18 Comments
Aug 23, 2022Liked by Thom Hartmann

I don't actually believe that Trump is the Anti-christ, although he's a very damaged man and an abomination in any kind of public office. Indeed, his fruits show the person he is. My brand of Christianity calls me to pray for my enemies and even love them... so hard to do in the case of Trump. Matthew 25 is a favorite passage and continues to inspire our immigrant welcoming group at my church. Thanks for the fascinating read.

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Aug 23, 2022Liked by Thom Hartmann

With yet another terrific "Report," Thom, I take it you must must be on the mend...yeh? Well, I've long been fascinated with this "good vs. evil, God vs. Satan, and Christ vs Anti-Christ" debate that's been going on for millennia...so I was intrigued when you mentioned Kurt Anderson's book "Fantasyland."

I got it, read it, and immediately accepted his main point that we Americans love to indulge ourselves in "fantasyland"...any one we can find....be it from Hollywood, romance novels, or biblical lore. It just requires one essential prerequisite: faith. Believe because you can believe. Believe because you choose to believe. A suspension of rational thinking....or objective observation...or that thing called "evidence".....eh? And so we have had a huge chunk of our true-believing, "faithful Christians" go with their gut-feeling--what's left when the head is gone?--and don the MAGA hats to follow their charismatic (feel-good) charlatan who actually exemplifies the opposite of the things that these same people profess they believe in. Weird...totally weird....yeh? So I very much like the way you bring this subject back to "reality" by bringing up the "fruits" of DJT's actions--that's ground level stuff. That's "real." My conclusion is that the real contest here is not about "Christ vs. Anti-Christ" or even "good vs. evil" (because these are one-level-removed-from-reality mental abstractions)...but "reality" vs. "fantasyland"....or "rational thought" vs. "gut feelings." And, truth be told, the reality of this good vs evil stuff is much closer to home... and can only be accessed via self-reflection....something "true-believers" have a hard time with...else they would know who they are really, actually following.

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founding

I would just like to know what he may have placed in his ex-wife coffin and had it buried so close to him that he can keep a watchful eye on it...🤔

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Aug 29, 2022Liked by Thom Hartmann

No, Clarence Thomas is the Anti-Christ

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Thanks again for your help in regards to caracterizing the insanity and immortality of The Donald as Drumpf Antichrist

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Trump as the rough beast. Makes sense.

The Second Coming

by W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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I have no problem accepting Trump as an anti-Christ, but I think that if such a thing is literally to occur, it is a mentality and movement more than an individual. Many have occupied the role in our time. Hitler is another, and very similar, candidate, and as you pointed out (based on one argument for Trump's candidacy), Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6) is almost more qualified than Trump. At the time of Christ, there were the Scribes and Pharisees, whom Jesus labeled "hypocrites." Today that role is filled by a large majority of so-called "Evangelical" Christians. If Christ were to return to earth today and walk among us (and remember, in Acts, when Jesus ascended from the earth after 40 days, two men appeared and said, " Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus... will return to you in the same way as you saw him go into heaven;" in other words, through birth and life on earth (Acts 1:11)) these latter-day Scribes and Pharisees would do all in their power to see him crucified again, as indeed they are already doing to his teachings. And I also would like to point out that so many of the great reformers of our lifetimes, not least among them Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, were among the true followers of Christ and gave their lives for his teachings.

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Recent studies in neurological science has shown that right wing mind sets, insanely religious beliefs, etc. in other words "religious faith" is the product of a minds lacking prefrontal capacity as the limbic region of the brain is over active and controlling.

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Yes, his "fruits" are poison. I've also thought of him as an expression of the dark aspect of Hindu goddess Kali: the Destroyer of Worlds.

Whatever he is, it's from the Dark Side.

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Thom. Bonhoeffer said: "Judging others makes us blind ..." People like Bonhoeffer remind the world that such condemnation come fearfully close to a dangerous and destructive self-righteousness. Excoriate Trump. Disparage his views and perspective. Hate him all you want. But to call him the antichrist? That's frightening and the exact thing extremists on the right do. (See Robert Jeffress)

The ease of such damning vilification brings your readers to a dangerous line. And since you've gone biblical with this article, it seems Christ's dire warning about judging and condemning others might persuade you to reconsider this one. But then again, if Bonhoeffer's right then my post will likely have absolute no bearing on your beliefs.

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Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Jim Jones, David Koresh, etc---those are the psychopathic leaders that come to mind from just the last 100 years. Take a little trip back through history for the rest of the story, and you don't need a bible to explain Trump or the people that would carry out his wishes. It's a part of who we are, a very very sick part.

But, hey, don't let me take the magic out of it, if you love that sort of thing. Jesus was one of the wisest teachers that ever graced this planet. That too fits the antichrist scenario, because Trump said he loves the "poorly educated".

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Thanks Thom (yet again). You are among the few with the courage to show the clear connections between Opus Dei, The Federalist Society, The Catholic Information Center and Leonard Leo as the lynchpin in using the SCOTUS to realize theocracy (Catholic Fundamentalist in flavor) for all Americans.

Here is a link to an infographic on my site that synthesizes this relationship in a simple grid layout.

Please feel free to copy and use this graphic to explain quickly to your friends what otherwise becomes an understandable lost in the weeds history of how we got to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

https://my2senses.com/

Thanks again Thom

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Thanks Thom for this balanced article on a touchy subject. Very interesting about the number of letters in those names. I'm one who believes that anti-Christ is a spirit that holds sway over people, and so can affect many individuals, although a particular individual may appear as "the" archetype. We have a woman in Canada who's calling herself our Queen - just read of her today. She seems to be mimicking much of Trump's behaviors, and is finding her popularity growing as she attaches herself to the QAnon movement. Don't know her middle name, but her other names contain 6 letters each - Romana Didulo. Here's the link where I read it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/23/queen-of-canada-qanon-rise-conspiracy-alarm

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