Here’s the simplest of proof. Exodus 20:16 of the KJV says “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”. Verse 17 says “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s”, which also seem relevant, but let’s focus on the false witness thing for a sec.
Proverbs 19:9 says, unequivocally, “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.”
Google “Mike Johnson lies” and you get pages of examples, from mild – mis-attribution of a prayer to Thomas Jefferson, or lying about calling Milwaukee “horrible” – to The Big Lie of Trump’s 202 electoral defeat, various lies about the tragic fires that as of this writing continue to ravage California, and, of course, the racist lie of immigrants voting en masse,
We go back to Exodus 22 for that last one:
“21 Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.22 Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.23 If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry;24 And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.”
Look, the ways that Mike Johnson specifically, and the GOP/Christians/religious types in general violate scripture, negotiate their sacred texts in bad faith, or manipulate dogma to support oppressive ideology have consumed entire careers of far more learned scholars of the subject than I. But that’s not really the point here.
Mike Johnson and the GOP feel perfectly comfortable doing the worst shit humanly possible in direct violation of the stated and accepted beliefs of their stated religious traditions because they do not fear the retribution or consequences stated within that tradition.
Why? Because they know, as much as I do, that there is no god.
They don’t fear smiting, they don’t fear Hell, they don’t fear Burning Bushes or The Rapture, or militant and vengeful angels bringing wrath and ruin to the wicked, or the myriad other ways gods have to bring down the hammer on those who break Commandments or Jesus’ teachings, or any other religious dogma.
They’re Atheists. There’s no other reasonable conclusion. They don’t just think “there’s probably no god”, they are so committed to objectively evil actions that only someone absolutely positive that there is no god could operate so fearlessly, so cynically, so nihilistically, in service of the wealth and power required for the same Right Wing Fascist power fantasy of performative cruelty and sexual violence expressed and embodied by the American Right.
The GOP and Mike Johnson are not alone – their Atheism mirrors that of all religious types who use purity identities to justify everything from ethnic cleansing to holy wars to terrorism and child rape. If you do not fear judgement, you do not believe in a Judge. It’s that simple. It’s automatically all meaningless. There is no moral lever, there is no scale, there is no impetus or structure to enforce any moral or ethical code. It is as fabricated and as immature as the rules made up on the fly by children on a playground.
Faith allows the construction of any fantasyland the wielder chooses, to justify anything the wielder chooses. It is literally inarguable, because faith is subjective and personal – “I believe pineapples are the demonic eggs of alien dinosaurs that one day will bring about the robot apocalypse, change my mind!” – you can’t, because I just choose to believe it. If I claim that this belief not only justifies but demands that I go shoot anyone who buys these demonic dino eggs to save the world from the robot apocalypse, who can stand against me? I have created righteousness out of thin air, and you cannot make me un-believe it if I choose otherwise.
This is the danger of giving faith itself the imprimatur of validity. People can just make shit up and then wrap their whole identity around it, defending it as it defends them, an ouroborous of wishful thinking that serves no purpose but to validate the world’s shittiest ideas. I broke a friendship by pointing out that astrology is birthday racism (ty social media for that term), that essentialist hierarchies in any form are inherently oppressive. Heck, I still get mean messages for pointing out that chiropractic and acupuncture are quack pseudoscience.
We have to start by accepting that bullshit is bullshit, and that our shared goal needs to be support for the truth. Without that, their bullshit is as valid as our bullshit, and we lose the whole battlefield to fog.
Mike Johnson is a shitbag fascist at the head of a Party of shitbag fascists, who leverage faith upon a cult of shitbag fascists, all of which runs directly contrary to the religious tradition they claim. They do not fear judgement, therefore they clearly do not believe in a Judge. It is 100% valid to label them as lying, craven Unbelievers, who should be held to accountability by removing the imprimatur of faith from their actions and movement, to show it for what it is, the same tired, oppressive attempt to invoke the fantasy of wealth, power, and sexual violence that is at the true heart of their belief system.
Kelsoland.Institute 