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basicsofislam · 3 years

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ISLAM 101: Muslim Culture and Character: Embracing The World:

ISLAM – A RELIGION OF TOLERANCE

Islam is a word derived from the root words silm and salamah. It means surrendering, guiding to peace and contentment, and establishing security and accord.

Islam is a religion of security, safety, and peace. These principles permeate the lives of Muslims. When Muslims stand to pray, they cut their connection with this world, turning to their Lord in faith and obedience, and standing at attention in His presence. Completing the prayer, as if they were returning back to life, they greet those on their right and left by wishing peace: “Remain safe and in peace.” With a wish for safety and security, peace and contentment, they return to the ordinary world once again.

Greeting and wishing safety and security for others is considered one of the most beneficial acts in Islam. When asked which act in Islam is the most beneficial, the Prophet replied, “Feeding others and greeting those you know and those you do not know.”[1]

Accusing Islam of Terrorism

How unfortunate it is that Islam, which is based on this understanding and spirit, is shown by some circles to be synonymous with terrorism. This is a great historical mistake; wrapping a system based on safety and trust in a veil of terrorism just shows that the spirit of Islam remains unknown. If one were to seek the true face of Islam in its own sources, history, and true representatives, then one would discover that it contains no harshness, cruelty, or fanaticism. It is a religion of forgiveness, pardon, and tolerance, as such saints and princes of love and tolerance as Rumi, Yunus Emre, Ahmed Yesevi,[2] Bediüzzaman,[3] and many others have so beautifully expressed. They spent their lives preaching tolerance, and each became a legend in his own time as an embodiment of love and tolerance.

Jihad can be a matter of self-defense or of removing obstacles between God and human free choice. Our history is full of examples that show how this principle has been implemented in life.

Of course there are and should be occasions where war is unavoidable. However, the Qur’anic verses on jihad that were revealed for particular conditions have been generalized by some short-sighted individuals. Whereas in actual fact war is a matter of secondary importance, it has been given priority as an essential issue by these people. Such people do not understand the true meaning and spirit of Islam. Their failure to establish a proper balance between what is primary and what is secondary leads others to conclude that Islam advocates malice and hatred in the soul, whereas true Muslims are full of love and affection for all creation. Regarding this, how apt is the following couplet:

Muhammad was born out of love,

What can be born out of love without Muhammad?

Love Is the Essence of Creation

The Pride of Humanity was a man of love and affection. One of his names was Habibullah (the Beloved of God). In addition to meaning one who loves, habib means one who is loved, one who loves God, and one who is loved by God. Sufi masters like Imam Rabbani,[4] Mawlana Khalid,[5] and Shah Waliyyullah[6] state that love is the ultimate station of the spiritual journey.

God created the universe as a manifestation of His love for His creatures, in particular humanity, and Islam became the fabric woven out of this love. In the words of Bediüzzaman, love is the essence of creation. Just as a mother’s love and compassion compels her to allow a surgeon to operate on her sick child to save his or her life, jihad allows war, if needed, to preserve such fundamental human rights as the right to life and religious freedom. Jihad does not exclusively mean war.

Once a friend said to me: “Without exception and regardless of differences in faith, you meet with everyone, and this breaks the tension of Muslims toward probable opponents. But it is an Islamic principle to love those things or people who must be loved on the way of God and dislike those things or people who must be disliked on the way of God.” Actually this principle is often misunderstood, for in Islam all of creation is to be loved according to the rule of loving on God’s way.

“Disliking on the way of God” applies only to feelings, thoughts, and attributes. Thus, we should dislike such things as immorality, unbelief, and polytheism, not the people who engage in such activities. God created humanity as noble beings, and everyone, to a certain degree, has a share in this nobility. His Messenger once stood up out of respect for humanity as the funeral procession of a Jew passed by. When reminded that the deceased was a Jew, the Prophet replied: “But he is a human,” thereby showing the value Islam gives to human.

This action demonstrates how highly our Prophet respected every person. Given this, the involvement of some self-proclaimed Muslim individuals or institutions in terrorist activities can in no way be approved of by Islam. The reasons for this terrorism should be sought for in the actions themselves, in false interpretations of the faith, and in other factors and motives. Islam does not support terror, so how could a Muslim who truly understands Islam be a terrorist?

If we can spread the Islamic understanding of such heroes of love as Niyazi-i Misri,[7] Yunus Emre, and Rumi globally, if we can extend their messages of love, dialogue, and tolerance to those who thirst for this message, then everyone will run toward the embrace of love, peace, and tolerance that we represent.

The definition of tolerance in Islam is such that the Prophet even prohibited verbal abuse of unbelievers. For example, Abu Jahl died before embracing Islam, despite all the Prophet’s efforts. His unbelief and enmity toward the Prophet was such that he deserved the title Abu Jahl: Father of ignorance and impudence. His untiring opposition to Islam was a thorn in the side of the Muslims.

Despite such hostility, when in an assembly of Companions where Abu Jahl’s son Ikrimah was present, the Prophet one day admonished a Companion who had been heard insulting Abu Jahl: “Do not hurt others by criticizing their fathers.”[8] Another time, he said: “Cursing your mother and father is a great sin.” The Companions asked: “O Messenger of God, would anyone curse their parents?” The Prince of Prophets replied: “When someone curses another’s father and the other curses his father in return, or when someone curses another’s mother and the other does the same in return, they will have cursed their parents.”[9]

While the Prophet of Mercy was inordinately sensitive when it came to respecting others, some Muslims today justify unpleasant behavior on the basis of religion. This shows that they do not understand Islam, a religion in which there is no place for malice and hatred.

The Qur’an strongly urges forgiveness and tolerance. In one verse, it says of pious people:

They swallow their anger and forgive people. God loves those who do good. (Al-Imran 3:134)

In other words, Muslims should not retaliate when verbally abused or attacked. If possible, as Yunus says, they should act as if they had no hand or tongue with which to respond and no heart with which to resent. They must swallow their anger and close their eyes to the faults of others. The words selected in the verse are very meaningful. Kazm, translated as swallowing, literally means swallowing something like a thorn, an object that actually cannot be swallowed; thus it denotes swallowing one’s wrath, no matter how difficult. Another verse, while mentioning the characteristics of believers, says:

When they meet hollow words or unseemly behavior, they pass them by with dignity. (Al-Furqan 25:72)

When we look at the exalted life of God’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, we see that he always practiced the precepts presented in the Qur’an. For example, a Companion once repented of a sin and admitted: “I am guilty of fornication. Whatever my punishment is, give it and cleanse me.” The Prince of Prophets said: “Go back and repent, for God forgives all sins.”[10] This event was repeated three times. Another time, a Companion complained to the Prophet that someone had stolen his belongings. But as the punishment was about to be carried out the Companion said: “I have changed my mind and do not want to pursue my case. I forgive this individual.” The Prophet asked: “Why did you bring this matter to court? Why didn’t you forgive him from the outset?”[11]

When such examples are studied from their original sources, it is clear that the method of those who act with enmity and hatred, who view everyone else with anger, and who blacken others as infidels is non-Islamic, for Islam is a religion of love and tolerance. A Muslim is a person of love and affection who avoids every kind of terrorist activity and who has no malice or hatred for anyone or anything.

[1] Abu Dawud, Adab, 142.

[2] Ahmed Yesevi (d. 1166): Sufi poet and early Turkish spiritual leader who had a powerful influence on the development of mystical orders throughout the Turkish-speaking world.

[3] Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (1877-1960): An Islamic scholar of the highest standing with deep spirituality, a wide knowledge of modern science and the contemporary world. He believed that humanity could be saved from its crises and could achieve true progress and happiness only by knowing its true nature, and by recognizing and submitting to God. His Risale-i Nur (The Epistles of Light) deals with the Islamic essentials of faith, thought, worship, and morality and Qur’anic descriptions of Divine activity in the universe. Containing rational and logical proofs and explanations of all Qur’anic truths, it is his reply to those who deny them in the name of science. In his work, he reveals their many discrepancies and illogical statements.

[4] Imam Rabbani (Shaykh Ahmad al-Sirhindi) (1564?-1624): Indian Sufi and theologian who reasserted and revived the principles of Islamic faith and Sufi tradition in India against the syncretistic religious tendencies prevalent under the Mogul emperor Akbar. He was given the posthumous title: Mujaddid-i Alf-i Thani (Renovator of the Second [Islamic] Millennium).

[5] Mawlana Khalid al-Baghdadi (1778-1827): Naqshbandi master considered the mujaddid (reviver) of the thirteenth Islamic century. The Khalidi order, a new Naqshbandi branch, arose under his leadership and had acquired a large following by the end of the nineteenth century.

[6] Shah Waliyyullah Muhaddith of Delhi (1702-1762): A great scholar of the twelfth Islamic century. Some writers call him Khatam al-Muhadditheen (the last of the hadith scholars).

[7] Niyazi-i Misri (1618-1694). A Sufi poet and member of the Khalwati order.

[8] Hakim, al-Mustadrak, 3:241; Muttaqi al-Hindi, Kanz al-’Ummal, 13:540.

[9] Muslim, Iman, 145; Tirmidhi, Birr, 4.

[10] Muslim, Hudud, 17, 23; Bukhari, Hudud, 28.

[11] Abu Dawud, Hudud, 14(4394); Nasai, Sarik, 4 (8, 68); Muwatta, Hudud, 28, (2, 834).

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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UFO Conspiracy Theorists Offer ‘Ascension’ From Our Hell World for $333

Standing in his warmly-lit living room, the popular UFO conspiracy theorist David Wilcock was telling his YouTube Live audience that the "Illuminati Deep State" was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic and that he knew the secrets of how to save humanity from the crisis. More than 20,000 people were watching; hundreds of dollars in donations began rolling in via YouTube Superchat. The video now has more than a million views.

Just over a week later, Wilcock’s comrade in arms, Corey Goode, posted a video claiming, nonsensically, that according to briefings he has received from government insiders, the new coronavirus was engineered as a “biological weapon from an American university” and smuggled into China by a student in order to act as a population control tool. He concluded by stating that he wasn’t sure if his source was totally accurate.

There is nothing novel about two conspiracy theorists addressing COVID-19; the crisis has become a bonanza for those promoting hoaxes, fake treatments, xenophobia, and general nonsense. Wilcock and Goode, though, offer something different than the average figure ranting about 5G towers; they're significant figures in the “disclosure community,” a conspiracy-driven New Age segment of the UFO subculture that believes the government is hiding the truth about extraterrestrials. Combined, the two men have over half a million followers across various social media platforms. And while both had humble beginnings as ordinary UFO conspiracy theorists, this moment may uniquely suit them. They claim, after all, to have become quasi-divine prophets offering salvation from global cataclysm—all while offering aggressive legal challenges to anyone who would do so much as describe Wilcock, a man who has started what for all intents and purposes appears to be his own religion, as a spiritual leader.

Wilcock and Goode first partnered several years ago, promoting each other's wild narratives. Their 2019 documentary The Cosmic Secret tells the tale of a global catastrophe which, according to what Wilcock describes as his telepathic communications with alien beings, will happen soon. The end of the world, more specifically, will be the result of a “global pole shift.” (While Earth’s poles have shifted and do undergo minute changes over periods of thousands of years, mainstream geomagnetists aren’t concerned that a global cataclysm will occur any time soon.) Wilcock and Goode claim that the Moon is hollow and served as the home to an alien civilization that lived on Earth billions of years before humans. They cite the Klerksdorp Spheres—round, naturally occuring pyrophyllite balls—as evidence that an “ancient builder race” occupied Earth billions of years ago.

Wilcock is not just well-known in the UFO world, he's often an ambassador outside of it. He has published books with Penguin Random House, one of the largest publishing outlets in the world. According to his bio, he has appeared in "600 television episodes," including Ancient Aliens.

Wilcock claims that he was selected as a child to be the messenger to humanity by highly advanced "good guy" alien beings who are engaged in an Avengers-style cosmic war with evil aliens, spanning both time and space. Evil humans, whom he calls the “Cabal” or “Deep State,” run a secret space program, he says, and are actively engaged in a quiet war to stop him. He explains that his “Alliance” of unnamed government insiders, secret whistleblowers, alien allies, and followers are waging war against corruption and evil. One of these supposed insiders, Goode, claims that he is a time-traveling empath and a government insider with the secret space program who has been “age regressed” due to his decades-long work with various alien species as a champion and warrior representing Earth. He is in contact, he says, with an alien species known as the “Blue Avians,” and worked in a “support role for a rotating Earth Delegate Seat (shared by secret earth government groups) in a ‘human-type’ ET SuperFederation Council.”

Though Wilcock and Goode have been active in UFO circles for a while now, last year Wilcock officially started what appears to be essentially a religion. Wilcock Spiritual Healing and Empowerment, a tax exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit of which he is both the president and director, is registered in the state of Nevada alongside his for-profit business, Divine Cosmos LLC. Both are maintained by a capital management company in Las Vegas called Corporate Capital Inc. According to the website, Wilcock Spiritual Healing and Empowerment is “an organization dedicated to empowering the sacred […] We offer spiritual education courses, online and in person at conferences as well as share through written and video material to empower and uplift the soul.” They also accept donations. On Wilcock’s Divine Cosmos blog, he wrote, “I am also happy to report that we have now set up our own 501c3 foundation, so any donations you may send to keep us going are now completely tax-free: Donate Here.”

"We offer spiritual education courses, online and in person at conferences as well as share through written and video material to empower and uplift the soul."

While the two men have expressly denied being religious or spiritual leaders—it's unclear why, and when contacted for comment they responded with legal letters—they do offer what sound a lot like religious and spiritual courses. Wilcock explains that salvation from certain doom is to be had through Ascension. According to Wilcock, those who are ready will have their consciousness live on in higher dimensional states with “the good ETs.” Through meditation, having “a little more than 50 percent of your thoughts and actions be in service to others,” and merely being open-minded, he says, a person’s consciousness can be spared from catastrophe the aliens are about to induce. He asks his followers to continue following him, consume his printed and digital content, and pay $533 for his seven-session “Ascension Mystery School.” (He, also, at times, asks for donations.)

Following in Wilcock’s footsteps, Goode has launched what he calls the Accelerating Ascension Online Course. ("Quite literally, Corey is the Enoch of our modern times," the site says, "sent to our planet to reignite the Christ Consciousness message of love, forgiveness, and service to others in preparation for the most extraordinary time in our recorded history.") Not only is Goode claiming to be a psuedo-Biblical messenger, he is promoting the same apocalyptic event as Wilcock. His course teaches people about “safe zones, preparing your family, and building a local network.” The 10-week course costs $333.33.

The foundation of their ideas is based on a 1984 book which claims to be the channelled words of a supposed divine being named Ra, called The Law of One. Like many religious texts, it teaches that “love” and “light” are the two essential forces which make up the fabric of the universe. L/L Research, the organization that owns the text, told Motherboard that it maintained a relationship with Wilcock until about 2005, and that since then, only a handful of short emails have been exchanged. They explained that they provide the Ra material to the public for free via their website, but were quick to point out that they are not associated with Wilcock or Goode.

“L/L research provides this material for free to the public in our commitment to love and unity and does not wish to act as an authority in its interpretation, but as stewards of the material we can neither endorse nor condone certain uses of the Law of One, including any uses that energize conspiracist thinking, showcase and aggrandize the self over others, avoid personal accountability, create social harm, or generally promote separation and confusion in an already confused world,” Austin Bridges, the assistant director of L/L Research, wrote in an email to Motherboard.

“Religious language and references are ‘built in’ to UFO culture because historically people from many cultures have looked to the sky and have seen things that aroused wonder,” said Dr. Diana Pasulka, professor of philosophy and religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. She explained that strange aerial events were often seen as portents of “end times or viewed as being apocalyptic.”

Since the early 1950s, countless UFO religions have popped up. L. Ron Hubbard famously created the still-thriving Church of Scientology, the foundations of which tout the alien overlord Xenu as being the source of all life on Earth. Raëlism was founded by Claude Vorilhon in 1974; it still teaches today that life on Earth was seeded by extraterrestrials called Elohim. That same year, Marshall Applewhite founded Heaven’s Gate. A mix between Biblical teachings and prophecy, esoteric beliefs, Gnosticism and science fiction, the cult made international news in 1997 when Applewhite and 38 of his followers died by mass suicide, hoping to have their souls reborn on an alien spaceship hinding behind the Hale-Bopp Comet.

The dawn of the internet and social media has changed the way these groups function and recruit. Modern UFO religious groups seem to be forming at the strange intersection between fringe media, the viral spread of online content, and a community’s willingness to believe in the words of gurus. At times, there have been tragic consequences.

In 2012, Kelly Pingilley, a follower of cult leader Sherry Shriner, was so terrified that the alien apocalypse was looming that she died by suicide, overdosing on sleeping pills. A bizarre mix of Christian evangelism and the works of alien and conspiracy authors David Icke and Bill Cooper (and bearing a similarity to theories propounded in a 2018 documentary by Wilcock and Goode), Shriner's teachings preached the shadowy existence of evil reptilian aliens in league with Satan who ruled the world’s governments. Her cult existed entirely on social media and YouTube; she claimed to be a divine messenger sent by God to save humanity from alien based annihilation. She told journalists at the time that Pingilley was assassinated by NATO. In 2017, Steven Mineo was shot and killed by his girlfriend Barbara Rogers due to his feud with Shriner, who had told her followers that Rogers was an evil reptilian. Mineo turned on Shriner and, after a series of online arguments, was murdered by Rogers.

In mid-December 2017, Brent Wilkins, a follower of the New Age alien and conspiracy-touting guru Bentinho Massaro, jumped off a bridge in Sedona, Arizona while on a retreat led by Massaro. While Massaro claims zero responsibility, and charges were never filed against him, Wilkins’ family blames Massaro for their son’s suicide.

“The Internet has created a virtual reality where people may be living in their own houses or in their own apartments, but they're mentally isolated from everybody else,” said Steven Hassan, author of Combatting Cult Mind Control and The Cult of Trump. “So the old notion that you have to be in some isolated ashram in the woods somewhere is no longer necessary in the age of smartphones and the internet. That's kind of what's going on here.”

Wilcock and Goode do not ask people to abandon their family or move to a commune. They often state that they are not spiritual leaders and explain that everyone is their own savior. On the other hand, Wilcock has publicly stated that his alien contact, who has at times resembled Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars, has been telling him all his life that he “would become a very famous spiritual figure.” He has also claimed that he has incredibly accurate prophetic visions. Goode, for his part, claims to be a modern-day Enoch, who in Genesis is chosen to live with God. What exactly they're doing if not acting as spiritual leaders isn't clear; what is clear is that they don't want to be described that way.

Australian journalist and content designer Daniel James has been researching the work of Wilcock and Goode for several years now. After undergoing extensive medical treatment, James was convalescing in the hospital when he fell down the YouTube rabbit hole of fringe videos concerning New Age spirituality and consciousness. YouTube’s algorithm began providing some pretty esoteric video recommendations, and James decided to check it out.

“Out of curiosity, I decided to watch a few of the more ‘out-there’ videos. Initially, I discovered David Wilcock, then Corey Goode, and it wasn’t long before I had found dozens of these ‘speakers’ who proclaimed to have the answers to consciousness and a whole lot more,” James told Motherboard in an interview.

James quickly understood what was happening. Initially, he admits, he was mildly entertained.

“Immediately my BS detector went off, but I kept watching as it was fascinating to me that there was this whole group of public figures that had created their own lore, with interlinking tropes of crazy-looking extraterrestrials like something out of a George Lucas film, the Illuminati, Nazis in space, QAnon and everything in between,” James said. Soon, however, he realized that many people were taking this content seriously.

“I saw the actual harm that was being caused. People wanted to believe so much in their stories that they would open their wallets at every opportunity to support them,” James said. Followers made generous donations, paid for spiritual courses, and bought products.

“They are effectively operating as a cult," James said, "and boast a dedicated cult-like following.” James has since started his own YouTube channel that examines claims made by popular conspiracy theorists, and debunks them.

“They are effectively operating as a cult," James said, "and boast a dedicated cult-like following.”

“Their dedicated believers are absorbed into the collective ideology and will sometimes go to extreme efforts to prove their dedication,” James said. In June of 2019, he said, he received death threats via Twitter from a follower over a video he posted about Wilcock and Goode.

Stina Ferrante is a YouTuber and a former follower of Wilcock and Goode. The loss of her mother and grandmother in a seven-month period left her searching. It led her to Wilcock and Goode.

“At that time in my life, I was taking care of my dying mother and dog, my grandmother had just died, and my son was at the age where his neurological issues started to become apparent," she said. "I was overwhelmed by stress. I also had developed a thyroid issue, which when you're already having death anxiety due to so many people dying around you, finding something like spirituality comforted me during that period of my life.

"I just fell head first into the deep end.”

According to a statement on her YouTube channel, “this New Age disclosure group marrying Ufology, conspiracy theories and spirituality was everything I needed to cope with life.” As time went on, though, she began to realize “things were not as they seemed.” She explained that there was a clear contradiction in their constant claims of being nothing special, yet asserting that they are liaisons with the “highest consciousness” beings.

“Their audience has a blind faith that is usually only reserved for a deity which is given to these two mortal dudes,” Ferrante told Motherboard. With support, she broke free from what she describes as “a cult.”

Ferrante said she discovered that Wilcock purchased a ranch house and a seven-acre property in Colorado last year for a little over $1.2 million. (Motherboard has been able to confirm that Wilcock does own a property in Colorado valued over $1.2 million. According to his website’s biography page, Wilcock also resides in California and often states on social media that he takes a yearly sabbatical to Canada.) She received a cease and desist letter, which has been reviewed by Motherboard, threatening legal action from Wilcock and his lawyer claiming that her videos were considered “cyber-stalking,” defamatory, and a form of harassment.

Benjamin Zavodnick, a lawyer and YouTuber who goes by C.W. Chanter, has posted several videos on his channel questioning the stories of Wilcock and Goode. He also received a threatening cease and desist letter from Goode’s lawyer, the same lawyer who sent a cease and desist letter to Ferrante, making similar allegations to that of Ferrante’s cease and desist letter. Motherboard has also reviewed a copy of Zavodnick’s letter.

Motherboard requested comment from Wilcock concerning his spiritual teachings and whether he considered himself a religious leader. Motherboard also reached out to Goode, as well as individuals who associate with them, and received two lengthy and threatening emails from Florida based attorney Liz Lorie.

The two cease and desist letters claimed that Wilcock was the target of a massive conspiracy to defame him, and that he has been physically threatened. "This is a very serious matter with potentially historical implications within the UFO community," Lorie wrote. Moreover, Lorie threatened legal action against VICE if an article was written which referred to him as a “cult leader” or “spiritual leader,” stating that VICE would be implicated as “co-conspirators” in any legal proceedings.

"This is a very serious matter with potentially historical implications within the UFO community."

A second legal letter sent on behalf of Wilcock and Goode stated that VICE and its journalists “are hereby ordered to cease and desist your efforts (under the pretense of your ‘investigation’) to harass, cyberstalk, and defame my clients David Wilcock, Corey Goode, and any of their associates. To be clear: Any publications made by you, VICE media, or any of your affiliates or proxies…defaming … Corey Goode, David Wilcock, or any of their associates based on these unsubstantiated allegations will be deemed defamation per se.” The letter further demanded that VICE not disclose its existence:

Further, any attempt by you, Vice Media, or anyone else (directly or indirectly) to use, publish, transmit, distribute, or disclose this letter or any of the contents herein for any purpose (other than seeking advice of a licensed attorney), including for the purpose of mocking, defaming, casting in a negative light, harassing, stalking, cyberstalking, cyber-harassing, or otherwise interfering with or causing emotional distress or other harm to David Wilcock, Elizabeth Wilcock, Corey Goode…and/or any of their business entities, family, friends, or business associates (in any form of medium or on any public platform, social media platforms, website, or otherwise) shall be used as evidence of your (and Vice’s) malicious intent to inflict injury upon and damage the aforesaid parties, their brands, and their business activities.

The strangest thing about the letter may have been its allegation that VICE Media was involved in a complex conspiracy to defame Wilcock and Goode. Named in the letter as co-conspirators were Jimmy Church, the host of a paranormal-themed late-night radio show, which I appeared on in April of 2019 to promote my book; a social-media promotion company, which I contracted to help with book promotion; and several Twitter users. The claim is ridiculous, but in line with their messaging.

In a recent and quite odd 30-second YouTube video, for instance, a poorly-lit Corey Goode silently signs paperwork for his lawyer. The video’s description threatens that a massive lawsuit is in the works to sue nearly a dozen individuals and organizations, including popular UFO historian Richard Dolan, the organizers of the UFO-themed conferences Conscious Life Expo and Contact in the Desert, and the New Age video streaming service Gaia TV. Goode is now suing Gaia TV, as well as Zavodnick, and other individuals for alleged racketeering and defamation, according to Colorado court documents acquired by Motherboard. Zavodnick did not respond to requests for comment concerning the lawsuit and Gaia declined to comment on ongoing legal proceedings. Prior to publication, VICE reached out to Wilcock and Goode’s respective attorneys with a detailed inquiry about our reporting, asking them to comment. Wilcock and his attorney did not respond; Goode’s current lawyer, Texas-based Valerie Yanaros, stated that VICE had “factually mischaracterized” Goode and that neither she nor Goode were going to provide comment. VICE requested clarification on the supposed inaccuracies. Neither Goode nor his attorney responded.

(Goode later posted VICE’s email sent to his lawyer on Twitter account, stating, “WOW! Does ANYONE know WHO owns this "Publication" or WHY they are doing this to us? CG @david_wilcock #FakeNews #DarkAlliance #BlueChickenCult”.)

In March of this year, Goode officially launched a website promoting the “Light Warrior Legal Fund,” asking for donations to help him. According to the website, he “has been relentlessly attacked, harassed, defamed, stalked, and threatened by those in power who desperately wish to silence him, as they slowly lose their choke-hold on humanity and our beloved planet.” The site asserts that since he came forward, he “has exposed the brutal and greedy cabal that controls our planet and their crimes against humanity and our children” and claims that “these dark forces have cleverly designed their plan to destroy Corey and his efforts to Disclose the Truth by using proxies from all corners of our Country – and the globe – to do their dirty work.” (It seems that the dark cabal has no power over the US legal system, Paypal, or the Las Vegas-based accounting firm he is using.) He notes on his website that donations are simply gifts, as Light Warrior Legal Fund LLC is a for-profit organization.

None of this is exactly new. In 2017, Wilcock alleged that the “Dark Alliance” sabotaged the brakes on his car, twice. The two men have also claimed that reptilian aliens occupy large swaths of Antarctica, are massing for an invasion, and control the world’s governments and banks. The COVID-19 outbreak fits neatly with their overarching narrative, in which sinister powers present evil plots to which Wilcock and Goode alone have the answers. Anyone challenging them—or simply describing what they do—is, it seems, the enemy.

In a February interview, Jenny McCarthy, who boasts 1.3 million Twitter followers and a role as a judge on Fox's highly-rated The Masked Singer, had Wilcock and Goode on her popular radio show . Looking to them in studio with curious admiration, she asked if they were still in communication with their alien contacts.

“I would say both of us do have access to these benevolent ETs,” Wilcock said. “I mean, another thing I want to point out, too, is that we are not elite or special. This is something that everybody is having to varying degrees. You can write your dreams down in the morning, you can learn the language. In my new book, I'm teaching you what that language is.”

The reach of Wilcock and Goode is not limited to what they have on their own, or what the odd celebrity offers them; they are a part of a larger, loose collective that consistently pursue and push each other’s UFO and conspiracy narratives. This communal content-creation and development team has appeared together at conferences and media platforms. Conspiracy theorist and UFO researcher Dr. Michael Salla and the popular QAnon pundit and YouTuber Jordan Sather both appeared in Wilcock and Goode’s two documentaries Above Majestic (2018) and The Cosmic Secret (2019). Salla often promotes content by Wilcock and Goode on his website. Sather, who has close ties with Wilcock and Goode’s former producer and manager, Roger Richards Ramsaur, through a now defunct fair trade business, has often discussed his cohorts on his YouTube channel boasting 220,000 subscribers. That being said, recent tweets by Sather seem to indicate their relationship is being strained, and Ramsaur, alongside two other individuals involved in the Wilcock and Goode’s business dealings, are also being sued by Goode for allegations of defamation, trademark infringement and embezzlement according to court documents obtained by Motherboard. Ramsaur declined requests for comment.

The conspiracy media channel Edge of Wonder, run by former Epoch Times staffers Ben Chasteen and Rob Counts, which has links to the Falun Gong religion through media company New Tang Dynasty, has also spread disinformation through multiple videos featuring Wilcock, Goode, Sather and Salla. In one video, Wilcock claims that 9/11 was a plot hatched by the “Luciferian” Deep State cabal, and that the planes were empty. There is a cross-pollination of fringe media messaging across all these individuals, who market to separate audiences and are bringing multiple topics, which range from aliens to anti-government conspiracy theories, together and to the attention of their millions of combined followers.

In one video, Wilcock claims that 9/11 was a plot hatched by the “Luciferian” Deep State cabal.

“The Truth” seems to be crowded by a lot of gurus, yet, it seems that Wilcock and Goode are the only ones to have taken the spiritual messenger route—a role in which there's an inherent danger.

The use of social media to manipulate the public received significant attention after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Public awareness of that incident, though, has done little to change the fact that many people and groups online are still engaged in efforts at what amounts to mind control. White supremacist groups and terrorist organizations use proven, effective tools and tactics to draw in and convert followers; so too do religious and spiritual groups.

“We can pretty much predict how to press people's buttons, how to enter into their willingness to believe something,” said Steven Hassan, the cult expert. He identifies a specific danger in a movement based around a leader cannot be challenged ideologically by their followers because they are the messenger or prophet.

“If there is a leader who is getting channelling from higher beings," Hassan said, "has all of these special powers and has claimed to be clairvoyant and all of the rest, that makes the leader much more concerning than most other groups that have a charismatic figure.

“It taps into religious, spiritual beliefs that are difficult for a rational analysis. If the ideology is black and white, all or nothing, then indoctrination occurs, which is huge with destructive cults that claim only they have the keys to salvation.”

Regardless of Wilcock and Goode’s claims that they are not spiritual leaders, what they have done speaks for itself. With over half a million combined followers online and their relationships with other fringe media personalities and conspiracy peddlers, their sphere of influence easily reaches into the millions. What they offer that audience is a wild Hollywood story about an intergalactic war; a connection between the most farcical sort of UFO conspiracy and the current political conspiracy culture regarding QAnon and the Deep State; and seemingly religious messaging about an apocalyptic future that directly plays to people’s fears and their desire to be a part of a community. Their willingness to send legal threats on the least provocation, and to frame the lightest criticism or scrutiny as persecution and a pretext to raise funds, do not suggest innocent aims.

An apparent shift from being self-proclaimed “government whistleblowers” to men who start non-profit quasi-religious organizations, sell online spiritual self-help courses, and promote that they hold the keys to the Ascension amounts to more than a set of dizzying contradictions; it speaks to the needs of their audience. There are doubtless many among their followers in search of nothing more than entertainment; there are, though, certainly also people, including traumatized ones, in search of answers, who want to believe and find comfort, even in a curious set of pseudo-religious beliefs about evil reptile aliens, government conspiracy, and the end of the world. As COVID-19 makes millions feel about as close to that end as they could ever want to come, Wilcock and Goode deserve to be scrutinized for their use of fear to profit from this situation. So too, though, do the broader systems which give them the reach and influence they need to sell their alien gods, "cosmic secrets" and disinformation as solutions to people who are frightened—and justifiably so.

UFO Conspiracy Theorists Offer ‘Ascension’ From Our Hell World for $333 syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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delwray-blog · 6 years

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A WARNING

A VERY IMPORTANT TIMELY MESSAGE FOR AMERICAN CHRISTIANS

By Col. Gordon "Jack" Mohr Army U.S. Ret. Evangelist, Author, and Lecturer

"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," (Matt. 11:15)

Titus 1:16 - "They profess that they know God; but in works they deny Him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate."

Isaiah 65:15 - (Speaking to the Jews) - "And ye shall leave your name (JEW) for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call His servants by another name." (CHRISTIAN).

On May 14, 1948, following years of Zionist pressure on both Britain and the United States; pressure which resulted in both World Wars, the bastard State of Israeli was born in Palestine. The cost of this Jewish State to America and other nations of the Western Christian world have been incalculable in both money and lost prestige.

Palestine was literally stolen from its rightful owners by a money hungry, greedy, amoral group of International gangsters, calling themselves, Zionists.

The Palestinians, who had owned this land, had occupied it for almost 1800 years. They were murdered, driven from their homes and the land was raped and pillaged by Jewish terrorists, of which not the least, was the man who now leads the Israeli, Menachem Begin.

This unhappy land was stolen with the full consent of the American Government, and of a "brainwashed" people, who have poured billions of dollars into this unholy project in direct loans, food, war supplies and other forms of aid. It was the powerful Zionist Banking Cartels, using the power of the Jewish controlled media in the United States that pushed America into both World Wars -wars in which white Christian fought against white Christian, while the Jewish bankers sat back and grew fat on the suffering of the whole world. It has been well said, by Jews themselves: "Wars are the Jews harvests!" After World War I, Count Mensdorf, the Jewish Ambassador from Austria to London, publicly boasted that the Jews had caused that war, just as they had brought about the Communist Revolution in Russia. He topped his boasting by saying:

"World War I was our supreme revenge on the Christian World."

In spite of the billions of dollars of American aid. This Jewish State is now in a shambles. They have the highest tax rate and inflation rate in the world, and have admitted officially. That without American aid they would cease to exist. They are world parasites, who cannot exist without outside aid, and more Jews are leaving this "miserable sandbox" than are coming in!

Why is it that for forty years, the fundamental and conservative churches of America have backed this enemy of God and Christian its'? Why have they unleashed an unending flood of messages from their pulpits, trying to convince their people that the Jewish State of Israeli is indeed the fulfillment of Bible Prophecy? It is almost as though they believe God needs their help in order to prove His prophecy true! Today, every preacher of prominence, trumpets over the air waves, that the gathering of the Jews in Palestine is the fulfillment of prophecy, and that we are living in the Last Days, that this is the final generation proceeding Christ's return and that soon, very soon, Jesus Christ will return secretly, to Rapture His people out of this world, before the time of Jacob's Trouble descends on the Jews and this old sin sick world. So strong has this preaching become in fundamental circles, they will tell you, without batting an eye, that the "last generation" of Matthew 24:34, can be dated from the creation of the Israeli State on May 14, 1948.

According to their predictions, a generation is forty years, which means that Christ must come back before May. 14,1988. Then of course, we must take into consideration the Seven Years of World Tribulation which would mean that the secret Rapture of the Church should take place in May 1981.

Some radical fundamentalists even set dates, contrary to what Scripture teaches. I have before me, a letter written by Bill Maupin, President of the Lighthouse Tract Foundation of Tucson, Arizona, in which he says: "We originally thought that June 28th was the day of the Rapture, but the Lord showed us that we failed to see the 40 days after the flood came for Noah in which the ark was lifted up. It was not until the end of these 40 day's that the ark reached its destination in the clouds; but we did not see this as applying to the Church in these days... The Bible makes it clear, however, that we can know the day of Jesus Second Coming..."

He then goes on with his explanation of Matthew 24:3-32 and says: "...The Fig Tree is Israel being restored the second time as a nation. All the people who have responded to the national coverage we have received concerning the Rapture believe that the Fig Tree is the restoration of Israel, and that a generation is 40 years. So we will explain how we arrived at August 7th as the Rapture date..."

Matthew 24:36, Jesus Christ speaking, says: "But of that day and hour (Christ's return) knoweth no man, no, not the angels in heaven, BUT MY FATHER ONLY!" (Emphasis added.) Maupin then goes on to explain that this verse does not refer to the Second Coming, but to Israel's restoration as a nation, as it was fulfilled on May 14, 1948.

If his explanation on Israeli is as false as his explanation on the Rapture, then we know he is a false prophet. August 7th has come and gone and Bill Maupin and His "brainwashed" followers are still here!

Now I'm not telling you this to poke fun at these sad people, but to give you an up-to-date example of how 40 to 50 million Christians have been "propagandized," "brainwashed," and "misled," by the Jewish fables which Paul warns us about in Titus 1:14 - "Not giving heed to JEWISH FABLES, and commandments of men, THAT TURN FROM THE TRUTH." (Emphasis added.)

The United States Congress, for the most part, and several Presidents going back as far as Woodrow Wilson, pressured by millions of misled Christians, and a generation of "con artists," who have become "prostitutes" of Zionism, standing behind the protection of their pulpits, have assured the "Synagogue of Satan. (Revelation 2:9), of the Jewish State in Palestine, of their unending support. Recently I sent a letter to all 100 Senators, deploring the Zionist pressure in Washington that has often led to practices which are not beneficial to this country. I received this answer from Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado, one of the Zionaplites: "It is vital for you to understand that American security is integrally linked to that of Israel. We have a vested interest in Israel's stability... Politically Israel is a true democracy."

(Isn't this strange, when you must be a Jew in order to be a citizen?) He goes on to say: "Strategically, we cannot afford to abandon our national commitment to Israel."

But what about our commitment to the Arab countries of' the Middle East, who for many years, because of their religious belief, have been staunchly anti-Communist and friends of this nation? Are we to abandon them?

Why is it that intelligent, Christian leaders, such as Dr. Jerry Falwell are committed to a "no questions asked" support of Israeli policy, when they will not listen to any facts or arguments which may prove their stand to be wrong? Is it just intellectual dishonesty or something even more disturbing?

Recently, Dr. Falwell refused to meet with a group of Arab Christian leaders who wanted to tell him their side of the story. This hardly seems like the actions of a “man of God”.

This has been one of my "pet peeves," in dealing with fundamental preachers. (I was one for eighteen years. so I know whereof I speak): You will not find one out of a hundred who are intellectually honest enough to look at any facts which differ from what they teach. They will not even consider Scripture which proves they are "wrong. Recently one wrote to me: "The Bible is not hard to understand a Jew is a direct physical descendant of Abraham, and that is all there is to it. Nothing can change that, and any other interpretation is not of God." The Bible says nothing of the kind! Does this individual actually believe that Sammy Davis, Jr. is a physical descendant of Abraham? Yet he's a Jew! The great majority of people we know as Jews today have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham. (Read Jack Mohr's article "Myth Information")

The purpose of this message is to tell you about "the other side." We have been so "brainwashed" by Pro-Zionist propaganda in this country that very few Americans know, or even care about the Arab side of the story. It is my purpose to tell you that. (And by the way, I am not being subsidized with Arab money for doing this; I'm financing it myself, because I believe you deserve to know the truth.)

Most American Christians, unfortunately, are anti-Arab in their feelings. To them the Jews are God's Chosen People; Jerusalem is God's Holy City, and Palestine is God's Holy Land! It was a sign of God's favor, these preachers will tell you, when Gen. Allenby entered Jerusalem during World War I and liberated it from the Turks, without firing a shot.

Most Christians inherit these ideas from their Sunday school training and are often shocked when they visit Israel, to see Sabra girls in short shorts and bikinis, water skiing on the sacred waters of the Sea of Galilee. Very few Christians realize that we are closer to the Arab Moslems in their religious teachings, than we are to the Jews. At least the Moslems recognize and teach that Jesus Christ was a great prophet; the Jews spit when His name is mentioned and call Him an "illegitimate bastard."

When you visit Israel on the Israeli side, as most Christian tour groups do, expect to be inundated with pro-Zionist propaganda. Recently, Dr. David Webber of the Southwest Radio Church, in Oklahoma City, a, leading Pro-Zionist preacher, advertised a trip to the Holy Land, in which the chief commentator was to be the Rabbi of the Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem. Come now, do you think he will tell the truth about Zionism, when he knows it would turn his Christian audience off? When you go to the Arab side, you will find things vastly different from what your pastor, the Jewish controlled newspapers or TV has told you.

So I challenge you as honest, fair-minded people, before you make up your minds, be honest enough to find out that the vast majority of people we call Jews today, have no part with Abraham and their ancestors never set foot in Palestine. This has been confirmed by many Jewish sources. I would like to call your attention to a startling book, THE THIRTEENTH TRIBE, written by the pro-Zionist, Jewish author Arthur Koestler. Then go a step farther and check with those people who have been to the other side of the Jordan. One thing you can be sure of. If you criticize a Jew about anything, you will immediately find yourself wearing an "Anti-Semite" label. You can speak out against most anything or anyone, but never a Jew. Horace Mann, the great American writer once said that truth never needs to hide itself if an issue is right. It does not seek to hide what it is doing. Zionism, yes Judaism itself, seeks to cloak its evil intentions behind a facade of deception, unfortunately often sponsored by Christians.

I am going to try and show you some of the "other side." Then as an intelligent person, you should be able to draw your own conclusions, without having to be coached by a "brainwashed" preacher.

Dr. A. C. Forrest, author of the Canadian Best seller, THE UNHOLY LAND, looking at the Arab side of the story, came under intense Jewish pressure when the book was first published. He was picketed and even physically threatened by the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Defense League. But there were a few courageous book reviewers, who incensed by Jewish pressure against the truth, gave Dr. Forrest a good review. A Winnipeg book salesman asked Dr. Forrest: "Do you know who is buying your book in Montreal?"

To which Dr. Forrest correctly replied: "Your Jewish customers!

This excellent book, published by The Devon-Adair Company of Old Greenwich, Connecticut, should be read by every honest Christian, especially the pastors, before they give their "total approval" to the Zionist Israeli.

Dr. Forrest is well-known in Canada as a Christian gentleman who has been outspoken on controversial issues concerning the Church. For fifteen years he was Editor of the UNITED CHURCH OBSERVER and wrote a syndicated news column for over 20 years. He was strongly pro-Israeli, until he visited the Arab side and found out the truth for himself. He proved the truth of Horace Mann's statement: "Truth does not need to hide itself!" I wish to thank him for many of the ideas I have tried to incorporate in this brief message.

Strangely enough, there have been Jewish intellectuals who have gone to the Arab side to learn the truth. We Christians need to recognize the courage of these men who have been outspoken in their condemnation of the Israeli rape of Palestine. They are men like Berger, Menuhin, and Alfred Lilienthal. In Lilienthal's monumental book THE ZIONIST CONNECTION, he states: "I would not be surprised to find that some of my Christian readers have more claims to Palestine than Menachem Begin." This is certainly true, for Begin is not a Jew by race, but his ancestry centers in the heathen Turco-Mongolian Khazars who were converted to Judaism in the 8th Century.

When you cross over the Allenby Bridge from East Jordan into Israeli occupied Palestine, you immediately move into a world of terror and brutality. There are thousands of frightened refugees living in this area. Often, when Jewish authorities feel they have given aid or comfort to the feydeen, the "Freedom fighters" of the Arab cause, they will give the inhabitants ten minutes to pack up and get out, then dynamite all the houses in the area.

Today, the rotting carcasses of domestic animals, furniture and personal belongings lie buried beneath the rubble.

The Israeli police exhibit the same brutal, inhuman characteristics of the Soviet KGB. Well they might, since the KGB was organized by Russian Jewry and was staffed by them in its beginning, during their persecution of Russian Christians. The shores of Galilee, a Gentile area during Jesus' days on earth are now occupied by Jews. The original Arab inhabitants were driven out in 1947 - 48. Many of these refugees lived on the Golan Heights, until they were driven eastward again during the 1967 war. These people are two-time losers to Jewish greed; no wonder they hate the Jews.

This is a strange land. The Jewish authorities call it a democracy, and Jews from anywhere in the world can come here and become instant citizens; but the Arabs, whose ancestors have lived here for thousands of years, are not permitted to return to their own homes. As I mentioned earlier, another strange phenomenon, is that a vast majority of the Jews living in Palestine, have no Jewish blood flowing in their veins.

Many American Christians have been misled by Jewish propaganda into believing that the refugee problem has been taken care of by the United Nations and that the Israeli authorities have allowed the Arab refugees to return to their homes. But North Americans, and Europeans to a lesser extent, have not been getting the facts from their news media and their pastors. This makes sense when you realize the strong Jewish control over all news media in the United States. In addition, many of our churches have become "propaganda belts" for Zionism. If you don't believe this, try and get an ANTI-ZIONIST LETTER TO THE EDITOR, published in any of our major newspapers.

It is not that the truth is unavailable, for Arab Christian refugees have come to America with pitiful stories. But they are not accepted by our clergy, who will accept nothing but the Jewish side of the issue. Even when shown how un-Scriptural their stand is, they will not budge from their pro-Zionist stance. The Zionists are extremely clever in presenting their side of the story. A documentary will appear on NBC or CBS (both Jewish owned), showing Arabs returning to their old homes under the benevolent protection of the Israeli police and Army. But the American audience is not told that the hundred or so Arabs seen moving into Israel, are paid performers, while at the same time 600 Arabs have been evacuated. Whenever you become honest enough to face the facts, you must admit that the Israeli are thumbing their nose at the United States and the rest of the civilized world. They cannot be trusted as an ally, as Sen. Hart said, for you can always expect a Zionist, including their Congressional stooges, to put Zionist interests before the interests of the United States.

The Jews are the only people in America who can legally have "dual citizenship" in both Israeli and the United States. It has been proven, over and over again, that when the "chips are down," a Zionist will always put Israeli first. Many of these Jews have become wealthy in the United States. They have risen to places of importance; they have no intention of moving to Israeli. Yet their first loyalty is to the Israeli State. I say these people should be deported to Palestine. If they do not want to give support to the State which is providing for them, then they should be sent elsewhere.

In the NEW' YORK REVIEW for July 1967, the Jewish intellectual, I. F. Stone wrote: "The path to safety and greatness lies in reconciliation. The other route ... leads to new perils. The Arab population no" in the conquered territories makes guerrilla war possible within Israel's own border's and externally, it deepens the enmity and tensions arise ... both sides, will by one means or another obtain nuclear weapons for the next round." Remember, this was written 14 years ago. We know the Israelis have nuclear weapons and on the basis of past actions, we can be sure Mr. Begin will use them if he believes they will benefit Israeli. He would rather see the Israeli destroyed and the world devastated by nuclear war, than to give an inch to the Arabs he hates with a fanatical hatred. Yet in spite of this danger, our foolish Christian leaders continue to back him.

What will it take to wake America to the dangers we face? Especially, what "'ill it take to wake Christians up? We know that plans have already been made to put American troops in the Sinai. This means, in case of war, we will be involved from the first.

If the little Hitler of the Israeli is the first to use nuclear weapons, we as her allies could expect to be hit in retaliation. What would happen then?

Can you visualize the scenario as millions of homeless, starving, half-mad hordes who have survived the holocaust will be roaming over America in search of food, loot and someone to blame for the pitiful state they are in. Who do you think they will blame? It will not be the politicians who are safe in their hideouts in Washington of this you can be sure. It will be the American Jew and his Christian counterpart, who prostituted themselves for a foreign, anti-God country and who gave the Israeli their full support and cooperation. The wrath of the angry mob will fall on those who have backed our enemies and called them God's People. The sad thing, preacher, is your congregations, whom you have led astray by your false teachings, will suffer too. As for the American Jews - if this should happen; then they will pray for some strong "anti-Semite" leader who can control the angry mobs! But alas! There will be none! For the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish controlled American Civil Liberties Union have been busy for forty years, destroying these men, as fast as they have hit the American scene. The Jews in America will be subject to things which will make Nazi Germany look like a picnic by comparison.

You see, the entire Fundamentalist "fairy tale" is built on the false foundation that the present Zionist State in Palestine, born May 14, 1948, is the rebirth of Biblical Israel and that the anti-Christ Jews who are now gathering there, are the Israelites of the Bible.

But let me reiterate. The Jews are NOT God's Chosen People. They are NOT Israelites. They are NOT the seed of Abraham through Isaac and they have no legitimate claim on the land of Palestine. This Israeli State in Palestine is NOT the Promised Land of the Bible. Once you understand this, then you will understand why the Jews act as they do.

If there was only one verse of Scripture available to prove this, it could be found in John 8:33. In verse 32, Christ has told the Jewish leaders: "If you would know the truth, the truth shall make you free." In verse 33, these Sanhedrin leaders boastingly say: "...We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man..." In other words, they publicly admit they are not Israelites.

Any Sunday school teacher will tell you that the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt. Yet in this passage, the Jewish leaders are telling our Lord they have never been slaves. This should tell any honest Bible student that they could not have been Israelites. Our Lord went on to tell them in verse 39 of this same chapter: "If ye were Abraham's children ye would do the works of Abraham..." (vs. 41) "Ye dothe deeds of your father..." (vs 44) "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it." Then in John 10:27, listen carefully now: "But ye BELIEVE NOT, because you are NOT MY SHEEP." (Emphasis added.) Now who are you going to believe, your pastor who calls these "devil worshipers" God's Chosen People, or our Lord who plainly says they are "chilan. of Satan?" With this scathing denunciation of the Jewish leaders, it's no wonder that modern Jewish Rabbis have said: "There will be Anti-Semitism in the Christian world, as long as the Gospel of John remains in the New Testament. You can just bet your life on that!

Yes, the Israeli (not Israel) is the "fig tree" your pastor tells you about all right, but it is a barren tree with leaves, but no fruit (Matthew 21:19). This is confirmed in Luke 21:29-33. The Bandit State of Zionist Israeli has never borne fruit and it never will. The "false Jews" who are gathered there will be destroyed in fulfillment of Luke 19:27, where our Lord said that in that day, the day of His wrath upon this earth, He will say: "But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them hither and slay them before Me.

Many of the Russian Jews, who went to Israeli, have left there for the "good life" in the United States, yet they have never embraced Christ and they hate Christianity. I had a Jewish man tell me: "Don't feel so smug about Jewish people being converted to your religion. Many of us become Christians in name only, so that we can spy on you. Your Christian churches are loaded with Jewish undercover agents. We know everything you do."

These Jews, who have come to America from Russia via Israeli, have often proven themselves to be Communist agents. Look at the names of those who have proven traitors to this country in the past sixty years. They exhibit none of the characteristics of "true Israel." Their Bible is the satanically inspired Babylonian Talmud, not the Laws of Moses; their God is their money and Satan. Their temple is the synagogue, which came into being while they were in Babylon. It was never given by God. Their self-admitted ambition is to rule the world and to destroy the Christian Church and State.

A well-known Jewish writer once admitted: "The Jewish plan for International Economic control is nothing less than the Sovietization of the entire United States by stealth. Its whole trend is toward the dictatorship of Trusts and Combines: towards regimentation and standardization.

Godwin Smith, Jewish Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, stated a hundred years ago (1881) - "We regard our race as superior to humanity, and look forward. Not to the union with other races, but to our triumph over them." They would like to see white Christians destroyed by mongrelization that they so ardently push everywhere, except in the State of Israeli.

The Jews as a race have used their considerable influence to bring about divisions between kindred people. Today, on every front, International Jewry is pressing towards their goal of exterminating white Christian civilization. If you are a Christian, remember, you are their number one enemy, no matter how friendly they may appear.

Today, there are very few Christians who are walking with the "historic Christian church; "who have their faith anchored on the solid Rock, Christ Jesus. Why this terrible accusation? Because we have allowed our seminaries to become subverted by Jewish teachings; our translations of the Bible have been influenced by Jewish Bible scholars and the vast majority of our pastors have become "Zionist prostitutes," who have accepted the Jewish fables of Titus 1:14, which "turn from the truth!"

But let's get back to the Arabs and look at some of the popular misconceptions which have been planted in Christian minds by the Zionist propagandists.

1 - "Israeli is a poor little nation surrounded by hostile Arabs " This myth has been enlarged to where we have been told: "There are only 3-million Jews and100-million Arabs; all of whom want to drive Israeli in-to the sea." But do you remember "little Japan," in the 1930's and what she did to giant China? Do you remember your history of the Nineteenth Century, when a little Island Kingdom called the British Empire, controlled most of the world?

When the "Six Days War" began in 1967, the Israeli were in much better position to fight than their Arab neighbors. They had more trained soldiers and better equipment; furnished by the United States, at the expense of our own military structure. As in World War II, when Lend Lease aid went to Russia on a priority basis, while Americans died on the atolls of the Pacific for lack of equipment; so in 1967, military equipment went to Israeli which was needed for our own armed forces. It was not God who helped the Israeli win in 1967 against overwhelming odds. It was superior training, leadership and above all the all-out effort of the American people who were backing their own enemies. If the United States were to withdraw all our aid to Israeli, she would collapse within six months.

"Oh," but you say: "My pastor has told me that since the Jews are God's Chosen People we must help them or receive the curse of God. He said the reason God has blessed America is because we have been kind to the Jews." That's the kind of "hogwash" I used to preach! But you don't have to be very brilliant to realize that God has not blessed America, since we have helped the Jews. Since we recognized the Zionist Israelis in 1948, we have seen the period of greatest decline, economically, militarily, politically, morally and spiritually. We have seen the truth of another curse, which can be found in 2 Chronicles 19:2b, it says: "...Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord. Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord." Christian, you better ponder on that verse for a while. The crime and moral pollution which is literally swamping America in this decade comes from Jewish sources. Don't bother to argue with me about it, just look at the names behind Secular Humanism; Sex Education in the Schools; prostitution; the dope trade; see who runs the abortion clinics, the alcohol trade. See who runs the immoral filth mills of Hollywood and the American stage; see who controls the propaganda mills of the media, radio and TV ... I dare you to look. If you do, you will find Jewish names in the preponderance.

2 - The second myth is that all the Arabs are Mohammedans and are therefore anti-Christian. Did you know that Christianity is closer to Mohammedanism than it is to Talmudic Judaism? The Mohammedans believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. They believe that Jesus Christ was a great prophet. The Jews, on the other hand say they believe in God. Jesus said they were liars. In John 8:19, our Lord said to the Jewish leaders, "...Ye neither know me, NOR MY FATHER; if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also ... I shall go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins; whither I go, ye cannot come. "While most of the Arab world is Moslem, about half of Lebanon is Christian and there are over 6-million Coptic Christians in the United Arab Republic. About one-tenth of the Arabs in Palestine were Christians, before the Jews took over that country, as were the Syrians. It has been the Arab Christians who have suffered most under Israeli brutality, just as their Christian brethren suffered under Jewish cruelty during the Communist takeover of Russia and China. The same ungodly crew was in charge in both places.

3 - The third myth is "The Israeli want peace and " the Arabs want war. " This is one of the strongest arguments used by the Zionists. When Arab terrorists kill two or three Israeli school children in an attack on a bus, they scream about the dastardly terrorists; but when Israeli planes strafe and bomb Beirut and kill over 300 children and their mothers, this is an act of war. Never ever call any of Israeli's acts "terrorism," or you will be tarred with the label of "anti-Semitism." (There are no people in the world, who are more anti-Semite, than the Jews in their treatment of the Arabs.)

This same kind of falsehood is prevalent in the United States. A Christian organization, such as the Christian Patriot's Defense League, will be quickly investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, because some newspaper reporter, who has been given full access to the C.P.D.F. camp grounds and has been treated with courtesy, has written a slanted news article. The Jewish Defense League can train teenagers in the use of "fully automatic weapons," in direct violation of the law and the law enforcement agencies will do nothing about it.

Not long ago, the church of a militant, right-wing Christian group was bombed by the Jewish Defense League. A local law enforcement official had said shortly before this incident: "The JDL will take care of them all right!" "When the bombing took place, it was like pulling teeth to get the law to do anything. But let a Jewish synagogue be blown up and see what happens.

The chances are, someone from the "right wing" will be blamed; the case will be tried before a Jewish Judge, with a Jewish Prosecuting Attorney and we wonder why our system of Justice has "gone to hell."

With the exception of a few of the Arab extremist organizations, most of the Arab countries want peace with Israeli. All they ask for is a just settlement of the refugee problem. Under Menachem Begin, this will never happen. He has proven over and over, that he is not interested in a just settlement. Israeli leaders say loudly in the news’s media that she wants peace, while all her actions are aimed at warlike aggression. In fact her actions speak so loud, you can't hear what she says. There is no terrorism anywhere in the world worse than that which has been practiced by the Israeli against the Arabs. The Arabs want peace on just terms, while the Israeli want peace on the terms of a conqueror.

4 - The fourth myth is "The Arabs could have stayed in Israeli, but the Arab countries urged them to leave "This falsehood has been adequately proven over and over again by many reliable people. The Commissioner General of UNRWA, John Davis was quoted as saying: "'The extent to which the refugees were savagely driver out by the Israeli was a deliberate master plan."

5 - The fifth myth is - "It would he national Suicide for the Israeli to allow these Arab refugees to remain within the country. No other authority than the Israeli General Mayan said: "Economically, we can let them return, but it is not in accord with our national aims. It would turn Israeli into a bi-national, rather than a Jewish State and we want a pure Jewish State."

Doesn't it seem strange to you, that while in the United States, it is the Jews who push for integration, inter-marriage, open immigration, and all its attendant evils, in Israeli they are probably the most segregated people in the world? Ask yourself why?

6 - The sixth myth is - "While the Arabs are terrorists, the Israeli are freedom fighters, trying to protect their people."

In the many letters to the Editor, which followed the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear plant, American Jews followed one set pattern: "We had to do it to protect ourselves from those nasty Arabs who want to kill all the Jews." Of course it is almost impossible to get a letter published which shows the other side of the story. But what is the truth about terrorism in Palestine? Without a doubt, extremists on the Arab side have attacked Israeli villages (on land which once was theirs, don't forget) and innocent civilians have been killed. But the story doesn't stop here and most American Christians haven't been told the story of what the people they support have done. So let's look at some facts that the Zionists can't cover up. Back at the beginning, in April 1948, two Jewish terrorist gangs attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassim, east of Jerusalem. According to International Red Cross accounts, 254 men, women and children were brutally murdered and many of their bodies were stuffed down a well. This was done by a band of disciplined Israeli soldiers, acting under orders. Begin later boasted that this act did more to frighten the Arabs than anything else they could have done. There are many more since then.

In the December 22, 1980 issue of SPOTLIGHT, the story is told of a young woman diplomat, Alexandra Johnson, who was fired from her post as an intelligence expert in the State Department, working in Israel. She was fired because she refused to doctor up reports about Israeli torture of Arabs. In an interview with SPOTLIGHT, she revealed that she was stunned when she first arrived in Israeli, to find that MOSSAD, the dread Israeli secret service, had penetrated and subverted the American government in certain key areas of strategic concern - especially in the area of foreign relations and that Israeli and Zionist spokesmen wielded more power over United States foreign policy than American officialdom.

Miss Johnson's job was to review applications of Arabs who wanted visas to come to the U.S. She interviewed a number of them who had been in Israeli prisons, for what we would have called "misdemeanors" in this country. What emerged from her reports, was that Arabs in Israeli control, were often tortured by the Israeli, not merely to mete out extra punishment, or to elicit information, but as an instrument of official terror, to intimidate and frighten all Palestinians. She found that the Israeli used three levels of torture, from beatings, to assault on sexual organs, to the third level, where prisoners were stripped naked, hung up by the heels for long periods in refrigerated rooms, while they were subjected to sexual tortures too horrible to mention.

Alexandra analyzed and classified all this information with the meticulous precision of a trained intelligence analyst. On May 31, 1978, she sent to Washington a detailed analysis of 15 visa cases she had been investigating, in which "human rights" violations had occurred. Her dispatch was given the code name "Jerusalem 1500."

It proved to be a bombshell and immediately Miss Johnson was warned by her superior, Consul General Newlin, that this report had been leaked to Israeli intelligence sources and she could expect trouble. He told her that under Israeli law, such unfavorable information was considered to be a crime and that if the MOSSAD tried to grab her, there was very little the U.S. could do for her. She was urged to do no more "human rights" reporting. However, she followed up "Jerusalem 1500" with other cables, confirming her earlier report.

MOSSAD's reprisal was not long in coming. In February 1979, she was recalled to Washington, where under the pretext that she failed to get along with her colleagues, she was fired from a promising diplomatic career. "It is a shocking but inescapable conclusion," Miss Johnson said, "that Israeli intelligence has access to confidential and U.S. diplomatic files - including sensitive cable traffic between the State Department and its embassies abroad. It is equally evident that in matters affecting their interests, the Israelis have the behind the scenes influence to manipulate American foreign policy - even such internal affairs as the rating and firing of career foreign service officers."

In recent months, the Zionist propaganda machine has changed its stance, and instead of denying reports of torture and terror, it is brazenly acknowledging the vicious crimes which have been perpetrated by the Zionist "war machine" which will allow nothing to stand in its way of rise to world power.

Just a few more examples of Israeli terrorist tactics. June 14, 1980, Professor Yaha el Meshada prestigious Egyptian physicist, who had been appointed scientific director of Iraq's national nuclear research project, was bludgeoned to death in his Paris hotel suite. Zionist propagandists, writing in such American papers as the New York "Post" admit that the killing was done by a "special action" team from MOSSAD, to warn the world against helping any Arab country build a nuclear plant.

A week later, an attractive French model and party girl was lured into a limousine in Paris, only to be thrown out of the car at high speed, directly into the path of another car which swerved in order to hit her. Police called it a mystery slaying, but she was to have testified about the murder of Dr. Mershad two days later. Draw your own conclusions!

Two weeks later, in Toulon, a cab driver named Jean-Batiste Murad was found with his throat slashed. The police wrote it off as a crime of passion. But French intelligence services said that he had too much information about MOSSAD, having served with them and the Israeli terrorists were afraid he would give information to the French investigators. At that time, French President Giscard d'Estaing, called MOSSAD "a filthy criminal gang" and vowed to prosecute any Zionist agents arrested in terrorist acts in France.

But enough about Zionist terrorism!

7 - The seventh myth is that Arabs neglected the land the Israeli now have and that under Zionist care, the desert has blossomed like a rose. This of course is one of the major arguments used by fundamental preachers to prove that this is the Promised Land.

The Israeli have worked hard; they are efficient and industrious, there is no question about this. But many of the beautiful orchards now in Israeli hands were planted and cared for by the Arabs and confiscated by the Israeli.

8 - Probably one of the most dastardly and false statements made concerning the Israeli is "Israeli is a bastion of western democracy in an undemocratic world." But let's see what an eminent Zionist leader has to say about this. I'm quoting from Golda Meir, as she appeared in an NBC radio program on June I, 1969, over a Jewish program called THE ETERNAL LIGHT, she said: "The world will ultimately have to choose between Moscow's and Jerusalem's brand of socialism. By this I mean socialism of coercion as represented in Russia or the cooperative type as represented in Israeli.

You should understand that the Israeli are the only people in the world who have voluntarily joined Marxist communes. Millions of Russian Christians were murdered for resisting collective farming in the Ukraine. But the Israeli Kibbutz collective is a totally Jewish Marxist concept and the Jew's are the only people in the world who have voluntarily subjected themselves to this lifestyle. Mrs. Meir admitted that the Marxist Kibbutz was a uniquely Jewish concept. To any objective foreigner who has ever traveled in Palestine and has observed the Israeli in an objective manner, they can only come to one conclusion. This is that Israeli is following the same imperialistic, expansionist, military blueprint which they used in their revolution in Russia. How many of you know that Menachem Begin was a Communist member of the Polish Army before coming to Israeli? The Jewish writer, I. F. Stone, writing about the Zionist State said: "Israeli is creating a kind of moral schizophrenia in world Jewry. In the outside world (like the U.S.) the welfare of Jewry depends on the maintenance of secular. Non racial, pluralistic societies. In Israeli, Jewry defends a society in which mixed marriages cannot be legalized; in which non-Jews have a lesser status than Jews, and in which the ideal is racial and exclusionist." This hardly sounds "democratic," now does it? It might interest the reader to know that Israeli Jews who are Arab or Oriental, find themselves discriminated against by Jews who have no claim to the blood of Abraham. I'm speaking of the 90% or more of Jewry who are Russian Khazars. While the Jew in America is behind most of the efforts towards race mixing and against discrimination of any sort, in Palestine, they practice the most rigid discrimination.

9 - Myth number nine: "The Arabs are against the Jews! But many Arabs will angrily reply to this by saying: "We are not against the Jews, but against the Zionists." Then they will point out how Arab and Jew lived together in peace for many centuries before the Zionist bandits came on the scene.

What has happened in the United States that has caused our political and Christian leaders to back an aggressive, anti-Christian government such as that of Zionist Israeli? A 38-page booklet, published in 1951 by the American Jewish Committee will give a partial answer, it states: "We supply Christian religious publications with prepared materials, articles, and stories depicting Jewish life. Through the newly created Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League will jointly have an unprecedented opportunity to aid in the preparation of lesson materials, study guides, audio-visual aids, etc., for use in the educational activities sponsored by Protestant churches."

Often Jewish professors are invited to lecture in Christian seminaries and Jewish scholars have been on the consulting committees of every recent translation of the Bible. Recently, a young Jewish woman, who claims to have been a victim of the "holocaust," has been stirring American audiences with a heart wrenching account of life in a Nazi prison camp. Apparently no one has been smart enough to realize she isn't old enough to have been there.

Zionists for at least thirty years, have pressured American Christians into sharing a one-sided partner-ship responsibility with them in their imperialist adventures. They always play heavily on the fundamentalist reliance on Bible Prophecy. They have also been most successful in installing a "guilt complex" in most Christians, by heavy play on so-called Jewish persecution by Christians.

Israeli's Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Eban, speaking at Notre Dame University in 1955, was quoted as saying: "The homelessness, and martyrdom of the Jewish people was not only a source of international political tension; it was also a heavy burden on the Christian conscience."

Recently at a big gathering in Jerusalem, to celebrate the "holocaust," (this has practically become a Jewish holiday), Menachem Begin said: "All people of German descent share in the responsibility for the six million Jews who were murdered in Germany." I happen to be of German descent and I am angered by false statements such as this. In the first place, a little objective study will show you that it was impossible for 6-million Jews to have been killed in Germany, since there were never this many in all Europe, and millions escaped to the West. If you take Jewish eye witness accounts of the prison camps, you will find that 12-million were killed at Auschwitz alone. It seems as though at least five million of those gassed in Germany, are now in New York, drawing reparations from the German people. Maybe we Christians should ask the Jews to pay reparations for the 34-million or more Christians, who were liquidated by the Jewish-Communist revolution in Russia. Can you imagine the hue and cry that would rise from Jewish sources, if our pastors had the guts to stand up and accuse the Jews of these murders?

Jesus Christ wasn't afraid of the Zionists of His day, the Talmudic Pharisees. He accused them in Matthew 23:35, of being guilty of ALL the righteous men who had been slain from the time of Abel's murder at the dawn of civilization.

If the Jew's want to blame all Christians for the persecutions they brought on themselves by their filthy, unrighteous actions, maybe they should be called to account and asked to explain the deaths of hundreds of thousands of First Century Christians who were killed in Jewish persecutions.

People like Dr. Jerry Falwell, says that Satan hates the Jews and is trying to wipe them out. Jesus Christ called them "children of the devil," (John 8:44). Does it make sense to you that Satan would want to wipe out his own people?

No one can accurately speculate how much support for Zionism has cost the United States, in wealth, prestige, suffering and bloodshed. Yet they have shown their appreciation, by being foremost in their effort to destroy us, by destroying our youth. They have said: "'We will destroy Christian youth through drugs, alcohol and sex. We will get them away from God, we will destroy their ruggedness. If we can do this to one generation, we will be able to control the country."

They have come a long way in the United States in these fields, for the Jews are the driving forces behind alcohol, drugs, pornography, prostitution and their handmaiden, the "rock and roll" industry. I don't expect you to believe me, but I dare you to be honest enough to look at the names that head these industries. 90% or more will be Jewish names.

Probably the most damage to America has come from our pulpits, where tens of thousands of "brainwashed" "Zionist prostitutes" thunder in the ears of their parishioners the falsehood that the "Jews are God's Chosen People." During the Six Days War in 1967, they pointed to the Jewish victory and said: "Once again, God has protected His people, the Jews." I don't know of a one, in a major denomination, who was honest enough to say: "The Jews won because of the superior equipment America gave to them."

There was a tremendous silence from America's pulpits when the Israeli attacked our naval ship, the USS Liberty and killed 34 American sailors and wounded 76 more. The Israeli gave us a simple apology and our government bent over backwards trying to cover up this shameful incident. As intelligent people, ask yourself what would have happened, if it had been Egypt, or Syria, who had launched this attack? You know the answer to this as well as I do!

There is much conjecture as to why Israeli planes strafed and rocketed this plainly marked American ship on six strafing runs, then attacked with two torpedo boats. The Israeli version was that they mistook us for an Egyptian boat. But this is preposterous. There are many who believe the Israelis were afraid that the Liberty had recorded the fact that it was they who were the aggressors in the Six Days War and they did not want the world to know this.

But Israeli has always been protected by the Zionist prostitutes in our Congress. When Begin launched the recent unprovoked attack against Bagdad, using American equipment after he had promised never to use it for aggressive action, religious backers of the "Zionist bandits" like Jerry Falwell said: "You have the aid and cooperation of all our fundamental Christians, no matter what you do. Because we know you are God's People and can do no wrong." Let me tell you, I'm one fundamentalist who hasn't been taken in by these lying people. I neither back them, nor condone any of their actions, because they are enemies of God and everything I stand for as a Christian. Will America have to go through the terrible days of a Jewish anti-Christ persecution as our Christian brethren in Russia did, because our pastors don't have the guts to tell our people the truth? Very possibly! Oh, I know that some of you who read this have been told by your pastors not to worry. You see, Jesus is coming back to rescue you before things get too tough. Would you like to discuss this with the martyrs who died in the first three centuries, or those who suffered behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains?

No, my Christian friend. God is not going to protect you when you hide like a coward in your spiritual fox hole, folding your holy hands while you pray for God to do the job He has given you to do. He told you: "Ocupy until I come!" Not until you think he might be back; not until your pastor tells you he will be back, but until you see Him with your own eyes. Occupation is a "military duty," it can't be performed in a foxhole; you must be out on the "front lines."

Do you have the "spiritual guts" to confront your pastor and ask him why he has lied to you about the Rapture and the Jews? He will probably tell you that he is "ashamed by your anti-Semitism." But I want you to remember that he is speaking in defense of those who killed your Lord and who according to their own teachings, are usurpers and not the Chosen People. He is defending those who hate your Lord, and you and who according to their own teachings, are against everything you stand for as a Christian. What are you going to do about it?

You can be like those Christians in Russia and China who believed the Lord would be back to rescue them. Millions have died martyr's deaths. Or you can be like the Christians who were in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. when the Roman General Titus attacked that city. They believed the words of our Lord in Matthew 24 were written for them and they fled to the city of Petra. Not one Christian was killed, but over a million unbelieving Jews perished.

I dare you to read John 8 and then still say the Jews are God's Chosen people, for if you do, you will be calling our Lord a liar. Somehow, I believe this might be dangerous!

Stop being a fool! Open your eyes to the truth! Help us spread the truth! This is not a message of hatred against "sorry race of people like the Jews," it is a message of warning, concerning the Satanic plot to destroy white Christian civilization and the freedom it has brought to the world.

The future of this country, of your children and grandchildren rests in the hands of God and you. Your freedom was not "Bought and paid for at Valley Forge," that was only the "down payment!" You have been warned! I have been the watchman on the walls of Israel. You now know the truth. You will never be able to say: "I didn't know!"

Remember:

"Must I be carried to the skies, on flowry beds of ease; while others fought to win the prize? And sailed through bloody seas No I must fight! If I would reign; Increase my courage, Lord, To bear the toil. Endure the pain, Supported by Thy Word!

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citizentruth-blog · 6 years

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The Trump Presidency As Religious Cult? Not As Weird As You Might Think - YOUR NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/the-trump-presidency-as-religious-cult-not-as-weird-as-you-might-think/

The Trump Presidency As Religious Cult? Not As Weird As You Might Think

Scholars of religious studies such as Reza Aslan warn that support of Trump by some white evangelicals is like that of a religious cult, which would present a clear danger to our country. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/Creative Commons)

In November of 2017, avid Donald Trump supporter Mark Lee, as part of a panel of Trump voters speaking with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, spoke about Trump’s possible collusion with Russia in the context of religious faith. His comments, which made the rounds on the 24-hour news cycle/water-cooler political discussion loop, were truly astonishing to many. Here’s the one that had people, if not up in arms, scratching their heads:

Let me tell you, if Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, “Hold on a second: I need to check with the president if it is true.” That is how confident I feel in the president.

You read that right. Hold on, Mr. Savior, I have to ask President Trump if what you’re saying is God’s honest truth. Beyond the seeming absurdity of this scenario—Jesus returned just to tell Trump supporters about his connection with Russia?—the expressed faith in Trump above all others (and I am not using the word faith lightly) was duly baffling.

When Camerota pressed Lee for additional context, Lee, a pest control business owner who expressed vague notions of Trump being an advocate of the little guy, America-first, a drainer of the swamp, and a non-politician, stressed his belief that Trump is a good person, and that he (Trump) “has taken so many shots for us.” Presumably, that “us” is the American people, and any backlash is related to jealousy of his constant “winning.” Dude can’t help it if he’s so famous, handsome, and rich—that’s just how he rolls.

Any number of observers might choose not to share Mark Lee’s views. Heck, I sure don’t. Still, as extreme as Lee’s stances might seem, they may not be that far off from other people’s admiration for or faith in the current President of the United States. Reza Aslan, author, commentator, intellectual, and religious scholar, recently authored a video for Big Think about his notion that the Trump presidency is a religious cult. At first blush, Aslan’s comments might seem as grandiose as Lee’s. Trump as a cult leader? And his devotees are the ones who have drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid?

For all our skepticism, though, Aslan does make his case in a very well-thought-out manner. First, before we even get to “why” certain Americans feel compelled to hold up Donald Trump, there’s the matter of “who.” Aslan cites a statistic that 81% of white evangelists who voted in the 2016 election went for Trump. That’s pretty significant, especially when considering that’s a higher percentage than George W. Bush received, an actual white evangelical. What else is significant about this figure? Well, for one, 67% of evangelicals of color who voted cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton. Thus, when Aslan instructs us not to ignore that there is a racial element to Trump’s support, we would be quick to agree that he ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.

As to why, however, white evangelicals “acted more white than evangelical” in their backing of Trump, as Aslan and others have put it, one element Aslan points to is the influence of what is known as the prosperity gospel. Loosely speaking, this is the idea that financial success is God’s blessing, and through faith, preaching the word of God, and, of course, generous donations, one’s material wealth will increase. In other words, if the Lord didn’t want you to have that Mercedes-Benz, he wouldn’t have made it so dadgum shiny. This is the sort of Christianity that Aslan explicitly dismisses and rejects, associating it with the likes of “charlatans” like Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes, but given Trump’s boasts of wealth and ostentatious displays of such, it makes sense that Christians who adhere to this doctrine would back him, even when his spiritual credentials are, er, lacking.

Additionally, Aslan points to Trump’s promises to afford secular benefits to white evangelical groups and other religious affiliations. In Trump’s apparently ambiguous vows to “give them back their power,” Aslan points to Trump’s willingness to defend Christians in their goal of making a stand on specific issues—even if he may not agree with their positions on those underlying issues—as well as his indication of intent, for instance, to repeal the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations like churches from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Just a few days ago, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of the Treasury not to find churches guilty of “implied endorsements” much as secular organizations wouldn’t be. Never mind that this could help create a slippery slope that allows churches to bypass campaign finance laws and effectually become partisan super PACs. That sweet, sweet support from the religious right is too much to ignore.

Meanwhile, all of this may merely be a prologue to a separate conversation we need to be having about Donald Trump, morality, evangelicals, and the intersection of the Venn diagram of their circles. As Reza Aslan insists, none of the above explains why white evangelicals have gone from a voting bloc that has insisted on a candidate’s morality as a significant qualification for office to one that eschews such concerns—in the span of one election cycle, no less. To reinforce this idea, Aslan highlights the fact that, re Trump, self-identifying atheists were more likely to consider morality as important than white evangelicals. So much for being “values voters.”

As Aslan reasons, this is more than can be reasoned away by talk of race or the prosperity gospel or the Johnson Amendment, and points to a different conclusion: that Trump, his presidency, and his most influential supporters have turned a significant portion of his white evangelical base into a religious cult, and a dangerous one at that. From where he (Aslan) stands, all the signs are there. For one, he points to Trump’s infamous remark that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose votes as being a kind of prophetic revelation. Aslan also alludes to statements made by Pat Robertson that he (Robertson) had a dream in which God took him up to Heaven and Trump was seated at His right hand—the space traditionally reserved for Jesus Christ—and Robert Jeffress, Robertson’s pastor, who said that he (Jeffress) prefers Trump as a candidate to someone “who expresses the values of Jesus.” Suddenly, Mark Lee doesn’t sound so out of place.

The implications, in short, are scary. As Aslan instructs, cults, particularly when confronted by the realities of the world, do not tend to end well. The Trump presidency, for all its claims of stability and success, by most objective accounts is on the brink of collapse, its central figure “spiraling out of control,” as Aslan puts it, and the subject of regular conversations about impeachment or other removal. In the perhaps likely event that leadership fails, the response for cult followers is often to double down on the group’s mantra, and this creates, at least in Aslan’s mind, a very perilous situation for the country at large. As he closes his address, “The only thing more dangerous than a cult leader like Trump is a martyred cult leader.” Ominous, indeed.

Reza Aslan is a religious scholar, and since he often approaches worldly matters from a spiritual frame of reference, even with his treatise on why Donald Trump’s presidency is a religious cult, there would likely be doubters and dissenters on this point. On the right, because so much of politics these days involves taking sides, this is all but a given. Naysayers would undoubtedly highlight Aslan’s Iranian heritage and Muslim beliefs (in reality, his faith is more complex, having been born into a Shia Muslim family, converting to evangelical Christianity, and then converting back to Muslim, all while largely regarding religion as nothing more than a series of metaphors and symbols designed to express one’s faith), as well as his anti-Trump animus (after Trump’s comments on the 2017 terrorist attack in London in which a van struck and killed pedestrians on London, Aslan referred to POTUS as a “piece of shit” and “man baby,” comments that, ahem, didn’t go over too well with then-employer CNN). Never mind that that Aslan is a theologian and literally talks about, thinks about, and writes about this stuff for a living. Because he doesn’t care much for Trump, his opinions must, therefore, be invalid, right?

For the non-shameless-Trump-backers among us, though, there might similarly be a reluctance to characterize the President’s following in terms of a destructive religious cult, since these societies tend to remind us of devices of works of fiction set in apocalyptic times. To this, I submit people may be understating just how abnormal Trump and his presidency are. Besides, as many would aver, we are in the midst of a crisis right now, one primarily borne of climate concerns, but not without worry over its political stability. Trump just pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal without an apparent replacement strategy. Does this make the world safer? Does this instill confidence that the U.S. is a country that honors its agreements and is therefore worthy of trust? On both counts, the answer is a resounding “no,” and that should inspire concern from Americans regardless of their political orientation.

Then again, maybe it’s just that devout Christians can be hypocrites or otherwise twist the Bible to suit their purposes. Phil Zuckerman, a professor at Pitzer College and someone who specializes in studies of atheism and secularity, among other topics, penned an essay shortly after Donald Trump’s upset 2016 electoral victory regarding the role of religion in the election’s outcome. Zuckerman—who also cites the statistic about 81% of white evangelicals voting for Trump, as well as 56% of American voters who attend church at least once a week going for the orange-skinned one—points to other disappointing tendencies of the Christian right.

For one, they tend to regard men as superior leaders and reinforce values that support male dominance over obeisant females. They also hate, hate, hate homosexuals and tend to fear and hate other religions, dividing people into a saved-unsaved binary. Furthermore, fundamentalist Christians place a stronger emphasis on authoritarianism, and mistrust and reject the science which clashes with their faith. Or, as Zuckerman frames this, they are a sanctimonious lot, a subdivision of the American electorate that touts morals and yet voted en masse to elect someone in Trump who is the epitome of immorality. As with Aslan’s criticisms, people would be wont to use context to dismiss Zuckerman’s views. He made these comments not long after Election Day, and thus was probably harboring strong feelings at the time of his piece’s publication. Also, he’s interested mainly in secular studies. Maybe he just hates religious types. PROFESSOR, YOUR BIAS IS SHOWING.

Maybe, maybe not. Irrespective of Reza Aslan’s invectives directed at President Trump and Phil Zuckerman’s discontent with strong Christians for voting for someone clearly not of the same mold, this sense of devotion to Trump by a significant portion of the American people is startling and disconcerting, especially in light of the comparisons between Trump and Jesus. These are the same kinds of “values voters” who, say, conceive of gun ownership as a God-given right. Fun fact: the right to bear arms is a constitutional amendment contained in the Bill of Rights, not one of the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Gun ownership increases the likelihood you will violate this precept. How does one reconcile these two apparently competing interests?

One oft-cited biblical passage, Matthew 10:34, in which Jesus is believed to have said that he “did not come to bring peace, but a sword,” may just as well speak to Christ’s existence dividing (as a sword would cut) people based on their belief, if not a faulty translation from the original Koine Greek. Psalm 144 in the Book of Psalms, another quoted portion of the Good Book, has been translated as, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.”

This is context-dependent, however. David, in speaking of bodily strength, ascribes true strength to God, and prays to Him to rescue him and his people “from the cruel sword.” In this context, David is King of Israel at a time when war among rival groups is common, and what’s more, the ending of the psalm expresses a hope for peace. This seems like quite a departure from the rhetoric of the National Rifle Association, which would have you believe in its promotional videos that America resembles a scene from The Purge. Lock ’em and load ’em, ladies and gents. Conflict is brewing, and nothing shouts His love like the cold steel of a .45.

Mark Lee’s pro-Trump comments seemed crazy at the time of first utterance, and a mere six months later, still do. As the Trump presidency wears on, though, at least until anything manifests with respect to impeachment or other means of removal, and as Donald Trump’s support from his base not only holds steady but grows, one wonders whether Aslan’s depiction of Trump as a salvific figure, as something more than an inspiration to those blinded by patriotism, is accurate. For white evangelicals who support him, in particular, Trump’s actions should prompt them to look critically at their set of beliefs and the importance of morality to their worldview. Whether or not the apparent abandonment of their principles holds beyond Trump’s presidency, meanwhile, is anyone’s guess, and is hard to approach with any sense of faith on the part of those who already don’t believe in him.

Trump Is Not a Threat to a Free Press Despite Inflamed Rhetoric, Obama Administration & DNC’s Recent Lawsuit Much More Menacing

#conservative Christians #donald trump #evangelicals #Phil Zuckerman #religious right #Reza Aslan #Trump relgious cult #white evangelicals

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notesfromdruchan · 7 years

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“Cho”

The Wikipedia entry on Gay Talese [1], a reporter who is often mentioned when people talk about New Journalism and creative non-fiction, has a couple of phrases that remind me of Cho Ramaswamy. "Entirely happenstance" and "unintended consequence".

Although Cho's life and his multi-faceted career (as a corporate lawyer, consultant, theatre artist, dramatist, actor, director, political commentator, politician, and perhaps for what he's most successfully known, satirical writer) were not exactly happenstance or unintended consequence, that's the way he liked to describe them. In an older interview [2] — from times when interviews on TV were probably much more sensible, gainsome to the viewer and not bereft of value — Cho was asked about his career spanning not just a long stretch of time but field too. To this, Cho simply said it was all an accident.

Sure, some parts of his life were accidental happenstance. No one expected Cho to turn out into a political "seer" of sorts who dabbled in some arbitration between parties for a while. In fact, he has said on more than one occasion that his entry into journalism (through the satire magazine, Thuglak) happened "just like that".

Cho wasn't exactly a king-maker like Balasaheb Thackrey but he had the knack of foreseeing certain things in the political space. But he never carried this immodestly. To him, these foresights were as obvious as the summer sun and he refrained from claiming any special credit for foretelling the stories that were to unfold in a few months, years or even decades.

Not quite #1, but still...

Cho was not a crafty writer with a penchant for words. He clearly was not as popular a comedian as his contemporary, Nagesh. His days as a corporate lawyer are lost to history (or no one bothered to chronicle these yet). He was a dramatist at a time when other jaambavaans existed, mildly eclipsing his troupe. Thuglak, to this day, is not a mainstream magazine even within Tamil Nadu. His tenure as a politician was short-lived and not a very successful one at that. But there's probably no one in Tamil Nadu in the age-group of 35-85 that wouldn't know Cho or his tryst with various fields that he casually decided to touch.

We are all suckers for nostalgia. Not a day goes by without someone saying it was all great back in the good old days. So, it's not uncommon to feel that today's artists, journalists, and other celebrated, popular personalities are several notches down in the way they carry themselves and present themselves, in comparison to yesteryear celebrities (and by yesteryear, I mean those of the early 60s to early 80s; travel a little further and you end up with the likes of some unmentionable characters that have brought more disrepute than fame).

And yet, there's not one person that I can think of, even from that "yesteryear" era, who brushed aside any reference to hardwork, trials & tribulations, or the tremendous amount of time involved in their work of creation. Except, of course, Cho Ramaswamy.

Here was a man who started out as a corporate lawyer, wrote for plays and then acted and directed them, went on to act in movies and even write them, and then decided to start a magazine of satire (at a time when satire could invite deathly trouble) which lead him to arbitration and consultation with political heads (at the national level, mind you).

But when asked about all this, Cho would casually call them happy accidents. Sometimes, his conviction in that declaration is so strong that you're led to believe in it.

People are fond of talking about the hardships they go through in order to do the work they do. Mediocre creators with no inkling of how mediocre (or worse, crass) their creations are talk at length about the hardwork, the sacrifices and the trouble they went through to create. Almost everyone talks about these things. There's the stoking of ego clearly at play.

When celebrities try to be humble and if you're smart enough to catch it, you'll see the big, ugly brush-stroke of vanity in their attempt to sound humble. There's a lot of fake humility that goes around these days and the "fans" literally fan the smoke on places like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram that creates an illusion of a humble celebrity. The reality of course stands vastly different.

Cho never appeared humble. To some of his critics, he was in fact boastful of his own capabilities as a political commentator. "I'm not known for my modesty," he said once at a book launch. To some more — especially from the women's rights movement — Cho was a byproduct of the patriarchal Indian caste system (Brahminism, to be more specific), a male-chauvinist. But if there was one person who did not claim personal credit for all their output, it was him. He was so averse to claiming credit that he would actually discredit himself.

Controversial opinions, unapologetically held

A few years ago, Gopalkrishna Gandhi (the grandson of M.K.Gandhi and C.Rajagopalachari) wrote a beautiful piece on Swami Vivekananda [3]. For much of my generation (and perhaps to the previous one too), Vivekananda is the sterling example of forward thinking. In the piece, however, Gandhi pointed out certain facts about Vivekananda that invited a closer look at Vivekananda's thoughts. To the uninitiated, Swami Vivekananda held some condemnable thoughts on slavery and the role of women in the civic discourse. "[They] invite long editorial scissors" is how Gandhi describes some of Vivekananda's thoughts that, in the modern world, sound extremely backward and downright wrong.

Many of Cho's thoughts — which he was not afraid of voicing in a public forum — do invite long editorial scissors. While not being as strong an RSS sympathizer as his colleague at Thuglak, Gurumurthy, he was still a strong proponent of the Hindutva agenda. He was definitely a byproduct of Brahminism and, in fact, was probably the singular voice of the Brahmins during that specific time of Tamil Nadu's history when Periyar's and the Kazhagam's anti-Brahmin stand flourished justifiably.

Cho's views on women and their role in the society were dated and carried the same tone of patriarchy that the saffron brigade does. No wonder then that he attracted a lot of strong criticism from a lot of women-centric organizations. He was also, very popularly, anti-Left. That combination, however, did not refrain D. Raja, the leader of CPI(M), from attending one of the anniversaries of Thuglak. Nor did it affect the respect many of the leaders of the Left had for him.

Cho was unapologetic about his controversial views. He belonged to that upper class, Mylapore Brahmin school of thought which holds the varna system to be holy and morally right. He was basically a better, less-brash Subramania Swamy in many ways. But unlike the arrogant, patriarchal leaders of the saffron brigade, he also held views that are progressive. A brief example of this was in the way he declared his disbelief in the idea of total prohibition (in Tamil Nadu) not simply because he didn't think it was feasible (both culturally and economically) but beacuse he thought it was a pointless exercise. Someone with as strong a Hindutva (and Brahminical) agenda as Cho would hardly say something of the sort.

Probably the only rightwing, Hindutva secularist

For all his spiritualizing and massive pro-Hindu intellectual campaigns, he wasn't against any religion. Especially, not Islam. I don't think that he would sound anti-Islam even if his speeches were to be misinterpreted or taken out of context but given that I haven't heard very many of his speeches (at best, I'd have heard a sum total of 25-30 hours of his speeches on a variety of topics, delivered at various programs and meetings), I couldn't be the judge of his attitude towards Islam or other religious communities. But given that he was a Madras-product with a wide circle of friends from all walks of life and cultures, I'd probably bet a huge part of my income in saying that he wasn't anti-any-religion.

The lasting impact of his legacy is most certainly through his satire magazine. Thuglak enjoys a very strong affiliation by its readers who are probably in just the tens of thousands. It's a niche readership but like all niche readerships, it's very dedicated. Cho made his organization live precisely the way he preached — a strong, identifiable leadership was necessary irrespective of whatever democratic forum one wanted to build their organization into. Unlike every other public functions of other organizations, each Thuglak anniversary starts with a roll-call: Cho would introduce his entire staff (down to the chauffeurs) to the applause of his audience. And he would then follow it up with not speeches but with the audience asking questions. It was only after these democratic rituals that the speeches would commence. And even here, while he could have easily gotten away by inviting people who held similar beliefs and viewpoints, he invited people from camps that he was ideologically against. A communist, a Congressman, a Kazhagam functionary, a minority leader and so on.

Cho's idolators often talk about his unbiased writing which used to be true but by the end of it all, he did turn out to be biased in a lot of ways that even his readers questioned his bias. Cho was always ready with a witty response. In the aftermath of the 2G spectrum and the Nira Radia tapes, Cho was very much in support of AIADMK's chief (the late Jayalalithaa) as the singular alternative to the corrupt leadership of DMK. He was also completely in favor of Narendra Modi's PM candidature and held strong views against Advani's candidature. While he did call a spade a spade by being a strong critic of the government run by a party he supported (be it AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, or BJP/NDA in the Center), he did have his own set of biases that played along the narrative of the state or country. In more than one instance, he did accede to the charge that he was biased sometimes.

I've heard too many people say what people usually say when talking about dead people — that there can't be another Cho in the history of India. I wouldn't like to repeat it for the fact is there can't be another "whoever" for that matter. But if there is one thing that I'd like to carry to my grave, it's the dispassion of it all. In his time, Cho did some extraordinary things. But every time he was asked to speak about them, he did so in his characteristic witty demeanor, dismissing all praise and crediting happenstance and unintended consequence for all his achievements. That, I think, is the essence of it all. Dispassion.

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1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Talese 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfBxXqTuWEE 3: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/reclaiming-vivekananda/article4299153.ece

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