They have become the satire…
I think this was posted before the pastor at the dedication respond to this this. He posted several paragraphs explaining why this isn’t false idolatry, and it kind of came down to ‘trust me bro’
Trust me bro, this flesh alchemy gig pays out after four or five years. Sure, at first, every chick runs away from you when you approach them offering the giblets of a jammed duckling, but once you smoke a few pounds of Benadryl, you start pulling it off, in the same way just whipping it out will land you a date 1/10 times, assuming you are fast or can afford the out-of-court settlements for the 3/10 times they threaten to call the cops. But this gets you the really freaky bitches that would also be the ideal mother of your child who will teach them the occult and have them transcend physicality entirely by middle school. I highly recommend, and I don’t even miss my one toe. It’s like childhood all over again, but with less bleeding on Christmas, at least in my case.
How can these supposedly knowledgeable Christian “leaders” do this without thinking about Moses destroying the Golden Calf, or even the 10 Commandments’ warnings against having no Gods before me, and no graven images, etc.?
I suppose if you’re okay with all the other commandments being broken, these ones aren’t really so bad. It’s not like Killing or Stealing, and they do that shit every day.
And as long as we’re on the subject, the 10 Commandments say NOTHING about pedophilia, so GAME ON!
Because hypocrisy is the point. Every time they do something with hypocrisy, it makes us shocked, they think it’s hilarious when we get shocked, so they try and do something even bigger that shocks us more next time. And we keep falling for it, over and over and over.
We keep being like “WHAAAT? THEY CLAIMED ONE THING THEN DID ANOTHER???” and they’re cackling because they’ve done that 500 times and we still get shocked every time, they think it’s the funniest thing in the world, and shows just how stupid we are.
Stop being shocked. Stop asking “but HOW CAN THEY…” - the answer is they’re liars. That’s it, they’re liars, get over it, and maybe that’ll stop us being stun locked long enough for us to actually do something about it.
Stop falling for it.
Not a Christian, but I used to be one, and I’ve never heard of anyone fitting the criteria for the antichrist better than Donald Trump
Right? I had a grandparent heavy into that part of Christianity before they died. The guys fits. As does the bad weather. I’m a bit surprised the Christian following hasn’t gone there. Granted, there may not be one of any significance given how bot run the internet is these days.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.00381v1
There’s a fun Forbes article voicing concern about wasting ad efforts on bots. If any relief occurs it will be because of this. https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2024/04/16/yes-the-bots-really-are-taking-over-the-internet/
If you ask AI they list the number at 20% not 50%.
I’m a bit surprised the Christian following hasn’t gone there.
Isn’t a big part of it how the Antichrist deceives people into following him who ought to know better?
That is the story, yes.
One of the few prophecies related to an antichrist figure that comes directly from Jesus, in fact. “For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” (Matthew 24:24 ESV).
Not sure that Agent Orange has done anything that resembles “great signs and wonders” but I suppose his followers believe he has the ability to dodge bullets like he’s Neo or something.
. I’m a bit surprised the Christian following hasn’t gone there.
Many Christians are theologically incompetent. They don’t know their scripture. They just like feeling good.
My boss said it best. “My faith requires that I ignore everything I learned. I grew up believing in science but to follow my faith I must believe in the Bible.”
This was his response to me asking him how he thought carbon dating was fake.
Im not religious and I talk circles around him about the Bible endlessly. He’s so stubborn about it that I can basically shut him up about anything but simple quoting the Bible at him and then spinning and s twisting it to fit anything I want.
I’ll even point out to him that I’m doing it and how it’s manipulative. But he just says if you can make the argument from the Bible then no matter what it must be true.
He’s explained he’s so scared of going to hell he’s willing to “unlearn anything” if it means he will be saved
Its baffling.
Wow. I grew up in a similar environment, but am now an Episcopal priest and I guess I just sometimes forget how much proudly willful ignorance exists in the Evangelical world.
I was a pretty staunch Creationist until I went to a program offered by the science department at my university. I went to an Evangelical school, but the head of the science department was a pretty devout Catholic. So he and the Catholic student’s club invited Fr. Coyen (I think that’s how it’s spelled), the former director of the Vatican’s observatory in Arizona (he was still director when he came; he died some years back). He was a Jesuit, wearing his black shirt and clerical collar, and he used images taken from the observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope to basically demonstrate to all of us how we know the Big Bang is real and the age of the universe, etc. He spoke deeply of his faith while talking about all of this and it was then that I realized science and Christianity did not have to be in opposition to each other (I know that there will plenty here who will disagree).
The irony is that my Christian faith was enriched by a science talk given by a Catholic Jesuit at an Evangelical University. Not sure the administrators at the school would have wanted that, but here we are.
But he just says if you can make the argument from the Bible then no matter what it must be true.
What about the part where the devil cites scripture to tempt Jesus? Does he think the devil was correct? Or Jesus? They can’t both be.
But didn’t JD Vance say the pope needs to understand theology more before he starts preaching about what Trump is or isn’t doing? /s
Fuck America is so lost.
Don’t forget there’s a fair number of evangelicals who want all this to happen and more so their imaginary friend can come back to life and they themselves can live forever. They actually believe that.
I’m not a religious man but I am a man of faith. I’ve explained to many people the biggest of the problems to me is accepting that someone can absolve me of all my sins. If I go to hell I go to hell but I own what I’ve done. That is between me and God and no person regardless of who they are has the right to absolve me of my sins.
It’s that fervent lack of accountability it instills in otherwise weak people that really sours me.
Oh, and the general inconsistencies in the rules. Because everyone fails to acknowledge that God may be real but religion is a concept made and evolved by man and man is inherently flawed.
Long story short, my relationship is with God. Not the church. Not the religion. Not Jesus. With whatever I chose to believe is above is all.
Yes I know it’s not really responding to what you said but Jesus Christ I have met and dated real Christians and they are so not like these dollartree Christians you have in America.
As a priest in the Episcopal Church I can say that offering absolution for sins is not about the priest doing that work, but instead declaring that absolution has already happened. If anything, it’s a reminder. The Roman Catholic theology might be different on this, though.
I’m the sort of person that benefits from an actual voice telling me things like “your sins are forgiven.” I grew up Baptist/Evangelical and was told I did not need a priest or minister to forgive me of my sins, that Jesus was the only one who could do that. Sure. But that was so abstract. Once I first sat in an Episcopal parish and had a priest say “Almighty God have mercy on you and forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ…” was powerful. It took the idea of my forgiveness out of the abstract. Like, I knew it was not the priest forgiving me, but was someone openly reminding me that my sins had been forgiven.
I’m now a universalist and I believe that everyone’s sins are already forgiven (when Jesus says “father forgive them, they know not what they do” on the cross pretty much covers it), but that we fail to accept that forgiveness and so rob ourselves of the kind of liberation that comes from that knowledge. I need the church to remind me, on a regular basis, that I’ve been forgiven because it’s easy for me to slip into a pattern of beating myself up for my failures and short-comings. But once I remember I’m forgiven by God I feel the grace that empowers me to try to be better.
I think it’s more about community. White culture in america is trademarked by a lack of community. Unless you go to church or join a cult/hate group.
Less than 10% have read the whole thing
I’m a bit surprised the Christian following hasn’t gone there.
They are really Christians.
Yup yup yup, same same same.
Its actually remarkable how many of the categories and descriptions and even events he fits into.
There is no god and no antichrist. Humanity has seen worse. They’ve all been human.
Given they stated they’re a former Christian not sure your remark will be a revelation to them. More pointing out the hypocrisy of the same crowd trying to use religion as the reason in every conversation (e.g. sexuality and gender) constantly forget the basics and TL:DR rules of Christianity. Like it isn’t even that far down the list, it’s rule two.
There may have been worse, though many of them were likely not in charge of the self proclaimed “leader of the free world”, not many have exhibited overtly anti-Christ like qualities. I get what you’re saying but it comes off as almost dismissive of gestures broadly at geopolitical landscape.
Still just human beings. No invisible sky goblins required.
It just keeps going and going. The dude is so old and decrepit now I feel like he is either going to die soon and we’ll breathe a sigh of relief or he’s going to rip his skin off and a red devil will pop out. Its gotta happen soon, right?
Well that’s unsettling
Yep. Not even Christian and that’s some shit…
There it is. If you hadn’t posted it, I would have.
Lol, not even really gold, like the rest of his crap:
the president fails to mention the fact that the figure is merely wrapped in gold leaf.
The shiny livery was added to the bronze statue by the sculptor, who told the Daily Beast that it was the easiest mark-up of his life. “They loved the idea, of course. It’s like pitching ice water to a man dying of thirst. It was not a hard sell,” Alan Cottrill said.
Give it a few months and the gold leaf is flaking off, and they start fixing it with spray paint. It’s all so poetic.
Holy shit, your comment made me realize something. Is Trump spraying himself orange because he thinks it makes him look golden?
Yes
Such a waste. Bronze looks so much better than that gold, especially when it rusts.
I wonder how this will patina with piss. I can’t be the only one that really wants to piss on it. I’m sure that will become a thing.
I hope it becomes a celebrated yearly event.
The artist literally upsold them for no other reason than money, and then bragged about gouging them over making it shiny. There was also something about him holding the statue until they paid in full, before delivering it. He knows what’s up with these losers.
To be fair, let’s do some math: A tall human man has a volume of about 70 liters. Some searching online tells me that we would need 43480 ouncs to fill that volume with real 100% 24k gold and thus make a life-sized statue. At current market rate, such a statue would cost 173 Million € or 204 Million $
It would have been gold plated, not made entirely out of gold. Yet they didn’t even bother with that.
Then it was a golden calf. Now it’s a golden pig
The USA is probably the nation furthest from christian values at this moment. Well, aside from the genocide and pedophilia. They got that shit on LOCK.
Israel because Irony
It’s the place where they complain to the pastor he should stop spouting woke bs and just read from the bible.
It is also a characteristic of the Anti-Christ being on earth I believe
The Golden Calf
The gilded pig
Jesus fucking christ
“God?! God’s a radical left lunatic, so soft on crime, so soft. What did God do to stop Iran getting nukes? Nothing! Not like me.”
I think this is more fitting.
2 Thessalonians 2:3-12 NRSVUE [3] Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. [4] He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. [5] Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? [6] And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed when his time comes. [7] For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed. [8] And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming. [9] The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, [10] and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. [11] For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, [12] so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned.
So I always thought the whole End Times eschatology was just bullshit to scare people and convince them that their religion had it all figured out. But now I’ve come to realize the metaphorical power of the stories themselves.
History repeats itself. The bible stories are based on things that had happened before, so with stories they tried to warn people not to fall for it again or the bad times would come back, and now people are falling for it again.
Yeah I never thought end times myths were based on prior events though.
Lots of scholars believe that the “beast” (what Revelation calls the figure we’ve dubbed “the Antichrist” in current popular culture) is an allegorical representation of Nero.
What makes Revelation so hard for many Christians to understand is that they are largely unaware that Revelation is part of a literary genre called “apocalypse” and uses the conventions and tropes of that genre. This is because Revelation is the only full example of apocalyptic literature in the Bible (Daniel, Ezekiel, and some of the other prophetic books have sections that are apocalyptic, but not the entirety of those writings). But there are others (Shepherd of Hermas is one that nearly made it into the New Testament; the book of Enoch is one that is contained in the Old Testament of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, but not in any other church’s Bibles). So the weird language actually begins to make sense when you read it alongside other examples of the genre. It’s a kind of poetry that also serves as a kind of “code” to obscure what is really being written about (so that authorities get confused if they were to intercept these writings).
Daniel speaks of another beast figure likely based on Antiochus Epiphanes IV, a Greek ruler who desecrated the Jewish Temple (the story behind Hanukkah is about this). Revelation used that language to talk about Nero because the early Christians, rooted in the Biblical language of the Old Testament, saw Nero cast in a similar vein as Antiochus. And so “the AntiChrist” becomes a kind of symbolic figure that many throughout history can fit into. Trump is just the latest. He might be the “final” one. But what books like Revelation are trying to do is to help Christians avoid the kind of crap people like Trump represent. Unfortunately, antiChrist figures are good at what they do and, in this case, primed many Christians to read the Bible a certain way that precludes their ability to recognize THIS antichrist in their midst.
False prophets (or self serving scam artist demagogues) have always existed. So have gullible and greedy people that follow those demagogues. War, famine, disease and death were nothing new either. It’s all just normal human behaviour, sadly enough.
One thing also leads to another: If a self serving demagogue gets too many followers, then it’s going to lead to lawlessness and war, which are usually accompanied by famine and plagues, which result in lots of excess deaths. That situation is going to cause societal upheaval and maybe even a societal collapse, which the incumbent powers didn’t want, so they created cautionary tales to hopefully teach the people how to recognize demagogues, to prevent those from getting too many followers in the first place.
The lack of awareness and intelligence never ceases to cofound me. Following the anti-christ, the person they want to start armageddon, is a one-way ticket to hell for these clowns. And they’re all for it. Yet they think they’re the good guys?
No it’s a one way ticket to heaven. They get to go to heaven when everything ends. Thats why they want things to end.
Ending is rewarded to them. Its a pretty classic example of the problem with positive enforcement. If misapplied it causes more problems
That’s not how it works, unless the “/s” fell out of your pocket on the way to posting that.
Thessalonians:
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Point being, they get an antichrist, believe in said person, and are sent to eternal torment for a thousand years.
They might think they’re going to heaven, but in their magical world they quite clearly will not. They’ll just accelerate the destruction of the planet and take us down with them.
Right but that’s not what American Christians are told, I think they mean. These supporters think that they are saved because they are Christian and therefore if they die it is immediate heaven. Even though I would think committing genocide or Armageddon would guaruntee hell but what do I know.
theyve never been christians, but they do love to troll them
