Picayune Gods & Those Who Market Them

The question was WWJD, not WWPD (AbE: I originally misread Phat's response. I responded more appropriately in Message 94.) I'm against all anti-democratic leanings regardless of origin, while you justify the right's anti-democratic tendencies by saying, "Oh yeah? Well the left does it, too." Except that they don't.My political wind vane isn't left/right but democratic/anti-democratic and sane/insane. New Hampshire has a Republican governor who is democratic and sane, my two primary qualifications. He's fine.On the other hand, Florida has a Republican governor who is certifiably anti-democratic and insane. He's ghastly.Who I favor politically, who anyone favors politically, should depend upon their having sane positions on important current issues, upon having the best interests of the country at heart (rather than of a political party or even just a single individual), and upon having demonstrated good judgment that will serve them well as the they face the unforeseeable during their term in office.Anyone who's choice of candidate is based on left-good/right-bad or vice versa is putting no thought or research into it and shouldn't be voting.That being said, Trump has bent the Republican part all out of recognizable shape. They're no longer conservative, don't even know what they are. They're so uncertain what they stand for, other than being against Democrats and anything Democrats want to do, that they didn't even have a presidential platform in 2020. Their policy positions? Whatever Trump last said. It's a lot easier to find insane Republicans ("The 2020 election was stolen." "January 6th was like a tourist visit." "Covid was faked." "There's no climate change, and even if there is it's natural variation.") than Democrats (I can't think of a single Democrat conspiracy theory).About your quote from The Two Christianities and Their Problems, sounds good to me. How about you?--Percy

You fear one world government because people would flow from less advantaged regions to more advantaged regions, and the people of the more advantaged regions would be forced to help those migrating in. I have two questions:

• Where is your Christian love and charity? How is it that you appear to have none, in stark contrast to atheists and skeptics here who appear to have it in spades. Why are by far the least Christian expressions coming, consistently over a long period of time, from the Christians?
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  We are all just people and we're all in this together. When other people are in need we help them. We tighten our belts and contribute what we can. In the end, the better off the newcomers the better off we all are.
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• If one world government ever comes to pass, why do you think it will happen like turning on a switch rather than gradually over time?

But something like turning on a switch did happen when the Soviet Union fell and East and West Germany joined to again become one country. There was a net outflowing of people from East to West Germany, and the eastern economy was uncompetitive with the west. It was very disruptive for a time, over a decade. The government stepped up social welfare programs for those in the east, and major infrastructure investments were made in the east. Eastern Germany remains weaker economically than western but only trails by about 18% at present, and overall Germany has become stronger and wealthier than ever.--Percy

But you *do* think Jesus is wrong. For some misbegotten reason, you think Jesus is just as cruel as yourself. In Message 81 you said: Yes, that's exactly what Jesus would want, but you're denying that Jesus would want you to help the poor and unfortunate. How dare you attribute to Jesus cruelty as vile and hateful as your own. I'm not even a Christian and I'm shocked. I'm sure you're familiar with this passage:

quote:

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⁴¹Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. ⁴²But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

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⁴³Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. ⁴⁴They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
  —Mark 12:41-44

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You are the living embodiment of the opposite of what Jesus would do. Shame on you!--Percy

They worship at the alter of YouTube. If Lord YouTube says it it must be so.--Percy

Coincidentally came across this just now from The Atlantic: The World Will Never Know the Truth About YouTube’s Rabbit Holes. The opening two paragraphs seem to explain exactly what happened to Phat (and to my nephew, whom I've mentioned a couple times):

The Atlantic:

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Very, Very Few People Are Falling Down the YouTube Rabbit Hole

The site’s crackdown on radicalization seems to have worked. But the world will never know what was happening before that.

Around the time of the 2016 election, YouTube became known as a home to the rising alt-right and to massively popular conspiracy theorists. The Google-owned site had more than 1 billion users and was playing host to charismatic personalities who had developed intimate relationships with their audiences, potentially making it a powerful vector for political influence. At the time, Alex Jones’s channel, Infowars, had more than 2 million subscribers. And YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, which accounted for the majority of what people watched on the platform, looked to be pulling people deeper and deeper into dangerous delusions.

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The process of “falling down the rabbit hole” was memorably illustrated by personal accounts of people who had ended up on strange paths into the dark heart of the platform, where they were intrigued and then convinced by extremist rhetoric—an interest in critiques of feminism could lead to men’s rights and then white supremacy and then calls for violence. Most troubling is that a person who was not necessarily looking for extreme content could end up watching it because the algorithm noticed a whisper of something in their previous choices. It could exacerbate a person’s worst impulses and take them to a place they wouldn’t have chosen, but would have trouble getting out of.

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--Percy

All you're saying is that it would take millions of people needing help before you'd listen to Jesus. Mere thousands of desperate people, like those on the border, isn't enough for you. It would have to be millions before you'd listen to Jesus's message. You have some preconceptions about world government that I doubt are shared by many others and don't even make sense. Why do you assume a world government would "mandate cooperation" and require its citizens "to submit?" A wide variety of governments can be observed all around the world from beneficent to malevolent, from enlightened to benighted, from representative to dictatorial. A hypothetical world government could take any form, yet you assume it could only have certain very specific negative qualities. Where are you getting these nonsensical ideas? Have you been watching YouTube again?A world government seems very unlikely at this point, but there's no reason to believe it won't have all the same characteristics as the local, state and national governments you're already familiar with. There will be elections and laws and taxes and policies to maintain healthy economies and communities.--Percy

No one is suggesting you should, or even that that is a realistic possibility.We're only pointing out your contradictory professions, one of following Jesus, the other the very antithesis of following Jesus. If that were true then you'd at least occasionally express his ideas, but you don't. For you Jesus is a habit of expression, not a guiding light.--Percy

I tried and tried to make sense of the pair of paragraphs containing that excerpt, but in the end I failed and so left them out of my response.--Percy

I'm like a moth drawn to a flame of imbecility. I can't help myself. The YouTube videos you're always watching are mostly from RWNJ's. I never heard of it, and I'll step out on a limb here and say no one else here has heard of it, either. Where did you hear about it? Don't ignore this question, answer it. Where did this obsession with a one world government and its associated evils come from? Why is it your persistent belief that that's what we all want? It's more than just a long way off. It isn't even a slight trend or a minor tendency. The U.K. recently withdrew from the EU. Some years before that Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Sudan split into South Sudan and Sudan, Indonesia spawned off East Timor, Ethiopia spawned off Eritrea, and the Belgium Congo became the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo. Before that Cyprus split into the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. After WWII Korea split into two countries, and China split into the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Before WWII Ireland split into the Republic of Ireland while the northern portion remained in the U.K.All the evidence points to the world experiencing a strong trend toward countries dividing into smaller countries. There is not any sign anywhere of countries joining together to form larger countries. Germany and East Germany don't count since they were originally one country before WWII and the Iron Curtain. The last example of two countries merging was over three centuries ago when England and Scotland merged to become the United Kingdom, and Scotland's been trying to leave ever since.So please stop with the ridiculous one world government nonsense. There's no sign of any movement in this direction. If you hear it mentioned in your RWNJ YouTube videos then recognize it for what it is. They're just trying (and succeeding) to get you riled up. But it isn't real.And also please recognize how dangerous these videos are. They played a role in convincing the January 6th attackers that what they were doing was patriotic and was protecting the nation's government and constitution when they were actually doing the opposite, some of them drawing 20 year sentences.Recognize the power of these videos, because they hold you under their thrall, and while that lasts you will not recognize that you are. You're likely reading these words and dismissing them. Even if this weren't so vague as to defy interpretation, it would still be wrong. You and your "what ifs". If you have some concrete possibility that you can express with reason and can tie to the real world then talk about that. Otherwise please stop talking about this and get on topic. One world government has nothing to do with marketing picayune gods.--Percy

I think you lost the right to call yourself a Christian long ago. Your every use of the word "woke" or "wokeness" emphasizes how deeply you've fallen for conservative orthodoxy. Verifying my understanding of the word "woke" against dictionary.com, it means an "awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices" against minorities, but you use the term as one of disparagement. This means you've bought into the conservative nonsense that calling out racism is racist. The best I can say about this is that it's grammatical. It fails completely as a description of anything in the real world. I think it's that none of your beliefs are coherent or grounded in reality. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. In this country government should not promote any religion, but many conservatives believe we are a Christian nation and that Christianity should have a role within government. If it is part of your religious faith that Jesus belongs in every heart then that is fine. But if you believe part of government's role is to bring people to Jesus then that is wrong. The irony is strong in this one.--Percy

You have strong self-destructive tendencies. It's a near certainty that as you're giving up gambling you're substituting some other self-destructive behavior, who knows what. Chewing tobacco? Opioids? On-line shopping?Some addictions might be better than others. You could try becoming addicted to work or exercise or sex.--Percy

Maybe I misinterpreted him. When he said "United States" did it I assumed he meant the U.S. government did it. If he'd said that it happened in the U.S. I'd have had a different interpretation.AbE: The reason I assumed he meant there was a bad actor (in this case the U.S. government) causing the bad outcomes is that he usually thinks in terms of conspiracy theories.--Percy

Lose your racism and your insensitivity to human suffering. Isn't this from another thread?--Percy

Israel's antagonistic treatment of Palestinians for decades (Israeli West Bank settlements, Gaza itself) is a constant instigation.--Percy

Are you really justifying the argument, "You started four wars against us, and that therefore justifies our ongoing profoundly inhumane treatment of your people."Israel doesn't seem to understand that treating Palestinians inhumanely is extremely unwise longterm policy for them. Israel is itself responsible for breeding each new generation of terrorists, a process fed by the poverty and hopelessness of places like the West Bank and Gaza.Arguments like the ones you're advancing are why people repeatedly question your humanity and the sincerity of your Christian charity. The Palestinians are people, human beings, and they deserve to be treated as such. The U.S. is a massive enabler of Israeli policies that victimize Palestinians. Israel has lost its soul. In opposing terrorism they have become no better than the terrorists they oppose, and we are their biggest supporter. We have as much shame to bear as Israel.For far too many decades the U.S. has weighed the threats of the region and decided we wouldn't allow our support of Israel to be affected by their crimes against humanity. Humane treatment of the Palestinians has never been a condition of our support.Meanwhile the Gaza death toll continues to grow, and Israel has increased operations against Palestinians on the West Bank, increasing the death toll there, too.--Percy