Any number of pantheons and pandemonia have been believed in over the centuries.
Even if someone doesn’t share the belief, doesn’t make the entire belief system irrational.
I might take issue with this, based on a precise understanding of ‘rational’ and ‘irrational,’ but that’s a debate for another time. It is trivially true that religious belief doesn’t make someone dumb. Isaac Newton was devout.
Jews don’t believe in the concept of Hell/Satan.
I don’t think it’s anywhere that simple. There are few absolutes in life, and religion, and it’s net effects, definitely isn’t subject to absolutes.
Religion has been used to do both great good and great evil. Within the narrow and specific confines of Trump voters, it clearly is a net negative—Trump, without a doubt, would not have won if the religious right didn’t partner up with him with open eyes, despite who he is, personally.
But you can’t just snap your fingers and imagine an alternative reality where humans are still humans, but religion doesn’t exist. For many people, to varying degrees, they need something to frame their place in the world, to rationalize, explain, and justify their life and their actions.
Religion (or something akin to religion) isn’t going anywhere unless humanity fundamentally changes.
Nesrie
5150
And you know why you have to go down to the narrow and specific confines of Trump voters to even claim that, because it’s not the religion. The black vote has a very heavy religious influence too, yet they’re largely not Trump supporters. It’s not the religions. Yes, religion can be used as a weapon, as a political tool, but that problem isn’t religion in that case.
We literally had a woman deny an interracial couple a venue for their wedding claiming interracial marriage was against Christianity. It’s not in the Bible. It is not there, at all, so how did she get there? It wasn’t her religious teachings. She just used that as an excuse.
I am not trying to convert anyone, or pretend religion hasn’t or will not continue to be used as an excuse for terrible behaviors, wrong doings and yes even death, but this idea that we should ever equate religions to an insane belief… that if someone believes in ghosts or spirits somehow that equates to the evils that Trump and his party are pushing right now, it’s not a good path to take. They’re not linked like that.
I think the “somehow” is the key. I do think the segment of the population that believes in ghosts, demons, and angels, not as an abstraction, but actual manifestations in the world, are much more susceptible to dismissing science (e.g., climate change issues) and much more willing to rationalize their way to conservative social issues like opposition to gay marriage and abortion, based on transparent appeals to religious authority (e.g., Trump’s clearly BS quotes of the Bible).
More importantly, that segment of the population is willing to make important decisions that are contra to facts, because their worldview is heavily based on (or even primarily based on) faith, which is by definition belief without the need for supporting facts. I suspect that same segment is highly correlated to Trump’s most unshakeable core, even as facts in the last few years have proven him to be a fraud because their decisions aren’t made based on facts and therefore cannot be refuted by facts. These are folks who are willing to form unshakeable beliefs, even in the absence of facts or in direct opposition to the facts (e.g., the 4 in 10 Republicans in the recent poll who deny that Trump mention Biden in the call to the Ukrainian president). It’s one thing to reserve judgement when you don’t have facts (e.g., I haven’t been following the news, I don’t know if Trump said that). It’s another to be willing to take a position out of ignorance or contrary to facts.
Nesrie
5152
The only religious group I know of that heavily supports Trump are the white evangelicals. All the other groups are mostly split, if they tilt towards him at all. I don’t see how anyone can make a broad stroke brush like that, about religion, when it comes to Trump, when the data says many of the religious groups are not, in fact, buying his BS.
Skipper
5153
You shouldn’t. There are literally billions of people around the world in religions and many (if not most) believe in science, want to push more to deal with climate change, hate war, want to do well unto others, etc.
Don’t conflate Republican values (even then not every Republican) with, “religion.” That’s what Nesrie is saying. It’s true. Separate the two.
Not every white person in America voted for Trump. Not every person in the South is racist. Etc.
Where we’re going with this is don’t lump one subset of individuals in as, “well all of them must be that way.”
To be fair to you, @Stepsongrapes, the Evangelical crowd isn’t doing the rest of the religions any favors in promoting things like that. Perhaps that spells disaster for religions in America as a whole? There are many leaving for sure, the numbers grow each year.
Obviously making sweeping statements about “all” or “none” is wrong. But the opposite is also true: because a percentage of evangelical Christians didn’t support Trump doesn’t mean that there is no connection between evangelical Christians and Trump don’t exist and that high degrees of correlation don’t exist. The interesting issue is does that correlation equal, to some degree, causation?
Skipper
5155
For the Evangelical subset, surely. I would wonder how their numbers have fared pre and post Trump support?
Which other religious groups did he heavily cater to, based on their religious beliefs? He’s gone after the Jewish vote based on Israel, but that’s primarily a secular and cultural appeal, not a religious one.
I’d also be very curious to see how the different major religions stack up in terms of belief in their religion as more of an abstraction or spiritual-only belief versus real-world manifestations. Buddhism, for example, is highly compatible with science because it’s beliefs are mostly orthogonal to the material world.
Nesrie
5157
I am not sure what you mean exactly.
Many of the other groups don’t use their religion as their sole and only means to evaluate someone. It like @Skipper said. We’re talking billions of people on the planet here. I understand not everyone has a religion, but a lot do. Many do not use religion as their only means of not only evaluating a candidate but the world.
People with religion believe in science.
People with religion support protecting the environment.
People with religion believe in the rules of law.
The GOP and Trump might be catering to one of the loudest groups with all those nice TV spots and big concerts, but that group does not solely represent all religion, not even all Christians.
So yeah let’s not try and link the fact Trump supports do what they do, and believe what they do as somehow a fault of the very idea and nature of religion. They don’t represent nearly as much as you seem to think they do, not even if you boil it down to everyone in the USA that has a religion and certainly not the world’s religious population.
Guap
5158
I feel like I derailed the thread with an analogy. It was only my analogy! Maybe biased, yeah, but an analogy.
A better statistic might be that 75% of people are dichotomous thinkers, that is they categorize things/actions/cultures/peoples into two categories only. Another 20% are relativists and only 5% critical thinkers. I wish I had a study to link to, but I was told that by a world famous neurologist.
Skipper
5159
Here’s a similar, though different study that links Liberal/Conservative to dwell times on disgust, sadness, etc. Essentially findings support that a conservative thinking responds more to fear, especially fear of others.
Peering inside the brain with MRI scans, researchers at University College London found that self-described conservative students had a larger amygdala than liberals. The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. Liberals had more gray matter at least in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity.
So knowing how that works, how does that overlay with the Evangelical subset of Christianity? Not very well to be honest. But a few things stand out.
Overall, a solid majority says that it is essential for evangelicals to take a public stand on social and political issues when those issues conflict with moral and biblical principles; 56% call this essential, while 37% say it is important but not essential, and 5% say it is either not too important or not at all important. In addition, about half of the leaders (49%) say that it is essential to take a public stand on social and political issues that could limit the freedom of evangelicals to practice their faith; 39% say this is important but not essential, and 9% say it is either not too or not at all important.
About one-third (36%) say working to protect the natural environment is essential for being a good evangelical, while close to half (47%) say that protecting the environment is important but not essential, and 16% say it is either not too or not at all important. Leaders living in Hindu-majority countries, namely India and Nepal, are more likely than others (57% vs. 34%) to say that protecting the environment is essential for being a good evangelical.
So essentially it’s almost as if that movement has been usurped into the whims of the Republican party.
This rough fit indicates that the major driver for this support stems not from the teachings of the church so much as a political movement that has weaponized them over the last 40 years, promising a path to return to a Christian golden age that never actually existed.
The Pew survey revealed that Trump is more popular among white evangelicals who regularly attend church and less popular among those who do not. Why the divergence? Because many white evangelicals who attend church regularly came of age politically and spiritually in the 1980s, precisely when the Christian right was born.
Zylon
5160
Imagine if that last item had been rephrased as “Working to protect God’s creations” or somesuch.
Skipper
5162
It would rank number 1, I’m sure. I guess the follow up questions stuff like that raise are back to what @Stepsongrapes mentioned: Isolated from conservative influence, would their feelings on protecting the environment be higher?
As Misguided notes, the concept of an “evil one” that balances out the pure goodness of God is a fairly recent innovation that just barely predates Christianity itself. You can blame Plato and the Zoroastrians for the popularization of the concept of “good vs. evil” in the Middle East.
You can actually see the evolution of the concept as you march through the books of the Bible from earliest-written to most-recent.
In the earliest mentions of Satan, it’s actually “a satan” (“adversary” or “accuser”), and it typically refers to a human in the Hebrew translations. Later, God would dispatch various angels to be “a satan” on His behalf, and these angels would yell at people, stand in front of donkeys to delay them… or inflict a plague that kills tens of thousands because David took a census without God’s permission. By the Septuagint version of the Book of Job (a fairly recent Old Testament book) Satan has transitioned from an office to a person, but “Satan” is an angel or spirit in hanging out with God and torturing Job on God’s orders, not a brooding entity down in Hell plotting God’s overthrow. The New Testament mentions Satan a few times as the Big Bad, but it isn’t until the most-recent Gospel (John, written about 100 CE) that Satan is strutting around trying to tempt Jesus with ridiculous offers of desert lands for his birthright.
Guap
5164
I thought Satan was mentioned as the serpent in the Old Testament. Is that a recent translation or something?
The word “satan” doesn’t actually appear anywhere in Genesis. It’s just a talking snake.
