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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 13-Feb-2025 23:38:21 JST Paul Cantrell

   • Alfie Kohn

   This from @alfiekohn is why right-wing Christians who support Trump will never be swayed by the fact that they are moral hypocrites. It’s about power and supremacy; the gospels have very little to do with it.
   https://sciences.social/@alfiekohn/113996979235391040

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 13-Feb-2025 23:42:55 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     I do think, however, that pointing out that moral hypocrisy serves a purpose: it’s for the bystanders. People who are Christians and are instinctively revolted by Trump and Trumpism need to hear that their instincts have support from others. There are many such people, but they’re not getting the same sort of loud public support the fashy ones are getting. They feel isolated, when in fact they’re a substantial population.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:14:02 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Michael Busch
     • Alfie Kohn

     @michael_w_busch @alfiekohn
     Yes. To be clear, that “good by default” reasoning is generally limited to awful people who are defending others with it because they’re defending themselves with it; the numerous (!) anti-fascist Christians I know are basically just like “what is WRONG with these people!??”

   • Embed this notice
     Michael Busch (michael_w_busch@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:14:03 JST Michael Busch

     in reply to

     • Alfie Kohn

     @inthehands @alfiekohn

     Christians doing horrific things and using their religion as a pretext is not hypocrisy - especially when the particular varieties of Christianity concerned have been deliberately constructed to promote white supremacy / misogyny / etc.

     I make this point because there is still a pervasive "This person is a Christian so they should be a good person by default" social stereotype; which helps the offenders get away with so many evil things.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:21:07 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     For those who (like me) are not religious and never have been, it may be difficult to appreciate the depth and breadth of what I’m talking about above. Through family and friends, I’ve seen both the right-wing and anti-fascist wings of Christianity up close. Both are real, both are •large•, and…yeah, like it or not, this is one of the primary battlegrounds of our society.

     (And no, sorry, dogmatic atheists, blanket sneering at religion will protect your personal morality; just look at the human dumpster fire that Richard Dawkins has become.)

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:22:33 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     To get a sense of what I mean by “anti-fascist Christianity” and what I mean about this being a primary societal battleground, and what I mean about the importance of what silent bystanders hear, listen to this great 99% Invisible story about the sanctuary movement:

     https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/612-sanctuary/

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:38:55 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     What am I getting at here? Hmm.

     There’s a bullshit version of tolerance and pluralism that says “oooooo, religion is off limits! Can’t say anything bad about THAT,” and I am explicitly rejecting that. It is really important to point at right-wing Chriso-fascists and say, loudly and publicly, “Look at those fascists!”

     AND

     When we do that, we need to do it in a way that people don’t feel like they can also reject fascism without having to give up their identity.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:52:48 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • tentative existence

     @fedivergent
     Thanks for that! I was having a major Editing Moment with that sentence.

   • Embed this notice
     tentative existence (fedivergent@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:52:49 JST tentative existence

     in reply to

     @inthehands That last sentence, after the

     AND

     I feel like you want one more or one less negative? (Unless my ability to read is shot today, which is possible.)

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:53:34 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Nazo

     @nazokiyoubinbou
     > You definitely can't ignore the religious aspect of it

     Good thing that’s not even remotely what I said, then!

   • Embed this notice
     Nazo (nazokiyoubinbou@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:53:35 JST Nazo

     in reply to

     @inthehands You definitely can't ignore the religious aspect of it because they very intentionally, willingly, and knowingly use religion and the way people treat it against them. And I want to be clear: most of these people telling people that they should hate minorities and women due to religious reasons are about as religious as your average brick. That's why it's not a coincidence that so many are evangelists or working together with evangelists.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:55:59 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Also, because I end up having to say this every time:

     People who’ve suffered abuse and trauma in the name of a religion are in my view under no obligation to make nice with that religion. That’s not at all what I’m talking about, just in case any part of the above comes off that way. Anyone who is escaping trauma is first and foremost entitled to care for themselves and leave and reject the locus of that trauma, including but not limited to religion.

   • Embed this notice
     Nazo (nazokiyoubinbou@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:56:06 JST Nazo

     in reply to

     @inthehands (I was agreeing with you...)

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 02:56:06 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Nazo

     @nazokiyoubinbou
     Ah, ok!

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 03:09:50 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     “Give people of every kind ways to reject fascism without giving up their identity” seems like a headline thought here

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 03:12:08 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Certainly a tactic of fascists is to make people believe that the identity they already have •requires• them to go fascist (cf “Vaterland” etc)

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 06:06:27 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Dan Wineman

     @dwineman
     Jesus Christ

     (As both an epithet and an exemplar of this supposed sin)

   • Embed this notice
     Dan Wineman (dwineman@xoxo.zone)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 06:06:29 JST Dan Wineman

     in reply to

     @inthehands I can’t tell how widespread it is, but some evangelicals are apparently being taught to avoid the “sin of empathy” as neo-Christian doctrine. (Google the phrase; I don’t want to link to it.) Seems like an inevitable consequence of prosperity gospel: if financial success is a gift from God, then that god must not care for the poor, thus compassion itself is sinful. Disgusting and perverse on every level.

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     Raven667 (raven667@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 14-Feb-2025 12:42:06 JST Raven667

     in reply to

     @inthehands https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/113997863796539668 it's a struggle to have public conversations and create social norms because the people who need to work on providing those off ramps and convincing people to take them discussing it in public view of those who have been harmed and catch some pushback and justified anger as they appear to be coddling the fascists, which is true, they aren't publicly advocating for vengeance. It's always unclear when forgiveness is just ritualistic lack of accountability.