Bible talk

[Sommerswerd]

Around 1:20 he claims the Bible is his favorite book:

Here's how somebody talks convincingly about the Bible being his favorite book:

This is a good example of the media playing right into Trump's hands. Sure it exposes Trump as a liar, but we already knew he was a liar, and nobody was under the impression that he genuinely studies the Bible.

Obviously he is FOS and doesn't know one word of the Bible, but his dodge in this particular instance, that "it's personal" is a pretty legitimate excuse for why he won't cite a "favorite verse". Religion is after all, personal, and everyone knows that, not to mention that everyone also has it in the back of their minds that technically there's supposed to be a "separation of church and state", so a politician shouldn't really have to answer religious questions if they don't want to... and its poor etiquette to press people with religious questions... especially since the question is clearly a trap. So the way he dismisses the question was pretty clever. He comes off as either being well prepared to deal with the question, or able to think quickly on his feet very well. Either way Trump comes away from that looking good.

The way it comes off actually turns the tables on the interviewer(s)... because everyone, including Trump supporters, know full well that Trump doesn't know jack squat about the Bible and is just complimenting the Bible to pander to his Christian constituents... Its basically a quick shout-out to evangelicals. The interviewers know it, Trump knows it, and every voter watching that interview knows it. So the interviewer basically poo-poos Trump's shout-out, thereby indirectly crapping on evangelicals for supporting Trump. It's a low-key way of calling evangelicals/Christians dumb for supporting Trump. That doesn't hurt Trump, it helps him.

Again, Trump's lying and everyone knows it, so implying that he's lying doesn't accomplish anything except making the interviewer look smug and petty. To challenge him to cite a verse just comes off as mean-spirited, ivory-tower condescension... sort of like when Katie Couric challenged Sarah Palin to name the newspapers she reads. The average American voter isn't going to be able to spout off a bunch of Bible verses, so Trump not being able to do so actually makes him relatable.

Being able to quote scripture is like being able to speak a different language. People might be impressed that you can do it, but they aren't going to look down on you if you can't... and they generally will take a dim view of a person who tries to show you up, or throw shade at you for not being able to do it.

 

[Gori the Grey]

You're not wrong that what Halperin and Heilman really expose is the superficial commitment to their professed faith of the American "Christian" voter: that it's just an identity tag, and nothing more.

One can imagine a Jimmy Kimmel "man on the street" interview where they ask "What's your favorite movie?" then "What's your favorite line from that movie?" Quick answers to each. Then "What's your favorite book?" [Obligatory "the Bible"] then "What's your favorite line from that book?" Crickets.

So what this exposes is that so-called Christian voters don't need for a candidate to say anything to show that Christianity has a substantive impact on their world view, but just "Christianity! It's the best, right?" (In fact, Trump's not being willing to favor the New Testament shows that they don't really even need that little!)

You're correct, I think, about how people view the ability to quote scripture. But it shouldn't be the equivalent of being able to speak a foreign language. If someone truly believed that one particular book was 1) the most important book ever written, 2) the book they live their lives by, and 3) nothing short of the word of God, they'd find a way to remember something from it. Or, to put it another way, if someone claimed to be polyglot, and that being able to speak a second language was very important to them, then we could reasonably expect that they could speak a sentence or two in another language.

If we then further say--as you, I think correctly, say--that the audience knows Trump is a liar and knows what the Bible says about lying (and many of them could, actually, supply the four-(or six-)word quote that the Bible has to say about lying), then the exposure of the utter irrelevance of Christianity to self-described "Christians" is complete.

But all of that is neither here nor there. Because here I wasn't talking, as I do in lots of other threads, about Trump and his relation to the media. (To be clear, I'm not complaining that you took my post as the starting point for a tangent of your own). I was just citing the video as evidence that the Bible is not in fact Trump's favorite book. Which you clearly agree is true.

"I have come that they might have life, and have it in greater abundance," btw, ftw.

 

[Core Imposter]

It would be very easy to ask him if he has heard of a non-existent verse from a non-existent chapter, just write one yourself and read it out and say thats 9:38, book of Franklin: "and thou shalt cleave to the river as your boundary forever and the nation will prosper".

 

[Gori the Grey]

That too has already happened:

 

[Core Imposter]

As I have said before, when you need a preacher, you hire a preacher. When you need a political thug, you hire a political thug. This exhibits the one and only sweet thing about liberals, they want to fall in love with their leader, liberals spend so much energy virtue-ing that they want a pure champion to validate their faith.

We on the other hand have Jesus.

 

[Core Imposter]

A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.

Proverbs 14:30

 

[Core Imposter]

close enough

 

[Gori the Grey]

As I have said before, when you need a preacher, you hire a preacher. When you need a political thug, you hire a political thug. This exhibits the one and only sweet thing about liberals, they want to fall in love with their leader, liberals spend so much energy virtue-ing that they want a pure champion to validate their faith.

We on the other hand have Jesus.

You say you say that, but these people say the other:

close enough

is it though?

 

[Sommerswerd]

I was just citing the video as evidence that the Bible is not in fact Trump's favorite book. Which you clearly agree is true.

I do.

"I have come that they might have life, and have it in greater abundance," btw, ftw.

"I come Hulk Hogan to bring the Warriors and Hulkamaniacs together as one" - Jim "The Ultimate Warrior" Hellwig ftw

That too also has already has happened:

FTFY enjoy

 

[Core Imposter]

You say you say that, but these people say the other:

is it though?

Close enough for government work.

Funny videos mocking Christians aren't going to affect the vote. Except to shore up the belief of any Christians that might see it of the importance of voting against the left. Revelation- mocking your adversaries makes them your friends -not.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The point is not fundamentally about the mockery. He first gets them to say how they really feel. (The Burns thing is just him sitting in the audience.) That--how they really feel--makes a mockery of what they profess to believe, all by itself, before Klepperer reacts at all. In this thread, our concern is not about how things will affect the vote. If you want me to go dig up the same kind of stuff from C-PACs and Faith and Freedom or whatever, we can find it there without the frame of mockery.

(Did like it that "love your neighbor" got a shout out, though).

These people are not my adversaries, by the way. I would like to be able to think of them as my co-religionists. But they are a disappointment.

 

[Angst]

As I have said before, when you need a preacher, you hire a preacher. When you need a political thug, you hire a political thug. This exhibits the one and only sweet thing about liberals, they want to fall in love with their leader, liberals spend so much energy virtue-ing that they want a pure champion to validate their faith.

We on the other hand have Jesus.

who are the liberals, and who are you?

 

[Gori the Grey]

By the way, I just gotta keep dumping on Trump.

So, Sommer's basically right that this ignorance of the Bible didn't end up mattering at all to his voters.

But no one knew that for sure at the time. So, as the Packman video shows, they set up an interview with the Christian Bible Network, and his staff gets him better prepped to handle such questions.

But . . .

1) his staff knows he can't memorize anything terribly long, so they give him a four-word phrase.

2) they make something up that sounds Bible-esque, assuming that everyone who hears it will just say to themselves "yeah, that sounds Bible-esque"

but here's the kicker.

3) even so, they can't get him to bother unless they make it about him.

Because did you notice what he implies the application of "Never bend to envy" is? (1:00) It's about how people envy him! "I've had that thing all of my life where people are bending to envy" (Which the Bible tells them they shouldn't do (or at least a Bible does) . . . but how can they help themselves, really, when you think about it?)

And then,

4) the Bible is good for living a life, not just religiously, but beyond that.

 

[Sommerswerd]

By the way, I just gotta keep dumping on Trump.

Fun... while we're dumping on Trump... I've got something to point out:

In the video... something that jumped out at me... is the stark difference between how Trump interacts with the smoking hot Black models versus how he interacts with the smoking hot White models. With the black models, his posture is closed... he folds his arms, and shrinks, as if he doesn't want to make contact with them, it appears he doesn't approve of them and really doesn't want to be in a picture with them, or at least that he thinks he should be the focus of the photo and they should be honored to be in a photo with him. With he white models his posture is open. He has his arms open and he extends them, giving them thumbs-up/pointing to them as if to indicate that he approves of them and that they should be the focus of the photo rather than him.

0:43

Its subtle, but such a thing is often subtle and subconscious... I think the photo shoots capture a bit of that subconscious.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If we then further say--as you, I think correctly, say--that the audience knows Trump is a liar and knows what the Bible says about lying (and many of them could, actually, supply the four-word quote that the Bible has to say about lying), then the exposure of the utter irrelevance of Christianity to self-described "Christians" is complete.

There's something shorter than "thou shalt not bear false witness"? That's the only thing about lying I remember reading.

Revelation- mocking your adversaries makes them your friends -not.

Funny how that works in reverse, too.

"love your neighbor"

Okay, how's this for "love thy neighbor":

 

[Gori the Grey]

There's something shorter than "thou shalt not bear false witness"?

"bear false witness" is in many translations, or summations, given simply as "lie."

Okay, how's this for "love thy neighbor":

I like it, except I can't follow him on his jump from "disagrees with you" to "let him live." In how many cases of our disagreeing with someone, is the follow-up that we would kill that person? (Many, of course, but far from all). I also kinda don't like the phrase "let him live," as though it is assumed that that fundamentally lies in your power or choosing. But I'm completely on board for the notion that every person is precious and that even when we most disagree we should keep that preciousness in mind and act accordingly (but, again, in lots of other ways than merely "letting him live").

 

[Farm Boy]

aaand it's a Trump thread, too.

So many hateboners swinging in the wind.

 

[Gori the Grey]

There's an internet law, like Godwin's Law: all non-Trump threads eventually become Trump threads. The corollary is that all Trump threads veer off in wild directions.

I for my part (and I'm the one who would have to work hardest to observe it) would be happy to exorcize Biblical Ignorance from our Bible Talk thread.

Not least because we're not done with our discussion of the Good Samaritan. What you thought we were done?

@Samson has two more questions to answer, and then another two after that.

Then I have some debts to pay, mostly to Kyr and Core. Things I had to put to one side.

Then Jesus has two more rabbits to pull out of his hat.

I know you all needed an intermission, but do come back for the second act.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

"bear false witness" is in many translations, or summations, given simply as "lie."


I like it, except I can't follow him on his jump from "disagrees with you" to "let him live." In how many cases of our disagreeing with someone, is the follow-up that we would kill that person? (Many, of course, but far from all). I also kinda don't like the phrase "let him live," as though it is assumed that that fundamentally lies in your power or choosing. But I'm completely on board for the notion that every person is precious and that even when we most disagree we should keep that preciousness in mind and act accordingly (but, again, in lots of other ways than merely "letting him live").

How familiar are you with Carl Sagan's general outlook? Did you ever see the original Cosmos series?

 

[Gori the Grey]

How familiar are you with Carl Sagan's general outlook? Did you ever see the original Cosmos series?

Not at all, really. Maybe individual episodes.

When I was in Ithaca, NY, I saw the house he lived in when he was a Cornell professor.