I have never in my life met a person more able than I to live at peace with persons of all religious beliefs. Never ….I pride myself on my ability to accept all beliefs except the most extreme (as in Nazi).
Nonsense. People who can "live at peace with persons of all religious beliefs" do not call them "Dupes" and "Hopelessly Gullible". You can try to walk your bullshit back all that you want to but you deliberately offended me and every other religious person in the world (it would appear including your wife) when you used your deliberately insulting description of them.
But ……………….. You didn't answer my question. Could Donald be playing the religious card strictly to gain power and control of the U.S. treasury?
I most certainly did answer your question in my post. I said "
I don't believe for a moment that Trump gives one shit about religion but he is appointing conservative judges who do".
Your words have consequences. You deliberately and openly slammed religious people. @annatar1914 and I are tying to tell you just what the consequences of doing this are.
There is not the slightest doubt that the republican party is the least "Christian" of the two. What is also not in doubt is that they Republican Party is the one that is far more accepting of Judeo-Christian beliefs and takes positive action to ensure that those beliefs have force in the political debate. The Democratic Party runs shrieking from the room if someone so much as breathes a prayer under their breath. In some misguided notion of pluralism it has marginalized Christian beliefs at the very best and behaved openly hostile to them in more than a few cases. The Democratic Party IS a secular party, wants to be one, and has come to accept that they are going to lose the conservative (about religion) vote. Very telling is their platform which speaks of religion only by saying this:
Religious Minorities
We are horrified by ISIS’ genocide and sexual enslavement of Christians and Yezidis and crimes against humanity against Muslims and others in the Middle East. We will do everything we can to protect religious minorities and the fundamental right of freedom of religion
Lukewarm at the very best. But mainstream Christians, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox in the US are not "religious minorities" and frankly do not give much of a fuck what followers of Wicca do or say. This statement of the democratic party reduces all of the depth and scope of our religious beliefs to the "fundamental right of freedom of religion".
Republicans:
Because of the vital role of religious organizations, charities, and fraternal benevolent societies in fostering gen-erosity and patriotism, they should not be subject to taxation and donations to them should remain deductible.
We the People We are the party of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Declaration sets forth the fundamental precepts of American government: That God bestows certain inalienable rights on every individual, thus producing human equality; that government exists first and foremost to protect those inalienable rights; that man-made law must be consistent with God-given, natural rights; and that if God-given, natural, inalienable rights come in conflict with government, court, or human-granted rights, God-given, natural, inalienable rights always prevail; that there is a moral law recognized as “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”; and that American government is to operate with the consent of the governed. We are also the party of the Constitution, the greatest political document ever written. It is the solemn compact built upon principles of the Declaration that enshrines our God-given individual rights and ensures that all Americans stand equal before the law, defines the purposes and limits of government, and is the blueprint for ordered liberty that makes the United States the world’s freest and most prosperous nation.
We denounce bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic prejudice, and religious intolerance. Therefore, we oppose discrimination based on race, sex, religion, creed, disability, or national origin and support statutes to end such discrimination.
... five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
You don't have to read this stuff but just weigh it.
The First Amendment: Religious LibertyThe Bill of Rights lists religious liberty, with its rights of conscience, as the first freedom to be protected. Religious freedom in the Bill of Rights protects the right of the people to practice their faith in their everyday lives. As George Washington taught, “religion and morality are indispensable supports” to a free society. Similarly, Thomas Jefferson declared that “No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.” Ongoing attempts to compel individuals, businesses, and institutions of faith to transgress their beliefs are part of a misguided effort to undermine religion and drive it from the public square. As a result, many charitable religious institutions that have demonstrated great success in helping the needy have been barred from receiving government grants and contracts. Government officials threaten religious colleges and universities with massive fines and seek to control their personnel decisions. Places of worship for the first time in our history have reason to fear the loss of tax-exempt status merely for espousing and practicing traditional religious beliefs that have been held across the world for thousands of years, and for almost four centuries in America. We value the right of America’s religious leaders to preach, and Americans to speak freely, according to their faith. Republicans believe the federal government, specifically the IRS, is constitutionally prohibited from policing or censoring speech based on religious convictions or beliefs, and therefore we urge the repeal of the Johnson Amendment.We pledge to defend the religious beliefs and rights of conscience of all Americans and to safeguard religious institutions against government control. We endorse the First Amendment Defense Act, Republican legislation in the House and Senate which will bar government discrimination against individuals and businesses for acting on the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. This Act would protect the non-profit tax status of faith-based adoption agencies, the accreditation of religious educational institutions, the grants and contracts of faith-based charities and small businesses, and the licensing of religious professions — all of which are under assault by elements of the Democratic Party. We encourage every state to pass similar legislation. We likewise endorse the efforts of Republican state legislators and governors who have defied intimidation from corporations and the media in defending religious liberty. We support laws to confirm the longstanding • REPUBLICANPLATFORM 2016 •We pledgeto defend the religious beliefs and rights of conscience of all Americans and to safeguard religious institutions against government control.
12American tradition that religious individuals and institutions can educate young people, receive government benefits, and participate in public debates without having to check their religious beliefs at the door.Our First Amendment rights are not given to us by the government but are rights we inherently possess. The government cannot use subsequent amendments to limit First Amendment rights. The Free Exercise Clause is both an individual and a collective liberty protecting a right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. Therefore, we strongly support the freedom of Americans to act in accordance with their religious beliefs, not only in their houses of worship, but also in their everyday lives.We support the right of the people to conduct their businesses in accordance with their religious beliefs and condemn public officials who have proposed boycotts against businesses that support traditional marriage. We pledge to protect those business owners who have been subjected to hate campaigns, threats of violence, and other attempts to deny their civil rights. We support the public display of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of our history and our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage and further affirm the rights of religious students to engage in voluntary prayer at public school events and to have equal access to school facilities. We assert the First Amendment right of freedom of association for religious, private, service, and youth organizations to set their own membership standar
There is not one shred of doubt that the Republican Party is more friendly toward and more likely to defend the religious beliefs of the majority of Americans. You need to understand this and understand that the vast majority of American's devout religious find comfort in knowing that their religious beliefs, which they see as under assault, will be better protected by Trump and his henchmen than they would be under Biden or any other democrat. That is just a fact.
Words matter. Watch yours. That is unless you secretly want to drive more and more voters into the Trump camp.
As to your Private spirituality. I don't really care much about light hidden under the proverbial bushel. There is altogether too much of that now. I cringe when I hear, "I don't care for religion but I am a very spiritual person". Who isn't in their own mind. We are not taking now about some vague metaphysical matrix in which someone weaves their life. We are talking about the overt love of God and His presence in ones life, public and private. Religion ought to and does affect the way we conduct our public lives including our political life. It ought to. If one is an atheist then one ought to vote that preference. If they are religious, same thing. To do otherwise is the height of hypocrisy.