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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   2928 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 19, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Setting aside the crazed "magic bullet/second shooter/faked with AI" conspiracy views on the Charlie Kirk assassination, are there any takes on it wilder than this one:

MAGA pastor Shane Vaughn claims that God allowed Satan to kill Charlie Kirk before Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson could turn Kirk against Israel: "God said, 'No, not today. You're too pure and you have too much influence.'"

(And also, what do you even call this type of position/argument?)

This is a prime example of the mental gymnastics one has to preform as a rational person with fundamentalist beliefs. For whatever reason(s), Vaughn has decided that core axioms of Christianity are true (powerful invisible beings who intervene in human affairs, valid prophecies waiting to be fulfilled, etc.), and his theory about the metaphysical implications are basically rational if you consider that he’s not going to question these priors.

All that assumes he has sincere belief. There is some MRI evidence that most people are quite uncertain about metaphysical claims.

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