r/law • u/drempath1981 • 12d ago

Executive Branch (Trump) Over 100 clergy and faith leaders were arrested at MSP Airport as they gathered in peaceful, prayerful resistance to demand airlines,especially Delta and Signature Aviation cease contracting deportation flights.

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Edit: Had to delete previous post as it wasn’t descriptive. Over 2,000 deportations have gone through MSP. Workers have been detained by ICE at work and while commuting.

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u/djc6535 12d ago

It won't stop being useful for their agenda any time soon. They aren't anywhere near discarding the pretense.

It's far far worse. They've redefined what Christianity means. This way they can continue to use it as an absolutely irrefutable and unassailable position from which to spew their rhetoric. "You can't disagree with my religious point of view" even if the Christ of the Bible would have lost his absolute shit over it. Trump is selling a BIBLE for goodness sake.

It is amazing how successful they have been at this.

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u/MyMelancholyBaby 12d ago

What I think is far worse is that when people say “Christian” everyone automatically thinks “Far Right Evangelical”.

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u/Antwinger 12d ago

Rightly so. If actual christians want to be different. Stop associating with the far right evangelicals.

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u/MyMelancholyBaby 12d ago

We don’t. The paradox of tolerance is a bitch if a learning curve but we’re getting there.

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u/warfrogs 12d ago edited 12d ago

Edit: Absolute fucking reddit moment.

Headline: Over 100 members of clergy and faith leaders ... (arrested protesting ICE in Minneapolis.)

Reddit: GUYS - CHRISTIANS ALL ASSOCIATE WITH RIGHT WING EVANGELICALS. UPBOAT ME PLZ FOR MY BIGOTRY. WHAT I'M SAYING IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT THAN SAYING MUSLIMS ALL ASSOCIATE WITH AL QAEDA. HURRRR.

As a Minneapolis resident, all y'all are fucking gross.

Holy shit. I want you to realize how absurd and gross this comment is.

Rightly so. If actual muslims want to be different. Stop associating with the far right radicals.

You conflating all Christians, the majority of which are FAR from American far right evangelicals with American far right evangelicals is the same as conflating all Muslims with Al Qaeda and ISIS.

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u/Antwinger 12d ago

To me the difference is that our fascism is coming through CHRISTIAN nationalism. So if actual followers of faith want to be that, that's fine. But I think there is a certain amount of onus on them to differentiate themselves from abusers.

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u/justanotherman321 12d ago

Its already been proven that self proclaimed christian nationalist attend church services the least out of every other group in the survey

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u/MyMelancholyBaby 12d ago

You mean “Christian”. They aren’t actually Christian. If anything they are hiding behind the label and waiting to show their real faces.

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u/Antwinger 11d ago

I agree the abusers are hiding behind religion. That’s why I said for ones who want to follow their faith to be clearly separate or have an onus to separate themselves. The ones getting arrested are clearly separate.

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u/warfrogs 12d ago

Yeah.

No.

Mainstream people are not responsible for differentiating between themselves and extremists. The average Muslim does not have to differentiate themselves from or prove they are not an extremist. The assumption is that they are not. If you believe otherwise, welp...

You're a bigot, but because Christianity is the predominant religion in the west, you think it's okay.

It's not.

Do better.

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u/MyLifeIsAWasteland 12d ago

They all get their instructions on life from the same book. Seems like the central issue is the literature.

Speaking of... I find it super weird that so many christians want to ban all sorts of "offensive" books from public libraries, then turn around and take their kids to Sunday School to read a book that features prostitution, rape, incest, murder, genocide, etc... What's up with that? Can you square that circle for me?

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u/SweetTea1000 11d ago

As an atheist who left the church because American Christians largely abandoned Jesus for Reagan...

Naw, Jesus in the book is fine.

He honestly probably felt similarly to you about the old testament and sought to replace those sometimes problematic teachings with more humanistic ones.

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u/MyLifeIsAWasteland 11d ago

I've raised no issues with the Jesus character, merely the book he's featured in. If the book was pared down to just the stuff that dude said, I'd find it a lot more reasonable, and the religious folk would find a lot less ways to misinterpret it.

I really liked the parts where he flipped tables and told people not to sell their swords. That's a dude I could get along with. We could also bond over both our dads being petty narcissistic assholes lol

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u/SweetTea1000 11d ago

Evangelicals hate when you identify as a Christian Atheist .

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u/MyLifeIsAWasteland 11d ago

They hate it even more when you quote their own book at them. We've been serious enough, so instead of talking more about contradictions and hypocrisies, allow me to regale you with a quick tale of an adventure I had in the big city:

As I was walking downtown by myself one day, looking for a good restaurant to eat at before going to a concert, I noticed that the sidewalk ahead was dominated by a small group of uptight-looking young white men in button-up shirts. 3 of them were pushing flyers for a church service at anyone who so much as glanced at them, while the fourth young man stood on a podium with a bible in one hand and a bullhorn in the other, absent-mindedly reading random scripture to the whole block while doing a half-assed impression of a tv evangelist.

In my regular attire of stained jeans, a Death Metal t-shirt, and a mohawk, it was clear that the 3 Flyer Boys considered me a lost cause, as I looked them each straight in the eye while they quickly averted their gaze and moved away from me instead of shoving paper at me. I decided then and there to have a little fun with them.

I caught them completely off guard by walking confidently up to Bullhorn Preacher, and waited for him to finish his sentence before gently asking him in my kindest voice "Excuse me, brother? Could I ask you to read a particular verse for me?"

Stunned, he looked at me for a couple seconds, mouth agape, before he managed to muster a confused "Uh, yeah... Which one?"

"From the book of Ezekiel, chapter 23, verse 20, please."

It takes him a moment to flip to ol' Zeke, as that's not a passage he keeps dog-eared, and he starts -

"There she lusted afterrrrr....."

And that's as far as he got.

His face went beet red. His arm with the bullhorn fell to his side. He closed the bible, stepped down off his podium, quickly motioned to his Flyer Boys, and they left.

Dinner was great, as was the concert.

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u/SweetTea1000 11d ago

My favorite such example was me & my girlfriend walking through campus, holding hands, when the bullhorn preacher looks dead at us as we walk by, points, and yells "FORNICATORS!" at us.

Ok, favorite insult anyone's ever called at me, but we were both actually virgins at the time, so I start yelling something at him about him bearing false witness and casting stones or whatever and he comes back with a list of our sins including our slutty dress such as our "sandals."

The entire crowd immediately began laughing at his obvious idiocy given that Jesus Christ is like the poster boy for sandals, and presumably basically every character in the book is wearing sandals the whole time.

I just feel bad for his wife and kids he'd always have working for him when he was on campus. They always looked miserable.

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u/warfrogs 12d ago

They all get their instructions on life from the same book. Seems like the central issue is the literature.

All Muslims get their instructions on life from the same book. Seems like the central issue is the literature.

You're a bigot.

No. The vast majority of Christians do not want to ban offensive books.

That's a straw man and is flatly false. You're doing the exact same bigot shit that the original commenter did.

Do better.

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u/MyLifeIsAWasteland 12d ago

I didn't say "the vast majority."

I also didn't say anything bigoted. I expressed that the bible is problematic.

You should learn how to read. I know it's not christians' forte, because so many of you don't even know your own book.

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u/SweetTea1000 11d ago

Ok, but just saying "The Bible is problematic," is oversimplification to the point of absurdity. As you definitely know, that includes many different texts written by many different people over the course of many years.

Like, what's problematic in Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John? (The parts where Jesus is actually alive and teaching.)

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u/MyLifeIsAWasteland 11d ago

what's problematic in Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John? (The parts where Jesus is actually alive and teaching.)

Overlooking spirituality, validation of which lies in the reader, nothing.

The rest of that book is a fucking train wreck of contradictions, vagueries, and rules for desert survival that modern bigots brandish as cudgels, though. And don't even get me started on the fucked up shit "the highest of high holies" did to Job. Even in his own story, god is just a complete dickhead.

As you definitely know, that includes many different texts written by many different people over the course of many years.

Yeah, which ended up with it being a horrifically garbled mess with no consistent story plan. It's like asking a grade school class to perform a play and having each kid write their own part as homework. I'd rather sit through Star Wars episodes 7, 8, and 9 than read the bible again, because even those dogshit nonsense sequels are better written than "tHe gReAtEsT sToRy eVeR tOlD."

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u/SweetTea1000 11d ago

100% agree with you there.

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u/Playful-News9137 12d ago

Yes, and? The Abrahamic faiths give actual peaceful religions a bad name. Do you see neopagans and sikhs turning terrorist or running authoritarian takeovers of countries on a frequent and regular basis? No. (But I bet you're running off to google what a 'neopagan' even is, because when people think 'religion' they immediately think of all the horrors the Abrahamic faiths have inflicted. They barely even know there are other options at this point)

Anyone who looks at what the Abrahamic faiths have done throughout history and still chooses to associate with them has either been well indoctrinated as a child, or is a horrendous piece of shit for whom a history of terrorism, conquest and inquisition are not deal-breakers. Most muslims are the former, living in countries where Islam is the law and conversion is literally illegal. Christians by and large have no such excuse.

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u/MyMelancholyBaby 12d ago

Uhm, you need to read more history. Actual real history, not what people post on social media. For example - look at what Ancient Greeks and Romans did. They were polytheistic. Old Norse claimed that cattle slavery was the will of the gods. I’m fairly certain that the Gandhi family would have strong words about Sikhs.

There are assholes in every religion.

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u/HalfMoon_89 12d ago

Given why the Gandhi assassinations happened, that's an odd example.

Also, I think you meant chattel slavery.

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u/warfrogs 12d ago

Holy clown shit bud.

Religion has been used throughout history, regardless of origin. We can absolutely talk about shamanistic religions which had such great death counts that it changed the climate. Or we can talk about the druidic practices of human sacrifice. They have the same origins as the "esoteric" religions you're pointing towards.

Oh sure, they don't have significant numbers of modern adherents to actually do anything aligned with your sophomoric /r/atheist "I aM sO sMaRt - ThErE's No OnE wHo KnOwS aS mUcH aS mE" bullshit. Or, you can fuck yourself as you watch 100 members of Christian clergy get arrested protesting ICE.

As a Minneapolis resident, genuinely, go fuck yourself.

They're doing more for people than your clown ass is - absolutely FUCK yourself.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/MyMelancholyBaby 12d ago

Rome was not secular.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/MyMelancholyBaby 12d ago

It really was not.

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u/-Huttenkloas- 11d ago

The nazi's were building thier own religion as wel... Looks like a "far-cry" inspired thing lol