Congratulations, President Drumpf

President Drumpf

I woke up Wednesday morning to the news that Donald J. Drumpf will be the 45th President of the United States of America.  This news is historic on so many levels. I can’t think of many good things that will come out of this Presidency.  My thoughts follow:

NOTE: I’ve now had a full day to process this information and am still having trouble with the reality of the situation. This post has been written over the course of two days and may not even fully describe the potential threat to America Drumpf’s Presidency poses.

1. Drumpf’s Presidency legitimizes the worst in us

Throughout his campaign, this man has done everything he could to scare the living crap out of the American people, using phrases like “third-world country” and “war zone” to describe our infrastructure and cities.  While this sensationalism is obviously false, and (for example) numerous reportsbased on actual data over the past few decades – show that crime is down nationwide, the anxious, frightened voter base he’s garnered takes it as confirmation that they’re in real danger and cements the wrong-headed idea that our government has failed us.  In short, he has bolstered intellectual laziness over honesty with the words, “Trust me.” And his voter base did. You don’t have to scour social media very thoroughly to find more examples than you want of expressions of these ideas.

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Facebook Affirmations, Vol. III

This post has been a long time coming and I’ve waffled on whether or not I’d actually write and post it.  Now that I’ve put some more thought into it I can’t see a reason not to post it and what’s more, I think it’s very important in an enlightened age to open these types of ideas up to scrutiny and even ridicule in the hopes of educating people on why the things they believe may be harmful (or at the very least, not helpful) and why they should have good reasons for believing what they do.

In my news feed on Facebook I will be served a daily dose of Christian affirmations from friends.  In this series of posts, which I call “Facebook Affirmations™,” I will post and discuss some of these gems. Here’s the affirmation for today:

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The Tithe That Binds

There’s a very strange movement in some Christian circles called “The Prosperity Gospel” that posits some kind of supernatural investment scheme where the more money you give to god (read: churches and/or pastors) the more material wealth god will give to you.  While most Christian denominations denounce this theology as false or even blasphemous most of them also have their own, more subtle versions of the prosperity gospel whether they know it or not.

 

Becoming a Millionaire God's Way
God wants you to be rich!

The churches in which I grew up always passed the offering plate/basket around during services expecting members to give at least 10% of whatever they had.  This is standard practice for Protestant churches under a doctrine of tithing.  Some churches go as far as asking (“asking” is a funny word since the whole thing is done with an air of, “if you don’t, god will know”) the congregation to make pledges as to how much they’ll give for the year.  This helps the church make a budget but it also very clearly shows the churches are just businesses.

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