Has Your Politics Changed?

[Kian Mead]

Just a question for every one.

 

Did your politics change when you either became a christian, or de-converted?

 

 

I am asking, because I just will find your answers fascinating. If you would like, tell how your politics changed, and what end of the spectrum it has shifted to.

[Dagan]

Just a question for every one.

 

Did your politics change when you either became a christian, or de-converted?

 

 

I am asking, because I just will find your answers fascinating. If you would like, tell how your politics changed, and what end of the spectrum it has shifted to.

 

No. I still believe that all politicians are liars, no matter the party.

[OpheliaGinger]

I definitely made a 180. I used to be a Conservative (and proudly proclaimed myself Conservative even though most of the people I was listening to would hide behind "Libertarianism" because they knew calling themselves Conservative meant they loose credibility) Christian Republican, but now I'm a leftist Liberal socialist/commie/Maoist/Stalinist or whatever the right wants to call me to make me seem evil.

[tvaholic]

 

 

Did your politics change when you either became a christian, or de-converted?

 

 

 

My politics changing was the beginning of my deconversion actually. I was a "right winger" because that's what I had been taught all my life and I was taught that it was the "christian" way to be politically. My first political change of viewpoint was on the death penalty - after I started questioning that it kind of became a slippery slope to questioning everything I'd ever been told or taught. Once I no longer agreed with the right wing chrisians on the death penalty, I quit agreeing with them on a lot of other stuff. And I figured if I didn't believe what they told me politically, maybe what they told me religously was wrong too. Now I would consider myself pretty liberal.

[Shyone]

Just a question for every one.

 

Did your politics change when you either became a christian, or de-converted?

 

 

I am asking, because I just will find your answers fascinating. If you would like, tell how your politics changed, and what end of the spectrum it has shifted to.

Good question.

 

My politics have not changed one bit. Partly for family reasons, I have always been liberal. Long story I won't go into.

 

I would say that my liberal focus, and the emphasis on empathy and equality, may have had something to do with my deconversion, though. It wasn't that my church was conservative and cruel, but rather that I independently started looking at other cultures and noted that they were people too. So why didn't they believe what I believed? Why was religion geographically distributed?

 

Then I read the bible. Well, you can imagine.

[Andy]

Barely. I guess I was moderate/liberal before and am very liberal now.

[Objet_trouve24]

I used to not care, except for the occasional social issue (like abortion and creation and prayer in schools). Leaving the faith meant having to care about GLBT issues (esp DOMA and DADT), being poor for a time (result of leaving the faith) meant I had to care about health care, drug laws, etc. and then working in a news station filled in the rest of the blanks. Now I consider myself a social democrat.

[Vixentrox]

Just a question for every one.

 

Did your politics change when you either became a christian, or de-converted?

 

 

I am asking, because I just will find your answers fascinating. If you would like, tell how your politics changed, and what end of the spectrum it has shifted to.

I didn't follow politics much as a Christian. I didn't pay attention a whole lot till after I was retired from the military though I leaned a bit to the Republicans. Once I DID start paying attention though, it didn't take long for me to realize the Republicans were total crap, and the Democrats were no better. Then I discovered the Libertarian party, agree with most (though not all) of their platform. So today I am a registered member of the Libertarian party.

[★ Citsonga ★]

I was raised with a conservative christian mindset, so I used to be registered Republican. After I deconverted, I changed my registration to No Affiliation, as I consider myself moderate with liberal leanings. I'm not sure if I'll swing Democrat or one of the minor parties, but I don't think I can ever vote Republican again unless they stop catering to the fundies.

[XcaliburGirl]

Wow, this is a totally relavant question for me right now. If I was still a Christian I'd say you must've been led by God to post that. ;-)

 

I used to be conservative, though I always considered myself an independant and refused to register with any party.

 

When I deconverted and was a vague sort of deist/agnostic, I changed my stance on the death penalty, same-sex marriage, military intervention, abortion, etc. I've been identifying myself as a libertarian.

 

Lately, though--and maybe I've been watching too much Jon Stewart--I find myself slowly drifting left-wards even on economic issues. I've read a lot of interesting points. Human-caused global warming or not, when someone pollutes the air or water, it affects all of us. Who's going to regulate that?

In an ideal world, I'm all for minimal government, but it's not an ideal world. As I read somewhere recently, "Oppression doesn't just come from government." I've been watching Rick Burns' New York documentary. Hearing about the tenements and the shirt waist factory fire 100 years ago and thinking "somebody should stop this!" really made me think twice about in what issues the government should or should not get involved. I'm not so sure now that a free market would weed that sort of thing out.

 

Right now, I'm just confused and frustrated. I hate how every side vilifies the other as evil inhuman monsters who want to take over and ruin America. It also bothers me how the country is idolized, maybe it's the same in other countries. Really, it's just a place you live and maybe happen to be born, not God's gift to all the other sad places.

 

Maybe I'll stop listening to the political news and just continue to vote libertarian, since that way I can support my unrealistic ideals, but since they won't win anyway, no one will have to live with the consequences. Maybe that's cowardly, though.

[ghost_warlock]

I started out as generally ignorant of all but the most controversial issues with mild leanings towards the conservative side. During deconversion I became almost radically leftist. Now that the rage of my initial deconversion has mostly cooled, I consider myself a left-leaning moderate.

[par4dcourse]

Barely. I guess I was moderate/liberal before and am very liberal now.

 

Me too. Commie pinko knee-jerk librul for life.

[Carmen]

As one of the previous posters said, changing my political views was one of the steps that led to my de-conversion. I began to get very frustrated with a lot of the conservative ideas, and I begin to wonder why Christians thought their political ideologies were the only way. It really woke me up to the fact that they could be wrong about a lot of other things too. At this point I consider myself a moderate with a slightly liberal tilt.

[Carmen]

Oh, and I absolutely HATE how conservatives equate socialism and liberalism with communism. It drives me nuts every time I hear it! Come on people, where is your logic?

[Vixentrox]

Oh, and I absolutely HATE how conservatives equate socialism and liberalism with communism. It drives me nuts every time I hear it! Come on people, where is your logic?

Two way street..conservative often equated with racism, heartlessness or the Nazis.

[nightflight]

Oh, and I absolutely HATE how conservatives equate socialism and liberalism with communism. It drives me nuts every time I hear it! Come on people, where is your logic?

Two way street..conservative often equated with racism, heartlessness or the Nazis.

 

 

Well that doesn't count.

[Carmen]

That's a fair point. I don't like the bipartisan system either way. The two parties too often spend all their time bashing each other and ignoring the real problems that need to be solved.

[nightflight]

That's a fair point. I don't like the bipartisan system either way. The two parties too often spend all their time bashing each other and ignoring the real problems that need to be solved.

 

I think its better when they ignore the real problems. I'm more troubled when they decide to do things.

[hereticzero]

When I was a fundy, I was conservative. Since deconverting I do not know why people are not more liberal.

[nightflight]

When I was a fundy, I was conservative. Since deconverting I do not know why people are not more liberal.

 

 

What do you mean by liberal?

[Petrel]

Mine changed a lot. I no longer had a reason for opposing gay rights or abortion (although I still think abortion is aesthetically offensive and wrong when late in pregnancy without a really good reason). So on social issues I'm now liberal, but on governmental/economic issues I'm on the more allegedly conservative side, although the Republican party has been doing a pretty good impression of big government spenders lately. I still am more inclined to identify with conservatives. If the Democrats would stop being hypocritical and stand up for gay rights like they should I might change my mind. But right now there's not much reason to pick one party over the other.

 

I should probably sign up with the Libertarians and thumb my nose at both parties.

[bird28]

As an Christian, I was very conservative, except for the protection of environment stuff. Now I have gone liberal.

[★ Citsonga ★]

As an Christian, I was very conservative, except for the protection of environment stuff. Now I have gone liberal.

 

Oh yeah, I should have pointed out that even though I was conservative as a christian I also agreed with protecting the environment.

 

I guess the main reason I identified with the conservative side was because of abortion. I also disagreed with homosexuality, but I wasn't into legislating against it like I was with abortion.

[HRDWarrior]

The first time I was old enough to vote I was still young enough to go along with what everyone around me ranted about, so I voted conservative republican. By the following election I had enough time to examine my own take on things, and I became Libertarian (was still a christian) and that is where I remain to this day. I go with Libertarian since they are closest to how I currently feel, but generally speaking I'm pretty middle ground with a slight left leaning depending on the issues.

 

So to answer the question, my deconversion made no difference whatsoever, but having the opportunity to get out of the constant conservative christian brainwashing did, even though I remained a christian for some time after that, I wasn't surrounded by it.

[Vomit Comet]

My own story is kind of weird.

 

I got saved at the age of 15. Just prior to then, I started tilting to the Right. It was mainly because I thought the Right was for "real men" and the Left was for "pussies." I had this bizarre hyper-masculine ideology that I must have somehow cobbled together from WWF wrestling, late 80s thrash metal, Reagan-Era Cold War paranoia, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, military recruitment literature, library books about Green Berets and Navy SEALs, and Soldier of Fortune magazine. I remember thinking that America should declare war on Japan because they were buying us out, as well as on Arabs because I was scared shitless of Islamic terrorism (and this was the early 90s). I wanted to start my own compound in rural Wyoming and have a bunch of machine guns and shit.

 

I was also racist against blacks (lots of Mexicans are, actually), and a lot of my white friends in the trailer trash section of Los Angeles County where I was from were starting to join white supremacist gangs like the Peckerwoods and White Power. In that part of L.A., those guys would actually get along with certain Mexican gangs (drugs are the great uniter), and since I was half white I could have gotten jumped into the Peckerwoods had I chosen to do so. So a lot of the racism rubbed off on me.

 

When I got saved I was forced to rub the edge off. I immediately dropped the racism, and got really close with a black youth leader. Since this was Southern California and not northern Alabama I had to deemphasize my gun fetish, as it would have been seen as declasse for a good Christian, and offputting to unsaved potential converts. I also realized what giant assholes my racist white friends were, especially since they turned on me violently after I got saved.

 

Over time, I became more of a moderate libertarian. I thought homosexuality was wrong but that the government ought not get involved. I was kinda torn about the abortion thing. I thought the Iraq war was a dumb idea. I also thought that California, as groovy as the climate and culture was, was laden with oppressive regulations and rules and shit.

 

What cured me of that was moving to Las Vegas, Nevada. I practically popped a boner thinking about all the cool guns I would be allowed to have, and I imagined it being rugged and free as the Wild West. But this whole state is FUCKED UP. I could write a goddamn book if I wanted to about how fucked this place is, it ain't even funny. The worst part is, the greater Las Vegas area has 70% of the state's population (about 2 million), but the lion's share of the political power is concentrated up in northern Nevada. We get shafted royally. I mean, maybe you can run a podunk state like Wyoming like that, where there's 200,000 people and half of them are employed by the federal highway system. But not a large city with significant urban problems.

 

I saw with my own eyes the consequences of Wild West cowboy libertarianism, so I dropped it and very quickly and became something along the lines of a social democrat. I am registered with the Green Party, in fact.

 

When I deconverted, a couple years after living in Las Vegas, I kind of dropped the final shred of what little Christian political leanings I had. By then I was very much in favor of gay rights, which was one of the reasons I found my faith more and more problematic. But the deciding factor was that lack of pussy was fucking killing me. It was my Achilles Heel, you could say.