Comments on: Obama, Alabama, etc.

By: Friendly Atheist » Obama’s Entry

Friendly Atheist » Obama’s Entry — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 07:46:22 +0000

[...] I wrote about this after he made these statements. I noted that it was important to remember what else he had said in the same speech. Those quotations are worth repeating here: “[Conservative leaders of the Religious Right] need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice.” “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.” (Boldface is mine) “And even if we did have only Christians within our borders, who’s Christianity would we teach in the schools? 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 so radical that it’s doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application?” “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; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.” [...]

By: Siamang

Siamang — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 00:56:33 +0000

Interesting obama follow-up interview on Street Prophets:

http://www.streetprophets.com/storyonly/2006/7/11/213428/301

By: jim

jim — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 05:04:41 +0000

I dropped by to listen to atheists argue with each other for a change – it was fun to take a break from Christians doing it. Siamang continues to impress me with his tenacity for the truth, Hemant for his commitment to giving others (especially those he deeply disagrees with) the benefit of the doubt and Eliza for her willingness to go for the. big picture. And Helen… well we managed to get her running the OTM blogosphere.

I miss talking with all of you regularly but I have houses to paint and blogs to comment in.

Jim

By: Natalie

Natalie — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 03:00:55 +0000

I just wanted to say that I find your site really encouraging

By: Helen aka Ir

Helen aka Ir — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 14:26:43 +0000

Siamang, I think the problem which needs solving is public misperception of atheists. Until it is I wonder if it’s fair to expect a politician to bear the burden of the public misperception? After all, if he (or she) is sympathetic to atheist concerns, he (or she) could do more good by getting voted in, so he (or she) can bring change, than by openly supporting atheists in the current climate where doing so might prevent them getting voted in (unfortunately).

Also – I’m thinking I’d rather see a focus on ‘this is who thoughtful people vote for, than ‘this is who atheists vote for’. Since one of the main reasons I would side with atheists in choosing a candidate is that in my experience atheists tend to be smart, thoughtful, people.

If I had the money to stand up and make a big giant TV commercial that said “I am a friendly atheist, and a proud democratic supporter of Barak Obama for president” I get the feeling he’d run a million miles in the opposite direction.

Rather than this, I’d like to see the problem I named worked on with TV commercials by atheists which show atheists are decent people. I don’t know if it would work but it would be interesting to see the effect of ads which went something like this…(and someone else could do this much better than me)

“I’m friendly and thoughtful…I volunteer at my childrens’ school…

[more things that show this person is a caring responsible parent/spouse/community member].

There’s something else I’d like to tell you, if I could be sure it wouldn’t make you forget everything good you know about me. I’m an atheist.”

By: Siamang

Siamang — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 04:01:37 +0000

Let’s try a link to the discussion Eliza talked about:

http://off-the-map.org/ebayatheist/viewtopic.php?t=318

I would have hoped that Senator Obama might be a leader in this way, but he seems to be merely tacking right.

Although, I agree, a lot more groundwork would need to be done before we see a national candidate speak as we’d like them to about people who share the atheist worldview.

But we’ve got openly gay members of congress. Someday I wouldn’t mind an openly atheist member of congress.

By: Eliza

Eliza — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 01:25:14 +0000

So, his remarks weren’t perfect from the atheists’ point of view.

First, he was speaking at a Christian conference, in a Christian church, to a Christian audience. He’s a politician; he knows how to try to reach the audience – yet to try not sound ridiculous when his comments are taken out of context on the 5 o’clock news.

Second, I really think that it’s going to take liberal Christians pushing acceptance of people of all religions, and of no religion, for atheists to reach any kind of reasonably widespread acceptance in the U.S. This is being discussion on the Conversations on the Edge Discussion Board right now (between Siamang and Marty) – I’ll let someone else link to it, as my attempts to link in posts here seem to invariably send my stuff to the “spam” bin.

Barack Obama might be the person to spearhead this. He’s being eyed as a future presidential candidate. Especially given that possibility, he would have to be careful about sounding too “pro-atheist” – sad but true, being friendly to atheism could be the position that dashes a candidate’s chances in this “great” country of ours.

By: Helen aka Ir

Helen aka Ir — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 22:40:30 +0000

Maybe Obama lacks awareness of some things. What I would want to know is: can he learn? Does he want to learn?

By: Siamang

Siamang — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:12:15 +0000

I just see his end-goal is “winning elections.” It’s to be expected in a politician. But I don’t see where I come into the picture in his speech.

Obama seems to think there’s a secular elite running the party, and that may be the case.

Obama seems oblivious to the very idea that behind the mask, “secularists” probably are atheists who don’t want to be denied a seat at the table because of the bigotry against atheists. That remains unsaid and perhaps unnoticed by Obama.

The fact that christians are HOSTILE to people without faith is ommitted from the speech and from the discourse altogether. While he’s preaching to the church members in attendence of how secularists should treat christians better, I don’t hear how christians should treat secularists any better.

What should I, as an atheist, take away from Obama’s speech?

I take away that I shouldn’t be part of the conversation, because I harm democrats’ chances.

If I had the money to stand up and make a big giant TV commercial that said “I am a friendly atheist, and a proud democratic supporter of Barak Obama for president” I get the feeling he’d run a million miles in the opposite direction.

By: Hemant

Hemant — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 19:10:03 +0000

Siamang– Maybe I should’ve made myself more clear; Obama is referring to the Pledge in context, and to him, that’s not forcing anyone to say yes or no to God. I obviously disagree and think he needs to be more educated in this regard. But pandering aside, I still don’t think he’s telling anyone to put God, in a religious way, in public schools. He’s certainly not advocating ID in Science class. And that’s a position I could accept.
Let it be clear I don’t agree with having “Under God” in the Pledge, but to hear him say it as he did, it’s a stance I can accept in a politician.
If you listen to many of the national secular organizations, the Under God issue is not the most important church-state issue; it’s quite low on their list of priorities. It only gets attention because of the high-profile nature of the case. I think putting it on its own pedestal, as if it was the most important church-state issue we have to deal with, is Obama’s problem with it.