“Most people see America as an experiment in classical liberalism, whereby the founders created a system of limited government, religious pluralism and liberty. Religious leaders are free to spread their message through the culture—but not to take control of the levers of power and base lawmaking on their sectarian Bible interpretations. The Constitution protects everyone’s natural rights, with its main purpose limiting the sphere of government—not implementing rules to assure proper religious observance.
There really is no other way to seriously read our Constitution, but many religious people still argue the founders were Christians who envisioned a Christian nation. Some of the founders were indeed devout Christians and these folks cherry-pick Christian quotations from them.
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Christian nationalists often argue that America cannot survive as a multicultural, multi-religious nation. To which I’ll quote a 1788 rebuttal from George Washington: “I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.” As we approach the 250th anniversary of our founding, Americans must not let Washington’s brilliant legacy and the nation’s ideals get hijacked”
We have pretty good evidence that Pontius Pilate existed. Two Jewish historians spoke of his rule in some detail. Later archaeological discoveries also support his existence.
The Trump administration told Texas to gerrymander based on race. Texas did as asked. A judge said the gerrymander was illegal because it was based on race. The Supreme Court said that despite the detailed investigation by the lower court that showed a race-based gerrymander, they don’t think it was based on race. They based that opinion on very little, and overturning a lower court based on one’s opinions of the facts is illegal, unless the lower court decision was overwhelmingly erroneous, which it was not in this case. The Supreme court also said it is too close to an election to make a change even though the elections are a year out. This means state legislatures can illegally gerrymander half the years because House elections are every two years.
The Supreme Court is clearly ruling on freedom of religion cases in a way that is biased toward Christianity and that allows Christians to risk and hurt non-Christians as long as they consider it a part of their religion.
A version of Christian nationalism believes that Christianity is a pro-war religion that supports strong nationalist policies that protect Christianity and what it views as traditional life. It is more focused on defeating the enemy than on love. It is more about militaristic and capitalist ideology, than the words of Jesus in the Bible.
In Hitler’s Germany, many Christians sought out Hitler and offered their support as Christians. Other Christians stood by while Hitler took over and did and said nothing, sometimes making excuses for Hitler.
Nigeria’s violence involves herders fighting farmers. Herders have the military advantage so more often slaughter farmers than the other way around.
There’s a variety of violence and not all of it fits the herder VS farmer paradigm, and some of it is religiously motivated or facilitated.
A majority of people killed are Muslim. However, farmers tend to be Christian, and herders tend to be Muslim. The conflict is not a simple Muslims slaughtering Christians fight, but a lot of people are dying and the Nigerian government is too weak to stop it.