You CANNOT reach out to or reason with Christian conservatives

[Philosoraptor]

It's quite pointless, I've tried personally with family members, and there is simply no changing their minds about anything modern. They lock up their minds inside a little wall they've built, a wall of hatred, paranoia, illiterate Biblical literalism. You can't reach them in there, they feel safe there, and they aren't coming out from behind that wall.

I became alarmed when ronnie reagan courted the newly formed Christian coalition, at the same time the Jesus freak movement began, and the wave of born again-ism swept over the elections, gaining more momentum, seeping deeper into our government, they began systematically sneaking in the whackos, who then reveal themselves to be American Christian zealots who want this nation to be literally 'under God'.

If you've never known one of these types, and you're lucky enough not to have them in your own family, it might be hard to understand how they think, hard to wrap your mind around the things they believe, and more terrifyingly, hard to grasp exactly what they have in mind for America, for you and I.

todd akin of course is one of them, currently in our government, snuck in by toning down his crazy beliefs till after he's been elected. His only crime was letting slip what most of the gop all think among themselves but are never supposed to say in public. The republicans STILL want the whacko Christian vote, even though the crazier ones have got the dinosaur repubs by their little boy parts.

These people are usually just fine in every day life, they're our friends, relatives and neighbors, but we damned sure don't want them in a Democratic government, controlling our lives, molding our futures to their bizarre ideas. Church and state, SEPARATE, from now on, forever, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice FOR ALL.

[hobbit709]

1. Belief gets in the way of thinking.

[hifiguy]

16. +100.

It is also so much easier to believe than to think things through in a rational way.

As usual, Futurama writers nailed it:

High Priest: Great Wall of Prophecy, reveal to us God's will that we may blindly obey.
Priests: [chanting] Free us from thought and responsibility.
High Priest: We shall read things off you.
Priests: [chanting] Then do them.
High Priest: Your words guide us.
Priests: [chanting] We're dumb.

From "A Pharaoh to Remember"

[AlbertCat]

28. Belief gets in the way of thinking.

Faith is the end of inquiry.

[Warpy]

51. I'm afraid it does, and the more irrational it is,

the more it is clung to. This applies to many things besides right wing religion.

[DontTreadOnMe]

2. I agree, they don't base reason on facts.

Liberals and Progressive have to STOP trying to compromise with the crazy right.

[Philosoraptor]

3. In my state they want to force creationism into public schools

And of course take science out..

[get the red out]

5. Here in Kentucky also

It's insane, and no, they can't be reasoned with.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

15. well, in fairness to them

you can't teach them both together...one is science based, one is not.

sP

[fleur-de-lisa]

4. Hence the term 'faith' . . .

no logic required.

[TruthAnalyzed]

6. I wouldn't say that about "Christian conservatives"

with such a broad brush.

I have many, many friends who are christian conservatives, who don't fall under the crazy category.

ETA: We are capable of having good conversations, including discussion/debate with good logic, sourcing information, etc...

[Philosoraptor]

7. That's the difference between you and me

Of course I'm only talking about the bat shit crazy ones, and you're not one of those, I'm sure.

[TruthAnalyzed]

12. I didn't realize

you were only talking about the bsc ones. I tend to not be friends with those types.

[hfojvt]

20. there's a problem with that

There are lots of people who subscribe to one wacky belief or other, and yet are still fairly decent people.

[hifiguy]

25. There are harmless kooks and dangerous kooks.

There are the kooks who believe in alien visitations or crystal magic. These are harmless kooks. Their beliefs are wacky but pose no danger to anyone. Their kookery does not compel them to band together and try to take over the country and force their kookery on everyone else. And even if it did so compel them, it wouldn't matter much if they did.

The kooks who believe that they have the One True Answer from their Imaginary Being in the Sky tend to band together for the purpose of taking over the country and turning it into whatever medieval hell on earth would be the result of their rancid, paranoid and kooky belief system. They would be perfectly willing to kill you, me, or anyone else who questions (blasphemes, in their tiny little minds) their kookery. They are a clear and present danger to the republic.

Big difference.

[freshwest]

38. Yup. total agreement with all of that. And it's seriously scary stuff.

[JitterbugPerfume]

43. sounds like some of my family

they think I am hell bound!

[Qutzupalotl]

60. I had a heated discussion here with someone unable to see that difference.

He claimed that any kookiness is by definition harmful. His argument centered around that quote from Voltaire, that if I can make you believe absurdities I can make you commit atrocities. (Which is itself absurd and an appeal to authority, but I digress.)

I'm with you, though: personal beliefs should be free and left alone; it's only when they are imposed on others against their will that they become dangerous. Mere ignorance can be forgiven, but an imposed dogmatism cannot be tolerated.

[jeff47]

52. They're welcome to distance themselves from the crazy ones.

From the outside, they're quietly accepting the crazies speaking for them.

[Swamp Lover]

8. The Religious Right uses the Bible and faith as an excuse to hate.

The Religious Left (RL) uses faith as a foundation for the progressive idea that we should treat each other with dignity and respect. Further the RL's interest in helping each other is an idea shared by all religions.

[Freddie]

54. They hate us Liberal Christians

more than the non-religious, because we get that Christianity can be relevant to the modern world and is not a package deal with homophobia and misogyny.
Once went into a message board on a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod site. (those are the Fundie Lutherans) Much the anger and criticism was directed at us "phony Christians" in the ELCA.

[dmallind]

55. Bullshit - have you ANY idea of how nonbelievers rank in measures of trust

and fellow-feeling? Obviously not or you would not make such statements. You are not liked. We are hated

[Swamp Lover]

56. turn the other cheek

i read that somewhere.

[Heywood J]

58. That only works until all four cheeks are cut off for blasphemy. (NT)

[spanone]

9. they won't relent until america is a full blown theocracy

[RainDog]

10. religious fundamentalism is a closed-system cult

no empirical evidence can penetrate the belief system because it is predicated on special knowledge that requires no evidence.

but the reality is that we are dealing with a lot of people in this nation who are religious cultists - no different than the followers of Jim Jones, beyond specifics of beliefs.

[Philosoraptor]

11. We should all be alarmed.

We've seen how other theocracies have been recently.

[hifiguy]

13. There are exactly three groups of people

I have found it impossible to constructively engage with in my 55 years on this mudball:

- The religulously insane who consciously remove themselves from rationality and the world as it actully is

- Ayn Rand acolytes

- Crackpot "true believers" who reject facts, science and reason. Anti-vaxers come immediately to mind, but there are many other such mentally incestuous groups.

All share similar characteristics - words are given definitions which have no counterpoint in common English usage, anything resembling objective, extrinsic facts obtained through the scientific method are scorned, ridiculed and ignored, and dissent in any form is not tolerated; dissenters are smeared, slimed and blatantly misrepresented. Self-criticism or reflection are absolutely verboten. Uncritical acceptance of any dogma leads to intellectual arterioscerosis and does so quite quickly.

Once you consciously absent yourself from reasoned discourse and presume to speak ex cathedra, it's pretty much all over, intellectually speaking

"To argue with one who has abandoned reason is like administering medicine to the dead." Thomas Paine

[immoderate]

21. The Ayn Rand zealots are just as much Fundies as the Christian types.

It is quite useless arguing with them. They are lemmings anxious to go off the cliff.

--imm

[hifiguy]

26. I hope they get their wish.

Yesterday.

[BlueinOhio]

40. But they are not christians

The churches pretty much dont teach what Jesus said. They have been teaching ayn rand.

[AlbertCat]

32. ...the scientific method are scorned, ridiculed and ignored,...

Even as they go thru their everyday lives trusting that same scientific method's achievements....

electricity (it can kill you, but they blithely cut on the lights)
the internal combustion engine (could blow up at any moment, y'know)
Medications (the stuff on the medicine shelf....hoo boy!)


the list goes on.

All these things that make their lives better were made possible, and SAFE enough to use, by the same science that brought you evolution, cosmology and climate science.

Ungrateful jackasses.

[deaniac21]

14. I think jesus freaks were around way before the 80's

[musiclawyer]

17. I was able to get my hard catholic sister to semi-think

She said that her pro life position is base on her faith.

I then said our constitution erects a wall between church and state for many reasons

Hence, I concluded her faith based views would never become fixed in law unless the constitution was changed.

She agreed. So basically I won without telling her. ....................

Get them to admit the premise that their views are based on church or biblical doctrine.

It's then a paradign shift to fight on a platform they can never realistically win.

I have never understod why liberals have always emphasized "choice" and "privacy" rather than the constitutional underpinning which work way more in our favor.

[undeterred]

23. It not liberals who make abortion about privacy.

Its the Supreme Court that allows abortion as part of the right to privacy guaranteed under the due process clause of the 14th amendment.

[dawg]

18. It's not the Christianity. It's the conservatism.

Raised in another country, these same people would be the Muslim fundamentalists that they now rage against.

If they weren't using Christianity as their excuse, they would use something else. Maybe Amway.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

39. It's neither. It's the willful avoidance of thinking, of new ideas, of logic. nt

[dawg]

42. Actually, I think you pretty much just defined conservatism there.

At least the way the term has commonly been used in the U.S. the last few years.

Now, going by the dictionary definition of conservative, we are more conservative than they are. We aren't the ones trying to defund the government and upend the entire social contract. We pretty much want to maintain the status quo, tend the garden, and maybe make some small improvements along the edges. That's old-school conservative.

But the people that call themselves conservatives today are anti-science, anti-intellectual, and anti-government. They don't have a governing philosophy that could conceivably work. The laws of arithmetic are against them.

[TrogL]

19. Christian conservatives are authoritarians

(see link at bottom of this post)

Authoritarian followers are taught not to think.

[EverHopeful]

47. So glad you included the Authoritarians link.

I hadn't read all the responses before I posted mine (some time constraints tonight, I usually don't do that) and regretted not including that link. Thanks.

[Initech]

22. What's really scary is that if you try to explain anything about actual history or what Jesus actually said....

They completely freak out on you - they just accept what is taught to them and don't ask questions. Sometimes I wonder if the Talibornagains really do live on another plane of existence like they claim to.

[trof]

24. EXCELLENT rant. And true.

I've had the same experience.
You might shut them up with facts, but you'll NEVER get them to change their minds or way of thinking.

[Xipe Totec]

27. ronnie reagan turned me from a fiscal conservative to a Progressive Democrat

He taught me that there are things more important than money.

Thanks, ronnie, for scaring the living shit out of me.

[Jessy169]

29. My dad was and still is a minister

I grew up going to church my whole life, until I got the hell out at age 18 by running away to join the Navy. Based on my experience, a defining characteristic of a fundamentalist Christian is the near total inability to apply logic and rational reasoning. Their brains just don't work that way. They really, truly just don't get it. But what is worse, by far, is that they are convinced that they are "right" and that God is on their side. It is no secret why some if not most of the worst atrocities committed by humans are done under the banner of religion. I've got a lot of statistics on crimes and criminals related to whether or not they strongly identify with Christianity or not, and I won't share those here, but we all know that people who often profess to be the most holy are in reality anything but. Ryan and Romney, for example. 'Nuff said.

[geckosfeet]

30. I have tried as well. Pointless. Not wasting my breath any longer,

[Alduin]

31. Religious beliefs get in the way of thinking.

You are right. There's no reasoning with them.

[arely staircase]

33. one error in a very good post

it was the moral majority that reagan courted, not christian coalition. the cc was founded after he left office from the ruins of the pat robertson for president campaign.

[kimbutgar]

34. A long time friend has gone Israel Christian conservative and I had to let her go.

She denies she is political yet hates President Obama about his Israel policy which is pretty much how bush was. She has Fox on all the time and yet says she is not political. I had to let her go.

[atreides1]

36. What exactly is a Israel Christian?

I never understood that description.

Thanks.

[hifiguy]

49. I suspect that it's some sort of end-times kookery.

A lot of the teabangelical types want to speed up the return of Jesus (fat chance this is gonna happen) by priming the pump for an apocalyptic war in the Middle East, bringing on the lunatic scenario babbled about in Revelation. Israel has to be in place for this looniness to all play out. What the people who believe in this half-baked nutsery don't tell the Israelis, or any other Jews for that matter, is that they fully anticipate that all Jews who don't convert will be annihilated by gawd to bring about the (totalitarian) rule of their Jeebus on earth for a thousand years. People capable of believing anything this batshit are, I believe, capable of being held up though the mail.

Can't imagine many Jews would be buying into this if the fart-eating, finger-sniffing fundies would own up to their using Jews as tools for their own "salvation."

"A casual stroll through any lunatic asylum will show that faith proves nothing." Friedrich Nietzsche

[BlueinOhio]

35. Been there

My brother in law was one after years and years he finely saw the light. It took 2 bouts of cancer, disability insurance he bought from where he worked Cingular, that was completely worthless, bankruptcy, having to buy medicine with no insurance, and when he got some help from medicare my sister got a job at Wal Mart so they could try and pay the house payment and the medicare stopped and the check from Wal Mart couldn't even begin to cover the cost of the medicine. He had been a Reagan worshiper at the end he couldn't stand Reagan because he could see what his legacy really was. He voted for Obama in 2008.

[NNN0LHI]

37. +1

[frylock]

41. nor do i have any reason or desire to reach out to them

[Cleita]

44. I'm aware of that. However, we need some laws with teeth in them

that keep them in their churches and out of our politics, real separation of church and state like our founding fathers envisioned.

[amuse bouche]

45. Bigots hide behind religion

in order to rationalize their hatred and bigotry of 'others' They have always done this. It's just that they used to keep it to themselves

This ruse has worked so fantastically for child molesting priests, they've done it for centuries.

[EverHopeful]

46. I think we need to keep pointing out that:

Rmoney is a Mormon, very high up in the church who has personally baptized people into the Mormon faith without their knowledge or consent. I know it's crazy but sometimes you have to speak to people in the only language they understand.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,584196,584722

Mention that Bain allegedly fires people for not being Mormon and ask if we'll all have to convert if we want jobs.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/18/lawsuit-former-bain-execs-fired-employees-for-not-being-mormon/

And that he has asked church elders for permission to change his position.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101637842

If they want a theocracy we must point out that they're voting for what they'd probably consider the wrong theocracy.

I think this plan might help because I saw a clip of an elderly gentleman telling Rmoney he wouldn't vote for a Mormon. (sorry can't find the link)

I'd try not to mention how bats**t crazy they are

[CrawlingChaos]

48. I still say keep hammering away

There's a very good ebook floating around out there about authoritarians - and that's what Christian conservatives are; that is their nature. The author says these people move in a herd, and they can be moved, once enough of them start to turn. It's a matter of shifting winds and hearing a message enough times for it to become a nagging doubt, and then eventually reaching critical mass.

I think we should never, ever stop with the Jesus angle. Keep quoting the words of Jesus which are the very antithesis of all things Republican. Remind them that if they are Christian then the New Testament supersedes the Old Testament (and without the Old Testament, Christian conservativism falls apart). Have those direct Jesus quotes ready. Keep pounding away at how they are rejecting Jesus and endangering their immortal soul when they support Republicans. Bring up the moneychangers at the temple. Never stop. Be civil and respectful, even if they are not (don't give up that moral high ground) but be relentless.

While there's still the faintest glimmer of a chance, I'd rather go down swinging.

[ErikJ]

50. I heard just today that 2/3 of GOP voters are Christian Conservatives.

[lastlib]

53. They want us all down on our knees...

...in the church of THEIR choice.

Pure and simple.

[D23MIURG23]

57. They can sometimes be deconverted.

That can open other doors in their thinking if it happens. I read PZ Myers web page (freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula if you are interested) and he has occasionally posted mail that he's gotten from ex-fundies telling him about how his criticisms of religion shook them out of their faith, and thanking him for doing it.

Its true that you aren't likely to get them to accept a different version of the Christian dogma. There would be no reason for them to do that given that the Bible offers support for both liberal and conservative Christianity, and they have already been sold on their favorite version.

I haven't tried this approach with anyone I know (much more likely to create antagonism than do anything constructive) however, when I have missionaries of one sort or another at my door I've begun engaging them in a conversation and explaining (in as mild a manner as possible) exactly why it is that I don't believe in god. They typically seem very uncomfortable and try to terminate the conversation quickly, however some of the seeds I plant might grow eventually.

[Philosoraptor]

59. .............