So...with all of the talk of Dero Goi, and the fundamentalist christian worldview being one head of the project 2025 fascist hydra, I did want to discuss Christianity a bit. I also want to discuss this because, well, I had an argument with someone recently in which I bashed Christianity and the guy took offense to it because he was a christian, and he thought I was lying or dishonest and just being mean or something. No, I wasn't.
Honestly? I have a strong, visceral, dislike of the religion. I just do. I am an ex christian. I have religious trauma from my days as a Christian. And in the modern political context, I think christianity is much of what's wrong with society. I admit, it's more complex than just christianity. There are other worldviews and ideologies in these, but Christianity is what justifies and drives this evil conservative ideology for the masses. MAGA is driven in large part by religious fundamentalist Christians. The entire worldview is driving a lot of ignorance in our society. It leads to climate change denial under the logic that "god would never make a world that we could destroy" (literal quote/paraphrase from rush limbaugh). It leads to culture wars where the right wants to flood our educational system with religion. The right wants to undo the entire social revolution from the 1960s onward, in large part...because of religion. Because those "secular, liberal activist" judges on SCOTUS "took god out of schools." The current conservative, activist supreme court is a muti generational goal of the republican party. They want to undo abortion, and gay marriage, and separation of church and state. They dont want us to have nice things and freedoms. They want us to live according to their laws and to spend all of our days serving their dictator of a god.
In economics. Christianity intersects specifically with economics. Much of the beliefs behind modern capitalism are repackaged christianity. We have the idea that humans are lazy and evil and need to be told what to do with their lives all the time, so we need to beat this protestant work ethic into people to make them productive. These people dont think that humans have the wherewithal to live life without being told what to do by some "benevolent authoritarian" like a boss, and that we would fall into sin if we didn't. And this is in large part why our society is so obsessed with jobs and work, even in an age where that stuff is going to become increasingly not needed by society.
Religion is, as Karl Marx put it, the opium of the masses. It is the justification for a bunch of bad crap in our society. It keeps people dumbed down and stops them from questioning things while the rich and powerful plunder society for their own benefit and at our expense. And religion is, once again, behind the justification of these views. The christian work ethic underlies meritocracy and the right of property; the wealthy "earned" their wealth through their hard work and we are wrong for questioning it, for wanting a new system, or for wanting to redistribute wealth. WE are the bad guys. WE are the ones lacking virtue. WE are the ones who are supposed to change, to adapt to this system.
We are wasting our lives by serving religion, and religiously inspired principles. It should be noted, I'm not against all spirituality. I have my own very personal spiritual views. I'm also not even as opposed to all Christians. There are different strains of christianity and I mostly was focusing on religious fundamentalist common in a certain strain of modern protestant christianity. Still, I don't really think ANY christianity is worth believing it. I think there are far better belief systems than adopting the views of some ascetic jew from 2000 years ago and worshipping him as the son of god who died for our sins...whatever that means (since many of these other camps dont accept the weird scapegoat blood sacrifice logic of fundamentalist christianity). And honestly? Even if other brands christianity aren't as harmful as modern fundamentalist protestant christianity, i still see harm there and dont see it as worth following.
Like, some moderate christians wont like me saying this, but I do see it as a spectrum. And I do think moderate christians are just that...they're moderates. They adopt some aspects of chrstianity, but then they dont tend to adopt the more extreme elements...and I dont see a point in following that stuff....because I see it as a compromise with reality. Why should you adapt half of this one philosophical system and its worldview, while rejecting the other half? Fundamentalism kinda got to me where its like "either your hot or youre cold, but if you're lukewarm I'll spit you out of your mouth." I see liberal christianity, or moderate christianity, as lukewarm. it's all over the place. Like, I tend to have a mostly naturalist approach to the world and philosophy, and any spirituality i get has to come through that in some way. If God cannot communicate on those terms, well...they're not worth believing in. And trust me, if "god" wants to speak to you...they'll find a way. Trust me. You might not be able to prove it to others, but you'll know, and you'll find yourself wondering if you're crazy and questioning your entire concept of reality.
That said, why should we accept christianity? For most people, its merely baby's first belief system. It's microsoft edge to my firefox with like 10 extensions installed and customized to my liking. It's what people are raised in, but I dont find it very philosophically appealing. I mean, if god exists, and again, I do have a concept there, it's gonna work monumentally different than this belief system written by ancient peoples who lived thousands of years ago. I look at it the way I look at the ancient greeks and their religions, except people actually take those stories literally today. And they do so in causing much harm on society.
Which is where the big hatred of it comes from for me. The fact is, I believe that if we didn't have Christianity as a guiding force for our society, society may very well be better. I won't guarantee that, because let's face it, Ive kind of outgrown the whole "religion is the core problem with everything in society" from my new atheist days. I kind of realize that ideological brainrot exists all over the political spectrum. That stupid people exist and often arent even religious. So again, it's not the entire problem. As I said, it's one head of a multiheaded hydra that we're dealing with these days. it's a very potent one, and I believe it's the one that justifies a lot of this bad stuff to the masses. Like, Dero Goi's 1984 video had everyone with VR headsets on....RELIGION IS THE HEADSET. It's how the masses view society. It's the matrix, it's plato's cave (hence this sub's name). It contains justification for why the world is as it is, it is the blinder that keeps people dumb and submissive. And I really do think if people took that headset off, that the world would be a better place. Would it solve all problems? No. Again, the hydra is multi headed at this point. But without the blinders most people currently have, if people were forced to suddenly reevaluate things like I did, perhaps they would reach conclusions like I did.
There's a reason evangelical christianity is one of the most right wing factions in the US, while the nonreligious are some of the most left wing ones, with the moderate christians being moderates...in the middle....on the whole.
And again, none of this is to really mean any disrespect to any moderate christians in my life. If you have/had a place in my life, I do respect you on some level. I might not agree with you. I might express my views when discussion come up push comes to shove. I'm not gonna apologize for my views, as they're what i legitimately believe, and if you find it offensive, well, tough. But again, I am a nuanced person who recognizes that people can be unique, defy the overall trend or whatever, and have unique views that dont fit in any predetermined box. I would argue that statistically and on the whole with trends i am correct in how I view the problem. It's just that such people are outliers. And you know what? I LIKE outliers like that. I dont agree with them on everything, but we probably agree on more than we don't despite the obvious worldview difference.
So yeah. I just wanted to make that clear.
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