Fake Christians

heelinhell said:
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful,"

- Seneca
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Got bad news: Edward Gibbon "mis"-attributed that quote to Seneca, which appears nowhere in the Roman's writing. The giveaway that something is amiss is ancient Greeks did not think have a concept of religion that resembles modern Protestantism.
 
breepf said:
Judaism does not prize sincerity (I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!) to nearly the degree that (Protestant) Christianity does.
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bad, bad take and common to folks who don't understand Judaism. I'd suggest your study intention of focus.
 
Batt Boy said:
bad, bad take and common to folks who don't understand Judaism. I'd suggest your study intention of focus.
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I don't think you understand my argument, which is probably my fault for being too glib.

The point is that Judaism can have ideas like kavanah but it ties those ideas to participation in covenantal practices. Christianity has reached a point where people can regard themselves as believers exclusively through a sincere belief in Christ and without any practical demands.

On those same lines, Judaism has never had the same doctrinal burdens of Christianity.
 
Turd Ferguson said:
It's always been a problem, but they feel more comfortable saying it out loud since Trump has been president. They lost their minds when Obama was elected twice and really came out of hiding then for Trump.
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As someone who grew up in a fundie Southern Baptist church, a big part of right-wing Evangelical Christianity is that it is a very public, not private, faith. Appearances and boasting about your church-going and love of Jesus is often more important than practicing what you preach. Add in the emphasis on the repression of normal sexual drives and feelings, the inevitable having premarital sex anyway, and the consequent guilty conscience and you've got a religion that is bound to create enormous amounts of hypocrisy, not practicing in private what you preach to others, cognitive dissonance, and projecting your own sins onto other people. And my guess is that it's been this way in America for centuries - it's just that with the interwebs it's now more visible than ever.
 
breepf said:
Got bad news: Edward Gibbon "mis"-attributed that quote to Seneca, which appears nowhere in the Roman's writing. The giveaway that something is amiss is ancient Greeks did not think have a concept of religion that resembles modern Protestantism.
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Still a good quote, no matter the origin.
 
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