Jesus lived in a region conquered by the Roman Empire. Many of his fans at the time wanted him to be a conquering ruler and overthrow them. His answer in the text amounted to, "that's not why I'm here." Nominal Christians trying to install a Christian Government have missed the point of their own text so hard it's actually kinda funny.
Jesus: Share resources among those that need them, it's very hard for rich people to enter heaven.
His Followers: Temporarily embarrassed billionaires who idolize wealth and build literal golden statues of their favorite rich guy.
Jesus: Hangs out with tax collectors (i.e., agents of the Romans, who were not popular), hookers, low status foreigners, and people with terminal diseases.
His Followers: Ew, drag queens and brown people. Gross.
Jesus: Encourages non-violent responses to his own capture pending execution. Tells many parables about forgiveness and treating foreigners as neighbors.
His Followers: Immigrants are invading us! They terk our jerbs! BOMB IRAN!
Anyone seeing a pattern here? The reality is that Christianity isn't really a belief system for them, it's a cultural identity or tribal marker. You don't have to actually believe any of this shit or behave accordingly. All you have to do is say the right words and present the right image. Right wing Evangelical Christianity is a hollowed out husk; an empty aesthetic presenting as a belief system that promises that anything you do will be wiped away if you say the right words and give money to whatever charlatan is giving his Dollar General Ted Talk today.
I think you're a hell of a lot closer than most Christians, but my read through was different when it came to Rome
Like when they asked if they should pay the tax collector. He asked who's head was on the coin, and said "give unto Cesar what is Caesar's". My teacher said that means pay your taxes... That's a pretty strained reason
What he was saying is "let's just share among each other, then coin means nothing to us". He was advocating dropping out of the Roman economy
He also preached that if you have excess, you share it generously - so no huge stockpiles of grain to be seized.
And it was like this across the board - we don't need temples, it's enough to share a meal. We don't need the holy of holies or complex bathing rituals - here's a new ritual that only requires a bit of water
We don't need leaders, if we all focus on serving each other everything will fall into place.
If Romans demand work from you, use their laws and customs against them. Make it frustrating to deal with you while giving them no justification to draw a sword
It all fits together nicely. It's not about religion - everything he said on that topic boils down to "you've mistaken our laws for the meaning behind them and they've become a reason to do evil. At the core, it's just be good to each other, everything flows from there"
Jesus was a revolutionary. He sought to free his people not as a heroic warlord, but by making them unprofitable and frustrating. He was removing the weaknesses of his people. If you have no leaders, there's no one to hold hostage. If you hold the spirit of the law above it's wording, the religious leaders couldn't demand obedience through religion. If you give away your money freely and have no big stores of food or wealth, there's nothing for them to take. There's no handle to control them, and there's no profit in raiding them
And that's why he died - it seems very clear to me that Judas didn't betray him - he followed Jesus's plan. Jesus warned them all it was about to happen, and told them not to resist. Judas didn't want the silver, he felt enough guilt/grief to take his own life.
Jesus himself was the last weakness, so he had to die. Or at least stage his death - he was very popular among the legions very soon after his death. Maybe he had inside help from his executioners, he was up on the cross for a very short time (granted, he was probably on the verge of death already)
Unfortunately, it still had one weakness... The Romans straight up brutally massacred his peaceful followers
This is a big reason why I think people who want to abolish religion all together miss the point. The issue is not that the text is so dark and vile it breaks brains... When taken in its proper historical context and read properly, it's actually quite based.
The issue is that humans are stupid, violent, tribal beasts who will take any symbol and use it to bang their drum. If religion didn't exist the world would be just as shitty, only now humans would be worshipping The Beatles and claiming Beatles music was all about keeping the black man down and praying away the gay.
Other way around. Christian extremism predates Islam as a religion.
Its also almost certainly directly responsible for the burning of the Library of Alexandria, and possibly the burning of Rome.
It's also why European folklore and ancient customs don't really exist other than bits and pieces outside of a few places. Christian extremism wiped it out.
In this case, the law could potentially give green light to CP as long as it's between married couples, as
it has an exception for married couples,
it does not differentiate between porn of consenting adults and of children who cannot consent.
After seeing many laws that are written in a way they have other effects that are "totally unintended", I refuse to believe this guy isn't aware the pedo part of his law. I usually oppose pedojacketing, but in this case it's not unwarranted.
I'm no religious scholar, and I'm aware the Bible is so full of vauge and conflicting statements that it's possible to cherry pick a verse that agrees with literally any worldview, but let me cherry pick a few that this man must interpret differently than me.
John 8:1-11 Religious leaders bring Jesus a woman who has commited adultery and asks if he agrees with religious laws that state she should be stoned to death. His response is the often quoted "let any one of you who is without sin cast the first stone".
Luke 7:36-50 Jesus is dinning at the home of a religious leader. A prostitute enters and washes the feet of Jesus with her tears and hair. He explains to the religious leader that this woman has shown him great love because he has forgiven her of great sins. However, the religious leader has shown Jesus no love. Jesus explains "Those who have been forgiven of little, love little".
I'd argue Jesus would be against jailing people for watching porn if he so easily forgave adultery and prostitution.
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
There was one person the Knowledge Fight guys did a break episode on who wanted to make porn illegal. After getting pretty far into the episode Dan finally reveals what he eventually found out after the guy mentions people having legal issues:
His son got caught with (already illegal) child porn, and it hurt his sons career options. So this man's idea is to ban all porn.... despite the reason for his tirade being already illegal. He just wants to harm everyone else too, lashing out.
His son got caught with (already illegal) child porn, and it hurt his sons career options. So this man’s idea is to ban all porn… despite the reason for his tirade being already illegal.
He probably thinks regular porn is a "gateway drug" to more extreme porn, eventually culminating in what his son was caught with. This isn't a super uncommon view, and isn't even limited to weird fundies or even the right. I don't agree with it personally, but I've seen it enough times from people on enough sides that I wouldn't be surprised if he's part of that crowd.
That's the point. The US has for profit prisons and also uses prisoners as slave labor (ok, technically not slave, they officially get paid, but it's like $0.03 an hour or something, so it's effectively slave labor). More prisoners means more profits for the owners and the politicians they give kickbacks to. They're modern day plantations. The more things change the more they stay the same.
They're usually paid some miniscule amount, but not always; the 13th amendment specifically allows prisoners to be used as slaves. Most states have laws banning it, but not all of them.
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and Texas do not pay incarcerated workers at all for their labor.
This only adds to your point, but I wanted to include that several states (in the South of course) do in fact pay absolutely NOTHING for their prison labor.
Some areas may pay prisoners minimum wage for work release jobs, but I believe many of those can turn around and garnish those same wages for room and board at the prison. It’s ridiculous. The second you make more than a dime for your labor, we will start charging you for the right to live again.
The con movement is chock full of creepy weirdos and freaks. If they want some con paradise where they love oil and have morality police, they should get their freak selves over to Saudi Arabia, and fuck right off from here.
This is a country founded on secular values - the xtian jesus freak stuff need not apply to government, thanks.
Two thirds? Damn you're optimistic. More like 90%. I'd guess about a third of those would be looking at jail time if their porn was revealed even if regular porn wasn't made illegal. Remember with Republicans every accusation is an admission and they've been awfully strident about groomers lately.
In Deevers’ view, civil society, apart from the influence of overt Christian doctrine, is not a neutral middle ground, but rather the realm of the devil, or what he calls “a serpentine theocracy.”
But when Deevers opens his mouth, he invariably presents a jarring, black-and-white view of the role of government — which he believes exists to “protect innocent people and to punish and terrorize evildoers.”
While campaigning, Deevers told a religious podcast he also favors “public shaming for those who are at fault in divorce.” (In a related essay, he calls this “an important act of justice for both the transgressor and the transgressed.”)
Deevers embodies a threat that experts believe Christian nationalism poses to democracy — by literally demonizing his opponents, and casting compromise as moral corruption.
As Brad Onishi, author of an “Extremist History of Christian Nationalism,” recently described in an interview with Rolling Stone: “If you’re a person who is convinced that the United States is under threat by a Luciferian regime, comprised of Marxist globalist secularists, feminists, the LGBTQ community, and so on, democracy is not your sacred value.”
Pitching himself to voters, Deevers filmed a campaign ad wielding a rifle while wearing a black T-shirt that read: “Obey God: Defy Tyrants.” He railed against “the Godless leftist agenda” that he warned threatens “thriving families and their moral development.” He additionally decried “drag queen story hour” and the “chemical and surgical mutilation of our kids.” A longtime opponent of abortion, Deevers positioned this stance in biblical terms as “loving my pre-born neighbor as myself.”
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I've got fifty cents that says this dude watches an extraordinary amount of gay porn and somehow he thinks that is shameful. It isn't, but he thinks it is.
Oh lord another "christian nationalist" nutjob with severe mental problems. If he wants to persecute evildoers, he needs to start by putting a clamp over his own monsterous mouth.
It is NOT morality to condemn pornography. In fact, I believe it's far more idiotic and immoral not to watch "porn" (which I wish didn't have a name with such negative connotations to it). People put effort and money into making that s#it for our enjoyment (mostly us males, I admit, but it's there for everyone to enjoy).
They found cave paintings in Lescoux that show cavemen sex with animals and other humans, including kids. My point here is that "porn," which is a term that usually just refers to sexual congress between human beings, has existed FOR A REASON as long as human beings have been around.
I know it's not fashionable, "christian," or polite to make a statement supporting the viewing of sexual pleasure as a necessary part of life, but I hold with Larry Flynt's view of "relax people, it's JUST sex." The idea that human sexuality is sinful is perhaps the most evil idea ever perpetrated by man.
The one impulsive, pleasurable and inexpensive joy we have being labelled a sin and wrong is, to me, the real crime here. I'm not saying porn doesn't sometimes create victims, but for every instance of that, there are billions more who enjoy it and are not harmed but in fact are uplifted and given a healthy outlet because of it.
They found cave paintings in Lescoux that show cavemen sex with animals and other humans, including kids.
Wait really? I can't find a source for that. This source says there's only one human drawing in there, with a bird's head. Are you thinking of another cave?