Jeff Sharlet's Article: "Trump The Chosen One To Run America" - Yeah, From Hell

"Donald Trump is Satan. The Satan in question is perhaps the greatest literary character in the finest epic poem in the English language, John Milton’s Paradise Lost. .. Trump as Satan: you might think it’s absurdly over-the-top, or want to celebrate it as a (literally) epic takedown, but this is not a political statement hurling invective. It’s an analytical statement describing what is happening – what will happen – and why, aided by the Miltonic intervention. Great literature helps us understand the world. Both politicians and literary critics do their jobs best when they’re willing to use literature to think about life."-  Jeffrey R. Wilson, Spectator USA

Jeff Sharlet on 'All In' last night painted an even more horrific picture of Trump and his worshipping zombie hordes  than most of us believed possible. This as we face the spectacle of his first rally of the summer tonight in Tulsa, which is sure to be a "super spreader" event in the new pandemic surge.   What insights Sharlet shared with Chris Hayes were mostly in his Vanity Fair article: 'He's The Chosen One To Run America:  Inside The Cult of Trump, His Rallies Are Church And He Is The Gospel',  e.g.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/inside-the-cult-of-trump-his-rallies-are-church-and-he-is-the-gospel

Sharlet began by comparing the "new dark era of Trumpism"  to the esoteric Gnostic gospels, averring  that like the Gnostics, the Trumpers  " believe all knowledge is hidden and the elites are in this vast conspiracy against us. "   I.e. to prevent them from gaining this precious, hidden knowledge.

But to even roughly liken the idiotic QAnon conspiracy claptrap to the Gnostic Gospels is to commit a grievous false analogy.  (QAnon believes "deep state" elites are hiding knowledge regarding reality and the political universe from them and other dregs.  In fact they simply aren't intelligent or industrious enough to access any  genuine knowledge on their own.)

This essential point needs to be clarified before we go on to the main core of Sharlet's thesis which actually holds some weight.   First , based on the research of religious scholar Elaine Pagels e.g.


We learn that the essence of these gospels was based on esoteric, early Christian  traditions,  i.e.  teachings proclaiming that one needn't depend on an orthodox dogma or an external Christ for salvation, rather one could become a Christ in his own right. In this way, the Gnostics exhibited a remarkable resonance of beliefs with Buddhism. Little known at the time is that they were massively persecuted and oppressed by the likes of Paul and some of his fellow orthodox cohort. Some scholars believe many of the Gnostics were put to death by these bigots, so their own little fairy stories could prevail. And in fact that’s pretty well what happened.  ("History is written by the victors" as one saying goes.)

The Gnostics themselves, as Marvin Meyer points out ('The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels', p. xvii- Intro.) emphasized a quest for understanding, and because they placed more import on fostering spiritual lifestyles - as opposed to paying homage to the received wisdom of the authorities of the day-   they were regarded as dissidents and outcasts.  All this is totally different from Trumpism which is much more like the crap cult teaching of the Rev. Jim Jones with his "People's Temple" in Guyana. 

Jones convinced his captive cultists that the "outside world" was against them and he held secrets to their identity and existence that only he could really share - but which could liberate them from the pressures, designs and "wickedness" of those "enemies"  arrayed against them.   He also imbued in them the belief that the U.S. government was out to get them (hence the move to Guyana), just as Trump has convinced his own deplorables  that a deep state "conspiracy" is out to get them and HIM. Oh,  a theme of paranoia also ran through Jones' teachings, and that there was "an enemy within"  that had to be destroyed, echoing what Trump tells his minions now. 

Chris Hayes then compared  the mush of the QAnon -Trumpie beliefs to a kind of  false consciousness.   But what really shows these freaks are in need of  serious psychotherapeutic intervention is when Sharlet noted their conviction that every Trump tweet contained gist for interpretation: every typo,  misspelling,  every capitalized word- contained a hidden message from Trump- pregnant with meaning. That is, if the Trumper was just clever enough it would be revealed- else s/he would be in a similar position to the John Nash character in "A Beautiful Mind" -  trying to make sense of  dozens of random news clippings pinned to a wall.

In his Vanity Fair article Sharlet writes:

"Many followers deploy a familiar Christian-right formula for justifying abuses of power, declaring Trump a modern King David, a sinner nonetheless anointed, while others compare him to Queen Esther, destined to save Israel—or at least the evangelical imagination of it—from Iran. Still others draw parallels to Cyrus, the Old Testament Persian king who became a tool for God’s will. ...Lance Wallnau, a founding member of Trump’s evangelical coalition, dubs him “God’s chaos candidate”: “the self-made man who can ‘get it done,’ enters the arena, and through the pressure of circumstance becomes the God-shaped man God enables to do what he could never do in his own strength.”


And even more nutso:

"In Trump’s case, divine backing is more about smiting than healing. When Rep. Elijah Cummings died last October shortly after sparring with Trump about Baltimore, Peterson declared on his radio show, “He dead”—like Trump enemies John McCain and Charles Krauthammer, Peterson noted. “That’s what happens when you mess with the Great White Hope. Don’t mess with God’s children.”

Carrying the post hoc, ergo propter hoc  fallacy  to a preposterous excess.  I.e. whatever follows x, y or z event was caused by x, y or z event.    But this is all of a piece with the con Jim Jones also pulled on his followers in Guyana making them believe he could smite  any foe who dared try to bring his kingdom down. (Including killing CA Rep. Leo Ryan in an ambush when he tried to help several followers escape.)  According to one member (Walt Jones) quoted in the book, 'The Suicide Cult' (p. 69),  what most held members in line was that:

"Jones was a master manipulator"

Much like Trump, he promised his followers the Earth, Moon and sky if they'd just believe and follow him, into hell as it turned out, e.g. this photo of some of the 900 -odd bodies recovered at Jonestown,  from the book:

 In the same way, or perhaps now by way of a huge Covid spike,  Trump will bring his banshees to their knees literally - but even then they may not be able to see beyond his machinations and manipulations. Another huge difference with Gnostic Christians, since as Elaine Pagels points out (op. cit. p. 106):  "Those who were enlightened were able to discriminate for themselves what was true, and what was false."

But as with the case of Jim Jones,  the Trumpie followers and cultists opt not to think for themselves but only accept what Trump tells them - which is why they're flocking to the Tulsa rally tonight. And oh yeah. like Jim  Jones' followers they believe the virus won't touch them- after all they are under the protection of the Donald, errr...the Dotard.  The "Chosen One" (sic) from whatever Hell Jones (and Hitler)  also came from.

In another paragraph Sharlet writes with some prescience:

"For the past four years, Trump has systematically done what Barack Obama refused to do: played directly to his base, whipping his followers into fury. His rallies transcend live events. .. And the fury will be there as we approach the pivotal moment in November, when our future may well hinge on these passion plays."

For sure there will be "passion plays" galore - especially as Trump sees the hangman's noose approaching.  We  just need to ensure this charlatan criminal and con man grifter swine doesn't get too many of the rest of us to swallow his kool aid.

See also:

• Tulsa is under curfew and COVID-19 infections are exploding ahead of Trump's campaign rally 

And:

Donald Trump

Overt Shades of Hitlerism in Trump's Speech Yesterday

And:

Donald Trump

Our Long National Nightmare Is Almost Over — or Not

A Brief History Of Early Christianity

Having entered the period called "Lent" and heading toward Easter, it is instructive to examine the  early history of Christianity.  One of the enduring myths about the Christian religion is that it effectively sprung uniform and whole as if like Zeus from Mt. Olympus. Sure, there were a few minor squabbles, but the religion that later became one of the world's largest, to all intents,  began as one more or less monolithic entity.

In fact this is a fairy tale that has no real scholarly support. What I'd like to do here is to provide a kind of concise history of early Christianity, up to about 300 AD. Most of the content has been extracted from some notes on Early Christian History (from Loyola) as well as three excellent books: The Gnostic Gospels and Adam, Eve & The Serpent (by Elaine Pagels), and Lost Christianities, by scholar and former fundamentalist, Bart Ehrman.

The intent here is not to badmouth Christianity or diminish it, but to show it in its historic light, as opposed to the (often) fantastic, and ahistorical light many have used to portray it.

One of the aspects that most stands out is its eclectic nature. Contrary to being a font for monotheism, early Christianity was anything but. Nor had the "god Man" claim for Jesus yet become entrenched, as it did later (mainly compliments of Paul) in the institutional religion.

In terms of the eclectic nature, Prof. Ehrman points out (op. cit.) that "some of the early Christians believed in one God, some in two, and some others in thirty". He also expressed the divergence of belief concerning Jesus:

"There were some who believed Jesus' death brought about the world's salvation (likely the precursors of evangelicals who wouldn't appear in full bloom for another 17 centuries, and others who thought it had nothing to do with it. Others said Jesus never died. We examine here some of the chief Christian voices-groups in the early centuries."

Perhaps the first were the Ebionites, and also the earliest of the banned sects, later to be called "heretics". This group believed in Christ but saw him as the Jewish Messiah, sent from the Jewish God to the Jewish people in fulfillment of Jewish scriptures. This take (of Ehrman) also comports with that of Oxford Scholar Geza Vermes, who notes (in his monograph ‘The Authentic Gospel Of Jesus’ (page 415):

“The religion revealed by the authentic message of Jesus is straightforward, without complex dogmas, mythical images or self-centered mystical speculation. It resembles a race consisting only of the final ‘straight’ – demanding from the runners their last ounce of energy and with a winners’ medal prepared for all the JEWISH participants who cross the finishing line."

Vermes goes on to observe (ibid.) that Christianity seems to "belong to another world, with its mixture of high philosophical speculation on the triune God, its Johannine Logos mysticism, and Pauline Redeemer myth of a dying and risen Son of God"

But why express surprise here? The fact is the myth of a redeemer god -Man had been in the cultural -religious zeitgeist (for example with the Mithraic pagans) for over twelve centuries. If a new faith wanted to claim exclusivity or unique gravitas and "separate from the pack" so to speak, it couldn't do better than to appropriate the same god -Man myth then weave it into its textual accounts.   Readers of an inquiring mind  couldn't do better than to access the Yale University Religious Study course lectures below:

The Historical Jesus

Arguing with Paul?


In line with the above, Jesus for the Ebionites was not a member of an eternal Trinity, but rather an ordinary man who kept Jewish law to perfection. As for their sacred text - accepted by them- it excluded the Gospel of John (which many current biblical historians have trouble with as well, partly for its elaborations - like on the trial of Jesus - which no other synoptic gospel discloses) while it retained most of the Old Testament and the Gospel of Matthew.

It's also noteworthy here, that the Ebionites - like the Gnostics- had a particular dislike for Paul, and also like the Gnostics viewed him as "the enemy" for his claim that all of Jewish law was rendered irrelevant by belief in Christ.

The Marcionites were another early Christian group, founded by a shipping magnate, Marcion, ca. 139 AD in Rome. Here, in this manifestation, we find the first appearance of the "double God", later circulated also by the Gnostics. The Marcionites thus accepted the world was created by an "evil God" (the one described in the Old Testament, in his various assorted genocides etc.) and that this evil god imposed a death sentence on humanity when it could not meet its impossibly high demands. In juxtaposition to the evil god was the "God of Jesus" and by belief in him, humans could escape from the vindictive wrath of the evil god. Those who did not, would remain in the evil god's clutches and join him in hell. (Again, we find exact resonances of this in modern evangelical Christianity who worship the same evil God in the OT. At least I've never heard or seen any of them reject him!)

Perhaps the most developed Christian group at the time, with the most refined philosophy and belief system, were the Gnostics. At least a few scholars speculate in fact that Gnosticism is at least partially an offshoot from early Greek philosophy. To summarize the Gnostic take:

'The world is essentially a cesspool and we're all mired in filth and ignorance. We all came from somewhere else, and salvation is finding our way back."

Like the Marcionites, the Gnostics believed an evil and inferior god ruled over the world (and also created our bodies). They called it demiurgos. Existentially, it was roughly on a par with Satan. So the evil god and Satan formed an evil twin duo. Gnostics, in terms of their scriptures and what they believed, penned their own "Gnostic Gospels". They rejected the Old Testament as antiquated rubbish about the demiurgos, while they rejected much of the New Testament because of the Pauline wording corruptions, and references to Jesus as "savior". They believed none of this was original, but the work of Paul's copyist henchmen.

Their core belief was that at the last instant of manifest existence a higher, supreme God would appear and insert into each of us his spark of divinity. At this stage, we would each attain a high enough level of knowledge (gnosis) to conquer our attachment to material reality and become Christs unto ourselves.

Thus, in the Gnostics, we see the first emergence of a totally different version of "Christ" from what Paul taught and circulated. Pagels observes ('The Gnostic Gospels', Vintage-Random House, 1979), p. 124 :

"While Pauline Catholics taught a reality of 'sin' and that 'Jesus alone could deliver healing and forgiveness of sins', the Gnostics on the contrary, insisted that ignorance, not sin, is what involves a person in suffering. The gnostic movement shared in this certain affinities with contemporary methods of exploring the self through psychotherapeutic techniques."

Also(p. 125):

"Whoever remains ignorant... cannot experience fulfilment. Gnostics said that such a person 'dwells in deficiency'. For deficiency consists of ignorance."


Perhaps the most daring, and threatening proposition of the Gnostics, was their belief in gnosis, or the 'de-localization' of Christhood. Why? Because if the (Institutional-doctrinal) Church accepted this, they'd have to surrender their coveted power wielded via intermediaries (priests, bishops, cardinals, etc.). Paul knew this full well, which he fought against the Gnostics' egalitarian Christhood with all his might. There was no way he'd accept that every human could become a Christ in his own right.

Pagels echoing the principle of gnosis (ibid., p.134):

"Whoever achieves gnosis becomes no longer a Christian, but a Christ."

Even today, Gnostic churches exist, despite Paul's effort to wipe them out. In Barbados, a large Gnostic church still remains not far from the Constitution River in Bridgetown. When I last visited, at least three members declared that they were nearly at the level of "Christhood".

In effect, in the Gnostic teachings, anyone had the capacity to become 'a Christ'. Pauline Catholicism, meanwhile - held there could be only one, on which all others had to depend for 'salvation'. The Gnostics, for their part, regarded the Pauline teachings of a unique god-Man as utter blasphemy. NO mere human (which they regarded Jesus) could also be God, but each human could eventually become a limited divine manifestation known as Christ. (They did allow Jesus might have reached that stage before other humans)

Pagels goes on (ibid.):

"We can see, then, that such gnosticism was more than a protest movement against orthodox Christianity. Gnosticism also included a religious perspective that implicitly opposed the development of the kind of institution that became the early Catholic Church. Those who expected to 'become Christs' themselves were not likely to recognize the institutional structures of the church -its bishops, priests, creed, canon, or ritual - as bearing ultimate authority."

For this reason, As Pagels notes (p. 102), the Catholic orthodoxy and tradition (including many Church Fathers such as Tertullian- the original theocon) saw fit to consistently denounce the Gnostics "while suppressing and virtually destroying the Gnostic writings themselves." And of course, we had the likes of the unscrupulous idiot Irenaeus calling them 'frauds'. (Pagels, p. 17) To serve his own purposes of course!

One is left to wonder, why - if the Church and St. Paul felt so self-righteous, they had to destroy and suppress the Gnostic gospels and writings. Was their Church so weak and tepid that it couldn't co-exist? Seems so. Just like today's evangelicals are evidently so weak and tepid that they can't tolerate and co-exist with other Christian groups.

In any case, by the 4th century AD the early eclecticism had nearly vanished and an institutional Pauline Christianity ended up the prime descendant of the original teachings and a religion which had essentially succeeded in wiping out or suppressing all groups not centralized in Rome. The major turning point was undoubtedly the "Edict of Milan" which removed all penalties for professing Pauline Christianity. 

The latter subsequently achieved immense strength as it became the official religion of Rome, thanks to aligning itself with many elements of the Roman Sol Invictus (Sun worship) cult including adopting the same date for Its Nativity: the Winters Solstice or Dec. 25th.  See also:

Revisiting The Origin Of Christmas & Sol Invictus

The rest as they say, is history, though historians such as Edward Gibbons have linked the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to its uneasy integration with the Pauline variant of Christianity. 

See also:

How the early Pauline Christians invented “Jesus t...

So Wait....Pope Francis Was "Misquoted" and Atheists Can't Get To Heaven After All?

Incredibly, certain enclaves of Catholicism are asserting that the media got it all wrong about what Pope Francis said some months ago, that even atheists can get to heaven. According to the nabobs at CatholicVote.org ('What Pope Francis Really Said About Atheists'), citing a padre, "Father Longernecker"::

"The Pope is simply affirming certain truths that any somewhat knowledgable Catholic will uphold.

First, that Christ died to redeem the whole world. We can distinguish his redemptive work from the acceptance of salvation. He redeemed the whole world. However, many will reject that saving work. In affirming the universality of Christ’s redemptive work we are not universalists. To say that he redeemed the whole world is not to conclude that all will be saved.

Secondly, the Pope is also affirming that all humans are created in God’s image and are therefore created good. Yes, created good, but that goodness is wounded by original sin.

Thirdly, he is affirming that all men and women are obliged to pursue what is beautiful, good and true. Natural virtue is possible–even obligatory, but natural virtue on its own is not sufficient for salvation. Grace is necessary to advance beyond natural virtue to bring the soul to salvation. The Pope does not say atheists being good on their own will be saved. He says they, like all men, are redeemed by Christ’s death and their good works are the starting place where we can meet with them–the implication being “meet with them in an encounter that leads eventually to faith in Christ."


They then went on to cite a link from Catholicism.org’s Brian Kelly:

"Pope Francis did not say that an atheist who does naturally good things can be saved if he dies an atheist. Yet that is the impression given by Catholic Online’s half truth headline…

The Pope… simply reminded the faithful that there can be, and is, goodness, or natural virtue, outside the Church. And that Christ’s death on the Cross redeemed all men. He paid the price so that every man could come to God and be saved.

If Catholic Online is insinuating that Pope Francis has “reformed” the irreformable dogma, outside the Church there is no salvation, then that is shameful and disingenuous."

Now let's look at the actual words of Francis  delivering a homily at the Chapel of the Domus Santa Marta :  

"The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe, Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: We will meet one another there."


Hmmmmm.......now I'm looking really hard at these words, parsing them closely and NO where do I see anything remotely along the lines of atheists having to "convert to faith" to reach the pearly gates and especially - particularly  that they have to embrace the Catholic version.

Now, in the interest of honest and full disclosure,  let me say again: I do not believe there is any "heaven" or "hell". We each create our own heavens and hells on this Earth, in the here and now. Basically "salvation" is accomplished on one's own terms to redeem his life here on Earth to become the best human he can be...with the resources allotted him over a finite time.  In other words, there is no hereafter of the kind the orthodox religious types - including Catholics - believe. I have, however, allowed for the possibility of an impersonal "life after death" in the form of Stuart Hameroff's model, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/has-stuart-hameroff-explicated-way-out.html

But as I noted therein:

"This isn't really any kind of recognizable "after life". Indeed, it is impossible to even remotely describe what a nonlocal consciousness might perceive, if it perceives at all. It also leaves a decided negative slant on the question of preserving any sense of self. How can one, if the "self" is no longer separable? "

What the Catholic apologists for standard Vatican hogwash have asserted, however, hearkens back to the ancient Baltimore Catechism trope that "salvation can only come through the One, True Apostolic and Holy Church"..  Which is every bit as regressive as the fundamentalist asserting that one can only be saved by "believing on the Lord Jesus Christ" - when we know from actual textual analysis (hermeneutics)  that Jesus was NOT a God-man. He was a charismatic Rabbi and Jewish peasant Cynic who sought to expand human consciousness and the love for one another via appeal to a transcendent reality.

Amy person really serious about investigating this - beyond the realm of cartoon theology- is invited to read:

The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant - by John Dominic Crossan

The Authentic Gospel of Jesus: Geza Vermes

The serious investigator, not prepared to simply imbibe and regurgitate theological canards, i.e. that the New Testament represents actual history, is also invited to access one of the best available  courses, entitled: Introduction to New Testament History and Literature, by Prof. Dale B. Martin of Yale University. It is roughly on a par with my 'Introduction to the New Testament' course taken at Loyola in 1964-65. (The Loyola course was somewhat more difficult)

The compilation of course sessions, all on video, can be accessed via this link:

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152#sessions

And the one I recommend most for those short on time is No.13, dealing with the "Historical Jesus" (link below):

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152/lecture-13

The point of all the above is that if Jesus is merely a good man, not a God-man, then the entire Christian notion of expiation of sins and "salvation" collapses, as well as both the Catholic and fundie concepts of special salvation (i.e. it can only come via those specific belief vehicles).   Note, this does not "deny God" only that Jesus was a God man. If people take the time to investigate they will see this falsehood came by way of Paul of Tarsus - otherwise known as "St. Paul" - because he feared the nonlocal Christhood concept of the Gnostics (i.e. we are all "Christs" unto ourselves, see Elaine Pagels'  The Gnostic Gospels.)

The "salvation" trope can also be shown to be nonsense by application of logic, and strictly adhering to religionists' own definitions of God. Thus, IF God as infinite is taken literally, this can only mean there is no place where he isn't. Either he is infinite or not infinite. If he is infinite, then any Hell must be excluded as part of the same divine Being. But if it is still proposed to exist (independently)  then we have a condition where Hell is apart from God's Being. But if this be so, then there exists a domain ("Hell") where God isn't, so he can't be infinite! In other words, God is actually a limited being and not infinite after all.

The bottom line in the logical case is that rigorous orthodox Christians (such as quoted by CatholicVote,org)  are not allowed to "have their cake and eat it".  If they demand "Hell" as a component of their salvation doctrine, they must forego an infinite God. If they accept an Infinite God, they must forego Hell, and in so doing, the whole concept of salvation. (Unless, of course, it is one of Universal Salvation)

In either case, Pope Francis' words are then seen to be accurate as they have been stated - no re-interpretations needed. Then  ALL persons, atheists included,  are equal in terms of aspiring to the good and no spiritual "apartheid" need be invoked in a presumed afterlife,

More important than opening an avenue to "heaven" for atheists,  Francis' words are about humans ceasing their endless hatred and divisions:  theological, cultural, economic, political and other.  By their attempted revision of Francis' meaning, however, the Catholic salvation dogma defenders have sought to renew those divisions by appeal to Catholic spiritual supremacy: i.e. that Church being the "one and only path" to salvation.

Make no mistake that nothing good can come of this, nothing at all, not the least is reviving atheist animus toward the Catholic Church. Beyond the atheist domain, it subverts humanity to artificial dogma and that way true hell on Earth resides.  From this the perceptive reader will see that my interest in Francis' words to do with atheists and "heaven" isn't literal, but rather in the broader schema of humans not seeking another fictitious belief to fight over. We have quite enough to divide us, over just about everything including politics and economics, we don't need artificial theological nonsense added to the mix to enhance internecine hatreds.....and more reasons to kill each other.