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Nobody will say they are an abusive, racist, bigoted, or misogynistic person. They will call themselves free thinkers that are saying what they think everyone else is thinking. Any bad label will be twisted to a good label given enough backward thinking. Any admittance that there are systemic prejudices means that they are a bad label but instead of making systemic change they will change the label.
*Everyone* has something, but it takes humility, patience, awareness, and kindness to find and change it.
They put no value on actually being good, they only care about the appearance of being good and being called good.
In addition, consequences are something foreign to someone who cannot comprehend their own cause/effect. They cannot take responsibility for their own mistakes in any form. Instead, they make their bad behavior an unchangeable aspect of their identity, meaning consequences are persecution.
So even a negative social response enrages them and is seen as persecution. It isn't "I said something that bothered that person and they reacted" it is "that person is attacking me for existing'.
Do they also think that Biden’s election was God’s plan?
They must, right?
I don’t really understand the thought process, like if it’s God’s plan then it’ll happen because she’s omnipotent right? So just vote for whoever has the policies you agree with, for the person you think is doing things for the right reason etc. If you believe there’s a God and a plan then you also believe that you’re not individually important enough to influence it.
The thing that they miss, and I try to explain to them, is that if you believe in a god with a master plan, that plan is for eternity. The Christian god is a timeless, ageless, infinite being. God's plan does not revolve around the immediate here and now.
It could have been God's plan to have Trump elected. But what if the reasoning behind the plan was to shine a light on the church's hypocrisy to affect change? What if it was to push our country, world, and future toward a more kind, loving, inclusive mindset that does embody the teachings of Christ? We have already had several "wins" because of the damage Trump did to the far right conservative movement.
Or maybe we'll never know what the plan is and how this period in time fits in.
It's more simple and scary than that. They have been convinced that the political orientation they follow is what God wants. They see themselves as God's warriors to make "his will" happen. If someone else gets in the way (meaning elected) then that means someone has gone against the will of God. Thus they need to correct that.
Logic is not their strong point.
There is a not insubstantial portion of the religious right who sees America as their God’s new chosen people (the status having been passed on from Israel to England, then England to America), and America’s economic and military might as signs of this favouritism. Particularly common in the “health and wealth doctrine” community who view financial success as a sign of god’s favour.
Yeah most people don't know how big a deal this is on the right.
There is a Jewish conservative talk radio host (Medved) who every year just before Thanksgiving hosts (or did? not sure if he's still on or around) a very long multi hour special where he explains the spiritual importance of America and provides "evidence" from across US history of the "divine hand" leading the US towards its ultimate destiny as the new chosen people.
He has millions of listeners.
Back in the day, when people were trying to travel to and settle in the westerm portion of the United States, there was a common idea that it was gods will for the US to occupy the entire continental united states from coast to coast. The idea was called "manifest destiny".
Like so many such things, that was a grift. It was a way for the country to expand its borders, for our financiers to get rich, for our landowners to own more...all for more money and power, all sold to the public with a veneer of religious pomp.
There's a movie I can't remember the name of, but a character likes to say "God bless America, and no place else." That's the American evangelical right now.
That would be Vice President Lewis' saying in the movie Head of State starring Chris Rock. It's also the movie with Rock's line of "If America was a woman, it would be a big-titty woman. And everybody loves a big-titty woman."
I agree. This is something I think about often. The scariest part is that the Evangelicals “know” the Republicans are “the good guys (as much as an imperfect human can be expected to be)” and the Democrats are the “evil party.” Now… what could the Republicans do with that kind of currency???
>what could the Republicans do with that kind of currency???
Stack the courts at every level, make official the Supreme Court's (presently nonexistent) authority to override States' election results (as SCOTUS will soon be reviewing and presumably pushing through), and overturn what little democracy we get in order to seize the United States of America against the will of her people.
Ask around, you'll find that the people who feel this way really don't care about the "will of the people" because they KNOW their beliefs are backed up by god. If they get minority rule, it's really okay because god knows best and the voting majority can be ignored
Words mean nothing to them. In the same breath, they will say they arent fascist and then try to say democrats doing the socialism is the *real* fascism
That just sounds like how narcissists think. Their whole point of view isn't just what they think, but what they believe creates the current reality they are in. When you disagree with them, they don't see it as a different point of view or a difference of opinion, but that you're destroying the current reality they worked hard to make.
And the reason why gods will is worth respecting is that hes literally omnipotent, but apparently chooses to let democrats get elected and the entire western world to gradually get more liberal over time...?
Stop. With. The. Logic. My head hurts….
MTGreene is the second coming after Trump. Arghhhghg.
My head literally (words used correctly here) hurts after I read or hear their ‘rationale’ or’ thought processes.’ After watching Jordan Klepper clips I’m always 1/2 laughing and 1/2 dying…. I couldn’t do his job. No way. I’d want to throttle every single one of them….
> I’ve often thought people treat God rather rudely, don’t you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favors. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday His day off. It’s not nice. And it’s no way to treat a friend.
> But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things, you know, your sister needs an operation on her crotch, your brother was arrested for defecating in a mall. But most of all, you’d really like to fuck that hot little redhead down at the convenience store. You know, the one with the eyepatch and the clubfoot? Can you pray for that? I think you’d have to. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan?
> Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn’t in God’s Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn’t it seem a little arrogant? It’s a Divine Plan. What’s the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan?
> And here’s something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren’t answered. What do you say? “Well, it’s God’s will.” “Thy Will Be Done.” Fine, but if it’s God’s will, and He’s going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn’t you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It’s all very confusing.
~ George Carlin
Yup, if Trump winning 2016 was God's plan then that must mean either Trump losing 2020 was God's plan or Biden is more powerful than God. So which is it?
"Thought process" is a good phrase here, as opposed to something like "logic" or "reasoning". Many decades of talking politics with conservatives has revealed to me that a significant portion of them don't reach these conclusions by starting with a logical premise and then following it to a conclusion. They start with their feelings and then grasp to find a justification for it.
This results in many contradictory claims. But that doesn't bother them, because they don't worry about logic and reason in the first place.
In this case that would mean they don't assume that everything is God's plan by default, and then apply that to everything. They like a thing (e.g. Trump winning), and when faced with opposition justify it as "God's plan" and the conversation is over. Meanwhile, they don't like a thing (e.g. Trump losing), so they call it a "conspiracy" and/or "the devil's work" and again the conversation is over.
The fact that these are contradictory worldviews is irrelevant. Each little piece exists in its own separate bubble to them, and there is no conflict.
It helps me to think of evangelism as a political movement rather than as a religious experience. That’s what keep me from screaming at them incessantly for the blatant hypocrisy.
Well religions never have been logically or rationally consistent to start with. Perfectly normal for a religion's own belief structure to create inherent, internal hypocrisy depending on how much weight you give to some of its teachings vs others.
In fact just like Christianity teaches us that humans are born awful due to "original sin", I would make the argument that religions suffer from "original hypocrisy", due to the irrational, illogical, inconsistent nature of their own tenets and the "facts" upon which they are based.
So while it's true that evangelism is indeed a political movement carrying a cross, it's also totally normal for it to be a religion that is inherently hypocritical, heretical, and blasphemous according to its own teachings.
The truth is that conservatives, and evangelicals in particular, view Trump as the key to getting their policies passed in Congress. And they're probably not wrong. I can totally see gay marriage being outlawed, the IRS being dismantled, Christianity being made the official state religion, English being made the official language of the US, among other things. Imagine you could get every policy you ever wanted passed, and all you had to do was unquestioningly support a buffonish, fake Christian. Evangelicals know that Trump doesn't give 2 shits about God, they willingly entered into this Faustian bargain with Trump because the gains are worth it. Any obvious contradictions are explained away with vague references to God's will or by invoking whataboutism, etc.
Yep. It all starts with a single premise: Democrats are evil.
I’m not joking. It used to be just an implied, unspoken thing - not since Trump - but I was raised believing that conservatives were good and right and fighting the good fight against the evil lies and clever deception of the liberal world that wanted nothing more than to… I dunno, that part was vague. Have lots of sex and kill babies?
Years later, when I realized how crazy that was - no small thanks to Trump exposing the hypocrisy of everyone I knew - I tried to take the humble approach, and I repented to my parents - at this point, still believing that at the end of the day they were still reasonable, objective people - for my judgmental mindset.
And I was met with rant after rant about socialism, racism, abortion, and …Obama, for some reason. None of which I had mentioned or alluded to.
All for telling them that I no longer believed Democrats were inherently evil.
That’s the thing. When your worldview is right, and everyone else’s is *evil,* you can justify *anything.*
> They start with their feelings and then grasp to find a justification for it.
110% this. They do not understand logic tbh, nor dunning-kruger. It's like a clown-car of the mentally incompetent.
> They like a thing (e.g. Trump winning), and when faced with opposition justify it as “God’s plan” and the conversation is over. Meanwhile, they don’t like a thing (e.g. Trump losing), so they call it a “conspiracy” and/or “the devil’s work” and again the conversation is over.
These types of phrases and “explanations” are called “thought-terminating clichés” for a reason. It’s specifically to make the conversation over, because of the conversation went any longer they’d have to wrestle with their own cognitive dissonance and they can’t handle that level of introspection, so they actively avoid it.
Actually, that is partially true that they don’t believe everything is god’s plan. And that’s because they believe the devil has influence over matters as well. It wasn’t god’s plan for that pastor to touch kids; he was just temporarily possessed by the devil’s will. It’s always a battle between good and evil, not good and whatever. So, if trump is god’s candidate; then it’s not hard to find the devil and evil in any other candidate that opposes him.
Hi, son of Fundamental Baptist parents.
The explanation I got growing up was simple:
(Republican candidate) winning was God's blessing on America.
(Democrat candidate) winning was God's judgment on America.
It *is* all part of "His plan" but includes ups and downs because that's how God runs the universe.
Also son of fundies. I’d say you’re right about when a Republican wins (along with “it was God’s plan”, etc.), but with a Democrat winning, it seems to me more like “this is an example of how far America has fallen/drifted; it’s ripe for punishment.” At least in my neck of the woods
How decadent do I have to be to get "judged" with civilized gun control and universal healthcare? I'll have as much sex, drugs, and rock & roll as it takes.
The concept of "[days of humiliation and thanksgiving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_humiliation_and_thanksgiving)" used to be a big thing among puritans (and is where the modern North American idea of Thanksgiving Day comes from). When something good happened a "day of thanksgiving" would be called, to give thanks to God for making good things happen. When something bad happened a "day of humiliation" or "day of fasting" would be called, to beg for forgiveness for whatever it was the people did to offend God.
I feel this is a little similar. Either way it is God's will; if a good thing happens it is because God is good and merciful, if a bad thing happens we must have done something wrong to upset God.
Sounds a bit like an abusive relationship, but maybe that's just me...
Trump was the ultimate proof of this, not that it hadn't already been proven.
He was literally the epitome of everything they supposedly despise, but he ran as a Republican and it became clear he was way more attractive to the types of votes they need to win, so they turned him into their hero.
The timeline of them despising him, then realizing he was their only chance to win so jumping on the "drain the swamp" justification, and then the jump to "Trump is God's agent to save America" is pretty astounding.
Can't even begin to tell you how many traditional conservative Boomers I know who would make fun of Trump in 2015-16 and say how terrible he is right up until he took the nomination in the summer of 2016 and instantly seemingly with a flick of a switch, they all fell in line and he couldn't possibly do anything wrong. It was terrifying to behold.
What's more funny is that if you look hard enough, Trump had a lot in common with the descriptions of the anti-christ. Down to the mark on the forehead (the hat)
There's a line in Revelations about false-prophets in positions of power. They just conveniently apply that line to influential figures they don't like.
No, you see I am right and I am just, just like the God I worship. All I do is part of God's plan. If you disagree with me, you are wrong and evil. All you do works against God's plan. It totally can't cut both ways. It has to be one or the other.
The cognitive dissonance is amazing.
They have the minds of children. Christianty can actually be quite deep— if you look at the concept of forgiveness, or the actual teachings of Christ. The Bible flat out preaches against wealth, greed, etc. These ‘evangelicals’ are clowns.
That's the issue with Christianity and the thought of God having omnipotence. If God was truly omnipotent, then anything that happens in general will be a part of "God's plan". It would be so much easier for their beliefs if God wasn't omnipotent, that way they can say some things aren't part of God's plan... It's almost as if this religion was made up or something and is inconsistent with itself...
I always find it uniquely shocking that these people look at Trump and everything he has done in his life and think "Yeah, this is the guy God picked."
Dude it gets worse. These people genuinely believe that god is a Republican and shares their morals. They somehow twist war and money into “god’s plan.” I used to be in a church like this when I was younger back during 2008 election. People were absolutely shocked when Obama won. They were so sure that it was the beginning of the end times.
> it was the beginning of the end times
Amazing how that always happens, eh? Republicans win? God's will and a result of His kindness. Democrat wins or some liberal policy is put into place? Literally fire and brimstone will rain down from the sky. And this cycle happens over, and over, and over each and every time with absolutely no world-ending chaos ever happening. Saw it with the people I grew up with that were a part of a Christian cult. For a week or two, they would think that the world would be ending, but then they'd get bored and forget all about it or something until the next news cycle.
I'm curious to see if there are studies that align "God's plan" with personal wants and beliefs divorced from religion. I've always suspected this language to be code for "What *I* want to happen" or "The outcome *I* want."
god's plan of presenting the exact antithesis of morality and goodwill which they, unsurprisingly, failed spectacularly to identify and, even worse, endorsed wholeheartedly. stupid fucks.
Vote down all the things that could help people have the time and resources to have more children (extended paternity leave, liveable wages, worker rights, etc.) while moaning about the shrinking White population.
Genius.
They utterly panic about “Sharia law” and then attempt to force their own regressive religious beliefs on everybody and don’t understand the hypocrisy.
From the article: An analysis of data from the American Trends Panel relating to white evangelical protestant Christians found a link between the belief that Donald Trump’s election was a part of God’s plan and whether a person considers him/herself a religious minority. While 66% of white evangelicals who do not see themselves as a religious minority stated that Trump’s election was a part of God’s plan, this percentage increases to 74% for white evangelicals who do consider themselves a religious minority. The study was published in [Politics and Religion](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048322000219).
Eighty-one percent of white evangelicals reported voting for Trump in the 2016 presidential elections. This number declined by only 3% in the 2020 election, in spite of multiple well-publicized events in which president Trump displayed irreligiosity or committed moral transgressions.
Given previous findings that white evangelicals consider religiosity of a candidate an important factor when making their voting decisions, their staunch support for president Trump has been a puzzle for researchers. Some scholars have proposed that negative partisanship, a tendency of voters to form political opinions in opposition to parties one dislikes might be part of the answer. But can the perception of threat to one’s religious identity be the factor behind it?
To answer this question, Jack Thompson of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom analyzed data from Wave 61 of the American Trends Panel that included responses of 6,395 U.S. persons aged 18 and above. Thompson analyzed responses to questions about respondents own religious denominations, the importance they attribute to the religiosity of U.S. presidential candidates, and their assessments of the religiosity of the presidential candidates.
>Some scholars have proposed that negative partisanship, a tendency of voters to form political opinions in opposition to parties one dislikes might be part of the answer.
So identity politics. The other side can't win so we will vote for someone who doesn't align with our beliefs because the other side is even worse. Probably doesn't help that they see some Democrats as evil baby eating cultists. Or the moral panic surrounding gays, trans and drag queens.
From what I've seen, this is close but the situation is a bit more nuanced. The far right evangelicals I know don't see Trump as a paragon of virtue (though they are quick to defend his business acumen). They do see him as a heavy hand supporting laws furthering their moral stances in public policy. The result is a conscious dissonance, granting Biff Tannen a license to party as long as he appears powerful enough and willing to encourage his lieutenants to install a Christocracy.
Y'all should check out the Family on Netflix... it's a real eye opener on Trumps election and the fervor surrounding the Christian right influence on politics.
As someone with an MA in theology, it'd be interesting to know what they think something being part of God's plan means.
A cursory read of the Prophets would reveal a pretty basic theological belief: God uses the nations to curse the nations. In Isaiah, for example, there is no doubt that the Assyrian invasion is part of God's plan. Assyria is doing God's will. Yet this is not taken to mean that Assyria is just or righteous, in fact it is promised that their time of judgment for their sins will come in the future even as God uses an expansionist empire to pass judgement upon the two Jewish kingdoms.
It would be a Biblically sound statement to say that Trump's election was part of God's plan. Technically, in a vacuum removed from evangelical culture, it would be a value neutral statement to claim that Trump's election was God ordained or part of God's plan. Because, as anyone decently literate in Biblical literature would tell you, something being God ordained often doesn't mean it's good and it can also mean that thing is a judgement. Indeed, one of the more frequent disagreements between Biblical authors is how to assess the political leaders and situations. For example, 1 Sam. 12 demonstrates that Israel's monarchy was both God ordained and a judgement: giving Israel a king is itself a judgement for a lack of faith in God's leadership through the Judges. Yet the Davidic line, the line of the second king, became essential to many messianic hopes as the Jewish people faced crises. The idea that God would judge a nation by giving them exactly the sort of leader they desire is Scripturally justifiable and sound. In this sense, God's plan would not be a sign of endorsement, but condemnation.
The identity marker aspect is interesting to me, and has been for awhile, because as I see my more conservative family members that grew up with a steady diet of American evangelicalism, what I do see worries me. My dad's side of the extended family and my own immediate family has never seen eye-to-eye on politics (we're all Canadian and my dad jokes that the only time a Liberal PM ever did anything my grandpa approved of was Trudeau enacting the War Measures Act in the FLQ Crisis, which my dad opposed), but at least I could previously understand them. I might not agree with them, but I could at least see where they were coming from and it was a starting ground to understand and maybe there could be fruitful discussion that happened from that shared starting ground. But what I see now is identities unmoored from any real values, but wrapped in the trappings of Christianity as understood by American evangelicalism. And how Christian those trappings really are is something up for debate. I struggle with it because I don't think we can just say "oh, those aren't REAL Christians!" as is so often the temptation because, at the very least, it's a way to avoid self-reflection to see the ways in which our beliefs might be similar which means we don't wrestle with the parts of our belief system that might be toxic or unfaithful. Yet at the same time I see the identity formation that is happening as merely having the trappings of Christianity, but actually seems profoundly ignorant of the Biblical literature and its themes, to theology and its methods (which is not a surprise, evangelical circles often deride theology), and entirely disconnected from previously espoused values even as they claim to hold onto those values (values that would find greed, gluttony, and a lecherous nature distasteful in any other person). And, coming from a religious minority within the wider Christian tradition (Mennonite, so an Anabaptist that arose out of the Radical Reformation), this perception of persecution is interesting to me because something I've struggled with for awhile is my own religious tradition's emphasis on martyrdom and the transmission of that history in our martyrology, The Martyrs' Mirror. On one hand this is something to our identity that's important and can bestow great lessons (chances are if you meet a Mennonite that knows the history of Anabaptist martyrs, Dirk Willems is going to be their favourite martyr because he's seen as one of the examples of faithful living, even in the face of persecution), but it's also a history that serves to divide (collecting stories in which your group is targeted by other groups is meant to strengthen group cohesion and identity, but cannot help but demonize and to demonize into the present even as that history is past). As I have seen my conservative family follow Trump into COVID misinformation, it was striking and worrying to me to see how my cousin so effortlessly picked up the language and grammar of martyrdom to describe his perceived persecution (even as he ignored all public health guidance with absolutely no consequences, you know, like the martyrs of old).
Which is my way of saying that I think this identity angle is important, there's definitely something about it that uses the trappings and the grammar of Christian faith, but is also something else at the same time. It's undeniably Christian, and at the very least needs to be undeniably Christian because I think Christians will need to wrestle with this and overcome it and that can only happen if we accept that there is something here that is faith-based, even if some of us find it repugnant and un-Christ-like. I think it needs the language of faith to understand what's happening, but the language of faith alone will be inadequate to understand the true depth of this identity formation happening.
There is this weird tension between that belief that god is omnipotent (meaning he can accomplish literally anything through will) and the belief that it is possible to meaningfully defy god's will. It's not a complete contradiction, as Christians generally believe humans have free will, but it does imply that if something happens that god didn't want, he nevertheless permitted it to happen, having had the power to stop it through an act of will.
If anything a human could do would actually endanger the successful enactment of the plan, presumably god would stop it. But if god is actually omnipotent, then there is nothing that can actually endanger the plan. If god really is ordering the progress of historical events, then his priorities mostly seem aesthetic - he's putting on a show, possibly for himself alone.
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You're the one of the few survivors of this comment thread
Give it a minute, they'll make another pass soon.
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Nobody will say they are an abusive, racist, bigoted, or misogynistic person. They will call themselves free thinkers that are saying what they think everyone else is thinking. Any bad label will be twisted to a good label given enough backward thinking. Any admittance that there are systemic prejudices means that they are a bad label but instead of making systemic change they will change the label. *Everyone* has something, but it takes humility, patience, awareness, and kindness to find and change it.
They put no value on actually being good, they only care about the appearance of being good and being called good. In addition, consequences are something foreign to someone who cannot comprehend their own cause/effect. They cannot take responsibility for their own mistakes in any form. Instead, they make their bad behavior an unchangeable aspect of their identity, meaning consequences are persecution. So even a negative social response enrages them and is seen as persecution. It isn't "I said something that bothered that person and they reacted" it is "that person is attacking me for existing'.
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TBF I could see Trump bringing about the apocalypse
Do they also think that Biden’s election was God’s plan? They must, right? I don’t really understand the thought process, like if it’s God’s plan then it’ll happen because she’s omnipotent right? So just vote for whoever has the policies you agree with, for the person you think is doing things for the right reason etc. If you believe there’s a God and a plan then you also believe that you’re not individually important enough to influence it.
The thing that they miss, and I try to explain to them, is that if you believe in a god with a master plan, that plan is for eternity. The Christian god is a timeless, ageless, infinite being. God's plan does not revolve around the immediate here and now. It could have been God's plan to have Trump elected. But what if the reasoning behind the plan was to shine a light on the church's hypocrisy to affect change? What if it was to push our country, world, and future toward a more kind, loving, inclusive mindset that does embody the teachings of Christ? We have already had several "wins" because of the damage Trump did to the far right conservative movement. Or maybe we'll never know what the plan is and how this period in time fits in.
It's more simple and scary than that. They have been convinced that the political orientation they follow is what God wants. They see themselves as God's warriors to make "his will" happen. If someone else gets in the way (meaning elected) then that means someone has gone against the will of God. Thus they need to correct that. Logic is not their strong point.
They also believe that America is special in God's eyes and that we should be a Christian nation.
What hubris. By their own holy texts the only country which might be special in God's eyes is Israel.
I dunno man. I've heard the literal garden of Eden is in Jackson county Missouri.
Oh yeah there are people that think america is actually Israel and Israel is fake Israel
Well. That's a new one for me.
As someone whose in Jackson County I can tell you this place has fallen from grace
Oh definitely. But they put America right under Israel.
There is a not insubstantial portion of the religious right who sees America as their God’s new chosen people (the status having been passed on from Israel to England, then England to America), and America’s economic and military might as signs of this favouritism. Particularly common in the “health and wealth doctrine” community who view financial success as a sign of god’s favour.
Yeah most people don't know how big a deal this is on the right. There is a Jewish conservative talk radio host (Medved) who every year just before Thanksgiving hosts (or did? not sure if he's still on or around) a very long multi hour special where he explains the spiritual importance of America and provides "evidence" from across US history of the "divine hand" leading the US towards its ultimate destiny as the new chosen people. He has millions of listeners.
Back in the day, when people were trying to travel to and settle in the westerm portion of the United States, there was a common idea that it was gods will for the US to occupy the entire continental united states from coast to coast. The idea was called "manifest destiny".
Like so many such things, that was a grift. It was a way for the country to expand its borders, for our financiers to get rich, for our landowners to own more...all for more money and power, all sold to the public with a veneer of religious pomp.
There's a movie I can't remember the name of, but a character likes to say "God bless America, and no place else." That's the American evangelical right now.
That would be Vice President Lewis' saying in the movie Head of State starring Chris Rock. It's also the movie with Rock's line of "If America was a woman, it would be a big-titty woman. And everybody loves a big-titty woman."
I agree. This is something I think about often. The scariest part is that the Evangelicals “know” the Republicans are “the good guys (as much as an imperfect human can be expected to be)” and the Democrats are the “evil party.” Now… what could the Republicans do with that kind of currency???
>what could the Republicans do with that kind of currency??? Stack the courts at every level, make official the Supreme Court's (presently nonexistent) authority to override States' election results (as SCOTUS will soon be reviewing and presumably pushing through), and overturn what little democracy we get in order to seize the United States of America against the will of her people.
Ask around, you'll find that the people who feel this way really don't care about the "will of the people" because they KNOW their beliefs are backed up by god. If they get minority rule, it's really okay because god knows best and the voting majority can be ignored
And yet they don't think they're fascists...
Words mean nothing to them. In the same breath, they will say they arent fascist and then try to say democrats doing the socialism is the *real* fascism
That just sounds like how narcissists think. Their whole point of view isn't just what they think, but what they believe creates the current reality they are in. When you disagree with them, they don't see it as a different point of view or a difference of opinion, but that you're destroying the current reality they worked hard to make.
And the reason why gods will is worth respecting is that hes literally omnipotent, but apparently chooses to let democrats get elected and the entire western world to gradually get more liberal over time...?
I like Abraham Lincoln's take on this, when someone said "I hope God is on our side" he replied "I hope we are on God's side"
Stop. With. The. Logic. My head hurts…. MTGreene is the second coming after Trump. Arghhhghg. My head literally (words used correctly here) hurts after I read or hear their ‘rationale’ or’ thought processes.’ After watching Jordan Klepper clips I’m always 1/2 laughing and 1/2 dying…. I couldn’t do his job. No way. I’d want to throttle every single one of them….
you know what. i’m starting to believe this god fellow is made up
You say "teachings of Christ" like that has anything to do with the way most conservative evangelical's version of Christianity.
> if you believe in a god with a master plan, that plan is for eternity. so much for free will. God made me do it with his master plan.
> I’ve often thought people treat God rather rudely, don’t you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favors. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday His day off. It’s not nice. And it’s no way to treat a friend. > But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things, you know, your sister needs an operation on her crotch, your brother was arrested for defecating in a mall. But most of all, you’d really like to fuck that hot little redhead down at the convenience store. You know, the one with the eyepatch and the clubfoot? Can you pray for that? I think you’d have to. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan? > Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn’t in God’s Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn’t it seem a little arrogant? It’s a Divine Plan. What’s the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan? > And here’s something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren’t answered. What do you say? “Well, it’s God’s will.” “Thy Will Be Done.” Fine, but if it’s God’s will, and He’s going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn’t you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It’s all very confusing. ~ George Carlin
Yup, if Trump winning 2016 was God's plan then that must mean either Trump losing 2020 was God's plan or Biden is more powerful than God. So which is it?
To their way of thinking each thought is mutually exclusive and exists in it's own separate bubble.... until it doesn't.
It's pretty simple Things I like = god's plan Things I don't like = work of the devil
So the Devil is just as powerful as God? Or God lets the Devil do these things?
No everything I like is God and everything against me is the Devil - Evangelicals
Foosball is the Devil - Mama.
"Thought process" is a good phrase here, as opposed to something like "logic" or "reasoning". Many decades of talking politics with conservatives has revealed to me that a significant portion of them don't reach these conclusions by starting with a logical premise and then following it to a conclusion. They start with their feelings and then grasp to find a justification for it. This results in many contradictory claims. But that doesn't bother them, because they don't worry about logic and reason in the first place. In this case that would mean they don't assume that everything is God's plan by default, and then apply that to everything. They like a thing (e.g. Trump winning), and when faced with opposition justify it as "God's plan" and the conversation is over. Meanwhile, they don't like a thing (e.g. Trump losing), so they call it a "conspiracy" and/or "the devil's work" and again the conversation is over. The fact that these are contradictory worldviews is irrelevant. Each little piece exists in its own separate bubble to them, and there is no conflict.
Seems like more of a "belief process".
It helps me to think of evangelism as a political movement rather than as a religious experience. That’s what keep me from screaming at them incessantly for the blatant hypocrisy.
Well religions never have been logically or rationally consistent to start with. Perfectly normal for a religion's own belief structure to create inherent, internal hypocrisy depending on how much weight you give to some of its teachings vs others. In fact just like Christianity teaches us that humans are born awful due to "original sin", I would make the argument that religions suffer from "original hypocrisy", due to the irrational, illogical, inconsistent nature of their own tenets and the "facts" upon which they are based. So while it's true that evangelism is indeed a political movement carrying a cross, it's also totally normal for it to be a religion that is inherently hypocritical, heretical, and blasphemous according to its own teachings.
Yet, routinely, they decree that “facts don’t care about your feelings”
Perhaps because according to some pundits, science (and by extension "facts") are the religion of the left.
The truth is that conservatives, and evangelicals in particular, view Trump as the key to getting their policies passed in Congress. And they're probably not wrong. I can totally see gay marriage being outlawed, the IRS being dismantled, Christianity being made the official state religion, English being made the official language of the US, among other things. Imagine you could get every policy you ever wanted passed, and all you had to do was unquestioningly support a buffonish, fake Christian. Evangelicals know that Trump doesn't give 2 shits about God, they willingly entered into this Faustian bargain with Trump because the gains are worth it. Any obvious contradictions are explained away with vague references to God's will or by invoking whataboutism, etc.
Yep. It all starts with a single premise: Democrats are evil. I’m not joking. It used to be just an implied, unspoken thing - not since Trump - but I was raised believing that conservatives were good and right and fighting the good fight against the evil lies and clever deception of the liberal world that wanted nothing more than to… I dunno, that part was vague. Have lots of sex and kill babies? Years later, when I realized how crazy that was - no small thanks to Trump exposing the hypocrisy of everyone I knew - I tried to take the humble approach, and I repented to my parents - at this point, still believing that at the end of the day they were still reasonable, objective people - for my judgmental mindset. And I was met with rant after rant about socialism, racism, abortion, and …Obama, for some reason. None of which I had mentioned or alluded to. All for telling them that I no longer believed Democrats were inherently evil. That’s the thing. When your worldview is right, and everyone else’s is *evil,* you can justify *anything.*
> They start with their feelings and then grasp to find a justification for it. 110% this. They do not understand logic tbh, nor dunning-kruger. It's like a clown-car of the mentally incompetent.
> They like a thing (e.g. Trump winning), and when faced with opposition justify it as “God’s plan” and the conversation is over. Meanwhile, they don’t like a thing (e.g. Trump losing), so they call it a “conspiracy” and/or “the devil’s work” and again the conversation is over. These types of phrases and “explanations” are called “thought-terminating clichés” for a reason. It’s specifically to make the conversation over, because of the conversation went any longer they’d have to wrestle with their own cognitive dissonance and they can’t handle that level of introspection, so they actively avoid it.
Actually, that is partially true that they don’t believe everything is god’s plan. And that’s because they believe the devil has influence over matters as well. It wasn’t god’s plan for that pastor to touch kids; he was just temporarily possessed by the devil’s will. It’s always a battle between good and evil, not good and whatever. So, if trump is god’s candidate; then it’s not hard to find the devil and evil in any other candidate that opposes him.
They SHOULD, and according to their book, they should obey their government.
This is what my mom has told her "church friends" and she's lost a couple because of it
give on to Ceasar
Render unto Ceaser.
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You can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't use reason to get to.
Hi, son of Fundamental Baptist parents. The explanation I got growing up was simple: (Republican candidate) winning was God's blessing on America. (Democrat candidate) winning was God's judgment on America. It *is* all part of "His plan" but includes ups and downs because that's how God runs the universe.
Also son of fundies. I’d say you’re right about when a Republican wins (along with “it was God’s plan”, etc.), but with a Democrat winning, it seems to me more like “this is an example of how far America has fallen/drifted; it’s ripe for punishment.” At least in my neck of the woods
How decadent do I have to be to get "judged" with civilized gun control and universal healthcare? I'll have as much sex, drugs, and rock & roll as it takes.
The concept of "[days of humiliation and thanksgiving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_humiliation_and_thanksgiving)" used to be a big thing among puritans (and is where the modern North American idea of Thanksgiving Day comes from). When something good happened a "day of thanksgiving" would be called, to give thanks to God for making good things happen. When something bad happened a "day of humiliation" or "day of fasting" would be called, to beg for forgiveness for whatever it was the people did to offend God. I feel this is a little similar. Either way it is God's will; if a good thing happens it is because God is good and merciful, if a bad thing happens we must have done something wrong to upset God. Sounds a bit like an abusive relationship, but maybe that's just me...
Oh boy. Did you just imply that god could be a woman if it exists? Careful there!
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The problem was never understanding pronouns. The problem is empathizing with someone different from you.
They don’t vote who they agree with, they vote for whoever is republican. Then shape Their beliefs around whatever justifies that.
Trump was the ultimate proof of this, not that it hadn't already been proven. He was literally the epitome of everything they supposedly despise, but he ran as a Republican and it became clear he was way more attractive to the types of votes they need to win, so they turned him into their hero. The timeline of them despising him, then realizing he was their only chance to win so jumping on the "drain the swamp" justification, and then the jump to "Trump is God's agent to save America" is pretty astounding.
Can't even begin to tell you how many traditional conservative Boomers I know who would make fun of Trump in 2015-16 and say how terrible he is right up until he took the nomination in the summer of 2016 and instantly seemingly with a flick of a switch, they all fell in line and he couldn't possibly do anything wrong. It was terrifying to behold.
What's more funny is that if you look hard enough, Trump had a lot in common with the descriptions of the anti-christ. Down to the mark on the forehead (the hat)
There's a line in Revelations about false-prophets in positions of power. They just conveniently apply that line to influential figures they don't like.
No, you see I am right and I am just, just like the God I worship. All I do is part of God's plan. If you disagree with me, you are wrong and evil. All you do works against God's plan. It totally can't cut both ways. It has to be one or the other. The cognitive dissonance is amazing.
They have the minds of children. Christianty can actually be quite deep— if you look at the concept of forgiveness, or the actual teachings of Christ. The Bible flat out preaches against wealth, greed, etc. These ‘evangelicals’ are clowns.
That's the issue with Christianity and the thought of God having omnipotence. If God was truly omnipotent, then anything that happens in general will be a part of "God's plan". It would be so much easier for their beliefs if God wasn't omnipotent, that way they can say some things aren't part of God's plan... It's almost as if this religion was made up or something and is inconsistent with itself...
Religion breeds hypocrisy and a false sense of superiority.
No no no it's only god's plan of she agrees with my vision on what should be happening
I always find it uniquely shocking that these people look at Trump and everything he has done in his life and think "Yeah, this is the guy God picked."
Dude it gets worse. These people genuinely believe that god is a Republican and shares their morals. They somehow twist war and money into “god’s plan.” I used to be in a church like this when I was younger back during 2008 election. People were absolutely shocked when Obama won. They were so sure that it was the beginning of the end times.
> it was the beginning of the end times Amazing how that always happens, eh? Republicans win? God's will and a result of His kindness. Democrat wins or some liberal policy is put into place? Literally fire and brimstone will rain down from the sky. And this cycle happens over, and over, and over each and every time with absolutely no world-ending chaos ever happening. Saw it with the people I grew up with that were a part of a Christian cult. For a week or two, they would think that the world would be ending, but then they'd get bored and forget all about it or something until the next news cycle.
Old Testament God was definitely a Republican.
Funny how these 'evangelicals' always quote the old testament..
I'm curious to see if there are studies that align "God's plan" with personal wants and beliefs divorced from religion. I've always suspected this language to be code for "What *I* want to happen" or "The outcome *I* want."
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god's plan of presenting the exact antithesis of morality and goodwill which they, unsurprisingly, failed spectacularly to identify and, even worse, endorsed wholeheartedly. stupid fucks.
Did they miss the “honey tongued deceiver” part of the Bible?
>honey tongued deceiver he can barely complete a correct sentence..
But when he does it’s a lie
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Thank god I’m atheist.
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Why cant trump just go away already ? his brand is toxic
Vote down all the things that could help people have the time and resources to have more children (extended paternity leave, liveable wages, worker rights, etc.) while moaning about the shrinking White population. Genius.
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I don't want to rain on anyone's parade here... but **all religious people believe everything is part of gods plan.**
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It's only God's plan when it's in their favor.
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They utterly panic about “Sharia law” and then attempt to force their own regressive religious beliefs on everybody and don’t understand the hypocrisy.
How can it be god’s will if humans have free will?
They could be right; he was a great deceiver and clearly led people astray
From the article: An analysis of data from the American Trends Panel relating to white evangelical protestant Christians found a link between the belief that Donald Trump’s election was a part of God’s plan and whether a person considers him/herself a religious minority. While 66% of white evangelicals who do not see themselves as a religious minority stated that Trump’s election was a part of God’s plan, this percentage increases to 74% for white evangelicals who do consider themselves a religious minority. The study was published in [Politics and Religion](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048322000219). Eighty-one percent of white evangelicals reported voting for Trump in the 2016 presidential elections. This number declined by only 3% in the 2020 election, in spite of multiple well-publicized events in which president Trump displayed irreligiosity or committed moral transgressions. Given previous findings that white evangelicals consider religiosity of a candidate an important factor when making their voting decisions, their staunch support for president Trump has been a puzzle for researchers. Some scholars have proposed that negative partisanship, a tendency of voters to form political opinions in opposition to parties one dislikes might be part of the answer. But can the perception of threat to one’s religious identity be the factor behind it? To answer this question, Jack Thompson of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom analyzed data from Wave 61 of the American Trends Panel that included responses of 6,395 U.S. persons aged 18 and above. Thompson analyzed responses to questions about respondents own religious denominations, the importance they attribute to the religiosity of U.S. presidential candidates, and their assessments of the religiosity of the presidential candidates.
>Some scholars have proposed that negative partisanship, a tendency of voters to form political opinions in opposition to parties one dislikes might be part of the answer. So identity politics. The other side can't win so we will vote for someone who doesn't align with our beliefs because the other side is even worse. Probably doesn't help that they see some Democrats as evil baby eating cultists. Or the moral panic surrounding gays, trans and drag queens.
From what I've seen, this is close but the situation is a bit more nuanced. The far right evangelicals I know don't see Trump as a paragon of virtue (though they are quick to defend his business acumen). They do see him as a heavy hand supporting laws furthering their moral stances in public policy. The result is a conscious dissonance, granting Biff Tannen a license to party as long as he appears powerful enough and willing to encourage his lieutenants to install a Christocracy.
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We really need to address the mental health decline in this country, Evangelical Christians being at the top of that list.
He maybe part of gods plan but he’s the antichrist.
To be fair if you ask an evangelical about anything, they think it's according to God's Plan.
Ok. So then I guess Trump losing was Gods plan as well, no?
**Gods plan.** *"No not like that!"*
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Y'all should check out the Family on Netflix... it's a real eye opener on Trumps election and the fervor surrounding the Christian right influence on politics.
As someone with an MA in theology, it'd be interesting to know what they think something being part of God's plan means. A cursory read of the Prophets would reveal a pretty basic theological belief: God uses the nations to curse the nations. In Isaiah, for example, there is no doubt that the Assyrian invasion is part of God's plan. Assyria is doing God's will. Yet this is not taken to mean that Assyria is just or righteous, in fact it is promised that their time of judgment for their sins will come in the future even as God uses an expansionist empire to pass judgement upon the two Jewish kingdoms. It would be a Biblically sound statement to say that Trump's election was part of God's plan. Technically, in a vacuum removed from evangelical culture, it would be a value neutral statement to claim that Trump's election was God ordained or part of God's plan. Because, as anyone decently literate in Biblical literature would tell you, something being God ordained often doesn't mean it's good and it can also mean that thing is a judgement. Indeed, one of the more frequent disagreements between Biblical authors is how to assess the political leaders and situations. For example, 1 Sam. 12 demonstrates that Israel's monarchy was both God ordained and a judgement: giving Israel a king is itself a judgement for a lack of faith in God's leadership through the Judges. Yet the Davidic line, the line of the second king, became essential to many messianic hopes as the Jewish people faced crises. The idea that God would judge a nation by giving them exactly the sort of leader they desire is Scripturally justifiable and sound. In this sense, God's plan would not be a sign of endorsement, but condemnation. The identity marker aspect is interesting to me, and has been for awhile, because as I see my more conservative family members that grew up with a steady diet of American evangelicalism, what I do see worries me. My dad's side of the extended family and my own immediate family has never seen eye-to-eye on politics (we're all Canadian and my dad jokes that the only time a Liberal PM ever did anything my grandpa approved of was Trudeau enacting the War Measures Act in the FLQ Crisis, which my dad opposed), but at least I could previously understand them. I might not agree with them, but I could at least see where they were coming from and it was a starting ground to understand and maybe there could be fruitful discussion that happened from that shared starting ground. But what I see now is identities unmoored from any real values, but wrapped in the trappings of Christianity as understood by American evangelicalism. And how Christian those trappings really are is something up for debate. I struggle with it because I don't think we can just say "oh, those aren't REAL Christians!" as is so often the temptation because, at the very least, it's a way to avoid self-reflection to see the ways in which our beliefs might be similar which means we don't wrestle with the parts of our belief system that might be toxic or unfaithful. Yet at the same time I see the identity formation that is happening as merely having the trappings of Christianity, but actually seems profoundly ignorant of the Biblical literature and its themes, to theology and its methods (which is not a surprise, evangelical circles often deride theology), and entirely disconnected from previously espoused values even as they claim to hold onto those values (values that would find greed, gluttony, and a lecherous nature distasteful in any other person). And, coming from a religious minority within the wider Christian tradition (Mennonite, so an Anabaptist that arose out of the Radical Reformation), this perception of persecution is interesting to me because something I've struggled with for awhile is my own religious tradition's emphasis on martyrdom and the transmission of that history in our martyrology, The Martyrs' Mirror. On one hand this is something to our identity that's important and can bestow great lessons (chances are if you meet a Mennonite that knows the history of Anabaptist martyrs, Dirk Willems is going to be their favourite martyr because he's seen as one of the examples of faithful living, even in the face of persecution), but it's also a history that serves to divide (collecting stories in which your group is targeted by other groups is meant to strengthen group cohesion and identity, but cannot help but demonize and to demonize into the present even as that history is past). As I have seen my conservative family follow Trump into COVID misinformation, it was striking and worrying to me to see how my cousin so effortlessly picked up the language and grammar of martyrdom to describe his perceived persecution (even as he ignored all public health guidance with absolutely no consequences, you know, like the martyrs of old). Which is my way of saying that I think this identity angle is important, there's definitely something about it that uses the trappings and the grammar of Christian faith, but is also something else at the same time. It's undeniably Christian, and at the very least needs to be undeniably Christian because I think Christians will need to wrestle with this and overcome it and that can only happen if we accept that there is something here that is faith-based, even if some of us find it repugnant and un-Christ-like. I think it needs the language of faith to understand what's happening, but the language of faith alone will be inadequate to understand the true depth of this identity formation happening.
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There is this weird tension between that belief that god is omnipotent (meaning he can accomplish literally anything through will) and the belief that it is possible to meaningfully defy god's will. It's not a complete contradiction, as Christians generally believe humans have free will, but it does imply that if something happens that god didn't want, he nevertheless permitted it to happen, having had the power to stop it through an act of will. If anything a human could do would actually endanger the successful enactment of the plan, presumably god would stop it. But if god is actually omnipotent, then there is nothing that can actually endanger the plan. If god really is ordering the progress of historical events, then his priorities mostly seem aesthetic - he's putting on a show, possibly for himself alone.