Friday, October 07, 2005

God and George



Does God talk to George? Does George talk to God? Are they on first name basis? We don't know for sure but a new documentary argues that the answer to all these questions is yes:

A senior White House official has denied that the US president, George Bush, said God ordered him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

A spokesman for Mr Bush, Scott McClellan, said the claims, to be broadcast in a TV documentary later this month, were "absurd".

In the BBC film, a former Palestinian foreign minister, Nabil Shaath, says that Mr Bush told a Palestinian delegation in 2003 that God spoke to him and said: "George, go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan" and also "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq".

Scott McClellan argues that these allegations are "absurd". I want to know what exactly he finds absurd in them: that God would speak to George or that George would actually listen and get the message right or that George would believe God had spoken to him when it might have been the Devil or what? Or maybe he just meant that it was absurd to think that God takes the time to personally chat with George when otherwise he or she or they applies or apply a hands-off policy to most everything that is happening on this earth. Or maybe it's absurd that George hears voices in the first place.

This example is a good one about the logical outcome of all this religion talk in politics. It will and must lead to a point where various people are going to say that they are acting for one god or another, on direct orders, and there is no way we can refute this argument in a faith-based reality. And then we get faith-based wars and Gileads and small secret societies of echidneites busily eating chocolate ice-cream until they burst because I said they should.