A group of Russian nationals were able to donate to newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson’s campaign in 2018 by funneling the money through a U.S. company.
The Texas-based American Ethane company previously donated tens of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Louisiana Republicans including Johnson, who was voted by the House to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker on Wednesday following three weeks of GOP chaos in the lower chamber.
While American Ethane was run in 2018 by American John Houghtaling, 88 percent of the firm was owned by three Russian nationals—Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, and Andrey Kunatbaev.
My apologies to the sincere Christians among us, but when a god is holy and needs you to sin for him; claims to be “The Truth” but needs you to lie for him incessantly; claims to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords holding power over all, and in charge of all outcomes for his own people, but needs you to deliver death threats those you politically disagree with; says “My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives give I unto you” but then insists that you spend day and night ensuring others have no peace; who claims to be the loving creator of all until you get to non-white, non-cis, not-het, non-Christians and then it’s “Death to the apostates! Death to the heretics!” and so on and so forth, and this goes on for TWO FULL MILLENNIA, then what you have is NOT a real god, but a ragingly insecure, dishonest, and vengeful poser who should be run over by society with as much ado as an armadillo on a hot summer’s night, like when you’re driving and you feel the bump, then you stop, reverse, and do it again just to be sure it’s put out of its misery.
Just sayin.
Catholic here, during my confirmation we had to stay a weekend at a monastery to learn about God. One day a priest is talking about a priest who saw Jesus appear before him telling him that he should kiss the feet he walked on and pray to him as he was the son of God, when the priest heard this, he responded with “Jesus never asked to be glorified as a God, and instead wanted to be our servant, you are not him”, he threw holy water at Jesus who immediately caught on fire and revealed himself as Satan just before disappearing. The lesson is that is someone tells you that to follow the footsteps of God, you must cause pain to others and do evil deeds, then that person does not represent God but instead represents the Devil and you should cast him aside.
Quite so, but at this point it’s not the users, it’s the OS. As a Christian of over 35 years I used to think this was the fault of individuals, but when the misbalance is such that only a handful of believers now openly represent the words in red and the majority would not even be able to parse what the phrase “words in red” mean, it’s no longer an individual but an institutional problem.
Or to put it another way, when a company is foundering and its employees are producing consistently shitty work, that’s not an employee problem, that’s a management problem.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that many (most?) “Christians” these days are behaving truly horribly. I am aware of the many quietly well-behaved Christians out there (hence my original apology) but for believers in a New Testament where every single Pauline epistle has a warning against false Christians and strong entreaties for Christianity to police itself, and the Gospels themselves tell the story of Judas in four different ways, that quiet and unseen inaction doesn’t wash anymore. Not just for me, but for many. More every day, looks like.
Christianity does not seem to prevent evil; it is the basis of evil. For example, the Holocaust was imagined and perpetrated by a completely Christian society in terms of claimed religious affiliation, even the word “Christian” was in its name, yet its god was nowhere to be found. That’s the behavior gaining traction in the US today, but no Christian organization ever speaks up about it or goes on the record as saying this is evil. It’s always just a few separate individuals here and there, like yourself. Meanwhile the Christian religious organizations as a whole ignore it and pretend everything is fine, continuing to insist for the rest of us on the existence of god that even its own followers have no use for and can never seem to be found.
It’s like the old tale about a Jew telling god a joke about Auschwitz; when God replies, “I don’t get it,” the Jew retorts, “I guess you had to be there.” Or the meme circulating right now that says god is the silence that answers with nothing when a child raped by a priest cries out for help.
I do not believe I am alone when I say that the present behavior of many (most?) Christians, all over the world, in every denomination and jurisdiction, is incontrovertible proof that Christianity is an organization with no head, a religion with no god. Their words say they are waiting for him to come back, but their actions say not only that he never will (Luke 12:36-46) but that he does not exist at all. In fact, it seems like the only real drivers of their personal choices come down to fear, hatred, and the exchange, real or promised, of cash.
TL;DR: Say what you will, but a god who can’t or won’t corral his own while still claiming “Lord of Lordship” and relying on promised “spankings when Daddy gets home” is laughable, at best.
You mentioned the Holocaust, which is the most egregious recent example. I’ve yet to get a satisfactory answer to where the good Christian Germans were during that?
Where were they during the Crusades? Where were they during the Inquisition?
Where are they now?
Exactly. They’re out marching with the Proud Boys, overturning democracy, cheering the bullying of whatever not-like-them person or outgroup Fox News has raised their ire against today, sending money to Donald “You can call me Messiah” Trump, etc OR sitting quietly and complicitly with their consciences, embarrassed at the rest of them but unable to do much else because their own “Christian” organizations will NOT speak against these horribly behaved but paying tithers, and “god” itself is running about 2000 years too late on the return leg of his announced round trip.
God is Dead.
Appropriate.
Exactly, we should cast the bible aside.
Very based, but according to this the GOP represents the devil, and Christians sure aren’t throwing them aside.
The atheists are unironically better Christians than the Christians are.
And the members of the satanic temple
Breathe bro, it’s gonna be ok.