Results of a survey, split out by religion (10 groups), where Americans answer how strongly they agreed with two statements:
- “Empathy is a foundational moral value that helps build a healthy society”, and
- “Empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from building a society guided by God’s truth”.
The top 4 groups most likely to agree with (1) and least likely to agree with (2) were, in order (1 vs. 2): Unaffiliated (83% vs. 13%), Other non-Christian religion (80% vs. 18%), Jewish (77% vs. 23%), and White mainline non-evangelical Protestant (73% vs. 25%).
The least likely to agree with (1) and most likely to agree with (2), by far, was White evangelical Protestant (42% vs. 44%).
Yeah, as someone who has a branch of the family that I consider lost to Nationalist Christianity (aka White Evangelical Protestantism), I’ve seen them as a cancer upon this country for a long damn time. It is a genuinely hateful and distorted form of religion, and the fact that the vast majority of American society can’t fathom that they need to be treated in the same way Wahabbists or Zionists are (the latter of which are also handled with kid gloves) is both depressing and distressing.
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Apocryphal, attributed to Ghandi
I believe it, having grown up in Christianity. (Though since de-converted and de-baptized.)
For a religion that supposedly preaches love, they love to presume they’re better than other people and church leaders LOVE getting you to hate others.
How do you get debaptized?
You make up your own ritual. There’s no standard way to do it, but for me, it helped with the closure of that chapter of my life. I will say that mine involved fire as that is antithetical to the Christian baptism ritual and, for me, sacrilege was important.
Were you baptized as an adult?
Nope, I was baptized as a child.
I was raised Roman Catholic and was baptized as a baby but the had to go through Confirmation classes and then re-up, so to speak, in the faith by going through confirmation.
I knew it wasn’t for me at a young age and opted not to be Confirmed. I’ve always felt that’s when I ‘officially’ stopped being Roman Catholic.
I was raised Methodist but we spent time in a Baptist church too. I had to go through confirmation, but I wasn’t exposed to any other belief system in a meaningful way until junior high school, which is when I started questioning things. I just ended up being friends with weird, nice people who knew it was all bullshit and I found myself deeply uncomfortable with the concepts of Hell, eternal damnation, and the notion that God is the good guy in the story after doing so many horrible things.
Right on! I’m a secular humanist now.
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“White mainline non-evangelical Protestant” is not MAGA, those are the more liberal protestant denominations, though some of them are more conservative than others, so there are some magats in that group as well. But it’s the "White evangelical Protestant (the one on the last line above) that is the heart of MAGA.
“White mainline non-evangelical Protestant” were among those NOT likely to agree with the “empathy can become dangerous” statement. You need to re-read because you got it exactly backwards.
