Holy shit...he almost had me converted for a second there. Amen to that dude.
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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I'm not Christian, but whenever I see something from Talarico, it's always a breath of fresh air compared to all the vitriol coming from the "Christians" that are everywhere in America.
I'm an athiest, and I don't recognize this philosophy as Christian. I will recognize it as Christ-like, or at least how the stories say that Christ was, but Christianity as I know it, the Christianity that is shouted by loud hateful ignorant bigots, the Christianity that is the most visible and the most impactful toward me and my fellow man, had been distorted and bastardized from those principles into a monster that doesn't sound anything like this video.
If this is what you want Christianity to be, then I wish you the best in trying to take it back.
Also an atheist, or at least non-religious.... If some variation....
The "christianity" we most often see, is not Christianity. What he is describing in the OP, is what Christianity is supposed to be.
There's plenty of groups out there, calling themselves Christians, who practice little more than thinly veiled rage baiting. Riling people up to attack something, framed as defending their beliefs, when that thing was, is, and never would be a threat to those beliefs.
I haven't seen any anti religious sentiment from any LGBTQIA+ people. I have seen anti religious people who are also LGBTQIA+, but their nonbelief has nothing to do with who they are in terms of gender identity, nor does it have anything to do with who they are attracted to.
However, I see a lot of anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric from people who call themselves "Christian", which is contradictory to what their book says, what their savior told them to do, and what their savior stood for.
The "Christian nation" argument is borne of ignorance and misinformation, since the founding fathers of the USA specifically wrote the original constitution in a way that made it impossible for a national religion to be established. This was specifically to prevent something like the "church of England" from being created; at the time there were Christians, Protestants, Catholics, Presbyterians, etc. among many others... Different religions that would be illegal to practice in countries with a national church, like England. And that's just the Bible based religions.
The original Americans wanted to be sure that they were free to practice whatever religion they wanted, and that's reflected in the constitution.
The guy in the video is absolutely correct as far as I'm concerned and he's a shining example of Christianity.
The problem is, that people who call themselves Christian are rarely Christ-like enough to actually be Christian.
I've only met a handful of people like the fellow in the video, but bluntly, it's a breath of fresh air every time I do.
It's just the natural conclusion of any universalist ethics framework which demands that you sacrifice intellectual curiosity for an authoritative moral mandate. Particularly one which affirms that "evil" is defined as anything which might seek to lure you away from that mandate. The problem with religion isn't the deceptively well intentioned messaging, it's the way you are not allowed to question it.
One nitpick - the book does talk about abortion, though not by that name. Specifically, the priest giving "unfaithful" women "bitter waters" to curse them and force a miscarriage. (Numbers 5:11-31).
There’s priests in the New Testament?
Numbers is Old Testament, and they are talking about the Hebrew priesthood.
Completely valid and something I picked up on too. He's not wrong about anything else, that I know of.
I read that initially as Tommy Talarico and was very confused at first
I appreciate him trying to redefine Christian values to, you know, actually be Christ like.
But this also ignores all of Christian history and all of the atrocities Christians have committed in the name of God.
Christians, for example, tied themselves into knots to find a biblical justification for chattel slavery. I say chattel slavery specifically because while slavery has existed throughout human history, the brand where a person is literally treated like livestock is a European Christian "innovation".
This is just one out of hundreds of examples of less than ideal Christian behavior over the past two millennia.
Is the argument that they were not actually Christian? Because I think that would be a hard sell.
I also feel he's not being completely intellectually honest when he describes heaven as a democracy because 1) what is he basing that off of? and 2) isn't the structure in any monotheistic religion inherently authoritarian with God being the primary authority?