If being in Heaven means being around the people who say they will go, Trump supporters, then Hell is a billion times better. The fact that God doesn't care enough to tell his followers that they are following the literal antichrist system, is telling.

Trump Supporters... They HATE LGBTQIA people. They HATE the needy and the poor. They HATE scientific truth, like climate change. They are filled with HATE for foreigners. They LOVE wealth and inequality. They LOVE greed. They LOVE war. Every Trump supporter is like that. They are all bigoted people.

And when I say all Trump supporters, I mean damn near all the ones I personally know. My family, the people I work with. All evil, bigoted people who thump their chest about how Christian they are, and how anyone who reads the Bible would have to be Republican. Who agree with Jerry Falwell Jr. how those who don't support Trump are immoral. They are all stuck in this evangelical cult of Trump.

The day I see the Love of Christ from Republican Christians in masse, will be a miracle. But every fucking day I have to listen to Fox news near all day every day. I have to listen to listen to provable lies that are being taken as gospel, and having to hear how everyone who isn't supporting Trump is evil and against Christ.

Now you may argue that doesn't represent all Christians. But that clearly represents the vast majority of those who care to vote, and certainly of the kids in this video.

Also I wouldn't say I was a cultural Christian at all. My family was, we went to church once a week. Then I got serious about it. I started watching TBN all the time. Started going to an evangelical church. Blasted Democrats and anybody who wouldn't trust Fox News and Fox News alone (my prior comments as Charon seem to have been purged, but I'd blast evolution, trust only in Fox). I went 3 services a week. I was one of those people who'd make sure I said "Merry Christmas" just to be sure people got the message. As I've said before, the initial moment was realizing that the GOP was becoming more and more like the antichrist, and that it was the polar opposite of what Christ himself would want. I became a Libertarian, backed off the 3 services a week to just one, mostly in search of a church that wasn't practically telling people that Republican is the only way a real Christian could vote. Then in 2008 at the Republican debate when a room full of pro-life Christians started chanting "Let him die! Let him die!" with great enthusiasm, about a guy not having insurance and what should happen to him... that was the catalyst that opened the door to everything being so wrong. to say "this... this whole thing is wrong..." And then God did nothing. Christ did nothing. It's gotten a billion times worse since then. Those type of Christians continue to be the main reason people have the same moment where they go... no... and move on. I went, became Pagan for a time, and found it just as connecting to God, at least for those who were serious about it, and empathy says, if they are having just as sincere a relationship with their God as Christians have with God, then it is all equal... and the logic then said, "or not equal, and just as stupid".

Now perhaps I wouldn't be so anti-Christian if I wasn't surrounded by them at work, and having to live with people I'd shit and piss on their grave if their eventual grave wasn't attached to my sister's. Then again, I'd see the news of what these people are doing to this country, fucking it over for profit, and hurting the very people Christ said to help, and doing so in Christ's name... which is the technical definition of using the Lord's name in vain, not just saying something like "Jesus Christ" in exasperation. I do put up with my girlfriend being Christian, though it and her high sex drive are the two things that most drive me nuts... but beggars can't be choosers, and marriage is the only way out of this hell hole of being with my parents at 50 fucking years old... at least until child support goes away...

NOBODY is seeing the love of Christ demonstrated by people like my family, 80-95% of the people at work, Fox, TBN, CBN, 700 Club, Jim Baker, and the like. And they do represent the public image of Christianity. If the moderates and liberal Christians are the majority of Christians, then they don't make their voice known, they don't vote in opposition to these sort of people in this video and on Fox. So either God isn't moving their hearts, they don't care, or God doesn't exist. Even if he does, if my family, Bob, the people I work with, these kids, the other Trump supporters are the main ones there, then I don't want to have to be around them forever, it's bad enough being around them for a short life. Want people to come to God, then start with those sort of people and get them to see how they are doing more harm than good. They have to more at making the world a better place than they do, to leave the world in better shape for centuries to come. Not to take it all for now, not to assume Christ is coming back soon, but always practice he's 50,000 years from coming back... and 1,000 years from now, it's still 50,000 years from then. To act the way Christ said to act, not the greedy fucks that make up the GOP. To actually show the love he showed. He hung out with sinners, and railed against those who were walking around thumping their chest about how holy they are, yet these GOP Christians are thumping their chests, and shunning those who sin differently.

Anyhow I could rant on, but that's enough for now. I do appreciate the higher degree of kindness you tend to show than certain others, and my family... almost all Trump supporters I personally know...

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This kind of rhetoric always comes back to God because that is what this is really about. Maher has a lifestyle that he doesn't want to be judged for. Much like most of the people here on the sift. The people with the biggest mouths about God are the ones with the most to hide.

John 3:19-21

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

This isn't about sexism in the bible (there isn't any), that is just a joke. People who hate God are unrepentant sinners who know they are guilty and will say anything to justify their sinful lifestyle. Moral people don't have a problem with God, it's the people who want to sin without consequence who hate Him. It's because your God given conscience has already judged you guilty. That's what you absolutely cannot stand, is the authority that is over you which tells you are wrong and under Gods judgement. Your stubborn pride cannot bear it and you are blind to the truth because of it.

If you loved the truth, and wanted to turn from your evil, God would lead you to Jesus in a second. Since you love your sin more than the truth, God lets you stay ignorant and deluded with lies.

bareboards2 It's great that you have some lingering residue of respect for Jesus, but He isn't your buddy.

John 15:14

You are my friends if you do what I command.

Btw, the gnostic gospels were ruled out because they were written by gnostics (read: NOT Christians) hundreds of years after the fact.

hpqp "Having been raised in an evangelical cult, I know the Bible quite well," Change that to not at all and we enter a realm of honesty. I mean, we have this comment "some of his parables are terribly authoritarian"..Really? He's God, of course they're authoritarian. This idea of Jesus as a great moral teacher is patently false. He is God in the flesh, with the power over life and death, and that is what He stated consistantly. He has a right to tell us what to do. Who knows how you were brought up but if you had any idea what was in the bible you would understand that Jesus is bigger than this trite understanding. The sad thing is you passed from life to death and you think you're free.

There are more lies about Jesus than any other person in history. He is the most lied about Person of all time, and I have personally encountered literally hundreds if not thousands of beliefs which are predicated in some way in denying who He is. Speaking of lies, ChaosEngine, there is plenty of evidence which shows evolution to be false. It is science fiction, not science fact.

@bareboards2

The Jeebs character definitely made some interesting points about love, compassion and charity (it is suggested he got some of these from Buddhism), and ideas of social reform that could almost qualify him as proto-socialist. But the view of all-good all-loving Jeebs that moderate Christians are raised with today is a relatively recent phenomenon, with its roots in the deistic revisions of the Bible and Christian doctrine that began with the Enlightenment.

Having been raised in an evangelical cult, I know the Bible quite well, and can assure you that Jeebs is not all good. For one, the invention of eternal torture and hell is his invention (cf self-quote below); some of his parables are terribly authoritarian (e.g. Lk 19:11-27); he is divisive ("you're either with me or against me","I come not to bring peace but a sword", etc...) and even his treatment of women comes off as condescending at times, albeit much better than the patriarchal misogyny of the OT and St Paul (one example: he doesn't allow Mary to touch him after resurrecting, but allows Thomas (Jn 20:17-27).

I understand the urge to see Jeebs in a purely positive light though, heck, even my favourite poet (Percy Shelley), an avowed atheist and antitheist, tried to project Jesus in his (Shelley's) own image, i.e. as a humanist social reformer.

>> ^hpqp:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/GeeSussFreeK" title="member since August 1st, 2008" class="profilelink">GeeSussFreeK and @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/smooman" title="member since October 28th, 2008" class="profilelink">smooman (quoting doesn't work)
Eternal damnation and hellfire are inventions of the character of Jesus (some of the more explicit examples: Mt. 10:28, Mt. 25:41, Mt. 25:46, Mk 9:47-48, Lk 10:15, Lk. 12:5, etc., not counting all the parables where "bad fruit/branches" are cast into "unquenchable fire").
One main point of departure between Christianity and Judaism is hell.
Some good online tools for Bible "study":
http://www.biblegateway.com/
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm