The embed shows allegations I've seen in several posts on Facebook. I don't trust Facebook material to be accurate. Have any readers seen evidence to support/refute this claim in the mainstream fact-checked media?
Here is the link for the cited reference to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
Addendum: Before you get too excited, read this link from Friendly Atheist, submitted by one of the readers here. It expresses severe skepticism regarding the validity of the claims made in the embed.
I think this is the original source:
ReplyDeletehttps://myemail.constantcontact.com/MRFF-Inundated-with-Complaints-of-Gleeful-Commanders-Telling-Troops-Iran-War-is--Part-of-God-s-Divine-Plan--to-Usher-in-Return-o.html?soid=1101766362531&aid=3OTPFAZxIrI
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric
ReplyDeleteTake it from me it's true and its been true for decades. I don't think the invisible man in the sky is going away anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteI can't "take something as true" without evidence. I don't wear a MAGA hat.
DeleteHement Mehta wrote about this in his Substack "The Friendly Atheist".
ReplyDeletehttps://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/before-you-share-that-story-about
Thank you so much, anonymous person. That's the kind of thoughtful skepticism I was hoping some reader here would locate. I've incorporated your link into the body of the post.
DeleteTeam Trump putting some fresh froth on the war making covfefe. Our troops need shiny distractions, too. Religion has long been the classic.
ReplyDeleteIt almost seems as if this "divine" motive is a more worthy sort of motive, insane as it is, than the more obvious motive driving empire: control of the world's resources on behalf of those of us in the over-developed world. By comparison, the magical, superstitious, deranged motive of the "commander" sounds a bit innocent. We may not share in the apocalyptic vision, but we all share in the spoils of war--and I think we're kinda mostly fine with all that, given it keeps the oil flowing. That is to say, we gesture in the direction of being aghast, but we're not serious about living any differently. Or so it appears to me.
ReplyDeleteYou comment would suggest that you think the objective of this war was to secure more oil reserves/production???
DeleteI'd call it maintenance of the imperial machine. Of course there are a zillion variables in how this functions, but if we distill it to its essence, isn't it about material? In the case of the Middle East, oil, oil, oil. Dominance of resources. Either a short game or a long game version.
DeleteI've been reminded of this John Woolman quote, war after war, for fifty years. “May we look upon our treasure, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try to discover whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions."
If your point is that, in the short run, we'll likely see havoc in the Gulf, leading to more expensive oil, I don't doubt that. But this is seen as a short term cost in a longer time frame where benefits flow forth as the empire continues to dominate.
Of course we make many miscalculations along the way. This may be one. But that doesn't change the moral equation: I don't see the American people as morally invested in the question of how we live--how much we consume--and its impact on geopolitics, the environment, etc. It's not even a conversation.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that the statement is true. Being a true believer, I can tell you a couple of things:
ReplyDelete1) It had to have been spoken by someone who is very naive spiritually and likely not well-versed in the Bible.
2) If anyone believed it, it was likely those who were the same or worse spiritually than the speaker.
The Christian world has went through a variety of this-is-it moments. When I was a child, for instance, "The Beast" of Revelation was supposedly a large computer in Brussels, Belgium, called "The Beast" because it took up a whole floor, or the some such.
In time, the bad guys were the European Common Market, the Soviets, the Chinese, the European Union, the Muslims, and so forth. And the writers of such books, even if they changed who the bad guys were...were still best-sellers.
I've read and lived long enough to realize that NO ONE really knows how it all goes down. The same divine inspiration that gave John the Book of Revelation...is the same one necessary for full interpretation. You really can't HONESTLY do much more with the Book of Revelation but get some sermons from Jesus' letters to the churches, and the fact that, in the end, Jesus wins it all.
But never let that stop folks from trying to figure it out.
Further, the language of a settled, solid Christian does not move in the way it was spoken. Listen to a Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, or the such, and while they may have views of the end times different from mine, you can sense a more serious student of the scriptures in them.
I am a Trump voter, but neither he nor whomever this might have been speak intelligently about spiritual things. Like when Trump said that "two Corinthians" was his favorite book in the Bible, it was clear he seldom read the Bible. Those familiar with it, say "second Corinthians."
Yes, I believe were founded with a Christian mindset (even if not everyone was a Christian among the founders), but the opening post makes it clear, it seems, that some are taking advantage of others' Biblical ignorance, and their own, to try to say something that fires up the troops. It carries zero spiritual weight, but is simply politics spoken in Biblical language.
Well said.
Deletepolitics spoken in Biblical language
DeleteIsn't most religion politics in religious language?
Most faiths speak about being kind, feeding the poor, caring for the ill, not killing, and how society should be organized. Oh and of course about adoring the god(s) at hand.
Oddly, politicians that talk the loudest about religion ignore most of that.
Just like the smartest person in the room is often quiet and kind, the most religious person around is mostly busy taking care of their community instead of shouting about it.
aaron,
Deletegiven how often and severely i disagree with your stance, i’m with you on the notion that the statements purportedly given are lacking in biblical spirit. can one find a specific quote in the bible, in translation of choice, ripped clear of all context, that can get twisted into something like those statements? certainly. does one have to turn a blind eye to the text’s bigger picture? absolutely. (and yes, what qualifies as ‘a text’s bigger picture’ is a can of worms that contains the entirety of theology, and then some. but the simplification is good enough for talking about statements so clearly ignorant of plenty of the text, and underserved in how to apply reason to text, and how to maintain propriety of office)
i’d maybe give a small addendum on ‘two corinthians’ vs ‘second corinthians’: such a thing could happen similar to how people use a word correctly but mispronounce it, because they’ve only ever encountered it in reading. but then, this for sure does not apply to trump – i don’t think we’d be much in disagreement when we say that not only does he rarely read the bible, but he rarely reads, period.
raphael
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DeleteThis guy provides good analysis: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E2dzaBjUfQ
ReplyDelete