Praying for Armageddon

If one observes just now US policy in the Middle East it is very scary to find the similarities with the documentary. US seems to be a very violent culture, problems are solved by firearms, just look at Hollywood movies, mass shootings and fire arm laws. Very disturbing documentary, i hope the reality is not so close but the latest news seems to support the claims in the movie. Hopefully this documentary will pinpoint the structural problems in US which are clearly shown in US politics the last years. I was not aware of the great influence from evangelia churces but if you notice both democrats and republicans are referering to God in their speeches.

An influential movement of Christian fundamentalists in the US, who with millions of dollars in backing and threads into the government are fighting for the end of the world.

Sure. If you want to make a conspiracy theory movie filled with one-sided unproven sound bites. The entire premise of this poorly made film is quite plainly silly.

The movie is filled with lies as well. For example, saying that out of all donations in USA more than 80% end up in the hands of religious groups is patently false by all real accounts. According to philanthropy Roundtable, 39% of donations in the US and 28% worldwide (Source: Balancing Everything) go to religious organizations.

When you find that stats are being pulled out of thin air, can you trust anything his bad documentary says?

The movie is like a conspiracy theory youtube video. Pass on by.

If you filter the review scores by country, it's basically the Americans who are trashing the film. I'm an American living in Norway (the home country of the director), and I found the film very disturbing, and incredibly relevant.

I teach about American government and politics and it's clear that despite the fact that there is supposed to be a separation of church and state, religion has had a massive influence on politics in the US for a long time. How does anyone think Roe gets overturned despite the majority of Americans being against that?

And this film shows how these Evangelical literal interpretations of the Bible lead to America's flawed Israel policy. It's incredibly scary to see how many people want war in the region and how close we are to this escalating.

I only wish we got to know how the one former preacher, Frank Schaeffer, came to leave the movement. It could serve as a path forward. How do you deprogram these people? The film doesn't really leave us with any hope or point to any solutions to the problem, which is my main problem with it.

This film, besides lifting the lid on some truly hair-raising aspects of modern American politics, also provides an alarming insight into why there is such a catastrophe unfolding in Israel/Palestine, most especially, at the time of writing, in Gaza, which is enduring truly unimaginable levels of grief, pain and death -all of which would be enthusiastically welcomed by the Armageddon fanatics in the USA. The United States, as presented here, already a deeply religious nation, stands on the the threshold of becoming a fully fledged theocracy, which, unlike Iran or Saudi Arabia, possess the power to unleash truly biblical levels of destruction - Armageddon indeed.

I would strongly recommend watching this film in order to gain a deeper understanding of an unfolding tragedy, far beyond the banal platitudes we are normally served in the media.

Yes, it is disturbing that Christian fundamentalists are holding Bible classes for US senators and directly advising members of Trump's team. But the review saying that this film is essentially conspiracy theories writ large is right. We spend a lot of time - a *lot* - listening to these preachers, but what we don't have is real evidence of their influence on policy.

And in any case, it's not really fair to blame the preachers. They are only a symptom. The disease is that you are a nation of crazies, who willingly listen to this stuff or else one of a dozen other brands of craziness: survivalism, cults, the NRA, the Deep State, xenophobia, climate change denial; I mean, how can you get any crazier than voting for Trump? Then there's the craziness of secular liberalism, the preachers aren't wrong about everything. And meanwhile you have Russia, which has become the instrument of the craziness of one man. God help us all, indeed.

I admit we have some of these brands of craziness at home in Britain too. But generally we're less prone to breaking out into violence over them.

If there's anybody I haven't yet insulted, I do apologise. But don't shoot the messenger - I'm just telling it like it is.

ETA: Some people obv didn't like what I had to say here. Now you have re-elected Trump. I take no satisfaction in it - except the satisfaction of being vindicated - but, as he proceeds to dismantle the institutions of your democracy: I'm sorry, I did tell you so.