Yes. Yes they are.
Anon questions the KKK
Submitted 4 weeks ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/8c1b0c17-29a1-48c5-94c3-65aeed481557.jpeg
Comments
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I guess I’m a radical Christian then.
I believe Jesus taught tolerance and love, so I try to treat others with tolerance and love. And not fake love like “thoughts and prayers,” but real love, which comes with action.
thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
John Brown was a radical Christian, and he’s okay in my book.
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
I believe Jesus taught tolerance and love
So that’s what he meant when he said
34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Matthew 10:34-36
or when he said:
“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." Matthew 12:30
So tolerant and loving! 😍
bhamlin@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I feel like “tolerance” is the wrong word here. If you instead strive for “compassion” you’d be closer to the mark.
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Tolerantly beat the fuck out of those money changers
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Also, I think a “radical Christian” would be the opposite of the KKK.
A millennium and a half of Christianity would say otherwise.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
Just because you’re white european doesn’t mean you’re a Christian
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Especially since radical doesn’t mean extremist, but seeking the root. You want to know what a radical Christian looks like? MLK. Arguing for equality to be achieved through peaceful means but a positive peace that includes justice.
The kkk are just positive Christians, but unwilling to call themselves that because that would imply that they might be g*rmans and they ain’t no stinking deutschbag
Comrade_Spood@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
Yeah they are reactionary christians. A radical christian would be like the Catholic Workers and Dorothy Day, or the Fasci Siciliani, or Leo Tolstoy
DarkCloud@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It started out as a prank organization to scare black people… Those outfits they’re canonically supposed to be dressed as dead confederate soldiers haunting the south.
If you ask me they leaned too heavy into the racism, and not heavily enough into theatrics and costumes. The problem is they held onto some 1900s sense of injustice, and didn’t roll with the times, didn’t stay up to date. They didn’t stay justice or improve on their first poorly selected target… So they became violent and nasty instead.
A shame, I’d love a horse back theater group “haunting” cops and healthcare CEOs… In that timeline the KKK would be a different organization entirely.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Hmm, we should start a rival organization. We can keep the ghost theme, but perhaps go with dead WW2 heroes that push against fascism and abuse of power of every variety.
Maybe the WWW? World War Wraiths.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I’m in. And we can bring back the thing with women wearing bright red lipstick because Hitler didn’t like it. Am I just imagining rockabilly goths doing antifascist pranks and protests? Yes. Does that reduce this in the slightest? Not in the slightest.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 4 weeks ago
So, gray hoodies and green fiddler hats?
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
If you ask me they leaned too heavy into the racism, and not heavily enough into theatrics and costumes
You know, I watched my wife work all day gettin’ thirty bags together for you ungrateful sons of bitches! And all I can hear is criticize, criticize, criticize! From now on, don’t ask me or mine for nothin’!
zloubida@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
They are stupid, yes, but also are against everything’s in the Bible so they don’t actually care about Christianity.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Well you have to keep in mind part of who they hate are those fucking papists.
They’re Christian in the sense of “everyone i don’t like is going to hell, and I’ve got to hand deliver their ticket there”
Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
You may be onto something there
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Without a doubt
brotundspiele@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Don’t wanna argue with the premises here. But isn’t Christianity also a bit stupid for praying towards the instrument that’s been used to torture and kill their leader.
Just imagine you are Jesus and come into a modern church. You’d run away screaming with all those crosses triggering your PTSD. And that’s before you’ve even heard of all the atrocities they’re doing there in your name.
Odd_so_Star_so_Odd@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Not just their leader, early christians were violently prosecuted, they turned their symbol of oppression into the symbol of their faith in an ultimate act of love and forgiveness.
driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 4 weeks ago
Sacrifice is a big thing in Christianity, the cross is the symbol of the biggest sacrifice that God did for us, on Christianity canon.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Totally. And it really makes sense when you think about it…
God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving and he created man in his own image… And then doomed them all to an eternity of suffering because… reasons.
God was known for being petty and jealous, so he forced humans to destroy their food to prove that they love him.
God, being all powerful, I guess changed his mind about wanting people to burn for eternity, so being the all-powerful, all-loving being that he is, he changed his mind and deleted heaven so that all humans could enjoy eternity with him… LOL jk.
No, instead he split himself into another being and became a human with the sole purpose of being murdered in 30 years so that humans didn’t have to burn for eternity…? Actually, I kind of lose the thread at this point. It’s never been clear to me why an all-powerful god would need to create such a bizarre, convoluted, byzantine means for redemption when he could have just snapped his fingers and made it all go away.
But all of that makes sense when you think about it as just another sacrifice to prove to god that you love him, and our rudimentary understanding of symbolism is all we need to prove this.
lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
The core of Christianity is originally the redemption, not the threat that necessitates it and often is more prominent.
The cross is a symbol of the sacrifice made to redeem people from the threat of hell. More relevant here is that sin separates humans from God, and through that sacrifice, the connection is restored. It is a catalyst of redemption and reunion. In that sense, they don’t so much pray towards an implement of torture as an implement of liberation, salvation and mercy.
Given that those are hard things to put in a visual, tangible form and that humans tend to place a lot of value in visual, tangible representations, it’s basically the simplest symbol you could come up with as a nascent cult.
It’s not the only symbol, and particularly during the rise of the Roman church, you’ll note that icons of saints become very common too. Some places will even have the Crucifix feature the crucified Jesus as well, to drive home the point about sacrifice and gratitude.
Protestants later held that the worship of saints was tantamount to idolatry and did away with them again, leaving just the core of the message of redemption. There was in some places a conscious choice to pick the “empty” cross rather than the crucified saviour as a symbol that he is no longer dead.
All in all, given his divine wisdom and love for metaphors and similes, I’d think Jesus would understand the point of the cross…
…then proceed to trash the place out of rage over the waste of money and effort that went into gaudy churches and gold-embroidered robes instead of helping the sick and poor.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
As a Christian, I’ve always found that stupid, so I don’t do that and don’t attend churches that do. The second commandments says:
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
I’m pretty sure a cross counts here. I also believe Jesus taught a higher law, meaning the 10 commandments are outdated, and the only thing Jesus said to do to remember him is breaking and sharing bread and sharing wine (Communion in many churches). That’s it, that and “feed my sheep” (teach and help others).
I don’t get where everyone is getting the “wear and rub a crucifix for luck” idea. A silent prayer should be a lot more effective than directly violating the second commandment.
I choose to remember Jesus’ life. His death was an event, his life was full of teaching and wisdom, so I focus on how he treated others instead of how others treated him.
derfunkatron@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I like your perspective and wish Christianity aligned more with your post than whatever it’s doing now.
I’m not Christian, but I have observed that the worship of the cross and Christ’s death is directly tied to the theological idea of salvation, especially with evangelicals. If his death is the single most important part of your faith, then the cross becomes a symbol and reminder that you’re saved and not going to hell. It was primed to become a symbol and eventually an idol.
I also think historically the cross as a symbol for Christianity comes from the Greek letter chi (x) in the spelling of Christ. “X-tians” was a shorthand form way before the “taking Christ out of Christmas” nonsense.
But to the original point of the Klan burning the cross: I’ve read that they argue that cross burning is a medieval European affirmation of faith, something that is doing double duty of arguing that it’s an expression of their faith and connecting them to their “racial” roots.
Spaniard@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
You quote the third commandment but you believe they are outdated?
rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I’m not Christian but isn’t it just very emblematic of the Christian victim complex? Praying towards the instrument of your faith’s victimisation is sort of like taking the power back from that symbol and acknowledging the victimisation your belief system has gone through… As far as I can understand it at least 😂
midnight_puker@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I honestly don’t think most Christians even think this deeply about their own faith.
Spaniard@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It used to be a fish, and the ChiRo (the one that looks like an X and a P) Symbol.
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
it makes more sense when Christians were a persecuted minority, executed on sight by the Roman empire. You’re sharing in a symbol of sacrifice that could itself get you killed.
But that was 1500 years ago.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
I feel like this was a George Carlin bit or something…
droporain@lemmynsfw.com 4 weeks ago
Quick answer yes.
HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Longer answer… yeeeeeeessssss
droporain@lemmynsfw.com 4 weeks ago
I mean 1 step above them is the classic tale of taking how your God was murdered and basically worshiping that symbol without the fire …
chuymatt@startrek.website 4 weeks ago
Weird story time: My great grandfather was obviously the source of the autism in our family line. Man could not read social subtext to save his life. He felt driven to find some sort to group to belong to that had set meetings and such. For a 5 year span, he joined, like, everyone. Elks, masons, you name it. When we were helping him clean out his house in the early 90s we found a KKK uniform. We asked about it. Apparently it was billed as a men’s group and they just had costumes made. He went along with it for a few meeting and then the extracurriculars were discussed at his last meeting. He finally got the point of it. He got out. We had his calendar book from that year(and every year from the 30s-retirement) and we saw the date where he started crossing out the KKK meeting times.
Why he kept it? It was the best work his wife had ever done.
Several years later I asked my grandfather if his dad was racist. Basically, he said that his dad had gotten in trouble for not understanding the racist, unwritten policies he was supposed to enforce and kept asking why, as there was no logic to them.
Alpha71@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
They were Protestants and hated Catholics. Still doesn’t make sense.
wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I mean I hate everything about catholicism too. I mean I hate all religions, but catholicism specifically. But I don’t burn their symbols. I just avoid any circumstance I would have to be exposed to of it.
But yeah, still doesn’t make sense to burn a symbol you share with the people you hate. This is just their silent screams of self hatred. Not loud enough to drown out the “everything besides white people” hatred, but still somehow present. I guess they can’t even like themselves. Too busy hating.
Gotta get that hate-love ratio under control.
kraftpudding@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
What makes you hate catholics specifically over other religions?
69420@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
…a lowercase ‘t’
…t…t…time to leave!
MintyFresh@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
nonfuinoncuro@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
for time to leave
The25002@lemmings.world 4 weeks ago
I used to be like the asshole Reddit atheist back in the day. I’m still an atheist but at the time I thought “look at all the bad stuff religion does” but as time goes on I’m beginning to realize that religion is a tool of politics. So ultimately the idea of getting rid of religion is just medical adhesive strips on a cancer patient.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
Quite frankly, Christianity can be used as a motivator for left wing philosophies helping the poor. If you actually read what Jesus’ said, it’s pretty good and damning for many self proclaimed american “christians”
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Sort of, but you need to remember that his teachings were an individual philosophy and he didn’t want anything to do with government (render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, render unto God that which is God’s).
Jesus taught that you should give all you have to the poor and follow God. Failing that, you should be generous in helping the poor. So I think he would advocate for charities, not taxation, since charitable giving is a choice and he wants people to choose to do the right thing. He would also criticize the very wealthy because they obviously have more than enough to share with the poor.
The25002@lemmings.world 4 weeks ago
Without speaking for either the philosophy of capitalisms or the philosophy of Christianity, what a funny mish mash of theology we ended up with.
echodot@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
as time goes on I’m beginning to realize that religion is a tool of politics
Yeah that’s always been the point of religion. They needed some way to control people in the 1400s, so they told them that if they didn’t do what they were told, and incidentally pay the church a lot of money, then the big man in the sky would be unhappy. That was about the level of sophistication that a con required back then.
Even as recently as 200 years ago pastors didn’t really believe in god, it was just a convenient job to do if you were relatively well off but still needed employment, and didn’t want to do any laboring. That’s why a lot of them ended up being scientists, they were rich and bored.
The25002@lemmings.world 4 weeks ago
I don’t agree the pastor’s 200 years ago didn’t believe in God, I think it’s more likely they had some weird set of mental gymnastics that made the idea fit their mold. There are as many ideas of God per person as there are sands in the Sahara or stars in the sky.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Yup. Ideology is religion and religion is ideology. We tend to want to be a part of something bigger, but the people in charge of those bigger things can use it to justify hurting people “for the greater good”.
stevedice@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Obligatory ACAB
nick@midwest.social 4 weeks ago
Obviously
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2069436850145…
50 States, 50 Protests, 1day
Feb 5 @ your downtown.
Pass the word!
festnt@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
no they surely just hate the lowercase t
napkin2020@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I don’t know what to tell you if that was the first thing that tipped you off.
GraniteM@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
chrischryse@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the democrats start the KKK and weren’t they not as religious? Or is there something else?
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 4 weeks ago
Uh…
Yes.