Democrats, religious or not seem to be the ones closest to Jesus teachings

[egbertowillies]

This morning I had writer's block until I read my friend's Facebook post. Even as the tenets of the Republican platform is anathema to the teachings of Jesus, why do we allow many of them to wrap themselves in the Bible? I am not a Christian or religious (I am a Humanist). But Cody Pogue's message spoke to me.

https://egbertowillies.com/2017/04/14/democrats-religious-not-seem-ones-closest-jesus-teachings/

[democratisphere]

1. Democrats, liberals, etc. are generally concerned about the greater good of ALL.

redumbliCONs, conservatives, etc. are generally most concerned with me, myself and I.
It is difficult to change these core beliefs.

[Igel]

6. I've been around both a lot.

That's what they both say.

The *perception" is that the other is only concerned about them and theirs is an evergreen trope, reinforced by having this perception be standard and so everybody on a side echoes the same self-reinforcing generalization.

Take a USC study. They got a bunch of RW and LW people and asked them about themselves, people in their group, and their political opposites.

They found that liberals were much more likely to be sure they understood conservative motivations for conservative behavior than conservatives were about other conservatives. The reasons given were at odds with what conservatives gave for their own motivation. In other words, liberals were confident they understood and could judge conservatives more than conservatives felt they could understand and judge each other. And they were a lot more judgmental than conservatives were of liberals.

(Going back to the OP, I don't find that to be Christ-like.)

Even better, check out some of the studies done on value structure and inventories for different people in well-defined political groups. It's an eye opener. Some groups have values in their inventory lacking in other groups', and sometimes they're high-ranking values. Let's say Group A is the group with the larger inventory; Group Z has the smaller inventory. If Group A does something because of one of those additional values' being highly ranked, Group Z has no hook into understanding. They'll interpret the actions in what would be called ethnocentric if the values gap coincided with an ethnic boundary, but there's no chance they'll get it right because they can't. You see behavior, you think you know why it's happening, but the real reason isn't perceptible to you. Now, this kind of blindered interpretation isn't reasonable. Unless, of course, we want to say that there's one absolutely moral set of values and no other value should be admitted to this elite class, and we have that One True Set. Then we piss on multiculturalism, which, in any event, is reserved for those who we don't want to think are outside our community but we still think of as inside our community.

Sociology and group dynamics are really complex. But the biggest mistake we all make is assuming that now (R) are somehow alien to us, then assuming that (R) because they're like us have to have the same values and if they don't they're evil. They have a say in their values and where the boundaries are drawn. They also, I draw as a very weak inference, seem to be more aware of this on average.

Oddly, the most common values set held by self-designated liberals in those studies is a proper subset of those most commonly held by conservatives.

Now, I think most of these studies are weak. They suffer from the usual problems with survey-based studies and fairly small sample sizes. However, they seem to account for a lot of data that isn't otherwise accounted for, and do so in principled ways with some predictive ability. The alternative is, "Meh, my opinion is as good a fact as any other observable fact."

[Voltaire2]

2. There was no Jesus inspired non violent revolution.

Both sides view Christian beliefs through their own ideological lenses and proclaim themselves the true Christians.

Perhaps we should move beyond the tired myths of ancient religions?

[doc03]

3. You are right every Republican I know worries about

what other people are doing or getting.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. I personally agree, but there's different interpretations out there.

Republicans tend to be authoritarian in their interpretation.

View of God can predict values, politics
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-09-11-religion-survey_x.htm

The four categories

Highlights of Baylor's analysis:

• The Authoritarian God (31.4% of Americans overall, 43.3% in the South) is angry at humanity's sins and engaged in every creature's life and world affairs. He is ready to throw the thunderbolt of judgment down on "the unfaithful or ungodly," Bader says.

Those who envision God this way "religiously and politically conservative people, more often black Protestants and white evangelicals," Bader says.

&quot They) want an active, Christian-values-based government with federal funding for faith-based social services and prayer in the schools."

They're also the most inclined to say God favors the USA in world affairs (32.1% vs. 18.6% overall).

•The Benevolent God (23% overall, 28.7% in the Midwest) still sets absolute standards for mankind in the Bible. More than half (54.8%) want the government to advocate Christian values.

But this group, which draws more from mainline Protestants, Catholics and Jews, sees primarily a forgiving God, more like the father who embraces his repentant prodigal son in the Bible, Froese says.

They're inclined (68.1%) to say caring for the sick and needy ranks highest on the list of what it means to be a good person.

This is the group in which the Rev. Jeremy Johnston, executive pastor and communications director for his father's 5,000-member Southern Baptist congregation in Overland Park, Kan., places himself.

"God is in control of everything. He's grieved by the sin of the world, by any created person who doesn't follow him. But I see (a) God ... who loves us, who sees us for who we really are. We serve a God of the second, third, fourth and fifth chance," Johnston says.

•The Critical God (16% overall, 21.3% in the East) has his judgmental eye on the world, but he's not going to intervene, either to punish or to comfort.

"This group is more paradoxical," Bader says. "They have very traditional beliefs, picturing God as the classic bearded old man on high. Yet they're less inclined to go to church or affiliate seriously with religious groups. They are less inclined to see God as active in the world. Their politics are definitely not liberal, but they're not quite conservative, either."

Those who picture a critical God are significantly less likely to draw absolute moral lines on hot-button issues such as abortion, gay marriage or embryonic stem cell research.

For example, 57% overall say gay marriage is always wrong compared with 80.6% for those who see an authoritarian God, and 65.8% for those who see God as benevolent. For those who believe in a critical God, it was 54.7%.

•The Distant God (24.4% overall, 30.3% in the West) is "no bearded old man in the sky raining down his opinions on us," Bader says. Followers of this God see a cosmic force that launched the world, then left it spinning on its own.

This has strongest appeal for Catholics, mainline Protestants and Jews. It's also strong among "moral relativists," those least likely to say any moral choice is always wrong, and among those who don't attend church, Bader says.

Only 3.8% of this group say embryonic stem cell research is always wrong, compared with 38.5% of those who see an authoritarian God, 22.7% for those who see God as benevolent and 13.2% who see God as critical but disengaged.

'God is the universe'

"I still believe in God," says Joanne Meehl, 56, of Barre, Mass., who wrote a book in the mid-'90s called Recovering Catholics. "But to me God is the universe, not as small as a 'He' or a 'She' but bigger than all of that." Humanity is on its own, she says. "People who do wrong are punished in this world, not in the next. This world is it."

Some might question whether a survey by Baptist-affiliated Baylor has a conservative Protestant tilt. For example, there's no mention of communion or saints — central to Catholic believers. Also, questions often used "church," with no mention of synagogues or mosques. But Baylor researchers say their testing finds people view the word as generic for "house of worship."

"This work was done by well-respected sociologists of religion," Green says. "Baylor is becoming a leading evangelical university in the same way Notre Dame is a leading Catholic university, by doing first-rate objective social science."

Rodney Stark, former president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and part of the Baylor team, says: "We wanted to break from the past 30 years of narrow questions. " 'Do you believe in God?' Everyone says yes.

"If you ask 'Are you a Protestant, Catholic or Jew?' people don't even know what denomination they are today or what the label means."

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. Also, some of them seem to really believe...

... that the USA can only attribute any success to God, the result of God's favored view of THEM.

God favors their white culture too, in their minds.

There were evangelicals in the South who justified slavery along similar lines. It was like a way of absolving their own behavior! "It's this way because God wants it this way."

I saw Cool Hand Luke awhile back, and the scenes where the prison guards were cruelly abusing Luke reminded me of it. One of the guards attributed Luke's situation to him questioning the existence of God!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

7. More...

When I try to imagine perceiving the USA and world this way, I feel like I understand those people a little better. (Not that it makes me LIKE them!)

Even something as good as civil rights could be viewed as a threat to the country because it might be going against God's wishes, ultimately resulting in a worse situation for everyone.

[Runningdawg]

8. Dad was a Christian Democrat,

a strict Southern Baptist, yet he voted for things the church was against. As messed up as the religion was when I was being raised in it, it's nothing compared to today. If someone would have walked into our church with a gun on his hip he would have been asked to leave it in the car, not give a TED talk on the proper way to kill liberals. Christianity has become unrecognizable compared to 40 years ago.