Bush's faith worries Albright

[giza]

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- U.S. President George W. Bush has alienated Muslims around the world by using absolutist Christian rhetoric to discuss foreign policy issues, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says.

"I worked for two presidents who were men of faith, and they did not make their religious views part of American policy," she said, referring to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both Democrats and Christians.

"President Bush's certitude about what he believes in, and the division between good and evil, is, I think, different," said Albright, who has just published a book on religion and world affairs. "The absolute truth is what makes Bush so worrying to some of us."

Bush, a Republican, has openly acknowledged his Christian faith informs his decisions as president. He says, for example, that he prayed to God for guidance before invading Iraq.

Some Muslims have accused him of waging a crusade against Islam, comparable with those of the Middle Ages. The White House says it has nothing against Islam, but against those who commit terrorist atrocities in its name.

But Albright says Bush's religious absolutism has made U.S. foreign policy "more rigid and more difficult for other countries to accept."

In her book, "The Mighty and the Almighty," Albright recalls how Bush, while he was governor of Texas, told Christians he believed God wanted him to be president.

I'm glad to see articles like this hitting CNN. One of my problems with Bush is that he invokes religion frequently in his speeches, and appears to use it as justification for some of the stuff he does. And we wonder why Muslim nations are pissed at us!

If you wanna believe in the god of your choice and have conversations with him on your own time, that's fine. But when you start using that as a basis for running a country instead of say, more scientific information, I'm going to take issue with that. Sometimes I feel like we're sliding back into the dark ages, with people disregarding science and embracing religion as the answer to all their problems.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Oh, no doubt of that at all. But don't think that Bush and Co. are unique in that. There are many Islamic countries where any kind of thoughtcrime or speechcrime will get you very much dead. Where the schoolkids are taught the glory awaiting them if they blow up the Jews. Where the govt. decisions and course are decided by decrees from the clerics reading the Koran.

It's hardly unique to us. But unless BOTH sides drop their religious extremism, war is inevitable. And one constant about religious extremists everywhere - they never deviate from their beliefs. I fear that all hell is about to break loose upon the world.

[kellic.livejournal.com]

all hell is about to break loose upon the world.

No. Just in the Middle East. That region is about to hit critical mass with the end result being and inter-Arab war. When it does there is one and only one action the US and every other large country in that region should take....Its called stepping the fuck back and don’t get involved.. If we have ANY sense whatsoever we will stay the hell out of this because the end result will be nukes being thrown around like beachballs at a concert in the Middle East. And hopefully it STAYS there. Any war at this point in the region will escalate. I’m 110% sure of this.
I pray to god that Shrub is out of the Whitehouse by then because he has proven that he, or his cabinet, are incapable of making good strategic decisions. And this is one decision that our C&C NEEDS to get right. Fucktard should NOT be pissing off Russia at this point. We need to have solid open dialogs with China and Russia because said inter-Arab war could easily turn into WWIII. But of course that requires a leader who actually has brains.

[kellic.livejournal.com]

But Albright says Bush's religious absolutism has made U.S. foreign policy "more rigid and more difficult for other countries to accept."


Wait....wait. Back up a second. We have a foreign policy?!? Wow this is news to me. It must be the poo policy. You know. If you don't like something jump up and down and fling your shit at it.

[drleo.livejournal.com]

What bugs me even more is that all this religious clap-trap is just lip service. They then think nothing of breaking the most basic lesson in Christianity: be good to people. Nah, instead we'll just pander to the monied interests, and just toss everyone else to the wind without a second thought. Didn't Jesus say a few things about the pursuit of riches? About lying? Don't their precious ten commandments say a few things about stealing and bearing false witness?

And people buy it. "Oh, he's a good man because he talks about God." The parents of a friend of mine actually cited that as a reason they voted for him. Hell, I'd talk about God too if it'd get me a few million bucks.

[kellic.livejournal.com]

Heck it gets even more basic then that:

Thou shalt not kill

Not a whole hell of a lot of wiggle room on that one now is there?

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

[giza.livejournal.com]

> Thou shalt not kill

Clinton: "Can you define 'shalt'?"

[drleo.livejournal.com]

I didn't include that one because, hey, does it really count if you're sending other people to do the killing for you?

(I think it does, but maybe this is how these kinds of people rationalize their choices.)

Of course, few religions have ever really had a problem with killing, all throughout history.

[giza.livejournal.com]

There was someone (maybe George Carlin?) who said that God is probably responsible for more deaths than anyone else. There were so many wars (like The Crusades) that were done purely for religious reasons.

[drleo.livejournal.com]

I'd say more it's people acting in God's name rather than God himself. If these people actually believed what they said about God, it wouldn't be a problem.

Carlin

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do remember him saying something along those lines. And God has been a driving force behind most wars since the beginning of Human Beings. "Waah, my God is better than your God...my God has a bigger d*** than your God.

Did you ever hear his whole standup titled "Rockets and Penises". "Men are insecure about the size of their d***s, so they have to kill one another over it". And of course according to Carlin, "the missiles, rockets, and the bombs" are all shaped like d***s".

[zeeth_kyrah]

Actually, "thou shalt not murder". Killing for things like self-defense isn't necessarily murder.

But then you get into who-hit-who-first arguments.

[markmccloud.livejournal.com]

That's our idiot for a president for you. Going and shooting himself in the foot again. But he's still our president, as much of an idiot he may be. "Seperation of church and state" exists for a reason dude.

[khakiwolf.livejournal.com]

"This is not a war against Islam. We're fighting evil!" - Pres. George W. Bush

[unclekage.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to recall which legislator gave us the beautiful quote that I will paraphrase here:

"Last time I checked, when we take office, we put our hands on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution. We don't put our hands on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."