God bothering

I thought our commenter's list of reasons, via Vivek Ramaswany, why people would want to vote Republican was interesting, and possibly largely correct -- or at least it reflects the surface of how Republican candidates and pundits talk, although I think it probably doesn't represent all of the underlying reasons. Anyway, it gives me an agenda, so I'm going to take the assertions one by one, starting with this one:

God is real. While there is no doubt that religion, or professed religion, is a motivator for Republican voters, there obviously has to be a lot more to it than just the assertion that God is real. Joe Biden is an observant Catholic, and the vast majority of Democratic candidates and officials also profess to be religious. We elect presidents, members of congress, and other officials to carry out the business of governing, not be chaplains. So the real issue is that people have specific religious or quasi-religious beliefs that entail public policy in some way.

The obvious ones, that get talked about publicly, are moral beliefs, specifically that abortion, homosexuality, and gender noncomformity are sins. Obviously they want abortion to be illegal, and treated as a criminal act. I have noted many times that there is no biblical authority for this on the contrary; and that it is a very modern conceit, which even the conservative denominations did not embrace until the 1960s. But yeah, they believe it. 

Most actually do want to criminalize sexual and gender noncomformity, I believe, although the public claims mostly stop short of that. They want to legalize discrimination against non-conforming people, and there is also talk about banning gender affirming health care for minors, based largely on falsehoods. While these positions are unpopular with the general public, I'm sure that Christian conservative voters really do believe them, because that's what their preachers tell them to believe.

However, there is another important underlying belief, that I have mentioned before. This has to do with the book of Revelation and its confusing prophecies. A substantial proportion of Christian conservatives believe that the End Times are approaching. Fulfillment of the prophecy, as they interpret it, require that Israel gain control over the entire territory of Biblical Israel (which was considerably larger than any territory the Israelites ever actually controlled), and rebuild the Temple, among other eventualities. This puts them in alliance with radical Zionists, although they also believe that 1/3 of the Jews will convert to Christianity and the rest will be massacred and condemned to hell. Anyway, these beliefs are very dangerous because any actual attempt to implement them would probably start World War III.

 

I must also say that the thrice-married, philandering, thieving, lying, Donald J. Trump, whose only God is himself,  is a strange vessel for these beliefs.

Next: There are two genders.