​Atheists 1, “Christian” Imperialists 0

Are Modern Religions Straying Away From God?
When Christians were challenging the teaching of the “new” science of evolution in the 1925 Scopes trial, the hymn that probably best described the position of most Christians contained the following lines:

“Give me that old time religion, it’s good enough for me.

Makes me love everybody, it’s good enough for me.

It will do when I’m dying, it’s good enough for me.

It can take us all to heaven, it’s good enough for me.”

About a half-century ago comedian Lenny Bruce (1925-1966) expressed his opinion about religion and churches with this famous line: “Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.” He later added this zinger to his stand-up comedy routine: “Never trust a preacher with more than two suits.” Was that old time religion ever good enough?

Today we have a large number of evangelical preachers of the ilk of Jerry Falwell, Jr, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, and Paula White (King Donald’s “personal” religious advisor!), that large collection of evangelical “prosperity” preachers who dominate “religious” TV. They not only possess a dozen Armanis, but they also live in multi-million-dollar homes and travel around the world in their private jets. And they all seem to agree that God chose King Donald to lead the United States out of some kind of liberal wilderness.

All Of A Sudden, King Donald, Like King David, Is An Evangelical Christian Role Model For Both Adults And Children
I think it’s fascinating how such an amoral, immoral, anti-Christian, anti-poor, anti-Jesus Christ, anti-democratic, spineless, and constantly-lying buffoon who nobody would want as a neighbor ends up being the hero of over 100 million people. He is the epitome of all the stormy ignorant jerks we have known. But, of course, that’s politics when your main positions promote God, pro-gun, anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-wealth, and pro-racist policies. White, Graham, and Falwell have publicly declared that God appointed King Donald to lead them to their promised land. Evangelical Christian Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agreed with the three that God gave a stone tablet to King Donald, because “As a Christian I certainly believe that is possible, and I am confident that the Lord is at work here when he sees …the work our administration’s done to make sure that this democracy (Israel) in the Middle East, that this democracy, that this Jewish state, remains.” Some evangelicals claim Trump reminds them of King Cyrus and Queen Esther of the Persian Empire in the Bible. They don’t seem to mind that King Donald is a dirty-coal, pussy-grabbing polluter of our religions, politics, environments, societies, and cultures. Notice how the use of public language has changed in the last three years.

Reporter Katherine Stewart, who has focused on American politics and its relationship to religion for years, has attended many white Christian nationalist conferences since King Donald’s “appointment” two years ago. She has concluded after these events that the attendees believe “he is a miracle sent straight from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord. I have also learned that resistance to Mr. Trump is tantamount to resistance to God.” The old Christian right is different from the “fine people” Christian nationalists of Charlottesville.

Christ: “The First Shall Be Last, The Last Shall Be First”
This statement is a core Christian concept—or at least it was at one time. It’s a very important concept in society—or in the military. When I was an officer in the 2nd Marine Division the commander was Lt. General “Chesty” Puller, a little guy with a big chest who started out as a Marine private and rose to general through five wars. Chesty was awarded five Navy Crosses from Haiti through the Korean War. In Korea, he achieved some notoriety by stating: “Well, they’ve got us surrounded. That’s just where we want them!” I will never forget one day he was lecturing his officers about leadership: “If I ever catch one of you eating before your troops have finished eating, I will transfer you immediately to Butte, Montana.” I have no idea if Chesty was a Christian, but he knew leadership and who actually did the fighting. He used Christ’s credo every day: “The first shall be last, the last shall be first.”

Two of the most virulent anti-democratic, pro- Jesus, anti-gay, pro-life, and violent “Christian” organizations are the Christian Dominionists and the Christian Identity. Both spawned the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. We have had two Dominionists run for president of the U.S.: Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Dominionists have the goal of taking complete control of the political, secular, and cultural institutions of the country, making the U.S. a theocratic country.

The Main Goals Of Dominionists
The four leaders, Dutch Sheets, Chuck Pierce, Cindy Jacobs, and Lou Engle, not as well-known as the leaders of the Christian Right, Falwell, and Graham, are members of the New Apostolic Reformation. At a recent meeting of the group at the Trump International Hotel in Washington the four expressed the following goals of Dominionists: (1) The church will bring about the return of Jesus Christ because President Trump was appointed by God to lead the U.S. government, (2) The leaders will “sweep away” the Supreme Court and all the federal courts and judges who support Roe vs. Wade, (3) The church will expose all the enemies of God, disrupt their plans, enforce Heaven’s rule, and totally reform America, (4) The government will be replaced by a Christian fundamentalist theocracy so that the entire society can be rebuilt to follow biblical lines, and (5) Dominionists reject women’s liberation, LBGTQ rights, secular public schools, religious pluralism, democracy, modern science, higher education, biblical criticism, and any forms of liberal Christianity. They reject more than that—but I’m running out of space.

Dutch Sheets, the principal leader who organized the Trump Hotel meeting, said this at the conference: “The Justice Department and the FBI are trying to destroy Trump’s presidency. We will operate in our kingdom authority, breaking the back of the attempt to render President Trump ineffective. We will decree the exposing and failure of all attempts to sabotage his presidency. We will release favor over him, enabling him to accomplish everything for which God sent him to the White House—including the turning of the Supreme Court! President Trump will fulfill all of God’s purposes for him.” (If Democrats think getting rid of Trump in 2020 is going to be easy, they had better think again. A blind and deaf religious cult is very hard to defeat.)

Something on a lighter note. When former Representative Bachmann publicly asked God whether she should run for the Senate seat vacated by Al Franken, fellow Minnesotans quickly raised $7,000 to buy billboard space on a major highway in the Twin Cities with God’s answer in huge letters: “Michele Bachmann—NO!—from God.”

The Murderous, Racist Christian Identity
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was a member of the Christian Identity Church. That should tell you all you need to know about this “Christian” cult. Most of the armed “snoopin’ and poopin’” militias and groups in the United States ready to attack the federal government to protect their personal liberty are members or followers of this violent cult. Christian Identity “worshippers” believe that the end of the world will occur by a cleansing war during which all non-whites will be killed. All non-whites are inferior to whites. Ku Klux Klan members were--and are-- members of the Christian Identity. They assert blacks are born only to serve whites.

Heard about the ten lost tribes of ancient Israel? European whites are the spiritual and literal descendants of the chosen people and now represent them. The Bible says God will restore Israel as a nation of the chosen people, and He will protect the inhabitants until the end times come. If you think any Christian Identity members will vote for a Democrat in 2020, I have some marvelous beach property in Miami Beach for sale cheap. The following is an example of their character: In a Memorial Day parade in a Pennsylvania town dominated by “Identities” a large group of atheist veterans of several wars marching in a parade was cursed, jeered, insulted, booed, told to get out of town—and that they were all going to burn in Hell—for the entire parade route. They will not vote for Bernie or AO-C.

American White Supremacists Planted Seeds Of Nazism
Adam Serwer’s article “White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots” in the April issue of The Atlantic is a comprehensive review of white supremacy and nationalism policies and beliefs in America. In 1916 an American named Madison Grant wrote a “scientific” book called “The Passing of a Great Race” that claimed that the “Nordic” whites who had founded this country were “in great peril” because too many non-whites were coming to the United States. His book was mainly responsible for spreading the doctrine of white racial purity around the globe. His book was used as the support for very restrictive immigration policies passed by our Congress in the 1920s.

There is little doubt since the descendants of Lucy gradually turned white when they got out of the African sun by walking north to cooler climates, that they felt they were superior to anybody else on earth. Early history came out of the Middle East and Europe primarily from Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Then we had an era of the enslavement of the African black people in the Caribbean and U.S. on sugar and cotton plantations. Adolf Hitler in the late 1920s wrote Grant and agreed with him about the supremacy of the white race. Grant’s book became Hitler’s bible. And we all know how this belief turned out.

Jim Crow Is Not Over—Look At All The Gerrymandering
In another book “The Passing of The Great White Race,” Grant wrote about being “driven off the streets” of New York by “swarms” of Jews. He wrote: “These immigrants adopt the language of the native American (whites!), they wear his clothes, they steal his name, and they are beginning to take his women. They seldom adopt his religion or understand his ideas and while he is being elbowed out of his own home the American looks calmly abroad and urges on others the suicidal ethics which are exterminating his own race.”

Remember the “One Drop Rule” that if a “white” had one drop of Negro blood he was considered a Negro? Grant reinforced this insane idea with this one sentence: “The cross between a white man and an Indian is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro; the cross between a white man and a Hindu is a Hindu, and the cross between any of the three European races and a Jew is a Jew,” President Warren Harding supported Grant’s position: “There is a fundamental, eternal, inescapable difference between the races. Racial amalgamation there cannot be.” We have a lot of history to overcome. Think of the Jim Crow laws passed in this country in the 19th Century---and the 21st.