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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
 Posted - 02/23/2002 : 21:58:12
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Came across this interesting article at another board. Thought I'd pass it along here.
From the San Fransisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/22/MN146728.DTL
The gospel according to John (Ashcroft)
ROB MORSE Friday, February 22, 2002
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of unbelief I fear not God. I fear John Ashcroft.
"Civilized people -- Muslims, Christians and Jews -- all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator," said Ashcroft on Tuesday to a group of Christian broadcasters.
Correct me if I'm misinterpreting the Word of Ashcroft, but he's saying that a lot of the people he's supposed to protect are uncivilized. I don't believe in God, but if I did God would be generous enough to grant the presumption of civility to skeptics, atheists, agnostics and the apathetic.
Also spake Ashcroft: "We are a nation called to defend freedom -- a tradition that is not a grant of any government or document, but is an endowment from God."
The first document that comes to mind is the Constitution, which Ashcroft is sworn to uphold. Then he said that those with "a biblical understanding of creation" can hear the "voice of evil disguised as freedom."
I know a snake when I hear one in the grass, but I believe the Garden of Eden is a myth. I also believe that if there is a God, He/She needs a gentler spokesman than Ashcroft, given the uncivilized record of many of those who have claimed to speak for God, from the Crusades to recent jihads and child- molestation scandals.
The only thing worse has been organized atheism in the form of communism and Nazism. That's why I'm atheistic even about atheism, and will defer decision on God's existence until after death.
Presumably, any God that exists will be more merciful than humans and let us see the light after the fading of the light. If God isn't more merciful than humans, then we're really in trouble, because we're a nasty little species.
-- -- --
The 19th century San Francisco columnist Ambrose Bierce defined "Christian" as "One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor."
Ashcroft, a lay minister and son of a Pentecostal preacher, has been most concerned with the spiritual needs of his neighbors, holding daily prayer meetings in his office. Last month, he angered Muslims when he allegedly said that Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you," while Islam is "a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. "
In this week's speech, Ashcroft tried to defuse tensions by saying that the war on terrorism isn't a religious war, but "a defense of our right to make moral choices, to seek fellowship with God that is chosen and not commanded."
Well, I choose not to make fellowship with God, and get nervous about an attorney general who answers to a higher authority than some "document" called the Constitution. In his speech, Ashcroft said he will preserve the rule of law, but I don't know which laws, given his recent expansion of police powers, military tribunals and preventive detention.
Now he's saying God is the "grantor of freedom," which is scary, especially for nonbelievers. We'd better guard our freedom ourselves, using a fundamentalist interpretation of the Constitution as our homeland defense plan.
-- -- --
In modern America, you're not supposed to attack people's religion. The same ought to hold for lack of religious belief.
John Ashcroft is by no means a Christian equivalent of a Taliban mullah. Still, it is most uncivil of a U.S. attorney general to say there are second- class citizens in the eyes of the nation or God. Not that there is a God.
In coming of age in two tolerant cities with good Christian names, Providence and San Francisco, I found God in man. As a lad in the early '60s, I briefly found religion through the inspiration of Brown University Chaplain Charles Baldwin ("Chaplain Charlie," as the students called him), who crusaded for the civil rights of African Americans.
Decades later, John Ashcroft was ignoring that grant of freedom by the Creator and fighting desegregation orders in Missouri.
In San Francisco, I have witnessed untiring good works on behalf of the poor by Father Louis Vitale, Father Floyd Lotito, Brother Kelly Cullen, Sister Bernie Galvin, the Rev. Penny Nixon, the Rev. Jim Mitulski, the Rev. Cecil Williams, the Rev. Amos Brown, the Rev. Alan Jones, the Rev. Robert Cromey and other godly San Franciscans.
In those humans, I have seen the highest civilization and the possibility that a most generous God could exist. They believe, and thus I hope.
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2002 : 18:14:52 [Permalink]
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All I can say is that I will be very happy looking back at the Bush years assuming we have an election in 2004. With the current administration I fear the worst 
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2002 : 19:05:45 [Permalink]
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Someone made a comment here a while back that Bush and his cohort's religious ajenda could do more damage to this country than any terrorist group.
How true it is.
Edited by - randy on 02/24/2002 20:24:33 |
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2002 : 06:07:00 [Permalink]
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Oh, come on. Give the man a break! He sincerely cares for all of us. All he wants to do is prepare us good Americans for the return of the Messiah, and send all those evil non-Christian foriegners to Hell where they belong. Yeah, you go, Johnny!
(Uh, that was sarcasm if anyone missed it)
"The Constitution ..., is a marvelous document for self-government by Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society." P. Robertson |
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2002 : 08:43:39 [Permalink]
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In Ashcroft's defence it has to be said that he most likely does not belive what he said himself. It was just the most religious tolerant message his mind could conceive.
As he has told us before, he of course does not belive that freedoms, such as those in the American constitution, are granted by god. The Government of the US decides who deserves those rights.
quote:
"Foreign terrorists who commit war crimes against the United States, in my judgment, are not entitled to and do not deserve the protections of the American Constitution, particularly when there could be very serious and important reasons related to not bringing them back to the United States for justice."
When he said:
quote:
a freedom that is not the grant of any government or document, but is our endowment from God.
He meant of course a grant of Ashcroft or at best Bush.
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