[xphos]

I mean this is not actually true and the statement justifies and vindicates those that do sell out by saying of course anyone would. There are countless marytr for religion, politics, and other things.

A better way is to say you can always find a cheap sellout at least than the morally dammed cannot claim equality of belief

[zelphirkalt]

> There are countless marytr for religion, politics, and other things.

I think those are not really comparable to OpenAI employees who leave, but that only underlines your point more:

Leaving OpenAI is not like death. In fact most of the employees will have an easy time finding a new job, given the resume of having worked at OpenAI. It is nowhere near any actual martyr.

[raw_anon_1111]

You mean like all of the religious leaders who are actively supporting a defending a three time married adulterer? You’ll have to excuse my skepticism of the morality of “the moral majority”.

[nawgz]

Religion is and always has been about control… it strikes me as exceedingly naive to be surprised the church is backing a pedophile, have you literally ever read any history of any kind?

[raw_anon_1111]

I am the last person to be surprised at the corruption of any large organization.

[xphos]

Not claiming all religious people everywhere are some moral majority? Simply that people die for there beliefs and don't sellout. It happens in religion, politics etc. Also it's some super faulty logic to say look those prominent religious people support trump so all religous people support him is stupid. If that were the case Trump would win every election by massive margins. Trump might win 60/40 in rural areas the 40% he is losing is still very religous generally speaking because rural populations are religious. Cambridge MA voted for Biden by like 96% they have more than 4% of there populations that is also religious.

Also your point is kind of self defeating Trump's true believers dont sell Trump out no matter what he does. He could hide and suppress a pedophile conspiracy and his believers will still say he is tough on crime.

Selling out is bad I think people should passionate stand and be consistent in what they believe and do anything less shouldn't be celebrated or excused because its hard

[raw_anon_1111]

80% of Evangelical Christians voted for Trump.

[xphos]

2 things

1) I don't think you have read nor understood my argument. Stating that 80% of Evangelical Christians voted for Trump is not the the ding you think it is. Your imply 1/5 of Evangelicals don't sellout? I think that estimate is way too high and even if it was 99.99% of Evangelic Christians that doesn't excuse their selling hence my original statement. Say everyone sellsout so its okay to sell out is excusing in my opinion is abhorent behavior and suppport of an extremely dangerous leader. But this leads to point 2.

2) I am assuming your a democrat, congrats me to. I am also religiou, and I am assuming your not religous. But you don't see to undertand much about different religous groups and I think this sharp narrow view thinking really harms the democrats ability to reach out to religous people which is around 70-75% of american's according to pew research.

If you want to understand Evangelicals are basically defined by following some charismatic leader who either speaks for Christ, or has visions, or just claims to have all the answers. Believers will follow in any direction because they trust that person but when trust is lost they usually face a crisis of faith and leave that church or the faith all together because they didn't really have strong buy in to the ideals of chirst just that person. This is an extremely well documented occurence. While not all Evangelical people are that occurence a large number are and that architype perfectly describes Trump supporters and MAGA cultist. I think that explains the extreme overlap.

But also religion is a much more complex subject than 1 statistic, as being MAGA is not on the set of beliefs required to be Christian, In fact being a good person isn't either. I think it would be worth while to read up on up and coming people like James Talarico, who understand well that infusing the 2 philosophies is motivating. Because remember religion while being used to do horrible things was also used to immensely liberal things. Universal voting is a protestant thing, anti slavery is largerly a religous movement against white supremacy. The civil rights movement is baked in religion.

Understanding religion as equal to Trump support is corrosive the game of politics and pandering the playroom of vanity. As it doesn't help change anything and is just social meeting points to talk that way. I don't care for vanity I care about wining political power and using it run the country well and help people. I care about uplifting people economically, so they have the freedom to explore whatever faith, athiestism, or whatever they want because that liberality I believe is inherent into the decency of the human condition.

[raw_anon_1111]

I very much understand religion and I’m surrounded by religious folks as a 52 year old Black guy growing up with religious parents and still living in the Bible Belt and I actually went to a private Christian mostly white school through elementary school.

I understand the difference between socially liberal Christian churches like the ones that were key to the civil rights movement and today are fightijg ICE.

My own wife is what I consider a very liberal Christian. She is a tither and she also is a dance fitness instructor and almost every male fitness I instructor in her organization is gay and she considers them friends and she is as far away from MAGA as possible. (I was a fitness instructor part time for over a decade myself in my younger years and I am well aware that all male instructors aren’t gay).

But the Black led mega churches also aren’t speaking up strongly about all of the things that clearly go up against the “RFC of Christianity” - adultery, bearing false witness, etc.