This should be a way to involve KBeckinsale in a political argument. http://slate.msn.com/id/2099698/ Oh, God "The Jesus Factor" asks what's behind the president's religious beliefs. By Dana Stevens Posted Thursday, April 29, 2004, at 4:01 PM PT Godly intervention "The Jesus Factor," a new Frontline documentary that premieres tonight on PBS stations across the country (check local listings for times and stations), helps to answer a question I've been asking since George W. Bush first took office. Not "Why, oh God, why?" (I reserve that one for my more private devotional moments), but, what does our president actually believe? Between his carefully scripted press conferences, his retinue of handlers, and his relatively short career in public service, George W. Bush has remained something of an ideological cipher, even as he executes policies that take our country further and further to the right. This one-hour program limits its scope to the president's personal religious convictions, asking: How much of his vaunted Christian faith springs from genuine conviction, and how much is politically expedient lip service? And more important, how has W.'s belief system affected his administration's policy decisions? . . . We're told that he reads the Bible every day (the way some of us might read, say, the newspaper) and that he once brandished a copy of it during a speech on federal funding for faith-based charities, saying, "This is the only handbook you need. This handbook is a good go-by." As the Rev. Welton Gaddy, leader of a liberal Christian coalition, points out, in a nation founded on freedom of religious practice, promoting the Good Book as a manual for public policy is a disquieting choice. Especially since, of the $100 million so far dispensed to faith-based charities by the Bush administration, not one dollar has gone to a Jewish or Muslim organization. . . . If the campaign against terror is indistinguishable from the will of God, the rest of the world might be forgiven for feeling that Muslim extremists are not the only fundamentalists engaged in a potentially infinite religious war.
Yep you were first. I think this would be a better thread or you start a thread and put your article there first and we can delete this thread.
it's cool I'm sure it'll catch on. And may I just say, I’ve always had my reservations about this man but now, he just scares the **** out of me.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1195568,00.html Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy George Monbiot Tuesday April 20, 2004 The Guardian To understand what is happening in the Middle East, you must first understand what is happening in Texas. To understand what is happening there, you should read the resolutions passed at the state's Republican party conventions last month. Take a look, for example, at the decisions made in Harris County, which covers much of Houston. The delegates began by nodding through a few uncontroversial matters: homosexuality is contrary to the truths ordained by God; "any mechanism to process, license, record, register or monitor the ownership of guns" should be repealed; income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax should be abolished; and immigrants should be deterred by electric fences. Thus fortified, they turned to the real issue: the affairs of a small state 7,000 miles away. It was then, according to a participant, that the "screaming and near fist fights" began. I don't know what the original motion said, but apparently it was "watered down significantly" as a result of the shouting match. The motion they adopted stated that Israel has an undivided claim to Jerusalem and the West Bank, that Arab states should be "pressured" to absorb refugees from Palestine, and that Israel should do whatever it wishes in seeking to eliminate terrorism. Good to see that the extremists didn't prevail then. . . .
I'll admit here too, before today, I was dismissive and perhpas a little condescending about this angle, but I fully admit I was wrong. The guy really DOES see things in black and white, good and bad, us and them, godly and evil, with us or against us. Those aren't catch-phrases, those are his beliefs. We've got a fanatic at the reigns. I am freaked out beyond belief. It explains so much though...why he never checked or even lessened Ashcroft or Rumsfeld when they were being so extreme that many Bush supporters were embarrassed, why he was so blythe to use intel he knew was false, and would be shown to be,etc. Becaue, in the end, it was all a matter of faith for him. He believed it, so it was thus. He believ there were WMD's, so there were. He believed Saddam was connected to 9-11, so he was. He believed that Iraq would open like a rose in bloom for us, and become a shining light of democracy in the Middle East, so it would. All the lies, deceipt, manipulation, opposition, etc. was just so much dust underfoot on the way to his ordained mission.
True enough, though Jesus would probably not wreck your career, hire character assassins, or belittle your contributions if you landed on his **** list.
Yeah, but on the GOP **** list, they make this life feel like an eternity. Besides, in my belief system, there is no such thing as an eternity in hell, you just have to repay your karma. But that is a whole new thread.
i wasn't trying to make this a dogmatic thread....joking, really. but i'll make it very clear that my commitment to Christ is of much more significance than my voting record...to me, anyway!
