A Matter of Faith
contributed by Charles Lemos
As an atheist, discussion of religion in politics generally makes me uneasy. I have come over the years to be more accepting of religion as having some positive influences though I still think that religion in general and monotheistic ones that proselytize in particular are among the most regressive and pernicious forces on the planet. In my travels to the remote corners of the globe, I have seen devastation wrought primarily by two classes of people: those who work for natural resources companies and missionaries.
In the first few debates there was an inordinate amount of time asking the candidates about their religious views but since then at least on the Democratic side, the religious question has generally quieted down. The sole exception is, of course, Barack Obama who has made rather dramatic statements about his religious beliefs, especially in South Carolina where he declared Jesus Christ to be his personal lord and saviour and late last year when he declared that faith “plays every role” in his life. Declarations like that I find inappropriate in a political campaign. It is a criticism that I have long had of the Republicans and I hate to see religion injected into Democratic Party politics. Here is a link on Obama’s beliefs and his view on the role of faith in politics: And another: And one from last year on his comments to a South Carolina Church: And here is a great and largely positive article from the Christian Science Monitor on Obama and his faith:
What puzzles me about Barack’s faith is how it came to be in the first place. Conversions to religion as an adult are rare. If you grow up with religion, then there is a tendency to maintain it throughout your lifetime. However if you grow up in a non-religious environment and then attend a very secular college and then become a Christian, well, that is a rare occurrence.
Both of Obama’s parents are atheists. His mother is pretty much fits the generation that came of age in the 1960s. And his Kenyan Luo father who did grow up a Muslim (Kenyan Muslims like most Muslims from the periphery of Islam are a blend of native traditions with an overlay of Islamic traditions, they are generally not rabid) was an atheist by the time he got to Hawaii. His stepfather, Soetoro, was a non-practicing Muslim from Indonesia. So how and why does a child of atheists who received an elite quality education at Punahou (Punahou is a school based on Christian principles but the few people I know who attended are all atheists) in Honolulu and at Columbia University in New York become a Christian as an adult?
I honestly do not know the answer to that question. Some of the articles to which I am providing links throughout this post attempt to reach an answer. The most persuasive one that I read was that in Obama’s community-organizing work in the South Side of Chicago, he kept on getting asked which Church he belonged to. That apparently led to his very public conversion.
One thing that did impress me about Barack Obama’s faith when I read more than twenty articles and interviews about the Trinity Church and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is how Obama does realize something that is generally lost on the Evangelical crowd. The crux of Christianity is the Sermon on the Mount. What most Christians do not realize, however, is that the Sermon on the Mount is actually a Buddhist text written approximately in 400BC. The original copy is in Ladakh in a Buddhist monastery near the city of Leh right at the intersection of Pakistan, India and Tibet in what is currently the Indian part of Kashmir.
While Barack Obama’s faith is a puzzle in some ways to me though in doing the research for this post, I have come away with an appreciation for his Trinity Church and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor. The more I read about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright the more I liked him. To begin with the Trinity Church is a Congregationalist Church, part of the United Church of Christ. Congregationalism is the religious tradition that evolved in New England though the UCC is only about a half century old and it is among the most liberal Christian philosophies. The Reverend Wright has taken though and somewhat controversial stands at times and I applaud him for it. He spoke out against apartheid in South Africa and he very publicly and eloquently spoken for gay rights. As a gay man, I appreciate that. And while I do not entirely understand the Black Empowerment argument, I do respect it. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright seems a positive force for his community. Here are some interviews from both the national and international press. One from the Der Spiegel, the German newsweekly: An interview in the Baltimore Sun: And an interview on PBS: And this link provides an excellent overview and biography of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright: And this is a great article on the Reverend Wright’s views on the AIDS pandemic and on homosexuality:
Still I think we should realize that the GOP will make Obama’s religious belief an issue and in particular that they will attack the Trinity Church. Freedom Watch, the group headed by Ari Fletcher, is armed and ready with over $200 million sitting in its coffers. It won’t be a swiftboat, but it might be a swiftchurch that we add to the political lexicon in 2008. The right wing will attack the Reverend Wright and the Trinity Church and by extension Barack Obama. The reason is that on two occasions the Reverend Wright has associated himself with the Reverend Louis Farrahkan, the controversial head of the Nation of Islam. There was a trip to Libya to visit Omar Qaddafi in the 1980s and the Reverend Wright awarded Louis Farrakhan a humanitarian prize. I also had heard charges that he equated Zionism with racism but I found no proof of that. Here is a link that summarizes some of the criticism: And this link provides the background on the ties to Farrahkan and on the Qaddafi visit.
For me these are largely a non-issue or perhaps trivial at best, but for Freedom Watch and the GOP it won’t be. The attacks will center on these events and will come from the various 527 groups. Be prepared for it. So on that level, let me advise you what to expect. This is a great overview from Media Matters that debunks the right-wing smears.
I have weird hobbies such as I like to monitor elections around the world for fun and at my own expense working for NGOs. I have monitored a half dozen so far from Haiti to Sri Lanka to Argentina to Cambodia to Columbus, Ohio. Incidentally, the only one were I have encountered serious lapses of the electoral process and wide-spread fraud was in Columbus in 2004. The level of electoral fraud and voter disenfranchisement in the United States is indeed something to behold.
I also enjoy reading sermons for their political content. I especially enjoy sermons from the American Founding Era. I wrote about the Reverend John Leland and the Rights of Conscious Inalienable previously which the readership seemed to overlook. Here is one of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons. This link is a downloadable sermon by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. It is a great read.
It has been suggested that in my dislike for Obama that I am campaigning for Clinton. That is not accurate. This is not a zero-sum game for me unlike for most of you for which it is an either a Clinton or an Obama choice. In my decision, both can actually lose. I realize that I have a difficult decision to make, one that troubles my conscience greatly. I would like to think that I can support the nominee of my Party but I have had thoughts of bolting the Party altogether no matter who the nominee is.
If I were to vote my own narrow economic self-interest I could support John McCain because he will do away with the AMT, the alternative minimum tax, that afflicts me greatly (not so much the amount which is steep but the inability to plan for it properly). Yet I have never voted my own narrow economic self-interests. I could also go for former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party whose views on Iraq, healthcare and energy match my own. But I have only supported an independent run for the White House once, John Anderson in 1980, a support that I regret to this day because of what it enabled thereafter. My mind remains unsettled.
Part of my aim is really to vet Barack Obama. To criticize and then to listen to the replies. So far, I remain unconvinced. I have read the replies to both of my recent pieces as of late Sunday afternoon and will attempt to answer as many as I can as soon as possible. I will say this once the debate moved off from me being the issue, the debate was very lively and productive.
My question to the readership now is two-fold: are any of you worried about Obama’s view on faith in his everyday life and the effects that may have on his decision-making and if not why not and does the conversion as an adult trouble you at all?
Comments
What is your Obsession with Barack Obama?
Barack acknowledges the rights of non beleivers in many of his comments about religion so his beliefs are actually less frightening then Hillary's and others.
Wow, you really ARE obsessed with changing people's minds about Obama, aren't you Norm?
Reading all of these allegations though is getting a tad bit tiresome for me , but wether I agree with you or not I genuinely admire your passion on the subject by posting/highlighting them for us to read.
By the way Charles, no I am not worried, because I truly think Obama's motivation for making all of these open declarations of his faith, are simply designed to help counter act the false notion that he is a "Muslim"...I mean I thought that was obvious.
I'm under the impression that most so called "enlightened" Christians and Muslims, especially if they have had extensive contact with other cultures, are actively involved in an elaborate game of disingenuous sophistry. Sometimes it is consciously done to placate those around themselves, but sometimes it has to be deployed directly on themselves to maintain "faith". I'm so used this this pervasive feature among the so called faithful, that I have extremely low expectations. Given my upbringing in a hedonistic yet fundamentalist Christian family (figger than one out), none of the serious candidates have really registered on my religious radar. To me you've raised the most important issue of all, but as far as I'm concerned all of the candidates flunk it. Unfortunately, it is again irrlevant. Fortunately though, we've avoided the Romney specter and are likely to do the same with Huckabee. Next issue please.
So, interested in any Hillary vetting Señor Lemos? Or can we conclude that you will only direct your comments towards Obama? Quite frankly, if you wanted to get me thinking more about my support for Obama, you could write any number of things. Somehow, I think you've picked some of the least convincing tacks imaginable, at least to me. Let me expose my soft underbelly to you. How about dissecting his stances (or lack thereof) on health care, poverty, taxation, FISA, executive power? Why focus on anecdotes of state-level politics and the vagaries of his supporters?
If these issues of personality are more important to you than the policy ones, then I am wasting my time reading your essays.
I won't speak for Mr. Lemos, but I will make the point that Hillary has been vetted much more extensively than Barack. If both there records were equally unvetted I could understand your desire for balance, but here it just sounds disingenuous.
It has been suggested that in my dislike for Obama that I am campaigning for Clinton.
As we here are all concerned with evidence, evidence in support of this proposition would be welcome. The Democratic Primaries are far from over. Indeed, I don't think any force is going to stop Hillary from cheating her way into the nomination.
You start off by indicating you're for Edwards, then spending the whole (very lengthy) article bashing Obama. Edwards leaves the race, and rather than discuss both candidates you spend the next five articles bashing Clinton.
Your denial of promoting Clinton doesn't refute that this is what you're doing.
Our host, too, should be looking for some balance here... lest this turn into Faux News. (And my criticisms of your weak-man arguments still stand.)
So it is the readers of this blog that are disingenuous!
Not the author of posts with titles such as "Why not Edwards?" and with content of such posts only with attacks and smears with another candidate. That is not disingenuous... no no.
I want to know how persuasive these posts have been. The only comments I've seen are by those who either had their suspicions of Mr Obama confirmed or angered those who support him.
Any one out there who switched horses in part because of these 'arguments'?
It could be that both you and Mr. Lemos are disingenuous on certain points. Your "you too" argument has a name.
Do you believe that Obama is as well vetted as Clinton and if not is it not reasonable to spend some extra time vetting Obama?
Hello all. I've been reading Norm's blog for quite a while but have never posted. I am so enjoying reading the lively, thoughtful discussions that have been accompanying the current political season.
I have read Obama's first book, "Dreams of my Father", and just finished reading the "Faith" chapter in his second book, "The Audacity of Hope". I have been stuck by some of the same questions voiced by Charles. I am wondering how someone with a secular upbringing and obvious appreciation of rational discourse could suddenly embrace all of the superstition and hearsay that is a part of religion.
However, a close reading of Obama's words shows that he never explicitly affirms faith in the historical events of Christ's divinity and resurrection. Here are two examples from the book which illustrate the point. On page 224, Obama writes, "This is not to say that I'm unanchored in my faith. There are some things I'm absolutely sure about--the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the values of love and charity, humility, and grace." Notably absent is faith in salvation through belief in the resurrection!
In the second passage, on page 226, he indicates that he has no absolute belief in what happens when we die: "I wondered whether I should have told her the truth, that I wasn't sure of what happens when we die, any more than I was sure of where the soul resides or what existed before the Big Bang."
So what exactly does he have faith in? I'm not sure. He seems to have been hungering to join a movement that was bigger than himself, and the United Church of Christ fit the bill. As a church, they are much more concerned with preaching a social gospel and doing good work on earth than adhering to any rigid set of beliefs.
In the end, Obama's faith doesn't bother me. He writes on page 219 that: "What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals must be subject to argument and amenable to reason."
That's all I, as a voter and atheist, am asking for. I will vote for him because, from my analysis of him, I believe him to be an intelligent, honest, and reasonable person who will use his considerable political gifts to achieve real gains for the less fortunate in this country. I am not too hung up on policy differences between he and Clinton, because I think he stands a much better chance of achieving consensus and having his policies enacted than she does.
Ben,
Thanks for your comment. It is exactly the sort of fact based post I appreciate. It adds to our knowledge about the candidate and that is the goal.
Norm, I'm not talking about the witch hunts of the 90s that went along with the Clinton destruction campaign. I don't consider that vetting. That is character assassination. I'm talking about vetting from a progressive point of view. From this perspective, can you seriously say that Hillary has been vetted any more than Obama? Oh sure, she's been around, but she's never been in a well-contested election, and her life in elected office got as much scrutiny in the last year as Obama's.
Sure, we know her public persona better, but is that vetting? The only thing that might count as serious vetting in connection with public service might be her unelected role in her failed health care initiative in the 90s. That's fair game, and there are lessons to learn there. And I'm sure failure was actually positive for her rather than negative. (I mean this honestly as somebody who fails a lot and learns from failure.)
But other than that, do you seriously think that Hillary's public service in the U.S. Senate has received more attention than Obama's in the Illinois State Senate or the U.S. Senate? (I'll grant you the health care initiative.)
Much like there are (so it's been said) no atheists in fox holes, so it goes that there are no (not in the open anyway) atheists in races for political offices in America. This conversion of his should come as no puzzle to any one following the recent rise of Obama in this electoral farce.
http://boskolives.wordpress.com/
"What puzzles me about Barack’s faith is how it came to be in the first place. Conversions to religion as an adult are rare. If you grow up with religion, then there is a tendency to maintain it throughout your lifetime. However if you grow up in a non-religious environment and then attend a very secular college and then become a Christian, well, that is a rare occurrence."
You would make that point but you would be wrong.
Perhaps she has been subjected to more scrutiny over the years but that doesn't mean her negatives have been tested with the electorate or her issue positions have been well represented in this election.
Her position on free trade would be a good example.
The implication that somehow, the right is out of attacks on the Clintons is really absurd. They just had another Donor go to jail and both Rupert Murdock and Obama have hinted that their research revealed that Bill's sex life is still quite active.
Obama has chosen not to use that, but I doubt Rupert will follow suit.
Okay lets investigate that. Here is what a quick google search reveals. link
Here is Barack Obama's official statement on the issue of Church and State separation from 2006: "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.
[...]
But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase "under God." I didn't. Having voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs - targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers - that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems."
-Barack Obama, June 28, 2006
http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-calltorenewal/
"Much like there are (so it's been said) no atheists in fox holes, so it goes that there are no (not in the open anyway) atheists in races for political offices in America. This conversion of his should come as no puzzle to any one following the recent rise of Obama in this electoral farce."
Exactly...why is Charles so surprised by this? It's the same old sad reality of American Politics. As much as I would like to think that a publicly declared Atheist could have a chance at winning the White House, that is not going to happen in this Country anytime soon...we will see a Black, Mexican, and a Female President in office LONG before that happens I am afraid.
Obama is being forced to talk about his religion to counteract the right wing lie machine that has already drilled it into the American consciousness that he is a radical Muslim who went to a madrassa and took his oath of office on a Koran.
Why else is it that Limbaugh, Hannity et al never fail to mention his middle name when they talk about him?
I think this quote itself is the reason why many people on OGM don't have a problem with his Faith, while Clinton has not made such a statement and seems to be wearing her religion more on her sleeve lately.
"What is your Ob-session with Barack Ob-ama?"
What scares me about Obama is he reminds me of Clinton* . What scares me about Hillary is she is married to Clinton.
My Musical Ob-fering (an idle (idol?) Ricercare): Blink, (but ink don't) Blink, (but ink don't) Blink, (but ink don't)... 6 parts? Easy, I'll Steve Reich it. And, by chants (but not chance), you will enter... an Obama trance...
Hillary is really, really hated (so was W, but he STOLE his election(s)).
Krugman is right. George Will supports Mr. O. Well we'll, have a choice between two different branches with twigs, tweedles-dumb-indeed, of the demopublican/republicrat hypermilitarist business party. What a choice. Maybe I'll move, vote Putin. Putin redux, whomever.
.
.*Bill
Ah, Riley beat me to the posting.
This might be the funniest line i've seen you type.
hahahaha Bold words about a policy pushed by the DLC and the CLintons and has a devastating effect on the middle class.
I am sure when John Edwards is standing in front of the closed mill where his father worked he thinks to himself, "Boy, we sure could use a little time-out from this."
And what the hell does tougher bargain mean?
Grasp at some more straws for me Norm.
I had never heard of Barack Obama before one day in 2006 when I turned on the television to find him doing an interview with a reporter who asked him about his religion. After his explanation of his faith, he went on to say exactly what I, as an atheist, wanted to hear about separation of church and state. Were it not for that statement, I would be very worried about his religiousity.
It'll be far better to have somebody with this kind of appreciation for the propper application of the separation of church and state, desoite his religiousity, than any of the republicans who dont even want it to exist.
Keith,
This is Norm's website, and he has no obligation to be 'balanced'. But I appreciate Norm because he encourages lively debate. But he is not CNN or the NYT, and he can post whatever he likes.
Mr. Lemos,
Thanks for addressing your thoughts on Obama and his religion. As I have said before, I've thought you and Norm both feel uneasy about the Senator because of his overt religious beliefs. Or maybe you feel uneasy because his movement and his supporters remind you of a religious mob.
I bet there are some on this board who cannot imagine a person DISLIKING Senator Obama. Well, I can. But until this post you and Norm have attempted to "vet" Senator Obama, but I think it has been ineffective because your uneasiness has much more to do with your atheism and less to do with policy.
Point taken. Perhaps some, she has been in office longer than he has but other than healthcare not significantly. Since there are few other policy differences the question comes down to can you place nice with Republicans like Pelosi and Reed have tried or do you battle it out in the trenches. And what are the two candidates records on that front. Has Barack done a better job in the Senate than Hillary. What are there records of accomplishment like, and what approach will work best. You're welcome to submit a guest post examining that question.
You are the one that claimed her position was the same as Bills. When I present evidence that you are flat out wrong. I get snark in return. Your bitterness is showing, and it's unbecoming.
Now how exactly does Obama's position differ?
Does it? Is that Obama's suggestion?
could Lemos clarify what he means when he says that the sermon on the mount is "actually" a Buddhist text? Does he mean he has evidence that the Gospel Writers relied, directly or indirectly on a Buddhist document that was known in the Greek-speaking world of the first century? Could he tell us how we could go about verifying that evidence?
Ok - never mind - it looks like he Lemos is under the sway of the Nicolas Notovitch hoax. Nothing to see here, other than a failure of skepticism, and a need to feel somehow superior to the supporters of a popular presidential candidate.
This discussion has been way too meta for some time now. I see no point in responding to critiques of Obama with "Why do you hate Obama, so much, Norm?" or "We want balance!" or "Gee whiz, this blog really has become a shill for Hillary."
I think largely the same goes for claims that Obama somehow needs to be criticized more. Norm posts whatever he wants and feels is important and insightful. There's not much more to say about it, though we can count on the fact that there always is a whole lot that will be said about it (but not about the arguments themselves).
On the issue of whether Obama has been vetted, I think there are two versions of this claim: 1) he has not been scrutinized to see whether he is a bona fide liberal acceptable to Dem primary voters; 2) The skeletons have not been shaken out of his closet, so he may be vulnerable to GOP attacks.
I think 1) is debatable, but HRC's campaign is free to go ahead and vet him, attack him on policy issues and see if he's acceptable to the Democratic party. She has largely declined to do that, instead opting for fake policy weakness such has his supposed infatuation with right-wing, Reaganite ideas, his "inconsistent" support of the war; his "weakness" on "choice"; and his position on an obscure admendment to a bankruptcy bill. If this is vetting, he's coming out pretty well. But maybe Hillary is savng the really damning facts about Obama's record for later.
On point 2), it's hard for ordinary people to know if there are unknowns that could be brought against him later. HRC's campaign probably has a file, but who knows what's in it and whether the dirt is very damning. Mark Penn likes to hint that there is all this dirt, but he could be lying.
Look, the sole reason Obama is stressing his faith so much is simply because the media made it an issue.
Remember the implication that he went to a Muslim Madrassa a kid? false.
I could go on to say that neither Sen. Clinton or Edwards felt the need to stress their faith as much because, being white Southerners, people took it for granted.
Obama, as a black man who has lived abroad, faces wild accusations that he is somehow an Al Qeada plant in some scheme to take over the U.S. Seriously, I got the forward not to long ago.
When you take into consideration that most AMericans won't vote for an atheist -- slightly fewer won't vote for an African American, and fewer still won't vote for a woman. Those who won't vote for a Muslim number greater than all of these categories.
Oh, and CHarles, there's an old saying, "All politicians have found God." Because of those inherit biases in our culture, no mainstream politican will ever endorse a secular humanist o athiest viewpoint. It would be political suicide.
Shame on you.
For a good list of all the smears that have been directed at Obama - and still persist - check out Anataomy of a Smear.
There's also a great timeline.
Getting sort of off topic here...
The "hoax" is called a Hoax by a biblical scholar, who upholds the gospels as the word of god, infalliable, and therefore, the times when Notovich contratics the "gospels", then he's a liar and a crook (at least according to the Wikipedia linky you provide). Come come, we know better than to believe someone like that, who thinks the bible is the inerrant word of god.
Notovich has the same probabability of being right as any other religious scholar.
Even if you should give him the possibility of being right (which I don't - if Notovitch's claims could be confirmed, or even were not easily disconfirmed, you would hear about them in serious discussion outside New Age circles) - there is at least enough doubt that a good skeptic wouldn't present this claim as "fact". It should at least be presented as a curious theory.
The problem with talking about your faith in public the way Barack does is it leaves you open to having to answer questions you otherwise could say that are inappropriate to ask. How for instance does Barack answer the Christian pundit who publicly asks do you believe in the divinity of Christ do you believe he died for our sins and was resurrected. And if what I read of his religious belief here in the comments is true. He'll be exposed as not a 'real christian' to the right-wing goons. A deist, which they will point out is a close cousin of an atheist.
Among the things that worry me about Obama is the way he discusses faith. In fact, in his famous "faith" speech, he feeds the right-wing meme that the left wants to shut religion completely out of the public discourse. I find that unfortunate besides being counterfactual.
I do (and have for some time - since I learned he was a member of the UCC denomination) expect that he will get questioned on his views of the resurrection & divinity of Christ. I almost look forward to this... I think he can handle the question with style, and I would love to see the "gotcha" questions turned around against the intolerant herd. Naturally, that's a gamble, but I'm looking forward to seeing how he handles it.
Norm said:
Actually, I think Obama is fine with right-wing goons thinking he is not a 'real christian'. He has already directly criticized the right-wing goons. One thing that seems to be true is that there are a large number of moderate Christians who have gotten tired of the right-wing goons. They still hunger for a leader who shares their Christian faith and can speak to it genuinely, and a significant number of them seem to think that Obama can be that leader. Remember, Obama unites us in the middle, and is willing to criticize the divisive beliefs of those on the fringe (on both sides).
This is exactly what we freethinkers should want: A leader who has the moral courage and moral authority to stand up to the right-wing goons in a way that neutralizes them without alienating the large numbers of moderates who have strong Christian faith.
I too wish that religion could be made taboo in political discourse, but that just isn't possible at this moment in history.
Norm, you made an ad hominem attack on LwPhD (appeal to motive) for being disingenuous, rather than simply stating that Hillary has been vetted by others.
I think it is clear that Charles is being disingenuous by his previous call to have a clean democratic primary battle and then continuously attacking only one candidate. I pointed out how this is hypocritical, perhaps with some snark, since you only seem to defend Sir Charles. You pointed out that my arguement is "you too" and said it "has a name" perhaps alluding to it being an ad hominem (tu quoque?) fallacy. I especially love the irony of now calling out my ad hominem attack just after having made one yourself. Nice touch ;)
As far as being an atheist and supporting Saint Obama, I found this post (link by name) by PZ Myers interesting. He said he would never vote for Obama, yet did just that in the Minnesota primary. Most of the post concerns Obama's Faith in Politics speech.
I didn't say he was disingenuous. I said it sounded disingenuous and it did. It allowed him a chance to argue the case which he did and to which I responded.
Clinton
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2007/03/hillary_clinton.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBypp2hqxaQ
Obama Not the Clearest statement and I will concede some ambiguity.
''So, when a candidate rails against NAFTA today, it's fair to ask her where she was with NAFTA 20 years ago,'' said Obama. ''You don't just suddenly wake up and say NAFTA is a terrible thing when you were for it before.''
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/648169,obtrade111307.stng
Agree with Ben's comments up above on points.
One thing sorely missing from Lemos's original post here is a discussion about the fact that the Obama camp had to counter the whole Muslim rumors. I think that put him in a box, so that he had to talk about his faith more.
As to this whole narrative that Hillary has been vetted. Yes, somewhat, but many documents are scheduled to be released of the health care task force soon. And either way, you can bet Freedom Watch has a dump-truck ready to unload on her if she gets the nomination. She is the only candidate that can motivate and unite the conservatives. Oh, and btw, have we evaluated every whisper of Hillary's religious statements? Of course not, she has been vetted haha.
Okay Norm... how about you try to make the case Hillary is a progressive, up front, without resorting to logical fallacies.
Unless by 'already vetted' you mean 'already vetted and found wanting...' which is what I take from that analysis.
I don't think either Hillary or Barack are what I consider progressive, they have some progressive policies, but are far from my ideal candidates, for that matter although John Edwards, was more progressive I found him lacking in several important ways.
By the way why don't you register so I don't have to approve your comments individually.
A bit off topic, but, it sort of relates to faith: Each of the Candidate's stances on the death penalty from the AP:
That huckabee quote makes me reel each time I see it. The Christian bragging about the number of people he's killed, the mind boggles.
A substantive question, which I appreciate. I have not appreciated your line of attack.. "vetting" the candidate (or whatever), by using over-the-top ad hominem attacks against his supporters just doesn't do much for me. I have not wished to dignify your ideas about what qualifies as a reasonable discussion any further than ask why Norm lets these attacks go on the front page where we could otherwise have some reasonable and interesting content. So, this may be my last reply to a Charles Lemos thread, but I might as well make it about one of the few substantive points that have come up.
The answer is, no - I am not very worried about Obama's faith and decision making, though I am not entirely comfortable with his way of talking about it.
One reason is that I am a nontheist member of the Unitarian Universalist church (see! Not a scientologist!), and I'm pretty familiar with liberal religious ideas. I have also had close contact with the United Churches of Christ and other liberal Christian notions. When I read Obama's own words about his conversion, they struck me as 1) frank, 2) genuine, and 3) unproblematic.
1) He did not try to sugarcoat his secular upbringing and his natural leanings toward that way of thinking. 2) His language rang true as an authentic example of a liberal religious conversion - a perspective I am already familiar with. 3) It is unproblematic. Liberal Christianity may or may not "legitimize" the religious crazies, but for on its own merits it is no worse than neutral, and may actually provide some social positives. It is also very oriented away from supernaturalism and toward humanism, such that objections to it on rational grounds are minimal.
Okay, that's it. I'm done with OneGoodMove until after the convention.
Norm, if you wanted to pick a candidate and turn this blog into a propaganda machine for Hillary (or just anti-Obama) then that is your choice, and we'd all have the ability to decide if we wanted to support that.
But this whole status of 'guest' posts by Mr Lemos is just reeking of partisanship and an obsessive string of attacks against one candidate. These attacks and 'questions' have been steadily rebuked and answered.
This has crossed the line into an underhanded campaign against a candidate, that I no longer wish to contribute to. The only way I have to let your advertisers know that I disapprove is to stop giving you the hits that this is generating.
Thank for for the great blog, and I look forward to dialing up this page again after the convention.
The right-wing's willingness to commingle politics and religion had me, for a time, in a highly reactive mode regarding religious believers. Any realistic atheist has to get over that or face the prospect having no candidates to vote for. I'm not a fan of opportunistic belief - and Barack may be an opportunistic believer as far as I know - but his statements quoted above reveal a certain amount of healthy skepticism regarding various religious dogmas. I can't remember where I read about Hillary's cozying up to powerful religious figures (maybe you posted it Norm?), but I get the impression that she to may be as much an opportunist as he. The information most recently repeated by Ben and Riley, should, in my opinion, pretty much reassure any atheist or believer that Barack Obama has a proper attitude about the role of religion in politics and public policy.
As to this complaining about Norm's alleged anti-Obama tilt, it doesn't bother me in the least. Even if it is true, and even if it stems from an overreaction by his inner atheist demons (heh heh), Norm's is running a site where some of the best political debate in the blogosphere is happening. If there has been an anti-Obama tilt by the publication of so many of Charles Lemos' polemics, I frankly think that that responses have been so good that Obama has come out smelling pretty good.
Smijer: I do not understand at all why you backed down on the Buddhist text issue. I should certainly like to know how on earth a Buddhist text made into the 1st century Greek speaking world, when most religious historians, such as Karen Armstrong, trace the central core of Jesus' teachings to Pharisee reformers within the Jewish religious community like Hillel (see in A History of God, p. 81ff). I should also like to know whether the claim was about a parallels in ideas, indirect transmission through intermediary sources, or actual direct transmission, and what evidence there would be for any of those claims. Aside from being an off the cuff remark, which, like 90% of the posting, had nothing whatsoever do with the issue of Obama's religion, Charles claims, in addition to a number of prestigious degrees, to be trained mainly as a historian. And surely, if he is who he says he is, it is not asking too much for a bit of evidence, or for that matter, a something approaching a coherent argument.
More generally, why does "vetting" Obama mean smearing him with extravagant analogies to dictators, and empty accusations of "disenfranchising the homeless". This is not a basis for a serious discussion of the issue. And if religion really is such a deeply important issue to you, Charles, and even if you are sincere in saying you are not a tacit Clinton support, I frankly find it striking that you devoted not a single word of your rambling post to the fact that HRC has been very vocal about her methodist faith, the bible studies she held in the White House as first-lady, or the "spiritual" role she wanted government to play in the lives of das Volk.
Does that sound like smear? Actually, you can find all of it in Carl Bernstein's (very sympathetic) biography. An except is here:
http://www.carlbernstein.com/awic_excerpt.php
A taste, about a sermon she gave in Austin in 1993. I italicize the important passages (And, btw, I don't use this to say 'don't vote for Hillary'; I use it to emphasize there is an absurd double standard being applied. Is no one trouble by Hillary's apparent idea that government should provide "spiritual" meaning to a nation?):
*'It had been her intent, and that of the White House political staff, to use the occasion—on the seventy-fifth day of the Clinton presidency— for her first major speech on health care reform. Instead, as she flew from Washington to Austin on Executive One that morning, she began scribbling notes that reflected both the intense internal turmoil, personal and political, of the past weeks, and the calm, purpose, and steadiness she found in scripture and religion. The stroke her father suffered eighteen days earlier had left him in extremely critical condition and the family with an imminent decision about discontinuing life support. She had rarely left his bedside for more than a day since. Newspaper photos of Hillary during the previous two weeks, taken between hospital and car, “showed the toll of universal truths about what it means to lose a loved one,” a Washington Post reporter wrote.
[...]
'In fact, Hillary regarded the result of the 1992 presidential election as a cleansing of the national soul, a spiritual and political verdict.
'And there came from the crowd filling the arena in Austin shouts of “Amen” and “Yes, yes,” and cheering, followed by the kind of fervent murmur that, appropriately, usually attends a religious rally, not a political speech.
A few weeks earlier, Hillary had been visited in the White House by Michael Lerner, the editor and publisher of Tikkun, a bimonthly secular Jewish journal that was an amalgam of liberal cultural and political commentary, post-Marxist dialectic, Talmudic principle, and New Age jargon. In Hillary’s office, as he had in his magazine, Lerner had propounded his Politics of Meaning, a vision of spiritually infused public life that very much fit Hillary’s perception of the raison d’être of government service. Lerner’s underlying assumption held that government had satisfactorily addressed the basic question of political rights, if not the economic needs, of the people; “but for the majority of Americans, there’s another set of needs, totally ignored: The need to be part of an ethically based spiritual community that links us to a higher purpose. Many of us are involved in social change movements like the women’s movement, the environmental movement, the movement for economic justice, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, the labor movement,” Lerner had written. “And yet, we believe that these movements have tended to underplay or even deny a very important dimension of human life—the spiritual dimension.” '*
Sorry, the way I quoted may have made it look like only Lerner said that, and did not address whether Hillary agreed: she incorporated the idea "spiritually infused government" into her speech. Here are the next two paragraphs.
In Austin, Hillary borrowed from her discussion with Lerner, asserting that “We are, I think, in a crisis of meaning. Why is it in a country as economically wealthy as we are . . . there is this undercurrent of discontent—this sense that somehow economic growth and prosperity, political democracy and freedom are not enough? That we lack, at some core level, meaning in our individual lives and meaning collectively— that sense that our lives are part of some greater effort, that we are connected to one another, that community means that we have a place where we belong no matter who we are?
“We need a new politics of meaning. We need a new ethos of individual responsibility and caring.We need a new definition of civil society which answers the unanswerable questions posed by both the market forces and the governmental ones, as to how we can have a society that fills us up again and makes us feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.”
Balancing the conservative-mind, liberal-heart equation, addressing “this tumor of the soul,” filling the “spiritual vacuum”...these notions, she suggested, would inform the Clintonian principles of governance.'
I don't remember backing down. I parenthetically stated that I did not accept the equal likelihood of Lemos' claim and the negation of it and gave the simplest reasons for doing so that I could fit in a pair of parentheses and went on to say that even if one did grant the possibility that he was correct, then the only correct way to present the claim was as a curious theory - not as a fact. Of course, that was me being diplomatic. I'm well aware of the scholarly viewpoint on the origins of Jesus' teachings. I actually teach a class at the UU church that covers some of this. My goal was to point out that Lemos' claim was, at the very least, overstated and underevidenced. As are many of his more political claims.
By the way, Adam - an excellent reply on your part. Thank you.
Smijer: Forgive me for being unfair: you were being diplomatic, and you were trying to accommodate a position for which there was no evidence offered by suggesting a probably source of the view yourself. I got a great laugh out of your post because I was wondering whether anyone was going to call our Ivy Leagued trained historian on that.
I didn't even read this post because I have A) a job; and B) a saturation point.
Well, alright, I glanced at the last paragraph and saw Charles' claim that he's considered what everyone has said thus far, but that, oh-gosh-oh-golly, he still remains unconvinced that Barack Obama isn't going to get into the White House and unleash his legions of zombified syncophants.
And so he asks more earnest questions that he will further ignore the answers to because he just can't stop furiously masturbating over all the attention he's been getting.
Feh. (I hope that's not too much raw emotion for this bastion of reason)
1gm has, of late, been reminiscent of some kinda Rovian mind trick.
I know I've seen it stated here more than once that there are only slight discernable differences between either candidate's platform. And yet it sure has been a li'l lopsided round these parts lately.
Interesting question, that is the original one that is about the candidates faith. I actually have not really even thought about it myself until you asked. I am not as troubled about the faith thing as they all seem to believe in separation of.
I am also a psychiatrist and to be honest both candidates motivation and religion make sense to me from what we know of both candidates backgrounds. I am a "non believer" but grew up with a wonderful liberal christian background the most moral, liberal, non racist, non sexist, gay friendly, good kind folk you could meet were my ministers and parents friends. The most political, the ones that did most for the underprivileged poor etc. I suspect Obama and Clinton would both feel at home in that group. Frankly most important black leaders have for the most part been religious ones, MLK, Jesse Jackson, Malcomn X. The antislavery movement started with christian leaders some like Reverend Lovejoy (no, not the simpsons) who were murdered for their beliefs, and are believed in part to influence Lincoln's decisions.
Anyway for an interesting article on HC's faith see mother jones anyway someone posted something about obama relegion earlier her is an interesting article on HC form mother jones http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html
Disclosure, coolaid drinking cultist who broke the old white female voting for Clinton rule... but i am open to being proved wrong.
Sorry for double post, these are exerpts from an obama speech in i believe 2006, i expect some of you will hate it, but thank you charles, your questions are making me look over the coolaid, but i still like what i find, and i really like this speeech in full at link selected bits below. He sure is consistent.
http://usliberals.about.com/od/faithinpubliclife/a/ObamaReligion_3.htm
"In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway." "I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology - that can be dangerous. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith. As Jim has mentioned, some politicians come and clap -- off rhythm -- to the choir. We don't need that.
In fact, because I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics, and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without pretending that they're something they're not. They don't need to do that. None of us need to do that.
But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.
So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country.
We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation... And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal."
Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."
with regard to obama's religion. i've always had the feeling that obama is a very smart and very driven man, and that as such, realized early on the he couldn't survive in us politics unless he declared his love for his "personal saviour" jesus christ. its probably a large bit political posturing. and i'm sure he feels he has to be more vocal about it because of his family history.
i may be full of shit but otherwise everything just doesn't seem to add up.
Little Mickey!!! LOL shits too funny!! I must admit I didn't read this whole post either, but I did in fact breeze threw it...kind of the way Hillary breezed threw the Patriot Act I imagine. :P
"Yatta Yatta "No Right to Privacy" Yatta Yatta "No Right to a Lawyer" Yatta Yatta "No Right to a Fair Trial" Yatta Yatta Yatta..."
Well Norm, I'll give it to you & Charles, you two sure can rile up some Obama supporters.
I just skip his ramblings and read the quotes of my candidate as well as well reasoned responses from the posters.
Chuck's a tool, but keep up the good work!
Obama 08
I actually enjoy these posts and are the few I have read all the way through including the comments. I am undecided and there are clear statements that would sway my vote. They are statements I doubt I would hear from either candidate, but were ones I heard from Edwards. I too was planning to vote for Edwards.
I think the reason these questions are appropriate for Obama and not for Hillary is the nature of the campaign. Hillary campaigns as a typical politician. I have a feeling I know roughly what I would get from her. I may be right. I may be wrong, but I believe she will be a light Republican with enough progressive positions that the (D) next to her name is not a complete joke. Barack asks me to believe, but never answers the question “In What?”
Barack has run a new style of campaign. He throws back to the great mold of JFK, but says very little about what he will do if given the position. I think my concern is that he will be very powerful, far more powerful than Hillary could be and if he shares my values then that power is most welcome. But he does not. His health plan is one of the few peeks inside his agenda and I don't like it. I don't like his Chicago School Economic advisors. I'm nervous about his conciliatory behavior and I do think it is fair to hold him up to inspection regardless of anybody else in the race. If he is the nominee, I would still ask these questions because there is something nagging in my mind about him.
I do not want to vote for the lesser of two evils and Barack is promising he is something new, different. Well then, isn't it fair we ask questions about why we should vote for Barack rather than against Hillary? I must say that the responses from his supporters give me pause. These are not the comments of those who wish to unite the country, heal our divisions, and reconcile differences.
Could someone just talk about the pros of Obama without railing against me for being a super secret triple probation Hillary agent of demise? And as important as being specific, can it be done without mention of Hillary at all? I really don't care who is better, why is Barack good?
Why is Barack good?
Which do you want? Good candidate? Good president? Good morals? Good in general? All of the above?
If you are looking for "All of the above, then I think there have been many arguments posted on this site that fill your needs. You can also just go to his website and read all the 'good' things that he has done. I don't know much more about him than what he has posted there himself.
Since Obama, Clinton, and McCain all fit my definition of 'good', I think the appropate questions should focus on 'better'.
ok, i am respoding to Tavlson, as one of the posters that support Obama, what have I said that suggests divisiveness in my comments? Comparing candidates opinions is not divisive. Obama's view on religion( i think the subject of this thread) seems to be consistent, very consistent with his philosophy that the left needs to include the religious in a party they have not felt welcome. He also goes on as to say that not including the religious has given power to the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons. Read the speech if you are interested.
I do think that on economics he may believe in free enterprise and competition , I also think he believes in some degree of personal responsibility on social issues,(listen to that famous 2004 convention speech) and i suspect his health care plan is not as rigourously "progressive" as the hard line "progressives" would like it, but frankly most americans actually believe in personal responsiblity and free enterprise. I personally think his health care program is more likely to get past congress and senate than Hillary's and frankly all the possible health care plans will end up being changed by the two houses. Even i, the coolaid drinker knows that charisma will not get a bill unchanged though congress, even a democratic one.
I know this is generally an issue based crowd when it comes to politics(and for good reason)...but I myself as a fellow Artist found this Caricature Artist's insights on the Candidates visible features and mannerisms to be quite revealing and fascinating as well! You guys might want to check it out...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/01/25/VI2008012502004.html
Barack Obama has been fighting for universal health care coverage ever since he was a state senator in Illinois. He was a co-sponsor of the Bernardin Amendment to the Illinois constitution which reads as follows:
link Universal Care
As for other good reasons, I've posted this before, but i'll post it again. Obama's legislative record in the Illinos Senate
This shows not just what he says he'll do, but what he has actually done in the past.
And here's some red meat for Norm and Lemos. Obama Record May Be Gold Mine For Critics
More reasons why "Barack is good"
You should read the entire article, but here a few excerpts: (And this addresses the issue of how hard he would work to pass legislation that someone brought up in one of these threads)
Joann, I'd seen the Post article, and I agree that it makes a great case for Obama. It's really interesting to see how people of different ideologies view Obama's unity theme. Skeptical liberals think that he means he'll compromise even more with the GOP (if that were possible); the right on the other hand, argues that Obama is very liberal and that unity for him is really just a stronger Democratic majority. The question both ask is: "What about people who disagree with you?" Well, what about them, you should ask right back to Hillary. Hillary's style has been to pick her battles and in some cases flat-out give into conservatives (flag burning, the war, etc.) so that she can save her capital to fight another day on something more important. Obama is more interested in growing that capital, changing minds, building coalitions. You can look at the most successful presidents over the past 50 years, they did both. Reaching across the aisle is a simplistic way to describe someone who moves the stakes, re-dreaws the lines of battle, turns the normal view of an issue on its head. It's not empty hope, it's political dynamism. I agree it can fall on its face as well as succeed; Obama is a risk-reward sort of politician. But it's a real political skill, and one HRC doesn't have. She's largely a follower--a follower of public opinion, of the Washginton consensus, of Bill, of Edwards even. She leads by putting these inputs together into a package that can succeed.
I think this is the perception of many people, and why they don't like HRC's "politics as usual". HRC seems to think that Political Capital is not an investment, but a limited resource, that after she spends it, she'll never get any more. What she doesn't seem to realize, that making the correct decisions gets you more capital.
This is what has struck me most about Hillary Rodman Clinton. Because I didn't know as much about Barack Obama as I do about Hillary Clinton, I've been thinking a lot about how they might work with the Republicans in getting legislation passed.
There's always that decision to be made of pandering or sticking to one's principles.
Even McCain, Mr Straight Talk, pandered to the evangelicals at one time.
They all pander. But who is able to deal with these contingencies while still getting the job done?
As for flag burning, Dianne Feinstein is someone who also voted for this and reminds me a lot of Hillary Clinton.
Another Washington Post article
Star-Spangled Pandering
And here is what Barack Obama has to say about flag burning.
He does a good job of pandering by showing how patriotic he is while still opposing a constitutional amendment against burning the flag.
Wait...
I checked out the roll call and it looks like both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ended up voting "Nay" on this "joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States authorizing Congress to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."
Another reason why "Barack is good"
Net Neutrality (I'm still attempting to learn more about the flag-burning controversy!)
Dende Blogger is right. This is just a pillow fight. HRC and BHO are so similar on the issues and most of the mud flinging is coming from the right. Well, most of the mud flinging. We Democrats are flinging plenty of mud on our own candidates as is evident here! lol
link
And then I run across this
It is so damned difficult to figure out the truth on any of the canidates. They waffle and pander... and... shit!
Still attempting to undersatnd this issue of flag burning.
Richard Cohen said
It seems that she spoke in favor of an amendment to outlaw flag burning before voting against it. Is that it?
And then there's this
I don't know about anyone else, but I"m confused and searching for the truth. :/
Dear pedantic mud-slinger:
Zzzzzzzzz
Cordially,
Zaphod
p.s. still waiting for a post outlining why Hillary is a superior candidate.
Oh come on! It's so much more satisfying to sling mud!
Come on, get with progam!
As already stated by multiple people, Obama had made clear that anything he wants to do as a leader has to stand on secular logic.
As for why a nonreligious man converts to any faith, there are two reasons that come mind that seem potentially applicable:
1) A relatively liberal denomination that isn't too tied down by tradition can provide a reasonably productive sense of community. Indeed, the guy may be trying to draw out the best of what religion has to offer.
2) At least for a few more decades, an atheist can't be very successful in politics. Obama has expressed that he wants to focus on the gains we can realistically hope to achieve right now (with respect to pushing for same-sex unions rather than same-sex marriage). I would much rather have someone willing to make the hard stands this country needs, but I can't fault the guy too much for not killing his campaign to do that.
So, where's the critic on Hillary "The cause for justice has always come from people of faith and people of labor" Clinton's faith?
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