A man meets Jesus and says “whoa, it’s Jesus. You’re such a chill dude.” Jesus then grins a malicious grin, points to himself and says “Guess again, bitch. I’m CALVINIST Jesus.” Calvinist Jesus hits the man with a steel chair. He then kicks the man in his lower back while the man is curled into a ball on the ground.

Original post | Bluesky

  • NannerBanner@literature.cafe
    2·
    3 days ago

    I’m paraphrasing from a pretty good book about calvinism called “against calvinism.” The author notes that all ‘calvinist’ beliefs have some central tenets, summarized as TULIP.

    • Total depravity: or humans are assholes and deserve all the pain/death/hell experience
    • Unlimited power: or god is supreme and can do anything (don’t ask him to create a rock so big he can’t lift it though)
    • Limited grace: or god has preselected who can/will be saved
    • irresistible (something I can’t remember… call, maybe?): or those who god has preselected will follow the plan to be saved, they can’t ‘turn away’ from it (which leads to all sorts of mental bullshit inside of the ‘cult,’ especially when someone who was in it turns away [because them turning away means they were actually never a real {whatever the cult members call themselves}])
    • Predestination (mmm, this one might actually have a different word, but it’s been 15 years or so, give me a break): which means that everything is going according to god’s plan, because it can be nothing else.

    Obviously, those principles lead to all sorts of morally fucked up beliefs and actions, similar to how reincarnation folks tend to horribly mistreat or denigrate people in ‘lower’ stations in life.

    Calvinism also isn’t really its own denomination. It’s a style or camp in the christian belief sphere. It’s usually contrasted with Arminianism, which focuses on humans and their choice to seek and accept god. It’s definitely surprising how much a random preacher’s teachings will fall under one of those two belief systems though, without them ever knowing anything about them.

    The predestination thing is probably the biggest talking point for people discussing christianity in general or calvinism vs arminianism. Calvinists will trend towards the ‘double predestination’ of augustine-fame, which I find a little silly and just getting really pedantic. Catholics have the double predestination thing as a fundamental part of their ability to handwave away god being an asshole if people are destined to hell, while calvinists seem to use it without any consideration of god being an asshole because those people deserved it anyway and isn’t it just so nice that he’s decided to save some and, oh, look, we’re part of the saved. Thus god (and in the comic, jesus) being quite ‘mean’ is just part and parcel of calvinist beliefs.