Does God Hate Poor People?
The following video inspired this diddy.
@GarrisonHayes YouTube — “Why are Black people still Christian?”
The video description:
If God exists, why does he allow Black people to suffer the way that they do? For starters, Christianity has been used as a brutal tool of oppression against Black folks for as long as this country has existed. Outside of the US, Christianity and the Bible motivated colonizers to commit some of the worst atrocities the planet has ever seen. The track record of this religion is clear and it isn’t looking great. So why did Black people, when surveyed by the Pew Research Center, identify as Christians at nearly 80%? Significantly more than their non-Black peers. That’s what I want to talk about in this video. I spoke to a Black woman pastor who sees herself represented in Jesus as well as a Black professor who identifies as atheist and sees no evidence of a God interested in the oppressed.” At the end, I wrestle with my own journey around faith. I hope you enjoy
I loved what the Black woman pastor said about Joshua. It seems Joshua couldn’t possibly hate Black people.
Amazingly, people find it easy to know what God thinks and feels. They simply repeat what other people say God thinks and feels. “Tell me what God thinks; wait a minute, let me turn this narrative into a melodic rhyme, which is easier to remember and pass on, or better yet, write it down. This story is awesome!” Or, in the case of a mystic, “Good God, it has been revealed; let me spread the word. I can be of good use to the higher-ups.” Imagine that.
Why Homo true believer? Why homo hubris? Why Homo firestarter? Why Homo berserker? It’s utterly baffling.
People want to know things while avoiding learning things. Learning requires so much effort, and we only have so much energy for certain things — especially when we are a labor-saving device. White Empires play The Great Game. (Perhaps the weather caused their members to play so rough.) When the Players became modern, technological, fossil-fueled industrialists, their conquest and exploitation/extraction tools became devastatingly effective at omnicidal strategies for winning/controlling resources and people’s minds and beliefs. In pre-modernity, storytelling in the form of religion was a perfect technology for control. Control beliefs through narrative, and you control people (labor-saving devices and means of production). Believing feels good. Believing feels so much better than doubting. And it is easy to program beliefs. All one has to do is allow Homo storyteller to do his good work.
