Short-term selfishness, Long-term ignorance.
Current day conservative christian religious bigots are the epitome of short-term selfishness over long-term fear and ignorance. They never add anything new to any conversation because they’re living their life based on a 2000 year old lie. Despite this, they think selfishly in the present and pray for things to get better in the long term. IE: Trickle down economics. They always lose in the end because they’re being manipulated by a religious authority that’s basically stealing their money, but in turn giving them false hope to win the lotto, be a rockstar, win a game show, get some massive promotion, win a free ticket to an eternal afterlife, etc, but really just leaves them helpless and unprepared.
The only thing they seem to look forward to in life is death, followed by their desire of an eternal afterlife, even though they’ll tell you how happy of a life they have now with jesus. The biggest supporter of idolatry is religion itself and the current american values system that often goes along with it. Unwilling to actually take the risks needed to achieve much of anything other then what exists in their extremely narrow and uninformed views of the world, they’re left in a world of ignorance of the highest kind, while they convince themselves they’re doing good by giving these authorities more money and power, and the cycle further continues while more poor and hungry are indoctrinated in the name of food, water, and other essential supplies. Those in worse off conditions are always more inclined to be religious, because they are desperate and any shred of hope to these people means something, even if it ends up being a lie, as long as they get food and the essentials to live, in the short term.
In the long term, they are indoctrinated with fear and lies and are left being unable to truly bring themselves up without the help of others. Rather than the help these people actually need, they’re left in a system just as broken from which they came, a class of social poverty, with “religious welfare.” Yet, religion is supposed to be the good guy in this situation, why, because they received food? Stifle innovation before it can ever happen in these communities by feeding in the red herring of religion, now you’ve got an income stream from the poor!
They will also be the first people to shit on and disagree with government welfare, because it directly challenges the validity of their religious authority, not surprising really. If they aren’t the only ones helping the poor, who can take all the credit? It goes so far that the religious individuals themselves will proclaim they are such do-gooders, practically taking credit for the works of the entire church. They will go on about how they give so many donations, about how we need no welfare from the government, people like them and their religious authority will pick up the slack! It’s like as if they have all convinced themselves they’re millionaires, or will be some day, and their donations now, well that just pales in comparison to what they’ll donate later, surely. Again, short-term selfishness, long term ignorance. Shall I go on some more?
Death. Apocalypse. Afterlife. Sin. Fear. These are all things which don’t need to exist in your life. Some might say death is inevitable, to them I say, why does it need to exist in your life now, when you’re not actually dead yet? Obsession with death and afterlife is a common theme with Christians, because it seems to be ultimately the only reward they ever have for their ignorance. While their short-sighted selfish do-gooding may give them a temporary sense of happiness, they ultimately go back to a pattern of fear, death, sin, repentance, and afterlife.
Other than the religious requirements regarding being religious and following religion and believing in god, I’m probably one of the least “sinful” people I know. I’m generally honest, I hate lying, I keep it real with people, I’m never uptight, I don’t steal, I’m married, what more could you ask for? To the religious, the religion. Why? They’re too weak now to live without it. They live sinful lives, they lie, they cheat, they steal, but it’s cool, they go to church, they repent. They see someone like me living happily and it’s almost an insult to them. It’s like a deep-seeded jealousy mixed with passive-aggressive contempt. It’s usually this which is the true colors of these religious folk, and yet they still think they’re the ones making it into heaven.
The oft-quoted ‘I’ll pray for you’ is the pinnacle of this jealousy and contempt, it is one of the most obvious displays that these people are indeed bigots, and think that they’re better than you. I often can’t help but laugh at their poor attempts of leading honest lives, most of these bigots are the furthest thing from what they think they are. If only they could see themselves from outside of their extremely narrow and uninformed views of the world
They’ve constructed their whole lives upon a sheet of thin ice, the adult equivalent of santa claus, and when you tell them that direct in their face, all they can do is get angry, call you names, and spew more religion, because they really just don’t know any better. They don’t know anything else. They don’t know any other way. Ridicule those who disagree is about what it comes down to in the end, almost no matter what, even if said ridicule is indirect.
The only time it doesn’t end up that way is when you end up in some super philosophical into-the-middle-of-nowhere conversation that sounds more like a hippy on an acid trip than it does a useful conversation about religion. Then, in the end, we all agree on “energy” and everyone is happy again. Yeah, that doesn’t happen with the conservative religious freaks. They do think they’re better than you and they will let you know it, indirectly or not.