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Christian mythology is filled with absolutely stunning examples of bizarre reasoning, and today we’re talking about one of the very worst examples of the breed: the idea that its claims are very easily proven true using credible, reasonable, rational arguments and observations, and therefore don’t need any kind of dishonest tactics to shore those claims up or support them, so Christians don’t need to lie or misrepresent anything about their religion in order to persuade others. This idea is not only a myth but an especially toxic and harmful one to both believers and those around them.

From TheWrap.com comes this story of yet another incident involving Donald Trump and his supporters abusing someone. This story illustrates the rage of right-wing Christians about their rapidly-mounting losses in the public sphere, but also their certain collapse of power. And in the latest little drama-fest he’s provoked by skipping the debate, this seems like a good time to examine that rage and what it is doing to others–and what it demonstrates to us about a religion that is failing fast.

From TheWrap.com comes this story of yet another incident involving Donald Trump and his supporters abusing someone. This story illustrates the rage of right-wing Christians about their rapidly-mounting losses in the public sphere, but also their certain collapse of power. And in the latest little drama-fest he’s provoked by skipping the debate, this seems like a good time to examine that rage and what it is doing to others–and what it demonstrates to us about a religion that is failing fast.

I was recently reminded of just how self-serving and short right-wing Christians’ memories are, and it happened right when we’ve been talking about the nature of power in broken social systems.

Last time we talked about how power manifests in broken systems. Today we’ll talk about how to recognize one of the biggest signs of a broken social system: turnover, especially when combined with a particular way of speaking about those who have left.

A social system becomes broken when it starts causing harm to people both in and out of its group, and when it fails to deliver what its leaders and designers have promised it can do. But “broken” doesn’t imply a loss of power. To the contrary, a broken system’s leaders might have even more power than those in a healthy one because a broken system relies upon a shrewd understanding and brutal deployment of unwarranted power among its leaders. That’s the kind of power we’ll be talking about today.

Last time, we began talking about broken social systems–starting with the most dangerous question someone in one of these systems can possibly ask: Why is this system not working out in reality the way everyone says it’s supposed to be working out? Today we’ll be talking about the start of the answer to that question.

I heard about this story a while ago, but I wanted to hold off on writing about it till now because it fit in so well with what we’ve been talking about lately regarding failed behavioral models and cultural expectations. A Baptist minister might well be discovering that the beginning of wisdom is not “fear of the Lord,” but rather asking the right questions. And because he’s begun asking the right questions, I thought I’d take a stab at answering him because I’m helpful that way. Maybe someone else is wondering the same thing he is. Today I’ll outline why his question needs to be asked, and next time we’ll talk about the actual answer to that question.

Many Christians would rather think their god is a dishonest trickster than be wrong about their conceptualization of him. The other day we got a rather visceral reminder of that fact, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Quite a few Christians have begun to think of their god as a trickster–creating a vision of this god that would be entirely unfamiliar to generations of past Christians.

Many Christians would rather think their god is a dishonest trickster than be wrong about their conceptualization of him. The other day we got a rather visceral reminder of that fact, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Quite a few Christians have begun to think of their god as a trickster–creating a vision of this god that would be entirely unfamiliar to generations of past Christians.