Are you kidding?

February 21, 2018 • 5:42 pm

The “President” tweeted this today:

All religions? Who is he kidding? Graham was an anti-Semite, and why would the Jews miss him? Given that he thought all non-Christians—and those Christians who didn’t accept Jesus Christ as their savior—would go to hell, why would any non-Christian miss him?  Trump could have been laudatory without that ridiculous statement.

47 thoughts on “Are you kidding?”

  1. Why? Because, Trump:
    “Trump could have been (fill in blank) without that ridiculous (fill in blank).”

  3. Billy Graham came by it ‘honestly’ you might say, since Martin Luther himself was a passionate anti-Semite — it’s just part of the 500-year-old Protestant tradition.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism

    “In 1543 Luther published On the Jews and Their Lies in which he says that the Jews are a “base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth.”[14] They are full of the “devil’s feces … which they wallow in like swine.”[15] The synagogue was a “defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible whore and an evil slut …”[16]…”

    1. Martin Luther words-to-the-effect on women and childbirth: “Let them die of it; that is what they are for.”

      Is the major reason for anti-Semitism (at least from the Christian religioso perspective) that Jews allegedly caused the death of Christ? Re: “Christ-killer.”

      Would anti-Semitic Christians prefer that Jews had striven to prevent Jesus from being crucified? Would they then have been anti-Semitic because the Jews had prevented that, preventing the shedding of blood/atonement, preventing Christians from attaining everlasting life?

      1. That’s similar to my (and other wits discovering it independently) that Judas should be regarded as the greatest of saints. Why? Because he too fulfilled his role in the “greatest story” and it was a hard and difficult one (presumably), yet a necessary one – according to the accounts, anyway.

  5. Now, now, we should be charitable to those sliding into debilitated senescence; yet you’re right in regards to that bubble he certainly lives in, kidding indeed, it’s a freak show in there!

  6. Trump learned about Billy Graham eight minutes before he tweeted.

    I wonder what Frederick Douglass thinks about it.

      1. “Lying to the young for a living. What a horrible career. I gather it’s soon to be over. I certainly hope so.”

        I think this talk took place in 2008, which means Hitch had 3 years to live and Graham had 10. Life is not fair.

    1. I suspect every modern president has had staff to help them formulate the wording needed in each situation. But I think Trump may be the first president that must be told what he should seem to think and feel as well.

      1. Oh, sure, when meeting with people from the OMB to discuss the budget, or from the Fed to discuss monetary policy, or when meeting with a group of trade representatives — but crib notes for empathy? It’s like when Trump (who ridiculed Obama for his use of a teleprompter) had to use one himself to deliver his remarks immediately after the massacre (and did so haltingly at that, as though he couldn’t be arsed to review the remarks beforehand).

        Trump seems to lack normal human emotions, or at least the normal positive ones, the ones beyond resentment, and anger, and the need to mock others mercilessly for his own self-aggrandizement. The man’s very bearing bespeaks sociopathy.

    2. I can’t believe that’s a real note. (Why would he have it facing out, anyway? He is not that dumb.) And FIVE points to remember instead of just three?

      1. I agree. It looks Photoshopped to me. Yet, like a good political cartoon, it tells us what we already know. He’s a grown man with the mind of a child.

  9. Yah, he was special in his awfulness. Dickens and Twain would have made mincemeat out of him. And now more years of the apple that didn’t fall far from the tree. These power hungry, hypocritical, mawkish manipulators. Oh for some political leader brave and wise enough to expose them….

  11. I very much doubt that Roman Catholics miss him, I’m certain that the Eastern Orthodox and Russian Orthodox don’t miss him, neither do Jews. As for Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Muslims, among many other religions, I wager that the overwhelming majority of them have never even heard of him!

  13. I think Hitchens did a fine job on this shyster and fraud. But Trump and Billy have a lot in common as they both made a great living lying to people.

  14. NPR reported this afternoon that tRump had attended Graham’s 95th birthday party, so those two lying bigoted buffoons were already aquatinted. No surprise really. Graham seems to have made it his life-long goal to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.

  15. The Orange Draft Dodger tweets whatever pops into his small mind, proving once again that he is far from the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Fist, considering that everyone is unique, ‘there was no one like him’ is totally meaningless. Second, in addition to all those other religions that have no truck with Graham, many Christians did also not appreciate Graham, particularly those brands that embrace pacifism and fully support the separation of church and state. And third, special does not equate to goodness.

    1. He’s being an asshole by pretending to show empathy to students who are grieving.

      There is no “lightening up” where he is concerned.

  19. I am NOT a fan of Billy Graham!

    That said, later in life, he DID allow that non-Christians get to heaven, largely influenced by the theology of C.S. Lewis, who in turn was deeply influenced by Greek Orthodox theology on this point. It caused many conservative evangelicals to reject Graham as a heretic. (I should add that BGs explanations of this are fairly condescending.)
    (Documentation:
    http://www.mercifultruth.com/graham.html )

    Graham in 2002 began to reject and apologize for his previous anti-Semitism, though multiple Jewish folk considered his apologies weak and insufficient! Even in his earlier days, Graham consistently rejected evangelical attempts to convert Jews!

    Finally, as much as I like Christopher Hitchens much of the time, CH was a very poor judge of who really believed Christianity or not. Contrary to CHs judgment, I am thoroughly convinced Graham and Falwell believed every word they preached. Hitchens here is solely lacking in sociological imagination.
    (However, I don’t think Trump believes a word of it!!!!!)
    (However, I remain quite fond of CHs’ matchbox quip.)

    Although Graham was to the end of his life opposed to same-sex marriage, nonetheless Westboro Baptist plans to picket his funeral, largely in protest of his “latter-day” belief, that, yes, Buddhists, Confucianists, etc. might go to heaven.

    1. There was also a time when he advocated that his sheeple avoide getting involved in politics.

  21. Every time the subject of televangelists crops up, I’m reminded of the Coen Brothers 1988 movie Pass The Ammo, a satire on the televangelism industry, featuring Tim Curry as the Reverend Ray Porter. Perfect casting, I think, Curry does the fruity hellfire preacher thing really well.

    cr

    1. Huh, I’ve never heard of this movie. The Coen Brothers? Tim Curry? Satire of televangelism? Sounds like a not-to-be-missed movie!

  22. Meanwhile, talking of religiosos and the Trump, here’s another one, from Kansas (where else?)

    “former governor Sam Brownback, who took office seven years ago and, having run up enormous deficits and, according to several polls, a 23% approval rating, recently resigned to become President Trump’s “Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.” (Brownback is known to be a strong advocate of religious freedom, as long as the religion involved is the right kind of Christianity.)”

    (From Loweringthebar,
    http://loweringthebar.net/2018/02/kansas-bill-governor-adult-humans.html )

    cr

  25. Love (or at least tolerance) for Graham seems to have been bipartisan. Take advantage and share (I cannot remember where I saw it) the photo of him with Bill Clinton.

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