Lion in Winter

Who, us, or Congress?

Captain Cheesestick

I think it's funny that most of my friends on both side of the ideological divide think that Obama is lying about being a Christian. My Repub friends think he's a secret Muslim - as you might have heard (fnar). My Democrat friends think he just says he's Christian to get votes and is totally lying about it. I mean - Christians are intolerant loons right?

I like also that Obama can say firmly that he is very much against gay marriage, is against abortion and believes in the Genesis story as Biblical truth but that somehow doesn't make him as intolerant on the same topics in the way it does Romney - who actually did claim for a long time to be the other way.

Lion in Winter

Perhaps it's because he doesn't actually foam at the mouth when he says it?

Giantaxe

The difference is that Romney has to cull the votes of a bunch of right-wing religious crazies to get past the primaries.

Michael

I have a friend who is a retired doctor and generally I consider to be liberal but he started questioning whether Obama was really born in the US since he would not release his birth certificate. I then asked him if he really believed that "Glenn Beck really did rape and kill a 16 year old girl in 1990" since he has never denied it and he won't answer that question?"

Captain Cheesestick

That's not what I mean though. I mean people who spit bile at someone without a D in their title based upon their views on gay marriage, abortion and Biblical Genesis - anyone who believes that. But to cope with Obama's belief in it they deny he even is a Christian -it's a charade for the idiots. They don't think he's a "good one" - because they don't think there are any.

Captain Cheesestick

My father in law told me that he is absolutely sure Obama is a Muslim, socialist and foreign and "plans to take the US down." He cannot answer the Why part of that. All he'll do is talk about Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs as proof it could be so.

Surely the Why part would come first?

Can we start posting those emails people get about Dems/Repubs tht are blatantly mental too? I'm in my families Repub email chain and the crap I get is astounding.

Michael

Recently I was quite surprised to learn that an old navy buddy who was very religious in the military and currently sends me religious e-mails every Sunday said he was an agnostic. I said "that surprises me". He said "Why, because I send you religious e-mails every Sunday?".

Then a week later I was visiting my uncle and he claimed he was an atheist. Again I was a quite surprised since he and his wife attends church every Sunday and do heavy volunteer work for the church.

Michael

If something is repeated enough, it eventually becomes the truth.

HarryTheSpider

When/where did he say this, what was the context - I'm genuinely curious.

I'm struggling really with the whole 'believe in Genesis as Biblical truth' bit - primarily because there's a ton of scientific evidence (i.e. testable...) that pretty much says that Genesis is at best an analogue/metaphor...

Is Obama really a closet nut job?

Michael

You missed it again. He was being sarcastic, I think.

Lion in Winter

Doublethink is alive and well.

Captain Cheesestick

Haven't read it in a while but he does say in Audacity of Hope that he thought Cathloic school as a child was every bit as empty and silly as the Muslim school he went to. But that later in life he had his Road to Damascus moment and joined the United Church of Christ and believed the Bible not to be literally true as Southern Baptists might go in for but hermeneutic at least. He writes about authoritative biblical accuracy a lot after that but seems to want to evade going for it and specify much. Nothing wrong with that. IT's a pretty huge discussion point in Christianity Today and the CSM that he keeps contradicting himself in subsequent speeches depending on his audience. It's almost as if he's a politician saying what needs to be said depending on who he's talking to....

You can spend 10 mins and find all the speeches in 2006/7 where he said he didn't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and that he agreed with his pastor that you can have creation and evolution. A lot of his early speeches (you can Google the phrase "I believe in evolution" and it's all over the place) he is fast to point out he believes in evolution and has Christian scientist beliefs too. It's not that hard a concept to believe in. Most Christians I mill about with are along these lines. More importantly the only aspect of this he has been clear about (it's almost as if he was being deliberatly on the fence....) is that he does not believe creationism or Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. Which - knowing how smarmy and smart-arsed lawyers and politicians isn't actually a comment on if you believe it.

Michael

See, if things are repeated enough, they become facts.

Interviews by The Associated Press at the elementary school in Jakarta found that it's a public and secular institution that has been open to students of all faiths since before the White House hopeful attended in the late 1960s.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16813267...slamic-school/

Now the actual truth we don't know but we can all speculate depending on what we want to believe.

Captain Cheesestick

Page 154 of Dreams From My Father - I'm holding it right in front of me -

"In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school. In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during Koranic studies."

I think that pretty much settles that one.