bush

[Prodigal Son]

i don't want to start a fight, but i really want to know...i don't understand why everyone likes bush so much? i don't see anything christian about him. is it because he says he's christian that makes you like him? is it because he's says he's against abortion (you know he won't stop it ,right? he has no plans to). what exactly makes you believe he's doing something right? what about him makes you like him? what about him do you think is righteous? i just don't see it.

[Deborah]

i don't want to start a fight, but i really want to know...i don't understand why everyone likes bush so much? i don't see anything christian about him. is it because he says he's christian that makes you like him? is it because he's says he's against abortion (you know he won't stop it ,right? he has no plans to). what exactly makes you believe he's doing something right? what about him makes you like him? what about him do you think is righteous? i just don't see it.

Yea some of us want to know what actions makes you look at him as a fellow Christian.

[Felgar]

is it because he's says he's against abortion (you know he won't stop it ,right? he has no plans to).

Abortion is huge. Take away your prejudice and you might see that even if he doesn't do anything to help, at least we know he's not going to make it worse. And there's a chance that maybe the opportunity arises where he can change the laws. I can't overstate it... The Republican's only survived by making themselves the "anit-abortion" party. Probably by far, the single most pervasive issue in politics, and also the one which I believe won Bush the last election.

A few other things which I like:
- Faith-based initiative legislation intending to make it easier for faith-based charities and organizations to actually help people who need it. In a time when Christians are ridiculed and nearly persecuted, it's nice to see recognition of the good work being done.

- There was only one solution to Iraq - finish the job. I'd rather Bush did that than sitting around waiting for Saddam to find a way to strike at the heart of America. All Bush's excuses (and yes, lies) aside, it's still the right decision in the end.

- Staunch support of Isreal. I don't personally want anything to do with standing up to fight God's chosen people, and that goes for my country (and my country's friends too). I believe America is blessed because they haven't abandoned Isreal.

- Opposition to gay marriage. Not much to say here; I think it's wrong and don't think a nation should write it into their laws.

- Limitations on stem cell research, I also agree with.

Now there's a lot that Bush doesn't do well, and I think his economic policy is one of those things. I've never agreed with running deficits and I think he's making a huge mistake by sinking America further into debt.

- Oh, one last very positive one was his political support to have the Canada-US border openned to live cattle import once again. The impact of that on Alberta is very, very, large.

[Deborah]

I don't beleive they are gods chosen people.
Not sure I can put it in away that won't be misunderstood.
Gods chosen people did the will of god, and were rewarded for it. When they started going away from the way god set for them, god did not abandon them, he stepped back, it wasn't punishment as such.
Gods chosen people could be considered any who do the will of the one true god instead of there own.
I am sorry but I don;t have the gift that some of you guys have for making yourselves understood.

[Prodigal Son]

take away your prejudice...

what is my prejudice?

[puritan lad]

- Staunch support of Isreal. I don't personally want anything to do with standing up to fight God's chosen people, and that goes for my country (and my country's friends too). I believe America is blessed because they haven't abandoned Isreal.

Whoa here. I support Israel because they are our allies, but that is it. America is blessed because of it's godly heritage and it's puritan work ethic, and it was blessed long before there was a nation of Israel.

Who are God's Chosen People?

God promised Abraham that he would make of him a “great nation” (Genesis 12:2), and that “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). This nation was to be a “holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).

What does it mean to be a Holy Nation? Does it mean that they are holy simply because their DNA matches Abraham's (which, by the way, would eliminate most of the people living in modern day Israel)? Does the term “holy nation” fit some atheistic country that exists in the Middle East founded by the United Nations in 1948? Hardly. God is not a racist. He never saved anyone based in their genealogy, in either the Old or New Testament. If that were the case, then Esau (whom God hated — Malachi 1:3, Romans 9:13) and Ishmael would have a claim on God's Covenant Blessings. So would King Saul, Judas Iscariot, the Pharisees, and the modern day Palestinians. Likewise, Ruth (a Moabite), Rahab (a Canaanite), and Urriah (the Hittite), (Two of which were Christ's ancestors) would never have experienced sanctification. Physical circumcision made one a part of God's visible church, but in the light of eternity, profits nothing (Galatians 5:6).

A holy nation is set apart by God based on obedience to His Covenant. In the Old Testament, a Hebrew who was disobedient was to be “cut off from the congregation of Israel” (Exodus 12:19). Does this mean that God changed the person's genetic code so that he was no longer a Hebrew? Of course not. It means that he was no longer part of the “holy nation”, God's visible church here on earth. The same is true in the New Testament (ex. 1 Cor. 5:1-12). Sadly, the judicial powers of the modern church are almost non-existent.

In the same Exodus passage, God tells Moses “And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you." (Exodus 12:48-49). Again, God does not make this person's DNA match that of Abraham, but instead sets him apart “as a native of the land” in His holy nation. Thus, even in the Old Testament, God never considered anyone a “Jew” based on race alone. Both Jew and Gentiles were to have “one law”.

This is even more obvious the New Testament. The Pharisees took pride in their linage, but were not members of God's Holy Nation. John the Baptist warned them early on.

“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father.' For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 3:7-10).

The Judaists even bragged to Jesus about their heritage, proclaiming “Abraham is our father.” (John 8:39). But Jesus was very clear with His response. Contrary to popular dispensational belief, Judaism is not “Old Testament religion”, but a demon-inspired, Talmudic heresy. There is no belief in the Old Testament that is consistent with the rejection of Christ. When the Pharisees rejected Christ, they reject Moses (John 5:46). The god of Judaism is the Devil (John 8:44). The Jew will not be recognized by God as one of His chosen people until he abandons his demonic religion and returns to the faith of his fathers — the faith which embraces Jesus Christ and His Gospel. Only Born Again believers in Jesus Christ are considered true Jews. Others are not true Jews, but of the synagogue of Satan (Rev. 2:9). As Christ rejecters, they are no longer “God's Chosen People”. "Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.” (Matthew 21:43). This nation is His “holy nation”, the Church of Jesus Christ, the new “Israel of God”, and the Galatian church was so called (Galatians 6:16).

Paul writes “…for they are not all Israel who are of Israel” (Romans 9:6), “But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and whose circumcision is that of the heart…” (Romans 2:29). In Christ, all ethnic, cultural, economic and generational walls have been removed. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). If Jesus Christ removed these barriers, who are we to try and build them back up?

There is more. While the modern dispensational church keeps it's eyes glued to the Middle East, awaiting some sort of Theological Extravaganza, Paul clarified that the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 22:18) is being fulfilled through the church, (and the Galatian Gentile church at that). “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed.” Galatians 3:8. (So much for the idea that the church age was invisible to the Old Testament prophets.) As Christians, we are members of the New, Heavenly Jerusalem which is the one and only bride of Christ, the mother of us all (Galatians 4:26, Hebrews 12:22).

[ray]

As a non-American I always find it interesting how many Americans perceive their leaders. It seems more often to depend on party affiliation than on what the leader does. Democrats support Democratic leaders and their policies and oppose Republican ( and vice versa ). They seem to 'know' if the person is right before he even speaks, depending on party affiliation. God wants us ( and our leaders ) to try our best to make correct decisions. Will we always do that? No! We need to try and eliminate our prejudices and focus on facts. Consider the facts alone and make our decisions. If we do this honestly within ourselves, God will honour the decisions we make. We are also told to pray for our leaders, not tear them down at every opportunity.

Ray

[Deborah]

puritan lad, I would have to say I agree with much of what you wrote.
But some of it is a little hard to grasp.

[j316]

Bush is a typical politician, good and bad depending on your beliefs. The only thing I have against him is that he is hollow, his political agenda is controlled by his handlers. I think he is christian, again good or bad.

I agree with Felgar except in regard to Iraq. I went through the Vietnam war and this is too much like it. If this war is just it is falling on the wrong people, it was the afghans , saudis and iranians who were supporting the terrorists, not the iraqis. Saddam really never gave more than lip service to the whole arab/muslim holy war concept, but he was the easist and most politically correct target. Twenty years from now historians will point out the cynicism and political cronyism behind this war, and we will still have to deal with the real problem- radical islamism.

[Prodigal Son]

for someone so beloved, there's really not much to say, huh?

[August]

for someone so beloved, there's really not much to say, huh?

There is a book written on the topic, called "The faith of George W Bush". I think Christians in general can identify with him as someone who is not ashamed to admit that God changed his life, and that his religion plays an important role in his life today.

Here is an excerpt from a Dallas Morning News article (Various journo's who interviewed the president on his faith):
"Bush believes very much in the core ideas of Christianity -- the belief that you must believe in Jesus in order to go to heaven, that there is no other way to salvation. … That's a fundamental Christian belief, and he embraces it. He believes in the absolute nature of God. Fundamentally, he believes in the existence of evil, not as an abstract idea, a philosophy, but as something that's real and tangible. It's something we've seen really most recently when he talks about the terrorists. He talks of them openly about the existence of evil on Earth. That's something that means something to him. That's a designed comment. That's something that comes out of his heart, because he absolutely believes it.

When he was governor, he would read the Bible every morning. It was something that he had begun doing years earlier in Midland, Texas. It was part of a program, and it was part of something that helped settle him. I know we talked a number of occasions about how he felt in the morning when he'd wake up in Austin, Texas, at the governor's mansion. First thing he'd do was make coffee for his wife and feed the animals, a growing group of cats and dogs, and then he would read the Bible. He didn't want to talk about that publicly early on. But it was very much core part of who he was.

When George Bush was in college, he was a political conservative. He had come out of a tradition wherein the family had gone to the Episcopalian Church. It was natural that he would be offended by, and talked a lot about being offended by the "If it feels good, do it" generation. Those weren't his guys. He was a frat rat, a frat boy in college.

But he was also someone that liked the fundamental ideas of religion, even though at that time he had not been born again and he was not really following a rigorous church attendance. But when he was in college, he was offended, I think, by the kind of general tolerance, the political tolerance that reflected itself in the 1960s.

So it became only natural, I think later, that when he ultimately embraced religion in a new way, in a fundamental way in his heart, in the very aspect of who he was, that it would seem very consistent with a conservative political philosophy which believed in hard work, good things for business and an absolute right and wrong in everything. So I think his religion, which he really embraced at the middle of his life, was something that was very consistent with the politics that he embraced all the way through it.

There's no question that the evangelical community has an ally in President Bush on a number of different issues, and in terms of basic values. There is a great deal of commonality between President Bush and evangelicals. Technically speaking, though, President Bush is a mainline Protestant, from the more conservative or traditional, or, if you will, evangelical wing of mainline Protestantism, but not really part of the core of the evangelical community, as scholars tend to understand it.

So there is a sense in which evangelicals are claiming somebody who really isn't part of their religious community, but someone who shares many of their values, who certainly understands them well, and shares a number of their religious beliefs.

And while he walks in both worlds, he also differs from both.

Certainly, President Bush differs from his own denomination, from the United Methodist Church, in that he doesn't adopt a lot of its official positions. For instance, he is pro-life on abortion, whereas United Methodists tend to be pro-choice. He disagrees with many Methodists on social welfare issues, and Methodists have a long tradition of supporting the welfare state. President Bush [is] very critical of the welfare state. On foreign policy, President Bush has a somewhat more aggressive foreign policy than many Methodists would agree with.

But if you compare him to the evangelical community, he doesn't completely agree with them, either. For instance, when it comes to issues like how the government should relate to the gay population, President Bush is much more tolerant, unwilling to stigmatize people. When asked about the gay community, for instance, President Bush will often say, "Well, we have to recognize that we're all sinners and we shouldn't be critical of one another, and we need to be tolerant of each other."

[Felgar]

Boy, lots to respond to...

for someone so beloved, there's really not much to say, huh?

I believe that I did say a lot. You seemed to dismiss it out of hand. I was attacked on Isreal and also on Iraq, and the rest was ignored.

In particular, the faith-based initiatives I believe, are a direct contradiction to your assertion that Bush doesn't care about the poor.

And again, I bring you back to abortion - the single most important issue.

To Puritan and Deborah...
I wouldn't expect you to agree Puritan, for you hold an entirely different perspective on the End Times that I do. But my belief is that scripture describes an end times where knowledge explodes such as has never been seen (which is certainly starting, though we can't predict the end). And an end times where Isreal is reborn and its people return to it from all over the world. And an end times where Russia and most of the world betray Isreal, launch a military invasion, and are defeated by Jesus who returns to save Isreal by defeating Satan and the invasion force along with its leader, thereby beginning the Millennial reign of Christ.

So my belief in God's support for Isreal is very much linked to my beliefs about Revelations. There's no need to respond with a debate about the End Times - I'm just explaining my earlier statements.

Regarding ANWR and energy...
PS - August is right, Ethanol is not the answer. It's actually lobby groups that keep ethanol going - groups that don't want to see the over-sized corn industry die.

I think the larger picture here is one of consumption. As a society we consume a great deal, both raw materials and energy. Our entire way of life and also the very productivity that enables us, as a society, to progress as we have, are both directly dependent on our ability to consume and use energy. We can't simply stop consuming because if we do then suddenly food isn't shipped into urban centres, we lose comminication capabilities, we can't drive into work, we have no hospitals and emergency services, and also in the North we freeze during winter. Everything we know is a result of our productivity (ability to generate wealth which ultimately translates into essentials for life) and I find it very hypocritical for anyone to be extremely critical of the very way of life that they enjoy.

It's like the environmentalist who pickets at a rally and then drives home in his SUV, takes a hot shower, and watches TV for a few hours, before curling up in his nice warm bed.

Also, what if we stopped in the 60's... Put consumption to its lowest possible levels... We'd have no knowledge of DNA, no computers, no internet, very poor medicine, no cancer research, no engineered crops (a new variety of wheat actually changed our world in untold ways) and much lower productivity. It's only recently (through our technological advancement) that we could even consider taking what we have and providing housing and clothing for every human. What if we stopped 50 years ago? What would we give up by stopping now? Cures for cancer? The ability to guide and help developing nations? A cure for AIDS and the prevention of nearly complete devestation across Africa? Are you willing to give that up and also your entire way of life? Maybe we actually have a responsibility to solve those problems as creatures who are mandated to bring glory to God...

Now, there is a flip-side. As we progress we start to better understand the effects we can have on our world. We must still consume and still progress, but we must do it much more responsibly. That means minimize waste, minimize emissions, develop more efficient technology, and do everything possible not to damage what we have. So I support prospecting in ANWR, but with the very clear understanding that we have as little impact as possible, even if that hurts the bottom line a bit. With the price of oil now, exploration companies can afford to be extremely careful and delicate. I'd say it's actually a great time to spend the resources needed to check ANWR out without destroying it.

[j316]

Felgar, I am sorry if you feel like you were attacked on Iraq. I didn't mean it as such. There have been some interesting opinions expressed here. Living in Florida,especially in this area, I have seen a lot about George. Lately, though, the tide of opinion has been shifting, people are not as eager to support his more radical policies as they begin to see the effects of them. Mr Bush is not a bad fellow but I think he is following a group of radical conservatives at the center of the old Reagan philosophy, and I don't think the country as a whole, even the republican majority are really in line with them. Watching the news lately you can see them starting to break ranks already, it will be a stampede by the time of the next elections.

I think that there are more people in this country who would agree with the general tone of Felgar's last post than those who agree with Rummy's last press conference. I have a lot of trouble seeing any christianity in Rumsfelds statements or actions.

[bizzt]

I just thought I would post a Couple News Stories... Some words are quite Offensive...

From Capitol Hill Blue

Bush Leagues
Bush's Obscene Tirades Rattle White House Aides
By DOUG THOMPSON
Aug 25, 2005, 06:19

While President George W. Bush travels around the country in a last-ditch effort to sell his Iraq war, White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him.

“I'm not meeting again with that goddamned *****,” Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. “She can go to hell as far as I'm concerned!”

Bush flashes the bird, something aides say he does often and has been doing since his days as governor of Texas.
Bush, administration aides confide, frequently explodes into tirades over those who protest the war, calling them “mother****ing traitors.” He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore “[nonsense] protectors” over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to “tell those VFW assholes that I'll never speak to them again is they can't keep their members under control.”

White House insiders say Bush is growing increasingly bitter over mounting opposition to his war in Iraq. Polls show a vast majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake and most doubt the President's honesty.

“Who gives a flying **** what the polls say,” he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. “I'm the President and I'll do whatever I goddamned please. They don't know ****.”

Bush, whiles setting up for a photo op for signing the recent CAFTA bill, flipped an extended middle finger to reporters. Aides say the President often “flips the bird” to show his displeasure and tells aides who disagree with him to “go to hell” or to “go **** yourself.” His habit of giving people the finger goes back to his days as Texas governor, aides admit, and videos of him doing so before press conferences were widely circulated among TV stations during those days. A recent video showing him shooting the finger to reporters while walking also recently surfaced.

Bush's behavior, according to prominent Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Justin Frank, author of “Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President,” is all too typical of an alcohol-abusing bully who is ruled by fear.

To see that fear emerges, Dr. Frank says, all one has to do is confront the President. “To actually directly confront him in a clear way, to bring him out, so you would really see the bully, and you would also see the fear,” he says.

Dr. Frank, in his book, speculates that Bush, an alcoholic who brags that he gave up booze without help from groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, may be drinking again.

“Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office,” Dr. Frank says. “Is he still drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his psychological state.”

Last year, Capitol Hill Blue learned the White House physician prescribed anti-depressant drugs for the President to control what aides called “violent mood swings.” As Dr. Frank also notes: “In writing about Bush's halting appearance in a press conference just before the start of the Iraq War, Washington Post media critic Tom Shales speculated that 'the president may have been ever so slightly medicated.'”

Dr. Frank explains Bush's behavior as all-to-typical of an alcoholic who is still in denial:

“The pattern of blame and denial, which recovering alcoholics work so hard to break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's rarely limited to his or her drinking,” he says. “The habit of placing blame and denying responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush's personal history that it is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat.”

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

August 24, 2005
President Bush's Loss of Faith

It took President Bush a long time to break his summer vacation and acknowledge the pain that the families of fallen soldiers are feeling as the death toll in Iraq continues to climb. When he did, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Utah this week, he said exactly the wrong thing. In an address that repeatedly invoked Sept. 11 - the day that terrorists who had no discernable connection whatsoever to Iraq attacked targets on American soil - Mr. Bush offered a new reason for staying the course: to keep faith with the men and women who have already died in the war.

"We owe them something," Mr. Bush said. "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for." It was, as the mother of one fallen National Guardsman said, an argument that "makes no sense." No one wants young men and women to die just because others have already made the ultimate sacrifice. The families of the dead do not want that, any more than they want to see more soldiers die because politicians cannot bear to admit that they sent American forces to war by mistake.

Most Americans believed that their country had invaded Iraq to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but we know now that those weapons did not exist. If we had all known then what we know now, the invasion would have been stopped by a popular outcry, no matter what other motives the president and his advisers may have had.

It is also very clear, although the president has done his level best to muddy the picture, that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Mr. Bush's insistence on making that link, over and over, is irresponsible. In fact, it was the American-led invasion that turned Iraq into a haven for Islamist extremists.

When Mr. Bush articulated his "comprehensive strategy" for responding to the threat of terrorism, he listed three aims: "protecting this homeland, taking the fight to the enemy and advancing freedom." The invasion of Iraq flunks the first two tests. But it did free the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and may still provide an opportunity to inspire the rest of the Arab world with an example of democracy and religious toleration.

Right now, however, the Iraqi Assembly is dickering over a constitution draft that would not accomplish any of the American goals. It would fail to protect the rights of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority and the rights of women, and it would enshrine Islam as a main source of law. It could well lead to a fracturing of Iraq into an all but independent, and oil-rich, Kurdish homeland in the north and an oil-rich Shiite theocracy in the south, while the oil-poor center was left to the disaffected Sunnis, the terrorists and the American troops. It's an outcome that would make the violent religious extremists very happy.

Preventing that kind of tragic last chapter is the only rational argument for continuing the American presence in Iraq. The president's strange declaration yesterday that the draft constitution would protect the rights of women and minorities, and his continuing attempts to clog the debate with misleading explanations, suggest his own lack of commitment to the only rationale for keeping American troops in Iraq - or, perhaps, his lack of faith in the likely outcome.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[ochotseat]

Mr Bush is not a bad fellow but I think he is following a group of radical conservatives at the center of the old Reagan philosophy, and I don't think the country as a whole, even the republican majority are really in line with them.

Late former President Reagan and neoconservatives aren't radical at all. If they were extreme, Reagan wouldn't be the most popular President in modern history, even to many Democrats. If they were radical, our government wouldn't be slightly dominated by Republicans at the moment.

I think that there are more people in this country who would agree with the general tone of Felgar's last post than those who agree with Rummy's last press conference. I have a lot of trouble seeing any christianity in Rumsfelds statements or actions.

What gives you the perception of Rumsfeld being an impassive barbarian?