How Evangelicals Use Digital Surveillance to Target the Unconverted
newrepublic.com
The hot new thing in proselytizing is an app that allows Christian conservatives to collect data on whole neighborhoods of potential converts.
  • I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org
    0·
    8 months ago

    I feel like I need the hero protecting the little person meme. The arrows are roving bands of proselytizers, and the hero is my little “no soliciting” sign

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.mlEnglish
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    8 months ago

    This is basically the same as the voting rolls that democrats and republicans use for canvassing. The amount of information they have and have had for years predating the internet, is immense.

  • Breezy@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    It would be a real shame if people started leaving reviews on the play store with their concerns. Real shame i tell you, its sitting at a 4.7 rating with all but 1 five star, and they gave it a four star.

    Anyways for any god loving Christian who just wants to download their app to pray for their neighbors, ive taken the ten seconds needed to visit their site and grabbed their app links.

    Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blesseveryhome.bealight

    Apple https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bless-every-home/id1541313484

    • HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      8 months ago

      Join an ever-growing community of Christ followers who are devoted to being a Light in neighborhoods through praying for, caring for, sharing the gospel with, and discipling homes.

      Holy shit

    • Cows Look Like Maps@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      This definitely shouldn’t be the top comment. Don’t cross-post it to other communities who prefer that christofascists don’t harass and dox immigrants and any non-christians they hate (see: most genders).

      Noooooo sir.

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        And definitely don’t report it as “Hateful or abusive” content or anything, it’s not like Google or Apple is using automated algorithms to auto disable apps for a period of time after certain thresholds of reports are hit or anything like that

    • harry_balzac@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Downloaded, used an empty home for the address, selected The Satanic Temple as my church, deleted the app, and gave it one star. Took 5 minutes.

    • FirstCircle@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      8 months ago

      While I’d love to add my opinion to the Play Store reviews, there’s no way in Hell I’m installing some kind of Christofascist malware on any device that I control.

  • Cows Look Like Maps@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    JFC, I installed the app and added “my address” and immediately was given a list of names and addresses to “pray for”.

    How am I supposed to pray for so many people!? What am I, an ATM?! Gelatians 4:20:69 had nothing to do with Gelato!1! This is getting 1 star and reported on the app store.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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      8 months ago

      What the FUCK

      For some reason it didn’t sink in to me from reading the article how weird and sinister this is

    • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Dude, that’s beyond creepy. I know of 1 christian that will certainly never install that thing. Not that I can right now, since I have absolutely no Google or Apple store at my disposal. #degoogled all the way.

  • caveman@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    When people ring your bell to annoy you about religion, reply by trying to converting them into atheism or another religion

    • chetradley@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Maybe not the best idea. According to the article, using this app they can leave notes about you for other members to see. Talking about satanism would probably flag you for even more harassment.

      • caveman@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Hmm I would not know that they are using an app. Anyway I don’t think we should make any concessions or be scared of those people and adapt to them.

        Noone has the right of making you swallow their religious views.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
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      8 months ago

      I just let my dog help me answer the door.

      He’s a big boy and very talkative. The proselytize can’t get a word in…

    • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      I do that all the time. I don’t care if you’re a christian, Muslim, Jehovah’s witness or whatever else, if you come to my house uninvited to tell me why I should follow any religion, be ready for a heated debate on why that’s not your place, I dont care what your leaders have made you believe. Its one thing to talk about Christ to tell anyone about Him, and then drop it and move on to a civil interaction, its an entirely different thing to splat your believes on people’s faces and telling people they will go to hell if they don’tdo what you tell them. We have friends of all religions and lack of religion, and we have never attempted to change them. They know what we believe in, we know what they believe in, and none of that makes any difference. I’m glad I dont live in the US, nothing more disgusting than mixing faith with politics.

    • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morrígan Pretty interesting. A goddess that is 3 parts in one, just like our God. And very similar to the old testament God that had Israel strike fear on it’s enemies and pushed them to always win their battles, as long as they obeyed. I’m going to dig deeper on this and other comparisons. Thanks for the tip. I’ve never heard of this until now.

  • tooclose104@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    This is terrifying. Thank fuck I’m not in the US. I already get anxious when some random knocks on my door. If they started spouting off about praying for me and my family I’d weirded right the fuck out.

    Granted, I love my physical and privacy. I generally don’t answer the door to plain cloths unless I’m expecting someone. My 5 year goal is to move outside of my current town and have no neighbours. Preferably with a nice long driveway that I may install a gate on at the road.

  • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    This is real bad. I’m a christian (albeit a very unorthodox one), and this goes against everything Christians are supposed to follow according to the bible. This can only be construed as church authoritarianism. Maybe this is why I’m looked down upon by most “Christians” out there, but I could not care less. If a christian says or does anything that does not align with LOVE EVERYONE,that’s not a christian, but a “faith merchant”. Their “privacy policy” is tailored to make it seem like they are doing God’s work, when reading it with the intent to understand clearly displays the intention to gather data on you and everyone around you. And I’m sorry, but anyone that does this is guilty of wanting data to sell until proven otherwise, no exceptions.

    - Who Has Access to Your Data

    “Your password is not accessible by or shared with anybody. Not even we can access it. It is stored in an inaccessible encrypted format.”

    So, ONLY the password is encrypted, everything else is stored as clearly as a traffic sign. Noted.

    “None of the information entered by you is shared with anybody unless you specifically give us permission to do so by opting in to affiliate your Light role with one or more of our partner organizations; by opting in to have your contact information available to other Light roles in your neighborhood; or by creating an administrator role in a partner organization.”

    Where have we seen this before? Ah, right, in EVERY parivacy policy on every single company known to sell our data for profit without caring about anyone or anything except getting more money.

    Funny thing is, there’s no mention anywhere on how they are getting the data on what they call the “blessees”. Care to take a wild guess on how that’s done?

    I am genuinely sorry that this is happening, and blown away by how disgusting this is. No wonder most people don’t want anything to do with us, Christianity has become everything Jesus spoke against.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
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      8 months ago

      I am genuinely sorry that this is happening

      Appreciate the sentiment, but it’s not anyone’s task to apologize for someone else’s shitty behavior.

      What you (and other Christians who are bothered by this approach) is to talk to your fellow believers about it and express your concerns.

      We all know they’re not going to listen to us heathen unbelievers…

      • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Thanks for the comment man. I apologized because it bothers me to no end, and for vetter or for worse, calling mysrlf a christian puts me in the crosshairs of people that are understandibly upset at that behavior, and I’m not narcissistic enough to just pass by and not try to make it a bit better if possible. Unfortunately, because of their radical religious way of thinking and blatant inability to exercise critical thinking, they won’t listen to anyone but their “church leaders”, whom, for the most part, only have their own interests at heart.

    • jwt@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      FYI: If you hear someone talking about encrypting passwords (instead of hashing); big red flag that they don’t know what they’re doing.

        • jwt@programming.dev
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          8 months ago

          Not a dig at you btw, but at the people trying to convince us they care about security.

          • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            Oh, no, I didn’t take it as a dig directed at me. I took it as good information for me to consider moving forward. Thank you.

    • Stoneykins [any]@mander.xyzEnglish
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      8 months ago

      You and people who hold beliefs like yours should just pick a new name for yourselves, I’ve tried to convince family members of this for years. Let the jerks have the name they tainted, pick a better name for your beliefs, and get out of the way for people to condemn the institution of Christianity for it’s actions.

      You shouldn’t feel responsible for them. You should just let them suffer the consequences of their actions and get outta the way.

      • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Most of us would, for sure, if it wasn’t for the fact that we’re called Christians because we follow Christ. However, from my very personal perspective, the name is irrelevant. So much so that our own bible does not mention “christians” anywhere. Having said that, I am a die hard follower of Jesus, people can call me Jesuit, Jesus freak (yes, been called that plenty of times, I find it funny), or whatever. But first and foremost, I’m a human, full of flaws, an expert at finding out what doesn’t work (I guess Normie’s call those “making mistakes” 🤣🤣), with lost of situations in my life, and a firm believer that, should everyone decide to respect others, love them with their flaws, and be willing to help EVERYONE else as long as it’s not detrimental to themselves, their environment or others (in thayvsame order), we would have so much peace in this world that it’ll probably get boring haha. Anyway, switching gears real quick: Does anyone here have experience with Arch based Linux distros? Preferably EndeavourOS? I live what I’m seeing, but I can’t find a reason why none of my flatpak installations are showing in my apps. I really want to try Arch to find out why die hard Arch users are so proud of that, but so far it seems like a distros made exclusively for people that like to be in pain. What gives? If you can pint me in the right direction to a community where I can vent and maybe find solutions, I would really appreciate it. Oh, and God forgive me, but FUCK MICROSOFT!

        • Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
          0·
          8 months ago

          I’m not a Christian but sometimes I hear Christians talking the way you just have and it’s the most compelling thing about it and draws me towards it. Love and forgiveness all the way. I use Debian so I can’t help with your arch question. I do think that Jesus would use Linux though.

  • OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    I’m assuming in a bid to conduct door-to-door preaching is what the title was supposed to say?

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    As a Christian: this is absolutely despicable. Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, and a huge part of loving someone is to respect their boundaries.

    So screw this app and the people that built it. If you want to invite your neighbors to learn about Jesus:

    1. Set a good example
    2. Get to know them
    3. Invite only when it’s relevant (i.e. to a kid’s baptism or whatever)

    If they want to learn about Jesus, they’ll ask.

    • somtwo@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      As an ex-christian, the most un-christlike behavior is often espoused by Christians.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        As the saying goes: one bad apple spoils the barrel.

        I think most Christians are fine, at least the Christians who understand and try to follow Christ’s teachings, it’s just the few “Christian influencers” or whatever that are a pox on society. I try to distance myself from them as much as possible, and encourage the rest to be better examples.

        • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          I somewhat agree with you. The problem is that all those bad apples are the loudest of the bunch, which is why people, understandably, try to avoid all Christians like the plague. I did too for MANY years, until I was the target of a miracle myself. But that didn’t change my behavior towards people, I still treat EVERYONE with respect, and as kindly as I am able to (sorry, still human, so not always possible, lol).

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            The same is true with Muslims as well. A lot of people in the west dislike Muslims generally because of the relatively small percentage of extremists, yet the Muslims I work with are fantastic people. My coworker (Christian, I believe) married an Iranian woman (Muslim), and said the people in Iran are generally quite awesome, it’s just the minority who is in power that causes the problems.

            In general, most people are pretty chill, regardless of religion (or lack thereof). So please, if you feel like a stereotype is accurate, go out and meet people from that demographic in real life (not on SM), and you’ll likely realize most people are good. It doesn’t really matter what the demographic and stereotype are, most people don’t fit it.

            • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
              0·
              8 months ago

              I have a bunch of friends, coworkers, employees and business associates that are Muslim. Some live in my country, some in the US, Egypt, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Irak, all over the place, and all of them, without exception, are amazing people, super humble, can take jokes, even about religion, and are incredibly respectful of everyone else regardless of any perceived difference. My family and I went to the New York side of the Niagar Falls for New Year of 2019, where we know absolutely nobody. When we got to the AirBNB late at night, my wife and I went out to buy some water, some food for breakfast the next day, and everything was closed. We found a small store that was open and when we walked in we were greeted by this guy originally from Iran, Muslim. We started talking like we were friends for years. Before he left he offered to make us dinner the following night. I’m Dominican, and I have yet to meet someone as nice and outgoing as this guy and his family. We met almost every day for the 2 weeks we spent there, and I am grateful that I met them. We had an amazing time. I’m sure there are some nasty people out there, just like there’s a bunch of nasty people everywhere and from all walks of life. Bottom line is that we can’t tell who is who just by race, religion, nationality or any of those things. Take the time to know the person, more times than not, you’ll be grateful you did. I’m sorry, I’m feeling really hyped with this thread. You guys have restored some of my lost faith in humanity. Thank you very much.

        • caveman@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Well, militants are always annoying, be they Christian, lefties, Righties, vegans, meat eaters or whatever

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            8 months ago

            It’s because they craft their entire identity around that particular thing. It does not matter what the belief or how illogical the belief, if you question it, or are simply not prepared to go along with it, they get really angry and incoherent.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
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      8 months ago

      At the very least they should target people who consider themselves Christian but have stopped going to Church for one reason or another.

      Although to be fair many of the more “dedicated” Churches function more like a cult

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        8 months ago

        I don’t think they should “target” anyone. The entire basis for this app is creepy at best, and it shouldn’t exist in this form. If people want a way to discuss things, they should instead share anonymous experiences.

        But yeah, there are a lot of weird, culty “churches” out there, where I suspect the leadership is knowingly manipulating their congregations. But there ale also a lot of accusations of culty behavior that really aren’t applicable, so it’s a mixed bag. At the end of the day, I think most people are decent, regardless of religion, it’s just the really vocal minority (the brainwashed minority, as well as those who left) that make the most noise.

      • arin@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        8 months ago

        Good Christians leave because they realize who are in power and what corrupt shit have been going on

      • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        0·
        8 months ago

        If I were the devil and this world was mine to see Well, I’d witness all the atrocities and it’d probably frighten me So I’d run back home with a story to tell I’d tell all my demon friends that I always preferred Hell — Colby Acuff

        One of the existential terrors of deconstruction is realizing the human species is plenty capable of evil and atrocity, that no demons are needed

        Then when we’ve seen the absolute worst humans could imagine, Sir David Attenborough comes along holding Nature’s beer.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          8 months ago

          Every concept of hell and the details on what earns you a spot there I have always translated to “hell on earth.”

          As in: the things someone would do to earn them a spot in hell creates hell on earth. There is no hell other than the hell people create for us here.