Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Glenn Beck's Delusions of Grandeur

Now Glenn Beck is saying he gets messages from God.

And he may even be serious.

http://standupforamerica.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/beck-crying.jpg

Here's what he said on his radio insanity-fest:
(full transcript here)
God is giving a plan I think to me that is not really a plan. . . The problem is that I think the plan that the Lord would have us follow is hard for people to understand.


Because, you know if God had a plan he wanted people to follow, he would make it really confusing and hard to understand. So confusing that the recipient of the plan would not even be sure that it is a plan.

But I’m telling you, here’s what I feel with everything in me, and, if you’ve listened to this program for a long time, you know who I am. Um, and you know many of things I’ve done and said that have put me in, ya know, harm’s way one way or another, they always start at the same place, they always start at my gut or my heart, and then I figure it out as we go along.


Harm's way? When has Beck ever put himself in harm's way? Sounds like paranoid delusions to me.

All the stuff that I feel has been important on the show has been things that I felt
and didn’t understand.


Wow! A rare moment of honesty from Beck. He admits that even he doesn't understand his own ravings.

Because of my track record with you who have been here for a long time. Because of my track record with you, I beg of you to help me get this message out, and I beg of you to pray for clarity on my part. The plan that He would have me articulate, I think, to you is “Get behind me.” And I don’t mean me, I mean Him. “Get behind Me. Stand behind Me.”


That's it? God took the time to send a message to Crazy McCrybaby and it's "Get behind me?" That's it? Really? God wants people to stand behind him? Oh, thank goodness for Beck, because I totally thought that God wanted people to oppose and obstruct him! Now the Bible finally makes sense!

I truly believe I have done years now of reading the Founders, their diaries, their letters, the Pilgrims, their diaries, their letters.


That's not something you "truly believe." You either have spent years reading this stuff or you haven't. There's no believe.

I’ve held their letters in my hands. The exchanges between the Founders, I’ve held their actual letters in my hand. I have seen it with my own eyes — and I will tell you that God was instrumental and then [sic] knew it!


Of course, bear in mind that Glenn doesn't understand things. He must have missed this quote:

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.

-Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)

Or this:


  • During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

--James Madison

Or this:

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

--Thomas Jefferson

Back to Beck:

But that’s what He’s asking us to do — is to stand peacefully, quietly, with anger, quiet with anger, loudly with truth.

If there's anything God loves more than anger, it's silence!

I said Keep it down!


Faith — is the answer. Get on your knees, don’t take it like a September 11th, get on your knees, please, I don’t care what church you go to, no church at all, I don’t care. Turn to Him.


But, like a week ago, you were pretty specific about what kind of churches we could go to. Now any old church will do? Even no church?

Also, I don't get the Sept. 11th reference. But then, I'm not fluent in right-wing gibberish.