Those unstable, superstitious Christians

townhall.com ^ | 4/23/04 | David Limbaugh

[kattracks]

Why does it make so many on the Left uncomfortable that President Bush openly professes his reliance on God in performing his official duties?

Actor Richard Gere has joined in the chorus led by Ralph Nader and others condemning President Bush for mixing his faith with his governance. "One thing I've learned in my life is never to trust anyone who thinks that he exclusively has God on his side," said Gere to a crowd of like-minded Hollywooders.

Gere's brilliant insight followed a recent statement by perennial presidential aspirant and equal opportunity nuisance Ralph Nader lambasting Bush for not divorcing his faith from his public service. Nader was apparently disturbed by a passage in Bob Woodward's new book.

Woodward reports that when Bush was in the process of deciding to attack Iraq he prayed "for the strength to do the Lord's will." This "revelation" reportedly prompted Nader to tell the Christian Science Monitor,

"We are dealing here with a basically unstable president … a messianic militarist. A messianic militarist, under our constitutional structure, is an unstable office-holder. Talk about separation of church and state: It is not separated at all in Bush's brain, and this is extremely disturbing."

Hold on a second there, Ralph. One with a messianic complex would regard himself as a savior or liberator, according to dictionaries I've consulted. In the statements Nader is referring to, President Bush is doing just the opposite. He is asking God to give him the strength to do God's will. Nothing could be more humble; nothing could be less egotistical. Nothing could be less "messianic."

That's one of the ironic things about Bush's secular critics. They see him as a man literally eaten up with macho-pride and cowboy swagger, yet at his core, he is a man of extraordinary humility, a person who understands this historic moment is not about him, but about the causes, people, and most of all, God he serves.

And while Bush quietly admits that he cherishes his personal relationship with God, he doesn't claim his relationship is exclusive or that he's receiving direct orders from God, especially as to generalship of the war.

David Aikman, author of the new book "A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush," says that Bush is not unduly conspicuous about his faith. "He's never said God told us to go to war, never said God told me to do anything … He's been very careful," said Aikman.

So why do liberal elitists recoil like snakes when Bush makes references to his faith? Why do they act like it's newsworthy when the highest officeholder in the land admits to being a practicing Christian in a nation where most citizens claim to be Christians?

Well, one possible reason is that they believe in a pure separation of church and state, at least as it applies to the Christian church. Some adhere it to such an extreme degree -- as evidenced by Ralph Nader's ludicrous quote above -- that they insist it requires a Christian to separate his faith from his governance.

As if it's possible (or desirable) to create an internal Chinese firewall in someone's brain or his personality to cordon off his worldview from his decisions in office. As if Christians should not only keep their opinions to themselves, but from themselves.

How would Ralph like it if we told him he should not allow his moral judgments about corporate greed to affect his political advocacy or inform his candidacy?

Isn't the double standard painfully obvious? It's not the secularists' allegiance to church-state separation that drives them, but an abiding distrust of and hostility toward Christianity, which many of them see as a dangerous superstition.

A perfect illustration of this is an e-mail I received in response to my last column on the book "I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be an Atheist." My correspondent wrote, "when grown men and women believe Noah and his brood incestuously repopulated the whole planet, I am a bit dismayed that people can be so stupid."

There you have it. Christians are unstable, science-averse simpletons so weak they have to rely on a fictitious savior, so unsophisticated they believe in the forces of good and evil, and so reckless that they will fight wars to protect their national security even if many of America's traditional allies don't have the courage or rectitude to join them.

Oh, how far we've come in this nation since it was considered unquestionably noble to place our "firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence."

©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Contact David Limbaugh | Read Limbaugh's biography

[kcvl]

Here is one of the post in Richard Gere's guestbook...


Wednesday 04/21/2004 9:40:52pm
Name: Wes
E-Mail: Wes@pdn.net
Homepage Title: Florence County Sheriff's Office
Homepage URL: http://www.fcso.org
Referred By: Search Engine
Location: South Carolina
Comments: God bless George Bush and the moral clarity he brings to the Presidency.

[GeronL]

Oh that would bring out the ACLU and the crazies to call for an end to that.

[kcvl]

Another couple of post from Gere's guestbook...


Thursday 04/22/2004 2:28:24am
Name: Dr. Kevin Martin
E-Mail: kmartin@pol.net
Homepage Title:
Homepage URL:
Referred By: Just Surfed In
Location: Louisiana,MO
Comments: You used to be one of my favorite actors. I now feel that you are Anti-American, and therefore I am no longer a fan.
Regards
Dr. Kevin Martin

*****

Wednesday 04/21/2004 11:38:45pm
Name: keith holley
E-Mail: holleywuud52
Homepage Title:
Homepage URL:
Referred By: Web Ring
Location: south carolina
Comments: Richard Gere. What an ungrateful snot-nosed elite type you have become. We are at war. Having been attacked by foreigner terrorists our leader is simply trying to protect the American people. Are mistakes made. Of course you stupid idiot. This a war for our survival. If you were not such a stupid a--hole you would be trying to rally the nation for the effort. I hope you meet a terrorist yourself! Then you can tell him/her your vitrolic rhetoric while he cuts your guts out.

[GeronL]

There is one more now. =o)

[kitkat]

Gere wasn't the least bit bashful about promoting his Buddhist faith and his desire to have us take on China in order to help the Buddhists.

[kcvl]

Maybe if President Bush was a Buddhist or had AIDS Richard Gere would "care" about him.


GERE FOUNDATION


Gere Foundation is a non-profit tax-exempt organization incorporated under section 501(c)(3) in the United States. It was established by Richard Gere to provide philanthropic assistance to the causes and groups whose work represents the humanitarian goals that he has long supported.

Primarily, the Gere Foundation contributes directly to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community-in-exile to aid in the cultural, religious, health and educational survival of the Tibetan people. Dislocated from their homeland since 1959 and under the continuing brutal occupation of the Chinese, hundreds of refugees risk their lives every year escaping to freedom in India and elsewhere. Gere Foundation’s list of recipients includes: His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Charitable Trust, International Campaign for Tibet in Washington D.C., The Office of Tibet in New York City, The Office of Tibet in London, Department of Religion and Culture in Dharamsala, The Tibetan Children’s Villages, Rato, Sera, Drepung and Ganden Monasteries re-built in the south of India, and many others. The Foundation also supports and sponsors many publications such as Tricycle The Buddhist Review, Amnye Machen Institute, Wisdom Publications and Snow Lion Books. Finally, assistance is given to many translations of work which encompass and appreciate Buddhism as a living philosophy.

Gere Foundation also contributes to such groups as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for their work in global human rights, with particular emphasis on China and Tibet; Survival International for their work with indigenous endangered cultures; Oxfam America and The International Red Cross for their work in famine relief; AMFAR, Search Alliance, AIDS Project of Los Angeles, Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Children Affected by AIDS, and many other groups and research projects for their continuing struggle against AIDS and outreach assistance for its victims.

[Susannah]

mistake on the title of Limbaugh's book...on = against

interesting reviews of the book at amazon

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0895261111/ref%3Dnosim/satisfactiong-20/002-4256119-4029666

[kcvl]

I'll take Christianity over Gere's so-called religion any day, especially if this is what it does to you...(in other words Gere is stupid)


ROLE OF A LIFETIME

Torn with self-doubt and affluence and tired of austere theologies that look heavenwards for succor, the West has increasingly begun to look at eastern religious traditions. What was offbeat in the '60s is now almost a norm, influencing international idols such as soccer stars and Hollywood heroes. Richard Gere, known for his performance in Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, and An Officer and a Gentleman, is today considered His Holiness the Dalai Lama's most high-profile disciple. Excerpts from an interview by Rajiv Mehrotra for the Indian national television channel Doordarshan, in which Gere talks about how contact with His Holiness has changed his life.

You come to India quite often. What brings you here?
Well, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, obviously. I have been his student since 1982-83. Sometimes I come to Dharamsala (headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India) twice or thrice a year.

What has been your relationship with His Holiness and in what ways has he impacted your life?
I think it is impossible not to be affected on every possible level of your existence. Your mind and heart are totally transformed.

In what way has His Holiness transformed you?
Most of my teachers are from the Gelupa school of Tibetan Buddhism. There is a lot of work on the mind and intellectual play and exploration of reality itself, using language and pure logic, along with various techniques of meditation. It's a gradual process as the mind is familiarized with another way of seeing things and, hopefully, the correct way. So it is a process that takes several lifetimes, but if within a lifetime one can see gradual change…

You see a gradual opening of the heart and loosening of the bonds of egocentricity and a movement towards altruism. Not that you can make that kind of a giant leap. But as you start to move in that direction, your energy starts to move out. You feel a totally different environment inside and outside. The world changes as your mind changes. Now the other aspect of mind—the wisdom aspect—has its own voyage to take. You start to realize that perhaps the absolute reality, the concrete reality that our senses tell us is out there in the air, maybe isn't so concrete after all. It is in a state of constant fluidity. So again these things you take step by step, little by little. The taste of it starts to intoxicate your being, your mind, your action, your thoughts, your feelings.

Do you feel a conflict between the dharma and being a star?
No, no. It's a peculiar thing. Because people aren't actors. They think something different. It is the same way, I suppose, as I don't really know what it's like to be a jet pilot. So I project what that would be like. Essentially, it is a job—one that has both a creative and a very technical aspect to it. Sometimes it's drudgery. Sometimes it's great fun. I must do what I do. In this lifetime. Other lifetimes there are other jobs. You have your job, these guys all around you have their jobs, that are just as interesting to them as mine is to me. So I don't see any conflict there.

People really are people dealing with the same problems, coming to terms with them, trying to understand how it all happened. We have to try to find a way to neutralize those causes and then trust a path that is going to take us out of this.

You mentioned the Dalai Lama is a remarkable human being. You've spent a lot of time with him as a student. What is the role, the contribution, you believe the Dalai Lama is making?
He's the most simple man and the most complex man I've ever met. He's an artist and he's a farmer. He—like any great mind and heart—is able to engage each of us on a level where we exist. He has been giving me teachings on Shantideva, who was a great ninth century Indian monk at the Nalanda University, one of the greatest universities of ancient times, that saw a great flowering of Indian culture.

His Holiness said with total directness something that cut right through me. He said: "I never thought I was better than any creature." And when he says that you believe it. I can say that, but it's not really true—I am better than him or I am less good than him or whatever. His Holiness says all this without a mask, he's never had a mask. He is the Dalai Lama. He's got a job. That's his job. You're an interviewer tonight, I'm an interviewee tonight. The Dalai Lama is Dalai Lama. But outside of that one title he is a totally fluid human being who engages the heart and mind. He is able to do it with such grace and humility—I think that is the mark of a real teacher, a real friend. We do political work with him, we do socially responsible and charitable work with him. We see him as a spiritual teacher, we see him as a deity. So it is hard for us, who are not as developed as he is, to flip roles as quickly and as effortlessly as he can. It's a bit confusing sometimes. I feel I'm just starting to be able to do that with him.

You mentioned this aspect of being an actor as being a job. What satisfaction does doing a job as an actor bring to you?
Well, the first thing is the fact that I am able to live many lives at once. There are a lot of growth possibilities depending on what level I give myself to it.

Richard Gere, the successful actor. If this was to run out, what else might you be? What else might you do?
I could practice a lot more for one thing. Music has been a very strong part of my life, a lot of my acting has to do with music, playing instruments. There is also a musical sense to the way I work.

If I were a wish-fulfilling genie, and I gave you three wishes, what would they be?
Happiness to all beings. Number One. Happiness to all beings. Number Two. And Number Three—happiness in the causes of happiness to all beings. No question about that.


Life Positive, April 1996

[kcvl]

Photo op (GAG!)

Actor Richard Gere, right, speaks to Tibetan hunger striker Sonam Wangdu during a hunger strike near the United Nations headquarters in New York Tuesday, April 13, 2004. Gere showed support to the three Tibetans as the entered their twelfth day of a hunger strike to call attention to the fight for independence of Tibet. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Ralph Nader is unsafe at any speed.

[GeronL]

enough Gere... stop it... =O)

[kcvl]

Richard Gere and the Tibet House -- What declassified CIA document says

12/19/2002

The media generally credit Richard Gere for the creation of Tibet House. It is not true. CIA is the founder of Tibet House, according to declassified CIA documents.

The same CIA document also disclosed that the Dalai Lama was paid annualy $180,000 by the CIA.

This is what declassified CIA document said about Tibet House in New York:

Tibet House

The Agency (CIA) is supporting the establishment of Tibet Houses in [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] Geneva, and New York City.

The Tibet Houses are intended to serve as unofficial representation for the Dalai Lama to maintain the concept of a separate Tibetan political identity.

[whereasandsoforth]

I never understood the appeal of Richard Gere. Watching him act is like listening to a piano key slowly struck over and over again. And he has the eyes of a rodent.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

That picture makes me sick.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

I never understood the appeal of Richard Gere. Watching him act is like listening to a piano key slowly struck over and over again. And he has the eyes of a rodent.

LOL! Hilarious!