Why was there only one set of footprints? Obama was carrying God. Again.
7 August 2007 by vastleft
I was all set to bury the hatchet with Barack Obama and give him a “more like this” nod.
C&L posted this excerpt from an e-mail Obama sent to a Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent:
For my friends on the right, I think it would be helpful to remember the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy but also our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn’t the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment…. It was the forbearers of Evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they didn’t want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.Whatever we once were, we’re 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 non-believers. We should acknowledge this and realize that when we’re formulating policies from the state house to the Senate floor to the White House, we’ve got to work to translate our reasoning into values that are accessible to every one of our citizens, not just members of our own faith community.
I might quibble with a few words of that, but heck, he’s sticking up for the separation of church and state, and these comments won him an asinine rebuttal from CBN founder Pat Robertson. So, what’s not to like? Well…
The full e-mail is peppered with Christianist and centrist-accomodationist dog-whistle talk:
We’ve had too many years of bitter partisanship… I’ve just always been clear that my Christian faith has motivated me for 20 years and I’m not ashamed to talk about it, or the role that faith should play in our American life… My intention was to contrast the heated partisan rhetoric of a distinct minority of Christian leaders with the vast majority of Evangelical Christians… The real leaders are clergy and lay folks who are living out their faith every day in ways large and small, trying their best to determine how best to serve God and their fellow man…. For progressives, I think we should recognize the role that values and culture play in addressing some of our most urgent social problems… when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we’ve got a moral problem. There’s a hole in that young man’s heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix. So solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I think progressives would do well to take this to heart…
Fer crissakes, conflating religion with values and morality!? Implying that progressives need to get religion if they’re going to cure social ills!? Buying into the bullshit “bipartisanship” equivalation!? And generally kissing the ass of Evangelical Christians, as if they haven’t delivered us into evil!?
Obama, baby, if you think church and state should be separate, here’s a suggestion: when you’re running to be head of state, stop talking so much about church.
7 August 2007, on 5:54 pm
Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn’t the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment…. It was the forbearers of Evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they didn’t want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, go retake your basic American history; it was not the “forbearers [sic] of evangelicals” but Deists like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who were so adamant! Today’s power-hungry, megalomaniacal, dominionist theocratic evangelicals have clearly inherited nothing from the Founding Fathers.
This is asswipery on Obama’s part…
7 August 2007, on 6:03 pm
I know. And that’s before he really started pissing me off.
7 August 2007, on 6:52 pm
[...] Wesley Clark Contact the Webmaster Link to Article barack obama Why was there only one set of footprints? Obama was carrying God. Again. » Posted at God is for Suckers! - Commentary, news, and rants on the evils and stupidity of belief in the big invisible daddy in the sky. Illuminating and watchdogging the widespread attempts to institutionalize the theocratic rule of the US. Making fun of believers everywhere. on Tuesday, August 07, 2007 Why was there only one set of footprints? Obama was carrying God. Again. By vastleft church-state I was all set to bury the hatchet with Barack Obama and give him a “more like this” nod. C&L posted this excerpt from an e-mail Obama sent to a Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent View Original Article » [...]
7 August 2007, on 7:20 pm
Eve:
Go retake your basic American history
Part of the problem here is that you’ll never hear the word “deist” in your basic history class!
The intellectual descendents of our founding fathers are scientists and religion-indifferent realists. And atheists.
8 August 2007, on 1:11 am
My friend, who is a deist, did not even know he was one until I explained to him what a deist is. Same goes for my mother. They are both well educated and intelligent people. Only people that investigate religion even know the term. I would be willing to bet that 99% of all history teachers don’t even know what the word means.
We investigate religion because, frankly, we need ammo. Many of us came to our atheist perspective not by researching but by simple observation and realization. To be honest, I really did not give a shit about any religions until my mid-twenties. It was then that I truly began to care what these nutasses think. I realized that these assholes have power and they are using it to try to fuck me over. Now, I have knowledge, ammo and the will to use it. This is the only thing I have to thank Georgie Peorgie and his party of fucktards for. They gave me anger and anger is a powerful tool.
8 August 2007, on 1:35 am
Speech about morals + Jebus = Votes
Too bad pandering is not the 11th commandment.
8 August 2007, on 4:56 am
Its true that no one has heard of a Deist. Hell, I just heard of the term when I join this site. I have learn a lot from this site but that is beside the point. The point I am trying to make is that, people are taught of just one religion. Just Christianity, nothing else. Most people do not even know what an Atheist is. To them, it is you in or your out. Idiots.
8 August 2007, on 8:46 am
My dad, who is a very intelligent and well-read man, believes something must be out there, so I guess I’d have to call him an agnostic. He was raised a Lutheran in Wisconsin, but he and my mom never pushed religion on my sister and I. And he doesn’t go to church now, and hasn’t for the past 40 years as far as I know, except to appease his father when visiting.
8 August 2007, on 10:23 pm
In my mind, Obama has finally blown it. Why do Dems keep pacifying these Theidiots?
“For progressives, I think we should recognize the role that values and culture play in addressing some of our most urgent social problems…”
Here, he’s falling into the trap of defensiveness against the baseless claim that those on the left (particularly secular progressives) have no values (read: morality).
After seeing what the heartland “values” voters have done to this country in 7 years, I can’t believe anyone is still paying these mouth-breathers any mind, least of all a Democrat.
9 August 2007, on 12:25 am
Fritzy,
Alas he’s been doing this all along, and I wish enough people noticed and cared about these sleazy maneuvers that he’d be shamed out of it. There’s a lot I like about him, but this “slick Obama” shit has got to stop. But will it?
9 August 2007, on 8:39 am
Weren’t the founding fathers slave masters?
OT: Check out this asshat.
Feel free to comment there. He needs a good bitch slapping.
9 August 2007, on 10:41 am
The Atheist Jew,
That column of justified type was has as hard to deal with as the justifications it contained. Still, it inspired my next post….
9 August 2007, on 11:26 am
[...] Then, in comments to my previous post, The Atheist Jew sent me a link to A Letter to an Atheist – PART II: Can We be Good without God?. [...]
9 August 2007, on 7:55 pm
“…the forbearers of Evangelicals ”
WTF?!
Those NUTJOBS were angrily denouncing the “Godless Constitution” at the time…
…Go read Susan Jacoby’s excellent book
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (Paperback)
# Paperback: 448 pages
# Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; 2 Reprint edition (December 23, 2004)
# ISBN-10: 0805077766
# ISBN-13: 978-0805077766
yes, there were a few religious sects in the minority that backed separation of church & state, etc, because it protected THEM in the process. It’s always fun to actually QUOTE the Founding Fathers to those who think the whole “Deism” thing is just some clever secularist propoganda…Jefferson, Washington, and Adams all have particularly delicious quotes when it comes to raking Christianity over the coals, not to mention the ultimate Black Sheep of the Founding Fathers (at least intellectually speaking), Thomas Paine, whose familiarity to us today stems in no small measure from his being actively promoted by Robert Green Ingersoll in the late 19th century, keeping the memory of Paine and his legacy alive for future generations…Dawkins, et. al. are OUR Ingersolls and Paines today.
I’m afraid I just can’t support Obama; Edwards has said some pretty outrageous crap that pisses me off as a secularist as well. Hillary probably is a closet atheist or at best a deist, but that of itself is certainly not sufficient reason to vote for her.
“Values & morals” in contemporary parlance are merely Right-wing code words for “repressive, backwards sexual morality enforced by state power”; any meaning beyond that is mere lip-service without substance (and certainly without funding).
11 August 2007, on 9:39 am
With people so ignorant of their history these days it is unfortunate that the quoted excerpt left out the part in the original email where Barak made it clear who the “forbearers of Evangelicals” he referred to were:
A quick search in google turns up the following information. The first recorded use of the phrase “separation of church and state” involved the Baptists.
Who were these Danbuy Baptists to whom Jefferson was writing? Wikipedia explains:
Of course, these Baptists in Connecticut who were so concerned about protection of religious liberty were a persecuted minority. Now, especially in places where their religious point of view is a political majority, are Baptists still concerned about religious freedom? Not so much.
11 August 2007, on 3:08 pm
Point taken, David. From the excerpt posted, I unfortunately assumed Obama was talking about the composition of the Constitution, not the phrase “separation of church and state” itself. I freely admit I should have read more of the speech for a wider context.