%18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing facts

[Squiggy]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

This is the first time in my lifetime I can remember any president supporting any one religion.

At this point I would bring up countless pictures of every President attending the White House Christmas Tree ceremony and utterly destroy this idiotically moronic statement...but that would be in bad taste.

 

[Star Wolf]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

I read a fascinating poll over the weekend: 100% of Presidents named Obama think that President Obama is not a Muslim, but a Christian.

He's wrong about everything else, so it wouldn't surprise me that he's wrong about being Muslim, too.

Actually following the "rules" of both religions he is both Muslim according to Islam and Christian ,or not depending on the Christian commentator saying only their brand of Christianity makes one a true Christian.

 

[thestrangequark]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

gturner, your argument is flawed for many reasons, the best of all being that Barack Obama Sr was an Atheist, not a Muslim.

 

[Squiggy]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

God help us all when Fox News gets a hold of that information.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

He's wrong about everything else, so it wouldn't surprise me that he's wrong about being Muslim, too.

Hmm, I think I'm going to trust the guy to know what religion he is, very few people graduate from college without that piece of information.

Sounds like being baptized into the Catholic Church, I believe the position of The Vatican is that you remain Catholic until your bishop formally releases you

And they refuse to do it if you ask. Even if you tried to shoot the Pope, they still wouldn't excommunicate you. It's simultaneously irritating and laughably pathetic.

 

[gturner]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

This is the first time in my lifetime I can remember any president supporting any one religion.

At this point I would bring up countless pictures of every President attending the White House Christmas Tree ceremony and utterly destroy this idiotically moronic statement...but that would be in bad taste.

Christmas trees are secular, if not downright pagan.

US presidents never bring up religion, except perhaps after something like 9/11 when they herd all the top Pentagon brass into the Washington Cathedral for a rousing rendition of "Onward Christian Soldiers." But that kind of thing is about delivering a secular ass-kicking with the fist of God, not religion.

 

[Star Wolf]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

gturner, your argument is flawed for many reasons, the best of all being that Barack Obama Sr was an Atheist, not a Muslim.

Just as the Catholic church considers a baptized atheist Catholic. Judaism considers atheist with Jewish mothers Jews Islam considers Barack Obama Sr a Muslim because the Presidents grandfather was a Muslim.

 

[gturner]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

gturner, your argument is flawed for many reasons, the best of all being that Barack Obama Sr was an Atheist, not a Muslim.

Obama Sr's dad was a Muslim, which would make Obama Sr a Muslim, which would make Obama a Muslim. Islam is passed along like chewing gum stuck to the bottom of the Y chromosome. It's kind of like the way all native German speakers were part of the Third Reich.

Speaking of that, it turns out the Hitler had Jewish or African roots. UK Telegraph link

 

[thestrangequark]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

gturner, your argument is flawed for many reasons, the best of all being that Barack Obama Sr was an Atheist, not a Muslim.

Just as the Catholic church considers a baptized atheist Catholic. Judaism considers atheist with Jewish mothers Jews Islam considers Barack Obama Sr a Muslim because the Presidents grandfather was a Muslim.

But what the individual considers himself, and how he lives his life is what matters. Still, only pathetic individuals full of hate and fear and ignorance would give a damn anyway.

 

[gturner]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

gturner, your argument is flawed for many reasons, the best of all being that Barack Obama Sr was an Atheist, not a Muslim.

Just as the Catholic church considers a baptized atheist Catholic. Judaism considers atheist with Jewish mothers Jews Islam considers Barack Obama Sr a Muslim because the Presidents grandfather was a Muslim.

So if a Muslim man has kids with a Jewish mother, are the kids Jewish Muslims? This seems to be a logical flaw in the heritability of religion. Christianity is so much simpler.

<insert Christian offspring joke here>

 

[Lord Garth]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

I'm sorry. My entire life I was led under the false impression that in America people were free to practice and be part of or not practice and not be part of whatever religion they wish.

The United States of America recognizes citizens not religions. If Obama does not consider himself a Muslim then he's not Muslim.

Furthermore, if you're an atheist then you're not going to care what something you disagree with (church, et al), or something that you don't believe exists (God) considers you.

The Constitution grants us freedom of religion. If we don't want to be what our ancestors were, we don't have to be. If we don't want to believe what everyone does, we don't have to.

Religion is a belief not something genetic. You either believe or you don't.

Obama is not a Muslim.

While we're at it, he's not a Communist or a Witch either.

 

[gturner]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

But what the individual considers himself, and how he lives his life is what matters. Still, only pathetic individuals full of hate and fear and ignorance would give a damn anyway.

No, a man's opinion about himself is insignificant compared to the judgement of the Almighty. You can pout and fume all you want, but when you get to heaven and protest that you believe 'X', some wrinkled old angel is going to open some huge book and say, "No. We've got you down as 'Y', and our records are infallible." You'd have a better chance of convincing the Social Security Administration that you're not dead.

 

[Star Wolf]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

gturner, your argument is flawed for many reasons, the best of all being that Barack Obama Sr was an Atheist, not a Muslim.

Just as the Catholic church considers a baptized atheist Catholic. Judaism considers atheist with Jewish mothers Jews Islam considers Barack Obama Sr a Muslim because the Presidents grandfather was a Muslim.

So if a Muslim man has kids with a Jewish mother, are the kids Jewish Muslims? This seems to be a logical flaw in the heritability of religion. Christianity is so much simpler.

<insert Christian offspring joke here>

or take it the step further and have the couple convert to Catholicism and have the infant baptized and then she grows up to be a Scientologist

 

[thestrangequark]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

But what the individual considers himself, and how he lives his life is what matters. Still, only pathetic individuals full of hate and fear and ignorance would give a damn anyway.

No, a man's opinion about himself is insignificant compared to the judgement of the Almighty. You can pout and fume all you want, but when you get to heaven and protest that you believe 'X', some wrinkled old angel is going to open some huge book and say, "No. We've got you down as 'Y', and our records are infallible." You'd have a better chance of convincing the Social Security Administration that you're not dead.

Sorry, hon, can't use that argument with me. Like Obama Sr, I'm an Atheist. There is no god, therefore, there is know Almighty opinion on Obama's faith.

 

[gturner]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

Sorry, hon, can't use that argument with me. Like Obama Sr, I'm an Atheist. There is no god, therefore, there is know Almighty opinion on Obama's faith.

If there is no Almighty then what cosmic power forced you to spell "know" instead of "no"?

HE'S IN UR HEAD, SENSERING UR WORDS!

 

[thestrangequark]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

Sorry, hon, can't use that argument with me. Like Obama Sr, I'm an Atheist. There is no god, therefore, there is know Almighty opinion on Obama's faith.

If there is no Almighty then what cosmic power forced you to spell "know" instead of "no"?

HE'S IN UR HEAD, SENSERING UR WORDS!

Hahaha, that's the problem with watching the news and typing at the same time!

Or maybe it's just the fact that I find this whole discussion rather ridiculous, and not worthy of my entire attention.

 

[gturner]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

I'm sorry. My entire life I was led under the false impression that in America people were free to practice and be part of or not practice and not be part of whatever religion they wish.

Oh, don't start with all that post-Reformation, Enlightenment gobbledygook. You see, the Founding Fathers inherited a bunch of Scottish and European thoughts (called the Enlightenment and such), which held that a person is free to choose their religion.

That's nonsense. A person's religion is determined by his king. You might be Catholic one week, Lutheran the next, depending on how the political winds are blowing and which city just got sacked. The important point is that it's not up to you. You should believe whatever your superiors tell you to believe, because that's the way it's supposed to be.

If people could just pick and choose their religion willy-nilly then we'd live in a state of anarchy, with cats f***ing dogs and Satanists popping up from every rock.

Admittedly this system caused more than a few bloody wars, and a bunch of mamby-pamby thinkers (all famous now) figured freedom of conscience made a whole lot more sense, but Islamic scholars have rejected this notion. Even Imam Rauf, whose Ground Zero Mosque is backed by Obama, has said that Islam needs no reformation. In backing the mosque, Obama apparently agrees with Rauf's conclusion, and without a reformation Islam will continue to prohibit the idea of freedom of conscience, so Obama remains a Muslim.

You seem to have the same problem as the Founding Fathers, an inability to think outside the box of the Enlightenment. You live in the Founder's fantasy world where all religions agree on the basic points of the Enlightenment; that religion is a personal choice, that it should not intrude far into politics, should not behead people, stone women, and where religious leaders shouldn't be allowed to declare war. Sadly, not all religions are just slightly different flavors of disempowered Judeo-Christian post-Enlightenment accomodations and reformations. Some are stubbornly stuck in the Middle Ages.

This brings us back to the wisdom of making accomodations to a belief system that will not and cannot make accomodations in return.

 

[Danny99]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

So am I stuck being Catholic all my life? Damn, is there a trade in option?

 

[gturner]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

So am I stuck being Catholic all my life? Damn, is there a trade in option?

Don't worry, Catholics have all sorts of cool loop-holes for everything. Show up at the right Cathedral on the right day with a fifth of Jack Daniels and you can get a guaranteed plot in heaven. It's a heck of a better deal than having to strap on a suicide vest to blow up some infidels.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Re: %18 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, and other disturbing fac

To not be a Muslim, Obama sure brags on it and defends it a lot. This is the first time in my lifetime I can remember any president supporting any one religion.

Your lifetime must have been incredibly short then. I mean, fetal length. George W. Bush, Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford ... and so on have all been Christians who mentioned their Christian faith numerous times, attended church, sought the backing of Christian organizations, supported Christian organizations, etc. Obama is no exception where it comes to his Christianity, only more subdued, as it should be.

The reason Obama reaches out to Muslims is; in case you hadn't noticed, that we're sort of involved in a global war against Islamic extremism, so it's important to reach out to the moderates of the same religion both to seek their help and to reassure them that our fight is not with the religion and its practitioners as a whole, but with elements that pervert that religion to serve their own ends. Bush did it as well to a lesser extent. Did you think he was giving special treatment to the Muslim faith?

I don't think it is the place of any president to stand of for the building of any mosque, synagogue,church,etc. of any religion.

He didn't express an opinion about whether he thought it was appropriate or not to build the Islamic community center near Ground Zero. He said that they have the right to build there under the Constitution. You know, that thing he swore to "preserve, protect and defend to the best of his ability" when he took the oath of office? Even many people who are bitterly opposed to the community center being located near Ground Zero acknowledge that it's their right to build there.

The founding fathers intended for our government to be independent of religions and this includes Islam as well.

Okay, so how has the Muslim faith gained undue control over US policy? I must have missed the part where we're an Islamic theocracy run under Sharia Law.

Why does taking diplomatic measures to bolster our relations with the predominantly Muslim Middle East represent so much more of a violation of church and state separation to you than to bolster our relations with primarily Hindu India or primarily Catholic Mexico?

I think people are getting pretty sick of allowances being made for one particular religion.

That comment might have some weight if one religion was being given preference over any others. Are churches not being built pretty much anywhere they want without protest? Which has nothing to do with the government and everything to do with private citizens exercising their right to protest - no matter how misguided they may be.

Did the absurdly powerful Christian lobby in this country suddenly disappear overnight when Obama was elected? They don'[t have any political influence any more? Really?