JVL, knowing that you were premed at Hopkins….are you familiar with Robert Sapolsky? Primatologist and neuroscientist at Stanford. He wrote a book:Behave. The evolutionary and biological reasons for human behavior
Greg Olear proposes a #Liz48 Plan on Substack this morning. A legal way to get rid of Trump and his entire corrupt, inept Administration. Thoughts? Could it happen if we reach 3.5% or more of the population demanding accountability for these sins, and sharing a focus on this plan?
Good morning JVL. It is 10/20/25 today. Perfect day to get out a calendar and recalculate how much time has passed since Trump was inaugurated on 1/20/25. Let's both do it and compare results.
Just read the Miles Brunner post. Comments were pretty negative and not very compassionate. Few seem to have read -- or at least, few seem to have taken to heart-- Mark Twain's story, "The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg". Or the deeper complexities in the parable of the prodigal son.
Is that why after a brief interval comments got turned off?
I'm not going to heaven, (because that's a fantasy), but also because I could do with a little compassion training myself. Have to admit Sarah is right. Also JVL is right, too. Life and ethics are not geometry or physics.
This being said, it's one heavy lift to gin up compassion for some people. I can bench perhaps 150 pounds, maybe a little more. But a refrigerator is more than I can manage. For the refrigerator, we need to bring in helping apparatus.
Yeah, there are tens of millions of people who weren’t charmed by war criminal George W. Bush and his cynical delight at being showered with campaign contributions by the “haves and have-mores.”
For well over a century, Republicans have favored crushing the working class in favor of billionaires, and for the past half century, white supremacy and the destruction of our planet for short-term profit. These aren’t secrets. They are proudly demanded. Republicans cheered the piling up of a million Covid corpses and demanded more. It’s a death cult.
So sorry, not sorry. Trump is not an aberration. He is the logical result.
This “take” is the best yet. As noted by JVL: Trump saying he has nothing to be forgiven for (by God) is the single most unchristian thing ever (and unjewish thing, and unislam thing, and unhindu thing, etc. etc. as Will correctly points out). I have “prosperity gospel Christians” in my family who worry I won’t be going to Heaven. They need to look at their multi-million dollar home and multiple $100,000+ cars and other signifiers of material wealth and ask themselves how they expect to push a camel through the eye of a needle before they worry about my salvation. Thanks JVL and Will.
I think Trump‘s health is compromised and that’s why he’s thinking about heaven lately. I also think he will sin because he can’t help himself.
His lust for power, attention, cruelty, vengeance and wealth are so burning and instinctive, they inevitably dominate his gauzy fears of the afterlife.
He’s a creature of the moment, of his id and ego. Like a child, the now always trumps any future possibility or consequence.
Actually I think JVL is eliding the point about the actual motivation for religion. The normal motivation that drives humans to imagine religions is totally transactional. You find the responsible god or gods in charge of whatever you need -- a successful hunt, rainfall, a plague, afflicting your mother-in-law with boils -- and you buy it off (with prayer, a goat, ten percent of your income). In exchange the god-entity helps you out with your problem. Or dumps bad things on you for not ponying up the right danegeld.
That's the natural theological arrangement humans set up. Nothing about being good for goodness' own sake -- it's a back-scratching proposition. Also a great con for the rulers and priests and shamans.
It's true that at least post-axial age religions have also come up with esoteric tangles of argle-bargle about virtue and ethical behavior being the actual point. Some humans even believe this and act from such motives. But they are the effete few. Real religion -- what Bubba, Cletus, and Aunt Sophie have -- is just about the art of the deal.
So if there are gods and there is an afterlife (and there is, at least as evanescent phantasms in god-besotted imaginations) Donald J Trump is a top candidate for a penthouse apartment in the heavenly retirement community.
What conceivable heaven would allow this corrupt, immoral, cruel, vain, greedy expletive into it? If God is playing the ultimate cosmic joke on us, sure. But I'd say to this God right now, if you let that slob in, I want no part of it. I'll take my chances with the other place.
Actually, God stands ready to accept the worst of the worst, if only they will repent.
I don’t see that happening for Trump.
Hell isn’t some physical place—it’s the rejection of love. Trump has made himself incapable of love. He’s in Hell now, and it seems unlikely that will ever change.
I’m a practicing Catholic and I’m pretty sure Charlie Kirk is not at the gates of heaven near any throne.
God forgives our sins, but you have to ask for it and express sorrow for your sins and ‘amend your life’.
I really don’t think Trump should be concerned. There’s a special level of hell for him! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.
The Christians that support Trump are the most unchristian people in the world! They don’t practice any of Christ’s teachings. So I don’t know who their God is, but it’s not the one in the New Testament.
The Aztecs believed inconsequential souls evaporated four years after death. I think Trump will be a household name like Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun, Huey P. Long…
I would love it if you had Sapolsky as a guest for his take on the current political situation
JVL, knowing that you were premed at Hopkins….are you familiar with Robert Sapolsky? Primatologist and neuroscientist at Stanford. He wrote a book:Behave. The evolutionary and biological reasons for human behavior
Greg Olear proposes a #Liz48 Plan on Substack this morning. A legal way to get rid of Trump and his entire corrupt, inept Administration. Thoughts? Could it happen if we reach 3.5% or more of the population demanding accountability for these sins, and sharing a focus on this plan?
He knows he’ll be frying in hell. Along with his bigoted father.
https://www.threads.com/@amay.a100/post/DP98VB6jL72?xmt=AQF0qv1_2utdxEO3LHHXHrPlwVk29SvuxvrTnwLRre0EAg&slof=1
Now THIS is democracy!!! Thank you to the San Diego Police Dept!
Good morning JVL. It is 10/20/25 today. Perfect day to get out a calendar and recalculate how much time has passed since Trump was inaugurated on 1/20/25. Let's both do it and compare results.
I'm getting 9 months to the day. How bout you?
Just read the Miles Brunner post. Comments were pretty negative and not very compassionate. Few seem to have read -- or at least, few seem to have taken to heart-- Mark Twain's story, "The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg". Or the deeper complexities in the parable of the prodigal son.
Is that why after a brief interval comments got turned off?
I'm not going to heaven, (because that's a fantasy), but also because I could do with a little compassion training myself. Have to admit Sarah is right. Also JVL is right, too. Life and ethics are not geometry or physics.
This being said, it's one heavy lift to gin up compassion for some people. I can bench perhaps 150 pounds, maybe a little more. But a refrigerator is more than I can manage. For the refrigerator, we need to bring in helping apparatus.
Yeah, there are tens of millions of people who weren’t charmed by war criminal George W. Bush and his cynical delight at being showered with campaign contributions by the “haves and have-mores.”
For well over a century, Republicans have favored crushing the working class in favor of billionaires, and for the past half century, white supremacy and the destruction of our planet for short-term profit. These aren’t secrets. They are proudly demanded. Republicans cheered the piling up of a million Covid corpses and demanded more. It’s a death cult.
So sorry, not sorry. Trump is not an aberration. He is the logical result.
This “take” is the best yet. As noted by JVL: Trump saying he has nothing to be forgiven for (by God) is the single most unchristian thing ever (and unjewish thing, and unislam thing, and unhindu thing, etc. etc. as Will correctly points out). I have “prosperity gospel Christians” in my family who worry I won’t be going to Heaven. They need to look at their multi-million dollar home and multiple $100,000+ cars and other signifiers of material wealth and ask themselves how they expect to push a camel through the eye of a needle before they worry about my salvation. Thanks JVL and Will.
I think Trump‘s health is compromised and that’s why he’s thinking about heaven lately. I also think he will sin because he can’t help himself.
His lust for power, attention, cruelty, vengeance and wealth are so burning and instinctive, they inevitably dominate his gauzy fears of the afterlife.
He’s a creature of the moment, of his id and ego. Like a child, the now always trumps any future possibility or consequence.
Thank you JVL and Mr. Saletan. Excellent conversation.
Actually I think JVL is eliding the point about the actual motivation for religion. The normal motivation that drives humans to imagine religions is totally transactional. You find the responsible god or gods in charge of whatever you need -- a successful hunt, rainfall, a plague, afflicting your mother-in-law with boils -- and you buy it off (with prayer, a goat, ten percent of your income). In exchange the god-entity helps you out with your problem. Or dumps bad things on you for not ponying up the right danegeld.
That's the natural theological arrangement humans set up. Nothing about being good for goodness' own sake -- it's a back-scratching proposition. Also a great con for the rulers and priests and shamans.
It's true that at least post-axial age religions have also come up with esoteric tangles of argle-bargle about virtue and ethical behavior being the actual point. Some humans even believe this and act from such motives. But they are the effete few. Real religion -- what Bubba, Cletus, and Aunt Sophie have -- is just about the art of the deal.
So if there are gods and there is an afterlife (and there is, at least as evanescent phantasms in god-besotted imaginations) Donald J Trump is a top candidate for a penthouse apartment in the heavenly retirement community.
He'll be assigned to the same address as the two corinthians
What conceivable heaven would allow this corrupt, immoral, cruel, vain, greedy expletive into it? If God is playing the ultimate cosmic joke on us, sure. But I'd say to this God right now, if you let that slob in, I want no part of it. I'll take my chances with the other place.
Actually, God stands ready to accept the worst of the worst, if only they will repent.
I don’t see that happening for Trump.
Hell isn’t some physical place—it’s the rejection of love. Trump has made himself incapable of love. He’s in Hell now, and it seems unlikely that will ever change.
The one humans have always started with and the one 99% of humans actually find truthy: You pay obeisance, and the god gets you off the hook.
I’m a practicing Catholic and I’m pretty sure Charlie Kirk is not at the gates of heaven near any throne.
God forgives our sins, but you have to ask for it and express sorrow for your sins and ‘amend your life’.
I really don’t think Trump should be concerned. There’s a special level of hell for him! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.
The Christians that support Trump are the most unchristian people in the world! They don’t practice any of Christ’s teachings. So I don’t know who their God is, but it’s not the one in the New Testament.
The Aztecs believed inconsequential souls evaporated four years after death. I think Trump will be a household name like Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun, Huey P. Long…
For Donnie Douchebag: Go Directly to Hell. Do not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200….
And Do Not Stop at Purgatory 😊