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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2020 2:54:35 GMT
This will be interesting. "Some say it’s too late. QAnon has manipulated Twitter hashtags and been amplified by the president, who has retweeted QAnon-affiliated Twitter accounts more than 200 times. It also has its own celebrities, a kind of priest class of influencers with YouTube channels and Patreons who promise to show their fans the way. Among them is David Hayes, “the Praying Medic,” whom the Atlantic called “one of the best-known QAnon evangelists on the planet.” In one recent video, he told his 379,000 YouTube subscribers, “The movement that Q has started is drawing a lot of people to consider God.” Another popular QAnon influencer, Blessed2Teach, whose followers are known as “Christian Patriots,” recently told them in a YouTube livestream that “the cabal spends more money trying to infiltrate pastors than anything,” and that “many many of the megachurches have taken cabal funding.” As The Conversation noted in May, there are pastors who have begun bringing QAnon into their Zoom sermons. And Frailey, the Oklahoma pastor, found that even though many colleagues in the Facebook group where he had posted were worried about the spread of QAnon in their churches, others defended it. Joe Carter, the executive pastor of McLean Bible Church Arlington in Virginia and an editor of the conservative Christian publication The Gospel Coalition, published an FAQ on QAnon in May. He decided to dig into the topic after hearing from dozens of pastors asking for advice on how to stop its growing influence in their communities, he told me.Their task has been made more difficult as QAnon has started linking up with other conspiracy theories, particularly around the covid-19 pandemic: misinformation about masks, anti-vaccination theories, and claims that lockdowns are a liberal plot to control the population, for instance. And more recently, its believers have found even better vectors. ... “I can see people I care about, respect, are great, are just super-susceptible to this thing,” said a youth pastor who declined to be named in this piece for fear of retaliation from QAnon believers but has been raising the alarm at his conservative-leaning Lutheran church. “If we can get ahead of this, we might be able to do some damage control before it metastasizes.” " www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/26/1007611/how-qanon-is-targeting-evangelicals/Evangelicals seem to be primed to swallow the QAnon nonsense. Why might that be? Many evangelical churches: Despise liberal ideas and progressivism and venerate "tradition" and "heritage" Value beliefs over evidence/data Trust authority, don't question The answers are black and white; Things are "good" or "evil". No gray. No in-between Believe that they possess special knowledge that others "just won't see" See the devil all around the world Believe the world's ills will be dealt with in their lifetimes |
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Post by crimsoncat05 on Aug 28, 2020 3:44:02 GMT
Evangelicals seem to be primed to swallow the QAnon nonsense. Why might that be? Many evangelical churches: Despise liberal ideas and progressivism and venerate "tradition" and "heritage" Value beliefs over evidence/data Trust authority, don't question The answers are black and white; Things are "good" or "evil". No gray. No in-between Believe that they possess special knowledge that others "just won't see" See the devil all around the world Believe the world's ills will be dealt with in their lifetimes I've never been more glad to be agnostic / athiest-leaning in my life. And that the church I grew up in is the *progressive* branch of the Lutheran church. And that my parents raised me to think for myself, and value scientific observation. And a whole bunch of other things that I can't articulate right at the moment (see previous post by me, re: very strong margarita, lol). |
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Post by arielsmom on Aug 28, 2020 3:58:57 GMT
I attempted to understand what Qanon is, by reading 5 different articles about it. They were all so twisted and wandering, that I have no clue what the movement is about. I would like to understand it better. Can someone please explain it?
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Post by smasonnc on Aug 28, 2020 3:59:03 GMT
Are there any smart people left in America. Please raise your hands.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2020 4:14:06 GMT
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Post by arielsmom on Aug 28, 2020 4:21:25 GMT
No, I did not. However, I will. Thanks! |
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Post by dizzycheermom on Aug 28, 2020 4:37:06 GMT
I attempted to understand what Qanon is, by reading 5 different articles about it. They were all so twisted and wandering, that I have no clue what the movement is about. I would like to understand it better. Can someone please explain it? I will try my best. This may seem rambling. I have family members who believe, so these are various things they have told me. There is a deep state made up of various govt employees and politicians who pull all the strings no matter who is elected. The q believers wanted trump elected bc he is not a politician and thus not part of the deep state. There is a huge list of politicians and celebrities who are pedophiles and also eat/drink the blood of the children. I was shown a photo of 2 women with a trussed up little girl, they think one of the women is Hillary. Didn't look like her. Q is a high level govt employee known by q because that is his high security clearance level. There are 7(?) people that post as Q on the dark webs. They basically take things that happen and then make them fit their narrative or show how it links to something Q already posted. Pretty random things, and most of the time it is a big stretch. They believe that trump is saving the world from all these pedophiles - that thousands of indictments have been handed down. Some of them believe that many of these pedophiles have already been executed or are on house arrest waiting for their tribunal. I asked why trump doesn't talk about it since he likes to brag about himself. It's because the mainstream media won't report the truth about him. I said that he has a twitter where he can say anything he wants, but they didn't have an answer for that. I have to say it is sort of brilliant in that who wouldn't want to support someone who they think is taking care of all the pedophiles. But most of the evidence is so out there... This is a start, but if you have questions let me know! |
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Post by refugeepea on Aug 28, 2020 11:56:02 GMT
“I can see people I care about, respect, are great, are just super-susceptible to this thing,” said a youth pastor who declined to be named in this piece for fear of retaliation from QAnon believers but has been raising the alarm at his conservative-leaning Lutheran church. “If we can get ahead of this, we might be able to do some damage control before it metastasizes.” Too late. I see it happening in the LDS church. The general authorities have had a very strong influence on members. I'm seeing what I consider faithful members joining groups like Defend Utah and post anti mask wearing posts. Facebook banned articles about the press conference at the White House by the demon sperm doctor because it was fake news. Then a member posts something vague about knowing the truth and ask yourself why they don't want us to know?  This is after they released a statement telling members to please where a mask, BUT it didn't come from the prophet just the local area presidency, so that doesn't count.  Even though they live in the area where this statement was released. It is not the norm, but it's been eye opening to see who is buying into all of this. I've noticed a strong correlation between Christ centered energy healing, foot zoning types, public schools are evil, and people heavily into MLM's. I am not even kidding about the MLMs. You click on some far out there post and they are selling some beach body, make up, all organic dietician tips, or life coach sessions. They basically take things that happen and then make them fit their narrative or show how it links to something Q already posted. Pretty random things, and most of the time it is a big stretch. The one that sickens me is random celebrities that committed suicide and it's related to them trying to stop child trafficking? Making it sound like they were murdered. |
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Post by refugeepea on Aug 28, 2020 12:07:34 GMT
And that my parents raised me to think for myself, and value scientific observation. That was how I was raised. DNA was this new, exciting thing. Science was going to catch up with what we already know. The rest of the world will soon know and the church will grow in huge numbers. The Book of Mormon will be proven true, until it wasn't. When I was an active member, the prophet said well it's either true or it's false. If it's false we are engaged in a great fraud. Now it's ignore the truth if it's hurtful and they suggest research is not the answer.  I don't think they realize they helped create this problem with members buying into Qanon. |
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Post by monklady123 on Aug 28, 2020 12:54:39 GMT
Evangelicals seem to be primed to swallow the QAnon nonsense. Why might that be? Many evangelical churches: Despise liberal ideas and progressivism and venerate "tradition" and "heritage" Value beliefs over evidence/data Trust authority, don't question The answers are black and white; Things are "good" or "evil". No gray. No in-between Believe that they possess special knowledge that others "just won't see" See the devil all around the world Believe the world's ills will be dealt with in their lifetimes I've never been more glad to be agnostic / athiest-leaning in my life. And that the church I grew up in is the *progressive* branch of the Lutheran church. And that my parents raised me to think for myself, and value scientific observation. And a whole bunch of other things that I can't articulate right at the moment (see previous post by me, re: very strong margarita, lol). Why did you put "progressive" in quotes? I'm assuming you mean the ECLA -- the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America...? No need to put it in quotes because they *are* progressive. The ELCA are good people. An ECLA pastor here is one of a large group of local clergy who march and write letters and protest and donate, and anything else they can think of.  Full disclosure...I'm not Lutheran.  I just like that denomination. |
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Post by ILoveToScrapPea on Aug 28, 2020 13:12:11 GMT
I know this is going to make me sound incredibly ignorant but none of the above concerning QAnon makes any sense to me whatsoever. Crazy!!
ETA: To make myself clear, I don’t believe I have ever heard of QAnon until you posted Zingermack. This is very odd to me and foreign to everything I’ve been taught for my entire life.
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Country Ham
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,313
Jun 25, 2014 19:32:08 GMT
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Post by Country Ham on Aug 28, 2020 13:22:12 GMT
I am so ignorant of things on some level. Never heard of Qanon. The only time I EVER read twitter things are on here, and occasionally on FB.
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Post by ajsweetpea on Aug 28, 2020 13:29:40 GMT
OK, well this explains a bizarre Facebook post I saw! The person posted that Trump was in hideout (this was before the RNC... I wonder how they explain how he came out of hideout to do the RNC?!) and we are at war with evil. They said Trump is sending us clues about what is coming in the future and we will know we are in the final stages in the war of evil vs God when Trump makes an emergency broadcast. I was reading this stuff like WTH is going on here? Did I miss something?
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Post by papercrafteradvocate on Aug 28, 2020 14:47:22 GMT
Cults make a person feel needed, wanted, loved.
Church for some seems like too much work, they feel there isn’t any pay off, and it reeks of socialism that they need to help others.
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Post by crimsoncat05 on Aug 28, 2020 15:11:49 GMT
"progressive" in quotes? I'm assuming you mean the ECLA -- the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America...? No need to put it in quotes because they *are* progressive. It wasn't quotes- I was using the * for emphasis instead of bolding it. I was being lazy-- that's all. |
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Post by monklady123 on Aug 28, 2020 15:20:08 GMT
"progressive" in quotes? I'm assuming you mean the ECLA -- the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America...? No need to put it in quotes because they *are* progressive. It wasn't quotes- I was using the * for emphasis instead of bolding it. I was being lazy-- that's all. lol... yeah, that's why I use * instead of "... Just making sure that people know that most Lutherans aren't part of the conservative wackos, despite the word Evangelical in their name. |
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Post by monklady123 on Aug 28, 2020 15:22:10 GMT
Cults make a person feel needed, wanted, loved. Church for some seems like too much work, they feel there isn’t any pay off, and it reeks of socialism that they need to help others. What does this mean exactly? That it's socialism that Christians help other people? Jesus has a whole lot to say about how to treat other people, and I'm not sure the word *socialism* was in his vocabulary. |
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luckyjune
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,685 
Location: In the rainy, rainy WA
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Post by luckyjune on Aug 28, 2020 15:28:12 GMT
And we're surprised because...?
If your entire purpose is to TELL people what to believe and have them OBEY your orders WITHOUT QUESTIONING, we are surprised when QAnon comes along and people believe what they are being told?
Isn't this why some religious people believe higher education is bad? Once a person starts to think and look for cracks in the evidence, they are no longer obedient to the demands? An acquaintance of mine is encouraging 18 year olds in her church to NOT go to college because her niece went to Harvard and "...lost her faith."
We live in such a weird time.
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quiltedbrain
Full Member
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Jun 26, 2014 3:34:53 GMT
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Post by quiltedbrain on Aug 28, 2020 15:34:36 GMT
Cults make a person feel needed, wanted, loved. Church for some seems like too much work, they feel there isn’t any pay off, and it reeks of socialism that they need to help others. What does this mean exactly? That it's socialism that Christians help other people? Jesus has a whole lot to say about how to treat other people, and I'm not sure the word *socialism* was in his vocabulary. I'm not the person who posted the first quote, but I think she meant that the idea of helping others selflessly as was Jesus' main thing creeps a little too close to the idea of a strong public safety net that gets labeled as "socialism" by conservatives. This is too much for a lazy conservative's comfort, thus is part of why they are susecptible to QAnon blather. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2020 15:34:37 GMT
And we're surprised because...? If your entire purpose is to TELL people what to believe and have them OBEY your orders WITHOUT QUESTIONING, we are surprised when QAnon comes along and people believe what they are being told? Isn't this why some religious people believe higher education is bad? Once a person starts to think and look for cracks in the evidence, they are no longer obedient to the demands? An acquaintance of mine is encouraging 18 year olds in her church to NOT go to college because her niece went to Harvard and "...lost her faith." We live in such a weird time. I hate that term "lost her faith"! I didn't "lose my faith". I "lost my faith in virgin births and talking snakes" and other nonsense. I didn't "lose my faith" in humans to get better, to learn, to know more, to do better, to live better, to love better. Evangelicals don't OWN faith. They only one a tiny subset of it and I am happy to "lose" that tiny subset of it. |
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lizacreates
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by lizacreates on Aug 28, 2020 15:39:25 GMT
Four years ago I would have found this hard to believe because in my mind QAnon was merely a fringe ring-wing group that peddled conspiracy theories and could easily be marginalized because of their inanities. Not anymore. I am horrified that they’re now being mainstreamed to a degree I never thought possible. It’s no secret that Trump and his cabal have welcomed their support. Candidates linked to QAnon are winning some primaries and a watchdog group has counted at least 19 GOP congressional candidates with links.
I’m a regular donor to the Southern Poverty Law Center and routinely get letters from them about their initiatives and advocacy. Four days ago, I received a letter informing its supporters that “the Republican National Committee caved to white supremacist and other hate groups by adopting a resolution Refuting the Legitimacy of the Southern Poverty Law Center to Identify Hate Groups,” a naked attempt at painting the SPLC as a radical organization because of its hate group designations, with QAnon being one of those designated as such. The letter goes on to name other hate groups that have ties to the Trump admin.
QAnon is a very real threat.
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Post by Merge on Aug 28, 2020 15:40:06 GMT
And we're surprised because...? If your entire purpose is to TELL people what to believe and have them OBEY your orders WITHOUT QUESTIONING, we are surprised when QAnon comes along and people believe what they are being told? Isn't this why some religious people believe higher education is bad? Once a person starts to think and look for cracks in the evidence, they are no longer obedient to the demands? An acquaintance of mine is encouraging 18 year olds in her church to NOT go to college because her niece went to Harvard and "...lost her faith." We live in such a weird time. If churches are concerned about people “losing their faith” (my mom also had great concern about this happening to me in college), they should consider teaching faith in such a way that it emphasizes reason and compassion over blind obedience. Teaching blind obedience makes people susceptible to cults like QAnon, and leaving out reason and compassion alienates people who eventually have experiences and meet people outside the strict structure of the religion. |
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Post by mollycoddle on Aug 28, 2020 15:46:37 GMT
I realize that people exist who believe this stuff, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. It’s so ridiculous that a sane person would believe this twaddle. It makes me afraid for this country. Is this a US cult, or does it exist elsewhere?
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sassyangel
Drama Llama
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Post by sassyangel on Aug 28, 2020 15:58:51 GMT
I realize that people exist who believe this stuff, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. It’s so ridiculous that a sane person would believe this twaddle. It makes me afraid for this country. Is this a US cult, or does it exist elsewhere? It’s everywhere. 😞 |
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Post by dizzycheermom on Aug 28, 2020 16:27:19 GMT
I know this is going to make me sound incredibly ignorant but none of the above concerning QAnon makes any sense to me whatsoever. Crazy!! ETA: To make myself clear, I don’t believe I have ever heard of QAnon until you posted Zingermack. This is very odd to me and foreign to everything I’ve been taught for my entire life. No it doesn't make you sound ignorant, just the opposite! I have people trying to get me to believe it and none of it makes sense to me either! |
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Post by papercrafteradvocate on Aug 28, 2020 18:57:10 GMT
Cults make a person feel needed, wanted, loved. Church for some seems like too much work, they feel there isn’t any pay off, and it reeks of socialism that they need to help others. What does this mean exactly? That it's socialism that Christians help other people? Jesus has a whole lot to say about how to treat other people, and I'm not sure the word *socialism* was in his vocabulary. For some people, they need a reason to do something, make an effort, or to give —they need a payoff of some sort. They’re tired of giving/doing without getting something in return. Cults answer that. They make you feel like you deserve to be “repaid” for your efforts. So it doesn’t surprise me one bit that there are people leaving a church/religion for a cult. Church/religion is NOT socialism, it’s personal, part of our human spirits, unless you are trump, and his team that are telling everyone that unless you’re THEIR kind of religious, then everything else is socialism. “Socialism” is being thrown around as a scare tactic. Most common people don’t know what it means...I asked a few trumpers that I know of who were spouting off about “libtards being socialists” who are laid off and collecting unemployment, if they were going to start refusing unemployment and those stimulus checks, as they are under their definition of socialism! They were stupid. Many mistake using socialism and Jesus in the same context. Historically, Jesus was a social ACTIVIST, a communicator, community organizer, a humanitarian for the good of all people. |
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Post by pierogi on Aug 28, 2020 20:42:02 GMT
Four years ago I would have found this hard to believe because in my mind QAnon was merely a fringe ring-wing group that peddled conspiracy theories and could easily be marginalized because of their inanities. Not anymore. I am horrified that they’re now being mainstreamed to a degree I never thought possible. It’s no secret that Trump and his cabal have welcomed their support. Candidates linked to QAnon are winning some primaries and a watchdog group has counted at least 19 GOP congressional candidates with links. I’m a regular donor to the Southern Poverty Law Center and routinely get letters from them about their initiatives and advocacy. Four days ago, I received a letter informing its supporters that “the Republican National Committee caved to white supremacist and other hate groups by adopting a resolution Refuting the Legitimacy of the Southern Poverty Law Center to Identify Hate Groups,” a naked attempt at painting the SPLC as a radical organization because of its hate group designations, with QAnon being one of those designated as such. The letter goes on to name other hate groups that have ties to the Trump admin. QAnon is a very real threat. Ha, that's like those who rant about Snopes being "liberal" because they point out facts. |
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Deleted
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Jun 1, 2024 22:08:30 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2020 20:44:07 GMT
Ha, that's like those who rant about Snopes being "liberal" because they point out facts.  |
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Post by pierogi on Aug 28, 2020 20:48:21 GMT
Ha, that's like those who rant about Snopes being "liberal" because they point out facts. That man is a national treasure.  |
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Post by Tamhugh on Aug 28, 2020 21:08:53 GMT
It wasn't quotes- I was using the * for emphasis instead of bolding it. I was being lazy-- that's all. lol... yeah, that's why I use * instead of "... Just making sure that people know that most Lutherans aren't part of the conservative wackos, despite the word Evangelical in their name. I have been Lutheran my whole life and an ELCA Lutheran since they have existed. I can't tell you how many times I have been told by Evangelicals that I am not a "real "Christian" or a "true believer". But I will take my brand of Christianity any day. |
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This is after they released a statement telling members to please where a mask, BUT it didn't come from the prophet just the local area presidency, so that doesn't count. 
Even though they live in the area where this statement was released. It is not the norm, but it's been eye opening to see who is buying into all of this. I've noticed a strong correlation between Christ centered energy healing, foot zoning types, public schools are evil, and people heavily into MLM's. I am not even kidding about the MLMs. You click on some far out there post and they are selling some beach body, make up, all organic dietician tips, or life coach sessions.
I don't think they realize they helped create this problem with members buying into Qanon.
I just like that denomination.
