The more this country strayed away from liberalism and the American constitution – not Christianity – the more authoritarian and regressive it has become.

The real reasons behind the rise of suffering that we’re going through as a nation right now are the absence of solutions that would lift the majority of people out of poverty, and the appearance of philosophies that just exploit those unmet societal issues in order to fulfill their agendas that aim primarily at bringing an end to Western civilization, prosperity, development, advancement, and values.

Notice that the only reason that religious fundamentalists try to not restrict our freedoms is because they cannot maintain a significant base of worshipers without appearing slightly moderate in their worldviews.

No non-secular Christian figure could be believed or trusted to be the last man standing as a guardian of our true freedom and human rights.

They just try to swallow secular ideas in order to not be deemed as too obsolete to be bothered with after it became clear what society looks like if religion is given free reign on every aspect of our lives.

No man has a moral authority over another. Except the invisible Man in the sky. This is the best case scenario of how free you can be under religious control.

No true freedom could be expected to be exercised by anyone as long as they are forced to follow God’s orders, whether they agree to what God says or not. They may claim that it’s equally oppressive to follow the rules and laws of the government instead of one’s own free will. What they don’t realize is that the rules and laws of the government are subject to change to match what is best for us all as a society, whereas God’s rules and laws are not that malleable. God’s rules and laws are expected to be timeless, and as a result should not be questioned, trapping us in God’s presumed superior wisdom for all time, because after all, who do we think we are to challenge god’s authority, orders, rules, laws, or commandments. That’s why it doesn’t make sense when you find that conservatives want a smaller government, to maximize freedom. They don’t actually want a smaller government over one’s own freewill or life. They want the secular or human made government to be smaller, in order for it to not be big enough to compete with the actual big government that they all happily subscribe to, that is of God. And it is not easy upon further inspection to realize that God’s government is in fact not small at all in any way. It is as large as any possible government could get. It is just not secular. In other words, it’s okay for them to submit to a humongous government, as long as it is good, according to their worldview. And what government could be better than the divine infallible government of God. These people don’t aspire for a small government. They just want their colossal divine government of God to not be undermined or opposed by a non-divinely inspired Government, the one that we call secular.

Isn’t substituting the secular government by God’s government as the source of how we should act and think also restrictive to our freedom and independence from being controlled by a higher force for our own good whether we like it or not? And if it’s okay in case of God because God knows best, then will it be okay if the government turned out to be just as infallible (at least as far as the masses believe or have faith in the government) as God? That is, is it okay to sacrifice our free will in case the government were – hypothetically speaking – all-knowing? It’s easy to just dismiss any incredible new law or policy propelled by the left wing by them (the right wing or conservatives) calling it just an expansion of government, but we conservatives want a smaller government, so this should be enough as the grounds upon which we oppose this new incredible left wing law or policy that is aimed at making our lives or the lives of working people substantially better. And if that isn’t enough to do the trick we should just add the word socialism to it and then it will feel so horrible to our fellow conservative voters. They don’t want a smaller government. They just resort to this trick to dismiss or oppose any new law or policy, except when this new law or policy is not contradicting with their conservative political stances on issues.

Is it okay to give up our freedom if God was the ultimate government that is ordering us around? Like in, submit to a celestial dictatorship just because God is better than the rest of us?

Do you actually think that submitting to the authority of God means we are still responsible accountable grown-ups who are self-imposing our own morality upon ourselves freely without any external pressure? Without that making us do anything not because we’re responsible for our actions and in control of our lives freely determining what’s good for ourselves, but because we have no choice? This is what leads to maximizing degeneracy that stems from not caring about what’s good for us, but just having fun while dodging the wrath of authority like teenage kids.

Yes, I never said Christianity is the worst religion out there. And I certainly don’t think that all major religions are equally bad or evil.

But to think that individualism originated from religion, is defended by religion, or is an inevitable result of becoming a Christian, is to attribute something that came from liberalism to the doctrines created by men and women of the first century. The kind of sacrifice that is found in and cherished by religion stems from the proposition that you as an individual don’t matter, as long as the collective – which is humanity in this case – is saved. God doesn’t abolish collectivism in favor of individualism and working on oneself.

He teaches that it is moral to sacrifice even one’s own child, to save the world. Kinda like Thanos did in the avengers Endgame, by sacrificing half of the living beings in order to provide the remaining half with a bigger chance of survival and prosperity. But it goes unnoticed when God did it, because the sacrificed entity is just his own son, which still counts as one. And that is just one out of countless examples where religion deems it okay to sacrifice people for the good of other people.

The concept of self-sacrifice contradicts with individualism.

If the Bible emphasizes that it’s good to sacrifice your own happiness and well-being for the good of the collective, then that is anti-individualism, and that is not liberal.

You believe in greater purpose that we should struggle to fulfill or reach even if it makes us not so happy along the way? That’s okay. But that is still not individualism. The point is we do not learn individualism from religion, and that religion never teaches individualism.

Still, isn’t sacrifice for the sake of the collective contradictory with individualism?

Struggling for your own good as in cases of delayed gratification isn’t the kind of sacrifice that contradicts with individualism. It is in the absence of even that kind of delayed gratification that we start questioning whether or not this sacrifice you made was for your own good at all, now, later, or ever. That’s just training and practice. Sacrifice is when there’s nothing in it for you. Here you became better through this struggle, and thus though unpleasant, still doesn’t count as a form of absolute sacrifice. Right?

In sacrifice there is expected to be a lose win situation. The earlier examples of pushing through that makes you better through struggle and perseverance despite the absence of receiving what you want at present for long described above is a win win situation, from a certain indirect point of view, and thus doesn’t count as absolute sacrifice of yourself for the good of other people or society at large.

The bottom line is the kind of absolute sacrifice celebrated by religion including Christianity cannot lead to something good for you, at least not necessarily in the first (current) life. Which means it contradicts with individualistic stand points or perspectives of how we should approach maximizing our freedom, prosperity, development, advancement, well-being, and happiness in this world.

Also working on yourself to become better and fix your life and problems without outside help is self-reliance, which cannot always be helpful in every case and situation that all people without exception can go through.

Part of me mixing politics with self-help is because it’s not always your fault. According to conservatives and centrists, if things aren’t working so well for you then it’s your fault. You’re of insufficient moral character.

Whenever we propose the government should figure something out to help those who are failing despite trying it is readily dismissed carelessly by the right wing as socialism. As if not succeeding under any current bad system is your fault only.

Going through short-term pain in order to reach long-term pleasure is not what I’m against here at all. This is a kind of sacrifice that I have no problem with, and I do it all the time, despite being an atheist.

Yes, struggle is good, but how is struggling for the greater good of the collective at the expense of your own happiness, well-being, and good still individualistic or not contradictory with individualism?

When we speak about sacrificing your happiness, well-being, and what’s good for you, for the sake of what’s good for the collective, that is some kind of sacrifice that contradicts with the concept of individualism that conservatives sometimes advocate for and claim that religion calls for it despite religion being a source of material that calls for the abolishment of individualism just as the far left anti-liberal ideologies do, perhaps for different reasons or purposes.

I am happy that conservatives sometimes advocate for and are pro individualism and personal liberty. How liberalism, or individualism is inevitably extracted, concluded, or understood from Christianity remains a mystery to me.

It’s fascinating that liberalism is being defended by right wing conservatives, who think that they’re doing so because of what Jesus taught them, not because their continued traditionalism is contingent upon defending the constitution that gives them the right to hold their illiberal religious beliefs without being subjected to rational criticism.

I really find it weird when someone says freedom, liberalism, or individualism is one of the cornerstones of Judaeo-Christian values.

To think that if we deploy more reason in our lives, we’ll end up worse than if we don’t, just because our newfound wisdom wasn’t approved by the creator of the universe is assuming that the reasons for the current issues we’re suffering from at the moment is due to too much thinking for ourselves–that is what I’m against.

I’m against the Bible being the exclusive source of wisdom and solutions to our problems that beyond which we shouldn’t even try to explore.

Yes the Bible may contain some great stuff, but we’re not better off submitting our minds and lives to God’s infinite wisdom to the extent of demonizing anything that has no equal or basis in scripture, or abandoning following our own reason in favor of following God’s trusted advice or infallible reason and wisdom.

Isn’t individualism reached by realizing your value and importance, and that everyone matters?

I dream of a world where you are entitled to afford food and lodging, even if you are nonessential or outright useless.

If something is good in the bible I’ll welcome it with open arms. I’m still not going to attribute it to God, because I know it was made up by men and women of the first century. I’m just not with you when it comes to it being the word of the creator of the universe, not because I think another religion is better, but because I realized over time that we’re so alone out here, and it’s pretty damn scary.

Accepting God wouldn’t increase my comfort, and it won’t help in my case because I realized there’s nothing out there. I’m not wishing he doesn’t exist so that I can run around all day without punishment. I don’t believe in him because I know he can’t exist.

You are utilizing your reason once to determine that following God is the reasonable choice.

I’m just asking you to not deem giving up your reason for all time the most rational choice, just because you believed at some point that it is wiser to follow the lord of all rationality without needing to resort to your own reasoning powers any further from that point of time onward.

It’s like telling someone don’t idolize Jordan Peterson and give your mind a vacation just because he’s too wise to be competed with. How can you make sure that what God says makes sense without thinking about it?

And if you can determine that it makes sense on your own, then why don’t you exercise that critical thought elsewhere as well, to figure out stuff that falls outside the realm of what could be determined to be good, bad, true, or false based upon God’s words alone?

The same muscle that makes you sure following God is the answer can determine whether or not God is not the answer. If you don’t trust that ability then how can you be sure that God is worth listening to.

And if you trust this ability, then why lay it down to rest in the name of letting God take care of you in his own way because he knows best, when utilizing this ability may significantly improve your life once you start relying upon it more?

It’s okay that you found God after all this searching and questioning. Still the idea of something coming from nothing might be difficult to comprehend. But isn’t that an indication that the assumption of God coming out of nowhere is equally improbable or hard to believe?

If the universe and everything in it can’t come to existence without having been created, because they are too complex to not have been a product of intelligent design, then why God is exempt from such rules?

How could something presumably as complex and all-powerful as God come to existence without having been created or intelligently designed by another all-powerful and all-knowing entity? Why is God a lucky special case?

I’m totally not against the concept of working on yourself.

I preach the constant and never ending betterment of oneself as a goal in and of itself, something that you should do for its own sake, even if it didn’t increase your chances of succeeding at anything in the short-term or long-term.