“It’s very ‘Handmaid’s Tale’-esque,” one official said.
The Trump administration has ordered State Department employees to report on any instances of coworkers displaying “anti-Christian bias” as part of its effort to implement a sweeping new executive order on supporting employees of Christian faith working in the federal government.
The department, according to a copy of an internal cable obtained by POLITICO, will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information “involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration” and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms.
The cable was sent out to embassies around the world under Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s name. The instructions also were released in a department-wide notice.
My job is working in government. I also happen to be Christian.
But at church I’m not a government employee, and at work I’m not a Christian, because one has nothing to do with the other. Separation of church and state is good for both institutions.
Separation of religion from life is even better.
I get it, I’m on Lemmy and religious people, vehicle owners, and anyone who didn’t use Linux is bad on your eyes or whatever.
But if my free practice of my faith that doesn’t interfere with my professional or social obligations offends you, you can go right ahead and fuck off because I’m allowed to be as offensive towards you as I want so long as I don’t try to control your life.
This bullshit is why you assholes never achieve shit. If someone doesn’t perfectly fit your ideals, you dismiss them when you should see that they’re your ally on everything that actually matters.
If you decide that everyone is your enemy, you end up being correct.
Oh vey, someone got triggered hard. ;)
I’m on Lemmy and religious people, vehicle owners, and anyone who didn’t use Linux is bad on your eyes or whatever
Even though there are a lot of communities which share such views, I wouldn’t be so bold as to shove all users of Lemmy into the same drawer.
But if my free practice of my faith […] offends you
No. It doesn’t. I don’t know you. You could be an alright person for all I know. Although your reaction gives me the impression the other is the case. I didn’t address you specifically, did I? I made a general statement about religion.
Furthemore, even though not necessarily offended, I am usually concerned about religious people.
If you live it for yourself and keep it to yourself, I can tolerate it. But if you drag others into it or proselytising dangerous fairy tales, you will find me freely practising criticisim of that.you can go right ahead and fuck off because I’m allowed to be as offensive towards you as I want so long as I don’t try to control your life
What a marvellous religion it must be, which teaches such warm-hearted values. /s
This bullshit is why you assholes never achieve shit. If someone doesn’t perfectly fit your ideals, you dismiss them
Who doesn’t achieve anything here? Who are you talking about? You don’t really know much about me or other users on this platform.
Also, bold generalisation again. I for example, don’t dismiss someone for not perfectly fitting my ideals. And I would be surprised if the majority of users here would differ from handling it similarly.
you should see that they’re your ally on everything that actually matters
To me, personally, a world free of (organized) religion actually matters a lot.
If you decide that everyone is your enemy
Good thing, that I don’t then. ;)
Fellas, is this DEI?
Just start reporting cops.
Ah yes. Internal purging. Fascist checklist is moving real fast.
Sounds like Christians are going to try and purge society. Again. Get your guns and be ready. Load up on bullets. Train. Go to a range.
And trauma kits. Have them and learn to use them.
MYFAK.com has great trauma kits. With lessons and manuals.
What baffles me is like, if you have to set a theological standard for a government then you’ll have to persecute 99% of Christians too, cause this one flavor of evangigilical baptist or whatever that is leading the fray alienates all of the catholics and however many protestant denominations of Christianity. You cant have a Christian state and just assume all other Christians will fall in line behind your doctrine because Christianity itself can’t agree on the doctrine.
You cant have a Christian state and just assume all other Christians will fall in line behind your doctrine because Christianity itself can’t agree on the doctrine.
You’re missing the bigger picture of “selective enforcement”. If everyone is guilty, then there’s no need to manufacture a pretext fire them or to arrest them and throw them jail possibly in El Salvador beyond the reach of the rule of law).
Well, in regards to everyone is guilty, a large population of Christians believe in original sin, that everyone is inherently bad and you can only get into heaven by following the word of god to the letter… and if the state is the official word or God well, you better follow everything big brother says or you’ll spend an eternity in hell…
… and if the state is the official word or God well, you better follow everything big brother says or you’ll spend an eternity in hell…
If we allow religious dogma (of any religion) to dictate public policy, I’d argue we’re already in hell.
Right. Rules for thee but not for me.
Let’s start that list of anti christian behavior of trump:
.
Do they mean like when their leadership is revoking student visas, going Leviticus 19:34 states: “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself”.
Leviticus is from the Jewish part, though, and is therefore inherently less valuable to Christians unless there’s anything in there about murdering gays or treating women like property.
Man, these guys would love Islam.
I can hear it now
NOOOOOOO ALLAH BAD NO SUCH THING AS ALLAH NOOOOOOO
And what about the book of James which says the same thing in different words?
Bible says everything if you look hard enough. There’s no point in argumenting this way.
Numbers 5:11 to 5:31 uh, fairly clearly explains that if a woman is suspected to be pregnant by ‘not her husband’, she is to undergo a ritual and drink a potion which will cause an abortion/miscarriage.
https://biblia.com/bible/esv/numbers/5/11-31
ESV uses a … too literal translation to result into ‘her thigh will fall away’…
https://biblia.com/bible/niv2011/numbers/5/11-31
But the NIV translators are capable of understanding context dependent modifiers and just directly uses ‘miscarry’.
https://biblia.com/bible/nlt/numbers/5/11-31
NLT ends up with ‘womb will shrivel/shrink’.
https://biblia.com/bible/nkjv/numbers/5/11-31
NKJ also goes for a very, word by word literal approach (what a surprise) and says ‘thigh will rot’.
…
So yeah, there you go, anytime you run into a bible thumper who proclaims that the ten commandments are the basis of western civilization, show them that the old testament also very clearly and explicitly … not just condones, but mandates abortion in certain circumstances.
If they then say that we are under the new covenant, throw this at them:
https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-18.htm
Matthew 5:18
Jesus, the man himself, says to follow the Law (ie, the old testament, or at the very least the first 5 books, the torah, which includes the entire book of numbers) exactly, precisely, to the letter, to the ‘jot and tittle’.
… Oh but also the Bible is inerrant and never contradicts itself, which must mean the old and new covenant have perfect agreement and never contradict, and are therefore identical, right?
Exactly. People who want to believe certain things will find them in the Bible and will disregard the rest that’s also written there. Belief is, unfortunately, irrational.
I dunno about that, but there is a bit in there about burning bulls testicles to appease the lord god
I tried that, it works every time. The only problem is getting the bull’s testicles. They object to it surprisingly strongly. Quite challenging. The Good Book offers no warnings or advice about that part.
Protip: Remove them from the bull before burning them.
the bull might not like that either though
That’s a good tip, I’ll give that a try.
No the testicles are on the other end.
I’m confused, Ive been kicked in the head a few times, as you can imagine.
Imagine being a supreme being, creator or the entire universe and everything in it, all life, the fusion in the stars, supermassive black holes sucking matter into them, dust clouds across the cosmos, and yet still for some reason being impressed by someone burning bovine gonads.
At one point he cursed the Phillistines with hemorrhoids until they made him some golden ones.
Musk has how much money and influence, but rages when people say a mean thing online. I see God as no different.
Big Skydaddy loves him some mountain oysters.
I understood that reference! 👌
so which part did jesus read then?
He was probably heavily influenced by the Essenes, so stuff very similar to the Dead Sea Scrollls.
I think the book of Tobit was also influential to historical Jesus’s thought, and maybe even 1 Enoch. If he didn’t read those texts himself, I think at least you can make the argument that he was influenced by the kinds of thoughts/movements those texts were associated with.
Authors don’t read their own books.
um. ok. you’re clearly a theological scholar.
and you shall love him as yourself
Wait, does this mean I’ll have to jack off strangers?
Well, anything else just wouldn’t be Christian, you know. I’d hate to have to report you…
Well, they also don’t like the natives, or themselves, so honestly good work keeping true to the book. 🙃
Christian Nationalists leading the downfall
Well, Secretary Rubio is among the least christian people in the state department, so…
Do you hate Donna in accounting for wishing you a “happy holidays” in 2021? Now you finally have the opportunity to get back at that god-hating bitch! Rat her out to HR and send her ass to El Salvador!
/s
Goddamn.
I don’t think the /s is appropriate. That’s like…gonna happen.
I didn’t want to get flamed by anyone that couldn’t immediately see it was a joke lol
My dude that is literally where we are at
Yeah but like… it’s not a joke
I don’t think this person actually thinks Donna is a bitch though. Or is actually encouraging people to do that.
Oh Donna’s sweet. This administration however - evil AF.
Donna fucking rules dude
Took them a while, but the south finally rose again.
And fucked us all without lube.
At least now I have something to yell if a member of the US government attempts to grab me off the street—“This is religious persecution! I’m a Christian!”
It should take them a while to sort that out.
“God in heaven! No, I won’t join your satanic sex cult!”
Fuck religion, brain dead morons
Religion is a big fuckin sham. At best it’s brainwashing people to fawn over fictional characters and at worst it’s a disgusting grift to get rich (tax free not to mention) by taking advantage of people’s fear and insecurities. The world
could useneeds more secularism.We are cursed to live in a society where most grown ass adults still believe in magic.
Religion, AI, living forever, etc. The people at the top of american society are quite possibly among the most gullible rubes to live on this planet. 45 years of low taxes has cooked our society
I’m an atheist, but I don’t think we should hate on other people based on their religion, tbh. The problem is the institutions and persons that take advantage of people’s faith.
People are free to believe whatever they want to believe, that’s none of our business, imho; but… to whoever exploits people’s beliefs and vulnerabilities, fuck them worthless pieces of bloody shit to the infinity. Again, imho.
You know, I totally agree people are free to believe whatever they want and obviously I know and am friends with/family with people who are religious and I don’t necessarily think poorly of them on an individual basis.
However, my belief on a personal level is religion is fucking stupid and an artifact of humans from a bygone age when we were significantly dumber, unintelligent, and didn’t know anything about the world and universe. I hate religion and wish I could live long enough to see it die. It makes me so happy knowing that overall religious individuals, at least in the US, are declining year over year.
I’m aggressive about it here because this is the internet and those are my true feelings. But ya irl it would be pretty scummy to be so hostile and rude to someone based purely on their religious beliefs
Hear hear. People are trying to live their lives and grapple with the universe in a way that they can cope with. But the institutions themselves are evil, barbaric relics that belong in history books.
100%, I’ve made my distaste for religion clear but I’m honestly jealous of them sometimes. How nice would it be to truly believe there is a heaven or after life of some kind, that would be a nice feeling indeed.
You could always choose to believe in a scientifically plausible religion! Here’s one of my favorites:
Imagine a far future utopian society. Something Star Trek or better. No one wants for anything, even aging is cured.
However, utopia has a problem. How do you raise children in paradise? In a world where your every whim can be conjured up for free, how do you raise children without them turning out to be a bunch of spoiled sociopaths?
Simple. Don’t even try. Raise them in a simulation. Choose the environment carefully. Raise them in a simulation of an earlier historical era. Far enough back that they will experience some struggle, but not so far back that they’ll be living as slave in ancient Rome or something. You want to educate people, not torture them. And ideally in a period that has a concept that the future can be far more advanced than the present. Ancient societies didn’t really grok the concept of technological advancement. The 21st century is a great era to build an ancestor simulation around.
And, just like that, there’s your religion. When you ‘die’ in this life, you just wake up in the real world. Maybe there’s even a judgment component there. Maybe you have to go through several lifetimes if you don’t live a good enough life in the simulation. Are you a sociopathic billionaire in this life? Back in the tank with you, you’re going around the wheel again until you learn not to be an asshole. When you’ve shown you can live a just, noble, and compassionate life, only then are you allowed to graduate from school and enter into the real world. You’re biologically immortal, so you can just keep spinning on the wheel as long as necessary. Oh, and you’ll be reunited with all your departed family and friends, once they graduate as well.
There. A completely scientifically plausible religion that requires zero supernatural forces or entities. It rewards the virtuous, punishes the wicked, provides for the resurrection of the dead, and promises eternal paradise. No God or gods required. It’s a hybrid of Christianity and Buddhism packaged in a techno utopian wrapper. I call it “The Church of Graduation.”
Wouldn’t that like…fuck with one’s psyche at a fundamental level? You die, a traumatic experience, and then you wake up and you’re literally in the “afterlife”? Wouldn’t that just be a massive confirmation bias to the individual, despite being entirely fabricated by the people who run this hypothetical program?
Am I overthinking this?
Sure. But how I think of it is most people go through several virtual lifetimes. Your memories are temporarily suppressed during each one. In the end, they all come together, and you have the wisdom of several lifetimes to guide you. A mindfuck, yes. But utopia has some really good psychologists. And they wouldn’t just dump you from the tank out onto the proverbial sidewalk. There would be a lengthy orientation and education process. There’s no rush. You have all the time in the world to come to terms with things.
Thats a fun thought, thanks for sharing
I don’t know if you’ve ever read the short story “The Egg” by Andy Wier, but if not, I think you’d like it.
Yup! This is a similar idea, just grounded entirely in our physical universe.
The institutions are shaped by people too. Hear hear, there are nice people and scumbags.
I’m an atheist, but I don’t think we should hate on other people based on their religion, tbh. The problem is the institutions and persons that take advantage of people’s faith.
I’m not particularly anti-religious, but this is essentially the “not all men” argument in clerical robes.
The problem is the institutions and persons that take advantage of people’s faith.
This is the fundamental reason that religion is a problem in the first place though. Someone starts a religion based on what they believe, they get into a position of authority, and soon they’re asking for more from their followers: more money, more resources, more women… Etc, etc.
Sorry, maybe I did a bad job at explaining myself - I think all of the religious institutions are bad because they take advantage of the people, not just some of them. I just wanted to extend that to other non-religious ones that do the same.
If that’s not what you meant, do you mind explaining why this is a “not all men” argument?
It has limits though - people can believe whatever, but they still shouldn’t harm others.
There is no place for religious believes in a workplace or anwhere outside basically. You have a job to do that should be defined. Where does god come into this? If you believe god forbids to do xy on the job then the job is not for you. Just quit.
Just embedding your linked image quick
How’s that first amendment working? No? How about the second, then?
how very constitutional
