We Don't Need Rick Warren's Blessing, Or Anyone Else's

Mr. Chopra would make better use of his anger if he directed it at his native India. Christians in Orissa are being killed and chased from their homes. Thousands had to celebrate Christmas in refugee camps because their homes and churches have been burnt to the ground by Hindu terrorists.

America is the most religiously tolerant nation on the face of the earth. Be thankful for that, Mr. Chopra.

I pray for you Mr. Chopra.

I suggest that the President of the United States take the oath of office by swearing on the Constitution. The reasons are threefold:

The first is legal. The President presides over all Americans, not just those belonging to religions that consider the Bible a sacred text. As far as I know, no other major democracy uses a religious text to swear-in its chief executive, a procedure more fit for a theocracy than a modern democracy founded on the principles of the Enlightenment.

Second: The President swears to uphold the Constitution of the United States; therefore it makes sense to swear on the Constitution itself.

Third: The Bible explicitly accepts and sanctions slavery. There are several examples of this and one need go further than the wording of one of the Ten Commandments, which in the original wording reads: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Thus the Bible explicitly considers slaves “property” (along with houses, wives, oxen and donkeys).

This biblical sanction was the main ideological justification the Confederacy used to justify slavery and was preached in southern Churches as well as state legislatures throughout the confederacy in justifying secession from the union.

The vast majority of historians agree that the fight over slavery (specifically on whether new states to be added to the union were to be “free-soil” or “slave” states) is the issue that caused the Civil War, as both North and South assumed that if slavery could not expand it would wither and die.

The civil war accounted for more American casualties than all other U.S. wars combined, more Americans died in one hour during its bloodiest battle than have died so far during the entire Iraq war.

How ironic that the first African-American President be sworn-in on the very text that provided the ideological justification for slavery, and led to the greatest tragedy in American history.

For these reasons I suggest that the Constitution should substitute the Bible in the swearing-in ceremony of the President of the United States.

Let me start by saying that it is incredibly frustrating to have various religions that don't appeal to truth or logical reasoning as a guiding buoy to the realities of life. On that note I can understand and agree with the frustration that Mr. Chopra has written about.
On the other hand I find contradiction and definition misuses.
Secularism is not the absences of religion but the absence of the belief of God. In which I think that many poles show America is not then a secular country but remains founded in the understanding that God is a reality.
Pluralism does not come into existence when religion is introduced. Pluralism is simply the existence of multiple entities regarding one specific subject. ex America has a plurality of cuisines.
But it is this whole use of the word tolerance that I really don’t understand. Mr. Chopra wrote this article in an attempt to show reason that religion (the toxic element) and the belief in God is a farce and that in fact to introduce it, through the manner of Obama’s inauguration platform, is very narrow minded and intolerant of those Christians. He is clearly upset about this… it sounds as though he himself is intolerant, “be a relief to clean house and reinstate this country's secular virtues”
Virtues to a secularist or humanist way of thought, if I have it correct, is relative to the individual. Mr Chopra or anybody, including myself, who would want to claim virtues that should then govern a nation are only saying that they want their virtues not the current one. But how is it they get the right to play god with their set of rules. It still sounds very intolerant.

I think you are right concerning the fact that we are not necessarily a religious nation. However, I would argue that we are a spiritual nation - which is better than a religious nation anyway. People do not seem to hunger less for meaning in the universe, they just do not hunger in the traditional way. But, I agree with your main point. The government has no business being in the religious or spiritual business. Perhaps it would be better if the inauguration would start with vice president elect Biden doing the Macarena. It could start an entirely new ritual that makes no sense, yet some how seems appropriate - a perfect replacement!

"Anyone he chooses to invoke God at his inauguration will be divisive, either overtly or covertly."

This is an excellent point!

Dear Dr Chopra

Since you don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, here is wishing you extra joy of the Christmas season and a Happy New Year 2009!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

i ommitted the word .. not.. it sould have read "not Gods master" after talking about spirtuality in my opinion a person places themselve in a position of subservience 2 god .. when i make an error i try to promply correct it..keith

hi i'm glad to see my post are posted immediately on your column maybe the other panelist are on vacation but i see other post going on thier columns. i think maybe the best thing for rick warren and america would be that if a large number of people publicly booed him before his prayer and afterwards and remained respectfuplly silent during his possible hippo-critical words. in real life when people like mr obama put mr warren up in from of a group of his actual peers. not the uhhh amen corner then they can see for themselves if true just how far out of the mainstream and how delusional they are in real life. i suspect the shoes in iraq did this for george w bush on some level not possible through mere words. i do believe in non violence and that was pretty boderlind but no one got hurt. i wouldn't condone that in the future. i am not gay but i do know many people who are and they are human... this is something apparently rick wrren does not recognize in real life and would actually spend money to try to harm people he does not even know. this in my bood is not christian behavior. somebody gave me a copy of his simpleton book which after perusing and seeing what it was.... i use it a paper weight in my spiritual world its true significance unless i pitched it in the trash or used it to start a grill fire after ripping out the useless pages of banal words. . when you start with the idea that you as a human are going to map out how to make yourself and other people more spiritual faster and pile them in one pile ... most of us spiritual people can smell what kind of pile it really is. i do realize he need to make money and has found his gravetrain. i suspect he is in many respects a truely nice and occasionally useful human like we all are i just don't htink he has anything special spirituality wise or where are his actual works. not mere words. spirituality comes from placing ones self in a posisition of submission to god to as gods master , tools of spiritual growt are prayer meditation which is not... makeing you mind blank,... it is deep relflective thought and then there is self examination when i say self examination i mean for strenghts weaknesses and actual conduct. and the last is taking this spirtuality out into the real world and improving it or making the qulity of life better. i have met to many well meaning idiots who tell me when they meditate they make thier minds blank... this is a very usefull thing called relaxation therapy... but is useless in discovering meaning, spirtual growth, and fundimental education and invention. what you have in life to often is people like our president who are very relax calm idiots with nothing to actually offer the world and they need to maybe chop wood in texas or ride thier bike.. but please check 4 truth i'm just the dyslexic artist son of a hilbilly i ain't 2 brite

I expect Obama still has some more convincing to make us forgive, forget or just not care about these skeletons that keep surfacing.

I noticed that Larry Sinclair was back in the tabloids at the super market again last month with his story about his gay relationship with Obama. This latest story has not yet percolated up in the search engines.

How better to make us close the book on this case than to hire a minister who thinks that it is a good thing that gays cannot reproduce?

Agree- 100%. The religious/cultural wars have been destructive to this country and left us at each others throats. Rick warren doesn't speak for me or anyone else I know, but my fear is that he and his ilk will not see this as a bridge but interpret it to mean they will be given a special place, above all others. Just like they have been for the last 8 years.