ohai Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > MattLikesAnalysis? kkent? haha. but i think the best comment made so far is this… “he’s def a christian. if i remember correctly his pastor was known for calling white people the devil.” honestly, has everyone forgot that he had to defend his pastor and church during his first year of popularity? but of course it doesn’t matter. by my definition, he’s likely not truly religious. he smokes. thats a sin in all religions. the church and state are separate and his actions have proven that he’s not a jihadist. or is he? he did send more troops to their death in afghanistan… seriously, all of us on this forum should already know that the general populace is subjective and brainless, because our existence and reign is dependent on their existence and subordination. it is up to us to create laws so they know what they can and cannot do because they are unable to form their own code of ethics. how can we expect them to look further than his name? geez, judge a book by its cover more often!
ohai Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 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.
kkent Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > the guy is a lukewarm Christian at best, > but most likely at agnostic. i liked how he had JC’s face blacked out when he did that speech at Georgetown. i’m sure he’s truly dedicated to whatever religion he wants to be tomorrow.
mar350 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 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?
Yeah, he rarely attends church, he covered Jesus at Georgetown (as noted), and I read his extensive interview on religion and his Christianity from 2004 (?) and his viewpoints conform far more to secular humanism than to what the Bible teaches about salvation. I’m not knocking him–I don’t care what his religion is. I’m just stating this opinion based on what I have seen and it doesn’t appear that his faith conforms to traditional Catholic, mainline Protestant, or evangelical theology. Nor do his views tend to conform to Islamic theology. Nor do his views conform to atheist “theology” (or lack of theology). 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. Therefore, I believe he is most likely an agnostic.
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.”
Great post by kkent. I think he nailed it.
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-cathleen.html 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!
smoking is a sin in all religions whose texts state “treat your body as a temple”, most specifically Christianity, Judaism and Islam as it comes from Corinthians and is deemed the word of God by all those religions. any president who does not fight to eradicate access to negative, ungodly activities or substances is not religious. if obama was truly religious, he would have already made progress in making alcohol, tobacco, most prescription drugs, pornography, divorce and guns illegal. because he has not and it was never apart of his platform to begin with, he cannot be considered a true christian.
Should we thank Obama for finally getting out of Iraque?
Valores Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Should we thank Obama for finally getting out of > Iraque? The 52,000 US soldiers who remain there would probably consider such a thank you to be a bit premature, kind of like the infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner.
Carson Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 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! There are plenty of stupid & intelligent people that choose to believe misconceptions or just don’t know basic information. How many people believe the moon landing was fake? What about 9/11 conspiracy? Big foot exists? Alien abductions? MBA>CFA? On and on the list goes. This list just confirms that there remains a number of idiots or misinformed people. Not a really good poll IMO.
CFABLACKBELT Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > How many people believe the moon landing was > fake? > What about 9/11 conspiracy? > Big foot exists? > Alien abductions? > MBA>CFA? > I’m on the fence when it comes to Bigfoot.
higgmond Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > CFABLACKBELT Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > > How many people believe the moon landing was > > fake? > > What about 9/11 conspiracy? > > Big foot exists? > > Alien abductions? > > MBA>CFA? > > > > I’m on the fence when it comes to Bigfoot. i saw her at jersey mike’s on tuesday…that was one huge b*tch!!!
Valores Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Should we thank Obama for finally getting out of > Iraque? Obama and the Democrats have nothing to do with ‘getting us out of Iraq’ or have we left Iraq. It’s a title change to make the current regime look better. There will be a ‘permanent’ maintenance US force of some 50,000. The fortified base network was built for this. Mercenaries now outnumber US forces a great deal- by a factor of 2 or 3 (real numbers are unknown, but it’s well over six figures).
obama is muslim! says 70% of americans … lol