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A man meets Jesus and says “whoa, it’s Jesus. You’re such a chill dude.” Jesus then grins a malicious grin, points to himself and says “Guess again, bitch. I’m CALVINIST Jesus.” Calvinist Jesus hits the man with a steel chair. He then kicks the man in his lower back while the man is curled into a ball on the ground.
I meant about Calvinism. I’m not really familiar with all the protestant denominations.
I’m paraphrasing from a pretty good book about calvinism called “against calvinism.” The author notes that all ‘calvinist’ beliefs have some central tenets, summarized as TULIP.
Obviously, those principles lead to all sorts of morally fucked up beliefs and actions, similar to how reincarnation folks tend to horribly mistreat or denigrate people in ‘lower’ stations in life.
Calvinism also isn’t really its own denomination. It’s a style or camp in the christian belief sphere. It’s usually contrasted with Arminianism, which focuses on humans and their choice to seek and accept god. It’s definitely surprising how much a random preacher’s teachings will fall under one of those two belief systems though, without them ever knowing anything about them.
The predestination thing is probably the biggest talking point for people discussing christianity in general or calvinism vs arminianism. Calvinists will trend towards the ‘double predestination’ of augustine-fame, which I find a little silly and just getting really pedantic. Catholics have the double predestination thing as a fundamental part of their ability to handwave away god being an asshole if people are destined to hell, while calvinists seem to use it without any consideration of god being an asshole because those people deserved it anyway and isn’t it just so nice that he’s decided to save some and, oh, look, we’re part of the saved. Thus god (and in the comic, jesus) being quite ‘mean’ is just part and parcel of calvinist beliefs.
Yeah, that’s Calvinism.
Try to be successful at all costs so you have proof that god loves you. A message that is really compatible with Capitalism.
PS: I just understood that you asked about the definition.
Basically a reform / protestant roman Catholic theology inspired by Martin Luther founded by John Calvin.
That sounds kinda fucked up TBH
Yea. Any religion that believes in a just interving diety runs into this.
If i really believe my god is perfect and all powerful, then why should I have compassion for all the unlucky people that god clearly despises?
It’s hard, because the idea of a perfect loving god is incredibly attractive.
It’s the evidence that sucks: if god is real and all powerful, then god is, at best ineffable, and at worst a terrible raging asshole who lovingly created a parasite that eats childrens eyes.
Now, if we’re willing to believe in a sort of weak impotent god, the theology gets more interesting.
People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh? And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn’t in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere. This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn’t looking, in the same way that Boy Scouts’ Association minutes are done on office photocopiers all over the country. So, reasoned Koomi, it was not a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme Being. It would only attract his attention and might cause trouble
From Terry Pratchets Small Gods
I wish I could upvote this twice! I’m actually on my way around to my second re-read of “Small Gods” during another full Discworld read-through.
Yeah, they don’t frame it that way, and the more charitable description is that they believe their god knows from your birth if you’ll be someone who is pious and hardworking enough to go to heaven or not. But yeah it’s fucked up
Calvinism built America.
Edit: calvinists and ba’al worshippers built America.
In a nutshell, it’s predetermined from birth whether you’ll go to Heaven or Hell.
Not only did it preach a lot of “work hard or else” rhetoric, but it also believed everybody was predetermined to go to Heaven or not upon birth so even if you did work as hard as possible, as much as possible, in the end it wouldn’t matter anyway. Calvinism was quite strange
Lol. On what basis? The amount of original sin they were born with?
Nah, more like ‘God already planned everything, including our existences, so your fate is already predetermined’. Still fucking stupid imo
If you’ve ever read the beginning of Moby Dick the preacher in the first chapter with the fire and brimstone preaching represents similar evangelical Calvinist denom preachers popularized around the 1700s during the great awakening. Probably the most popular example was Johnathan Edwards evangelical Calvinist/puritan “sinners in the hands of an angry god” from 1741.