STOP SAYING OBAMA’S A MUSLIM!

October 13, 2010

Look, I’m as enthusiastic as anyone in pointing out that Obama is a self-serving Progressive with a self-loathing of this great country. He is a blame-America-first apologist in foreign affairs and a staunchly redistributive Socialist in domestic affairs.

As far as his place of birth, the evidence is extensive yet specious on BOTH sides, so I wouldn’t be surprised either way. When I see the emails like the ones referring to “Cattle Guards” I check sources and quickly dismiss the obviously bogus assertions. I don’t ‘bite’ for just anything that happens to be anti-Obama.

When this hullabaloo regarding his faith “30% of Americans think Obama is a Muslim” emerged, I took it with a grain of salt as well. My initial reaction was, “It doesn’t really matter what he says he is… what are his actions?” After all, isn’t it the bible that mentions we shall know what a tree is by its fruit? When I was growing up in Catholic schools we would sing the song “The shall know we are Christians by our love.” It was the prime example of ‘actions speak louder than words.’

But what has Obama himself said about faith?

Here’s a quote from an article he wrote in Time Magazine in October of 2006:
“This isn’t to say [my mother] provided me with no religious instruction. In her mind, a working knowledge of the world’s great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household, the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad-Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek Norse and African mythology.”
It appears he views the Bible as little more than any other series of mythic beliefs. But he goes further…
“I was made to understand that such religious samplings required no sustained commitment on my part…”
Imagine a guy who sees relationships the same way… who sees sex as requiring ‘no sustained commitment.’ It would be the kind of guy who keeps books like the Kama Sutra on a shelf next to his Penthouse collection alongside Dr. Laura books on relationships… they are all just different views of relationships and sex; good resource material. But the need for commitment isn’t there… one doesn’t have to be invested in one book or another, because various views of sex and relationships are all equal.
Obama continues…
[such religious samplings required] no introspective exertion or self-flagellation. Religion was an expression of human culture, she would explain, not its wellspring, just one of the many ways – and not necessarily the best way – that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives.”

So religion is to Obama an ‘expression of human culture.’ Like art, or music, it is only a way to communicate beliefs. It certainly isn’t something ‘real’ or ‘concrete’ as George Washington, Ben Franklin, or Thomas Jefferson saw it. Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammad- they are little different than John Lennon, Jim Morrison, Bob Dillon, or Hercules or Isis. He’s not talking about the Creator of the Universe (as Jefferson phrased it in the Declaration of Independence) or the ‘Almighty God’ that Lincoln invoked in the Emancipation Proclamation when he requested His ‘gracious favor.’

This is a man who sees religion as a set of viewpoints, observations, and expressions but not really “real.” This explains his condescending and dismissive attitude when he spoke of Americans ‘clinging to their guns and religion.’ This is also why, for over 20 years, he associated with a church that was more interested in a political philosophy (Black Liberation Theology) than a purely gospel/epistle foundation. If you read through Jeremiah Wright’s sermons (not just the overplayed sound bites) he is far more a political speaker and activist than a biblical scholar. Which is exactly what drew the Harvard Law Student and Community Organizer Barry Obama. And let’s take this one step further. It explains the ‘objective’ and ‘detached’ position he takes regarding the Jews and Palestine – when one removes the religious significance of Jerusalem (those silly superstitious beliefs), one sees the Jews and Palestinians as quibbling over a few square miles of real estate and certainly not deserving of deference one way or the other.

Obama is a “post religious,” “post faith,” and “post God” president. He doesn’t need to follow the same myths and superstitions that the hoi polloi cling to. So from his vantage point, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jim Jones, or David Koresh are all the same. He doesn’t really care if he’s considered a Christian or Muslim any more than he cares whether he’s considered a Beatle’s fan or a Korn fan… they are all just expressions of belief anyways. As Obama wrote in the above mentioned article, “[religion is] a phenomenon to be treated with suitable respect, but with a suitable detachment as well.”

In the words of John Lennon, “Imagine no religion.”