Billionaire Home Depot Founder Says Pope Francis Is Alienati

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Magritte
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Re: Billionaire Home Depot Founder Says Pope Francis Is Alie

Post by Magritte » Fri Jan 10, 2014 8:35 am

Yeah. This stuff is closely related to Alex Jones / David Icke kinds of ideas. I think many of the people who follow these ideas are deeply hurting individuals, many with mental and emotional problems, and social isolation. Usually it's the same people who will talk about chemtrails, the Illuminati, New World Order, vaccine conspiracies, microchips, and so on.
One of the hallmarks of freedom is that when you recognize someone is being intellectually dishonest or arguing with you in bad faith, you have the option to walk away without being punished, imprisoned or tortured.

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Re: Billionaire Home Depot Founder Says Pope Francis Is Alie

Post by Magritte » Fri Jan 10, 2014 8:42 am

From your blog:
I have been observing for several years now that evangelicals were forgetting the gospel. They have spend so long battling the accouterments of modern world and reflecting politics of by gone centuries so far back it echos faint traces of waving the bloody shirt (a controversy from right after the civil war). The xenophobic reaction to immigration, nostalgia for the old days (pre civil war south) spawned red scares and anti-communism. Fear of evolution and Darwin led to doctrines of inerrancy of the Bible, and back reading into history of position that where never there (no Church father ever talked about the five doctrines of evangelicalism). In latter times this all gave way to republican politics, support for Reagan, the vilification of Democratic candidates. Losing the last election was so traumatic for them because they came to be tried to republican politics they were so sure that after a first term Obama would never be accepted.
Yup. Chip Berlet talks about the roots of the current wave of delusional paranoia here. Download the full PDF, it talks about the roots being in the red scare, the Birchers, belief that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a real thing, etc.

http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/toxic2democracy/
The Gospel just becomes the escape clause. I'm getting out of this made house of a world. All the signs of the times point to my escape. Sings of the time never go anywhere. Everyone in every age sees them. By the way, the thing about priests going to do evangelism on another planet was literally out of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," which is laden with Christian themes and symbols. (IMDb on Close Encoutners). In that film there's a scene where a long line of government people are ready to go take their place on the alien ship as hostage exchange, and a religoius figure, minister or priest lectures them on God being "out there." That's stragnely similar to the claim above that Priests have already been assigned to travel to other planets.It all just sinks into the most mundane conflict, redemption becomes escape, loving the enemy becomes hatred or pity but issues forth in demonizing the enemy. What does it mean psychologically to say our enemies have began to worship beings that aren't human. Of cousre some of those source term them "lizard aliens." So they lizard men. This strikes me as a deep demonizing tendency. They have come to see Catholics and liberals and those whom they blame for not getting their way as so inhuman that they are alien lizard men worshipers. Things are so far gone at that point that I don't know how they can be brought back, except that God specializes in the impossible.
It's quite simple: people who are uneducated, delusional - and I'm sorry, but in many cases not terribly bright to boot - tend to put together their worldview from whatever scraps of popular culture then can lay their hands on. So from Close Encounters they took one idea about extraterrestrial evangelism, and then the reptiles entered popular consciousness from that V miniseries in the 80s with the reptile aliens disguised in human skin. If you read conspiracy sites much you'll also find they're big fans of The Matrix.
One of the hallmarks of freedom is that when you recognize someone is being intellectually dishonest or arguing with you in bad faith, you have the option to walk away without being punished, imprisoned or tortured.

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Re: Billionaire Home Depot Founder Says Pope Francis Is Alie

Post by Metacrock » Fri Jan 10, 2014 2:12 pm

Mag: It's quite simple: people who are uneducated, delusional - and I'm sorry, but in many cases not terribly bright to boot - tend to put together their worldview from whatever scraps of popular culture then can lay their hands on. So from Close Encounters they took one idea about extraterrestrial evangelism, and then the reptiles entered popular consciousness from that V miniseries in the 80s with the reptile aliens disguised in human skin. If you read conspiracy sites much you'll also find they're big fans of The Matrix.
Green Lantern is make you sorry you said that. :mrgreen:

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Re: Billionaire Home Depot Founder Says Pope Francis Is Alie

Post by Metacrock » Fri Jan 10, 2014 2:17 pm

Yup. Chip Berlet talks about the roots of the current wave of delusional paranoia here. Download the full PDF, it talks about the roots being in the red scare, the Birchers, belief that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a real thing, etc.
O yea roots of paranoia run deep in our culture. They go all the way back to the witch trials of Salem.

Look at the mythology about Canada. We say America has never lots a war and portray Canadians as wimps. Candana kicked ass in the war of 1812. It's comical, it could be a National Lampoon movie. Just read the history of that war. The Americans were like an army led by Bob Hope and W.C. Fields made up of troops in the mold of Jerry Lewis. Not only did they never win a battle but more than once they were routed by forces they outnumbered four to one. They found it an impossible task just to cross the river that was the boarder and establish a strong hold. Yet we have this big mythology about how we never lost a war. The only battle of that war we ever talk about is the one that was held two weeks after we surrendered, in New Orleans. It was after the war, it was a slaughter and it was the only thing we did "right."
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Re: Billionaire Home Depot Founder Says Pope Francis Is Alie

Post by Superfund » Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:10 pm

Bit off topic but I Whitley strieber is an interesting author.

He had several lie detector tests and has been tested for temporal lobe epilepsy. Some claim he only making a buck however he was already a award winning author before 'communion' and his books about 'visitors' are very well written and would very likely be more popular as fiction than presented as real personal stories. Also that he draws no conclusions about aliens etc.

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Re: Billionaire Home Depot Founder Says Pope Francis Is Alie

Post by Magritte » Thu Jan 16, 2014 9:19 am

I haven't read his Communion books. Saw the movie with Christopher Walken though, which was terrifying for the first one third to one half, then took a spiritual twist that was less threatening. I got the impression from the movie and from some articles that Streiber is talking less about the aliens as little green men in flying saucers than about the UFO phenomenon as a spiritual force.

If you're talking about aliens as extraterrestrial visitors, that's something where empirical evidence could be produced and I'd want that to confirm it, rather than just people's accounts. The fact that a huge percentage of the population now walks around with high definition camera phones in their pockets yet we still don't have good clear photos of a saucer is, I think, a strong argument that alien spacecraft are not visiting us.
One of the hallmarks of freedom is that when you recognize someone is being intellectually dishonest or arguing with you in bad faith, you have the option to walk away without being punished, imprisoned or tortured.

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