Religion killing us - again

When I was 15, I was president of the Methodist and Presbyterian church youth groups – at the same time. That summer, the pastor of the Presbyterian church asked if I had read the bible from cover to cover. I hadn’t; he suggested I do; I did.

In the fall, he asked me if I had done it and if so, what did I think. I had done it and declared that after that experience, I was an atheist – and still am. He said he thought that is what would happen.

The Old Testament litany of violence, rape, slaughter, slavery, cruelty, fathers selling their daughters to groups of men, daughters getting their fathers drunk to have sex with them, men having sex with their brothers wives, men having sex with women decades younger than them, women being relegated to nonentities – it was enough to put me off forever.

After the bible horror, came the Crusades with Christians attacking Muslims in the Eastern Mediterranean from 1095 to 1291 brutally killing a lot of people to control a piece of ground both thought “holy” under their not very different myths – still going on today.

Then came the Inquisition sponsored by the church that murdered 9 million women from 1184 to 1834. At the same time (1562-1598) Catholics were murdering Huguenots (Protestants) many of whom fled to Canada. We are told the Pilgrims came here in 1620 to escape religious persecution in England – then replicate it here.

Since we seem to be incapable of learning anything, here we are again.

Hegseth (who has defended the Crusades) is as lunatic as his boss and began holding monthly Christian services at the Pentagon. He started by reading a prayer a chaplain had given for the capture of Maduro and then quoted old testament vengeance and retribution language.

In December 2025 Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed a freedom of information act request regarding these actions. No response was forthcoming. On March 23, 2026 they filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense and The Department of Labor.

More than 100 soldiers have filed complaints with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation reporting that commanders are using extreme religious rhetoric to urge Armageddon on and bring Jesus as Rambo to earth according to The Conversation on March 18. These commanders are happy to imagine a Jesus on a missile with an Uzi blowing away the bad guys.

Troops are being told they are being drafted to serve the “new testament protestant angry god-in-chief.” These same claims were made about the Israel-Hamas war and when the U.S. bombed Iran in June 2025 and destroyed all those nuclear sites we are destroying again.

On June 24, 2025 the Military Religious Freedom Foundation had an article from an active duty officer who was shocked at a bible study meeting when the commanders were thrilled about attacks on Iran and praised the coming of the End Times. As far back as October 2023 complaints were coming in from the military about fundamentalists Christian holy war talk.

On March 6, 2026, 30 members of Congress wrote to the inspector general of the Department of Defense asking for a full scale investigation. “Some commanders have reportedly told subordinates that the American and Israeli attacks will hasten the return of Jesus Christ, and have cited passages from the Book of Revelation and instructed officers to tell their troops that current combat operations are all part of God’s divine plan. If accurate, these outrageous statements—justifying a war based on interpretations of biblical prophecies, and informing troops that they are risking their lives to advance a specific religious vision—raises not only glaring Constitutional concerns, but potential violations of Department of Defense regulations regarding religious neutrality and breaches of professional obligations and standards expected of military leadership. Members of the United States Armed Forces swear an oath to support and defend our secular Constitution—not any specific religious doctrines—and servicemembers must be able to carry out their duties free from coercive religious messaging by their chain of command.”

They asked for six very specific questions to be answered regarding violations of numerous laws and rules.

On March 30, 2026 in the Times of Israel, William Keenan, a middle east analyst said prophesy is replacing intelligence in the guidance of these attacks. These are not just a few wacko commanders but an institutional problem. For the military to become a religious arm turns them into the equivalent of the Iran Revolutionary Guard whose job is to protect the religion as much as the state. Both sides are not thinking strategically but based on preordained stories they have conjured up to support their personal beliefs.

While Hegseth says the Iranians are crazy with their Islamic delusions, he is just as crazy with his Christian delusions. He has officially declared the war on Iran (Operation Epic Fury – a hideous name that tells you what you need to know) as a “Holy War” and prayed for “overwhelming violence.”

If there is any such thing as a “just war,” (one morally acceptable) David Opderbeck illustrates that this war of choice violates every rule in his article, “The Iran War is not a Just War” on March 18. A “just war” must be defensive not aggressive and all intelligence said Iran was not close to making any nuclear bomb (that we had destroyed earlier), nor was an attack imminent. Protecting a countries citizens may be a reason, and Iran did slaughter its own citizens in the previous protests but so did the U.S. though in smaller numbers and so have many other countries with no intervention. It must be the last resort, and it most certainly was not. In fact we had a nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Iran which Trump tore up.

Even if Israel was going to go it alone to keep Netanyahu out of prison, that does not justify the U.S. following. Contrary to Hegseths ignorant spewing, the rules of engagement are very important because there are rules of war and like the Nuremberg trials, these people will be held accountable eventually. To engage in war, an executive needs proper authority which this administration did not get. It didn’t inform let alone get permission from Congress who is the only branch of government that can declare war.

The reason must also be a “right intention” and taking a countries natural resources whether oil (Venezuela) or minerals (Greenland) is not a right intention. A reasonable chance of success and a proportional use of force is also required. Hegseth spews “death and destruction from the sky all day long” like a 10-year-old boy playing a war game.

Recently a former intelligence adviser with 18-years experience made clear why the attack on the girls school was not a mistake because the military had to have known it was a school. This is a war crime as is the threat to bomb desalination plants and energy plants i.e. civilian infrastructure.

The belief of these lunatics is that once Israel is restored as a nation and the temple in Jerusalem rebuilt, Jesus will return and the separation of wheat and chaff begin. This (expletive deleted) is in the New Testament. How many times has the end of the world been predicted? We are still here. They are just more charlatan blatherskites.

They allegedly believe Jesus died a violent death because a blood thirsty god wanted revenge and retribution. If you believe this, you don’t see a reason to reduce pain and suffering in this life. Sound familiar? Frankly, you can keep that guy which was my thought when I finished reading the bible. Mainstream Christians say it ain’t so; but they need to serious step up their game. Pope Leo has spoken up but remember they frame this as a protestant war. Democracy NOW reported on April 1 that a Lutheran cleric in Jerusalem, Munther Isaac who wrote a book on the Genocide in Gaza, pointed to the pope’s efforts and echoed that framing this war as a religious war or a holy war is terrifying. To him the biggest danger is the Christian Zionists who preach a theology of war and violence and have no regard for human life.

On March 27, Séamus Malekafzali argued in The Nation that the U.S. is losing the war in Iran. The problem is how these two unbridled narcissists can get out of it with their delusions (among other things) intact.

We could be spending this $2 billion a day that Trump is literally blowing up in much better ways. We could pay for 270,000 Pell Grants for college, a year of rent for 143,000 families, 4 years of the 988 suicide crisis line, 3+ months of WIC nutrition for moms and babies, 29 days of breakfast and lunch for every kid in public school, all the humanitarian aid we used to give the UN in a year, a year of preschool for 110,000 low-income kids, A month of SNAP for 10 million poor families, a month of Medicaid for 3 million families. Instead, the administration wants to bomb a country that was not a threat into the stone age.

Nicholas Kristof outlined in his column in the New York Times that for an hour’s worth of war, we could provide three books to every child living under the poverty line. For four hours of war we could provide needed eyeglasses to all 2.3 million low-income children who need them, and in 13 hours of war we could save hundreds of women from cervical cancer. After the first two weeks, we could have paid for free college education for every family earning less than $125,000 a year. By the third week we could have run a nationwide pre-K for all 3-4 year olds or restored the health subsidies that lapsed preventing an additional 8,800 deaths. We are now on the fifth week.

Never let them tell you we don’t have the money. It’s the political will we don’t have because their priorities are wrong. Let’s change that.