Poll: Growing number in U.S. say Obama a Muslim; more Republicans say he's Muslim than Christian

sometimes i am so embarrassed by fellow americans

I saw that too and it’s so stupid and seem to willfully ignore facts and observations. I would guess that he’s actually one of the least religious presidents in recent history and only says he is religous because you can’t win politically if you don’t have “faith”

I’m more right than left too and that crap really irkes me.

Yes, Obama is muslim!
(just supporting the outrageous claim because I want to dethrone him)

I believe a similar percentage of people think we never actually landed on the moon, so go figure. I do find results like this to be disturbing though. Folks who claim he is a Muslim really detract from otherwise valid opposing points of view (not that there’s anything wrong with being a Muslim). It’s a shame that the wackos on both sides get so much media attention. I guess it sells though.

Marcus, a lot of Catholics have the same question. 25% of the population but only 1 president. Heck, Ike was a Jehovah’s Witness when he was elected.

^agreed.

I’m never sure what to make of polls like this or similar ones that show large proportions of the population believe they’ve been abducted by aliens etc. I remember once seeing a poll result where about 40% of respondents stated they believed they were in the top 1% of earners.

I’m not sure these polls demonstrate people’s true beliefs. Maybe people just like messing with pollsters!

Freemasons run the country!

Black Swan Wrote:
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> What I don’t get is who the f*ck cares?

+1

he’s def a chirstian. if i remember correctly his pastor was known for calling white people the devil.

good times.

Should I be afraid or happy that most of Americans are now officially retarded…..

ohai Wrote:
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> MattLikesAnalysis? kkent?

I couldn’t possibly care less. Like Petey stated, outside of D.C. and a few other regions, very few people follow the news. Man on the street interviews in NYC show that a large portion of the population doesn’t know who the vice president is. It actually surprises me that the number of people isn’t higher who think he’s Muslim. And as Petey stated, the guy is a lukewarm Christian at best, but most likely at agnostic.

mar350 Wrote:
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> i’m sure he’s truly dedicated to whatever religion
> he wants to be tomorrow.

> kkent Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> most likely at agnostic.

You guys got any basis for these opinions other than your own preconceived notions of what all God-hating libruls are like?

From the NYT:

May 12, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
President Apostate?
By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
Chevy Chase, Md.

BARACK OBAMA has emerged as a classic example of charismatic leadership — a figure upon whom others project their own hopes and desires. The resulting emotional intensity adds greatly to the more conventional strengths of the well-organized Obama campaign, and it has certainly sufficed to overcome the formidable initial advantages of Senator Hillary Clinton.

One danger of such charisma, however, is that it can evoke unrealistic hopes of what a candidate could actually accomplish in office regardless of his own personal abilities. Case in point is the oft-made claim that an Obama presidency would be welcomed by the Muslim world.

This idea often goes hand in hand with the altogether more plausible argument that Mr. Obama’s election would raise America’s esteem in Africa — indeed, he already arouses much enthusiasm in his father’s native Kenya and to a degree elsewhere on the continent.

But it is a mistake to conflate his African identity with his Muslim heritage. Senator Obama is half African by birth and Africans can understandably identify with him. In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith.

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.)

It is true that the criminal codes in most Muslim countries do not mandate execution for apostasy (although a law doing exactly that is pending before Iran’s Parliament and in two Malaysian states). But as a practical matter, in very few Islamic countries do the governments have sufficient authority to resist demands for the punishment of apostates at the hands of religious authorities.

For example, in Iran in 1994 the intervention of Pope John Paul II and others won a Christian convert a last-minute reprieve, but the man was abducted and killed shortly after his release. Likewise, in 2006 in Afghanistan, a Christian convert had to be declared insane to prevent his execution, and he was still forced to flee to Italy.

Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama — not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

That an Obama presidency would cause such complications in our dealings with the Islamic world is not likely to be a major factor with American voters, and the implication is not that it should be. But of all the well-meaning desires projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic.

Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace.”

Does Obama smoke? And is smoking a sin? The only religion I know of that forbids smoking is Mormonism and that has a very small number of adherents worldwide.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/11/obamas-interview-with-ca...

That’s the interview with Obama from 2004. It’s clear that he’s not a literalist when it comes to the bible, but I think it’s also incorrect to call him an agnostic.

Frankly someone with an indepth knowledge of Christianity and Islam whose abiding wish is for peace and tolerance between religions seems to me like an ideal world leader at this point in world history. The less fundamentalists we have in power the better.

If smoking is a very minor sin then surely war in God’s name is a vastly greater affront. If Obama can help bring peace to the middle east, that would be a huge achievement.

Edit:
“Most likely he truly doesn’t know if there’s a god, much like most Americans, including much of the 3/4 of this nation who call themselves “Christians” but who attend church about once a year.”

Kkent - Are you implying that some people DO know that there is a god.? As opposed to believing it to be true of course. If you can truly prove the nature and existence of God, you should share your findings with the rest of the world. At the very least you’ll get on Oprah!

Should we thank Obama for finally getting out of Iraque?