Occasionally we arrogant fundamentalist atheists are accused of picking on a simplistic, straw-man picture of God — some old man in the sky, Who meddles clumsily in our earthly affairs — rather than a more philosophically sophisticated view of the divine. Just to remind everyone, the unsophisticated version is alive and well, and has big plans for our upcoming elections. Here is an email being passed around among evangelicals. (Via.)
Dear friends:
Barack Hussein Obama has taken the nation by storm. From obscurity, with zero executive experience, or much of any kind, he has vaulted into the position of Presidential frontrunner. It is stunning. On the surface, it appears attributable only to his eloquent oratory and his race. But an invisible factor may be a strong spiritual force behind him, causing some people to actually swoon in his presence.
I have been very concerned that he has publicly said that he does not believe Jesus is the only way to heaven. This makes both the Bible and Jesus a liar, and it means that Christ has died in vain. A person cannot be a true Christian who believes that there are other ways of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life with God. Only Jesus has paid the price for that.
Therefore, there is, indeed, another spirit involved. And this spirit has come into our national life like a flood. Last week at Obama’s acceptance speech, that spirit exalted itself in front of a Greek temple-like stage, and to a huge audience like in a Roman arena. Omama was portrayed as god-like. His voice thundered as a god’s voice.
At the end, Democratic sympathizer Pastor Joel Hunter gave the benediction and shockingly invited everyone to close the prayer to their own (false) gods. This was surely an abomination, but it was compatible with Obama’s expressed theology, and Hunter’s leftist leanings.
God was not pleased.
And God says, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19).
Enter Governor Sarah Palin. With incredible timing, the very next day, Sarah Palin also appeared out of nowhere. Her shocking selection as John McCain’s running mate stunned the world and suddenly took all the wind out of Obama’s sails.
We quickly learned that Sarah is a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian, attends church, and has been a ministry worker.
Sarah is that standard God has raised up to stop the flood. She has the anointing. You can tell by how the dogs are already viciously attacking her. But they will not be successful. She knows the One she serves and will not be intimidated.
Back in the 1980s, I sensed that Israel’s little-known Benjamin Netanyahu was chosen by God for an important end-time role. I still believe that. I now have that same sense about Sarah Palin.
Today I did some checking and discovered that both her first and last names are biblical words, one in Hebrew the other in Greek:
Sarah. Wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac. In Hebrew, Sarah means “noble woman” (Strong’s 8283).
Palin. In Greek, the word means “renewal.” (Strong’s 3825).
A friend said he believes that Sarah Palin is a Deborah. Of Deborah, Smith’s Bible Dictionary says, “A prophetess who judged Israel…. She was not so much a judge as one gifted with prophetic command…. and by virtue of her inspiration ‘a mother in Israel.'”
Only God knows the future and how she may be used by Him, but may this noble woman serve to bring renewal in the land, and inspiration.
Jim
The author, Jim Bramlett, was formerly an associate of Pat Robertson, and more recently has been kept busy recording angels singing.
(The BSD Daemon didn’t appear in the original email; that was my addition.)
uh, does anyone else think that pointing out evangelicals as an example of christianity is idiocy? that would be like using charles manson as an example of darwinism, or George Bush as an example of a perfect politician.
If there any justice, Palin would be put on the spot about what her beliefs were regarding the age of the Earth and the Universe. This is more that just a question about her religious beliefs (she is free to hold any such beliefs she wants), it goes to the very core of what someone who could easily be holding the highest office in the land believes about science.
If she is a young-Earth creationist. and all the evidence tends to confirm that she is — she is a “Bible-believing Christian” and wants schools to “teach the controversy”, statements which put her right in line with religious right orthodoxy — then she is essentially denying just about everything that science has taught us about the world we live in. She would believe that the fundamentals of geology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and biology are all dead wrong.
Imagine a President formulating government policy on Global Warming when they would deny any scientific findings based on data from more than 4,000 years ago (from before “The Flood”). Or how can you rationally assess which NASA programs deserve funding when you don’t even believe anything that NASA publishes about the Moon or Mars’s history or anything about stellar or solar system evolution.
Bush played the part of a true believer, but I suspect most of that was a cynical election strategy promoted by Rove. Palin looks to be the real thing, and that is simply downright scary for anyone who wants anything close to a reality-based administration.
i wish those people would all ascend and leave us alone.
Give them enough rope.
Of course, that could apply to lots of assumptions, including some held by physicists.
Reality bites.
Back to the dark ages – how do you believe in the absurd ? Faith in Jesus I tell you. Have faith above integrity – kindness to all – curiosity – love of beauty, nature, learning and honesty.
I don’t know…this “end-time role” business is probably the best explanation I’ve heard how a person with Netanyahu’s meager skill set came to be a prime minister. Maybe “prime minister Netanyahu” was just a preview to “president Palin”, I’m sure the end-time business will prosper.
“Back to the dark ages – how do you believe in the absurd ?”
We are not going back to the dark ages. It is just that USA is forfeiting its technological and scientific leadership to other countries, specially China.
“uh, does anyone else think that pointing out evangelicals as an example of christianity is idiocy?”
Huh? Evangelicals make up 37% of Christians in the US and 47% of American Protestants. That makes them a pretty significant group, much closer to the average than, say, liberal philosophically sophisticated Christians.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/beliefnet_poll_010718.html
These people are insane. And yet they make up between 1/4 and 1/3 of the American population depending on which study you choose. That is scary considering the military power the USA wields. It’s going to be an interesting century.
Maybe we should remind Jews that in the fundamentalist view, they are not saved and thus are condemned by God: a visiting minister said terror attacks happen in Israel because God will not defend unsaved Jews or etc. (Why Israel-loving neocons can hob-nob with fundies is weird, I guess politics trumps all …)
In any case, “palin” does mean “again” or “renewal” or “likewise” not “backward” as many suppose: for the etymology of “palindrome” – a phrase reading the same backward and forward such as “Madam, I’m Adam” – this is a matter of seeing the same letters “again” when you read it in reverse.
Here is a weird take, from a Ron Paulista site (remember him?):
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/61424
Can someone please tell me what the heck an evangelical is??
Did they break off from the catholic church or something? When? I don’t get them. These people are insane in the membrane!!
Which is why it is very troubling that Obama is pandering to these people. In front of a crowd of evangelicals he announced his plan to EXPAND Bush faith based initiatives. I don’t have to tell anyone how much has been written about how wasteful and corrupt Bush’s faith based initiative is!
Also I found an email going around (also to evangelicals) criticizing Obama for saying “This guy was God before I was” during an event with Morgan Freeman. (Before that he said “This guy was president before I was president”)
Obama is and never will be president and he definitely is no god except to some of his more insane supporters.
http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/
Such a cute little devil in the “photograph”.
I would wager that for every person who believes Obama is on a divine mission (and I don’t doubt there are some), there is a dozen who believe that Palin was chosen by God to be in the White House come January.
In any case, while I agree that Obama keeping Bush’s faith based initiative would be a mistake he doesn’t have to make, there is only one party who has to keep the fundamentalist masses fat, dumb and happy, and it’s not the Democrats.
Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity aren’t quite the same thing. Evangelicals practice a rather emotional religion based on a personal relationship to Jesus. Some of them are also Fundamentalists, but lots of them aren’t. In fact, many evangelicals are politically liberal and formed part of Jimmy Carter’s base back in the day. Progressive evangelicals are still around, many of them strongly committed to social causes, and more recently to their own version of environmentalism. The radicalism of some bible readers shouldn’t surprise anybody. Taking the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles literally lands you far to the left of most American politicians.
BeerTender,
No True Scottsman much? This mode of thought represents a significant portion of the Christian population in the US.
to #14:
Liberal or conservative, evangelical Christianity is still nutty. The liberal form may be compatible with many of the social causes of progressive favor, but it’s still based on an irrational set of beliefs.
Shame on Obama for pandering to these people. I would much prefer our leaders made decisions on a rational, evidence-based set of criteria molded around a particular goal rather than an ancient work of fiction.
It has always amused how religious conservatives make such a massive deal of the Ten Commandments yet I have never heard them take such a passionate stance on the Beatitudes (the opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount and probably the most substantial speech in the Bible attributed to Jesus.
Of course, “blessed are the meek…”, “blessed are the poor…”, and “blessed are the peacemakers…” don’t exactly jibe with the sort of macho, muscular Christianity they believe in, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone.
Its pretty interesting how evangelicals have managed to live through industrialization in the US. Obviously there used to be a lot more of them, but unlike most other countries they still managed to keep a relatively high percentage (what is it, like 15% of the population or somesuch) despite all the advances in science/education/healthcare and all the huge social shifts.
They’re influence is unbelievably resilient
Haelfix, I suspect that if you look into the history of why America is still a far more conservative nation than Western Europe (even, until recently, strongly Catholic countries like Ireland and Spain) you will find your answer.
I am increasingly convinced that for the vast majority of people, political identity comes first, followed by the type of religious beliefs you espouse. (No doubt that’s oversimplifying things, but I believe it to be broadly true.)
I don’t know why America is much more conservative than Europe, but no doubt it has been shaped by the nature of its founding and the differences in its path through history. There is certainly a much greater mistrust of government power which helps fuel the conservative fire as do the notions of self-reliance and achieving the “American Dream” through hard work. There is a widespread belief that if you’re poor or in prison that it’s nobody’s fault but you’re own, no matter how disadvantaged a position you started from.
Thus other side of the equation is that these people are not deserving of government handouts, social safety nets, or free (at-source) health care and such things make people weak and will eventually ruin America.
The irony is that this is patently untrue. I grew up in a country (the UK) which has an extensive government run social safety net and where nobody has to worry about paying the bills before seeking medical treatment. I also grew up in a left-wing (by American standards) household but I there was no lack of encouragement from my parents or teachers to aspire to great things and to work hard to get there. We were not told to “settle” and just let the government bail us out if we couldn’t be bothered to get our asses in gear.
I’m in danger of wandering off topic a little here, but to link it back to the fundamentalist tendencies of religious conservative Americans, I think that conservatism and religion used together has been a very powerful force in maintaining both institutions as powerhouses in America. The hardcore social conservative message is preached from pulpits every week in virtually every town in America and anything liberal is, quite literally, demonized.
Until we can counter that broadest of stereotypes the religious right has been selling the nation, it will be a tough road for any ideas with even a hint of liberalism to gain traction. And it’s purely through the utter incompetence and disastrous failures of the current Republican establishment that Obama even has a chance this election time.
In the end, though, I do have hope. More and more people are identifying themselves as Democrats (filling the huge void in the middle left by the rightward march of the Republican party) and if you look at the demographics of religious belief in the younger generations, they have been moving solidly toward secularism for a long time now (by as much as 5 times — 4% to 20% — in just three generations). It will take a lot longer still, but I suspect that the religious right is more powerful today than it will ever be again, and they will soon (even if, heaven forbid, Palin enters the White House) begin the slow decline into irrelevance.
To z:
I’m not a believer of any kind, but I am interested in the sociology and history of religion and call things as I see ’em. I’m also a Democrat, and I’m not interested in reading anybody out of my party whose heart is in the right place. Political coalitions are based on shared interests, not identical world views.
Anyhow, religions may be all false, but they certainly aren’t all evil. In American history, for example, many evangelical Christians of the so-called Second Great Awakening of the 19th Century supported emancipation, women’s rights, and universal education. Indeed, the churches and their members were notable promoters of science , which most of them did not see as a threat at all. The anti-intellectualism of Fundamentalism was actually a later phenomenon and perhaps, ironically, testifies to a certain falling off of faith.
I don’t find these people funny or comical. Frankly they scare the living crap out of me. When 40% of our nation doesn’t believe in Evolution that causes me great alarm. If a person believes the Earth is 12,000 years old, they’ll believe anything.
Now I’m an agnostic, which means I think there is a higher meaning but don’t know who or what or even if there is a God. But these people know exactly who their God is and He is a terrifying, vengeful, angry god. His servants are His hands to mold the world into His design.
Atheists and agnostics base their beliefs on a process of rational thought. Which means we analyze, consider and discuss before taking action. Not so with the other side. They are not burden with such elements of the cognitive domain. They can act and react almost instantly.
I wish you all peace in this time of insanity. May reason prevail over emotion.
I like the way he has used Obama’s middle name to emphasise his scary foreign demonic arabishness. No actually I don’t, it’s really nasty. Didn’t he ever read the parable of the Good Samaritan? Who is your neighbor?
“Surprising” things happen in politics all the time, and it is really not that surprising that at a time when the public are crying out for change, a charismatic young (in presidential terms) man with few associations to political past is leading in the polls. And it’s not his fault that the US political system has a way of venerating its potential leaders, or that it seems to go in for classical architecture in order to portray grandure, it certainly doesn’t mean that he is performing some kind of vast pagan rite.
Well well, lets just hope this kind of thinking doesn’t spread too much.
To steal from a comment on Brad DeLong’s blog:
Half the country is populated by people who claim to believe that the FDA should be abolished because “the market” will ensure that only healthy food and drugs are sold. After all, “in theory”, companies would not want to tarnish their brands by, for example, adding melamine to milk powder. Certainly a company, hypothetically named Sanlu, that is the brand leader in its country would never, “in theory”, do such a thing.
If half the country is quite clearly certifiable morons…
There are many other lines of evidence that half the nation is clearly certifiable morons including the fact that they **reelected** Dubya. If you keep quoting them, it is without end. Why not focus on intelligence for a change?
Scary scary scary. McCain/Palin=The Armageddon Ticket. To think that people who believe in this biblical rubbish are potentially going to be the next load of jokers in the White House over there in the USA is a living nightmare. It doesn’t really get more terrifying than this. That Palin woman is a stones throw away from becoming the most dangerous person on the planet. How on earth did she manage to get as far as she has? Surely not all Alaskans are retards? The authorities should step in now and stop her from running for VP. Otherwise she will bring hell to Earth. She doesn’t know god any more than the poor soul who wrote this letter. They are so misguided, they need help to understand the real concept of evil and how their prejudices align so readily with it.
I love to see stuff like this. Sarah is divine as evidenced by people attacking her credentials. Barack is the anti-Christ as evidenced by divine individuals attacking him.
Makes perfect sense.