Oh dear, I've had to modify and repost my entry on another thread. I see the subjects have converged for a moment:
I wonder if what is most dangerous and fearful for most of us is not whether someone believes in a higher power, but rather how humbly one seeks for guidance. I think we get off track when we talk about belief in God/not God. GW's version of God is not humble, nor is Falwell's, or the others named. John Ashcroft has the belief that God told him what to do and he therefore is correct.
I've never understood the dichotomy drawn between those who seek God's will and those who seek their own. Ultimately, it seems to me, a person must decide for himself what he thinks God is telling him/her to do, or what she thinks she is telling herself. So it's always seemed to me that we're really all depending on ourselves, our own judgement. I worry about and am very frightened by those who, without humility, claim it's God who told them what to do, when really it is them telling us what they think God said.
I, like to turn to science in my search for what I believe I should do. And I especially like science because it is by definition about looking for a way to prove yourself wrong and thereby finding a better, more workable theory. But in a way, a person who humbly seeks for God's truth is very much the same. Or at least it's the same in the openness we both try to employ about the possibility there could be a glitch in our own understanding.
It's the smugness GW has about his righteousness that is so inappropriate when he lets this belief guide public policy. It is dangerous and should be fought against. Or at least that's the way it seems to me.
Seems that way to me too... good comments, Lola. Apparently, Bush refers to his political career as "the walk" (as in with God). He believes he was chosen by God to be where he is... the rest flows from there.
The smugness of this entire adminstration and the way such a huge amount of the American public has caught it like a disease is the kind of thing that spells the beginning of the end for empires, IMO.
With the benefit of hindsight, how childish and stupid this kind of attitude always seems.
Equally childish and stupid how no one ever seems to learn anything from it.
