Trump makes conflicting comments, both of them ominous and disturbing

[Alien826]

That is just the other side of the coin.

I’m not sure what law you are talking about. I think you assume that because it is a Christian vote, that translates into forcing people to be Christians. It is more about going back to the Constitution which includes freedom of religion. And if you choose no religion… that is perfectly fine.

So I am back to “depends on how you approach what you hear”.

It's not so much forcing people to be Christian, it's forcing people to do or (mostly) not to do things that (certain) Christians disapprove of. The examples are I think obvious.

What I find to be an interesting subject for discussion is whether the Constitution gives us freedom from religion as well as free of religion.

 

[Drunk_Uncle_Bob]

That is just the other side of the coin.

I’m not sure what law you are talking about. I think you assume that because it is a Christian vote, that translates into forcing people to be Christians. It is more about going back to the Constitution which includes freedom of religion. And if you choose no religion… that is perfectly fine.

So I am back to “depends on how you approach what you hear”.

So long as laws are not made with religion as their basis. A number of things directly stated as goals driven by or at least endorsed heavily by the religious right ideology can will and is harmful to people. LGBTQ and abortion rights most notably in recent years. Evolution and global warming a few years before that.

 

[Pogo]

It's not so much forcing people to be Christian, it's forcing people to do or (mostly) not to do things that (certain) Christians disapprove of. The examples are I think obvious.

What I find to be an interesting subject for discussion is whether the Constitution gives us freedom from religion as well as free of religion.

I find it odd and disturbing this argument that the first amendment saying that the government shall have no involvement with religion is being read as well most founders were Christian so suddenly this doesn't apply to Christianity .
It is a part of fake news, alternate news and ultimately alternate reality where words mean whatever we want them too without regard to consensus use.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Now let's agree that we both think Trump is an unmitigated @@##$$%% pile of )((*&^%

Humm! I've never seen "fetid" and "dingos kidneys" spelled quite that way before.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I find it odd and disturbing this argument that the first amendment saying that the government shall have no involvement with religion is being read as well most founders were Christian so suddenly this doesn't apply to Christianity .
It is a part of fake news, alternate news and ultimately alternate reality where words mean whatever we want them too without regard to consensus use.

Aren't we used to that by now? Where is the integrity there? They lied to get on the Supreme Court. They lie about their intentions for imposing their religion on the uninterested, which it turns out wasn't to let states decide about abortion, but rather to criminalize it, IVF, contraceptives everywhere. They lie about what principles the nation was founded on. They try to steal credit for the Constitution, science ("Newton was a Chirstian"), and I've even seen humanism called a product of Christianity.

And now many of them want to turn the country over to Trump again.

Then they want to put "Thou halt not lie" in schools in violation of that document, which prohibits them promoting their religion in public schools.

If it sounds like I don't have much respect for any of that, you might be correct.

let's agree that we both think Trump is an unmitigated @@##$$%% pile of )((*&^%.

Not all of us do, which is a great mystery and utterly inexplicable to me. Have I misjudged humanity so much for so long, or is this a more recent and local phenomenon?

I would never have guessed that a Christian preacher would endorse so immoral and corrupt a person as Trump. Maybe a few extremists that are also Klan members and kept both to themselves, but now, millions of Christians openly and without the least sense of hypocrisy endorse a parasite, a sociopath, a malignant narcissist, a pathological liar, a serial adulterer, a lifetime grifter and conman, a stochastic terrorist, a sexual predator, an insurrectionist, a twice impeached former president, and now a felon.

Forget that he is also who is old, feeble, and increasingly demented, which aren't moral failings, but reasons to not support his candidacy.

 

[Heyo]

I've even seen humanism called a product of Christianity.

Which is true. First, there were not many alternatives where humanism could have come from, and second, there are interpretations of Christianity that align very well with humanism. They weren't main stream at the time, and even called blasphemous, but many humanists, from the Middle Ages till the 20s of last century, were Christian. Only then, the secular humanists became defining for that philosophy.

 

[wellwisher]

I watched the video by Rachel Maddow/MSNBC contained in this link, and found it thought provoking. Trump says, "get out to vote just this time. You won't have to do it anymore ... In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it so fixed that you won't have to vote." The implications of that comment are obvious and disturbing. He intends to end voting in America, although I can't visualize how that could happen. Sham elections, yes, but no voting?

Next, she changes tracks. Beginning at 1:43, she discusses what he said the days before that comment, namely, that his supporters don't need to vote for him this time - the contradiction. At 2:22, she shows several clips of Trump saying that he doesn't need votes - his earlier message. Why would he say that even once?

For the rest of the video, she discusses this apparent contradiction and what it might mean. She suggests that Trump expects to take the White House however the votes fall, which suggests that the comment quoted above was some kind of pivot or damage control following saying that he doesn't need votes. And she suggests that this will be due to Republican controlled state legislatures refusing to certify outcomes that they don't like in their states.

Is there another way of understanding Trump's comments?

And even if she is correct about what Trump is thinking, does he have good reason to think such things? Has he been told something by his handlers? If so, could those words be just words to assuage him, or does he have inside information? Would they even tell Trump such a thing were the case? Are these just the confused thoughts of a man in cognitive decline losing touch with reality, or is there more to it?

I don't think we can answer that now.

And can anything be done if there are states getting ready to gridlock the election process? If they did, how would that put Trump in the White House? Things might get pretty interesting if a few states refuse to certify their results. They would be states with a Republican state government that Harris carried, which would lower her electoral vote count. Trump might have more as a result, but it wouldn't be the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

Anyway, it gave me a lot to think about, and I thought that some here at RF would be intrigued by this video and issue as well.

Thoughts?

Rachel Mad-Cow makes her living off Trump Derangement Syndrome. Name me one good thing she ever admitted. Didn't she think Russian Collusion was real and made a career because of that? She lost much of her audience when her Russian Collusion delusion bubble burst. She almost got canned. At least Trump has ideas and is not just a busy body gossip. How would she fix the border?

The way I would interpret what she is trying to spin, is this time the Democrats have shown just how low the will go. They have shown they will use law fare on political opponents. They just replaced Biden, who had 14 million votes from almost Democratically run primaries, yet a small cabal replaced him with a person who had no votes beyond that of the Cabal. Trump is saying we need your vote, because they will cheat worse this time. The media is already censoring the record of Harris, like they did with social media and Biden the last time.

When Trump is elected there will not be a Russian Collusion scam this time around, because we are much better prepared to avoid internal sabotage by filling all our appointed positions, fast and early. Last time Trump was hoping to work across the aisle, and allow the DNC to help with adding people. But. this gave the scammers an opening for sabotage. Once we are in place, we will get our economic policies in place for prosperity. Then will start to deregulate and dismantle the Democratic Party's and swamps hold over the bureaucratic state, by restructuring and sending much of it back to the States, for state jobs. States already have much of this in place, like education and EPA, and will have more power. This will be like abortion decided by each state so we can see side by side which is best and traded at Governors Conventions.

Next time, the vote will not be as critical because Trump will have done his two terms and all will be well. People will know the difference between peace and prosperity and chaos and inflation, and not what the chaos to return.

The rest is not Trump, but what I see as a way to heal the division once and for all. What I would do is add a new agency similar to the food and drug administration; FDA, but it will oversee the national "food for thought". Their job is to make sure food for thought; information, idea and opinions, is not poison or dangerous to national mental health. We can still have freedom of speech and people can still speak poison and contamination, but records will be kept and if the poison exceeds certain limits, all future free speech will require they wear a large letter L for liar to warn the public. Failure to do so will result in fines. If we have a lying politician who is feeding horse crap to the crowds, he/she will need to wear the L on the campaign trail. I believe in free speech but not everyone is prepared to test all food for purity.

We can start the data collection in 2016 and the Russian Collusion scam. This is where the extreme divide began and we have 2020 hindsight for truth about all the poison that was added to the food for the US thought food supply. Mad Cow would have wear the big L on her show and on anything she wishes to publish in print or internet. This will not harm her right to free speech, but the L could impact her livelihood or attract those who like poison on their fries. If a fast food chain started to use horse meat you would expect something to happen. Liberal horse meat is not good for your health since it keeps people angry and on edge. This will help protect the public con artists while not taking away the freedom of speech, even the con artists who cannot help themself.

I would also take Journalist credentials away from journalists with too many lies and spins. They can still have freedom of speech, but they will not be able to hide from liable and slander suits using the guise of freedom of the press. This way the press can return to integrity as the forth estate who can be trusted to speak truth to power.

I am curious how many on the Left would want an agency that regulates food for thought for all sides? This way there will be less gossip and more discussion of issues, with less spin; shaken and not stirred.

 

[Alien826]

Humm! I've never seen "fetid" and "dingos kidneys" spelled quite that way before.

I was thinking of Monty Python's "festering heap of parrot droppings". I think it comes from the sketch where the guy pays for an argument and and goes in the door marked "abuse" instead.

 

[Kenny]

It's not so much forcing people to be Christian, it's forcing people to do or (mostly) not to do things that (certain) Christians disapprove of. The examples are I think obvious.

Every law forces other people to do things they disapprove of. I’m not sure this is relegated simply to the camp of Christians. That’s probably why there are different political camps. Each camp want to enact laws that favor their worldview which forces other people to things they disapprove of.

Environmentalist want waterways completely under their control of which the rest of the people don’t. (as an example)

What I find to be an interesting subject for discussion is whether the Constitution gives us freedom from religion as well as free of religion.

It does both… the question is to what extent.

 

[metis]

Rachel Mad-Cow makes her living off Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Wow, you could be the poster child of the MAGAs with childish insults like that.

 

[Kenny]

So long as laws are not made with religion as their basis. A number of things directly stated as goals driven by or at least endorsed heavily by the religious right ideology can will and is harmful to people. LGBTQ and abortion rights most notably in recent years. Evolution and global warming a few years before that.

But note that each group you mentioned wants laws with “their religion or worldview” as their basis. Each group declares that the other groups position is “harmful” to people.

Can you imagine what the group NAMBLA says is harmful to their group? Or that what you want in reference to their worldview is “harmful” to them?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Which is true. First, there were not many alternatives where humanism could have come from, and second, there are interpretations of Christianity that align very well with humanism. They weren't main stream at the time, and even called blasphemous, but many humanists, from the Middle Ages till the 20s of last century, were Christian. Only then, the secular humanists became defining for that philosophy.

And only because humanism places such great store in science, knowledge and reason. Early humanists were the product of their time -- pretty much everyone in Europe was Christian, and it paid to "look the part," as it were. And then the light of reason, enriched by scientific knowledge, began pushing God and Jesus to the sidelines, because religion didn't explain the world we perceive nearly as well as science does.

 

[Drunk_Uncle_Bob]

But note that each group you mentioned wants laws with “their religion or worldview” as their basis. Each group declares that the other groups position is “harmful” to people.

Can you imagine what the group NAMBLA says is harmful to their group? Or that what you want in reference to their worldview is “harmful” to them?

I think its pretty objective that NAMBLA is harmful. I think we can look at quite a few things and see them as objectively harmful or not. We can also have those conversations. But the conversations reach the end if someone's justification is "its my religion".

I think the abortion debate might not be as cute and dry but allowing equal rights to LGBTQ people seems like a clear positive and purely negative to oppose for example. But we don't have to debate every or even any issue in this thread for you to understand that Trump promising a Christian worldview so ironclad they need not vote any further is horrifying to those who stand to loose rights and protections in light of what that would mean if it were to come to pass.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

What I would do is add a new agency similar to the food and drug administration; FDA, but it will oversee the national "food for thought". Their job is to make sure food for thought; information, idea and opinions, is not poison or dangerous to national mental health. We can still have freedom of speech and people can still speak poison and contamination, but records will be kept and if the poison exceeds certain limits, all future free speech will require they wear a large letter L for liar to warn the public. Failure to do so will result in fines. If we have a lying politician who is feeding horse crap to the crowds, he/she will need to wear the L on the campaign trail. I believe in free speech but not everyone is prepared to test all food for purity.

Straight out of 1984 -- Ministry of Truth. Your new "agency" would decide what "thought, information, idea and opinions" are "true" or "poison or dangerous to national mental health," and then sic the thought-police on them.

 

[Kenny]

I think its pretty objective that NAMBLA is harmful. I think we can look at quite a few things and see them as objectively harmful or not. We can also have those conversations. But the conversations reach the end if someone's justification is "its my religion".

I agree that “it’s my religion” is not a qualifier for a law.

But it has been proven through history that “objective” is quite “subjective”.

I think the abortion debate might not be as cute and dry but allowing equal rights to LGBTQ people seems like a clear positive and purely negative to oppose for example. But we don't have to debate every or even any issue in this thread for you to understand that Trump promising a Christian worldview so ironclad they need not vote any further is horrifying to those who stand to loose rights and protections in light of what that would mean if it were to come to pass.

What “Christian” world view is he promoting?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Which is true [that humanism is product of Christianity].

Disagree.

First, there were not many alternatives where humanism could have come from

Humanism is a reaction to and a repudiation of religions like Christianity just as the US Constitution is a repudiation of their Bible and first four of its Ten Commandments.

Humanism begins with Thales in ancient Greek, who first rejected gods and superstition. It's people oriented, not god oriented. Its epistemology is empirical, and it rejects faith as a path to knowledge. Its moral values are derived rationally from moral intuitions of the conscience, not Commandments from unseen god accepted by faith. Its metaphysics is naturalism. Does that sound like the child of Christianity, or as I called it, a rejection of and a reaction to it?

many humanists, from the Middle Ages till the 20s of last century, were Christian.

So were many scientists, and so were some of the Founders. That doesn't make their output a result of Christianity.

There are many Christian humanists including some here on RF, but they're the Christians least affected by their religions. Their values and beliefs are indistinguishable from those of atheistic humanists apart from self-identifying as Christians and claiming or implying a god belief. They reject the antiscientism, anti-intellectualism, the bigotries, and the theocratic tendencies. They remain loyal patriots and don't put church ahead of country. The don't vote for the like of Trump in order to stack the courts with theocratic appointments. They don't want their religion imposed on the unwilling. They don't think lying is very honorable and disapprove of Christians lying about their intentions to get onto the Supreme Court or their intentions for women, LGBTQ+. or Project 2025, nor teaching from the bible in schools or hanging parts of it up on public schoolroom walls.

Now THAT's Christianity, at least as Americans experience it today. That's the Christianity that was spread at the point of a sword and imperialized other cultures. That's the Christianity of Constantine's legions, the Crusaders, the Conquistadores, the Inquisitionists, the Pilgrims, and the plantation owners of the American South.

Like I said, these theistic humanists are like me and other atheistic humanists except in one irrelevant (to this atheist) way. They condemn all of the above as do I.

Rachel Mad-Cow makes her living off Trump Derangement Syndrome.

[Click]

If you want to have a discussion with me, you'll need to bring up your game. I'm not interested in anything but evidenced argument. You've sunken to Trump's level of childish, mean-spirited taunts.

And I suppose that you don't see the irony in calling Rachel mad or Trump detractors deranged. Look at your posting. What would mad and deranged look like if not comments like the one above?

 

[Alien826]

Not all of us do, which is a great mystery and utterly inexplicable to me. Have I misjudged humanity so much for so long, or is this a more recent and local phenomenon?

Strange, yes, especially as the few MAGA people I know are quite pleasant people in every other way. It's like there's just this one thing ...

It may not be so much of a mystery when we consider similar examples from history. Remember the genocide in Rwanda? One half of the population turned on the other half and attempted to exterminate them. Weren't they getting along pretty well previously? Remember when what used to be called Yugoslavia was seen as one country and was known as a good vacation destination (from the UK anyway) then it all split apart and they started attacking each other. And I won't risk Godwin's ire by quoting another example.

It seems to me that there's this stuff just under the surface waiting for some rabble rouser to trigger it. Then we get some horrible period of time ending in a "Sunday morning hangover" where people come to their senses and say "how the heck did that happen"? Too late in most cases and Alka-Seltzer isn't going to fix it.

I would never have guessed that a Christian preacher would endorse so immoral and corrupt a person as Trump. Maybe a few extremists that are also Klan members and kept both to themselves, but now, millions of Christians openly and without the least sense of hypocrisy endorse a parasite, a sociopath, a malignant narcissist, a pathological liar, a serial adulterer, a lifetime grifter and conman, a stochastic terrorist, a sexual predator, an insurrectionist, a twice impeached former president, and now a felon.

Forget that he is also who is old, feeble, and increasingly demented, which aren't moral failings, but reasons to not support his candidacy.

The power of rationalization is strong in these ones, I fear. They want certain things really badly for a long time and get really angry about them. Then someone comes along that promises to deliver. They want the result so much that any means will do, but there's still this nagging feeling that something is wrong as they support a person the like of whom they have condemned for years. Never mind, think of something, in this case that God uses bad people to achieve good ends, like King Cyrus in the Bible. Ah, feel better now.

 

[Heyo]

Disagree.
[...]

Now THAT's Christianity, at least as Americans experience it today. That's the Christianity that was spread at the point of a sword and imperialized other cultures. That's the Christianity of Constantine's legions, the Crusaders, the Conquistadores, the Inquisitionists, the Pilgrims, and the plantation owners of the American South.

Like I said, these theistic humanists are like me and other atheistic humanists except in one irrelevant (to this atheist) way. They condemn all of the above as do I.

And that is not where humanism comes from. Modern humanism was created in the Enlightenment, with precursors in Ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy and Protestantism. (In that way, you can say that humanism was an answer to (Catholic) Christianity, as protestantism was itself an answer to established Christianity.) Most Lutherans today have humanistic values, heck, even the RCC has some of them now. US evangelicals are a fringe group in Christianity.

 

[Kenny]

US evangelicals are a fringe group in Christianity.

It’s world wide, not just US… Jesus was also part of the “fringe group” We like that.

 

[Heyo]

It’s world wide, not just US… Jesus was also part of the “fringe group” We like that.

Which of the thousands of evangelical denominations was Jesus part of? And which Jesus? Most Jesuses are RCC (being probably Latin Americans).