Tag: evangelicals
There’s an Evangelical. Tradition of Distrusting Science
“From the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries, evangelicals developed a strained relationship with modern science. Geology revealed ancient fossils and an old Earth. Biology traced the course of human evolution. Cosmology attributed the beginnings of an expanding universe to a Big Bang. … For many evangelical believers, the scientific description of reality did not look like the universe of their imagination. The scientific profession became an object of suspicion. And this distrust was only exacerbated by a resurgence of fundamentalism in the late 20th century.”
— Michael Gerson
Ad from Anti-Trump Republicans Takes on His Evangelical Cult Followers
The ad is from George Conway’s Project Lincoln organization. Meanwhile the pastor of the church Trump claimed membership in in New York says Trump was a total no-show.
Don’t Be Fooled: Evangelicals Don’t Support Israel – They’re Rooting for Its Destruction
Over at Buzzflash, Mark Karlin has an article up that sheds light on the real motivations behind Trump’s embrace of Evangelicals, and vice versa.
Evangelicals’ motives stem from “Revelation,” the last chapter in the New Testament, a bizarre acid trip that prophesies the various stages of the End Times. One element of the prophesy has come true: the reestablishment of the nation of Israel in 1948. During the next phases, however, multi-headed beasts, the four riders of the Apocalypse appear and Israel is destroyed. All nonbelievers on earth must be converted or else face eternal damnation.
So be aware that when Evangelicals root for Israel, they’re really cheering on its destruction and the forced conversion of the Jews to Christianity. In the real world, fortunately, it’s all bunch of hooey. But because Trump, the conman, is determined to appease his Evangelical marks, this dark mythology is shaping our internal politics and our foreign policy toward the Middle East.
For more, read “Christian Zionists Want to Hasten Armageddon. That’s Why Trump Attacked US Jews,” at Buzzflash.
What Franklin Graham’s Father Said in 1981 about Mixing Religion and Right-Wing Politics
“I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political Right. The hard Right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”
– Billy Graham, Parade Magazine, 1981
Evangelical Preacher Says Bible Condones Trump Attacking North Korea
“When it comes to how we should deal with evil doers, the Bible, in the book of Romans, is very clear: God has endowed rulers full power to use whatever means necessary — including war — to stop evil. In the case of North Korea, God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un.”
— Texas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, one of President Trump’s evangelical advisers who preached the morning of his inauguration, telling the Washington Post the president has the moral authority to take out North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
O, Hypocritical Evangelicals
Anthony Scaramucci has got chutzpah and aplomb,
And he’s quickly implementing a Capitol leakers pogrom.
But don’t Trump’s evangelicals
Look quite hypocritical
Considering how often “The Mooch” drops an F-bomb.
Majority of Evangelical Voters Backs Trump
78%
Of evangelical voters are rallying strongly in favor of Donald Trump, according to a new Pew Research survey. Indeed, the latest survey finds “that despite the professed wariness toward Trump among many high-profile evangelical Christian leaders, evangelicals as a whole are, if anything, even more strongly supportive of Trump than they were of Mitt Romney at a similar point in the 2012 campaign.”
Sounds More Like a Lame Excuse than Cynical, Huck
A lot of these organizations wouldn’t have the ability to do urgent fundraising because if we slay the dragon, what dragon do they continue to fight? And so, for many of them, it could be a real detriment to their organization’s abilities to gin up their supporters and raise the contributions, and I know that sounds cynical but… it’s just, it is what it is.
— Mike Huckabee, “explaining” why evangelical groups won’t support his presidential campaign out of fear they would no longer be able to fundraise if Christian policies were actually put in place, BuzzFeed reports.
Why Do So Many People Believe Donald Trump?
GOP primary candidate Carly Fiorina offered the Washington Post the most succinct analysis of Donald Trump’s campaign behavior: “This is the pattern, isn’t it? The pattern is — he says something insulting, offensive and outrageous; the media pays attention; then he claims we all misunderstood him.”
By “we” Fiorina probably meant members of the press and other smart, analytical people who listen closely, pay attention and maintain a healthy skepticism. That is as opposed to less educated, non-analytical, more emotional people who believe in angels and American exceptionalism who don’t misunderstand Trump, but instead take his every outrageous declaration as true, sincerely delivered and above argument.
A recent study titled “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit,” published in Judgment and Decision Making 2015 by Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathaniel Barr, Derek J. Koehler, & Jonathan A. Fugelsang, may offer some insight into why people believe what Trump says. The study focused on “pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous.”
Before delving into the study itself and its results, let’s consider what Donald Trump has said during the current campaign. Here’s a sampling:
