President Bush, atheist hero?
Posted on: April 11, 2008 - 6:17pm
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President Bush, atheist hero?
According to christian stereotypes about what atheists "really" want to do (the Stalin/Hitler/Mao/Pol Pot rhetoric), I should really get off on the fact that President Bush has terrorized, imprisoned, tortured or slaughtered millions of theistic creationists in other lands.
Not only that, but he'll probably die quietly at an advanced age on a bed in his Texas version of a dacha, like Stalin, without ever facing accountability for his crimes against his god-fearing victims.
But for some reason, Bush's career doesn't have that effect on me.
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I wish I had a beard to stroke while quizzically uttering some very intellectual sounding commentary.
Unfortunately, all I got is "Dude.... Right fucking on."
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
*strokes beard* I wonder if in 50 years theists will be making the case that GW was really an atheist like they say about Hitler now.
It appears their hypocrasy knows no bounds...
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Don't you know that Americans are immune from any crimes against humanity. We don't recognize any authority to discipline our citizens, especially our leaders, except our own. It will take at least a generation for a vast majority of Americans to have a decidedly negative viewpoint of President Bush his policies, tactics, and worldview. Too many people are sucked into the political spin right now to see the truth.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda
It seems to me that GW has constant criticism from the American public everywhere I go. I would seriously doubt that a president that has an approval rating barely clinging to double digit numbers is seen as doing a good job by the majority of his constituents.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Curiously, no other nations ever put together international Coalitions of the Willing to invade Washington, D.C. and replace Bush with someone who isn't a war criminal. I wonder if it might have something to do with how many military bases we have all over the world, and how many really nasty weapons we have...
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Apparently Bush's christian supporters give Bush a license to "play Stalin" because his victims profess the "wrong" beliefs about god.
BTW, I know about the controversy over the number of Iraqis killed since the invasion. I don't find the low figures credible because the occupation force continues to burn up ammunition at rates that have caused shortages in civilian ammo supplies here in the U.S. I don't think that happened during all the years of the Vietnam conflict, so what have American troops done with all that ordnance? Shot up plastic water bottles for target practice?
He is a total asshat. I wouldn't be surprised if future fundies try to put him out as an atheist - but then again, they tend to love him and he is constantly trying to force Christianity on everyone - it would be tough to try to convince anyone he was.
Reminds me of a joke I love-
Did you hear the George W Bush library burned down? They lost both books. The sad part is he hadn't finished coloring them.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
you know, there is considerable, though not decisive, evidence that stalin was actually assassinated because he was planning another great purge of the party and some of the cadres got wind of it.
just throwin' it out there...
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
they won't try to write him off as an atheist. they'll give him the same treatment as the inquisition et al.: "he wasn't a true christian."
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Most Americans just want to get to Janaury 21, 2009 and be rid of GW. There are only 284 days and 17 hours and 10 minutes to go. Tick, tick.
Unfortunately nothing will every happen to him as he can plead insanity, which no one at all will doubt.
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
I've never doubted that there was method behind his apparent stupidity. Regardless of his own intellect, the Bush family is not stupid enough to put a genuine idiot into the White House. I don't believe his act.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
His brother Jeb was a least a decent governor in my state of Florida, he handled hurricanes superbly. Kind of makes you wonder why he didn't call Jeb for advice after Katrina doesn't it? Other things Jeb did showed far more intelligence than GW even if I didn't agree. GW obviously had a plan and record oil prices may have been just the tip of the iceberg. Most of George's problem is not admitting he fucks up and then getting help from people that have their head up his ass.
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
For anyone that's read Dune, all I need do is refer you to the plan of the Baron Harkonnen. First, give them Beast Rabban. Then, when they've had all they can possibly stand, give them Feyd Rautha. They'll hate the Beast so much that Feyd can do anything he wants.
Curiously, about six years ago, I mentioned this strategy and predicted a moderate candidate that even many Democrats would feel relatively comfortable with, compared to Bush. Hello, McCain.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Works for me, Hamby. Until this moronic twat-waffle occupied the White House, I had no idea how much I could hate a politician.
I just watched Jon Oliver's take on Faux News on the Daily Show site and instead of making me laugh, it made me mad. Hearing those sycophantic butt-sniffers praise the shrub for doing some of the same things for which they vilified Clinton...it boggles the mind. I don't exactly care for either of the Clintons, but they are paragons of virtue compared to Bush.
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I don't want McCain, Hillary or Obama as president. McCain is a Republican. 'Nuff said. Hillary is a Republican in Dem clothing and I suspect Obama isn't much better.
If we get McCain, it will be the McSame.
If we get either of the "Democratic" candidates, it will be more of the same, only they'll say the opposite of what they're doing while smiling and giving speeches about hope. Both parties are corrupt and totally in the pocket of international corporations.
Voting is made out to be our patriotic duty, but what good is it? It's like throwing a thimble of water on a firestorm. What's more, with e-voting and hackable central tabulators, most likely you'll get a thimble of gasoline instead and won't even know it.
My feeling is that we are being urged to vote and protest and go through the motions because the powers that be know it wastes our energy without producing any viable results. On another thread I was told, "If you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain." Yeah, sure. Voting does oh-so-much good. It's brought us to where we are today.
Now, I'm not 100% convinced voting does no good, so I will probably go through the motions. But in the meantime, I'm terribly suspicious that we are wasting precious time and resources on things that no longer matter: elections. If you can vote and feel you've done your patriotic duty when in fact voting hasn't done anything but place you further under the heel of global corporations...well, there's a problem, isn't there?
It's like telling someone with a physical illness to pray about it instead of finding a reputable doctor. The person who prays feels he's done something about his illness, but in fact he's done worse than nothing. He's fed into the idea that he has done something and wasted valuable time on a worthless fix.
So, if voting isn't working, what should we do?
Damned if I know. I have been trying to figure out that very thing. Unfortunately, due to illness, I've had to bow out of the political scene, but I have done some thinking about possible solutions that might work without feeding the machine.
Here are a few links I've bookmarked for later, hoping I'd have the energy to deal with it all at some point:
http://www.delusionaldemocracy.com/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BAK411A.html
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110504_snap_out.shtml
http://www.foavc.org/
The last one, Friends of the Article V Convention, discusses our rights as citizens to make our own amendments to the Constitution, without dealing with the three branches of government or the hijacked news media. Of course, if we actually try something like this, the shit will really hit the fan, won't it?
If the system is broken, how can working within it solve any problems? We have to fix the system first. The powers that be don't want that. If we resolve to take that route, we may be asked to give more than we are willing to give. It's much easier to assume that the system works, vote and say, "I've done my duty." Actually making a real difference will be hard.
I know I'm not up to it right now. I may never be up to it, but I'm not blind, either. There's something terribly wrong with "politics as usual" in this country. "Voting as usual" won't be enough to change anything.
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And in turn, that's straight out of Machiavelli. When I find the passage, I'll let you know.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Or they could blame it on Bush's mentat Karl Rove. Christopher Hitchens has hinted that he knows for a fact that Rove doesn't believe in the gods.
Or they could blame it on Dick Cheney. I haven't come across any statement by Cheney about his love for Jesus.
Bush has been, in a number of ways, I think a hidden gem in the atheist community. He has done his share of conversions by scaring moderate away from religion and he'll always be used as a tool in helping to convince people of the problems with religion in government.
If not a gem for atheism, at the very least a gem for secularism.
Voting is a fool's sport.
Even assuming we generously hand over the benefit of the doubt and believe that vote tabulation is done fairly and with a very low margin of error, have you been around the block lately? How many idiots who would vote for someone like George Bush because 'He's 'nother good 'ol boy, jus' like me!' are there for every one intelligent, critical thinker?
It's not much better up here in Canada. Check out how Kline managed to completely steamroll every election in Alberta (the victories were literally embarassing, and I roll my eyes at the notion that any balot was actually counted at all) for as long as he was in charge and lending his every waking moment to giving huge, unfair protections to the oil and gas industry. Even if I were to agree that the elections were 'fair', in that votes were actually counted, there's an idiotic bias that gets created when an industry becomes so affluent thanks to legislation that it can basically 'buy out' the better part of the electorate and then tell them, "Vote for this guy, or you lose your stupefyingly high wage job."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
I'm fairly certain he's going to die of a Macho Man Randy Savage elbow drop, actually. This will occur in a mental health facility in Florida.
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell
my friend, you're already halfway to being a trotskyite, just like me.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I call bullshit on this one.
Historical evidence that George W. Bush's stupidity, atrocious integrity and laughable leadership skills are a genuine article is quite abundant. Unless he's been putting on the facade since childhood and maintained it right on through schooling, career hopping and his variety of personal decision making, what most researchers will find is quite damning to the idea that he's an evil genius just 'pretending' to be an idiot.
And the fact that he's 'merely' an idiot doesn't somehow devalue the notion that's he's a dangerous man to be at the reigns of a country (any more than an idiot could be considered less dangerous than a sociopath behind the stick of a 747).
The Dune argument is essentially just an Ad Homimen attack against McCain. Evidence that he's part of some sinister cabal in league with the Bush family / Republican grand scheme (whatever such an alleged scheme would amount to) would be nice to see before the simple accusation. Even if I didn't have Bush for a comparison, I'm quite sure I'd like McCain more than Hilary or Obama, as far as judging his qualities as a leader is concerned (there are matters of heated contention I'd have with McCain, mostly surrounding the Iraq war and religion-based restrictions on things like euthanasia and abortion, but I'd probably be making the same arguments against Hilary or Obama anyway).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
For those in this thread who believe voting is not worthwhile/doesn't matter:
WHAT ABOUT THE FUCKING ELECTION IN 2000?
Do you really believe things would be the same today if Gore had gotten into office?
Do you realize how close the vote totals were in Florida?
How can you claim voting doesn't matter when we've had the most stellar example in the history of our county only eight years ago?
WWSD - What Would Scooby Doo?
the "differences" between the democrats and republicans are an illusion. they differ moderately in areas that don't really matter but they're both committed to maintaining the same status quo: economic neo-colonialism of the third world, the religious spread of "democracy" (i.e. laissez-faire capitalism, i.e. economic bondage to the US), a grossly oversized defense budget, and serving corporate america.
clinton wasn't any more "stellar" than bush: he was just more subtle, way more intelligent, and more dishonest about america's foreign policy.
i highly suggest (for everyone) reading howard zinn's "a people's history of the united states" to know what the two-party system really stands for. at least go to the library and check out his chapter on the clinton years to see how "stellar" things really were.
as dr. kissinger himself said, "america has no friends, america only has interests."
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
1)No things would be different with Gore.
2)Yes, I live in Florida the difference was less than 500.
3)Voting does matter, though Howard Dean feels Florida and Michigan don't exist right now. They'll come begging for us later this year. Howard Dean can fuck off. *Throws DNC request for money in trash*
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
I agree that the differences between the two parties has narrowed in the last few decades (due mostly to the democrats moving to the right rather than the republicans moving to the left). However, do you honestly feel that Gore would have pushed for the invasion of Iraq if he had been president? Considering the billions spent on that war to date and the lives lost, I certainly feel it has had a major detrimental effect on our nation in economic terms and also in our standing in the world.
It's easy to accept a nihilist position regarding our current two party system, but there are still fundamental philosophical differences between the two. For example, republicans believe in the concentration of money and power in the hands of the few, and the democrats favor social and governmental programs for the many.
BTW - I never said things were "stellar" under Clinton. I said the 2000 election was a stellar example of how voting DOES matter.
WWSD - What Would Scooby Doo?
George Bush has to be my least favourite American President. And he's got Nixon, Reagan and those slave driving founding fathers to compete with!! Being from the UK I know all too well how pointless a two party state is. I only ever vote Labour to keep the Tories out.
Iwbiek, I have to say I'm actually starting to like you. I thought you were a muppet fundie at first. Turns out I was wrong.
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jacob,
what the hell is a "muppet fundie" and why did you consider me one?