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Mike Johnson urged a religious test for politicians (www.motherjones.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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[–] 177 points 2 years ago (22 children)

There should be a religious test for politicians.

If you're too religious, you should not be a politician

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    [–] 71 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You know what? Yes. And if you’re found to be swayed by your religion while making law? You should be barred from office.

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    • [–] 70 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    I'd like to test him about feeding the hungry. Sheltering the homeless. Comforting the widow. Coveting your neighbors goods. Doing to others as you would like have done to you. I'm not even fucking talking about religion, either.

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    • [–] 56 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I wish these chucklefucks would realize not all of us believe in god let alone the same one they pray to.

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  • [–] 77 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    They do realize this. They see it as a problem that needs fixing.

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    • [–] 42 points 2 years ago

    There is a 'no religious test' bit in the constitution It turns out that the only religious test the constitution sanctions is DON'T PROPOSE RELIGIOUS TESTS

    That's the one that tells us you can't be trusted with secular authority

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    [–] 40 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Now we got to listen to this bullshit. Would love to see him take a test on the bible.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    We'll start by asking him to list all twenty commandments, since conservatives usually claim that they love them so much.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Twenty? I'm not a Christian so was unaware of the extra ten.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago* (9 children)

    Most "Christians" are also unaware of the extra ones, despite them being listed in black and white in the bible.

    In Exodus 20, Moses is given the tablets containing the ten commandments, which are listed off in the text of the bible in that chapter and are the ten that "everyone knows."

    Then, in Exodus 32:19, Moses gets so pissed off at witnessing his people worshiping the golden calf that he breaks the tablets that have the commandments carved on them. In Exodus 33 he goes back up the mountain to ask god what to do about it. In Exodus 34, god goes as far as to say unto Moses, "Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest." Throughout the chapter he does so, listing off a screed that contains a couple of the original commandments (no other gods before me, and remember the sabbath) but the rest of his directions are quite different from the first list.

    Further, there is a recitation of the first ten commandments in Deuteronomy 5, where a different explanation for the sabbath day is given. In Exodus god claims the sabbath is holy because he created the world in six days and the seventh day is a day of rest, but in Deuteronomy he says the sabbath actually holy because the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt and god gave them rest in the form of their freedom. Moses further goes on to say after this recitation that these were the words god spoke and he "added no more," which as we saw in Exodus 34 is bogus.

    I guess actually it's 18 in total, then. We can treat it as a trick question for Mike Johnson.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago*

    There's an interesting detail to the whole "Moses breaking the original tablets in response to the golden calf worship."

    This parallels the alleged reforms of Josiah.

    Josiah "finds a new book of laws" and then suddenly carries out major religious reforms. He performed human sacrifice slaughtering the priests of the high places on their altars to defile them. He hides away the Ark, the anointing oil, the manna jar. He gets rid of the Asherah worship.

    And he gets rid of the golden calves in Bethel and Dan while getting rid of the old laws and bringing new ones.

    Oh, and he institutes the Passover narrative.

    So suddenly in the events around Moses, the central part of that Passover narrative, is a scene that has old laws being destroyed in response to golden calf worship and new laws taking their place.

    Very sus.

    Even more sus is that Josiah's reforms appear to be anachronistic given the correspondence over a century later between Elephantine and Jerusalem.

    We should really be taking Hecataeus of Adbera's claim that the scriptures of the Jews had recently been significantly altered around the Exodus narrative under the Persian and Macedonian conquests more seriously.

    Edit: Also if the Shapira scroll is legit, there was originally an 11th commandment.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Start with "Which came first, people or animals?"

    Genesis 1:

    20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

    24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

    26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

    27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

    Genesis 2:

    7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

    19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

    21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

    22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Indeed. Two stories from two regions mashed up into the Septuagint along with a number of other writings, much of it proven to be anachronistic, meant to unify a kingdom politically against its rivals under one religion and one god where before there were many of each. It's also why you see god being named in different ways in different books.

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    • [–] 33 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    This guy’s a fuckin freak.

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    • [–] 22 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I feel like a major lesson from the Trump era is that no one has to take American evangelicals seriously when they talk about how their faith informs their politics. They can and will justify anything so it’s just a waste of everyone’s time to pretend they’re sincere in their beliefs.

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    [–] 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Ironic considering that Jews and atheists tend to be more knowledgeable than Christians about religion: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/07/23/what-americans-know-about-religion/

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    [–] 13 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I fully support this. Anyone who claims to be religious - of any kind - will not get my vote.

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    [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    This is turning into a South Park episode.

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    • [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    Man, these guys just hate this country so very much. It's so obvious because they keep ignoring and/or gaslighting about one of the most important things about this country, and that is that it is a SECULAR country.

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    [–] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I would love to see how closely they follow "love thy neighbor"

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    • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Praze ba jeebuz

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    [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It seems like he was urging people to vote based on candidates' religious beliefs. This is not a "religious test" in the Constitutional sense.

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