The Coming Battle for Electoral Heaven

Obama wants us to believe voting for McCain will be voting for four more years of Bush/Cheney.

He, of course, can do better. He can offer us four more years of Jimmy Carter.

GERRY:

All religion begin by defining sins. Those sins return the favor by defining the particular religion. The Bible is a treasure trove of sins thus we have a treasure trove of Bible based religions. And you have no faith in any of them?

Faith is faith and never the zero case, no faith.

The only way to avoid sin and thus being a sinner is to have no faith. That makes those with no faith righteous -just like them. Maybe religion is a nothing. No matter how many nothings one has one still has nothing.

Keep the no faith baby and refuse to acknowledge the existence of the number zero else there can be no faith for if there is a zero then no faith, the zero case of faith is also faith. Now you're normal, just as confused as an evangelical.

Wanna talk about values? How much is nothing worth? How much money does the Vatican have? Billy Graham ministries? Pat Robertson? Haggard and Haggee? Nothing is obviously worth trillions.

Ptbab's "deference" to Romans or any bible quote to prove the "truth" of bible contents is similar to someone who wants to prove the existences of Santa Claus: "But can't you see his red coat? Can't you see his white beard? Don't you see his sleigh pulled by the elks? Doesn't he bring presents to children? Doesn't he appear around Christmas every year? And still you don't believe he exists? How blind can you get!"

"Value" is a word with more than one meaning. Every ministry has a committee that determines the "value" of every family in the congregation, in dollars that can be expected to appear on the plate. Every business does the same thing so there's nothing sinister in doing that.

PP wrote, "When you start threatening people with your Hell and Devil in an attempt to get them to embrace the very same beliefs, you've already departed reason. It may work with people's lapsed conditioning when they feel afraid, but it's not freedom or reason or good faith."
............................

I am surprised that you consider quoting scripture "threatening people," but not really, any excuse to disdain the impact of truth from a non-believer would be expected.

........................

PP wrote, "Frankly, I think if your Jesus turned out to be more about hearts and results than genuflecture and obeisance and obsessions with sexual control of others, he probably wouldn't think we're any so bad. Probably not the kind of guy that'd be unwelcome at any of *our* tables, or our notions of between-or-afterlives, come to think of it just now."

On this comment I'll just "defer" you to Romans 1, that is if you still "read" other truths like you claim. Incidently, note the following text.....I am guessing what the conversation would entail at the "table" with you and you friends based on Jesus's feelings on the issue. Good luck answering his questions and responding to his "words of wisdom."

Romans 1:16-32, “(16)I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. (17)For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.

(18)The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, (19)since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. (20)For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

(21)For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. (22)Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools (23)and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

(24)Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. (25)They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
(26)Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. (27)In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

(28)Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. (29)They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, (30)slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; (31)they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (32)Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

THE END, I DON'T CARE TO DISCUSS THE ISSUE YOU AGAIN.

RCG, "Your talk about fights and judging simple heathens like PAGANPLACE, WICCAN and myself (RCG - bobcatarts@gmail.com if you feel like saying hi)"

...................

Not interested, period.

Dan Turner,

Thanks for reminding us what evangelical values are. These are not just "progressive" values, they are values for all Christians who seek to follow Jesus.

Good news to the poor, help for widows and orphans, comfort for the sick, sight for the blind, liberation for the captives, food for the hungry, freedom for the oppressed, peace and goodwill among all people.

I am a values voter.

Don't let being a heretic bother you Dan Turner. The heavenly father of Jesus was Lucifer, the angel that rebelled like Wesley, wanted to reform heaven the way Wesley reformed the church. Lucifer tried to throw God out of heaven and Wesley tried to throw the pope out.

Not to worry. There's a fire extinguisher in heaven. When you get to the house of the father of Jesus, (at 65 that's coming right up) you can join His, Lucifer's army. He's still trying to throw God out of heaven and take over. When He does that both of you can use that fire extinguisher.

The law of averages is way in Lucifer's favor. Unfortunately, the odds remain the same, zero.

Dan Turner sez, "I am a white 65 yr old Christian evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition (over 250 years running!)"

Wesley was the employee of Satan.

Matthew 16,- (Jesus Speaking)

15He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

16And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

17And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
----------------
How many churches did Jesus start?

Heretics shall burn in hell for all eternity!! Read that last line one more time.

Can we rescue a very good word? "Evangelical" does not belong to the right wing, the "religion for profit, success is gospel crowd!"

I am a white 65 yr old Christian evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition (over 250 years running!) Evangelical means "good news" of Jesus saving us from our sin, and saving us to a life of "mercy, justice, and good" by a God of love. Evangelical as a political system does not exist in the Christian faith.

To be sure, Believers should be involved in civic and political life. But Believers ought not use their "evangelical religion" so-called to bludgeon others into the "right values."

What values might an Evangelical Voter support in Obama? How about hope? How about concern for the poor? How about working for peaceful resolution of potentially violent situations? How about caring for the soldiers after they come home, caring for the widows? I believe all these are "family values" that can be supported by liberal and conservative alike.

I don't consider any politician a "savior" or a "saint", and I'm sure America will survive with either a Republican or a Democratic President; but I do believe its time to give the polarization of the "Religious Right," "subtle racism" and "sexism" a rest. We are Americans. I believe an Evangelical can be happy to support Obama on many of these points.

"With the convincing victory of Obama the dawn of a new era has begun in U S and for that America and rest of the world should be grateful and hopefully will be better off"

Peace??

Not unless you mean worldwide Shariah..

Hamas and Barack Obama--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_S7eiy_GI4

So mote it be, Peace.

Even after the election, we still gotta work for it, don't forget, though. America ain't a spectator sport. :)

With the convincing victory of Obama the dawn of a new era has begun in U S and for that America and rest of the world should be grateful and hopefully will be better off

And no, 'Reasonable,' Obama's not going to raise taxes on regular folk, ...besides, Bush already deficit-spent us into an economy that *may as well* have been tax hikes. At least those would have gone to maintaining a crumbling infrastructure that corporations and CEOs make their tax-cut profits off using for free.

Hardly does to get paranoid about tax raises when the other party has for sure sold half the country to China and raised the cost of living without doing anything about wages and benefits.

That's a tax, too, it just doesn't go to the public.

RCG to Proud:
"PROUD:
Please don't tell people they should be ashamed of their religion."

Aww, did I miss some 'hellfire?' :)

Why should anyone be ashamed or terrified of not believing in someone else's world of shame and terror? Gods.

Certainly have enough of pride not to cower in fear or shame before words I know are wrong. Those fears and shames and Hells are in *your* religion, not mind.

I'm sure you figure you've got everyone else's damnation all worked out, but God/dess didn't put us all here to hang our tootsies over fires based on some interpretation of some translation of someone else's book.

Just ain't so. People do that. I refuse.

Arminius:

I have a religious aspect to how I vote also. That said, W betrayed religious people IMO.

I would expect that in my years leading up to retirement, Obama will tax me to death. I can't afford the increase in taxes. Government should be responsible in spending. Illegal immigration should be curtailed. Our Military should remain strong.

Reasonable,

Well, we are agreed on some things, and that is for the good.

Do not underestimate Obama, nor believe the hype. The dude is way smart, and intelligent enough to know that he can't change things overnight, and can't change the ingrown self-serving culture of DC entirely. And as for untested presidents, please remember one Abe Lincoln. We cannot really tell about any president until they get there. Obama gives this old man hope, the first hope in a long, long time.

As far as McCain goes, I would have voted for him in 2000, if the Shrub had not torpedoed his campaign by the hate spewed in S. Carolina. But now McCain has prostituted himself, and cannot be trusted any longer.

Actually, when it comes to the environment, I am more in the middle of the pack. I don't trust corporations to keep the water and the air clean. Nixon WOULD have been a pretty good president if he had not been so paranoid. I don't have problems with keeping bad people in prison, but marijuana users don't qualify in that category. Obama thinks he can solve all our social problems as do many liberals.

Arminius:

Nice to see you can discourse without insults.... who's the Neatherdal?

Actually, when it comes to the environment, I am more in the middle of the pack. I don't trust corporations to keep the water and the air clean. Nixon WOULD have been a pretty good president if he had not been so paranoid. I don't have problems with keeping bad people in prison, but marijuana users don't qualify in that category. Obama thinks he can solve all our social problems as do many liberals.
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=32853

I won't put my trust in a untested rookie that happens to speak well. McCain in the safe choice.

FLIP-FLOP:
Better the devil you know...

No, you're wrong. I don't want to settle for a devil of any sorts. Why is politics consistantly boiling down to the 'lesser of two evils' vote?

Why can't we have any GOOD candidates?

PROUD:
Please don't tell people they should be ashamed of their religion. Before you were Christian, you were something else - even if searching. Would you being a FORMER SEARCHER like being shamed by those who haven't fallen for somebody's speech, or book? Do you fall for every faith-based book handed to you? No. Why? Because YOUR book is right, and is the REAL word of God (yours, of course), written BY God, without the help of a fallable human to write it down, or hundreds of years of history or fallable humans to muck it up.

Your talk about fights and judging simple heathens like PAGANPLACE, WICCAN and myself (RCG - bobcatarts@gmail.com if you feel like saying hi) is rather un-Christian behavior, as I've come to understand it. I've met many, many Christians who have an overwhelming sense of compassion for the community, charity, and sympathy for those needing help. Your spiteful rhetoric doesn't support that.

What is there to fight about, anyway?
-Healthcare? I'm sure you want you and yours to be taken care of medically without having to sell your firstborn to finance it. We want the same.
-Justice? I'm sure you want everyone to be treated equitably under the eyes of the law. I would hate to see you being wrongly persecuted for your religious beliefs or lifestyle.
-Food/Environmental Security? Everybody needs someplace safe, clean and healthy to live. Clean air, clean water, clean and reliable food - what carbon-based life on this planet DOESN'T want that?

Christianity already has too much influence over secular American business and politics. Why are businesses and alcohol sales closed on Sunday? Why does the government and banks close on Christmas and Easter? Why are the Christian 10 Comandmans in Public, government-funded schools and Courthouses in the first place? Why is gender-based discrimination still allowed in marraige? It's not about sexual orientation, it's about gender. We're allowed to self-identify in this country, right? Why can a biological man who identifies (and by law legally recognized) as a woman legally marry a biological, self-identified man?

Our constitutional republic is meant to protect the minority from the tyrrany of the majority. Please, for the 'rest of us', the Biblica "other people", (found east of Eden in the land of Nod, where Cain, the only surviving son of Adam and Eve, the only two humans on the planet was cast out and met his wife) - for our sakes, keep religion out of politics. Take care of everybody, and let God sort 'em out.

Wasn't it Obama who told a Canadian GO he was kidding about renegotiating NAFTA, just politicing big labor? Lying to teamsters could be dangerous.

Dems are still rejecting drilling for oil in Alaska or anywhere else under the flag according to today's news -rejected Bush's energy bill.

Obama will most likely win. It will be very interesting to see how he handles the oil crunch. I remember Nixon too, the most liberal president ever by most standards. Will Obama turn out to be a conservative, the most conservative president ever? Isn't drilling for oil in the Alaskan wilderness conservative or is that limited to people of faith?

Yes but what are the candidates values? Where's the God vote? Will Jeremiah Wright crown McCain the way Billy Graham crowned W? If McCain would only get some values then maybe God will vote at him. Yeah, vote at leaving God's aim the final deciding factor.

Are you sure the God of conservatives is really God? Almighty God could simply fill everyone's gas tank and keep them full. It's the other supernatural being, the angel that wants to be God, Lucifer that must have help from people. Which God is voting should God decide to vote is the real question. But then we may be at the state where only the Devil cares, known as God forsaken.

Reasonable not hateful:

Your politics are admirably Neanterthal. Apparently you hearken back to some sort of knee-jerking conservative age. Well, let's see.....

How about Nixon? Old Tricky Dick himself! Many liberal traits.....
- Established the EPA, despised by today's conservatives
- Tried to establish a guaranteed annual income for all citizens
- Proposed a health care program that Hillary was quoted in 1993 that she would have accepted in a second
- Began the establishment of relations with China, a policy anathema to the conservatives of the time
- His establishment of the 'War on Drugs' placed 2/3 of the funds for treatment, never equaled by any subsequent president. Reagan decided that this was wrong, and thus doubled the prison population.

Maybe we need old Trick Dick back.....

Well, clean out your cave, wash your tiger hide shirt, pick up your club, and prepare for combat with Obama, who is not far left. I remember the 60's - I met many far left there. They do not exist today.

Mr Mark,

You seem pretty confident Obama will be the next President.

I suppose you were also confident that Kerry would end W's presidency also.

The one and only think Obama has going for him is charisma. People , especially the media, seem to think he is the black 2nd coming of JFK or even RFK. After that I see a far left socialist that will attempt to move the middle as November approaches.

I hope, if elected, he is more like the the latter. JFK was average President that was memorialized through his assassination. He was only in office barely over 2.5 years. I would also note they (the Kennedys) were moderates.

I believe this will be a very close election, with McCain squeaking by. The one thing we don't need is one party controlled both the legislative and executive branches. You saw what happened before 2006 what occurred then. McCain is a moderate, and the only thing that will cause him problems is his lack of charisma.

A view from Tehran in Iran of Obama's speech to Zionist lobbying group AIPAC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l06ab7HDjVY

To best understand Obama's future- take a moment to look where he has been-

This is a clip from Morning Joe (Scarborough) in April '08..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoGJogsCcUA

I can't imagine a Jewish person who has any love for Israel voting for him.

Obama has made more than a few false steps..

Eh, that pice of real estate's nothing but trouble. Maybe all concrened ought to move out and contemplate that a while.

Concerning Jerusalem, for example, neither McCain nor Obama kinow what they are talking about, and they certainly don't offer any forward looking and cogent explaination regarding their positions. If they mean Jerusalem should be undivided as a 'ancient holy city' iconic to Christian, Judaic and Muslim faiths, that's one thing. That was the proposal of Swedish UN Rep Count Folke Bernadotte before he was assassinated circa 1948 by the Lehi Group, a faction of the Stern Gang. If they mean that the Palestinian Israelis should have ultimate control of Jerusalem, then that immediately leads to all sorts of other issues including global hunger because of the Middle East oil issue, potential nuclear conflict between two idiotic nuclear powers, Israel and Iran, lack of equality, freedom, liberty and justice in most all states there which is the ideal of democracy, and so on and on including the absence of a strong regional IAEA having full inspection authority, no exceptions, and location of significant UN authority, including an unbiased War Crimes Tribunal, in the former British Palelestinian Mandate. Boy, oh boy, what a crazy and stupid road we of Western Civilization have traveled in that benighted region while basically ignoring and dissing the honest regional moderates since the end of WWII. It is making the Guns of August, 1914 look like Cinderell and the Slipper, or the story about the Emperor and his suit of new clothes. And Georgetown teaches foreign affairs and religious moderation???

Concerning Jerusalem, for example, neither McCain nor Obama kinow what they are talking about, and they certainly don't offer any forward looking and cogent explaination regarding their positions. If they mean Jerusalem should be undivided as a 'ancient holy city' iconic to Christian, Judaic and Muslim faiths, that's one thing. That was the proposal of Swedish UN Rep Count Folke Bernadotte before he was assassinated circa 1948 by the Lehi Group, a faction of the Stern Gang. If they mean that the Palestinian Israelis should have ultimate control of Jerusalem, then that immediately leads to all sorts of other issues including global hunger because of the Middle East oil issue, potential nuclear conflict between two idiotic nuclear powers, Israel and Iran, lack of equality, freedom, liberty and justice in most all states there which is the ideal of democracy, and so on and on including the absence of a strong regional IAEA having full inspection authority, no exceptions, and location of significant UN authority, including an unbiased War Crimes Tribunal, in the former British Palelestinian Mandate. Boy, oh boy, what a crazy and stupid road we of Western Civilization have traveled in that benighted region while basically ignoring and dissing the honest regional moderates since the end of WWII. It is making the Guns of August, 1914 look like Cinderell and the Slipper, or the story about the Emperor and his suit of new clothes. And Georgetown teaches foreign affairs and religious moderation???

"Amazing, you know the term "hellfire" no excuse for you before God "I didn't know.""

If in the unlikely event this life is unlike Wiccans previous ones, and there's a 'God of Hellfire' around, I think it'd be a *perfectly good* excuse to say, 'Hey, look who was talking, would *you* have believed them? I don't think so.' :)

Why would you believe some words only told to you by people with obviously aren't on the ball logically, using circular references and threats, and claiming as Ultimate Truth things which are contrary to all other experience and with conspicuous ulterior motives?

Nah, sorry, out of all infinite possibilities in the multiverse, I'll count on Pascal's Wager being the picture of a sucker's bet it is, never mind a basis for policy in a free nation, thanks.

"Before you run your mouth as "winning" a fight or giving out the victories of a "finished" fight make sure that the fight is over."

When you start making threats, you've conceded the logical field already.

It means you're left with nothing to discuss and have begun attempting to bully.

'Just wait till my big God burns you eternally for not obeying me, waaaaah.'

Whatever.

Anyway.

Wiccan and I both share a Wiccan faith that the universe ain't that crazy. Nor the vanity that what we believe is going to cause what you like to imagine happening to us cause we didn't kneel before the likes of you or countless others.

Frankly, your posturing there looks an awful lot like hubris of the worst sort. The kind you can't see you're engaging in and don't care to.

We're not in the business of disbelieving in other people's Gods, but books and worldviews, forget about it. We're under no obligation to quake in fear of someone else's kinda narcissistic desire to arbit some eternal immortality.

I daresay we got a fair bit more faith than that.

There's a difference between *discussing* and attempting to *control* others' beliefs.

When you start threatening people with your Hell and Devil in an attempt to get them to embrace the very same beliefs, you've already departed reason. It may work with people's lapsed conditioning when they feel afraid, but it's not freedom or reason or good faith.

Frankly, I think if your Jesus turned out to be more about hearts and results than genuflecture and obeisance and obsessions with sexual control of others, he probably wouldn't think we're any so bad. Probably not the kind of guy that'd be unwelcome at any of *our* tables, or our notions of between-or-afterlives, come to think of it just now.

Seems it's just his fanclub got so wound up trying to make everyone Christian, seeing the world as nothing but targets for conversion or conquest, ... you **forgot how to *have* friends and neighbors.**

As in... People... not you... Who can be friendly.

Not to speak for Wiccan, too much, but really.

Maybe, if the worlds were so brutal and arbitrary as you suggest, maybe 'God So Loved The World It Put On A Dress Or Feathers Or Laurels Or Antlers Or Whatnot So People Wouldn't be At The Mercy Of Book-worshippers.'

Hel, maybe 'He' turned into a bunch of equations for Einstein.

Maybe, it's not in your power to judge, give, or take away with a ream of paper or a political agenda.

Maybe that'd be enough to be getting on with. But while you're giving me and my people a hard time, neither of us are helping the poor and sick and dispossessed any too much, brave Anonymous.

No, we're not 'God-haters.'

Gods, man, if we were, would we be revering some *without social support and compulsion and threat and conditioning, but rather the opposite?

I think you're the one who lives around fear of your Hell.

You just think you can control it.

Oh my George! Town?

Laughter adds 8 years to your life. Singing adds 15 years. I wonder if that applies to singing the blues. Singing the praises of the Lord God of Israel seems to have added a couple of dollars to the price of a gallon of gas. It wasn't the Israelite God? Allah did that? What do you mean that's not funny?

The price of gas all by itself says the God vote is really the Devil vote doesn't it? When are we going to get to the environmental vote? That's the real God vote, nature's God that is, the God called upon to justify throwing George out so IT must be the God that one nation is under. Next thing ya know those atheists will upset the delicate balance of nature drilling for oil in the wilderness,, where prophets go to pray.

Finding something to laugh about is getting harder all the time. Thanks for the help. The good die young,, freeze to death in the dark. What?!! Die of thirst in the burning sun?

Steven:
Proud:

wasn't the first sin the sin of "pride?"

By the way, if those of us who have de-converted are given a chance to explain why we began to dis-believe, I'll copy and paste your note so God can read it, and see a prime example of the garbage that we had to wash our hands of. That's reason enough to dis-engage from your hateful, horrible beliefs.

So in a way, Proud, you've contributed to our de-conversion, and to our eternity in hell! What does God say about that. ;)

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I am comfortable with God knowing what I quoted from scripture, after all he wrote it, not me.

But obviously you have a problem with what God wrote so I suggest that you take your issue of what God determined in his plan is for those who “backslide” from Christian belief up with God, end of story.

Ah, such brotherly love........but what would one expect from a “God-hater.”

BTW, the proud means "to know and love God" as a parent is "proud" of relationship with there're child.

wiccan: "Former Christian-

You can always tell when you've won an argument with a "Christian" when he starts threatening you with hellfire."

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Amazing, you know the term "hellfire" no excuse for you before God "I didn't know."

Before you run your mouth as "winning" a fight or giving out the victories of a "finished" fight make sure that the fight is over.

It has been my experience that those who criticize believers fear an impending doom that they can't explain and act it out with criticisms such as you did in your post.

I suggest you work on running your mouth too quickly, criticizing others, and suppressed fear of Christians and God.

Touché

berlinblau gets paid to write this crap? and he's a prof. at georgetown? the dullest most conventional analyst imaginable.

A Catholic as Obama's running mate?
Please!
Aren't the torture-tolerant, imperialist-president-indulgent, anti-habeus-corpus, pre-birth-loving Supreme Court majority Catholics doing enough damage to our country's reputation and values?
Unfortunately, those are the type of Catholics that Obama has to win over. He already has most of the thinking Catholics.

Dear Gerry

Without religionists you'd have no plots for your witty stories at all. Your story was witty to be sure but how could you have possibly written it without religionists providing you with interesting characters.

As to your missionary zeal: I have noticed on this forum how instantly anti-theists convert other anti-theists to their anti-theism. Quite a feat!

Dear Anonymous, (why, btw?)

my life is rich, full of love, reward, success, respect, entertainment (admitted, your post adds to this!), and my brain has open opportunities plentiful where others have their religious struggles, beliefs, doubts, "truths", superstitions, wasted time - in short, the opposite of boredom. You see, I don't need religion nor religionists.

I don't proselytize, as contrasted to the religions.

Gerry, if you couldn't keep yourself occupied mocking religions, your life would be eternally boring, wouldn't it? You'd be completely out of business if all did become atheists. So you need religious people as much as religious people need their faith in God.

BTW, how many have you converted to anti-theism with all your wit and stories?

A little fairy tale for Cletus and Mr Mark: Snow White and the seven dwarfs.

Says the Catholic preacher: Everybody who doubts that Snow White wore a pink bow will be killed. (Formerly; these days their punishment is reduced to eternal hellfire later on.)

Says the Imam: Everybody who believes that Snow White's bow was pink will be stoned to death. It was green.

Says the protestant pastor: Snow White has changed her pink bow for a blue one. If you don't believe it, we will kill you in a thirty years' war.

Says the ecumenical preacher: Yes, and it is a fact that from there on her bow was violet. We must approach each other in our beliefs.

Says the Mormon: Besides, there were only six dwarfs. If you belong to the seven dwarfs faction, you go to hell, with all your wives. The seventh dwarf was erroneously added in the 12th century. Scientifically proved by the disappeared golden tablets!

Says the agnostic: Snow White presumably didn't wear a bow at all. (!)

Says the atheist: Who is Snow White?

Foreign policy gaffes by McCain. Thus far there is one.

Obama changes his stance on the Middle almost every speech concerning the subject and depending almost entirely on the audience of the moment one of the more irritating tricks he learned from the Clintons.

Dear Cletus -

Excellent post. Succinct and truthful.

I hope Jon and Sally don't read it. Otherwise, they might say, "well, there you have it - game, set, match," and decide to close down this blog, as any reason for the blog to continue had just evaporated.

Dear Jared -

If one were to stipulate that Obama was an amateur in ME affairs (which I won't), he would still be preferable by a good margin to John McCain who has been making major foreign policy gaffes on an almost daily basis. In fact, he only avoids making them when he avoids talking foreign policy.

In addition, McCain is an angry man (he was actually known as John McNasty in school), and anger is the last quality one wants in a US president who must act as a mediator in ME affairs where he stands between parties who are always angry at each other.

Most worrisome, McCain seems to be three steps slow these days, both in his responses and in his decision-making process. His age is showing. Badly. I don't find that comforting at all.

Obama strong suit is his intelligence, his youth and his willingness to consider new solutions to old problems. Any hands-on experience he lacks due to his age or his lack of national experience can easily be overcome through his intelligence. The halls of DC are filled with experienced politicians who would be disastrous outside of their fiefdom. Would you turn Ted Stevens loose on ME affairs? How about Norm Coleman?

It's obvious you're not a fan of Obama and that nothing will change your perspective. Too bad. Enjoy the next 8 years of his presidency.

It's funny we're debating which preacher is nuttier. They're preachers! They're religious! It's all a bunch of ridiculous hooey; Virgin births, Jesus "redeeming" us by an atoning death for the sins of mythological entities like Adam and Eve, etc.

Voters currently require candidates profess such nonsense, though. As long as we don't get another brain-dead creationist, I'm satisfied.

How sad the neochristians have come to define American values as political and racial hatred and fear, raping the environmnt and the Christian Oil Crusades. When little Danny Quayle was telling us about the evils of sitcoms, we tried to explain that hate is not a family value but no one listened.

Mr. Mark-

A smart man doesn't state his postion on Israel to the cheers of his listeners and the next day announce he has backtracked.

No one is lying. Obama is entangling himself. He made clear his position on Israel fully knowing it would be watched by the world. Hamas responded-

Palestinians upset about Obama's Israel support

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2266767.htm

And Obama quickly changed his mind and changed his course (flip-flopped).

How can a voter ever trust a word he says about Israel again? In this- he has made himself clear.

It was a HUGE gaffe and marks him amateur in dealing with complex Middle East problems.

"He (Obama) states his position- then caves in a day and a half. Wake-up voters.. This man is untested and inexperienced. He'd bring change- but who can predict the nature of that change?"

Boy, you're either a bit dense or you missed the last election.

Obama is too smart for the RWers. He knows that the best defense is a good offense. He knows that you MUST respond IMMEDIATELY to these attacks, deal with them and put them behind you ASAP.

Obama watched what happened to Kerry last time when Kerry didn't immediately call out the swift boat liars. He's watched in this campaign as candidates slow to respond have fallen by the wayside.

Either Obama writes his own narrative, or he lets his enemies write if for him. The enemy is probing Obama's armor, looking for weaknesses, hoping something will stick. A few weeks ago, they floated the "Obama didn't respond fast enough to Rev Williams. He needs to come clean." This week, they're trying the opposite approach - "Obama is responding too quickly...he's a flip flopper."

Too bad for the R's that Obama has that easy confidence and can shrug off these attacks with ease.

Why is it so easy for him? Well, he's a black man in white America. He's had to deal with this sh*t his whole life. The people attacking him are 99% white and 100% Republican, and they haven't a clue as to just how easy it is for Obama to deal with their childish attacks when he's spent his life dealing with real issues and real attacks.

The Bubble People are looking like idiots, and Obama's the one who is now writing their narrative. It's fun to watch.

A very nice summary, Mr. Berlinblau. The fighter jet metaphor made me smile.

I often hear Obama dismissed as nothing but a great orator. I don't view it as mere anything; great oratory goes along with great thinking not perfectly but so much more often than not. There is something Athenian about this candidacy and that's what I was thinking as I read your paragraph about Obama and Advanced God Talk and his ability to speak to the better part of our natures.

Inexperienced or Pandering??

This worries me.

Obama "clarifies" Jerusalem comment-

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1212659672984&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

"To counteract this Obama needs to surround himself with highly skilled national security advisers who do not have neon-light blinking reputations as doves and/or "State Department Arabists." (His recent address at AIPAC was, in the view of some, also a step in the right direction)."

Too late Berlinerblau:

FACING CRITICISM, OBAMA MODIFIES JERUSALEM STANCE

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0547673120080605

I mean- what a WAFFLER. He states his position- then caves in a day and a half. Wake-up voters.. This man is untested and inexperienced. He'd bring change- but who can predict the nature of that change?

Better the devil I know than the devil I don't know..

Am I wrong to worry about putting a Catholic on the ticket? My impression is that the Catholic hierarchy has gone after pro-choice Catholics such as Kerry with special vehemence, while letting pro-choice Protestants off with relatively mild criticism. Even if they turn up the heat on a ticket of pro-choice Protestants, they can't cause as much trouble for them as they can for a Catholic.

Proud:

wasn't the first sin the sin of "pride?"

By the way, if those of us who have de-converted are given a chance to explain why we began to dis-believe, I'll copy and paste your note so God can read it, and see a prime example of the garbage that we had to wash our hands of. That's reason enough to dis-engage from your hateful, horrible beliefs.

So in a way, Proud, you've contributed to our de-conversion, and to our eternity in hell! What does God say about that. ;)

Former Christian-

You can always tell when you've won an argument with a "Christian" when he starts threatening you with hellfire.

FORMER CHRISTIAN "And I'm hoping we judge candidates by what they themselves say and do, as opposed to what their acquaintances say."

............................
And what did you propose that we "judge" people by other than "what their acquaintances say?" People lie, exaggerate, build up others that they worship, and so on and so forth....people's judgment are not worth much. I know an individual that a "gang" of people think is great but my judgment is of him is in one word "evil." See the difference?

YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED TO POST UNDER THE NAME "FORMER CHRISTIAN." YOU BETTER HOPE THAT THE FOLLOWING SCRIPTURE HOLDS "NO TRUTH" BECAUSE ONE DAY YOU WILL BE FACING IT IN FULL FORM....BEFORE GOD.

HEBREWS 10:26-39, “(26)If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left,(27)but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. (28)Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.(29)How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

(30)For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"and again, "The Lord will judge his people."(31)It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.(32)Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. (33) Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated.(34)You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.

(35)So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.(36)You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.(37)For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. (38)But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back,
I will not be pleased with him.(39)But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

I guess Tony V and Spring Rain, neither of you believe you can have a friend, even a close adviser, and still disagree on some points or positions.

I have many strong, republican friends that still want to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. They are still my friends and in some areas, we agree and in others we disagree.

Why isn't that possible between Obama and Wright? Why do you think that everything hateful Rev. Wright says means that's what Obama believes?

Tony V is 100 percent on the mark, BB-there is absolutely NO CONNECTION, NO SIMILARITY WHATSOEVER between the made-up "issue" of McCain and his pastor with Obama and his 20 year spiritual advisor, the racist ranting hatemonger Rev. Wright, a relationship that has lasted effectively his entire adult life, whom Obama supported to the tune of giving 20,000 to his church, and even more significantly lied about knowing the extent of his "controversial" positions.

And one other thing, BB-you're way deluded if you believe that Obama still doesn't "love" Rev. Wright-you can't shake off an emotional relationship of that sort so easily-remember, Obama LIED about his relationship with Wright at first, because he didn't want the people to know that he was with him still and more importantly KNEW that Wright was "controversial"- and that Obama's political advisor nixed Rev. Wright from giving the invocation at Obama's campaign inauguration for that reason-but Rev. Wright gave a prayer to the family before Obama went on stage. No, that relationship is STILL THERE DESPITE WHAT OBAMA SAYS TO THE CONTRARY-MARK MY WORDS-THERE WILL BE A "RECONCILIATION" OF SORTS AT SOME POINT ALONG THE LINE.

You're way naive if you believe otherwise-the "typical white person" remark reflects Obama's thinking-and is one of many reasons, the primary being his utter lack of qualifications for the job of President, that I will not be voting for him in November, regardless of the fact that I am a Dem. and he is the Dem. candidate

So far none of the candidates have paid even the most minor lip service the true creator of the universe, namely the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Is that because he doesn't have a large, rich priesthood lobbying on his behalf? I suspect so!

At the very least, Obama (or perhaps McCain) should appear at a public, formal event dressed in pirate garb.

As we all know, the lack of sailing-ship pirates is what has caused global warming. You can look at the climate charts and see that this is True; that as piracy under sail waned, temperatures have risen.

Arrgh, matey! May the best candidate be touched by the FSM's noodly appendage and end up in the white housE!!!

It would please me to no end if our candidates did not have to pay homage to gods and/or religion.

Worshiping reason and the rule of law would serve this country much better than the arbitrary ideology of one particular sect over another.

Demanding evidence and facts as opposed to "having faith" would certainly make America more accepting and less bigoted.

And I'm hoping we judge candidates by what they themselves say and do, as opposed to what their acquaintances say.

Interesting perspective but there is NO religious equivalence between McCain and Obama.

Obama is a pro-abortion liberal. McCain is pro-life conservative.

Obama has withdrawn from his black-racist-liberation-theology-Church of 20 years. McCain has NOT abandoned his Baptist Church.

Obama has tossed his Spiritual Advisor and Marriage Pastor under the bus (like his white supposedly-racist grandmother). McCain has done neither.

I suspect Obama has alot more work to do to appeal to mainstream religious voters of any denomination.

Why do you keep lumping in the Rev. Hagee/McCain connection with Jeremiah Wright/Flager/Obama connection??? Do you think we're all stupid or something?

OBAMA WAS IN THAT CHURCH FOR 20 YEARS (TWENTY YEARS!!!!!), Obama called him AN UNCLE, an ADVISOR, and MENTOR, which directly links to his BELIEF SYSTEM and JUDGMENT. that's why voters won't let that one go. Hagee just endorsed McCain, (McCain didn't even ask for it) so that has no link to McCain whatsoever.

God are you reporters dense or something???

Using GOD to get elected is the ultimate in hypocrisy. Facism will come to America wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible. Let's keep religion out of politics altogether, and keep our democracy!

Yes, the God vote:

Oh God, please help us!

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MCCAINED-BUSHED-HOODWINKED BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

The Republican Party has sold its soul in exchange for private Wall Street gains that have sent trillions of Our U.S. dollars overseas to sweatshops and tax havens at the expense of the American People. This blindly overzealous Las Vegas gambling style Republican Wall Street greed, which is selling to the highest bidder Our Beautiful Country must stop. America doesn’t belong to the greedy Republican Wall Street Banks. Our Beautiful America belongs with Americans. It’s time to get that straight.

International Court of Justice (The Hague) will question McCain-Bush-Cheney-Rice in January about their involvement in the Iraq War.

A long-delayed Senate committee report endorsed by Democrats and some Republicans concluded that President Bush and his aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies about Iraq’s weapons programs and Saddam Hussein’s links to Al Qaeda.

The report was released Thursday after years of partisan squabbling, and it represented the close of five years of investigations by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence into the use, abuse and faulty assessments of intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

That some Bush administration claims about the Iraqi threat turned out to be false is hardly new. But the report, based on a detailed review of public statements by Mr. Bush and other officials, was the most comprehensive effort to date to assess whether policy makers systematically painted a more dire picture about Iraq than was justified by the available intelligence.

The 170-page report accuses Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials of repeatedly overstating the Iraqi threat in the emotional aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Its findings were endorsed by all eight committee Democrats and two Republicans, Senators Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

In a statement accompanying the report, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the intelligence panel, said, “The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.”

Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, on Thursday called the report a “selective view” and said that the Bush administration’s public statements were based on the same faulty intelligence given to Congress and endorsed by foreign intelligence services. Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the committee’s top Republican, called the report a “waste of committee time and resources.”

The presidential campaigns of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama had not responded by Thursday night to requests for comment on the Senate report.

The report on the prewar statements found that on some important issues, most notably on what was believed to be Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, the public statements from Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other senior officials were generally “substantiated” by the best estimates at the time from American intelligence agencies. But it found that the administration officials’ statements usually did not reflect the intelligence agencies’ uncertainties about the evidence or the disputes among them.

In a separate report released Wednesday, the intelligence committee provided new details about a series of clandestine meetings in Rome and Paris between Pentagon officials and Iranian dissidents in 2001 and 2003. The meetings included discussions about possible covert actions to destabilize the government in Tehran, and were used by the Pentagon officials to glean information about rivalries in Iran and what was thought to be an Iranian “hit” team intending to attack American troops in Afghanistan, the report said.

The report concluded that Stephen J. Hadley, now the national security adviser, and Paul D. Wolfowitz, who was then the deputy defense secretary, “acted within their authorities” to send the Pentagon officials to Rome. But the report criticized the meetings as ill advised, and accused Mr. Hadley and Mr. Wolfowitz of keeping the State Department and intelligence agencies in the dark about the meetings, which the report portrayed as part of a rogue intelligence operation.

The two reports were the final parts of the committee’s so-called Phase 2 investigation of prewar intelligence on Iraq and related issues. The first phase of the inquiry, begun in the summer of 2003 and completed in July 2004, identified grave faults in the C.I.A.’s analysis of the threat posed by Mr. Hussein.

The report on Iraq on Thursday was especially critical of statements by the president and vice president linking Iraq to Al Qaeda and raising the possibility that Mr. Hussein might supply the terrorist group with unconventional weapons. “Representing to the American people that the two had an operational partnership and posed a single, indistinguishable threat was fundamentally misleading and led the nation to war on false premises,” Mr. Rockefeller wrote.

Mr. Bond and four other Republicans on the committee sharply dissented from the report’s findings and suggested that the investigation was a partisan smoke screen to obscure the real story: that the C.I.A. failed the Bush administration by delivering intelligence assessments to policy makers that have since been discredited.

In a detailed minority report, four of those Republicans accused Democrats of hypocrisy and of cherry picking, namely by refusing to include misleading public statements by top Democrats like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mr. Rockefeller.

As an example, they pointed to an October 2002 speech by Mr. Rockefeller, who declared to his Senate colleagues that he had arrived at the “inescapable conclusion that the threat posed to America by Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction is so serious that despite the risks, and we should not minimize the risks, we must authorize the president to take the necessary steps to deal with the threat.”

The report about the Bush administration’s public statements offers some new details about the intelligence information that was available to policy makers as they built a case for war. For instance, in September 2002 Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “the Iraq problem cannot be solved by airstrikes alone,” because Iraqi chemical and biological weapons were so deeply buried that they could not be penetrated by American bombs.

Two months later, however, the National Intelligence Council wrote an assessment for Mr. Rumsfeld concluding that the Iraqi underground weapons facilities identified by the intelligence agencies “are vulnerable to conventional, precision-guided, penetrating munitions because they are not deeply buried.”

On Thursday, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democratic member of the intelligence committee, said that Congress had never been told about the National Intelligence Council’s assessment.

International Court of Justice (The Hague in Europe) will question McCain-Bush-Cheney-Rice in January about their involvement in the Iraq War.

Mr. Berlinerblau (English translation-blue Berliner!) states:

"With Hillary’s Clinton’s expected suspension of campaign operations Saturday, the Faith and Values Primary Season will officially come to an end."

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OFF THE MARK BB-WAIT AND SEE, IF ANYTHING YOU WILL SEE A RATCHETING UP OF THE WHO GOT MORE RELIGION, ME OR OBAMA? FROM MCCAIN, WITH OBAMA TESTIFYING CONTINUOUSLY ON THE STUMP ABOUT HIS PERSONAL "FAITH AND VALUES"-THE ODIOUS REV. WRIGHT AND THE COLD-BLOODED FATHER PFLAGER NOTWITHSTANDING.

P.S. I like your unanglicized name.

These kind of people are the ones that are trying to make their believes the believes of this country and that is bull.
We have the right to choose and should not be subjected to this kind of bs in any form.