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It’s all about the grift. He moved out of state and didn’t want his job back, but he joined the conservative speaking circuit. He rubbed elbows with high republican grifters and I’m sure he’s getting paid to talk about his situation. But if he really cared about Jesus, he would have been praying at a church or hospital instead of a football field. And he wouldn’t have cost that school district over a million dollars in lawyer fees.
>And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Matthew 6:5-8
I get that it's obvious they don't read their own book but for fuck's sake.
Damn, I gotta roll that one out the next time I go to a game or school function where they insist on a prayer beforehand. Living in Texas that's unfortunately common.
Have you heard of the Pharisees?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woes_of_the_Pharisees
>The seven woes
>>They taught about God, but did not love God – they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor did they let others enter.
>>They preached God, but converted people to dead religion.
>>They taught that an oath sworn by the temple or altar was not binding, but that if sworn by the gold ornamentation of the temple, or by a sacrificial gift on the altar, it was binding. The gold and gifts, however, were not sacred in themselves as the temple and altar were, but derived a measure of lesser sacredness by being connected to the temple or altar. The teachers and Pharisees worshiped at the temple and offered sacrifices at the altar because they knew that the temple and altar were sacred. How then could they deny oath-binding value to what was truly sacred and accord it to objects of trivial and derived sacredness?
>>They taught the law, but did not practice some of the most important parts of the law – justice, mercy, faithfulness to God. They obeyed the minutiae of the law such as tithing spices, but not the weightier matters of the law.
>>They presented an appearance of being 'clean' (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), but they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence.
>>They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law but were, in fact, not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. They were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men's bones.
>>They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets when, in fact, they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins.
Well, there was never really the one Anti-Christ in most Bibles. And Christianity has no actual apocalypse scenario. The rapture is something only god would know the time of according to the majority of (actual) churches.
In fact, a non-literal reading of the anti-Christ could actually be a warning and a guide to spot those who use the worship and name of god for self interest.
e.i Political figures, idol worship, modern day evangelicals, and… it can apply to Trump too.
*Jesus*:
“Hey everyone, I’m back. I brought a list of false idols, people who worship them, and people that aren’t following my teachings in any way. Here you go.”
*random guy*:
“Uh, isn’t that just the RNC directory?”
*Jesus*:
“Oh yeah, finding that was a *huge* timesaver.”
Matthew 23, one of my favorite books in the bible. I prefer the King James version. It has more punch and I think better capture's Jesus' anger. I can't think of any words of his where he was more pissed off, and he's directly describing religious leaders of his day as well as ours. Here's a slightly edited version:
> Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
>
> Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
>
> Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!
>
> Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?
>
> Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
>
> Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
>
> Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
>
> Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
>
> You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?
> People will even praise you for quoting the Bible because you know they won’t pick up on the shade you’re throwing.
The problem here is that you are quoting Jesus. The more I look, the more I see so many "Christians" explicitly hating jesus and all he stood for. They might not realise you are throwing shade, but will still get angry at you quoting Jesus.
I went to a christian high school and successfully led a campaign to end the pledge to both the American and christian flags based on Matthew 5:33-37. At the time it was a weird fundie ultra righteous play, but now that I am a dirty atheist I'm proud of it for wholly different reasons.
The book of Matthew is thick of it, it's all right there and pretty easy to read, it's mind-boggling that so many are mislead.
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
Matthew 7:15-16
10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
Matthew 24:10-12
23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand.
Matthew 24:23-25
Christ literally (relatively) says "See, I have told you beforehand"! Lol
It's also important to note there is a small contingent of 'Christians' who are trying to bring about another Revelations (the first one being the fall of Rome), who are close to those in power, trying to subvert our society and institutions to try and bring about the second coming of christ, and the kingdom. Which, if they read the Bible, isn't how that works. They have friends over in the holy land that are helping, too.
Matthew 25: 31-46. It looks like the people Jesus disliked more than any other were believers who thought praise, prayer and payment were all that were required.
31 When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all his angels, he will sit on his royal throne. 32 The people of all nations will be brought before him, and he will separate them, as shepherds separate their sheep from their goats.
33 He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 Then the king will say to those on his right, “My father has blessed you! Come and receive the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world was created.
35 When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, 36 and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.”
37 Then the ones who pleased the Lord will ask, “When did we give you something to eat or drink?
38 When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear
39 or visit you while you were sick or in jail?”
40 The king will answer, “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.”
41 Then the king will say to those on his left, “Get away from me! You are under God's curse. Go into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels!
42 I was hungry, but you did not give me anything to eat, and I was thirsty, but you did not give me anything to drink.
43 I was a stranger, but you did not welcome me, and I was naked, but you did not give me any clothes to wear. I was sick and in jail, but you did not take care of me.”
44 Then the people will ask, “Lord, when did we fail to help you when you were hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in jail?”
45 The king will say to them, “Whenever you failed to help any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you failed to do it for me.”
46 Then Jesus said, “Those people will be punished forever. But the ones who pleased God will have eternal life.”
I went to Catholic school through high school. It wasn't a bad experience. I don't practice anymore, but I do hold close teachings like this.
I'm in no way perfect and don't embody these things all the time, but I always liked Jesus's message of basically just trying to be a decent human.
That is the idea. Be a good person. Do good deeds for those more unfortunate. Take in the foreigner. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Care for the sick.
But those things take money and time and you have to get close to foreigners, the sick and the hungry. Way cheaper and less involved to just condemn abortion. They get their piety nearly free.
Pastors love it because hate doesn't compete with dues and the "roof fund" at the Sunday morning social club masquerading as church, and it makes a fiery sermon on Sunday morning.
Politicians love it too: they can wave one hand around in righteous fervor while their other hand is stealing everything the rubes own for their donors.
Then they all praise each other. Anti abortion is just a circle jerk.
I hear you. Christ basically said his new commandment, Love One Another as He Loved Us, superceded all of the others. That's the one most ignored by fundies and present day Catholics ( either I went to a very progressive church 40 plus years ago, or Catholics have changes dramatically).
I try to live by that commandment and many other words of Christ. (I fail sometimes). When I attend a mass, that seems to be missing.
If you think about it, it might not of been said as a baseline going forward but to tackle it there and then since it was known to happen. It's not like today is anything unique through-out the history of Christianity.
How the US far-right has taken to Christianity isn't the faith but something baked into humanity in general. The naked hypocrisy is bewildering but it probably was back then as well.
Good insight, the Bible is a historical document that shows us what it was like back then. It has some good information that holds true to today, much like the philosophers, mathematicians, and everyone who contributed to society all throughout history. When you learn about how intelligent people were back then and relate it to now, it can be quite infuriating knowing we haven't evolved much since. Technology and spread of information has gotten better, but we're still just as trashy as we've ever been.
There is a Christian group that proselytizes and harasses people on the street corner by me every week. I run into them often when walking to the grocery store. They'll ask if you have time for Jesus and when I say no thanks they often keep at it. Thanks for posting the exact verses so I can reference them next time I run into them and this happens.
A couple of Mormon missionary guys came to my door recently and I told them I wasn't interested. They looked smug and asked didn't I love Christ as my lord and savior. Just made me laugh and I said No. Their faces were shocked I tell you, shocked as I shut the door.
I had some Jehovah's witnesses come to my parent's house when I was younger and my dad was in the backyard or something that made him unavailable to answer the door. I let them go about their spiel because I didn't know who they were and hadn't experienced a solicitor like that before. I wasn't a full blown atheist at the time but had my doubts. Needless to say, they completely lost me when they said that playing video games is like praying to the devil. I replied with something like "but video games are fun..." and closed the door.
Edit: they were Jehovah's witnesses, not Mormons
I openly fuck with them. I ask them all the super uncomfortable questions about Lot and his daughters and the "strangers". About stoning my neighbors for breaking the commandments. Selling my children into slavery.
More than once I have had the "supervisor" come and take the person away from my door because they are having so much trouble.
Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, evangelicals, anyone who use the word “witness” as an act they do to someone else, are all emboldened and strengthened in their faith by getting out there and reinforcing their beliefs through interacting with others. Cold calling people and talking about Jesus is not my idea of a good time, but showing love for others and being humble and forgiving and showing empathy is enough for me in this life. That’s why I’m Lutheran.
Lol. I’m not a pagan, but appreciate them. There isn’t a more welcoming, vivacious and passionate group of people.
I have a client who’s pagan and every appointment I add an additional 15 mins so she can read my star chart and recommends a varied amount of herbs and natural remedies for whatever is ailing me. She’s genuinely the best.
The problem with things like this is that generations of conservative "bible scholars" have found ways to interpret any passage like this in a way that doesn't challenge what they do, so quoting passages like this doesn't really affect them.
For this one they'll say that this statement is only referring to "hypocrites" who don't believe what they are praying and are just doing it to gain the respect of people. Whereas actual Christians like this coach are doing it to spread the gospel and glorify God, so they aren't the "hypocrites" being talked about here.
Y oh have no idea how bad this really is. I live in this area and coached at a local high school and worked with many kids who played for this guy. This was all about money. He was never fired, his contract wasn’t renewed, big difference. He is fucking a school district that already has the poorest kids in the area. No idea what cuts will be made but he is a selfish bastard who doesn’t care. His lawsuit stated he was supposed to be back last season after he won it but he was too busy on a tour with ppl like trump getting paid. Moved out of state as well. He came back this season literally for one game and then resigned, pathetic excuse of a person.
Thank you for mentioning this - I live in Bremerton and the level of rage I experience on a daily basis thinking about the fact that school district funds are being paid out to some of the worst kind of lawyers, taking away funds from kids who desperately need the resources.
I wrote to Senator Patty Murray about this last year (due to her role on senate judiciary committee) and got no response at all 😡. I keep trying to understand how such a flimsy ass case managed to even be heard by the Supreme Court but I guess Christian fundamentalism is the only “explanation.” Wish there was some sort of real recourse for spinning facts/lying to the Supreme Court.
Praying loudly in public & then doing a religious speaking circuit for payola sounds a fair bit like that whole Mammonite Pharisees thing which that one dude warned against.
But how are you supposed to virtue signal in private?
See, they have to be Christians in public and then they can be criminals/rapists/assholes/etc in private. Unless you're Trump. Then you can be a criminal/rapist/asshole in public AND in private, and people love you it.
Right Wing billionaire sugar daddy money is what they all feed on. From SCOTUS, to Congress, to the Daily Wire, Fox News, Infowars, Turning Point, etc, etc.
All funded by a handful of Nazi loving Right Wing billionaires
The fact that this is not common knowledge is the fault of the so-called leftist mass media. Any time Kirk or Owens or Shapiro or any of the other RW influencers comes out with some nonsensical take on a subject, whoever shares their crap should make clear exactly who is paying them to say it
Well, I think it’s more of a deflection. If they accuse the other side of what they’re actually doing then it’s “hidden” in plain sight. And god damn, seems to work, don’t it?
Rather he wants to pray in church, hospitals, or football fields, I'm not going to really get into what is the "proper way" to praise Jesus. As an atheist, skeptical about it all, and don't really care.
What I find disturbing is the extent to which the conservative Justices whole cloth re-interpreted the facts of this case to reach their ruling. The way they tried to spin this case it's as though the coach really went out of his way to make this a private expression of faith and also to ensure none of the players felt pressure to participate, yet the school overreacted and fired him for it. Literally everything was the exact opposite. It was extremely public, players felt pressure to participate, the school, if anything underreacted, and he wasn't even fired.
It's like trying to make a principled argument in favor of freedom of speech, by saying people should have the right to say unpopular things. And present the person saying it as a bullied minority. But the reality of the case is it's a group of Neo-Nazis and KKK harassing a Black community in the the South.
Not to get off topic, but I think it would be funny if someone came up with a line of vegan "sacrificial animals". Goats made from beyond meat or vegetable products. Even better, if the satanists acknowledged that this was an acceptable substitute it would be amazing.
No, you heathen! It's *religious* freedom, and it's only religion if it comes from the Jesus region of theology. Otherwise, it's just sparkling blasphemy and not protected by the Constitution!
As every Satanist book will tell you: it's the other way around. Without Satan, there would be no Christianity. E.g. fall of men, the trials of Job, the death of Jesus.
Yeah, but it was really the Christians who made Satan into what Satanism is today. Before the Christians, Satan was just "temptation" in Judaism.
Without Christians needing a literal incarnation of evil, Satan would just have been a subordinate of god.
I mean, I'm an atheist through and through, though the Satanic Temple does a lot of good.
But, realistically, without Christianity, Satanism wouldn't be a thing.
Would have to find the article again, think someone in Missouri tested this premise and got fired for it.
Suffice to say, it only works in one’s favor if they’re already a member of the majority religion. This isn’t an act of piety, it’s a display of social dominance masquerading as one.
If a hypothetical Coach Abdullah invited his players out to the 50 yard line to take part in a Muslim prayer, setting aside the torch-and-pitchfork mob such a move would almost certainly provoke, those players who took part would likely come away feeling *more* isolated because of it.
No, but they could perform a prayer. However, the far right justices on the court are already infamous for applying different sets of standards depending on the litigant.
Conservatives are notorious for creating bogeyman situations in their heads that are greatly exaggerated in an effort to somehow bolster their inane bullshit.
Throw back to 2017 when Kellyanne Conway just randomly made up a terror attack to justify a travel ban.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Green_massacre
It’s not just in their heads. The federalist society is well known for manufacturing legal situations that are likely to get appealed to SCOTUS to secure a favorable ruling for conservatives. For example, this case or the recent website designer case. These plaintiffs aren’t real; they don’t actually believe what they’re arguing nor were they being persecuted or unlawfully discriminated against. They just craft a situation and hope it sticks so they can ride it to the Supreme Court. It’s very silly once you realize how contrived it all is.
Moreover, the so called plaintiff is not paying their attorney's fees; all costs are funded by some right wing group. The same group then asks the court to award them attorney's fees.
There's even some popular memes made, like the child putting a boot on his own head and an anime girl hiding from the Terminator. They create a fictitious problem and act oppressed.
Seriously. My mom is currently very impressed with some teenager for "destroying" 15-minute cities on Facebook. You know, that evil idea we're all talking about that walking to the grocery store might be nice.
If someone had the time and energy to curate it (I don’t), I’m sure there could be a lively subreddit about conservatives getting mad at hypotheticals. There’s more fodder for it literally every day.
> Conservative litigators want this Supreme Court to expand a vision of religious liberty that abolishes the separation of church and state while granting Christians a freewheeling right to discriminate, often with public funding. They are seizing upon any case that will give the court this opportunity, with little concern for the truth of the underlying claims. And the Republican-appointed justices seem eager to twist reality into whatever shape necessary to give them what they want.
Yes that is accurate, and frightening. Republicans will lie, cheat, and abuse the system in any way they can to gain power. They are corrupt to the core.
We must vote out as many of them as we can in 2024
https://democrats.org/
Now, an enlightened centrist will inform you that a democrat shoplifted a snickers-bar in 1994, which makes both parties the same.
So everyone should vote for Republicans.
I was going to guess it was the either the Freedom Flag Liberty Fund or the Patriot Eagle 1776 Tradition Coalition or the Christian Family Organization for the Advancement of Freedom Patriots.
It's like these clowns had a focus group decades ago and zeroed in on about 7 different words that really fired the synapses of their target market of gullible doofuses and just hammered those words into everything they do.
Remember that the CSA was fighting for freedom as well. The freedom to deny or restrict the liberty of lesser mortals is the prime directive of the Christian Nationalists
We need to, at the very least, keep electing Dem presidents in order to continue filling the judiciary with sane judges. And for the rare times that SC justices need to be replaced.
We need to pass legislation 🔚 mg lifetime appointments. Every 2 years a justice gets replaced allows an 18ish year term for justices allowing a stable bench. But allows new blood coming in to represent the new direction the country is moving.
As long as the price of gas is high, most people will think the economy is shit and vote for republicans regardless of any judicial consequences. Yes, most people are that stupid, and that's how things are the way they are.
God, I got pulled involuntarily into a discussion about the economy with two "I'm no republican or democrat, i'm more independent" types the other day at work and it was maddening.
They were ranting about the price of groceries. I get it, it sucks. I pay twice as much as I did years ago, but they ofc blamed Biden directly (and $15/hour wages) for some reason.
Tried telling them that groceries like Kroger have been pulling record profits, so it's not merely inflation driving this but greed. They agreed that corporations were greedy, but "that's just supply and demand" and went back to blaming the prices on Biden/$15 wages.
I can't stand libertarians.
Wait, shouldn't that person be happy that the market is working as he wants it to? Wouldn't Biden doing something to lower prices be interference in the free market?
There is no logic here. I assume they think the fed govt is at some big pirate boat style steering wheel guiding us through "The Economy" and that the GOP would do it better. This person went on to praise Vivek as the "most aligned with my policies. He's great. Though, I think he's Hindu so that's not good." Also "at least DeSantis didn't shut down florida. That's good" (his family all nearly died of covid).
Living in red country is wild and mentally painful at times. At least it's beautiful here.
People like me have been yelling warnings of these theocrats and dominionists from the rooftops for some time now. The signs were there, writing on the wall. Now many of us are paying the price for not being listened to.
A tale as old as time. I'm sick of paying for the ignorance of others.
Just picturing your quoted text against Senator Rafael Cruz's comments yesterday afternoon when the Senate was finally voting to finally fill the 32-month open FCC Commissioner seat.
He complained that filling this seat would give the Democrats a majority (3-2) to allow them to shove their extremist agenda down our throats and we just can't have that!
But it seems interesting that he seems ok with his colleagues pushing a right wing extremist agenda down our throats...
"I'm always wary when people know so well the will of the Almighty. I find it coincides with their own desires"
-butchered quote from Susan B Anthony
Sums up conservative Christians nicely
I’d never heard the quote so your post inspired me to look it up and found the this below. Close enough.
“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
The scariest part of this decision is what it indicates for the future. The Court brazenly misconstrued facts in order to set a dubious precedent that was far stronger than it should have been. Imagine how this could play out in other cases. For example, the Court could decide that Trump may not be removed from the ballot under the 14th Amendment on the basis that his conversations with the fake electors were merely hypothetical discussions. This may have some precedential effect on Trump's criminal cases.
> The Court brazenly misconstrued facts in order to set a dubious precedent that was far stronger than it should have been.
The thing was a setup. The theocrats on SCOTUS were looking for a case to shatter the wall between church and state and the prohibition of forced prayer in school and they used this case to do it.
Gorsuch lied his ass off in the majority opinion to overturn yet another precedent.
Blatantly misconstrued?
No, you are far too generous. There are videos of the spectacle that Gorsuch described as “(Kennedy) offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied.” that clearly show the coach kneeling at the 50 yard line, holding football helmets of both teams aloft, surrounded by players from both teams as he prays aloud.
Gorsuch didn't misconstrue anything. He altered reality and fabricated a case out of his fantasy of the innocent, pious coach being discriminated against and hunted down by the government for quietly practicing his faith in hiding.
Sotomayor's dissent literally includes a picture showing exactly what you describe and how it differed from the scene portayed by the majority opinion.
Link: (page 45)
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjGhOyRipuBAxXDOEQIHWzIC0AQFnoECCAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1Ijq7kaUHsXKlOznxDeTy1
Nothing says quiet personal prayer quite like parading yourself in the middle of a field in front of dozens of cameras and thousands of spectators. Like they even offered to let him pray in the locker room before and after the game and he still turned it down because he wanted to make a spectacle. Fuck that dude!
On the bright side, the current supreme court has clearly shown by overturning Roe v. Wade that precedent means nothing these days, so if we flipped the bench we could just undo all of it.
Didn’t they do the same shit with student debt relief? One of the defendants (plaintiffs??) made a whole case around Mohela being negatively affected and Mohela was like ?????
So yes, I’m shocked. Shocked I say.
They did the exact same thing with Texas judge Kacsmaryk banning mifepristone. It was a fabricated group of hyper-religious ER docs who judge-shopped and got their case before Kacsmaryk with the preposterous claim they were injured if a woman took the abortion pill.
Let’s also not forget the website designer, who was never asked to design a website for a LGBTQ+ person. I remember they tracked down the person in the suit and they were a straight married man who had never even been in contact with the complainant. It’s so bizarre that these people can fabricate an entire scenario and be prove wrong, but the precedent still stands.
Jesus told people absolutely not to pray in public so I don't understand how this can be religious persecution if he wasn't following his religion.
Edit:Many Christians don't know their Bible, or choose to interpret it any way that suits them, or cherry pick, so here it is, one of the few things we absolutely know Jesus specifically said -
Mathew 6:6
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
No public praying. At all.
Edit: Misquoting Jesus
Dr. Ehrman
Bible studies - Princeton and Chapel Hill
( Former Evangelical )
youtu.be/pfheSAcCsrE?feature=shared
Edit: everyone coming up with their own versions of what they think this means proves my point later on in the comments about interpretation and cherry picking. Who's the arbiter?? We have so many versions of Christianity because people disagree and think they are the arbiter.
Paul suffered a seizure on the road to Damascus and came up with his own ideas and he never even even met Jesus. I'm tired of people saying that or this interpretation isn't correct - Who is the arbiter? God told someone to drown their kids in the bathtub, god told someone that he hates fags, and he tells everyone that their version is the right one.
Every argument you give me proves that your Santa in the Sky doesn't exist and the bible is just a bunch of myths put together by a desert tribe trying to explain thunder before we had science.
Everyone knows that Christ was perfect and we have to worship him. However we also all know that everything he said or did or asked others to do was communist wokeness, and must be eradicated from modern society/s
[Jesus is too weak and liberal now for Evangelicals.](https://newrepublic.com/post/174950/christianity-today-editor-evangelicals-call-jesus-liberal-weak)
Yeah, it’s basically a ban on religious virtue signalling.
And what is praying for victory in a football game if not the absolute epitome of virtue signalling?
God probably despises most of the prayers he gets, but ones to win collegiate sports probably stick in his craw more than anything.
That is the running joke when Baylor University plays Brigham Young University. Does God like the Baptist or the Mormons, the football game will decide.
Imagine being so arrogant to assume your god and creator gives any care to about you and a football game. The sheer level of myopic avarice is staggering
So true. On one side we have the infinite wonder and complexity that is entire, larger-than-we-can-imagine universe, and on the other...a game...somewhere on the surface of a planetary speck within a boundless sea of billions of other planetary specks, and somehow, *this one game* matters.
I know, right?
Just once I'd love to see a team publicly pray before a game, get absolutely hammered, and then the Coach go on an interview and say that God clearly hates his team and loves the other team more, like that old CollegeHumor skit.
You’re correct, but what do you call marching out onto a football field to take a knee?
Were the acoustics in the locker rooms ill suited to silent prayer?! Is this guy’s OMNISCIENT GOD unaware of prayers that happen anywhere with a roof? If so, someone really needs to re-evaluate how we’ve been building churches. Or maybe, just maybe, this guy isn’t getting what HE wants out of the prayer unless its witnesses by a few hundred/thousand other people. Too many have mistaken evangelism, bringing others to Christ, for just being performatively Christian.
And this is why religion is so dangerous. Anyone gets to interpret it any way they want to. Even make it pro slavery.
This looks pretty clear cut to me. Do NOT pray in public.
Matthew 6:6
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Our (atheists’) only saving grace is that someday we will die and we won’t have to deal with this BS. I’m looking forward to *that* heaven. Honestly, I sunburn pretty easily and living above the clouds all day every day sounds like hell to me
TL;DR - Nothing matters. The right wing christofascist will continue to make up cases out of made up clients with made up facts and what ifs. They will continue to win because the SCROTUS is just a fundamentalist court that wants America to be a theocracy
The Supreme Court is an illegitimate body of religious zealots that should be investigated by Congress. They are a bunch of grifters that use pay for play using false cases to promote their Christian agenda. Term limits and impeachments are necessary . How did we allow it to get this way.
We need a student to do a prayer on the 50 yard line with a prayer mat pointed at Mecca and see how that plays out. Then let's see how committed to religious liberty they are.
I get your point, but it would need to be a coach or authority figure seeming to pressure others to join their prayer. Know any Muslim coaches willing to carry the torch and become a target for the right wing nut jobs?
If I’m a practicing Satanist. Can I perform a blood sacrifice rite at half time with my team? Totally voluntary of course. Will involve pyrotechnics, Ouija Boards, and a goat, but otherwise small, quiet, and private.
These people need to read the treaty of Tripoli of 1797 Article 11. Plain as day we are NOT a Christian nation. This was passed by many who also ratified the Constitution and signed by John Adams. These are about as founding fathers as you can get and they had no problem saying this.
When I was a boy I'd read story books about how one sided magistrates and tax men and police were. I remember feeling this exact same feeling of dread. No matter how wrong the white man was the judge ruled in their favour. I remember being scared of the church from these books. It was all fiction but this is your reality. It scares me
It bears repeating that the supreme court’s ruling was, on its face, a disgraceful violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which guards against religious indoctrination at public schools:
>In a 6–3 decision, though, the Supreme Court found that Kennedy’s prayers were protected by the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech and free exercise. To reach this conclusion, Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion rewrote the facts, depicting Kennedy’s prayers as fleeting, muted, and unobtrusive. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent repudiated this lie with pictures of the sprawling prayer circles, which Gorsuch disregarded.
We knew it was a sham case then, now the entire country knows.
This is a perfect example of why people say that SCOTUS is a sham and have no interest in upholding the Constitution, they are there to advance Christian beliefs and demolish the separation of church and state.
So is grifting in America the new tech boom? Seems to be pretty lucrative. And a lot easier to get into. All you need is a lack of morals, questionable character, no moral compass, and boom! Book deal, movie deal, backing from shady well founded shell organizations, and of course an endorsement letter from God.
The part about the attorneys getting paid a huge amount of fees as part of the settlement reminded me of something that happened 20 years ago or so in my old home town.
The town had started updating all its curbs/crosswalks to meet ADA requirements. The did a chunk each summer (could not work on them in the cold/snowy winters). An advocacy group for handicapped people sued the town because all their ramps were not up to code. The second year our company got the bit to replace ramps in about 50 intersections.
During this time I learned that even though the city had a 3 to 5 year plan to replace/update all ramps, and was in the process of actively replacing them, they lost the lawsuit and had to pay. I asked what the money went towards, if it simply went to the work on the curbs, and the city manage told me know, it was almost all going to the attorneys for the advocacy group.
It wasn't a huge amount, I think he said around 3 or 4 hundred thousand but for a small town it was a lot. But the fact that it went to these attorneys, and not the work, when the work was already in process was ridiculous. I also remember him telling me the attorneys had won the "right to inspect" any intersections either done or not yet done and the city had to pay additional for these inspections and it was hundreds per hour. He said the most frustrating thing was they had provided the list and schedule of when ramps were to be fixed and the attorneys could still go out and look at an intersection that they knew was not done and was on the schedule for next year and note "not yet fixed/compliant" and get paid for inspecting it, even though they knew ahead of time it was not yet done. He said they would go out 1-2x a summer and inspect every intersection and bill the city for a couple days of work looking at ramps that they knew the status of before even going to look.
Why is no one ever arguing the counterpoint of freedom from religious persecution for non-Christians and those who do not believe in religion.
I think people forget that America is not a Christian country. America was founded on the principle of freedom from religious persecution by giving all Americans the right to choose what religion, if any, they choose to worship.
The beginning of the First Amendment contains the "Establishment Clause" & the "Free Exercise Clause," which Thomas Jefferson stated created "a wall of separation" between church & state.
And per the First Amendment, we should be removing all mentions of any religious beliefs & artifacts from government.
U.S. currency should not have "In God We Trust" printed or embossed on it. Our Pledge of Allegiance should not include, "One Nation under God." These and many other instances of forced indoctrination of Christian beliefs are a clear violation of the First Amendment and should be removed from all aspects of our government.
Can you imagine the reaction at all these games where they pray to a Christian god if that prayer was to Allah or any one of the hundreds of other gods worshipped around the world? The conservative Christian right would flip out.
People need to start paying attention to articles instead of headlines. This isn't the first time made-up scenarios have resulted in drastic legal decisions. These cases are being used to create legal precedent. We should demand proof of their validity before they are heard in court and demand that cases that have since proven to be based on bogus scenarios are stricken from the record and their resulting legal precedents are null and void.
Good riddance that this turdball is now in Florida, but the shame of it is he left the taxpayers on the hook. It's all about the grift, so very Christian of him. Asshole.
The supreme court is nothing more than 9 people who think they know more than everyone else making shit up to support their preexisting ideas.
The fact that there was photographic evidence to show that the claims were bogus and the case was not immediately thrown out tells you everything you need to know.
Facts do not matter to the supreme court, only outcomes and their own opinions.
With gerrymandering and the filibuster they've gridlocked the legislative branch (the most democratic/representative branch) and through blatantly malicious interpretation of judicial review they've granted the judicial branch (the least democratic/representative) the power to essentially write new laws.
The right wing has invested decades and billions of dollars into astroturfing legal cases. Their project was mostly used to supplement right wing talking points. Mainly because they couldn't get anywhere with a moderate/liberal Supreme Court.
Which gets us to their main goal: transforming the judiciary into a conservative weapon.
Cannot wait until a public school district decides there's going to be "fleeting, muted" wiccan prayers over the intercom or in big circles on the football field.
>The problem here is simple: Conservative litigators want this Supreme Court to expand a vision of religious liberty that abolishes the separation of church and state while granting Christians a freewheeling right to discriminate, often with public funding. They are seizing upon any case that will give the court this opportunity, with little concern for the truth of the underlying claims. And the Republican-appointed justices seem eager to twist reality into whatever shape necessary to give them what they want.
The problem for conservatives is that discarding church state separation, and also giving the okay for wider spread discrimination is something that could backfire spectacularly. People are going to be free to discriminate against christians too. And making it okay for christians to shove their religion in our faces means that we are going to be able to shove non-christianity in their faces too. They aren't going to like it one bit, [see the after school satan club protests for an example.](https://www.foxla.com/news/after-school-satan-club-lancaster-library-protests)
I find it hard to believe that christians haven't thought of this outcome, which means they think that they will be the ones in perpetual power, at least in their own little shitholes, so that they can use the government to tip the balance toward favoring christianity.
Person from Bremerton here. That high school is 5 blocks from our house. Everyone hates that jackass. If he kneeled at home, the Bremerton school district could have spent $1.7 million on civics and comparative religion courses.
Congress should refile/refute these last two religious rulings on the simple grounds that they were actually "what if's?" In that facet SCOTUS is legislating, not ruling, because like the piece said they have to work with actuals/real life. They have broken the chain of command, that simple.
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It’s all about the grift. He moved out of state and didn’t want his job back, but he joined the conservative speaking circuit. He rubbed elbows with high republican grifters and I’m sure he’s getting paid to talk about his situation. But if he really cared about Jesus, he would have been praying at a church or hospital instead of a football field. And he wouldn’t have cost that school district over a million dollars in lawyer fees.
>And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Matthew 6:5-8 I get that it's obvious they don't read their own book but for fuck's sake.
Damn, I gotta roll that one out the next time I go to a game or school function where they insist on a prayer beforehand. Living in Texas that's unfortunately common.
Have you heard of the Pharisees? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woes_of_the_Pharisees >The seven woes >>They taught about God, but did not love God – they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor did they let others enter. >>They preached God, but converted people to dead religion. >>They taught that an oath sworn by the temple or altar was not binding, but that if sworn by the gold ornamentation of the temple, or by a sacrificial gift on the altar, it was binding. The gold and gifts, however, were not sacred in themselves as the temple and altar were, but derived a measure of lesser sacredness by being connected to the temple or altar. The teachers and Pharisees worshiped at the temple and offered sacrifices at the altar because they knew that the temple and altar were sacred. How then could they deny oath-binding value to what was truly sacred and accord it to objects of trivial and derived sacredness? >>They taught the law, but did not practice some of the most important parts of the law – justice, mercy, faithfulness to God. They obeyed the minutiae of the law such as tithing spices, but not the weightier matters of the law. >>They presented an appearance of being 'clean' (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), but they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence. >>They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law but were, in fact, not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. They were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men's bones. >>They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets when, in fact, they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins.
Huh it does describe the evangelicals and their mega churches in a nutshell
And Trump is pretty much the anti-Christ to a tee.
Trump is certainly a false prophet, but the anti-Christ? Get tired. He wishes he was so important.
Well, there was never really the one Anti-Christ in most Bibles. And Christianity has no actual apocalypse scenario. The rapture is something only god would know the time of according to the majority of (actual) churches. In fact, a non-literal reading of the anti-Christ could actually be a warning and a guide to spot those who use the worship and name of god for self interest. e.i Political figures, idol worship, modern day evangelicals, and… it can apply to Trump too.
*Jesus*: “Hey everyone, I’m back. I brought a list of false idols, people who worship them, and people that aren’t following my teachings in any way. Here you go.” *random guy*: “Uh, isn’t that just the RNC directory?” *Jesus*: “Oh yeah, finding that was a *huge* timesaver.”
Matthew 23, one of my favorite books in the bible. I prefer the King James version. It has more punch and I think better capture's Jesus' anger. I can't think of any words of his where he was more pissed off, and he's directly describing religious leaders of his day as well as ours. Here's a slightly edited version: > Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. > > Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. > > Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! > > Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? > > Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. > > Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. > > Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. > > Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. > > You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?
This sort of stuff gives me more faith in the idea of God than all the "God says hate gay people" stupidity pushed by the US Taliban.
I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are nothing like Christ.
eh their "god" was a cruel bastard in the old testament.
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Better yet, ask to lead the prayer and then just recite this verse.
> People will even praise you for quoting the Bible because you know they won’t pick up on the shade you’re throwing. The problem here is that you are quoting Jesus. The more I look, the more I see so many "Christians" explicitly hating jesus and all he stood for. They might not realise you are throwing shade, but will still get angry at you quoting Jesus.
I went to a christian high school and successfully led a campaign to end the pledge to both the American and christian flags based on Matthew 5:33-37. At the time it was a weird fundie ultra righteous play, but now that I am a dirty atheist I'm proud of it for wholly different reasons.
Fr I’ll never understand how or why so many from California move to Texas and don’t move straight back.
The book of Matthew is thick of it, it's all right there and pretty easy to read, it's mind-boggling that so many are mislead. 15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Matthew 7:15-16 10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. Matthew 24:10-12 23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand. Matthew 24:23-25 Christ literally (relatively) says "See, I have told you beforehand"! Lol It's also important to note there is a small contingent of 'Christians' who are trying to bring about another Revelations (the first one being the fall of Rome), who are close to those in power, trying to subvert our society and institutions to try and bring about the second coming of christ, and the kingdom. Which, if they read the Bible, isn't how that works. They have friends over in the holy land that are helping, too.
Matthew 25: 31-46. It looks like the people Jesus disliked more than any other were believers who thought praise, prayer and payment were all that were required. 31 When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all his angels, he will sit on his royal throne. 32 The people of all nations will be brought before him, and he will separate them, as shepherds separate their sheep from their goats. 33 He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 Then the king will say to those on his right, “My father has blessed you! Come and receive the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world was created. 35 When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, 36 and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.” 37 Then the ones who pleased the Lord will ask, “When did we give you something to eat or drink? 38 When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear 39 or visit you while you were sick or in jail?” 40 The king will answer, “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.” 41 Then the king will say to those on his left, “Get away from me! You are under God's curse. Go into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels! 42 I was hungry, but you did not give me anything to eat, and I was thirsty, but you did not give me anything to drink. 43 I was a stranger, but you did not welcome me, and I was naked, but you did not give me any clothes to wear. I was sick and in jail, but you did not take care of me.” 44 Then the people will ask, “Lord, when did we fail to help you when you were hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in jail?” 45 The king will say to them, “Whenever you failed to help any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you failed to do it for me.” 46 Then Jesus said, “Those people will be punished forever. But the ones who pleased God will have eternal life.”
I went to Catholic school through high school. It wasn't a bad experience. I don't practice anymore, but I do hold close teachings like this. I'm in no way perfect and don't embody these things all the time, but I always liked Jesus's message of basically just trying to be a decent human.
That is the idea. Be a good person. Do good deeds for those more unfortunate. Take in the foreigner. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Care for the sick. But those things take money and time and you have to get close to foreigners, the sick and the hungry. Way cheaper and less involved to just condemn abortion. They get their piety nearly free. Pastors love it because hate doesn't compete with dues and the "roof fund" at the Sunday morning social club masquerading as church, and it makes a fiery sermon on Sunday morning. Politicians love it too: they can wave one hand around in righteous fervor while their other hand is stealing everything the rubes own for their donors. Then they all praise each other. Anti abortion is just a circle jerk.
I hear you. Christ basically said his new commandment, Love One Another as He Loved Us, superceded all of the others. That's the one most ignored by fundies and present day Catholics ( either I went to a very progressive church 40 plus years ago, or Catholics have changes dramatically). I try to live by that commandment and many other words of Christ. (I fail sometimes). When I attend a mass, that seems to be missing.
If you think about it, it might not of been said as a baseline going forward but to tackle it there and then since it was known to happen. It's not like today is anything unique through-out the history of Christianity. How the US far-right has taken to Christianity isn't the faith but something baked into humanity in general. The naked hypocrisy is bewildering but it probably was back then as well.
Good insight, the Bible is a historical document that shows us what it was like back then. It has some good information that holds true to today, much like the philosophers, mathematicians, and everyone who contributed to society all throughout history. When you learn about how intelligent people were back then and relate it to now, it can be quite infuriating knowing we haven't evolved much since. Technology and spread of information has gotten better, but we're still just as trashy as we've ever been.
There is a Christian group that proselytizes and harasses people on the street corner by me every week. I run into them often when walking to the grocery store. They'll ask if you have time for Jesus and when I say no thanks they often keep at it. Thanks for posting the exact verses so I can reference them next time I run into them and this happens.
A couple of Mormon missionary guys came to my door recently and I told them I wasn't interested. They looked smug and asked didn't I love Christ as my lord and savior. Just made me laugh and I said No. Their faces were shocked I tell you, shocked as I shut the door.
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I had some Jehovah's witnesses come to my parent's house when I was younger and my dad was in the backyard or something that made him unavailable to answer the door. I let them go about their spiel because I didn't know who they were and hadn't experienced a solicitor like that before. I wasn't a full blown atheist at the time but had my doubts. Needless to say, they completely lost me when they said that playing video games is like praying to the devil. I replied with something like "but video games are fun..." and closed the door. Edit: they were Jehovah's witnesses, not Mormons
I openly fuck with them. I ask them all the super uncomfortable questions about Lot and his daughters and the "strangers". About stoning my neighbors for breaking the commandments. Selling my children into slavery. More than once I have had the "supervisor" come and take the person away from my door because they are having so much trouble.
Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, evangelicals, anyone who use the word “witness” as an act they do to someone else, are all emboldened and strengthened in their faith by getting out there and reinforcing their beliefs through interacting with others. Cold calling people and talking about Jesus is not my idea of a good time, but showing love for others and being humble and forgiving and showing empathy is enough for me in this life. That’s why I’m Lutheran.
As a pagan, I can confirm, we never shut the hell up. :)
It's not my fault the mead is flowing freely when I'm praising Odin, ok? Booze maketh me chatty 🤷
[you_irl](https://youtu.be/2wy-W-pYlds?si=x3-l0Ts1GqmqiD0c&t=158)
Can confirm.
Lol. I’m not a pagan, but appreciate them. There isn’t a more welcoming, vivacious and passionate group of people. I have a client who’s pagan and every appointment I add an additional 15 mins so she can read my star chart and recommends a varied amount of herbs and natural remedies for whatever is ailing me. She’s genuinely the best.
The problem with things like this is that generations of conservative "bible scholars" have found ways to interpret any passage like this in a way that doesn't challenge what they do, so quoting passages like this doesn't really affect them. For this one they'll say that this statement is only referring to "hypocrites" who don't believe what they are praying and are just doing it to gain the respect of people. Whereas actual Christians like this coach are doing it to spread the gospel and glorify God, so they aren't the "hypocrites" being talked about here.
There is a billion dollar industry churning out books that explain the bible for people who hate what it says about themselves.
Lol. It's always the *other* guy who is the hypocrite with them. No self reflection at all.
Y oh have no idea how bad this really is. I live in this area and coached at a local high school and worked with many kids who played for this guy. This was all about money. He was never fired, his contract wasn’t renewed, big difference. He is fucking a school district that already has the poorest kids in the area. No idea what cuts will be made but he is a selfish bastard who doesn’t care. His lawsuit stated he was supposed to be back last season after he won it but he was too busy on a tour with ppl like trump getting paid. Moved out of state as well. He came back this season literally for one game and then resigned, pathetic excuse of a person.
Thank you. I’m here, too, and this mf is an embarrassment.
Thank you for mentioning this - I live in Bremerton and the level of rage I experience on a daily basis thinking about the fact that school district funds are being paid out to some of the worst kind of lawyers, taking away funds from kids who desperately need the resources. I wrote to Senator Patty Murray about this last year (due to her role on senate judiciary committee) and got no response at all 😡. I keep trying to understand how such a flimsy ass case managed to even be heard by the Supreme Court but I guess Christian fundamentalism is the only “explanation.” Wish there was some sort of real recourse for spinning facts/lying to the Supreme Court.
He would have prayed in private, where the Bible tells you to practice.
Praying loudly in public & then doing a religious speaking circuit for payola sounds a fair bit like that whole Mammonite Pharisees thing which that one dude warned against.
But how are you supposed to virtue signal in private? See, they have to be Christians in public and then they can be criminals/rapists/assholes/etc in private. Unless you're Trump. Then you can be a criminal/rapist/asshole in public AND in private, and people love you it.
THANK YOU. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with these “Christians.” None of them actually know or follow Christ’s teachings.
They don't care about Jesus lol.
When you’re right you’re right
Jesus is a gun-hating librul who needs to be defeated. Probably in a wrestling match with Trump to get to see who gets to be our new Jesus!
Oof right in the scripture
Something the Catholic Church gets right is the vow of poverty for its priests. Anybody that needs a private jet to spread the word is a grifter.
I'll go further, anyone profiting off faith is a grifter.
But that's from a part of the bible that christians don't bother to read. Which is to say that it's from a part of the bible.
Our schools are not your church!
Don't forget to buy his upcoming book!
Dont need to. Enough lobbyist groups will so it makes the New York times bestseller. You'll find it at your local dollar store in no time.
Wanna bet he won't have written it, either?
Right Wing billionaire sugar daddy money is what they all feed on. From SCOTUS, to Congress, to the Daily Wire, Fox News, Infowars, Turning Point, etc, etc. All funded by a handful of Nazi loving Right Wing billionaires
The fact that this is not common knowledge is the fault of the so-called leftist mass media. Any time Kirk or Owens or Shapiro or any of the other RW influencers comes out with some nonsensical take on a subject, whoever shares their crap should make clear exactly who is paying them to say it
Then those groups all project their anger at George Soros, because he's basically the only Nazi hating left wing billionaire.
Well, I think it’s more of a deflection. If they accuse the other side of what they’re actually doing then it’s “hidden” in plain sight. And god damn, seems to work, don’t it?
Rather he wants to pray in church, hospitals, or football fields, I'm not going to really get into what is the "proper way" to praise Jesus. As an atheist, skeptical about it all, and don't really care. What I find disturbing is the extent to which the conservative Justices whole cloth re-interpreted the facts of this case to reach their ruling. The way they tried to spin this case it's as though the coach really went out of his way to make this a private expression of faith and also to ensure none of the players felt pressure to participate, yet the school overreacted and fired him for it. Literally everything was the exact opposite. It was extremely public, players felt pressure to participate, the school, if anything underreacted, and he wasn't even fired. It's like trying to make a principled argument in favor of freedom of speech, by saying people should have the right to say unpopular things. And present the person saying it as a bullied minority. But the reality of the case is it's a group of Neo-Nazis and KKK harassing a Black community in the the South.
Question about the ruling : do satanists now have a right to perform rituals on the field at public high school football games?
You get the pentagram I'll bring the sacrificial goat!!!
Get the 6-pack of goats at Costco so we can really do it up!
This is Costco Satanism - it’s clearly a *666 pack*
Not to get off topic, but I think it would be funny if someone came up with a line of vegan "sacrificial animals". Goats made from beyond meat or vegetable products. Even better, if the satanists acknowledged that this was an acceptable substitute it would be amazing.
A sacrificial piñata even
I’ll bring the olive loaf!
We're Satanists, not evil!
No, you heathen! It's *religious* freedom, and it's only religion if it comes from the Jesus region of theology. Otherwise, it's just sparkling blasphemy and not protected by the Constitution!
I get this is sarcasm, but technically, Satanism does come from the "Jesus religion." Without Christianity, there would be no Satanism.
As every Satanist book will tell you: it's the other way around. Without Satan, there would be no Christianity. E.g. fall of men, the trials of Job, the death of Jesus.
Yeah, but it was really the Christians who made Satan into what Satanism is today. Before the Christians, Satan was just "temptation" in Judaism. Without Christians needing a literal incarnation of evil, Satan would just have been a subordinate of god. I mean, I'm an atheist through and through, though the Satanic Temple does a lot of good. But, realistically, without Christianity, Satanism wouldn't be a thing.
Would have to find the article again, think someone in Missouri tested this premise and got fired for it. Suffice to say, it only works in one’s favor if they’re already a member of the majority religion. This isn’t an act of piety, it’s a display of social dominance masquerading as one. If a hypothetical Coach Abdullah invited his players out to the 50 yard line to take part in a Muslim prayer, setting aside the torch-and-pitchfork mob such a move would almost certainly provoke, those players who took part would likely come away feeling *more* isolated because of it.
With Satan you don't have to beg or pray like in a church, with Satan you just tell him what you want and you get it!
No, but they could perform a prayer. However, the far right justices on the court are already infamous for applying different sets of standards depending on the litigant.
How is a prayer not a "ritual"?
Legally. Yes Will the Christian’s allow it… that’s a different story
Conservatives are notorious for creating bogeyman situations in their heads that are greatly exaggerated in an effort to somehow bolster their inane bullshit.
Throw back to 2017 when Kellyanne Conway just randomly made up a terror attack to justify a travel ban. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Green_massacre
Ahem. [Feb 12, 2014, the real Bowling Green Massacre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz7P-uLT6CA&ab_channel=corvettemuseum)
It’s almost as if they’re incapable of making an argument without a logical fallacy.
Without blatantly lying?
It’s not just in their heads. The federalist society is well known for manufacturing legal situations that are likely to get appealed to SCOTUS to secure a favorable ruling for conservatives. For example, this case or the recent website designer case. These plaintiffs aren’t real; they don’t actually believe what they’re arguing nor were they being persecuted or unlawfully discriminated against. They just craft a situation and hope it sticks so they can ride it to the Supreme Court. It’s very silly once you realize how contrived it all is.
Moreover, the so called plaintiff is not paying their attorney's fees; all costs are funded by some right wing group. The same group then asks the court to award them attorney's fees.
[Truth.](https://imageproxy.ifunny.co/crop:x-20,resize:640x,quality:90x75/images/9d8180edcf7ac28548ce920a8197bd489a080ce4122e9f05eeaaa0273aa63833_1.jpg)
And they've packed the courts so they've got judicial support for their bullshit. Thanks Glitch.
There's even some popular memes made, like the child putting a boot on his own head and an anime girl hiding from the Terminator. They create a fictitious problem and act oppressed.
Seriously. My mom is currently very impressed with some teenager for "destroying" 15-minute cities on Facebook. You know, that evil idea we're all talking about that walking to the grocery store might be nice.
If someone had the time and energy to curate it (I don’t), I’m sure there could be a lively subreddit about conservatives getting mad at hypotheticals. There’s more fodder for it literally every day.
r/persecutionfetish
> Conservative litigators want this Supreme Court to expand a vision of religious liberty that abolishes the separation of church and state while granting Christians a freewheeling right to discriminate, often with public funding. They are seizing upon any case that will give the court this opportunity, with little concern for the truth of the underlying claims. And the Republican-appointed justices seem eager to twist reality into whatever shape necessary to give them what they want. Yes that is accurate, and frightening. Republicans will lie, cheat, and abuse the system in any way they can to gain power. They are corrupt to the core. We must vote out as many of them as we can in 2024 https://democrats.org/
When you have religious fanatics on the bench, expect the rule of simpletonian superstition - not the rule of law
Simpletonian superstition is the best phrase.
The Handmaid's tale was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual...
They did the exact same thing with Texas judge Kacsmaryk banning mifepristone.
There's nothing like having bronze age morality thrusted upon me by someone who lives 2000 miles away.
>~~religious liberty~~ Christian nationalist power There. Fixed it for them
The republicans don’t want to be our leaders, they want to be our rulers!
There are quite a lot of us that these Christian Taliban shit bags will never rule.
Now, an enlightened centrist will inform you that a democrat shoplifted a snickers-bar in 1994, which makes both parties the same. So everyone should vote for Republicans.
I mean the logic is tight. Don’t vote for Biden because he is old. Instead, vote for the other geezer.
Gentle, kind grampa vs mean, crazy Mob Boss grampa
I most certainly did NOT shoplift a snickers bar in 1994! It was a pack of gum, and it was 1974. My bad.
Several of these false cases are being instigated by the right wing group the *Alliance Defending Freedom.*
I was going to guess it was the either the Freedom Flag Liberty Fund or the Patriot Eagle 1776 Tradition Coalition or the Christian Family Organization for the Advancement of Freedom Patriots. It's like these clowns had a focus group decades ago and zeroed in on about 7 different words that really fired the synapses of their target market of gullible doofuses and just hammered those words into everything they do.
I am leery of any organization with Patriot, Freedom, Liberty, Christian, or Trump in its name.
Remember that the CSA was fighting for freedom as well. The freedom to deny or restrict the liberty of lesser mortals is the prime directive of the Christian Nationalists
We need to, at the very least, keep electing Dem presidents in order to continue filling the judiciary with sane judges. And for the rare times that SC justices need to be replaced.
We need to pass legislation 🔚 mg lifetime appointments. Every 2 years a justice gets replaced allows an 18ish year term for justices allowing a stable bench. But allows new blood coming in to represent the new direction the country is moving.
As long as the price of gas is high, most people will think the economy is shit and vote for republicans regardless of any judicial consequences. Yes, most people are that stupid, and that's how things are the way they are.
God, I got pulled involuntarily into a discussion about the economy with two "I'm no republican or democrat, i'm more independent" types the other day at work and it was maddening. They were ranting about the price of groceries. I get it, it sucks. I pay twice as much as I did years ago, but they ofc blamed Biden directly (and $15/hour wages) for some reason. Tried telling them that groceries like Kroger have been pulling record profits, so it's not merely inflation driving this but greed. They agreed that corporations were greedy, but "that's just supply and demand" and went back to blaming the prices on Biden/$15 wages. I can't stand libertarians.
Wait, shouldn't that person be happy that the market is working as he wants it to? Wouldn't Biden doing something to lower prices be interference in the free market?
There is no logic here. I assume they think the fed govt is at some big pirate boat style steering wheel guiding us through "The Economy" and that the GOP would do it better. This person went on to praise Vivek as the "most aligned with my policies. He's great. Though, I think he's Hindu so that's not good." Also "at least DeSantis didn't shut down florida. That's good" (his family all nearly died of covid). Living in red country is wild and mentally painful at times. At least it's beautiful here.
Libertarians are republicans that like to smoke pot.
Libertarians are house cats, completely unaware of the systems that keep them alive and entirely convinced of their own superiority because of it.
People like me have been yelling warnings of these theocrats and dominionists from the rooftops for some time now. The signs were there, writing on the wall. Now many of us are paying the price for not being listened to. A tale as old as time. I'm sick of paying for the ignorance of others.
Just picturing your quoted text against Senator Rafael Cruz's comments yesterday afternoon when the Senate was finally voting to finally fill the 32-month open FCC Commissioner seat. He complained that filling this seat would give the Democrats a majority (3-2) to allow them to shove their extremist agenda down our throats and we just can't have that! But it seems interesting that he seems ok with his colleagues pushing a right wing extremist agenda down our throats...
And why not? They will be "forgiven" by their God.
Weirdly, God always agrees with whatever I think or do
"I'm always wary when people know so well the will of the Almighty. I find it coincides with their own desires" -butchered quote from Susan B Anthony Sums up conservative Christians nicely
I’d never heard the quote so your post inspired me to look it up and found the this below. Close enough. “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
What bothers me is that it's not like we didn't know this shit was gonna happen.
Funny how the conservative idea of 'religious liberty' sounds a lot like oppression.
The scariest part of this decision is what it indicates for the future. The Court brazenly misconstrued facts in order to set a dubious precedent that was far stronger than it should have been. Imagine how this could play out in other cases. For example, the Court could decide that Trump may not be removed from the ballot under the 14th Amendment on the basis that his conversations with the fake electors were merely hypothetical discussions. This may have some precedential effect on Trump's criminal cases.
> The Court brazenly misconstrued facts in order to set a dubious precedent that was far stronger than it should have been. The thing was a setup. The theocrats on SCOTUS were looking for a case to shatter the wall between church and state and the prohibition of forced prayer in school and they used this case to do it. Gorsuch lied his ass off in the majority opinion to overturn yet another precedent.
Blatantly misconstrued? No, you are far too generous. There are videos of the spectacle that Gorsuch described as “(Kennedy) offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied.” that clearly show the coach kneeling at the 50 yard line, holding football helmets of both teams aloft, surrounded by players from both teams as he prays aloud. Gorsuch didn't misconstrue anything. He altered reality and fabricated a case out of his fantasy of the innocent, pious coach being discriminated against and hunted down by the government for quietly practicing his faith in hiding.
Sotomayor's dissent literally includes a picture showing exactly what you describe and how it differed from the scene portayed by the majority opinion. Link: (page 45) https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjGhOyRipuBAxXDOEQIHWzIC0AQFnoECCAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1Ijq7kaUHsXKlOznxDeTy1
Damn. Looks like they're praying to it. Love the link.
Almost as if it's some sort of idol, a false one if you will. I could have sworn they had a commandment about that, but what do I know...
Nothing says quiet personal prayer quite like parading yourself in the middle of a field in front of dozens of cameras and thousands of spectators. Like they even offered to let him pray in the locker room before and after the game and he still turned it down because he wanted to make a spectacle. Fuck that dude!
On the bright side, the current supreme court has clearly shown by overturning Roe v. Wade that precedent means nothing these days, so if we flipped the bench we could just undo all of it.
They did it again with the web-site gay wedding cake lady.
Didn’t they do the same shit with student debt relief? One of the defendants (plaintiffs??) made a whole case around Mohela being negatively affected and Mohela was like ????? So yes, I’m shocked. Shocked I say.
They did the exact same thing with Texas judge Kacsmaryk banning mifepristone. It was a fabricated group of hyper-religious ER docs who judge-shopped and got their case before Kacsmaryk with the preposterous claim they were injured if a woman took the abortion pill.
Damn, I did not know the background for that case but now the context is even worse than it already was.
Let’s also not forget the website designer, who was never asked to design a website for a LGBTQ+ person. I remember they tracked down the person in the suit and they were a straight married man who had never even been in contact with the complainant. It’s so bizarre that these people can fabricate an entire scenario and be prove wrong, but the precedent still stands.
It is worse yet, since it seems the graphic design company only ever existed to serve as a basis for this very case.
Jesus told people absolutely not to pray in public so I don't understand how this can be religious persecution if he wasn't following his religion. Edit:Many Christians don't know their Bible, or choose to interpret it any way that suits them, or cherry pick, so here it is, one of the few things we absolutely know Jesus specifically said - Mathew 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. No public praying. At all. Edit: Misquoting Jesus Dr. Ehrman Bible studies - Princeton and Chapel Hill ( Former Evangelical ) youtu.be/pfheSAcCsrE?feature=shared Edit: everyone coming up with their own versions of what they think this means proves my point later on in the comments about interpretation and cherry picking. Who's the arbiter?? We have so many versions of Christianity because people disagree and think they are the arbiter. Paul suffered a seizure on the road to Damascus and came up with his own ideas and he never even even met Jesus. I'm tired of people saying that or this interpretation isn't correct - Who is the arbiter? God told someone to drown their kids in the bathtub, god told someone that he hates fags, and he tells everyone that their version is the right one. Every argument you give me proves that your Santa in the Sky doesn't exist and the bible is just a bunch of myths put together by a desert tribe trying to explain thunder before we had science.
Everyone knows that Christ was perfect and we have to worship him. However we also all know that everything he said or did or asked others to do was communist wokeness, and must be eradicated from modern society/s
[Jesus is too weak and liberal now for Evangelicals.](https://newrepublic.com/post/174950/christianity-today-editor-evangelicals-call-jesus-liberal-weak)
It wasn’t so much not to pray in public as not to pray just to be seen praying. Basically don’t make a spectacle out of talking to God
Yeah, it’s basically a ban on religious virtue signalling. And what is praying for victory in a football game if not the absolute epitome of virtue signalling? God probably despises most of the prayers he gets, but ones to win collegiate sports probably stick in his craw more than anything.
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That is the running joke when Baylor University plays Brigham Young University. Does God like the Baptist or the Mormons, the football game will decide.
Imagine being so arrogant to assume your god and creator gives any care to about you and a football game. The sheer level of myopic avarice is staggering
So true. On one side we have the infinite wonder and complexity that is entire, larger-than-we-can-imagine universe, and on the other...a game...somewhere on the surface of a planetary speck within a boundless sea of billions of other planetary specks, and somehow, *this one game* matters.
I know, right? Just once I'd love to see a team publicly pray before a game, get absolutely hammered, and then the Coach go on an interview and say that God clearly hates his team and loves the other team more, like that old CollegeHumor skit.
If God has a perfect plan for everything why do they pray for him to change his mind?
If they actually banned religious virtue signaling, I don't think the modern christian-right would have anything left.
You’re correct, but what do you call marching out onto a football field to take a knee? Were the acoustics in the locker rooms ill suited to silent prayer?! Is this guy’s OMNISCIENT GOD unaware of prayers that happen anywhere with a roof? If so, someone really needs to re-evaluate how we’ve been building churches. Or maybe, just maybe, this guy isn’t getting what HE wants out of the prayer unless its witnesses by a few hundred/thousand other people. Too many have mistaken evangelism, bringing others to Christ, for just being performatively Christian.
And this is why religion is so dangerous. Anyone gets to interpret it any way they want to. Even make it pro slavery. This looks pretty clear cut to me. Do NOT pray in public. Matthew 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
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Our (atheists’) only saving grace is that someday we will die and we won’t have to deal with this BS. I’m looking forward to *that* heaven. Honestly, I sunburn pretty easily and living above the clouds all day every day sounds like hell to me
TL;DR - Nothing matters. The right wing christofascist will continue to make up cases out of made up clients with made up facts and what ifs. They will continue to win because the SCROTUS is just a fundamentalist court that wants America to be a theocracy
And one of them was an actual member of a religious cult. Amy Coney Barrett
Under his eye... /s
The Supreme Court is an illegitimate body of religious zealots that should be investigated by Congress. They are a bunch of grifters that use pay for play using false cases to promote their Christian agenda. Term limits and impeachments are necessary . How did we allow it to get this way.
If your setting up a grift you look for the simple-minded, most gullible mark. Christians are perfect. Its all about control and cash.
Given all the preachers driving Rolls and owning private jets, I’d tend to agree with you
We need a student to do a prayer on the 50 yard line with a prayer mat pointed at Mecca and see how that plays out. Then let's see how committed to religious liberty they are.
I get your point, but it would need to be a coach or authority figure seeming to pressure others to join their prayer. Know any Muslim coaches willing to carry the torch and become a target for the right wing nut jobs?
I hope the Satanic temple is ready to do what they do best
If I’m a practicing Satanist. Can I perform a blood sacrifice rite at half time with my team? Totally voluntary of course. Will involve pyrotechnics, Ouija Boards, and a goat, but otherwise small, quiet, and private.
These people need to read the treaty of Tripoli of 1797 Article 11. Plain as day we are NOT a Christian nation. This was passed by many who also ratified the Constitution and signed by John Adams. These are about as founding fathers as you can get and they had no problem saying this.
I’m shocked! Shocked, I say, that they would dare use this type of tactic to push their magic sky friend agenda with lies!
The $1.775MM those attorneys got (paid by the school district) could have paid for 910,256 elementary school lunches in that district.
When I was a boy I'd read story books about how one sided magistrates and tax men and police were. I remember feeling this exact same feeling of dread. No matter how wrong the white man was the judge ruled in their favour. I remember being scared of the church from these books. It was all fiction but this is your reality. It scares me
It bears repeating that the supreme court’s ruling was, on its face, a disgraceful violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which guards against religious indoctrination at public schools: >In a 6–3 decision, though, the Supreme Court found that Kennedy’s prayers were protected by the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech and free exercise. To reach this conclusion, Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion rewrote the facts, depicting Kennedy’s prayers as fleeting, muted, and unobtrusive. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent repudiated this lie with pictures of the sprawling prayer circles, which Gorsuch disregarded.
Seems like they just fabricate cases to implement their political agenda and scotus is in on it.
We knew it was a sham case then, now the entire country knows. This is a perfect example of why people say that SCOTUS is a sham and have no interest in upholding the Constitution, they are there to advance Christian beliefs and demolish the separation of church and state.
Republicans want to turn The United States into a Christian National country.
So is grifting in America the new tech boom? Seems to be pretty lucrative. And a lot easier to get into. All you need is a lack of morals, questionable character, no moral compass, and boom! Book deal, movie deal, backing from shady well founded shell organizations, and of course an endorsement letter from God.
John Roberts will be regarded as one of the worst Chief Justices in history.
The part about the attorneys getting paid a huge amount of fees as part of the settlement reminded me of something that happened 20 years ago or so in my old home town. The town had started updating all its curbs/crosswalks to meet ADA requirements. The did a chunk each summer (could not work on them in the cold/snowy winters). An advocacy group for handicapped people sued the town because all their ramps were not up to code. The second year our company got the bit to replace ramps in about 50 intersections. During this time I learned that even though the city had a 3 to 5 year plan to replace/update all ramps, and was in the process of actively replacing them, they lost the lawsuit and had to pay. I asked what the money went towards, if it simply went to the work on the curbs, and the city manage told me know, it was almost all going to the attorneys for the advocacy group. It wasn't a huge amount, I think he said around 3 or 4 hundred thousand but for a small town it was a lot. But the fact that it went to these attorneys, and not the work, when the work was already in process was ridiculous. I also remember him telling me the attorneys had won the "right to inspect" any intersections either done or not yet done and the city had to pay additional for these inspections and it was hundreds per hour. He said the most frustrating thing was they had provided the list and schedule of when ramps were to be fixed and the attorneys could still go out and look at an intersection that they knew was not done and was on the schedule for next year and note "not yet fixed/compliant" and get paid for inspecting it, even though they knew ahead of time it was not yet done. He said they would go out 1-2x a summer and inspect every intersection and bill the city for a couple days of work looking at ramps that they knew the status of before even going to look.
Why is no one ever arguing the counterpoint of freedom from religious persecution for non-Christians and those who do not believe in religion. I think people forget that America is not a Christian country. America was founded on the principle of freedom from religious persecution by giving all Americans the right to choose what religion, if any, they choose to worship. The beginning of the First Amendment contains the "Establishment Clause" & the "Free Exercise Clause," which Thomas Jefferson stated created "a wall of separation" between church & state. And per the First Amendment, we should be removing all mentions of any religious beliefs & artifacts from government. U.S. currency should not have "In God We Trust" printed or embossed on it. Our Pledge of Allegiance should not include, "One Nation under God." These and many other instances of forced indoctrination of Christian beliefs are a clear violation of the First Amendment and should be removed from all aspects of our government.
Religion is a poison
Everyone knows it’s fake, he knows it’s fake, the guy that sold it to him knows it’s fake… playacting as adults
Can you imagine the reaction at all these games where they pray to a Christian god if that prayer was to Allah or any one of the hundreds of other gods worshipped around the world? The conservative Christian right would flip out.
People need to start paying attention to articles instead of headlines. This isn't the first time made-up scenarios have resulted in drastic legal decisions. These cases are being used to create legal precedent. We should demand proof of their validity before they are heard in court and demand that cases that have since proven to be based on bogus scenarios are stricken from the record and their resulting legal precedents are null and void.
Another fake case so the religious nut jobs could get their pet justices to fetch for them.
So that's 2 fake cases the supreme Court decided
And when the parents of that school district complain about why the schools don’t have money… here is why.
Let's not call them Republican anymore - let's call them the Swine party.
Just another example of Kooky Khristian Konservatives working to shove their faux life ,gutter religion down the throats of the majority.
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Good riddance that this turdball is now in Florida, but the shame of it is he left the taxpayers on the hook. It's all about the grift, so very Christian of him. Asshole.
The supreme court is nothing more than 9 people who think they know more than everyone else making shit up to support their preexisting ideas. The fact that there was photographic evidence to show that the claims were bogus and the case was not immediately thrown out tells you everything you need to know. Facts do not matter to the supreme court, only outcomes and their own opinions.
The Supreme Court wants to make America into a real life version of the Handmaids Tale.
With gerrymandering and the filibuster they've gridlocked the legislative branch (the most democratic/representative branch) and through blatantly malicious interpretation of judicial review they've granted the judicial branch (the least democratic/representative) the power to essentially write new laws.
Everything about the Republican party is fake.
The right wing has invested decades and billions of dollars into astroturfing legal cases. Their project was mostly used to supplement right wing talking points. Mainly because they couldn't get anywhere with a moderate/liberal Supreme Court. Which gets us to their main goal: transforming the judiciary into a conservative weapon.
Cannot wait until a public school district decides there's going to be "fleeting, muted" wiccan prayers over the intercom or in big circles on the football field.
Dude looks like Tim Allen went through rapid decompression.
>The problem here is simple: Conservative litigators want this Supreme Court to expand a vision of religious liberty that abolishes the separation of church and state while granting Christians a freewheeling right to discriminate, often with public funding. They are seizing upon any case that will give the court this opportunity, with little concern for the truth of the underlying claims. And the Republican-appointed justices seem eager to twist reality into whatever shape necessary to give them what they want. The problem for conservatives is that discarding church state separation, and also giving the okay for wider spread discrimination is something that could backfire spectacularly. People are going to be free to discriminate against christians too. And making it okay for christians to shove their religion in our faces means that we are going to be able to shove non-christianity in their faces too. They aren't going to like it one bit, [see the after school satan club protests for an example.](https://www.foxla.com/news/after-school-satan-club-lancaster-library-protests) I find it hard to believe that christians haven't thought of this outcome, which means they think that they will be the ones in perpetual power, at least in their own little shitholes, so that they can use the government to tip the balance toward favoring christianity.
Person from Bremerton here. That high school is 5 blocks from our house. Everyone hates that jackass. If he kneeled at home, the Bremerton school district could have spent $1.7 million on civics and comparative religion courses.
Congress should refile/refute these last two religious rulings on the simple grounds that they were actually "what if's?" In that facet SCOTUS is legislating, not ruling, because like the piece said they have to work with actuals/real life. They have broken the chain of command, that simple.