and yet George Bush had the intelligence to understand that an unborn baby is a person unlike many others who use pseudo science to deny the very obvious in order to appease their seared consciences.

George: <You gave a sweeping description of the role of religion in history that has become standard (“politically correct”?)>

I don't know that my view is standard, George, and it certainly isn't politically correct.
My position is simply that our culture has to change (or collapse) and that our institutions are the pillars that maintain it. Established and pseudo-established (higher) religions play a crucial role in compensating for and rationalising a society's shortcomings, providing members of society with compensation, diversion and legitimacy. This complex functioning, however, is an "organic" adaptation that knows only its own "genuine" truth. Like the individual, the embedded institution (symbiotically adapted and incapable of conceiving a split from its host) is capable of feats of self-deception and rationalisation that serves its material interests. The church is a materialistic institution that merely deals in the ethereal matters that are its reciprocal function. Of course it believes in itself regardless; how could it deny its own life? No institution looks at itself critically; its function is to secure and strengthen its hold, in perpetuity. The same applies to the atheist liberal/humanist/technocratic alternative; they exist within and are adapted to a social/cultural paradigm. Many of the practices developed and enacted under this dispensation are destructive (and self-destructive) in various ways, but again, the institution is symbiotically adapted and serves the host according to irrational dictates, notwithstanding its professed rationalism (in fact another ideology). Examples are legion: technologically exacerbating an already crowded planet; unsustainable and untenable economics, weapons of mass destruction etc.
Western capitalist culture is spiritually and materially untenable, yet it is supported "on those very terms", by our spiritual and ostensibly rationalist institutions; neither institution, nor their respective congregations will look critically and impartially at their practices. They just go on adapting and rationalising.

Dear Banjo,
you're as elusive as ever; not sure where you stand?

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Dear Poirot,

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"... George W. Bush was an ignorant, unintelligent man who was engineered into the position of President despite his shortcomings."

Perhaps he was simply hiding his light under a bushel.

He spent his final high school years at the Phillips Academy, reputed to be one of the toughest high schools in America. He went on to obtain a BA in history at Yale and an MBA at Harvard.

George dubya is the only U.S. President in history to have earned an MBA.

He then became a fighter pilot in the US Airforce.

In 1998 he was the first governor in Texas history to be elected to two consecutive four-year terms. In his second term, he promoted faith-based organisations and enjoyed high approval ratings. He proclaimed June 10, 2000 to be Jesus Day in Texas, a day on which he urged all Texans to answer the call to serve those in need.

He was elected 43rd president of the United States in January 2001 and re-elected in 2004 for a further four year term.

In 2000 and again in 2004, Time magazine named George W. Bush as its Person of the Year, a title awarded to someone who the editors believe "has done the most to influence the events of the year".

Bush's accent, his vacations on his Texas ranch, and his penchant for country metaphors contributed to his folksy, American cowboy image. It has been suggested that this was an active choice, a way of distinguishing himself from Northeastern intellectuals and anchoring himself to his Texas roots.

If he really was the "ignorant" and "unintelligent man" you say he was, Poirot, he must have been a genius.

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Dear Banjo,

I think you're right that there must have been some sort of "genius" at work when a man such as George W. Bush was capable of attaining the highest office in the most powerful country in the world - trouble is, I don't think it was his genius.
I have no idea how he achieved his academic qualifications as he came over as grossly inarticulate, cliched and vacant a good deal of the time. I've never met or witnessed anyone of superior intelligence look as inane as he...in fact, I suspect that a few strings might have been pulled to help him along the academic road - after all, he was a future president in the making.
He appeared to me to be a particularly ignorant and unintelligent man.

I'm with you, Poirot, and a great many others who consider George W an ignorant (and dangerous) fool. Of course it depends how we measure ignorance---which isn't want of knowledge but want of understanding---and intelligence. Personally, I can't square intelligence with conviction; apart from these terms being oxymoronic, the latter is always derived from an existing intelligence based on social reality, whether this condone cannibalism in a primitive culture, a hanging judge in Texas, or exploitation under capitalism.
Intelligence is striving to think independently of an established conceptual context.

Dear Squeers,

I've found an article that examines the opinion of one of George W. Bush's professors at Harvard Business School. He is of a similar opinion, and says that George Dubya wasn't quite as dumb as he seemed, only badly brought up (ignorant).
It pretty much confirms what I thought. Here is the link - it's two pages long.
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/09/16/tsurumi