Obama's Religious Background, Does It Matter? Options

[fameONE]

For those of you that have been following, yet another, God-awful US election, you're well aware of the recent specualtions about Barack Obama being a Muslim. Does it really matter? What difference would it make if the man was a Scientologist?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Discuss.

EDIT: Can someone please correct the spelling in the title?

[absinthe]

Ideally, separation of church and state is wonderful.

But frankly, we're attempting to chose a leader whose supposed to represent the views and beliefs we as Americans hold while barely knowing who the candidates are. And I'm not talking about that fancy campaign image they'd like to believe we buy (which apparently some Americans do since we were gifted with two dumbshit terms of Bush) -- I'm talking real time. Hence, it isn't exactly surprising that people would look the candidates' respective religions as a basis for review -- especially since a good number of Americans assume stances on controversial issues based on the stances of their religious affiliation(s).

So I guess, to a certain degree it does make sense. IMO, religion is a good way to gather insight on the moral standings and practices of a person. And that should actually help, as, to the best of my knowledge, all the religions we deal with politically promote positive teachings and practices. The problem is the racism people associate to the practiced religion, and the accompanying misconceptions they might have which may shed an unfair negative light on any given candidate -- which I believe is Obama's gripe at the moment.

So personally, I think its fair game if analyzed properly. It's not as if we're voting for the government itself -- we're voting for the person. If we were really going to be true to separation of church and state all of our political leaders would be required to have no religious affiliations at all, which in itself is another form of religious affiliation. It just isn't possible.

Gahd, I'm all over the place in this post. Not sure if I conveyed what I was trying to, but I wrote it, so I might as well post it. ;) Hahaha.

[NoSex]

But frankly, we're attempting to chose a leader whose supposed to represent the views and beliefs we as Americans hold while barely knowing who the candidates are. And I'm not talking about that fancy campaign image they'd like to believe we buy (which apparently some Americans do since we were gifted with two dumbshit terms of Bush) -- I'm talking real time.

So I guess, to a certain degree it does make sense. IMO, religion is a good way to gather insight on the moral standings and practices of a person. And that should actually help, as, to the best of my knowledge, all the religions we deal with politically promote positive teachings and practices.

Hitherto religious affiliation has been an utterly inappropriate means towards character evaluation. It just doesn't work. What a religion preaches is seldom what its followers practice. Just as you identify that politicians create elaborate campaign images, as do all people create even more complex and interweaving images - the personalities we suggest in small doses. Christians can be pretty huge shit heads, as can Buddhists, atheists, and Hindus.

Further, the best of your knowledge sucks if you think religion promotes wholly positive teachings and practices; anything that dampens scientific research and dismembers equal rights can suck my ass.

So personally, I think its fair game if analyzed properly.

Well, if our analyzers are the American voting population - f**k all!

If we were really going to be true to separation of church and state all of our political leaders would be required to have no religious affiliations at all, which in itself is another form of religious affiliation.

1. The facilitators of our state do not have to be completely removed from the church (or spirituality) to conduct government business in a secular manner. What you're arguing is a far too broad definition of separation.

2. Secondly, the hell do you mean "no religious affiliation" is a form of "religious affiliation?" Have you never heard of the law of non-contradiction?

So that I'm just not entirely contrary here: You put forth a good point in imposing realism here - people do care about an individual's religious positions and reasonably so. In application it might not be pretty, but in theory it makes perfect sense. People care about that shit and they probably should - just not precisely in the way that they do. Voting for George Bush because he promises to fight for the "rights of the unborn" is not only obnoxious, it's politically ignorant and foolish.