Posted on 08/07/2008 2:01:53 PM PDT by Arthur Wildfire! March
“At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible.” -- Barack Obama
“If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.” Barack Obama in the same June Speech.
[transcript from his own senate website]
http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/
[Here is part of Obama's speech]
Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles.
This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example.
We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.
Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God’s test of devotion.
But it’s fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason.
Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires some sense of proportion.
This goes for both sides.
Even those who claim the Bible’s inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ’s divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.
The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.
But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters ...”
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We discussed this in a recent thread:
Free Republic Discussion Thread
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2056689/posts?q=1&;page=1
I've been encouraged me to make this a separate 'vanity'. But many FR posters have made strong responses which should not be overlook. “Lest those who believe not voting is a viable option ought to rethink the terrible danger that this evil man presents to the country.” -- Carley
Another poster [with the memorable screen name of Screaminggreenaliengorilla] inspired me to dissect this speech. Please note that I read it bearing this in mind: Obama tried to keep post-birth 'abortions' legal. [Link to back this claim added later]. With that in the backdrop, the irony of his words is stunning:
“Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”
No longer a Christian nation? Those are strong words. ‘and a nation of nonbelievers’ — sounds like wishful thinking on his part.
“Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy?”
He doesn't even know. He doesn't WANT to know.
“Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith?”
This smacks of mockery. [Tearing down straw dogs to belittle Judeo-Christians.]
“Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?”
More mockery. And the tragedy is that pacifist leftists are the ones confusing America's preachers in college.
“So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles.”
Who's getting carried away? This is trying to make Christians sound like nuts— character assassination of Christianity.
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason.”
He has no clue what ‘reason’ is when Barackula called for the killing of BORN infants with the old Roman practice of leaving them to die. His ancient sense of ‘reason’ is borderline primitive, couched by ‘progressive’ leftist mumbo-jumbo.
“I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will.”
He's sophomoric when it comes to understanding how our legal system has been hijacked ever since FDR packed the courts. And his lack of common sense blinds him to the most fundamental building block of ethics— saving a helpless infant, even after the child is born.
“I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
There's only one faith that kills a fully born baby— satanism. [And he failed to explain what should be easy to comprehend.]
“Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do.”
So they call for the stoning of people? Strong faith was the foundation of our founders. It worked really well until FDR packed the courts.
“But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible.”
ART OF THE IMPOSSIBLE? DID YOU SEE THAT? ART OF THE IMPOSSIBLE? IMPOSSIBLE? ART?
“ART OF THE IMPOSSIBLE.” There's an Obama keeper.
“If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.”
Essentially, he's saying that Christianity is dangerous.
“And if you doubt that, let me give you an example. We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.”
Irony. Obama doesn't need God to DO THE SAME THING! But not in the name of religion— no. To him, killing a BORN infant is little more than a commitment to his deluded view of ‘reproductive rights’.
“But it’s fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham.”
Some people might think he misquoted the Bible. In Genisis, it was 'the angel of the Lord'. I don't know if we should slam him for that being a misquote of the Bible.
But setting that aside-- when a baby lies on the operating table and is left to die there, that's perfectly legal. The guy does not even see the parallel. He needs some faith badly. Should Obama and his ilk even be allowed to be dog catchers?
“Even those who claim the Bible’s inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ’s divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.”
We need more modifications I suppose? [And there is the devisiveness of pitting Christians against Jews. This is not a leader who seeks to unite. He seeks to divide our Judeo-Christian culture.]
“The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.”
Is it wise to marry a poodle? Is it wise to re-write dictionaries? Is it wise to take a word and strike it out with a new defininition? Marriage is clearly defined. The only ‘wisdom’ in sodomous marriage is the desire of people living a dangerous lifestyle who seek the same insurance beneifits of people who live more traditionally. Gay marriage is essentially theft.
“But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state.”
What boundaries? Sophistry once again. There is no wall of separation. We simply cannot establish a single way to ‘worship God’. We do not even have the right to worship Satan, constitutionally speaking. If a state made it illegal to dedicate a book to Lucifer, it has every Constitutional right to do so.
[Note that Obama taught Alinsky methodology. And Saul Alinsky was a radical leftist organizer. He dedicated his book, "Rules for Radicals," to Lucifer. Source: 'Obama Nation']
Obama and post-birth 'abortions' reported in townhall.com, CarolPlattLietbau, 2008/07/14 Here's a google link to her report [their direct link caused an error] :
Carol Platt Lietbau in Townhall.com
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Now for more responses by others:
Oh, it's not just Obama. In order to be a leftist, you must believe that you and your ideological counterparts are wiser than anyone that ever lived, and wiser than God himself.
The former is evidenced by their attempts to implement the failed policies of socialism because THEY can make them work where everyone else wasn't able to. Also, you must believe that any traditional morality has no value in the face of your own superior "reasoning ability".
The latter, "wiser than God", is evidenced by their rejection of Biblical truth in favor of their own superior intellect. God had something to say about this:
Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;" -- MrB
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Where does he come up with such an idea? This sounds like projection. Of course the only faith that actually practices such ideas... is Islam. -- Ikka
Quackattack offers another dissection:
And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?
Yes. Obama is a deeply anti-Christian candidate who attracts the arrogant and smug. His prying open of that which is holy and beyond his understanding is indeed disturbing.
“Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith?”
His mockery of the Torah is similar to that of Joe Goebbels. He simply does not understand the Bible and has no desire to.
“Folks haven’t been reading their bibles..”
Obama has taken his arrogance to a whole new level. He thinks he’s Obama, Pontifex Maximus.
“we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”
What is he talking about? America has long been a Judeo-Christian nation, with Christian origins, a population that is above 80% Christian, and 40% of the World’s Jews, with excellent relations between the two. Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu populations are each less than 1% of the population of the US.
“Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice.”
Translation: Evangelicals will have no choice but to accept Obama’s interpretation of the Bible, or else they are not welcome in a democratic society.
“Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality.”
Evangelism is about persuading people to the common reality of Christianity. In a country with separation of church and state, citizens will evangelize each other. He elevates politics above religion.
“...the majority of Catholics practice birth control...”
He goes after Catholics as well...
“It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing”
“If” God has spoken? Obama is not a Christian. In a democratic country, policy is guided by the people. When the people vote, they are exercising power, and must vote their conscience. Policy will always be decided by what bases one’s life on. Environmentalists and Marxists vote this way. So should Christians.
Amazing...
2 Peter 3:16(NIV)
He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
-- Quackattack
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In the big picture it may not matter that I am a Buddhist but I fully agree with you both about Obama. To my way of thinking he has demonstrated here that he is an extremely dangerous individual with a severe form of malicious narcissism. He is not at all a uniter. His words and actions show him to be deeply divisive and intentionally so. -- Tigerseye
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Quackattack added:
His goal with the “Buddhist nation” comment was to get Buddhists to vote for him, of course. His goal is to get the non-Christian vote, from wherever the source, by attacking his “own faith” in an unsympathetic belittling way. No wonder he sauntered out of Islam and wandered into Christianity with no conversion or change in conviction. To him, its all “socio-political.” This is the view of a hardcore Marxist.
FRegards ....
ping
ping
ping
In other words, all non Christians and even so called Christians who follow the Law of Moses should live by them and be judged by them according to God.
The only people excepted from the curses and punishments that go with breaking the Law of Moses are Christians who walk by faith. End of story.
Men may think they can interpret this and that and be ok but God is the one who judges.
The recurring theme you usually see out of leftists trying to denigrate the authority of the Bible are the contemporarily unacceptable laws of the Old Testament, such as the “shellfish” comment. Usually this is to de-value the proscription on homosexual behavior.
Either they are ignorant, or intentionally deceptive in this regard, because Christ gave us a new covenant on what we could eat, etc, over the old Torah laws. But He did not say “oh, and by the way, guys, gals, have all the homosex you want, it’s OK now”.
The only reason he needs to say any of this is to explain how and why he can claim to be a Christian, and still support late term abortion, even already-out-of-the-womb abortion. That, and gay marriage.
Thats his problem, and this long meandering explanation is his response.
If his politics were actually rooted in what he claims are his religious beliefs, he wouldn’t have to go through this, or make us go through it with him. America is a diverse nation, he says, therefor I will support late term abortion and gay marriage.
“well according to God, if you do not live under the grace given by the death burial and ressurection of his Son, then you live under the Law of Moses and his Law should stand.”
I never quite heard it that way before. FRegards....
Obama was ‘stammering mad’ that we think his ‘inflation’ policy is silly. Here, he tears up straw dogs to make the Judeo-Christian faiths seem silly, and we are supposed to faint at his words.
“If his politics were actually rooted in what he claims are his religious beliefs, he wouldn’t have to go through this, or make us go through it with him.”
My grandfather once said that it takes a lot of words to explain a lie.
Has there ever been a President who gives his interpretation of Scripture this way? Out of one side of his mouth he declares what the meaning of several passages is and out of the other he draws a line in the sand and says Scripture must never be used as a basis for public policy.
Are we electing a Caesar this year?
To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.” Barack Obama in the same June Speech.
We’re ‘dangerous’. Isn’t it insteresting that, when he was race baiting, he warned his audiences that we would try to make HIM look scary. They always accuse us of doing what they do— it never fails.
Rom 2:12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.
Those who aren't justified by faith will die either under or apart from the law.
Rom 4:25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Those who believe in God our Savior are justified by their faith apart from the law.
“Has there ever been a President who gives his interpretation of Scripture this way?”
I don’t believe so, not publicly.
Thank you. That clears up some things. I’d much rather be a Christian. FRegards ....
It's like running a red light, just because you decide it's ok doesn't make it ok and eventually you will pay the price, unless your Father is mayor and your Brother is chief of police. Then you will just get a personal reprimand until your Father or Brother gets tired of your pride and judges you under the law.
Barack Hussein Obama makes the argument for moral relativism. Which leads inevitably to moral anarchy. Which in turn will lead to some form of tyranny. Because there WILL BE a moral order.
But really there is no solution short of God in the world. Everything else will fall short because everything else is subject to the agency of men. The form of government established by the founders of this nation is the best that humans have so far conceived. And it is based on limiting government by pitting it against itself in the hopes it would be hamstrung just enough to prevent it from becoming a tyranny. This is because the founders understood human beings and the motivations that spur them to act.
There is no perfect government. There is no fair government and never will be as long as humans reign in the halls of power. There is always controversy, contention and conflict. The only hope for liberty is that the parties involved will work to prevent one another from seizing supreme power. And this depends on a general agreement that the central law (the Constitution) is supreme and means what it says and all parties will be subject to it. Once the parties come to agree that they can make the Constitution mean whatever it is they SAY it means (regardless of what it actually says) our liberty dies. And this is exactly what is happening.
We are now at the point where the Constitution is almost meaningless. The checks are disappearing and the balance of power is shifting more and more towards the central government. At some point all three branches will be dominated by people determined to enforce their vision of what is right and wrong and who are in general agreement as to what that vision will be. At that point the American experiment will end.
Is Obama the Messiah or the Anti-Christ?
I have had a day since this was posted.
What upsets me about Obama talking this way about our religion is how similiar he sounds like the Episcopal Bishops and Priests, who have hurt the Episcopal church.
The Methodist Preachers, who drove my wonderful MIL away from her lifetime church. She made sure that her final service was in the funeral home, 10 miles away in another town and the eulogy was delived by a Baptist Preacher not one of the liberal ministers forced on her and the other members of her former church.
We are seeing couples and singles coming from other main line churches to our parish where the Priest, Asst. Priest and Deacon are firm believers not liberal nay sayers.
What makes Obama, the Oreo CINO so dangerous with his look at Christianity? He could be our president and do more harm to Christian churches Jewish Religions than imaginable as our president.
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