It puts a lot of features at the fingertips of the faithful, including the ability to filter whole neighborhoods by religion, ethnicity, “Hispanic country of origin,” “assimilation,” and whether there are children living in the household.

Its core function is to produce neighborhood maps and detailed tables of data about people from non-Anglo-European backgrounds, drawn from commercial sources typically used by marketing and data-harvesting firms.

training videos produced by users show the extent to which evangelical groups are using sophisticated ways to target non-Christian communities, with questionable safeguards around security and privacy.

In one instance, he points to the sharable note-taking function and suggests leaving information for each household, such as “Daughter left for college” and “Mother is in the hospital.”

increasingly popular among Christian supremacist groups, prayerwalking calls on believers to wage “violent prayer” (persistently and aggressively channeling emotions of hatred and anger against Satan), engage in “spiritual mapping” (identifying areas where evil is at work, such as the darkness ruling over an abortion clinic, or the “spirit of greed” ruling over Las Vegas), and conduct prayerwalking (roaming the streets in groups, “praying on-site with insight”).

newly arrived refugees might well find a knock on the door from strangers with knowledge of their personal circumstances distressing—and that’s before these surprise visitors even begin to attempt to convert them.

placing people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds on easy-to-access databases is a dangerous road to go down

  • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Hi, Christian here. I can’t speak for all Christians, but this isn’t accurate to my behaviors or perceptions.

    I generally save the “conversion process” as you call it until after I already know someone because there’s more trust from a friend. So it’s not my immediate action (and also not something I’m trying to force on them.) Also, if they’re not my “personal brand” of Christian, I don’t feel a need to convert them, because what matters is following Christ earnestly, not checking all the right answers to unclear questions. Unless it’s like the World Mission Society Church of God or something.

    I don’t assume that other religions and ideologies are full of aggressive evangelicals. I do think there are some aggressive evangelicals, but most of the time the pushing of other religions is a slow and passive thing, and the pushing of ideologies is a thing of culture as a whole, not specific agents.

    • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Totally fair point - there’s more than one type of Christian and not everyone in the faith has homogeneous opinions or actions.

      Unfortunately (fortunately?) for your faith - the ones steering the ship politically are hyper right wing convert /submit or die types.

      Until Christian denominations meaningfully split or works against the goals from evangelicals/Christian nationalists, you’re effectively sitting at the same table and will be judged accordingly.

      • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        I’d like to know what you meant by evangelical. I’d consider myself evangelical in that I believe in evangelism (telling people about Jesus) and in the evangel (the Gospel,) but every time I hear the word used by non-Christians, it’s regarded like it’s a flavor of fascism or something.

        • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          That’s because it is the closest thing to fascism. Especially when religion bleeds into politics.

          Don’t be shocked that your faith of complete, uncompromising, control of human behaviour based on a collective, personal conclusion that you have all the answers to everything is perceived for what it is.

          Believe whatever you want in your own head, and live your life according to whatever belief system you want. The second you try to extend the control you place on yourself to anyone else is the line between faith and fascism

          If you don’t believe in abortions? Fine.

          If you believe others should follow your example? Fine.

          If you force others to follow your idealogies through control of legal/political systems? not fine

          Y’all never seem to understand, nobody cares what you do as long as you keep self imposed control to yourself. But apparently the whole point is to “spread the love” through non-optional participation, which is what makes you so dangerous.

          If your faith really was all that goodness you claim, people would actually want to join! But they don’t. So you force them. Jesus would be so proud ❤️

          • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            You seem to be putting words in my mouth. People I know that talk to me about these sorts of things know that this isn’t how I think at all.

            I never claim to have all the answers, and there’s a lot I don’t know about the Bible. In fact, if you talk to me about the biblical stance of abortion in particular, I’ll say that I don’t know at what point someone becomes a person, and the Bible doesn’t give a clear answer - if anything, it implies that you’re a person before you’re even conceived, which could mean that not having kids is murder, but that’s ridiculous and obviously wrong.

            I also never push for controlling others. As I said in another thread here, it has to be a choice, otherwise God might as well control us all directly. And I definitely never try to use the law as a tool to make others moral. If the law were capable of making people moral, there would be no need for Jesus.

            By the way, there are people out there who think Christians are evil for believing others should think the same way they do even if they agree it’s optional. I’ve met them. I’m not lumping you in with them, just contradicting your claim that nobody cares.

            EDIT: By the way, you didn’t define evangelical. If it’s not too much trouble, I would like to know how you define it.

            • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I have NEVER heard of ANY christian group speaking out against evangelical attempts to control others. NEVER.

              I have NEVER heard of ANY christian organization standing up to government officials to say NO WE DO NOT WANT TO FORCE OUR GOD OR IDEOLOGY ON OTHERS THROUGH GOVERNMENT FORCE. Which is weird because government force is proof that there is no god and/or he has no power of his own.

              • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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                8 months ago

                Try asking your nearest pastor. It’s hard for real Christian statements to get around. Where are you going to hear it?

                The news? They won’t share it because it’s not really news. They don’t share much besides events, and news networks are biased towards negative events and crimes, which would generally be perpetrated by fake Christians (like christofascists.)

                Social media? Christian statements don’t trend because there are too many Christian-haters that downvote and argue. The closest you get is “look at these evil christofascists” kind of stuff like this.

                Word of mouth and one-on-one conversations is by far the best way.

                • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  But see that’s the part you dont get: there is NO REASON for christian statements to get around. Yours is the only religion that demands that you be a fucking pest to everyone else. You dont know to stop once someone is saved; you switch immediately to cult grooming. It’s a religion of evil, not good; a cult of death, not peace. The long term goals are the same as they have always been: scour the earth of infidels.

                  • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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                    8 months ago

                    Not gonna lie, this sounds like:

                    “I’ve never heard of any Christian saying anything against being evil in this way.”
                    “That’s because you don’t hear from Christians. Try asking one.”
                    “There’s no reason to hear from Christians, they’re evil in that way.”

                    Frankly, this sounds like it’s going to be a long and tiring conversation. If you militantly believe that something so simple as telling a friend that Jesus loves them is an act of fascism, I don’t think this is going to be productive or enjoyable for either of us.

            • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Regardless of your personal actions or beliefs, you are being lumped in with extremists. If that confuses you because you personally feel innocent, there is an expression that goes something like

              “If there are 9 people at a table and a Nazi sits and eats with them, there are 10 Nazis as the table.”

              Tolerating or being indifferent to abhorrent behaviour is the same as rewarding/endorsing abhorrent behaviour.

              As for the definition of evangelicals, there’s the literal definition

              “Evangelicalism (/ˌiːvænˈdʒɛlɪkəlɪzəm, ˌɛvæn-, -ən-/), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasizes the centrality of sharing the “good news” of Christianity, being “born again” in which an individual experiences personal conversion, as authoritatively guided by the Bible, God’s revelation to humanity.[1][2][3][4][5] The word evangelical comes from the Greek word for “good news” (euangelion).[6]”

              And then there is the applied practice of evangelicals who spend considerable wealth influencing politics to turn America (and the world) into a theocratic state with the goal of converting everyone and doing away with anyone who resists their goals.

              They are uncompromising because they believe they act on God’s will giving them unquestionable holy authority to act as they see fit as long as it pushes their narrative and goals.

              It’s not my job to educate you on your own religion, if you’re lost as to why anyone would despise evangelicals even though “they’re not all like that” that is up to you to reconcile.

              There might be a subtle difference between a front lines Nazi and Hitler on the ‘innocence scale’ if you want to split hairs, but to everyone outside that group, a Nazi is a Nazi (who were all essentially evangelicals as well, surprise surprises)

              if you don’t believe me, here’s something to read since you like proof/evidence so much, but I doubt you’ll ever challenge your own beliefs.

              • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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                8 months ago

                So what I’m seeing here is that I’m being accused of fascism because some people I never met who claim to share my religion are fascists. But apparently that’s a justified accusation because apparently I have no issues with them.

                It wasn’t okay to lump Muslims in with Al-Qaeda. Why is this okay? Because the people you’re lumping me in with are in power?

          • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            Can you describe what it is? When you use the word evangelical, is that a synonym for christofascism, or something more specific?

            • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              By the way, my extended family are all what you would call “good christians” and they’re all trump supporters because their pastor is, and the scales do not fall from their eyes and they do not recognize an antichrist when they see one though he keeps screaming out loud to them I AM AN ANTICHRIST!!!

            • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              It is a synonym for christofascism. “Fire and brimstone” ideology that divides “sinners” from “saved”. ANY recognition of a punishment dealt in afterlife or perceived “wrath of god” in this life. Any usurpation of the First Amendment that ejects freedom FROM religion. Use of broadcast and cable media to spread this very bad news. Prayer in schools. Grooming children with Sunday School classes.

                • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  Yes. Yes, it is. It is a cult of fear and death and division and hatred. Hell isnt even part of your scriptures and never has been; it was made up after the fact when you saw how other mythologies used it.

      • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Can’t argue with that logic. I can disagree, but I can’t really argue because there’s nothing there to argue with, and asking for clarification might sound like sealioning. I’m not really in a sealioning mood, so have a nice day.