The 'noise' is there but who knows what 'action' might have been undertaken had the 'war agenda' and 911 not been the defining leitmotif of the administration.
Had such Â?actionÂ? been deemed worthy it would have been piggybacked on the Â?war agendaÂ? the same way Â?in god we trustÂ? and other salads have been on the cold war thingy.
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Personally I am not worried about a 'Christian States of America' - certainly it would be a good thing if it was real Christianity. That will never happen of courseÂ?
Ahhamdulillah!
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The real danger imo, is the projection of an (erroneous) Christian paradigm onto the world stage.
For example: if a President believes that a final conflagration will occur in the middle east, and if he believes this must precede something desirable such as the 'Rapture' and if the situation in the middle east then starts to resemble 'prophecy' that he believes in - well this is dangerous imo. For us all.
If that were the case we'd have seen fire and brimstone unleashed on the U.S.' enemies, at least as much as was the case in Korea and Vietnam. However, the U.S. was astonishingly restrained here in comaprison with its previous conflicts.
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I don't believe in a pre-ordained Armageddon,Â?
I find the obsession with some mythological Â?end of the worldÂ? to be unhealthy, but it's rather common among cultures with short life-expectancy, though.
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This is not about religion - it is about reason. We have in some ways regressed to a medieval situation where 'the Church' (read fundies, Xian or Islamic) opposes 'science' (read rational individual thought)Â?
Far form it, while there has been a resurgence of irrational thought these last decadess (from the various religious Â?revivalsÂ? to flying-sacure mania, idiotic cults, and other superstitions), irrationality is still very far from the levels reached at the early twentieth century. We can still prevent a replay of the last century's age of violence.
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Â?and, I am afraid to say, people like Bush (and actually Bush)Â?
The tremendous changes of the last fifty years, have resulted alas in much anguish, notably within the less adapted parts of first-world societies, that anguish contributed to electing Bush as a backlash against a globalised U.S.A. as was furthered by the previous adminstration.
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Â?have contributed massively to this by spreading a black/white reductionist pre-medieval world view and making it acceptable.
Reductionist manichaean worldviews have been peddled by every crass totalitarian revolutionary and his barbudos, every militant fils Ã* papa student and nebbekh professor, and every supreme-leader-fieldmarshall-doctor of some downtrodden third-world masses since at least the mid nineteen-sixties. So it's no surprise it had regained acceptability in polite societies as well.
Mr. Bush and his friends are simply following a trend.
What Bush likes to sign into law has nothing to do with Christianity. Banning gay marriage has nothing to do with Christianity. Fighting in Iraq has nothing to do with Christianity. But he likes to align himself with Christians.
Now that we've established that Bush is a politician and is courting votes rather than steathily implementing some lead up to Armaggedon, you can sleep easier.
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Originally posted by bunge
and ultimately what people believe is Christianity will change.
The idea that the President of the U.S. can change the definition of Christianity is hog wash.
Bush can't even handle the definition of marriage.
After listening to Bob Woodward on 60 minutes, it's certainly not any easier to shake the idea that Bush doesn't care about inconvenient facts, and he certainly would want to act like one of those fancy-pants elitists thinking through what he plans to do... he's got faith that God is guiding him, and for him, that's apparently good enough.
Now that we've established that Bush is a politician and is courting votes rather than steathily implementing some lead up to Armaggedon, you can sleep easier.
I don't necessarily think it has to be conscious. Bush probably genuinely believes he's a good Christian. He's just wrong.
Comments
Originally posted by segovius
Good post. Some points though:
The 'noise' is there but who knows what 'action' might have been undertaken had the 'war agenda' and 911 not been the defining leitmotif of the administration.
Had such Â?actionÂ? been deemed worthy it would have been piggybacked on the Â?war agendaÂ? the same way Â?in god we trustÂ? and other salads have been on the cold war thingy.
Personally I am not worried about a 'Christian States of America' - certainly it would be a good thing if it was real Christianity. That will never happen of courseÂ?
Ahhamdulillah!
The real danger imo, is the projection of an (erroneous) Christian paradigm onto the world stage.
For example: if a President believes that a final conflagration will occur in the middle east, and if he believes this must precede something desirable such as the 'Rapture' and if the situation in the middle east then starts to resemble 'prophecy' that he believes in - well this is dangerous imo. For us all.
If that were the case we'd have seen fire and brimstone unleashed on the U.S.' enemies, at least as much as was the case in Korea and Vietnam. However, the U.S. was astonishingly restrained here in comaprison with its previous conflicts.
I don't believe in a pre-ordained Armageddon,Â?
I find the obsession with some mythological Â?end of the worldÂ? to be unhealthy, but it's rather common among cultures with short life-expectancy, though.
This is not about religion - it is about reason. We have in some ways regressed to a medieval situation where 'the Church' (read fundies, Xian or Islamic) opposes 'science' (read rational individual thought)Â?
Far form it, while there has been a resurgence of irrational thought these last decadess (from the various religious Â?revivalsÂ? to flying-sacure mania, idiotic cults, and other superstitions), irrationality is still very far from the levels reached at the early twentieth century. We can still prevent a replay of the last century's age of violence.
Â?and, I am afraid to say, people like Bush (and actually Bush)Â?
The tremendous changes of the last fifty years, have resulted alas in much anguish, notably within the less adapted parts of first-world societies, that anguish contributed to electing Bush as a backlash against a globalised U.S.A. as was furthered by the previous adminstration.
Â?have contributed massively to this by spreading a black/white reductionist pre-medieval world view and making it acceptable.
Reductionist manichaean worldviews have been peddled by every crass totalitarian revolutionary and his barbudos, every militant fils Ã* papa student and nebbekh professor, and every supreme-leader-fieldmarshall-doctor of some downtrodden third-world masses since at least the mid nineteen-sixties. So it's no surprise it had regained acceptability in polite societies as well.
Mr. Bush and his friends are simply following a trend.
Originally posted by bunge
What Bush likes to sign into law has nothing to do with Christianity. Banning gay marriage has nothing to do with Christianity. Fighting in Iraq has nothing to do with Christianity. But he likes to align himself with Christians.
Now that we've established that Bush is a politician and is courting votes rather than steathily implementing some lead up to Armaggedon, you can sleep easier.
Originally posted by bunge
and ultimately what people believe is Christianity will change.
The idea that the President of the U.S. can change the definition of Christianity is hog wash.
Bush can't even handle the definition of marriage.
Originally posted by Frank777
Now that we've established that Bush is a politician and is courting votes rather than steathily implementing some lead up to Armaggedon, you can sleep easier.
I don't necessarily think it has to be conscious. Bush probably genuinely believes he's a good Christian. He's just wrong.