Seeing Red: Franklin Graham & Christine Amanpour, Capitalists
Apparently, folks find Graham’s recent interview with Christine Amanpour funny. I’m wondering what Amanpour was thinking giving him the spotlight, throwing him softballs, and only mildly suggesting he’s full of shit—why she’d treat him with dignity and respect, is anyone’s guess. (I know: sensational garbage is good for ratings.)
Graham has been in the news lately because he believes that we’re in the Last Days, that Japan’s recent tragedy is a sign of Armageddon. The sad people who believe that natural disasters are the result of a deity returning to destroy the world in a fierce rapture are not the issue here. Their leaders and the corporate media getting together to giggle about it while generating revenue for the owners of ABC and the mega-churches that push this nonsense are the problem.
Franklin Graham is no Christian. He’s a Capitalist. And Christine Amanpour has joined his ranks. Fuck both of them.
Franklin Graham: Look for Christ’s 2nd Coming on Facebook, Twitter
“The Bible says that every eye is going to see [the Second Coming],” Graham said. “How is the whole world going to see [Jesus Christ] all at one time? I don’t know, unless all of a sudden everybody’s taking pictures and it’s on the media worldwide. I don’t know. Social media could have a big part in that.”
Popular Public Discourse About Believers and Non-Believers is Stupid
I don’t tolerate dogmatism. The dogmatism in new atheism, for example: atheists who vocally oppose anyone who expresses their spirituality and/or religious beliefs at any time and in any way and who aggressively represent believers as silly morons. I can understand why they’re present in discourse, of course, because popular discourse needs an easily definable and flat representation of two-poles in a binary. Hence we have Atheists v Theists as represented by the most vocal, unthinking assholes both groups have to offer.
Worse than the new atheists are evangelical Capitalists like Franklin Graham. In my mind, he is the worst sort of business owner.
On my I don’t like these people regardless of what they say to me list, I think libertarians fall between evangelicals and new atheists. In the US, this ridiculous trio is responsible for most of our cultural troubles. They’re always the ones who think they know what’s right, are the most intolerant, the least joyful, the most manipulative, the least fair, the most full of shit, often least informed, and resistant to critical thought. These are people who read a book they like, or more often that their friends like, and are always already predisposed to like it in order to gain a firm(er) grasp of fleeting social acceptance. And then they quote it, over and over, without thinking about what they’re saying, with a grand sense of being correct. They are self-righteous pricks. Get three of four of them together and they’ll bully a room into submission. We’re talking serious buzzkills.
Franklin Graham is a result of insipid public discourse. And so is this ridiculous, unfunny interview.
