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| A QAnon motto, spelled WWG1WGA, means Where We Go One, We Go All. Another catchphrase: The Storm is Coming. |
On Wednesday, Facebook announced that it's banning QAnon groups and accounts. How many? Almost 800.
They may be nuts, but they're everywhere. QAnon, the bizarre far-right conspiracy movement that touts Trump and racism, has morphed not-so-subtly into a proto-religion, in part by co-opting religious belief in the Apocalypse.
"It is a movement united in mass rejection of reason, objectivity, and other Enlightenment values," wrote Adrienne LaFrance in The Atlantic. "The way it breathes life into an ancient preoccupation with end-times is also radically new."
Personally, I've always avoided Revelations, the last chapter of the New Testament. The story is an incomprehensible mash of memorable scenes, such as God opening seven seals, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a river of blood, a sun dark as night and a moon red as blood, etc., with the whole dominated by a vision largely interpreted as nuclear war. It's scary as hell.
Still, a sub-group of Christians loves to speculate about how the prophecies will play out. They're constantly trying to interpret real-life events for their place in the end-times story. "The storm is coming," a QAnon catchphrase apparently plucked from the last scene of The Terminator (1984), fits right into the narrative. It's a petri dish for conspiracy thinking -- perfect for cultivating the sickness that is QAnon.
QAnon also exploits conservative Christians' tendency to meld theology with an unholy resistance to change, which encourages clinging to the mindset of a less tolerant age. The American tradition of religious separatism makes it easier for believers to cold-shoulder outsiders' opinions and beliefs.
"Q," the person or entity who, since October 2017, has posted incoherent clues that QAnon followers treat like golden raindrops from heaven, has no trouble quoting the Bible, either. In April, he quoted Ephesians: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” By "the devil," of course, he means the pedophile ring that runs the world.
Rather comical, that. The theories "require the government to be one-minded, singularly-minded, and perfectly efficient," wrote Morgan Lee in the May issue of Christianity Today. "Anybody who's been in the military or worked with CIA, DEA, U.S. Customs, etc., we always used to consider it a minor miracle when a plane would land and not fall apart." Lee's belief is that the QAnon conspiracies are a test of believers' ability to discern which messages are from God and which are not.
We can discern one thing about the mysterious "Q," and that is that Q is no friend to the United States. Nevertheless, QAnon is probably at least as contagious as COVID19, and it will be harder to treat. The group rejects the view of reality that most of us share, and they do not respond to reason.
Wrote LaFrance, "To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion."
Does the spread of QAnon beliefs amuse you or scare you? Or both? What difference could the group make in the upcoming election? If we ignore it, will it go away?
"File:QAnon in red shirt (48555421111).jpg" by Marc Nozell from Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA is licensed under CC BY 2.0
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/
https://www.theatlantic.com/
https://www.christianitytoday.
They may be nuts, but they're everywhere. QAnon, the bizarre far-right conspiracy movement that touts Trump and racism, has morphed not-so-subtly into a proto-religion, in part by co-opting religious belief in the Apocalypse.
"It is a movement united in mass rejection of reason, objectivity, and other Enlightenment values," wrote Adrienne LaFrance in The Atlantic. "The way it breathes life into an ancient preoccupation with end-times is also radically new."
Personally, I've always avoided Revelations, the last chapter of the New Testament. The story is an incomprehensible mash of memorable scenes, such as God opening seven seals, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a river of blood, a sun dark as night and a moon red as blood, etc., with the whole dominated by a vision largely interpreted as nuclear war. It's scary as hell.
Still, a sub-group of Christians loves to speculate about how the prophecies will play out. They're constantly trying to interpret real-life events for their place in the end-times story. "The storm is coming," a QAnon catchphrase apparently plucked from the last scene of The Terminator (1984), fits right into the narrative. It's a petri dish for conspiracy thinking -- perfect for cultivating the sickness that is QAnon.
QAnon also exploits conservative Christians' tendency to meld theology with an unholy resistance to change, which encourages clinging to the mindset of a less tolerant age. The American tradition of religious separatism makes it easier for believers to cold-shoulder outsiders' opinions and beliefs.
"Q," the person or entity who, since October 2017, has posted incoherent clues that QAnon followers treat like golden raindrops from heaven, has no trouble quoting the Bible, either. In April, he quoted Ephesians: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” By "the devil," of course, he means the pedophile ring that runs the world.
Rather comical, that. The theories "require the government to be one-minded, singularly-minded, and perfectly efficient," wrote Morgan Lee in the May issue of Christianity Today. "Anybody who's been in the military or worked with CIA, DEA, U.S. Customs, etc., we always used to consider it a minor miracle when a plane would land and not fall apart." Lee's belief is that the QAnon conspiracies are a test of believers' ability to discern which messages are from God and which are not.
We can discern one thing about the mysterious "Q," and that is that Q is no friend to the United States. Nevertheless, QAnon is probably at least as contagious as COVID19, and it will be harder to treat. The group rejects the view of reality that most of us share, and they do not respond to reason.
Wrote LaFrance, "To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion."
Does the spread of QAnon beliefs amuse you or scare you? Or both? What difference could the group make in the upcoming election? If we ignore it, will it go away?
"File:QAnon in red shirt (48555421111).jpg" by Marc Nozell from Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA is licensed under CC BY 2.0
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/
https://www.theatlantic.com/
https://www.christianitytoday.
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