Oct 20, 2026, 1:07 PM@skinnylatte I have no idea how these people can read the Gospels and come to the conclusion that "empathy is bad, actually." I just don't get it.
I mean, I understand how it's happened. I've seen it in real time as American Evangelicalism has evolved into what it is today, I just...gosh, I hate it.
@mdmrn that's because it's an in-group / out group cult (many of them are but this one especially). they exist by saying that salvation only for people inside, damnation for everybody else. it's what they need for their sect to survive (hatred)
Oct 20, 2026, 1:10 PM@skinnylatte They need an enemy to continue to function. Which...is not how Christianity SHOULD work.
I know organized Christianity has worked that way, many times over throughout history, but it shouldn't. Not based on what they claim to believe.
@mdmrn @skinnylatte if that's not how Christianity should work, can you please explain the last two thousand years?
Oct 20, 2026, 2:03 PM@Affekt @skinnylatte Men using religious institutions to maintain power structures. I mean, that's what has happened.
Empathy should be at the core of a faith that claims to worship a man who said to love your enemies the same as your friends.
Randomly, I had to bring up Mel Brooks because of these posts 🤪
Oct 20, 2026, 5:11 PM@ai6yr That should shut us up, all right. :-# @mdmrn @Affekt @skinnylatte
@hakona @mdmrn @Affekt @skinnylatte LOL not commenting on your great posts, just randomly reading this Mel Brooks started playing in my head... apologies!
Oct 20, 2026, 5:50 PM@ai6yr No apology needed 😁
Mind-blowing that they would put on such a large production for a skit. Lots of neat stuff to unpack, though I (as a foreigner) find some of it hard to grasp. I did recognise a New-Yorker in there at one point though. Wondering if everything happening there has any /meaning/, or if they put some of it in just for fun.
@mdmrn @Affekt @skinnylatte
Maintaining power structures and hierarchies is a feature of monotheistic religion.
Oct 20, 2026, 4:51 PMlook, am an atheist and look at Constantine’s conversion as an opportunistic move to consolidate power AND RAISE TAXES; but the hierarchy was with the divine NOT one another
» John, CHAPTER 13 | USCCB
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/13
16 Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.
34 I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
Oh I agree, it's completely antagonistic to the teachings of the NT, but the idea of a single, God-appointed dictator to rule over all of His people in His name went went down a storm with the Roman Emperors and the pagan Kings and Queens of Europe.
Can't imagine why 😔
Oct 21, 2026, 11:17 AM@ReggieHere @blogdiva
There is always the power that devolves from that one up there to his earthly representatives, either divine emperors, kings, popes or mere clergy. Who have the power to interpret and guide and enforce. The rest is history.
@mdmrn @Affekt @skinnylatte
Well, there always has been since Zarathrustra came up with the idea of monotheism. Before that pretty much everyone worshipped multiple Gods which was more of a crimp on the ambitions of dictators.
Oct 20, 2026, 4:44 PM@Affekt @mdmrn @skinnylatte
Same as Apple. It all started going down hill when the man himself died.
Oct 22, 2026, 11:45 AM@Affekt @mdmrn @skinnylatte
this is how #christianity •should• work: https://christspiracy.com/
lots of good jesus stories in the new testament, really, but then they add all this homophobic oppressor shit by this asshole roman cop called paul.
@mdmrn @skinnylatte By far most religions work like this, when you look past the gilded entry doors: the others are sinners and they will be punished.
Which invariably gets translated as: they *must* be punished (by the believers, that is, and not by the supreme being).
@skinnylatte @mdmrn …if the authoritarian personality was a denomination…
Oct 20, 2026, 1:46 PM@skinnylatte @mdmrn Cult dynamics are the key to understanding this, I think. The in-group vs out-group division is important, but so too is the unchallengeable authority that lies at the heart of these cults, whether those are personalities or ideals. Empathy tempts the believer to look at the suffering of those in the out-group and ask “Isn’t this excessive? Shouldn’t we be doing *something* for them?” But that undermines the authority that drew the r lines separating the elect from the unsaved, so empathy becomes a sin.
All of this is anchored by emotional needs that bring people into cults and keep them there…though I understand that operates more on an individual level and tends to fall apart across generations
Edit: adding link to YT channel about cults: https://youtu.be/8iiVfpPrFAY
Back in 2025 when Elon‘s attack on empathy was doing the attention cycle, I started nosing around. You can get a broader picture of the effort being put into eradicating empathy, which by the way they can’t do because human society requires the ability to coordinate emotion.
Empathy is the great egalitarian equalizer. That’s why high control groups need to expropriate it
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @pcas @skinnylatte @mdmrn A society controlled by narcissists is hell on earth.
Fascism is a hell of a drug.
The assault on empathy is disingenuous. The tactic of the religious right is to claim that empathy is some novel concept of the left wing.
The only problem with that is it’s completely wrong (in so many ways)
Cult relies on making themselves unavoidably distinct from the rest of society. Destroying people’s empathy for other isolate them, as well as branding them behaviorally.
@mdmrn
@skinnylatte
Oh, that's an easy one: they DON'T read the Gospels. One would assume, "evangelical Christian," means an extremely devout person steeped in the tenets of their religion... One would be wrong. They're steeped in Facebook memes and hate-talk radio.
Oct 20, 2026, 4:52 PM@TheGreatLlama @mdmrn @skinnylatte 🛎 🛎 🛎
@mdmrn @skinnylatte Most Christians DON'T read the text, and are conditioned to follow cult leader types rather than use discernment or any philosophical rationale.
It remains a foundational principle of Evangelicalism that questions are bad, and no one should actually read anything.
Modern Evangelicals don't even go to church much if at all, and are totally lead by "influencers", aka propagandists.
This is one of the many ways Putin plays us in the US and England.
@mdmrn @skinnylatte just look at the history of Christianity in Europe. When did they ever have empathy?