askchapo

Religions end up being a reflection of the culture around it. You get a self-absorbed, hyper individualistic culture, it produces people who think of religion as a booster for them and them alone.

American Evangelical Christian is, at it's core, a product of settler colonialism and white supremacy. Everything else is downstream from that.

Take the religion of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, let it stew for a couple centuries, and you'd have basically the same thing.

Aside from the status of Christianity in America, and the particular church that these particular behaviours come from, there's also the problem that the bible is a highly inconsistent book that, alongside some good moral philosophy at times, also advocates great evil. It tells you how much you should get when selling your daughter. It instructs the ancient Jews on what the rules for taking each other into slavery should be (this is the more lenient version, where they should be released in the Jubilee year, although how often the Jubilee is held varies...). It also instructs them to "buy slaves from the nations around you", and says they should be held as chattel. It says that disobedient children should be executed. It says that if you beat your slave and he survives at least two days, you didn't do anything wrong in beating him. Jesus at one point instructs that a runaway slave should be returned to his owner, on the basis that the world was ending anyway and it was less trouble for everyone (he was an end times preacher and said in the gospels that he would return to bring the heavenly kingdom within the lifespan of the people present).

Firstly, any Christian who reads the bible sees the chosen people, who are supposedly holy and superior, being downright evil. They don't do those things, so they must be even more holy, and unbelievers must be doing even worse! Or they do do those things, but don't see a problem because, again, they see the holiest men in the bible doing awful things, too.

Secondly, and more obviously, they can use the bible to justify pretty much anything. It's a contradictory work that's been translated many times. Some of these donkeys use the famous verse "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" to justify prosperity gospel. They're just so used to twisting scripture to suit their ends that it wouldn't occur to them not to.

You know how people get ai psychosis from being told they are right too much? Imagine if it was decades of church

you have a few forces, plus or minus stuff you require non-materialistic understanding to take seriously, with religion.

We should identify what Christianity is, actually.

**Christianity is - **A movement started by the word and actions of a Galilean Jewish man probably named something like Yeshua.

Yeshua is very likely a real historical person, there's enough documentation to support the idea that he was at the center of some kind of religious/political movement. There are a lot of different speculations on the nature of the Historical "Jesus" - but one I tend to favor is that he was possibly a genuine rebel against Roman occupation and the puppet dynasty ostensibly ruling over Judea at the time. He was killed, his movement dies, his followers are martyred or driven into hiding. At this point the memory of who he was starts becoming fuzzy, and the theology of Christianity starts diverging massively from whatever that Yeshua-driven message was, though a lot of it may actually survive. ** Christianity is a religious and political institution** - It was always intended to be, if you follow the narrative above, and always was in a certain sense. But when Constantine legitimizes it as a state backed religion, it becomes a tool of statecraft and the management of people. Which means that the priorities shift, especially so divorced from origin, from the justification and establishment of a socio-religious polity, to being direct machinery of the state (of the people who killed him no less). Even through the reformation and all the way to the present moment, its prime role has been political and behavioral justification. ** Christianity is the art of reading, interpreting, and applying the message of a handful of books and letters**, and reinterpreting materials made outside of it as an institution and movement.

There is more, but im moving on - what Christianity is, and therefore what Christians are, exist at the confluence of these factors. Because everything from the nature of how it started, to who/what is legitimate, to what it means to be Christian, to how to interpret its holy books and materials, are all points of contention - what a Christian is is actually fairly fluid.

Because of this, it's not actually helpful to frame this sort of nonsense as indicative of Christians being Christians, or there being some essential nature to a Christian we can dissect from the events in the OP.

In the united states, though, is a kind of protestant Christianity that:

a) has zero interest in unpacking "The Bible" or any other Christian materials. For anyone that isn't whatever passes for clergy in a given congregation, it's mostly social, and where thought is concerned, the relationship is receptive. This isn't a place of learning how to think about things. It's not a place you learn about the social impact of your behavior, except that Evangelism is Good, and Public, Narcissistic Acts of Prayer Show Piety. Understanding isn't a priority.

b) finds historical context and philosophical deconstruction of the source materials to be almost like, anathema, to the belief itself. Because this version of Christianity is so, utterly detached and unlike what it claims to be, most folks are not going to be able to understand the words in the book except by their own idiom and "common sense" - that the gospel of John is literally dripping in neoplatonic thought, and that the Apostle Paul is clearly like, an actual fucking mystic talking about esoteric and occult matters is not only lost on this group, it's heresy. It's satanic influence. It's so unlike what it says it is, there's no reconciling what's actually in those books with anything they prioritize.

c) is very specifically keyed to the interests of a very specific kind of powerful person. It has to fit into this idea of itself that serves the state, which is about instilling low information, emotionally driven action, and validating these experience through pretty basic psychological manipulations. I got to learn how the sausage is made for Charismatic and Pentecostal groups because I was being courted to join my friends in a school meant to create future pastors and church leaders. It nearly left me an atheist. It's all about guiding minds, terminating thought, and getting people who have nothing to cough it up so Pastor Fuckboy can buy a ferrari and has the clout to run for local, state, or national office. Or to be in a position to play kingmaker for such positions of power.

d) expects public displays and affirmation of belief, and is increasingly in a siege mindset that means each group prayer at your job is actually a fucking struggle session and loyalty test. To fail to participate sufficiently is to out yourself, and find yourself out of a job.

is this actually Christianity? As a huge fucking religion nerd - No. Absolutely not. Not really. Not in the sense that it has much of anything in common with whatever traces of the Jesus Movement as it really existed survives for us to compare to - in that way it's damn near a complete inversion of the tenets.

So to answer you finally, "Christians" aren't necessarily full of themselves, but in a lot of places these days, you will find people professing a christian faith that gleefully feeds narcissism such that "winning the football game" or "making a lot of money" are signs of favor and divine glory, is morally, inexplicably more akin to Norse larping than traditionally Christian views and behaviors, that is increasingly less interested as an entity in being anything more than what it's supposed to be - a mass manipulation tool.

Christians are like this because they're either mindfucked real deep. just a gaping hungry butthole in their brains desperate for a rod or to spew shit everywhere; or they're climbing. they're using this monstrosity to increase their own corporeal power.

I personally hate it.

The purpose of a system is what it does and the purpose of Christianity is to control women, abuse children, and murder queer people. All large, longstanding christian institutions adapt to serve these goals and must do so in order to survive. The larger and more longstanding the institution the greater the degree of its adaptation. This naturally leads to the cultivation of followers who will support and carry out such things in a mutual feedback loop. (Something something dialectics) Their belief in their own inate superiority is a part of that. One which meshes very well with white supremacy, hence its even greater prevalence in settler colonies.

The god they worship is evil. Just point blank evil. I'm more surprised when seemingly good people get swept up in it.

If you really believed in this Divine being wouldn't you want it to focus on the important things like IDK making sure everyone has food and shelter and maybe making life less miserable for the homeless people?

Good luck getting an answer on this one. Since their god seemingly cannot do anything of course they focus his "power" on things that might actually happen (yes communism I'm talking about in the immediate here and now). They don't pray for an amputees healing.

They're the Elect. The special, chosen few that get to go to Heaven. Everyone else is destined for Hell.

From that point of view it's surprising that there are any Christians who aren't full of themselves.

Please heavenly father, bless us with our daily bread and 4.0% quarterly profit increase. Blessed is thy revenue, Amen.

Pretty sure I've been in a prayer thanking Jesus for some hot wings.

:meatwad: Dear Gee-whiz. Please bless thine presence with a sixteen inch, thick crust, meat craver's special, with the mild sauce, amen.

And please bring a side of wings while we wait.

Personally thanking God for small goofy comforts would be fine on its own, but pietymogging over some nugs is fucking pathetic lmao. It couldn't be any more obvious this behavior is entirely performative.

To add to what was said before, there's a bit of a selection effect going on where the most annoying people possible are the ones raising their religion or, worse, denomination as their identity. Case in point, how obnoxious do you have to be to identity as One of the Christians with Real Christian Values in a country that was founded by christians and was 99 percent christian until like 10 minutes ago? I'm convinced 'Christian' in the US is like when a Catholic is holier than the Pope.

I've had people thank God after I fixed something for them and I'm always like wow I know I am really good but I never considered I could be God.

Protestant work ethic and American Christian nationalism.

American evangelicals might be a completely different religion.

This sounds like typical nondenominational Christianity, y'know the large concert hall style churches with the coffee shops and the "modern" worship songs you're taking about, and the people who think prayer is a personal wishlist. Not saying strictly denominational Christianity is better, in many ways it's worse, but at least you don't have to put up with a lot of this.

I'm basing this opinion as someone who grew up in a more traditional denominational church, and then my parents went to one of those nondenominational larger churches.

Most Christians support what's happening in Venezuela so yeah lol

Please do not lump all Christians in with folks like this. People who call themselves Christians and impose their values on others are not Christians. They're hypocrites who use the name of Christ to oppress in order to make their lives under capitalism feel more powerful. There are plenty of Christians out there doing great work. Read Paulo Freire.

Something about God being omnipotent and omnipresent so he can hear all prayers and help everybody at the same time or something but even then why not just super-charge prayers for stuff that objectively matters more? Idk but keeping in mind USian anything are always worse than non-USians of the same breed.