American fundamentalists especially, since I've heard that there are some absolutely wild beliefs getting passed around in those circles. Would love to hear from other folks though as well, since I've only had an outsider's view on this. I've heard that some of them believe that anyone who isn't religious is incapable of empathy, and of course all the Israel death cult stuff, but I'd like to know more.
Not necessarily dunking on Christianity as a whole here, even if I have some grave misgivings with how proselytization and child induction works in religion in general, this is specifically about borderline cultish stuff.
When i was a kid, my mother started taking me to a super small local pentecostal church. I think she mostly just went because she liked the close, personal community there. Later we moved to a different city and we ended up going to a big pentecostal megachurch.
One of the main pentecostal things is regularly "speaking in tongues." Every service they would have a period where the whole church would raise their arms and loudly shout complete jibberish while swaying back and forth. They insisted that it wasn't complete jibberish but actual foreign languages.
They were young earth creationists, so they believed the earth was 6000 years old and evolution was a lie.
There's a bible passage which says something about women always keeping their head covered and it being shameful for men to cover their heads. They interpreted this as "women must have long hair, men must have short hair."
They also believed things like makeup, jewelry, and tattoos were worldly sins
They believed catholics were idolaters who worshipped images and statues of the Virgin Mary.
There was a gift shop inside that sold chick tracks and bible paraphernalia. I always thought this was ironic considering how often they told the story of Jesus destroying the temple market.
They were very insistent that you donate at least 10% of your income to the church as a tithe.
The guy who owned the megachurch owned a bunch of them and he lived in a different state.
They believed we're living in the end times. The guy who owned the church said he did the math and the world would end before 2014. They were also devote Zionists because rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem was one of the signs of the end times.
They also thought Obama was the actual antichrist.
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Wtf, even as a super-lapsed Catholic this still makes me mad, this is the kind of garbage heathen protestants do, I'm going to snitch to the Pope and try and get this guy burned at the stake for heresy.
Same. This shit makes my lapsed ass suddenly defensive. Nothing like American Protestantism to make your inner Catholic righteously angry
critical support?
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I'm sure racism was part of it, but it was because they thought he was anti-war and charismatic.
Essentially, they believe everyone is either an agent of god furthering their fundementalist beliefs, or they're an agent of satan. They believe the anti-christ will preach "peace, prosperity, and kindness" and overall seem like a good, upstanding guy. Except he will lead people away from the true will of God. Only good, true Christians would see who he really was.
ah right.
the way the right vilifies obama fucking infuriates me so much, there's so many entirely valid reasons to hate him and yet they automatically make a beeline for just screaming the n word or some other dumb shit about eating babies and worshipping satan. Because apparently the only reason that killing children is bad is if they're white and you eat them.