I am always amazed when in the company of other progressives and liberals how truly regressive and unwilling to change we can be. Diary after diary, comments by the thousands about what? How we can't, how we shouldn't and how Obama is going wrong. Well Obama hasn't gone wrong, we've just stopped listening and started grinding the same old axes. We spend too much time bashing and not enough time listening, fear and ignorance is abundant on BOTH sides of the ideological divide. Follow me below the fold for hopefully some insight into how all the fears of your worst nightmares coming true are in fact the realization of your most heartfelt dreams for this country.

"OUR NATION WAS FOUNDED ON JUDEO CHRISTIAN VALUES AND PRINCIPLES." John McCain, Saddleback Church, 7/16/2008.

Really? This has bothered me a lot since Saturday night.

I thought the idea was to escape the tyranny of the Church of England. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment contains an accommodationist clause that prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another. In short: it protects us against theocracy.

Dear Kossack,

I have these thoughts for you after reading some comments here regarding the answers given by McCain and Obama on "faith and politics", "evil" and "life (at conception)" at the Faith Forum.

It is not a semantic sleight of hand to consider a person’s faith when voting. The state cannot establish a religion NOR prohibit the free practice thereof. There is nothing in any of our national writings that declares that a candidates religious beliefs are not fair game. I happen to think that as long as a candidate believes in a Higher Power then that is good enough. But can’t you see why to some people it is not that easy or simple? That they want someone who reflects their values?

To say that "faith" is irrelevant is completely untrue, especially for many spiritual people who are also democrats.

I found this today.

Apparently it has been going around the internets so I thought I would post it.

Very beautiful.

Why did you make me black Lord?...

Jump to see entire poem...

A Bit of a rant ~ Forgive me while I get this off of my chest, eh?

Back in February I wrote a diary asking the simple question about our Presidential candidates Who speaks for me? and I never did get a good answer...I did get a lot of snark from this community, and I expect I will again with this one...

But after watching over the past few months, I am still looking for SOMEONE to bring up the Constitutional prohibition of "Religious Tests" for public office... And yet neither of our presumptive candidates has even brought this up...neither has said, "My faith is private"....

Why is that?

This diary, my longest ever here, is parts one and two of six which I offer a point by point rebuke of the radicalism, fundamentalism, intolerance, craziness, and decrepitness that I’ve found in Rick Warren’s book, "The Purpose Driven Life."  Warren's book is filled with oversimplifications, falsehoods, disjointed ramblings, cut and paste usage of selective bible quotes with conclusory logic on par with the below average first grader, and occasional sagacity which regrettably exists within the confines of the false homilectic rubrics established by Warren.

Warren’s book is divided in 6 sections, today I critique through page 60.
Do not be fooled by Warren.  He's an Elmer Gantry, a fraud, a Judas who hides behind the name of Jesus and a world class liar as shown by his behavior Saturday night regarding Questionsgate, ConeosilenceGate, and his pandering to his buddy John whom Warren has fully supported for months now.  If you have any doubts about the real Rick Warren, his appearance yesterday with you know who confirms that Warren was trying to do a hatchet job on Obama.

John McCain and Barack Obama testified before a large audience of Southern Baptists at the Saddleback Church in Orange County, California. They also used up a large chunk of prime time television.

It's not the debate that irks me a little; it's the idea that somebody's religious views are pertinent to the kind of leadership the country needs to get over the unholy mess created by our born-again President.

How about settling first on what's important in making a person "religious?" In the same way wearing a flag pin doesn't make someone patriotic, believing abortion is a sin doesn't make somebody Christian. After all, the views of fundamental Muslims and fundamental Christians regarding drinking are identical, as are the prohibitions on pork by Muslims and Jews.

I propose leaving religious debates to religious leaders and their followers and allowing the TV producers and their anchors to concentrate on the truly important rapes, murders and sporting events by which they uplift and enlighten our lives.

At the Saddleback Faith Inquisition, err, Forum, both McCain and Obama were asked, "Who are the three wisest people that you know, and that you would rely on heavily in your administration?"

Obama:

His Wife
His Grandmother
Too many valid perspectives to limit to three

McCain:

General Petraeus
John Lewis
Meg Whitman

Fair enough and true to form, Obama was truthful and tactful; McCain was truthful and shooting from the lip.

The contrast in approach and thought process aside . . . Meg Whitman? The General and John Lewis were typical examples of McCain's pandering/bolstering version of straight-talk. No real surprises there – though Mr. Lewis may disagree. But Whitman? Really? OK, I'll play along.

Well, I started writing just a comment about this, but I couldn't fit my full thoughts about it. I suppose I just need to vent a little, this recent religious forum fiasco has brought my feelings on the matter to a boiling point.

I consider myself a very moral person, and I'm getting really tired of the condescending looks I feel like I'm getting from everyone in politics, including the Democrats, for my lack of belief in a supernatural being.

An amazing amount of simple factual truth has not dawned upon many of us or is generally actively denied since we all have a strong tendency to believe only what we want to believe, what we feel we must believe, what we have been manipulated and indoctrinated into believing, what we think will win favor with important others if we believe it, what we believe is good and proper to believe, and/or what we have a compelling emotional need to believe, and to resent and defend against acknowledgment of anything that threatens or runs counter to such belief - all in the service of believing that we know we are "right" - so "right" that everyone else in the world should think, feel, and behave just like us, and be made to by force if necessary.

• Trouble is, no matter how fervently one believes that one knows what one merely believes, one merely believes it and one might be wrong - very wrong.

(Title Pun Intended)

Something very much on my mind since the Warren Affair/Cone of Silence mystery that has yet to be thoroughly discussed is the acceptability of pandering to religious groups in campaigns.  

We are a secular nation, albeit one with a schizophrenic (to use the common venacular) or multiple personality disorder (to use the proper terminology) perspective on the topic.  We rail against Muslim theocratic states, yet feel it is perfectly acceptable to assume that Christianity is the dominant philosophy guiding Americans.  

I will discuss more of my disappointment after the jump.

I did not get a chance yet to watch the debate at Saddleback church besides some clips on CNN afterwards.  However even without seeing the show I can imagine that a few questions of religious faith came up.

As a person who is moderately politically aware and neither a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, or part of any other organized religion it has always struck me...where is my place in politics?

This is my first diary entry and more of a question than a statement.  I know that in America we pay lip service to the idea of seperation of Church and State but when the vast majority of Americans believe in God and congregations hold such a high degree of influence...where is my place in politics?

If I was running for President or any other political office I would not have a chance no matter what my policy positions were.  Forget being black, forget being to young or to old, part of the wrong gender, or all those other minor barrriers to political success...what do you do when you can't get on television like McCain and Obama and tell people you believe in God?

Welcome to the 2nd installment of YOUR SUNDAY ATHEIST.

This week we will discuss a few different items in the news with a common theme. Click on the headlines below to read the entire articles that are referenced after the jump:

The Saddleback Civil Forum Changes the Face of American Politics

Evangelicals rip Obama's abortion votes

Blurring the distinction between contraception and abortion

Links to PREVIOUS EDITIONS of YOUR SUNDAY ATHEIST:
Please check out last week's premiere edition of the series by following this Link
Reminder: It is never too late to add your own comments, tips & recs to a diary entry.

It's called religion or faith, but McCain and Obama illustrated the differences in what people MEAN when they talk about religion or faith in the political arena.

McCain was playing on the field of "religion" as a set of policy stands. It's the faith that made Reagan a good chrisitan who never ever ever ever even pretended to go to church on Sunday. Of course, McCain overplayed his hand: God wants drilling and tax cuts.

Obama was playing on the field of "faith" being about personal values, shared among a community of faith, committment to higher purpose, and a source of strength and inspiration.

Given that a significant number of voters believe that God is a Republican, and that the central message of Jesus's teaching is that the morning-after pill is evil; nothing that I hear about religion in America should surprise me.

Then along comes the BBC with this little gem:

A prayer group in Washington DC is claiming the credit for the recent sharp drop in the US price of petrol.

Rocky Twyman, 59, a veteran community campaigner, started Pray At The Pump meetings at petrol stations in April.

Since then, the average price of what the US calls gasoline has fallen from more than $4 a gallon to $3.80.

Apparently to many people in this country, this part at least:

The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United states and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

I use the phrase "many people in this country" in a general sense, because I don't know everybody.  I know myself, however, and understand a few things.  One of the things I claim to understand is the bolded part of Article VI of the United States Constitution as quoted above.  It is plain to me.  The religious beliefs, emotions, and affiliations of any candidate to any office or appointment in this country are to have no official standing as a qualification to hold that office or appointment.

Having turned off last night’s debate to stifle a growing nausea, I can only sit and reflect in silence at the amazing growth of fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity in America.  Growing up in fundamentalist and racist Mississippi, I thought that both traits were two sides of the same coin, the Southern Baptist denomination itself being a suppurating pimple of bad religion, a "faith" that arose largely out of a determination to use the Bible as a sanction for slavery.  

But as I grew up Americans’ faith in mystery and magic did not recede.  The "booboisie" that Mencken scorned--the country bumpkins and fulminating preachers at the Scopes trial--are back in force.  They are living the purpose-driven life, and half of them are dreaming of the apocalypse and the groovy things that will follow therefrom.  I may be sliding out of the American mainstream, but I still take cold comfort in Mark Twain’s words to the gentlemen who was trying to convert him:

"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?"

because it was called a "civil forum'. Anything that cant' even be intellectually honest about it's title will not give me any comfort that I am being educated and not just brainwashed. Civil - from the word "civic", meaning having to do with the people;

just type 'define:civic' into a google search and you will find the following rather specific Wikipedia entry:

Having to do with people and government office as opposed to the military or religion

How perversely ironic is it that a country was founded in order to keep the government from interfering in the individual worship of any of it's citizens has now reached a point where some citizens are deliberately trying to make sure that their government reinforces their religious identity?