Hell yeah, homie.

“We can get rid of these pesky humans and keep all the profit.”

Quietly because we were ashamed. Loud because now we’re proud of it.

I leave it to the public to judge which of those are better.

Between this and the recent NSPM-7, the difference is the outward rhetorical combined with a directive of “pre-action”: stop these things before they commit crimes.

This changes the state of things into truly thought policing, not through unspoken, implicit societal norms, but with the authority and blunt force of the regime’s might.

It feels like we’re being fomented into a civil war while strategically weakening us on the global stage. It’s almost like the duty to the constitution & country has “left the chat.” I say “almost” because I have 3 kids and don’t want to be disappeared.

“Extremism” and “hostility” are complete wiggle words, along with “traditional American.”

A traditional American view on race is a person of color is 3/5ths of a person. We’ve evolved past that, at least most of us with a brain & conscious have.

Sounds like something the antichrist would say.

Perhaps he is the dragon.

Not related.

Heart attack apparently; I thought the same thing, though.

Article suggests their family had tight Russian Regime ties. He scoffed at Navalny’s death.

Just to be candid with you, as a UU, I enjoy these texts but they don’t form the full picture of my faith. I find the general theology of the Gnostic texts more aligned with the reality around us (certainly seems like a demiurge fucks with us more each day right now).

As for Jesus’ message, the Pauline letters, and the prophesied role of the messiah, I’m prone to selective pulls as much as Christians. We know the gospels were not written immediately after the events, so there’s a telephone game. In the context of Jesus’ time and some of the horrible scriptures of the Old Testament, passages like John 13:34 feel radical. I also hold Matthew 25:32 as revealing of modern Christian hypocrisy. If we lived in a “Christian” society, we would be proactively eradicating poverty, hunger, helping immigrants, helping those in jail. Instead, we seem hellbent (pun intended) on war with one another.

For that aspect, I squarely blame Evangelicals more than the works themselves. You can use the Bible (and many other religious texts) to validate almost any opinion or belief.

Most likely.

Oh, I fully acknowledge Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet who believed the end times were within a lifetime of his crucification. And like you mention, there’s a few pro authority verses (the one about “governments are ordained by God, so follow them,” is always funny to me when a Democrat is the president).

/shrug

I think there’s truth in that in modern America. It wasn’t like this 30 years ago. Growing up, religion was a big cornerstone of social life & had very specific impacts to your upbringing: confirmation, Sunday school, etc.

I think Evangelicals likely represent the main example of your critique. As someone who reads the Bible often & someone who respects the focus of Christ’s works, a lot of sermons against empathy that I’ve seen have felt disgusting. Christ washed the feet of prostitutes. He was angry at the money lenders / capitalists in the Temple. The story of treating the poor man equal to the rich man (or maybe better) is another example.

In Luke, people turn the disciples away, and they ask Christ to smite them. He reprimands the Apostles for wanting to enact vengeance.

I’m a Unitarian Universalist. I’m informed by Christ, I go to church every Sunday (went earlier today), and I do consider my faith a meaningful aspect of my life. I was an atheist for the 20 or so years prior. I do think religion can have greater importance than surface level, but I also believe that what Christianity was 30 years ago has mostly eroded or been hijacked by monied interests.

Great song about this.

I don’t put much personal stock into Revelations (it’s a very random author, much later than the main books). However, I believe there are many signs that could relate to our times.

I read the New Testament twice earlier this year in prep for this administration coming. While there are some verses where Christ speaks of violence and division, I understood it as “These messages & the things I say will cause people to argue.” The verse about leaving family for Christ means something like “I’m going to teach you about love, and if your family turns away from those teachings, they are turning against love.”

Overwhelmingly, I found Jesus within the New Testament to be a pretty tolerant person. Some passages such as Matthew 25:32 show how the Republican party is completely misaligned with the grand message of the religion. It explicitly states that you go to heaven for helping the poor, helping the alien in a foreign land, helping those in jail. I’m sorry, but that’s not what the Republican party does. :/

The inversion and active turning away from Christ’s message by Christians is insane to me.

This Barbie sitting at a table, vetoing peace, while I watch children be killed, displaced, starved, and ethnically cleansed makes me so sad. I bet she calls herself a Christian, and she lets this disgusting campaign continue.

What you did to the least, you did to Christ, Matthew 25. Shame on this regime.

I think protesting does do something, at least on a personal level. It’s been endearing to go to a few, see people I know, see horns honking in support. It’s maybe 10:1 in my area for positive to negative responses.

That makes me feel like when shit comes to my neighborhood, I’m not alone with how I feel.

I don’t believe there are immediate wins most of the time, but a wave starts as a drop in the ocean. Things take time to build. His popularity is bad; he complained to Fox News saying they have the worst polling. It’s Fox News…

If the people protest, it makes others feel safer to do it. If lawmakers do it, they are setting a positive example in my book. I hope more people join them next time. When it’s 1000 people, it’s hard to arrest everyone.

Great example for others. Non-violent, solidarity, for something completely reasonable.

This is why I need you on my engineering team. /s