>

Wait they do that? I always thought most Christians were too puritan for that stuff. One of my friends had a ONS with a christian girl and she later went bonkers because she was not a virgin anymore. In her mid 20's.
She said she planned on saving herself for marriage but then hooked up with my friend, completely sober mind you. Really made me reconsider dating religious women but as a redditor that doesn't change much let's just put it that way lol
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I mean what would change your view? Enough Christians saying they disagree? The view is not based on anything, it is just your random assumptions and ideas >

A proper argument as to WHY Christians wouldn't be convinced. Though looking at the comments, I got several. >


A proper argument as to WHY Christians wouldn't be convinced. Though looking at the comments, I got several.

Well, right in the Ten Commandments: thou shall not murder / thou shall not kill (exact wording varies) >

I have a problem with the phrasing of most. I don't think most Christians would be convinced of this. Most Christians never go to church let alone listen to any preachers in this obedient way. I would say at most probably a few hundreds Christians would be susceptible to a cult brainwashing them into violence.
Also have a problem with saying religions. It's ideologies in general. All political ideologies on all sides could easily be brainwashed into violence as history as shown. >

Okay but what about watching Fox News, or watching shows/movies with prominent Christian messages? What do they think about Pureflix? >


I am a Quaker. You could not convince me or my brethren "into mass-murder" as "God's will". And I firmly believe  
MOST  
Christians feel the exact same way.

Okay, then hypothetically what would happen if your pastor suddenly decided to start talk about buying guns, and fighting in some holy war against "sinners". Would this person be removed?
Also just so you know I am writing from an American perspective. >

!delta
Yeah I can see that. Hard to convince anti-war people (who probably know all the ways warmongers try to promote war) to grab some guns and fight in a war. >

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There are cases when killing of justified, plenty of good Christians served in WW2 after all, but I get the feeling that's not what your talking about.
How do you prevent yourself from getting duped into committing unjustified atrocities based on some religious authority?
In the first place you don't follow false prophets. As it says in the Bible "Ye shall know them by their fruits". Con men and cults only convert people by preying on their insecurities and vulnerabilities. Strengthen your sense of identity and you'll be able leave as soon as you see the inevitable red flags that pop up long before any atrocities occur.
Moreover, good religions don't teach blind obedience, that's not faith. They teach correct principles and let people govern themselves. People make mistakes but as long as the hierachy isn't a corrupt authoritarian power structure, one bad person can't cause an atrocity. >


Moreover, good religions don't teach blind obedience, that's not faith. They teach correct principles and let people govern themselves. People make mistakes but as long as the hierachy isn't a corrupt authoritarian power structure, one bad person can't cause an atrocity.

Wait they don't? It might seem silly to say, but a lot of atheists have said the opposite. Religious people would say otherwise, but even without the bloodlust you do have to admit them trying to promote their religion does come with a heavy bias. >

What does this have to do with Christians?
The Holocaust happened and that wasn't Christians in the name of god. 
Tons of genocides have happened that weren't waged by Christians in the name of god (on a larger, purposeful level obv some people are Christian who believe yada).
Milgram did not only test Christians. 
You might want to read Zimbardo's Lucifer book. >

I understand the reason why Christians want to distance themselves from the Holocaust but let's be realistic.
In 1939, 95% of Germans identified as Christian. 
Hitler used Christianity to justify his actions. Mein Kampf is littered with Christian references. "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."  He described himself with "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so”
The Nazis had Gott Mit Uns, God With Us on their uniforms. The Nazi Oath started with "I swear by almighty God this sacred oath: I will render unconditional obedience to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht"
You have a Christian population lead by a Christian leader who used references to the Christian god to raise an army draped in Christian symbology in order to carry out a Christian goal to eliminate the Jews (see, 13th century pogroms, the Inquisition, Crusades).  
Yet people claim it has nothing to do with Christianity? >


Yet people claim it has nothing to do with Christianity?

"...one nation, under god..."
House sessions open with a prayer.
People invoking basic religious things does not mean it's necessarily ABOUT the religious things. Antisemitism was rife throughout Europe, not based in Christianity or Catholicism, but based in antisemitism. >

Yes, and are you under the impression that some of America's past behaviors like manifest destiny had no religious element to them?   
If the leadership uses religious arguments to convince religious people to commit genocide,  then its fair to call it religious. Even if the root causes are secular, when leaders invoke religion to convince people to support a cause, it's because they know people will follow them based on religion. 
It is laughable that you claim European antisemitism wasn't based on Christianity.  The Church had been pushing the idea for centuries. The Church blamed the plague on the Jews, Martin Luther, father of Protestantism, wrote an essay called On the Jews and Their Lies.   
If the antisemitism wasn't religious, then where did it come from? I don't recall the Druids or the followers of the Norse gods having a historic beef with Judaism. The Romans had centuries to exterminate the Jews when they ruled the Middle East, but never tried.  And how come antisemitism appeared in so many Christian countries? If it wasn't Christianity, then what beef did the Russians, Spanish, and Germans share with the Jews? 
A man who constantly referred to himself as a Christian, said he was going to eliminate a religious people that Christians had been oppressing for centuries, says he is doing it for the Christian god, refers to Christian writings to justify it, and gets millions of Christians to go along with him? Come on.
Up next, why the crusades weren't religious either. >


Step 3. Fill their heads with truckloads of warmongering propaganda. Most Christians already dehumanize “sinners” (ie: anything not Christian) to a certain extent, so it would be easy to open them up to the idea of a violent theofascist revolution.*

First of all, warmongering propaganda works on everyone, not just religious people. Take Russia for example. Just tell people that Nazis are taking over a country and we’re the only hope for saving those people.
Second, I fully disagree that most Christians “dehumanize sinners”. Most Christians believe that everyone is a sinner so to dehumanize them would be to dehumanize themselves. 

*The few that would disagree in this scenario, would be branded as “false believers” and would be cancelled.

I think you’re falling into the vocal minority trap. Sure, if you only paid attention to media outlets, it would seem like most Christians would follow along, but in reality, the ones doing the killing would be a small subsection out of all believers.

my Christian friend told me that there are sects that wouldn’t all agree. But I still think if enough “influencers” were convinced, then they would agree

Believe it or not, religion isn’t like Instagram. There are influencers who are Christian, but there are not really any Christian Influencers. People usually follow the influence of their head of church. Their pastor, their priest, their whatever. There’s no one who has influence on a large enough scale besides maybe the Pope and even then, he only has authority over Catholics. >


Believe it or not, religion isn’t like Instagram. There are influencers who are Christian, but there are not really any Christian Influencers. People usually follow the influence of  
their  
head of church. Their pastor, their priest, their whatever. There’s no one who has influence on a large enough scale besides maybe the Pope and even then, he only has authority over Catholics.

But when I say "Influencers" I mean Celebrities and Politicians. People like the lead singer of Skillet, or, as I said before Donald Trump. Not people on Instagram.
​

I think you’re falling into the vocal minority trap. Sure, if you only paid attention to media outlets, it would seem like most Christians would follow along, but in reality, the ones doing the killing would be a small subsection out of all believers.

I've also met Christians irl who have shared these same views irl. >


I’ve also met Christians irl who have shared these same views irl.

Yeah, I’m not saying they don’t exist. I’m saying they aren’t as common as you think they are. >

News flash: Mosques around the US have already been doing this. It is so prevalent that the FBI won't even look into it unless there's evidence of an actual, concrete plan to kill people. 
And yet the number of actual attacks doesn't come close to matching the rhetoric. People are mostly aware that going on a killing spree will mean the end of their life, either through death or prison. And most people have a good enough life that they don't go out and do it. >

To preface I am agnostic but modern Christianity is one of the most pacifist, altruistic, and loving doctrines around. It’s often villainized for its quick labeling of people as sinners but frankly this does not mean what most people think it means. Unlike most other doctrines Christianity readily accepts those it is aligned against. Find me any other ideology that loves it’s enemies.
I do disagree with a lot of Christianity’s doctrines and will not defend it, but these are not dangerous people. >

You're right that utopianism leads to mass murder. All utopian ideologies suffer from this problem when you look at them through a utilitarian moral lens - there is no amount of suffering one can cause, that will ever be high enough to outweigh the creation of heaven on earth.
Which brings me to the point - most people can be convinced of ideology like this. It happened in Nazi Germany, the USSR, Cambodia, and China. It's not exclusive to Christianity or even religion. An authoritative figure says that a new paradigm is coming, that you'll want to be on the right side of history, and the people preventing the implementation of paradise on earth need to be removed.
I know your CMV is about Christianity specifically, but I believe your view is unintentionally too narrow. This type of thing is borderline human nature. >

I do agree with that too. I just wrote about Christianity because that's what is going on in America right now. >

Is this going on in America right now? Are there significant numbers of Christian groups becoming violent and/or performing mass murder?
And by 'significant' I mean in terms of statistical significance; adjusting for the # of Christians in the population, do Christian groups commit more acts of this violent type? >

Well right now the Christian Republicans are hellbent on taking away healthcare and womens right to abort. So I would say they are trying to kill everyone that way.
What I'm saying is that if they can try to kill people that way (by making their lives suck), then it's not far off to convince them into going on a massacre in the name of God. >

The majority of democrats and republicans are Christian. Only a small subset of them are extreme on issues of abortion and healthcare; according to polls, for example, most Republicans even favor access to abortion.  So this isn't a Christian phenomenon. It's an extremist phenomenon. >


I am speaking from an American perspective.

Step 1. No need to declare war, declare a peace keeping mission
Step 2. Send your military to the desert halfway around the world for twenty years
Far fewer steps than yours and no need for God. >

Actually you're right, damn.
!delta
By virtue of coming up with a better plan. >

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So I take issue with a few parts of your view. First, nothing you've written proves anything about "most Christians" or "most Muslims".  There's pretty solid amount of evidence to suggest that even among extremely homogeneous and Orthodox religious communities, people tend to believe somewhat pragmatically and can be fluid in what beliefs they subscribe to personally. Basically, people believe what works for them, and follow the parts of scripture that they find palatable and that they can understand.  I'm not saying you can't get large groups of Christians to believe the same thing, but the idea that it is a simple matter to get large groups of Christians on the same page about a particular belief is just not supported by any evidence. Hell, it took decades to build up the kind of anti-abortion support that exists in the religious right in the US today, with countless people spending billions of dollars over years and years across a wide variety of media and institutions.  Abortion is still not universally rejected by Christians, and that's not straight up murder like you're suggesting.
So to summarize, it's not that easy to get a lot of Christians to subscribe to a particular view, even when that view is a lot more palatable than murder. And you were suggesting that it would be easy to get most Christians on board.
Which brings me to my second objection, which is that even your own step-by-step process does not sound "easy".  What you're describing is the mass influence of a large group of people across the country, and mobilizing them for armed conflict. It's not even easy to unify right wing militias in the US , and they are groups specifically dedicated to arming themselves for political conflict.
Heck, your step three is literally "fill their heads with propaganda", which really skips over a lot of details. That would require massive scale operations whether centralized or not.  You're describing the entire right wing media ecosystem, which was not easy to set up in its current form. Literally took decades and billions of dollars from right wing billionaires.
So yeah, I don't think your view is very accurate because you think it would be easy to get most Christians on board with murder.  I think it wouldn't be that difficult to get some on board pretty quickly, but you'd really have to work to get most people of any group on board. >

I think it is important to keep in mind, in religions where God is defined as benevolent, that convincing an adherent of that faith that God wants them to do something they view as morally wrong is difficult.
If Bob believes murder is wrong, and Bob believes their God is good, then Bob couldn't also believe God wants them to murder someone.  These 3 beliefs form a contradiction.
To resolve that conviction, Bob must either decide murder isn't wrong, decide God isn't good, or decide that God doesn't want them to murder after all.
In instances of strong moral convictions and strong religious beliefs, the last option is the most likely one. >

Okay, but what if Bob went on Fox News and saw some really rich and influential pastor talk about buying guns and burning books on TV? >

if bob's moral convictions against murder were strong, I think Bob wouldn't be swayed.
I think the question is how good Bob's morals were to begin with, rather than whether or not Bob believes in God.
If Bob has good morals, and Bob believes God is good, then Bob is going to believe God wants them to do good things. >

Right, so if Bob's morals were strong, and truly believes God would want him to do good things. Then Bob grabs the TV remote and switches off Fox News.
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I think if the person has a family and good church support system that can recognize the unhealthy behaviors and intercede, it can be stopped. I have known a person (who went to my church) that had a mental break and thought people were going to hurt the pastor and was making some very weird decisions. He was getting to the point he wanted to stop the bad people. The pastors heard him out and prayed with him then called his wife in the room and said they were going to drive him to the hospital for a wellness check. 
From the story I was told they convinced him to go by saying God wouldn’t tell us to kill anyone to protect others. Part of why Jesus came was to erase the old law and bring us hope, and he told us that unless we were completely without sin not to cast the first stone. It probably helped that this guy was one of the kindest dudes ever and preached the “love God and love others” gospel. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. 
Those who are convinced they are killing for their higher power want to hurt others and (imo) aren’t Christian. >

Most people could be convinced to do anything if you convinced them to do it. >

there are many different christan sects in the united states I don't think Mormons and Catholics would be on the same side and what would cause this the crusades' where started beacuse the Muslims captured jerusalem they wont just start killing people it would need a valid reason if the government starts prosecution on  Christians they would riot if Muslims capture jerusalem western governments would fight the war and some christans will say this is a holy war to say most christans will go out in the streets and start randomly killing people is crazy no movement has ever done that >

Looking at Polish comments about Russia most people probably can be convicted even without Christianity. Mass murder is a common occurrence in history and unrelated to Christianity. >

I'm a Latter-day Saint.  The Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine & Covenants, teach religious freedom, and reiterate the 10 Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount.  Furthermore, the prophets in Salt Lake City would NEVER tell us to go hurt people.  Just watch some of the Church's official videos on YouTube, and the "Music and the Spoken Word" broadcasts. >

I think most PEOPLE can be easily led to commit atrocities.  Religion doesn't have a monopoly on it.  Patriotism is it's own form of religion of taken too far.  
But most people will do horrible things with far less convincing, I'm thinking of the Stanford prison experiments.
Or just watch mean girls.  Peer pressure is a motherfocker. >

For full disclosure on my personal stance towards religion: i'm fairly agnostic, i don't know and can't know.
I feel the flaw in your logic here is how many denomination splits have occurred over history. You seem to be treating all relgious folks as if they're the right wing nutjobs you see online(which i can't blame you since they're everywhere and very loud.)
I'm of the opinion that a campaign like this would likely cause a split in whatever denominations this was being primarily preached to. Remember, "Christianity" isn't just one big religion, there are an absolute truckload of different denominations within. Some that would absolutely not be happy to be in the same room with each other, even.

For example, you rev up the propaganda machine in your scenario. The events start happening. Eventually, you start having people with doubts. "Would god really want me to start shooting up abortion clinics for some crazy holy war?" And then, however religious people get from point A to point B in their thought process, some will think "Absolutely yes, god wills it" and some will think "This is merely a scheme of the devil to test my faith. God would never want me to perform such abhorrent acts of violence. The antichrist has exposed themselves and is attempting to prevent me from being raptured."
From here, you get bickering and arguing over the meaning of god's word, if it's even real, etc etc. In the end both sides decide to simply split into their own churches and go about their business.
That is a more likely scenario than simply most christians being the easily fooled idiots often touted by many people. Someone being religious doesn't necessarily mean they're easy to fool into doing whatever you want just because you added a sticker that states "because god said so" on it. Many just tend to rationalize things very differently from their "worldly" peers.

At the end of the day i feel you simply fell into the common trap of not accounting for the silent majority. It's incredibly easy to look at internet discourse and label most religious people as nutters even though those people only account for a very small portion of the overall population. In reality while i might not always agree with them, a lot of religious folk are just decent regular people who aren't more or less likely to be conned into violence than their non-religious peers. >

Maybe some, but this wouldn't work for me. I base my beliefs directly on the Bible, not what other people say. >

Your title and text are in conflict.
Obviously Christians (defined as people who follow Christ) do what Christ says. So if they think Christ says to commit mass murder, they either go do a mass murder or they aren’t followers anymore.
But, I think it would be quite hard to convince the average Christian that Christ wants them to go out and mass murder. There are whole denominations (Wesleyans and Anabaptists generally) who believe that all violence is wrong and refuse to participate in wars, period.
I think you have a limited view of Christianity shaped mainly by US mega churches and Fox News. >

First go to a church. Meet the people.
I'm just scratching my head because you would never be able to convince Christians to commit mass murder. Ain't gonna happen, so your entire statement is idiotic. >

True. Every single one of them does that. Hitler did it as well. >

Devoted Christian myself, so I'll try this.
The answer to this post is technically yes. But, the thing is, like myself, since the vast majority of Christians are normal and not insane, we wouldn't ever think that is God's will, under any circumstances. The only reason a Christian would believe this is God's will is if this person is insane. In which case, it doesn't really matter if this person is Christian or not--they're insane and the insanity will win regardless. >

Definitely not most Christians, considering most Christians drink, smoke party it up have sex before marriage lol