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He's the Anti-Christ in like every way. But he's white, so it's all good.
Yuck! At least Nicolae Carpathia from Left Behind was good looking and not an orange turd.
The three of us on Lemmy that get that joke are all ROLLING.
Confirmed.
I wished I didn't get it. But all that rot is behind me now.
I got the joke and I've never read a Left Behind book, but I have read much, but not all of-
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/11/05/left-behind-index-the-whole-thing/
And if you have read the books, you'd probably appreciate it more than I do, but it's the most in-depth takedown of a book, let alone a series of books, that I have ever read. Like paragraph by paragraph sometimes.
Oh geez I've been wondering about this for twenty years! I caught the first post or two as they came out, right as I was still in the thick of cultural Christianity but not really serious about it—later, as I began shuddering at what I had been, I idly wondered to myself about this series and whether it had continued, but never enough to actually go looking for it. Thank you for bringing it back to my attention!
No problem. I'm really tempted to start over again from the beginning, but it's such an epic website to go through.
I'm not religious anymore but I still think that was a really cool science fiction series.
I never was very religious before being an atheist but the books were entertaining popcorn between Sword of Truth and Wheel of Time releases. It also helped my mom was reading them so I didn't have to spend my money on the books. A lot of what I read at the time was because my mom read it.
Just for some context here. In the US, Christianity is everyday, more an identity than a religion. The "evangelicals" that support Trump overwhelmingly don't attend services, don't read the Bible, and don't pray unless they're in trouble. The evangelical movement has been cooped by the Republican party so thoroughly, that there isn't much difference between conservative politics and Christian belief in the average worshiper's mind. Christianity is the justification for having power, not the ethic of how to wield it.
I'm not playing "true Scotsman", or trying to define what a Christian ought to be. I'm just posting this for the people who are mystified at the disconnect between the teachings of Jesus and the support for regressive and hateful politics.
It's ironic that apotheoses of the individual, so central to modern conservative thought is antithetical to patriotism, faith, and family values.
The evangelical movement has been cooped by the Republican party so thoroughly
I would reverse that, it's the republican party that has been taken over by the evangelicals. In the end it's the same result though.
I would argue that Christianity has moved much further toward reactionary politics than the other way round. Evangelicals in the 70s were pro-choice for example. I'd also point out that reactionary politics is at a high water mark while Christianity is in decline.
There's a trap in being a critic of religion that one tends to overestimate the power of faith.
I’m not playing “true Scotsman”, or trying to define what a Christian ought to be. I’m just posting this for the people who are mystified at the disconnect between the teachings of Jesus and the support for regressive and hateful politics.
I literally got called a communist by family members for actually acting the way they raised me, because apparently its communist to want to care about less well off people than yourself (and we weren't even doing that well to start with....)
He really does check all the boxes.
Deception - committing direct electoral fraud, defamation, his nicknames, really everything he says is deceptive in some form to some degree
Promoting evil deeds - inciting violence, racism, normalizing rape
Idolatry - trump has christians idolizing him and praying to him directly
Persecution of believers - he's telling christians he's tricked into following him that real medicine is bad and taking medication that gives them heart attacks and injecting bleach will save them
I'm not Christian beeteedubs, just a fan of irony
Woohoo, nice! Good post
He really does check all the boxes.
Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth... yep, every one.
Ticked every box of mine, tbh.
Pride - the Trump towers, how he talks about himself
Greed - he won't pay the contractors who did work for him just to save a couple dollars
Wrath - inciting violence, full page advertisements advocating the death penalty, says he loved to fight, any kind of fight, including physical.
Envy - obsessed with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote , wants to be a dictator like the leaders of China and North Korea,
Lust - Trump is a rapist, and committed constant sexual harassment in the White House often.
Gluttony - obviously eats too much McDonald's and drinks too much soda, bottomless appetite
Sloth - avoided presidential duties to watch TV for hours, live tweets the TV he's watching for hours, is never prepared for meetings, delegates work and then takes credit for it.
Persecution of believers
What's the passage on that one? Could it mean trumpWorshippers persecuting people who actually believe in the kindness and support tenets of Christianity but who aren't [MAGAts || Christians]?
Posted in another comment, way more specific.
2 Timothy 3:12, taking about the end times, and it certainly could be interpreted that way:
"Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."
not prosecuting and jailing for rape is what normalizes rape.
/hair split
No shit. Anyone not drunk on the Kool aid can easily see this, the dude is the devil incarnate, and an absolute moron.
points to Revelation to where the false prophet rises to unlimited power
Fuck.
Those red hats do seem to have a "mark of the beast" flair to them. They aren't the permanent mark indicated in Revelation 13:16, but I think if you wear it every day it may as well be.
I'm not a Christian, but his followers certainly are. I wonder how they don't see it?
The Bible also says the mark is required to do business, like buying food at the store. The similarities are interesting, but it's not like you can't apply many of them to other terrible leaders throughout history. And since Revelation is actually referring to Rome and Nero, it makes sense why the author is able to encapsulate the concept of "terrifying leader" so well.
But to your point, they don't see it, because like everything in religion, you can pick and choose what you like. That's why there's so many sects of Christianity, and why at least one scholar calls Trump's version "American Fundamentalism." Trump is the messiah they've been waiting for.
They don't see it, because they don't want to.
It's permanent in the sense that once someone sees you in it they'll never look at you the same.
I think they don't see it because the people who support Trump and see him as a harbinger of prosperity are the same people who take the Bible at face value and are already of the belief that should the Rapture come tomorrow, they certainly won't be left below.
They believe in the wrathful God of the Old Testament, they are fundamentalists and they are a far cry from what good Christians can be. Should Jesus come tomorrow, these people would have him lynched as a pinko liberal, labeling him the antichrist.
They're not Christian because they have read the Bible and learned to love thy neighbor and become a righteous person, they are Christian because they have been told a lake of hellfire awaits those who don't accept Jesus and they were indoctrinated into the religion of Revelations. They've been fed the cherry-picked apples of knowledge by pastors with agendas and never challenged the version of God they were given.
Trumps persecution by the state and mainstream politics fuels this fire. Surely if he were the antichrist he would not have been challenged by the DOJ and "anti-christian" liberals. In their minds, his path to the white house, as a leader of men, parallels Jesus.
My mother calls him ‘a man for such a time as this’. She references god using a donkey to minister to Paul and says ‘god can use anyone’. She acknowledges he’s not a Christian but still believes he’s the anointed one to lead the country and has prophecies about him, including one about him being assassinated IIRC.
Omg totally. It's like a brand. But not that kind, that it also is. Oh, snap. That's the etymology of the modern use of the word... Huh.. TIL as I type this....
But yeah, that describes how I viscerally respond to seeing it. They needn't have the rest of their face if it were a 666 on the forehead, it'd be all you see. Same w the hats now. Face is irrelevant. Hat says enough.
Er, howabout nothing supernatural, just a dying narcissist?
Been saying that for 8 years.
The main flaw in this article is that they're comparing Trump's book to God's book, and both were ghostwritten.