A few words on the role of religion in politics today.

Religion has always had an outsized role in human affairs, and, one way or another, we are all affected by it. While I myself am not a believer, many people are, and those people vote, and they spend money on political candidates.

To anyone schooled in science, religion has many visible flaws. But we should not be too surprised that lots of folks still believe the old myths (and a few new ones). Religion provides easy answers to complex questions (like those concerning the origin of species) and it conveniently ignores pesky scientific evidenciary standards.

It might even be the case with some people that they only profess to believe, or at least have their doubts, but go along in order to remain in good stead with their social groups. This is not unlike Republican politicians who despise Trump but will not openly denounce him for fear of a primary challenge from the extreme right wing of their own Party.

In spite of a glaring lack of supporting evidence, religious belief is still widespread and persistent. However, things are slowly changing. Never before have as many Americans been unaffiliated with any regious institution. This trend is mirrored in many Western democracies. I think this has everything to do with rising education levels, and the popular dissemination of scientific facts such as DNA technology and evolutionary biology. Some religious dogmas (such as Creationism) are directly refuted by science.

Nevertheless, religious belief continues to be a contributing factor, if not primary cause, of conflict around the world. And religion inevitably becomes intertwined with politics. When it does, watch out! You could wind up with a con man for president.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 would have been impossible without the 85% of Evangelical Christians who gave the Donald the nod. And in 2020, according to a recent Gallup poll, 81% of Evangelicals voted again for Trump. They supported him in the face of his denial of climate science and efforts to weaken or do away with environmental protections, AND in spite of his driving up the national debt by giving massive tax break to the rich, AND his impeachment for abuse of office, AND his bungling of the COVID pandemic, AND the Mueller report, which detailed at least ten instances of obstruction of justice and could NOT rule out collusion with the Russians as they meddled in the 2016 election!

You will not find among the Republican Senators that let Trump off the hook in his two impeachment hearings, a single person who is openly atheistic. They all at least talk like believers. They couldn't get elected if they didn't. Yet their supposed Christian beliefs allowed them to give a pass to the high crime of bribery (the threat to withhold military aid to Ukraine if a political favor was not granted), AND to the the high crime of treason (incitement of the January 6th insurrection with false claims of election fraud). It's the hieght of hypocrisy!

We still have some 53% of nominally Christian Republicans saying they believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent, even though Trump's own handpicked Attorney General said there is no evidence of widespread fraud, and Trump's lawyers are zero for sixty-two in court.

However, we should not be too surprised that the same people who believe Trump's Big Lie also cling to a set of absurd religious beliefs. Both thought patterns spring from the same intellectual flabbiness: the idea that evidence is not a prerequisite for belief.

Today we can see the disastrous result of Christian electoral victory. Trump's presidency was a carnival of mendacity, recklessness, and incompetence. His attempt to coerce the president of Ukraine into carrying out a political hatchet job, and his many efforts to alienate our NATO allies undoubtedly emboldened Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine and lay waste to its people and democratic way of life. And let's not be under any illusion that Putin's war war won't affect us, or that it doesn't threaten every democracy on Earth.

The Republican Party does not even have a political platform. They're not really FOR anything. It's merely a cult of personality, and its guiding principle is obedience to Trump. Such cults are, arguably, religious in nature. And if we lose Democracy in America, if we slide into fascism, it will be on the back of wacky, illogical, and unsupported religious beliefs.