QAnon

zbhargrove said:
Yes, but this one ties the other 999 hoaxes together to make superhoax
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But it is not asking anyone to cut off their male children's foreskin as a show of loyalty and obedience. That makes it a relatively mild movement within the context of the human experience. No?
 
nsacpi said:
No weirder than hearing a voice from behind a burning bush.
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Are you a proponent of QAnon? Or are you just against me calling it weird because I don't hold to a materialistic faith and instead am an adherent of Christianity?

I'm just trying to figure out if it's a massive trolling of non-materialistic faiths in general, Trump supporters in specific, or if it's a sincere political/religious cult.
 
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BedellBrave said:
Are you a proponent of QAnon? Or are you just against me calling it weird because I don't hold to a materialistic faith and instead am an adherent of Christianity?

I'm just trying to figure out if it's a massive trolling of non-materialistic faiths in general, Trump supporters in specific, or if it's a sincere political/religious cult.
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I mean I get stuff from my Christian/Jewish friends about what a whack religion Mormonism is. I'm just recycling a few things I say to them when they say stuff like that. I think some people (not including you) from older more established religions look askance at newer ones. I'm not a Mormon but I've noticed they are often the target for that kind of treatment.

But on a serious note I don't think I'm the only one to see in Q Anon some indications it is evolving into a religious movement. I'm sure as someone who takes religion seriously you've noticed that many religions start out with what now seem colorful founding myths. Q Anon is sort of in that stage. And its adherents seem very serious about their beliefs even if those beliefs seem incoherent and strange to us outsiders.

Oh and I apologize if some of this appears to be trolling.

PS: This is a topic I've actually been interested in a for a long time. I have an unfinished novel sitting in my computer about a man who set out to start a new religion. His middle name is Chutzpah and he gets into a lot of trouble for his efforts. The world seems to be going through one of its more fecund periods in terms of evolution of religious faith. So it will be interesting to see how QAnon works out.
 
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nsacpi said:
I mean I get stuff from my Christian/Jewish friends about what a whack religion Mormonism is. I'm just recycling a few things I say to them when they say stuff like that.

But on a somewhat more serious note I don't think I'm the only one to see in Q Anon some indications it is evolving into a religious movement. I'm sure as someone who takes religion seriously you've noticed that many religions start out with what now seem colorful founding myths. Q Anon is sort of in that stage. And its adherents seem very serious about their beliefs.

Oh and I apologize if some of this appears to be trolling.
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To someone who evidently holds to a materialistic faith I get that you might view my fairly vanilla, historic, orthodox, Christian faith as "whack." Lol! And that's okay, it goes with the territory. :-)

But, there have traditionally been, seemingly reasonable to me, distinctions between the major religions and cults. This, and I've just heard of it in the last 24 hours, seems to have more of the cult markers.

Anyway, I was just trying to get a feel from guys much more hip than I, about this. I read both a long expose in The Atlantic and then a strongly anti-QAnon article on The Gospel Coalition site. And after doing so, I started to notice in several Facebook "friends" and even a cousin's posts Q references. Thus my concern.
 
BedellBrave said:
To someone who evidently holds to a materialistic faith I get that you might view my fairly vanilla, historic, orthodox, Christian faith as "whack." Lol! And that's okay, it goes with the territory. :-)

But, there have traditionally been, seemingly reasonable to me, distinctions between the major religions and cults. This, and I've just heard of it in the last 24 hours, seems to have more of the cult markers.

Anyway, I was just trying to get a feel from guys much more hip than I, about this. I read both a long expose in The Atlantic and then a strongly anti-QAnon article on The Gospel Coalition site. And after doing so, I started to notice in several Facebook "friends" and even a cousin's posts Q references. Thus my concern.
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Actually I would love to discuss religion with you. I am a Roman Catholic. Not very religious but not entirely irreligious either. The catholic church has a variety of national traditions. My family are what could be called French Catholics. Modern French Catholicism can be characterized by three things. It is non-ethical, apolitical and ritualistic. The first part is very interesting for a religion in the sense that its adherents often hold the view that the church (at least as represented by the clergy) has no business talking to them about morality. Without being explicitly aware of it, French Catholics assign primacy to their conscience on such issues. It so happens that this a comfortable religious garment for me to wear. My ex-wife is Episcopalian and my current wife Jewish. Through them I've sampled some of the social and religious aspects of those traditions. But I'm one of those people who remains comfortable in the faith he was born into.

Btw Catholics have historically viewed every other religion as cults. It is not given much voice anymore. But recent popes have occasionally let slip out that such and such a group is a "sect." Dems fighting words.
 
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I lolled one time when Trump had a rally and made a hand gesture with his finger and they thought he was drawing a Q to let people know he was Q.
 
QAnon would not be the first group within which politics and religion merge.

Stalin explained to his colleagues that Bolshevism was a "sort of military-religious order." There is a very good biography of Stalin (The Red Tsar by Simon Sebag-Montefiore) that lays out the quasi-religious element present in Stalin's court. This quasi-religious element was rather instrumental in justifying atrocities and other crimes that under a normal government would not be allowed to go forward.

QAnon may seem idiotic and amusing now. But it has the potential to become a major force.
 
The eventual destruction of the global cabal is imminent, Q prophesies, but can be accomplished only with the support of patriots who search for meaning in Q’s clues. To believe Q requires rejecting mainstream institutions, ignoring government officials, battling apostates, and despising the press.

sounds vaguely familiar
 
nsacpi said:
QAnon would not be the first group within which politics and religion merge.

Stalin explained to his colleagues that Bolshevism was a "sort of military-religious order." There is a very good biography of Stalin (The Red Tsar by Simon Sebag-Montefiore) that lays out the quasi-religious element present in Stalin's court. This quasi-religious element was rather instrumental in justifying atrocities and other crimes that under a normal government would not be allowed to go forward.

QAnon may seem idiotic and amusing now. But it has the potential to become a major force.
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What really shocked me was reading the FB comment section on the Gospel Coalition article. Scary.

Yes, I actually think all political and philosophical movements and ideologies have a religious component. And religious systems inevitably have at least political implications. We are homo religiosus whether we acknowledge it or not.
 
nsacpi said:
Actually I would love to discuss religion with you. I am a Roman Catholic. Not very religious but not entirely irreligious either. The catholic church has a variety of national traditions. My family are what could be called French Catholics. Modern French Catholicism can be characterized by three things. It is non-ethical, apolitical and ritualistic. The first part is very interesting for a religion in the sense that its adherents often hold the view that the church (at least as represented by the clergy) has no business talking to them about morality. Without being explicitly aware of it, French Catholics assign primacy to their conscience on such issues. It so happens that this a comfortable religious garment for me to wear. My ex-wife is Episcopalian and my current wife Jewish. Through them I've sampled some of the social and religious aspects of those traditions. But I'm one of those people who remains comfortable in the faith he was born into.

Btw Catholics have historically viewed every other religion as cults. It is not given much voice anymore. But recent popes have occasionally let slip out that such and such a group is a "sect." Dems fighting words.
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I'd be honored -- especially over a beer next time I'm in the Big Apple. :-)
 
BedellBrave said:
And religious systems inevitably have at least political implications.
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I think there are exceptions to this. Sometimes, minor strands of major religions that reject the worldly political dimension. They have implications for politics obviously, but the idea is to detach themselves from it. In Islam there are the Sufis and the quietist Shia.
 
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nsacpi said:
I think there are exceptions to this. Sometimes, minor strands of major religions that reject the worldly political dimension. They have implications for politics obviously, but the idea is to detach themselves from it. In Islam there are the Sufis and the quietist Shia.
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And the Amish in Christianity -- yet those who withdraw are inevitably political, even in their detachment. And so long as they aren't hermits, they will have a political creed and structure whether admitted or not.
 
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