Wait wait wait! I love Trump! 3\5% of Americans saying Trump did the best for Covid reaction are smart.
Is Progressivism Satanic If religious beliefs are irrelevant to the thread and since the concept of Satanic is a religious belief why have you started this thread?
Maybe an evidence for average American folk stupidity ... or at least and for minimum of ignorance and immunity to facts? Seems so ... with all due respect to have an other That is a very good and legitimate question and statement from you ... I also asked myself what the BS should be about progressive = satanic if religious beliefs are supposed to be irrelevant.
I do not claim to have a vast knowledge of the bible but from what I remember from Sunday School Christianity was about honesty, love and looking after the poor and the weak, are those not progressive ideas?
Yes, they are. And neither of these traits can be found in Trump and his disciples. Despite of what they claim, their actual god is $$$$.
They are of course and it als a point of view what does matter in the end ... means good and evil progressive ideas. If progressive ideas and knowledge of science "attack" the content / meaning / core of the belief of a religion then of course they are evil and / or satanic for the followers of the religion ... at least for the extreme / fundamentalist followers of the religion. Of course, this does not only apply to Christianity, but in principle to all religions. People just have to think about how much of our western progress in knowledge and way of life is satanic for many Muslims... for example equality between men and women. And with Christians we have enough examples where progress collides with religion and still collides today. The indisputable fact that the earth moves around the sun and not vice versa killed people 400 years ago because of heresy.
My quote was taken out of context, probably to build a strawman... I stated, in the OP, that 'satan' can also be a metaphor for human evil, and has been often used in psychological evaluations.. it is not slways a literal entity that is discussed. But i don't really care. Everything, in some way, has religio/philosophical connotations, and is relevant in any discussion. So declare your religious beliefs all you want. Reason is not necessary.
You have a point, the question should be is Progressivism evil and the answer would be yes. Progressives tend to be wealthy, private jet liberals who outwardly embrace socialism but are hard-core capitalists concerning their own business and investment affairs. Redistribution of wealth and means, high taxes, mandatory use of public transportation and relocation from the suburbs to urban centers is for everyone else. They would reject collective bargaining and union representation on their own projects. Being well to do, they have no reservations about killing the economy and therefore jobs with high priced energy for the sake of ideology–they can absorb the inflated costs of goods and services that devastate the middle class and pound down the genuinely poor without changing their own life. That by any metric is evil.
I can see some parallels there, with the far gone illiberal authoritarian types. I can also see the very same parallels in the far gone evangelical far right authoritarian types. They are mirror images of one another, and they both can be described as above. That makes them "satanic"? I'd actually argue the opposite. Satan isn't the bad guy in the Bible and he doesn't tell lies in it. God does. God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. He wants them ignorant so he can deceive them more easily. Most tyrants operate like that. Lucifer is the "Bringer of Light". The one who brought truth and knowledge into the world against God's orders.
Progressivism has championed workers rights, consumer protections, anti-racism, civil rights, women's rights, animal rights, child protection, environmentalism, LGBT rights, respect for other cultures and on and on, all resisted by conservatism. In your black and white world who is really satanic here? You bring up violence. Jesus (God) was not against violence for a righteous cause and conservatives in the past have taken that to heart. Can you say lynchings.
I'm a progressive and I don't recognize myself or anyone I know in your right-wing imaginary bogeyman.
Aside from the darkness thing, everything you said is something the Bible also uses to describe God. It calls him humanity's Satan/accuser, it says he sends lying spirits and false prophecies, it says he kills and divides. Hell, it even calls Jesus Lucifer.
So you don't agree with any of those progressive tenets? If not, how would you describe a progressive?
That depends entirely on how you define "Satanist". I believe Satan is a fictional character. But i do see some value in him as a symbol of struggle against tyranny, for the sake of doing so, even knowing full well he cant win (since the tyrant character is all powerful). I see heroism in that struggle. If we equate him to the snake in the adam and eve story (and not all do) then I also like him there, encouraging Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, to become moral agents who can think for themselves instead of blindly obeying the authority figure. So in that sense I would call my self a Satanist, in the same way that I would call myself a Neo-ist (from the matrix), etc.
Also note how in that garden of eden story it is the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, so they couldnt have known if it was good or bad to eat it. It was 100% about obedience and not morality, and that is what then gets called the "original sin" that winds up neeeding Jesus to suffer and die in order for God to forgive not obeying him. That obedience over morality theme runs all through the bible (and also quran). The first of the ten commandments isnt about being a good person, but about obeying the authority. Abraham and Isaac story is a mobster-like loyalty test to see if Abe would kill his son if the authority said to. Job is about a man God abuses simply to see if there is anything God can do to him to get Job to stand up against it. It really does amaze me that some people can do the mental gymnastics to see these as tales of morality rather than complete and blind obedience to tyranical power. Then these people sometimes even ask why non-believers arent going around raping and killing all day long, asking how can you have moral values if you arent just following orders. It amazes me. Satan is a character that can represent breaking free from that and questioning authority and rusing up against tyranical authority. If you truly believed that an all powerful God demanded you kill your child, would you? If you were convinced he wanted you to fly an airplane into a skyscraper, would you? I hope your answer is a firm no. But some people say yes. And it is terrifying to me.
What you have is a rant about hypocrisy. Anyone can cherry pick examples of hypocrisy from the left, right and middle, but then to generalize that is true for the entire political category is either stupidity or dishonesty. Which is it?
There is stupidity and dishonesty but there is also distraction, ignorance and complacency akin to blindness.
And now you've used distraction....that is quite the little list for your opinion arsenal. What next?
I agree that Progressivism is Satanic - What I don't see however is anything in your post that shows this to be true. The Devil will not come dressed up in Horns and a tail - The great deceiver would not be that silly. "Utilitarianism" is the Devil's program - and all who are on this train are the Devil's minions- doing the Devil's work.
Utilitarianism definitely has its problems, but all ethical systems do (especially Divine Command Theory). Plus, I've met Satanists, and they have been about as far from utilitarianism as you can get, preferring radical ethical egoism. If anything, utilitarianism is far more compatible with Christianity (agape) than it is with Satanism.
Don't mistake what I said as a personal attack, although I have no use for progressives. What I am saying is that there's a lot of deliberate white noise out there to prevent the discovery of the true intent of Progressivism which has nothing to do with sugar coated platitudes and the false banners they would have you march under. The enemy is complacency, dig a little more, their motives and intents are not at all altruistic. We are as a nation are quite wealthy, personal wealth even down into the lower end of the middle class is uncommon in the rest of the world but that is less important than the wealth of freedom we enjoy. Our personal wealth is a product of opportunity and personal industry and could not exist without these freedoms. Our personal wealth is a product of much maligned capitalism. Capitalism has given us a standard of living that is second to none and even affords us a measure of personal altruism, something else that is uncommon elsewhere. To the wealthy capitalist and equally wealthy progressives our wealth and well being are abstracts but exist only because of one of these groups, guess who. The wise capitalist knows that without the weakest link amongst us they would not exist. In the short term the progressive ideal is attractive but would result only in temporary surfeit and long term famine, a literal famine but one of freedom as well. Progressivism is an unworkable fantasy that is long on promises but can only deliver misery in the end. I've always seen unimaginable wealth as obscene but also understand the lopsided symbiosis that accounts for the comforts of life here in America. I think pursuing any alternative to this would be shooting ourselves in the foot. I am in most ways conservative but being an American allows me to also be socially liberal and charitable, something else that is uncommon elsewhere. Be happy Edna Kawabata, you can't make anyone else happy if you aren't. Misery loves company and misery sells misery. Try to find balance in an imperfect world. Namaste
"The Devil will not show up in horns and a cape" ! - why would you look for Satan among "Satanists" ? Lets us quote from Jesus - something that relates more directly to the subject than the passages in the OP. Matt - 7 - Jesus is Summarizing at the end of the Sermon on the Mount Who are the Demons that Jesus is referring to ? - are these the "Satanists" -- in black capes carrying candles ? Why no Matey - Hey-Zeus (Latinized pronunciation of Jesus ) tells us that the Demons will be dressed up like priests - and the people calling out "Jesus - Jesus" - like the Pentecostal and Evangelical "Tim Tebow" types are the minions of these demons - This is not the first time in the Sermon that Jesus mentions this rabble. In Matt 6 we read. These religious groups have become political - and love using utilitarian justification for law to further their goal of forcing religious belief on others through physical violence. So yes - your observation is correct but, you now understand the nature of this Demon a little better. Should you wish to hear my rantings on "why" Utilitarian justification for law is Satan - and those who utilize this tactic to do an end run around the safeguards put in place by the founders to protect essential liberty - are minions of Satan, Do not hesitate to ask
Why would I take it as a personal attack when you are fantasizing. You go on about progressivism's mysterious "true intent" which rings of conspiracy theory and then their "sugar coated platitudes" and their "motives are not altruistic" is a deep cynicism. Nether psychologically healthy by the way, but then it's on to how wealthy we are. We are? Maybe some are, but 78% of workers say they live from paycheck to paycheck. The bottom half of Americans combined have a negative net worth. The bottom 80% of Americans have just 7% of the wealth. So economics is not your forte and somebody needs their foot shot if that's what it takes to get them to do a reality check.
