If a President is a man of humble faith, aware of sense of communion and an abiding connection to spirituality, I say fine, great, love it to death. If it implies, however, a faith that said Deity is inclined, even obliged, to interfere on our behalf my reaction is stark terror, interspersed with episodes of acute anxiety.
Liberal
No I do not consider having faith a positive attribute. In fact, George Dubya uses it as a refuge. In the debates in the 2000 election, when asked which of ALL people through the ages he could meet, he replied “Jesus”. Wow - he really went out on a limb on that one. :rolleyes: I think he said that because anyone challenging that answer would lose millions of votes AND it probably made him gain millions of votes.
Also, faith can be used to eliminate a lot of hard work, study, critical thinking, etc. For example, learning the scientific explanations for the Creation of the Universe or Evolution would require being learned in biology, chemistry, calculus & physics with emphasis on the laws of thermodynamics. Wow that’s a lot of reading.
OR you could just fall back on the good old faith-based “God did it. It’s in the Bible.” To me it seems that our current President, who admits he doesn’t even bother to read newspapers, would not want to challenge his brain with all that ‘intellectuable’ stuff and would pick the God option every time.
As for President Ford, I believe he came from humble beginnings. (guess I left hm out of that list).
Lyndon Johnson made the debating team in college. Gee I wonder if Dubya Bush was on the debating team when he went to school. 
Yes, I know. I told you that you do not. But you asked what it is that other people see in Bush, and I am trying to explain it to you.
One “positive” (at least from the standpoint of GWB and his party) is that he’s been elected to two terms as President, in part because so many of his opponents have tied themselves up in knots obssessing about his dumbness and lack of qualifications - rather than opposing him head-on on his short-sighted and foolish policies and introducing credible alternatives of their own.
I would wager, for example, that the number of SDMB threads on subject of GWB the poopy-head have outnumbered the threads on alternative energy policies by at least a thousand to one.
Just curious, do you recall what Gore’s response was?
I believe it was Aristotle. But Gore is a man of faith. He told the New York Times during his campaign, “I think the purpose of life is to glorify God. I turn to my faith as the bedrock of my approach to any important questions in my life.” (May 29, 1999)
Gerald Ford was a moderate man, both in his politics and in his personal life. He also possessed considerable dignity and rectitude.
These qualities were sorely needed during the crisis of confidence that followed Watergate. Ford seemed nothing like the anbitious and power-hungry Nixon, and thus helped restore respect and honor to the presidency.
He also was a great football player in his day, and was offered professional contracts. He passed on these to go to law school, working his way through Yale Law as a football and boxing coach. Who today would pass on an NFL contract to become a lawyer?
Ford was not a war hero, but his wartime service was creditable. He was the assistant navigator, antiaircraft battery officer, and athletic officer aboard the carrier USS Monterey in the Pacific Theater.
There was a lot to respect and admire about Ford. He may not be remembered as a great president, but he should be recognized for the decent and honorable man that he is.
The question was “Which political philosopher do you admire most?”. While you’re right about Bush’s pandering to the fundies, if in fact he knows of any political philosophers, that’s still an odd answer. If you separate the religious aspects, Jesus as a political philosopher was a radical socialist as well as a revolutionary. Just read the Sermon on the Mount.
It was in a GOP debate during the Iowa caucus campaign. Link
We desperately need some synonyms for “hypocrisy”. It gets so tiring having to use that same word over and over when discussing Republican politics.
And that, friend Elvis, is why we have adjectives. A noun is best a thing of precision: precisely this and not that. Hypocrisy is what it is, it is not ignorance, it is not arrogance, it is not self-righteousness, though the last is a close relative often seen in its company, boon companions.
Thus, we adjecitify Republican hypocrisy: thundering, staggering, collossal, and sometimes petty, mewling, and threadbare. The possible combinations, though not infinite, are adequate.
Is there some reason you thought I had not read the Sermon on the Mount? If Jesus was a radical socialist, then I’m a Marxist jihadist. He never advocated the seizure of a man’s property by force for the sake of some other man’s perceived “need”.
No, Liberal, *not * everything is about you.
Perhaps not. The parable of Lazarus and the rich man, wherein the rich man is broiling in Hell and begging the previously despised beggar, Lazarus, to cool him with just a bit of water, does, at least to my mind, imply a distinct threat of penalty to the rich and selfish. Mind you, no other crime is arrtibuted to the damned: not adultery, not murder, none of those. Just that he was rich, and unheedful of the misery of the poor.
Perhaps the threat of eternal damnation does not qualify as “force” in the libertarian glossary. But The Boss was not sophisticated in political ideology, most likely had very limited concept of the “industrial proletariat”. He simply said that if you’re rich and stingy, I’m gonna cook yer butt.
Excuse me? You put my name in your quote tag.
Come back Ananias and Sapphira! we were only kidding!!!
Before you reply, you should realize that the apostles were followind the orders of Jesus.
Nonsense. The rich man was given the desires of his heart.
“Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son… You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one.” — Jesus (John 5:22, John 8:15)
Not all of them. One betrayed him. One denied knowing him. The rest scattered like cockroaches and hid until the women came to rescue them. All who followed Him (or left Him) were volunteers.
And the churches of today are the result…
Exactly. Pharasaic whores who seek to control the lives of men with petty rules, for the purpose of enriching themselves and gaining power. Today’s church is a body politic, not the body of Christ.
Forgot to add: some churches are better than others, but one reason why I left the church was because of the inconsistency and the fact that Jesus is not appearing to fact check any nowadays.
And you can not get away from the text: the followers that abandoned him were accepted back by Jesus and then thanks to the evidence followed his message, a message that included IMO a tithing system to bamboozle the Roman Empire, I do think followers then, like cults today, were fleeced by the church from time to time to help the needy among them.
The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame.’"
Luke 16:19-31 RSV
You were saying?