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Did God Intervene?

When I read things like this, I stop wondering why Bush won the election. It�s so obvious now! God wanted him to be president! What was I thinking!? These people are truly something else. �If Kerry had won, it would have proved God was cursing the United States.� WOW. Good thing he didn�t win, huh? We�d all be cursed! It never ceases to amaze me how so many people can be so completely close-minded. News flash to all of you bible thumpers out there: There are other people in the world who don�t share your beliefs. The indignation these people show towards people who are different from themselves is matched only by their willingness to force their beliefs onto those same people. Wasn�t Jesus the one who coined the phrase, �Love thy neighbor�? The blatant contempt these people show towards anyone with a different perspective on things is hypocracy of the worst kind. This reminded me of something I read in the NY Times by Gary Hart- former Colorado Senator�
�If we are to insert "faith" into the public dialogue more directly and assertively, let's not be selective. Let's go all the way. Let's not just define "faith" in terms of the law and judgment; let's define it also in terms of love, caring, forgiveness. Compassionate conservatives can believe social ills should be addressed by charity and the private sector; liberals can believe that the government has a role to play in correcting social injustice. But both can agree that human need, poverty, homelessness, illiteracy and sickness must be addressed. Liberals are not against religion. They are against hypocrisy, exclusion and judgmentalism. They resist the notion that one side or the other possesses "the truth" to the exclusion of others. There is a great difference between Cotton Mather and John Wesley.
There is also the disturbing tendency to insert theocratic principles into the vision of America's role in the world. There is evil in the world. Nowhere in our Constitution or founding documents is there support for the proposition that the United States was given a special dispensation to eliminate it. Surely Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator. But there are quite a few of those still around and no one is advocating eliminating them. Neither Washington, Adams, Madison nor Jefferson saw America as the world's avenging angel. Any notion of going abroad seeking demons to destroy concerned them above all else. Mr. Bush's venture into crusaderism frightened not only Muslims, it also frightened a very large number of Americans with a sense of their own history.�
I think he brings up a very good point. These people who so profess to love America, very clearly hate Americans. This country was founded on principles of inclusion and acceptance�of all religions. Bible thumpers think that Bush was chosen by God, and that is the reason he won the election� I personally think ignorance had a lot more to do with it. A recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that nearly 70 percent of President Bush's supporters believe the U.S. has come up with "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. A third of the president's supporters believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. And more than a third believe that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion. I guess these people are so used to believing in things with no supporting evidence that this wasn�t a big stretch for them. No offense to any of you readers out there who may be religious, but I just cannot seem to grasp the idea of believing in something with absolutely no shred of evidence to support it- be it weapons of mass destruction or a God. Organized religion, in my opinion, is one of the most dangerous things on this planet. More blood has been spilled in this world for religious purposes than anything else. It fosters ignorance, hatred and exclusion. Are these really the things we are suppose to follow? To live our lives by? Bible thumpers just stroll through life, so completely caught up in their religion that they basically become sheep. One of the biblical references I find to be ironically appropriate is �And may the lord be thy shepherd.� How right you are��a bunch of sheep being led by an imaginary shepherd.

Now I am not saying there is no God- I obviously don�t know. But neither does anyone else- and those who think they do are diluting themselves. But if there is a god, I refuse to believe he would be such a vindictive SOB as to throw people in Hell for not believing in him, when he hasn�t given anyone a good reason to do so.

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