President Bush has apparently decided that the earth-based religions practiced by Wiccans, Celts, Druids and oothers are not true religions, and are therefore exempt from the agenda he has to shift the burden of the poor onto private charities. Personally I have a real problem with any charity receiving state aid to take over functions that should be undertaken by social security. Most of these groups have a religious agenda of one form or another, which lends itself perfectly to institutionalized discrimination. It's not a matter of which religion, IMO, it's a matter of religion in general - religion and politics do not mix. The trade-off is that many of these faith-based charities have a much higher success rate, than the government does. IIRC, the Salvation Army can feed people for a dollar or two per person, where it costs the government 5 to 10 dollars each. I guess they have just decided to give money to people that seem to know how to spend it efficiently. Peace.
Nothing unexpected, eh? "The Divine Economy", from Killing The Buddha This is from early 2001. Highlights: • The dilemma spelled out plainly on this man's face is, I confess, of more pressing interest to me than the constitutional questions of church-state separation that have swollen, predictably, into snowdrifts of punditry about the new federal Office of Faith-Based Panaceas. Try to imagine, say, the leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference composing federal grant applications instead of staging sit-ins and marches and landing in jail. Think of Theodore Parker, Frances Willard, Walter Rauschenbush, Abraham Heschel, Roger Williams, or Joseph Smith as appointed state bureaucrats instead of self-styled prophets and reformers. Nor do we need merely to entertain this as a hypothetical thought-experiment: the intellectual career of protestant theologian Reinhold Niehbur pretty much went into eclipse-and lost much of its prophetic power as well-when he was retained as a de facto house preacher for the Cold War liberals of the Kennedy age. (Chris Lehmann) • I see nothing wrong with experimenting with federal funding for faith-based social service initiatives. There is some evidence that religious groups do a better job than secular organizations in battling alcoholism, drug abuse, and even poverty. And while getting into bed with the government may well compromise the integrity of religious communities, it seems to me that they should be the guardians of their own purity. Given the sorry state of secular social services, the time is right to experiment with faith-based initiatives, which at least under the current Supreme Court will probably pass constitutional muster (as long as the religious groups involved avoid sectarian proselytizing). (Stephen Prothero) • Considering the track record of religious institutions in the past, choosing them to participate in what have become secular social programs is absurd. Christianity has always been the subject of wide pendulum swings between two biblical verses: "Go forth and preach to all nations!!!" and, "Let your light so shine before men that they can see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Unfortunately, it is a lot easier to preach at people than to do good works .... (Vine Deloria, Jr.) • Also implicit in the debate is the assumption that the clients of social programs-the homeless, the addicted, the poor -- are passive rubes who need to be protected from the brainwashing attacks of evangelicals. An effective intervention program must start with the assumption that every individual is the competent, rational navigator of his or her own life. (Polly Trout) • And then we Pagans, Witches, and all the other groups that probably give Bush the creepy crawlies could step forward and say, "Well, if you're going to do this, we want a seat at the table. We want our share of funding. We want to be part of the process. After all, whether you think we're a religion or not, we're acknowledged as such by a Higher Authority -- the IRS, actually -- and we want to play, too. (Starhawk) Commentary on the Present: What else do we expect of an alleged Christian such as Bush? After all, works alone will not get a man into Christian heaven. It's all about the labels with that crowd. Fuck 'em. I can't wait until Dr. Neudow decides to sue for his share. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (Edit: Link to White House Office of Faith Based & Community Initiatives)
That means nothing. Everyone's saner than Bush, who is a twobit gayass who got dragged in and out of Yale's pussy. He doesn't even have the sense of Ariel Sharon and Arafat put together. __________________________________________ There is no god, afterlife or divine love. There is only Entropy, the mother from which we were all born. She tugs our souls with the beautiful, maternal love of chaos. Why do you keep Her waiting?
Man I wish Bush were in scifora so he could see himself as the jerk he is. Bigot that he is. Same to his worthless dad, who said some stuff like "atheists don't deserve to vote, and shouldn't be considered patriots. This is one nation under god.". Man man man I wish I could just THWAP them to get them to see how inferior they are to the Kennedys, another family with multiple politicians. Check out the mind structure difference there. It's only too sad that the KEnnedys had to be shot; why can't the Bushes be bombed to death or something? __________________________________________ There is no god, afterlife or divine love. There is only Entropy, the mother from which we were all born. She tugs our souls with the beautiful, maternal love of chaos. Why do you keep Her waiting?
Lets just say, the wiccans I know are saner than anyone who watches the religion channels. (the ones with the self richous televangelists) they at least dont tell the rest of the world they are all wrong for no particular reason
I'd sleep better at night if Bush didn't meddle with religion altogether but then again he's so dumb maybe it keeps him well enough from other areas he dosen't know a thing about. Religion is just too full of explosive potentialities at the moment.
