Comments

2
They're a group of people who have it drilled into them to not question authority, ever.
Authority tells them what to believe, so they believe it, no matter what it is.

They're not nihilists so much as robots. They don't think... they're programmed.
3
Yeah, I have to go with @2 on this one: believers unquestioningly believe whatever someone in authority tells them their god "wants" them to believe - they don't actually have to hear it from their god as long as they believe the person in authority is speaking on their god's behalf.

Pretty good scam that...
4
Is the adjective 'White' (in front of 'Evangelical') essential here? Need we be racist on the holy road to agnosticism?
5
@4 Yes, "white" is essential here. White evangelicals do not care when parishioners of a black Christian church are murdered during a bible study (i.e., Charleston). White evangelicals are the problem. Not Christians in general...
6
@2, Close, but it's not the "authority" that they are entrusting, just their own leaders within the tribe. The right wingers have a deep distrust, even hatred of government authority but are A-OK with their own government representatives like Trump.
7
@4 The race label is essential in this case because the historically Black evangelical churches (such as the Church of God in Christ) as a whole are culturally distinct from white evangelicalism and likely differ substantially on this question, perhaps especially if support for Trump is the subtext. They should have been included in the survey.
8
you are all idiots. so much alt-right bashing that none of you realized that these people live by principles and the perception that those principles are being meant. What you fail to realize is that political Christians have been betrayed and abandoned by Trump and will soon be calling for his blood. The more Trump drifts to the left, the more these people will become disenfranchised and willing to attack him. Sorry, the alt-right doesn't hate people based on skin color - they hate people for attacking their values. They voted for Trump thinking he would clear up leftist degeneracy but they're starting to realize Trump betrayed and lied to them. Check back with them in a couple months to see how they really feel.
9
@8:

One of the alt-right's principal values seems to be unabashed racism. So, yeah, they do in fact hate people based on skin color, which is the literal definition of "racism".
10
The knuckle-dragging troglodyte @8 has a legit point. Most of the base are white Christians. As tribalistic and slow-witted they may be they might eventually catch on that they've been conned. The Anyone But Hillary crowd are slowly starting to figure it out.

And while scumbag @8... who deserves every look of contempt and shame they'll be getting until the day they die... seems to be lacking any sort of self-awareness, a lot of Orange's power comes from people coming to realize that the powers that be have consistently failed them. Maybe they'll realize we share the same enemy: Rich white men, the corporations they run, and the politicians they flat out own, and at least stop voting for the politicians.

This last bit is as unlikely as @8 recoiling in horror at the despicable waste of potential they currently are. But even people like them can change.

And they should. Their worldview is repulsive and they hang out with Nazis.
11
Morality is over.
13
An entire Christian denomination, now Trump Dignity Wraiths.
14
Where "Trump's stance" means "Trump's momentary state snapshotted from his flip-flopping in the lightest breeze of his personal advantage", of course.
15
@4 "need we be racist" interesting. Can you say what you think is going on to cause this, that would have race-independent effects?

What I see is "if I couldn't forgive immoral behavior, then I couldn't support Trump, and I support Trump, so I can forgive." Right? And the majority of black evangelicals don't have that starting point, that they need to keep Trump on their mental team.
16
It's not about evangelicals forgiving bad behavior. God forgives, not us.

It's as simple as God forgives Donald Trump for groping women, provided that he as accepted Jesus Christ as his savior.

So evangelical Trump voters had the "immorality" issue already solved, he's just their candidate.

Of course God forgives homosexuals too, but it is such sins as these that evangelicals suddenly project that God should think twice about forgiving.

17
From the NYT article:

Nathaniel Persily, a professor of law and political science at Stanford, described his surprise at the docility of Republican officials in an email:

"While I and others had written extensively about the partisan tribalism of both elites and the mass public, I guess I would have expected greater defections by Republicans in the wake of Charlottesville."
[you would? really? why??]

Persily went on to argue a related point: 'To some extent, I think that each Republican realizes that the electoral and political costs of opposing the president may always exceed the benefits — no matter what the issue.


He doesn't need to say: if the electoral and political costs exceed the benefits, then it's not worth doing --- no matter what the issue --- because the electoral and political costs are the only ones that matter.
18
shorter @8 is a lazy troll.

lazzzzzzzyy trolllllling.....

Put some more thought into it next time. You might actually hook someone.
19
The clickbait headline says that white evangelicals are nihilists.

Nothing could be further from the truth. A nihilist is a person who believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles.

These people believe that the Bible is the ONLY book worth reading and should be taken at its literal meaning. So the sun stands still in the sky, Jesus went without water and food in the desert for 40 days and lived. Virgin birth and more off the wall stuff. Their bible tells them to go out and convert everyone to their way of thinking.

They are morally right as the men are screwing little kids. Their answer to everything is found in the Bible. THAT is what makes them dangerous that they don’t have to prove anything and they can interpret the Bible as they see fit.

I asked a patient just exactly what she believed about the universe?
“The what?”
The earth, stars, planets, moon landing?
“Oh we have the earth.” Then went on to say that the stars were just lights that God turned on at night. The moon isn’t real.

There’s no logic. No reproducing facts or experiments.

The USA has the lowest average IQ of all the OECD countries. 97. So 50% of ‘Muricans have IQs LOWER than 97.

Reddit is a sewer that has a subreddit devoted to hardcore Trump supporters. They even delete any and all negative comments about Trump. Trump went back on DACA again and said he might keep it. Reddit went nuts today. NO AMNESTY!

DACA isn’t amnesty. It’s not even a path to citizenship. It’s a 2 year work permit that protects you from getting deported. No crime. Yet there are evangelical skinheads on there that say “I’m Trump’s biggest supporter and my IQ tests are off the charts way above 140. I think Trump is smarter than any one in the USA so he must have a reason for supporting DACA that we don’t understand yet.”
Right!
Plus the writer made a load of grammatical and spelling errors. Such as saying “Trump knows what is best for you and I.”

All reasonable discussion ends when a Bible Thumper starts sermonizing.
20
@8 --- What you fail to realize is that political Christians have been betrayed and abandoned by Trump and will soon be calling for his blood. The more Trump drifts to the left, the more these people will become disenfranchised and willing to attack him.

No they won't. There is nothing --- nothing --- he can do that will make them turn away from him.

From the NYT article: "Barber and Pope found that people who identified themselves as strong Republicans were among the most malleable voters. When told Trump had adopted a liberal stance, these voters moved decisively to the left; when told Trump had taken a conservative position, they moved sharply to the right, as the accompanying chart shows."

I know that "people who identified themselves as strong Republicans" doesn't explicitly say "political Christians," but we're not pretending that "strong Republicans" as a whole means anything other than Christians, are we?

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