The Almighty and the Mighty

Yes Dr. Elliott, but Canyon Shearer is the kind of person who would pick up a gun and start shooting people, like at VA-Tech. And then afterwards, everyone says, well, we knew there was something wrong with him, but we just thought that if we ignored his disruptions and his symptoms, then maybe someone else would give him the help that he needed.

I don't want to exclude him because his opinions are different than mine. He actually doesn't have opinions. He has symptoms of profound disturbance, which, of course, I cannot really understand. Over 350 of the comments on Leith Anderson's thread were not about Leith Anderson's essay, they were all about Canyon Shearer delusionally wishing all his critics to Hell, and their miffed replies to him.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Sex & religion being humanity’s most powerful drives, I wouldn’t want a president with a low sex-drive or a low religion-drive: either low would impede understanding of humanity & thus of politics. Of course the higher the drive, the easier to abuse: the greater a vehicle’s speed, the higher the risk of accident. Just think of all the human wreckage from religion & sex!

None of you commented on my column’s adducing Madeleine Albright’s “The Mighty and the Almighty” as indicating low attention to religion as a deficit in political office. Indeed, most of the 18 posts exhibit the defect.

The political cost of this defect is detailed in Douglas Johnston’s “Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik” (2003). Communism repressed religion, which (since the close of the Cold War) has been the dominant force in world-politics. Religion is “Track II” diplomacy, bypassing other political motivators. Johnston has a long list of U.S. foreign-policy failures due to not factoring religion into the analyses—blinded, he says (p.4), by “dogmatic secularism and economic determinism.”

Most of you 18 posters qualify as “dogmatic secularists.” I hope none of you is in the State Department!

HENRY JAMES

Good point. “Integrity” should not be confused with Forrest Gump innocence. A game played in the interest of truth or love is not the same as a game played for the maintenance or advancement of self-interested power.

LEPI...

Right, “one need not subscribe to belief in a deity to have integrity.”

In buying a baseball team, what Bush had it mind was NAME RECOGNITION, not a demonstration of managerial competence. To count against him in campaigning for office, his mismanagement of his team would have had to be what it wasn’t, viz. calamitous.

There’s a difference between the arrogance of announcing God’s will & the humility of doing God’s will according to one’s lights with an open mind for “more light” (as Pastor John Robinson said to his Mayflower congregation just before the 1620 sailing). / Your image of revelation is FOG we can’t see God’s will through; I’ll go with MIST, a modest possibility over against a confident impossibility. In 1 Corinthians 13:12, the image is an imperfect REFLECTION in a metal mirror.

No, it doesn’t “depend on how you define Creator,” as though there were options. What “Creator” meant to America’s founders is a matter of historical research, not free speculation.
My shorthand for it (in my definition of the [originating] American mind) is Bible+Enligtenment.

Right, “no religious test” for the office of president. But the originating “American worldview” is life “under God” with “integrity and humility as divinely given,” as a “prophylactic against the abuse of power.” An atheist might be parasitic on the values of integrity and humility, lacking the historic American theological grounding of these virtues—and might make a good president despite this ontological thinness.

TERRA

Good quote from Aristotle. Your high-word, “honor,” in our American tradition is informed by four peoples—the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Christians. You might call it the Four-Square American Mind. To drop any one of these is like losing a stool-leg. Further, each acts as a check against the others’ running off into each its own fundamentalism. (And each in its own way stands over against Islamic fundamentalism.) Do you find this cultural analysis sufficient for protection against Warlocks?

ATHENA

I like your list of qualifications for the presidency. But the “pledge to uphold the Constitution” is taken with an “oath of office,” which I prefer to have with heart & hand on the Bible.

BGONE

I want the government-fox to stay out of my religion-henhouse, & vice versa. / Your statement that I know the Bible is a hoax is so benighted as to beggar comment.

GABY

Your POV is that “God has nothing to do with it” & “under God” should be left out. Understood, & disagreed with. On the ground, in American politics, some are making the case that “God” has more to do with it than ever before.

DANIEL IN THE LION’S DEN

“Evangelical” is currently, in presidential-primary politics, an explosive word. I would be surprised if “Mr. Evangelical,” currently Leith Anderson, got little attention. / Canyon Shearer
represents evangelicalism at its least informed & most dogmatic (no accident: the two are natural partners). I’m surprised you’d want him on you exclusion list; he’s at least a good Shmoo to the likes of you. And I’d think more of you if you didn’t have an exclusion list.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Sex & religion being humanity’s most powerful drives, I wouldn’t want a president with a low sex-drive or a low religion-drive: either low would impede understanding of humanity & thus of politics. Of course the higher the drive, the easier to abuse: the greater a vehicle’s speed, the higher the risk of accident. Just think of all the human wreckage from religion & sex!

None of you commented on my column’s adducing Madeleine Albright’s “The Mighty and the Almighty” as indicating low attention to religion as a deficit in political office. Indeed, most of the 18 posts exhibit the defect.

The political cost of this defect is detailed in Douglas Johnston’s “Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik” (2003). Communism repressed religion, which (since the close of the Cold War) has been the dominant force in world-politics. Religion is “Track II” diplomacy, bypassing other political motivators. Johnston has a long list of U.S. foreign-policy failures due to not factoring religion into the analyses—blinded, he says (p.4), by “dogmatic secularism and economic determinism.”

Most of you 18 posters qualify as “dogmatic secularists.” I hope none of you is in the State Department!

HENRY JAMES

Good point. “Integrity” should not be confused with Forrest Gump innocence. A game played in the interest of truth or love is not the same as a game played for the maintenance or advancement of self-interested power.

LEPI...

Right, “one need not subscribe to belief in a deity to have integrity.”

In buying a baseball team, what Bush had it mind was NAME RECOGNITION, not a demonstration of managerial competence. To count against him in campaigning for office, his mismanagement of his team would have had to be what it wasn’t, viz. calamitous.

There’s a difference between the arrogance of announcing God’s will & the humility of doing God’s will according to one’s lights with an open mind for “more light” (as Pastor John Robinson said to his Mayflower congregation just before the 1620 sailing). / Your image of revelation is FOG we can’t see God’s will through; I’ll go with MIST, a modest possibility over against a confident impossibility. In 1 Corinthians 13:12, the image is an imperfect REFLECTION in a metal mirror.

No, it doesn’t “depend on how you define Creator,” as though there were options. What “Creator” meant to America’s founders is a matter of historical research, not free speculation.
My shorthand for it (in my definition of the [originating] American mind) is Bible+Enligtenment.

Right, “no religious test” for the office of president. But the originating “American worldview” is life “under God” with “integrity and humility as divinely given,” as a “prophylactic against the abuse of power.” An atheist might be parasitic on the values of integrity and humility, lacking the historic American theological grounding of these virtues—and might make a good president despite this ontological thinness.

TERRA

Good quote from Aristotle. Your high-word, “honor,” in our American tradition is informed by four peoples—the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Christians. You might call it the Four-Square American Mind. To drop any one of these is like losing a stool-leg. Further, each acts as a check against the others’ running off into each its own fundamentalism. (And each in its own way stands over against Islamic fundamentalism.) Do you find this cultural analysis sufficient for protection against Warlocks?

ATHENA

I like your list of qualifications for the presidency. But the “pledge to uphold the Constitution” is taken with an “oath of office,” which I prefer to have with heart & hand on the Bible.

BGONE

I want the government-fox to stay out of my religion-henhouse, & vice versa. / Your statement that I know the Bible is a hoax is so benighted as to beggar comment.

GABY

Your POV is that “God has nothing to do with it” & “under God” should be left out. Understood, & disagreed with. On the ground, in American politics, some are making the case that “God” has more to do with it than ever before.

DANIEL IN THE LION’S DEN

“Evangelical” is currently, in presidential-primary politics, an explosive word. I would be surprised if “Mr. Evangelical,” currently Leith Anderson, got little attention. / Canyon Shearer
represents evangelicalism at its least informed & most dogmatic (no accident: the two are natural partners). I’m surprised you’d want him on you exclusion list; he’s at least a good Shmoo to the likes of you. And I’d think more of you if you didn’t have an exclusion list.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Sex & religion being humanity’s most powerful drives, I wouldn’t want a president with a low sex-drive or a low religion-drive: either low would impede understanding of humanity & thus of politics. Of course the higher the drive, the easier to abuse: the greater a vehicle’s speed, the higher the risk of accident. Just think of all the human wreckage from religion & sex!

None of you commented on my column’s adducing Madeleine Albright’s “The Mighty and the Almighty” as indicating low attention to religion as a deficit in political office. Indeed, most of the 18 posts exhibit the defect.

The political cost of this defect is detailed in Douglas Johnston’s “Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik” (2003). Communism repressed religion, which (since the close of the Cold War) has been the dominant force in world-politics. Religion is “Track II” diplomacy, bypassing other political motivators. Johnston has a long list of U.S. foreign-policy failures due to not factoring religion into the analyses—blinded, he says (p.4), by “dogmatic secularism and economic determinism.”

Most of you 18 posters qualify as “dogmatic secularists.” I hope none of you is in the State Department!

HENRY JAMES

Good point. “Integrity” should not be confused with Forrest Gump innocence. A game played in the interest of truth or love is not the same as a game played for the maintenance or advancement of self-interested power.

LEPI...

Right, “one need not subscribe to belief in a deity to have integrity.”

In buying a baseball team, what Bush had it mind was NAME RECOGNITION, not a demonstration of managerial competence. To count against him in campaigning for office, his mismanagement of his team would have had to be what it wasn’t, viz. calamitous.

There’s a difference between the arrogance of announcing God’s will & the humility of doing God’s will according to one’s lights with an open mind for “more light” (as Pastor John Robinson said to his Mayflower congregation just before the 1620 sailing). / Your image of revelation is FOG we can’t see God’s will through; I’ll go with MIST, a modest possibility over against a confident impossibility. In 1 Corinthians 13:12, the image is an imperfect REFLECTION in a metal mirror.

No, it doesn’t “depend on how you define Creator,” as though there were options. What “Creator” meant to America’s founders is a matter of historical research, not free speculation.
My shorthand for it (in my definition of the [originating] American mind) is Bible+Enligtenment.

Right, “no religious test” for the office of president. But the originating “American worldview” is life “under God” with “integrity and humility as divinely given,” as a “prophylactic against the abuse of power.” An atheist might be parasitic on the values of integrity and humility, lacking the historic American theological grounding of these virtues—and might make a good president despite this ontological thinness.

TERRA

Good quote from Aristotle. Your high-word, “honor,” in our American tradition is informed by four peoples—the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Christians. You might call it the Four-Square American Mind. To drop any one of these is like losing a stool-leg. Further, each acts as a check against the others’ running off into each its own fundamentalism. (And each in its own way stands over against Islamic fundamentalism.) Do you find this cultural analysis sufficient for protection against Warlocks?

ATHENA

I like your list of qualifications for the presidency. But the “pledge to uphold the Constitution” is taken with an “oath of office,” which I prefer to have with heart & hand on the Bible.

BGONE

I want the government-fox to stay out of my religion-henhouse, & vice versa. / Your statement that I know the Bible is a hoax is so benighted as to beggar comment.

GABY

Your POV is that “God has nothing to do with it” & “under God” should be left out. Understood, & disagreed with. On the ground, in American politics, some are making the case that “God” has more to do with it than ever before.

DANIEL IN THE LION’S DEN

“Evangelical” is currently, in presidential-primary politics, an explosive word. I would be surprised if “Mr. Evangelical,” currently Leith Anderson, got little attention. / Canyon Shearer
represents evangelicalism at its least informed & most dogmatic (no accident: the two are natural partners). I’m surprised you’d want him on you exclusion list; he’s at least a good Shmoo to the likes of you. And I’d think more of you if you didn’t have an exclusion list.

Willis .....that was a nice (peace) of work and a pleasure in reading. The presence of the lord at work, leaves it's mark which can't be denied. I have never had a need to seek God, or beleive there being a God. That at a very young age God came seeking me. The presence of God that which when coming in spirit, such cannot be denied it being such a positive presence. Such as within Jesus, he be but a body which the then spirit of God flowed through. The Jesus as humans knowing, in truth never, ever, existed. Willis, it a pity humans, rather christians, put Jesus on SUCH a pedistal in lifting so high. That only accepting Jesus, SUCH the effect closing the door, on all, whom be servants to the Almighty. It be not the Almighty witholds, knowledge, but rather giving, matching, humanities levels of understanding, as in experience. That, which the human brain being capable of receiving, within it's ongoing stages to mature, in it's spiritual development... .. .

Once again, who defines "integrity" and who defines "morality"? It seems to me neochristians like Dr. Elliot have a different idea of what is "moral" and what is "integrity" than the original words of Christ.

Sorry folks, the Constitution supersedes he Bible as the law of the land in the US and, as long as that is true, neochristian crusades to overthrow the First Amendment and establish a neochristian theocracy is sedition. Would someone please call the FBI?

Gee, Mo, When you put it that way, it's almost like people ought to keep religious commandments and all the various analyses thereof in church or something.

How profound. :)

people with 2 minds.

one mind in the allmighty and another mind in mighty,one mind in the bible of god and another mind in the bible of man,one mind in theocracy and another mind in democracy.

please be aware of people with 2 minds their minds float between god and man ,they may give you eloquent speech (2 tongue) but their heart is delusional and confusional.

people with 2 minds may make it to the governement ,when they get there one of the mind usualy over come the other mind since life can not take but one straight mind .
which mind will win? god or man?

god and man psyche is another delusion very common in judeochristianity since day one.

"America’s psyche floats on the weather-changing surface of America’s soul, which has always known that the powers of the mighty, even when granted by the people, are subject to the truthful judgment of THE ALMIGHTY"

Does the man really think the way that sentence is constructed? Or does he really think at all, as opposed to blathering?

Daniel in the Lion's Den,

Unfortunately THIS panelist is one who enjoys also calling people 'bible haters' and 'unAmerican' just for having a different point of view.

He and CS would get along a little too well, in fact.

Dear Dr. Elliott

I see that my comment is the 12th comment posted here. And your fellow panalest, Leith Anderson, wrote a brief essay that now has almost 500 comments.

I was wondering if you would just take a look at these comments accumulating under Mr. Anderon's essay, and tell us what you think of this.

This guy Canyon Shearer, who is at the center of these many acrimonious comments, is a very disturbed person. I cannot believe that the Washington Post would allow this kind of thing to go on.

What do you think?

"We need a president and a congress with the integrity, “under God,” to restore the people’s confidence and participation in what Lincoln called “this...best hope of earth.”"

Now if only you could have left out "under God". People do not need God to have integrity, good moral ethics, and good leadership. Those are earthly concepts and God has nothing to do with it.

Reverend:

"religion and politics are inseparable, and should be partners for justice and peace."??

I have not one tiny problem with that just like I have no problem with, "the fox and the rancher should be partners." After all, both like the same thing. It's only the difference in how the chicken is prepared before eating it.

What's religion good for? What does it do? What contribution to the economy does religion make? What do you as an example of a religion operator do to earn your daily bread? What does the fox do?

The rancher bringing the fox in as a partner is absolutely stupid - a no brainer. Government partnering with religion is different?

The Bible is a hoax. I know it. You know it. And it's good for us to have our government partnered with con organizations, religions that rely on the hoax to justify their existence?

Religion has no place in organized society except to disorganize. Evangelism has divided the country and now conquers the economic void thus created. Of course the big money still goes to those leading the multitudes to hell.

((Stop stealing - both religion and government hate competition. Partners.))

After 8 years of Bush and Cheney, I'd be happy with a President who 1) pledges to uphold the Constitution, 2) is competent enough to lead a government and a military at war and 3) can represent the United States to the rest of the world without being a laughingstock.

The president makes an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States...and when he breaks that oath he has no honor and no integrity. He is what we Wiccans would call a Warlock; an oath breaker, someone that turns on his own people. Bush is without honor. Not worth spit.

The Constitution is what every president has sworn to protect...not any religion or god.And those who choose to follow their own religious agenda instead of the Constitutions' should be impeached...for they have proven to be without integrity.

And more then integrity, I want a president that is accainted with science and history. I want one that is intelligent and can be thoughtful and use history to protect the people and help to make decisions. We have had enough of fools in boots.

I don't give a flying fig if they are moral people according to any religion, as long as they have honor and will do what must be done to fulfill their oath.

"Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”
Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scientist and Physician, 384 BC-322 BC)

terra

VOTE: ((( Peace Love Rock nRoll nRap Mitt_ROMNEY for Prez 2008 YEA! )))))))))

Thank You , me fellow Eclati-On(s) & not Off(s)! Ya Ya!

Romney Romney Romney Romney!

America is in good hands Mit Romney!

"America’s psyche floats on the weather-changing surface of America’s soul, which has always known that the powers of the mighty, even when granted by the people, are subject to the truthful judgment of THE ALMIGHTY"

bleeeeh...

Dr E,
Surely you are aware that one need not subscibe to belief in a deity ti have integrity.

"To gain the White House, the present president first bought a baseball team and became famous for managing it."

From all appearances, he is actually famous for MISmanaging it. If he can't manage a baseball team. what made anyone think he could manage a country?

"“What we should be looking for in a presidential candidate” is someone with more integrity than we the people now have. We need a president morally superior not only to the president we have but morally superior to us."

That's why we have a system of checks and balances - when it's allowed to work properly,it serves to keep our leaders homest. Problem is, too many loopholes and "executive privileges" have been added to it over the years.

"JAMES MADISON did not doubt God's providential will toward us, but was humbly cautious about our hearing: “When the Almighty condescends to address mankind in this our language, his meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated.” I wouldn’t want a president who lacked this theological wisdom."

I wouldn't want one who spent too much time trying to peer through the fog surrounding any deity's will for a country that doesn't belong to it.

"I wouldn’t want a president disregardful of God’s will, or cock-sure about it."

I prefer a president whose primary concern s not the will of his/her deity. but the upholding of the Constitution.

"“At their best, religion and democracy each respect the equality and value of every human being: all of us are stamped with the Creator’s image, each endowed with certain inalienable rights....These doctrines are unifying and inclusive.”"

Kind of depends on how you define Creator, doesn't it?

".....“About the moral values and religious beliefs of a candidate,” we need to know whether the person is an American in worldview, having the American mind of liberty as God’s gift, integrity as God’s demand, and humility “under God” the Almighty as prophylactic against the abuse of power."

So one who does not view integrity and humility as divinely given is not qualified to be President? You have every right to refuse to vote for a non-theist, but there is no religious test for fitness to be elected.

the wag line
Integrity is the most important thing, and if you can fake that...

has a lot of truth in Real Life politics, as opposed to the fairy tales we all tell each other about what men of integrity our great leaders are.

Which of them hesitate to lie or cheat or torture when they think it serves their political interests or their country's interest.

And the people on some level want that quality. When Edwards says that Obama isn't "tough" enough to be president, or Rudy says no-one but him is tough enough,
that is the subtext...

I will do Whatever it takes to protect our interests.

Roosevelt did. Wilson did. Even Lincoln did from time to time.

We are indeed NOT electing a Pastor. We are electing someone who can be an SOB when needed.

Indeed. I have no quarrel with someone telling me about their faith as long as they, like Lincoln, tell me they will never cite their god as authority for their decisions.

I would only note that there would, therefore, be no principled objection to an atheist of integrity and demonstrated character and moral compass asking for my vote.

Martin Luther said he would rather be governed by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian.

Cal Thomas got to your conclusion much more directly and clearly this time.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Dr. Willis E Elliot,

Yes, in survey after survey in other countries as well, "integrity" is what most people wants to see in their leaders. "Ethical" is placed highly too apart from competence.

Happy New Year

Thank you and best regards

"J"