I really try to avoid getting wound up about evangelicals and other flavors of right focused mega-church Christians. But...the alliance between those groups and the GOP and the pandering that comes from it is a massive barrier to rational and reasonable political discussion.
The Bible Belt use to be under the Democratic Party, but the civil rights issue of the 60s forced the former confederacy towards the GOP and that was when the Republican party was lost.
I wouldn't know to be honest. I'm nonreligious so I don't believe in god, so I don't believe satan exists either. What I meant by satan worshippers was just basically meaning that those people seem possessed by something lol (most likely bad acting). I personally believe that most people who follow a religion is basically because they find the thought of nonexistence after death uncomfortable, or because they grew up with it and never thought to question any of it.
That's probably the big draw for a lot of people. For many others, I think religion is a way of reassuring themselves that their existence has some meaning or purpose, even if they are not personally accomplishing anything special with their lives. Basically an ongoing remedy against the equivalent of a midlife crisis. Evangelicals are pretty wack, but most of the time I don't think it's anything more serious than that.
A big problem, though, is that while many people now are not religious, there is still the same fundamental need to have a sense that your life has meaning - it is a basic condition of being human. And so they turn to something else to fill that need. For a growing number of people, activism and politics have filled that emptiness as a sort of pseudo-religion, with government as the deity at the center. It is not just as an insult that I say liberals have formed a cult - although it is definitely an insult as well.
At any rate, that has a lot to do with why political issues are so toxic and hostile now. Many people have basically staked their sense of purpose on it. And it is a poor substitute for religion for those people, despite all the problems religion has of its own.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Trump's comments are "shocking.......shameful......racist....."
Trump seen as, "unapologetic racist."
Sounds pretty accurate. I guess truth is racism...