What’s even weirder is being raised by Christians, taught to hate the blacks and mistrust the Jews (using the usual inappropriate slurs at every opportunity), never going to church outside of a few Easters, and growing up slowly learning that your parents were full of shit and they never actually read the book they said was so super important.
I’ve never understood things like pervasive distrust of Jews, but blanket approval of all things done by Israel because Jewish people are “God’s chosen people.” It’s so much mental gymnastics to selectively justify hating Muslims and any Jew living in a large city, and completely ignores the point of the NT, which was to not make the religion tied to blood lines.
It makes sense if you don’t think of it from the viewpoint of principles and ideals.
Antisemites are in general all for zionism. Antisemitic Brits were the ones who made Israel possible in the first place, and even the Nazis supported the creation of Israel. Because it’s not about the Jews having their own country where they can (supposedly) live in peace, safety and freedom, but it’s about Jews moving far, far away.
And with Israel being a western “outpost” pretty much in the centre of the Muslim world, there’s a secondary effect: If Israel and the Muslim countries around it are fighting, that hurts Muslims without causing too much trouble for people living e.g. in the USA.
(These are obviously not my views. I’m just trying to explain why many antisemites are pro Israel.)
It’s tied into revelations (which these people tend to revere more than any other part of the Bible). There’s some bullshit about all the Jews returning to Israel being the start of the end of the world so that everybody can go straight to heaven do not pass GO do not collect $200. So they don’t actually care about the Jews of Israel they just want to go straight to heaven so they want all the Jews to “go home”.
Israel is integral to their eschatology. They can’t have Armageddon without certain conditions being met. Supporting Israel is intended to facilitate the the creation of those conditions.
If they identified as Christian but never read the book or rarely go to church, what connection do they have to the religion and why do you feel they wished to impart it on you?
Hierarchy. The invisible sky wizard makes the rules, and if we don’t follow them we burn. And so on down the line, priests, pastors, presidents (unless they’re black, hoo boy did that send them over the edge), police, parents. Do as you’re told. Do not question authority. It’s practical preparation for school and the workforce at least.
Meanwhile, all of my birthday parties were keggers because the weather was nice and the adults liked to party. And I was at most 4 years old when I learned that I shouldn’t touch the small squares of mirror. Or the plastic film canisters.
There’s nothing quite like the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. Overflowing ash trays and last night’s beer cans when you’re trying to eat breakfast comes close though.
Funnily, you see similar things with e.g. Americans who lived for generations in America, but still identify as Irish, German and so on.
My wife’s late grandma had a daughter who moved from Germany to the USA at age 18. Her children never lived in Germany. Some of them have learned a bit of very rudimentary German. None of their children (the cousins of my wife) learned German in any meaningful way and they maybe visited Germany once or twice as children. One of these cousins (the second generation born in the USA) now had a kid (third generation born in the USA) and they called their kid “Schaefer” to “honour their German heritage”.
“Schaefer” is a misspelling of the word “Schäfer”, which means “shepherd” and is, if anything, exclusively used as a last name in German (German countries are quite strict about what’s a first name and what’s not). There’s actually a registry of first names that were given to children in Germany, and the name “Schaefer” doesn’t occur once over the last 80 or so years that this registry covers.
So they identify as “German”, even though they never had any meaningful contact with the country and couldn’t even be bothered to google whether the name they chose to “honour their German legacy” was actually a German first name.
TLDR: People identify as all sorts of garbage, because it makes them feel cool or makes them feel part of something, even if they have no clue about or interest in what they identify with.
What’s even weirder is being raised by Christians, taught to hate the blacks and mistrust the Jews (using the usual inappropriate slurs at every opportunity), never going to church outside of a few Easters, and growing up slowly learning that your parents were full of shit and they never actually read the book they said was so super important.
I’ve never understood things like pervasive distrust of Jews, but blanket approval of all things done by Israel because Jewish people are “God’s chosen people.” It’s so much mental gymnastics to selectively justify hating Muslims and any Jew living in a large city, and completely ignores the point of the NT, which was to not make the religion tied to blood lines.
It makes sense if you don’t think of it from the viewpoint of principles and ideals.
Antisemites are in general all for zionism. Antisemitic Brits were the ones who made Israel possible in the first place, and even the Nazis supported the creation of Israel. Because it’s not about the Jews having their own country where they can (supposedly) live in peace, safety and freedom, but it’s about Jews moving far, far away.
And with Israel being a western “outpost” pretty much in the centre of the Muslim world, there’s a secondary effect: If Israel and the Muslim countries around it are fighting, that hurts Muslims without causing too much trouble for people living e.g. in the USA.
(These are obviously not my views. I’m just trying to explain why many antisemites are pro Israel.)
It’s tied into revelations (which these people tend to revere more than any other part of the Bible). There’s some bullshit about all the Jews returning to Israel being the start of the end of the world so that everybody can go straight to heaven do not pass GO do not collect $200. So they don’t actually care about the Jews of Israel they just want to go straight to heaven so they want all the Jews to “go home”.
Israel is integral to their eschatology. They can’t have Armageddon without certain conditions being met. Supporting Israel is intended to facilitate the the creation of those conditions.
Thanks for reminding me of every Thanksgiving since 1996.
If they identified as Christian but never read the book or rarely go to church, what connection do they have to the religion and why do you feel they wished to impart it on you?
Hierarchy. The invisible sky wizard makes the rules, and if we don’t follow them we burn. And so on down the line, priests, pastors, presidents (unless they’re black, hoo boy did that send them over the edge), police, parents. Do as you’re told. Do not question authority. It’s practical preparation for school and the workforce at least.
Meanwhile, all of my birthday parties were keggers because the weather was nice and the adults liked to party. And I was at most 4 years old when I learned that I shouldn’t touch the small squares of mirror. Or the plastic film canisters.
There’s nothing quite like the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. Overflowing ash trays and last night’s beer cans when you’re trying to eat breakfast comes close though.
Wisconsin?
Funnily, you see similar things with e.g. Americans who lived for generations in America, but still identify as Irish, German and so on.
My wife’s late grandma had a daughter who moved from Germany to the USA at age 18. Her children never lived in Germany. Some of them have learned a bit of very rudimentary German. None of their children (the cousins of my wife) learned German in any meaningful way and they maybe visited Germany once or twice as children. One of these cousins (the second generation born in the USA) now had a kid (third generation born in the USA) and they called their kid “Schaefer” to “honour their German heritage”.
“Schaefer” is a misspelling of the word “Schäfer”, which means “shepherd” and is, if anything, exclusively used as a last name in German (German countries are quite strict about what’s a first name and what’s not). There’s actually a registry of first names that were given to children in Germany, and the name “Schaefer” doesn’t occur once over the last 80 or so years that this registry covers.
So they identify as “German”, even though they never had any meaningful contact with the country and couldn’t even be bothered to google whether the name they chose to “honour their German legacy” was actually a German first name.
TLDR: People identify as all sorts of garbage, because it makes them feel cool or makes them feel part of something, even if they have no clue about or interest in what they identify with.