...when you belong to a religion that tells you to dismiss logic and reason in favor of faith and obedience, it’s not that big of a leap for worshipers to accept a difference kind of mythology. If the members of your church are spreading QAnon memes online, then maybe you weren’t doing that great of a job teaching them how to think for themselves.
That’s not specific to evangelicals, obviously. But many of the factors that make a church grow and thrive — a sense of shared purpose, a feeling of knowing something others don’t understand, a desire for knowledge in any form — are the same weapons being used by online conspiracists. If those pastors, who rightly reject QAnon and just want their members back, don’t understand the role Christianity played in convincing people to adopt comforting myths that defy common sense, they have no chance of “saving” the people who need to be rescued.
American exceptionalism is a death cult. That's why I say America must perish for the world to flourish.
There's going to be a religious war between at least two rival groups led by men proclaiming to be the Q.
i've been thinking lately about how hard it would be to pretend to be Q, slowly build up trust, then instigate infighting to destabilize the Q folks.
New Sunni/Shiite split but with who the true descendant of Q is.
It's 2077, the Church of Q's Q logo pops-up in front of me: "You look like a good Joe," it tells me. I look like I want to emote, but hold it in. Zuckerburg and Elon's Facelink network is watching. "I'm not interested in this ad," I say. The Q logo turns into a frowny-face. "Why not?" it asks.
"Because I'm not religious."
A fedora holographically appears, slowly coming down to be put on my head. In this moment, I'm euphoric.
Why stick with the same boring church when there's a hot new cult on the scene?
Some of these institutions have enough inertia to carry them into the future, but they can't keep up in the age of information warfare. These newer cults are designed to hijack your lizard brain in ways the old churches could only dream of.
Yea, I think it proves what some people are saying here. And in the article, it puts some blame on the pandemic, because there much less in person church now and more online searching. The church has a structural advantage because it has buildings, a history and mass of followers, and it has tax exempt status. It loses that advantage in these pandemic conditions. So now with an even playing field, it makes sense that the modern shit is more appealing than the ancient shit.
Probably none of them cuz their all gonna be dead, at least here’s to hoping. (Dear feds this is not a death threat I’m just saying that their all old I’m sure there’s way more import tips on this site.)
Bill Cooper is a patient zero of sorts for most of this shit.
Modern Evangelical Christianity sucks but Antitheism isn't good Praxis either. Just another brand of cultural chauvinism.
My worry is what comes next. I think we could be seeing some wild shit, that they'll talk about in 100 years time like we talk about anarchist bombings in the 1900s
What is this edge lord atheist phrasing on this article, Jesus, I thought LiveJournal was dead
when you belong to a religion that tells you to dismiss logic and reason in favor of faith and obedience
I really hate this type of thinking. QAnon people are not "dismissing logic and reason" any more than Liberals, democratic socialists, neoconservatives, etc. They are no more or less coherent than any other ideology in public consciousness.
They have a stronger awareness of the American deep state & intelligence community than Liberals & the most of the Left. They have a weaker awareness of the Trump family's entanglement in the deep state.
The public ambassador of socialism in the US spent the last week sharing a stage with high financiers & pedophiles. The world is contradictory. You're either a dialectical materialist or you choose to ignore contradictions to explain others.
QAnon is not uniquely "illogical." They're just dangerous.
Qanon is very likely a product of propagandists close to trump or the american regime.
I am well aware. And those propagandists are willing to provide their audience with a look behind the veil that other propagandists will not.
For example, more QAnon people are aware of Operation Gladio than any other mainstream political current. They just think these programs were meant to crush "patriots."
They are weaponizing what many of these people already believe in: that a cabal of intelligence community neocons exert a lot of influence in america.
That is what I'm saying... They're the only mainstream political current talking about it. That's why QAnon is extraordinarily popular, and will only continue to grow.
Otherwise they would be outraged that people like Assange is literally imprisoned by american neocons.
From what I've seen, they are upset about Assange. But they just believe that Trump is a messiah who is taking every correct step towards defeating the deep state. I don't know if you actually talk with QAnon supporters much. If you asked them "what about Assange?" they'd just say his silence is tactical. "If he freed Assange, the deep state would yada-yada-yada."
Nowadays it’s just shilling for trump and the republican party
It's shilling for Trump, and the components of the Republican Party that will bend to Trump's will.
QAnon provides people with a language & political project which identifies the deep state, and conspiracy of finance capital. Until another project can speak to the specifics of these conspiracies, QAnon will continue to fester.
"Awareness" was not the correct word.
Rather, they have a willingness to discuss the American deep state as a real, political actor that must be addressed. Many Americans are aware of the deep state, and QAnon has become extremely popular by virtue of being the only voice in this arena. Liberals & the Left have refused to touch this issue because they are afraid that the "conspiracy" label will alienate them from the people.
I'm hopeful that the Epstein case, the Democratic Primary, and the rise of QAnon will wake the Left up to this issue.
The Left only exists in public consciousness through its representatives in the Democratic Party, so yeah, demsoc/socdem types. Those members of the Left only ever describe these issue in the abstract, never the specific. Describing the specifics would destroy their ill-conceived efforts to "infiltrate" the Democratic Party.
