Post Aj9evnPSgSr5csUqqe by cshlan@dawdling.net
(DIR) More posts by cshlan@dawdling.net
(DIR) Post #Aj9MrTw5LZ2CtbY7EW by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-06-21T10:55:47Z
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“they are attacking the ten commandments”Listen I know this is hard to relate to if you live in a place where everyone isn’t going to the same 8 different Christian churches in a town with a population of less than 80,000 but this is what the little town where my mom grew up in PA was like. Churches are the social fabric— a “different religion” means someone is Catholic or goes to one of the three Black churches. This commandments in the schools thing is supposed to stirred up an old wound.
(DIR) Post #Aj9NDQH1dxsBuNo2gi by VirginiaHolloway@urbanists.social
2024-06-21T10:59:45Z
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@futurebird If the people who were most zealous about promoting the commandments actually lived by them imagine how different the world would be. The level of hypocrisy surrounding pretty well everything evangelical christians do is just mind-blowing to me.
(DIR) Post #Aj9NODz7fneeysaCno by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-06-21T11:01:43Z
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It’s disorienting and ominous, from this perspective to hear so many people “condemning the ten commandments” (of course that isn’t what’s happening— this is about religious liberty) but that isn’t how it’s being played. If you don’t want to hang the commandments in every classroom you must be against the values they represent. It’s all very 1990s— thing is those little towns have changed. The churches have been replaced with prosperity gospel franchise operations. Mega churches.
(DIR) Post #Aj9NeQx5EIB1paMGeW by TomSwirly@toot.community
2024-06-21T11:04:36Z
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@futurebird I mean, I'm against about half of the ten commandments.What's with the graven images bit? And the Sabbath? And why isn't there anything about violence, just murder? Or anything about waste and destroying the planet? And who cares about coveting anything, compared to the others? And why is it OK to covet your neighbor's husband?Questions, questions.
(DIR) Post #Aj9NiSGsGaxX54X5ZQ by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-06-21T11:05:19Z
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These mega churches serve several little towns, though I don’t know if “serve” is the right word. When there was a leak in my uncle’s roof the church would announce that’d we’d all go to fix it. Collections are taken up to care for “the sick and shut in” — the nosey small town church has many flaws but at least they did try to take care of their people. Do the mega churches do that? My impression is that they just keep collecting money— and give back only when it wins them acclaim.
(DIR) Post #Aj9Nu6pDpPQy2g9iLY by RogerBW@emacs.ch
2024-06-21T11:07:27Z
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@futurebird They spend the money on "good works" a long way away where you can't see it, like getting homosexuality criminalised in Uganda. (And on themselves of course.)
(DIR) Post #Aj9O3QJejNcb69pfOK by rayhindle@mastodon.social
2024-06-21T11:09:11Z
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@futurebird I doubt that most of these “Mega Churches” have ever heard of the “Widow's Mite” either!
(DIR) Post #Aj9OALEW1lPjMRj7RI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-06-21T11:10:24Z
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The small town with 8 churches where my mother grew up has only 3 churches left. Most sit in ruins. Trees grow where the congregations sang— since the mill closed all the young people have gone and many houses sit empty. There is a lot of visible crime and disorder— and it hurts to see a once vibrant place so empty. maybe this old trick will work again. When you have seen people stripping the house you fixed with you neighbors long ago for copper pipes to buy meth it’s easy to believe in evil.
(DIR) Post #Aj9OaQhqIkfLress9A by tofugolem@mastodon.social
2024-06-21T11:15:05Z
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@futurebird Christianity has been shrinking in America for decades. Trying to establish a theocracy is going to accelerate that decline.
(DIR) Post #Aj9P5oTxx5qSa9MGgq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-06-21T11:20:39Z
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@tofugolem I’m Christian and rather like being Christian but if it’s going to be theocracy or nothing I will take nothing. Religion loses all if it’s power in the hands of the state and becomes a tool of perversion and corruption. A church can be a fulcrum of a community— but so can a board games club or a pub quiz. These small organizations are what I care about— groups where people know each other and so we understand how to help each other effectively.
(DIR) Post #Aj9PVB0bKw0NgaiWo4 by tofugolem@mastodon.social
2024-06-21T11:25:21Z
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@futurebird When you all those who are leaving why, they generally point at the antics of conservative Christians.
(DIR) Post #Aj9PnkrCn8zI53BI6C by VirginiaHolloway@urbanists.social
2024-06-21T11:28:42Z
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@futurebird When I drive through rural areas and small towns in America it's horrifying to see the poverty and dysfunction. I know it's nothing new (see Walker Evans), but it's such a contrast to similar areas in Canada and Europe. It's so depressing, and fertile ground for demagogues.
(DIR) Post #Aj9PzqURfsQ11eIhkW by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-06-21T11:30:54Z
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@TomSwirly If you want your youTube video to do numbers reframe it as a list. Especially a “top ten list” people love lists and the commandments are popular for this same reason. They tempt us with the idea that religion and morality can be distilled into something easy: Ten simple steps to be a good person. Top ten way to go right to hell. Five easy steps to know you have done what is right. It is the sin of sloth that tempts us here. To cite another popular religious listicle
(DIR) Post #Aj9Q2YUb2sMW4lfCJE by tofugolem@mastodon.social
2024-06-21T11:30:54Z
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@futurebird Most atheists in America are former Christians. Not me. I was never a believer. Because of that, I often ask ex-Christians what they think is good about Christianity or what they more about it. Overwhelmingly, the most common answer I get is "having an extrafamilial support network."Those megachurches cannot possibly provide that as well as smaller churches. Above a certain size, everyone becomes just another face in the crowd, you know?
(DIR) Post #Aj9QP5Kdd7TAIQkTEu by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-06-21T11:35:29Z
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@TomSwirly I should really do more ant-themed lists. Ten CommandmANTS
(DIR) Post #Aj9QbUKuURc5Jxn2vY by cocoadog@mastodon.social
2024-06-21T11:37:42Z
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@futurebird @TomSwirly "Check out these top ten commandments -- number 3 will amaze you!"I haven't been paying attention so I thought the commandments in schools story was hypothetical. Saw the Louisiana story this morning. Not good.
(DIR) Post #Aj9Qqc53ykHRgRadSC by mansr@society.oftrolls.com
2024-06-21T11:40:25Z
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@futurebird @TomSwirly Or is it the ten commANTments? We could have holy war over this.
(DIR) Post #Aj9RNGB4R1i9JBy0oq by ineiti@ioc.exchange
2024-06-21T11:46:14Z
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@futurebird @TomSwirly go to the ant, you sluggard, and consider its ways?
(DIR) Post #Aj9XwRXGnUbcOZVho0 by likesoldmacs@bitbang.social
2024-06-21T12:59:55Z
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@futurebird pretty much a room full of religious leaders furiously copying Walmart's biz plan
(DIR) Post #Aj9Yr9Btfueg0SYHdQ by FeralRobots@mastodon.social
2024-06-21T13:10:10Z
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@futurebird"Religion loses all if it’s power in the hands of the state..."...reminds me of the observation I used to see some Europeans make, that they had more practical religious freedom with all their state religions than USians have with our Establishment Clause. @tofugolem
(DIR) Post #Aj9ZnZ2vhfbwzWDGW8 by checkervest@laserdisc.party
2024-06-21T13:20:41Z
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@futurebird megachurches push the idea that you are not individually responsible for taking care of and caring about people in your community because that's what your tithes go towards and the church will handle it, and then they're opaque about where that tithing money goes
(DIR) Post #Aj9aex8MsOhn2uDLXM by Obdurodon@hachyderm.io
2024-06-21T13:30:15Z
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@futurebird @TomSwirly "Popular religious listicle" as a description of the ten commandments was not on my bingo card for today, but I still feel like I won.
(DIR) Post #Aj9evnPSgSr5csUqqe by cshlan@dawdling.net
2024-06-21T14:18:13Z
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@futurebirdMy parents used to go to one that actually did. Their pastor had other issues as far as I was concerned but the church as a whole did great outreach and provided a thriving community for its members. It had grown up from a much smaller church over the decades they lived nearby. My experience with other mega churches doesn't live up to that one, though. They focus more on the leadership's message than building community.
(DIR) Post #AjA2wUdeMFegb7zxmC by we_are_spc@dragonscave.space
2024-06-21T18:47:18Z
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@futurebird omg so much this!!!
(DIR) Post #AjAHcJ1kZ5nSfr15gO by mloxton@med-mastodon.com
2024-06-21T21:31:43Z
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@futurebird Yah, "empty pew syndrome" has been a long term trend in evaporating support for organized religions in general in westernized countries.Foisting the Ten Commandments on an increasingly unreceptive public is not likely to stir much other than resentment, but it does act as a spectacle to show the "Christian Warriors" that these politicians are standing up for them. They will use every explosive reaction against the bill to proclaim how they are "fighting evil"
(DIR) Post #AjAXdP4VAz0EybqhJA by Unixbigot@aus.social
2024-06-22T00:31:11Z
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@futurebird @TomSwirly “top three manifestations of divinity”