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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (51652)	3/4/2008 4:39:01 PM
From: Suma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542169

Excellent article and thanks for sharing that.. Interesting how politicians resemble chameleons... isn't it.

To: Lane3 who wrote (51652)	3/4/2008 5:10:23 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542169

Huckobama Interesting piece. You might be interested in this short bio of the author of that piece. Jacques Berlinerblau Jacques Berlinerblau is associate Professor and Director of the Program for Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Some sixteen years ago he received a doctorate in ancient Near Eastern Languages and Literature from New York University. Soon after, for reasons that he himself has never fully understood, he completed another doctorate in theoretical sociology from the New School for Social Research. Feeling sufficiently credentialed to write about and research any topic under the sun, his areas of interest include the Bible, its composition, its interpretation, and in particular the way that it has been dragooned into modern political discourse. To this end he has published "The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously" (Cambridge:2005) and the forthcoming "Thumpin’ It: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Today’s Presidential Politics" (Westminster John Knox: 2008). An earlier book, "Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals" (Rutgers: 1999) probed the manner in which institutions of higher education handle scholarly dissent. He has written extensively in scholarly journals on the subject of heretics, intellectuals, secularism, and Jewish civilization. This confluence of interests accounts, to a great degree, for his fascination with modern Jewish-American literature. A life-long New Yorker, he has recently moved to Washington D.C. with his family and is beguiled by the strange traffic lights that count down the seconds until they finally change colors. Close. One distinction and I think a critical one that he failed to make is the difference between confessional religious practices and coercive ones. I read Obama to be in the confessional tradition, basically saying here is where I am in life, here is my answer to questions of the meaning of life, and I invite you to consider it. Coercive traditions turn to the state to produce citizens with the proper values. I don't read Obama that way at all.

To: Lane3 who wrote (51652)	3/4/2008 5:16:38 PM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 542169

As long as Obama doesn't proclaim his desire to put his religious doctrine into constitutional amendments, this secularist has no problem with any politician expressing and practicing their faith, and even guiding government programs along their moral principles derived from religion. It's pretty much how every president has worked for decades now. A false dichotomy, IMHO.

To: Lane3 who wrote (51652)	3/4/2008 11:30:03 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542169

Karen - It doesn't bother me at all that Obama would profess his Christian faith in front of a small audience of Christian clerics. The Constitution says there should be "no religious test" to determine whether any candidate is qualified for office in this country. To me that means that he can believe whatever he wants to believe, and talk about it when he thinks it's appropriate to do so. I don't think he chose an inappropriate time to talk about it last Friday. Obama did not suggest, as Huckabee did more than once, that we need to amend the Constitution to conform to God's laws. He didn't proclaim that this is a "Christian nation". So I'll just remain calm. I think outrage would be very much misplaced. - Allen