By Walt Zlotow
As a non-theist I both respect freedom of religion and demand separation of church and state.
Most violations of the latter concern relatively minor infractions such as school prayer or posting the 10 Commandments in the public square.
Never in my life could I imagine our government promoting America’s grotesque, criminal war on Iran by telling military personnel in all the services that this war is God’s plan to cause Armageddon and mark His return to Earth.
This was not one-off insanity by a rogue military leader. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) reports over 100 complaints from 30 military installations about their commanders’ instructions. One NCO complained their commander had:
“… urged us to tell our troop this was all part of God’s divine plan and supported it with numerous citations from the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”
While Christian nationalism has simmered on the back burner of the military for decades, under fanatical Christian Nationalist and War Secretary Pete Hegseth, it’s now official US military policy. Hegseth is egged on by irreligious President Trump, who cynically uses Christian nationalism to justify his warfare in the Middle East on behalf of Israel.
You do not have to be a non-theist to oppose this religious madness Trump and Hegseth infect our military with to promote endless war in the name of God. You just have to be a decent, morally centered person.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL
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Whodda thought?! Religion used to control the masses and keep ’em compliant.
Well, why not? It’s worked throughout the ages.
Trump and many of his greedy religious superstitious followers stink. It is murderous, supremacist, perverted and fuels human piles of dogshit like Trump’s followers, uncaring, just savages, deluded and heartless. No promised land, nothing insanely selfish and exclusively righteous…No god, no proof, no evidence, no chosen race, so stop murdering and thieving. Insanity thrives with this garbage.
I find it odd.
The USA is talking about the return of Jesus, yet the Jewish faith do not accept Jesus as Christ and some get heated about Christmas and Easter celebrations.
I don’t think there is anything holy about this war, its just another grab for power and territory. At the end of this war, where will Israel’s boundaries be, and what political puppets will be dancing to the USA/Israel/Russian tune?
The ‘white’ foundations, lunatics expelled from Europe. Now enriched through corrupt oppression, nonsense nostalgia and revisionism.
A more blood-thirsty paranoid anthem I do not know:
The Star-Spangled Banner:
(I reckon Hendrix’s ex-Vietnam guitar solo reflects the US reality)
“O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
‘Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
This nonsense has been going around the US Bible Belt Christians for decades.
It can be read in Hal Lindsey’s ‘Late Great Planet Earth’
https://www.agathonlibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Lindsey-Hal-The-Late-Great-Planet-Earth-by-Hal-Lindsey_text-archive.org_.pdf
All the Armageddon Gog and Magog nonsense it there. A complete misunderstanding or deliberate distortion of the book of Revelation.
For the antidote from a real Christian theologian read:
Goldsworthy — Gospel in Revelation
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3354353
Which clearly explains that John (writer of Revelation) was talking about the times they were living in. It was written in a literary style of the time, not about events 2,000 years in the future.
But the Koran is similarly misinterpreted and distorted, by radical Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
America? decent? moral? in politics? in society?
The only septics, with heads up, have red hats. MAGA or MIGA?
Religious terrorists, including israelis, have killed so many women and children without sanction that the USA terrorists can kill 168 school girls with raising a sweat.
Under trump, america has shown its truth. A friend just shared the circumstances of the sinking of an Iranian ship. No surprises to an americaphobe.
If you really want to understand American politics, watch Netflix ‘The Family’, its America’s secret theocracy.
https://www.vermontpublic.org/vpr-news/2019-08-21/netflixs-the-family-explores-secretive-christian-group-drawing-from-work-of-dartmouth-prof
Jesus likes nothing more than watching good ‘ol ‘merican missiles slamming into the nasty non-christians. Plus it gives The Blessed Hegseth righteous hardons.
“You do not have to be a non-theist to oppose this religious madness…”
Actually, you can’t be a theist and NOT oppose it. Here it is in all its glory https://www.facebook.com/reel/1405178724625894
President Donald Trump’s top defense official, Pete Hegseth is waging a religious “crusade” against Iran by praying at a press briefing.
After telling reporters that Tuesday would “be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bowed his head in prayer and said he was “drawing strength from Psalm 144.”
*“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle,” said the defense secretary, who has backed Trumps’ assertion that the Department of Defense is called the Department of War. “May the Lord grant unyielding strength to our warriors, unbreakable protection to them and our homeland, and total victory over those who seek to harm them.”
This man is criminally insane and should be arrested !!