All this talk from the Bushies got me to thinking. How much of a good
"Christian" is the US President? It seems like he doesn't fear God
despite the fact he says he worships him. Why is it that atheists can
live up to the Christian ideal more than a supposedly true believer
like Bush and Ashcroft can?

----------------------
http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson109.html

God, Bush, and Functional Atheism
by William L. Anderson



My family and I attend a conservative Presbyterian church in a fairly
conservative place (western Maryland), so it is not surprising that our
congregation consists in large part of supporters of Republicans in
general and the George W. Bush Administration in particular. I suspect
it would be more surprising if our small Presbyterian Church in America
assembly were a mass of Democrats (or even libertarians), given the
politics of modern America.

One of the publications our church receives is Citizen, which
represents the political arm of the Focus on the Family organization
founded and run by James Dobson. Citizen is unabashedly pro-Republican,
although Dobson periodically has warned the party that it must impose a
"pro-family" agenda or Dobson will leave and take his votes elsewhere.

The latest edition of Citizen comes with a cover picture of Bush
standing in a church with a large wooden cross hanging from the wall
behind him. The photograph is supposed to convey the juxtaposition of
two important symbols, the Christian Cross (which is above Bush's
head) and the President of the United States. Yet, the look on Bush's
face is one of complete arrogance; indeed, Bush's expression
expresses the opposite of the message given by the humility of Jesus,
who died on the cross.

What I have seen in the aftermath of the election from Bush-supporting
evangelicals has been their silly belief that they have "won"
something. Yet, when one examines the record of this administration,
the term "Christian" does not come to mind. Instead, I would like to
coin the phrase "functional atheism" to describe the Bush Presidency.

While I have not used "functional atheism" in previous articles to
portray the actions of the U.S. Government under Bush, I have come
close, calling outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft, who openly
espouses his Christian beliefs, a "nihilist." What I mean by
"functional atheism" is this: the U.S. Government is a utilitarian
enterprise which operates by the simple rule of force (as opposed to a
rule of law). The concepts of "right" and "wrong" are limited to what
is useful for increasing or protecting the rule of the state, period.
The participants in the system do not deviate from those standards,
whether or not they meet the requirements of what Christians of the
past would have termed "just."

In the past week, new revelations of vast abuses of U.S. prisoners
being held in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay have appeared in the news. Yet,
many of the same people who condemn these atrocities are quite willing
to see government officials engage in the same behavior toward
Americans. While abuse, torture, and outright lying and criminal
behavior by participants in the "justice system" are common, the public
gives a collective yawn and juries continue to swallow the lies that
prosecutors feed to them. Although the accessible examples of such
behavior are legion and have been well-documented elsewhere, I will
give some of my own.

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano in a recent article gave a couple of
terrifying but all-too-typical stories of torture and abuse of people
in this country. The first involved the accusation (almost surely
false) of massive child molestation against two owners of a Florida
daycare center in 1984. The chief accuser was then-Dade County
State's Attorney Janet Reno (yes, that Janet Reno) who was in the
middle of a tough re-election campaign and was determined to get a
guilty verdict.

Reno was able to have then-18-year-old Ileana Furster, Frank
Furster's wife, held without bond. Furthermore, the young woman was
placed nude in a solitary confinement cell, being in full view of male
and female guards. In 1998, Ileana described some of her treatment:

They would give me cold showers. Two people would hold me, run me under
cold water, then throw me back in the cell naked with nothing, just a
bare floor. And I used to be cold, real cold. I would have my periods
and they would wash me and throw me back into the cell.

(Note: This action came at a time when prosecutors around the country
were engaging in child molestation witch hunts against day care owners,
the original accusations stemming from the encouragement in the 1974
Child Abuse Prevention Act, better known as the Mondale Act. It
provided federal money to states that prosecuted alleged child abuse,
and prosecutors were all-too-happy to jump into the mix. Many of the
accusations were outlandishly false, but prosecutors and their media
stooges managed to keep the enterprise going until the accusations
collapsed under the scrutiny of a particularly egregious set of charges
mounted in Wenatchee, Washington, a decade ago. However, even today,
some people are serving life terms for "child molestation" crimes they
almost certainly did not commit. Frank Furster is one of them.)

Finally, Reno began to visit Ms. Furster on a regular basis and
browbeat her with accusations and promises of a life sentence unless
she cooperated (that is, told the jury what Reno wanted her to say).
Further visits from psychiatrists who allegedly specialized in
"recovering memories" - which has turned out to be another form of
government quackery - finally got their intended results. Ileana
haltingly accused her husband in court (she has since recanted) and
Frank Furster was found guilty.

Keep in mind that this case, as well as the infamous Grant Snowden
case, in which Reno falsely accused a Miami police officer of massive
child molestation won her fame and adulation from among the Democratic
Party faithful. (Snowden received a life sentence, but the Florida
Supreme Court overturned the conviction after it said that the evidence
Reno presented amounted to fiction and her tactics were based on
torture and abuse.) In fact, Reno was so feted by the party that
Hillary Clinton successfully pushed her to be U.S. Attorney General in
1993, saying that Reno was "good on children's issues."

In other words, Reno engaged in the application of what can only be
termed torture, and the political classes loved her for it. That Reno
would set off a huge massacre at Waco a month into her tenure - and
receive public adoration for it - only confirms to me that Americans
have no problem with the state employing torture and murder, as long as
it is applied to people they deem as being unpopular or "out of the
mainstream." (Or it is not happening to them or their friends and
relatives.)

The second example involves Reno's successor, John Ashcroft. In his
recent farewell speech, Ashcroft cited the "conviction" and
imprisonment of the alleged "Lackawanna Six" as an example of a
"successful" tenure at the DOJ. As Napolitano writes, instead of awards
and self-congratulations, what should have been handed out were a
number of indictments against U.S. attorneys.

Briefly stated, the case proceeded as such: after originally calling
the accused Muslims (some of whom were American citizens) part of a
"terror cell," the government's case soon fell apart for lack of
evidence as it became obvious that the accused posed no threat and were
not planning terrorism. However, after a federal judge condemned the
government's case, U.S. attorneys told the men that if they did not
plead guilty to outlandish charges, the government would simply hold
them as "enemy combatants," which would mean the loss of due process,
no access to lawyers, and no chance of a fair trial, only summary
judgment. (Of course, one can argue that it is nearly impossible to
receive a fair trial in this country already.)

Faced with such odds, the men capitulated. Instead of condemning the
actions of government prosecutors, as someone who had sworn before God
to "protect and defend the U.S. Constitution," Ashcroft gave them
awards then bragged to the nation about the whole thing.

While atheists will disagree with me, an underlying base for the rule
of law and due process is that there is a "higher power" (or God) who
dispenses ultimate justice. For many years, a watchword in criminal
justice was "better to let 20 guilty men go free than one innocent man
to be convicted." People could believe that and live by it, since they
believed that even if a guilty person avoided justice for the time
being, he would have to face God sooner or later.

In our "sophisticated," secular society, that is no longer the case. As
a neighbor's car bumper sticker proudly proclaims, "There's only
now." In the context of criminal justice, if someone is not convicted
right now, then that person avoids justice forever. When Larry King
asked Bob Jones III, president of the Christian fundamentalist Bob
Jones University about the prospect of innocent people being executed
by the state, Jones replied that even if that were the case, that was
OK, since he believed the death penalty is a good thing. Jones gave a
utilitarian answer that the atheistic champion of utilitarianism,
Jeremy Bentham, would have applauded.

Conservative Christians are forever applauding people like Bush and
Ashcroft because they believe that the presence of such conservative
Christians gives "legitimacy" to their own religious beliefs. Yet, Bush
and his minions have not governed like Christians, but far from it, as
the record clearly demonstrates. From the demolition of Falluja to the
imprisonment of Martha Stewart and the Lackawanna Six, the Bush
Administration has governed with a cynicism that has been hard to
match. (Although, I will admit, previous administrations have set
precedents of their own. The Bushies are hardly alone in their
destructiveness; however, the Nixon and Johnson administrations did not
claim to be "Christian.")

The actions of Bush, Ashcroft, and others in this government are made
by people who apparently do not fear God. While they may claim to be
Christians - and are near-worshipped by many in the evangelical and
fundamentalist community - they govern as though they were atheists.
That is why I call them "functional atheists." And I say this with no
insult intended to atheists, many of whom have demonstrated a greater
commitment to rule of law and real justice than Bush and Ashcroft could
ever dream of doing.

All this talk from the Bushies got me to thinking. How much of a good
"Christian" is the US President? It seems like he doesn't fear God
despite the fact he says he worships him. Why is it that atheists can
live up to the Christian ideal more than a supposedly true believer
like Bush and Ashcroft can?