Should the deeply religious be allowed to be world leaders?

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them." - George Bush

Bush appointed General William Boykin, who speaks at evangelical Christian meetings, to head the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Boykin once said the war on terror was a fight against Satan, and also told a Somali warlord that, 'My God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.'

Should a man so deeply religious (insane?), be allowed to be in a position of such a power?

In most (all?) cases, religion should not be allowed to influence political decisions. Religious people obviously do not rely on facts in order to believe things; in George Bush's case, this is obvious.

As opposed to discriminating against possibly good candidates based on religious beliefs? We don't need to discriminate against people simply because they are religious, we need a better and quicker mechanism for getting losers out of office. Not all religious people will screw things up as bad as Bush.

Adrian

religion blinds people sometimes methinks

wtf, thats like all those cults

"god told me to kill myself"

Is Bush honestly saying he speaks to God?!?

No, he's saying God speaks to him!

****ing nutcase is what he is. Only in America ey

And what exactly are facts? If you are talking about scientific facts, then they have been proved no more implicity than religious ideas. There is only more empirical evidence to support theories, which don't forget are merely fictions standing on no higher a level than religious ideas. Empirical evidence does not transform a theory into a fact, it only enhances its apparent ability to predict situations to which it applies. It does not transform it into a implicit truth. So in the grand scheme of things, religious ideas are no more false than scientific theories as both are merely works of fiction, and pure mathematics is the only true science because it is based on the reflexively self-justifying proposition that 1=1!I'm not really arguing your point here, just your use of the word fact.

As for arguing your point......I think that discriminating on the part of religious belief is unfair. Almost anybody who comes into power of a country is going to have a predisposed belief or idea about certain things, whether or not these ideas are of a religious kind. Some people may be racist towards black people, some may favour young people over old, a man may favour male rights over womens. You see where I'm going here. All of these, although not of a religious kind, may directly influence the policy decision of a leader. So really you'd have to stop anybody with any predetermined ideas about anything becoming leader, which would eliminate pretty much everybody!! To discriminate solely against religious people would not only be unfair, but would ultimately be pointless in your attempt to eradicate predetermined ideas from the minds of leaders.

Here's hoping God never tells him to strike at Finland.

But I agree, krb. Religions and politics don't go hand in hand very well.

Which is very much the case with the West Vs the Middle East / Terrorism.

Problem isn't that Bush is religious, its that his religion deeply influences his politics. Some of the more extreme groups in the US (& don't forget that Bush has procliamed himself a fundamentalist, altho not as gone as the ppl I am about to describe) think Bush has been appointed by god (he didn't win the election) & some believe that the destruction of the middle East will herald the second coming.

Well they're obviously a couple of electrical appliances short of a comet store! But the fact that Bush's religious ideas affect his decisions shouldn't be a reason to ban religious people from taking up positions of power. Bush should be able to make decisions without his prejudices or beliefs being involved in the decision making process. It's the fact that he's a bad president that allows his religious beliefs to be such a big part of his decisions, not the fact that he holds those beliefs in the first place. Does that make sense?

First of all, I would like to know where this was taken from. Unless I hear these words from his mouth, I have a hard time believing anyone would be stupid enough to say something like this. Not saying Bush is the smartest man, but this is crazy. I just watched an interview the other night with ol' George, and when asked about religion he never mentioned anything out of the ordinary.

But, when asked about the weapons of mass destruction, he totally dodged the question.