BUT, especially for a: 1. cerebrally-inclined person who 2. has been exposed to several cultures, it is NOT a particularly formative stage when it comes to RELIGION.
Based on what many Dopers (and others) have said in many contexts, I’ll bet you that the median age for the most important life-period for forming a long-lasting RELIGIOUS outlook of people is somewhere around age 20.
Actually that is what he said in the interview. “The seed of Islam is transmitted through the father’s line, just like that of Judaism is transmitted through the mother’s line”, or something extremely close to that. And proceeded to say Barack must have “renounced the Prophet Muhammad and accepted Christ as his Savior”… which of course he only did the latter.
But that takes us back to my first comment: that people actually do believe your base religious identity is genetic (or that it comes to you thru Original Sin?), and that “Muslim” is really an ethnic indentity. And for all I know, that he should have renamed himself Bernard Herbert O’Brien if he really became a Christian believer.
I’m pretty sure I had already settled on English as my language of thought by the time I was four, for what it’s worth. 6-10 was definitely formative vis-a-vis religion for me, though.
That’s yet another irony. Starting from Jesus and his disciples, for at least a century, most Christians were Middle Easterners.* So, one could say (using typical Tea Party-esque thinking, mind you – I personally couldn’t care less) that every ethnic group which has become Christianized since is, in some way, “less” Christian – or at least more “suspect” – than Middle Eastern Christians. It’s just through two quirks of history – first, that Christianity took hold in parts of Ireland while most of northern Europe was still “barbaric”, and second, that the Potato Famine, etc. prompted so many Irish to emigrate to the U.S. – that we happen to associate a name like “O’Brien” with Christianity, when really you could say that the “most” Christian names are Semitic-language ones – the very names which the ignorant of this country insist on associating exclusively with Islam (and Judaism).
(*I think a few were sort-of-Greeks, so feel free to include Greek names as “purely Christian”, by the logic of this post.)
Well; I’d say he may not have NEEDED to attend church to prop up his image, but it couldn’t hurt; he was an ambitious young man who probably had an eye on a political career and needed a way to establish himself as a member of his community; joining a church is certainly one way to do that.
In addition, I have no doubt in my mind that some proportion of our outwardly Christian elected officials are secret atheists (or at least nonbelievers); the incentives to lie about this are too strong. Whether Obama is one is another question - if I had to bet a great deal of money on it (and had some way of getting a reliable answer), I’d say he’s a sincere believer.
[quote=“JKellyMap, post:211, topic:550842”]
I just realized something – the most “problematic” group (referring to the problem which Starving Artist described), for liberal non-believers such as myself, is religious African Americans. Southern Baptists in the Martin Luther King tradition, etc. As liberals, we share many common causes with them, but their (often) open, public religiosity has to make us feel uncomfortable – and/or patronizingly superior – at some point. And, of course, we rarely condemn them for it. Perhaps we justify this by pointing to the exceptional history of Southern Black Christianity – outlet for otherwise repressed community expression and beacon of hope during slavery and afterwards, etc. – but still, it is an issue sometimes.
Come to think of it, this goes for how we look upon many Hispanics, as well.
I guess the overall point is that most liberals, whatever their religious leaning, are generally willing to overlook the religious beliefs of others, as long as they agree in certain other respects, yet do occasionally invoke the beliefs of others (conservatives) who don’t agree with them in those other respects. Meanwhile, many conservatives (religious ones, anyway) tend to invoke the religious leanings of liberals, whether it’s relevant to the real issues at hand or not.
Neither side is behaving perfectly. We’re all human.
Hey, his parents had the foresight to plant false birth notices in Hawaiian newspapers knowing that in 45 years or so he would have to hide the fact that he was born of a jackal in communist Mordor, no doubt they also instructed him to go to church too.
Well, possibly not Obama, depending on who you ask. 
Not just black and Hispanic religiosity, but also black and Hispanic social conservatism. On many of the (non-racial) “culture war” issues like feminism, abortion, gay rights, school prayer, etc., these are folks who often hold attitudes that more closely resemble those of the GOP base than of secular progressives.
That’s possible. Probable, even. If I had understood Dio was speaking only about one’s personal discovery of their own faith, I wouldn’t have told him to fuck off.
I dare say that’s what most worries some liberals, not the “belief” itself. It is after all what for a while gave the GOP the hope that they could draw more of the Latino vote (before they went all nativist).
However, in a way it IS a matter of being conflicted about religiosity - the “uncomfortable idea” being that these groups may actually follow their religions’ doctrines as a life guide, instead of just looking upon it as some quaint tradition along the lines of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
(In reality, I don’t know if I ever heard any of the liberals I move among – except for what you’d call “atheist fundamentalists” but those are so few and far between IRL – express so much discomfort with the idea of someone being religious per se. At least not in as articulate a manner as** JKellyMap** has posted it.)
Perhaps the point you are missing is that the scorn is not from the beliefs, but from loudly proclaiming the beliefs and basing policy on them, and using beliefs to drive secular purposes. Jimmy Carter was the most religious president in ages, and I’ve heard nary a peep of criticism of him after he left the White House. The scorn for Bush was not because he was born again, but because he said that Jesus was giving him political advice. I have no problem with Huckabee being religious - I do have a problem with him denying evolution.
Kerry said that while he, as a Catholic, was personally opposed to abortion, he recognized the difference between his beliefs and policy. That is the distinction that religious liberals make and the new breed of religious conservatives don’t. Neither Bush the elder nor Reagan seemed to have a problem with this, though I suspect Reagan was apathetic about religion at best.
Personally I think he’s a secret Republican. Look at the facts, he followed a Republican into office. He’s carried on many of his policies and wars. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came out as a Republican.
Fucking Republicans.
You know who else was a Republican President from Illinois? Lincoln. And he was secretly Black!!!
There was little mentioned in political circles about the religion of nominees until Bush made a point of it. That was why it was addressed. You have to go back to JFK to find another time religion got serious play.
A moderate like Obama is hard to slam. He is pro war. He puts Repubs in charge of programs. He didn’t broom all the conservative judges. He tried to govern from the middle. He was dumb enough to think the repubs would help him repair the Bush messes. But the repubs thought they could call him a radical and some would be dumb enough to buy it. Future political gain trumped fixing the country. Apparently it works.
Secretly?