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DetlefK

(16,455 posts)
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 05:50 AM Jul 2019

You know things are weird when "non-religious" people follow Christ and Evangelicals do not.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,



https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/24/republicans-turn-more-negative-toward-refugees-as-number-admitted-to-u-s-plummets/

Among the public overall, whites are considerably less likely than blacks and Hispanics to say the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees. Younger adults, women and those with higher levels of educational attainment are also more likely to say the U.S. has a responsibility to accept them.

By more than two-to-one (68% to 25%), white evangelical Protestants say the U.S. does not have a responsibility to accept refugees. Other religious groups are more likely to say the U.S. does have this responsibility. And opinions among religiously unaffiliated adults are nearly the reverse of those of white evangelical Protestants: 65% say the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees into the country, while just 31% say it does not.


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leftofcool

(19,460 posts)
1. It is odd isn't it?
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 06:04 AM
Jul 2019

I am not a Christian, never have been, never will be yet I follow the teachings of the Prophet Jesus. I also believe in some Buddhist teaching, some Tao teachings, some teachings from my Elders and a few pagan ideas thrown into the mix. Mostly, I believe in trees and my black lab names Luna.

Major Nikon

(36,900 posts)
4. It would be odd if you thought Christians are Christians to enlighten themselves
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 07:14 AM
Jul 2019

More often than not I see them using their religion to justify an agenda. Meanwhile religion and demagoguery go together like drunk and disorderly.

gordianot

(15,515 posts)
2. I am convinced that at any time in Christian history anyone who expressed New Testament values:
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 06:05 AM
Jul 2019

Particularly those attributed to Jesus would be at severe risk of being flayed, beaten, tortured, molested, ridiculed and yes crucified. The current crop American Christian Evangelicals are particularly egregious in denial and contradiction of what they claim to worship.

Act_of_Reparation

(9,116 posts)
5. "New Testament Values"?
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 07:53 AM
Jul 2019

Like, "Believe in me or you're gonna burn"?

Call me hokey, but I'm actually kind of glad no one actually behaves like a first century Joe the Plumber says they should.

gordianot

(15,515 posts)
6. Just turn that cheek so you get smacked hard, do it to them before they do it to you.
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 08:05 AM
Jul 2019

The sermon on the mount really did not take.

DetlefK

(16,455 posts)
8. You have to take into account when and how the Bible was written.
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 08:27 AM
Jul 2019

The Torah was written down for the first time during the babylonian exile. Palestine was occupied by the kingdom Babylon and israelite scholars finally wrote down what had been before passed on through oral tradition: They were afraid that their culture and religion would be assimilated and wiped out by the Babylonians.

It is my personal theory, that the original jewish religion was ret-conned by the editors during this process. Before, the Jews were polytheists and venerated beside Jahweh the canaanite goddess Ashera. (Can be seen if you read between the lines in the Bible. "cut down your Ashera-poles...&quot From his choleric character, I think that Jahweh used to be a god of war of the Israelites, who was then ret-conned into the only god of the Israelites, because when your country is occupied by a hostile military force, you need a god of war.



And consider the time when the New Testament was written. Israel was occupied again, this time by the Romans. And Israel was governed by the brutal tyrant Herodes (it's a historical fact that he was a brutal tyrant).

In this time, someone comes up with an idea for a new jewish cult, that takes all the prophecies about the Messiah and says "this guy is it". The cult is small. The mainstream-Jews see it as heresy and the market is oversaturated with religions: Every country has their own religion, there are even cities with their own gods. So whom is this cult supposed to recruit as followers?

The christian religion could not afford to lose their precious few believers to any of the dozen other religions with their a hundred gods. So they became extremist.



An example for how over-saturated the world was with religious ideas back then is the Corpus Hermeticum. It's a religious book written in the 2nd or 3rd century AD and the author generously mixed christian, greek and egyptian religion into something new.

uriel1972

(4,261 posts)
3. I try to do the right thing...
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 06:42 AM
Jul 2019

because it's the right thing to do. Regardless of what's written where.

MineralMan

(147,591 posts)
7. That survey looks just about as I would expect it to.
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 08:24 AM
Jul 2019

It correlates with politics, too, I think. I would have added a political party question in it, though. That would be telling, I think.

Republican
Democratic
Unaffiliated

I'd like to see those numbers.

 

smirkymonkey

(63,221 posts)
11. Wonder what the overlap is between the uneducated and the white evangelical Protestant
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 09:20 AM
Jul 2019

demographic is? Just curious.

muriel_volestrangler

(102,485 posts)
13. "On average, evangelical Protestants have somewhat lower levels of educational attainment"
Thu Jul 11, 2019, 07:22 AM
Jul 2019
compared with the U.S. public as a whole. Roughly one-in-five evangelical Protestants (21%) are college graduates, while 35% have some college education (but not a four-year degree), and 43% have a high school education or less. Among those in the overall public, 27% are college graduates, 32% have some college experience, and 41% have a high school diploma or less education.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/5-facts-about-u-s-evangelical-protestants/

So that's 'somewhat', and a lower educational level does correlate with rejection of refugees, but I think the unthinking political loyalty of white evangelicals to the Republican party is a far greater factor. They take their morals from Republican leaders, not their Bible.

Comatose Sphagetti

(836 posts)
12. This...
Wed Jul 10, 2019, 10:07 AM
Jul 2019

"The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."
- Thomas Paine

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)
14. Another indicator is when christians claim you MUST accept the divinity, or christ was a lunatic.
Thu Jul 11, 2019, 09:55 AM
Jul 2019
You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
C. S. Lewis


By their fruit you will recognize them?

Voltaire2

(14,719 posts)
15. We have no basis for objectively
Thu Jul 11, 2019, 03:17 PM
Jul 2019

judging who is doing the christian thing the right way and who isn’t.

NeoGreen

(4,033 posts)
16. Unless all that is required is the claim that they are 'christian'...
Thu Jul 11, 2019, 03:35 PM
Jul 2019

...since, empirically, that is how it seems to work in the real world.

Every one who claims to be 'christian is, by definition, a 'christian', and thus, how ever they 'do it', it is the correct 'christian' way to do it. This is irrespective as to whether it contravenes the way any other 'christian' 'does it'.

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