Rush Limbaugh blasts Pope Francis and the Jesus he rode in on

Responding to Pope Francis’s warning that the “idolatry of money” leads to a “new tyranny,” the conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh spoke on behalf of the demonic powers that govern the material world and that only genuine followers of Jesus can detect.

Just seven or eight such followers currently reside in the United States and when they listen to Limbaugh speak on the radio they report hearing “the howling of the damned” in the background.

The rest of us have only Limbaugh’s words to confirm his satanic allegiance. After calling the pope’s warning “pure Marxism,” Limbaugh said “The value of anything is established in the private sector,” thus testifying to the very idolatry of money of which the pope spoke in his Evangelii.

Limbaugh later contradicted himself by saying that the reason America is the greatest nation in the universe is that its founding documents enshrine “the notion that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, meaning nobody can take 'em away, and that is the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights come from our creator, God” (sic).

So those rights derive not from the market but directly from God. Here, Limbaugh proves himself to be a polytheist since he evidently worships not just money but his country. This speaks, in fact, to the American conservative’s definition of “patriotism”: you’ve got to believe your country is infallible and sacred or else you’re a traitor.

After centuries of selectively quoting from the Bible to achieve his purposes, the Devil has turned to cunningly interpreting the intentions of America’s founding fathers, thus distracting many Americans with a xenophobic civic religion that substitutes for the Christian one to which most Americans say they adhere, according to the lying polls.

Whereas Jesus said people should care more about the afterlife than about the present, fallen world, which is governed by demonic forces until Judgment Day when the hidden Father will reveal himself and establish his perfect kingdom, two-faced “conservatives” like Limbaugh insist that we should be consumed with secular priorities, such as amassing wealth and enjoying our freedom to do whatever we want as long as we don’t hurt anyone else—as if our wants should be respected, given what Christians call our sinful nature.

Jesus said people should give away their possessions and leave their families to demonstrate their commitment to the spiritual world that transcends the material one. Speaking for the Devil who enjoys misleading gullible Christians, Limbaugh said that “Wherever socialists have gained power, they have done nothing but spread poverty. They cannot and do not produce wealth”—as if a talent for producing material wealth in a fallen world that’s red in tooth and claw were an indicator of spiritual greatness and should impress a genuine Christian for even a single moment.   

Limbaugh contended also that “America and its genuine exceptionalism has allowed people to reach the pinnacle of their ability combined with their ambition and desire” (sic). Even if this estimation of America’s economic success were accurate, a Christian should regard any such achievement as a sinister distraction from our primary purpose, which is to prepare ourselves for our destiny in the afterlife.

Running in the capitalistic rat race and taking advantage of America’s business-friendly legal environment to fulfill your earthly potential would likely corrupt your motives and make you a poorer candidate for heaven. That’s why Jesus said it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven and that’s also why Pope Francis condemns capitalism’s temptation of secularists with the idols of material rewards.

Genuine Christians believe we should be more or less ascetic in the present life, whereas so-called conservatives like Limbaugh maintain that we should focus on making the most of our time as pompous, scurrying mammals. Most of Limbaugh’s listeners pretend to be Christians and they would swiftly lynch the talk radio host if he came out and said that he works for the Devil. Thus, American conservatives often speak in code to alleviate the discomfort from their cognitive dissonance, falling back on their experience in getting around contradictions in the Bible, to harmonize their alleged Christianity with their manifestly sinful earthly ambitions.

All of which is relevant solely as fodder for atheistic comedy, since obviously there is no personal God nor any devil, nor any spiritual realm that transcends nature. Indeed, you can tell how well a critic understands the shenanigans of American conservatives by the quality of the laughter they elicit. The heartier the critic’s laughter at the tricks played by folks like Limbaugh (and by the pope too, but that’s another story), the deeper the understanding of the demagogue’s grotesque exploitations of average’s people’s cognitive weaknesses.