Agnosticism has a greater claim and proof to preventing and treating disease through the CDC and NIH than Christianity has any similarly valid proof to curing disease through Lourdes, down through the ages.
Christian Healing isn't even as efficacious as chiropractic or, perhaps, homeopathy.
BTW, those 'agnostic' organizations also admit the efficacy of 'placebo', but they JUST DON'T CALL IT 'GOD'.
The government flew me to Korea, and I went north for a trip. (No combat) Plenty of people missed me while I was gone. Just to match his energy, I’m not going to miss him when he’s gone. The last thing the USA needs is more theocratic bs in the government. It has only made things worse and more difficult to fix.
No, no, no... she 𝘪𝘴 a moderate Republican. She isn't a moderate 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘯, but she is a moderate 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 politician. She's somewhere to the right of the old guard like McTurtle and Shrub, while being not 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 as far to the right as Greene, Boebert, Chump, or Deathsentence. That makes her, by default, a moderate within her party. That's just how far the wingnuts have shifted the Overton Window- a "moderate" Republican is still a fascist by the norms of any other modern democracy.
Leftist? 'ol Ronnie Raygun supported amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and advanced negotiations on limiting nuclear arsenals- the modern GQP would claim he was a Soviet spy!
They simply treat him the way they treat the Bible, the Constitution, politics and life in general: Ignore the bits you find inconvenient and pretend the stuff you find comfortable is all there is.
He would never be President. He benefited from an abysmal economy and faltering foreign policy, ISTR, too.
A completely gaffe-ridden, gooberville Carter Administration, and Ole Billy Beer, were more than just frosting on the cake, too. WaPo and NYT didn't help him out, either.
I don't recall Carter giving ANY legitimate reason to re-elect him, other than I'm not Ronnie and I'm not Nixon/Ford.
Well, the middle-of-the-road Democrats I grew up around and the middle-of-the-road Republicans at the same time differed mostly by who pocketed the graft.
The local Dem machine controlled the city and a lot of state representatives, but there was always a milquetoast Republican Federal representative.
Yes it's interesting that. On the right anti-Semitism is basically the only racism you are not allowed to embrace until you hit some invisible barrier, and then it becomes mandatory.
The blunt fact is that John Hagee is a lying sack of shit ... and that Nikki Haley chose to have him as a part of the kickoff of her campaign does NOT bode well for her efforts (not that I endorse her in any way, shape, or form).
Besides which, I think we all know who is going to garner the Republican nomination in a year and change ... and his initials are DJT.
No, as much as the conspiracy nut faction of the GQP likes to refer to anyone left of them as sheeple, they are the ones who flock to the party banner.
I used to think that Trump would die in office – largely because of his lack of exercise and crap diet. I no longer hope along those lines, the guy must have excellent genes to have survived so long. So yes he probably will. Keeping my fingers crossed though.
She's going to be full right to the right wing fascist nut job until she gets through the Republican primary. Then, if she gets it, she'll pretend that she never said any of it and will start to try to appeal to the more moderate Republicans.
They are also the moderate Republicans of 30 years ago.
Some have even moved less-economically-conservative after seeing the crime and graft of continual 'financial meltdowns' that robbed people and the nation, with very few going to jail and the same Neo-Liberal pundits slinging their manure against the wall to see what sticks ..., and calling it Great Economic Theory.
Republicans, dyed-in-the-wool, have Party Unity which will carry quite a few through to the election.
After nomination she'll be trying to appeal to the swing-voters, like the ones who elected Biden and who damped down the Red Wave that turned into a 'left the moon roof open' disappointment.
The cult that is now the former Republican Party attracts candidates the way steaming heaps of Fido's unwanted waste attract flies. Rotten Ronnie Raygun ushered in the fundamentalists and evangelists to further discredit religion and get votes from dupable people. When organized religion mixes with politics, both are fouled. Nothing inventive about her tactics, she needs the votes. Probably unelectable in many places, with reason. Independents watch the chasm between reality and R politicians widen...
I think the fundagelicals are more Newt Gingrich's and that crowd's doing. Especially thinking of all the Texas crooks he had assisting him, some of them now ex-cons.
The Southern Strategy, as far as I can tell, was a push-me-pull-you thing of two grifting, scared lovers finally finding each other over the pig trough AFTER I moved to The Southern, which was well after Ronnie left the scene.
Other than that, have at "The Party of Venal Ideas!"
Oh c'mon Hemant, you know how the two-step goes. The candidate swings right (or left, for Dems) during the primary, and then jumps towards the middle during the general. She will court the Trumpies and evangelicals now, and the independent voters sometime around May-June 2024. If she makes it that far.
Oh of course not. But she'll have plenty of positive things to say about our wonderful multicultural society and how she fully supports all the different people of the US...once her Republican competitors are eliminated.
She conveniently converted to Christinanity in 1997, prolly to be able to have a Methodist church marriage. Oh, and prolly to keep the in-laws happy with Christian grandchildren.
Prolly swings towards whatever Sikh or Christian creed serves her purposes FOR THE DAY.
A lot like Hindu 'god shopping', as in although Christian, she was raised Sikh and still attends 'occasional' services, prolly to serve political purposes and make HER family happy.
A SITUATIONAL Christian.
Compare her to how Trump worships the currency of local significance, and will actually enter a Christian church with the chance of bursting into flames, as long as the payoff is right?
Nikki Haley strikes me as the sort of person who has very specific ideas about heaven that I quite specifically would not enjoy. I would guess all the women in her version of heaven are wearing red dresses and white bonnets.
At this point, I dare say Haley is trying to seem like the 'sensible' alternative to Trump, the 'more reasonable' version of Christian Nationalism to appeal to a base that seems to be trying to shred itself by fear frenzy. That's pretty likely to get a fair amount of the GOP's attention, at this point, since some of them are starting to figure out that Trump's tactics can't hold forever and don't make good long-term policy. It worries me that this might, in fact, actually work out for Haley.
The next presidential race is just starting. We don't really know how things will look in November 2024. Right now, I think the best option is just to buckle up and hang on, since this isn't likely to be the last bump in that road.
I'd say she has whatever ideas will specifically get her ahead in the World, like her tenure as Trump's UN representative.
She's a follower, not a leader.
I've heard her on a local MAGAt radio station a couple times while browsing the local hobby store, which has 3 stores worth of stuff in one-half a strip mall location. She came on and sounded like a robot, reciting the SOB/S over and over again.
She sounded like the UK's Liz Truss without the enthusiasm or personal magnetism.
"It was Hagee’s presence, however, that deserves scrutiny."
Unless he starts doing some serious Atkins, that'll take a hell of a lot of scrutinizing. It's just so fascinating how so many christer preacher-men totally ignore all the biblical injunctions against the deadly sin of gluttony. One more demonstration that they regard the bible's laws as being for the rest of us, never for themselves.
". . . atheism has “never healed a disease.”
Neither has kkkristianity.
But the scientific method, which does not presuppose a God and has found no evidence for one, has healed and treated plenty of diseases.
Atheism has never claimed to heal disease. Christianity has.
Agnosticism has a greater claim and proof to preventing and treating disease through the CDC and NIH than Christianity has any similarly valid proof to curing disease through Lourdes, down through the ages.
Christian Healing isn't even as efficacious as chiropractic or, perhaps, homeopathy.
BTW, those 'agnostic' organizations also admit the efficacy of 'placebo', but they JUST DON'T CALL IT 'GOD'.
Lourdes closed during covid and reopened in 2022. So much for god's healing.
Theism:
The belief in god(s)
Atheism:
The lack of belief in god(s)
The government flew me to Korea, and I went north for a trip. (No combat) Plenty of people missed me while I was gone. Just to match his energy, I’m not going to miss him when he’s gone. The last thing the USA needs is more theocratic bs in the government. It has only made things worse and more difficult to fix.
No, no, no... she 𝘪𝘴 a moderate Republican. She isn't a moderate 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘯, but she is a moderate 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 politician. She's somewhere to the right of the old guard like McTurtle and Shrub, while being not 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 as far to the right as Greene, Boebert, Chump, or Deathsentence. That makes her, by default, a moderate within her party. That's just how far the wingnuts have shifted the Overton Window- a "moderate" Republican is still a fascist by the norms of any other modern democracy.
This. The Republicans have shifted so far to the right that if Reagan were alive and active in politics today, they would call him a leftist.
Leftist? 'ol Ronnie Raygun supported amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and advanced negotiations on limiting nuclear arsenals- the modern GQP would claim he was a Soviet spy!
And yet they revere him as a Saint. How short their memories are when inconvenient to the advancement of their bigotry and oppression.
They simply treat him the way they treat the Bible, the Constitution, politics and life in general: Ignore the bits you find inconvenient and pretend the stuff you find comfortable is all there is.
Don't mind us. We are just picking cherries here.
He would never be President. He benefited from an abysmal economy and faltering foreign policy, ISTR, too.
A completely gaffe-ridden, gooberville Carter Administration, and Ole Billy Beer, were more than just frosting on the cake, too. WaPo and NYT didn't help him out, either.
I don't recall Carter giving ANY legitimate reason to re-elect him, other than I'm not Ronnie and I'm not Nixon/Ford.
Moderate Republican: reloads her own ammo.
Moderate Republicans have probably mostly morphed into social middle-of-the-road/economic conservative swing voters.
Some retain membership just to get the party literature, and I'm certain of that.
Some of them have morphed into Democrats I understand?
The only thing that holds the Democratic Party together is the fact they are *not* Republicans.
Well, the middle-of-the-road Democrats I grew up around and the middle-of-the-road Republicans at the same time differed mostly by who pocketed the graft.
The local Dem machine controlled the city and a lot of state representatives, but there was always a milquetoast Republican Federal representative.
𝘏𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 “𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘯.”
He is wrong. Women are only meant to be whatever they damn well want to be.
"Nikki Haley kicked off her 2024 campaign with a prayer from an extremist pastor"
That's not a headline, this is a headline.
"Nikki Haley Launches Her Campaign Beside Doomsday Antisemitic Pastor"
She's a Republican, the Antisemitism can be presumed.
Yes it's interesting that. On the right anti-Semitism is basically the only racism you are not allowed to embrace until you hit some invisible barrier, and then it becomes mandatory.
[Watching to see the fight over anti-semitism as racism ...]
You'd just be stirring up interest in her campaign with The Party Faithful.
The blunt fact is that John Hagee is a lying sack of shit ... and that Nikki Haley chose to have him as a part of the kickoff of her campaign does NOT bode well for her efforts (not that I endorse her in any way, shape, or form).
Besides which, I think we all know who is going to garner the Republican nomination in a year and change ... and his initials are DJT.
It really says a lot about the state of the GQP that Chump isn't even the worst candidate they could come up with anymore.
Yes, I feel like someone said those immortal words "Hold my beer" sometimes, too. :p
The more candidates, the more likely Trump gets the nomination. Just like 2016.
I keep hoping Trump will split the party and Biden mops up come election time.
No, as much as the conspiracy nut faction of the GQP likes to refer to anyone left of them as sheeple, they are the ones who flock to the party banner.
I used to think that Trump would die in office – largely because of his lack of exercise and crap diet. I no longer hope along those lines, the guy must have excellent genes to have survived so long. So yes he probably will. Keeping my fingers crossed though.
Don't forget the non-stop anger that should've also wreaked holy hell with his health.
Why do good people continue to die while this saffron shitgibbon continues to waste oxygen?
There is a God and he's an evil, sadistic bastard?
Edit: I forgot twisted.
It's the corollary of "only the good die young".
She's going to be full right to the right wing fascist nut job until she gets through the Republican primary. Then, if she gets it, she'll pretend that she never said any of it and will start to try to appeal to the more moderate Republicans.
The moderate Republicans of today are the far right Republicans of 30 years ago.
They are also the moderate Republicans of 30 years ago.
Some have even moved less-economically-conservative after seeing the crime and graft of continual 'financial meltdowns' that robbed people and the nation, with very few going to jail and the same Neo-Liberal pundits slinging their manure against the wall to see what sticks ..., and calling it Great Economic Theory.
And the whole goddamn party will believe her, or at least pretend they do.
Republicans, dyed-in-the-wool, have Party Unity which will carry quite a few through to the election.
After nomination she'll be trying to appeal to the swing-voters, like the ones who elected Biden and who damped down the Red Wave that turned into a 'left the moon roof open' disappointment.
Looks like the pundits are wrong when they say Haley hasn't got a prayer.
Yeah, but it's the wrong god.
Yeah, but you pray to Zeus and next thing you know, you're getting a golden shower.
Trump must've prayed to Zeus a lot.
And that's if you're lucky- catch him in the wrong mood with the wrong anatomy and you'll end up rearing a demigod instead.
Let's not forget that little problem, called A Raging Wife (Hera).
If you want to get the lowdown on her temper, just ask the Trojans ..., oops, you can't ...
Hera really should have evolved into the Goddess of Open Marriage and gotten laid. I'm sure it would have done wonders for her disposition.
At least with the shower of gold, he paid the child support upfront.
But Greek garments didn't have pockets. Where did they carry their yellow hankies?
Around their heads?
I'll bet if there had been no 'remuneration' she'd have had someone else on that cross, lying to The Sheeple.
It's like he was PAID to use FREE air time to star in a commercial where HE PIMP HIS OWN SCAM!
What's not to like?!
If there was a loving God, Hagee would develop a life-threatening allergy to mountain cedar.
If there was a loving God, I'd have all Republicans develop a life-threatening allergy to Oxygen.
The cult that is now the former Republican Party attracts candidates the way steaming heaps of Fido's unwanted waste attract flies. Rotten Ronnie Raygun ushered in the fundamentalists and evangelists to further discredit religion and get votes from dupable people. When organized religion mixes with politics, both are fouled. Nothing inventive about her tactics, she needs the votes. Probably unelectable in many places, with reason. Independents watch the chasm between reality and R politicians widen...
I think the fundagelicals are more Newt Gingrich's and that crowd's doing. Especially thinking of all the Texas crooks he had assisting him, some of them now ex-cons.
The Southern Strategy, as far as I can tell, was a push-me-pull-you thing of two grifting, scared lovers finally finding each other over the pig trough AFTER I moved to The Southern, which was well after Ronnie left the scene.
Other than that, have at "The Party of Venal Ideas!"
Rotten Ronnie co-opted Jerry Falwell and the (im)Moral Majority. The willingness to pollute politics with religion runs deep in the Republican Party.
“But this is the man Nikki Haley wants to be like when she grows up.”
That's not what she said. What she actually said was: “I still say I want to be you when I grow up.”
To some, this may suggest she thinks Hagee is a man worth admiring; however, I think it suggests she is actually a trans man.
She's ALREADY GROWN UP, so that twaddle shoots her veracity and/or perception right in the butt.
If she's not grown up, she's just pulled to plug on her candidacy.
Being a Growed-Up is SPECIFICALLY WHY there is a minimum age requirement for President.
"...give Haley "wisdom that is supernatural."
The supernatural doesn't exist. There's no evidence for it. So how foolish is it to equate wisdom with it?
It's cheap!
𝐼𝑓 𝑠ℎ𝑒’𝑠 𝑡𝑟𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑛𝑜𝑛-𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑧𝑦 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠, 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑤𝑒𝑑 𝑢𝑝 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑜𝑛 𝐷𝑎𝑦 1
Oh c'mon Hemant, you know how the two-step goes. The candidate swings right (or left, for Dems) during the primary, and then jumps towards the middle during the general. She will court the Trumpies and evangelicals now, and the independent voters sometime around May-June 2024. If she makes it that far.
𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑡 𝐻𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑒 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐻𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑒’𝑠 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒
Oh of course not. But she'll have plenty of positive things to say about our wonderful multicultural society and how she fully supports all the different people of the US...once her Republican competitors are eliminated.
Nimrata Nikki Randhawa Haley gets who to do an invocation?
She conveniently converted to Christinanity in 1997, prolly to be able to have a Methodist church marriage. Oh, and prolly to keep the in-laws happy with Christian grandchildren.
Prolly swings towards whatever Sikh or Christian creed serves her purposes FOR THE DAY.
A lot like Hindu 'god shopping', as in although Christian, she was raised Sikh and still attends 'occasional' services, prolly to serve political purposes and make HER family happy.
A SITUATIONAL Christian.
Compare her to how Trump worships the currency of local significance, and will actually enter a Christian church with the chance of bursting into flames, as long as the payoff is right?
Nikki Haley strikes me as the sort of person who has very specific ideas about heaven that I quite specifically would not enjoy. I would guess all the women in her version of heaven are wearing red dresses and white bonnets.
At this point, I dare say Haley is trying to seem like the 'sensible' alternative to Trump, the 'more reasonable' version of Christian Nationalism to appeal to a base that seems to be trying to shred itself by fear frenzy. That's pretty likely to get a fair amount of the GOP's attention, at this point, since some of them are starting to figure out that Trump's tactics can't hold forever and don't make good long-term policy. It worries me that this might, in fact, actually work out for Haley.
The next presidential race is just starting. We don't really know how things will look in November 2024. Right now, I think the best option is just to buckle up and hang on, since this isn't likely to be the last bump in that road.
I'd say she has whatever ideas will specifically get her ahead in the World, like her tenure as Trump's UN representative.
She's a follower, not a leader.
I've heard her on a local MAGAt radio station a couple times while browsing the local hobby store, which has 3 stores worth of stuff in one-half a strip mall location. She came on and sounded like a robot, reciting the SOB/S over and over again.
She sounded like the UK's Liz Truss without the enthusiasm or personal magnetism.
Is the misogynist and racist G卐P ready to elect; not just a woman but a woman of color to the highest office in the land?
I wonder if she is going to try to position herself as homophobe light as compared to DeNazi.
"It was Hagee’s presence, however, that deserves scrutiny."
Unless he starts doing some serious Atkins, that'll take a hell of a lot of scrutinizing. It's just so fascinating how so many christer preacher-men totally ignore all the biblical injunctions against the deadly sin of gluttony. One more demonstration that they regard the bible's laws as being for the rest of us, never for themselves.