It makes perfect sense. Send tanks and bulldozers and soldiers into Gaza, and then when the panicked, displaced residents end up in refugee camps, drop bombs on the camp. Kill, kill, kill to exterminate Hamas to the point where you’ve got somewhere around 10,000 dead, mostly families and children, and then claim you’re killing terrorists. The logic is impeccable.

Oh wait. No. It makes no sense. None of this is rational.

The only way to understand it is to recognize that it’s driven by fear and religion. Here in the USA, we have nothing to fear from Hamas, so the motivation is just God. American support for Israel is based on an absurd belief in prophecy. Listen to Pastor John Hagee.

Pastor John Hagee, CUFI founder and Chairman, speaking at the (CUFI) Christians United for Israel’s 2018 Washington Summit held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC on July 23, 2018 (Photo by Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Who needs a reasonable justification for massacre when you can just claim God told you to slaughter people?

American evangelicals have long prided themselves on their undeviating support for Israel—but the basis of this alliance is not a standard convergence of diplomatic interests, and it’s certainly not a flourish of faith-based solidarity with the Jews. Instead, it’s a matter of the opportunistic choreographing of the foreordained final act of history. Believers in the literal interpretation of “endtimes” prophecy see the fortunes of Israel as a key harbinger of the Final Judgment and the elevation of fallen human history into the realm of the divine. In secular leftist politics, advocates of rapid escalation of class and geopolitical conflict are known as accelerationists; in endtimes prophecy belief, acceleration is left to God, but his Christian emissaries still retain the awesome power of recognizing and celebrating the signs of the pending judgment—and urging earthly powers and principalities to get in line with the divine plan before it’s too late.

The best-known promoter of this worldview is Texas-based Pentecostal televangelist John Hagee, the founder of the advocacy group Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Hagee is a longtime fixture in the endtimes media complex, claiming that the march of time is rapidly aligning with the events foretold in Revelation and other prophetic books of the Bible. After Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, he took to his pulpit at his Cornerstone Church in San Antonio to urge immediate US intervention against Iran, as several Israeli diplomats looked on, and right-wing members of Congress offered taped testimonials of their own.

The “endtimes media complex” — now there’s a scary thought. They’re a bunch of loonies, but look at that: representatives of Israel and congress are hanging out with him. And listen to what his big message is:

“The righteous rage of America must be focused on Iran,” Hagee announced, as journalist Lee Fang, who recently released a documentary on the evangelical-Israeli alliance called Praying for Armageddon, reports. “Let me say it to you in plain Texas speech: American should roll up its sleeves and knock the living daylights out of Iran for what they have done for Israel. Hit them so hard that our enemies will once again fear us.” Hagee’s son and co-pastor, Matt Hagee, took up the same refrain in lurid prophetic language. “The secretary of state is not going to get us out of this one,” he declared in a burst of self-satisfied scriptural omniscience. “God has a hook in the jaws of these nations, and he’s drawing them here. God tells Ezekiel exactly how he’s going to defend Israel. He speaks about raining down fire and hail and brimstone. That’s a heavenly air assault.”

What kind of sane person would pray for Armageddon, and would urge another bloody war with a large populous country that can only end with millions dead? It takes religion to drive that kind of hatred.

And now we’ve got one of these murderous kooks appointed to the Speaker of the House, third in line to the presidency.

I never heard of him before, but suddenly my email is flooded with crap from him — some troll probably signed me up. What I’m seeing is flyers portraying stark raving madness, like this one.

WTF? Straight-up MAGA Jesus, with some of the more outrageous hate-ranters available, like Greg Locke. Oh, look, they got “comedian” Jim Breuer making funny faces, which is pretty much the entirety of his act (oh, wait, there are also obnoxious noises.) This tent-revival-style shrieking looks like my personal vision of Hell, but the impresario isn’t Satan, it’s some asshole named Clay Clark. So I looked him up on Wikipedia.

The ReAwaken America tour was founded by Clay Clark, a business coach and entrepreneur and former mayoral candidate in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In August 2020, Clark initiated a lawsuit against the city of Tulsa for its mask mandate to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The lawsuit alleged that wearing masks caused oxygen deprivation, leading to “migraine headaches, shortness of breath and dizziness.” The lawsuit was dropped in March 2021.

Clark has publicly espoused his belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. When he spoke at the January 5, 2021 rally held at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. in support of Donald Trump’s protest of the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Clark told attendees that the coronavirus pandemic was a hoax and instructed them to “turn to the person next to you and give them a hug, someone you don’t know. Go hug somebody. Go ahead and spread it out, mass spreader. It’s a mass-spreader event!”

On a June 2021 episode of the Stew Peters Show, he argued that the COVID-19 vaccine contained luciferase, which he believed was a cryptocurrency technology associated with the Mark of the Beast prophesied in Revelation 13:16-18. This conspiracy theory, according to Clark, included Bill Gates (under the influence of performance artist and alleged Satanist Marina Abramović), and Jeffrey Epstein. Clark accused Gates and Epstein of attempting to create a new race of humans by combining luciferase and Epstein’s DNA into the COVID-19 vaccine.

At an October 2021 rally in Salt Lake City, Utah, Clark made the unproven claim that “COVID-19 is 100 percent treatable using budesonide, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.” He also accused George Soros of funding remdesivir, a drug used to treat severe cases of COVID-19 but which Clark said was “killing COVID-19 patients in the hospital because it causes renal failure”.

Oh. So he’s like the stupid version of Satan, then. He seems to believe that COVID, a disease that killed over a million Americans over the last few years, is a hoax…and that wearing a mask, which I still do for hours every day, causes oxygen deprivation. I’ve used luciferase, it’s just an enzyme. Epstein’s DNA isn’t in any vaccine. Ivermectin doesn’t work. But he has turned these loony beliefs into a big money-maker for himself.

There is also a nice Rolling Stone expose, which mainly reveals what a colossal asshole the man is. At least I was happy to learn that devout Christians are waking up and protesting these MAGA megachurch vermin as enemies of their faith.

Each stop on the tour now draws protests, of varying size, and the show is sometimes booted from venues — as it was in upstate New York this summer — leaving Clark scrambling. In Virginia, a lone van sent by the liberal clergy group Faithful America, which has been organizing against the tour since early this year, putters past the location with a rented billboard denouncing the speakers. (No one from that group is in attendance, citing safety concerns.) Reached by phone, Nathan Empsall, Faithful America’s director, says, “This tour is the face of unholy Christian Nationalism and they are bringing this deadly message to many churches.”

We atheists despise him, too. This sounds like the kind of thing where atheists and theists can find common cause. At least on agreeing that Jim Breuer is not funny at all.

Good. Can they die a little faster, please?

I always felt that living in Utah was like living in a nest of Scientologists — all this money-making scheming plastered over with a veneer of florid scripture written by a mountebank. I wouldn’t miss it if it disappeared altogether.

That’s nothing special about Mormonism, though. Look! All religions in the USA are dying slowly.

There are many factors behind this decline. Here’s one:

Meanwhile, the church’s close alliance with the GOP might be costing it members. As Notre Dame political science professor David Campbell, who was raised Mormon, told me, “There’s an allergic reaction among many Americans — particularly those who lean to the left politically — when religion and politics mix. We see it among Catholics. We see it among evangelicals. And we’re seeing it among Mormons.”

It gets messy when you include politics, though: the Republicans have become increasingly cult-like. That’s the next religion that needs to go!

Lately, I’ve been getting a flood of spam about “tentmaking”. It’s not what it sounds like — it’s an evangelical Christian term.

Today Tentmaking has taken on a much broader definition than just referring to the skill of making tents. A Tentmaker is a dedicated, spiritually mature Christian man or woman who views work in light of the Great Commission and as an opportunity to serve the Kingdom of God. Therefore, work is a vital aspect of Christian witness because it provides substantial means of developing relationships, credibility, and contexts for ministry.

That’s not me, to put it mildly. However, I’m seeing a bizarre angle in all the email I’m deleting, and here’s just one example.

I’ve got a bunch of these in the trash right now — the curious thing is that none of them talk about god or Jesus, although they do use words like “side-hustle” and making thousands of dollars per week in your spare time. I think Jesus is the side-hustle here.

I’ve snipped out the contact information, but if you’re really excited about the possibilities, contact me and I’ll let you know. By the way, the workshop will only cost you $497, although they drop hints about additional upgrades.

This is what Christianity has become — a grifter’s refuge.

After their attempt to stuff the ten commandments into classrooms failed, the Texas legislature rebounds and succeeds in stuffing chaplains into the schools.

Senate Bill 763 was approved in an 84-60 vote in the Texas House, one day after it passed the Texas Senate. It allows Texas schools to use safety funds to pay for unlicensed chaplains to work in mental health roles. Volunteer chaplains will also be allowed in schools.

Note: they want to use safety fund for this futile effort, in a misguided belief that this will keep kids safe. But then the bill specifically allows unlicensed chaplains, that is, the local Baptist minister with no training in education or safety is going to get paid to come in and pester the kids. And they’re expected to provide mental health assistance! Like mental health care is just something anyone can do adequately.

Wow, but that one sentence — “It allows Texas schools to use safety funds to pay for unlicensed chaplains to work in mental health roles” — is doing a lot of work.

The Democrats made an effort to reduce the harm this bill is going to do to no avail.

Earlier this month, House Democrats also offered amendments to bar proselytizing or attempts to convert students from one religion to another; to require chaplains to receive consent from the parents of school children; and to make schools provide chaplains from any faith or denomination requested by students. All of those amendments failed.

Those are reasonable requirements, but they don’t go far enough. In particular, you need training to do counseling. Republicans think it’s going to help, for their usual ignorant reasons.

As with other faith-driven legislation this session — including a bill to require the Ten Commandments in classrooms that failed to reach a crucial vote on Tuesday — conservative Christians argued that religious chaplains could help prevent school shootings, drug use, suicide and other societal ills by returning God to classrooms.

My experience with most religious nutcases is that they’re only going to increase the sense of futility and despair. Not to mention the increase in sexual abuse by priests, which always seems to follow.

Look at that stupid gomer.

Texas tried to pass a blatantly unconstitutional ten commandments law.

Texas lawmakers are scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to require that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in the state, part of a newly energized national effort to insert religion into public life.

Supporters believe the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer in favor of a high school football coach who prayed with players essentially removed any guardrails between religion and government.

OK, with our current Korrupt/Konservative Kourt, maybe it would have flown. But Texas Democrats didn’t let them have the opportunity!

The midnight bill deadline has passed!!

We stopped the Ten Commandments bill from becoming law.

I’m so proud of Texas Democrats for sticking together and stopping this dangerous legislation. #txlege https://t.co/YhO83U4Q64

— James Talarico (@jamestalarico) May 24, 2023

That’s what we all need to do from now on, stop these disgraceful bill before the Supreme Court can endorse them.

You knew this would set ol’ Bill’s non-existent hair on fire: the Los Angeles Dodgers invited a drag group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, to a baseball game, and even apologized for a previous disinvitation. Cue a Catholic League tirade.

In a statement released to the press, the Dodgers said they had “much thoughtful feedback from our diverse communities, honest conversations within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization and generous discussions with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.” On May 22, the “Sisters” met with Kasten and LGBTQ organizations, as well as local government officials.

There was no indication that Catholic leaders, clergy or lay, were invited to participate in these “honest conversations.” Only one side was listened to—the side that sponsors hate speech. The fact that gay and trans leaders agree with the vulgar anti-Catholic rhetoric and behavior of the “Sisters” means they now have no moral leg to stand on when asking for an end to bigotry against them.

Knowing full well how the ruling class in this country can no longer be trusted, I told my staff yesterday that it wouldn’t surprise me if MLB and the Dodgers reversed course. To that end, I personally went through our files on the “Sisters” and prepared a report on them.

Cool. So now the Catholic League claims that their bigotry is warranted, because the Catholic church was not invited to a conversation between a baseball team and a LGBTQ advocacy group. Why would anyone expect Catholic leaders to be invited to everything?

Two things intrigued me, though: one is that he told his “staff” something. He has a staff? What is it, one part-time secretary and the building custodian? He’s another of those people with a history of amplifying his constituency with a fax machine and a bullhorn, like Moms for Liberty, Libs of Tik-Tok, and Mel and Norma Gabler.

But the second thing…Bill has a dossier on the the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence? Of course he does. And it makes me like them even more.

SISTERS OF PERPETUAL INDULGENCE
Bill Donohue

1979: This was the beginning of the Sisters. In San Francisco’s Castro
District three men dressed in traditional nun’s habit walked the streets.
One of them carried a machine gun. Then they went to a nude beach. It
was then that they adopted the name the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
1982: A year after AIDS was discovered, the Sisters were upset, but they
did not complain about the lethal sex practices that gave rise to AIDS;
rather, they complained about the “fear and prejudice” that it was
engendering. “Sr. Florence Nightmare” and “Sr. Roz Erection”
addressed the issue.
1987: The Sisters were granted a tax-exempt status after trashing Pope
John Paul II’s visit to San Francisco. The Sisters held an “exorcism” and
a “Condom Savior Mass” in Union Square. At the event, they featured
“the Latex Host” and referred to Jesus as “the Condom Savior.” They
also burned the Pope in effigy.
1987: They staged a “Hunky Jesus” contest, something they do every
year on Easter Sunday.
1989: On their tenth anniversary, they held many events, including one
with “Sr. Psychedelia’s” rise from the dead, and “Pope Dementia’s
Altered Boys.” They wore “only thongs and smiles.”
1989: At the “Condom Savior Mass,” the Sisters read from a text of the
“Condom Savior Consecration.” It said, “The Latex Host is the flesh for
the life of the world. Just as the Creator who has life sent us, we have life
because of the Condom Savior. Those who feed on this latex will have
life because of it. This is the bread that comes down from Heaven, and,
unlike those who eat not and therefore die, those who feed on this bread
shall live forever!”
1990: A staff writer for the Miami Herald said the Sisters were noted for
“carrying a 20-foot replica of a penis” at its street events.
1992: At a rally in Sacramento at the Capital Christian Center, the Sisters
held signs of the Cross with a pink inverted triangle in the place of Jesus;
the inscription read, “Stop Crucifying Queers.”
1992: “On Parade,” a publication of the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay
Freedom Day Parade and Celebration Committee, published an article by
“Sister Dana Van Iquity” which said the motto of the Sisters is “Encroach
not on my crotch!” and “Leave my loins alone.” He described the day’s
events, including “Dykes on Bikes” and “Dykes with Tikes on Trikes.”
1993: At another rally at the Capital Christian Center, protesters held a
sign, “Queer Alert: Fighting for Freedom From Religion.”
1993: Twelve years after AIDS hit, they demonstrated in Washington,
“reeling in anger and despair” over five of their members who died of the
sexually transmitted disease.
1993: The Sisters were banned from the March on Washington’s stage
for being “too controversial and not the appropriate image” for C-Span
and “the movement.”
1993: The Sisters are seen as so offensive that they incur the wrath of
Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, the authors of a landmark book on
gays, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of
Gays in the 90s. They say of the Sisters, “‘Fringe’ gay groups ought to
have the tact to withdraw voluntarily from public appearance at gay
parades, marches, and rallies, but they don’t care whether they fatally
compromise the rest of us.”
1994: They served “holy communion wafers and tequila” to the
congregation at a mock Mass.
1999: On the cover of the April 1, 1999 edition of the San Francisco Bay
Times there was a full-page picture of a Sister superimposed on a crosslike photo with his hands stretched out, imitating Jesus on the Cross.
2000: In San Francisco, they held a Good Friday event where they
sponsored a fetish fashion show that provided “a chance to get spanked
and free “Sticky Buns.” Dr. Carol Queen held her “Good Vibrations
Dildo Fashion Show.”
2001: I petitioned the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Sisters,
citing multiple examples of “vulgar, obscene and bigoted material against
the Catholic Church and its members.”
2002: They celebrated Easter with an “Indulgence in the Park” event that
featured a “clown-drag-nun” fundraiser, along with the annual “Hunky
Jesus” contest.
2004: They spent the entire month of December bashing Christmas in
Los Angeles.
2008: San Diego House of the Sisters—The Asylum of the Tortured
Heart, which was founded in 2005, held a “Midnight Confessional
Contest” that gave prizes to those with the “hottest confessions.” It was
held in a gay bar.
2009: They held a block party in San Francisco where some of the men
danced naked in the street.
2010: At the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts winter gala, the Sisters
were asked to perform six musical acts in a “Nunway Noir” drag fashion
show where attendees could “bask in the bloody gore of occult film
screenings.”
2011: In a Daily Beast column, gay writer Andrew Sullivan called the
Sisters’ “Hunky Jesus” event a form of “blasphemy.” He was so angry at
them that he said, “This makes me feel like Bill Donohue.”
2018: The Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon hosted “Drag
Queen Storytime with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” despite their
history of anti-Catholicism. The event explicitly targeted kids 2-6.
2022: The Sisters gave an award for featuring Lil Hot Mess, “a man who
dresses as a woman for children and one of the leading activists behind
Drag Queen Story Hour.”
2023: A Sister won the “Free Choice Mary” pro-abortion award. The
man, dressed with a nun’s veil, wearing a bra and panties, was featured
holding a baby doll with a sign, “I Had A Choice.”

I gotta appreciate that not only did they raise the ire of Bill Donohue, but they outraged Andrew Sullivan.

I’m also amused that their great crime in 2004 was spending the entire month of December bashing Christmas in Los Angeles.

I like it!