How the cult of imagined heroism is bringing down our nation’s institutions.

So we got some references to Bannon talking about gamers, writer comparing the Communist Party members that had to go underground because of Mccarthy and the feds hunting for them to D&D nerds that met in their parents basement as LARPing revolutionaries playing make believe in their heads as Stalin ate all the grain in the USSR, and some kind of dumb shit about how hero worship is bad and pagan and why hero worshipping Jesus is good amd wholesome

  • save_vs_death [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I love this article, they even give the game away part-way through.

    Yet the way of Jesus is quite different. A Christian vision of heaven is not Valhalla with wine (or grape juice) instead of mead. Valhalla—and almost every other pagan vision of an afterlife—looks backward. It’s the echo and celebration of the warrior’s success in the life that was.

    We're promising pie in the sky but these other guys are promising 69s in the sky, how un-christ-like.

    • star_wraith [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Christian Heaven is way more nonsensical than Valhalla or whatever. For Christian Heaven, you don't get in by doing good or even noble deeds. You can be a huge asshole your whole life and still get in so long as you subscribed to a specific set of beliefs and "put your faith in Christ's death on the cross to save you from your sins". And once you're there you praise god for all eternity while nearly everyone else you cared about or knew (as well as like 99% of everyone who lived) is experiencing unimaginable torment for eternity in hell. THAT is some bullshit right there.

      • Candidate [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I thought Sola Fide was just a Lutheran thing? Don't most christian denominations say that you actually have to be virtuous + believe in god to go to heaven?

        • star_wraith [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Nope, this would be considered "faith by works" to evangelicals and other conservative protestants in the US, which they would consider to be heretical.

          • viva_la_juche [they/them, any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            This. I have a family member who’s basically a fundie.

            They’re always banging on about any church that claims you can buy your way in through some kind of work or through money. Thinks that’s always the devil leading people astray bc it contradicts that letting jesus into your heart is enough to save you.

          • Candidate [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            But that's not a majority of christians, there are more Catholics than there are protestants.

          • Ehud [none/use name]
            ·
            2 years ago

            which they would consider to be heretical.

            Ironic if nothing else.

            Hot take, american protestants are the trotskyites of christianity.

        • Alaskaball [comrade/them]A
          ·
          2 years ago

          I thought that was a Protestant thing in general. With calvanists believing in predestination, and quoting wiki the Catholic view could perhaps be interpreted as a progression or flow: first grace, then initial trust/repentance/conversion, then faith/hope/charity, combined with an emphasis that none of these elements should be isolated thus missing the package.

          • Candidate [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Yeah, looking into it, Calvinists believe it too. I should have probably specified Luther himself, not specifically Lutherans.

        • Parzivus [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          The general idea is that believing in Christ is enough to get you into heaven, but if you do actually believe in him, you would be inclined to do the good deeds he preached anyway.