It’s gotten so absurd that a reporter spoke with a woman at a Trump rally sporting a crucifix & tee-shirt that said “Hang Joe Biden For Treason.” She essentially said Jesus would watch the execution…
I saw a self-confident looking young blond woman being interviewed about why she supports Trump. She said because she isn't looking for a friend or a husband. What? Does she mean Trump doesn't have the qualities she would want in a friend or a husband which I assume would be honesty, trust, kindness, intelligence, etc., but she doesn't want the President of the U.S. to have those qualities? To me this is irrational, and she didn't answer why she does support Trump.
This is one of the indicators of a cult. It is faith without rationale. You can't argue against it because there is no argument for it.
Gloria.I take her answer by reverses (best way to read the bible as well). She is looking for husbands and friends who share her values, and her values are in the Trump movement, she wants to be taken care of, supported, so she doesn't have to work anymore, and is willing to submit to achieve that goal.
That and pure self interest. I had an antagonist on Liberty Forum back in 2002, her screen name was Edie,she claimed to be libertarian, and was very happy with her status as a dependent housewife and was a vehement anti feminist, until. her husband divorced her and she found out what the real world was like.
Really interesting, Thom. The fact that you note Reagan and Bush flip-flopped on abortion issue was very interesting. I will bet my bottom dollar that Trump cares nothing about pro or anti abortion causes. He is only widening his snare of the religious right. Another lie, another grift.
Trump was pro choice until he ran for President, he was also a Democrat until he decided to parlay his Apprentice fame to the Presidency. I suspect that it wasn't him alone, but a decision maker in the RNC that thought that they could use Trump's fame, just as they used Reagan's,
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the exploitation of religion has been used forever by grifters to manipulate their authoritarian followers, and with contemporary technology and knowledge, their big con has never been easier.
This generation’s incarnation of an uber Christian grifter is a malignant narcissist that uses great propaganda and Baby Goebbels’ scripts to make their chumps toe the line and proclaim their loyalty to their cult leader. And all in an effort to serve Putin. Seems kind of treasonous when you think about it.
Christianity as a positive force in the country is dead. It died some time ago, probably in the time of Reagan. So-called liberal Christians still use a deeply misogynist and racist Book as their guiding light. You can't fix that simply by saying "but OUR CHURCH supports women and gay people." If you use that Book as a rulebook, you do not support women and gay people. Full stop. There is some interesting history in the Book - the social constructs of 2000+ year old desert nomads and the record of a conquering and genocidal people. It presents us with Yahweh, a one-time Jewish war god that gradually assumed ascendency over all other gods. If one wishes to find the roots of Christian dysfunction (and USA violence), look to the OT, which the Evangelicals love, spurning the NT as "too woke and socialist."
It's true that Jews still worshiped idols, even after the Ten Commandments, but by the time of Hezekiah that completely ended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezekiah
Love thy neighbor as thyself – only if he is – your neighbor, i.e., virtuous but not if he is wicked, as it is written, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil (Proverbs 8:13). That's the OT.
““Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:17-20: NT
You seem defensive. My comment says nothing about modern day Jewish people, who are, in my eyes, some of the best people I know. But to read the OT with an objective eye means not ignoring the misogyny, the mass murders, and the other brutalities highlighted in the Book. The Jewish people look for meaning in the Book. They have that right. But, I refuse to worship a God that calls for the elimination of whole peoples, (except for keeping the virgins for personal use.) That I don't think they can really find meaning there is my issue, no one else's. The Evangelicals look less for meaning and more for justification - and nearly every cruelty can be justified somewhere in scripture. If I were forced, I'd choose Judaism over Evangelicalism AS PRACTICED in today's world. And for the record, I have steadfastly supported Israels actions against Hamas.
Daniel, I think Gloria has said that. That Judaism has progressed, except that she, like myself, don't believe in the Tenach, which includes the Torah, aka Old Testament. We know the Torah is sacred to secular Jews. But I do not think you are a secular Iew Daniel.
And indeed the Judaism of today is not the Hebrew of 3,000 years ago. It has progressed, and in so doing has left behind the genocide, incest, rapine that is encapsulated in the TeNAcH.
Like a historical novel. By the time of the NT, they had been enslaved 3 times, ruled by many other countries, people had been acculturated by foreigners, like Greeks. The fall of the 2nd temple completely changed things. Priesthood was supplanted by rabbis, who do not really have any special standing.
What pisses me off the most is the notion that Jews aren't just like everyone else (or as Harry Golden once said, just like everyone else only more so).
I understand the feeling Daniel. I know the history all too well.
I know the history of the Jews all too well, better than even Jews, but I don't go there, because I am leery of stirring up things, especially anisemitism. Remember I am an atheist and my atheism is based on historical (not biblical or TeNACH) knowledge
As you know Judaism is not a race, it is not even a religion, or language it is an ethnicity based on tradition, and Rabbincical law, as well as the Israeli law of return declares matrilineal descent, not patriararchal, ironically that is genetically validated.
That is why anthropologists and geneticists prefer to trace migrations of whole populations,vs individuals via mitochondrial DNA. Passed down mother to daughter.
Arab on the other hand is not a race or a religion it is an ethnicity based on one thing and that is the native tongue of the speaker,
There are black Arabs, blond haired, blue eyed Arabs and every shade or mixture in between, that is why Elijah Mohammad and Malcom X became Muslimconverts it is trans racial.
But it is also extremely exclusionary, triumphalist and intolerant of kufr (kaffirs, indifels) apostates (murtad and irtidad), liberated women, and LGBT, regardless of country or place they reside.
That is why I don't get Irshad Manji, the Canadian born lesbian Muslim, evidently she is of the ilk of Martin Luther or other reformists who think that she can change of that Islam under pressure would change, then again Islam can accept lesbianism, but not homosexuality.
Harems were chock of full of women on women action, that was permitted, but man on woman was a beheading.
Muhammad, according to the Quran, saw a man come out of one of his wife's tent, and fearing that he had been cuckolded by a slave, told one of his men to dispatch the slave, But the slave climbed up a palm tree to retrieve dates, and the follower saw up his loin cloth, and shook his head, the slave had been neutered, and castrated was not just cutting off the testes, but like the Chinese, everything.
The President of Iran said that they don't have any gays, What he didn't say was that anyone caught man on man, was forced to undergo a sex change., at least the bottom, I am sure there is a lot of man on man in Islam, considering the great amount of sublimated sexual frustration.
Which is manifested in shahidi (martydom) and Jihad.
I will say this. If forced into choosing one of the three Abrahamic religions I would choose Hebrew, but please no Ashkenazi food, like Carp or Geflilte fish, Matzoh OK. My wife is Scandinavian and that have some kind gefilte like fish as well.caled lutefisk., it would heave all day.
My father was 100% Jewish; I'm 52%. Don't lecture me on anti-semitism. Tell me how I am historically inaccurate and don't give me words from the Book, that provide a circular argument FOR that book.
Suzie a big difference between the Hebrw of the TeNACHand the Judaism of Today, just as their is a big difference between Pope Leothe Great who threw Manicheans to the Lions and the Pope Francis.
Is the Pope of today the same pope of the inquisition or the pope who said of the Cathars, slaughter them all, god will recognize his own.
Thanks Daniel, however there are 613 Laws in the book of Laws, Leviticus) and this Joshua who the Romans named IHSus, and the Church Iesus, and became Jesus, means Savior, and he declared that the laws of Leviticus are not abolished. , but fulfilled whatever that means.
Christ supposedly means messiah, massiach in Hebrew, for annointed (with oil) one.
The Greek had no word for messiah, so the early church reached into their version of the dictionary, and came up with Christos, meaning to rub with oil, (see also Crisco)
I do not wish to tread into antisemitic territory, not add to tropes.
This is how I see the rise of Christianity. After the Romans plundered the Temple and hauled the silver away to build the Coliseum and other structures,as well as take tens of thousands if not more as slaves, and after Masada. The Hebrew leadership realized that they could not destroy Rome from without, so they came up with a clever plan to destroy it from within, but preaching a religion of pacifism, and welfare, like turn the other cheek,
Like all new ideologies it spurred competitors, the most virulent of them were gentile converts and soon the market places of Rome and it's cities, were a den of noise,with these neophyte missionaries vying with each other for attention, thus followers and thus coin.
It must have been a maddening scene, into which a wannabe Emperor named Contantine defeated his challenger Maxentius at the battle of the Milivan Bridge.
He did so by use of psychological warfare. The Romans, at the time, were polytheists, and among their gods was an Eastern goddess, known by many names, (Venus) but known as Astarte, Ashera, Esther, Astar, Ishtar and she was not only a goddess of fertility, but a fierce warrior goddess known to take no prisoners.
Her signet was the Chi (X) superimposed on the Rho (P), thus the Papal symbol, he had his army paint the Chi Rho on their shields and this terrorized the army of Maxentius who outnumbered, Constantines, and they fled thus he won the day and the Empired.
After assuming the Imperial Throne, he had to deal with civil disorder. He himself was a disciple of Mithra, also born on Dec 25th).
Mithrra was the main god of the Roman legions, originally a Persian god, IIRC,
It didn't take much for him to come to the realization, as Ahkenaton did before him, that it is much easier and cost effective, to rule a nationwith one god, rather than dozens maybe hundreds of competing priesthoods, all demanding attention and temples (expensive). and needing to be placate that he may rule, so he ordained that there was only one god, and he chose the most loudmouthed and bullying of the soap boxers, to be the Bishop of Rome, the MFWIC, but that didn't stop the quarreling.
There were different interpretations of this new religion. So gathered these loud mouths up and had them shipped to Nicea in modern Anatolia, set guards at the door, plied them with wine,young boys,maidens until they came up with a consensus as to doctrine, and the result was the Nicene Creed and the Catholic religion. There still was no real , but many competing Popes or\Bridge or Pontifficus Maximus, until Charlemagne
A dude named Jerome, assisted with a dude subsequently given the title of The Great One or St Augustine, translated the assorted documents gathered from these "apostles" and translated them into the vulgar Latin (the Latin of he common people) and there were many versions of Vulgar Latin, they still survive in he form of the Romance Languages.
Augustine who had been a Manichean Priest (Mithra was a Greek apostle of Zoroastrianism named Mani, until he watched Pope Leo "The Great" thrown the Manicheans to the lions with all of the glee once reserved for Christians, saw the light and became a fanatical convert.
His contribution was to introduce the duality of god , punishment, reward hell and heaven, good and bad into this fledgling cult of Rome, he gave us Satan the bad god and he who is not named, (HaShem) the good god. In Zoroastrianism, the Good God is Ahura Mazda and the bad god is Ahriman.
These concepts do not exist in Hebrew, or shall I say the Hebrew of the Torah.
Before it was finally approved by Constantine, it was vetted by the richest and most powerful man in Rome. Piso. It is unknown what influence Piso asserted on the final product, ,most certainly it was "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is Gods", Thus there was no excuse for tax avoidance claiming a religious exemption.
The war like nature of this Piso Jesus can be found inserted into Luke where he says sell your cloak and buy a sword and bring them before me that will not reign over them and slay them LUKE 19 and 22)
Piso also blamed the Jews for the crucifixion A crucifixion of a person who never existed and was probably a Jewish rebel, if anything.
This is what I have discerned from over 70years of reading and researching.
The Jews were quietly living their own lives, not bothering anyway, collecting taxes and rents from a caravan stop named UruSalem, when the Romans invaded and slaughtered them into submission.
In the catacombs of the coliseum in Roma, all the inscriptions of the graves of the martyrs are in Hebrew. The first popes were Jews.
Constantine's wife converted him. At Nicea, the argument was whether they had to follow those 613 laws and whether to accept the trinity as Arianism, Christ was not divine but was a created being was rejected by a close vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
The Republicans vast conspiracy of hate is their Religion .
This under Donald Trump who is by no means a “ man of God”.
The Republicans have attached themselves to this alleged “Christian” group which is very much anti Christ in every way.
Their intolerance for all but the whites wealthiest men is actually against everything that Jesus taught when he shared his views on earth.
So they’ve made up stories about who Christ was and have entangled their wrath in his lectures on kindness and care for follow men and created the lie that Jesus would cheer on the hanging of Joe Biden .
Unbelievable , but not anymore.
Their paltry story of Trump being chosen by God to lead is about the most pathetic stretch of the many pathetic stretches this group have sponsored.
American, for good reason was constructed with separation of Church and State as a leading principal of U S Government.
This situation now is the most profound reason for having made that decision by the founders of our Constitution and our Country.
The Supreme Court violates this premise regularly as does Trump and his cacophony of chaos.
The Evangelicals know what Trump is, they don't care, because despite him being the very definition of their anti Christ, he is advancing their agenda, which is not Christian at all, but one of male supremacy, and male supremacy is inter racial.
As a member of the "chosen people" I quote Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof who beseeched God, "please choose somebody else next time."
The Evangelical Protestants are not the same as the 5 Catholics on SCOTUS. The Evangelists like MAGA Mike do not really consider Catholics to be "Christians" but rather useful to acquire power. To MAGA Mike, they would not be worthy to be "elect."
Evangelists are waiting for the rapture. The final apocalypse. they constantly quote from the book of Revelations -- good Christian people will soon be rewarded with paradise. Meanwhile, all those who have rejected Christ will face great suffering.
That leaves me out.
Roman Catholicism does not accept the possibility of a new revelation; it believes that reason can never completely penetrate the “mystery” and that it must continue the exploration of the mystery that has already been revealed.
Although some people think that they follow the Old Testament, they do not as they reject virtually all of the rules. E.G. Deuteronomy requires that the tithe be given to the poor every 3 years. Slavery was limited to at most 6 years. If they emulate Jesus, they'd be circumcized. pray to Jerusalem 3 times a day, wear holy undergarments, etc. I grew up around Amish - buttons - no zippers, no portraits or most photographs as they are "graven images." But even they do not follow the dietary laws.
IMHO they would more resemble Moslems who follow Sharia Law rather than law as practiced in any modern "Christian" country.
Friend Daniel. You absolutely must acquant yourself with Dominionism. It is an interdenominatial cult founded by Ted Cruz father Rafael Cruz and RJ Rushdoony, It encompasses all Christian religions, be they protestant or Catholic. I am convinced that Mike Pence and Amy Comey Barret (she of the People of Prayer) are Dominionists, as well as Mike Johnson and the Southern Baptists. Their manifest is based on Genesis promise of man to have domnion over the Earth. The seek what has been called Christian Reconstructionism aka Royal Race of the Redeemed https://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/royal_race.htm aka Christian NAZI's, they make the Taliban look liberal.
They seek a christian theocracy, ruled by Mosaic laws, except the ones that they don't like, like not eating swine, shell fish or mixing fabrics (You have to admit those 613 laws are ridiculous. I've studied them, also repeated in Deuteronomy.
Christian Reconstruction would punish "sinners" by stoning, becuase stones are free (very libertarian), and the stoning would include rebellious teens, adulterers, LGBT, less than faithful Christians (aka those that don't faithfully tithe or pay 10% to the shepherd, and the job of the shepherd is to keep the flock togethr until it is time for fleecing and slaughter.
I know that Catholics reject protestantism, I was once a Catholic. Christian Presbyterian at Birth, forcibly Baptized into Southern Baptist in LA, Became a Catholic to marry a Panamanian Girl and game to my sense circa 9484.
Dominionism is not protestant or Catholic it istransdenominational, has Catholic as well as Protestant members, nothing in it conflicts with Catholicism, it atually embraces and enhances traditional, as compared to modern Catholicism.
By the way when a Catholic, I dealt with cognitive dissonance by became a trad Catholic, Catholic Truth and flirted with Pius XII societies. I now a thing or two about radical Christianity from the Inside, was also a Knight of Columbus., ne er fot to the 3rd degree though, left before that.
I inform those capable of accepting reality that the United States is not a democracy, and it never has been one. Hypocrisy is the form of government in the United States; and it always has been. The so-called religious white-wing is a perfect example of this unfortunate scourge. How can you believe in "The Bible, "Jesus" and winged white folks in the sky and simultaneously believe you need an AR-15?
Did Jesus have an AR-15?
I've read the bible but maybe I missed that part. If this garbage weren't so tragic it would be funnier than HELL.
True Rohn, but there were some amendment attempts to make it a true democracy. This country was founded as a democratic Republic and that was the name of Jefferson and Madisons party.
the 15th, 19th and 26th amendments made it a representative democracy
A democratic Republic is rule by wise men (the landed), pre Augustinian Rome was a democratic Republic.
What we are seeing in the US (from other countries) is the daily activities of School children running amok. Separation of Church and State is of PRIMARY importance but it seems the Govt. is incapable of following this rule. What is the point of the Constitution?
I would come in more pessimistic, Jenny. There is indeed no way to turn the tide, because the MAGA cult has thrown out the rulebook, that is, the US Constitution, and has instead pledged unquestioning allegiance to their God-King, DJT. The best we can do now is to limit the numbers of the MAGA cultists by appealing to those on the margins and motivating them to vote Democrat. At the same time, we have to prepare for an inevitable societal crash to cushion the fall as much as possible and lay in stores for recovery and remediation after the crash. Space does not permit me to go into detail here.
I like your idea Stephen, now do you peel off the ones one the margin. That is all important.
The ones on the margin in the red states are ;like the miners daughter, Clementine.
The ones that count are in the swing states, the states that were once blue, but are now red thanks to Bill Clinton and his NAFTA and GAAT, another crises narrowly averted, by Obama who campaigned hard for TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) And some of those with Republican legislatures have pushed through voter suppression and nullification laws/
Just look at all the theocracies around the world to see what America would look like. Their people have been moving away from them in order to eat and moving to America and other non-religious governments.
The right wing Christians are trying to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. In their new organization of the chairs, they will get all the perks and everyone else will get robbed and abused while being made to suffer for not being a lying lunatic like them. Fascism goes well with phony religions. Fascism and phony religion lovers, want to steal all of our stuff and turn us into slaves, to be abused by them, the superior ones who can't even connect the dots! And they also have no desire to connect the dots. If they ever connected the dots and actually started to seek the truth, they would be horrified.
Think Iran. In my lifetime, it was a westernized country, allied with the US and Israel. But in 1979-1980 had a complete religious conversion.
Regardless which political party is in power, all Iranian authority is held by ayatollahs, and a Supreme Leader of Iran is elected by the Assembly of Experts, --also the only government body in charge of choosing and dismissing Supreme Leaders of Iran. The Supreme Leader is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the provisional[citation needed] head of the three branches of the state (the Judiciary, the Legislature, and the Executive). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran#:~:text=He%20oversees%2C%20appoints%20(or%20inaugurates,of%20the%20Parliament%20impeach%20him.
Shia Muslims believe that Mohammed publicly designated his cousin and son-in-law, Hazrat Ali as the first in a line of hereditary Imams from the Prophet's family to lead the community after him. Sunnis far outnumber them but for the most part are not as fanatically devout.
Originally mostly Zoroastrian. Cyrus the Great helped the Jews restore the 2nd temple and therefore they think the Jews owe them. Most Iranian Jews were expelled in 1948, and in Israel there are tens of thousand Farsi speakers who know the customs. Several who remained have been used as totems and scapegoats.
IMHO under the MAGA Mike scenario, the best for people like me would be "honorary" citizenship, like minorities in Iran, but 2nd class - with limited rights.
I ran is pretty much an exception to theocracies. The shot of Iran who was deposed in 1979, Pahlavi used to appear on the Sunday morning news programs pretty regularly and I thought he was a very intelligent man. Khomeini, inherited a government the West set up, and the West was agnostic. The typical theocracy especially Christian theocracies, or what you find in South America and Muslim theocracies are what you find in the Middle East and Africa. A few people have all the power and wealth and the others are left begging! This is where almost all the immigrants are coming from. Third world capitalistic theocratic Nations, and our white Christian supremacists want it here because they're not very smart!
We deplore the religious fanatics who deny women their basic rights in the Middle East but accept the same regressive individuals in the United States. There was ample reason for the founding fathers to include the separation of church and state in the constitution.
Christianity has a 2000 year history of oppressing women and people of color and using war to acquire more land and more wealth and to serve as an excuse for the domination by small groups of white men. It was the Catholic pope whose backing insured the election of Adolph Hitler to the chancellorship by German Catholics in the parliament. It was the U.S. evangelicals that enabled Reagan to become president and that were key to the election of Trump in 2016. The result is a radical right controlling the Federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, to strip hard won human rights from working class people that took a century to achieve and only a few decades to lose.
I remember the attitude toward the Thousand Points of Light program George H.W. Bush set in motion. He was trying very hard to sell the public that government money should be "granted" to church charities. Back once more is his Republican idea that the private sector is so much smarter and more efficient with OUR money. I call BS on that.
The Bible is a hot-mess---written by men for men. The Constitution was man-made too, but we have had the sense to amend it. We have sought remedy for the "man thing", and hopefully we'll keep working on that.
Churchs get to apply for grants for their charity work, and we all know the GOP is chomping at the bit to hand them billions in school vouchers. They will only use it for general education, not to teach religion. Ya, right! Jesus doesn't want them to lie, but it seems that is the path they have chosen to walk with Trump and the cult.
As you so clearly pointed out, Christ left a set of instructions for them as individuals. If only they would stop the rhetoric and the lying so they can accomplish the goals of THEIR religion on a personal level in conjunction with the First Amendment. It all comes back to the money trail, tax avoidance, and the single-minded rule of one Orange Jesus. We know what he thinks of charity as well as what he did with the fake one he established and got busted for. When real Jesus comes back, he'll likely call them out too.
Strong churches are always the few outnumbered by the weak links in religion. Fundamentalist are always favoring their own interests over all others. The damage done by these unwoke actors is societies nightmare. No matter how obvious how Jesus would act they rationalize their doctrine of hate. Liberal Churches have a hard time separating themselves as entities of inclusion from their unwoke non member branches. Pretending is our great strength to believe what we cannot see. It is also our greatest weakness as a tool of the insane. Fundamentalist want to be taken care of in an infantile manner which the insane are more than willing to pretend to do. Outcome is mass insanity and death.
Truly a blasphemous use of the term "Christianity." Runs firmly against Dan Berrigan, S.J.'s warning, "If you want to follow Jesus you'd better look good on wood!"
The "Christian America" visualized by Johnson would be very different from trump's. The former would be mostly sincere and a theocracy much in the mould of an updated Massachusetts Bay Colony, the latter a bazaar of merchandise (and political favor) for sale with all accruing to the greater glory and wealth of trump the messiah.
Ben Franklin fled Boston for Philadelphia because he found the Theocratic Government of MA, stifling. And MA was not admitted to the union until it cleaned up it's constitution and secularized the Government.
Of the 102 puritans who set foot on that piece land on Massachussets bay only 32 were radicals, known as Brownists, and extreme branch of Puritaniism, they were so intolerant that they fled to Leiden Holland, and soon wore out their welcome there, they then rented a dutch fluyt named the Mayflower and the shipped stopped at Plymouth England to pick up some 70 more puritans looking for land, not the religious radicals.
The Brownists called themselves Saints but one of them named Bradford,later Governor of MA wote in his diary they were pilgrims and the myth has stuck since. Google Brownists in en.wikipedia.com
The Brownists spread their disease as it seems all radicals easily do, and they radicalized the puritans of MA, and in the late 18th Century they sent missionaries into Virginia and the Carolina's, to spread their disease it is called the 1st Great Awakening (again check out wikipedia) and they returned in the 19th Century for the 2nd, this time to greater effect, and as an avocational genetic genealogists I have found artificacts of that disease in official records, For instance one of the most famous was Lorenzo Dow, and I can't recall how many Lorenzo Dow jones, Bryants, Farmers I have found in census records and marriage certificates.
We know these typhoid Mary's by the name Pentecostal, Evangelicals, Southern Bapists, even Methodists.
Lutherans are more or less confined to the Great Lakes states, where the Germans and Scandinavians settled., though my wife born in California, now atheist, was baptisted Lutheran and her father died three years ago a Lutheran.
We have believed that education is the antidote to “tyranny imposed upon the mind of man”, in that it is neutral, objective, and based on rational study, independent thought, science, and facts. That is indeed true of education. But why was education not ever addressed in the Constitution? If education and “the mind of man” is so obviously crucial to preventing tyranny and so essential to a good life, liberty, and happiness, why did the founders fail to mention it?
The answer, I believe, is that it had never occurred to them that education, like freedom of the press and freedom of (or from) religion would be an issue. It had never occurred to them that education would be something imposed as religion and false information or suppression of the press had been imposed. They are turning over in their graves still today because of the attempts to force education through school attendance laws.
Education is neutral, objective, and based on rational study, independent thought, science, and facts. Schooling, when required by law and part of a bureaucratic structure based on legal authority can never claim to be significantly any of those things. Someone with power and authority decides what will be “taught” and what will be studied and learned. Somebody has the ability to whitewash history as has been done for generations since the Civil War ended and the ability to portray the eradication of indigenous peoples as just so much necessary progress of civilization. It’s political and social and it is human engineering through behavioral modification. Children need order, structure, discipline, and lots and lots of instruction, especially moral instruction (modelled after religious training), do they not?
Controlling the inculcation of children into society and their curriculum is tyranny imposed upon the mind of man. It is time to connect the dots and take off the rose colored glasses about schooling forced upon the people. It is not education, nor will it ever be education. And, if Thom Hartmann and liberal/progressives cannot figure that out, we truly are up that proverbial creek without a paddle or any hope.
"Schooling, when required by law and part of a bureaucratic structure based on legal authority can never claim to be significantly any of those things."
Bull. Statistically, the vast majority benefit and we've come a long way thanks to the LBJ Education Act and especially IDEA. Approximately 20% of the general population need a hand up, and many of them need an IEP, individualized educational prescription, which is applied to all students in some states.
As those familiar with me know I am critical of Marches and demonstrations as they accomplish nothing and the establishment welcomes them as pressure relief valves.
But the civil rights movement was NOT passive non violence,like marches, but aggressive non violence like sit ins and the Freedom Bus ride ins.
I saw a self-confident looking young blond woman being interviewed about why she supports Trump. She said because she isn't looking for a friend or a husband. What? Does she mean Trump doesn't have the qualities she would want in a friend or a husband which I assume would be honesty, trust, kindness, intelligence, etc., but she doesn't want the President of the U.S. to have those qualities? To me this is irrational, and she didn't answer why she does support Trump.
This is one of the indicators of a cult. It is faith without rationale. You can't argue against it because there is no argument for it.
Gloria.I take her answer by reverses (best way to read the bible as well). She is looking for husbands and friends who share her values, and her values are in the Trump movement, she wants to be taken care of, supported, so she doesn't have to work anymore, and is willing to submit to achieve that goal.
Branding and peer pressure.
That and pure self interest. I had an antagonist on Liberty Forum back in 2002, her screen name was Edie,she claimed to be libertarian, and was very happy with her status as a dependent housewife and was a vehement anti feminist, until. her husband divorced her and she found out what the real world was like.
Really interesting, Thom. The fact that you note Reagan and Bush flip-flopped on abortion issue was very interesting. I will bet my bottom dollar that Trump cares nothing about pro or anti abortion causes. He is only widening his snare of the religious right. Another lie, another grift.
Trump was pro choice until he ran for President, he was also a Democrat until he decided to parlay his Apprentice fame to the Presidency. I suspect that it wasn't him alone, but a decision maker in the RNC that thought that they could use Trump's fame, just as they used Reagan's,
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the exploitation of religion has been used forever by grifters to manipulate their authoritarian followers, and with contemporary technology and knowledge, their big con has never been easier.
This generation’s incarnation of an uber Christian grifter is a malignant narcissist that uses great propaganda and Baby Goebbels’ scripts to make their chumps toe the line and proclaim their loyalty to their cult leader. And all in an effort to serve Putin. Seems kind of treasonous when you think about it.
Christianity as a positive force in the country is dead. It died some time ago, probably in the time of Reagan. So-called liberal Christians still use a deeply misogynist and racist Book as their guiding light. You can't fix that simply by saying "but OUR CHURCH supports women and gay people." If you use that Book as a rulebook, you do not support women and gay people. Full stop. There is some interesting history in the Book - the social constructs of 2000+ year old desert nomads and the record of a conquering and genocidal people. It presents us with Yahweh, a one-time Jewish war god that gradually assumed ascendency over all other gods. If one wishes to find the roots of Christian dysfunction (and USA violence), look to the OT, which the Evangelicals love, spurning the NT as "too woke and socialist."
It's true that Jews still worshiped idols, even after the Ten Commandments, but by the time of Hezekiah that completely ended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezekiah
Love thy neighbor as thyself – only if he is – your neighbor, i.e., virtuous but not if he is wicked, as it is written, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil (Proverbs 8:13). That's the OT.
““Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:17-20: NT
That BS is inaccurate and antisemitic.
You seem defensive. My comment says nothing about modern day Jewish people, who are, in my eyes, some of the best people I know. But to read the OT with an objective eye means not ignoring the misogyny, the mass murders, and the other brutalities highlighted in the Book. The Jewish people look for meaning in the Book. They have that right. But, I refuse to worship a God that calls for the elimination of whole peoples, (except for keeping the virgins for personal use.) That I don't think they can really find meaning there is my issue, no one else's. The Evangelicals look less for meaning and more for justification - and nearly every cruelty can be justified somewhere in scripture. If I were forced, I'd choose Judaism over Evangelicalism AS PRACTICED in today's world. And for the record, I have steadfastly supported Israels actions against Hamas.
Baloney. Judaism progressed. You know nothing.
https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/history-culture/2023/may/tikkun-olam-history.html#:~:text=Today%2C%20tikkun%20olam%20%E2%80%94%20Hebrew%20for,the%20world%20a%20better%20place.
I respectfully disagree. I am not the one mired in stone-aged mythology.
Daniel, I think Gloria has said that. That Judaism has progressed, except that she, like myself, don't believe in the Tenach, which includes the Torah, aka Old Testament. We know the Torah is sacred to secular Jews. But I do not think you are a secular Iew Daniel.
And indeed the Judaism of today is not the Hebrew of 3,000 years ago. It has progressed, and in so doing has left behind the genocide, incest, rapine that is encapsulated in the TeNAcH.
Like a historical novel. By the time of the NT, they had been enslaved 3 times, ruled by many other countries, people had been acculturated by foreigners, like Greeks. The fall of the 2nd temple completely changed things. Priesthood was supplanted by rabbis, who do not really have any special standing.
What pisses me off the most is the notion that Jews aren't just like everyone else (or as Harry Golden once said, just like everyone else only more so).
I understand the feeling Daniel. I know the history all too well.
I know the history of the Jews all too well, better than even Jews, but I don't go there, because I am leery of stirring up things, especially anisemitism. Remember I am an atheist and my atheism is based on historical (not biblical or TeNACH) knowledge
As you know Judaism is not a race, it is not even a religion, or language it is an ethnicity based on tradition, and Rabbincical law, as well as the Israeli law of return declares matrilineal descent, not patriararchal, ironically that is genetically validated.
That is why anthropologists and geneticists prefer to trace migrations of whole populations,vs individuals via mitochondrial DNA. Passed down mother to daughter.
Arab on the other hand is not a race or a religion it is an ethnicity based on one thing and that is the native tongue of the speaker,
There are black Arabs, blond haired, blue eyed Arabs and every shade or mixture in between, that is why Elijah Mohammad and Malcom X became Muslimconverts it is trans racial.
But it is also extremely exclusionary, triumphalist and intolerant of kufr (kaffirs, indifels) apostates (murtad and irtidad), liberated women, and LGBT, regardless of country or place they reside.
That is why I don't get Irshad Manji, the Canadian born lesbian Muslim, evidently she is of the ilk of Martin Luther or other reformists who think that she can change of that Islam under pressure would change, then again Islam can accept lesbianism, but not homosexuality.
Harems were chock of full of women on women action, that was permitted, but man on woman was a beheading.
Muhammad, according to the Quran, saw a man come out of one of his wife's tent, and fearing that he had been cuckolded by a slave, told one of his men to dispatch the slave, But the slave climbed up a palm tree to retrieve dates, and the follower saw up his loin cloth, and shook his head, the slave had been neutered, and castrated was not just cutting off the testes, but like the Chinese, everything.
The President of Iran said that they don't have any gays, What he didn't say was that anyone caught man on man, was forced to undergo a sex change., at least the bottom, I am sure there is a lot of man on man in Islam, considering the great amount of sublimated sexual frustration.
Which is manifested in shahidi (martydom) and Jihad.
I will say this. If forced into choosing one of the three Abrahamic religions I would choose Hebrew, but please no Ashkenazi food, like Carp or Geflilte fish, Matzoh OK. My wife is Scandinavian and that have some kind gefilte like fish as well.caled lutefisk., it would heave all day.
My father was 100% Jewish; I'm 52%. Don't lecture me on anti-semitism. Tell me how I am historically inaccurate and don't give me words from the Book, that provide a circular argument FOR that book.
Suzie a big difference between the Hebrw of the TeNACHand the Judaism of Today, just as their is a big difference between Pope Leothe Great who threw Manicheans to the Lions and the Pope Francis.
Is the Pope of today the same pope of the inquisition or the pope who said of the Cathars, slaughter them all, god will recognize his own.
You are an antisemite, repeating the same BS that made my brother and me only "honorary" white people -- "not the kind that made America great."
Jewish love is Christian love and vice versa.
I bet you hate your father.
Stop looking for a vehicle for your outrage. You don't know anything about m.
Thanks Daniel, however there are 613 Laws in the book of Laws, Leviticus) and this Joshua who the Romans named IHSus, and the Church Iesus, and became Jesus, means Savior, and he declared that the laws of Leviticus are not abolished. , but fulfilled whatever that means.
Christ supposedly means messiah, massiach in Hebrew, for annointed (with oil) one.
The Greek had no word for messiah, so the early church reached into their version of the dictionary, and came up with Christos, meaning to rub with oil, (see also Crisco)
I do not wish to tread into antisemitic territory, not add to tropes.
This is how I see the rise of Christianity. After the Romans plundered the Temple and hauled the silver away to build the Coliseum and other structures,as well as take tens of thousands if not more as slaves, and after Masada. The Hebrew leadership realized that they could not destroy Rome from without, so they came up with a clever plan to destroy it from within, but preaching a religion of pacifism, and welfare, like turn the other cheek,
Like all new ideologies it spurred competitors, the most virulent of them were gentile converts and soon the market places of Rome and it's cities, were a den of noise,with these neophyte missionaries vying with each other for attention, thus followers and thus coin.
It must have been a maddening scene, into which a wannabe Emperor named Contantine defeated his challenger Maxentius at the battle of the Milivan Bridge.
He did so by use of psychological warfare. The Romans, at the time, were polytheists, and among their gods was an Eastern goddess, known by many names, (Venus) but known as Astarte, Ashera, Esther, Astar, Ishtar and she was not only a goddess of fertility, but a fierce warrior goddess known to take no prisoners.
Her signet was the Chi (X) superimposed on the Rho (P), thus the Papal symbol, he had his army paint the Chi Rho on their shields and this terrorized the army of Maxentius who outnumbered, Constantines, and they fled thus he won the day and the Empired.
After assuming the Imperial Throne, he had to deal with civil disorder. He himself was a disciple of Mithra, also born on Dec 25th).
Mithrra was the main god of the Roman legions, originally a Persian god, IIRC,
It didn't take much for him to come to the realization, as Ahkenaton did before him, that it is much easier and cost effective, to rule a nationwith one god, rather than dozens maybe hundreds of competing priesthoods, all demanding attention and temples (expensive). and needing to be placate that he may rule, so he ordained that there was only one god, and he chose the most loudmouthed and bullying of the soap boxers, to be the Bishop of Rome, the MFWIC, but that didn't stop the quarreling.
There were different interpretations of this new religion. So gathered these loud mouths up and had them shipped to Nicea in modern Anatolia, set guards at the door, plied them with wine,young boys,maidens until they came up with a consensus as to doctrine, and the result was the Nicene Creed and the Catholic religion. There still was no real , but many competing Popes or\Bridge or Pontifficus Maximus, until Charlemagne
A dude named Jerome, assisted with a dude subsequently given the title of The Great One or St Augustine, translated the assorted documents gathered from these "apostles" and translated them into the vulgar Latin (the Latin of he common people) and there were many versions of Vulgar Latin, they still survive in he form of the Romance Languages.
Augustine who had been a Manichean Priest (Mithra was a Greek apostle of Zoroastrianism named Mani, until he watched Pope Leo "The Great" thrown the Manicheans to the lions with all of the glee once reserved for Christians, saw the light and became a fanatical convert.
His contribution was to introduce the duality of god , punishment, reward hell and heaven, good and bad into this fledgling cult of Rome, he gave us Satan the bad god and he who is not named, (HaShem) the good god. In Zoroastrianism, the Good God is Ahura Mazda and the bad god is Ahriman.
These concepts do not exist in Hebrew, or shall I say the Hebrew of the Torah.
Before it was finally approved by Constantine, it was vetted by the richest and most powerful man in Rome. Piso. It is unknown what influence Piso asserted on the final product, ,most certainly it was "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is Gods", Thus there was no excuse for tax avoidance claiming a religious exemption.
The war like nature of this Piso Jesus can be found inserted into Luke where he says sell your cloak and buy a sword and bring them before me that will not reign over them and slay them LUKE 19 and 22)
Piso also blamed the Jews for the crucifixion A crucifixion of a person who never existed and was probably a Jewish rebel, if anything.
This is what I have discerned from over 70years of reading and researching.
The Jews were quietly living their own lives, not bothering anyway, collecting taxes and rents from a caravan stop named UruSalem, when the Romans invaded and slaughtered them into submission.
In the catacombs of the coliseum in Roma, all the inscriptions of the graves of the martyrs are in Hebrew. The first popes were Jews.
Constantine's wife converted him. At Nicea, the argument was whether they had to follow those 613 laws and whether to accept the trinity as Arianism, Christ was not divine but was a created being was rejected by a close vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
Thanks Daniel I know that, but resisted saying as much as I hesitated adding to antisemitic tropes.
The Republicans vast conspiracy of hate is their Religion .
This under Donald Trump who is by no means a “ man of God”.
The Republicans have attached themselves to this alleged “Christian” group which is very much anti Christ in every way.
Their intolerance for all but the whites wealthiest men is actually against everything that Jesus taught when he shared his views on earth.
So they’ve made up stories about who Christ was and have entangled their wrath in his lectures on kindness and care for follow men and created the lie that Jesus would cheer on the hanging of Joe Biden .
Unbelievable , but not anymore.
Their paltry story of Trump being chosen by God to lead is about the most pathetic stretch of the many pathetic stretches this group have sponsored.
American, for good reason was constructed with separation of Church and State as a leading principal of U S Government.
This situation now is the most profound reason for having made that decision by the founders of our Constitution and our Country.
The Supreme Court violates this premise regularly as does Trump and his cacophony of chaos.
The Evangelicals know what Trump is, they don't care, because despite him being the very definition of their anti Christ, he is advancing their agenda, which is not Christian at all, but one of male supremacy, and male supremacy is inter racial.
Trump chosen.
As a member of the "chosen people" I quote Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof who beseeched God, "please choose somebody else next time."
The Evangelical Protestants are not the same as the 5 Catholics on SCOTUS. The Evangelists like MAGA Mike do not really consider Catholics to be "Christians" but rather useful to acquire power. To MAGA Mike, they would not be worthy to be "elect."
Evangelists are waiting for the rapture. The final apocalypse. they constantly quote from the book of Revelations -- good Christian people will soon be rewarded with paradise. Meanwhile, all those who have rejected Christ will face great suffering.
That leaves me out.
Roman Catholicism does not accept the possibility of a new revelation; it believes that reason can never completely penetrate the “mystery” and that it must continue the exploration of the mystery that has already been revealed.
Although some people think that they follow the Old Testament, they do not as they reject virtually all of the rules. E.G. Deuteronomy requires that the tithe be given to the poor every 3 years. Slavery was limited to at most 6 years. If they emulate Jesus, they'd be circumcized. pray to Jerusalem 3 times a day, wear holy undergarments, etc. I grew up around Amish - buttons - no zippers, no portraits or most photographs as they are "graven images." But even they do not follow the dietary laws.
IMHO they would more resemble Moslems who follow Sharia Law rather than law as practiced in any modern "Christian" country.
The OT lists 613 laws. Much of our law is derived from them. They are merely similar and not congruent, as we used to say in math: https://www.jmu.edu/dukehallgallery/exhibitions-past-2018-2019/the-613-mitzvot.shtml
Friend Daniel. You absolutely must acquant yourself with Dominionism. It is an interdenominatial cult founded by Ted Cruz father Rafael Cruz and RJ Rushdoony, It encompasses all Christian religions, be they protestant or Catholic. I am convinced that Mike Pence and Amy Comey Barret (she of the People of Prayer) are Dominionists, as well as Mike Johnson and the Southern Baptists. Their manifest is based on Genesis promise of man to have domnion over the Earth. The seek what has been called Christian Reconstructionism aka Royal Race of the Redeemed https://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/royal_race.htm aka Christian NAZI's, they make the Taliban look liberal.
They seek a christian theocracy, ruled by Mosaic laws, except the ones that they don't like, like not eating swine, shell fish or mixing fabrics (You have to admit those 613 laws are ridiculous. I've studied them, also repeated in Deuteronomy.
Christian Reconstruction would punish "sinners" by stoning, becuase stones are free (very libertarian), and the stoning would include rebellious teens, adulterers, LGBT, less than faithful Christians (aka those that don't faithfully tithe or pay 10% to the shepherd, and the job of the shepherd is to keep the flock togethr until it is time for fleecing and slaughter.
Sorry, but MOST Protestants reject Catholicism.
Comey Barret may be a member of a cult. They may proselytize but they are exclusionary.
Rafael Cruz is a lapsed Catholic, most probably excommunicated.
I know that Catholics reject protestantism, I was once a Catholic. Christian Presbyterian at Birth, forcibly Baptized into Southern Baptist in LA, Became a Catholic to marry a Panamanian Girl and game to my sense circa 9484.
Dominionism is not protestant or Catholic it istransdenominational, has Catholic as well as Protestant members, nothing in it conflicts with Catholicism, it atually embraces and enhances traditional, as compared to modern Catholicism.
By the way when a Catholic, I dealt with cognitive dissonance by became a trad Catholic, Catholic Truth and flirted with Pius XII societies. I now a thing or two about radical Christianity from the Inside, was also a Knight of Columbus., ne er fot to the 3rd degree though, left before that.
I inform those capable of accepting reality that the United States is not a democracy, and it never has been one. Hypocrisy is the form of government in the United States; and it always has been. The so-called religious white-wing is a perfect example of this unfortunate scourge. How can you believe in "The Bible, "Jesus" and winged white folks in the sky and simultaneously believe you need an AR-15?
Did Jesus have an AR-15?
I've read the bible but maybe I missed that part. If this garbage weren't so tragic it would be funnier than HELL.
True Rohn, but there were some amendment attempts to make it a true democracy. This country was founded as a democratic Republic and that was the name of Jefferson and Madisons party.
the 15th, 19th and 26th amendments made it a representative democracy
A democratic Republic is rule by wise men (the landed), pre Augustinian Rome was a democratic Republic.
1965 Voting Rights Act.
I have no idea how the US is going to stop this.
What we are seeing in the US (from other countries) is the daily activities of School children running amok. Separation of Church and State is of PRIMARY importance but it seems the Govt. is incapable of following this rule. What is the point of the Constitution?
There seems to be NO way to turn this tide.
I would come in more pessimistic, Jenny. There is indeed no way to turn the tide, because the MAGA cult has thrown out the rulebook, that is, the US Constitution, and has instead pledged unquestioning allegiance to their God-King, DJT. The best we can do now is to limit the numbers of the MAGA cultists by appealing to those on the margins and motivating them to vote Democrat. At the same time, we have to prepare for an inevitable societal crash to cushion the fall as much as possible and lay in stores for recovery and remediation after the crash. Space does not permit me to go into detail here.
I like your idea Stephen, now do you peel off the ones one the margin. That is all important.
The ones on the margin in the red states are ;like the miners daughter, Clementine.
The ones that count are in the swing states, the states that were once blue, but are now red thanks to Bill Clinton and his NAFTA and GAAT, another crises narrowly averted, by Obama who campaigned hard for TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) And some of those with Republican legislatures have pushed through voter suppression and nullification laws/
Just look at all the theocracies around the world to see what America would look like. Their people have been moving away from them in order to eat and moving to America and other non-religious governments.
The right wing Christians are trying to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. In their new organization of the chairs, they will get all the perks and everyone else will get robbed and abused while being made to suffer for not being a lying lunatic like them. Fascism goes well with phony religions. Fascism and phony religion lovers, want to steal all of our stuff and turn us into slaves, to be abused by them, the superior ones who can't even connect the dots! And they also have no desire to connect the dots. If they ever connected the dots and actually started to seek the truth, they would be horrified.
Think Iran. In my lifetime, it was a westernized country, allied with the US and Israel. But in 1979-1980 had a complete religious conversion.
Regardless which political party is in power, all Iranian authority is held by ayatollahs, and a Supreme Leader of Iran is elected by the Assembly of Experts, --also the only government body in charge of choosing and dismissing Supreme Leaders of Iran. The Supreme Leader is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the provisional[citation needed] head of the three branches of the state (the Judiciary, the Legislature, and the Executive). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran#:~:text=He%20oversees%2C%20appoints%20(or%20inaugurates,of%20the%20Parliament%20impeach%20him.
Shia Muslims believe that Mohammed publicly designated his cousin and son-in-law, Hazrat Ali as the first in a line of hereditary Imams from the Prophet's family to lead the community after him. Sunnis far outnumber them but for the most part are not as fanatically devout.
Originally mostly Zoroastrian. Cyrus the Great helped the Jews restore the 2nd temple and therefore they think the Jews owe them. Most Iranian Jews were expelled in 1948, and in Israel there are tens of thousand Farsi speakers who know the customs. Several who remained have been used as totems and scapegoats.
IMHO under the MAGA Mike scenario, the best for people like me would be "honorary" citizenship, like minorities in Iran, but 2nd class - with limited rights.
You are better off than me Daniel. My fate would be stoning.
I ran is pretty much an exception to theocracies. The shot of Iran who was deposed in 1979, Pahlavi used to appear on the Sunday morning news programs pretty regularly and I thought he was a very intelligent man. Khomeini, inherited a government the West set up, and the West was agnostic. The typical theocracy especially Christian theocracies, or what you find in South America and Muslim theocracies are what you find in the Middle East and Africa. A few people have all the power and wealth and the others are left begging! This is where almost all the immigrants are coming from. Third world capitalistic theocratic Nations, and our white Christian supremacists want it here because they're not very smart!
We deplore the religious fanatics who deny women their basic rights in the Middle East but accept the same regressive individuals in the United States. There was ample reason for the founding fathers to include the separation of church and state in the constitution.
Christianity has a 2000 year history of oppressing women and people of color and using war to acquire more land and more wealth and to serve as an excuse for the domination by small groups of white men. It was the Catholic pope whose backing insured the election of Adolph Hitler to the chancellorship by German Catholics in the parliament. It was the U.S. evangelicals that enabled Reagan to become president and that were key to the election of Trump in 2016. The result is a radical right controlling the Federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, to strip hard won human rights from working class people that took a century to achieve and only a few decades to lose.
I remember the attitude toward the Thousand Points of Light program George H.W. Bush set in motion. He was trying very hard to sell the public that government money should be "granted" to church charities. Back once more is his Republican idea that the private sector is so much smarter and more efficient with OUR money. I call BS on that.
The Bible is a hot-mess---written by men for men. The Constitution was man-made too, but we have had the sense to amend it. We have sought remedy for the "man thing", and hopefully we'll keep working on that.
Churchs get to apply for grants for their charity work, and we all know the GOP is chomping at the bit to hand them billions in school vouchers. They will only use it for general education, not to teach religion. Ya, right! Jesus doesn't want them to lie, but it seems that is the path they have chosen to walk with Trump and the cult.
As you so clearly pointed out, Christ left a set of instructions for them as individuals. If only they would stop the rhetoric and the lying so they can accomplish the goals of THEIR religion on a personal level in conjunction with the First Amendment. It all comes back to the money trail, tax avoidance, and the single-minded rule of one Orange Jesus. We know what he thinks of charity as well as what he did with the fake one he established and got busted for. When real Jesus comes back, he'll likely call them out too.
Strong churches are always the few outnumbered by the weak links in religion. Fundamentalist are always favoring their own interests over all others. The damage done by these unwoke actors is societies nightmare. No matter how obvious how Jesus would act they rationalize their doctrine of hate. Liberal Churches have a hard time separating themselves as entities of inclusion from their unwoke non member branches. Pretending is our great strength to believe what we cannot see. It is also our greatest weakness as a tool of the insane. Fundamentalist want to be taken care of in an infantile manner which the insane are more than willing to pretend to do. Outcome is mass insanity and death.
I would say a lot like the Jewish Israel.
Never mind that over 2 mil Arabs live peaceably in Israel. Have civil rights. Have a political party. Have members of the government.
Boris rears his Putin head, once again.
Do you not tire Boris.?
Truly a blasphemous use of the term "Christianity." Runs firmly against Dan Berrigan, S.J.'s warning, "If you want to follow Jesus you'd better look good on wood!"
The "Christian America" visualized by Johnson would be very different from trump's. The former would be mostly sincere and a theocracy much in the mould of an updated Massachusetts Bay Colony, the latter a bazaar of merchandise (and political favor) for sale with all accruing to the greater glory and wealth of trump the messiah.
Ben Franklin fled Boston for Philadelphia because he found the Theocratic Government of MA, stifling. And MA was not admitted to the union until it cleaned up it's constitution and secularized the Government.
Of the 102 puritans who set foot on that piece land on Massachussets bay only 32 were radicals, known as Brownists, and extreme branch of Puritaniism, they were so intolerant that they fled to Leiden Holland, and soon wore out their welcome there, they then rented a dutch fluyt named the Mayflower and the shipped stopped at Plymouth England to pick up some 70 more puritans looking for land, not the religious radicals.
The Brownists called themselves Saints but one of them named Bradford,later Governor of MA wote in his diary they were pilgrims and the myth has stuck since. Google Brownists in en.wikipedia.com
The Brownists spread their disease as it seems all radicals easily do, and they radicalized the puritans of MA, and in the late 18th Century they sent missionaries into Virginia and the Carolina's, to spread their disease it is called the 1st Great Awakening (again check out wikipedia) and they returned in the 19th Century for the 2nd, this time to greater effect, and as an avocational genetic genealogists I have found artificacts of that disease in official records, For instance one of the most famous was Lorenzo Dow, and I can't recall how many Lorenzo Dow jones, Bryants, Farmers I have found in census records and marriage certificates.
We know these typhoid Mary's by the name Pentecostal, Evangelicals, Southern Bapists, even Methodists.
Lutherans are more or less confined to the Great Lakes states, where the Germans and Scandinavians settled., though my wife born in California, now atheist, was baptisted Lutheran and her father died three years ago a Lutheran.
We have believed that education is the antidote to “tyranny imposed upon the mind of man”, in that it is neutral, objective, and based on rational study, independent thought, science, and facts. That is indeed true of education. But why was education not ever addressed in the Constitution? If education and “the mind of man” is so obviously crucial to preventing tyranny and so essential to a good life, liberty, and happiness, why did the founders fail to mention it?
The answer, I believe, is that it had never occurred to them that education, like freedom of the press and freedom of (or from) religion would be an issue. It had never occurred to them that education would be something imposed as religion and false information or suppression of the press had been imposed. They are turning over in their graves still today because of the attempts to force education through school attendance laws.
Education is neutral, objective, and based on rational study, independent thought, science, and facts. Schooling, when required by law and part of a bureaucratic structure based on legal authority can never claim to be significantly any of those things. Someone with power and authority decides what will be “taught” and what will be studied and learned. Somebody has the ability to whitewash history as has been done for generations since the Civil War ended and the ability to portray the eradication of indigenous peoples as just so much necessary progress of civilization. It’s political and social and it is human engineering through behavioral modification. Children need order, structure, discipline, and lots and lots of instruction, especially moral instruction (modelled after religious training), do they not?
Controlling the inculcation of children into society and their curriculum is tyranny imposed upon the mind of man. It is time to connect the dots and take off the rose colored glasses about schooling forced upon the people. It is not education, nor will it ever be education. And, if Thom Hartmann and liberal/progressives cannot figure that out, we truly are up that proverbial creek without a paddle or any hope.
"Schooling, when required by law and part of a bureaucratic structure based on legal authority can never claim to be significantly any of those things."
Bull. Statistically, the vast majority benefit and we've come a long way thanks to the LBJ Education Act and especially IDEA. Approximately 20% of the general population need a hand up, and many of them need an IEP, individualized educational prescription, which is applied to all students in some states.
Just in time. There is this great article from Salon The Suppressed History of the Civil Rights Movement https://www.salon.com/2024/01/18/the-suppressed-history-of-the-civil-rights-movement-that-could-help-defeat-donald/?lh_aid=3594738&lh_cid=cbo38owi9q&lh_em=myocicats%40gmail.com&di=d52eeb2d3d2591b796e984375c5999a4
As those familiar with me know I am critical of Marches and demonstrations as they accomplish nothing and the establishment welcomes them as pressure relief valves.
But the civil rights movement was NOT passive non violence,like marches, but aggressive non violence like sit ins and the Freedom Bus ride ins.
https://www.salon.com/2024/01/18/the-suppressed-history-of-the-civil-rights-movement-that-could-help-defeat-donald/?lh_aid=3594738&lh_cid=cbo38owi9q&lh_em=myocicats%40gmail.com&di=d52eeb2d3d2591b796e984375c5999a4