bit of the Bible being figurative or symbolic unless prefixed by "this bit is figurative or symbolic" destroys the credibility of the whole text in their view.

How do they square that with 144,000 just being a very big number?

# ¿ Jul 16, 2016 14:27

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

It's supposed to allude to rigid observance of the OT codes of ethics (specifically 'no gays' and not 'no mixed fabrics') right?

A lot of them don't like Jews, or wouldn't like them if they put some thought to it, most forms of Judaism being a religion that denies the divinity of Jesus, but it's not very popular to say 'I don't like Jews' nowadays. Others believe that the Jews are necessary for the restoration of Israel as part of Biblical prophecy (the 'bait for the Jesus trap' thing).

In modern times it can also be a coded way of being simultaneously Abrahamic and anti-Muslim, but I think the core part of it is the OT values.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2016 13:17

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

ToxicSlurpee posted:

_{Oh by the way kill the gays, ban Islam, force everybody to go to Church, and bomb any nation with an average skin tone darker than a paper bag. I'm sure Jesus would want that.}

Well sure, that's the Old Testament bit. Assuming you retcon the Israelites as white, which many of them subconsciously do. And Jesus didn't come to abolish the Law, he came to make everyone everywhere was forced to follow it.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2016 00:42

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 08:06

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Joseph Smith knows the answer.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2016 17:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Evangelical Christians - Hatred For Jesus