Obama takes Iowa

latent aaaack said:
If you don't consider that too politically religious then that's a personal judgement call, but in his words he thinks there's a relationship between his politics and God's will. That wouldn't be what I'd call conclusive evidence that he's a theocratic maniac but a sign on par with signs that Bush showed in 2000 that went unnoticed.
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My judgement is partially based on one of his quotes from earlier in that article:

Obama as quoted in the Concord Monitor said:
"I've always said that my faith informs my values, and in that sense it helps shape my worldview, and I don't think anyone should be required to leave their religious sensibilities at the door," Obama said. "But we have to translate those concerns into a universal language that can be subject to argument and doesn't turn into a contest of any one of us thinking that God is somehow on our side."
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He is explicitly stating that one should not consider their politics to be god's will.

What do you interpret to mean exactly? How do you fight genocide with faith?
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Have you heard of the term metaphor?

I read the phrase as his interpretation of which social problems he felt religion was equipped to deal with, not that religion was necessarily the only tool to apply to these issues, nor that it would mean armed force is desirable. In other words, more good could be done in the world if religion focused on addressing the problem of poverty rather than gay marriage, and genocide rather than abortion.

This is why being experienced helps, so you don't have to guess that he's not a theocratic maniac who lets God's will inform his decision making as president, which we've already had too much of.
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Or you can inform yourself using the background information that is available from his previous campaign, as well as the backgrounds of those he hires to work for/with him. Although there are people who vote based on sound bites, there are a number of us who find critical thinking can be applied to many areas.
 
(sigh) It's always the problem of being the 'mean' guy when criticizing a presidential candidate that is personally a nice guy and it's so rude to point out someone's personal flaws when they haven't done anything yet. I'm sure Obama is a swell affable guy.

Yes I agree it's a good thing that when his God informs his values and views he considers those views to be as open to debate as his other logical views. In my view though, in how you're running anything large and important like a country, it's undesirable and unnecessary to let your God inform your views even to start with and even if you admit that God may have accidentally given you the wrong values which arguing about them helps to discern. No other candidates except some of the extreme republicans are this religiously odd and provocative.

You don't think it's possible he slipped up when he said religion is capable of solving genocides? Again, how do you help a genocide to stop by doing or saying anything religious? I don't get why he's called intelligent, he seems to be all style and bluster like Reagan.

Then there's this. I wish the weirdest candidates in both parties didn't seemingly automatically get a pass to the top, there are plenty of not quite this insane people in the country.


During the nearly two hour service that featured a rock band and hip-hop dancers, Obama shared the floor with the church's pastor, Ron Carpenter.

The senator from Illinois asked the multiracial crowd of nearly 4,000 people to keep him and his family in their prayers, and said he hoped to be "an instrument of God." "Sometimes this is a difficult road being in politics," Obama said.

"Sometimes you can become fearful, sometimes you can become vain, sometimes you can seek power just for power's sake instead of because you want to do service to God.

I just want all of you to pray that I can be an instrument of God in the same way that Pastor Ron and all of you are instruments of God."
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He finished his brief remarks by saying, "We're going to keep on praising together. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth."​
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http://www.evangelicalsformitt.org/front_page/a_kingdom_right_here_on_earth.php (only link I can find)
 
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/08/obama.faith/index.html

http://washingtontimes.com/article/20080104/EDITORIAL/260084977/1013

When Mr. Obama speaks at evangelical churches, he often exhorts worshippers to pray that he becomes "an instrument of God" and join him in creating a "kingdom right here on earth." Not to be outdone, John Edwards talks about his "deep and abiding love for [his] savior, Jesus Christ." And so on.
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Hoping for a good candidate out of someone that hatched only because he's charismatic and the TV owns America is just appealing to dumb luck - that's my real comprehensive reason for hating Obama. It's like a vichy government appointing a few guys to choose from, then the public saying "wow wait a minute - by dumb luck the occupying power happened to choose someone I actually like, I'm sure this'll work out well then after all!"

The rest of the negative details to be found after that conclusion were only to be expected when America's basically playing Russian Roulette with it's recent elections.
 
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MaGZ said:
Ron Paul’s campaign is fully funded to February 5, Super Tuesday. McCain and Huckabee’s campaigns can’t claim this.
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Ron Paul is a fool. McCain and Huckabee's campaigns can claim that - though they may wish to express it more nicely. (It's ok though - on the democratic side, there is Kucinich.):D
 
Ah, so you would be a Romney fan then. :rolleyes:


And to paraphrase your Washington Times link, I have no problem with Obama speaking as a believer, as long as he does not govern as one.

His publically proclaimed positions on key issues, as well as his voting record in the Senate (brief as it may be) reassure me on this point.


ETA: Directed towards latent aaaack's latest post. Fuelair got in the way.
 
Hokulele said:
Ah, so you would be a Romney fan then. :rolleyes:

And to paraphrase your Washington Times link, I have no problem with Obama speaking as a believer, as long as he does not govern as one.

His publically proclaimed positions on key issues, as well as his voting record in the Senate (brief as it may be) reassure me on this point.

ETA: Directed towards latent aaaack's latest post. Fuelair got in the way.
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Agree on that, H.

And that is the difference between the 3 Big Cahunas on the Dem side: Clinton, Edwards, Obama - and whatever fools are running on the Republican side. The fool Repubs WILL use religion, to varying degree, to govern, just as Der Doofster "Doofie" MacDoofBush has done over the last 7 years.

But none of the 3 Dems will. They have to do a bit of religion here and there because that is political reality in the USA. Not happy about it - but it's reality nonetheless.
 
What Obama said is that people who have different beliefs on those "key issues" can still be just as religious as republicans and in just as public a way. I believe him and I think his decision making process is going to involve some amount of supernatural religious processes "helping" him just like the last president we had did.

It's not the issues it's mental acuity and ability to understand the real world and arrive at decisions and conclusions logically according to what's best for the country, not idealistically or religiously.
 
ConspiRaider said:
They have to do a bit of religion here and there because that is political reality in the USA. Not happy about it - but it's reality nonetheless.
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Although it does pain this atheist just a bit to admit it, religion does play a very large role in American politics, so one has to pick which battles to fight. Voting records speak louder to me than any pulpit-pounding by any candidate, and I would much rather agree with a candidate's policies than with their Sunday morning agenda.

Sadly, Hawai'i has about as much effect on the primaries as Puerto Rico, but I still like learning as much as I can about the candidates so at least any mud I throw in on-line or real life discussions will be somewhat accurate. :)
 
Hokulele said:
Although it does pain this atheist just a bit to admit it, religion does play a very large role in American politics, so one has to pick which battles to fight. Voting records speak louder to me than any pulpit-pounding by any candidate, and I would much rather agree with a candidate's policies than with their Sunday morning agenda.

Sadly, Hawai'i has about as much effect on the primaries as Puerto Rico, but I still like learning as much as I can about the candidates so at least any mud I throw in on-line or real life discussions will be somewhat accurate. :)
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10-roger on that, H.

You know I think we were going along with the plan pretty nicely on keeping religion out of the Federal government for several decades or so, after the official Founding. And then the Civil War happened. Both sides scrambling for whatever advantage they could get - and that included invoking God being on their side. That's when God went on the coinage - 1864. You do a civil war that big, and that bad - and the reverberations echo across generations. Now people are seen as decidedly UNpatriotic and "secular" and "humanists" and "atheists" if they do NOT subscribe to the notion that the Federal government should have a hand in religion. U.S. Constitution be damned...
 
Conservative George Will has high praise for Obama, as he pans both Huckabee and Edwards

Barack Obama, who might be mercifully closing the Clinton parenthesis in presidential history, is refreshingly cerebral amid this recrudescence of the paranoid style in American politics. He is the un-Edwards and un-Huckabee -- an adult aiming to reform the real world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic "fights" against fictitious villains in a left-wing cartoon version of this country.
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