Idolocracy

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

* It's in rant for a reason...  TLDR warning. 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/exclusi...ayer-event

At President Donald Trump’s "Rededicate 250" prayer event on the National Mall this weekend, Bishop Robert Barron will address the "marginalization of God" and religion in society, which he said he considers a "true threat to democracy."

I don't know if this is "good news" or not.

"God is essential to the very foundations of American democracy," he asserted. "There's a lot of talk today about the threats to democracy, that is a true threat to democracy, the marginalization of God.

"Take God out of the equation, what are you left with? Radical self-choice. Welcome to wokeism. Welcome to the culture of self-invention. ‘I make myself up, values is up to me, my gender, it's up to the whole structure of my life, it's my choice,’" he said. "That’s deadly to our democracy."

I realize this is pretty standard in religious populism from presidents, we can remember Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Obama lore and his firebrand moxy...

But, STFU now... please, for the LOVE of the god you speak for in the vanity of MAGA politics.

I dont need a 7 times interpreted ancient text to tell me a thing... especially THAT politics-drenched anti-woke interpretation of it. God is not valueable through objective forced interpretation of it. Never has been.

So If we are doing the bible, I prefer Romans 12:2

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God..."

But has it EVER been a God's will being interpreted? 

Seems like an evolving projected imagination of what a creator god would think, rather than anything built on phenomenonal experience with burning shrubbery. 

So apologies the Anglicans and half the Methodists went to pride parades and set up "love is love" outreach booths, but thats how they are interpreting the idea of "God's love" now...

Looking to Israel, our closest ally on the planet, our woke Christians (the kind opposing Trump policy and supporting rainbow identities) mirror the Jewish reform movement (the kind opposing Bibi policy and supporting rainbow identities) IN SO MANY WAYS they are really just a trinity short of being official kindred. And that same essence of progressive humility follows most advanced societies like secular is equal to advancement. 

Plus, it seems a pretty fucking ineffectual god if the morals arent natural anyway, right?

In a world of God's infinite coding we should be born with the moral compass written into our DNA. Especially if our very survival yields any organizing principle to biological life.  It should exist through genetic memory and drive us regardless. A proto honor code that supersedes the artificial and comes from within and is designed by the very entropy of existence. 

God doesnt need to be spelled out in rigid doctrine to work through the daily interaction of living hearts. Right and wrong (benifit/detriment) is a more innate discerment than it gets credit for. And historically, doctrine can actually muddle that. 

This isn't the erosion of god this bishop speaks of, but the erosion of a particular interpretation of HIS god, that is more built around maintaining a religiously indoctrinated comfort zone and politicking over God's current wanted values.

Woke was once part of the cultural erosion of the crusading god, the inquisition god, and the holyrolling truth god, and this is its obligatory resurgence.

And now the god being propped up is not so much love driven. In resurgent form it is back to saying, "If you dont do god OUR way, you're a heretical threat to our society and going to hell for it." 

in so many words this bishop has just said (without saying) that, "ALL NON FUNDIMENTALIST FORMS OF GOD ARE NOW ANTI-AMERICAN."

So I guess its time to REALLY lengthen this rant.

This can all EASILY be interpreted as CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM! (And theocratic)

Key ways this is observed include:

• Integration of Christian Nationalists in Key Roles: The administration has placed leaders and advisers who openly support Christian nationalism into influential roles within the federal government. This includes reliance on figures who advocate for a government run by and for Christians.

• The "Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias" Task Force: In Feb 2025, Trump established a task force dedicated to ending what he described as "anti-Christian weaponization of government". Critics and scholars argue this agenda focuses on aligning federal law with conservative Christian values, blurring the separation of church and state, and focusing on "bringing back religion" as a primary state objective.

• Adoption of Project 2025 Principles: Although the campaign sometimes distanced itself, studies indicate the administration's early actions are guided by project 2025, a blueprint seeking to infuse biblical principles across federal institutions, dismantle the Department of Education, and eliminate abortion rights.

• Promotion of Christian Nationalism in Policy and Rhetoric: Trump has used campaign and presidential rhetoric that presents his presidency as a "righteous crusade" against secularism, promising to protect Christianity as the country's central ideology. This includes vowing to restore the power of preachers and protect public prayer.

• Immigration and Nationalist Foreign Policy: The administration’s policies are viewed by analysts as favoring white, Christian, and European immigration, particularly in its approach to refugees, aligning with white Christian nationalist notions of maintaining specific ethnoracial boundaries.

• Focus on Traditional Gender and Social Hierarchies: The administration’s agenda explicitly targets the restriction of LGBTQ+ rights and emphasizes a patriarchal view of family, often portraying women in traditional roles and focusing on "fatherlessness" as a primary cause of social issues.

• Using State Power to Define Christianity: The administration's focus on defining the Sabbath (Sunday) and focusing on "traditional" religious views is seen as a move to enforce specific, conservative Christian tenets through government regulation.

• Symbolic Actions at Rallies and Events: Rallies and faith-focused meetings have featured imagery and themes of "Make America Pray Again," indicating an effort to blend national identity directly with Christian worship

There are yet again parallels to draw with forms that dont exactly scream "democracy" anymore. 

And like everything else, there is a simple justification for it all; "Because woke was treated like a new moral doctrine asserting itself in politics, MAGA God can counter by "Making America Pray (Fundimentalist) Again."

Yeah, okay... but who are we all praying to? Reactionary theology? Fear of a woke planet? 

* The preceding has been approved by the US Constitution.

** My preemptive strike post deleted for thread drift of my own rant. Can be restored if needed.

[Tecate]

Meh, this is coming from the same people who are totally ok with a 22’ gold statue of their MAGA leader.

Perspective is everything…

Tecate

[Solvedit]

In a world of God's infinite coding we should be born with the moral compass written into our DNA. Especially if our very survival yields any organizing principle to biological life.  It should exist through genetic memory and drive us regardless. A proto honor code that supersedes the artificial and comes from within and is designed by the very entropy of existence. 

God doesnt need to be spelled out in rigid doctrine to work through the daily interaction of living hearts. Right and wrong (benifit/detriment) is a more innate discerment than it gets credit for. And historically, doctrine can actually muddle that. 

I am guessing you grew up in a place where you were near or just below the socioeconomic center of your society.  The issue is you don't need saving.  Perhaps you might even be where you are in life because you took advantage of unspiritual people who were intelligent and used them to cheat on your exams.  Or perhaps they kindly and generously still want to share because it hasn't yet started to take all their time or they don't see elite overproduction creeping up on them. 

It is impolite or even cancellation-worthy to speak of differences in ability between peoples these days but they do exist.  If this country keeps on madly experimenting with admitting the third world, you might someday find out what it's all about.  They may spend all day trying to channel you or negatively affect your  behavior with various forms of suggestion.  They may be too unskilled to form a rational concept of themselves but will simply burn their eyes out on what you have and tell themselves that they must have it too.  

People who want to be elites this way are definitely a threat to democracy both because they still won't really know their jobs and because they may try to destroy anyone in their path in order to exploit them or get them out of the way.  

The Second Amendment isn't always the bulwark against government abuses that its supporters think it is, because the majority can be unjust.  

In addition to moral compasses, people have epigenetics.  They may come from a long line of dismissing the need to be saved because their ancestors had it good, or they may come from ancestors who had been forced to cave to exploitation because they had no one spelling out rigid correct doctrine (FIFY) to tell them what they must not cave in to if they want to keep their soul.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

My father was an engineer until cheaper scanner/printers killed his use, his company downsized, and he had to get a job with a defense contractor, that my parents saw as an excuse to flee lake effect snow for the desert. 

So, definitely above.

As to the rest, I am actually struggling to answer because when the first statement insinuating my socioeconomic childhood class is immediately followed with "you dont need to be saved," then I really dont need to respond...

And "saved" there is subjective to the level of sanctimony of the person saying it... but I'll still respond. 

Though i'm one to talk about being unnecessarily wordy, could you simplify exactly why my quoted statement is a threat or deserves such a response? 

Like what is wrong, in the name of religious freedom and tolerance, to argue that a noninteractive version of divinity can still arrive at the same compass of morality, only without needing any "one true god" to do so? Though i believe in an intelligent design of universal law, you can have morality without that idea. 

What is wrong with a different way to get to the same spirit of....? Doesn't rigid dictation of what divinity says have a long history of veering far away from "True North" anyway?  

That's only partially based on the elite Worthy Dog Mom Social Club...

[Solvedit]

My father was an engineer until cheaper scanner/printers killed his use, his company downsized, and he had to get a job with a defense contractor, that my parents saw as an excuse to flee lake effect snow for the desert. 

So, definitely above.

Did you always feel about prayer as you do now?  Even so, maybe your parents prayed for you.

As to the rest, I am actually struggling to answer because when the first statement insinuating my socioeconomic childhood class is immediately followed with "you dont need to be saved," then I really dont need to respond...

If you didn't grow up around people who were trying to tear you apart or someone was praying for you, then you didn't need religion for getting by in your day-to-day life. Or can it be you forgot?

Can it be you repressed or denied what it cost to have friends?  Can you "go there?"  Did you have to leave your integrity at the door? 

If so, you cost society as well, because the people exploiting you are building little ethnofascist kingdoms within our republic and making corruption the new normal.  Is integrity and courage what you mean by the "rigid dictation of what Divinity says?"  

Can it be that society was less corrupt and the average working class person did not expect to use whatever means necessary to be able to move someone like you out of their way or exploit them for help, perhaps even traffic them?  I don't know how far back we're talking. 

Can it be society is growing more corrupt because people expect equal outcomes regardless of ability and the universities are flattering their ambitions while the government picks up the bill?

Original sin is the reason you can't just rely on some presumed innate plan.  It might be a symbolic reference to undesirable epigenetics.  If your innate answers are working for you, then you are fortunate.  Think of those Israelites just after they got out of Egyptian captivity and were unused to responsibly managing their own affairs.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

Think of those Israelites just after they got out of Egyptian captivity and were unused to responsibly manage their own affairs.

Have you heard of Israel Finklestien? 

I'm In the school of thought that Israelites were the Phoenicians that didnt retain the pantheon of Canaan. 

Like, look at Paleo Hebrew and compare it to Phoencian and Philistine. its all Canaanite script.

The New Kingdom of Egypt spanned The Levant. There's an Egyptian Layer in Israel at Jaffa, Tel Megiddo, Tel Hazor, Tel Gezer, and so on..

Egypt had the holy land annexed at the alleged time of captivity. So my opinion is the Exodus is a methophor for Egypt's spectacular failure in the region and The Hebrew diverging  from the other recently free Canaanite subjects. 

As soon Egypt withdrew, you have Canaan reborn and those that decided they were all of a sudden actually Hebrew. 

The values of Mosaic law didn't need god on Mt. Sinai, and they didnt appear out of a void. They weren't rendered lawless after Egypt. They took from Mesopotamia, Canaan, and Egypt.  The Hebrew were already coded to law and custom. 

If fact, THE MAIN change between preexisting law and Mosaic Law, is the latter added equality. Before Mosaic Law, punishment was meritocratic. Based on wealth. Mosaic law added blindness to law. 

It's as much a foundation for modern law as Hammurabi was to the The Law of Moses. And came no more from divinity or a void of no direction.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

And to finish the rest of the comment....  

I don't cosign your definition of what Is moral integrity and courage.

If i can counter assume, you would PROBABLY say my support of secular culture and LGBT has left its integrity at the door of moral virtue, right? 

But what moral virtue are you referring to? How artificial is it? 

The Bible cant even keep the god of each testament in line. There's not even a consensus on the morality of indiscriminate slaughter between the two.  Almost like Old Testament God was a land claim, and new testament God was leading by example against Rome. All things point to doctrine as a selective moral devices being deployed geopolitically in different ways at different times. 

For god so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to... completely destroy everything that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

What god did Jesus talk to and what god did Saul talk to? And are you SURE its the same god with the same motives? What did the babies and donkeys do?  Was Samuel off his bipolar meds again? 

 Like first it needs to be proven that something else didnt push the broader religion away from sacrifice and killing and evolve it into a passive eternal love model.  Or that the underlying morals are not secondary to its written uses. Or that the right/wrong it expresses cant exist without manipulative doctrine to spell it out.

[Solvedit]

The values of Mosaic law didn't need god on Mt. Sinai, and they didnt appear out of a void. They weren't rendered lawless after Egypt. They took from Mesopotamia, Canaan, and Egypt.  The Hebrew were already coded to law and custom. 

Some of the societies you mention probably ran a bit like the Ottoman Empire did even into the 20th century.  The Ottoman empire used slaves to administer and assist governance.  Look at Joseph near the end of the Book of Genesis.  Look at how the Sodomites insisted they get to know what Lot's angels knew. 

Ancient kings may have enslaved people who were close to God and prayed, and were gifted with ability.  The kings would probably modify what they had learned from their slaves or servants, perhaps with the help of corrupted or addicted slaves, to run their societies their way.

The Lord said in several places in the Gospel that Judaism saves.  

Whether or not you believe it, could you simply be unaware that one point of the Bible is the notion that God's grace assists people to live by the fullness of God's law and not be exploited or enslaved?  

Whether or not you believe that God protected the Israelites while they were faithful, there is no reason to think that any culture which receives the miraculous help of God must therefore be completely unique especially since they or their ancestors may have formerly been obliged to help govern their former societies. 

Back to the United States: can it be that some gifted, attractive people make "friends" i.e. "G's" or "homeys" by letting them cause a little submission to rapport which they trade for what they call "respect," which is in fact protection?  Can it be that it leads to elite overproduction, corruption, and a lack of courage and integrity because it's almost always easier to sell out?  

Can it be their "G's" watch them and train them to think they like it, and they are better off for trading their integrity for the protection which they are trained to call "respect?"  Can it be that you were obliged to believe that you had it better for living according to your society's wishes?

Can it be some of them lost faith in prayer and salvation because they didn't know a priest can cancel their sacraments at will, and some congregations are becoming completely about improving the material lot and the prestige of the majority of their faithful?  Then, when some heavy duty "G" dared them to risk going against what "everyone" wanted by depending on prayer and faith to "seek first the justice of the Kingdom," their reason and conscience warned them that there was a reason that it wouldn't really work?

[Solvedit]

The Bible cant even keep the god of each testament in line. There's not even a consensus on the morality of indiscriminate slaughter between the two.  Almost like Old Testament God was a land claim, and new testament God was leading by example against Rome. All things point to doctrine as a selective moral devices being deployed geopolitically in different ways at different times. 

For god so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to... completely destroy everything that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

What god did Jesus talk to and what god did Saul talk to? And are you SURE its the same god with the same motives? 

Your ambitious impeachment of religion requires us to infer the infallibility of the Prophet Samuel as well as whoever recorded his prophecies.

According to Wikipedia, with links edited out,

Authorship and date of composition

According to passages 14b and 15a of the Bava Basra tractate of the Talmud, the book was written by Samuel up until 1 Samuel 25, which notes the death of Samuel, and the remainder by the prophets Gad and Nathan. Critical scholars from the 19th century onward have rejected this idea. However, even prior to this, the medieval Jewish commentator Isaac Abarbanel noted that the presence of anachronistic expressions (such as "to this day" and "in the past") indicated that there must have been a later editor such as Jeremiah or Ezra. Martin Noth in 1943 theorized that Samuel was composed by a single author as part of a history of Israel: the Deuteronomistic history (made up of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings).

Although Noth's belief that the entire history was composed by a single individual has been largely abandoned, his theory in its broad outline has been adopted by most scholars.

The Deuteronomistic view is that an early version of the history was composed in the time of king Hezekiah (8th century BCE); the bulk of the first edition dates from his grandson Josiah at the end of the 7th century BCE, with further sections added during the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE) and the work was substantially complete c. 550 BCE. Further editing was apparently done even after then. For example, A. Graeme Auld, Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Edinburgh, contends that the silver quarter-shekel which Saul's servant offers to Samuel in 1 Samuel 9 "almost certainly fixes the date of this story in the Persian or Hellenistic period".

[Solvedit]

My father was an engineer until cheaper scanner/printers killed his use, his company downsized, and he had to get a job with a defense contractor, that my parents saw as an excuse to flee lake effect snow for the desert. 

So, definitely above.

Were you way above the people you actually grew up around in terms of social class and status?