Reece’s Sidequests
Region: US
Sunday 30 August 2026 14:44:14 GMT
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Lucy :
Easy differentiator: Calvinist churches are led by college & seminary educated pastors who preach empathy. Evangelicals have 0 qualifications
2026-08-30 17:48:02
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SmokedandBaked :
At a sociopolitical level, individualism is antisocial behavior.
2026-08-30 18:04:24
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Dazed Baboon :
The only country to deal with Religion ethically is the Soviet Union.
2026-08-30 17:36:59
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Natalie :
So evangelicals were literally founded on religious psychosis.
2026-08-30 21:36:09
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sai6525 :
It’s called the prosperity doctrine: believing that if you’re rich its because God loves you and if you’re poor because there’s something wrong with you. Being poor is a punishment, so you must deserve it.
2026-08-31 10:58:17
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Neckbeardicus :
The short answer is racism
2026-08-30 22:38:17
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it_never_raines :
That's what always drove me crazy about the infant baptism argument. I see infant baptism as a promise from the community to the baby, they see it as the baby making a promise...
2026-08-30 18:21:25
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WMG1008 :
Couple things: Calvinism places the least value on human free will, to the extreme of Predestination—“God says you’re f***ed anyway, nothing you can do will change that, who am I to make your short life harder?”… Evangelicals, Catholics, Methodists, etc., believe fully in free will—you always had and always have a choice; you don’t have to be stuck in all… *this*… That’s why they also tend to be the denominations most active in social justice programs and substance recovery, like AA. Now, all that to say, Empathy was NEVER a Christian virtue in ANY denomination. Empathy, as a concept, is barely over a century old; Christian Virtues go back a couple millennia. Love/Charity and Kindness can be *empathetic*, but empathy ain’t exactly directly useful to someone suffering. And honestly, the way empathy gets used now, it’s swinging awful close to the Deadly Sin of Sloth… NOT as in laziness… but in the sense that empathy expends all the emotional energy while still leaving someone stuck in their suffering. So if that stirring of empathy doesn’t *immediately* mobilize you to an action that materially improves the spiritual and circumstantial state of someone suffering, you aren’t experiencing anything Virtuous. That’s the Deadly Sin of Pride/Vanity.
2026-08-30 22:28:23
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HYENA_PUNCH :
Your voice has that perfect monotone quality for hours long video essays about this exact kind of thing, but you need to speak just SLIGHTLY faster with a smattering more of intensity before I listen to all 4 hours of your reddit essay
2026-08-30 15:06:43
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Captain Tuna :
To be clear: Calvinism started in the early 1500s and emerged as part of the reformation, alongside Lutheranism. The first great awakening, from which emerged the evangelicals, began in the early 1700s. They’re 2 distinct groups with different histories
2026-08-30 16:36:20
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BrickRat :
This is interesting - but I would argue that evangelicals were primed to believe that empathy is a sin from colonial times. An example, during colonial times - if a white woman had a mixed race baby - she would be separated from the baby after 30 days & sentenced to serve the church as an indentured servant. The church would then sell her to another bidder to complete the sentence of 5 years & keep some of the money. But her baby would be sentenced to work as an indentured servant to the church until they were 30. SOURCE: "Legislating reproduction and racial differences in Virginia". Laws of Virginia, April 1691. From wams.nyhistory.org
2026-08-30 20:44:12
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randominternetlady :
Kevin Kruse also has a great book outlining how a lot of American Christianity was essentially invented by marketing professionals in the mid 1900s that I think plays a role here too
2026-08-30 21:52:42
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Plod & Ponder :
I'd argue it's a different and much more recent terminology started by the bleeding over from the book about suicidal empathy to the great replacement theory of white nationalists and evangelicals
2026-08-30 22:25:47
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Captain_sux :
They’re not Calvinist’s but essentially they believe the same thing that god punishes the poor and rewards the rich for a reason.
2026-08-31 15:20:01
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Brian Mabry :
Good answer. At their best, Calvinist / Reformed Christians promote a covenant community that values the intellect and making the world a better place. To wit, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ (the Congregationalists mentioned in the answer)
2026-08-31 23:41:20
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AUSTIN JACKSON :
The book of Hebrews says Jesus is the High Priest who EMPATHIZES with our weaknesses
2026-08-31 15:22:17
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Missy Pants :
Did they get a copy of the witch finders interrogation book? That thing has a whole chapter on how to avoid feeling bad for the witch as a confession is tortured out of her. And it's all just how not to have empathy for someone they are actively harming.
2026-08-31 11:38:38
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buy thursday :
this is why healthcare will never be improved in such a society 😑 the individualism has a far greater impact to both the individual and the population at large; one moment a person is independent and the population that thinks this way will let that individual suffer without much worry nor care if they person dies or not
2026-08-31 18:31:32
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questionable life choices :
extremely rare case where the puritans were the better religious option
2026-08-30 19:16:33
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Sb_User_1 :
Oh oh oh read Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobes Du Mez
2026-08-30 23:25:07
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lighthouse keeper :
It’s a really warped interpretation of the therapeutic paradigm of Edwin Friedman. And it does originate with American Calvinists, actually. Specifically Neo-Calvinist Joe Rigney, who got his start as a student of John Piper.
2026-08-30 21:29:27
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stbaumer :
One day it’ll be time for my 20 minute rant on the Protestant work ethic!
2026-09-01 13:33:36
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user9950948288521 :
I'm not sure on this, but I'd love your take. Was the take on poverty part of the earliest Protestantism? With the establishment of the workhouses and the "devils poor"vs. "god's poor" happening before the evangelical movement?
2026-08-30 19:20:49
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Sam High :
They're racists, and see non-white people and culture as evil and subversive to their faith. So, they've been conditioned to believe that having empathy for other peoples is poisonous to them, because everyone should be their brand of Christian.
2026-08-30 21:27:33
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Mevoypalpueblo :
Evangelicals are the inheritors to Calvinism. And you have a really easy answer right there predestination you don’t have to have empathy because you’re either saved or not and it’s not up to you whether you’re saved
2026-08-30 17:11:23
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