All the proof I need that Trump, if not the biblical Antichrist, is at least a political one, is what he says and does - his “fruits” tell us all we need to know about who he really is
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.
Liked what you wrote. Trump is a damaged man and I really wish he'd fade away quietly. But I'm afraid the more focused publicity and attention anyone gives him the more he becomes emboldened. The more hateful condemnation we send his way the more his followers will inspire him to run in '24. But then again, pointing this out and asking people to stop really the hate is an exercise in futility.
I read an interesting challenge today: "Hate is stronger than love. When you hate someone you give them your soul." I really believe this frighteningly and absolutely true.
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.
Good comments here Glen. Interesting you mentioned the separating of our rational "head" from the gut-feelings. It reminded me of something Rudolf Steiner (Austrian physicist/philosopher) once said, that if we were only heads we'd all eventually come to agreement, but when you add feelings into the mix, you end up with a maze of results. People like Trump know how to direct these feelings, which is why some refer to his followers as a cult. It's not based on rational thinking.
Thanks for the comments, Maverick. You raise the basic question of what is our basic human psychological nature. Evolutionary science says that we were "gut-feeling" creatures long before we developed language and our rational abilities. With this premise, Trump is a throw-back to our "reptilian brain"....and all that "king of jungle" orientation involves....eh? Quite right, I think, that Trump & his cult are "not based on rational thinking"!!! How rational is a silver-backed gorilla who keeps all challengers at bay while hoarding his females? Or is just "gut feeling?"
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.
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.
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.
I think this comes under Yeats' line quoted above: "The best lack all conviction." The emblematic Christ-follower confuses him/herself to a stymie over "judging," and then they're coming for.... If only T. didn't seem to be actually trying to fulfill the Satan prophecies, as Christ was seen to fulfill prophesies. I add to the weird list the upside-down Bible. You might be interested in M. Scott Peck's "People of the Lie," which also seems to uncannily presage T.
Incidentally, a criminal can be convicted on circumstantial evidence, if all the circumstances are consistent with guilt. All the circumstances. It gets hard to find contrary circumstances, with Trump. Just pondering....
Thanks for sharing your ponderings. I have read Peck's book. Interesting opinions about good and evil. I agree with his view that evil is that which kills spirit. The question about what exactly is evil might need to be asked at this point. When it comes to politics, killing the spirit seems to be daily experience. I really don't know how to determine the lines between the good and evil of political agendas. When both sides use their rhetoric to deceive people about everything from the sanctity of life issues to a grossly irresponsible governmental debt to securing the border to manipulating science for one's political ends or condemning the "other side" for all our problems, these clearly seem to be spirit killing. Maybe modern politics just falls into the category of a necessary evil. It's clearly evident that both sides of the aisle want their followers to see the "other" side as evil. Thom's accusations concerning a particular person being the antichrists is proof positive of such condemnation. I don't think one can accuse another person of something more evil. My belief is that accusations like this are seriously dangerous. They necessarily produce more hate for the man, justify that hate and like Peck might say kills more of our spirit. No good can come of such accusations.
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".
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.
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
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.
Liked what you wrote. Trump is a damaged man and I really wish he'd fade away quietly. But I'm afraid the more focused publicity and attention anyone gives him the more he becomes emboldened. The more hateful condemnation we send his way the more his followers will inspire him to run in '24. But then again, pointing this out and asking people to stop really the hate is an exercise in futility.
I read an interesting challenge today: "Hate is stronger than love. When you hate someone you give them your soul." I really believe this frighteningly and absolutely true.
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.
Good comments here Glen. Interesting you mentioned the separating of our rational "head" from the gut-feelings. It reminded me of something Rudolf Steiner (Austrian physicist/philosopher) once said, that if we were only heads we'd all eventually come to agreement, but when you add feelings into the mix, you end up with a maze of results. People like Trump know how to direct these feelings, which is why some refer to his followers as a cult. It's not based on rational thinking.
Thanks for the comments, Maverick. You raise the basic question of what is our basic human psychological nature. Evolutionary science says that we were "gut-feeling" creatures long before we developed language and our rational abilities. With this premise, Trump is a throw-back to our "reptilian brain"....and all that "king of jungle" orientation involves....eh? Quite right, I think, that Trump & his cult are "not based on rational thinking"!!! How rational is a silver-backed gorilla who keeps all challengers at bay while hoarding his females? Or is just "gut feeling?"
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...🤔
No, Clarence Thomas is the Anti-Christ
Thanks again for your help in regards to caracterizing the insanity and immortality of The Donald as Drumpf Antichrist
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think this comes under Yeats' line quoted above: "The best lack all conviction." The emblematic Christ-follower confuses him/herself to a stymie over "judging," and then they're coming for.... If only T. didn't seem to be actually trying to fulfill the Satan prophecies, as Christ was seen to fulfill prophesies. I add to the weird list the upside-down Bible. You might be interested in M. Scott Peck's "People of the Lie," which also seems to uncannily presage T.
Incidentally, a criminal can be convicted on circumstantial evidence, if all the circumstances are consistent with guilt. All the circumstances. It gets hard to find contrary circumstances, with Trump. Just pondering....
Thanks for sharing your ponderings. I have read Peck's book. Interesting opinions about good and evil. I agree with his view that evil is that which kills spirit. The question about what exactly is evil might need to be asked at this point. When it comes to politics, killing the spirit seems to be daily experience. I really don't know how to determine the lines between the good and evil of political agendas. When both sides use their rhetoric to deceive people about everything from the sanctity of life issues to a grossly irresponsible governmental debt to securing the border to manipulating science for one's political ends or condemning the "other side" for all our problems, these clearly seem to be spirit killing. Maybe modern politics just falls into the category of a necessary evil. It's clearly evident that both sides of the aisle want their followers to see the "other" side as evil. Thom's accusations concerning a particular person being the antichrists is proof positive of such condemnation. I don't think one can accuse another person of something more evil. My belief is that accusations like this are seriously dangerous. They necessarily produce more hate for the man, justify that hate and like Peck might say kills more of our spirit. No good can come of such accusations.
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".
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
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