Prostituting God for fun, plague, and profit
The Coronavirus is bringing out the best and worst in humanity. This being News To Make You Furious, we’ll ignore the best of humanity and concentrate on the worst, but unfortunately that still doesn’t narrow the scope nearly enough. Should we dwell on the politicians using information on the plague for insider trading instead of saving lives? What about the thug occupying the White House, lying, twisting, and bigoting his way through the pandemic? Hey, there’s the intentional 
dismantling of the government, crippling it so badly that it can’t function in exactly the type of crisis it is designed to solve, we could talk about that! But no, amidst this daily sideshow of sewage, we’ll concentrate on a strain of human competing with the Coronavirus to destroy exactly the same population…
This isn’t about God or even religion as such… billions find comfort and value in various ideas of God, and relying on them in a worldwide pandemic makes a lot of sense. 
But among those billions are a few hundred people who use the ideas of God for things other than comfort. These caricatured gargoyles of human beings bilk the earnest religious of their money and lives year round, in good times and bad. While their primary food is money, they also enjoy false hopes and wash it down with a little swig of squandered lives. There’s was never a question of whether they’d amp up their cynical fraud in a globe-threatening emergency, and the news puts the exclamation point to that every day. The only question now is whether they’ll replicate faster than the virus.
Here’s just a few stories making the news recently, from the sham-religious hucksters at all levels. And though you might not need Shakespeare’s warning, the sadly misled sheeple filling their aisles and collection plates would do well to remember it… “The Devil can quote scripture for his purposes.”
The Christian right’s hostility to science is definitely going to get people killed, Amanda Marcotte in Salon, Mar 2020
Donald Trump’s Bible studies leader claims coronavirus is God’s wrath for lesbianism and homosexuality, Emma Powys Maurice on PinkNews, Mar 2020
Hobby Lobby CEO tells employees to come to work because his wife heard words from God, Juwan Holmes on LGBTQNation, Mar 2020
Central Park Tent Hospital: Volunteers must agree to anti-gay Christian dogma, Michael Stone on Patheos, Mar 2020
Scamvangelist Declares COVID-19 “Finished” After Commanding God to Destroy It, Hemant Mehta on The Friendly Atheist, Mar 2020
Televangelist Claims He Has Magic Machines That Will ‘Shoot Down’ Coronavirus, Michael Stone on Patheos, Mar 2020
Pastor refuses to close church doors: ‘If you have coronavirus, I declare you healed in Jesus’ name’, Megan Hamilton on DeadState, Mar 2020
Bad Coronavirus Takes– Aggregator page, Dead State
Louisiana Church Packed For Services Again Despite Charges Against Pastor Amid Pandemic, CBS News, Apr 2020
Texas pastors demand a “religious liberty” exemption to coronavirus stay-at-home orders, Ian Millhiser on VOX, Apr 2020
Trump Hands Coronavirus Briefing To MyPillow Exec Who Tells Americans To Read Bible, Sarah Ruiz-Grossman on Yahoo News, Mar 2020
Shocking: NY Priest’s Sprinkling of Holy Water from Airplane Didn’t Stop Virus, Terry Firma on Patheos, Mar 2020
43 people fall ill at Pentecostal church after revival, 10 test positive for coronavirus, Leonardo Blair on The Christian Post, Mar 2020
Trump Cabinet’s Bible Teacher Says Coronavirus Was Caused by Gays and Climate Activists, Church and State, Mar 2020
