Separate church and state

May 17, 10:52 AMManchester Atheism ExaminerBarbara L Bell

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A new scandal is hitting the internet this morning: Proof that we were conducting a religious war in the Middle East.

Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote in an Op-Ed describing how Donald Rumsfield callously manipulated born-again Bush with bible quotes in intelligence briefings (among all the other despicable things going on). GQ has posted some of the report covers Rumsfield developed and I agree with Mr. Rich - they are creepy.

And inappropriate.

Granted, the former President did allow himself to be manipulated. He chose to put religious belief first. As a result, he opened himself up to this type of blatant manipulation. It fed into his belief system and rather than using logic and evidence to make decisions, he used god.

And we all know, the results were and are disastrous. Thousands dead, a country in ruins, a destroyed national image.

What more proof do we need that religion needs to get out of government? I don’t care if the religious want to keep their religion in the public eye. I suspect most of us atheists are numb to it. As American citizens, freedom of speech is just as much the right of the religious as it is anyone else’s. But the results of the Bush administration, if nothing else, have provided a textbook case-study on why religion and government combined is bad policy.

President Obama has made some improvement in this area, but in my humble opinion, not enough. I do think, however, if we ever do the right thing and begin prosecuting former Bush administration officials for war crimes, we’ll find more of this kind of crap occurred. If we don’t prosecute, we’ll still find out, only over a longer period of time. Either way, hopefully these discoveries will provide the impetus to make real change and truly get all vestiges of religion out of our government.

 Be the candle in the dark: SkeptiCamp.