Friends and former colleagues interviewed by AP described Boelter as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for President Donald Trump.
Friends and former colleagues interviewed by AP described Boelter as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for President Donald Trump.
Labeling a religious figure as an imaginary friend is very reductionist. Instead, go to the root issue. Right wing political messaging corrupted and brainwashed this person to be an ultra nationalist using lies to prey on his core beliefs through fear, religion, and superiority complex.
Reductive? Maybe. Accurate? Certainly.
The point is- this person’s brain was primed with indoctrination already. He just swapped gods. Religion is a sickness, and he is a great example of how bad that sickness can get.
Religion is a sickness in YOUR opinion. Rationalism is just as dangerous as any other -ism whether it be Buddhism, Catholicism, Confucianism, Moral Absolutism, or Atheism. Just because you think you’re right doesn’t mean that you are. Instead maybe focus on spreading your moral message constructively instead of destructively. You’re bullhorn-ing exactly what his indoctrinators said the outside world is trying to do–destroy his religion.
I’m sorry you feel that way. You’re just wrong, though. Religion is cancer, and should be treated as such. Private spirituality is fine, but once you start saying what others are allowed to do based off of your religious upbringing, it’s literally just fascism with an imaginary friend as the leader.
I see the issue. You’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Obviously telling others what they can and can’t do or sowing violence while using your religion as justification is bad. But even the bible says that spirituality should be practiced in private. There’s nuance to the world and just because bad things happen due to corrupted religious teaching doesn’t mean that all religion or spirituality is bad.
Yet that’s every single religion. So yes, toss the baby with the bathwater.
It also says the exact opposite.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20)
You’re conflating missionary messaging with publicly practicing faith and praying. The message there, presumably, is to bring philanthropy to every person on the planet to teach and recruit others to do good in the world. If your sticking point is “teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” then yes that’s every religion but also every government faction and moral think-tank in totality. People telling people what they can and can’t do.
What’s your end goal here? Ban all religion and tell people what they can and can’t believe in? If you and someone share philosophical beliefs you’re not allowed to meet up and talk about them?
Missionaries are supposed to exemplify everything about a religion, so they can spread it. The two things are so intertwined, they can easily be conflated.
The end goal is ban all organized religion. Religion is a personal choice, and should never be used to determine what others not practicing it are allowed to do. Talking about religion is fine, practicing yourself is fine, creating institutions based off of it is not.
Look, I don’t even attend a church. I haven’t regularly attended a mass since I was a kid so about 2 decades ago. I grew up catholic and my personal beliefs about sexuality, abortion, and mandated attendance caused a separation from the church. I didn’t even get married in a church or by a priest. But core tenants of the Catholic faith still helped shape my altruistic nature and moral compass. And although I left the church out of convenience, I could just as easily stayed within the church and developed those same principles and convinced others.
We could ban all organized religion tomorrow and it wouldn’t have a significant effect on my life. I can tell you that it would have a significant negative impact on the direction politics would take afterwards though. Where do you then draw the line on what constitutes a religion and what other group gatherings you can ban? What happens to all the people that were a part of organized religion and poured all of their social needs into that basket? Do you think they would have some sort of eye opening experience or would they just devolve into a chaotic mess with a loss of purpose and self?