Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Anyone else tired of "faith-based" presidents?

Last year, Fred Thompson said his first act in office would be to pray. John McCain says we are a Christian nation. Mike Huckabee says he's going to take America back for Christ. (And who can forget eight years ago when Bush said Jesus was his favorite political philosopher?)

I don't want a president who sees himself (or herself) as an agent of God. I want a president who sees himself as a defender of the Constitution. Make that the defender of the Constitution, considering he holds the highest office in the land.

Tell me, how is Huckabee's vow to take America back for Christ any different from Osama Bin Laden's call for jihad to overthrow the Saudi royal family and take back his nation for Allah?

I have a better idea. Let's take back our Constitution from the Christian fundamentalists!

seedsofdoubt, no more faith based

I lost faith in the President long ago (if I ever had it).

Being an Evolutionist...you might already suspect how I might think about "faith-based presidencies".

So with that said, AnnieFey, I'll say Amen to your posting (no disrespect or pun intended)!

Having seen more than enough of the actions of so-called
"Godly" people the last decade or so I've become more and more convinced that Gandhi was right about something.

Gandhi spent a considerable amount of time studying the Biblical scriptures and was seriously considering a conversion to Christianity. One day as he was walking up the steps to a local church he was stopped at the top by the vicar, who said,
"Just where do you think you're going, kaffir?"
Gandhi replied that he wanted to attend the service, because he was interested in becoming a Christian.
The vicar replied, "we don't allow kaffirs in our church, so leave now before I have you thrown down these steps!"

Years later, when he had written essays critical of Christianity,
he was asked why he hated Christ.
"Oh I don't hate your Christ", he replied, "I love your Christ.
It's just that so many of your Christians are so unlike him."

I've professed a love of God and a belief in Christ for many years. This miserable soul has been blessed so many times that it's impossible for me to deny God's love and mercy.

And yet not a day goes by when I don't witness yet another disgusting display of the very worst human behavior has to offer, on the part of people who claim to be godlike, holy and pure, and who profess that theirs and theirs alone is the one true faith.

So, has America had enough of evangelicals, faith-based government and wide-eyed religious zealotry permeating every facet of their private lives. I say quite more than enough.
If one's heart is indeed pure and one's devotion to faith is honest, then government is without a doubt the very worst place one might want to make professions of their beliefs not because it doesn't belong there but more importantly because one's faith is too large for the pitiful expression of it via our government.

Our governance may be endowed with the very best of Christian principles but it is still an institution of man and not a holy kingdom, or even a kingdom hall or house of God.

Printing God's pure and sweet name on the twenty dollar bills that are used to launder the profits of a drug lord or pay for a heroin addicted prostitute's services, or to purchase the weapons of war, is possibly the most perverted example of religious depravity imaginable.

Bellowing the Ten Commandments all throughout an office building devoted to dispensing taxes and fines to businesses and individuals is perhaps the most flagrant misuse of God's admonishment to "render unto Caesar".

And proselytizing God's mission to a group of seventh century devotees to the Prophet Muhammed in their own land is
an invitation to a never-ending conflict which will drain our nation dry of everything that is of value and substance, including our very freedom itself.

I realize that the dominionists seek the rule of the land in order to fulfill their perceived mission of a worldwide Christian caliphate but not in my name you don't.
I won't permit it, I've had enough of your phony empires, and I've had more than enough of your misguided, backsliding, morally relativistic and ethically lopsided machinations for an entire lifetime.

Get thee from my home, my bedroom, my public places and my courtrooms and houses of law, and get thee back to your broken churches, which are in need of a good chastisement.

Leave me to my faith and I shall leave you to yours.
And for God's sake leave the governing to ALL people instead of only to the true believers, who find any excuse to narrow their field and their circle every day.
I won't submit to your never-ending purity tests and I won't
permit you to indoctrinate my children, and I will never allow you to subvert my Constitution.

JeffH in Occupied TX

There is no difference. Ironically, Fundies are incapable of comprehending that their behavior is no different from bin Laden's.

Absolutely, Annie!

Which faith? The last 8 years have been dedicated to the followers of the Mammon, the God of Avarice.

Don't get me started on the subject of faith based anything. I don't want any religion involved in my government. Not your religion, not their religion, not my religion.

Annie,

The best answer I can come up with is "fear". Presidential candidates invoke "God" for their own personal goals of course. Americans allow it out of fear. I think that they feel if they somehow build our country around our god that we will be in pervious to terrorist attack. Kind of like our God will kick your God's ass. American also tend to wrap up everything going bad in their lives with some kind of moral string therefore bring back what they think is morality and all will be a Leave it to Beaver utopia.

I'm with you on being fed up with the whole "God" is on my side theory by political candidates or anyone for that matter. If you profess God to be on your side and you oppose someone what you are saying in essence is that God has some kind of personal stake in your winning an election, a football game, etc...

I think humans need some kind of "faith" and "spirituality" no matter in what form they choose it to be. However keep is personal and keep it out of government. There is no difference between the Christian fundamentalist vowing to take back the government and the Taliban vowing to take back the government. Both want to use God for their own personal power trip to force laws and morals upon the masses. To claim anything else is being dishonest and this is not a christian moral.

Faith-Based Presidents...and Governments

I've made no bones about being an Evolutionist, and of course there is another associated name, which carries a heavy demeaning and condesending set of beliefs, which are completely out of the realm of what the label or belief truly means. I simply believe in the scientific explanation of the origin of the universe, no more or less. I don't want my fundamental beliefs to color or jade my points about religion and government, working in concert, to manage the affairs of the people.

There are probably millions of examples of clear evidence that religion and government don't and shouldn't mix. I'm not going to spend unbound amounts of time gathering such evidence.

Firstly, I don't want to infringe on the rights of others to believe how they wish to belief. Nor do I want others to infringe on my right.

My only wish is that people of faith, regardless of affilation, simply be a living example of their faith in a non-destructive manner.

One thing is clear to me and that is...not a single one of the various religious beliefs in existence should be used as instruments to govern people, whether we're talking about a neighborhood association, city, state, and especially a federal level government. Using religion as the controlling tenets of a government will only result in oppression and destruction.

Redheat talked about the Fear factor. To me, fear has historically been the fuel for many religions. Whether it be protestants within the Baptist Church or Catholic Church...or any other religious denomination...very few individual members within any given denomination can agree with its leaders or the fundamental tenets associated respectively. Every person eventually forms their own opinions about who their higher power is...and what that higher power means to them, regardless of where they learned the fundamentals of their beliefs.

I can understand the evolutionary stage of humanity whereby believing in something greater than themselves, which is usually some concept of a single entity or creator, is important to many. But we have to acknowledge that there are many, many types of beliefs. Unfortunately, so many beliefs are in constant conflict and are, in fact, potentially dangerous to all of humanity. People kill over a dispute in their beliefs of a particular faith or who they interpret their higher power to be. Religious tolerance is a rare commodity...anywhere in the world.

We see the incredible oppression and cruelity in sectarian controlled nations where one person's (or a select few) individual beliefs rule over the minds and bodies of every single person under their rule.

Why in the hell would we, in America, want to live in a society where our entire lives are controlled by a single doctrine that can't even be agreed on by all of the inclusive members of that doctrine as to its teachings and how they are interperted?

Why would we be...or how could we, as a nation, or as individuals, be blind to what is happening around the world in sectarian controlled nations with such vast information resources available to us all?