Our would-be presidents are God-fearing clowns (XPOST in GD)

[Binkie The Clown]

[font size=4]Marco Rubio’s deranged religion, Ted Cruz’s bizarre faith: Our would-be presidents are God-fearing clowns[/font]

Rand Paul, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton all spout pious religious lies. We must grill them on what they really mean
Jeffrey Tayler



Aspirants to the White House, both Democratic and Republican, have, as we all know, begun “announcing,” thus initiating, from a rationalist’s point of view, a media carnival featuring, on both sides, an array of supposedly God-fearing clowns and faith-mongering nitwits groveling before Evangelicals and nattering on about their belief in the Almighty and their certainty that if we just looked, we could find answers to many of our ills in the Good Book.

The candidates will cloak their true agendas – serving the Lords of Wall Street far more zealously than Our Father who art (or really, art not) in heaven – in pious patter about “values,” about the need to “restore America” and return us to the state of divinely granted exceptionalism President Obama has so gravely squandered. This Season of Unreason will end with the elections of November 2016, but its consequences – validation of the idea that belief without evidence is a virtue, that religion, and especially Christianity, deserves a place in our politics, our Constitutionally enshrined secularism notwithstanding – will live on and damage the progressive cause.

More at THIS LINK

[beam me up scottie]

1. Warning: Don't read this article on a full stomach.

Among the faith-deranged, Rubio stands out. He briefly dumped one magic book for another, converting from Roman Catholicism to Mormonism and then back again. (Reporters take note: This is faith-fueled flip-flopping, which surely indicates a damning character flaw to be investigated. Flip-flopping of a different sort helped sink John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid.) Yet even as a re-minted Catholic, Rubio cheats on the Pope with a megachurch in Miami called Christ Fellowship. As religion and politics blogger Bruce Wilson points out, Christ Fellowship is a hotbed of “demonology and exorcism, Young Earth creationism, and denial of evolution,” and is so intolerant it demands its prospective employees certify they are not “practicing homosexuals” and don’t cheat on their spouses. (Check out its manifesto under “About Us – What We Believe.”) As regards evolution, Rubio confesses that he’s “not a scientist” and so cannot presume to judge the fact of evolution on its merits, and holds that creationism should be taught in schools as just one of many “multiple theories” about our origins.

...

Allow me a brief yet significant digression. One wonders, in Cruz’s case, if the malady of faith isn’t acquired, but transmitted genetically. In 2013, his father, Rafael, an Evangelical pastor, spoke at a Second Amendment advocacy meeting in Oklahoma. He declared atheism amounts to a lack of moral absolutes. Hence, “If there’s no god,” then no moral absolutes can exist, “and you can change the rules.” This “leads us to sexual immorality, leads us to sexual abuse, leads us to perversion, and of course, no hope!” At least one of Ted Cruz’s own direr musings — that gays are waging a ”jihad . . . in Indiana and Arkansas, and going after people of faith who respect the biblical teaching that marriage is the union of one man and one woman” — prompt the question: if Cruz is elected, will he classify homosexuality as terrorism and dispatch gay “jihadis” to Guantanamo?

During his 31-minute announcement address, Cruz recounts how his once-truant dad found Jesus and returned home. Otherwise, peppering his talk with references to God, Cruz informs us he will restore a United States brought low under Obama’s maleficent rein by uniting “millions of courageous conservatives” who will rise up “together to say in unison ‘we demand our liberty!’” From whom, exactly? He doesn’t say.

...

Hillary aside, with the ex-pastor Mike Huckabee and the Roman Catholic Jeb Bush (both inclined to wear their faith on their sleeve), rationalists can contemplate a depressing, even infuriating, 19-month run-up to the election.

Yes we can.

Ugh.

The Jesus-humping has begun.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. 19 *months*. Fuck. Me.

Going to rip the coax cable right out of the wall before month three, I guarantee it.

[beam me up scottie]

9. I still can't stomach the fact that our president has to end every speech with

"God bless America" because if he doesn't cater to the religionists he hates his country.

You don't see other world leaders having to put on such a ridiculous show.




I killed my last tv and lived happily without it for years. Love to do that again but this one isn't mine.

[mr blur]

2. Good article, very enjoyable.

Should go down well on Fox and FR.

[progressoid]

3. Expect a lot of "God Bless America" for the next year and a half.

[Rob H.]

4. "rationalists can contemplate a depressing, even infuriating, 19-month run-up to the election"

So, same as last time, then? /snark

[Curmudgeoness]

5. Sounds like we have a drinking game

for every time any of them say "god" or "faith" or "Jesus" during debates. Just do the shots from thimbles unless you want to die of alcohol poisoning.

This whole field is truly frightening.

[Binkie The Clown]

6. Add that to every mention of "Hillary" and "9/11" and we'll all get drunk fast. n/t

[onager]

7. They're just showing the proper RESPECT!1! for religion...