Said Steve Bannon.
That made me think about something Ross Douthat said in that podcast blogged 2 posts down: "The Christian doesn’t just think that nature imposes constraints, it’s that God imposes constraints as well.... I’ve come to see [Trump] as someone who has a more providential place in history.... Once you have Trump surviving the assassination attempt, you read that back into the past.... [I]f you see the hand of Providence operating through George Washington and John Adams in the founding of America, you could see the hand of Providence operating through Donald Trump in the chastisement of America. That he is a great man of history whose role is to chastise the liberal intelligentsia and the Never Trumpers and all these groups that failed to govern America, but it doesn’t mean that at the end of the day, he’s actually saving America. Sometimes it’s just a chastisement. I feel like that possibility deserves more consideration from people who have this mystical reaction to the drama of the Trump era...."
Yeah, just because God made Trump President doesn't mean Trump is any good. Sometimes, God is punishing us.
Mga Post
115 komento:
What - you mean, like Hitler?
Bannon is absolutely correct. Losing the stolen election in 2020 and then surviving the 2024 assassination attempt was the hand of God.
The best part of Trump's presidency is seeing the losses and failures of the liberal establishment. The Left will be totally discredited. The tariff thing will drive them over the edge.
Bill Ackman, Harvard alum, thinks Harvard will lose its tax exempt status. Agree. Harvard will fight all the way to SCOTUS and the defeat will be epic
Althouse: "Yeah, just because God made Trump President doesn't mean Trump is any good."
Yeah, and other times He's had enough and just goes, "Screw it. No more Mr. Nice God. Go, Don, go!"
Where I thought you were headed (before you trolled us by equating chastise with punish) is that no matter how rough things get -- no matter how horrible Trump is, or his loss was -- a Christian will eventually see failure as beneficial. We are Pollyannas.
And sometimes present punishment turns out to be a blessing. See, for instance, the story of Joseph. Followed by all of Exodus. And probably I should include Holy Week followed by Easter (I only hesitate there because the punishment fell on Jesus much more than on his followers, which makes the story similar to Joseph, but... Jesus).
This is not comment on Divine Providence's purposes with regard to Trump. I'm only commenting on how we interpret what God does: we often seem to think in binary terms, blessing OR chastisement, but sometimes it's both - and maybe sometimes it's neither?
“Christians believe…” Some believe God’s hand is very light, it has to do will free will.
"before you trolled us by equating chastise with punish"
Chastise and punish are synonyms.
"Chastise" *sounds* somewhat more refined. That fits Douthat. I deliberately reverted to the more common word.
Some people want to see God's hand everywhere. Bannon and Douthat are (apparently) in that group.
So every time something happens they feel compelled to find a reason why God would have chosen that (or they revert to the usual acknowledgment of the mystery of God's ways).
Is it disrespectful to God (or to human reason) to do this kind of political analysis? Are they not afraid God disapproves of this sort of thing? Dare I express my wonder whether they believe if they are not afraid?
Did the hand of God push the bullet towards Donald Trump's ear, or away from it?
Discuss.
For the record: I taught the law school course Religion and the Constitution for 15+ years.
I'm not dropping in on this topic casually and haphazardly trolling.
This is one of my main subjects here on this blog (which I've been working on for 20+ years).
One of Vivek's themes was the second American revolution and returning to the Founders' values.
Trump is doing that now.
Today's liberals are very far from the Founders' values.
The libs need to be beaten so badly that they know they are defeated. Harvard losing its tax exempt status will be part of that defeat.
And did you know that Harvard is borrowing $8b? And it sold some of its portfolio at a crummy price.
Some will argue that God pushed the bullet toward Trump's ear, so as to graze him and gain his undivided attention to the task at hand.
Has God then run out of bushes to burn?
Steve Bannon knows that there is a cadre of very conservative religious voters in the GOP and is only too happy to pander to them in exactly the same way that say ... Supreme Court Justice Ketani Jackson Five pandered to Democrats when she claimed to not know what a "woman" is.
Politics isn't ONLY a blood sport.
"Some people want to see God's hand everywhere. Bannon and Douthat are (apparently) in that group."
Disagree. Not everywhere but in special circumstances.
IMO, God has a special place in His heart for the US because it was founded on values that He favors. Our Creator gave us certain inalienable rights; among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Natural law was a big thing with the Founders. No other country was founded on Godly values and Natural law.
God also probably wanted to get back at the Brits with their insane divine right of Kings.
Washington's retreat, under a rare summer fog, from NY to NJ was a divine act. It was the bulk of our troops. If the Brits would have destroyed the bulk of our army then (and Washington!), we lose the war.
Althouse: "For the record: I taught the law school course Religion and the Constitution for 15+ years."
Great. I'd like to have a serious discussion of what does or doesn't constitute a "religion" that merits constitutional protection. I believe this is a genuine existential question for our country. And it needs to be clearly and definitively settled in the very near future.
For example, if one starts an asserted religion that orders its believers to subjugate or even kill everyone that doesn't belong to that religion, is that a constitutionally protected "religion"?
Until COVID came along, I remember things going pretty well. The economy was strong, the border was closed, the world's hotspots were cooling off, Ukrainians weren't dying in droves and Afghan women weren't blatantly oppressed.
Trump's chaos was more chaotic, but life was pretty good.
"If one starts an asserted religion that orders its believers to subjugate or even kill everyone that doesn't belong to that religion, is that a constitutionally protected "religion"?
That's a coercive cult, of course.
But according to the US Supreme Court, Islam as you describe it, is a "religion."
Which is all the proof you need to know about courts in our country.
That he is a great man of history whose role is to chastise the liberal intelligentsia and the Never Trumpers and all these groups that failed to govern America,
Or to paraphrase the Great Khan's famous boast: he is the flail of God. If they had not committed great sins, God would not have visited a punishment like him upon them.
Here are a couple of verses from the Book of Mormon, a book claiming to be scripture recorded and purposely left behind by earlier inhabitants of the American continent:
From Mosiah 29:
26 Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people.
27 And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.
Mormon 4:
5…. But, behold, the judgments of God will overtake the wicked; and it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished….
[BTW, a better view of God’s hand in COVID might be to see it as a test run for how we and our families are spiritually, emotionally, and temporally prepared to handle what the Book of Revelations says is coming.]
I wonder if Ann voted for Obama the second time as well…
Some believe that while man can create the illusion of control, that control truly rests in the hand of God. Does the hand of God work for good or for ill? While considering that, consider that we are all God's creatures and we will all be dead soon enough. Which end of that arrangement is good? Which is not?
That depends. Now you can talk about that Austrian guy with the funny mustache. What was that?
I'll be over here listening to Kate Smith. It ain't over yet.
Begley: "God also probably wanted to get back at the Brits with their insane divine right of Kings."
Maybe on a divine time-scale, but on a human timeline, the Brits had the least divine monarchy in history at that point. The King still had some real powers, but Parliament had more. All the rebel rhetoric was aimed at George III as a synechdoche for the British state, but all parties understood the real colonial policy was hammered out in Parliament.
Even George Washington referred to the redcoats as the "ministerial Army," i.e., established and controlled by the Prime and other ministers rather than by the King himself. The term also encapsulated his feeling that he was fighting not to become something other than British, but to have his rights as a Brit respected.
The rebels probably would have accepted the dominion status later given to the other white colonies, if it had ever been offered. Part and parcel of that dominion status is remaining under the Crown.
One of the ironies of the American Revolution is that we rebelled against the freest country in the world at that time.
JSM
Except - Biden let in millions of illegals - illegally. He also stuffed the courts with unqualified judicial Leftwing Marxists.
Federal Statues do not require "due process" for removal of illegal aliens.
Biden, Obama and that crew was God's punishment....
Chastise and punish are synonyms.
"Chastise" *sounds* somewhat more refined. That fits Douthat. I deliberately reverted to the more common word.
I believe our hostess is incorrect about this and Kate and Jamie are correct. In the context of religion, chastise is not merely a refined alternative for the use of punishment. It is a loving and devine guidance by God for believers to refine their faith, align them with spiritual values, or prepare them for salvation. It’s less about retribution and more about moral or spiritual improvement. For example, Hebrews 12:6 states, “For whom the Lord loves, He chastens,” suggesting chastisement as a constructive, loving act whereas in a secular sense, it is scolding or discipline.
But then there are also those fervent monks who chastise themselves by slinging barbed whips around upon their own backs which is probably just a wicked gay thing.
- Krumhorn
I can’t speak for God, but I voted for Trump to chastise the aforementioned. I’m glad a few of you gave me a hand in that endeavor.
"Yeah, just because God made Trump President doesn't mean Trump is any good. Sometimes, God is punishing us. "
Or, maybe, he's Cyrus the Great II.
If God were punishing us, Harris would be President.
Trump supporters should pray for Jesus to skyrocket the economy before the Midterm elections. The Lourde has told Donald via a fiery bush to bet the house on that outcome.
The fact that God's existence and purpose are immune to proof and disproof should warn us away from this sort of thinking from Bannon and Douthat.
It's difficult enough to figure out what things are rational, efficient and fair.
iF TAGLES GOES 3-1 i'll take the odds, he'll be Francis + (young 67) Trump is far down in the nomination but he may have Bondi get involved or put a giant tariff on the Vatican to make a deal. CONCLAVE,(great movie ,shows you what could really be in the age of AI and new world order..WHY NOT..If God is for ya ,who can be against ya!! You know what OZZIE sang "Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope, do you think he's a fool"(MASTER OF REALITY AFTER FOREVER) you know Ozzie identifies with some christian beliefs he says he leans more Spiritual,,his moms was a catholic and it is rumored he is a member of the church of england,, I betcha Tagles will like him may have a few albums!!
Conclave sucks.
“Federal Statues do not require ‘due process’ for removal of illegal aliens.”
I think a more accurate statement is that due process for illegals is that they can be summarily deported from the US under the authority of the Executive branch without further Judicial branch proceedings.
I like Douthat, but I think he's a little off here. There is a distinction between the active and the permissive will of God. God does not punish people in this world ("were those people who died when the tower fell greater sinners than the rest"), but he does allow us to experience the consequences of our actions.
Things do happen by coincidence that are not miracles. It's amazing that the shooter missed Trump. But history is full of good people being assassinated and bad people narrowly escaping. (Not making a judgement on Trump here). It means nothing.
Trump is a consequence of our actions.
Ann Althouse said...
"before you trolled us by equating chastise with punish"
Chastise and punish are synonyms.
"Chastise" *sounds* somewhat more refined. That fits Douthat. I deliberately reverted to the more common word.
They should not be considered synonyms.
Chastise is limited to verbal haranguing more along the lines of hectoring.
Punishment is usually reserved for actual concrete sanctions and consequences.
Listening to someone whine about what you did is often not punishment. You need to get salt from somewhere and tears are delicious.
This is what Dinky’s posts sound like when set to music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQDY3HFkh_Y
"The Christian doesn’t just think that nature imposes constraints, it’s that God imposes constraints as well..."
Ross Doughnut is such a joke, that's why he's the uncle tom conservative at the NYT's. Yeah, our side is all about Not Using Power, and the Leftwing - not so much. Just the sort of situation every leftist dreams of. They get to score touchdowns when they have the ball, but "we" contraint ourselves and punt the ball.
I'm sure the hand of God is guiding human affairs, but which affairs and for what motivation is unclear. If someone wins and someone loses, is God punishing the loser? Or rewarding the winner?
And Christians also believe in Satan. When's the last time Ross Doughnut talked about him?
>Dave Begley said...
Bannon is absolutely correct. Losing the stolen election in 2020 and then surviving the 2024 assassination attempt was the hand of God.<
Absolutely, no less! 'Cuz God's on our side always, of course.
l'll bet Omaha is God's favorite city in the world, too. And his favorite university...well, you know...
"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "
Lincoln 2nd Inaugural
yes, reading Georgianna, you see how the Pitt regime, was the one who started the war, the Grafton term, were the ones that
provoked the tea stamps
Howard said...
Trump supporters should pray for Jesus to skyrocket the economy before the Midterm elections. The Lourde has told Donald via a fiery bush to bet the house on that outcome.
American's and particularly working class Trump supporters have already separated themselves from the “economy.” 92% of assets are owned by 10% of the people.
Private sector employment and wage growth will be the key. Both are already going up. Neither of those things are good for the “economy.”
Also the “economy” was only “growing” because Biden was shoveling money we didn’t have to cronies. Private sector activity is growing now but only a bit faster than the government is shrinking.
There will also be a tightening of the labor market and wages will go up. Powell is losing his mind over that and this will be painted as bad for the “economy” by all of the smart people. It will be called inflation. It should be referred to as the proportionate increase of distribution of wealth to labor verses capital.
We don’t need the “economy” to do well. We need the working class to be prosperous. These are just different things.
Whether its Slave holders using the Bible to justify slavery or fake 21st Century using the Bible to justify illegal immigration and cheap labor its always the same ol' Con. The Devil can quote the Bible for his own purposes.
I love how you now have "Christians" who will support abortion and Gay marriage on one side, while "Christian Zionists" worship Israel and the Jews, on the other. Even the Pope seemed more interested in Climate Change and Antisemitism than in Jesus Christ.
The 21st Century is the age of Religious fakery.
"For example, if one starts an asserted religion that orders its believers to subjugate or even kill everyone that doesn't belong to that religion, is that a constitutionally protected "religion"?"
What counts as "religion" within the meaning of the clauses is generally understood broadly (see the cases about conscientious objectors).
There is an analysis of whether someone *sincerely* believes what he purports to believe.
Other than that, freedom to do things like make a human sacrifice is withheld not by saying it's not religion but by regarding generally applicable laws as not what the Free Exercise clause protects against (but see the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and various state provisions).
The irregular election of 2020, in hindsight, was a blessing and a curse for Democrats. They got what they highly desired, power, and then squandered the opportunity on frivolous things. Now they are wild and lost.
mr bott said...
I wonder if Ann voted for Obama the second time as well…
I believe she actually supported Romney which was worse.
"regarding generally applicable laws"
I should add the word "neutral" before "generally applicable," so if there's a generally applicable law that was adopted in order to burden religion, there would be strict scrutiny.
And some things pass strict scrutiny. A law against killing, even if it were adopted to get at that hated sect that kills people as a religion, would still be upheld and applicable against the sect.
Again, it's not about whether it's a religion or not.
As the French would say, God says what wise men say he says. There is little to it other than that.
"I believe our hostess is incorrect about this and Kate and Jamie are correct.... For example, Hebrews 12:6 states, “For whom the Lord loves, He chastens,” suggesting chastisement as a constructive, loving act whereas in a secular sense, it is scolding or discipline."
You made the mistake of equating "chasten" and "chastise"!
I am right: "chastise" and "punish" are synonyms. Look it up. By contrast, "chasten" means "scold."
there are some terrible teachers take russell moore, who are leading their congregation astray,
hes the one who wasn't sure Jesus was nailed to the cross'
And just to go back to the context: what could Douthat have meant by saying God made Trump President to chastise us? How could Trump being President be understood as something more like a stern fatherly talking-to? There was no verbal message from God, only the saving of Trump from assassination and the way people voted in elections. That has to be understood as a punishment and not a mere scolding.
Due process is to protect citizens from the government. It's not to protect invaders from expulsion.
I'm willing to soften what I've said and concede that "chasten," "chastise," and "punish" are related and have different applications and nuance, but I stand by my shift from "chastise" to "punish" because: 1. "chastise" sounds a little hoity-toity to me, and 2. there's no element of speech coming from God, only actions taking place in the world.
"Chasten" appears on that Thanksgiving hymn, "We Gather Together":
We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
the wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His name, He forgets not His own.
"Chasten" and "Chastise" are certainly more closely associated than are "chastise" and "punish". Chastise can be a loose synonym for punish, but their is certainly an element of discipline and moral correction with Chastise than with Punish which is more about retribution than discipline and correction.
its rather clear, that Biden''s role was in humiliating the people,
see the capitulation re Afghanistan, see the snarled supply lines,
God's too busy fixing the results of televised American sporting events to have time for bullets or ballots.
Ice Nine:
There's no question that God's favorite university is Creighton, but for some reason we haven't made it to the Final Four!
the persecutions of Christians for unwillingness to acknowledge the pagan gods,
What democrats are missing (again) is that this isn't "about the economy, stupid": it's a culture war the roots of which reach back to at least the mid-'60s.
As far as Bannon and Miller and the Heritage Foundation are concerned, this is their time, and they are going to transgress as far, as hard and as quickly as they can. They won't want to blow this opportunity to tear it all down for once and for all.
To their credit, they've been pretty clear about their intentions. Recognize it for what it is.
Yeah, just because God made Trump President doesn't mean Trump is any good. Sometimes, God is punishing us.
That comes across as an amazingly petulant comment, Professor. Were you a collector of cheap, Chinese-made, dolls? Sorry your hobby was spoiled.
Eight years of Obama and four years of Biden, separated by four years of Donald Trump hamstrung by a relentless attack waged by the Deep State, has demonstrated the truth of Adam Smith’s remark that “there is a great deal of ruin in a state.” Trump has a great many ruined things to fix, and four years does not give him that much time to fix them. Sorry if your bunions are getting stepped on but most of us Trump supporters care more about fixing things that have been broken than the tender sensitivities of a non-STEM professor.
Isn’t $37,000,000,000,000 in debt enough punishment, professor?
>Ann Althouse said...
I'm willing to soften what I've said and concede that "chasten," "chastise," and "punish" are related and have different applications and nuance,<
Heh, now do "garner" and "get."
A few million piggies at the trough ain’t enough for ye?
“God with us
"Gott mit Uns" (God with us), taken from the inscription on German soldiers' belt buckles, originally meant to invoke God's support, becomes in the English caption "God for Us," a nationalist cry to smite the enemy.”
People trying to convince other people that they know how God thinks…
Yeah, just because God made Trump President doesn't mean Trump is any good. Sometimes, God is punishing us.
Not all of us.
Big Mike: "That comes across as an amazingly petulant comment, Professor. Were you a collector of cheap, Chinese-made, dolls? Sorry your hobby was spoiled."
I believe she was being sarcastic. In effect she was completing the previous paragraph as though she was channeling Douthat. An Althousian aside.
It would have been like the Western Front in World War I, just two sides dug in ...
Haig and Joffre wanted "'16" to be providential. But it wasn't.
"Chastisement" or "castigation" works much better than "vengefulness" or "vindictiveness" in describing what's going on now.
“ "chasten" means "scold."”
And chaste means you can’t screw, so you really can’t tell what the hell something means a priori.
https://x.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/1919031397139853421
Banning and Douthat are knaves or fools for trying to justify the ways of god to man.
The Greek Gods are more interesting than the Judeo-Christian-Muslim gods.
It’s all bullshit
It sounds like this is about "civil religion" rather than religion as such. It's the secularization of the biblical and Puritan idea that nations are punished for betraying their faith and values. You can see civil religion in the contemptible blather in recent years about the "soul of America." The intent then was to portray Donald Trump as a threat, as the betrayal of American values. What we're seeing now is Trump as the one who punishes the earlier betrayals. In biblical or civil religion can one be both hero-redeemer and chastiser, or are those separate roles that can't be combined?
Random Thoughts With Jamie:
The irregular election of 2020 - I may start using this formulation of JIM's! It's pretty inarguable, isn't it? Of course, there is at least one giant element of the 2024 election that was deeply irregular: the fact that the original candidate was a carefully guarded dementia patient. And then there were others that were less irregular but still weird(ish) like the lack of a Democrat primary and the candidacy of a previous but non-consecutive president. But nothing like the many and systemic irregularities of 2020.
Readering @11:24 made me laugh. Thank you for that!
I don't know what difference it makes whether Jesus was nailed to the cross or simply suspended by his arms; it's the suffocation that kills you. This is not an endorsement of whoever that preacher is. I think Jesus was nailed to the cross - but that would've been just for the sadism of it, and the "example."
I wonder what Kak@11:35 envisions Bannon and Miller "transgressing" against. The answer could be instructive as to what s/he thinks ought to be Our Norms.
Ice Nine said...
“l'll bet ‘Omaha’ is God's favorite city in the world”
And his favorite QB audible, too.
Dave Begley said...
“There's no question that God's favorite university is Creighton, but for some reason we haven't made it to the Final Four!”
I think it has something to do with 40 years in the desert.
What the "Wall of Separation" materialists ignore is the great human need to understand one's action--especially political action--in a greater context, something that gives it meaning beyond a pure individual power struggle. (Ironically, this need manifests even in the purely materialist context of Marxism, with its constant appeal to progress, History and the "right side of History"). When one divorces religion from the public sphere, both whither or hollow out. Religion become just another NGO advocating and distributing (material) welfare, and the public sphere--politics and art--lose their soul. Whether President Trump can restore the soul to America is questionable. But if the Douthats of the USA see cause for reflection in their chastisement, that at least is a start.
Big Mike, it was a mocking paraphrase of what Douthat said.
Most of us have read enough Althouse to recognize that.
Why does God only have one hand? Was he in a tug-o-war accident? Birth defect? Snake bite?
Howard said...
“The Lorde has told Donald via a fiery bush…”
And here I thought she was working on her next studio album due out in June.
Never ascribe to the almighty what can equally be described as the nonsense we get up to ourselves.
God didn't move the bullet. Trumps head moved. What caused Trump to move his head? God only knows.
I don't think God had anything to do with Trump getting elected. I think the leftist shenanegans under Obama and Biden finally got the American people fed up.
Jamie, FWIW I've seen indications that both were used. I would speculate the nails were used to prevent the condemned from leveraging their arms to assist in breathing, similar to the practice of breaking the legs after a period of time to hasten death.
As far as Bannon and Miller and the Heritage Foundation are concerned, this is their time, and they are going to transgress as far, as hard and as quickly as they can. They won't want to blow this opportunity to tear it all down for once and for all.
Very perceptive, Kakistophage. That is precisely why I voted for Trump.
Going back to Ecclesiastes, we've known that there is a time for all things. Now is the time to tear down the monster enemy occupation government until not one stone remains standing atop another.
I am right: "chastise" and "punish" are synonyms. Look it up. By contrast, "chasten" means "scold."
"We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing.
He chastens and hastens his will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own."
God sent Trump to chasten the wicked oppressive Democrats and stop them from distressing us.
I do not agree that chastise is a synonym for punishment in modern English. I did look it up. The dictionary at hand did list punish as a meaning, which WAS news to me, but labelled it "dated." If someone said "I chastised him" to me, I would think of a verbal rebuke, not 40 lashes. I think a verbal rebuke can be a kind of punishment, just like a timeout can be a punishment for a child, but I think the word punishment has a wider meaning. I someone referred to physical punishment as chastisement, I would think that odd or an intentionally humorous understatement or euphemism.
However, more to the substance of your point, it is inarguable that the God of the Bible punishes humans. He does it all the time. I am expert in neither the Bible nor law, but just off top of mind, the flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are some grand old killing kind of punishments.
*"synonym for punish" not "synonym for punishment"
Spare the rod spoil the child. That's now viewed as an antique concept--certainly not something to be applied to today's crop of snowflakes. But the regulatory state, and progressive government and all that it is really needs chastisement. Some Deep State members and their adherents may see Donald Trump as the Scourge of God. A latter day Attila the Hun, or to paraphrase Jean Fraud Kerry, "Zen Zhis Khan". Both Attila and Genghis rode out of the East to change the world as its inhabitants knew it. Whatever--the USA has had "great awakenings" of various kinds since it was founded. Trump's second term is an awakening to render the left's secular religion less oppressive.
I don't believe in providence, but Trump is in a much better position now than he would have been in 2020. China is economically weaker. The Democrats have shown their hand. Israel will do the heavy lifting to keep Iran from getting nukes.
In all seriousness, God has stepped in at the crucial times in our history. That's because, IMO, the US is the only nation founded on Natural Law. We are the only nation that recognizes that people are made in the image and likeliness of God.
The big moments when God stepped in:
-Sparing the troops and Washington's life when they were trapped in New York and the summer fog rolled in.
-Election of Washington.
-Washington stepping down after two terms.
-Election of Lincoln.
-Winning the Civil War.
-Election of FDR.
-Trump not killed.
That's it. Otherwise, we're on our own. "Pray as if everything depended upon God, but work as if everything depended upon you." St. Ignatius Loyola, S.J.
It's amazing that the shooter missed Trump.
Newsflash to Steven: The shooter didn't miss. Trump was hit. Not killed.
“I'm not dropping in on this topic casually and haphazardly trolling.“
It was some damn good targeted trolling, judging from the comments
So long as we are on a theological kick, and arguing the fine points of synonymy, my question is: are the words God, Allah, and Yahweh synonyms?
My view of the Constitution and Religion is that the words "religion", "church", "priest", etc. & synonyms, should not appear in any statute.
The government should not be attempting to decide what is and is not a religion.
Begley: you might get me to agree God arranged the election of FDR, but I (and lots of other non-dime-acceptors) would put him in the same column as Attila.
JSM
Anyone else besides me think Dinky is in the manic phase of bipolar disorder? Or maybe just on meth?
“It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’" - said somewhere, somehow, sometime, by somebody, and echo, O Captain, My Captain
"For example, if one starts an asserted religion that orders its believers to subjugate or even kill everyone that doesn't belong to that religion, is that a constitutionally protected "religion"?"
I've given thought to that before. What constitutes religion. It's rather obvious from the writings of the founders that in referring to "freedom of religion" they were referring to Judaism and all the various Christian religions. Some were familiar with the writings of Mohammed, and weren't favorably inclined towards muslims. Likely the number of muslims in the colonies wouldn't need any of the fingers on one hand to count. None of the slaves were- because muslims wouldn't sell muslims to be slaves of Christians. And the knowledge of others, Buddhism, Shinto, and Hinduism, and others, wasn't likely known much at all. I have to wonder if Zoroastrian was known was known and studied.
Much of Europe also as laws recognizing freedom of religion. And they have committees and councils set up to determine if a religion is, indeed, a religion. Scientology, for example, is not recognized as a religion in many countries. Some ban it, some don't, some allow it but good luck getting a security clearance. Ad I have to agree, it shouldn't be recognized as a religion, it's a fairly successful scam.
And there's this from google AI :" For example, a federal court in the US state of Nebraska ruled that Pastafarianism is a satirical parody, not a genuine religion. " Don't know if that has made it's way up to the Supreme Court yet...
And according to The Guardian" UK, Jediism in the UK has more adherents then Scientology. Not actually a bad thing, in my opinion, though neither, in my opinion, is actually a religion...
Let's say Congress passed a law to establish whether or not a proclaimed religion was actually a religion, with the tax benefits of a religion only applying to recognized religions. And established some basic rules for disqualification. I can think of two off the top of my head.
A recognized religion may not:
1. Call for people of other religions to be killed, slaughtered, or treated as second class citizens because they are of a different religion.
2. Treat their own members or members of other religions differently based on class or caste, or any other classification system, including color and race.
3. Allow actual human or animal sacrifice to their deity or deities.
4. Endorse or practice slavery in any form
So pretty much, islam and Hinduism would be the only two not recognized by the first two outs. And voodoo and a few others by the third. And islam, again, by #4
But looking at some court decisions- here and overseas:
4. Must not be an obvious parody of religions.
Recall- one of the earliest immigration bans was against islam- do you believe you can have more then one wife? If the answer yes, back you went.
John Mosby:
FDR and Churchill won WW2. It also helped that Hitler was an idiot and invaded Russia.
“ Big Mike, it was a mocking paraphrase of what Douthat said.”
Thank you, Rabel. That is exactly right. I was going to say that myself to Big Mike, so it was very cool to see that you had said it.
@Rabel, @planetgeo, I have been a reader and commentator on this blog since circa 2007. IMAO if Althouse didn't mean it she would not have typed it.
Kate is right.
I'm waiting for the routine rebuttals to this messianic interpretation, such as Voltaire's "Candide" or anything from Friedrich Nietzsche...
Trump's life story and the dramatic arc of his political career shows that truth can indeed be stranger than fiction. He does indeed prompt an obvious, fatalistic, providential interpretation. And he brings to mind the "Chosen by God" plot of The Blue's Brothers (1980) too (i.e., performers/celebrities).
The main issue here is that those who believe they are chosen tend to be rather arrogant...see Musk's first month leading DOGE. One day Trump will not be with us and the world will move on. It always does. I personally think Trump has been a consequence of a world staking on thin ice for a long time, and another would have filled the void if Trump didn't exist.
Convergent evolution and effective functionality shapes all life, and it has for hundreds of millions of years.
“l'll bet ‘Omaha’ is God's favorite city in the world”
But not his favorite beach.
Ampersand aksed, "Are the words God, Allah, and Yahweh synonyms?"
Linguistically they signify the same (or close enough) concept or person; as also IMO, Bog, or Dieu.
Theologically, the devil is in the details.
Narr and Ampersand, ref deonyms:
God - may come from Germanic Godan, a form of Wotan/Odin.
Allah - may come from El, Semitic name that was originally given to the chief god of the Near Eastern pantheon. Troublemakers will say it comes from Al-Lat, a goddess in the pagan Arab pantheon, but that is a false cognate.
YHWH - was definitely a proper name of a particular god, and not even the supreme god, of the Near Eastern pantheon. He was originally a storm god, like Thor. There are Psalms that focus on YHWH's storm powers. That's why one of JC's first weird tricks to show his divinity was calming the storm and walking on water: the storm stuff still resonated even in the first century. Other Old Testament names of pagan gods that got attributed to the single universal god of later Judaism were El, Elohim ("gods" as a semitic honorific plural), El-Yon (the Most High), and El Shaddai.
So in all three cases, the name of a particular god wound up getting adapted for the one universal god as the speakers of that language developed from paganism to monotheism.
If history had gone a little bit different, might have happened with Mithras or Aten....
JSM
Begley: "FDR and Churchill won WW2. It also helped that Hitler was an idiot and invaded Russia."
Winston yes. But FDR started WW2 for us in the Pacific by provoking Japan with a huge fleet aimed right at them.
Had he left the Pacific alone, we could have bought SE Asian raw materials from the new Japanese management. No Korean War because the whole peninsula would still be a satrapy of the Japanese Empire. Any Vietnam War would have been fought against Japan rather than the French and us.
And most importantly, no People's Republic of China.
FDR was the idiot.
JSM
So in all three cases, the name of a particular god wound up getting adapted for the one universal god as the speakers of that language developed from paganism to monotheism. If history had gone a little bit different, might have happened with Mithras or Aten....
But that indeed did happen, during late antiquity, to basically all the gods and goddesses of Olympus and all the deities of the other cultural religious pantheons then current in the Roman Empire, including basically all the newfangled popular Eastern cults such as Isis and Mithras (which had collectively eclipsed the Greco-Roman “Old Religion” of Olympus)—which thereupon all got subsumed into a kind of monotheism where their individual aspects became mere aspects of the multifaced One God—except in the case of Christianity, which was sternly excluded from the growing pantheocratic monotheistic brotherhood of late Classical religions.
Historian T.M. Lindsay describes the metaphysical structure of the cosmos—according to the new, Western (essentially Monotheistic) Paganism which was powerful in the late antique Roman Empire—as it was ultimately envisioned in a consolidated form by the last pagan Roman Emperor, Julian: {quoting…}
The Neoplatonic thought of a Trinity of existence took the central place of the Christian {Trinity} in this new pagan theology.
Three worlds exist.
1. First and highest is the realm of pure ideas where the Supreme Principle, the One, the Highest Good, the Great First Cause, lives and reigns.
2. Below it is the intellectual world over which presides the same Supreme Principle, but now represented by an emanation from Itself, wholly spiritual, the Logos of the Platonic philosophy.
3. The third is the world of sense existence, the universe of things seen and handled, and there, as beseems its surroundings, the ruler, the emanation from the Supreme Principle, assumes a visible form and can be seen while adored.
{/unQuote}
The last, of course, being Helios the (physical) sun in the sky.
Superficially it would appear that the foregoing principles don't leave much room for the traditional Greco-Roman gods and goddesses of Olympus, together with their religion (along with all their peregrine kin)—but they were there, in kind of a simulacrum form—subsumed into the new faith as mere aspects of Reality.
One can read much more about this intensely interesting late-antique era here—pointing to T.M. Lindsay's complete chapter on this topic from the Cambridge Medieval History (X posting).
“ Had he left the Pacific alone, we could have bought SE Asian raw materials from the new Japanese management.”
Who would have ruled their enslaved colonial empire as a death cult. The Imperial Japanese Army was demonic, cut out your liver and eat it while they rape your sister Demonic.
So in all three cases, the name of a particular god wound up getting adapted for the one universal god as the speakers of that language developed from paganism to monotheism.
If history had gone a little bit different, might have happened with Mithras or Aten....
Could be worse, we could be sacrificing children to Baal or Moloch or Quetzalcoatl.
Zeus became Jovis (Jove). Jove the father = Jovis pater = Jupiter. Cf. Sanskrit “Dyaus Pitar” - Sky father or father of the daylight. Zeus also a doublet of Deus which gives Dio, Dieu, Dios, and the other words for God in the Romance languages. Also related to Theo- words like theology, theodicy, theophilia. And deity, deify, etc.
All trace back to indo-European “*dyeu” - Sky or Heaven, worshipped as a deity, whence also “day”.
McNeil - very cool. Thanks. In a lot of ways, the pagans were more receptive than the Jews to Christianity. Plus the Jews themselves had absorbed a lot of the ideas you describe - see, eg, Philo of Alexandria.
JSM
john mosby said...
“But FDR started WW2 for us in the Pacific by provoking Japan with a huge fleet aimed right at them.”
To go off a bit on a tangent… In 1980, the idea that FDR deliberately let Pearl Harbor happen to get us in to WWII was popular enough that my high school history teacher felt the need to debunk it to the class. Much like the later “Bush had advance knowledge of 9/11”, it required the President to piece together random bits of information that were only obvious in hindsight.
If FDR wanted to get us into a war, it would have been with Germany and not Japan. He clearly put the navy/army air force in agressive patrols such that that active combat was inevitable. And we had actively engaged Nazi submarines hunting British supply ships off the coast of Iceland a couple of months before December 1941.
"And we had actively engaged Nazi submarines hunting British supply ships off the coast of Iceland a couple of months before December 1941."
The USS Reuben James was sunk in October 1941. Woody Guthrie wrote a song about her. Over 100 men went down. Here's my favorite version. I love how the men's names bubble up from the darkness: link
The true geniuses of WW2 weren't FDR or Churchill or Stalin. But the men and women who unleashed our manufacturing power. And the men who organized our logistical power to deliver what was needed when it was needed where it was needed.
At the end of WW2 the United States had 28 fleet carriers and 122 escort carriers. The Japanese has zero. Germany had zero.
19,247 Sherman tanks were delivered to the US Army during WW2.17,184 were delivered to the United Kingdom forces. When cars, Jeeps, truck and tanks were delivered to the troops in Europe the were driven off the docks. No maintenance. No assembly. All the spare parts they needed were delivered with them. The same for airplanes and ships.
That is the miracle of WW2.
The main issue here is that those who believe they are chosen tend to be rather arrogant...see Musk's first month leading DOGE. One day Trump will not be with us and the world will move on. It always does. I personally think Trump has been a consequence of a world staking on thin ice for a long time, and another would have filled the void if Trump didn't exist.
Convergent evolution and effective functionality shapes all life, and it has for hundreds of millions of years.
Yes, but the BIG QUESTION is "Why?" Perhaps beyond the scope of brief blog comments.
Also Trump and Musk could have sat on their wealthy asses and waited for some more humble and less divisive heroes to come along. While the Obamas and Starmers and Schiffs kept things humming right along...
FDR was trying to maneuver us into war with Germany, and the attack on Pearl Harbor posed a dilemma for him--a dilemma that was resolved by Hitler declaring war on us, something he was not obligated to do by any agreement with Japan.
The relocation of the main fleet units to Pearl Harbor was meant as a warning and deterrent to Japan; I suspect that the very existence of a large and modern US Navy would in itself provide provocation to the Japanese militarists if they needed one. They seemed to have no trouble finding reasons to attack other countries when they wanted to, like those guys in Europe.
When God shows up, the inexplicable becomes explicable.
If God made Trump's head jerk, then it is the hand of God. If God chose not to interfere, it's still the hand of God.
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