Does Bush's religious faith inappropriately dictatate policy

Tartarin
You just threw another log on the fire. Did you think it wasn't burning brightly enough?

This is an excellent point. There are clearly people who can be and are blindly allegiant to certain individuals or ideals, and who are so because of the comfort it brings them.

Please help me to understand how this is any different than what many on the left do, albeit often with a set of "simple, absolute rules" which are diametrically opposed to those championed by the folks you mention above.

Tress and Snood, could do your fighting by PMing each other? The rest of us are not interested in your arguments and insults; plus, they distract from an interesting discussion.

Quote from pdiddie's post:
In Woodward's book Bush sniffs, "I don't need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

This is another characteristic of many, but not all, evangelicals--their absolute certainty in their rightness. To see this trait in a man with Bush's power is reason for the deepest concern. With this attitude, there is no room for discussion or compromise--just the opposite. It's fine for a monarchy, but deadly for a democracy.

That absolute certainty has to be comforting for so many people who only want to be told that everything will be alright.

Blacks who have had to fight for their basic civil rights have experienced the life threatening danger of questioning the status quo; the rest of us have grown complacent, expecting those rights without understanding how easy it is to lose them.

For those of us who do understand, the fight is more important than ever and involves much more than the war in Iraq.

It is not even okay in the monarchy Diane, they put on their clothes the same as the rest of us. Until the devine takes over the reigns, we are all answerable to someone. The arrogance of the Bush quote is impeachable - IMHO. The key to the USA is the President is answerable to the people. However, can you impeach what isn't really there?

Someone must tell Bush he wears no clothes - for all our sake!

Tres,

This mechanism is not different at all from any fanatical, dogmatic group. The point here is not what mechanism is being used but who is using it and to what ends. This fanatic is the President (or so he says) and this is dangerous business, to repeat myself.

And I agree Diane, the fight is important in many respects, not the least of which are women's rights and religious freedom, not to mention civil rights in general.

I'm still boiling at the top brass for not taking any positive action against sexual harrassment and rape at the Air Force Academy. Something must be done immediately, not tomorrow, to protect those women who has a strong desire to serve their country, but are criminally treated at the Air Force Academy. c.i.

Diane: "This is another characteristic of many, but not all, evangelicals--their absolute certainty in their rightness."

Yes, but it always seems to be expressed angrily, or defensively, or something. Was hoping Lola could put her finger on this...

My "God" is a loving "God" - the "God" you are expressing in others Tartarin is a vengeful "God". You ask why - I remember seeing it and hearing it in stories about the hard times in settling the plains of America. Is that where your headed?

Maybe, Bill. But it takes a very modern form -- in language, intended targets, etc. I think I've mentioned Deepak Chopra's book before -- he analyzes the roots of various "Gods". The god of the people I've talked with is indeed a vengeful god and I think their adherence to this comes from something that's in our society here and now. In other words, they're adopting god's vengeance and looking to wreak it on others for a reason. It's that reason -- and their fervor/anger -- I'm trying to uncover. The goody-goody-it's-Armageddon folks! As though others outside their circle had no humanity...

Now you are trying to make me think - don't do that .

Even though you are looking today - it has always existed in the past - too. Those settlers killed Indians. It takes some kinda gall to sit on a train and just kill Indians as you pass them because they are there and not human, and salvery and (as mentioned before) women.

All through history we see leaders turning to their shaman before battle to see if the gods are on our side. Then the shaman go off in secret, looking for signs that have never been detailed, coming back and saying, "The gods are on our side and they say kill them all!"

Is it so different?

I am intimately familiar with the angry, super-ego dominated, Armageddon folks, unfortunately. And I don't think there's one reason why they are so angry. I would guess though that many of them have suffered trauma and abuse of some type, many are alcoholics, and abusers themselves. They are all narcissistically vulnerable and needy, and in my experience, which as I've said is personal and extensive, many of them have clinically diagnosable mental illness problems. All are feeling the need for whatever reason to control and dominate. A fundamentalist is a fundamentalist, whether Christian or Muslim or whatever. They are all not to be trusted and require constant vigilance. They have such a need to defend themselves they will never hesitate to believe that their ends (however destructive) justifies their means. As I think I've mentioned, damned scary to me.

And c.i. and BillW........very funny. I suppose I should watch myself as well. Wouldn't want to have to change my panties.

Might I try, along with whatever Lola has to offer? I've posted a link to an extraordinary essay by Hofstadter (see Political Links thread) titled "The Paranoid Style of American Politics". There are ideas there which I think are key. But I'll make some related points.

Such a worldview seems uniformly to posit a deeply oppositional structure to the universe or to human experience. Sociologist Claude Levi Strauss made the very compelling observation that we tend to build our thinking upon a binary framework, good/bad, us/them, right/left, etc.

As we become more educated and experienced, it seems that our sophistication of thought advances past such simplicities. But there is clearly variation one human to another in such sophistication. For some, the simple answer or the black and white framework remains the most agreeable or comfortable way to view the world and their place in it.

It is an anti-intellectual stance, as new or conflicting information tends to unsettle agreed upon 'realities'. Education tends to be mistrusted, thought of as 'miseducation'.

It is conservative, the 'new' tending also to unsettle existing ideas and structures.

It is often very serious and fearful, and the forces in opposition are commonly seen as overwhelming (this is one of Hofstadter's points), even supernatural in origin (the notion of Satan, obviously applies here). The consequences, if the 'negative' forces are not met in battle and defeated, are often imagined and portrayed as profoundly destructive to all that is good.

Thus, ambiguity is dangerous, and certainty or steadfastness the defence against backsliding and seduction.

I try to strike some kind of balance between the "moral clarity" of the present poser, and the "moral relativity" his predecessor was accused of...

A good balance to aim for, Snood. Few achieve it.

My lord, balance - why didn't I think of that :wink:

BillW<

I am certain that if Dubya was an A2k'er and writing on this thread, he would contribute more on balance. Get it?

I'm missing it, Williamhenry. What do you mean?

wh, From my viewpoint, nothing GWBush does can be considered "balance." c.i.

Lola, I think William Henry was playing with the sound of the words 'more on' and 'moron.' Of course, I can also tell you that William Henry can be very naughty indeed.

Blatham, I think the sophistication is what makes modern fundamentalists so very dangerous. They are able to cloak many of their messages in quite reasonable terms and tend to emphasize how tolerant they are. In referring to homosexuality they tend to say, "Hate the sin, love the sinner." There is a slimey earnestness to them.

The only time I went to a fundamentalist church was close to fifty years ago in Arizona. We lived outside Tucson in the desert where there were poor ranches and farms.

The preacher was a real hell-fire and brimstone kind of guy, who would scream and call us sinners headed to the fires of hell. The old ladies (they were probably in their 20's and 30's, but I was only four years old) all sat in the front pew and cried throughout most of the sermon. I remember being angry at the preacher for making the ladies cry. It ocurred to me many years later that those women, living hard lives, must have found a wonderful catharsis in all the tears.

The point of the story is that the church was far from sophisticated; instead, it was a very basic, truly fundamental church, with no attempt to disguise its motives or message. Its honesty compared to today's churches bordered on naivete.

Dianne

Sophistication of organization, or of strategies to forward views and values is apparent in the evangelical movement of the present day. But I'm speaking of 'simplicity' in a different context than that.

What I was referring to is conceptual simplicity. For example, the widespread belief (within the evangelical community) that the universe is driven by a conflict between God and Satan, and that all negatives are a consequence of Satan's immanence in the world. As a worldview, it is really no different than Osama's in it's rejection of ambiguity and complexity and unknowns.

Or one can look at the sort of notion forwarded by Bill Bennett and others in the movement that the world was good before the sixties, then went to hell in a handbasket. As history, this is a laughably shallow (and false) understanding, and it's appeal lies in its comforting simplicity of construction.