Mandelstam made this assertion on anther thread. tomndebb supported her, saying he would have made the same judgement of Bush’s perception of his relationship with God only by listening to his speeches.
I say it’s a totally bogus charge. Bush has never said any such thing.
I challenge those who believe it’s true to prove their case by finding cites.
From the other thread:
From David Frum’s book The Right Man, recounting his experiences as a Bush speechwriter:
He says Bush told him “there is only one reason I am in the Oval Office…I found faith. I found God. I am here because of the power of prayer.”
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2921345.stm]Before September 11, President George W Bush kept his evangelical Christian beliefs largely to himself.
Bush convinced God wants him to engage the forces of evil
He had turned to God at the age of 40 as a way of kicking alcoholism, and his faith had kept him on the straight and narrow ever since, giving him the drive to reach the White House.
But all that changed on the day of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
Those close to Mr Bush say that day he discovered his life’s mission.
He became convinced that God was calling him to engage the forces of evil in battle, and this one time baseball-team owner from Texas did not shrink from the task.
“We are in a conflict between good and evil. And America will call evil by its name,” Mr Bush told West Point graduates in a speech last year.
In this battle, he placed his country firmly on the side of the angels.
[/quote]
Is there any basis to believe otherwise that you can cite?
**ElvisL1ves ** responded on the other thread. I will respond to his post here, in order to keep the topic together.
**This quote shows that Bush takes religion seriously. I agree that Bush is guided by his religious beliefs. That is to say, he tries to be on God’s side. That’s different from saying that he thinks God is on his side.
Trying to be on God’s side means doing the right thing. Believing that God is on your side means thinking that you are always right, regardless of what you do.
Good try, Elvis. However, the actual Bush quotes in your BBC cite do not support the idea that Bush thinks God is on his side. Note that the key allegations in your cited article come from anonymous sources: “those close to Mr Bush.” Bush gives a great many speeches and public statements.
If Bush really feels this way, we should be able to find it in his own words.
There was an issue of Newsweek dedicated to Bush and his faith last month. As far as I recall, all of Bush’s words about serving God were from his speeches, but there were several interviews with close friends of Bush - including the man who helped him become a devout Christian and continues to converse with him on faith - who said that he believes that what he is doing politically is God’s will.
UnuMondo
your title asks if Bush is convinced that God is on his site, in your OP, you ask for cite’s he’s actually said so.
Can’t give you verbatim statements, but have a look at this.
It doth imply a certain religious arrogance
"In two recent speeches, at the annual convention of the National Religious
Broadcasters and at the National Prayer Breakfast, Bush said he welcomed
faith to solve the nations’ deepest problems and was greeted on both
occasions with “amens.” To some, however, he sounded more like an
evangelical Christian minister than an elected political leader.
In discussing a likely war in Iraq with Australian Prime Minister John
Howard this week, Bush said freedom for the Iraqi people is not a gift the
United States can provide, but instead “liberty is God’s gift to every human
being in the world.” To some, his word’s implied that a war against Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein would be a divinely endorsed act of liberation.
Going beyond religious references even of such presidents as Abraham Lincoln
The White House defends the president’s language as expressions of his
personal beliefs and says he has every right to speak with fervor about his
faith."
site:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200303/msg00059.html
"By contrast, it is hard to imagine President George W. Bush making a speech on the subject of Iraq - or for that matter, any subject - without mentioning the deity and the war between good and evil in which He or She is apparently enlisted on our side.
It has become Bush’s trademark.
“We do not know … all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life and all of history,” he said during his State of the Union address last month.
“If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning,” he said of the Iraqi enemy at another point in the speech.
“We feel our reliance on the Creator who made us,” he said in a radio address in March. “We place our sorrows and cares before Him, seeking God’s mercy. We ask forgiveness for our failures, seeking the renewal He can bring.”
site:http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/columnists/ny-livit163133081feb16,0,3122848.column?coll=ny-li-columnists
"___NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)–God is on America’s side in the war on terrorism, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft told religious broadcasters Feb. 19.
___Ashcroft filled in for President George W. Bush, who had been invited to address the Feb. 16-19 National Religious Broadcasters convention at Opryland Hotel but was traveling in Asia.
___Bush still addressed the meeting in a videotaped message, however, applauding religious broadcasters as players in his faith-based and community initiative announced last year.
___Bush described his proposal as an effort to “rally the armies of compassion and help solve the problems in our country.”
___“I salute all of you for doing your part to make this a better nation,” Bush said.
___Echoing themes the president has used frequently since the September terrorist attacks, Ashcroft described America’s war on terrorism as a battle between good and evil.
___“As President Bush has reminded us, we know God is not neutral in the battle of good and evil,” Ashcroft said.
___Governments do not grant freedom, he said; it comes from God. “The guarding of freedom that God grants is the noble cause of the Department of Justice.”
site:
http://www.baptiststandard.com/2002/3_4/pages/ashcroft.html
"Those close to Mr Bush say that day he discovered his life’s mission.
He became convinced that God was calling him to engage the forces of evil in battle, and this one time baseball-team owner from Texas did not shrink from the task.
‘Angels’ country’
“We are in a conflict between good and evil. And America will call evil by its name,” Mr Bush told West Point graduates in a speech last year.
In this battle, he placed his country firmly on the side of the angels.
“There is wonder-working power in the goodness and idealism of the American people,” he said in this year’s State of the Union address. "
site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2921345.stm
Yup. President Bush said to God “Did you hear what I just said to Syria? That goes for you too!” And God said, “Don’t worry, I am on your side all the way”. So Bush knows God is on his side.
Is Bush convinced that God is on his side? If by this you mean that Bush feels his actions are morally justifiable according to his Christian beliefs, then sure. Is this supposed to be a bad thing?
I’d think that any time a religious person does something they believe is keeping within the morals dictated by their religion, they would think that God/Allah/Buddha/whoever was on “their side”. For the life of me, I can’t understand why this should be considered an insult. Unless what is meant by “Bush believes God is on his side” is that Bush believes that morality springs from him, and that God has wisely chosen to align himself with Bush, but to claim that is just silly.
Jeff
Quoth december:
That’s merely semantic nit-picking, not to mention a straw-man. Just because someone believes “God is on his side” for one issue does not mean he believes himself right in all cases.
Quoth Bush:
And Bush again…
Thus…
Statement 1: We are on a “mission” to save the world.
Statement 2: There is no gray area between good and evil.
Obvious fact: Bush believes in God.
Rational Posit: God is ultimate good by definition, and saving the world is good.
Sensible Conclusion: Bush thinks God is on our (or his) side at least in the context of the war on terrorism.
december, are you seriously trying to draw a distinction between claiming to be on God’s side and claiming to have God on your side?
You still haven’t responded to the question of what reason there is to think anything else about Bush’s beliefs. Got anything?
Jeff, the issue isn’t really being guided by religious belief as such, even a divisive one that puts the rights and aspirations of adherents of other, or no, religions at a lower level. It’s the lack of humility that follows from it - the arrogance that tells such a person that he cannot be mistaken and therefore that no other views need be considered. Believing one has God on one’s side is a far different thing from knowing it, and can have very different results, but it feels exactly the same and often looks the same to the uncritical.
One could turn the question around: do you think that GWB does stuff as President that he thinks is against the will of God? If not, then surely he would feel that God supported his action.
To answer your question more directly, I must say that you’re asking for proof of an impression, which is a subjective thing and therefore impossible to prove. However, I did a quick google and can give you a few examples of things that might give one that impression - I certainly have it.Green Tree, Aug. 5, 2002
The White House, February 1, 2003
But the one that really tips the scales for me is this one: White House, September 20, 2001
Thus he equates the US’s actions with freedom and justice, and goes on to imply that God is on the side of justice and freedom - and hence the US’s actions - as dictated by GWB and his administration.
God , did you want Bush to be our president?
If so, why are you punishing us?
please tell us what we are doing wrong and we will stop.
Amen.
I’m not quite sure why this bothers you so, (or why you had to characterize it, in the other thread, as a lie invented by the Left). I rarely read Left wing commentators (except to see how they have been quoted or misquoted in threads on this MB), and I came to that conclusion simply by the rhetoric that he and his spokespersons have employed.
I don’t even know that I object to him having a faith-grounded belief that he is following the proper course. (I am more concerned about his actions than his motivations.)
Nevertheless, from his persistent emphasis on his “faith based” outreach programs, through his grandstanding on the “under God” clause in the Pledge of Allegiance, to his various references to God in his speeches touching on terrorism, I have inferred that he believes he is doing God’s work from his words and actions. (And, again, I am not claiming that his comments are inappropriate, given his beliefs. I only find it amusing that you believe that the message that he has conveyed is a left-wing “lie.”)
Some samples:
Ari Fleisscher quoting the president from Arizona regarding the Pledge flap. June 26, 2002
September 11, 2002
State of the Union, January 28, 2003
February 10, 2003
February 26, 2003
This apology that GWB is “on God’s side” rather than vice versa is about as weak and specious as it gets. That’s what all zealots think, just ask bin Laden. It’s obvious that Junior thinks he’s on a holy crusade. In a classic, dry-drunk, self-righteous fashion he has convinced himself that he was appointed by God to put all those evil Ay-rabs and liberals and smarty-pants actors in their place.
He was appointed, all right, but not by God. It was a fixed Supreme Court.
Contrast Abraham Lincoln who, on being “comforted” that God was on the side of the Union, replied:
Or, with equal fervor:
I have a question: what do you think Bush’s view of knowledge is?
Does he believe that those who someone decides best intuitively know what is right and true should determine what is right knowledge (the fundamentalist principle), or does he believe that claims of truth and rightness are views that have to be survive criticism and checking by evidence and skeptics (liberal scientific method)?
Bush is a Methodist by denomination, but i would say that he probably leans pretty fundy. He has said on at least two occasions that Jews can’t go to heaven, so what does that tell you?
Bush also thinks that evolution and creationsim are equal theories. he says the “jury is still out” on evolution and that schools should be able to teach creationism. So obviously critical thought is not a part of his personality.
I hope you noticed tomndebb’s simulpost, right after yours, with the Abraham Lincoln quote:
tomndebb, thanks for mentioning Lincoln. For a true example of how to be a uniter, not a divider, see his second Inaugural Address about whose “side” God was on in slavery and the Civil War:
december, you missed the point of tomndebb’s Lincoln quote. Lincoln placed full responsibility on himself for acting according to God’s will, in acknowledgment of his human inadequacy for determining it. He was not deciding on a position and course of action first, and then invoking God’s blessing upon it and damnation upon its opponents, as Bush too often seems to do.
Lincoln, in the humility that made him great, understood that he could be partly right and partly wrong, and that so could his opponents (read the clip from the Second Inaugural I posted above). He did not claim God to be on his “side”, he simply hoped he was. Bush, in contrast, does not show an iota of that same humility before God that a truly religious person, not a zealot, maintains.