And, Trump is the Biggest Grifter
I’m a scientist by training, I best understand the world around me in the context of a construct, a framework founded on bedrock scientific truths, facts and principles. Many truths are “squishy” because science is always a work in progress. Some facts are pretty well established and accepted like the earth is a round-ish sphere that orbits the sun in approximately 365 days. A day is about 24 hours and water is wet.
On the opposite end from facts, humans invented religion to explain the (then) inexplicable. In the future, much more will be understood and explained but, for now, many things are beyond human comprehension. For example, what happens after death? No one knows since no one has ever come back from the dead, fanciful tales of near-death experiences not withstanding. For that matter, even I had a near-death experience when I thought I was moments away from death. I can confirm I saw a kaleidoscope of my life including all the things I had done about which I was proud as well as the things for which I was embarrassed or ashamed. I also saw a mental slide show of all the things I still wanted to do or accomplish. What I didn’t see or experience was angels or cherubs nor did I hear any harp music. Bottom line, I can’t tell you what happens after death because I never experienced death.
Yet, the MAGAmoron’s greatest boosters are religious whack jobs who see the world only through their own perverse lens of christianity or islam or judaism or some other whack-a-doodle version of an omniscient mythical creature that controls all human fate. If that were the case, why even bother, to quote Doris Day, “Que Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).” In other words, just roll over and give up because humans have no autonomy, their fate is in the hands of some all seeing, all knowing, fickle invisible creature. Of course, in the words of the high priests of religions, they are the only ones who know what their gods wants. They are the conduits through which their gods’ commands are funneled. In the rare instance where someone actually questions the invisible critter in the sky, their response is not comfort and understanding but immediate and total wrath that a mere mortal would question the high priests, thereby threatening their grift.
High priests have always used their guile, charm and obfuscation (speak in tongues, anyone?) to expand their powers and enrich themselves. The Catholic Church is overrun with Latin-speaking pedophiles and, at the same time, the wealthiest religious organization in the world, clocking in upwards of $300 billion. That’s billion with a capital “B.” And, that doesn’t even count what the Vatican owns because of their global holdings are hidden behind onion-like layers of opaque financials. On the heels of the Catholics are the Mormons, aka Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS,) which hoards over $293 billion and they’re no saints when it comes to crime, scandal and plain ordinary sleaze. A tally of just their known abuse cases can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_abuse_cases. The list goes on and on and on but reviewing the list at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_religious_organizations) gives you a pretty good clue that religion is a for-profit business and petty things like morals, ethics and legalities are for schmucks, like parishioners and followers.
Trump uses religion because he knows religious adherents are gullible suckers who will follow anyone if their version of god is invoked. If you have family, friends or colleagues who babble and wallow in this nonsense, be a buddy and either walk away or stage an intervention.