“I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our ‘respect’ from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever.

A recent interview on Fox News featured Robert Jeffress, an evangelical adviser to Trump and pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas defending President Trump concerning the recent Stormy Daniels scandal.  To sum up the pastor’s position:  “We don’t care what Trump has done in the past.  What is important is what he can do for us now.” The “we” that the pastor refers to is the community of the faithful, the ones with the “deeply held religious beliefs”.  These beliefs can be jettisoned in a moment with a theological slight of hand when it suits the interests of the faithful.  These are the people who are suddenly seized with concern over the “sanctity of marriage” while having multiple spouses and divorces.  These are the people who want to rewrite our laws to enforce these “deeply held religious beliefs’, beliefs that they will jettison in an instant when it suits their purposes and gains them power over others in this world, the only world that actually concerns them, the only world they really believe in. The more fanatical of their ilk will tell you God actually talks to them and gives them instructions that the rest of us must follow. To even question this claim is now perceived as insulting to them and they will demand an apology from you for having the slightest doubt that the creator of the universe talks to them and them alone and has put them in charge. How dare you question them when they demand your time, your money and, most important of all, your unquestioned obedience and acceptance of what they say?  How dare you question God?

But there is a silver lining to this.  We see right through them now.  We see them for what they are;  parasites on society, a mental cancer that seeks to destroy this nation of laws and turn it into a theocracy with they, of course, occupying the position of ‘theo’.  Their ‘deeply held religious beliefs’ are the thinnest veneer over a festering infection of hate towards their fellow man that threatens all of us.  Stand up to them and call them out when they stop indulging in their pet sins long enough to become suddenly obsessed with what others are doing. Question whatever authority they pretend to have and tell them you won’t be spoken to in that manner by some other mammal, which is all they are.  We’ve had enough and we’ve seen enough of this divine hypocrisy. Its time to push them back to the margins of society where they belong.