Military coup in Myanmar

[Valmy]

Definitely true. Let's not forget radical Muslims are effectively Muslim protestants. True Conservative Muslims from more traditional sects tend to be a lot more live and let live even when it comes to gay people and other big trigger points for the nutters.

It is a bit more complicated than that. And I am not all that interested in playing the "True Muslim" game. True Muslims are whomever says they are a Muslim as far as I am concerned. The most radical ISIS asshole is just as Muslim as the fluffiest hippy Muslim.

[Jacob]

Yeah which is a fair point. What I mean is more that it's not something within the content of evangelical belief. Rather the secular cultural and demographic forces often shape the religion as often (if not more) than they are shaped by them and I think politics will sort of instrumentalise whatever faith is lying around - whether that's Evangelism, or Dutch Calvinist churches, or various brands of Islam, or whatever else.

And as with even very conservative Muslims there's value in distinguishing between believers and people who are using that as a political agenda.

Yeah for sure.

There seems to be an affinity between nationalist populism and conservative-ish religion and that seems to be true in a wide number of nations and with a wide number of faiths. So yeah, I'm inclined to agree that it's not something that's inherent in evangelical Christianity compared to any other faith. Rather it's a feature of combining a socially dominant faith with nationalist populism, which frequently shades into racism and other bigotry to a greater or lesser degree.

[Valmy]

Yeah I might be wrong about this but sometimes I get the sense that a significant part of people are religious entirely for identity reasons. They don't give a shit about what the religion actually believes in outside of that it is just the religion of their culture. That overlaps with plenty of dislike of the outgroup as per usual.

[Eddie Teach]

Definitely true. Let's not forget radical Muslims are effectively Muslim protestants. True Conservative Muslims from more traditional sects tend to be a lot more live and let live even when it comes to gay people and other big trigger points for the nutters.

It is a bit more complicated than that. And I am not all that interested in playing the "True Muslim" game. True Muslims are whomever says they are a Muslim as far as I am concerned. The most radical ISIS asshole is just as Muslim as the fluffiest hippy Muslim.

Yes, but that's because you're a Christian heretic. 

[Jacob]

Yes, but that's because you're a Christian heretic. 

The Prosperity Gospel folks are Christian heretics, worshipping Mammon as their golden calf, as are the money-focused mega-church grifters and their followers. Anyone who took to Trump to pursue their purported Christian agenda has sold their soul to the Antichrist.

[Valmy]

Wow. We are not usually so theological around here.

[Razgovory]

Er, what specific agenda are you talking about?

The GOP agenda.

I'm saying (white) Evangelical Christianity in the US is closely aligned with the GOP agenda and vice versa.

Sheilbh is saying that that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Evangelism, which is true if you consider Evangelism as a historical or theological phenomenon. But it is true if you consider American white Evangelical Christianity as cultural and demographic phenomenon.

Okay, I would side with Shelf here.  The cultural and demographic phenomenon is the same as the historical and theological.  You have conservatives Christians who are certainly not evangelical but still side with religious right political movement.  "Religious right" is probably a better term. I mean, you have Catholics who jump into this.  Catholicism has it's own forms of right wing political extremism but it so weird and alien to American political culture I can't make heads or tails of it.


I think there the reason that Evangelicalism is some prominent is because it is the majority religion in the south...  And yeah, this is race thing again.  Church attendance is going down among these people.  "Christian" is moving from a religious identification to an ethnic identification.  Atheists and agnostics are describing themselves as "culturally Christian" which tends to mean "hostile Muslims".  It's very troubling.  I could do without Nationalism or sectarian hatreds.

[viper37]

Wow we have dangerous cults and extremist sects in the United States that practice dangerous social control over their members? Wow thank you for this brand new information it is not like I live here or anything or have specifically mentioned them on this board. All those sects plus the ultra-orthodox are well known for these horrible practices.

I only seek to please&inform.  You're welcome.


Ok, I just misunderstood what you posted, sorry, I'm tired these days.