By Any Other Name
Roger Kimball links to an interesting post on President Obama’s religious beliefs, based on an interview he gave on the subject to Cathleen Falsani in 2004. The president-to-be explained the various religious influences in his life and gave the impression that although he was Christian it was of no particularly definite flavor. “I don’t think as a child we were, or I had a structured religious education.”
I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I’m not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I’ve got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others….
Just how indefinite that belief was came through when the interviewer asked, “what is sin?” And Obama answers that it is “being out of alignment with my values.” In a very literal sense Obama saw himself — though he did not use the term — as a kind of source of religious truth. In another part of the interview he emphasized the almost apostolic sense of his preaching:
OBAMA: The most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I’m talking to a group and I’m saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I’m just being glib or clever.
INTERVIEWER: What’s that power? Is it the holy spirit? God?
OBAMA:Well, I think it’s the power of the recognition of God, or the recognition of a larger truth that is being shared between me and an audience.
Ed Klein the author of The Amateur a book on Obama, claims that Obama’s religious beliefs were even more malleable than he lets on. He says Jeremiah Wright told him that he made it “comfortable for him [Obama] to accept Christianity without having to renounce his Islamic background.” On an interview on Hannity, Klein said:
Klein: About ten days later he made this secret meeting with the Reverend Wright after he’d already denounced him and begged him not to speak any further. Now we know this is true not only because the Reverend Wright told me so but because the Secret Service logs logged in this meeting. So we have confirmation that it actually took place.
Hannity: Now so they offered him — and this is all on the tapes that you have with Reverend Wright — Reverend Wright said this, so Reverend Wright, am I reading this correctly — is angry at Obama?
Klein: Reverend Wright is more than angry. He is absolutely fulminating. He feels that he’s been thrown under the bus by a man who he mentored for 23 or 24 years. You know we — all of us — complain about the fact that Obama sat in that church and listened to that hate speech for 20 years. But what we don’t realize is that even before he became a member of the church he was very close to the Reverend Wright who was like a second father to him and who was his spiritual advisor, his political advisor and in fact the Reverend Wright told me on tape that Obama came to him and said “I need some spiritual advice. I don’t know exactly who I am.”
And the Reverend Wright said — and this is on tape — “well we know your Islam background and you have that. But what you need now is some coaching on Christianity.” And I asked the Reverend Wright: “did you convert him from being a Muslim to a Christian?” And he said, “well I don’t know if I could go that far. But I can tell you that I made it comfortable for him to accept Christianity without having to renounce his Islamic background.”
Hannity: And this is all on tape?
Klein: This is all on tape.
Clearly the many names of God are but different aliases for the one truth belief from the bosom of the One. Why does any of this matter? One reason, as the Bookworm blog argues, is religions in various guises are always pushing their doctrine in the public space although they may never call it that. While they characterize themselves as nondenominational, secular or even atheist they are nevertheless embarked on a serious mission to impose a belief system on the public through government instrumentality. The Bookworm includes this clip from the move The Contender to illustrate how atheism might to all intents and purposes be another kind of religion.
The Bookworm inserts this commentary on the monologue.
I stand for a woman’s right to choose.
[So does the President, and he stands for making everyone in America, including religious institutions and religious worshippers that are doctrinally opposed to that "right," pay for women's choices.]
I stand for the elimination of the death penalty.
[This has not been an issue for our president, although he does seem uncommonly fond of drones.]
I stand for a strong and growing armed forces because we must stamp out genocide on this planet, and I believe that that is a cause worth dying for.
[Here we have an early articulation of R2P -- responsibility to protect. In the Progressive canon, our country is not worth fighting for and dying for. Genocide -- provided that those on the receiving end of genocide are neither Christians nor Jews -- is the real reason a Progressive United States should have a military. In this regard, it's ironic that president Obama not only presided over two wars, but started a third.]
I stand for seeing every gun taken out of every home. Period.
[Three words: Fast and Furious.]
I stand for making the selling cigarettes to our youth a federal offense.
[Because, really, who needs education, the marketplace of ideas, and free will?]
I stand for term limits and campaign reform.
[Obama hasn't said much about term limits, but he's made it clear that his idea of campaign reform is to stifle corporate speech, despite the fact that corporations are aggregations of citizens and pay taxes; and that his personal contribution to campaign reform is to campaign more than all the other presidents since Nixon put together.]
And, Mr. Chairman, I stand for the separation of Church and State, and the reason that I stand for that is the same reason that I believe our forefathers did. It is not there to protect religion from the grasp of government but to protect our government from the grasp of religious fanaticism.
And — the Joan Allen character might have added, though it would have spoiled the effect, that she would stop at nothing until all these things were enforced by law. How many of them are already enforced by law or are soon to be? How’s that for religious freedom?
Thus, simply because people call themselves atheists and proclaim they restrict their worship to the Chapel of Democracy in no wise proves they don’t have a doctrine to sell. The First Amendment provision that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….” is not really about religious doctrines. It is about limiting power. In particular, it is about preventing factions from using government instrumentality as an means of coercion so some people can force others to align to their set of values.
There was a time when the Joan Allen character’s reference to the Chapel of Democracy would have sounded alarm bells among immigrants who had latterly fled the very thing — established religion. Thus American government was conceived in the first place as an institution of limited purposes, established for specific and enumerated reasons lest it become precisely what the Allen character proclaims it to be: a chapel of a political faith.
So although it cannot be helped but that all politicians will be have some belief system, Kimball’s interest in Barack Obama’s beliefs has some basis. Ought we be wary about President-prophets; or suspicious of people who want to take away your guns, who make you drink organic water or force you to pay for their medical procures or employ the Armed Forces to enforce their moral imperatives all over the globe just because they do not wish to “sin” against their values?
That is precisely the objection the Left makes to a “Mormon President” Romney. That he will enforce upon an unwilling public the practice of consuming Jello and wearing white polo shirts. And you can concede the point. But they are utterly blind to the perils of a electing Bishop of the Church of Progressive Belief, or whatever it is they call it, to the Oval Office. Yet the words of Shakespeare remind us that a thing may have many names and still be the same thing.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
The same would be true for religion, and you would think people could figure that out for themselves.
Belmont Commenters
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
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Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
Same BIG mistake. If you are born a Muslim, you stay a Muslim. Denying Islam or converting to another religion just makes you an apostate Muslim. The penalty for that is beheading. Islam is like the hotel California. You can check out but never leave. Secular people and a lot of Christians just cannot get their head around that concept.
There is no choice about it.
Islam also divides humanity in two categories, Muslims and Enemies.
Eventually Islam will have to be destroyed. That is easy, what is hard is doing it without going genocidal on a Billion people. That is why I like my “Y” chromosome plan.
Once the Muslim population is 99% female, it will be the end of Islam.
I will admit that the glowing craters thing would be faster and more fun.
Another brilliant essay by our host. The Left’s platitudes remind me of an old bumper sticker from my college days: Support non-violence or I’ll kill you!
We have yet to see the party of JFK turning its wrath on Romney’s faith. The projection is simply amazing. Make Reverend Wright’s sermons irrelevant, but make Mormonism central. Hide your college transcripts, your passport records, and present an ambiguous birth certificate, but criticize your opponent for not being transparent with his tax returns.
Yes, the religion in question is subjectivism enforced by those in power who feel their imposition of utopia on the rest of us is their way of doing God’s work — if indeed they accept the deity at all.
A writer for Time Magazine said on television that Romney was not sufficiently transparent because he failed to disclose the depths of his religious faith. But I can guarantee that had Romney done so he would have been attacked by that same writer for being overly zealous religiously.
Watch for projection; watch for double binds; watch for the rejection of “religious fanaticism” become the code for the eagerness to impose their religion on us. I infuriate my left leaning friends when I use their terms against them, such as “atheist extremism” or “liberal fundamentalism.” It drives them nuts because it is so close to the truth.
The best at PJM. I’ve never seen the film “The Contender”, and I don’t know if that woman is supposed to be an inspiring hero or a scary villain. (I suspect “hero”)… Anyone who lectures others with that icy “moral absolutes” thing, and with such seething self inflated righteousness, fills me with dread. That is the exactly the sort who could cudgel you to death to “save” you and feel they did right. In my 51 years on planet earth, (actually by the time I turned 40 by 9/11/2001) I percieved that the most frightening manifestation of this kind of zealotry almost always emanated from the Left side of the spectrum.
In the aftermath of 9/11 I watched the the disturbing moral preening and “moral absolutes” of the Left unfurled completely; I witnessed cultural self loathing – I witnessed their blaming of America for the atrocity of 9/11, I watched them take the “opportunity” of 9/11 to lash out at the Right and GWB (an R2P moral absolutist himself) with a vicious hatred and blame. It wasn’t Islam! It wasn’t the Muslims! The monster was America! We were told this with that exact same kind of loathsome, pious righteousness as displayed in the clip above.And thus, my divorce from the dark side commenced.
When I came across Wretchard’s superb “The Three Conjectures” at the Elephant Bar, I was absolutely hooked. It seemed I’d found a beacon of light in a dimming world… I’ve been an avid reader of your writing ever since. Sadly, frighteningly, I fear I must say I think the world proceeds to darken around us. We head towards our own harrowing.
I didn’t see the contender either, and from what I remember it more or less bombed. I do however remember a controversy surrounding it, I think. The Republican character is played by Gary Oldman, and apparently he was pissed with the way the film was edited. He didn’t think they were going to make his character the out-and-out villain that you see on the screen, and he was rather appalled at how open everyone involved in the film was in their contempt for conservatives.
If I remember right, the film revolves around her being a Hilary-like candidate for President, with a video in her past which reveals a sexual indiscretion. The message is that indiscretions like that should be overlooked, so that those worthy of running the country and directing everyone else’s life have the chance to do so…
Of course, if the person’s a conservative, then they’re a hypocrite, and it should be used continuously…
P.S. I just looked it up on Wikipedia (I know, but it’s fast) and apparently Oldman has havered back and forth, saying at one time that the movie was selectively edited, and at other times that the accusation was a “bastardized” version of what he actually said. The Wikipedia entry also makes clear that the actual villain of the whole pieces is a Democrat (this from Hollywood, no less) though of course the good guys are all Democrats, and the Republican is a clueless villain also…
MDoodslag: an anecdote. The Contender was once on TV when I was at my in-law’s home. I sat thru about five minutes and determined it was trash and went into another room. If I recall correctly, it begins with Joan Allen’s character banging a subordinate in her office. Auspicious.
One of the areas where subjective reasoning breaks down is that it cannot reconcile diametrically opposed positions.
You cannot say “All of those are the same” if all of those claim to be unique.
It is possible that all religions could be wrong but it is impossible that they are all right or different paths to the same end. The issue is how do they proselytize and how do they deal with unbelievers?
I do not mind my Buddhist neighbors trying to evangelize me so long as I am free to evangelize them.
Where it gets fuzzy is when you look at the modern left as a religion and not as a political party. Socialism as it is derived from Communism is a religious belief more than a political one. You cannot discuss politics with a leftist unless to realize that you are debunking their religion and worldview not simply a political position
Barrack Obama is neither a Christian or a Muslim. He is a leftist and he can and will use the guise of any religion to achieve his desired end because he believes that other religions are hollow vessels and that his is the only true faith.
“I don’t think as a child we were, or I had a structured religious education.”
When was the delivery of the mandatory religion classes in the Indonesian school Obama attended contracted out to the synthesis of Unitarians and Reconstructionist Jews, Ethical Culture? Only post modern Progressives attempt an unstructured education for the children of the Middle Class. The children of the poor get either chaos or a highly structured parochial school education. The children of the old Progressives got a highly structured education, think Montessori. Efforts to achieve success through an unstructured education in values are likely to produce disaster. The best evidence that Obama might be telling the truth here for once is that he has turned out to be unproductive and unemployable.
Joan Allen is set to be a Priestess or Presider over a Festival of Virtue. Protecting the Chapel of Democracy the Field of Virtue and the Temple of Reason from the ignorant and violent demands unceasing vigilance. More it requires a tool of Cartesian exactitude and simplicity that should be clean scientific educational and merciful in its’ speed and painless. Fortunately one has been provided by Dr. Guillotine.
Note: Ethical Culture predates Reconstructionism, calling it Radical Reform moves to Transylvania, the home of Unitarianism if you don’t know, is closer to the philosophical underpinnings. Has anyone tried to do a flow chart of these things?
Like Wretchard, I think there is an underlying idea that runs through organizations and individuals and guides them in various ways. I call this a “mythology” because it need not be logical or even true but nonetheless presents a coherent whole.
And example is “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights…” This clearly is nonsense. People are not equal and so-called inalienable rights can be lost in a myriad of ways. But if you organize a country around that mythology it can be pretty fine place, even as it struggles, often futilely, to realize that idea.
The question is: What mythology are these people following? In the case of the Mormons they have a religion that seems to be utter nonsense, perhaps even more so than most. But it usually seems to lead them to live virtuous and successful lives.
In the case of Muslims they seem to have religion that on the surface makes more sense than that of the Mormons but there are no truly successful Muslim nations. As some have said, Muslims only seem to be happy when they are not living in a predominantly Muslim nation.
So the first question I always ask is what mythology are these people following and what does it mean.
I’ll have to agree with Fai Mao on this. I would add one other thing: I don’t believe Obama is a deep thinker in the slightest. His answer about “what is sin” reads like conversations I remember from my freshman dorm, when we would sit up half the night thinking we were the first people to have such original insights. There’s more deep theology in the Peanuts comic strip.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
- C.S. Lewis
FWIW, “The Contender” is the brainchild of writer-director Rod Lurie. Rod is a tenth-degree black belt in the sport of bludgeoning audiences over the head with political messaging. If you were to combine the cinematic subtlety of Oliver Stone, the objectivity of Aaron Sorkin, the gravity of Michael Bay, along with the hit-producing prowess of Ed Wood … well, you’d pretty much have Rod Lurie.
Guy is highly intelligent & well-studied but as a filmmaker he is terminally crippled by his inability to refrain from preaching. That and his tendency to equate “LOOK!!! CONFLICT!!!” with “compelling drama.”
Last year he did a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs” on a budget of $25 million … or $5 mil below the lowest end of a mid-budget film in Hollywood terms. Nobody cared about Straw Dogs. Film made $10 million.
And, yes, the Joan Allen character’s testimony in “The Contender” is pretty much boilerplate Lurie.
“There’s more deep theology in the Peanuts comic strip.”
Less humor though. I would compare the White House Clown Posse to the Keystone Cops except they are not as organised and nobody remembers who the Keystone Cops were.
The ONLY bright spot I see in a Romney administration is that adults will be in charge at the White House. I’ll bet the Staff and Secret Service will be glad to see the back of Obama. As in ‘don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass on the way out’.
Hill-de-beast stole a tea service off Air Force One. I wonder what Michelle has her eye on? Anybody gonna watch slick Willie to see if he sticks the shiv in?
Stoicheion: EVERYBODY is going to watch Slick Willy. Not to see IF he sticks the shiv in, rather to see HOW he slips it in.
The Joan Allen character is an appallingly frightening one. She unapologetically tosses half the Bill of Rights tight out the door and doubtless the audience cheered. But that is where we are at today, on the verge of mob rule. If the people want it whether it is your gun or your sanctuary or even your life the only justification needed is 50% plus 1 want it. Their will of the moment must not be denied.
This nation unlike most others is bound together to the extent that it is bound together not by ties of blood, kinship, religion, or ancient history but by common ideas and core beliefs. Once those ideas come under concerted attack by a significant hunk of the population this country as a polity will fall apart and when it does the divisions will not be sectional as in the Civil War but general and the resulting struggle much more violent. Lets all hope that the ideology of limited representative government does not fall prey to either the mob or the tyrant. But for my part I am not betting that way.
I walked out of The Contender, so I didn’t see the last half hour. It was disgusting. So I didn’t see this scene.
I didn’t see the contender. Was that the platform she was going to run on or did she decide to “truth” everyone when she realized she couldn’t win? Usually they keep what they believe to themselves and let judges and regulators do the legislating for them.
She did hit on a central conflict: that the left thinks our rights come from government (them, to be precise) and conservatives think they come from God. I was just explaining to a young guy why Christians so object to the Supreme Court declaring abortion a woman’s right. Christians believe rights come from God and when the left hijacked the word for their own use and declared a “right to abortion” it offended many believers. Abortion was legalized here in Ohio in the old fashioned way — by the legislature — before the Supreme Court ruled. There were sermons against the practice, of course, but not a lot of controversy. A sin was made legal but it was not declared a sacred right. The Supreme Court turned it into a theological matter.
Some call abortion the Sacrament of the left’s religion. So maybe the hearing room is the Chapel and the abortion clinic is the altar.
Joan is right where she belongs- debasing herself and her fans. If they weren’t glued to a television, they’d be out causing trouble, possibly even voting. By the way: fullcredits#cast. The director, script writer, and 9 out of 10 producers were men. Make-up, costume and wardrobe were almost all women. She really broke the mold however, getting a short haircut like that…
8. RWE “In the case of Muslims they seem to have religion that on the surface makes more sense than that of the Mormons but there are no truly successful Muslim nations… So the first question I always ask is what mythology are these people following and what does it mean.”
They all make sense when you look up at the stars. Something up there keeps messing with us, and there’s not much we can do about it.
WHAT IS SIN?
“Boss,” Joe Biden said, the beginning of a goofy smile upon his lips, “I was reading The Belmont Club today and it said you told an interviewer back in oh four that a sin was anything that did not conform to your values. Or something like that.”
“Hillary doesn’t read The Belmont Club,” Obama said icily. “It isn’t too late to call her, wherever she is.”
“Sorry boss, I misspoke. I was reading The Daily Beast.”
The air in the room was heavy with unspoken threat and abject contrition, as Obama closed his eyes and sighed.
It isn’t sin, Obama said
Unless I say it is
My values may be dressed in red
Most can be found in Ms
For I believe my life’s a trial
I’m put here for a cause
And though I’m here for but a while
My values give me pause
So strict am I in my belief
That no one is exempt
From heresy and to be brief
It’s just that to attempt
To put in words you understand
Is taxing me but then
As my VP I’ll take your hand
We’ll speak as honest men
My values, Joe, and here is truth
I am the Chosen One
And none, no matter how uncouth
Can say I’m not the Sun
Who gives the light that all live by
The Father who knows best
Whose children balk at all I try
And try to flee the nest
So sin is what I say it is
And Joe, now here’s the rub
Just stick to reading stuff in Ms
And not The Belmont Club
“Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion”
Constitution of the United States of America; 1st amendment 1787
Human beings act out of fear when they write laws; fear of loss, fear of injury, fear of harm, real or imagined, to the individual or the community. If you want to understand the purpose of any law or statute, you have to understand the fear behind it.
So, what did the men who wrote the first amendment to our constitution fear when they penned these lines? Did they have visions of the Pope and his Swiss Guard storming up the Potomac? Did they tremble in dread that John Wesley and hordes of Methodists would scatter the representatives and senators, setting up brush arbors for a camp meeting revival? Were they awakened by nightmares of some fresh-faced boy or girl standing before a throng of young students and invoking The Deity?
What did they fear would befall the nation they had gambled their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to establish if they did not provide this shield of First Law.
http://thelastminstrel.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/what-did-they-fear/
Ought we be wary about President-prophets; or suspicious of people who want to take away your guns, who make you drink organic water or…or…or…or..
Well, OK; but it’s a whole lot simpler than that.
One ought be wary of Presidents who are totally and utterly incapably of speaking the truth.
And who appear to be proud of it (assuming they’re even aware of it).
(Did I say “wary”? Make that “friggin’ terrified”.)
File under: Raising confabulation to the next level.
stoicheon – I came up with an idea that’s more or less equivalent to your Y chromosome one but is completely non-racist in that it acts on behaviour, not ethnicity. (Many Muslims, including some of the more extreme ones, are neither Semitic nor SW Asian.) Unfortunately, it requires a technological advance or two.
Combine speech recognition and reasonably advanced nanotech – spray around trillions of the relevant nanites, which then colonise each and every human on Earth without being noticed. The payload? Reciting the Shahada, in any language, makes the reciter irrevocably sterile.
Job done. By the time the enemy knew what was happening, it would be too late.
Obama is an atheist. Has been throughout his political career. Any religious affiliation he claims has to do with what he and his handlers perceive as being beneficial to his election prospects. How else does one explain his behavior?
The character played by that actress is a truly despicable example of a failed human being. She believes that her religious view is the only one permissible to qualify for the franchise. This is seen in the hostility of the public schools to any mention of religion, with the end result that secular humanism and atheism have become the de facto established religious viewpoints of our publicly funded education system, in direct conflict with the First Amendment. The Soviets did this – you had to sign a statement that you were an atheist, or you could not be a Party member and could not have representation in the government.
And yet, large swathes of our ruling elite – entertainers, educators, and the like – subscribe to her point of view exactly. Little do they realize that conflating their beliefs with legitimate religious ones was the formula for the Nazis and the Bolsheviks.
Or perhaps they do realize it?
Several years back, someone sent me a rant about the similarities between atheism and Islam in response to a blog post somewhere, maybe even here. With our host’s permission, I’ll post it now, feel free to take it down if you wish, Wretchard.
______________
The current fashionable attitude amongst the atheist cultural elite which essentially lumps all devoutly religious people together is the problem, not the answer.
The psychiatric term “projection” leaps to mind whenever I hear some atheist or agnostic, or even a member of one of the more exsanguinated and emasculated forms of Christianity or Judaism, attempt to draw parallels between fundamentalist Christians and radical Islam. It is the easy thing to do, and tempting, to conflate the Islamists and the religiously zealous of other faiths, but it will always be inaccurate, since there are major and irreconcilable differences apparent to those who attempt observe these faiths rationally and without bigotry towards religion in general and Christianity in particular.
First, at least in Europe and the U.S., the objections to Christian fundamentalists are almost always based on social, economic, and education industry snobbery, rather than mature, logically thought-out philosophical arguments or dispassionate, accurate assessments of facts on the ground.
I am as likely as anyone to prefer attractive, witty, wise, composed sophisticates who are cosmopolitan and informed (and the bulk of devoutly Christian people fit into that category) to angry, fat, envious, ignorant, doctrinaire people who are not (and it should be obvious that plenty of atheists that fit that description). Nevertheless, devout Christians (like devout Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.) are not, despite a few silly forays into educational policy that are basically defensive in nature, and despite a few extremely isolated, statistically insignificant crackpots, a threat to the beliefs or values of anyone outside of their communities, nor to anyone’s life or limb. Even their most proselytizing groups are not prone to using widespread organized force to spread or maintain their doctrines, and have not been so to any meaningful extent for centuries.
Second, the essential nature of Islam as a faith is different than that of other religions. The extreme austerity and abstraction of Islam, combined with the arbitrary justifications for otherwise immoral conduct brought about by what is an attempt to duplicate precisely the personality and life of Mohammed, create a contradiction that is unique among religions, and makes for a much more dangerous set of conditions than those produced in any other faith groups including and especially Christianity. Among world religions, only Islam has such a high percentage of members who are aggressively, outwardly directed in their willingness to expand by the use of violence and oppression – not as last means, but as a core tactic – and are dominated by the need to seek out and, as matter not just of practice but of organizing principle, destroy all evidence of nonconformity.
In truth, the nature of Islam, with its arbitrary, merciless, and impersonal god, resembles, ironically, a kind of formalized atheism more than anything else. Like atheism it is intolerant, condescending, devoid of humility, and often militant (see atheism in the USSR or Red China or North Korea). Like atheism, Islam is a preening, conceited, self-superior, pseudointellectual ‘ethical culture’ combined with a set of what are, in practice, unethical moral precepts – and like atheism, these memes cannot be unbundled. Much as there has never been or can be a truly free, democratic, and benevolent atheist nation, so too has there never been a truly benevolent Islamist one, and I suspect there never will be.
A dispassionate look at the facts reveals that Islam, especially (but not only) radical Islam, is more like atheism than it is, despite its pretensions, like a religion. Most Muslims refuse to deal with this truth. Conversely, atheists demonize Christianity in an attempt to deal with their own inability to honestly resolve any cognitive dissonance created by their own philosophical similarities to Islam. This is the ultimate reason for projection by atheists in their attempts to draw an unfounded confluence between Muslim extremists and Christianity – instead of seeing the log in their own eye. This is also why trying to draw a link between radical Islam and fundamentalist Christians is not the answer.
Religions are inclusive. Religious dogma is exclusive. Anyone is welcome to join virtually all major religious organization as long as they accept the central tenents of that faith. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the church door in 1517 he found, through going back through orginal texts, that a christians acceptance of Jesus Christ as their savior through the free gift of grace was simply between that person and God. And that is the rub for a christian. They can say whatever they want but their acceptance of Christ is strictly between them and God.
Now you can deny God. You can argue that you are a positive or negative athiest and all the cute Dawkins/Hitchens arguments about how bad religion is for society. But the bottom line for athiests is that even if they are correct they will never know it. And that is the ultimate irony for the athiests.
As far as Obama goes, well he’s a Chicago democrat. And everyone knows how they run their town. They have only been doing it that way for the past 50 years. Must be nice to come from utopia.
“The First Amendment …is not really about religious doctrines. It is about limiting power. In particular, it is about preventing factions from using government instrumentality as an means of coercion so some people can force others to align to their set of values.”
In effect, it allows all religions as long as they don’t contravene the values embedded in the Constitution. But once the Constitution is undermined or reinterpreted to suit the progressive religions such as political correctness, environmentalism, feminism and so on, no conventional religion is off limits unless it is one like Islam that has the same search and destroy mission that these lefist ones do (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). Progressives (an ironic moniker, if ever there was one), know that as long as groups can point to a creed that stands outside of the fray, their grip on power is not absolute. Once the Constitution goes, it is sauve qui peut. Seen from this perspective, the progressives are revealed to be the descendants of Robespierre who claimed:
“Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most urgent needs.”
“The aim of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of revolutionary government is to lay its foundation.”
That he will enforce upon an unwilling public the practice of consuming Jello….
This is indeed a potentially serious problem, but it is not unsurmountable. To be sure, Romney will have to battle the all-powerful Cola and Coffee lobbies on both coasts (and Chicago), who will be arrayed against him from the get-go. But this may well be offset by the gelatin-lovers (and white polo-shirt wearers) of cross-over country.
(Romney may even pull in disaffected elements of the Jewish vote—especially Jewish mothers—if he pushes hard on the kosher gelatin.)
All bets are off, though, if the MSM decides to hit Mitt even further below the belt than they’ve already been doing, by deploying the ‘A’ word (“aspic”).
Fear of which among the discerning electorate could improve Obama’s chances; nonetheless, it may be too little too late, as I believe Romney will still win in a landslide this November….
File under: Foreclosed is forewarned…
I think that 0bama is one of two things:
1. He is a Muslim and will never change his belief. Taqiyya seems to come out of his mouth on a daily basis.
2. He is afraid to say he has given up being a Muslim and doesn’t want to admit it. That doesn’t mean he is a Christian. You know the parable about the seed sown on rocky soil that did not last.
No Mo #22:
The thing that strikes me the most about atheists is that they seem so “evangelical.” They are not satisfied with merely holding their beliefs (or perhaps non-beliefs is more accurate) but rather appear to be trying to make sure that everyone takes up their belief.
Agnostics, in comparison, have no objection to religion but simply think it has no applicability to them and their daily lives.
So maybe the thing that Muslim radicals and atheists have in common is that they fear other beliefs. And that fear is based on the obvious superiority of those other beliefs.
It may be trite and superficial to say this but; Obama’s universe appears to be his vision of himself. If true then his religion would be worship of the Obama he envisions himself to be.
The real Obama seems never to be connected to the imaginary Obama. Sit either one or both in Eastwood’s chair and the chair will remain empty. America should not have to serve as the psychiatrist’s couch for Obama-the-Weird.
What should keep everyone up at night is how easy it was for 0bama to get elected and how hard it seems to be to get rid of him even after 3+ years of his “Governing”… 0bama is a Narcissist (X-Large), slightly bigger than the previous Demoncrat Narcissist-in-Chief before him, Republican “Narcissist” have been fairly few are far between,,, Nixon, I think was the last one. Really if 0bama was able to get elected how long before someone much worse than him gets the Pretty Airplane, Nice Helicopter and Big House???
Obama is just a remarkably skilled grifter. His marks, the progressives, are tailor-made for his con. He feeds on their own guilt, self-loathing and psychoses like manna from heaven. True conservatives are immune to his con, recognizing him for who he is- and who he is not- and shake their head in disbelief at the rubes lining up to be fleeced. Just like the guy who gets taken by the cardsharp for his week’s earnings, many people can now recognize the scam and are walking away. Unfortunately, as a wise man once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” (source debated but attributted to P.T.Barnum)
What is certainly true is we get the government we deserve. I am not fatalistic in nature so I am not too concerned. I KNOW socialism is unsustainable so I know it will not prevail. Those of ability will just gravitate to the underground market if conditions worsen. We have a trump card in our 2nd Amendment and we are not afraid to play it when the last hand is dealt. The beauty of our all-voluteer military is in the transitory nature of service by rank-and-file citizens. We can, and will, protect our lives when the balloons go up. Count on it.
Perhaps Mr. Obama’s religious beliefs are just a matter of which way the wind blows, or did in times long past. The good wind of Lepanto sent the Sultan’s navy to the bottom and extinguished Islam’s best hope that Allah’s sword could subdue Christian Europe. It was an ill and evil wind that scattered the Armada and assured that Christian Europe, after all, would not belong to Christ but to men who knew better than their ancestors.
A very curious thing happened when Christendom sank below the waves. People stopped philosophizing about the reality that is and instead set about creating a reality that conformed more closely with their philosophy. Thanks to the Enlightenment we get to absorb the wonderful logic that because divine intervention is not necessary to turn a tomato red that there is no God.
Which, when you untangle the knots, means that a Muslim prayer session can be an official DNC event, Obama can hate on the English speaking world, and make his personal value system equivalent to God – simultaneously.
RWE, I think there is an understandable error in your logic. It is the evangelical atheists that you hear from in terms of atheism. Atheism is a lack of beleif, most atheists (not the evangelical atheists above) see no more purpose in discussinng that which they do not believe than Christians feel the need to discuss the falsity of Native American or African pagan beliefs. It just isn’t something worthwhile.
Very few people come to atheism in, of and for itself. It is a lack of belief in the divine, it doesn’t say what you do believe that defines a person and his or her character. The vast majority of atheists believe something, and what that something is what really drives them. Most publicly professed atheists are such because they do not want to name what it is they actually believe.
I am an objectivist. Incidentally, that makes me an atheist, but I am as viscerally opposed to a communist atheist as any devout Christian. I look with distaste on the atheist activists, because most of them are really marxists who won’t admit it publicly. They are attacking the Christian foundations of this country to expose our culture to faster erosion. While not a Christian, I recognize that a culture built on Judeo-Christian values is what made this country, and this culture, great. While I view it as imperfect in a way that Christians don’t, I do recognize that Judeo-Christian based culture the best achievable culture. I’d like to live in Galt’s Gulch, but I reocgnize it doesn’t exist, and won’t any time soon. In the mean time, I don’t want to live in an Afghan Culture, or a Sudanese Culture, or a Chinese or Japanese culture, or even a current French culture. I want an American culture, including its Judeo-Christian foundation.
RWE @ 8: ““We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights…” This clearly is nonsense.”
While I agree whith the rest of your paragraph, I will disagree with that sentence. I believe that the point the Founding Fathers began with was that in the eyes of the Creator, we are all equal. Yes, other humans can take away your life, your liberty, etc, and some are born more “abled” than others, but the premise is that you were created (in terms of rights) the same as every other human.
And it is our human failing to live up to every chance to apply the Golden Rule, to truly treat each person equally, etc, but it is the bedrock of the American belief system, based on the Judeo Christian ethic that was at the core of our FFs’ lives.
It is elegant, inspiring, and a near-certain impossibility (as humans), but an incredible goal to strive for, both as individuals and as a nation.
I don’t see how that’s nonsense.
Richard Fernandez
“Thus, simply because people call themselves atheists and proclaim they restrict their worship to the Chapel of Democracy in no wise proves they don’t have a doctrine to sell.”
22. no moa uro
“Conversely, atheists demonize Christianity in an attempt to deal with their own inability to honestly resolve any cognitive dissonance created by their own philosophical similarities to Islam.”
So what do these statements mean?
No doubt atheism as defined above is a “bad” thing. Believers seem (seem) to view non-believers in a way that suits a conclusion that non believers are somehow tied in with the worst expression of human existence. Yet believers (with cause), call out some non believers who use the same criticisms, in principle, that we see above. So…
So what is this non believer as misguided and evil being used for? Mr. Fernandez and no mo uro are intelligent, thoughtful individuals, why is it that they feel compelled to go Alexrod on non believers in such a way?
Personally, if someone finds religion, and it helps him or her through their life, good for them, I am happy for them and encourage them. Not all non believers hate God, or consider those who believe to be less than.
Personally, I never arrived at belief. I can’t think of a time where it existed in my thoughts as a concrete identifiable feeling, meaning, moral code, etc.
So bearing false belief (false witness) by window dressing belief would be a sin in the Christian sense, and probably that would be the case in any belief system. I will not do that. If the Red Sea opens up tomorrow and I walk through it, or some “sign” or something otherwise compels me to believe, I will be there. That has not happened, and maybe it will, and I am and willing and aware enough to recognize that if that comes to be, I will change my thoughts.
Not all non believes fit into someone’s conceptual idea of what believers may want them to be, no matter how strong that wish might be, any more than the reverse. Claiming a lack of understanding by others about what you are can hold just as well for those who are not you.
Not everyone who is different is necessarily filled with evil.
If you wish to illustrate that man can be evil by citing some examples, be my guest, you can be right in that.
Clearly the many names of God are but different aliases for the one truth belief from the bosom of the One.
We should not let this pass, without careful consideration. If an adherent of Islam prays to Allah, is that the same God to whom Christians pray? Is that your meaning?
Well, the God of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob is also the God of the New Covenant. That God “loved the world so much, that he gave his uniquely born son, that who ever believes in him…”. That son became “the way, the truth, the life. No man cometh to the father but by me.”
So, in fact, that God is identified by the son. If you do not believe in the son, then you believe in some other god. Identification with the Son is identification with the Father.
Atheist is from the Greek “a” meaning no and “theist” meaning God. Atheist simply means “no God”. Exactly like “amoral”, “atypical”, “asymmetrical”, etc. It is a declarative statement. It’s not someone saying “I don’t believe there is enough evidence for a God to exist.” That is an agnostic. The issue that most Christian apologetic scholars point out to atheists is that it’s difficult to declare there is no God if you are in fact not a God. That is what makes atheism an untenable position. Now the argument can go the other way. How can you say there is a God if you are in fact not a God? What we are left with is as Christians is the strong empirical evidence that points to creation, Jesus as savior, Grace, the holy spirit, etc. Of course, to say that many people reject this empirical evidence would be an understatement. People want scientific proof. The problem with scientific proof is that it is very difficult to create an experiment to recreate exactly the steps to prove your hypothesis. This is why the courts will accept as proof the empirical evidence of the video tape that shows you at the bank at the exact moment your significant other was shot by the masked intruder.
As a point of fact, medical technology in the late 18th century hadn’t developed much past the point of which leeches were better for bleeding.
Pathogenic theory had not yet replaced the miasmatic theory. DNA was way in the future. So if one takes the FF’s at their word consistent with the state of knowledge at that time all men were created equal. They did the best with what they knew. It worked out pretty good.
Better to shower at Penn State then vote democratic.
SE @ 30: Obama is just a remarkably skilled grifter. His marks, the progressives, are tailor-made for his con. He feeds on their own guilt, self-loathing and psychoses like manna from heaven.
Yeah, that’s about all I’d ever say about Obambus’ religious beliefs, they are convenient to the day’s schedule. I will point out, as a quibble, that there need be nothing in a “progressive” that comprises the “guilt” elements, or vice versa. When they are after all found together anyway, that throws additional light on the situation – IOW the progress is more an attempt to escape or assuage the guilt than a dialectical ascent towards the Omega Point.
Of which we have just about the perfect example in Clinton’s follies and the “progressive” exhortation to “move on”. Such progress.
Mr Lucky-
I reprinted that comment from another’s writing. I don’t personally necessarily go with everything in it 100% but probably 99%.
I can tell you that in my own personal experience of dealing with scores if not hundreds of atheists that the blurb I posted fits very nearly all of them. In my fairly extensive experience, atheists, almost without exception, fit the description in the piece. Condescending, arrogant, completely devoid of humility, and thinking of themselves as godlike fits all but two or three atheists I have known. Indeed, as Steve Smith alludes to in his comment, essentially all atheists are, rather than people who do not believe in a deity, people who see themselves as godlike or the center of the universe.
And yes, most of them do hate and dehumanize those who believe. Walk a mile in my moccasins, and all that, and you’d understand. The smirk. The raised eyebrow. “Not our sort of people, those Christians, doncha know.”
If you are that rare exception who proves the rule, apologies.
A good starting point for atheists would be for them to acknowledge the atrocities of their fellow theological travellers during communist 20th century and own up to the fact that their genocide against Christians killed more people in eighty or so years than died in all the religious wars in the history of our species combined.
And to own all the sequelae of that truth. And to let that truth give them a sense of humility, and of respect for the believers.
I haven’t encountered (except for Daedalus Mugged in comment #32) an atheist truly willing to deal with these things, or who ascribes anything but evil to believers, in over half a century on this planet. Why is that? What is the motivation for that? Why must they cling to the cartoon-character murderous Christian in the face of all the evidence that shows the atheists to be, as a group, far worse?
As the above comment says, deal with the log in your eye before you accuse me.
Obama fits my definition of an atheist, but I think it’s also safe to say, from the above material, that he thinks he believes in God. The irony is that he has substituted himself for that by which he was created.
More than anything, he sounds like a New Age derivative of Protestantism. It’s a short, easy slide from Luther’s “it’s between the believer and God, all he/she needs is scripture as a guide” to “I get to interpret scripture according to my own perspectives” to “I’m calling the shots about the nature of reality.”
Then it’s off to the races: nature fairies, visualizing whirled peas, making the oceans do what you want, defining truth as whatever excites your audience.
Atheism, in other words. Not wanting to have a boss.
The money phrase to me is is his comment at the outset about rejecting dogma.
Dogma is what prevents men from being driven mad by religion.
39. no mo uro
“And yes, most of them do hate and dehumanize those who believe. Walk a mile in my moccasins, and all that, and you’d understand. The smirk. The raised eyebrow. ‘Not our sort of people, those Christians, doncha know.’”
Well, some atheists do fit that description.
What you describe certainly is not something exclusive to non believers. But do understand what you are saying. Believe me (no pun intended) whether or not you believe you can and will subjected to this kind of behavior in many situations.
I would ask, with belief (or otherwise), why would such behavior towards you have such an effect? So what? This goes both ways, go undercover as a non believer and check it out. Be convincing. Quote Dawkins.
No need do that in my case, the assumption is that you do believe until you announce otherwise. Then watch it unfold… Sometimes, with some people. Which leads to a conclusion that belief or non belief has less influence on bad behavior than is usually stated.
And I think many of us tend to hold our non belief close.
Mr Lucky #41:
“I would ask, with belief (or otherwise), why would such behavior towards you have such an effect?”
An excellent question and one I’m happy to answer.
Gulag.
Can’t be too careful, these days.
With respect, you really cannot claim the same, from where you sit as an atheist.
How many atheists have been killed for their religious POV (outside of, perhaps, by Islamicists) in the last 100 years?
By contrast, how Christians of various flavors have been killed by atheists for their POV? (Hint: you don’t have that many fingers or toes.)
Not being alarmist. Just careful. I suspect that you as an individual are probably not an existential threat to me. Your fellow travellers have a very nasty recent-history track record, however, and as a survival mechanism I must consider them as such. The disinfecting light of day will benecessary for generations, perhaps centuries, before trust can be re-established between the believer and the nonbeliever – perhaps forever, if this is indeed an inherent impulse in the bulk of atheists.
We can be certain that Mr. Obama will not be be asked any embarrassing questions about God at the Democrat Convention. In the latest draft of the Democrat Party platform every reference to the name of God has been officially excised. People no longer have God-given potential. They now have “talent”.
Not surprising. Even liberals, who are uniquely talented to hold contradictory beliefs at the same time, cannot promote the Greatest Freedom Ever – a mother’s right to exterminate her unborn children – with anything remotely connected to love and virtue without necessarily exploding their brains.
Listen friends, and mark my words in this moment and this hour–
God is jealous for his name for his name is jealous.
Nor is this a charming flower to set before a man
nor one of his commands.
Yet, without Jesus, this is more than we can love as we desire
peace,
and less than we can know as we desire joy.
For the sacred fire
that makes us liars–
I mean, that separates speech from dreams,
and separates our flesh from the future–
is God’s power manifested.
So, in the year and the hour– for his sake, invest your desire
in Jesus.
Follow his holy fire for right now. Right now he intercedes for
us in heaven!
Some will say we are people of the way.
We are people of the way.
We praise his holy name
Yahweh.
I am who I am.
I cause things to be.
I am the first cause of creation.
We praise his holy name
Elohym.
And say “Thank you Jesus for your precious blood–
better, so much better than the blood of Abel.
How then should we pray?
I pray bless me a lot oh God.
Show me your kingdom and righteousness
in such a way that my thoughts words and deeds
reflect your wisdom and power–
and that– for the sake of your honor and glory.
So that I will live in your presence
in this life and the next.
For your name sake
Let me hear my children praise your name
And their children too.
Let them woo 10 generations
coiled up in their dimensions
to the praise of your name.
Let my neighbors,family, enemies, friends,
strangers praise Jesus–
the risen Lord
I pray all this in Jesus name.
Your fellow travellers have a very nasty recent-history track record, however, and as a survival mechanism I must consider them as such.
What do the Committee of Public Safety, Bolsheviks, Mexican Constitutionalsts, Spanish Republicans, Maoists and every other flavor of Marxist politics have in common?
1. Atheism.
2. Slaughter of Christians, mostly Catholics and Orthodox.
An intemperate commenter might suggest that the path from Martin Luther to Robespierre was well reconnoitered but that would also suggest that net, net the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Glorious Revolution were disasters for humanity. Who would be silly enough to suggest that?
45. Peter Boston
An intemperate commenter might suggest that the path from Martin Luther to Robespierre was well reconnoitered but that would also suggest that net, net the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Glorious Revolution were disasters for humanity. Who would be silly enough to suggest that?
…………..
An intemperate commenter might suggest that the path from Descartes to Robespierre was well reconnoitered but that would also suggest that net, net the the Enlightenment and the Glorious (French) Revolution were disasters for humanity. Who would be silly enough to suggest that?
There fixed.
@ 45 Peter Boston
For all the evils done by those listed, I don’t think atheism was really what motivated them. If you really want to get to why they were so evil, it is that they were:
1) Totalitarians
2) With a fundamental disrespect of individual rights
On net, they likely killed more atheists/agnostics than religious people (counting the bulk of the Chinese Confucians as non-religious). Those killed were not killed because they were religious, but because they were deemed enemies of the state.
If anything, the reason totalitarians tend to be atheist is because they need their followers to lack the moral restraint religions (other than Islam) generally impose. They are not totalitarian because they are atheist, they are atheist because they are totalitarian. It is the statism that is the problem, and the atheism is symptom of it. Evil ideologies will choose to be atheist, but that does not mean atheists are evil.
Neither you nor Osama bin Laden believe in the Greek diety Zeus. But the fact that you share that disbelief doesn’t mean that what you do believe is related.
“They are not totalitarian because they are atheist, they are atheist because they are totalitarian.”
Tend to agree.
Remember our arrogant President Looney Tunes is both Muslim and Unitarian. Stoi is right once a Muslim always a Muslim unless you go apostate. However, Stanley Ann was more influential in Buraq’s life than any of his Moslem father figures, and she was a full blown Commie – Unitarian. ( remember the Little Red Church)
Unitarians, as I understand it, are considered Christian by some even though they think of Jesus as just a Prophet, not God and do not believe in the Holy Trinity. It seems to me the Unitarians use the Christian Label as a cover to pick and choose from a fantasy smorgasbord of faiths and beliefs including Marxism, so as to both avoid committing to a strict moral regimen and to appear intellectually enlightened and superior. They want to appear religious but really are functioning Atheists. Their Egos are above any God.
This Unitarian approach seems to fit Buraq to a Tee. We know by the Rev Wright”s tape, that Buraq still feels somehow connected to Islam but doesn’t totally want to commit. It is as if Buraq wants to play dress up as a Christian when convenient politically, is still tied to islam, but doesn’t want to be tied down to any faith so he can shuck and jive when necessary.
But back to Daedalus’s point. It seems like Daedalus’s example, Buraq’s true faith is to himself and Totalitarianism is the perfect vehicle for him to play God.
Unsk, what you describe is known as the Arian Heresy, which was a jumping off point for Unitarianism back in its origins, I think.
What is interesting, if you follow the history of Christianity to the present, is that all of those churches that have fallen away from the direct connection to Jesus by way of apostolic succession, are now dying on the vine.
Those that remain connected, including Roman Catholicism are, contrary to popular perceptions, increasingly active and robust throughout the world.
Maineman, correct me if I’m wrong, since I’m Catholic and have only a passing familiarity with the Mainline Protestant Churches infected by the Arian Heresy, but somehow I think the Unitarians have taken it to a wholly different level.
Perhaps it’s because the central organizing concept of Unitarianism is that Jesus was just a man, but I think the Unitarians are almost not a religion but a philosophy. There is no faith there, only a belief system where the believer is at the center, the beginning and the end , and Jesus is just some guy a long time ago who had some nice ideas that are sometimes useful, sometimes not.
Whereas with the Mainline Protestants, there are those within all those faiths infected with Arian Heresy that do believe that Jesus is God, ( I think) and they have limited the influence to some extent of the Arian nutters.
Peter – you read a book. Great. Did it dispense truth? Maybe not. Martin Luther was against selling indulgences and a bunch of other stuff. He nailed his PhD thesis to some church’s door. Conflict & controversy ensued.
He was also against sin. Arrogance is evil and its many manifestations are sins. Robespierre was arrogant of the highest category. Therefore unlikely that Luther would have supported his activities. Please stop trying to connect Luther with the many sins of mankind that occured after his time. He is not responsible.
Chirst was not Catholic, or Baptist, or Lutheran, or Methodist or any other thing that can be categorized by commentors. He is the head of the church which is comprised of all believers, regardless of whether they attend a local assembly of any kind. The church is often called the bride of Christ.
He endorses all believers regardless of membership or affiliation. However, he is neither author, nor sponsor, nor originator of any sin, even those of his bride. He is not responsible for distortions of the word, just like Luther is not responsible for distortions of his ideas. Some were consistent with the word, others not so much. Good grief guys!
I believe the link between Communism, Socialism and Islam (and some atheists) is philosophical. The nature of man (h/t brothers judd blog) is seen as good. This is an alluring, seductive, flattering idea. It also gives room for scoundrels and encourages the belief that evil comes from outside, others.
If one takes the time to think this thru, the problem of good and evil, the sources of both, is central to any group (an anthropologist would use the term culture). It is very easy to make outsiders the source of evil; but when evil persists, more people must be put in that category. My recollection, from the mid 1960s is the Arab expression: I against my brother, my brother and I against our cousin, my brother, my cousin and I against the stranger.
To return to the problem of scoundrels, if people are good, it is all too easy to neglect barriers to evil. Then the worst take advantage and rise to power.