'Scripture is very clear': New House Speaker tells Congress God has 'ordained' them
alternet.org
Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, in his first remarks after being elected Wednesday afternoon, told Members of Congress that “Scripture” and “the Bible” are clear that they have been “ordained” by God.
Democrats should name all their laws after the Bible. Eye of the Needle bill: wealth tax and just demagogue that we need to pass this to save American souls. Mark 1:40 bill: universal healthcare
I legitimately and unironically would support this initiative. It’s a good idea.
It's an incredibly good idea. Is this the way?
Pack it up lemmys, we've done it.
ETA: bois to lemmys for inclusion :)
We did it lemmy!
:3
Vote YES on Joshua 6:25 and Ezekiel 23:20!
I've been saying this for a long time. I genuinely think this would yield better results.
I can't describe how much I like this idea.
It's a great idea but unfortunately it has some significant flaws.
First, I imagine quite a lot of the Christianity in American politics is performative. The politicians could just hand wave away the passages and say "That's not what Jesus meant, he personally told me so".
The fundamentalists suckers would believe them and vote for them even harder and the ones that are drawn to religion for the excuse to abuse people won't care as long as their abusive itches get scratched.
The other problem is that if it did work, it's comes across as more than a little Christofascist.
The far-right and religious "in it for abuse" crowds would take to it like flies to dog shit and the bible has some horrific stuff in it that you'd definitely never want becoming law.
Better to just pry fundamentalists and neoliberals from power so all they can do is seethe while progressives pass these kinds of laws. With genuine end times just around the corner, time is a factor.
Republicans will always find a way. Even if it contradicts what they just said a minute prior. You're not gonna stop suckers from going along with ppl using them for power/money. We should just take the win.
That’s the point. Break suspension of disbelief and see the stage crumble.
Take my Lemmy Lemon 🍋
When lemmy gives you lemons, make lemmy-nades! 💣
It wouldn't work since none of the GOP has ever read the Bible.
“The I Stand to be Counted as the Faithful of the Lord Spending and Appropriations Bill will now be voted on.”
Christofascist says what?
Deus vult.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
There is no place for religion in government. This is horrifying
Even Jesus thought so. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" means exactly that.
If those Christian nationalists could read they'd be very upset
Like these asshats have ever read the Bible. At least, nothing past the old testament.
Come on man, that would take way too much intelligence and critical thinking skill, for GOP voters to understand.
"Prosperity theology" often goes hand in hand with neoliberalism.
If you're not quite psychopathic enough for "I don't care about the morality of using child slaves, only the profitability", you can assuage that guilt with "If God didn't want me to profit from child slavery, he would have stopped me doing it".
What is the difference between this guy and a Taliban officer?
I don't care how much he enjoys talking about his favorite fairy tale novel, congress is not a book club.
Zero difference. They're both the same shade of conservative, far-right, religious fundamentalist.
Not fair. The Taliban is honest witr his desire to oppress women, minorities and undermine all education. This guys pretends to stand for equality for all while in public
First Timothy
I too enjoy joking about oppressing women.
*crickets
Oh, but that's totally different! You see, their holy book is just a bunch of heathenish drivel, whereas our holy book is the one and only god given truth! How do I know? It says so right here in my holy book!
I had some bible thumping baptist going door to door tell me almost exactly that. I had time, and decided to amuse myself in engaging these two guys. I talked to them for about 20 mins before they left. I kept asking them to compare their religion to various religions around the world, including eastern relgiions, and was quoting passages from many of them. These guys clearly had never studied anything but their version of christianity. Their only defense was, "But this was written by our lord and savior, Jesus Christ"
Did they say which part? I'm no theologian, but I don't remember mentions of any actual writings by Jesus himself.
He didn't exist so he couldn't have written anything. If he had existed and was raised in Nazareth he would have been in a village so small that it didn't even have a place to pray and in a region so backwards that the literacy rate was around 1%. There are no works that people claim that he wrote. Even that was a bridge too far for them. Walking on water was more believable than being literate in that region.
The argument usually is that the authors, compilers, and translators were guided by the hand of God. Not specifically that Jesus was sitting down with an inkwell.
Closest thing is written accounts by the men who traveled with him about Jesus's actions and statements.
Oh you have those? Can I see one?
That's an easy mistake to make, this guy's a Talibangelical
Same God, different prophet. So not much really. Except maybe that Taliban don't ban abortion as far as I'm aware.
Nope, the Taliban are like christo-fascist fundamentalists in ignoring or intentionally misinterpreting their scriptures to ban abortion.
Beard?
Skin tone
Ehhh, mainly access to clean running water
Hypocrisy.
The Taliban are way less hypcrite.
The irony would be God disliking this guy
Didn't know this guy was an officer.
"I believe that Scripture, the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority."
Oh, so since God raised Biden to Authority that means you're going to respect God's plan right?
Lol... Yeah... You'll all continue to pay lip service to the Bible as long as it serves your purpose.
Yeah. This sort of talk in a lot of organized religion is a well-established cue to the listener that they can shut off their critical thinking. The intended audience is accustomed to hearing it and welcomes it, because they have the same goal as the one who says it: to have the thing they want be right.
So their minds don’t start extrapolating to see if the words hold up to scrutiny. That’s the last thing they’d want to do.
I move to change
Especially considering religious leaders are taking Jesus OUT if their sermons because he is too liberal for them.
If you take Jesus out aren't you just back to Judaism?
You still have Paul?
Gods I hate that guy. Why so many people don't question why they should listen uncritically to the guy who hit his head on a rock and hallucinated Jesus and used the whole thing as a thinly veiled reason to tell people how to behave is just...
I am sorry but I think you are a woman and I don't permit you to preach or led me. Go ask your husband at home to explain it to you.
Now if you ask me I have a convoluted manifesto to write about the humanity of Jesus that proves that I can eat bacon. Let me send you 90 letters on the topic.
Ah well, half right. I definitely have a husband but am also not a woman so I think I am probably disqualified from discourse on other stupid rules that Paul completely made up.
You got any extra bacon to share though?
Bad news about that. He singled out the LGBT freaken twice for hell fire. Lived in a world where slaves could be executed on a whim and this is the group he decided to go after.
I would but Paul told me I would die if I didn't give him all my bacon.
Funny how there isn't actually a hell in the whole book. I mean it mentions a parable but Gehenna is just a real place on earth where they disposed of trash. No mention of burning eternally, just burning the once and then done. Not so bad really. You'd have to be one of those pagan bastards who believe in like Hades or Nifelheim to believe someone would be tortured eternally after they die if we just go with the main book and not all centuries of later fanfic add ons...
Also depending on whether or not all that "washing of feet" was as potentially euphemistic as the phrase is used in other places in the book Jesus probably banged a whole lot of dudes at his big party.
Paul as a pretty obvious sex repulsed asexual wasn't big on anybody banging anybody. He was like "If you really have to then like... Just your wife I guess but even then ew."
I read this as a Judas joke which I loved, hopefully I wasn't correct or my comment is dumb for pointing out the obvious. Lol
I think they are aiming to be left with capitalism.
What do you expect when your government is comprised of a bunch of greedy scummy lawyers.
They will say literally anything to get power. Speech is rhetoric and they care nothing about reality.
source
Fuck your religion. Keep that shit out of politics please.
Lmao, God has nothing to do with those guys💀
god isn't a good guy. he's a villain. they can have him.
Quetiapine 50mg, twice per day. Increase dosage if voices persist
That's way to low of a dose for hallucinations.
Start with 300mg XR and up the dose of necessary
Jesus Fuck! I was put on 10mg for a month and it turned me into a fucking mindless zombie. 300mg would comatose me.
I think you're misremembering. 25mg is the lowest dose for quetiapine
Yes it did have that effect too! My memory of the month is fuzzy at-best. So it would have been 25mg. It was the lowest dose. I remember halving it after the first day it was so strong. :/
Probably the point?
And the Constitution and its Amendments are very clear about a separation of church and state.
Some idiots think it means the government can't do anything to regulate churches. There a bunch of laws that disagree.
It actually explicitly doesn't say you can't relate churches.
If we're going strictly by what the words say, as long as the people are still legally allowed and freely allowed to practice their religion, Congress technically has the right to regulate religious institutions to their hearts content.
It's not like it says "shall make no law regulating an institution of religion."
The Vermont Constitution has a much more explicit freedom from religion:
Article 3. [Freedom in religion; right and duty of religious worship]
That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God; and that no person ought to, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of conscience, nor can any person be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of religious sentiments, or peculia[r] mode of religious worship; and that no authority can, or ought to be vested in, or assumed by, any power whatever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in any manner control the rights of conscience, in the free exercise of religious worship. Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of christians ought to observe the sabbath or Lord’s day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God.
Everytime I hear of Vermont it feels like the only sane, progressive state in the US. It almost feels like a seperate country compared to everywhere else.
What's the opinion of it in the US?
You can't fart in a parking lot without stinking up a Subaru.
It is entirely composed of a coat factory, an ice cream factory, and B&Bs.
I'd move there if y'all had better winters and beaches.
"no law" is not literal it is aspirational. At least according to what I have heard. If it was literal there could be zero rules about speech which breaks the constitutional ideas of oath of office and treason charges.
The aspirational would be a government that doesn't even know religion exists. It is taxed, regulated, and given the same respect as any other institution.
A bunch of states don't tax church property and both states and feds don't tax earnings for this reason.
Who watches the nightwatchers? Who or what systems could regulate the government? Ask yourself
Oh yeah the churches are the group that I'm gonna trust with that.
Can the argument not go both ways? I'm not saying I would trust the church to watch over the government or vice versa I'm simply making an observation that tyrannical government overreach etc is plausible and a potential cause for concern for any person that places a degree of their trust in the systems or bodies around them
Dude really pulled the “divine right” card huh?
The French invented a wonderful device to cure sufferers of the divine right delusion:
Leaders claiming divinity leave the proletariat no choice but to demand proof
Fortunately it's a testable hypothesis
If the head comes off, your claim is coiffe
It's spelled covfefe
Imagine if religious fundamentalism wasn't acceptable for a statesman. What a crazy modern world we could be living in.
Although I guess in the case of the US, the country was founded out of religious fundamentalism in its entirely, and from a clean slate. Much more difficult to untangle it.
Unless my history lessons are evading me, your country was founded by deists running from fundamentalists.
Fundamentalists running from people not letting them be as fundamentalist as they wanted.
only some of the people were fundamentalists running from people who didn't let them be fundamentalist, they also had a great many wars with the government because of it
Anabaptists had an end-time cult, took over cities, instituted religious law, legalized polygamy for their leaders, and publicly beheaded their opponents. They were basically the ISIS of their day.
Some of them, especially during the colonies founding, and especially up north. Jefferson, for example, was a deist though, which believes God (the one from the Bible) exists, but he doesn't interact with anything.
You're both right. Though the diests tended to be the ones more in the government itself. We had our fair share of fundamentalists to fundamental for back home.
The sad part is that your constitution was considered groundbreaking for the time and some say it influenced the french revolution.
Yes the USA was founded by deists, after the fundamentalists had settled the frontier land. It's both basically.
He did it. He said the magic words that turn on a neverending money tap from "christian" conservatives who aren't smart enough to tell when they're getting grifted.
Well, that's because they've been indoctrinated since birth into a cult that exists to gift people.
Having said this- he should be disqualified from office.
Lol! Having said that, God has ordained his disqualification
That includes the Democrats, right?
On but that includes like Stalin too, like does he not hear his words?
God totally "raises up those in authority," he just makes oopsies
here and thereall the fucking time.Or maybe he's evil. Or he changes his mind a lot. Or maybe, possibly, y'know... the dude doesn't exist.
Nonono you see God raises up all the "good" people, all the "bad" people were godless heathens.
See the "good" people appeal to Gods followers by claiming to be a prophet of gods wisdom and telling them to vote for them on faith. The "bad" people tricked and manipulated others into gaining their power by posing as false prophets and liars.
Do you see the difference?
they're the same picture .·´¯
(>▂<)´¯·.Jesus tap dancing on a cracker Christ maybe just maybe it's Satan‽
I prefer the simpler Jesus Backflipping Christ but I love yours, too
I felt I needed to chose violence
This seditionist asshat shouldn't even be allowed to be in politics anymore. The more we allow people to try to overturn elections, the more impossible it will be to stay a democracy.
so thats what bile tastes like
Somebody get me outta this backwards country 🥺
We're either almost on the other side of the critical failure of trumpism, or we're about to fulfill our destiny to actualize idiocracy.
I give it 50/50 odds either way..
Christ on bike how bad is it that idocracy is better outcome
Feels more like the prequel to A Handmaid's Tale, tbh.
You can do it - I did.
Yeah - sounds like a pain. 25+ years later, it's been worth it to get the hell out of New Jersey.
Depending on how much family/real estate you have, moving out of the US isn't as difficult as you might intuitively think it'd be. At least not to other english-speaking countries like Canada, the UK or Ireland. Though do keep in mind that with the UK you're hardly making your situation any better, yes on paper you get public health care and it's still worlds better than the US, but it's in such shambles you don't want to rely on it. Tories! 🥳 🤢
But even outside of that, moving to some other countries such as France or Germany depending on your language skills isn't as problematic as it was even 10 years ago any more, either. While these are still largely language dependent, a lot has internationalized in larger cities and having to rely on some english is no longer a big deal.
Canada's not doing much better mate but we're hanging in there. Til our next election I guess.
Yeah I know, Germany is swinging far stupid-right, too. It's shit everywhere, but it's still better than in the US.
The world follows the US's lead. When the US took a hard right turn after 9/11, europe slowly started following. I can't believe it has taken the US this long to rebound, (granted gerrymandering for the last 13 years has drastically slowed it). As the US rebounds, europe will too, slowly.
Are we rebounding? It feels like the downwards slide is continuing.
Sitting at the bottom I hope, waiting for shift to happen.
He believes that all leaders are raised up by the hand of God. Better get those sainthoods lined up for Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Putin, Mugabe, etc.
Those people - including Johnson - aren't leaders. They're bureaucrats with fancy titles and institutionalized power - the exact thing Jesus wasn't.
Then why do they complain about Biden, or any Democrat?
Because they're fuckwad hypocrites with no actual moral center of course
Humanity once again assumes no accountability. All good things and Inventions are apparently important to us, but give authority to one mass murderer and apparently it's acceptable to blame God, after the fact. Consider an alternative possibility, that your conscience is begging for mercy.
Again, what is the difference between this and Taliban?
At least the Taliban have the excuse their holy book is read in its original language. These jokers base themselves on a translation of a translation. Dogma and theocracy are wrong in any version, but if you are spouting ignorant bigotry at least make sure it's what the bronze-age sheepherders really intended...
They also actively fight against ACCURATE translations because they have already built so many false arguments based on the least accurate and most out of date translations available. Even if the book WAS originally in English an original text from the 1600s would be a challenge.
Fewer beards.
Pretty sure there's plenty of 'beards' in the Republican party.
Hey-o!
If you express grandiose delusions you should be sitting in a psychiatric chair. Not a senate chair.
Yeah this blows my mind. If you wouldn't allow a paranoid schizophrenic to hold office, why are you allowing people who think the earth is 6000 years old and dinosaurs aren't real?
They WOULD allow a paranoid schizophrenia to hold office if they voted correctly and hated the right people.
They would allow paranoid schizophrenics to hold office, if the majority of voters were so too.
Constant brainwashing and decades of undermining public education.
Well he is not in the Senate he is in the House which is still far to high to be this stupid.
3rd in line for the presidency.
I've been pretty damn high in my day but never that stupid.
Well, fortunately he's only a House Rep.
I'm not sure which would be worse: that he didn't think this claim through to its logical conclusion, or that he did and didn't see the problem.
Someone really needs to ask him about Biden now
Right? How many mass-murdering psychopaths has God raised up in authority? What an idiot.
I think OP was more referring to how, by this guy's logic, he was literally fighting against the will of god when he was trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
I mean, yes, that too. But think of the even more horrifying implications of such a belief.
Another fucking zealot, great.
Barry Goldwater
Also relevant:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/09/16/goldwater-lashes-religious-pressure/b1caa379-49fa-4e04-82de-dccda6f5e7f9/
Yes Johnson... scripture is very clear - which means you, and the rest of your christofash brethren, had better pray there is no afterlife.
"One day, you will answer for your actions, and God may not be so... Merciful.
Someone should tell them that someday somehow they will die and someone's gonna steal their carbon.
Hmm, carbon~
And here I thought it was pretty clear that the basis for his authority is the constitution, not in scripture.
In the country where kids have to pledge allegiance to "one Nation under God" in school?
In the country where the constitution says there shall be no official state religion.
No official state religion... under God.
When a conservative talks about God, just remember that money is his god.
God is just a picture of that same conservative, with a beard and sitting in a cloud.
Do any schools still do that? I guess maybe in the south. Ohio stopped doing it a long time ago.
But it is long past the time when the GOP cared for what the founding fathers said.
The district containing Charlottesville always votes religious right-wingers lately. They removed Denver Riggleman because he officiated a gay wedding, to put up an anti-gay marriage candidate. The city itself doesn't vote this way, but that's still the representative.
In the town of Thomas Jefferson, who listed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom as among his 3 proudest accomplishments.
It's even in the fucking Bible!
"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"
“We just throw all the money up into the air, and what god wants he takes, and leaves the rest to us.”
Can we get a citation? I've actually read the bible, and no it doesn't.
I think he's referring to Romans 13:1.
Of course, it's his interpretation that it's them and the US specifically that God has given special favor. That citation is missing.
^1^Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God. ^2^Therefore, whoever resists authority opposes what God has appointed, and those who oppose it will bring judgment upon themselves.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that says election deniers are going to hell. Right?
I hate this timeline
Don't worry, it'll be over soon. Just keep spending.
well my God hates you, Mike. 🖕
Even Jesus thinks he’s a dick.
My God also hates that downvote dude here too. 🖕
My God likes Fetterman, Shapiro and Kenyatta.
So there.
🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕
Sometimes I forgot local political actors also exist as well as people who hold federal office, and for a second I was like, "who the fuck likes John Fetterman AND Ben Shapiro?" lmao
omg I could see why that read terribly LOL
Yeah? He sure took his sweet fucking time as well, didn't he? Oh, right. "Mysterious ways."
Oh great, another delusional zealot. What could possibly go wrong...
And my book here (I am yet to write it but its gonna be a best seller, trust me) says he should go eat a bag of dicks
I don't make the rules sorry, start chomping mate
What the fuck is this dipshit on about?
LoL! My sentiment exactly.
Also, "I'm in danger."
I aint ordained shit.
Nutjob.
3rd2nd in line for the Presidency.Thanks @Fraylor@lemm.ee
Second. people need to stop assuming the actual president is in line. He's already president.
Come on, you know nobody is assuming the president is "in line" for the presidency. They are just counting from the president at 1 and using the term in line. The speaker is the third person to be president after the president and vice president.
But that's still not what the phrase "1st in line" means. Despite everyone's misunderstanding.
Prince William is 1st in line for the Throne.
Yes people are using the phrase wrong, not assuming the president is "in line" too. It's pretty obvious what they mean.
I'm sure logically it makes sense in the heads of most people, but I see this repeated so often in the last 24 hours since assbag was picked for speaker I felt it could use clarification.
We are fuckin doomed over here
He did a fair amount of shady shit in the shadows and let other people be the face of it
I wonder how he's going to deal with actually being in the spotlight (other than drying his tears with money)
So the Republic of Gilead may actually happen? Are there enough checks and balances left to stop the US from becoming a Christian Saudi Arabia? Is it time to leave Canada before their destiny is manifested all over us?
Canada won't be safe but, on the bright side, neither will anywhere else.
Oh great, another christian in a position of power trying to enact a theocracy.
Because we didn't have enough of those already...
Countries that are dominated with one religion, inevitably break down by religious dissention. "One nation, under my God has no liberty, and justice, for all, * (unless they are members of my religious sect)".
....no
Suppose it was worth the delay to get a truley shitty choice. What the hell, guys?
Can he be voted out by 1 person again?
Yes for now. That rule might change though
Traitor
He is right. The scripture is clear. All the more reason to not follow it.
I mean, he has theoretical control (barely) over 1/2 of one branch of a fractious, dysfunctional and arguably corrupt federal government. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, buddy.
arguably?? lmao have a seat my friend have I got some stories for you
He's 2nd in line for POTUS. Scary.
You misspelled "absolutely". You spelled it a-r-g-u-a-b-l-y. You were almost there, but you only got the first and last two letters correct.
So did things somehow just get even worse?
I guess if 1 and 2 get taken out things could get a lot worse 乁( •_• )ㄏ
They feel Romans 13:1 applies when these assholes get power; doesn't apply when they lose power
You think he'll be singing the same tune when his speakership inevitably crashes and burns?
Aiite so he has full faith in Biden, good to know.
FFS you're a grown-ass man!
slaps a pile of Bronze Age parables about tribal conflicts on the far side of the Mediterranean that have gone through a dozen different iterative translations
Its all crystal clear. Jesus said The American Constitution prohibits dressing outside your birth-certificate assigned gender.
This man is not having sex since 9 months prior his last child was born.. I bet he's angry!
Wait, wasn't this the same shit absolutism used as an excuse for it's existence? God definitely chooses who rules countries or not,, but some are only good for us in the very long term...
There's nothing clear about this at all....
Well, clearly burning bush, Jewish zombie, eternal damnation, Therefore I'm God wants me to be in power. Because reasons. QED.
Oooohhhhwerefucked
If you notice someone (mostly politicians) randomly pop out of nowhere and start telling you shit you wanna hear, that lerson is lying pieace of shit trying to play you. This is a highly effective method btw.
Does this mean he ordained the Democrats too? Does that still apply when the Republicans are the minority?
God bless America, and no place else
And now, when the law is finally catching up to them, do we get to the part where a higher power, God, is on their side.
I heard the banks have no cash and fort knox is empty.
meh. can't really care what opinionated bro believes in -- as long as it doesn't interfere with his job.