Obama is way too smart and educated to be anything but a skeptic when it comes to religion, especially given that he was raised in a secular household. It’s refreshing to finally have the prospect of a free-thinker in office. I wish atheist politicians had the guts to come out and speak more critically about religion, and more openly about their doubts.

We don’t know how he would react in a stressful situation, or even if he can withstand an onslaught from the right wing. His followers worship him like a preacher from a pentecostal meeting. His followers will probably be the first to drop him once the attack machine starts and the dirt starts flying.

Even under contant fire, Hillary fights back, also her democratic values are very sound.

I can’t believe the media will be kind once Obama gets the nomination, after all, it is not in their interest to elect democrats.

Obama isn’t any more for change than any other democrats, neither is he a Washington outsider.

I too would like an atheist as president, but cannot allow McCain to continue on the same path as we are now.

We don’t know how he would react in a stressful situation, or even if he can withstand an onslaught from the right wing. His followers worship him like a preacher from a pentecostal meeting.
Even under contant fire, Hillary fights back, also her democratic values are very sound.

I can’t believe the media will be kind once Obama gets the nomination, after all, it is not in their interest to support the democratic cause. His followers will be the first to drop him once the attack machine starts.

Obama isn’t any more for change than any other democrats, neither is he a Washington outsider.

We still hardly know anything about him and already the right wing are calling him the Anti Christ.

If only todays politicians, especially democrats and left-wing ones, in the U.S. actually had REAL knowledge about Americas founding and founding fathers and their views{the prominent founders}… they’d realize..”oh, shit… all our pandering to the Abrahamic faiths and our constant joining with the right wing in talking about our faith in the Christian God- even if from a liberal political perspective… spits in the face of the beliefs,character, and INTENTIONS of the freethinking and deistic founding fathers… whose nature was much closer to that of todays Atheists and Agnostics and Modern Anti-theistic agno-deists… than to Revealed religionsts of anykind…including liberal christians and liberal thiests; shit… we’re pussywhipped,hypocritical, morons!”

Obama passes himself off as a friend to secualrists and non-belivers{rationalists, including deists,atheists, and agnostics}…but I wonder…is he just dooing so to gain their votes? Will he turn on them? Maybe not to promote fundamentalism but still semi-right wing evangelical so-called charities and movements, and of course liberal christians. I mean, he panders to the religious as much as any other{even more than Hillary from what I can tell…I mean, I searched in vain for “faith” crap on Hillaries site and found nothing, but Obamas is chalk full of faith based bullshit!}…yet only “briefly” mentions that “oh yeah…none belivers exist here too”- but does he really give a shit about them or any of the rationalist community{including modern anti-theist AGNO-Deists?}
I’m skeptical. I think Obamas just the same hypocrite as the rest and will eventually prove it.

Be contrarian… don’t vote for anyone, It’s time for rationalists and the faithless community to quit kissing ass…to stand up and be counted and DEMAND the EXACT same regards and respects and pandering that christians or the rleigions and theistic and faith-based of ANY kind get. Or nothing will change.
STAND UP, STAND UP FOR YOURSELVES AND BE COUNTED FELLOW FAITHLESS RATIONALISTS!

It doesn’t matter to me that Obama uses religious rhetoric, because his vision of Christianity is one that I believe reflects my core values. His social values are much more important to me than his position on the existence of God–I would much rather be led by a Christian like Obama than an atheist like Stalin.

I agree

Considering all the poll’s we’ve seen over the years, this is probably as close as we’re going to get to an atheistic president.

Maybe not in our lifetime, but never say never. Have you read (or listened to) American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips? The full title is American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury.

He talks about the history of religion in the Southern USA, and how oil, religion and finance got together to shape the Rethuglican Party in the 20th century.

Then he talks about other world powers: Spain in the 15th-16th centuries, Holland in the 17th and 18th centuries, and Britain in the 19th and early 20th. He compares them with the USA in the mid-late 20th/early 21st centuries and sees a lot of similarities: a reliance on new energy technology (wind for the Dutch, coal for the Brits), the increasing financialization of each culture, the growing burden of public and private debts, the emergence of radical religion and the blurring of the line between church and state, militarization, and eventual decline.

Towards the end he predicts that we will see a decline in the standing of the USA relative to other countries (I think this is happening now) and a decline in religion in the USA. I do not think he explicitly states that we will see an atheist president, but he seems to hint that it could happen.

And on top of that, he has actually said that he supports the separation of church and state, even if he hasn’t actually had a real chance to act upon that yet. Hillary crosses me as the type who would sooner bow to the church-and-state-fusionists if it secured her the Presidential election.

And Bush said he doesn’t support torture, if he’s then going to say he supports water boarding people. I don’t care whether he said he doesn’t support torture, those words are empty. When Obama goes onto to say he also supports conflicting policy, I don’t see how those words mean anything.

I’m highly cynical of professional politicians, so accusing one of switching policies to win a presidential election is not shocking to me, although I would extend such a perception to Obama, another professional politician. However, I don’t see Clinton or Obama shifting on their positions, that are almost the same, and have been their positions for quite some time.

I’m talking about people who, in a situation similar to this one regarding the presidential candidates, choose to not vote for a candidate who agrees with them on more issues than any of the other candidates just because of one particular issue.

What do the number of issues matter? This “single issue voter” rhetoric, doesn’t make any logical sense. People are going to value issues by importance, some issues are more important than others. I certainly have single issues that are more important than hundreds of other issues to me.

It can also be a gambit, voting for the best candidate doesn’t have to be tactfully prudent. Candidates court voters, with concessions, to get their vote, if they don’t think they have to, they won’t, they’ll try to get the voters they don’t have. Is campaigning about setting out the policies you believe in, and then voters vote for the candidate that’s most like them? That doesn’t seem to map onto reality for me.

What’s the support for faith-based iniatives? I don’t think every religious person wants the fusion of church and state, I’d say there’s a majority who vote Democrat that don’t want that. Do other groups have this trouble? It seems candidates don’t care how much they stamp over what we find important to get those votes. Yet, aren’t the non-religious the biggest voting block for the Democrats with the most uniform support of policies, not the least being the ones that support secularism? There’s something gone awfully wrong.

It just doesn’t make sense to me to consider Obama anything but a friend to the secular community, simply because he doesn’t agree with us 100% on all of the issues.

You have conceded that faith-based iniatives are a big deal. The only way Obama is a “friend” to the secular community is in the way that enemies of your enemies are, which I would prefer to describe as mutually interested allies.