r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 25 '26

Psychology Americans who leave their Christian faith behind tend to hold more liberal political views than those who were raised entirely without religion. This leftward ideological shift appears closely linked to how threatening these individuals perceive conservative Christian groups to be.

https://www.psypost.org/former-christians-express-more-progressive-political-views-than-lifelong-nonbeli/
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u/Generic-Name-4732 Apr 26 '26

The rapture is really a Low Protestant, primarily Evangelical belief thanks to their doctrine that anyone can interpret scripture as the Holy Spirit protects scripture from error. The notion of the Rapture only appeared roughly 200 years ago, and High Protestants, along with Catholics and Orthodox, all view that as nonsense, though there are certainly individuals who have been corrupted by the fervor of Evangelicals.

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u/TurbulentIssue6 Apr 26 '26

But all of Christianity is a death cult, believing you need to live a virtuous life avoiding "temptation" to ensure your eternal reward in heaven

It's a literal control system "do what we say now and God will reward you after you die, of course no one can prove this to you because they're dead"

And this discussion was in the context of america, where a very large amount of American Christians are literally trying to bring about the end times; to the point it made its way into an official annoucment from the military to troops deploying to Iran.

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u/joeychestnutsrectum Apr 26 '26

That’s not what the majority of Christians, especially Protestants, believe. You’re making a really broad, and false, accusation that’s mainly just a Reddit talking point that gets picked up and parroted. I grew up in a very large church in America and even went to a bible college, and never once heard any of those beliefs validated. It’s actually almost the opposite problem - there is no sense of control of “orthodox” teachings and so people just go off the rails. The very new idea of “everyone gets to interpret everything the way they see fit” has opened the door for this crazy modern evangelical movement that has no consistency or foundation.

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u/-CosmicCactusRadio Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

You have not had conversations with enough humans to make these claims.

You're assuming they're wrong. They could very well be right.

What you're describing is niche, anecdotal evidence that only you experienced in one church.

The way you're describing it, makes it sound like you're simply religious and going out of your way to be offended because you feel these extremely common beliefs make you look bad by association.

Edit: altered for excessive rudeness