Trump: ‘In America We Do Not Worship Government, We Worship God’

[pbrower2a]

The part about not worshiping government is true. We use government to serve us, whether for defense, the meeting of emergencies, management of the money supply, or any of the other uses enumerated in the Constitution or by statute or custom. One need not worship the government to get Social Security.

Many Americans are atheists or agnostics. Many of us interpret 'God' to mean nothing more than the fundamental realities of the Universe -- and one respects those realities (I do not walk off a cliff; I do not drink sulfuric acid; I do not handle intensely-radioactive objects; I do not provoke venomous snakes or such potential man-eaters as Rottweilers*  to attack me; I do not expect any answer other than '13' to the question 'What is 8 + 5 ?' -- but that is not worship.   

I question whether President Trump recognizes that Allah is God.** In fact, the behavior of President Trump causes me to believe that he worships one of two possible gods: Mammon (for the greedy) or himself (every extreme narcissist seems to treat himself as if God).

OK -- very bad people can believe in God -- witness Warren Jeffs, Tony Alamo, or even  the murderers Jeffrey Lundgren and Paul Hill who had killed for religious pretexts. That's before I even mention the huge number of prison inmates who 'find religion'.


*I think that was the breed of the four dogs that greeted me as a Census enumerator at one house by charging the door.  Four such dogs might as well be one tiger. I was safe as long as the latch didn't break. Dogs are infamously unfussy eaters.

**Christian Arabs use the name Allah for God.

[pbrower2a]

Alright one of my conservative expositions.

One thing we should remember, having a citizenry with a strong faith has been an effective counterweight to government at times. Under Soviet rule Christianity did a lot to subvert Marxism.

although I could make the case that Islam is even more effective at thwarting Marxism. The Soviets had a fun time in Afghanistan, did they not? [/snark]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

What matters more is that the political leaders have some moral compass. Buddhism (which puts little emphasis on deities of any kind) at its best is better than the watered-down Christianity that a Mammon-worshiping Christian-in-name-only like Donald Trump has. Sure, Trump knows how to appeal to Christian identity and affiliation... big deal. Don't forget that fervent belief in God is more the norm in the Islamic world than in the heavily-secularized West.  (Indeed, were I to pose a scenario in which the Nazis had taken over most of the West, then I would expect Islam to be the deliverance of the West from the amoral, dehumanized idolatry of Blood and Soil and gross enslavement of Nazism. Better Muhammad than Hitler, wouldn't you say?

I could make the case that there was nothing wrong with the German people of the Hitler era  that Judaism wouldn't have solved. I say this as someone who is about half German or Swiss in ancestry.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I could argue that doubt does more good than does faith in something evil or empty. People often had resolute faith that slavery was the optimal means of solving problems of economic production. If I hear some voice claiming to be God that tells me that it is acceptable to have sex  with underage children, then I had better have enough doubt to reject the dubious authority of such a voice.   

You must be logged in to read this quote.

As a near-agnostic I find that I must take more responsibility for my actions. I reject the concepts of original sin and cheap grace because those erode responsibility to Humanity.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

But it is not all the same faith. But here's the irony -- Martin Luther King and the typical KKK fascist believed in the same God and the same Jesus, and recognized the same Holy Scripture. 

[pbrower2a]

I will also note that for all the talk of the vast majority of evangelicals voting for Trump, a sizable contingent held fast to their faith and cited it as a reason to oppose Trump. For very good reasons, I might add. So we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I made much of possible reasons for devout Christians to reject Donald Trump. I would have rejected a liberal nominee who bragged about grabbing women by their crotches or frequently walked into female changing rooms. The divorces are suspect, and having a wife much younger than himself?

We liberals are extremely intolerant of criminality and conflicts of interest among our own. You ought to have seen the stuff I had against corrupt pols Mel Reynolds, Rod Blagojevich, and William Jefferson.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

There is nothing Christian about Donald Trump. He may have never read the turgid prose of Ayn Rand -- but that is the gospel that he really believes. Greed is good. Altruism is for schmucks. Nothing is more moral than economic gain. His attitudes toward women come from Hugh Hefner.