Evangelicals without Standards

[ag]

You see, Trump has an (R) next to his name, so all is forgiven.

It's forgiven because Jesus paid the price on the Cross.

I tend to respect religious sentiment. But, frankly, I simply do not believe it, when produced by a Trumpista. It is obvious that every Trump voter would, if he were to find himself on that hill near Jerusalem, happily put a few extra nails through the body of Jesus.

[ag]

You see, Trump has an (R) next to his name, so all is forgiven.

It's forgiven because Jesus paid the price on the Cross.

I tend to respect religious sentiment. But, frankly, I simply do not believe it, when produced by a Trumpista. It is obvious that every Trump voter would, if he were to find himself on that hill near Jerusalem, happily put a few extra nails through the body of Jesus.

Nah, he'd most likely be offering to buy Jesus' cloak from the centurions, in exchange for a few drachmas to be paid later, which he would have no intention of paying.

Well, that is, certainly, how Trump himself would be behaving. But I was talking about his voters.

Trump is a crook.

[ag]

Wonderful post by you there, Fuzzy Bear. Thanks so much. I understand what you said, and appreciate it, even as I disagree because I come to the table with such profoundly different assumptions. Fair enough. Wouldn't it be grand, if we were all more civil about this, myself included? But you have set the example to follow.

I have to disagree with you here. Fuzzy Bear has openly called you and me enemies in this post.

[ag]

Yeah, and if the best defense of Trump one can make more or less amounts to "Trump is a terrible human being, but he's willing to give us our thirty pieces of silver", well...

Damn! That's...excrutiatingly accurate.

I am afraid even that is puting it very mildly.

[ag]

The Trumpista PC brigade is, indeed, funny. They were absolutely fine about me being called rapist (full disclosure: I married young a girl I had known since middle schol and have been devoutely monogamous all my life - one does not need a god to do so, it is enough simply to love one's wife), they are fine with calls for a civil war, they are fine with all sort of racial, ethnic and gender name-calling - but when you call them up on their hateful murderous ideology they cry like babies, scream they are being treated unfairly and whatever. Oh, I am told I am being offensive, I will lose sleep over that. Actually, I won't.

[ag]

The Trumpista PC brigade is, indeed, funny. They were absolutely fine about me being called rapist (full disclosure: I married young a girl I had known since middle schol and have been devoutely monogamous all my life - one does not need a god to do so, it is enough simply to love one's wife), they are fine with calls for a civil war, they are fine with all sort of racial, ethnic and gender name-calling - but when you call them up on their hateful murderous ideology they cry like babies, scream they are being treated unfairly and whatever. Oh, I am told I am being offensive, I will lose sleep over that. Actually, I won't.

I have not engaged in any of that, period.

You use your agent - your presidential candidate - to do it. And you think your god is sufficiently blind not to notice.

I am not smearing you. I am just letting you know that in my book you are not a good person at all, no matter how abstinent your wife was inbetween marriages (sorry, I am not the one who brought this up - it was you; beats me, why anybody would think it is at all pertinent to the topic under discussion - hey, I can boast perfect monogamy throughout my life, does it count?). Trump himself is, of course, as a disgrace to human race, but his supporters are much worse. And still worse are those who (claim to) understand what Trump is, but still support him.  There is no excuse: not before other humans, not before whatever deity you may choose to believe in. I have no doubt that, if hell exists, you will burn in it for eternity.

[ag]

"Father, forgive them; they know not what they do."

But you do know. That is why you will burn in hell.

[ag]

The world has evolved immensely since Christianity was founded.

Back then, government was an external entity to Christians, as they had no say in how the government was operated. The teachings of Christianity were largely based on the government being the outside force.

Actually, not quite true. Sure, that minor Jewish prophet, Jesus, and his direct followers were outsiders. But teachings of the Christian church, as we know it, were developed substantially later. Nicene Creed - the statement of faith for most Christians today - was adopted in 325, just as Christianity was beginning the process of becoming the Imperial religion. The composition of what Christians consider the canonical New Testament was formalized around the same time, or slightly later, during the fourth century, and for the same reason, really: the government of the Empire needed a well-defined set of beliefs to distinguish "good" loyal Christians from those, whose loyalty was suspect. I could see the argument, of, say Jehovah´s witnesses or Mormons, who have abandoned the Trinitarian orthodoxy established during that period, that their faith was/is not born of symbiosis with the government, but, for most of the rest of those calling themselves Christians, it is simply not a historically correct statement.

[ag]

Becoming a State Church under the later days of the Roman Empire did not lead to the establishment of heterodoxy, it only curbed minority heretical viewpoints.

Heterodoxy may only be defined once Orthodoxy is established. Christianity becoming religion of State led to the establishment of one particular kind of Christianity as Orthodoxy. It is not very certain, that had we been able to look at it from the perspective of year 200 we would be able to predict which version would become Orthodox. Even if much of the canon had been generally agreed upon by most Christians before 300 (which, in a certain sense, is true), the Nicene Crede was to a large extend designed as refutation of Arianism: a version of Christianity which, at the time, had a very definite chance of becoming the Orthodoxy (and remained such in parts of the Christian world outside the direct Imperial control for centuries).