First, I know what most of you are going to say. I myself was an internet atheist 20 years ago, quoting Dawkins and Sagan at magic-sky-daddy believers. But this isn’t about convincing anyone to believe.
This is about pragmatics. And, pragmatically, the single biggest enemy right now is the conservative Christian right. Anything to fracture that coalition benefits the left.
Luckily, their gospels are pretty left-wing. So, I offer for your consideration, the Christian angle.
I encourage those of you who went to Sunday school to brush up on your Scripture. Matthew is a treasure trove. When you’re talking to someone on the right, start hitting them with chapter and verse.
If nothing else, this is initially shocking. They’re supposed to be the Christians, and you’re some filthy commie reminding them that Jesus called the wealthy priests hypocrites, and told us to feed the hungry and aid the sick.
They have defense mechanisms against your crybaby commie talk. They don’t have defense mechanisms against their own scripture. At worst, you shake them loose from their script and confuse them, giving you openings for gentle deprogramming.
At best, they might reflect on their leadership and how closely they follow Jesus’ commands. Anyone who really believes in him and really reads the gospels is going to wind up a leftist, whether they call it that or not.
Just food for thought. Read up on what Jesus said, use that against the people who claim to follow him. You don’t have to believe yourself to recognize a powerful rhetorical tool.
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No thanks. There’s some minor benefit in knowing the lingo, like there is for any other woo, but most people haven’t read the source material and quoting it at them won’t accomplish anything.
If you say homosexuality is sin, you are basically renouncing Jesus.
They died a super painful death largely because in their opinion, nothing you do with a pure heart – that is, meaning to do good to others and having done your homework to try to understand if it is an okay thing to do or not – is sin.
They were tortured to death very largely because they said that whatever is defined as sin by the old testament is no longer automatically a sin. Jesus of Nazareth invalidated the whole list of sin definitions in old testament.
If you’re basing your argument on the Old Testament saying something is a sin, you are renouncing Jesus, and therefore, you are not Christian.I don’t really understand why people want to be Christians in the first place. But, if they want to be, maybe they at least should care about what Jesus said according to the Bible and not just assume that Jesus was some idiot you can safely ignore if you feel like someone being different is automatically a danger to you. Something like 95 % or 99 % of people calling themselves Christians by religion are in practical terms renouncing the word of Jesus. Like, do they not know where the word “Christianity” even comes from?
Mrmph. That’s what I say. Mrmph.
Matthew 5 is generally a good way to live your life imo. Unfortunately in my experience American Christians are more than willing to say Jesus was wrong when he said stuff like “give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.” Like he did not stutter, but American Christians would rather burn in hell than give away their material possessions
That just lets you call them a heretic and ask them why they hate Jesus
Christian communism is a concept that predates Marx.
For many years I felt this approach to Christianity was the best shot for socialism to gain any traction in the USA. I am unsure these days, but still hopeful.
I’m hoping that a fracture can be cultivated on the right, and the chapter-and-verse conservatives can be sneakied into socialism so long as we don’t call it that. At least we can try to break them from whatever MAGA is.
Leftist Policies are very popular, up until they’re called Leftist.
They don’t have defense mechanisms against their own scripture
https://pcpj.org/2024/08/31/evangelicals-call-jesus-weak-for-promoting-liberal-talking-points/
I’m not saying there aren’t outliers, there always are. If someone is that far gone, there’s not much left to save. But most Christians aren’t that far gone.
You’re not taking about christians, though, you’re talking about Christian MAGA specifically; the christians who can understand that Trump is incompatible with their faith aren’t the ones following him. What I’m saying is that their belief system isn’t the opening you think it is with that crowd. They’re basically Christian nationalists. One of the hallmarks of MAGA is that nothing is sacred to them. They will burn anything and anyone at the gross stale-McDonalds-smelling altar of their orange idol: Their parents, spouses, children, even their Lord and Saviour Jesus and the values in his book. They actively call their scripture weakness and think it was written by “the libruls”.
Then call them a Jesus-hating heretic and move on. For someone like that, the best you can do is plant a seed of cognitive dissonance in their core beliefs.
You haven’t been the socialist in bible study in a long time, I see.
“You’re taking it out of context” and “that was different at the time” and “well but actually he also meant this” and “the Bible says this here though” were constant in my teen years and precisely why I just accepted that I’m fully atheist/agnostic.
Selfish pricks are going to selfish prick. Reach out to those who are like minded, sure, and use scripture if they’re religious. But don’t expect to un-racist a dyed-in-the-wool racist with the Bible.
Probably not, but you can at least put a mote in their eye.
Luke and Timothy have some good shit in them too
Unfortunately, the chuds in my parts are usually not religious (the original Nazis weren’t very christian, at times even anti-church, and that is pretty directly the tradition that many of the local chuds stand in). Or they’re a slightly different flavor of chud, i.e. far right / ultraconservative muslims - those don’t have a lot of impact in the grand scheme of things, but they might still be the ones who beat you up if you e.g. look like a man in a skirt. Any tips on how to convince or at least confuse far right muslims?
On the bright side, the churches in my parts seem to actually be pretty leftwing compared to US churches. Not quite communist, but they’re constantly in conflict with conservative and far right parties (and the pope, if catholic) over stuff like immigration policies and on how to treat LGBT+. Still doesn’t make me a believer, but it’s nice to know that someone has some amount of conscience around here.
Jesus is in the Quran more than Muhammad actually, faithful Muslims still treat Jesus as a prophet, just not God incarnate. I’m not sure similar tactics would work with them unless you look the part.
I wouldn’t shy away from frequenting an actual good church. Even if you don’t “believe”, it’s a powerful way to build community, which is increasingly necessary these days. Might be worth at least sitting in the back for a couple Sundays.
Unfortunately, my local denomination’s style of sermon makes my skin crawl. Not really the content, just the specific delivery.
I think it’s too late
Even atheists in the US subscribe to the “fuck you, I got mine” philosophy
Maybe it’s too late. But I’m reminded of this
and I’m down to at least try
Oh, I agree
If I have to use someone’s stupid beliefs to try to get a result, I’ll use them happily
Unfortunately, the stupid (and by “stupid”, I mean “religious”) are more given to hatred than tolerance, because it requires less thought and they’re simple.
Barely a step beyond the dullest of animals
Sadly, if you’re smart enough to actually believe Jesus about how you should treat people, you’re smart enough to not believe Jesus when he says he’s God.
