The last thing this country suffers from is a lack of religion. Christian apologists always see their religion as the solution to almost every problem, and yet it's hard to identify a single occasion when it ever has been. The more religious a society, the more intolerant, backward looking, and stagnant it becomes. Magical thinking never solved a single real-world problem.
Sorry, this is a long one, hopefully you’ll get something out of it.
There’s a parable about a monk who comes to a river and finds a drowning man. The monk pulls him from the river only to find another drowning man. The monk saves him and stays at the river to pull these people out, saving who he can and burying who he cannot save. When his leader comes to see how the monk is doing he suggested that the monk wasn’t using his time and energy properly , though he was compassionate. He suggests to the monk that he ought to have gone upstream to find out why there were so many people being washed away by the river and address the problem at its root.
Most folks think that this means that we should be dealing with mental health issues and kids who feel left out in regards to gun violence. And then the anti-gun control folks make excuses not to address those problems either. They also ignore that we can find folks who are willing to be violent and take their guns, domestic abuse is a huge red flag that we cannot acknowledge because taking their guns away would mean our police force would be decimated.
To go back to the parable and add my take, the monks walk upriver to find a group of folks taking away the safety rails, tearing out the bridges, and encouraging passersby to jump into the river, claiming it is their unequivocal right to do so and that everything wrong in their life will be better if they do. So the monks try to stop the group from sending these people to the river. Added my safety rails and safer bridges and finding better (real) solutions to people’s problems. But the group (who are politicians) beat them up, call them names, dehumanize them, tell everyone the monks are trying to destroy their river way of life. So the people start fighting the monks. All the while many many people go into the river, with no monk down the way to pull them out and refusing any help they might come across as a conspiracy to keep them from their river way of life despite actively drowning. Nothing gets done, no one gets saved, too many folks drown, and the group of politicians get rich from the corporations no one realized was paying them to shove people into the river for financial reasons (I don’t know why a corporation or lobby group would make money off people drowning in a river, but it doesn’t make sense that the NRA enables mass shootings and suicides and children accidentally shooting their siblings and parents).
The thing is, we need to keep saving people from the river, address the safety issues on the river and provide help to folks who feel like their only option is jumping in. Stop making it easy for folks to obtain guns, restricting law abiding folks will help keep the guns out of the criminal hands - many times the ease in purchasing guns allows criminals to get them without raising the red flags needed to stop the crimes. And most of the mass shooters would not raise a red flag as they are not yet criminals, but putting obstacles in their way could avert a tragedy. And as I mentioned above, there are a lot of folks who still qualify for guns that aren’t so law abiding, but being privileged lowers the like likelihood that they trigger a red flag. Gun control is like putting safety rails on the river. Mental health care and social safety nets can address the motivations for the violence, but that solution would entail totally revamping our healthcare system and probably making it single payer, which is socialism (really just a dog whistle for folks who are racist and don’t want people of color to get their basic human needs met). That’s building the bridges. Voting the GOP and bought and paid for democrats out of office will eliminate the group from talking folks into jumping in the river. Holding the NRA accountable for their immorality will help as well.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The Constitution demands that we well regulate our militias, even our militias-of-one.
Pretty neat little racket American Christians have figured out. They can make money all the way around the circuit- they sell the guns, they sell the hate that drives people to use the guns, then they sell the lies about the people who used the guns, to breed more hate against the victims of the people who used the guns, to get more people to buy more guns, and all the while they can also sell funeral services to the families of the victims of the people who used the guns!
Yeah, funny thing, that. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if believers like Burchett hear what they're saying or have the slightest idea of how it sounds to someone outside of their bubble. Oh, and as to that whole "freedom" thing, I'd refer him to the fictional newsman Will McAvoy and what he had to say on the topic in S1E1 of 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑒𝑤𝑠𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑚 (not that Burchett would listen). All this shows me is that the ONLY answer people like him have to mass shootings and the other issues that beset the US is more Jebus.
Anyone who wants to fire a 3-D printed gun, please give me a bit of notice so I can stand well back. It may well be that in the future guns will be printed commercially, but unless things have changed in the last few years, they are just a bit unreliable.
Anyway, how many of these shooters are Christians? It's a question that usually gets shoved behind race or ethnic group, but a perfectly valid one. Of course – by definition they won't be "true"™ Christians. Because they've done something wrong.
Perhaps we need to take a page from the Republican's book and push back in kind. The US is among the most Christian nations in the world but not as Christian as many South American countries. The US is also not the country with the most deaths by firearms. We often hear about how the US is more Christian and more violent than other 'first world' nations. While that may be true, it is worth a closer look into the other nations that are more Christian AND more violent. (Maybe not just Christianity too since bringing Middle Eastern and African countries into the mix may just prove the overall point.) But to push back against the idiots exclaiming we need more Jesus to make our violence go down we need to specifically point out that many of the more violent countries are actually MORE Christian. Look at South and Central America for countries with a higher rate of gun violence than the US. Most of them have Christianity rates of over 80 percent.
Every time they say there is a correlation between a lack of Jesus and gun deaths, we need to push back and say "no, there is a correlation between MORE Jesus and gun deaths". WE know correlation does not necessarily equal causation but those who lack basic logic skills clearly do not.
Back many years ago when I was still a Christian, I used to wonder how so many Christians reconciled their gun ownership with their alleged faith. Part of me misses that level of innocence in a way, but then reality steps in and reminds me that the majority of Christians never read their scripture so they don't actually have to reconcile anything at all.
It's going to be a long day with a lot of idiocy, I can tell already. Good luck to all of us.
Ah, yes, Freedumb, the most important thing the US produces. My libertarian brother in law refuses to even consider that it might mean anything other than him getting to do what he wants, sounds like he'd get along great with this other idiot. Maybe I can mail him to DC.
Burchett claims mass shootings are due to a lack of Christianity. Would he care to explain the mass shooting that occurred at Oikos University, a Christian College in Oakland, California. A shooting that left 7 dead and 3 wounded and whose perp was a former student (read: Christian).
The last thing this country suffers from is a lack of religion. Christian apologists always see their religion as the solution to almost every problem, and yet it's hard to identify a single occasion when it ever has been. The more religious a society, the more intolerant, backward looking, and stagnant it becomes. Magical thinking never solved a single real-world problem.
Sorry, this is a long one, hopefully you’ll get something out of it.
There’s a parable about a monk who comes to a river and finds a drowning man. The monk pulls him from the river only to find another drowning man. The monk saves him and stays at the river to pull these people out, saving who he can and burying who he cannot save. When his leader comes to see how the monk is doing he suggested that the monk wasn’t using his time and energy properly , though he was compassionate. He suggests to the monk that he ought to have gone upstream to find out why there were so many people being washed away by the river and address the problem at its root.
Most folks think that this means that we should be dealing with mental health issues and kids who feel left out in regards to gun violence. And then the anti-gun control folks make excuses not to address those problems either. They also ignore that we can find folks who are willing to be violent and take their guns, domestic abuse is a huge red flag that we cannot acknowledge because taking their guns away would mean our police force would be decimated.
To go back to the parable and add my take, the monks walk upriver to find a group of folks taking away the safety rails, tearing out the bridges, and encouraging passersby to jump into the river, claiming it is their unequivocal right to do so and that everything wrong in their life will be better if they do. So the monks try to stop the group from sending these people to the river. Added my safety rails and safer bridges and finding better (real) solutions to people’s problems. But the group (who are politicians) beat them up, call them names, dehumanize them, tell everyone the monks are trying to destroy their river way of life. So the people start fighting the monks. All the while many many people go into the river, with no monk down the way to pull them out and refusing any help they might come across as a conspiracy to keep them from their river way of life despite actively drowning. Nothing gets done, no one gets saved, too many folks drown, and the group of politicians get rich from the corporations no one realized was paying them to shove people into the river for financial reasons (I don’t know why a corporation or lobby group would make money off people drowning in a river, but it doesn’t make sense that the NRA enables mass shootings and suicides and children accidentally shooting their siblings and parents).
The thing is, we need to keep saving people from the river, address the safety issues on the river and provide help to folks who feel like their only option is jumping in. Stop making it easy for folks to obtain guns, restricting law abiding folks will help keep the guns out of the criminal hands - many times the ease in purchasing guns allows criminals to get them without raising the red flags needed to stop the crimes. And most of the mass shooters would not raise a red flag as they are not yet criminals, but putting obstacles in their way could avert a tragedy. And as I mentioned above, there are a lot of folks who still qualify for guns that aren’t so law abiding, but being privileged lowers the like likelihood that they trigger a red flag. Gun control is like putting safety rails on the river. Mental health care and social safety nets can address the motivations for the violence, but that solution would entail totally revamping our healthcare system and probably making it single payer, which is socialism (really just a dog whistle for folks who are racist and don’t want people of color to get their basic human needs met). That’s building the bridges. Voting the GOP and bought and paid for democrats out of office will eliminate the group from talking folks into jumping in the river. Holding the NRA accountable for their immorality will help as well.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Mass shootings? Need more Jesus. (My major donor, the NRA thinks so too.)
Climate change? Need more Jesus. (My major donors, oil and coal companies think so too.)
Racial inequality? Need more Jesus. (My major donors, white-dominated corporations think so too.)
Injustice for LGBTQ+ people? Need more Jesus. (My major donors, homophobic Christian organizations think so too.)
Extreme concentration of wealth for the very few? Need more Jesus. (My major donors, union-busting right-wing billionaires think so too.)
Corruption in Supreme Court Justices? Need more Jesus. (My major donors, deep-pocketed special interests who are in bed with them, think so too.)
Any societal problem at all? Need more Jesus. (Jesus' sacrifice is free, so no capitalists have to sacrifice a single penny of their profits.)
The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The Constitution demands that we well regulate our militias, even our militias-of-one.
A religion ran by a mass murderer is the solution to stop mass murders?
Pretty neat little racket American Christians have figured out. They can make money all the way around the circuit- they sell the guns, they sell the hate that drives people to use the guns, then they sell the lies about the people who used the guns, to breed more hate against the victims of the people who used the guns, to get more people to buy more guns, and all the while they can also sell funeral services to the families of the victims of the people who used the guns!
There are some problems in the world Christianity hasn't caused, but there are *no* problems it hasn't made worse.
𝐴𝐶𝑂𝑆𝑇𝐴: 𝑊𝑒𝑙𝑙, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠.
𝐵𝑈𝑅𝐶𝐻𝐸𝑇𝑇: 𝑊𝑒𝑙𝑙, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑜𝑚 𝑒𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡…
Yeah, funny thing, that. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if believers like Burchett hear what they're saying or have the slightest idea of how it sounds to someone outside of their bubble. Oh, and as to that whole "freedom" thing, I'd refer him to the fictional newsman Will McAvoy and what he had to say on the topic in S1E1 of 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑒𝑤𝑠𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑚 (not that Burchett would listen). All this shows me is that the ONLY answer people like him have to mass shootings and the other issues that beset the US is more Jebus.
PA-THE-TIC.
So, how much $$ does Burchett get from the NRA from time to time?
Anyone who wants to fire a 3-D printed gun, please give me a bit of notice so I can stand well back. It may well be that in the future guns will be printed commercially, but unless things have changed in the last few years, they are just a bit unreliable.
Anyway, how many of these shooters are Christians? It's a question that usually gets shoved behind race or ethnic group, but a perfectly valid one. Of course – by definition they won't be "true"™ Christians. Because they've done something wrong.
Why do they need a "revival"? It's not like they've ever gone away.
Perhaps we need to take a page from the Republican's book and push back in kind. The US is among the most Christian nations in the world but not as Christian as many South American countries. The US is also not the country with the most deaths by firearms. We often hear about how the US is more Christian and more violent than other 'first world' nations. While that may be true, it is worth a closer look into the other nations that are more Christian AND more violent. (Maybe not just Christianity too since bringing Middle Eastern and African countries into the mix may just prove the overall point.) But to push back against the idiots exclaiming we need more Jesus to make our violence go down we need to specifically point out that many of the more violent countries are actually MORE Christian. Look at South and Central America for countries with a higher rate of gun violence than the US. Most of them have Christianity rates of over 80 percent.
Every time they say there is a correlation between a lack of Jesus and gun deaths, we need to push back and say "no, there is a correlation between MORE Jesus and gun deaths". WE know correlation does not necessarily equal causation but those who lack basic logic skills clearly do not.
Back many years ago when I was still a Christian, I used to wonder how so many Christians reconciled their gun ownership with their alleged faith. Part of me misses that level of innocence in a way, but then reality steps in and reminds me that the majority of Christians never read their scripture so they don't actually have to reconcile anything at all.
It's going to be a long day with a lot of idiocy, I can tell already. Good luck to all of us.
Ah, yes, Freedumb, the most important thing the US produces. My libertarian brother in law refuses to even consider that it might mean anything other than him getting to do what he wants, sounds like he'd get along great with this other idiot. Maybe I can mail him to DC.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWCFzpxVQAAXu0h.jpg
Burchett claims mass shootings are due to a lack of Christianity. Would he care to explain the mass shooting that occurred at Oikos University, a Christian College in Oakland, California. A shooting that left 7 dead and 3 wounded and whose perp was a former student (read: Christian).