Republicans Say the Darndest Things!

Huh, Putin may actually be Christian, or at least, a Christian nationalist.

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Now I’m sure it is for tornados, but when I was in grammar school, they were always referred to as “air raid sirens”. Our school had a sign like this on it. https://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Fallout-Shelter-Reproduction-Painting/dp/B08PBCN1T4/ref=sr_1_8?crid=1YKNIPKAKM8IV&keywords=Fallout+Shelter+Vintage+Look+Reproduction+Metal+Tin+Sign&qid=1646200069&sprefix=fallout+shelter+vintage+look+reproduction+metal+tin+sign%2Caps%2C76&sr=8-8. I assume the shelter was the basement, but I"d been in the basement and there was no way to fit everyone in there.

As a White Sox fan, I grew up with the story of the fire commissioner turning on the sirens when the White Sox clinched the AL championship in 1959 and freaked the sh*t out of a lot of people, who seriously thought we were being attacked.

Also, the Russian orthodox church has some pretty creepy saints

I have seen him at Church. Had to tear gas people to get there, but he went

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What devotion!

The NYTimes did an interesting article recently on who identified as a Christian evangelical these days. A large percentage of Americans were only attached to the Christian Right political agenda and were not church goers nor knowledgeable about Christian values: more political than religious.

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I watched an interesting interview with the author of Jesus and John Wayne and she touched on that. Evangelicalism is a cultural and political identity now even perhaps more so than a religious one.

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This is a strange cultural phenomenon to me: evangelical fervor with no actual religious background or knowledge.

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That pretty much describes trump, who many people see as more Christian than a Church goer like Biden

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It does describe Trump, but I thought his attitude was politically expedient: he wants the support of the Evangelicals and so fakes like he is a believer.

I don’t understand the rationale for John Q Public to have the same attitude.

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He’s pretty shitty at it, which tells me more about the Evangelicals than it does trump.

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Like his inappropriate National Prayer Breakfast speech?

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Perhaps inspired by the imprecatory Psalms?

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This shows how separation of church and state protects the church as much as the state.

In the 60s, when prayer in school first became as issue, evangelical leaders, including as i recall the head of the southern baptist convention, came out against requiring prayer in school. They recognized that the compromise needed to make prayer nondenominational (remember diversity then meant protestants and catholics getting along) would gut them of all real religious content.

I’m not sure there is any better image from what politics has done to religion than trump holding his upside down bible, an empty image that could only be made after the savage beating of protestors.

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And for those that believe in Satan and an anti-Christ I can’t think of a more telling image. Also, the support/devotion Trump hadhas among some believers in the end times is also fulfilling part of that set of beliefs.

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Yes! Who Trump reminds me of most of all is Nicolae Carpathia, the antichrist character from the left behind stories (although it’s been long time since i read those books.)

There was a buffoonish aspect to the character, which I thought was one of (many many) flaws in those stories. But maybe in that respect, it was a better story than i thought at the time.

Snopes says this didn’t happen. I guess he had a 50% chance of holding it the right way up.

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You are right! Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll have to update my memory of it.

Although it doesn’t really change anything, except to make the symbolism a little less rich. A painting of the event would certainly have the bible upside down.

depending on definition of correct - could be 25% - backwards as well

or lower if he holds it landscape, or flat (used to tesifying?) as I doubt he knows how a book works

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