The lard is telling ol’ Herman to run for Front Man, it seems:
Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain says that God told him to run for president, National Journal reports.
“I prayed and prayed and prayed,” Cain told about 100 members of the Georgia Young Republicans in Atlanta on Saturday. “I’m a man of faith, I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I’d ever done before in my life. And when I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses. ‘You’ve got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?'”
Cain isn’t the only Republican candidate who says God convinced them to run, however.
In May, before officially announcing her candidacy, Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said that she felt a “calling” to seek the GOP nomination.
“I’ve had this calling and tugging on my heart that this is the right thing to do,” Bachmann said.
In June, in an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Bachmann reiterated her comments about God telling her to run for political office.
“Did God tell you He wanted you to run for the Minnesota State Senate, or something like that?” host Bob Schieffer asked.
“I prayed about that, as well,” Bachmann said. “And that’s really what that means. It means that I have a sense of assurance about the direction I think that God is speaking into my heart that I should go.”
Did God also tell him to open a pizza making and restaurant company? He did not say. Have I been buying my take-out at the wrong place, in God’s opinion, all this time?
What frigging silliness trotted out to get political / government operations support from the brainwashed.
Maybe Mr. Cain does hear a small inner voice telling him to run for sock puppet. But I’m pretty sure what he actually hears are real live voices from his peers at the Fed, big banks and corporations, trilateralists and other international thieving vermin telling to get in there and run interference against Ron Paul. Herman Cain will pull enough “conservative” vote away from Dr. Paul to ensure four more years of B.O. Or if Cain does manage to get himself elected, we still get four more years of the status quo. It’s win-win for the powers-that-be. Somehow I don’t get the feeling God has a thing to do with this mess….
Yes, exactly.
And what drives me up the wall is that so many (cough) “conservatives” fall for it once the Gawd Talk begins. Be a garish “good Christian man” and anything goes. It worked beautifully for The Chimp. It is working for Chimp II (Perry) and it is working for the “conservative” Obama, too.
What’s so sad to me is driving around, seeing politician’s bumper stickers on beat-up working pickup trucks. Their owners are blithely unaware that the same asshole they’re voting for is the one stealing them blind.
Seriously, America deserves what’s coming. A people this willfully ignorant have to suffer the consequences or they’ll never learn. I just resent having to stew in the same crockpot with them…and see my kids suffer it too.
They will never learn – it is WILLFULL ingorance.
You could bring them physical proof – and they would dismiss it.
Comparable to telling them water is wet – they’ll argue, just because they don’t want to believe or know – and they’ll likely attack you if you press the matter.
Bush and Obama both claim to be “Christian” but they both are universalists and guilty of mass murder. I don’t take their claims very seriously. I’m generally skeptical of any politician’s claim to faith… other than Ron Paul of course.
Politicians always play Where’s Waldo with Christianity because they are a large voting block. When their vote is not needed (in between 4 year cycles) they stuff it away like a Santa Claus suit.
They might be sincere. When I hear a politician talk about how God is telling them to do something, I start looking for their angle. I guess I am a bit cynical.
I would prefer them saying the think they are qualified to run the country and want to serve their country. It may be a lie, but I do not want to hear them tell me that God told them something. IMO, If they are using God and/or religion to deceive people then they risk judgement.
60 minutes had a great report on how it appears that congressmen are enriching themselves through insider information. I think this is why many people want to get into government.
It would be better IMO if people would live as an example to others. If they are Christian (or other group) then act as a Christian should act. Do not talk the walk, walk the walk.
“They might be sincere.”
That worries me even more!
Seriously.
If I told you, in all earnestness, that I “talk” with aliens (or Napoleon) and they give me advice… what would you think of me?
Why is it any less strange when people make the same statements about Jesus (or whomever)? I’m sorry, but no one can tell me they are having conversations with an invisible anything and not find themselves regarded as a mental defective by me.
If this pisses off any religious people out there, well, so be it. You’re entitled to believe whatever you like – and I am fine with that. But absent some proof that your invisible friend is real and actually is talking to you, I have good reason to suspect you’re not quite right in the head, too.
Mind, I’m not an atheist. That would be as presumptuous as claiming to “know” Jesus. The hard fact is none of us – not one of us – knows a blessed thing about whether there is a being outside nature who caused and controls it, what this being wants from us, what happens when we die (other than “lights out”) and so on. We can have opinions; we can feel. All fine.
But it’s ridiculous to say we know anything about it.
Eric, agreed.
I’ve always thought religious folks are mental defects. The one’s that come right out and say they *talked* to a fictitious entity are narcissistic. Narcissistic mental defects forcing others to do their bidding. Wonderful.
When you add the narcissistic religious mental defects to the LIEberal mental defects you see that the logical thinking people are way outnumbered.
This whole thing HAS to fail and a large percentage of the population must be culled as the diseased parasites have overrun the struggling host.
Onward.
Indeed.
The thing that I run up against, the thing that floors me and just ruins my day… is the fact that if you tell most people you are in communication with the spirit of Napoleon they will (rightly) mark you off as a loon… but if you say precisely the same things about Chaysuss, then they treat you with deference and respect … and consider you especially moral and righteous, too!
Roger that shit! I’ve been saying for years that we are surrounded by people who are delusional. Not only delusional that some imaginary being exists up in the sky somewhere but that you can take a dollar from Peter and give it to Paul and make the economy better off.
Religion is indeed a mental disease. You can talk about Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Aliens etc… and you will be labled a nut-job, but talk about baby Jesus and you are considered completely “normal”. Or should I say “normalized”?
Truth is there is, given the size of the universe, a much greater chance of the existance of other life forms than there is a religious god – spelled with lower case ‘g’ for irreverence. Shit there’s just as much evidence for the existence of Santa Claus as there is god:
god has a book, Santa has many books about him.
god has an image, Santa has an image.
god doesn’t have any money of his own, neither does Santa ( trust me I know, I have kids )
Hell at least if you ask Santa for something, 9 times out of 10 you might get it!
Most of the religious people I know are fundamentally fucked up! Whether it’s gambling, super hot tempers, greedy bastards, or just evil mother fuckers there is something wrong with them.
I believe in Santa for sure. That dude delivers!
Hard-core religious certainty is a red flag for me, too.
I may be just dumb, but I can’t fathom how anyone can claim certainty about such a thing. It’s beyond reason, beyond proof, beyond critical examination. Just “have faith” and “believe” which, to me, amounts to do this/accept that “just because” – which is something I have always had a problem with. If there’s a reason, ok. But I ain’t buying anything based on “just because”!
For me, the key thing is conceding that such questions are, at best, unanswerable. We can suppose, we can guess, we can have inclinations and opinions. All fine – and equally valid. Perhaps there is a being outside of nature that set things in motion. Perhaps, somehow, our consciousness exists independent of our physical bodies and we “live” (somehow) after our bodies die. I have no idea. And neither does anyone else.
To go beyond that – to claim one “knows” that my god not only exists, but yours doesn’t (and mine’s right but yours is wrong) and so on is a species of arrogant – and demented – stupidity I can’t abide.
Well…let’s see here…didn’t Ghandi say something to the effect that there are as many religions as there are people? If we consider the common belief that God is omnipotent, omnicious, eternal and infinite that would make “Him” All That Is. There’s no way around it, “God” would therefore be the very sum of everything in existance; all experience, matter, energy and knowledge, encompassing all dimesions and states of being and consciousness.
What we so inadequately attempt to describe as “God” is therefore incomprehensible to the physical human brain. Maybe once I disconnect from this bio-mechanical vehicle and return to a state of fluid energy I’ll understand it all.
But right now I’m more concerned about what we need to do to stop the thugs in DC from stealing the fruits of our labor and using them to kill our fellow men over land, power and natural resources. Perpetual unjust warfare, at least it seems to me, is such an obviously un-Godly pursuit I can’t understand why so many so-called Christians and churches blindly support it. What happened to that 11th commandment, love another?
Well then, I guess I’m “delusional”. Oh well.
Hi Dave,
Perhaps that was too strong – I apologize for any insult, which was not intended.
Re-stated: I am a writer (and former editor) and so, am pedantic about meaning and precision of meaning. Words, to have meaning, must have precise meaning. Otherwise, clear communication is not possible. One cannot, for example, discuss cats unless the parties discussing agree that a cat is a specific type of mammal with certain definite characteristics. And that it cannot be other than those things and still be a cat.
Thus, for me, “death” means: The cessation of biological function, the termination of life. Death, as a concept (and words are visual/auditory means of expressing concepts) is inherently final. Else it is no longer death. To speak of someone who dies but cannot die is a contradiction in terms.
By definition, an immortal being (Jesus/God, etc.) cannot die. Not if he is, in fact, immortal. He either is – or he is not. To posit a middle ground is – to me – unintelligible.
As far as the rest – the objection to Christian monotheism: It seems pretty self-evident, if not incontrovertible, that Jesus (the son) is one person and God (his father) another. In normal, everyday usage, if I spoke of my father (or a father of his son) people’s eyes would cross if the assertion was made that the speaker really meant “forms” or “aspects” of himself. The speaker would be regarded as a crank.
My issue with Christian dogma is that it can literally mean almost anything. It is subject to endless parsing and interpretation, like Humpty Dumpty stating that a word means just what he says it means, and nothing more or less.
I wasn’t necessarily insulted. But, it seems to me that your primary goal in having this site, and your activism in general, is to oppose the State (A goal which I very much share and agree with.) You’re also an agnostic, so by your own admission, you don’t know if there’s a God or not. If there MIGHT be a God, you should not think it IMPOSSIBLE that that God might communicate with people on earth in some way. To say there might be a God, but to presume that he can’t interact with people here isn’t logical to begin with.
But, my point is, it seems to me that you are primarily trying to oppose the State, not to oppose religion. Thus, even if deep down you really believe that people who claim to be able to communicate with God are just as crazy as those who say they can communicate with aliens (An assertion I do NOT share)… I don’t see how pointing that out is helping your cause at all.
Quite frankly, and obviously you’re an exception to this (As was Rothbard, as is Walter Block, and some others) but in general people who have nothing else to worship will worship the State or democracy. With no higher authority to turn to, why wouldn’t they accept the authority of the majority? Why wouldn’t they participate in the nationalistic cult that is America at this point? (I could explain this in more detail, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.) And the thing is, that is literally their god, because they have nothing else.
Now, Christians sometimes fall into this too, and nobody is born an anarcho-libertarian. People sin. People sometimes act like they are worshipping something other than God. But at least for a Christian they do have SOME higher authority. And in my experience, flawed though they are, Christians generally realize the errors of democracy far quicker than a non-Christian will, generally speaking.
At the end of the day, the only answer I could give you the claiming to talk to Jesus vs talk to Napoleon thing is not going to be satisfying. And that is that Jesus rose from the dead, whereas Napoleon is still dead. Again, I know you won’t accept that answer, but ultimately that’s the bottom line.
But even if you don’t accept that, even if you think we’re all crazy, you saying it isn’t helping anything. All its doing is turning other Christians away from liberty. Whether they liked or disliked Ron Paul, nobody could accuse him of being opposed to Christianity with a straight face. And, although I am not like this, I suspect many of the Christians I know would read a comment like you made and instantly disregard anything else you had to say, when you in fact have very valid points to say about the things you actually spend most of your time talking about.
I kind of rambled a bit here so I hope this all made sense. Feel free to ask for clarification if I was not clear.
To address a couple other things you say.
With regards to your definition of the word “Death”, are you referring to all forms of life (Including any potential afterlives, regardless of whether or not you believe one could/does exist or not)? Or when you say “Cessasion of biological function” do you simply mean the functions of the physical body on this earth?
In the latter sense, Christ did die. His body remained in the tomb for three days, and was “dead.” He was in heaven, but in a similar state that he was in before he was incarnated to begin with (See John 1:1 and John 1:14). His body was truly dead.
Now, when a person dies, their bodies stay dead forever (With Christ, and the people he rose from the dead exempted, of course) but their souls still exist, either in heaven or in hell. So I don’t see your problem here, unless you have a problem with the idea that anyone could die and yet still exist in an afterlife, in which case I really don’t know what to tell you.
As for the Trinity, well, there’s enough Biblical evidence that Trinitarian doctrine is Biblical. But as for the logic problem, frankly, I don’t know how to help you. Because honestly, faith isn’t necessarily “logical.” That’s why its called, you know, “faith.” And, as I mentioned earlier, this is yet another problem with Arminianism. If God were truly “trying” to save everybody, he could simply rearrange the starts to say “Jesus is Lord” or something like that. Mark 4:12 gives us the reason why he doesn’t do this. Because he isn’t seeking the salvation of everybody. Those who believe show by their belief that God was seeking their salvation. But as for those who don’t, God will justly punish them as they deserve. God is a merciful God, but he is also a just God, and sin must be punished.
Hi Dave,
I’m trying to stick with precise definitions – and that which can be objectively demonstrated. Accordingly, I leave such things as “potential afterlives” – a thing which is a purely theoretical supposition – to the realm of speculation.
As far as Christ’s body vs. “he himself.” This supposes the self exists after the death of the body – another theoretical supposition that must (if we are to limit our discussion to that which can be proven) be left to the realm of speculation.
I’m not criticizing your belief in the existence of souls – that the essence of what we are, our consciousness, etc., is not tied to the biological function (and continued existence) of our physical bodies. I am merely pointing out that is a belief.
Nothing more.
On the trinity vs. monotheism: It’s not just logic that’s at issue. It’s basic terms and conditions. One can’t have a given thing mean its opposite – and still be talking sense. Clearly, in the Bible, Jesus speaks with his father (the term he himself uses, repeatedly). There are clearly two distinct personages, not manifestations of a single personage. Unless you take the position that God talks to himself. And regards himself as his own father – which is bizarre.
Eric,
I’ve never seen anyone discuss the trinity thing logically like that. Thank you. It’s a real eye opener to see it considered thoughtfully and truthfully as you see it.
I think in my case, my mind seamlessly slips into this other orbit, let’s call it the believer mode. The old testament speaks of the earth being the creator’s vineyard. Somehow, divinely or through human hands, there is this vineyardic field always available for your intoxication, should you want to be a believer of something.
That field is a unifying force for the 73% of Americans who identify themselves as Christians.
It’s like a trance. In believer mode, all of reality is like a vineyard. Some kind of morphic field where everything has a buzz about it like after a few glasses of wine.
It’s freeing to be online and outside of my Christian alter that is a major part of my consciousness.
As soon as I’m with my family, or at my job, the morphic fog descends, and the world is a blessed vineyard again.
That’s what I like about Mencken, Rand, and your writing. Not even a drop of morphic vapor in anything you’ve ever written.
In your writing, the field is more of a field of precision and attenuation. Even at Lew Rockwell, that is a rare thing to experience.
Thanks, Tor!
My intent is not to beat David over the head but to point out contradictions and ask what appear to me to be legitimate questions.
Any “thing” up for discussion must first be identified. What is it? Only then can e discuss what “it” is.
If we define God as immortal being, outside the natural order of things, then death is an abstraction for this being. If we define a monotheistic religion as having one God in its pantheon, then it is odd to have a God who has a son, or a son of God who speaks to his father.
Etc., etc.
I’m not criticizing your belief in the existence of souls – that the essence of what we are, our consciousness, etc., is not tied to the biological function (and continued existence) of our physical bodies. I am merely pointing out that is a belief.
An out of body experience changes that. A few other things too. It becomes proven. It’s no longer a belief and has changed even those who thought it was entirely bunk before their experiences.
It’s not the kind of ‘proof’ that can convince other people, but works on the person who has the experience(s). That’s the kind of proof by which most people function, the proof of their own experiences.
Oh, I agree.
But it’s not – as you’ve noted – a demonstrable/provable thing. It’s about faith and belief. Which is ok. I want to be very clear that I am not slamming people for strongly believing in such things. I merely point out that we are talking about beliefs – not facts that can’t be denied.