chat

Theyre dum

John Calvin happened. Economic success is a sign of god's favor, poor people are poor because they're just bad people destined for hell. Of course this is the line of thought that would dominate the charity-focused ones under capitalism.

They don't take their religion seriously. It's a cultural marker for them, nothing more.

What other people said, but also white chauvinism. Black Methodist churches and Roman Catholic churches aren't socialist, but they don't advocate against social welfare or healthcare. (Some would very much like that.)

It's the white Evangelists and similar Protestant groups that rally against anything good for people. Any sort of government assistance will help minorities, so it must be stopped to preserve white hegemony. Even if poor whites will also massively be helped, that's less important than preserving racial hierarchy.

Also add in a dash of Cold War propaganda associating any social welfare with "atheist socialism." The West spent a lot of time and money boosting conservative Christians to make socialism evil.

Thanks to Calvinism (and other factors) American "Christianity" is it's own religion that wears the mask of Christianity like a flayed skin

This is not an endorsement of Christianity but American Christians specifically fail to uphold basically every single one of Christ's teachings

Americanized Christianity (and what is in Canada as well) was HEAVILY formed by the puritans and other offshoots from England, a hated cult of masochists that believed individual suffering was divine punishment wrought by one's own moral failings and that a community should only be present to punish people that step out of line and not actually work together to survive. It is a religious belief set alien to catholic doctrine that usually leads to radicalized priests wanting material changes but instead is one that is perfectly suited to be nested alongside capitalism as a propaganda piece.

Because they don't read their own holy book. If they do, they read cherry picked approved sections of it. And they rely on preachers to interpret the rest.

I was raised non denominational. Woods religion. My preacher looked like a member of the Manson Family. I read the King James version 4 times cover to cover before I was 14 years old. And the Jesus in that book would turn from his supposed followers today. "And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity." They share nothing with their God beyond the aesthetic.

Lotta good stuff being said here but I do have another angle that Ive had to deal with coming from an evangelical family:

On a very deep level they simply decide to believe that only God can come and make things better. Evangelicals are often obsessed with their own zany end of the world bullshit and they will simply fall back on that when pushed on the way their own religious/spiritual beliefs don't align with their political ideology. As far as they are concerned you simply cannot make a system more equitable than capitalism because that's really something only God returning can do. My father is obsessed with the evangelical version of the end of the world (he literally writes his own papers on his theory, last I checked he was trying to tell me we were actually in year 4 or 5 of the last seven years) and while I can get him to agree with socialism in many ways, at the end of the day he doesn't think any of it can manifest without a biblical kingdom on earth scenario.

it was always interesting to me growing up how you could never be rejected from Christianity or fellow Christians despite committing sin after sin and vocal intention that you had no desire to change (unless you were gay/trans or denounced Jesus) but simply repent when you need that mental dose of justification and protection. break every single rule in the bible and it's fine as long as you keep wearing that rosary and be vocal about being a Christian. that mentality seems to be pretty exclusive to Christianity (obv it happens in other religions too but not as commonplace)

People have said Calvinism and that is definitely part of it. But even in the Anglosphere you don't see the vehemence you see in the US. US Catholics are anti poor people in a way even the most foaming tradcath isn't anywhere else, though the attitude is spreading as all American shit tends to do.

One thing I don't think anybody has mentioned is the normalization of American Christianity's worst impulses plus its tight bond with the GOP and white supremacy. It's been happening for many decades. Fox News to televangelists have normalized greed (and the prosperity gospel), intolerance, hatred, racism, etc. When I read a news article or watch tv and somebody says "As a Christian..." or "I'm a republican so I think..." - I get mad because I know they're going to say something awful and the news anchor or whoever is going to both sides it.

The public is supposed to accept the nonsense idea that they have license to be terrible people because they are a Christian or a republican. It makes me insane. If somebody is a horrible person I don't want to hear a crap excuse that is supposed to justify it. It makes as much sense to me as somebody saying "I don't like vanilla ice cream so I am 100% against gay marriage."

The reality is that they hate anybody that's not them. And they want others to suffer and be forced to conform to their terrible reality. Before Trump - they couldn't be direct. They tended to never say what they truly feel. One reason Christians and/or republicans love Trump is that they can - in their mind - finally be openly horrible people.

I think that for many of them - being a Christian or being a republican is mostly a life style branding thing. Their horrible beliefs are the key thing in their life. The labels are just a convenient excuse. That's why Trump can do pretty much anything. They are so seething in their hatred and intolerance they can't seem to understand s simple fact. If Trump destroys the economy and massively defunds the social programs (from the largest to the smallest) - the others will suffer but many of them and people just like them will suffer too.

1. Take a group of Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
2. Allow them to develop a form of Judaism on their own that prioritizes their own wants, needs, and outlook
3. Let it cook for 300 years

Just imagine how deranged that form of Judaism would be. But in some ways that would be unfair to say the primary problem is religion when all that religion did was facilitate the racism and white supremacy that was existent, and was fueled by their material interests. That’s basically the story of White Evangelical Christianity in America, but I’m using the settler example to show how it originates and grows.

I’m not even a fan of any form of Christianity, but the reality is that the form of White Evangelical Christianity that makes up ~25% of the US population is just part of the superstructure built on settler colonialism and white supremacy.

Calvinism is a hell of a drug

"WHY shOUld i PAy fOR YouR HealTHcarE?"

To save money on healthcare. United we bargain, silly goose

That Puritanical & Calvinistic thinking is a hell of a drug

Because reading the Bible or any other holy book is the quickest route to atheism. The logical inconsistencies become quickly apparent, and you either change your religion to something more vaguely spiritual in an endless back-and-forth game, or abandon it entirely.

Religious zealotry isn't a measure of morality or even religiosity, it's a measure of gullibility.

Fully brainwashed / mind virused into Prosperity Gospel bullshit. You're poor because you're a bad person who deserves to suffer / poor life choices, and the more money someone has means the more God approves of them.

Everyone beat me to it: the short answer is Calvinism.

Long answer: It’s been mentioned a couple times but also racism and classism and other self-interest by the ruling class. Yeah, you can say that the Bible explicitly says some reprehensible things about women and queer people, but you’d be surprised on how some people are able to come around to them with good priming. While not perfect, look at the conservative Catholic country of Ireland that became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage by a referendum. Look at Latin America, which is very Catholic and has seen queer rights grow exponentially in a couple short decades. Good faith religious folks are not the enemy here.

Even longer answer: Just watch this second thought video lol

Lots of people talking about Calvinism... I've actually been on a bent lately trying to learn about Christianity in colonial America. So... what is it about the Calvinists that everyone's implying here? Did John Calvin preach prosperity gospel? I always thought he focused more on the covenant theology stuff.

Because Christians don't read the Bible and then form beliefs, it's the other way around. So, in this particular case, they read those passages are not read as supporting systemic change. And if they are "conservative" that overrides anything the Bible actually says. "liberal" Christians do the same thing, (cherrypick, ignore parts, otherwise stretch the meaning) just in the other direction on other issues.

There's a few things going on. First you have Calvinist psychos. They've always been like this. Second you have the fact the churches are shedding congregants across the USA, and the ones that are left are the most reactionary weirdos. This keeps driving the remaining congregations rightward, and to have a kind of siege mentality. Third, many Churches feel that they and they alone should be the ones to provide social and financial support to the needy. They see government welfare as an encroachment on their natural domain and recruitment efforts.

Huge part is also just racism. Its just a big part of the national identity especially evangelical types. If the estimated appearance of jesus is correct they'd despise him too if he was around just on that alone. They'd call him a commie for his teachings too. Hell race mixing was seen as communist and shit. The indoctrination of racial shit is hella deep.

Let's assume the western Christian or, to oversimplify things, the Protestant, that supports these beliefs (though Orthodox and Catholics can be considered 'protestant' if they believe in the following things)

Let us consider the actual western Christian – not the general one , as {everyone} does, but the everyday Protestant.

Let us not look for the secret of the Protestant in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Protestant.

What is the secular basis of Protestantism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Protestant? Overwork. What is his worldly God? Capital.

Very well then! Emancipation from Overwork and capital, consequently from practical, real Protestanism, would be the self-emancipation of our time.

An organization of society which would abolish the preconditions for Capital, and therefore the possibility of Capital, would make the Protestant impossible.

(if you know which text this comes from)

I think you are over generalizing. You should not gage your opinion on a group of people based on an anonymous Reddit post. There are plenty of Christians out there who do great work and provide crucial resources where states fail. I’ve worked with tons of churches who do far more in feeding and caring for their community than any DSA chapter.

Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.
-Lenin "Socialism and Religion"

Churches are political institutions. The church tells the congregation how to influence politics. In that, the status quo is to support capitalism and the bourgeois class, most churches repeat the dogmas of the bourgeois class.

The largest Protestant organization in the United States and the World is the Southern Baptist convention (SBC), 12 million members. SBC formed in 1845 when it split from northern baptists, to support slavery. The largest Protestant organization in the United States was formed to support slavery. SBC did not denounce support of slavery until 1995. SBC is currently in a feud on whether women should be allowed to be pastors.

Churches are still commonly segregated in the United States. Around 80% of churches in the United States are predominantly composed of a single race. This is because churches in the US were segregated during Jim Crow and then they were never desegregated. Public Schools were forcibly desegregated by the US Federal government. Churches are exempted from this federal regulation.

"WHY shOUld i PAy fOR YouR HealTHcarE?" << I would take this quote as a dog whistle. A person who says this likely signalling that there is a specific group of people that they do not want to have healthcare. Given that Christianity teaches healing the sick, I would think that this person believes that some people deserve healing and other people they don't consider to be people.

"Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing" << Quoting Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan's campaign advisor, partial quote because slurs. The significance of the quote is that racist white people admit they support abstract policies which would hurt black people. That is to say that racist white people oppose free public healthcare because it would mean that black people get free public health care. Ronald Reagan also invented the concept of the "welfare queen". He used racial stereotypes to garner support to defund welfare programs.

Tying these two things together, Bible Thumpers who are against free healthcare as so because most United States churches are rooted in racism.

These people made me believe in God again. All soulless idolaters that use the New Testament as toilet paper.

Prosperity gospels and a complete lack of critical thinking about their belief structure.

We can talk about racism and that's definitely a huge part of it and for that matter the capitalist "greed is good", and alienation and settler cruelty and judgement but going back further and to the base nature of things, even without Calvinism Christianity logically would not have a great view on this.

After all it is the purview of the CHURCH to do these things. If the SECULAR STATE does these things then what use is the church? If the secular state provides safety, health, food, clothing, shelter, etc and meets peoples needs then historically they stop going to church, they stop listening to the preachers, they stop caring so much about the fundamental, literal (and really the only logical way to interact with a religion like this is treating it as entirely true and therefore literal) text.

They call it a religion for the poor but without the poor it's in trouble and it knows this. It wants the downtrodden and miserable not to cure them, not to abolish this situation and possibility to but to give them temporary comfort in exchange for being preached at, in exchange for embracing the religion, in exchange for extolling its virtues and propagating it. It is not free, it is not true charity. There are and always have been members of the religion who push for a state of things that would engineer its weakening to irrelevance but there also always have been those who understand on some level the need for these conditions and in the west they hold great sway and power.

Jesus said the poor you shall always have. If you are a Christian, if you KNOW therefore he is the son of and part of a triumvirate god that is all knowing then to work against something he has stated is to work against god, it is to say you do not believe god, it is to challenge god, it is to say you know better than god. You are to work to alleviate the suffering within the context of preaching, of proselytizing, of small church groups but attempting to abolish it is either folly or blasphemy. And just handing it out without handing out preachings and trying to save souls is no good at all, as after all what is 60-100 years of pain on this earth compared to the dueling possibilities of either a long time in hell then obliteration OR eternal life in paradise, it's nothing and so healthcare is less important that getting you baptized because once you die your suffering will be at an end and you'll be with Jesus and really this is god's plan for you so the believer can keep their stingy wallet closed.

More than this Christians in the west especially do subscribe to prosperity gospel notions, the idea that if you're wealthy it's because god wants you to be and is rewarding you, that if you tithe to god he'll repay you. If you are a good Christian he'll protect you. If you've fallen on really hard times you must be a bad Christian because a good Christian would have a church family who would help them and a god who would open doors to save them. So Christians can at a very small scale be charitable, if someone is seen as a working, valuable member of society and is part of a small church (less than thousand members) and they fall on hard times very often the church members will pull together, they will give them charity, money, help with a place to stay, some food, etc. So the feeling is if that didn't happen it's because you're not right with god.

More-over, Christians have this view that god places challenges in front of believers but that true believers are always uplifted, that god has a plan[tm] for them and will usually save them.

Someone else posted Lenin who observed that religious people are taught to practice charity on earth as a ticket into heaven. That's a rather greedy and self-centered way of looking at things, that's not the kind of selflessness that Marxists would practice, you're exchanging one thing for another, making payments. So it's no surprise that over time, especially in the capitalist west someone decided to simply cut out the step of making those payments, to offer the eternal salvation and your only requirement is be a good slave for your masters, protestant work ethic, don't worry about being exploited on earth, we'll even let you be greedy and not give to charity, just keep your head down and you'll have this amazing eternal life. Though to be fair there is in most cases still token amounts of going through the ritual of making charity payments. Christians give to the church and the church it is supposed takes care of the needy to the extent necessary. But as churches are not taxed and those like the Catholic Church which do run healthcare networks run them in a profitable or cost neutral way and within the context of a capitalist system where they have to pay capitalist system prices for drugs and so on. (And be thankful they don't have total control of the healthcare system either as if they did not only no abortion but no contraceptives to unmarried women, no contraceptives to married women without her husband's signature and so on and on)

These are just a sampling of scattered thoughts, if I really wanted to I could sit down and write a long thing with citations to Christian biblical doctrine explaining and exploring the roots of this.