Editorials & Other Articles

marmar

(78,047 posts) Wed Jun 12, 2024, 08:43 PM Jun 2024

What a fool believes: Donald Trump and America's bogus respect for "faith"

What a fool believes: Donald Trump and America's bogus respect for "faith"
How religious "freedom" has been twisted into an all-out attack on critical thinking and the rule of law

By MIKE LOFGREN
Contributing Writer
PUBLISHED JUNE 9, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)

(Salon) Last summer’s federal indictment of Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol released a flood of concern-trolling from the establishment media. The arguments revealed something sadly defective about the intellectual tenor of the present age, a mindset that cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy. It is the root cause of American political and social dysfunction.

....(snip)....

In the last several years, we’ve been inundated with similar claims: Refusing to get vaccinated is a matter of religious conscience; Jan. 6 rioters were honestly convinced the 2020 election was stolen; the anti-abortion crowd fervently believes that life is sacred; refusing service to a retail customer or firing an employee is dictated by sincere faith, burning like a pure flame, rather than mere spite or ill will.

These extraordinary claims have long been embedded in law, politics and social convention, and they are related to, or devolve from, a particular form of ideological advocacy: religion. Religion and its adherents, contrary to assertions that the faithful are beleaguered by the aggressions of secular society, have obtained extraordinary privileges well beyond their tax-exempt status.

....(snip)....

Precisely those people who rant about eternal values and verities have now lurched into nihilism, the diametric opposite of what they claim to espouse. This is nowhere more evident than in the fanatical devotion to Donald Trump expressed by nearly 80 percent of evangelical Christians. They have tossed overboard every tenet of decency, religious or secular, to embrace Trump’s hatred, because his burning torch of ill will, in their minds, is the royal road to the only thing they care about — power and domination. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/09/what-a-fool-believes-donald-and-americas-bogus-respect-for-faith/

3 replies

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What a fool believes: Donald Trump and America's bogus respect for "faith" (Original Post) marmar Jun 2024 OP

'a mindset that cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy. elleng Jun 2024 #1

They want power and domination BOSSHOG Jun 2024 #2

Nailed it! lees1975 Jun 2024 #3

elleng

(136,365 posts)

1. 'a mindset that cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy.

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Wed Jun 12, 2024, 08:46 PM

Jun 2024

It is the root cause of American political and social dysfunction.'

BOSSHOG

(40,004 posts)

2. They want power and domination

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Wed Jun 12, 2024, 09:07 PM

Jun 2024

Trump wants power and domination. They will not be elected president. Hopefully he will not be elected either. If he is elected, THEY and their wants will be forgotten immediately . Stupid, hateful, racist to the core. All of them.

Off Topic My Friend.

Thank You for the reminder of one of my favorite songs of the soundtrack of my life.

Song of the Year 1972, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald. Still Fresh 52 years later.

lees1975

(6,009 posts)

3. Nailed it!

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Fri Jun 14, 2024, 02:30 PM

Jun 2024

Religion and its adherents, contrary to assertions that the faithful are beleaguered by the aggressions of secular society, have obtained extraordinary privileges well beyond their tax-exempt status.

That's the whole problem. Because it is the dominant religious belief, Christianity in general, and several branches of it, particularly the Evangelical branch of Protestantism, have more rights and more individual freedom and more ability to intrude into the privacy of others than any other people in this country.

They have tossed overboard every tenet of decency, religious or secular, to embrace Trump’s hatred, because his burning torch of ill will, in their minds, is the royal road to the only thing they care about — power and domination.

The Evangelical interpretation of the Christian "conversion" experience incorporates spiritual conviction of sin, repentance, and a spiritual turn toward God, embracing belief that Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection is the sacrifice required to pay for and erase the sin. Even some of the most highly regarded, self-appointed leaders of far right Evangelicalism have not succeeded in getting Donald Trump to admit he is a sinner, or acknowledge his need for repentance. His ego just will not allow that and his personality leaves him completely incapable of exhibiting any Christian virtues or values that were taught and modeled by Jesus. So they have thrown all of that out the window to follow and give their loyalty to Trump, which makes them hypocrites, or apostate.

Trying to turn Trump into some kind of messiah figure is blasphemy, idolatry and is a demonstration of desperation. A Christian who claims belief that the Bible is without error and infallible should be able to recognize Trump as a demonic antichrist from what is written in scripture. The fact that these people can't do that says a lot about how shallow and ineffective their faith really is, and how little they know about it. And that makes me wonder if any of them are genuinely Christian, or just playing a game. My experience growing up in an Evangelical church suggests that the latter is true.

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