You’re right that several passages absolutely contradict their beliefs, but I used to be Evangelical and the sort of fundamentalists that support Rittenhouse really aren’t phased by any of this. They just claim the first one is specifically referring to insults and non-threatening violence, and therefore should be responded to with humility and grace, because being slapped is a painful insult and not a dangerous attack. They then point to all the times God tells people to buy swords and kill people to show that obviously God has no problem with murder in “self defense”.
And for the second, they believe that God is all-loving and that He chooses to kill people and torture them for eternity if they don’t literally beg His forgiveness before dying, so they see no conflict in loving someone while murdering them. Or as my parents are fond of saying, “We love you unconditionally, but that doesn’t mean we have to like you.”
Pointing out their hypocrisy and contradictory beliefs is still fun and all, I just don’t want people to think that fundies are unaware of these passages or anything. Christians have been twisting their Scriptures to justify their violence for around 1,500 years now, so simple gotchas like this don’t tend to do much.
On the other hand it can be embarrassing and it's not an argument they can immediately dismiss out of hand it sort of forces them to engage with you and it helps make the case to anyone who's on the fence nearby. Which if you're arguing with chuds is generally the goal
I agree somewhat, but in my personal experience they usually love the opportunity to move the conversation away from concrete details of the subject at hand (like the facts of the Rittenhouse case) and onto Biblical interpretation instead. They’re experts at the theological equivalent of pigeon chess, get dopamine from defending Christ online, and think that people giving them shit for it are just getting them eternal rewards in Heaven. Or at least that’s basically how it was for me when I was an young Evangelical chud.
That said, I do think it’s definitely useful when you want a chud to shut up about something and spend all their time writing bullshit about theology instead.
You’re right that several passages absolutely contradict their beliefs, but I used to be Evangelical and the sort of fundamentalists that support Rittenhouse really aren’t phased by any of this. They just claim the first one is specifically referring to insults and non-threatening violence, and therefore should be responded to with humility and grace, because being slapped is a painful insult and not a dangerous attack. They then point to all the times God tells people to buy swords and kill people to show that obviously God has no problem with murder in “self defense”.
And for the second, they believe that God is all-loving and that He chooses to kill people and torture them for eternity if they don’t literally beg His forgiveness before dying, so they see no conflict in loving someone while murdering them. Or as my parents are fond of saying, “We love you unconditionally, but that doesn’t mean we have to like you.”
Pointing out their hypocrisy and contradictory beliefs is still fun and all, I just don’t want people to think that fundies are unaware of these passages or anything. Christians have been twisting their Scriptures to justify their violence for around 1,500 years now, so simple gotchas like this don’t tend to do much.
On the other hand it can be embarrassing and it's not an argument they can immediately dismiss out of hand it sort of forces them to engage with you and it helps make the case to anyone who's on the fence nearby. Which if you're arguing with chuds is generally the goal
I agree somewhat, but in my personal experience they usually love the opportunity to move the conversation away from concrete details of the subject at hand (like the facts of the Rittenhouse case) and onto Biblical interpretation instead. They’re experts at the theological equivalent of pigeon chess, get dopamine from defending Christ online, and think that people giving them shit for it are just getting them eternal rewards in Heaven. Or at least that’s basically how it was for me when I was an young Evangelical chud.
That said, I do think it’s definitely useful when you want a chud to shut up about something and spend all their time writing bullshit about theology instead.