The Paradox of Christian Conservatism

Post Reply New Topic

Christian Conservatives One Minute: "Remember to always be a nice and loving person because Jesus loves you as you are! He loves each and every one of us! <3<3<3"

Same People Next Minute: "Why don't you grow up and be MAN for once in your pathetic life! Get a job! You need to improve yourself in order to make money and be a productive member of society! Pain is life! A man cannot improve himself without pain, for he is both the marble and the sculptor!"

I've seen this sort of doublethink throughout my whole life. When I try to be nice, the conservatives say that I'm not manly enough. When I try to be tough, they tell me that Christians are supposed to be nice.

Conservatives are impossible to please. That's why I'm not one.

Sometimes the stick is necessary, disciplining a child (or an adult acting like one) doesn't mean you don't love them. It's still love.

And you should get a job.

Yeah. There is such a thihg as "tough love".

Those two things you cite are not really head on contradictions. In fact they can kinda go together. "you're a worthy person, ...and...for exactly that reason....you should get off your ass...". And also that combination of sentiments is not peculiar to folks of any particular creed, or religion.

So ... discriminating against LGBT+ people is love?
Bombing innocent civilians is love?
Destroying the environment (The one that God allegedly created.) is love?

That's the thing though that the OP is asking. If Jesus truthfully loves us as we are then why do we need improvement? In fact, why set it up to where we need pain and improvement? Why create us only half formed and not fully formed?

I just find it kinda jarring when conservative traditionalists go from fruity, mushy "love" BS to caustic language in an instant. They're like Jekyll and Hyde.

It's like watching someone puke rainbows one minute and breathe Hellfire the next minute.

Fundies and other Christian hypocrites have a very twisted definition of love. They think true neighborly love only applies to straight, white Christians of their own denomination.

Yeah. It's hard to argue with someone like that without getting nauseous.

One of the easiest ways to make someone puke is to take the word "love", and twist it in the most messed-up way imaginable.

Literally every cult leader in history has done this.

Sad, but true; although it does not apply to ALL Christians.

HOWEVER, what follows is a list of 20 Things Fundamentalist Christians Believe, sampled from an even bigger list:

• A bumbling, fumbling, mumbling, stumbling Christian is a better leader than any articulate, educated, intelligent, and successful Atheist.

• A dead person should not be buried with anything of value, since they can not enter Heaven with jewelry or money.

• A Godly home guarantees Godly children.

• A man who removes his necktie at a revival meeting is "cutting loose".

• A prayer is ineffective unless it begins with at least seven superlatives describing God, lasts at least twelve minutes, and is repeated at least three times.

• A Secular State is an Atheist totalitarian regime where religion is abolished and all people revert to amoral hedonistic savagery.

• A wife should never deny sex to her husband.

• A woman who derives pleasure from sex is committing a sin.

• Abortion is murder, and therefore a sin.

• Abortionists are murderers and should be punished accordingly.

• Addiction is both a sin and evidence of sin.

• Agnosticism is a sin.

• Agnostics are Atheists.

• AIDS is God's punishment for the sin of homosexuality.

• Allowing homosexuals to marry will bring about the Apocalypse and thus the end of the world.

• America was founded as a Christian nation.

• America was founded on Christian values.

• Amputees do not recover their lost limbs because either they do not want God to heal them, or they doubt that God
can heal them at all.

• An open mind is the Devil's playground.

• An unruly child is a sign of a sin-filled family.

I find that fundies will usually define "misogyny" in a rather odd way.

Apparently, pornography (both softcore and hardcore) is "degrading to women" ... but forcing a woman into a "traditional" housewife role isn't misogynistic, and neither is letting the government control a woman's reproductive organ.



Do fundies desperately want the Apocalypse to happen or do they not want it to happen? They rarely makes their position on this issue very clear.

Well... I don't think that it works that way.

Gay marriage, or allowing abortion, or whatever, is the reason that [XYZ thing that already happened] happened.
It doesn't hasten the Apocalypse. Though it could be a SIGN of the coming Apocalypse.

If Hurricane Katrina, or 9-11, or the AIDs epidemic, happens, then ...after the fact.... you explain that thing happening to the nation because "God is punishing us for XYZ ( gay marriage or abortion)".

It would not "hasten the Apocalypse". Which ( I suppose) is inevitable anyway.

But yeah...some Fundies do seem to want to hasten the Apocalypse. And to do so by fanning the flames of war in the Middle East. Other Fundies dread the apocalypse and hope it happens to some other generation down the road. I suppose it depends on how much chutzpah you have. If you are convinced that you are SO perfect in the eyes of God that he favors you, then you will look forward to the Rapture,and hope that it happens in your lifetime. Like that guy on the road I saw with a bumper sticker that said some thing like "[when it comes] I'm outta here!".

But I suspect that the average Fundy is aware that he, or she, might get left behind, and get stuck here with all of the godless schmucks,and have to endure the "years of tribulation" to come. Ya just never know.

The fact that we are loved does not disprove any shortcomings we might have, and here is the best Scripture I can find along that kind of line:

Ephesians 2:4-5 "...God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved."

"Grace: the free unmerited love and favor of God..." --Webster, 1828


Assuming you mean "half-formed" as being our physical existence and "fully-formed" in relation to one's spiritual condition, wellness or wholeness:

It would not be possible for us to have the free will or "freedom of choice" to either obey or disobey if we had been created "spiritually perfect", so to speak, and incapable of any wrong-doing.

Why would it not be possible? Another thing, God is spiritually perfect so therefore he has no free will himself based upon your response, is that correct? If God has no free will then how can he be all powerful and omnipotent? And, if he does not have free will, is not all powerful and not omnipotent then how can God give us an ability he does not have himself? How can something perfect beget something imperfect?

Christianity is self contradictory at its fundamental core its evil. If an all power all knowing creator exists then not only could it stop all suffering but specifically created people knowing that evil people would be evil and innocent people would suffer.

I suspect your question might be rhetorical, but I will try to answer:

Free will = freedom to choose to obey or chose to disobey
No free will = no choice in the matter


Hardly, and the confusion there is the matter of His sovereignty. We have a standard -- His -- to meet, but He does not answer to anyone or anything...and that means He can do as He pleases...and yes, He is still perfect in whatever He does of his own free will even if we might happen to not like or understand His doings.

How would being spiritually perfect take away our free will? That's what I'm asking and no it is not rhetorical?



What you said makes no sense and here is why. The presumption you're making is that if someone is made spiritually perfect then it takes away their free will. Another presumption is that God is spiritually perfect. Based upon the first presumption or premise then the conclusion that follows from these premises is that God can't free will.

If A then B.
A
C: B

This is modus ponens. You're saying this.

If A then B.
A
C: ~B

This makes absolutely no sense since the can't logically follow from the premises.