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Thoughts on the Trump presidency

Gloster

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The thing that always stuns me is that these religious people (at least at the rank and file level) don't seem to realise that fact. How on earth can these Evangelicals in the US think that a philandering, porn star shagging, sweary, gluttonous, person is somehow pious and divine?

Because he, so they think, makes a lot of money and is extremely rich. (Let’s not get into a discussion about the realities of his finances.) In their world godliness is demonstrated by the amount of wealth you have: if God thinks you are godly he will let you accrue great monetary wealth on earth. If he doesn’t let you make a pile and instead leaves you to be poor, then he does not see you as good. Greed is not so much good as godly.

By their riches will they earn the most exclusive boarding privileges to heaven, so it is fine to pile it up on earth. “A man’s entry into the kingdom of heaven will be simplest if he has stashed away a massive amount of loot while on earth. God will not judge him on how, but merely weigh his worth by his bank balance and he must ensure that he will not be found wanting.” Book of Rockefeller, 1.3.
 
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The exile

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Because he, so they think, makes a lot of money and is extremely rich. (Let’s not get into a discussion about the realities of his finances.) In their world godliness is demonstrated by the amount of wealth you have: if God thinks you are godly he will let you accrue great monetary wealth on earth. If he doesn’t let you make a pile and instead leaves you to be poor, then he does not see you as good. Greed is not so much good as godly.

By their riches will they earn the most exclusive boarding privileges to heaven, so it is fine to pile it up on earth. “A man’s entry into the kingdom of heaven will be simplest if he has stashed away a massive amount of loot while on earth. God will not judge him on how, but merely weigh his worth by his bank balance and he must ensure that he will not be found wanting.” Book of Rockefeller, 1.3.
It's also a false corollary drawn from the concept of the American Dream. If anyone prepared to put in the graft (hard work - not the other sort) can rise to the top, regardless of parentage or other advantages of background (which is basically what the American Dream is), the two false corollaries that arise are a) that anyone who has made it to the top and is rich has done so by virtue of hard, honest toil and deserves every penny of it (and, one step further, that God has blessed them and willed it so) and b) that those who have not have only themselves to blame and are good for nothing layabouts who are not prepared to work their guts out 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, 53 weeks a year for 110% of their allotted life-span.
 

D1511

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All conveniently ignoring the 'camel and eye of a needle' bible references.......
 

martin butler

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All conveniently ignoring the 'camel and eye of a needle' bible references.......
Needless to say, Christ if he turned up in the US today would most likely have been arrested by ICE, and been deported too some hell hole by them, then murdered.
 

The Ham

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It's also a false corollary drawn from the concept of the American Dream. If anyone prepared to put in the graft (hard work - not the other sort) can rise to the top, regardless of parentage or other advantages of background (which is basically what the American Dream is), the two false corollaries that arise are a) that anyone who has made it to the top and is rich has done so by virtue of hard, honest toil and deserves every penny of it (and, one step further, that God has blessed them and willed it so) and b) that those who have not have only themselves to blame and are good for nothing layabouts who are not prepared to work their guts out 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, 53 weeks a year for 110% of their allotted life-span.

It's easy to become a billionaire, all you have to do is work 60 per week earning £320 an hour and not spend anything or be taxed on it, oh and the little thinh that you'd need to do so for 1,000 years.
 

Broucek

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Needless to say, Christ if he turned up in the US today would most likely have been arrested by ICE, and been deported too some hell hole by them, then murdered.
I think Christ would have been deported/exiled (think the flight into Egypt) and murdered regardless of where/when He turned up...
 

Peter Mugridge

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I assume the first lady is trying to get ahead of something by making her Epstein statement. It all seems very odd. Surely you cant double dead cat in that you cant use a distraction to distract from a distraction!
Now what was it that Sir Humphrey Appleby said? Oh yes... "Never believe anything until it has been officially denied!"
 

Tetchytyke

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I assume the first lady is trying to get ahead of something by making her Epstein statement. It all seems very odd.
If she's not careful she'll end up like her predecessor Ivana. Ivana "fell down the stairs" and she is now buried in an unmarked grave on a Trump golf course.

Quite. E.g. The most sustained campaign of terrorism in the UK in my lifetime.
Neither party in the Troubles were Christian fundamentalists.

Nah, the likes of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir (two truly nasty pieces of work) are definitely in it for the religious fundamentalism but Netanyahu? He's a much classical right-wing thug who is in it for power (and increasingly to stay out of prison). He'll use religion as a tool of power where it benefits him, but no-way is he a real believer unlike the first two I mentioned.
I don't think that even the likes of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are about the religion.

The disputes in the Middle East are fundamentally the same as every dispute in history: two tribes, for want of a better word, arguing about the same bit of land.

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The thing that always stuns me is that these religious people (at least at the rank and file level) don't seem to realise that fact.
It's the same with any religious organisation.

We have an evangelical Church in the Isle of Man called Living Hope. The chief pastor drives around in his £100,000 Range Rover, pays himself £75,000 a year, and lives in a very nice £1,000,000+ house. They're currently spending millions building a new Church/HQ in the centre of Douglas. All of this, and more, is solely funded by the rank-and-file dutifully paying their tithe every month.

Religious organisations- all of them- are the ultimate financial parasites. The Catholic Church send the collection plate around every week when they're one of the richest organisations on the planet. The Church of England- not a great deal poorer- have the legal right to force nearby homeowners to pay for repairs to their churches (chancel repair liability). The whole thing is just insane.
 
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43096

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We have an evangelical Church in the Isle of Man called Living Hope. The chief pastor drives around in his £100,000 Range Rover, pays himself £75,000 a year, and lives in a very nice £1,000,000+ house. They're currently spending millions building a new Church/HQ in the centre of Douglas. All of this, and more, is solely funded by the rank-and-file dutifully paying their tithe every month.

Religious organisations- all of them- are the ultimate financial parasites. The Catholic Church send the collection plate around every week when they're one of the richest organisations on the planet. The Church of England- not a great deal poorer- have the legal right to force nearby homeowners to pay for repairs to their churches (chancel repair liability). The whole thing is just insane.
Religion is the biggest scam ever perpetrated against people - selling a dream based on things there is no evidence they even exist. Worse, it is state supported.
 

The Ham

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If she's not careful she'll end up like her predecessor Ivana. Ivana "fell down the stairs" and she is now buried in an unmarked grave on a Trump golf course.


Neither party in the Troubles were Christian fundamentalists.


I don't think that even the likes of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are about the religion.

The disputes in the Middle East are fundamentally the same as every dispute in history: two tribes, for want of a better word, arguing about the same bit of land.

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It's the same with any religious organisation.

We have an evangelical Church in the Isle of Man called Living Hope. The chief pastor drives around in his £100,000 Range Rover, pays himself £75,000 a year, and lives in a very nice £1,000,000+ house. They're currently spending millions building a new Church/HQ in the centre of Douglas. All of this, and more, is solely funded by the rank-and-file dutifully paying their tithe every month.

Religious organisations- all of them- are the ultimate financial parasites. The Catholic Church send the collection plate around every week when they're one of the richest organisations on the planet. The Church of England- not a great deal poorer- have the legal right to force nearby homeowners to pay for repairs to their churches (chancel repair liability). The whole thing is just insane.

How many times has the Church of England used this?

In the grand scheme of things it is a rare thing (although there's some high profile cases - read expensive) as the fallout from doing this is significant.

Also, whilst you may not like the Church, that doesn't mean that others feel the same way and therefore are happy to donate money.

Also, depending on the number of people going the monthly cost per person to fund a Church leader might not be all that much.

For example, that £75,000 across 100 households is an average £63 a month, so not much more than some pay to the likes of Sky.
 

edwin_m

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Very seldom, is it about religion, it's about power, it's about greed and wanting more, more land, more power, more money, Trump, and those around him are cut from the same cloth,
All very true, but one way of getting support for a war (or anything else) is to convince a religious group that you are doing their god's work, and therefore it must be the right thing regardless of all rational arguments to the contrary.
 

brad465

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Can you get a more blatant case of market manipulation than this:


Palantir’s stock briefly jumped Friday morning after President Trump praised the data analytics company for its “great war fighting capabilities.”

“Palantir Technologies (PLTR) has proven to have great war fighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, notably including the firm’s stock ticker.

Within minutes, the company’s share price ticked up 3 percent. This provided some relief, as its stock had been trending downward in recent days and had dipped nearly 6 percent Friday morning alone. As of 2:30 p.m. EDT, Palantir was down 3.7 percent and continuing to slide again.

Palantir has been hit hard alongside other software stocks by growing concerns about how AI could impact the industry’s future. Its share price has fallen 14 percent this week and about 24 percent since the beginning of the year.

Trump’s post quickly drew scrutiny on social media. In a post on the social platform X, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) asked, “Is this another blatant example of Trump manipulating markets?”

Palantir is a major government contractor, securing more than $900 million in federal contracts last year. This includes large-scale contracts with the U.S. military, which the company has supported in building out its AI capabilities under Project Maven.

Once a critic of Trump, Palantir CEO Alex Karp has embraced the president in his second term and defended his company’s work with the administration on immigration enforcement efforts.

Palantir has signed deals with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security, drawing pushback from immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers who have warned about the surveillance implications of the technology.

Ahead of the midterm elections, several Democratic candidates have returned or donated campaign contributions linked to Palantir in an effort to distance themselves from the controversy surrounding the company’s work with ICE.

Trump’s comment comes as the administration has faced scrutiny in the wake of several well-timed bets on oil and prediction markets related to the war with Iran, prompting insider trading concerns.

Last month, the White House sent out a note to employees warning against using nonpublic information on financial markets, an official confirmed to The Hill on Friday.
 

Tetchytyke

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Also, whilst you may not like the Church, that doesn't mean that others feel the same way and therefore are happy to donate money.

Also, depending on the number of people going the monthly cost per person to fund a Church leader might not be all that much.

On the one hand, people are free to spend their money how they want. If poor people want to give their hard earned money over so their pastor can drive around in a £100k car and live in a million pound house that’s up to them.

But how freely and willingly do they make that choice? Look at the UCKG, whose pastor is a billionaire purely on the back of tithes and which is widely regarded to be an abusive cult. Look at the Scientologists.

Can you get a more blatant case of market manipulation than this
If people are stupid enough to base their investment decisions on Trump’s Truth Social rantings then they deserve everything they get.
 

The Ham

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On the one hand, people are free to spend their money how they want. If poor people want to give their hard earned money over so their pastor can drive around in a £100k car and live in a million pound house that’s up to them.

But how freely and willingly do they make that choice? Look at the UCKG, whose pastor is a billionaire purely on the back of tithes and which is widely regarded to be an abusive cult. Look at the Scientologists.

Indeed, however for all the high profile cases there's many many other pastors who actuality would be far better off doing what they previously did as job, indeed there are some who have second jobs to make ends meet.

Also, as I said, even a fairly limited size of church (100 households is likely to be around 230 people, which is quite a large Church, but not significantly so) isn't a lot of money on average.

Likewise whilst £60 a month could be a lot, it's not necessarily so. For exams a household earning £50,000 and only using half their 10% tithe to go to the Church could be gifting double that each month (assuming a post tax 10% gift to any charity giving), and so other households might be gifting well below that average and may actually be gifting less than they receive in benefits from attending (for example getting 2 hours where their teenagers are in youth group each week giving then time to spend with their other kids or even child free could easily cost them £45 a term, plus the cost of the uniform, if they were going to scouts, whilst many youth groups run by churches are either free or have a fairly nominal charge, so if they were gifting £12 a month they might not be any worse off).

Most churches don't require 10%, and whilst that's something which was laid out to the Jews in the old testament, that also included an element which our taxes pay for now and so whilst it can be a useful guide, it's not something which is often pushed for.

Even as a guide is often used for all charitable giving and not just to the local church.

Likewise, sometimes the suggestion is that if someone is time rich but cash poor that they could do practical things rather than gifting cash.

Finally, quite a lot of people can gift aid their donations (+25%), so that means that a £65 income to the Church may only cost the giver £52.

As I've said, there's other things which people (including those in very low incomes) can easily spend those sorts of money on (£52 a month would typically get someone less than 4 pints a week in a pub - although it's possible to get more insome very specific cases, likewise buying a meal deal for lunch when working 5 days a week could likely cost that much more than making your own lunches).

It's obvious that personally you don't like religion and maybe that you even potentially think that others are being scammed by it, however, others find it of great benefit and often in ways which they would find hard to put a value to. For example, it can provide company for those who are living on their own, it gives children a way to interact with other people beyond school and family, it encourages men to spend time together and open up to each other, it can breaksdown barriers between different groups of people (young/old, rich/poor, local/newly arrived, British/born overseas, etc.), people can be supported at they go though tough times in their lives and so on.

Whilst the Church doesn't have a monopoly on such things (I know that many other organisations do these things too), I would argue that generally (at least currently in the UK) we'd be worse off as a country if there were no churches at all.

For example, whilst people don't like religious leaders getting involved in politics, churches often encourage people to vote (although they rarely advise directly who for) but they do encourage people to be actively interested (for example they often host hustings which are open to everyone). Likewise, at least in the UK, they tend to oppose war and push for social justice for all be that within the UK (for example food banks and debt advice, shelters for homeless people, campaigning against cuts to welfare and pushing for the living wage - including some being early adopters of paying it) or overseas (for example churches were at least part of the reason why things like Fairtrade exist for things like cotton, coffee and chocolate, as a way to reduce the risk of us buying things with exploitation in the supply chain).

Again nothing which others aren't doing, but without the Church also doing it, the scale would be significantly smaller.
 

perstreperous

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The strongest condemnation I have ever read of the evangelical American approach to religion is in, of all places, Tony Benn's diaries. 7 December 1980:
Woke at 6 and turned on the television and for one hour I listened to a man called Pat Robertson, who runs a right-wing born-again Christian evangelical movement. It was such a hair-raising programme that it undid all the optimism that I had begun to feel when I came to this conference [on 'Eurosocialism and America']. This guy Pat Robertson, who looked like a business executive of about forty-five with one of those slow, charming American smiles, was standing there with a big tall black man beside him, his sidekick, and he talked continuously about the Reagan administration, about the defeat of the liberals, about Reagan’s commitment to the evangelical movement. He had a blackboard showing what in the nineteenth century ‘liberal’ meant. He then wiped that from the blackboard and said that today the liberals are Marxists, Fascists, leftists and socialists.

Then he showed an extract of Reagan saying, ‘We want to keep big government out of our homes, and out of our schools, and out of our family life.’ He went on and on for an hour like this. At the end, he said, ‘Let us pray’, and, his face contorted with fake piety, pleaded with Jesus to protect America, ‘our country’.

I couldn’t switch it off. It was so frightening, the feeling that we are now entering a holy war between that type of reactionary Christianity and Communism. It is a thoroughly wicked and evil interpretation of Christianity.
 

The Ham

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The strongest condemnation I have ever read of the evangelical American approach to religion is in, of all places, Tony Benn's diaries. 7 December 1980:

Unfortunately, and I say this as a Christian, I think that is only for worse since then in the US - part of the issue is that it's takes a very selfish view and doesn't appear to be willing to move towards compassion (take the "thoughts and prayers" whenever there's a mass shooting, but never willing to do anything further - even though the same child would have been protected from abortion even in some very horrific circumstances around the pregnancy).
 

najaB

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However, as the Pope situation has shown, these religions do not advocate war and the Vatican has had to resist US coercion into trying to get them to back this conflict.
I'm reminded of one of the lead stories in The Onion, after the 2001 Al Queda attacks against the USA:
NEW YORK—Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

“Look, I don’t know, maybe I haven’t made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again,” said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. “Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don’t. And to be honest, I’m really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand.”
Link: https://theonion.com/god-angrily-clarifies-dont-kill-rule-1819566178/
 

martin butler

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So... the Arc de Trumph, the orange ogre has endless delusions of grandeur
Being truthful, hasn't he always suffered from delusions of grandeur? that's why he has to make out he's better than anyone else, had an affinity to fake gold, to awards,

He often makes out every woman wants to sleep with him, every man wants to be him, Truth is Women only sleep with him for two reasons, they are getting paid, or secondary, they are being forced to, either by blackmail, or by threats,

Men wanting to be him, again, it's him being used, by others who know how to play him, know what buttons to press, and in what order.
 

brad465

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Another weekend, another Trump insanity display:


US Navy to start 'blockading any and all ships' trying to enter or leave Strait of Hormuz, says Trump

US President Donald Trump says that the US is going to start "BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz".

In a lengthy new post on Truth Social, he says that "the meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not".

He says that "at some point" an agreement on free passage will be reached, but "Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, 'There may be a mine out there somewhere,' that nobody knows about but them."

In the same post Trump also says that he's "instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran", and that the US Navy is going to start " destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits".

"No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas," he says, adding "any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!"

"The Blockade will begin shortly," he says.
 

EYFanatic

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Annetts key

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Another weekend, another Trump insanity display:

Yet more confirmation that there is no intelligence behind his words.

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Well that will surely bring oil prices down...
Even if ships could start sailing today, the disruption that has been caused will mean that oil prices and the prices of all products that have been affected, will take months before their prices fall back to near normal levels. Far too late to help the Republicans in the run up to the November mid term elections....

Trump has already clearly demonstrated that he doesn't understand how worldwide markets work (like the oil market).

No amount of "shouting" is going to get him out of this mess that he has made.
 
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martin butler

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Yet more confirmation that there is no intelligence behind his words.

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Even if ships could start sailing today, the disruption that has been caused will mean that oil prices and the prices of all products that have been affected, will take months before their prices fall back to near normal levels. Far too late to help the Republicans in the run up to the November mid term elections....

Trump has already clearly demonstrated that he doesn't understand how worldwide markets work (like the oil market).

No amount of "shouting" is going to get him out of this mess that he has made.
I wonder who was whispering in Trump's ear all the time, Netanyahu does not want the war to end, Putin, gets a lifeline whilst oil prices are high, and of course it suits their own agenda's

Once the Middle East is off the front pages, guess what might pop up again, Yeap, certain files certain "Friends"

And those military people, who gave the orders, and those who carried them out will one day have to answer for them, in Military court. or in the Hague, if charged with war crimes.
 
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adc82140

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Went over £100 filling up the car today. Yes it's got a huge fuel tank, but still it's a psychological milestone.
 
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Purple Train

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Unfortunately, and I say this as a Christian, I think that is only for worse since then in the US - part of the issue is that it's takes a very selfish view and doesn't appear to be willing to move towards compassion (take the "thoughts and prayers" whenever there's a mass shooting, but never willing to do anything further - even though the same child would have been protected from abortion even in some very horrific circumstances around the pregnancy).
Agreed. Of course, when Tony Benn was writing, it was a comparatively new phenomenon. Now it has had multiple generations to fester and to become something near to the default Christianity for white people in the US. Trying to explain to Americans that the Church of England was derided as a bunch of "soft-hearted Marxists" by Margaret Thatcher is "enlightening" to say the least.

These people have curated a war between theocracies and that never ends well.
 

Pete_uk

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So now that Iran won't open up the straight, America will close the straight.

That's some genius 5D chess there
 

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