Background:
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 1 - Setting The Stage
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 2 - Drawing The Audience In
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 3 - Blowing Your Mind
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 4 - Picking & Blaming A Demon
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 5 - Getting Away With Murder
John McCain's "Hypnosis": He Used To Blame Immigrants
Fox News "Hypnosis" Part 1 - Demonizing The Left As "Nazis"
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 6 - Building Fear To Get Blind Obedience For Mind Control
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 7 - Ascribing Everything Bad To Progressives
Fox News's "Hypnosis" Part 2 - Used Racist Tactics While Calling Them Non-Racist During Zimmerman Trial, Worked 2!
The Hypnotic Power Of TV: Keeping Ron Paul Out Of The Public Eye Despite Being At The Top Of Local Straw Polls
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 1 - Setting The Stage
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 2 - Drawing The Audience In
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 3 - Blowing Your Mind
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 4 - Picking & Blaming A Demon
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 5 - Getting Away With Murder
John McCain's "Hypnosis": He Used To Blame Immigrants
Fox News "Hypnosis" Part 1 - Demonizing The Left As "Nazis"
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 6 - Building Fear To Get Blind Obedience For Mind Control
Glenn Beck's "Hypnosis" Part 7 - Ascribing Everything Bad To Progressives
Fox News's "Hypnosis" Part 2 - Used Racist Tactics While Calling Them Non-Racist During Zimmerman Trial, Worked 2!
The Hypnotic Power Of TV: Keeping Ron Paul Out Of The Public Eye Despite Being At The Top Of Local Straw Polls
EXTRACT:
Bill O'Reilly has been going off the deep end even more than usual, ever since the Trayvon Martin trial ended and since he's not beating up all black youths for wearing hoodies, he's turned to serious business: disparaging those in need of food stamps. It's obviously aimed at promoting Bret Baier's Great Food Stamp Binge special on FOX. With the economy still not helping the 98% of Americans and the need for assistance to eat has grown, you might think that conservative hard liners would at least ease up on the needy when it comes to food (since bankers and mortgage lenders with the aid of many conservatives helped destroy the world economy).
You might think that, but you'd be wrong.
Here's O'Reilly going off on the less fortunate:
The food stamp scandal, right now, 15 percent of the entire American population receiving food subsidies,” the Fox News host announced. “And some of those people are conning the system.”
O’Reilly said that the president was to blame for changing the work rules for food stamps and allowing “anybody to get them if they know how to game the system.”
“I take one look at this guy and he’s making money off the books,” he explained.
“Now I’m not going to make any accusation on national television about how he’s making money, but this guy’s not just surviving on food stamps. Alright? He’s making money. The rat life entails a lot of different things.”
“But this guy is a parasite. And my contention is that the Obama administration is encouraging parasites to come out and, you know, take as much as they can with no remorse. And this is how a country declines. This is how we become a weak nation.”
Go read media Matters article called: Fox's Shameless Misrepresentation Of SNAP Recipients to get an idea of what FOX is doing.
Bill O'Reilly has been going off the deep end even more than usual, ever since the Trayvon Martin trial ended and since he's not beating up all black youths for wearing hoodies, he's turned to serious business: disparaging those in need of food stamps. It's obviously aimed at promoting Bret Baier's Great Food Stamp Binge special on FOX. With the economy still not helping the 98% of Americans and the need for assistance to eat has grown, you might think that conservative hard liners would at least ease up on the needy when it comes to food (since bankers and mortgage lenders with the aid of many conservatives helped destroy the world economy).
You might think that, but you'd be wrong.
Here's O'Reilly going off on the less fortunate:
The food stamp scandal, right now, 15 percent of the entire American population receiving food subsidies,” the Fox News host announced. “And some of those people are conning the system.”
O’Reilly said that the president was to blame for changing the work rules for food stamps and allowing “anybody to get them if they know how to game the system.”
“I take one look at this guy and he’s making money off the books,” he explained.
“Now I’m not going to make any accusation on national television about how he’s making money, but this guy’s not just surviving on food stamps. Alright? He’s making money. The rat life entails a lot of different things.”
“But this guy is a parasite. And my contention is that the Obama administration is encouraging parasites to come out and, you know, take as much as they can with no remorse. And this is how a country declines. This is how we become a weak nation.”
Go read media Matters article called: Fox's Shameless Misrepresentation Of SNAP Recipients to get an idea of what FOX is doing.
Food Stamp Funding
Republicans show they are willing to compromise on the farm bill by eliminating the part they refused to compromise on. (04:41):
Republicans show they are willing to compromise on the farm bill by eliminating the part they refused to compromise on. (04:41):
The Colbert Report
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They proved they are not a do nothing congress by doing nothing to help US Citizens and marketed as helping the American people.
Republicans showed that they are willing to compromise by removing the part of the bill they were not willing to compromise on
Ability to make a liveable income as per The American Dream has gone down to...
... A footlong a day with the bag!
2 mins: 'We passed a farm bill that gives BILLION OF DOLLARS MOSTLY TO LARGE CORPORATIONS" that own farms. It's almost like Welfare for the wealthy but you don't even include foodstamps for the hungry people for food. What kind of a message is that?
Joke: Give a man a fish & he'll fish for a day, take away his fish and he'll start up a mutinational corporation that gets a massive subsidy in the next farm bill Stephen Colbert (Note: starting a business often requires help, but in this version ... well, rich people are getting subsidies and tax breaks. There really is nothing more you can say to that is there?)
Farm programs cannot wait because we need to grow the food that people can no longer afford to buy... the plan of fighting pigeons for food actually fits the Ayn Randian view of the world that rich kids seem to love!
The Colbert Report
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Notes on Ayn Rand from the above video:
Her philosophy is of rational self interest and she states that the purpose of life is in pursuing your own happiness with NO regard for others.
In the video clip of her interview in the above video you will find the following: .
She claims to be challenging the moral code of altruism Altriusm is immoral is it is placed above oneself (i.e. nothing should be above you).
She also believes that if a man of woman is weak they don't deserve love.
In some instances it is appropriate to be selfish and in other instances it isn't ...
"This officer — like so many others I have met with on bases, in Baghdad and Bagram, at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital — spoke with humility about how hisunit worked together as one — depending on each other, and trusting one another, as a family might do in a time of peril."
One Christian's view on Ayn Rand: "Last month, author and Coffee Party contributor Michael Stafford's widely read essay decried the "Paul Ryan" budget and humorously compared Ryan's intellectual hero, Ayn Rand, to L. Ron Hubbard. On our blog talk radio show, Stafford described himself as a Republican and a true conservative who refuses to abandon his party to Glenn Beck and the politics of resentment. His writing is that of a man of faith who applies the teachings of the Bible to civic life, without the filter of partisan electioneering. Stafford, and other conservative leaders, are directly confronting political strategists on the far right, including Congressman Ryan, who are using the philosophy of Ayn Rand to supplant the teachings of the Bible with regard to our responsibility to society and our attitudes toward the elderly and the less fortunate, in order to muster public support for policies that benefit only the super-wealthy and multi-national corporations."
Here is the kind of stuff you will find about the Republican Leaders Ideological Platoform: The U.S. economy is crumbling. Businesses are collapsing in record numbers. Jobs have disappeared. Tax revenues are down dramatically. Coincidence? Everything happening today under Obama resembles the storyline of Ayn Rand’s famous book, "Atlas Shrugged," one of the most popular books of all time, selling over 7 million copies. Now, under President Obama, "Atlas Shrugged" has come to life. Rand prophesized a country dominated by socialists, Marxists and statists, where looters, free loaders and poverty promoters live off the productive class. To rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators, the looter class demonized the wealthy, just as Obama and his socialist cabal are doing in real life today. The central plot of "Atlas Shrugged" is that in response to being demonized, over-taxed, over-regulated, and punished for success, America’s business owners were disappearing — dropping off the grid, and refusing to work 16-hour days to support those unwilling to put in the same blood, sweat and tears. They were going on strike. Because of that the original proposed title of “Atlas Shrugged” was “The Strike.” They were going on strike to teach that civilization cannot survive when people are slaves to government. That without a productive class of innovative business owners willing to risk their own money and work 16-hour days, weekends and holidays, there are no jobs and no taxes to pay for government. If you punish the wealthy, the risk-takers, the innovators, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In Obama’s America, fiction is becoming fact.
Her philosophy is of rational self interest and she states that the purpose of life is in pursuing your own happiness with NO regard for others.
In the video clip of her interview in the above video you will find the following: .
She claims to be challenging the moral code of altruism Altriusm is immoral is it is placed above oneself (i.e. nothing should be above you).
She also believes that if a man of woman is weak they don't deserve love.
In some instances it is appropriate to be selfish and in other instances it isn't ...
"This officer — like so many others I have met with on bases, in Baghdad and Bagram, at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital — spoke with humility about how hisunit worked together as one — depending on each other, and trusting one another, as a family might do in a time of peril."
One Christian's view on Ayn Rand: "Last month, author and Coffee Party contributor Michael Stafford's widely read essay decried the "Paul Ryan" budget and humorously compared Ryan's intellectual hero, Ayn Rand, to L. Ron Hubbard. On our blog talk radio show, Stafford described himself as a Republican and a true conservative who refuses to abandon his party to Glenn Beck and the politics of resentment. His writing is that of a man of faith who applies the teachings of the Bible to civic life, without the filter of partisan electioneering. Stafford, and other conservative leaders, are directly confronting political strategists on the far right, including Congressman Ryan, who are using the philosophy of Ayn Rand to supplant the teachings of the Bible with regard to our responsibility to society and our attitudes toward the elderly and the less fortunate, in order to muster public support for policies that benefit only the super-wealthy and multi-national corporations."
Here is the kind of stuff you will find about the Republican Leaders Ideological Platoform: The U.S. economy is crumbling. Businesses are collapsing in record numbers. Jobs have disappeared. Tax revenues are down dramatically. Coincidence? Everything happening today under Obama resembles the storyline of Ayn Rand’s famous book, "Atlas Shrugged," one of the most popular books of all time, selling over 7 million copies. Now, under President Obama, "Atlas Shrugged" has come to life. Rand prophesized a country dominated by socialists, Marxists and statists, where looters, free loaders and poverty promoters live off the productive class. To rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators, the looter class demonized the wealthy, just as Obama and his socialist cabal are doing in real life today. The central plot of "Atlas Shrugged" is that in response to being demonized, over-taxed, over-regulated, and punished for success, America’s business owners were disappearing — dropping off the grid, and refusing to work 16-hour days to support those unwilling to put in the same blood, sweat and tears. They were going on strike. Because of that the original proposed title of “Atlas Shrugged” was “The Strike.” They were going on strike to teach that civilization cannot survive when people are slaves to government. That without a productive class of innovative business owners willing to risk their own money and work 16-hour days, weekends and holidays, there are no jobs and no taxes to pay for government. If you punish the wealthy, the risk-takers, the innovators, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In Obama’s America, fiction is becoming fact.
Alter-Net Article Points:
First of all, who are they? Mostly the 1%. But the top 2-5% have also done quite well, increasing their inflation-adjusted wealth by 75 percent from 1983 to 2009 while average wealth went down for 80 percent of American households. The rest of the top 20% have been prosperous, realizing a 32 percent gain in inflation-adjusted wealth since 1983. The facts to follow are primarily about the richest 1%, with occasional dips into the groups scrambling to make it to the top.
2. Creating their own wealth
In another alarming testament to wealth at the top, the richest 10% own almost 90 percent of stocks excluding pensions. Consider what that means. The stock market has historically risen three times faster than the GDP itself. Since the recession, as the U.S. economy has "recovered," 62 percent of the gain was due to growth in the stock market, which surged as much in four years as it did during the "greatest bull market in history" from 1996 to 2000.
Many stock owners see a couple thousand dollars added to their fortunes every time they go online.
But that's not enough for the very rich. Thanks in good part to the derivatives market, the world's wealth has doubled in ten years, from $113 trillion to $223 trillion, and is expected to reach $330 trillion by 2017. The financial industry has figured out how to double or triple its buying power while most of the world has proportionately less.
3. Taking ALL the income gains
If the richest 1% had taken the same percentage of total U.S. income in 2006 as they did in 1980, they would have taken a trillion dollars less out of the economy. Instead they tripled their share of post-tax income. And then they captured ALL the income gains in the first two years of the post-recession recovery.
4. Donating a smaller share than the poorest Americans
Two dependable sources provide pretty much the same information. Barclays reported that those with earnings in the top 20% donated on average 1.3 percent of their income, whereas those in the bottom 20% donated 3.2 percent. And according to the New York Times, the nonprofit Independent Sector found that households earning less than $25,000 a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes, while those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent.
6. Taking two-thirds of a trillion dollars in subsidies
Even all that is not enough for the very rich. About two-thirds of nearly $1 trillion in individual "tax expenditures" (tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes) goes to the top quintile of taxpayers. An astounding 75 percent of dividend and capital gain subsidies go to the richest 1%.
And that doesn't include business subsidies, like the $16.8 billion per year in agricultural benefits paid out to big companies and to wealthy individuals who happen to have farms in their portfolios. The filthiest fact, in terms of detestable extremes, is that much of Congress wants to cut the $4.35 a day food benefit to hungry Americans, almost half of them children, so that money can keep flowing to the top.
First of all, who are they? Mostly the 1%. But the top 2-5% have also done quite well, increasing their inflation-adjusted wealth by 75 percent from 1983 to 2009 while average wealth went down for 80 percent of American households. The rest of the top 20% have been prosperous, realizing a 32 percent gain in inflation-adjusted wealth since 1983. The facts to follow are primarily about the richest 1%, with occasional dips into the groups scrambling to make it to the top.
2. Creating their own wealth
In another alarming testament to wealth at the top, the richest 10% own almost 90 percent of stocks excluding pensions. Consider what that means. The stock market has historically risen three times faster than the GDP itself. Since the recession, as the U.S. economy has "recovered," 62 percent of the gain was due to growth in the stock market, which surged as much in four years as it did during the "greatest bull market in history" from 1996 to 2000.
Many stock owners see a couple thousand dollars added to their fortunes every time they go online.
But that's not enough for the very rich. Thanks in good part to the derivatives market, the world's wealth has doubled in ten years, from $113 trillion to $223 trillion, and is expected to reach $330 trillion by 2017. The financial industry has figured out how to double or triple its buying power while most of the world has proportionately less.
3. Taking ALL the income gains
If the richest 1% had taken the same percentage of total U.S. income in 2006 as they did in 1980, they would have taken a trillion dollars less out of the economy. Instead they tripled their share of post-tax income. And then they captured ALL the income gains in the first two years of the post-recession recovery.
4. Donating a smaller share than the poorest Americans
Two dependable sources provide pretty much the same information. Barclays reported that those with earnings in the top 20% donated on average 1.3 percent of their income, whereas those in the bottom 20% donated 3.2 percent. And according to the New York Times, the nonprofit Independent Sector found that households earning less than $25,000 a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes, while those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent.
6. Taking two-thirds of a trillion dollars in subsidies
Even all that is not enough for the very rich. About two-thirds of nearly $1 trillion in individual "tax expenditures" (tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes) goes to the top quintile of taxpayers. An astounding 75 percent of dividend and capital gain subsidies go to the richest 1%.
And that doesn't include business subsidies, like the $16.8 billion per year in agricultural benefits paid out to big companies and to wealthy individuals who happen to have farms in their portfolios. The filthiest fact, in terms of detestable extremes, is that much of Congress wants to cut the $4.35 a day food benefit to hungry Americans, almost half of them children, so that money can keep flowing to the top.
From BillMoyers.Com: Nuns on the Bus
Video: ‘Nuns on the Bus’ Visits Paul Ryan’s Office June 20, 2012 by Lauren Feeney A group of nuns led by Sister Simone Campbell is driving from the small towns of the Midwest to the urban centers of the East to protest the House Republican budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Yesterday, they brought their message to Ryan’s door, visiting the congressman’s office in his home town of Janesville, Wisconsin. There, Sister Simone spoke with members of Ryan’s staff and greeted supporters gathered outside.
Video: ‘Nuns on the Bus’ Visits Paul Ryan’s Office June 20, 2012 by Lauren Feeney A group of nuns led by Sister Simone Campbell is driving from the small towns of the Midwest to the urban centers of the East to protest the House Republican budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Yesterday, they brought their message to Ryan’s door, visiting the congressman’s office in his home town of Janesville, Wisconsin. There, Sister Simone spoke with members of Ryan’s staff and greeted supporters gathered outside.
Links About Paul Ryan & His Plan:
In this clip, Ryan reasonably argues against increasing funding for Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor.
Oldsters boo Ryan’s support for tax breaks for the wealthy.
GOP: Raise Retirement Age To 70
In this clip, Ryan reasonably argues against increasing funding for Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor.
Oldsters boo Ryan’s support for tax breaks for the wealthy.
GOP: Raise Retirement Age To 70
... BUT doesn't specify IN WHAT WAY EXCEPT THAT PEOPLE OVER 55 WILL BE FINE... i.e. if you are 54 you will be living on the streets (or on somebody's charity) in 6 years. Unless the GOP is able to raise the retirement age. If you are younger than 54 then just do the math to figure out when you will have to move to the streets. It's easy. For example, if you are 50 you have 10 years before you move onto the streets and so on. IN other words, you have to be really shallow to not care about Social Security for other people simply because it doesn't affect you in the upcoming elections.
In addition to this they raised retirement age (i.e. you have to work till you're 70 and then you get a "voucher" i.e. it's like saying "Here's your gold watch. Thank you for your years of service. Now get out of my office.")...
GOP: Raise Retirement Age To 70
What happened?
Documentary from Amanpour: God's Christian Warriors God's Warriors: God's Christian Warriors. CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour travels to six countries on four continents to examine the intersection between religion and politics and the effects of Christianity, Islam and Judaism on politics, culture and public life. Click here to visit the original website that accompanied the documentary or watch the report 'God's Christian Warriors' on the videos below:
The teachings of Jesus make it clear that love comes first so these hate filled policy stances are NOT Christian (see video above)...
New Testament
Matthew 5:17: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (ex. thou shalt not kill)
Matthew 22:36-40
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
What the GOP is following is rather some of the worst of the Old Testament...
Hosea 13:16 (King James) Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open
Deuteronomy 20:16
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.
1 Samuel 15:2-4
2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.
Psalm 137:8-9
8 O daughter of Babylon, O destroyed one, O the happiness of him who repayeth to thee thy deed, That thou hast done to us.
9 O the happiness of him who doth seize, And hath dashed thy sucklings on the rock!
New Testament
Matthew 5:17: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (ex. thou shalt not kill)
Matthew 22:36-40
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
What the GOP is following is rather some of the worst of the Old Testament...
Hosea 13:16 (King James) Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open
Deuteronomy 20:16
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.
1 Samuel 15:2-4
2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.
Psalm 137:8-9
8 O daughter of Babylon, O destroyed one, O the happiness of him who repayeth to thee thy deed, That thou hast done to us.
9 O the happiness of him who doth seize, And hath dashed thy sucklings on the rock!
"Let the record show that on January 16, 2012, the good people of South Carolina booed the Golden Rule." ― Jon Stewart... [Note: Golden Rule = ‘Love your neighbour as yourself'. Matthew 22:39] ....
Scorn in the U.S.A. It must be tough for Republicans to love America so much but hate almost three-quarters of the people living in it...
Rick Perry targets Bible belt to ignite Republican race for the White House
The battle for the "Bible belt", one of the most crucial constituencies in the Republican White House race, will begin in earnest in Waterloo, Iowaon Sunday, where Texas governor Rick Perry, who announced his candidature on Saturday, is to speak at a dinner in the Electric Park ballroom that will also be attended by congresswoman Michele Bachmann.
Bachmann changed her diary to be there, setting up an early showdown between two Christian evangelicals either of whom could be Barack Obama's opponent in the presidential election next year. Bachmann received a big early advantage on Saturday night when she came top of the Republican straw poll in Ames, the biggest political festival in America this year. In the second biggest vote in the history of the straw poll, with almost 17,000 voting, Bachmann took 4,823. Perry, as he had not declared in time, was not on the ballot but still managed to win 718 write-ins. The victory provides Bachmann with a short-term advantage but it is unlikely to last long with the arrival of Perry. The real race begins now.
The importance of the evangelical vote is huge, representing an estimated 40% of Republicans who will vote in the Iowa caucus, which is scheduled for February. Iowa, as the first of the contests, matters – helping to propel candidates to the front of the race and seeing others heading for oblivion.
Bachmann has received the endorsement of more than 100 pastors and Christian leaders in the state in the past week alone. But Perry's entry upsets her calculations. He is both a politician and part-time preacher, the kind of southerner who appeals to the Christian right. "Perry's entry shifts the dynamic," said Steve King, a rightwing congressman from Iowa, who was speaking at the Iowa state fair, where a string of Republican candidates used soapboxes to address voters sitting on straw bales.
American Christianity: constantly reimagined, manipulated and exploited
The politicised church, which has submerged religion under politics but claims to be the only real keeper of the flame, feeds off attention from vote-hungry politicians. Their pastors become players on the national stage, even while subject to criticism from their orthodox brethren and secularists alike.
Rick Warren's "purpose-driven" theology, for example, is considered unbiblical by some Christian critics. Kenneth Copeland, whose Word of Faith doctrine is considered heretical by Christians from both conservative and liberal traditions, is nonetheless quietly courted by Republican presidents and presidential hopefuls. He believes Jesus wants him to fly on a $20 million private jet while he sponges money off his television viewers.
The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who plans to run for president, hosted a prayer rally that featured believers in signs, wonders, prophecies and spiritual warfare inspired by Joel 2. These are the generals Perry hopes will lead an army of believers, who insist that America must repent for the "sins" of abortion and homosexuality, to propel him to greater heights of political power. The candidate to whom he presents the greatest challenge, Michele Bachmann, studied law not how most American attorneys learn it, but through a curriculum designed by Christian Reconstructionists, who aim to have America governed by "biblical law".
Christianity in the US is collapsing: Christianity will struggle to re-emerge from the mishmash of self-help groups it has become in America
The rhetoric and politics of evangelicals and self-help gurus are different but the essential message is the same: it is the doctrine of salvation by faith according to the canonical born-again scenario. You are seized by the conviction that your life is profoundly unsatisfactory in some global way that eludes further analysis: you are sinful, neurotic, stressed, addicted, co-dependent – insufficiently happy. You assemble a customised mix of the beliefs that "work" for you: your personal faith. Through it you achieve salvation, healing, and personal growth, the start of an endless spiritual journey to further self-improvement. You, and other Americans whose only hobbies are themselves, support legions of pastors, gurus, therapists and motivational speakers.
It is easy to see why most people are contemptuous of this amalgam of credulity, sentimentality and narcissism, which in its evangelical Christian form is tied up with myths about the age of the earth and origin of species, sexual taboos and a conservative political agenda. With this as the public face of religion it's not surprising that in the US, as in Europe, Christianity is collapsing.
That is a shame because if it collapses everything essential to it and worthwhile, which is now merely obscure, will become inaccessible. Christian theology, metaphysical doctrines about the existence and nature of God that I believe to be true, will become curiosities, like the teachings of second-string neo-Platonists. Service books will languish in archives, for study by antiquarians. The better churches will be preserved as museums; mediocre ones will be gutted and refurbished as restaurants, condos and office space.
Reports: Rick Perry's backers behind stories against Mormon faith
Two new stories suggest that while Rick Perry has said he doesn't believe Mormonism is a cult, as one of his backers characterized the LDS Church, Perry's campaign team might be cheerleading negative messages about the Mormon faith, and his backers might be behind them.
First, The Daily Beast's McKay Coppins wrote about a series of emails that appear to show "Perry's team may be quietly advancing the notion that Mitt Romney 's faith should disqualify him from the White House."
The US evangelicals who believe environmentalism is a 'native evil'
What is often not fully absorbed by onlookers, though, is the underlying role that religious doctrine – or "pulpit power" - plays in the environmental debate in the US. On the one hand, you have the "Creation Care" movement which is prevalent in some quarters of the Christian Church. On the other, particularly among evangelicals, you often see a vitriolic reaction aimed towards environmentalism.
Just last month, a survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors found that 41% strongly disagreed with the statement: "I believe global warming is real and manmade." The survey also found that 52% of the pastors address the issue of the environment with their churches once a year or less, with evangelical pastors speaking less often on the environment than mainline pastors.
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