Praying for Armageddon

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.

This is a great documentary of the dangers of having a too weak constitution and/or an insufficiently independent un-politicized judiciary system.

Authoritarian fundamentalists commonly strive for absolute power.

In Russia and Iran for example, corrupt selfserving "politicians" (kleptocrats) see the value of working with clergy for the highest degree of power (and power ABUSE) shared in between them. This is why civilized countries adopt the principle of separation of church and state.

See this documentary if You haven't, and if You're religious: realize that corrupt and corrupting "people" use perversion of religion and people as tools in THEIR quest for ungodly and illegitimate power and influence. Listen to Your religions holy book, not fundamentalist preachers' corruption of it.

And avoid voting for any Republican/conservative/libertarian presidential candidate until the party has managed to weed out the worst offenders that are contaminating & corrupting politics, democracy, country and states with undue influence (fundamentalists, evangelicals and neoliberals... like CPAC, Koch, Heritage Foundation, all their subsidiary influence & psychological operation organisations ("Moms for Liberty" and what not), Big Oil and Big Money).

Don't let these corrupt & fraudulent clowns rob You and everyone else blind, for their own profit.

Look up "Project 2025", and then help Your country and it's people at elections ahead. Losing civil liberties and becoming an authoritarian mix of theocracy and corpocracy benefits only them. Read and think, for God's sake! 🙏

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.

Nothing but a conspiracy theory with a slightly bigger budget. It is not nuanced. A clear attempt to create reactions and emotions, rather than objectivity. If you do a bit of your own research, you quickly find that several elements are greatly exaggerated or taken out of context. They pick what fits into their storyline. The journalist who is used in the field does not conduct good interviews and does not get close to any important figures. He doesn't strike me as credible. He is loyal to the storyline, not the journalistic profession.

It was bad, ignorant, but somewhat entertaining. I think the director is trying to use this channel to raise awareness about Gaza, but wraps it in a different package to reach a larger audience.