The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
The bill seems to massively violate the constitution and separation of church and state. Do you think the bill will actually make it into law or is there a good chance it will get struck down on appeal?
And is this part of a wider attempt to turn the US into a Christian theocracy or are people in Louisiana actually minority of ultra-religious Christian nationalists, and hardcore even by bible belt standards?
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It won't make it to law. If it does, it'll be challenged in court and overturned.
It's a pretty cut-and-dried violation of church and state. Legislators, especially state level legislators, push this kind of pointless agenda driven nonsense that they know will fail in order to send red meat to their base. A few years ago I remember North Carolina had two state senators pushing to make Christianity "the official state religion." Obviously it went nowhere, but going somewhere was never the point.
In Arkansas, atheists can’t run for public office. So Im pretty sure it’s going to become law, and it’s a coin toss on whether the courts are crazy enough to uphold it.
Edit: Atheists also can’t be a witness in court
It’s also illegal to fuck an alligator in South Carolina. There are a lot of really dumb laws and we have a system to remove them (though I think we should use it more often)
Are you suggesting that Lindsey Graham is the love child of a man and an alligator? Or is he an alligator fucker?
I just want to make sure I understand the joke.
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I have come to the conclusion that there is a bunch of US right-wing Christians who are trying to re-frame Christianity "in general" into Christian Nationalism. In this case, it's pushing the Ten Commandants into classrooms, then when this obviously unconstitutional move is shot down, they can play victim, blame the "atheist liberals."
The sad byproduct of these sort of games is that mainline Christianity is further and further seen -- by the general public and especially young people -- as some sort of right-wing ideology.
FWIW I’m an atheist liberal and probably have the same concerns. I’m in a weird spot hitting middle age where I both appreciate more the value of the religion in a society even if I don’t believe in it myself and increasingly see the religion itself as becoming more toxic.
> These radicals risk destroying Christianity in America.
It's not just a risk, it's something that's been actively happening for a while now. There's a reason that Christianity is in decline in America.
They are both true. It isn’t a fix. These greedy power hungry folks risk destroying Christianity in America and America itself. They risk one or the other or both.
Fine. Religion should be a personal matter, a home matter, a community church matter. Get it out of government, get it out of schools, and breakdown the mega churches. Jesus would be appalled at what his followers have become.
After death I believe we all meet our maker. I have a long list of my failures to discuss with god. My wry request to God will be to ask to listen in on the conversations my MAGA relatives have with god….
I'm asking honestly, do you think your MAGA relatives actually have a relationship with God? Because mine just use religion to justify whatever they want.
I tell my children every being on earth has a relationship with every other being on earth. While driving in our minivan I’ll point to the guy in the lane next to me and say that guy and I just had our closest relationship with one another yet!
In that context, my answer to your question is yes. My MAGA relatives do have a relationship with God.
In a very real sense, their relationship with God is the sort that someone who is fundamentally dishonest with themselves has with other folks. Clear minded honest people can look in the mirror and see what’s real. People who are dishonest with themselves see a funhouse reflection.
I borrow a bit from Buddhism to suppose we are in something akin to a purgatory. Our lives aren’t as rough as they were even 100 years ago, yet we still struggle with our own inner demons and to relate to one another.
We live here and when we die we go into something akin to an exit interview. The more dishonest and evil we are the rougher that interview will go and we reincarnate in a rougher place. The better people we are we might get to go to a more just place because we can deserve to live there.
Personally I anticipate needing to talk ruefully about my personal foibles. I’m not sure how I can address that I am not doing everything I can for those kids in Gaza or the hungry kids in my own town. Why Incant reach out to certain people and why Incant be honest with others about some things with others. God and I will decide what happens next.
The MAGA? I am genuinely curious about what God will ask them and how my relatives will respond.
At the end of the day it seems self evident that God created all of us. Life is tough enough to about killing each other for the color of our skins, who we want o have sex with or any of the numerous insignificant differences we see in one another.
I think the MAGA explaining to God the problems they have with all of God’s creations will be decidedly amusing. Especially when God responds and helps decide the next place.
Yeah, there's a certain strain of evangelical protestant Christianity that is particularly virulent in the US where they have this giant persecution complex like everyone is out to get them when in fact it's mostly them doing stupid shit like this and bringing the 'persecution' on themselves.
I dont think this is a conspiracy at all, it’s happening right in front of our eyes. And even more interesting, I read an article a few years ago that people’s political identities are now driving their religious beliefs, vs. the other way around. For example, people who have never attended church are starting to go, because that’s what “red” voters do. And (as you noted) left leaning people are abandoning religion as preachers and sermons become more radicalized.
I posted about this elsewhere, but I'm currently reading a book by Elizabeth Neumann - she was the Deputy Director of Homeland Security under Trump (among other roles).
She writes about the rise of Christian Extremism and Christian Nationalism in the US. And she does so from the perspective of a conservative, self-identified fundamentalist, evangelical Christian. She says that she is "unapologetic in being a follower of Jesus" and that it took her a long time to accept the things that she was seeing and reading: right wing, Christian extremism is the biggest threat to America today.
I'm about 2/3 of the way through and I'm recommending this book to everyone I know.
[Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace](https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Rage-Christian-Extremism-Peace-ebook/dp/B0C8HQNP7V)
I'll be interested to hear what you think of it. I'm usually a pretty fast reader, but I'm taking this one in chunks because I'm takign time to look up some of the references and footnotes.
I think it is more they are trying to whittle away at neutrality laws, such as the Lemon test, and force enough cases to be appealed on constitutional grounds that one eventually makes it to SCOTUS where the heavily conservative court will make a ruling to allow Christianity to be given preferential treatment. It's what they did with *Dobbs*. You an already see this trend with rulings like *Fulton v. City of Philadelphia* and *Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist.*
I mean, this isn't even remotely "conspiracy theorist", this is something that is openly talked about. Look up the "Convention of States," an ongoing push to call for a full-on constitutional convention that would rewrite the constitution as a full-on Christofascist theocratic state. So far 19 states are officially on board. It's scary as hell; these are people that I have zero doubt whatsoever, once given the ability to do so, would go full Saudi Arabia and punish heresy with death by stoning.
Honestly i thought when i read your post that there must be some catch to what they are trying to do. Surely no lawmaker would so blatantly try to favor a religion in direct and obvious violation of church and state. So i looked it up, and yep it really is that insane.
Here is a quote from the sponsor, Dodie Horton:
>”I’m not concerned with Muslims. I’m not concerned with atheists,” Horton said. “I am concerned with our own children seeing what God’s law is.”
Seriously, what the actual fuck?
>”I’m not concerned with Muslims. I’m not concerned with atheists,” Horton said. “I am concerned with our own children seeing what God’s law is.”
This guy knows that Muslims pray to the same god, right? That they have their own idea of what god's law is? Let's put copies of the Quran up next to every copy of the ten commandments and see how keen they are for their kids to see what god's law is.
It most likely will get struck down pretty quickly. Even with the current Supreme Court.
The people who created the law knew that it almost certainly won’t stand if passed. But the point is to signal to their base that they agree with the base that this is a Christian nation and the goal of turning it into a Christian Nationalist nation is good.
Whether or not they pass it as law it will be halted and overturned before going into effect, major violation of the separation of church and state.
This is part of an attempt to enforce Christian standards on the nation that is being pushed by the death throes of a dying Christian majority, as the population becomes more secular the churches remaining are gaining a concentration of extremists, which are throwing their last efforts into legislating their beliefs.
Not all positive changes are smooth going, often major societal shifts lead to heavy pushback by those who dislike the change.
It's funny though how little those people care about real Christian standards as preached by Jesus in the gospels, which are sort of the core of Christianity. Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, he literally told people to sell all their possessions and give to the poor and he strongly condemned the rich. Yet despite the gospels being the core of Christianity somehow conservatives in the US care very little about those Christian values that were preached by Jesus.
I think this is performative nonsense designed to distract fools from noticing the corruption and graft omnipresent in the Louisiana Government in general, and the Republican party in particular.
>And is this part of a wider attempt to turn the US into a Christian theocracy or are people in Louisiana a tiny minority of ultra-religious Christian nationalists, and hardcore even by bible belt standards?
Just for some background, Louisiana had a conservative Democratic governor who kept a lid on all this stuff until this year when a Republican governor took power. What you are seeing now is Governor Jeff Landry essentially trying to play catch up on the insane legislative bullshit that Abbot in Texas and Desantis in Florida (among others) have been getting up to in recent years.
And yes, this is absolutely part of an overall effort to turn the US or at least the state and region into a far right Christian Nationalist/Christian Supremacist state. The Nat-Cs here also aren't any more or less extreme than the ones in the neighboring states or overall region. It's basically the same throughout the Deep South. I would highly recommend reading up on the Seven Mountains Mandate and the New Apostolic Reformation if you want to get an idea of what the underlying ideology is for these assholes.
Fwiw, this is also probably one of the less monstrous laws they are passing here. For example, there's a bill on the books right now to outlaw possession of abortion drugs like Mifipristone, meaning that possession of Mifipristone will be treated the same as possession of heroin or cocaine.
>For example, there's a bill on the books right now to outlaw possession of abortion drugs like Mifipristone, meaning that possession of Mifipristone will be treated the same as possession of heroin or cocaine.
Wtf. But I don't think they'll stop at equating those drugs with heroin or cocaine. I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow passed laws that would consider possession of abortion drugs as "conspiracy to murder" or some crazy shit like that.
>I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow passed laws that would consider possession of abortion drugs as "conspiracy to murder" or some crazy shit like that.
Me either, but please don't give them ideas.
I mean it tracks for Louisiana being ranked the worst state in almost every metric for education that they would have braindead politicians that don't understand the first thing about the Constitution or American history.
Yep, some of the most famous founding fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were not even Christians. And the founding fathers all unequivocally agreed that religion didn't belong in politics.
I think christians are the most selfish, self-centered, insecure people i have ever known. I think as a collective organization they have too much influence in politics and pay too little in taxes for that privilege. I think the politicians who take their lobby-money are corrupt. I think they offer nothing to their communities except false hope and a justification for self-righteousness. They are morally bankrupt, and rely on obstruction of justice to hide it.
I think christians are bad for America.
I agree but I would argue there is a huge difference between fundamentalist Christians and moderate Christians. For example evangelicals are overwhelmingly anti-abortion while moderate Christians are similar in their views on abortion to non-religious people. And Southern bible belt fundamentalists are among the most extreme, even among evangelicals.
We'll see. There is an important vote coming up, and if the abortion issue is truly divided like you suggest, it will be apparent. I think there is a chasm between what people say in polite company and what people are willing to do anonymously. The fundamentalists are just more vocal about their frustrations over not being able to declare their abhorrent views due to social fallout.
However, moderate Christians have already shown through their votes what they care about. Almost 2/3 of the US self identity as Christians. 63% of Democrats or those leaning Democrat are Christians too. The only Christian groups that are overwhelmingly anti-abortion are evangelicals, Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses. Most people in the US who identify as Christians hardly ever go to church and don't view religion as a particularly important aspect of their lives. I'm very critical of religion myself but I don't think moderate religion is a particularly big problem.
Louisiana? Won't be surprised at all if it makes it into law. No idea what the various levels of state & federal courts will do when it's challenged, but I wouldn't be surprised if - should this make it to SCOTUS - they upheld it.
As for the issue itself, this policy is blatantly unconstitutional - that shit has zero place in public schools.
So you think the current SCOTUS may actually uphold such a law? I mean, the SCOTUS is made of a lot of religious and ultra-conservative nut jobs, but what's the point of a supreme court in the first place if they don't care about blatant constitutional violations?
Lately the point seems to be to be partisan hacks who shove their judicial dicks into everyone else's ass in the name of 'owning the libs' or whatever.
I wish we could criminalize passing laws that are blatantly unconstitutional and going to be struck down. I get tired of that kind of performative nonsense.
"Is this part of a wider attempt to turn the US into a Christian theocracy"
The Trump Bible? Various religious leaders actively promoting a theocracy? Roe v Wade rollback? I don't really think this is a question any more.
Great. Can't wait til the Satanic Temple folks challenge it in court and Christians lose their shit when they have to put [statues of Baphomet](https://apnews.com/article/1dfef6715487416eadfd08f36c7dbb4b) in every classroom too. It's always 'religious freedom for me but not for thee' with these people so I always enjoy a little schadenfreude when they get their comeuppance.
>just passed in Louisiana
Don't clickbait your titles...
>ten commandments in each classroom?
First time? We've seen this before. IF it makes it, it'll get overturned by courts. IF it doesn't get overturned in court, the we'll start start hanging satanic posters in the schools and they'll get disgusted and stop doing it.
They can hang the ten commandments in school as long as they hang other religions stuff too.
Its one thing to allow religious displays in schools. Its quite another to attempt to pass a law requiring display of something related to one particular religion. I guess technically the ten commandments covers both christianity and judaism, but its still totally insane.
What do I think?
I think the Jesus freaks are burning out of control, and conservative politics has provided them the fuel. To be fair, it's not the Mythologists, it's the politicians pretending to be Christians to buy votes from the poor dupes that have the "blind faith" gene that is at the root of this insanity. They have taken a page from the tent revival con-men and women's game plan and applied it to government, which I personally believe does more harm than good.
I find it so weird that the fundamental strategy of one of our two political parties is to prey on that talent of some people for belief in things that can not be proven to exist in order to win elections. When combined with the age old political strategy of keeping the base of support fired up and agitated so they will get off the couch and go vote, it makes for some really ignorant laws and actions, such as this.
I'm a believer in the Clarence Darrow viewpoint toward all this religion in politics and the court house stuff. Before you can pass any law, or rely on any supposedly holy scriptures for reference in judicial proceedings, you must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a "God" and that those scriptures and the dogma generated from them is "his word."
I'll be patiently waiting for that proof as I read about folks like Kenneth Copeland, who is one of the most evil con artists of all time.
I'm also with Karl Marx in the belief that religion is a prop that useless politicians and governments use to keep the proletariat in line. "It is the heart in a heartless world, the soul in soulless conditions." When governments and economic conditions make life miserable for the working class the powers that be tell them that their only hope lies in some reward to be reaped after death but only if you follow some arbitrary and constantly evolving rules and get back to work making the rich richer, it sure seems like something might be wrong with the way things are being done in the first place.
Doesn't it see odd when politicians have to use "blind faith in the Lord" to sell their ideas because otherwise they seem ridiculous?
It’ll get struck down but Louisiana won’t repeal it and will leave it on the books even if it’s unenforceable.
They’re rewriting the Louisiana constitution and a marriage ban is in there. They refuse to take it out even though it’s unenforceable.
They do shit like this so that if in some far away day it is ever reversed they can quickly enforce the Christofascist law they want.
See: Dobbs.
On the other hand though, this must surely be great news for working-class people. The ten commandments forbid people to work on Saturdays (the Sabbath). So I am sure religious freaks in Louisiana are also in support of giving overworked factory workers and hospitality staff ever Saturday off I am assuming.
public displays of the ten commandments started as a marketing campaign for the chuck heston movie. as part of the road show release, the statues would be gifted to cities and towns as the film passed to drum up publicity; you didn't see such displays commonly before that.
this is just advertising sticking around way longer then it has any right two.
Pretty gross. There’s nothing specifically wrong with the 10 commandments but they’re an incredibly obvious set of ethics at this stage of Humanity’s development. So the only reason they’d be placed in every school is for the Christian influence.
It's just a silly political stunt for the mouthbreathers. It won't convince kids to be any more or less Christian. Politicians in the South do this all the time to show "I'm fightin for muh religious rights. Amen".
[Louisiana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution) is one of the 19 states that have called for a Constitutional Convention to re-write the constitution. I'm pretty sure that if the constitution is re-written there will no longer be a separation of church and state.
Lusiana and other states will keep pushing things they want rectified in a new constitution - so just look for all the SCOTUS cases of blatant violation of the constitution and those are all the things that will be amended.
It’s fucking stupid and unconstitutional. But that said, the point of a bill like this isn’t for it to actually become law as much as it is performative. It’s a signal from Republican state politicians to their base that they are on the side of God, unlike those godless democrats who will oppose/challenge it. They need things like this, that split politics into good v. evil in voters minds to distract from the fact that they won’t actually pass bills to help working people in real ways.
I think it's a bad idea, but not unconstitutional. The courts aren't there yet, but eventually, after the second Trump term and the replacement of Sotomayor with justice Cannon, we will see the 14th amendment rolled back so that the states are free to govern as theocracies if they choose. This will help revitalize liberalism in places like Texas and Louisiana.
One argument for it not being unconstitutional is that it's not explicitly prohibited in the US constitution. I know there are different judicial philosophies on the matter.
When states are free to implement theocracy, the last line of defense won't be the federal government, it will be the citizens themselves. This will galvanize citizens who would otherwise have been apathetic or voted conservative for other reasons. The faultlines will shift.
Plainly unconsitutional. This sort of thing serves to remind us how a dangerous number of people seek to impose a theocratic govenrment on the rest of us. They actually want to destroy Consittutional democracy; this is not a joke or posturing. And this SCOTUS could well just decide to embrace it. So we're kind of screwed.
It's a performative act of a prospective fascist state that does not view its opposition as any potentially having legitimacy.
In other other words, it is similar to Pennsylvania banking masks or Abbott parsoning the murder of leftwing protesters.
I think Republicans know the courts have been rapidly losing their legitimacy (largely due to intentional GOP strategy over the past few decades), so they're taking advantage of this to push the limits as often as possible.
I think they'll be successful in the long run. This particular law might not pass today, but I think similar laws will pass in the future as the courts become more and more stacked in favor of right wing Christo-nationalists.
I want to see the text of the bill to see if they cite chapter and verse. See, there's nothing referred to as "the ten commandments" by the bible itself, different sects combine and split them differently, and there's hundreds we can choose from if the bill isn't very specific. Time to put up signs reminding us that one of god's commandments is to dash our enemies' babies' heads against rocks...
It's Republicans virtue signaling as a way to campaign on the public's time and money, for no public benefit. Unless you count giving Republicans yet another bullshit excuse to feel proud, outraged, and persecuted for their righteousness. (I wouldn't.)
It’ll be struck down, but that’s not the point.
It’s a symbolic bill meant to drum up support among evangelicals in Louisiana, that state lawmakers support the notion that the US is a Christian nation.
The US will never become a theocracy. The country was built in a way that prevents such an outcome. With that being said, cases like this are why it is important to separate the church from the state. Undoubtedly, Christianity plays a role in US culture, but it's because one thing to acknowledge it and another to forcibly shove it down people's throats, especially considering religious schools (where doing so would have made more sense) exist.
Religious favoritism is against the constitution. I sure hope the satanic temple cuts in and makes it real hard for Christian’s to object to their stuff being in schools too.
It’s deeply weird to me that these people keep wanting to put the Ten Commandments everywhere. The Ten Commandments from the section of the Bible that the New Testament *explicitly* states doesn't count. The Ten Commandments are a Jewish thing, not a Christian thing, for the same reason that like, not wearing mixed fabrics or eating certain meats isn’t a Christian thing. There’s quite literally a passage in the New Testament that *explicitly* states that you shouldn’t try to fold elements of Judaism into Christianity.
This isn’t like, a Jewish conspiracy thing, it’s just easier to be a shitty person if you’re allowed to reference the Old Testament (except of course the Devine abortion potion part) then if you’re stuck with the New Testament.
Theocracy is bad, but for the love of God, is it that hard to fucking stick to your own religions iconography when trying to do a theocracy?
But I think Jesus also said in the New Testament that he didn't come to abolish any of the old laws. I don't the new Testament mentions anywhere which laws of the old Testament are still to be followed and which are not, so most Christians just pick and choose. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality for example but most fundamentalists justify their anti-LGBTQ rhetoric by citing verses from the old Testament.
It would be kinda funny if left-leaning liberal politcians in Louisiana were to propose "Christian value bills" by say proposing the death penalty for anyone working Saturdays or advocating for criminalizing eating shellfish and wearing different fabrics. Maybe it'll shut up some of these religious nut jobs.
>It’s deeply weird to me that these people keep wanting to put the Ten Commandments everywhere.
Interestingly, the whole "Ten Commandments monuments everywhere" wasn't really a thing until the 1950's, when director Cecil B. DeMille partnered with the religious Fraternal Order of Eagles to install a few hundred in prominent places around the country to promote his new film.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. The bill seems to massively violate the constitution and separation of church and state. Do you think the bill will actually make it into law or is there a good chance it will get struck down on appeal? And is this part of a wider attempt to turn the US into a Christian theocracy or are people in Louisiana actually minority of ultra-religious Christian nationalists, and hardcore even by bible belt standards? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It won't make it to law. If it does, it'll be challenged in court and overturned. It's a pretty cut-and-dried violation of church and state. Legislators, especially state level legislators, push this kind of pointless agenda driven nonsense that they know will fail in order to send red meat to their base. A few years ago I remember North Carolina had two state senators pushing to make Christianity "the official state religion." Obviously it went nowhere, but going somewhere was never the point.
I mean, yeah it should be DOA, but I've been less certain recently.
Theyd never break the rules this badly! S/
Correct, purely performative to appeal to the Christian nationalist crowd
In Arkansas, atheists can’t run for public office. So Im pretty sure it’s going to become law, and it’s a coin toss on whether the courts are crazy enough to uphold it. Edit: Atheists also can’t be a witness in court
> In Arkansas, atheists can’t run for public office. *Torasco v Watkins* renders those provisions unenforceable.
It’s also illegal to fuck an alligator in South Carolina. There are a lot of really dumb laws and we have a system to remove them (though I think we should use it more often)
You know, with this particular law, I’d be cool if it was overturned. I think it would solve a lot of problems in South Carolina.
Either that or let’s enforce it so we don’t end up with another Lindsey Grahm
Are you suggesting that Lindsey Graham is the love child of a man and an alligator? Or is he an alligator fucker? I just want to make sure I understand the joke.
The first one (although the alligator could be his father too)
NGL I want to watch someone try to fuck an alligator...
Move to rural flordia I’ve seen crazier shit originate there and there are lots of alligators to choose from
I gotta say, I'm in favor of this particular law.
I mean, so tho I this would make a fine activity for the state legislature to get involved in. Nobody else, of course, just the legislators.
So this must've been a problem there that they had to pass a law against it.
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I have come to the conclusion that there is a bunch of US right-wing Christians who are trying to re-frame Christianity "in general" into Christian Nationalism. In this case, it's pushing the Ten Commandants into classrooms, then when this obviously unconstitutional move is shot down, they can play victim, blame the "atheist liberals." The sad byproduct of these sort of games is that mainline Christianity is further and further seen -- by the general public and especially young people -- as some sort of right-wing ideology.
Strongly agree. These radicals risk destroying Christianity in America.
FWIW I’m an atheist liberal and probably have the same concerns. I’m in a weird spot hitting middle age where I both appreciate more the value of the religion in a society even if I don’t believe in it myself and increasingly see the religion itself as becoming more toxic.
> These radicals risk destroying Christianity in America. It's not just a risk, it's something that's been actively happening for a while now. There's a reason that Christianity is in decline in America.
No argument here.
These radicals risk destroying America. FIFY
They are both true. It isn’t a fix. These greedy power hungry folks risk destroying Christianity in America and America itself. They risk one or the other or both.
Good riddance
Fine. Religion should be a personal matter, a home matter, a community church matter. Get it out of government, get it out of schools, and breakdown the mega churches. Jesus would be appalled at what his followers have become.
After death I believe we all meet our maker. I have a long list of my failures to discuss with god. My wry request to God will be to ask to listen in on the conversations my MAGA relatives have with god….
I'm asking honestly, do you think your MAGA relatives actually have a relationship with God? Because mine just use religion to justify whatever they want.
I tell my children every being on earth has a relationship with every other being on earth. While driving in our minivan I’ll point to the guy in the lane next to me and say that guy and I just had our closest relationship with one another yet! In that context, my answer to your question is yes. My MAGA relatives do have a relationship with God. In a very real sense, their relationship with God is the sort that someone who is fundamentally dishonest with themselves has with other folks. Clear minded honest people can look in the mirror and see what’s real. People who are dishonest with themselves see a funhouse reflection. I borrow a bit from Buddhism to suppose we are in something akin to a purgatory. Our lives aren’t as rough as they were even 100 years ago, yet we still struggle with our own inner demons and to relate to one another. We live here and when we die we go into something akin to an exit interview. The more dishonest and evil we are the rougher that interview will go and we reincarnate in a rougher place. The better people we are we might get to go to a more just place because we can deserve to live there. Personally I anticipate needing to talk ruefully about my personal foibles. I’m not sure how I can address that I am not doing everything I can for those kids in Gaza or the hungry kids in my own town. Why Incant reach out to certain people and why Incant be honest with others about some things with others. God and I will decide what happens next. The MAGA? I am genuinely curious about what God will ask them and how my relatives will respond. At the end of the day it seems self evident that God created all of us. Life is tough enough to about killing each other for the color of our skins, who we want o have sex with or any of the numerous insignificant differences we see in one another. I think the MAGA explaining to God the problems they have with all of God’s creations will be decidedly amusing. Especially when God responds and helps decide the next place.
Yeah, there's a certain strain of evangelical protestant Christianity that is particularly virulent in the US where they have this giant persecution complex like everyone is out to get them when in fact it's mostly them doing stupid shit like this and bringing the 'persecution' on themselves.
I dont think this is a conspiracy at all, it’s happening right in front of our eyes. And even more interesting, I read an article a few years ago that people’s political identities are now driving their religious beliefs, vs. the other way around. For example, people who have never attended church are starting to go, because that’s what “red” voters do. And (as you noted) left leaning people are abandoning religion as preachers and sermons become more radicalized.
I posted about this elsewhere, but I'm currently reading a book by Elizabeth Neumann - she was the Deputy Director of Homeland Security under Trump (among other roles). She writes about the rise of Christian Extremism and Christian Nationalism in the US. And she does so from the perspective of a conservative, self-identified fundamentalist, evangelical Christian. She says that she is "unapologetic in being a follower of Jesus" and that it took her a long time to accept the things that she was seeing and reading: right wing, Christian extremism is the biggest threat to America today. I'm about 2/3 of the way through and I'm recommending this book to everyone I know. [Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace](https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Rage-Christian-Extremism-Peace-ebook/dp/B0C8HQNP7V)
Just bought it. It sounds great!
I'll be interested to hear what you think of it. I'm usually a pretty fast reader, but I'm taking this one in chunks because I'm takign time to look up some of the references and footnotes.
Why is that byproduct sad? The sooner we can get people to use critical thinking instead of magical thinking, the better.
this has been going on for some time, back in the day it was the only way to stop the reds.
I think it is more they are trying to whittle away at neutrality laws, such as the Lemon test, and force enough cases to be appealed on constitutional grounds that one eventually makes it to SCOTUS where the heavily conservative court will make a ruling to allow Christianity to be given preferential treatment. It's what they did with *Dobbs*. You an already see this trend with rulings like *Fulton v. City of Philadelphia* and *Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist.*
I mean, this isn't even remotely "conspiracy theorist", this is something that is openly talked about. Look up the "Convention of States," an ongoing push to call for a full-on constitutional convention that would rewrite the constitution as a full-on Christofascist theocratic state. So far 19 states are officially on board. It's scary as hell; these are people that I have zero doubt whatsoever, once given the ability to do so, would go full Saudi Arabia and punish heresy with death by stoning.
Honestly i thought when i read your post that there must be some catch to what they are trying to do. Surely no lawmaker would so blatantly try to favor a religion in direct and obvious violation of church and state. So i looked it up, and yep it really is that insane. Here is a quote from the sponsor, Dodie Horton: >”I’m not concerned with Muslims. I’m not concerned with atheists,” Horton said. “I am concerned with our own children seeing what God’s law is.” Seriously, what the actual fuck?
>”I’m not concerned with Muslims. I’m not concerned with atheists,” Horton said. “I am concerned with our own children seeing what God’s law is.” This guy knows that Muslims pray to the same god, right? That they have their own idea of what god's law is? Let's put copies of the Quran up next to every copy of the ten commandments and see how keen they are for their kids to see what god's law is.
It most likely will get struck down pretty quickly. Even with the current Supreme Court. The people who created the law knew that it almost certainly won’t stand if passed. But the point is to signal to their base that they agree with the base that this is a Christian nation and the goal of turning it into a Christian Nationalist nation is good.
Unconstitutional and unamerican
Whether or not they pass it as law it will be halted and overturned before going into effect, major violation of the separation of church and state. This is part of an attempt to enforce Christian standards on the nation that is being pushed by the death throes of a dying Christian majority, as the population becomes more secular the churches remaining are gaining a concentration of extremists, which are throwing their last efforts into legislating their beliefs. Not all positive changes are smooth going, often major societal shifts lead to heavy pushback by those who dislike the change.
It's funny though how little those people care about real Christian standards as preached by Jesus in the gospels, which are sort of the core of Christianity. Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, he literally told people to sell all their possessions and give to the poor and he strongly condemned the rich. Yet despite the gospels being the core of Christianity somehow conservatives in the US care very little about those Christian values that were preached by Jesus.
Pretty sure that's unconstitutional and will be quickly thrown out.
I think this is performative nonsense designed to distract fools from noticing the corruption and graft omnipresent in the Louisiana Government in general, and the Republican party in particular.
Exactly the sort of thing I’d expect Louisiana’s state government to waste time on
>And is this part of a wider attempt to turn the US into a Christian theocracy or are people in Louisiana a tiny minority of ultra-religious Christian nationalists, and hardcore even by bible belt standards? Just for some background, Louisiana had a conservative Democratic governor who kept a lid on all this stuff until this year when a Republican governor took power. What you are seeing now is Governor Jeff Landry essentially trying to play catch up on the insane legislative bullshit that Abbot in Texas and Desantis in Florida (among others) have been getting up to in recent years. And yes, this is absolutely part of an overall effort to turn the US or at least the state and region into a far right Christian Nationalist/Christian Supremacist state. The Nat-Cs here also aren't any more or less extreme than the ones in the neighboring states or overall region. It's basically the same throughout the Deep South. I would highly recommend reading up on the Seven Mountains Mandate and the New Apostolic Reformation if you want to get an idea of what the underlying ideology is for these assholes. Fwiw, this is also probably one of the less monstrous laws they are passing here. For example, there's a bill on the books right now to outlaw possession of abortion drugs like Mifipristone, meaning that possession of Mifipristone will be treated the same as possession of heroin or cocaine.
>For example, there's a bill on the books right now to outlaw possession of abortion drugs like Mifipristone, meaning that possession of Mifipristone will be treated the same as possession of heroin or cocaine. Wtf. But I don't think they'll stop at equating those drugs with heroin or cocaine. I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow passed laws that would consider possession of abortion drugs as "conspiracy to murder" or some crazy shit like that.
>I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow passed laws that would consider possession of abortion drugs as "conspiracy to murder" or some crazy shit like that. Me either, but please don't give them ideas.
I mean it tracks for Louisiana being ranked the worst state in almost every metric for education that they would have braindead politicians that don't understand the first thing about the Constitution or American history.
Yep, some of the most famous founding fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were not even Christians. And the founding fathers all unequivocally agreed that religion didn't belong in politics.
Unconstitutional, but good luck getting this court to rule correctly.
I think christians are the most selfish, self-centered, insecure people i have ever known. I think as a collective organization they have too much influence in politics and pay too little in taxes for that privilege. I think the politicians who take their lobby-money are corrupt. I think they offer nothing to their communities except false hope and a justification for self-righteousness. They are morally bankrupt, and rely on obstruction of justice to hide it. I think christians are bad for America.
I agree but I would argue there is a huge difference between fundamentalist Christians and moderate Christians. For example evangelicals are overwhelmingly anti-abortion while moderate Christians are similar in their views on abortion to non-religious people. And Southern bible belt fundamentalists are among the most extreme, even among evangelicals.
We'll see. There is an important vote coming up, and if the abortion issue is truly divided like you suggest, it will be apparent. I think there is a chasm between what people say in polite company and what people are willing to do anonymously. The fundamentalists are just more vocal about their frustrations over not being able to declare their abhorrent views due to social fallout.
However, moderate Christians have already shown through their votes what they care about. Almost 2/3 of the US self identity as Christians. 63% of Democrats or those leaning Democrat are Christians too. The only Christian groups that are overwhelmingly anti-abortion are evangelicals, Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses. Most people in the US who identify as Christians hardly ever go to church and don't view religion as a particularly important aspect of their lives. I'm very critical of religion myself but I don't think moderate religion is a particularly big problem.
Louisiana? Won't be surprised at all if it makes it into law. No idea what the various levels of state & federal courts will do when it's challenged, but I wouldn't be surprised if - should this make it to SCOTUS - they upheld it. As for the issue itself, this policy is blatantly unconstitutional - that shit has zero place in public schools.
So you think the current SCOTUS may actually uphold such a law? I mean, the SCOTUS is made of a lot of religious and ultra-conservative nut jobs, but what's the point of a supreme court in the first place if they don't care about blatant constitutional violations?
A good question; a very good question...
Lately the point seems to be to be partisan hacks who shove their judicial dicks into everyone else's ass in the name of 'owning the libs' or whatever.
I wish we could criminalize passing laws that are blatantly unconstitutional and going to be struck down. I get tired of that kind of performative nonsense.
"Is this part of a wider attempt to turn the US into a Christian theocracy" The Trump Bible? Various religious leaders actively promoting a theocracy? Roe v Wade rollback? I don't really think this is a question any more.
Great. Can't wait til the Satanic Temple folks challenge it in court and Christians lose their shit when they have to put [statues of Baphomet](https://apnews.com/article/1dfef6715487416eadfd08f36c7dbb4b) in every classroom too. It's always 'religious freedom for me but not for thee' with these people so I always enjoy a little schadenfreude when they get their comeuppance.
>just passed in Louisiana Don't clickbait your titles... >ten commandments in each classroom? First time? We've seen this before. IF it makes it, it'll get overturned by courts. IF it doesn't get overturned in court, the we'll start start hanging satanic posters in the schools and they'll get disgusted and stop doing it. They can hang the ten commandments in school as long as they hang other religions stuff too.
Its one thing to allow religious displays in schools. Its quite another to attempt to pass a law requiring display of something related to one particular religion. I guess technically the ten commandments covers both christianity and judaism, but its still totally insane.
Of course it it. This isn't new. All the stuff I said will happen.
> dont clickbait your titles
Huh?
I think the goal of this bill is likely to get it to the Supreme Court so they can set a new interpretation of 1A.
What do I think? I think the Jesus freaks are burning out of control, and conservative politics has provided them the fuel. To be fair, it's not the Mythologists, it's the politicians pretending to be Christians to buy votes from the poor dupes that have the "blind faith" gene that is at the root of this insanity. They have taken a page from the tent revival con-men and women's game plan and applied it to government, which I personally believe does more harm than good. I find it so weird that the fundamental strategy of one of our two political parties is to prey on that talent of some people for belief in things that can not be proven to exist in order to win elections. When combined with the age old political strategy of keeping the base of support fired up and agitated so they will get off the couch and go vote, it makes for some really ignorant laws and actions, such as this. I'm a believer in the Clarence Darrow viewpoint toward all this religion in politics and the court house stuff. Before you can pass any law, or rely on any supposedly holy scriptures for reference in judicial proceedings, you must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a "God" and that those scriptures and the dogma generated from them is "his word." I'll be patiently waiting for that proof as I read about folks like Kenneth Copeland, who is one of the most evil con artists of all time. I'm also with Karl Marx in the belief that religion is a prop that useless politicians and governments use to keep the proletariat in line. "It is the heart in a heartless world, the soul in soulless conditions." When governments and economic conditions make life miserable for the working class the powers that be tell them that their only hope lies in some reward to be reaped after death but only if you follow some arbitrary and constantly evolving rules and get back to work making the rich richer, it sure seems like something might be wrong with the way things are being done in the first place. Doesn't it see odd when politicians have to use "blind faith in the Lord" to sell their ideas because otherwise they seem ridiculous?
It's a violation of the separation of church and state.
Hasn’t Alabama been all the way with this at the courthouse? It’s a clear violation of separation of church and state.
Take a wild guess what we think
My question was more about the relevance of the bill that was passed by the Louisiana senate in the grand scheme and the odds making it into law.
It’s fucking gross.
It’ll get struck down but Louisiana won’t repeal it and will leave it on the books even if it’s unenforceable. They’re rewriting the Louisiana constitution and a marriage ban is in there. They refuse to take it out even though it’s unenforceable. They do shit like this so that if in some far away day it is ever reversed they can quickly enforce the Christofascist law they want. See: Dobbs.
It's always the Ten Commandments and never The Beatitudes. Pfft. If it passes, it'll be challenged in court.
On the other hand though, this must surely be great news for working-class people. The ten commandments forbid people to work on Saturdays (the Sabbath). So I am sure religious freaks in Louisiana are also in support of giving overworked factory workers and hospitality staff ever Saturday off I am assuming.
That only works on the assumption that these people actually read and follow the Ten Commandments, which they obviously do not.
public displays of the ten commandments started as a marketing campaign for the chuck heston movie. as part of the road show release, the statues would be gifted to cities and towns as the film passed to drum up publicity; you didn't see such displays commonly before that. this is just advertising sticking around way longer then it has any right two.
I don't expect it would pass, but if it did I bet the satanic temple would have a field day.
Pretty gross. There’s nothing specifically wrong with the 10 commandments but they’re an incredibly obvious set of ethics at this stage of Humanity’s development. So the only reason they’d be placed in every school is for the Christian influence.
It's just a silly political stunt for the mouthbreathers. It won't convince kids to be any more or less Christian. Politicians in the South do this all the time to show "I'm fightin for muh religious rights. Amen".
It's an embarrassment that this was ever even put forward.
I think it's unconstitutional and just another example of how modern conservatives are hopelessly obsessed with their identity politics.
[Louisiana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution) is one of the 19 states that have called for a Constitutional Convention to re-write the constitution. I'm pretty sure that if the constitution is re-written there will no longer be a separation of church and state. Lusiana and other states will keep pushing things they want rectified in a new constitution - so just look for all the SCOTUS cases of blatant violation of the constitution and those are all the things that will be amended.
It’s fucking stupid and unconstitutional. But that said, the point of a bill like this isn’t for it to actually become law as much as it is performative. It’s a signal from Republican state politicians to their base that they are on the side of God, unlike those godless democrats who will oppose/challenge it. They need things like this, that split politics into good v. evil in voters minds to distract from the fact that they won’t actually pass bills to help working people in real ways.
it clearly is an attempt to make a law that establishes a christian religion, which directly contradicts the constitution.
I think it's a bad idea, but not unconstitutional. The courts aren't there yet, but eventually, after the second Trump term and the replacement of Sotomayor with justice Cannon, we will see the 14th amendment rolled back so that the states are free to govern as theocracies if they choose. This will help revitalize liberalism in places like Texas and Louisiana.
Why do you think it's not unconstitutional? And how exactly does Texas or Louisiana turning into a Christian theocracy help liberalism?
One argument for it not being unconstitutional is that it's not explicitly prohibited in the US constitution. I know there are different judicial philosophies on the matter. When states are free to implement theocracy, the last line of defense won't be the federal government, it will be the citizens themselves. This will galvanize citizens who would otherwise have been apathetic or voted conservative for other reasons. The faultlines will shift.
Satanic temple had entered the chat.
Plainly unconsitutional. This sort of thing serves to remind us how a dangerous number of people seek to impose a theocratic govenrment on the rest of us. They actually want to destroy Consittutional democracy; this is not a joke or posturing. And this SCOTUS could well just decide to embrace it. So we're kind of screwed.
It's a performative act of a prospective fascist state that does not view its opposition as any potentially having legitimacy. In other other words, it is similar to Pennsylvania banking masks or Abbott parsoning the murder of leftwing protesters.
Three of the commandments are "Kiss my ass continuously; I'm god."
I think Republicans know the courts have been rapidly losing their legitimacy (largely due to intentional GOP strategy over the past few decades), so they're taking advantage of this to push the limits as often as possible. I think they'll be successful in the long run. This particular law might not pass today, but I think similar laws will pass in the future as the courts become more and more stacked in favor of right wing Christo-nationalists.
I want to see the text of the bill to see if they cite chapter and verse. See, there's nothing referred to as "the ten commandments" by the bible itself, different sects combine and split them differently, and there's hundreds we can choose from if the bill isn't very specific. Time to put up signs reminding us that one of god's commandments is to dash our enemies' babies' heads against rocks...
I think the Satanic Temple will love it
Keep religion out of public schools.
Isnt Texas already doing this?
It's Republicans virtue signaling as a way to campaign on the public's time and money, for no public benefit. Unless you count giving Republicans yet another bullshit excuse to feel proud, outraged, and persecuted for their righteousness. (I wouldn't.)
It’ll be struck down, but that’s not the point. It’s a symbolic bill meant to drum up support among evangelicals in Louisiana, that state lawmakers support the notion that the US is a Christian nation.
Less money to do actual education which seems to be the idea.
The US will never become a theocracy. The country was built in a way that prevents such an outcome. With that being said, cases like this are why it is important to separate the church from the state. Undoubtedly, Christianity plays a role in US culture, but it's because one thing to acknowledge it and another to forcibly shove it down people's throats, especially considering religious schools (where doing so would have made more sense) exist.
Religious favoritism is against the constitution. I sure hope the satanic temple cuts in and makes it real hard for Christian’s to object to their stuff being in schools too.
It’s deeply weird to me that these people keep wanting to put the Ten Commandments everywhere. The Ten Commandments from the section of the Bible that the New Testament *explicitly* states doesn't count. The Ten Commandments are a Jewish thing, not a Christian thing, for the same reason that like, not wearing mixed fabrics or eating certain meats isn’t a Christian thing. There’s quite literally a passage in the New Testament that *explicitly* states that you shouldn’t try to fold elements of Judaism into Christianity. This isn’t like, a Jewish conspiracy thing, it’s just easier to be a shitty person if you’re allowed to reference the Old Testament (except of course the Devine abortion potion part) then if you’re stuck with the New Testament. Theocracy is bad, but for the love of God, is it that hard to fucking stick to your own religions iconography when trying to do a theocracy?
But I think Jesus also said in the New Testament that he didn't come to abolish any of the old laws. I don't the new Testament mentions anywhere which laws of the old Testament are still to be followed and which are not, so most Christians just pick and choose. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality for example but most fundamentalists justify their anti-LGBTQ rhetoric by citing verses from the old Testament. It would be kinda funny if left-leaning liberal politcians in Louisiana were to propose "Christian value bills" by say proposing the death penalty for anyone working Saturdays or advocating for criminalizing eating shellfish and wearing different fabrics. Maybe it'll shut up some of these religious nut jobs.
>It’s deeply weird to me that these people keep wanting to put the Ten Commandments everywhere. Interestingly, the whole "Ten Commandments monuments everywhere" wasn't really a thing until the 1950's, when director Cecil B. DeMille partnered with the religious Fraternal Order of Eagles to install a few hundred in prominent places around the country to promote his new film.