Personal Religion and Chief Executive... how the former impacts the latter...

[Arakhor]

People seem to be morbidly obsessed with President Obama being a secret Muslim and then claim he's faking it when he does mention the Judaeo-Christian God. Why should anyone except the individual, his priest and God be allowed to merely presume that someone is insincere in their faith?

 

[kochman]

People seem to be morbidly obsessed with President Obama being a secret Muslim and then claim he's faking it when he does mention the Judaeo-Christian God. Why should anyone except the individual, his priest and God be allowed to merely presume that someone is insincere in their faith?

I don't think you have a very accurate read on the situation...

You can see, by actions, if people are sincere... you don't have to be a priest... jeez.

 

[Arakhor]

Feel free to enlighten me, then. What has the President done that means he is insincere in his religious beliefs and practices?

 

[kochman]

Feel free to enlighten me, then. What has the President done that means he is insincere in his religious beliefs and practices?

Attending his racist church for 20 years, for the political expediency, is a starter...

It is clear, even to his supporters, as you have seen in this thread, he pays lip service to religion...

If you need further, feel free to google it up.

 

[Traitorfish]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/obama-i-pushed-dodd-frank-and-health-care-reform



I've seen posters claiming the right wants to establish a theocracy... it was tongue and cheek, but the defense was that the right lets religion influence their policy.

Obama here is saying he does.

When is this a problem? When is it ok?

I have no problem with Obama saying love thy neighbor, and that being part of his reason for supporting certain things...
But, I am a Christian, so why would I?

What do atheists think?
What about non-Christians, mono- and/or polytheists think?

I think that you're confusing ethical principles that are derived from religion with ethical principles that are compatible with religion. "Love thy neighbour" is in itself an entirely secular sentiment, it's just one that Christian happens to uphold. That's not true of, for example, Biblically-derived marital laws.

 

[kochman]

Not surprisingly, you are again putting words in my mouth.

I didn't even mention gay marriage, nor said anything to suggest I would oppose it.

Oh god... here we go again...
Listen, I'm done with this conversation. Completely unproductive.

If you really want to discuss it, in a mature manner, please figure out your point/question, and PM it to me...

 

[Core Imposter]

One might suggest that Robin Hood could have through some misguided Christian impulse found rightous the act of stealing from the rich to redistribute to the poor.

In which case one would not find it necessary to question his faith to label him a theif.

 

[bhsup]

Why are you all assuming it is a sales pitch and not a sincerely held belief? Really, I'd like to know why you can't just accept that he might actually mean it.

 

[Traitorfish]

Not surprisingly, you are again putting words in my mouth.

I didn't even mention gay marriage, nor said anything to suggest I would oppose it.

Oh god... here we go again...
Listen, I'm done with this conversation. Completely unproductive.

If you really want to discuss it, in a mature manner, please figure out your point/question, and PM it to me...

I didn't say that you did. It was just an example to illustrate why this is distinct from the sort of political tendencies which provoke allegations of theocracy. There's no need to be so ridiculously sensitive.

One might suggest that Robin Hood could have through some misguided Christian impulse found rightous the act of stealing from the rich to redistribute to the poor.

Debatable. There has been plenty of perfectly respectable Christian writing on both the injustice of the accumulation of wealth and on the need for Christians to militantly oppose injustice.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

it's such an odd thing for a modern politician to say.

as if religion was necessary to support his power.

Well, it is. If more people were like the conservative Christian core of the CDU voter base, you likely would hear Merkel saying similar stuff. In fact, she did already feel the need to evoke "Chistian values" the CDU stood for as a response to Christian conservative's dissatisfaction with the CDU.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Obama here is saying he does.[support a theocracy]

When is this a problem? When is it ok?

I have no problem with Obama saying love thy neighbor, and that being part of his reason for supporting certain things...
But, I am a Christian, so why would I?

What do atheists think?
What about non-Christians, mono- and/or polytheists think?

You are confusing politics with personal belief. These days, in America, it is almost impossible to be elected to office without claiming some sort of religious conviction, and it is easy enough to claim religion as a cause for legislation. Obama is cleverly using religion to advance policy that may or may not have any relevance to any religious belief. He's just doing it from the left wing, which the right wing has been doing for years. The right wing likes to claim religion to advance anti-abortion, anti-gay, and other social agendas. This is politics at work here, not religion. (Although, since when have the two been separate anyway?)

 

[Miles Teg]

Why are you all assuming it is a sales pitch and not a sincerely held belief? Really, I'd like to know why you can't just accept that he might actually mean it.

Several posters have brought this up, that he is just saying it to pander. Are you all also claiming he is a liar when he says he is religious and motivated in part by that?

I don't think Obama is necessarily laying claim to a faith he doesn't believe in. It strikes me as fairly likely he's a sincere Christian of the wishy-washy liberal variety. I'm just pointing out that it's good politics for him to talk up his Christian faith.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

People seem to be morbidly obsessed with President Obama being a secret Muslim and then claim he's faking it when he does mention the Judaeo-Christian God. Why should anyone except the individual, his priest and God be allowed to merely presume that someone is insincere in their faith?

Well, when you're talking about a politician you should assume that they're always lying no matter what the subject. In the case of religion, I'd be skeptical of anyone but Romney (and then, only because his faith is a potential liability).

 

[peter grimes]

I specificed good, because you can make arguments, using Christianity, for welfare and against it... in it's current form
For, help thy neighbor
Against, Give a man a fish, and he'll be back tomorrow, teach a man to fish (which is actually helping thy neighbor, just in a different way... ie, job training, which doesn't pay the bills in the meanwhile) and he'll eat for a lifetime.

Really?? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole 'teach a man to fish and he can eat for the rest of his life' thing was a chinese proverb. The Jesus bit would be about helping the poor... which would mean either giving away some of your food *as well as* teaching a guy how you got that food. Or maybe I'm wrong.

From my impression of Jesus's's teachings he would have been TOTALLY in support of welfare and so-called safety net services for the poor. I could be wrong, though, since I stopped paying attention in Sunday School when I was around 13 or 14 and realized the entire construct was a house of cards.

But if you're going to claim consistency with so-called 'christian values' then shouldn't that at the very least be compatible with the alleged teachings of the alleged Savior?

 

[duckstab]

I've seen posters claiming the right wants to establish a theocracy... it was tongue and cheek, but the defense was that the right lets religion influence their policy.

Obama here is saying he does.

When is this a problem? When is it ok?

It's OK for a leader's religion to influence their policy.

It's not OK for a leader's policy to be one of increasing the influence of their religion.

 

[CaptainF]

Just once I wish we'd elect someone with the balls to say god is false and religion is a scam. Oh how glorious that would be.

I suspect there are many people like that currently in Congress that have to maintain a facade of Christianity.

As for Obama, I think it's fairly obvious to me that he's a Christian of some sort, thought probably not all that devout.

Religion and politics don't mix, which is sad considering how often the two are intertwined in government nowadays.

 

[downtown]

If your religion doesn't influence your thinking and your decision making, then you aren't religious, period.

There is a difference between your faith impacting your thought process, and using your office to legislate your faith onto others. My worldview is 100%, inseparability intertwined with my mormonism. That doesn't mean I want to ban coffee or booze though.

Duckstab has the right idea.

 

[History_Buff]

When is this a problem? When is it ok?

I have no problem with Obama saying love thy neighbor, and that being part of his reason for supporting certain things...
But, I am a Christian, so why would I?

What do atheists think?

I don't really care. He clearly understands why it's good from a secular perspective, the fact that he has an additional religious reasoning doesn't matter to me.

If he was doing this for purely religious reasons, then I'd be very wary of it, but it's clearly a good move, so I could come to terms.

If he was doing something stupid for purely religious reasons, then I'd be outraged. It's very outcome driven.

If your religion doesn't influence your thinking and your decision making, then you aren't religious, period.

There is a difference between your faith impacting your thought process, and using your office to legislate your faith onto others. My worldview is 100%, inseparability intertwined with my mormonism. That doesn't mean I want to ban coffee or booze though.

Also, this. Spot on DT, as per usual.

 

[PhroX]

If your religion doesn't influence your thinking and your decision making, then you aren't religious, period.

Yeah, even as an atheist, would agree with this. And as such, I don't have a problem with religious politicians from letting their beliefs affect their decisions. I won't always agree with their decisions of course, but as long as there are other reasonable justifications beyond just their beliefs, I'm OK with it - hell, I've a lot more respect for a politician who claims to be religious and admits that it affects them, than one who claims to believe but doesn't admit to being biased by those beliefs, as the latter is clearly lying on one of the two factors.

Where I have issues is firstly if the political position is used to push their religion, and secondly when religion becomes the primary, or even sole reason for a decision, when there isn't any justification for their actions beyond their personal beliefs.

 

[Arakhor]

I'm sure that's something that fundamentalists have not grasped. You can't seem to oppose anything based purely on religion without wanting to start the pyres and collect the Bibles for disposal.