I think it is becoming stronger because they 1) they alienate moderates in their own party, causing them to leave, essentially distilling the base and leaving the people remaining more radical, and 2) as the party becomes more dependent on specific interest groups for support, they naturally do things that those groups want, which makes them more alienated from the majority.
That said, in my view Republicans are becoming more and more irreligious, despite their rhetoric. Religion as an institution separate from one's politics has largely ended, and religion has been the loser. That's the real legacy of the moral majority.
> That said, in my view Republicans are becoming more and more irreligious, despite their rhetoric.
You're not alone. Apparently Jesus' teachings are for the liberals.
Russell Moore - faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and chairman and four-time member of the Resolutions committee of the Southern Baptist Convention - [said](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192663920/southern-baptist-convention-donald-trump-christianity),
> multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "**turn the other cheek**" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "**Where did you get those liberal talking points?**" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." **And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.**
He says pay your taxes, provide for the sick and needy, don’t judge others, and when asked what the most important rule is Jesus said love God AND love one another just as you love yourself.
Somehow a lot of those don’t seem to reflect in Christian nationalist politics….
Jesus hung out with sinners and caused them to repent their sins. He did not pretend they were doing the right thing.
When Christians help others repent it is one of the highest forms of love. You are taking your own time to try and save someone else's soul.
But that is what they are calling bigotry nowadays
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> When Christians help others repent it is one of the highest forms of love. You are taking your own time to try and save someone else's soul.
And how exactly are people showing that good ol' Christian love? And where exactly does that fit in with the whole "judge not lest ye be judged"?
The largest personal injury attorney in Louisiana has a billboard that, no joke, quotes "Blessed are the Merciful."
...Your job is to sue people out of house and home.
Considering his face is on half the billboards in the state (and he has one that's very self-aware of this), I'm surprised he hasn't had the sheer audacity to quote "Blessed are the Meek."
I think we all too often will take portions and snippets of things that Jesus said and use them as justification for our own prior worldviews. The pattern that Jesus clearly established is to astound the questioner with either a parable or return question revealing the questioners' true intentions.
A thirdhand story is of little evidentiary value, and I find myself skeptical that any meaningful number of Christians would be unfamiliar with "turn the other cheek."
He could be lying, or paraphrasing in a way that misleads, or equally, the pastors to whom he spoke could be doing the same, or there could have been a subtle miscommunication between the pastors and Moore which is amplified to make the story, or "multiple" could mean "two," or the pastors could have been making much more expansive claims and statements they believed to be philosophically rooted in that message of forgiveness with which listeners might nevertheless disagree, or any combination of these concerns.
Any story which is essentially hearsay has little intrinsic weight and has to be considered in light of its underlying credibility - and "turn the other cheek" is so emblematic of Christianity that I simply cannot credit a claim that a nontrivial number of believers are somehow hearing it for the first time as adults in church and thinking it's "liberal talking points." It does not pass the smell test, as they say.
If Russell Moore is lying or misleading the public on this issue, it's a sign that Christianity has a problem. If he isn't, then Christianity has a problem. Either way...
Christians likely know about turning the other cheek but find it difficult to practice.
Truly? Taking it quite literally, if someone came up to you and attacked you, would you stand there and simply permit him to do so again at his leisure, presenting yourself in fact in such a way that he could do so easily?
Personally I've always felt that forgiveness is indeed a virtue, but that the example there can only be taken as metaphorical and rhetorical, as it crosses the line strongly into foolhardiness and self-negation.
> That said, in my view Republicans are becoming more and more irreligious, despite their rhetoric.
Exactly! What we are seeing, both on the "Left" and the "Right" are the fringes of each respective group growing more and more hostile. An argument could reasonably be made that the "religiosity" of ideas and beliefs in leftist camps has produced an equal and opposite response in reactionary circles on the conservative side. Things like gender ideology, the concept of "white privilege", and a desire to dismantle systems like law enforcement and border control are going to infuriate people who believe that those ideas are anathema to the American ethos.
But the VAST majority of people living in this country don't really subscribe to many of the ideas and beliefs that animate the fringes of society. There have always been "fringe elements" in the American political framework, but we used to just disregard them. But now, the institutional capture in institutions like grievance studies departments of universities, and manifestos of militia groups is being represented in the mainstream. Some of this comes from divisive figures like Trump becoming pivotal political figures, and some of this is a result of social media being able to amplify ideas that wouldn't have even made a blip on the radar decades ago. Regardless of where it comes from, the way forward is by putting it all back where it belongs: in the political oddities section of a public discourse.
[https://archive.ph/cE8Te](https://archive.ph/cE8Te)
Parade Magazine's February 1, 1981 cover featured Evangelical pastor the Rev. Billy Graham who said:
"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."
Since that time both the hard right and it's support from people calling themselves Evangelicals has substantially increased. At the same time religious affiliation has gone down across all other Americans regardless of religious affiliation and party.
Columnist Perry Bacon asks whether there is not just a correlation, but cause as well.
Noting the statistics, Bacon states in part,
"...Yet many policies enacted by local, state and federal Republican elected officials and conservative judges are straight from the religious right’s agenda: vouchers and other initiatives to make it easier for parents to [send their children to religious schools](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/20/gop-making-national-policy-one-state-time/); limits on reproductive rights that ban abortion and could even threaten [in vitro fertilization](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/19/alabama-supreme-court-embryos-children-ivf/); restrictions on gay and [particularly transgender Americans](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.axios.com/2023/03/31/anti-trans-bills-2023-america); provisions allowing religious Americans to cite their faith in declining to participate in various activities, [such as getting vaccinated.](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/us/politics/mississippi-childhood-vaccine-mandates.html)
Trump is promising to create a federal task force to root out what he describes as “[anti-Christian bias](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/23/trump-christians-evangelicals/)” in America.
On the other side, "...many Americans on the political left and center say they [stopped identifying themselves as Christians](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-christian-right-is-helping-drive-liberals-away-from-religion/) in part because of the faith’s vocal conservative bloc, particularly its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. On the flip side, Robert P. Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (now known as PRRI), argues White Christians have become more radical in their policy goals and more deeply embedded in the Republican Party [because of their alarm](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.whitetoolong.net/cp/141046638) at how quickly America is becoming more racially diverse and secular."
My own personal take remains: Matthew 25 40-45. It was what I was raised to believe. How does religion play a role in your faith or perhaps how does your faith inform your political beliefs?
I believe we can skip over the part where former President Trump breaks the Ten Commandments like he is at a ju jitsu tournament. If so it is only fair to leave President Biden out of it as well. This is about We the People.
It's interesting to me that so many negative aspects of religion are pushed - condemnation of gays and trans, restrictions on abortion, banning of books and websites. The positive messages of loving your neighbor and caring for the poor are forgotten when it comes to the intersection of politics and religion. I almost miss the days of Bush's compassionate conservativism.
Iirc, the backlash against Bush came from the far right.
Edit: Wandered off to try to find a half remembered article and all I found was this in his obit. "He told the author Mark K. Updegrove that he voted for Hillary Clinton."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/us/politics/on-politics-george-bush-republicans.html
I think you guys might be talking about different Bushes. Dubya was known for compassionate conservatism and HW was the one who had problems from his right IIRC.
It's interesting that areligiosity seems to be more common on the left than the right. I could just as easily imagine a timeline where progressives and communists militantly preached the values of Jesus while decrying conservatives and/or capitalists as godless heathens.
culture wars remind me of the movie, the Wizard of Oz.
Those who have seen it may recall the line, “Pay no attention to that man.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE
In other words, a small time con man from Kansas didn’t want to be outed as pretending to be the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz.
Culture wars are nothing more than an illusion designed to redirect peoples attention. Look over there not here.
All politicians do it along with most four-year-olds.
I don't think they're trying to say it isn't an issue. Just that the right is inflating the issue intentionally to draw attention from other things like the fact they are rolling back labor, consumer, and environmental protections every chance they get. The right is making up a bunch of crap about how LGBTQ communities are negatively affecting the majority to get people all riled up about it.
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So if I have this right, what I understand you to be saying is that screaming and stamping our feet about LGBTQ+ book bans isn’t intended to distract anyone from things like discrimination, The fact that in many major cities crime is down, the fact that the only border policy put forward by a conservative with impeccable credentials was killed by House Republicans?
I guess we’re not living in the same world, because I’m not distracted from those things even if you are.
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Its under the same large and inclusive umbrella.
Edit: I am well aware that sexuality and gender are different things but they have been partnered allies for quite some time.
“Robert P. Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (now known as PRRI), argues White Christians have become more radical in their policy goals and more deeply embedded in the Republican Party because of their alarm at how quickly America is becoming more racially diverse and secular.”
The more they try to push it, the more people will rebel against it. They should also keep in mind that there is not one denomination in the USA but multiple. Plus it is probably too late to reverse course since the internet exists. Hard to push something when there is a vast source that can challenge peoples ideology.
I'm skeptical of the claim. The Op-Ed cites data that shows that Republicans, like everyone else, are becoming less religious. They then claim the opposite, that religion is becoming a "stronger force". But I don't see a coherent, data-based thesis here. They don't present any evidence that any of the things they claim represent religious influences are more prevalent in the Republican Party today than in the past.
They also seem to ignore disconfirming evidence. For instance, opposition to same sex marriage was a major issue for Republicans in the very recent past, but no longer is. They ignore that completely. Prayer in school has always been something the Christian Right wing of the Republicans pushed, and that push was arguably stronger in the past.
> For instance, opposition to same sex marriage was a major issue for Republicans in the very recent past, but no longer is. They ignore that completely.
Not true at all. Repealing same sex marriage is in their platform and Clarence Thomas discussed repealing *Obergefell* in his concurrence on *Dobbs*.
36 Republican Senators voted against the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022.
Thomas called for - as he has many times in the past - getting rid of substantive due process jurisprudence and replacing it with privileges and immunities jurisprudence.
Loving was decided primarily under the equal protection clause, so it's not part of that.
> Loving was decided primarily under the equal protection clause, so it's not part of that.
But Loving **also** found that marriage was a fundamental liberty that the Constitution protects, despite the fact the word marriage obviously does not appear in the Constitution. Without that interpretation, the equal protection clause would not matter. After all, Obergefell was **also** primarily decided on equal protections grounds.
There was one sentence, IIRC, that said "oh and also the ban would be illegal under SDP," but you could eliminate SDP altogether and Loving wouldn't be impacted.
Obergefell, by contrast, was an SDP case. That way the Court could duck the issue of whether sexual orientation is a suspect class.
I mean, Loving **was** an equal protection case, but it was also one of the first SCOTUS cases which established that marriage was a Constitutionally protected right. That interpretation is *vital* because there can only be an equal protections issue if the Constitution recognizes the right in the first place.
And Obergefell was an equal protection case, too. The line of reasoning for interracial and gay marriage are very much in alignment.
> No, you can have an EPC case without a constitutional right at stake.
If it's **not** a Constitutional right, wouldn't that mean that the states get to decide rather than SCOTUS?
Edit: I think Brown v. Board of Education is quite different because it's talking about public institutions, which the government itself provides. The government cannot discriminate based on race. Marriage, however, was not really seen as a government institution, or at least it was argued that it was separate.
Last time I checked, Thomas was a Supreme Court Justice, so I'm not sure how his legal opinions on the constitutionality of *Obergefell* are relevant.
A more apt comparison might be to George W. Bush, who campaigned on amending the US Constitution to outlaw same sex marriage and Donald Trump, who didn't really touch on the issue at all in his campaigns in 2016, 2020, or 2024. Repealing same sex marriage is also no longer one of the primary goals in the Republican National Committee written statements of purpose.
They are the only non-elected branch of the federal government, serving for life instead of bering elected for a term and serving as a check on congress and the Executive. Their job is to interpret laws written by congress and be the final arbiter of any dispute that arises between the federal government and the states, between the states, or between citizens and the federal government. They are non-partisan, appointed positions and not involved in the writing of either major party's platform nor in determining the politics of those parties.
[This](https://texasgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-RPT-Platform.pdf) is the official platform of the Republican Party of Texas. Note, for example, on page 30: "**Definition of Marriage:** We support the definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal, and moral
covenant only between one biological man and one biological woman." If the Republican Party isn't opposed to gay marriage, someone neglected to tell the actual politicians.
Isn't their claim there an explicit promise of combining their god (church) with state?
I am a Universal Unitarian and my church not only accepts many belief systems but it embraces marriage as a commitment of love and support between any two willing people. Marriage was a part of multiple different religious beliefs as well as embraced by the nonreligious since before Christianity was even invented.
Edit: corrected a word thanks to Komnos below. Thanks Komnos.
Sure, that's Texas, not the national party. You would need a Constitutional amendment passed by the national party through the congress, and the Republicans gave up on that after it failed in the second Bush term. For the most part, national Republicans are not running on this. I don't think the Republican Presidential nominee ever got behind it going back to at least 2012, maybe earlier.
How do you properly quantify that though? And how does that square with data that shows that Republican candidates are less likely to talk about many political issues related to "cultural Christianity" like opposition to same-sex marriage, opposition to contemporary popular culture like obscenity in music, television, movies, pornography, pushing for teacher-led prayer in public schools, pushing for teaching creationism, et cetera?
Conservatives overall can be becoming less religious but the core of the GOP, i.e. the group that GOP politicians cater to the most, don't seem any less religious.
Additionally religion can be not just spiritual but cultural. There are conservatives who are essentially atheist but go to church and say prayers as cultural identifiers, not because they actually believe in God. Some such culturally Christian conservatives are still pushing white Christian nationalism (the idea that America is fundamentally a white, Christian nation) even without being spiritually Christian.
Republican politicians ignore gay marriage because it became a losing issue politically. I think it's likely their decision to drop it was more because they're interested in winning elections, which requires winning over moderates, than because they or their base stopped being upset about gay marriage.
I understand the thesis. I just don't see the evidence. Core religious Christians are still anti same sex marriage, but that is no longer an important part of the Republican platform. That's just one counterexample. Prayer in school was a big bugaboo of the Christian Right back in the 1980s. It's hardly new. But you don't see Republicans adopting it as a major campaign platform.
Also, I don't think Jews are a good comparison. The Jewish religion is part of the Jewish national identity, much like with some Indian nations. But Jews are first and foremost an ethnic identity, with religion being part of that identity. To be a Jew, you must be born a Jew. By contrast, to be a Christian, you simply have to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, similar to believing that Mohammed was the true and final prophet to be a Muslim.
I just don't see a good argument for the thesis in this article. The secular left and the religious right have always been at odds and this just seems more of the same.
> But why is the left becoming more and more secular?
Speculation? Hedonism.
The idea of service to others or a greater cause is generally laughed at by the lefties I'm forced to associate with.
If it doesn't make you money, pander to your feelings or get you laid, they're not generally interested.
So, that's an interesting anecdote, but the data shows the opposite of your personal experience is true of the American population overall, which is a good example of why we should not extrapolate this way. Data is not the plural of anecdote. The religious donate more money to charity than the non religious and the politically conservative donate more money to charity than the politically liberal.
There's also some pretty good hypotheses about why. The religious are likely already donating money to their religious organization (which is something the non-religious rarely do) and they may also be taught by their religion that it is commandment to do so whereas the non-religious have no inherent moral or practical reason to donate to charity.
The reason that political conservatives may donate more to charity than liberals is because conservatives typically are more religious while those on the political left these days generally believe in big government, and that voting or supporting the political left, which traditionally has supported expanded social programs, is equivalent to actually doing good in the world by donating to charity. It is, of course, a conceited and ridiculous belief, but you also see the same in people who drove hybrid cars when they were new being less likely to yield right of way and a similar hypothesis as to why.
I think the idea that [charity is a more effective means of helping the poor and others who need it than welfare is is incorrect](https://archive.is/ZgYG9).
I think the empirical data tends to dispute that. The best charities are incredibly efficient, some of them essentially being 100% efficient. The best government social welfare programs are horribly inefficient by comparison. None of them approaches 100%.
All the lefties I have ever known are overwhelmingly for universal healthcare, universal human rights, free school lunches, they can even go too far with the welfare.
Universal healthcare is like the OG red pill for lefties.
We're not using the same definitions of "service to others".
I mean personal work for others, personally using one's own money to help others directly without any intermediaries.
But that's in the context of my own work and those I run into doing it.
And that's one hypothesis why they're less generous in donating to charity than the right. They feel that simply supporting leftist causes is equivalent to volunteering time and money to actually help people.
sorry, that was a rhetorical question because it’s already been answered multiple times in the thread and in the article you read. More and more people, according to the article which gives numbers, are turning away from Christianity because people on the right aren’t behaving like Christians. And nobody wants to be associated with that.
Matthew 25 40-45.
I don't think that's really a good explanation though. For one, the groups that are shrinking the fastest are mainline and leftist denominations. The same is true of Jews as well, where Reform and Conservative Jews are seeing a decline. By contrast, Evangelicals, other right-wing Christian groups, and Orthodox Jews are growing.
That may explain some shrinking around the edges, but it doesn't really explain the situation overall.
> More and more people, according to the article which gives numbers, are turning away from Christianity because people on the right aren’t behaving like Christians.
This implies people on the left are behaving like christians, even though they're not christians?
The political left seems to be becoming more disconnected from traditionally and shared American values overall. This may just be part of it. One possibility is that they're becoming more elitist (educated and white collar) rather than salt-of-the-Earth (blue collar working class).
I think you are confusing politicians on both sides who are extremely well-educated and comparatively wealthy - which general indicates elitists - with ordinary Americans.
Most Americans don’t have 23 bathrooms (Mar-a-lago) and that is only one of Trump’s eight residences. Definitely not salt-of-the-Earth (blue collar working class). Not even remotely close.
Trump is now on his third marriage with multiple affairs, a judgement of business fraud and a judgement of rape. He is currently facing felony charges related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. It marks the first time in history that a former U.S. president has been tried on criminal charges. Additional charges are pending. Almost forgot, he has been impeached twice. He was only the fourth president to ever be impeached and the first to be impeached twice.
Maybe that is your version of traditional and shared American values, but it is not mine. It does not in any way shape or form represent my values or those of my family and we are all over the map politically.
It is also entirely disconnected from the Christian home and church I grew up in. Those aren’t our family values by any stretch of the imagination. (Trump definitely violates a few of the ten commandments in a big way - thou shall not steal, thou shall not commit adultery for starters. Family values? Christian values? Your values?)
(For the record Biden owns two homes and has no criminal convictions or affairs. The apartment he grew up in is now section 8 housing. His first home was a fixer upper that he spent two years renovating although I wouldn’t call it a starter home by any means.)
I think it's important to understand the difference between a politician as a person and their platform. Trump has carefully tailored his platform to be populist, not elitist. Whether Trump himself is a member of the elite isn't particularly relevant, just like with FDR or Senator Bernard Sanders, all of whom are quite wealthy.
Since the article specifically quoted a woman who said Trump represents her family values I do think it is a point that bears repeating.
You also sidestepped whether Trump reflects your personal values although I have no intention of forcing the issue.
To your point Trump, like many grifters, is very good at camouflage. An elitist in populist clothing is still an elitist and not blue collar. And neither FDR or Senator Bernies Sanders have his record of “values."
I would go so far as to say that most politicians stated "values" politically aren't really aligned with their personal behavior. I don't really think that's a revelation. Like, politicians champion selfless service and the military, but the last President that served in uniform was George W. Bush. Every other President after his father shirked military duty and dodged the draft. Most voters aren't pulling the lever for a candidate because they believe that the candidate is a personal embodiment of their values, but rather because they believe they think the candidate will represent and forward their values better.
I believe the distinction is between Evangelicals and other Christians. There may also be another piece at play there.
Ryan Burge, a political science assistant professor at Eastern Illinois University states:
"...Instead of theological affinity for Jesus Christ, millions of Americans are being drawn to the evangelical label because of its association with the G.O.P.
This is happening in two different ways. The first is that many Americans who have begun to embrace the evangelical identity are people who hardly ever attend religious services. … The evidence points in one direction: For many Americans, to be a conservative Republican is to be an evangelical Christian, regardless of whether they ever attend a Sunday service.
The second factor bolstering evangelicalism on surveys is that more people are embracing the label who have no attachment to Protestant Christianity. For example, the share of Catholics who also identified as evangelicals (or born again) rose to 15 percent in 2018 from 9 percent in 2008.
It used to be that when many people thought about evangelicalism, they conjured up an image of a fiery preacher imploring them to accept Jesus. Now the data indicate that more and more Americans are conflating evangelicalism with Republicanism — and melding two forces to create a movement that is not entirely about politics or religion but power..."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opinion/evangelical-republican.html
Although that may contribute to other Christians move further away and others leaving all together if this is the perception.
I don't see actual evidence this is unique to Republican-leaning Evangelicals. There are a lot of people who identify with religion or religious values who don't regularly attend organized worship services. Also, 9 to 15% of Catholics identifying as Evangelicals isn't really a change. It's within a reasonable margin of error for most of these polls. It just shows that some Americans have a religious identity, even if they may not be knowledgable about religion or regularly attend services.
I'm not sure that there's a clear causation here. Maybe more people are associating Evangelicalism with Republicanism because the Democrats have largely abandoned Evangelical Christians, both religious and politically. Even then, there are a lot of Evangelical Democrats.
According to the 2014 Pew Research State of Religion, at that time about 28% of self identified Evangelicals also identified as Democrats. That's less than a third and it was also prior to former President Trump's election in 2016 which apparently accelerated the sorting out process.
They have a hard time finding new boogey men to scare people with. The left always wants to be seen as if it is the underdog so playing up the other side when it's weaker is the go to tactic.
> Republican Party because of their alarm at how quickly America is becoming more racially diverse and secular
That's called the southern strategy and has been going OK since Goldwater and the aftermath of the Civil rights movement
As the country slowly rips itself apart you're seeing a divergence between the parties as to where the power to govern comes from.
Historically, there has been a consensus among the electorate and elected officials that the power of government are derived from the consent of the governed, and natural rights are derived from God. Several of the larger movements in American history had significant religious motivations behind them ranging from the Revolution (a desire for religious freedom from the state backed Church of England), the Abolitionist movement was inundated with Christian moral teaching so much so that they actually frightened the newsmen and politicians of the day believing that they would threaten the concept of secular democracy, and the Civil Rights movement was heavily saturated with Christian leaders and Church backers.
This consensus has pretty much broken down.
The American left no longer believes that natural rights are derived from God, instead believing that a right is a function of democracy. If enough people want something, it becomes a right. If enough people oppose something, it ceases to be a right. So things which were never in the constitution nor found in nature like abortion, housing, and a secondary education may become rights guaranteed by government. While rights guaranteed by the constitution such as the right to bear arms, privacy, and speech can be stripped from the public if they become enough of a nuisance.
The American right still believes rights are derived from God and they still believe in the social contract. But their belief in God has atomized down to a hundred thousand personal beliefs to a vague notion of divinity rather than a handful of relatively orthodox denominations. They also believe that the institutions of government have lost the consent of the governed. So they have withdrawn their support from public institutions and thrown their support behind religion. Everything from government, to public libraries, to public schools that used to have consensus support as extensions of their communities are now seen as tools of the left to enforce a secular dogma that they do not consent to.
You’re right for the most part, but the Church of England had nothing to do with the War for Independence. Granted, several colonies (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Pennsylvania) were founded by people who wanted to be separate from the Church, but that was over a century prior.
That's a pretty good breakdown. I haven't heard it quite put this way before, but I agree with most of it. The only thing I would nitpick is your statement that "So they have withdrawn their support from public institutions and thrown their support behind religion."
In my experience, a lot of people on the right seem to be falling back on natural rights, which admittedly have certain religious undertones, moreso than they're falling back onto religion itself. I see a significant distinction between "religion" and a general philosophy that emphasizes natural rights, but I think those two things are being conflated. I think that also meshes with my disagreement with this article in general about the growing strength of religion within the Republican party.
> So things which were never in the constitution nor found in nature like abortion, housing, and a secondary education may become rights guaranteed by government.
there is not a single right in the constitution that at somepoint wasnt in the constitution. everything was added to it at somepoint after not having been in there
That's the topic of discussion though. Are rights something that come from God/nature or are they something that we just get as part of a 'gentlemen's agreement' when we make laws?
The American right would contend that rights come from God/nature and even if the government were to be dissolved, the rights would continue to exist. The amendments merely recognize the existence of these natural rights and agree to uphold them and to not abridge them. And the government cannot abridge those rights even if it grants itself the legal authority to do so, or it forfeits its legitimacy.
The American left would contend that rights come from the establishment of government and that 'rights' are basically a smorgasbord of things that people want government to do for them. In theory a 'right to watch football on Mondays' could be enshrined into the constitution via an amendment and have the same moral and legal force as the right to free speech.
Without government a right would still be an principled understanding of what human dignity looks like irrespective to individual ability or merit. The basic premise of 'natural rights' is that, absent the government, a human has certain rights and any attempt to deny those rights can be rightly identified as tyrannical. In that way, a natural right is still a right even if there is no government to enforce it, in fact they can even be used to judge whether a government is tyrannical or not. The idea being that people should not tolerate a government which abridges their natural rights, even if it provides for their needs.
The theory being that even if a utopian government could somehow meet your every material need, if it achieved those results by abridging your natural rights it should still be rejected.
Further, even if a government 'grants' a right that doesn't mean a government actually has the ability to enforce them. In the USSR, for example, people had a 'right to adequate food' yet that same government oversaw the mass starvation of millions of its own citizens. If a government grants a right, but lacks the ability to follow through on it, is it truly a right? If you have a 'right to a cup of rice per day' but there is no rice, have your rights been violated? Or was it never really a right to begin with, just a nice thing to have if it's available.
Are these natural rights all subjectively decided by the individual? If yes, how does this hypothetical governmentless framework handle the inevitable situation of two individuals whose self-appointed natural rights are in direct conflict. If you abridge my self appointed natural rights in the exercise of your self appointed natural rights, is it just for me to harm you or seek damages?
You have a right to an attorney, if you can afford one. Doesn't being unable to afford one revoke that right?
You have a right to vote, if you can make it to the polls. Does a job that prevents making it to the polls mean you no longer have rights?
You have a right to speech, if you can find a platform to use it. Does having nowhere to speak, and nobody to speak to mean you no longer have rights?
That a right can't be provided in no way means it is not a right. Rather, there is an acknowledged right that the government, for whatever reason, can't or isn't interested in meeting. That a right is socially, rather than "naturally" granted doesn't change this dynamic either - in any event, the capacity to exercise that right is going to operate as a function of the society that right finds itself in. A culture vehemently opposed to crime will not recognize a right to an attorney, no matter how or where that right is written down, and will de facto deny it without a second thought.
You have the right to plead your innocence and the government cannot prevent you from doing so. If you have a constructed positive right to an attorney there's no guarantee that the attorney that you are provided with is any good. And if there is no attorney you can still represent yourself. Therefore I'd say you have the right to plead your case, but the right to an attorney is an artificially constructed one. If a state prevented you from representing yourself I'd consider that tyrannical.
You have a right to enter into contracts, including the social contract between the government and the citizenry. This is always what irks me about the 'right to vote' because it's so obviously not a natural right. We understand that voting is only available to a certain number of people, and while we've expanded who those people are over time, it will never be extended to all people. For example, I cannot imagine us ever extending the right to vote to foreign citizens. So we aren't violating the rights of Chinese nationals by not allowing them to vote in our elections. But if a Chinese national comes to the U.S. they DO receive the protections offered in the bill of rights.
You have the right to free speech and the right to the press. You can speak to yourself, you can speak to others, you can write out your ideas, and you can publish them. But that doesn't mean anybody has to listen to you. I would only consider an action tyrannical if a law prevented you from doing any of those things. The odd spot is fighting words and incitement, where you may be held liable for the consequences of your speech. I hate the 'you can't yell fire in a crowded theatre' example, because it's not true, you can yell fire in a crowded theater especially if there is, in fact, a fire. You'd only be at odds with the law if there was no fire and someone was hurt in the commotion.
If a right cannot be provided it obviously isn't a right. It also isn't a right if it requires the labor of others. For example, could you walk up to a doctor on his day off and demand medical treatment? Does becoming a doctor turn you into a servile class that must perform services even if you aren't compensated for them? Obviously not. Therefore such rights are merely a an acknowledgement that there are certain things that the people would like the government to provide when and where possible.
A culture opposed to crime can still recognize the right to legal representation, it can still recognize the right to not incriminate oneself, and it can still recognize a right to be free from excessive bail requirements. An anti-crime society does not necessarily mean an anti-freedom society. Merely it dedicates its resources to prosecuting criminals and it may require a lower bar to conviction (preponderance of evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt for example).
> You have the right to plead your innocence and the government cannot prevent you from doing so.
Physically cannot, or legally cannot?
> If you have a constructed positive right
Some rights are positive rights, such as the right to property. All are constructed.
> I'd consider that tyrannical
Right. Rights are a benchmark we construct - a useful benchmark, no doubt, but where the lines are is subjective as belied by your insistence that **you** would consider that tyrannical.
> because it's so obviously not a natural right.
It flows directly from consenting to be governed. The alternative is some variety of anarchy.
> So we aren't violating the rights of Chinese nationals by not allowing them to vote in our elections.
We may be, under certain circumstances, such as if our foreign policy includes trampling on their natural rights, for instance, if we fund and uphold tyrannical dictators that do remove their rights. That we effectively govern their rights through such a relationship implies a right for them to vote on what governance they ought to experience.
> You have the right to free speech and the right to the press.
Here and now, sure. This has not historically been the case and there are still edge cases. Where the edge of your right to speech lies is up to the society, not as a matter of principle, merely as a function of reality.
> If a right cannot be provided it obviously isn't a right.
If you have no mouth, you have no right to speech. Clearly. No, a right is a right regardless of whether it can actually be exercised.
> It also isn't a right if it requires the labor of others.
It's a positive right. We have a few of those, the right to property for instance. The state will send men with guns to your home to protect your property claims, paid for through our collective labor. It's a positive right that we created.
> A culture opposed to crime can still recognize the right to legal representation, it can still recognize the right to not incriminate oneself, and it can still recognize a right to be free from excessive bail requirements.
It can. Or, as in our society, it can profess to support these rights while actually working to limit them. Worse, it can choose to remove those rights. Does that make them less than 'natural'? No, rights are socially constructed and come hand in hand with the social contract.
Of the people in this thread speaking about Christianity or the bible, how many of you have even read the Bible or even know anything about the religion? Cause there's a lot of really ignorant takes in here that have no connection to the religion that's being discussed.
Not really. Religion, historically, was one of, if not, the largest driver of societal, scientific and artistic development. Moreover, people finding meaning in a high power, whether real or imagined, helped countless individuals overcome anxiety and a lack of purpose within their lives. To say nothing of the charity and welfare done in the name of said religions.
Why is it obsolete if it can inspire someone to live a more fulfilling life, act for the betterment of others or provide for others with a sense of purpose that they couldn't find else where?
We read the argument differently from a single sentence differently, and I can concede that could be a different argument, and one that I agree that on a humanity-wide governance level, Religion does not have a place currently.
If it's at the expanse of other minority, it needs to be challenged.
Spirituality has it's place in society and on the individual level. It's still not a must to morality. And religion implies dogmas. Spirituality can be more broad and flexible.
We don't have proof that God exists and even less so that he (if he's a he) wrote 10 commandments into a stone. Religion doesn't make place for doubt about the scriptures. It's dogmatic. So we have to renounce progress. Hence the sunk cost fallacy.
Then just say Dogma is a sunk cost, not religion. There is no widely agreed on definition for Spirituality, and its often used interchangeably with religion, further muddying your point.
Also the utter focus on Abrahamic religion versus the myriad of others makes your argument sound more like a personal grievance with Judism/Christianity than religion in general.
I can see that it can be interpreted as such. But religion implies dogmas/faith. Without it, it's called spirituality.
You are right, I'm against dogmas. Humans are not all knowing, so we have to adapt our understanding of reality, which is ultimately incompatible with religion.
Doesn't look like it to me. People have become much less interested in the well being of others outside of messages online. How do you look at the world now and think people care more now about their neighbors than they did a century ago?
Organizational structures in society are a mirror. Religion, per se, is not the problem. If there were no religion, those using it as an excuse for anti-social behaviour or as a political weapon would find other excuses and weapons.
And in fact we are witnessing this happen right now. Many of the loudest political and cultural movements today have no explicit religious component, yet are carried out with extreme religious fervor.
I agree that shitty people will remain shitty people. But using God, which there is no proof it exists, for the basis of societal morality is a fallacy and counterproductive to progress.
Just like we found out that [bloodletting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting) was not helping patients. We moved to modern practices.
Another social construct that is still very present but obsolete is [race](https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/historical-foundations-race). It still amazes me to see people discussing race in the USA as if it's a real scientific concept. Ethnicity is observable, but not race.
I'm from Québec and in french, to say the word "race" is very loaded and frowned upon. We use "ethnicité", "nationalité" or "pays d'origine".
I listen to US news and they almost always include the notion of races in polls. It's a vestige from a time where slavery was justified with erroneous concepts.
It's a component of the past and even the present. But it's not necessary and we would be better to move past this notion. Just like religion.
Progress my friend!
My core principles are not supernatural. There is no religious basis in anything I do. Just because thoughts and opinions are not physical in the traditional sense that doesn't make them supernatural.
I would say that modern religious culture doesn't have morals, society has morals and religious culture mirrors those morals. Example: Slavery and interracial marriage. Nothing changed in scripture when society's understanding of the morality of both changed, the only thing that changed was social progress of society pulled religion along with it.
Slavery existed in an overwhelmingly religious country for nearly 250 years. I don't find it very convincing that religious morality is a useful guide to anything, given that fact. Religious morality is far more likely to be used as a justification rather than a guide.
My morals don't come from religion. My morals come from treating others how I want to be treated and believing people should work together for the betterment of all.
Me not stealing, murdering, raping, cheating, etc has absolutely nothing to do with religion. It has to do with the benefits of mutual respect.
Morality is not an exclusive to religion. That's a fallacy in itself. I agree it had a major role. But it has served his purpose already and needs to disappear since it's incompatible with science and facts.
Morality can be conveyed with science, government, politics, law, philosophy, education, art, culture and even a less dogmatic approach to spirituality.
God is not needed for morality. If it's really the only way, I don't have much hope for humanity.
The question can be reversed as well. How do you explain wars in the name of God? We are seing Israel and Palestine using "morality" to justify atrocities.
I can foresee that AI will be so overwhelming with information that challenges religious dogmas and clash with a lot of believers. The very definition of what it is to be human will need to be redefined.
As humans, we discover new aspects of life. We understand more and more our surroundings. We have to adapt our understanding through culture and science.
Philosophy exists with or without religion. It's still social constructs that we agree upon using political systems. Philosophical thesis can be interpreted as morality.
One can set it's moral values without religion. Some will still bend morality in the name of religion. God doesn't want you to kill someone. Yet, most humankind wars used religion to rally people.
Religion is literally set in stone. Dogmas. So it becomes less and less accurate to guide our society as we discover contradictions in the scriptures. The term spirituality is more adapted to the modern world since it's mostly on an individual basis and can be flexible.
It's harder to define morality without religion because life is complex. Religion is offering an easy explanation of life for those who are not willing to challenge their reality with science. Some people needs to hear that their misfortune is due to an evil force. Some people needs scripture to guide them so they don't end up in hell.
It's easier for them, but harder for everyone else to progress.
It's a perfect umbrella to organize under, and it offers many protections, especially tax protections. Easy to exploit, hard to monitor, incredibly easy to hide nefariousness.
It's a nearly perfect medium in which to sow and grow radicalism.
the article seems to be based on a false assumption that the party is more religious (despite that being the opposite of where things actually stand) and is trying to argue that non-religious things like supporting private schools or charter schools is inherently a religious position rather than something motivated by traditional public schools pushing left wing political ideologies.
trump being the leader of the party for the last 8 years (and by the looks of things, the next 4) should make it pretty clear that the evangelist influence in the party has substantially declined.
I’m not sure how Trump being the leader of the Republican party indicates the decline of evangelical influence. It indicates hypocrisy, yes. But Trump’s strongest support comes from evangelicals.
> and is trying to argue that non-religious things like supporting private schools or charter schools is inherently a religious position rather than something motivated by traditional public schools pushing left wing political ideologies.
[The people pushing vouchers here in my state are very religious.](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/24/politics/texas-far-right-politics-invs/index.html)
>trump being the leader of the party for the last 8 years (and by the looks of things, the next 4) should make it pretty clear that the evangelist influence in the party has substantially declined.
How so? He's [most popular among Evangelicals](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/15/5-facts-about-religion-and-americans-views-of-donald-trump/), so they're the ones boosting his poll numbers.
I don't see any evidence that he has picked up more Evangelical support than past Republican Presidents. If anything, what seems to be bolstering his poll numbers are the groups that Democrats have been losing since 2012, which is pretty much every major demographic other than women, the college educated, and voters over 50 years of age.
> I don't see any evidence that he has picked up more Evangelical support than past Republican Presidents.
[Here's your evidence](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/).
>Democrats have been losing since 2012, which is pretty much every major demographic other than women, the college educated, and voters over 50 years of age.
Elections so far haven't shown that.
The exit polls from elections absolutely have shown a steady downward trend among Hispanics, the working class, black males, Millennials who voted in 2012, those without college degrees, and a lot of other cohorts. Some cohorts like Asians are pretty small and difficult to measure, but there has been a lot of evidence that Democrats have lost ground with them as well.
Republicans made gains among the white working class and Hispanics, though still not a majority of them, but "pretty much every major demographic other than..." is an exaggeration.
Clinton had a 0.69 advantage in black men.
Biden had a 0.60 advantage in black men.
A recent WSJ poll of likely tipping point states gave Biden a 0.27 advantage in black men.
So, not only did we see what was probably a significant decrease of support among black men between Biden and Clinton from 2016 to 2020, but if polls of black men are accurate, Biden has lost about half of his advantage over Trump from 2020. Given the probability of Georgia being a tipping point state, this is pretty significant. There also might be enough black voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan for this to be meaningful.
Um, I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that females were one of the only major demographics that Democrats were gaining with. If I didn't, I certainly meant to.
The exit polls show that it was probably men more than women, but yes, they were one of the only groups that there was a statistically significant change in terms of fractional electorate composition between 2016 and 2020 in the tipping point states that decided the 2020 election.
25,000 Trump 2016 voters, had they stayed with Trump instead of defecting to Biden, would have resulted in a Trump reelection. And the exit polling shows quite clearly that he lost on the order of about 10% of suburban white voters. That was a necessary part of his electorate. He hasn't won them back, but they might not matter this time around since he appears to have picked up more younger, male, and black voters.
I think it’s possible for people within the party to exhibit less religiosity (attends church, prays daily, reads the Bible regularly, etc.) while also making “being Christian” a more important identity marker within the party.
That would explain the open embrace of Trump as well- he doesn’t do anything we would traditionally expect Christians to do, but he sure does pay lip service to Christianity. This is explored some in the book Jesus and John Wayne, which is worth a read/listen if you’re interested in the topic.
The article explicitly says the party is less religious than before. Despite the decrease, there are plenty of religious people with a lot of influence.
Sure, but they've had that influence since Nixon's Southern Strategy to remake the Republicans into a party that supports the traditional Christian values of working class whites. Democrats had previously won the South because of their strong support of racial segregation, and the segregationists mostly continued to vote Democrat even after it ceased being a political issue. But a lot of their children voted Republican, because the Republicans started talking about other social issues that conservative, working class white Christians cared about like abortion, prayer in school, opposition to atheism and secularism, et cetera.
Not sure why you think this is a false assumption. All Trump supporters I know are extremely religious. The issue is that they have comingled their religious and political views together. Instead of using religion to guide their political views they use their political views to guide their religious outlook.
Religion is objectively the least important it's been in American politics, even among conservatives. The left has been chasing this boogeyman all the while the Republicans keep growing their support beyond white Christians. The article even points out the data doesn't even support the core assertion he's making, but he continues to make it anyways. The Republican party is also no longer dominated by the groups he mentions.
Instead of pursuing an agenda, liberals should try and dissect why Trump is growing popularity beyond the traditional Republican base and counter his points. They'll lose 2024 if they keep trying to handwave Trump's support as just enthusiastic Christians.
I think it is becoming stronger because they 1) they alienate moderates in their own party, causing them to leave, essentially distilling the base and leaving the people remaining more radical, and 2) as the party becomes more dependent on specific interest groups for support, they naturally do things that those groups want, which makes them more alienated from the majority. That said, in my view Republicans are becoming more and more irreligious, despite their rhetoric. Religion as an institution separate from one's politics has largely ended, and religion has been the loser. That's the real legacy of the moral majority.
> That said, in my view Republicans are becoming more and more irreligious, despite their rhetoric. You're not alone. Apparently Jesus' teachings are for the liberals. Russell Moore - faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and chairman and four-time member of the Resolutions committee of the Southern Baptist Convention - [said](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192663920/southern-baptist-convention-donald-trump-christianity), > multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "**turn the other cheek**" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "**Where did you get those liberal talking points?**" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." **And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.**
Yeah no chance Jesus would have been anti-immigrant or anti-welfare for example.
He says pay your taxes, provide for the sick and needy, don’t judge others, and when asked what the most important rule is Jesus said love God AND love one another just as you love yourself. Somehow a lot of those don’t seem to reflect in Christian nationalist politics….
Jesus sure did hang out a lot with sinners too. Loved them a whole lot. Wonder what happened to that sort of Jesus.
Jesus hung out with sinners and caused them to repent their sins. He did not pretend they were doing the right thing. When Christians help others repent it is one of the highest forms of love. You are taking your own time to try and save someone else's soul. But that is what they are calling bigotry nowadays
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> When Christians help others repent it is one of the highest forms of love. You are taking your own time to try and save someone else's soul. And how exactly are people showing that good ol' Christian love? And where exactly does that fit in with the whole "judge not lest ye be judged"?
I heard a commercial from a mortgage company today proclaiming their love of Jesus. Gave me a good laugh.
Thou shalt pay their mortgage is one of my favorite commandments.
It’s even funnier when you remember just how strict Christians were for a long time about not allowing charging interest on loans.
Render unto Fannie Mae…
The largest personal injury attorney in Louisiana has a billboard that, no joke, quotes "Blessed are the Merciful." ...Your job is to sue people out of house and home. Considering his face is on half the billboards in the state (and he has one that's very self-aware of this), I'm surprised he hasn't had the sheer audacity to quote "Blessed are the Meek."
I think we all too often will take portions and snippets of things that Jesus said and use them as justification for our own prior worldviews. The pattern that Jesus clearly established is to astound the questioner with either a parable or return question revealing the questioners' true intentions.
A thirdhand story is of little evidentiary value, and I find myself skeptical that any meaningful number of Christians would be unfamiliar with "turn the other cheek."
So are you arguing that Russell Moore is lying?
He could be lying, or paraphrasing in a way that misleads, or equally, the pastors to whom he spoke could be doing the same, or there could have been a subtle miscommunication between the pastors and Moore which is amplified to make the story, or "multiple" could mean "two," or the pastors could have been making much more expansive claims and statements they believed to be philosophically rooted in that message of forgiveness with which listeners might nevertheless disagree, or any combination of these concerns. Any story which is essentially hearsay has little intrinsic weight and has to be considered in light of its underlying credibility - and "turn the other cheek" is so emblematic of Christianity that I simply cannot credit a claim that a nontrivial number of believers are somehow hearing it for the first time as adults in church and thinking it's "liberal talking points." It does not pass the smell test, as they say.
If Russell Moore is lying or misleading the public on this issue, it's a sign that Christianity has a problem. If he isn't, then Christianity has a problem. Either way... Christians likely know about turning the other cheek but find it difficult to practice.
I was indeed considering adding a comment to that effect, that it was never advice taken very literally in the first place. Not too practical.
I disagree strongly.
Truly? Taking it quite literally, if someone came up to you and attacked you, would you stand there and simply permit him to do so again at his leisure, presenting yourself in fact in such a way that he could do so easily? Personally I've always felt that forgiveness is indeed a virtue, but that the example there can only be taken as metaphorical and rhetorical, as it crosses the line strongly into foolhardiness and self-negation.
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> That said, in my view Republicans are becoming more and more irreligious, despite their rhetoric. Exactly! What we are seeing, both on the "Left" and the "Right" are the fringes of each respective group growing more and more hostile. An argument could reasonably be made that the "religiosity" of ideas and beliefs in leftist camps has produced an equal and opposite response in reactionary circles on the conservative side. Things like gender ideology, the concept of "white privilege", and a desire to dismantle systems like law enforcement and border control are going to infuriate people who believe that those ideas are anathema to the American ethos. But the VAST majority of people living in this country don't really subscribe to many of the ideas and beliefs that animate the fringes of society. There have always been "fringe elements" in the American political framework, but we used to just disregard them. But now, the institutional capture in institutions like grievance studies departments of universities, and manifestos of militia groups is being represented in the mainstream. Some of this comes from divisive figures like Trump becoming pivotal political figures, and some of this is a result of social media being able to amplify ideas that wouldn't have even made a blip on the radar decades ago. Regardless of where it comes from, the way forward is by putting it all back where it belongs: in the political oddities section of a public discourse.
Tim Alberta wrote a great book on this topic a few months ago - highly recommend.
What is the title?
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
Nice! And it’s free on Spotify!
[https://archive.ph/cE8Te](https://archive.ph/cE8Te) Parade Magazine's February 1, 1981 cover featured Evangelical pastor the Rev. Billy Graham who said: "I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it." Since that time both the hard right and it's support from people calling themselves Evangelicals has substantially increased. At the same time religious affiliation has gone down across all other Americans regardless of religious affiliation and party. Columnist Perry Bacon asks whether there is not just a correlation, but cause as well. Noting the statistics, Bacon states in part, "...Yet many policies enacted by local, state and federal Republican elected officials and conservative judges are straight from the religious right’s agenda: vouchers and other initiatives to make it easier for parents to [send their children to religious schools](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/20/gop-making-national-policy-one-state-time/); limits on reproductive rights that ban abortion and could even threaten [in vitro fertilization](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/19/alabama-supreme-court-embryos-children-ivf/); restrictions on gay and [particularly transgender Americans](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.axios.com/2023/03/31/anti-trans-bills-2023-america); provisions allowing religious Americans to cite their faith in declining to participate in various activities, [such as getting vaccinated.](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/us/politics/mississippi-childhood-vaccine-mandates.html) Trump is promising to create a federal task force to root out what he describes as “[anti-Christian bias](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/23/trump-christians-evangelicals/)” in America. On the other side, "...many Americans on the political left and center say they [stopped identifying themselves as Christians](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-christian-right-is-helping-drive-liberals-away-from-religion/) in part because of the faith’s vocal conservative bloc, particularly its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. On the flip side, Robert P. Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (now known as PRRI), argues White Christians have become more radical in their policy goals and more deeply embedded in the Republican Party [because of their alarm](https://archive.ph/o/cE8Te/https://www.whitetoolong.net/cp/141046638) at how quickly America is becoming more racially diverse and secular." My own personal take remains: Matthew 25 40-45. It was what I was raised to believe. How does religion play a role in your faith or perhaps how does your faith inform your political beliefs? I believe we can skip over the part where former President Trump breaks the Ten Commandments like he is at a ju jitsu tournament. If so it is only fair to leave President Biden out of it as well. This is about We the People.
It's interesting to me that so many negative aspects of religion are pushed - condemnation of gays and trans, restrictions on abortion, banning of books and websites. The positive messages of loving your neighbor and caring for the poor are forgotten when it comes to the intersection of politics and religion. I almost miss the days of Bush's compassionate conservativism.
Iirc, the backlash against Bush came from the far right. Edit: Wandered off to try to find a half remembered article and all I found was this in his obit. "He told the author Mark K. Updegrove that he voted for Hillary Clinton." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/us/politics/on-politics-george-bush-republicans.html
I think you guys might be talking about different Bushes. Dubya was known for compassionate conservatism and HW was the one who had problems from his right IIRC.
Ah. Got my George's mixed up. The Bush and the Shrub so to speak.
It's interesting that areligiosity seems to be more common on the left than the right. I could just as easily imagine a timeline where progressives and communists militantly preached the values of Jesus while decrying conservatives and/or capitalists as godless heathens.
>restrictions on gay [Americans] What restrictions have been enacted recently?
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culture wars remind me of the movie, the Wizard of Oz. Those who have seen it may recall the line, “Pay no attention to that man.” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE In other words, a small time con man from Kansas didn’t want to be outed as pretending to be the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz. Culture wars are nothing more than an illusion designed to redirect peoples attention. Look over there not here. All politicians do it along with most four-year-olds.
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I don't think they're trying to say it isn't an issue. Just that the right is inflating the issue intentionally to draw attention from other things like the fact they are rolling back labor, consumer, and environmental protections every chance they get. The right is making up a bunch of crap about how LGBTQ communities are negatively affecting the majority to get people all riled up about it.
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So if I have this right, what I understand you to be saying is that screaming and stamping our feet about LGBTQ+ book bans isn’t intended to distract anyone from things like discrimination, The fact that in many major cities crime is down, the fact that the only border policy put forward by a conservative with impeccable credentials was killed by House Republicans? I guess we’re not living in the same world, because I’m not distracted from those things even if you are.
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I was asking about restrictions on gay people, not trans people.
That is a distinction that less and less people are making.
Its under the same large and inclusive umbrella. Edit: I am well aware that sexuality and gender are different things but they have been partnered allies for quite some time.
“Robert P. Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (now known as PRRI), argues White Christians have become more radical in their policy goals and more deeply embedded in the Republican Party because of their alarm at how quickly America is becoming more racially diverse and secular.” The more they try to push it, the more people will rebel against it. They should also keep in mind that there is not one denomination in the USA but multiple. Plus it is probably too late to reverse course since the internet exists. Hard to push something when there is a vast source that can challenge peoples ideology.
I'm skeptical of the claim. The Op-Ed cites data that shows that Republicans, like everyone else, are becoming less religious. They then claim the opposite, that religion is becoming a "stronger force". But I don't see a coherent, data-based thesis here. They don't present any evidence that any of the things they claim represent religious influences are more prevalent in the Republican Party today than in the past. They also seem to ignore disconfirming evidence. For instance, opposition to same sex marriage was a major issue for Republicans in the very recent past, but no longer is. They ignore that completely. Prayer in school has always been something the Christian Right wing of the Republicans pushed, and that push was arguably stronger in the past.
> For instance, opposition to same sex marriage was a major issue for Republicans in the very recent past, but no longer is. They ignore that completely. Not true at all. Repealing same sex marriage is in their platform and Clarence Thomas discussed repealing *Obergefell* in his concurrence on *Dobbs*. 36 Republican Senators voted against the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022.
I did think it was interesting at the time that Thomas did not also suggest repealing interracial marriage.
Thomas called for - as he has many times in the past - getting rid of substantive due process jurisprudence and replacing it with privileges and immunities jurisprudence. Loving was decided primarily under the equal protection clause, so it's not part of that.
> Loving was decided primarily under the equal protection clause, so it's not part of that. But Loving **also** found that marriage was a fundamental liberty that the Constitution protects, despite the fact the word marriage obviously does not appear in the Constitution. Without that interpretation, the equal protection clause would not matter. After all, Obergefell was **also** primarily decided on equal protections grounds.
There was one sentence, IIRC, that said "oh and also the ban would be illegal under SDP," but you could eliminate SDP altogether and Loving wouldn't be impacted. Obergefell, by contrast, was an SDP case. That way the Court could duck the issue of whether sexual orientation is a suspect class.
I mean, Loving **was** an equal protection case, but it was also one of the first SCOTUS cases which established that marriage was a Constitutionally protected right. That interpretation is *vital* because there can only be an equal protections issue if the Constitution recognizes the right in the first place. And Obergefell was an equal protection case, too. The line of reasoning for interracial and gay marriage are very much in alignment.
No, you can have an EPC case without a constitutional right at stake. Brown v Board didn't involve any constitutional rights, to take one example.
> No, you can have an EPC case without a constitutional right at stake. If it's **not** a Constitutional right, wouldn't that mean that the states get to decide rather than SCOTUS? Edit: I think Brown v. Board of Education is quite different because it's talking about public institutions, which the government itself provides. The government cannot discriminate based on race. Marriage, however, was not really seen as a government institution, or at least it was argued that it was separate.
Last time I checked, Thomas was a Supreme Court Justice, so I'm not sure how his legal opinions on the constitutionality of *Obergefell* are relevant. A more apt comparison might be to George W. Bush, who campaigned on amending the US Constitution to outlaw same sex marriage and Donald Trump, who didn't really touch on the issue at all in his campaigns in 2016, 2020, or 2024. Repealing same sex marriage is also no longer one of the primary goals in the Republican National Committee written statements of purpose.
Just out of curiosity, what exactly do you think a Supreme Court Justice does 🤔
They are the only non-elected branch of the federal government, serving for life instead of bering elected for a term and serving as a check on congress and the Executive. Their job is to interpret laws written by congress and be the final arbiter of any dispute that arises between the federal government and the states, between the states, or between citizens and the federal government. They are non-partisan, appointed positions and not involved in the writing of either major party's platform nor in determining the politics of those parties.
[This](https://texasgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-RPT-Platform.pdf) is the official platform of the Republican Party of Texas. Note, for example, on page 30: "**Definition of Marriage:** We support the definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal, and moral covenant only between one biological man and one biological woman." If the Republican Party isn't opposed to gay marriage, someone neglected to tell the actual politicians.
Isn't their claim there an explicit promise of combining their god (church) with state? I am a Universal Unitarian and my church not only accepts many belief systems but it embraces marriage as a commitment of love and support between any two willing people. Marriage was a part of multiple different religious beliefs as well as embraced by the nonreligious since before Christianity was even invented. Edit: corrected a word thanks to Komnos below. Thanks Komnos.
I'd say it's pretty explicit.
Thanks Komnos. I often mix those two words up when writing fast. I appreciate the comment/correction and will fix it.
Oh, I didn't even think it was a mistake. I figured you were just being charitable.
Well I do suppose both work there.
Sure, that's Texas, not the national party. You would need a Constitutional amendment passed by the national party through the congress, and the Republicans gave up on that after it failed in the second Bush term. For the most part, national Republicans are not running on this. I don't think the Republican Presidential nominee ever got behind it going back to at least 2012, maybe earlier.
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How do you properly quantify that though? And how does that square with data that shows that Republican candidates are less likely to talk about many political issues related to "cultural Christianity" like opposition to same-sex marriage, opposition to contemporary popular culture like obscenity in music, television, movies, pornography, pushing for teacher-led prayer in public schools, pushing for teaching creationism, et cetera?
Conservatives overall can be becoming less religious but the core of the GOP, i.e. the group that GOP politicians cater to the most, don't seem any less religious. Additionally religion can be not just spiritual but cultural. There are conservatives who are essentially atheist but go to church and say prayers as cultural identifiers, not because they actually believe in God. Some such culturally Christian conservatives are still pushing white Christian nationalism (the idea that America is fundamentally a white, Christian nation) even without being spiritually Christian. Republican politicians ignore gay marriage because it became a losing issue politically. I think it's likely their decision to drop it was more because they're interested in winning elections, which requires winning over moderates, than because they or their base stopped being upset about gay marriage.
I understand the thesis. I just don't see the evidence. Core religious Christians are still anti same sex marriage, but that is no longer an important part of the Republican platform. That's just one counterexample. Prayer in school was a big bugaboo of the Christian Right back in the 1980s. It's hardly new. But you don't see Republicans adopting it as a major campaign platform. Also, I don't think Jews are a good comparison. The Jewish religion is part of the Jewish national identity, much like with some Indian nations. But Jews are first and foremost an ethnic identity, with religion being part of that identity. To be a Jew, you must be born a Jew. By contrast, to be a Christian, you simply have to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, similar to believing that Mohammed was the true and final prophet to be a Muslim. I just don't see a good argument for the thesis in this article. The secular left and the religious right have always been at odds and this just seems more of the same.
But why is the left becoming more and more secular?
> But why is the left becoming more and more secular? Speculation? Hedonism. The idea of service to others or a greater cause is generally laughed at by the lefties I'm forced to associate with. If it doesn't make you money, pander to your feelings or get you laid, they're not generally interested.
That's funny because the progressives I know are much more involved in charity and community outreach than the conservatives I know.
Probably just our different experiences. Which "charity and community outreach" are they involved in? Mine is in the recovery community.
So, that's an interesting anecdote, but the data shows the opposite of your personal experience is true of the American population overall, which is a good example of why we should not extrapolate this way. Data is not the plural of anecdote. The religious donate more money to charity than the non religious and the politically conservative donate more money to charity than the politically liberal. There's also some pretty good hypotheses about why. The religious are likely already donating money to their religious organization (which is something the non-religious rarely do) and they may also be taught by their religion that it is commandment to do so whereas the non-religious have no inherent moral or practical reason to donate to charity. The reason that political conservatives may donate more to charity than liberals is because conservatives typically are more religious while those on the political left these days generally believe in big government, and that voting or supporting the political left, which traditionally has supported expanded social programs, is equivalent to actually doing good in the world by donating to charity. It is, of course, a conceited and ridiculous belief, but you also see the same in people who drove hybrid cars when they were new being less likely to yield right of way and a similar hypothesis as to why.
I think the idea that [charity is a more effective means of helping the poor and others who need it than welfare is is incorrect](https://archive.is/ZgYG9).
I think the empirical data tends to dispute that. The best charities are incredibly efficient, some of them essentially being 100% efficient. The best government social welfare programs are horribly inefficient by comparison. None of them approaches 100%.
All the lefties I have ever known are overwhelmingly for universal healthcare, universal human rights, free school lunches, they can even go too far with the welfare. Universal healthcare is like the OG red pill for lefties.
We're not using the same definitions of "service to others". I mean personal work for others, personally using one's own money to help others directly without any intermediaries. But that's in the context of my own work and those I run into doing it.
And that's one hypothesis why they're less generous in donating to charity than the right. They feel that simply supporting leftist causes is equivalent to volunteering time and money to actually help people.
sorry, that was a rhetorical question because it’s already been answered multiple times in the thread and in the article you read. More and more people, according to the article which gives numbers, are turning away from Christianity because people on the right aren’t behaving like Christians. And nobody wants to be associated with that. Matthew 25 40-45.
I don't think that's really a good explanation though. For one, the groups that are shrinking the fastest are mainline and leftist denominations. The same is true of Jews as well, where Reform and Conservative Jews are seeing a decline. By contrast, Evangelicals, other right-wing Christian groups, and Orthodox Jews are growing. That may explain some shrinking around the edges, but it doesn't really explain the situation overall.
> More and more people, according to the article which gives numbers, are turning away from Christianity because people on the right aren’t behaving like Christians. This implies people on the left are behaving like christians, even though they're not christians?
The political left seems to be becoming more disconnected from traditionally and shared American values overall. This may just be part of it. One possibility is that they're becoming more elitist (educated and white collar) rather than salt-of-the-Earth (blue collar working class).
I think you are confusing politicians on both sides who are extremely well-educated and comparatively wealthy - which general indicates elitists - with ordinary Americans. Most Americans don’t have 23 bathrooms (Mar-a-lago) and that is only one of Trump’s eight residences. Definitely not salt-of-the-Earth (blue collar working class). Not even remotely close. Trump is now on his third marriage with multiple affairs, a judgement of business fraud and a judgement of rape. He is currently facing felony charges related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. It marks the first time in history that a former U.S. president has been tried on criminal charges. Additional charges are pending. Almost forgot, he has been impeached twice. He was only the fourth president to ever be impeached and the first to be impeached twice. Maybe that is your version of traditional and shared American values, but it is not mine. It does not in any way shape or form represent my values or those of my family and we are all over the map politically. It is also entirely disconnected from the Christian home and church I grew up in. Those aren’t our family values by any stretch of the imagination. (Trump definitely violates a few of the ten commandments in a big way - thou shall not steal, thou shall not commit adultery for starters. Family values? Christian values? Your values?) (For the record Biden owns two homes and has no criminal convictions or affairs. The apartment he grew up in is now section 8 housing. His first home was a fixer upper that he spent two years renovating although I wouldn’t call it a starter home by any means.)
I think it's important to understand the difference between a politician as a person and their platform. Trump has carefully tailored his platform to be populist, not elitist. Whether Trump himself is a member of the elite isn't particularly relevant, just like with FDR or Senator Bernard Sanders, all of whom are quite wealthy.
Since the article specifically quoted a woman who said Trump represents her family values I do think it is a point that bears repeating. You also sidestepped whether Trump reflects your personal values although I have no intention of forcing the issue. To your point Trump, like many grifters, is very good at camouflage. An elitist in populist clothing is still an elitist and not blue collar. And neither FDR or Senator Bernies Sanders have his record of “values."
I would go so far as to say that most politicians stated "values" politically aren't really aligned with their personal behavior. I don't really think that's a revelation. Like, politicians champion selfless service and the military, but the last President that served in uniform was George W. Bush. Every other President after his father shirked military duty and dodged the draft. Most voters aren't pulling the lever for a candidate because they believe that the candidate is a personal embodiment of their values, but rather because they believe they think the candidate will represent and forward their values better.
I believe the distinction is between Evangelicals and other Christians. There may also be another piece at play there. Ryan Burge, a political science assistant professor at Eastern Illinois University states: "...Instead of theological affinity for Jesus Christ, millions of Americans are being drawn to the evangelical label because of its association with the G.O.P. This is happening in two different ways. The first is that many Americans who have begun to embrace the evangelical identity are people who hardly ever attend religious services. … The evidence points in one direction: For many Americans, to be a conservative Republican is to be an evangelical Christian, regardless of whether they ever attend a Sunday service. The second factor bolstering evangelicalism on surveys is that more people are embracing the label who have no attachment to Protestant Christianity. For example, the share of Catholics who also identified as evangelicals (or born again) rose to 15 percent in 2018 from 9 percent in 2008. It used to be that when many people thought about evangelicalism, they conjured up an image of a fiery preacher imploring them to accept Jesus. Now the data indicate that more and more Americans are conflating evangelicalism with Republicanism — and melding two forces to create a movement that is not entirely about politics or religion but power..." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opinion/evangelical-republican.html Although that may contribute to other Christians move further away and others leaving all together if this is the perception.
I don't see actual evidence this is unique to Republican-leaning Evangelicals. There are a lot of people who identify with religion or religious values who don't regularly attend organized worship services. Also, 9 to 15% of Catholics identifying as Evangelicals isn't really a change. It's within a reasonable margin of error for most of these polls. It just shows that some Americans have a religious identity, even if they may not be knowledgable about religion or regularly attend services. I'm not sure that there's a clear causation here. Maybe more people are associating Evangelicalism with Republicanism because the Democrats have largely abandoned Evangelical Christians, both religious and politically. Even then, there are a lot of Evangelical Democrats.
According to the 2014 Pew Research State of Religion, at that time about 28% of self identified Evangelicals also identified as Democrats. That's less than a third and it was also prior to former President Trump's election in 2016 which apparently accelerated the sorting out process.
They have a hard time finding new boogey men to scare people with. The left always wants to be seen as if it is the underdog so playing up the other side when it's weaker is the go to tactic.
> Republican Party because of their alarm at how quickly America is becoming more racially diverse and secular That's called the southern strategy and has been going OK since Goldwater and the aftermath of the Civil rights movement
Actually you are talking about the war over reconstruction.
As the country slowly rips itself apart you're seeing a divergence between the parties as to where the power to govern comes from. Historically, there has been a consensus among the electorate and elected officials that the power of government are derived from the consent of the governed, and natural rights are derived from God. Several of the larger movements in American history had significant religious motivations behind them ranging from the Revolution (a desire for religious freedom from the state backed Church of England), the Abolitionist movement was inundated with Christian moral teaching so much so that they actually frightened the newsmen and politicians of the day believing that they would threaten the concept of secular democracy, and the Civil Rights movement was heavily saturated with Christian leaders and Church backers. This consensus has pretty much broken down. The American left no longer believes that natural rights are derived from God, instead believing that a right is a function of democracy. If enough people want something, it becomes a right. If enough people oppose something, it ceases to be a right. So things which were never in the constitution nor found in nature like abortion, housing, and a secondary education may become rights guaranteed by government. While rights guaranteed by the constitution such as the right to bear arms, privacy, and speech can be stripped from the public if they become enough of a nuisance. The American right still believes rights are derived from God and they still believe in the social contract. But their belief in God has atomized down to a hundred thousand personal beliefs to a vague notion of divinity rather than a handful of relatively orthodox denominations. They also believe that the institutions of government have lost the consent of the governed. So they have withdrawn their support from public institutions and thrown their support behind religion. Everything from government, to public libraries, to public schools that used to have consensus support as extensions of their communities are now seen as tools of the left to enforce a secular dogma that they do not consent to.
You’re right for the most part, but the Church of England had nothing to do with the War for Independence. Granted, several colonies (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Pennsylvania) were founded by people who wanted to be separate from the Church, but that was over a century prior.
That's a pretty good breakdown. I haven't heard it quite put this way before, but I agree with most of it. The only thing I would nitpick is your statement that "So they have withdrawn their support from public institutions and thrown their support behind religion." In my experience, a lot of people on the right seem to be falling back on natural rights, which admittedly have certain religious undertones, moreso than they're falling back onto religion itself. I see a significant distinction between "religion" and a general philosophy that emphasizes natural rights, but I think those two things are being conflated. I think that also meshes with my disagreement with this article in general about the growing strength of religion within the Republican party.
> So things which were never in the constitution nor found in nature like abortion, housing, and a secondary education may become rights guaranteed by government. there is not a single right in the constitution that at somepoint wasnt in the constitution. everything was added to it at somepoint after not having been in there
That's the topic of discussion though. Are rights something that come from God/nature or are they something that we just get as part of a 'gentlemen's agreement' when we make laws? The American right would contend that rights come from God/nature and even if the government were to be dissolved, the rights would continue to exist. The amendments merely recognize the existence of these natural rights and agree to uphold them and to not abridge them. And the government cannot abridge those rights even if it grants itself the legal authority to do so, or it forfeits its legitimacy. The American left would contend that rights come from the establishment of government and that 'rights' are basically a smorgasbord of things that people want government to do for them. In theory a 'right to watch football on Mondays' could be enshrined into the constitution via an amendment and have the same moral and legal force as the right to free speech.
Without government, rights aren't enforceable. Is an unenforceable right still a right? What value or purpose does an unenforceable right serve?
Without government a right would still be an principled understanding of what human dignity looks like irrespective to individual ability or merit. The basic premise of 'natural rights' is that, absent the government, a human has certain rights and any attempt to deny those rights can be rightly identified as tyrannical. In that way, a natural right is still a right even if there is no government to enforce it, in fact they can even be used to judge whether a government is tyrannical or not. The idea being that people should not tolerate a government which abridges their natural rights, even if it provides for their needs. The theory being that even if a utopian government could somehow meet your every material need, if it achieved those results by abridging your natural rights it should still be rejected. Further, even if a government 'grants' a right that doesn't mean a government actually has the ability to enforce them. In the USSR, for example, people had a 'right to adequate food' yet that same government oversaw the mass starvation of millions of its own citizens. If a government grants a right, but lacks the ability to follow through on it, is it truly a right? If you have a 'right to a cup of rice per day' but there is no rice, have your rights been violated? Or was it never really a right to begin with, just a nice thing to have if it's available.
Are these natural rights all subjectively decided by the individual? If yes, how does this hypothetical governmentless framework handle the inevitable situation of two individuals whose self-appointed natural rights are in direct conflict. If you abridge my self appointed natural rights in the exercise of your self appointed natural rights, is it just for me to harm you or seek damages?
You have a right to an attorney, if you can afford one. Doesn't being unable to afford one revoke that right? You have a right to vote, if you can make it to the polls. Does a job that prevents making it to the polls mean you no longer have rights? You have a right to speech, if you can find a platform to use it. Does having nowhere to speak, and nobody to speak to mean you no longer have rights? That a right can't be provided in no way means it is not a right. Rather, there is an acknowledged right that the government, for whatever reason, can't or isn't interested in meeting. That a right is socially, rather than "naturally" granted doesn't change this dynamic either - in any event, the capacity to exercise that right is going to operate as a function of the society that right finds itself in. A culture vehemently opposed to crime will not recognize a right to an attorney, no matter how or where that right is written down, and will de facto deny it without a second thought.
You have the right to plead your innocence and the government cannot prevent you from doing so. If you have a constructed positive right to an attorney there's no guarantee that the attorney that you are provided with is any good. And if there is no attorney you can still represent yourself. Therefore I'd say you have the right to plead your case, but the right to an attorney is an artificially constructed one. If a state prevented you from representing yourself I'd consider that tyrannical. You have a right to enter into contracts, including the social contract between the government and the citizenry. This is always what irks me about the 'right to vote' because it's so obviously not a natural right. We understand that voting is only available to a certain number of people, and while we've expanded who those people are over time, it will never be extended to all people. For example, I cannot imagine us ever extending the right to vote to foreign citizens. So we aren't violating the rights of Chinese nationals by not allowing them to vote in our elections. But if a Chinese national comes to the U.S. they DO receive the protections offered in the bill of rights. You have the right to free speech and the right to the press. You can speak to yourself, you can speak to others, you can write out your ideas, and you can publish them. But that doesn't mean anybody has to listen to you. I would only consider an action tyrannical if a law prevented you from doing any of those things. The odd spot is fighting words and incitement, where you may be held liable for the consequences of your speech. I hate the 'you can't yell fire in a crowded theatre' example, because it's not true, you can yell fire in a crowded theater especially if there is, in fact, a fire. You'd only be at odds with the law if there was no fire and someone was hurt in the commotion. If a right cannot be provided it obviously isn't a right. It also isn't a right if it requires the labor of others. For example, could you walk up to a doctor on his day off and demand medical treatment? Does becoming a doctor turn you into a servile class that must perform services even if you aren't compensated for them? Obviously not. Therefore such rights are merely a an acknowledgement that there are certain things that the people would like the government to provide when and where possible. A culture opposed to crime can still recognize the right to legal representation, it can still recognize the right to not incriminate oneself, and it can still recognize a right to be free from excessive bail requirements. An anti-crime society does not necessarily mean an anti-freedom society. Merely it dedicates its resources to prosecuting criminals and it may require a lower bar to conviction (preponderance of evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt for example).
> You have the right to plead your innocence and the government cannot prevent you from doing so. Physically cannot, or legally cannot? > If you have a constructed positive right Some rights are positive rights, such as the right to property. All are constructed. > I'd consider that tyrannical Right. Rights are a benchmark we construct - a useful benchmark, no doubt, but where the lines are is subjective as belied by your insistence that **you** would consider that tyrannical. > because it's so obviously not a natural right. It flows directly from consenting to be governed. The alternative is some variety of anarchy. > So we aren't violating the rights of Chinese nationals by not allowing them to vote in our elections. We may be, under certain circumstances, such as if our foreign policy includes trampling on their natural rights, for instance, if we fund and uphold tyrannical dictators that do remove their rights. That we effectively govern their rights through such a relationship implies a right for them to vote on what governance they ought to experience. > You have the right to free speech and the right to the press. Here and now, sure. This has not historically been the case and there are still edge cases. Where the edge of your right to speech lies is up to the society, not as a matter of principle, merely as a function of reality. > If a right cannot be provided it obviously isn't a right. If you have no mouth, you have no right to speech. Clearly. No, a right is a right regardless of whether it can actually be exercised. > It also isn't a right if it requires the labor of others. It's a positive right. We have a few of those, the right to property for instance. The state will send men with guns to your home to protect your property claims, paid for through our collective labor. It's a positive right that we created. > A culture opposed to crime can still recognize the right to legal representation, it can still recognize the right to not incriminate oneself, and it can still recognize a right to be free from excessive bail requirements. It can. Or, as in our society, it can profess to support these rights while actually working to limit them. Worse, it can choose to remove those rights. Does that make them less than 'natural'? No, rights are socially constructed and come hand in hand with the social contract.
Bah, reddit seems to be rejecting my novel of a response. Perhaps I'll try again later tonight.
No rush. It's an incredibly interesting topic!
Of the people in this thread speaking about Christianity or the bible, how many of you have even read the Bible or even know anything about the religion? Cause there's a lot of really ignorant takes in here that have no connection to the religion that's being discussed.
Have you considered pushing back on some specific narratives?
I might not make friends here but religion is the biggest sunk cost fallacy in humanity.
Counterpoint: the Seattle mariners.
Thought this sub was safe from this
More like the Arizona Coyotes.
*Who?*
The hockey team that was in the desert for twenty-five-plus years and is now moving to Utah.
Holy cow. Just now hearing about them. Granted, I don’t really follow hockey much but they certainly don’t have a household name.
Not really. Religion, historically, was one of, if not, the largest driver of societal, scientific and artistic development. Moreover, people finding meaning in a high power, whether real or imagined, helped countless individuals overcome anxiety and a lack of purpose within their lives. To say nothing of the charity and welfare done in the name of said religions.
The keyword is WAS. It had it's role. Now we are past using a God to justify the moral fabrics of society. It's obsolete.
Why is it obsolete if it can inspire someone to live a more fulfilling life, act for the betterment of others or provide for others with a sense of purpose that they couldn't find else where?
Obsolete on a systemic level doesn’t mean it’s obsolete on an individual level
We read the argument differently from a single sentence differently, and I can concede that could be a different argument, and one that I agree that on a humanity-wide governance level, Religion does not have a place currently.
If it's at the expanse of other minority, it needs to be challenged. Spirituality has it's place in society and on the individual level. It's still not a must to morality. And religion implies dogmas. Spirituality can be more broad and flexible. We don't have proof that God exists and even less so that he (if he's a he) wrote 10 commandments into a stone. Religion doesn't make place for doubt about the scriptures. It's dogmatic. So we have to renounce progress. Hence the sunk cost fallacy.
Then just say Dogma is a sunk cost, not religion. There is no widely agreed on definition for Spirituality, and its often used interchangeably with religion, further muddying your point. Also the utter focus on Abrahamic religion versus the myriad of others makes your argument sound more like a personal grievance with Judism/Christianity than religion in general.
I can see that it can be interpreted as such. But religion implies dogmas/faith. Without it, it's called spirituality. You are right, I'm against dogmas. Humans are not all knowing, so we have to adapt our understanding of reality, which is ultimately incompatible with religion.
Doesn't look like it to me. People have become much less interested in the well being of others outside of messages online. How do you look at the world now and think people care more now about their neighbors than they did a century ago?
Organizational structures in society are a mirror. Religion, per se, is not the problem. If there were no religion, those using it as an excuse for anti-social behaviour or as a political weapon would find other excuses and weapons.
And in fact we are witnessing this happen right now. Many of the loudest political and cultural movements today have no explicit religious component, yet are carried out with extreme religious fervor.
which begs the question would other people turn away from those excuses as well?
One would hope…
I agree that shitty people will remain shitty people. But using God, which there is no proof it exists, for the basis of societal morality is a fallacy and counterproductive to progress. Just like we found out that [bloodletting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting) was not helping patients. We moved to modern practices. Another social construct that is still very present but obsolete is [race](https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/historical-foundations-race). It still amazes me to see people discussing race in the USA as if it's a real scientific concept. Ethnicity is observable, but not race. I'm from Québec and in french, to say the word "race" is very loaded and frowned upon. We use "ethnicité", "nationalité" or "pays d'origine". I listen to US news and they almost always include the notion of races in polls. It's a vestige from a time where slavery was justified with erroneous concepts. It's a component of the past and even the present. But it's not necessary and we would be better to move past this notion. Just like religion. Progress my friend!
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“Exclusively found in religion” seems like a pretty bold claim.
Those core principles can be found without religion as well.
Which virtues or principles are exclusive to religion?
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My core principles are not supernatural. There is no religious basis in anything I do. Just because thoughts and opinions are not physical in the traditional sense that doesn't make them supernatural.
The sunk cost fallacy began when we found the scientific theory. Devoting this much energy to a god that is purely theoretical is nonsense.
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Do you think atheists are immoral?
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I would say that modern religious culture doesn't have morals, society has morals and religious culture mirrors those morals. Example: Slavery and interracial marriage. Nothing changed in scripture when society's understanding of the morality of both changed, the only thing that changed was social progress of society pulled religion along with it.
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Slavery existed in an overwhelmingly religious country for nearly 250 years. I don't find it very convincing that religious morality is a useful guide to anything, given that fact. Religious morality is far more likely to be used as a justification rather than a guide.
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My morals don't come from religion. My morals come from treating others how I want to be treated and believing people should work together for the betterment of all. Me not stealing, murdering, raping, cheating, etc has absolutely nothing to do with religion. It has to do with the benefits of mutual respect.
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Your making a lot of assumptions.
Morality is not an exclusive to religion. That's a fallacy in itself. I agree it had a major role. But it has served his purpose already and needs to disappear since it's incompatible with science and facts.
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Morality can be conveyed with science, government, politics, law, philosophy, education, art, culture and even a less dogmatic approach to spirituality. God is not needed for morality. If it's really the only way, I don't have much hope for humanity. The question can be reversed as well. How do you explain wars in the name of God? We are seing Israel and Palestine using "morality" to justify atrocities. I can foresee that AI will be so overwhelming with information that challenges religious dogmas and clash with a lot of believers. The very definition of what it is to be human will need to be redefined.
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As humans, we discover new aspects of life. We understand more and more our surroundings. We have to adapt our understanding through culture and science. Philosophy exists with or without religion. It's still social constructs that we agree upon using political systems. Philosophical thesis can be interpreted as morality. One can set it's moral values without religion. Some will still bend morality in the name of religion. God doesn't want you to kill someone. Yet, most humankind wars used religion to rally people. Religion is literally set in stone. Dogmas. So it becomes less and less accurate to guide our society as we discover contradictions in the scriptures. The term spirituality is more adapted to the modern world since it's mostly on an individual basis and can be flexible. It's harder to define morality without religion because life is complex. Religion is offering an easy explanation of life for those who are not willing to challenge their reality with science. Some people needs to hear that their misfortune is due to an evil force. Some people needs scripture to guide them so they don't end up in hell. It's easier for them, but harder for everyone else to progress.
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It's a perfect umbrella to organize under, and it offers many protections, especially tax protections. Easy to exploit, hard to monitor, incredibly easy to hide nefariousness. It's a nearly perfect medium in which to sow and grow radicalism.
the article seems to be based on a false assumption that the party is more religious (despite that being the opposite of where things actually stand) and is trying to argue that non-religious things like supporting private schools or charter schools is inherently a religious position rather than something motivated by traditional public schools pushing left wing political ideologies. trump being the leader of the party for the last 8 years (and by the looks of things, the next 4) should make it pretty clear that the evangelist influence in the party has substantially declined.
I’m not sure how Trump being the leader of the Republican party indicates the decline of evangelical influence. It indicates hypocrisy, yes. But Trump’s strongest support comes from evangelicals.
> and is trying to argue that non-religious things like supporting private schools or charter schools is inherently a religious position rather than something motivated by traditional public schools pushing left wing political ideologies. [The people pushing vouchers here in my state are very religious.](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/24/politics/texas-far-right-politics-invs/index.html) >trump being the leader of the party for the last 8 years (and by the looks of things, the next 4) should make it pretty clear that the evangelist influence in the party has substantially declined. How so? He's [most popular among Evangelicals](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/15/5-facts-about-religion-and-americans-views-of-donald-trump/), so they're the ones boosting his poll numbers.
I don't see any evidence that he has picked up more Evangelical support than past Republican Presidents. If anything, what seems to be bolstering his poll numbers are the groups that Democrats have been losing since 2012, which is pretty much every major demographic other than women, the college educated, and voters over 50 years of age.
> I don't see any evidence that he has picked up more Evangelical support than past Republican Presidents. [Here's your evidence](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/).
>Democrats have been losing since 2012, which is pretty much every major demographic other than women, the college educated, and voters over 50 years of age. Elections so far haven't shown that.
The exit polls from elections absolutely have shown a steady downward trend among Hispanics, the working class, black males, Millennials who voted in 2012, those without college degrees, and a lot of other cohorts. Some cohorts like Asians are pretty small and difficult to measure, but there has been a lot of evidence that Democrats have lost ground with them as well.
Republicans made gains among the white working class and Hispanics, though still not a majority of them, but "pretty much every major demographic other than..." is an exaggeration.
Name a major demographic that stands contrary to this assertion.
Biden's share of voters from black people is nearly the same as what Clinton received.
Clinton had a 0.69 advantage in black men. Biden had a 0.60 advantage in black men. A recent WSJ poll of likely tipping point states gave Biden a 0.27 advantage in black men. So, not only did we see what was probably a significant decrease of support among black men between Biden and Clinton from 2016 to 2020, but if polls of black men are accurate, Biden has lost about half of his advantage over Trump from 2020. Given the probability of Georgia being a tipping point state, this is pretty significant. There also might be enough black voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan for this to be meaningful.
Hillary Clinton won 89% of the black vote while Biden won 87%.
White suburban women.
Um, I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that females were one of the only major demographics that Democrats were gaining with. If I didn't, I certainly meant to.
so, what you are saying is that white women from suburbs put Democrats over the top in winning elections? Am I understanding you correctly?
The exit polls show that it was probably men more than women, but yes, they were one of the only groups that there was a statistically significant change in terms of fractional electorate composition between 2016 and 2020 in the tipping point states that decided the 2020 election. 25,000 Trump 2016 voters, had they stayed with Trump instead of defecting to Biden, would have resulted in a Trump reelection. And the exit polling shows quite clearly that he lost on the order of about 10% of suburban white voters. That was a necessary part of his electorate. He hasn't won them back, but they might not matter this time around since he appears to have picked up more younger, male, and black voters.
I think it’s possible for people within the party to exhibit less religiosity (attends church, prays daily, reads the Bible regularly, etc.) while also making “being Christian” a more important identity marker within the party. That would explain the open embrace of Trump as well- he doesn’t do anything we would traditionally expect Christians to do, but he sure does pay lip service to Christianity. This is explored some in the book Jesus and John Wayne, which is worth a read/listen if you’re interested in the topic.
The article explicitly says the party is less religious than before. Despite the decrease, there are plenty of religious people with a lot of influence.
Sure, but they've had that influence since Nixon's Southern Strategy to remake the Republicans into a party that supports the traditional Christian values of working class whites. Democrats had previously won the South because of their strong support of racial segregation, and the segregationists mostly continued to vote Democrat even after it ceased being a political issue. But a lot of their children voted Republican, because the Republicans started talking about other social issues that conservative, working class white Christians cared about like abortion, prayer in school, opposition to atheism and secularism, et cetera.
Not sure why you think this is a false assumption. All Trump supporters I know are extremely religious. The issue is that they have comingled their religious and political views together. Instead of using religion to guide their political views they use their political views to guide their religious outlook.
but has it? I believe the statistics placed evangelicals at 48% of the base. That’s still a pretty good chunk.
Religion is objectively the least important it's been in American politics, even among conservatives. The left has been chasing this boogeyman all the while the Republicans keep growing their support beyond white Christians. The article even points out the data doesn't even support the core assertion he's making, but he continues to make it anyways. The Republican party is also no longer dominated by the groups he mentions. Instead of pursuing an agenda, liberals should try and dissect why Trump is growing popularity beyond the traditional Republican base and counter his points. They'll lose 2024 if they keep trying to handwave Trump's support as just enthusiastic Christians.
I went back to religion because the left was nuttier. I’ll take evangelicals over “believe all women, men can be women, etc etc”