No, No, No Obama - Bad choice
I've been willing to swallow a lot of distaste for some of Obama's choices in the transition phase, but this is really going too far. The Inauguration Committee just announced that Rick Warren, charlatan pastor of Saddleback Church, who lied his face off about the so-called cone of silence during the presidential debate he hosted, is going to deliver the invocation.
I can't believe there isn't some other pastor in America, who is less polarizing, that would be available to do it. I get that Obama wants to reach out to the opposition and all that, but this really is a slap in the face to all the sane Christians who supported him. Not to mention, the progressives and those in the gay and lesbian community.
If there was ever a time to reach out to the side of the fence that didn't oppose him tooth and nail all the way to the White House, this is it. I would suggest people might want to leave a suggestion at change.gov and ask him to rethink this choice. Frankly, I don't know who to suggest as an alternative, but there has to be someone more neutral than Warren. And no, I don't think Jim Wallis is the one either. Too polarizing the other way. It should be someone low profile and non-political.
Addendum: I've left aside that they shouldn't really even have a religious invocation at the inaugural because it's become a tradition now. But my friend Capt. Fogg left an excellent comment that I urge to read in full. The main point being, "Religious rituals have no place at all in government. It's the law. Belief in God or gods is not part of public policy: that's the law, and if no religious test may be imposed for office, which is the law, why then are we asking a president to demonstrate his private religiosity in public, as part of his inauguration?"
[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]
I can't believe there isn't some other pastor in America, who is less polarizing, that would be available to do it. I get that Obama wants to reach out to the opposition and all that, but this really is a slap in the face to all the sane Christians who supported him. Not to mention, the progressives and those in the gay and lesbian community.
If there was ever a time to reach out to the side of the fence that didn't oppose him tooth and nail all the way to the White House, this is it. I would suggest people might want to leave a suggestion at change.gov and ask him to rethink this choice. Frankly, I don't know who to suggest as an alternative, but there has to be someone more neutral than Warren. And no, I don't think Jim Wallis is the one either. Too polarizing the other way. It should be someone low profile and non-political.
Addendum: I've left aside that they shouldn't really even have a religious invocation at the inaugural because it's become a tradition now. But my friend Capt. Fogg left an excellent comment that I urge to read in full. The main point being, "Religious rituals have no place at all in government. It's the law. Belief in God or gods is not part of public policy: that's the law, and if no religious test may be imposed for office, which is the law, why then are we asking a president to demonstrate his private religiosity in public, as part of his inauguration?"
[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]
Labels: President Obama
posted by Libby Spencer at 4:05 PM
41 Comments:
I hate Warren. He's so smug.
I don't know why, but Obama must like the guy.
I just read somewhere they were friends. Gah. I don't care if they are, although I can't imagine why, but this is a stupid, polarizing choice. It's the first time I've been really upset by the transition process.
Jeesus, I'm tired of the Christocrats co-opting everything. There is no religion that does not insult all other religions by its very nature. Obama has no business insulting Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists with this calling up of invisible spirits while swearing to uphold a constitution that forbids it.
Any invocation would have had the Founding Fathers up in arms - literally. It's a government sponsored slap in the face to someone who has suffered Christian calls for destruction and eradication to have to listen to some lowbrow shaman mumbling from some book that calls me the spawn of Satan. I did not vote for a president so that he could drag the carrion corpse of ancient and malicious superstition into the capitol and mock the basic principles of secular democracy and the feelings of tens of millions of Americans who don't quite believe in talking donkeys and snakes and holy birds and witches and yet who pay taxes and vote for candidates who turn around and scorn them in this way.
Religious rituals have no place at all in government. It's the law. Belief in God or gods is not part of public policy: that's the law, and if no religious test may be imposed for office,which is the law, why then are we asking a president to demonstrate his private religiosity in public, as part of his inauguration?
By law the government may not recognize, elevate or diminish any religion, and yet what else does this invidious insult consist of other than to imply, in defiance of the Constitution, that Christians rule the country - that Christians are the "real Americans" with the "real" religion?
Well, that's also very true Fogg, but I'm letting that part go because it's tradition to have the invocation now. I wonder when it started.
You've proved once again that you're a true freak, Ms. Libby. A religious invocation is just that, and doesn't bring up separation of c and c issues. You're nilihist and atheist, as usual, but of course all of the left's browbeating, whining, and intimidation will actually work. Obama will cave, not on the Warren talk, but on the radical gay agenda. The pro-abortion death wish program is already in the tank. Next up is the bum jockey itinerary.
Enjoy it while it lasts. Backlash city is coming, and four and out won't be soon enough for all of you domestic enemies of the state.
Libby, it appears the choice of Warren was not made by Obama. Check out this Salon article:
This time, though, the decision to get involved with Saddleback was actually not Obama's. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, run by the House and Senate, put together the program for the swearing-in ceremony. Congress, not Obama, invited Warren …
BTW, I just sent "Duckless" an anti-harassment notice threatening legal action. In January, the community college where he works will receive a registered letter.
Well I'm glad to hear that Octopus but it's still irritating and Obama could have said no for the reasons I gave in the post. It's too polarizing. The guy is a fundie and I didn't get into the Prop 8 lies he told since that was already well covered on other blogs.
It seems Obama had few political choices in the matter, and any canny politician would want to have it both ways. Although Warren is an annoying Fundie, he is not the worst of the bunch. At least the theo-con influence is declining, and I am sure we will see less and less of them over time.
I'm refining my position as you read this Octopus. I'm about to do a new post.
Donald Dickless, noch einmal.
Sure, it's best not to react to this gibbering, blathering psychotic, but hey - life is short.
The fringe of the fringe element, the scum de la scum, a crappy failure of an assistant instructor at some shitty college, but only HE knows the truth.
Hey Zeus, how pathetic. Go on Donald, jump up and down in your cage and throw dung. Maybe the humans will get annoyed and you can pretend you're something more than you are.
LOL Fogg. I might have responded by I was sure you could do it better.
four and out won't be soon enough for all of you domestic enemies of the state.
I hate to try to parse Douglasian logic. But, anyway. I assume most folks here support the Democrats in Congress and the Democrat in the White House. And they represent "the state," I would think. So, if there is someone who is not supporting the state and might be considered an enemy of it, I believe it might be a certain pro-victory ass professor.
cap't fogg,
Your pseudonym pretty much sums up your understanding of the issues. You have no understanding of the constitution and its intent as interpreted by the Supreme Court. And your foggy notion of what it means to be an American. is not only abysmal but juvenile. There is no “law” that prevents religious rituals taking place in government. Each day that congress is in session there is an invocation to open the proceedings. There is nothing to imply that the U.S. government can not recognize religion nor is there a law that prohibits religious rituals or the right of a government representative to use their faith in making a decision. What an obtuse blowhard you are. You have fallen prey to the typical leftist fallacy that only you are guarenteed rights while those you disagree with you have no rights at all. Whether you like it or not, this country is predominately religious and you are in the minority. If it were not for the first amendment, your right to disparage the majority in this country, that are believers, would land you in the stocks, which doesn’t sound like such a bad idea based on your lunatic rant.
LOL DLB. BTW, I love your blog. I gave you a shout out in the link fest.
Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim
Does the constitution not forbid a religious test or requirement for public office? The question, however is not about whether the government should recognize the existence of any religion but whether religious ritual, whether it represents a majority or a minority, should be incorporated into official proceedings. I think the establishment clause is specific on that point.
Belief conveys no exceptional rights or privileges whatsoever. If you think otherwise, that's your privilege, but you're still wrong, the smokescreen of your limp insults notwithstanding.
Don't pretend that I'm inventing these ideas or that they do not mirror the writings of the framers of the constitution and don't pretend that a major objection to Obama wasn't that he would want a Muslim invocation rather than the Christian ritual they favor. Don't pretend you'd be so self-righteous about religious privilege if our president hired some shaman to tell us there is no god but Refafu or that there was no God at all. I'd love to see you confect some fuzzy defense of atheism, I really would because your logic would seem to demand it.
It's not a Christian nation any more than it is a English nation or a blonde nation or an Aryan nation and if you're going to push that point, you'll be blowing harder than force 9 from every orifice.
Don't pretend that the untempered will of the majority is democracy or anything but the tyranny of the mob our framers sought to avoid -- and above all don't act as though my religious freedom, which includes the right to keep you from forcing your rituals down my throat, is in this country a fundamental and inalienable right, not a privilege granted by anyone, much less through the mercy of some Church. If you want something you can condescend to, buy a cat.
Allahu Akhbar
Foggy, maybe you could go back and read my post without the sturm und drang you'ld see that I never said the U.S. was a Christian nation (which it predominately is: 76%)but a religious nation. We have a right to know our political leaders and when one espouses a strong religious belief this is especially true. If Obama would have been a Muslim he would never have been elected president. In regards to calls for the destruction of a group based on their religious beliefs lets ask what religion immediately comes to mind...the religion of hate, Islam. If you wish to refute this tell me what you specifially have done to speak out against the terrorists, imams and other wonderful muslim leader's sanctifying of mass murder in the name of jihad and your oh so peaceful religion. The prophet, poop be upon him (pbuh)!
So now you're being evasive instead of haughty and belligerent - please explain why I should be motivated to respond to your dishonest diatribe.
Religion of hate? What a phony.
Foggy, I guess you already did. Nothing dishonest about it, just look at the news, over 12,000 people murdered in the most barbarous fashion by pusillanimous Islamic terrorists since 9/11. Does Mumbai ring a bell!
How many innocent Iraqis murdered by us? How many Vietnamese?
The number of Iraqis murdered by the U.S. is close to zero. As a matter of fact I can't think of one person who has been convicted of murder and only a handful have been charged.
The question you should ask is how many Iraqis muslims have been blown by their loving, peaceful muslim brothers?
Only if you exclude "collateral damage" and even then you're lying.
Go hate Muslims - who the hell cares what you think anyway?
Fog horn,
I don't hate muslims, I just think it's pathetic anyone would adhere to a religion that has done nothing to advance civilization (in fact it retards civilization) and it's main means of propogation is at the end of a sword. My main objective is to ensure the truth is spoken and islam is shown for what it really is. I think everyone should just be honest about it instead of worrying about offending someone's sensibilities because they've spoken the truth.
Hark, hark
the Mark doth bark
So we've determined that you're not a historian. If truth be spoken, few religions look all that good and most serve mostly to retard the advance of civilization and all are the enemies of freedom. I'm no fan of any of them, but at least Islam did save the remains of classical knowledge that Christianity destroyed and of course Christianity was spread by the sword and the stake and the good fires. The Albigensian Crusade alone places it all beyond redemption in my opinion.
Giordano Bruno died for your sins, you know.
Fog,
A couple of obscure historical references does not make one a historian, especially if one can't apply their knowledge to contemporary events. There is no doubt the church did not encourage ideas that were antithetical to canonical law, they did not suppress knowledge. Hell, Bruno was educated by christians. While the Byzantine Empire preserved the ancient texts it did not prove to be a font of knowledge to them, but then how could it be -- a cult whose rallying cry is insh'allah, introspection does not come out to be a high priority. Christian monks also preserved, disseminated and absorbed the knowledge of Greece and Rome. For example, natural law is not an inherent aspect of islam while it is a core tenet of christianity and western law. Merely preserving and not understanding is no virtue.
Although I do not favor any particular religion I certainly recognize that the good they do far outweighs the bad for a majority of them (as is the case of any organization). If you're against religion you may as well be against the nation-state or rooting for your home town football team, it is human nature to choose sides. The problem of course is when you attempt to justify islam's barbaric nature and actions today based on christian excesses that occurred over half a millennium in the past.
Christ did not preach holy war, mahomet did.
Ah, from what dour, humorless heights you pretend to condescend. Mahamet? when did you learn to misspell, the 19th century? A few facts? would you like to hear them all? you'd have to stick around for a few years, professor, and maybe take some notes. I could site the Archimedes palimpsest, which a friend was kind enough to let me examine a few years ago. It seems Archy had developed a form of the calculus, but the only remaining text had been scraped off the velum and covered with Christian mumbo-jumbo, such is their determination to replace knowledge with crap. Arabs developed algebra, the compass and sophisticated celestial navigation while Christianity was burning people at the stake for using Arabic numerals, or soap for that matter. Ah, but that's not ALL the facts, is it Mark - you want ALL the facts or you get to call me a pretender. Right.
Well here's another -- riding in here on a jackass doesn't make you King of Jerusalem.
I'm not justifying anything; you are. There are a billion and a quarter Muslims and more of them in the US than Methodists, yet you're characterizing all of them, aren't you? What are you attempting to prove, suoeriority?? and what bits of fact are you marshaling for your tendentious arguments?
A few facts? Unable to apply them to the present? (read your prejudices and hatreds) I don't like religious holy wars any more than you do, but your smug and ill deserved air of superiority are stinking up the place. Whether Mohammad preached "holy war" in the sense you're assuming is open to debate, but religions are no longer the property of their putative founders. Jesus didn't preach against abortion either.
All in all there isn't a damn thing you can do about Islamic terrorism, or Christian attempts to subvert constitutional democracy or Basque terrorism, or Maoist insurgents or Military dictatorships or the general poverty, venality and stupidity of mankind, so why are you hounding us here? Are there no soapboxes in the public parks, are there no retirement homes for trolls?
Capt. Fogg.
You stated:
"Any invocation would have had the Founding Fathers up in arms - literally."
How can you be so misinformed???
The "separation of Church and State" is interpreted today in a manner COMPLETELY opposite of the way the Founding Fathers intended.
The Founding Fathers THEMSELVES offered up prayers to the almighty.
Thomas Jefferson himself funded Christian missionaries out of the federal coffers.
Many states had religious REQUIREMENTS for their political leaders.
NONE of this seemed to bother the founding fathers, yet today the Christophobic amongst us continue to press this lie.
As a matter of fact, our very freedoms DEPEND on a population that reveres God.
The inalienable rights the founding fathers speak of were granted to us by God himself. Or, as they put it: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
In other words - God gave us these foundational rights and it was so obvious as to be "self evident".
If you read the writing of the time you would understand that the whole basis for GOD GIVEN rights, and USING them in our founding documents is the concept that there is no higher power than God, and those rights that are granted by God CANNOT be taken away by man or man's institutions.
That is exactly what John Adams was referring to when he made this statement: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Our Constitution depends on a people who revere God above governmental institutions. That reverence for God, prevents men and his institutions from usurping the basic rights that God grants us.
That part is simply fact and if you read the writings of the time, you will see what I mean.
NOW for the opinion part.
It is my OPINION that there is a real effort amongst the left to undermine this nations belief in God and the purpose of that effort is to ultimately deny us our freedoms. If you look at the organizations that are continually linked to these efforts, you will find they have one thing in common, - they were founded by people who wished to establish totalitarianism.
This is not to say the typical left wing person has this desire - they don't. The institutions pushing this line of thought though, absolutely do and they have enlisted many well meaning, but misinformed individuals in this effort.
Look, I've been reading the writings of Jefferson, Madison and the rest since before you were born. These men spent many years writing angry diatribes against Christianity and the tyranny of religion. It's pathetic that you don't know this. You're informed by liars and scoundrels no matter how well meaning you may feel.
Perhaps if you read actual source documents rather than excerpts chosen and misinterpreted by professional propagandists, you might have a chance at not embarrassing yourself further, but actually, I don't feel like wasting my time with someone who thinks John Adams wrote the constitution or that a few extracted words speak for someone who wrote more volumes than you've ever read.
I HAVE read the source documents and the fact of the matter is that the founding fathers did indeed offer prayers. Thomas Jefferson did indeed fund missionaries from federal coffers and many states did indeed have religious requirements for it's public office holders.
You are LYING if you claim otherwise.
It is YOU who take out of context or out of period and/or isolated quotes and try to present them as the complete picture.
Thomas Jefferson did indeed have a PERIOD in his life where he doubted his faith, but to take the writings from that period and attribute them to the whole is beyond irresponsible.
It is ALSO disingenuous to attribute that attitude to the formation of our country. As the above examples CLEARLY dispel that false idea.
"I don't feel like wasting my time with someone who thinks John Adams wrote the constitution"
Nice straw man. No one claimed that, and by using this tactic, it shows your intention is to mislead.
The "angry diatribes" you refer to are mostly against forced religion.
You also try to imply that being a Deist means that they didn't believe in God. That is entirely WRONG. They did indeed believe in God (with the possible exception of Franklin - who STILL suggested that the founding fathers ask for God's blessing at the Constitutional Convention).
So the point remains that they placed God as the ultimate authority and as such, no man could take away the rights he granted us.
I could also go into a long discussion as to the Deist beliefs of the era, which were more similar to mainline Christianity than Deism is today.
Guess who made the following statement?????
(which verifies that my version of the founding fathers vision is accurate)
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
You lie sir. You are no scholar and you may waste all the time you like putting together a captious pastiche of fragments. You'll only convince people as foolish as you, although doubtless, there are many.
In fact Jefferson mentioned his contempt for the very lies you tell, which Christian partisans began in his own time.
You lie when you try to make this about Jefferson's "faith" since he had so little regard for the concept; it being so possible to believe in anything. The real question is about his views about keeping religion out of government as the only route to freedom.
There is little point in arguing with someone who is willing to tell me what I'm implying, since you're not arguing with me, but with history and with legitimate historians, and most amusingly with Jefferson himself.
Jefferson often accused Christianity of subverting Jesus' teachings to the point where they have become irrecoverable. If that makes him a "mainline" Christian, (which, of course is a category founded on fantasy, deceit and ignorance) it makes me the Easter bunny. Yes, Jefferson professed some kind of belief in some kind of a god, but he simply was nothing in any way resembling the kind of Christianist you pretend he was, pushing for a government of God and of people who pretend to speak for God. To pretend that he envisioned a nation led by ecclesiastics with the power to subvert that secular document is a lie sufficient to make of you an enemy of this country, of me and of the truth.
But at any rate, you're braying for the benefit of another audience, not for my sake or the sake of anyone who reads this blog. Your talking around me, not to me and you're a dishonest dilettante with no standing in any respectable community of historians. I'm not interested in witnessing or participating in your ecclesiastical masturbation or historical ventriloquism, or your subversive, anti-American activities.
Preach to your flock as you will sir, but I'll thank you to get your flock out of here.
I must apologize for the original tone of my prior posts, there is no reason for animosity.
Many people are ignorant of the fact that by and large Jefferson's agnostic period was when he suffered the loss of several very close loved ones while he was in France. It was NOT during the period he was helping to create our founding documents. I would suggest you read Jefferson HIMSELF during the period of the formation of our country - specifically his "Notes on Religion", all 9 of them, which were penned in 1776. They reveal a Jefferson that is pretty much mainstream Christian - which is also supported by the fact that he was a member of the vestry in the Anglican Church.
Oh, and this quote???
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
That was old T Jefferson himself.
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Capt. Fogg said:"you pretend he was, pushing for a government of God and of people who pretend to speak for God."
I do no such thing and do not claim that Jefferson did either.
That is a straw man argument.
There is a HUGE difference between wanting a theocracy and simply acknowledging the historical context of our founding.
Many on the left seem to think that government is to be hostile to any religion that believes in the Christian God, yet they ignore the FACT that the first Amendment was put in place in order to guarantee the federal government would not interfere with the free exercise of each persons own religion. Worse, many of the left are actually, in effect, promoting the actual ESTABLISHMENT of a Federal religion - at least the tenets of one. They blindly cooperate and evangelize for the tenets of Humanism and have effectively instituted it's tenets as public policy. They have set up Man as the ultimate authority, and removed God from that jurisdiction. That puts our rights and freedoms at the mercy of the whims of man. A very dangerous precedent, ripe for totalitarianism.
Your agenda could not be more apparent if your fly were open and of course your nonsense about a straw man is here to distract against that thing you've built, trampling all over truth like Godzilla in Tokyo.
I suggest you're more informed by cheesy religious tracts than from history, judging from your pretended victimhood. Nobody is taking away your precious religion, only attempting to keep your crusade from mucking up the works. There is no establishment of a Federal religion, you're making it up and by donning the robes of the martyr, looking for sympathy. And all, no doubt for the purpose of infiltrating a secular government and Christianizing it.
You don't have an audience here, nor do I wish to listen further to traitors, mad men or idiots -- go away.
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All I have done is point out the falsehoods you have spread.
Thomas Jefferson himself echoed my sentiments as I have shown beyond any shadow of a doubt.
His quote that I brought here is nearly VERBATIM as to what I said regarding God granting us rights and that they are thus out of the jurisdiction of man.
You denying the truth will not change the facts.
You have not shown even ONE fact that I have given to be wrong.
I have shown that your original statement to be LAUGHABLY false -the one where you said:
"Any invocation would have had the Founding Fathers up in arms - literally"
They prayed regularly and did so in congress at the constitutional convention etc. Thomas Jefferson attended church services that were held at several different federal buildings, he used federal money for missionaries who were reaching out to the American Indians.
ALL you have are a collection of quotes from a period in time that is WAY past the writing of the founding documents - and then from a man embittered by the loss of his loved ones, in a far away country and without the support of his community.
You should be THANKFUL that our founding fathers thought that our rights were granted by God. A seculular society would not put up with the dissent you seem intent on expressing. It is obvious that our society with our rights being endowed by our creator HAS allowed you to not only speak your mind, but to broadcast it to other people. From the tone of your posts, you would not be so constrained.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Capt. Fogg said: "I suggest you're more informed by cheesy religious tracts than from history"
No sir, it is NOT from ANY religious tracts.
It is from reading the ENTIRE works of Jefferson, not just those your handlers point you to.
Thomas Jefferson, like all of us, was a complicated and multifaceted man. Your attempts at positioning his quotes from a fairly small time frame as being the end-all be-all of his writings is dishonest at best. Especially when the writings you point to are from a time that was well past the founding of our country and at a particularly bitter time of his life.
Open the REAL documents that I have pointed you to - the whole works - that Jefferson himself wrote, not the cherry picked and filtered quotes you have been brainwashed with.
Capt,
Obviously you feel victimized by someone who purported to be a Christian. That experience should not blind you to the factual data on the founding of our country.
dear america,
obiviously we have made the rong choice, now we have to deal with this immature guy named obama for 4 years and waste presious time. dont you obama supporters relize he has not done one good thing. espesially for the economy. my father oened an oil rig here in texas. then we sold out to exon. now the money that we have got from selling the oil rig , Mr Obama would like to take some of the money i made, that my father has worked his but off his whole life for. he would like to take that money and put it towards helping out the people that havent even attempted to be succesfull in life. this guy just seems like a phoney to me, and thats just my say on this whole situation, its not right what hes doing,
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