Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.

From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.

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  • jontree255@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2733·
    10 days ago

    People like this are literally going to cause the end of the human race with their “beliefs”. We have a bunch of religious fanatics killing at the behest of a demented pedophile and his genocidal buddy.

    Religion is a cancer.

      • krashmo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        26·
        10 days ago

        That’s a very interesting article but does 2019 qualify as “the other day”?

        • Archangel1313@lemmy.caEnglish
          10·
          10 days ago

          Lol! I didn’t even look at the date. It was posted in another instance just yesterday or the day before…I can’t remember which.

    • selokichtli@lemmy.mlEnglish
      91·
      10 days ago

      They are not religious people. Unless you take paedophillia as a form of religion. I mean, they seem to have been in some crazy paedocult.

    • shawn1122@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      4·
      9 days ago

      Religion can certainly be problematic but I think its worth bringing up how monotheism specifically acts as a mind virus at its worst. It’s inherently exclusivist and closed minded, priming people to see those that don’t believe in their god as not human and can even act as justification to bring pain, suffering and death upon nonbelievers. It’s also inherently centralized and authoritarian which is why it to works synergistically with oppressive forms of governence.

      Polytheism is riddled with mystical thinking but, generally, beleiving in more than one god makes it more difficult to use it as a justification to hurt people that don’t believe in your god. By having a wide variety of divinities it is naturally decentralized.

      Christianity wiped out Roman polytheism with relative ease and ushered in a millenia long dark age. Politicians/Rulers of long past and even today recognize the coercive and unifying power of monotheism and are often keen to wield it to stamp out dissent and concentrate power.

      Monotheism is also effective at priming people to accept autocracy. If you believe in one supreme all knowing deterministic god then it’s not that hard to believe in a human ruler wield absolute power as god’s chosen one.

      Democracy and monotheism in many way incompatible phiosophies. It’s why the Greeks, South Asian and indigineous confederacies were able to arrive at democractic systems at various periods in history (they were not monotheist) and also why the West had to institute seperation of church and state to become democratic.

      I say this not to disparage spirituality as a whole. I personally have been made better by it and believe that it’s core to the human experience but acknowledge that some do not feel a need for it. What we need to be wary of is monotheism. It has brought great civilizations to ruin and promotes conformity of thought which stifles human ingenuity.

      • tidderuuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
        30·
        10 days ago

        MAGA seem to be on a one way ticket to Jonestown and they are happy to take all of us with them.

    • setsubyou@lemmy.worldEnglish
      141·
      10 days ago

      The rapture already happened, that’s why people are calling themselves Christians but never actually following Christ’s teachings. The actual believers are long gone.

  • tyrant@lemmy.worldEnglish
    791·
    10 days ago

    Is this dude on substack a legitimate source? Honest question. We live in the times of lies

    • ptu@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      143·
      10 days ago

      The Military Religious Freedom Foundation demands that all personnel in the Department of Defense (not “War") remember and fully internalize that the oaths they swear are not to the narcissistic, sociopathic, orange, POS tRump, nor to little Petey ‘Kegseth’ nor to Jesus Christ.

      This made me think that MRFF might not be reporting objectively about this

      • faythofdragons@slrpnk.netEnglish
        5·
        9 days ago

        That, and the MRFF site uses AI generated photographs, which always makes me question the veracity of everything associated with it. It’s not an unbelievable claim for me, I’ve been hearing people call for holy war since 9/11, but the way it’s being presented is setting off all kinds of red flags.

        It just feels like I’m eating the onion here.

      • idiomaddict@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        10 days ago

        You’re not wrong, but the only thing there that’s not arguably correct is calling hegseth little and I guess misspelling his name.

  • HugeNerd@lemmy.caEnglish
    482·
    9 days ago

    I’ve been saying for a while now that the biggest threat facing humanity isn’t climate change but religion. By far.

    • filister@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      9 days ago

      Climate change is a real threat that will affect the lives of billions of people. The only difference is that it doesn’t happen overnight and people are normalizing its effects.

      I do agree with you that western religions seem to be another dividing factor and are used by certain individuals to control their own populations with populist bullshit.

      The problem is not the religion per se, but the people who are using it to control the population. And this comes from an atheist.

    • orbitz@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      9 days ago

      When you can justify your actions due to a fuzzy theological belief it’s quite silly. I am an atheist but if there is a god, he gave us the power of reasoning and logic. Then if there is that, why is there any logic to disobey one of ten major rules for humans to live by? He put them in a rock according to the story, wasn’t like hidden words needed to be seen by lemon juice or something. They are quite pronounced in the Bible, so why can thry think don’t kill people doesn’t apply to them?

      God sent one kid, why not another if an amendment was needed in the killing but?

  • ninjabard@lemmy.worldEnglish
    44·
    10 days ago

    “No one knows the day or the hour except for my Father. And this orange pedophile who shits himself. That’s gonna make sense in a few thousand years.” - Jesus, probably.

  • Formfiller@lemmy.worldEnglish
    37·
    10 days ago

    At least these psychopathic Christian evangelical Zionists are being honest about their goals. They want the Rapture or end of the world because they think that forcing ww3 will make Jesus return. This is why Christian evangelicals support Israel no matter how depraved their policies because they believe they will start ww3 and that’s what they want. Christian nationalism is dangerous. It’s been bad for a long time and people like Mike Huckabee have been working towards this goal for decades. We used to regard these people as crazy but now we put all the crazies and narcissists in charge and that’s why everyone sane is depressed with crippling anxiety.

  • switcheroo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    29·
    9 days ago

    Religious people are so easy to manipulate lol

    How they don’t see it, when their “pastors” are driving Porsches and living in manions while telling you if you don’t skip a meal so that you can donate to the church you’re gonna go to hell… it’s beyond me.

    • NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.caEnglish
      5·
      9 days ago

      We had a babysitter whose husband was a pastor and would always talk about being scared for our souls. In her eyes, being a good person and having a private relationship with God was inadequate to avoid going to hell. She truly felt that church attendance and renouncing other religions was the only path to salvation - belief, prayer, and following the teachings of Jesus would be inadequate.

      Now I can’t claim to know what God wants. But I can’t see how paying the church and excluding people with different belief systems outweighs kindness.

      • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        9 days ago

        We had a babysitter whose husband was a pastor and would always talk about being scared for our souls. In her eyes, being a good person and having a private relationship with God was inadequate to avoid going to hell. She truly felt that church attendance and renouncing other religions was the only path to salvation - belief, prayer, and following the teachings of Jesus would be inadequate.

        It’s hilarious that these offshoots of Protestantism basically went so deep into the sauce that they became Catholics again. Martin Luther spinning in his grave.

      • whoisearth@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        9 days ago

        I’ve dated non American Christians. When I tell them I’m agnostic they more than understand my relationship with God is personal but I do have one. I wish Americans could understand this

    • whoisearth@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      9 days ago

      There is such a huge difference between American Christians and global Christians. If you’re American all that good you’re missing is by and large in the global Christians because by and large the global Christians come from poverty. What America has done to Christianity is disgusting.

  • radio@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    28·
    10 days ago

    God is all powerful. Also, God needs you to commit war crimes to win this illegal war that he really wants to win. Like, you’re the only way he can win this war. Do it for our all powerful God.

  • AnimalsDream@slrpnk.netEnglish
    25·
    10 days ago

    People still underestimate the role of christian fundamentalism in this ongoing trainwreck. When you have a religious institution whose image of God is quite literally an abusive father, who all worship power above all else, whose church policies are to spread as far and wide as possible and systematically “train”(ie., abuse) their own children into actively seeking out every position of power possible to force their worldview onto everyone - it was only a matter of time before this all happened.

    These are people who genuinely believe the war on terror is a holy war. Their entire social network is meticulously designed to draw a dichotomy between themselves (apart from the world), vs everyone else (the worldly), to isolate their own against outside views, and indoctrinate their children throughout their entire lives to vigorously proselytize on the one hand, and be ready to eliminate anyone who opposes their worldview on the other. And many of them are bloodthirsty.

  • heyWhatsay@slrpnk.netEnglish
    24·
    10 days ago

    For those who haven’t seen the depths of christian nationalism, check out Jesus Camp which came out 20 years ago (those kids are adults now)