# Think Only Right-Wing Christians Doubt Obama's Professed Religion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 31, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351 "2012-01-31T22:55:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/101 "2012-02-01T21:45:17Z")
> [@kenetic](#): > > The vast majority of philosophy and religious studies majors are atheist or agnostic, so I’m not sure what your point is. I’d like to see a cite for that. It’s certainly true that not all religion majors are, themselves, religious/believers. **ITRChampion** didn’t explicitly say that they were, only that “there’s nothing unexpected about a well-educated and quite intelligent person taking religion seriously,” and I guess it’s reasonable to say that studying religion in depth could be called “taking religion seriously” in at least some sense. Further, he singled out majors in “theology/religious vocation.” I would hope that at least a majority of those studying to be, say, priests, actually believe what they intend to preach. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/102 "2012-02-01T21:49:56Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Dawkins’ Syllogism: > > All the smart people are atheists > Obama is smart > Ergo, Obama is an atheist. > QED > > That’s pretty weak logic for a scientist. > > On the other hand, his premise is probably true Actually, the way you put it, the logic is sound, but the premise(s) are doubtful. An example of bad logic would be If a person with political ambitions were an atheist, he would claim to be a liberal Christian. Obama claims to be a liberal Christian. Ergo, Obama is an atheist. I hope the [fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_converse) is obvious. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/103 "2012-02-01T22:52:08Z")
Dawkins doesn’t do it out of maliciousness, though the accusation could probably hurt Obama’s reelection chances. People who accuse Obama of being a Muslim are doing it to exclude him, to make him seem foreign and evil. Dawkins does it to include him because he thinks Obama’s too smart for that shit. So no, I doubt anybody’s going to shout him down for it ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/104 "2012-02-01T22:58:04Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Dawkins doesn’t do it out of maliciousness, though the accusation could probably hurt Obama’s reelection chances. Nah, nobody cares. It’s just speculations by Dawkins, and he’s the only one who might end up looking bad. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/105 "2012-02-01T23:00:27Z")
The problem with Dawkins’ logic is it’s inherently self-buffing. See a smart atheist and a dumb believer, and he can happily file those away as evidence. See a dumb atheist, or a smart believer, and he can simply declare that they are actually contrary to what they say they are, and use them as further evidence. The rule proves the evidence which proves the rule. ---
**Author:** ![PigArcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@PigArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigArcher)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/106 "2012-02-01T23:03:19Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’d like to see a cite for that. > > It’s certainly true that not all religion majors are, themselves, religious/believers. **ITRChampion** didn’t explicitly say that they were, only that “there’s nothing unexpected about a well-educated and quite intelligent person taking religion seriously,” and I guess it’s reasonable to say that studying religion in depth could be called “taking religion seriously” in at least some sense. Further, he singled out majors in “theology/religious vocation.” I would hope that at least a majority of those studying to be, say, priests, actually believe what they intend to preach. Yeah, I wanted to provide one, but google has failed me. In my personal experience 100% of people I’ve met who studied philosophy or religion were atheist or agnostic. That’s from a sample size of around 20-30, and includes both undergrad and graduate. The whole religious studies department at my university is famously atheistic.\* I don’t really know what “theology/religious vocation” means exactly, but it sounds like something some one would study at a seminary rather than a university per se. I would agree that most of those are probably religious. But in **ITR** ’s comparison with biology majors, they were above the “theology/religious vocation” and below the philosophy/religious studies, contradicting the point he was trying to make. FTR, I know plenty of intelligent/educated people who take religion seriously. There’s also a huge difference between taking religious seriously and being religious, but that’s a whole other discussion. \*In the “frequently brought up on Fox News as an example of how evil and anti-Christian those liberal intellectual elites are” sense of “famously”. ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/107 "2012-02-01T23:07:41Z")
We’ll never know for sure. Doesn’t mean we cant speculate. But we can’t claim to be right either way. Ultimately, it’s irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/108 "2012-02-02T00:19:19Z")
What I’ve never seen discussed by conservatives except with sneering implication, is say it is true, why would Obama being Muslim be bad. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/109 "2012-02-02T00:29:01Z")
“Obama must be ab atheist because ALL smart people” are atheists is indeed fallacious reasoning (or reasoning from an untrue premise, anyway). “Obama must be an atheist because people don’t just convert to perfunctory religiosity from agnosticism at age 29” doesn’t strike me as fallacious. Two different claims being made here. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/110 "2012-02-02T02:54:58Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > He gives believers too much credit. Religiosity is _insane_, not just stupid. A denial of reality, not just ignorance of it. You _can_ be smart and religious; you just won’t be able to use that intelligence very well on anything that religion touches. So then you think that Martin Luther King didn’t use his intelligence very well when organizing and leading the Southern Christian Leadership Council? Please explain that to me because that is something that his religion definitely touched. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/111 "2012-02-02T04:16:35Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > So then you think that Martin Luther King didn’t use his intelligence very well when organizing and leading the Southern Christian Leadership Council? > > Please explain that to me because that is something that his religion definitely touched. By using skills that religion doesn’t touch upon? The same sorts of skills utilized to organize a local bowling league or a large corporation. Its when you try to apply religious doctrine to those tasks that things can start to fall apart. Example: Sharia and modern financial systems. In Yemen, rather then a person buying a house with a mortgage that has interest rates associated with it, they have the bank buy the house and then charge the desired purchaser a higher price for their effort. The person essentially pays ‘interest’, but it isn’t called that to avoid the religious prescription. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/112 "2012-02-02T09:28:23Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > The problem with Dawkins’ logic is it’s inherently self-buffing. See a smart atheist and a dumb believer, and he can happily file those away as evidence. See a dumb atheist, or a smart believer, and he can simply declare that they are actually contrary to what they say they are, and use them as further evidence. The rule proves the evidence which proves the rule. So… when will we see the first atheist President of the United States? That was the question posed to Dawkins. I think he gave a defendable answer: it’s not unreasonable to speculate that some of our past Presidents have been weak atheists. Obama was just given as an example: Dawkins did not claim he was atheist. He merely said he wouldn’t be surprised if he found out Obama was one. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if GWBush was discovered to be as atheistic as Karl Rove. When a given belief becomes a job requirement, many will espouse that belief. Just look at Bush Sr’s 180 degree flip on abortion, and Romney’s two switches on that issue, from anti-abortion in the 1980s to pro Choice in the 1990s and back to anti-abortion then next decade. It was for these reasons that the founding fathers wanted church and state to be separated: co-mingling them poisons _both_. Dawkins remarks were unexceptional. I can’t see any of R.T.‘s motivation in Dawkins’ remarks. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/113 "2012-02-02T10:13:56Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > So then you think that Martin Luther King didn’t use his intelligence very well when organizing and leading the Southern Christian Leadership Council? > > Please explain that to me because that is something that his religion definitely touched. > [@Uzi](#): > > By using skills that religion doesn’t touch upon? The same sorts of skills utilized to organize a local bowling league or a large corporation. Its when you try to apply religious doctrine to those tasks that things can start to fall apart. Exactly what I meant. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/114 "2012-02-02T12:30:45Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > What I’ve never seen discussed by conservatives except with sneering implication, is say it is true, why would Obama being Muslim be bad. Being a Muslim isn’t bad in and of itself. Lying about it in order to get elected would be bad. It means you can’t trust what he claims. It would be equally dishonest to claim one was Christian in order to get elected, while being a secret atheist. I wouldn’t give him a pass on that - many atheists apparently would. > [@Der Trihs](#): > > [Quote=Ibn Warraq] > > So then you think that Martin Luther King didn’t use his intelligence very well when organizing and leading the Southern Christian Leadership Council? > > Please explain that to me because that is something that his religion definitely touched. [Quote=Uzi] By using skills that religion doesn’t touch upon? The same sorts of skills utilized to organize a local bowling league or a large corporation. Its when you try to apply religious doctrine to those tasks that things can start to fall apart. [/quote] Exactly what I meant. [/quote] Then what you meant was completely ridiculous. You claimed that someone “won’t be able to use that intelligence very well on anything that religion touches.” MLK used his intelligence very well on something his religion touched. Ergo, what you said must be wrong. It _is_ possible to use one’s intelligence very well on something religion touches. The problem, of course, is the flip side of this is what is true - you are not able to use your intelligence very well on anything religion touches. A jerking knee does not lend itself to rational thought. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/115 "2012-02-02T13:34:20Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > Those people come from being raised as liberal Christians, or being raised as fundamentalists and deciding to tone it down later. Obama was raised by a hippie mom who sparingly explored various “spiritualities” and had a Muslim father he never saw. He wasn’t a member of any religion until he decided he might have a political career. > > People don’t _convert_ to “I sort of believe in Christianity but I don’t go to church or care about it.” That’s ridiculous. I’m sorry if people are too in love with the 2008 fantasy of the Obama campaign to admit this, but he’s a politician doing the minimum necessary hat-tipping to Christianity that is required to get elected in the United States. There seems to be no other rational conclusion unless you assume behaviors that don’t have precedent in human experience, like getting a post-adulthood spiritual calling to convert from being agnostic to being sort-of-generically-religious. I believe he is a Christian because he says he is, just like I take the word of others who say they are Christian but don’t follow what they claim to believe. Obama’s actions are more like a Christian than many who claim to be, I use Newt as an example. Many so-called Christians are more like the Pharisees that Jesus despised. A person’s religion has nothing to do (or at the very least) on how they act. If this were so, then we wouldn’t be needing more jails etc. Crime would be way down. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/116 "2012-02-02T14:17:40Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > By using skills that religion doesn’t touch upon? The same sorts of skills utilized to organize a local bowling league or a large corporation. Its when you try to apply religious doctrine to those tasks that things can start to fall apart. Example: Sharia and modern financial systems. In Yemen, rather then a person buying a house with a mortgage that has interest rates associated with it, they have the bank buy the house and then charge the desired purchaser a higher price for their effort. The person essentially pays ‘interest’, but it isn’t called that to avoid the religious prescription. Except Martin Luther King did apply religious doctrine to what he was doing and it was because of his religious beliefs that he behaved as he did. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/117 "2012-02-02T17:04:53Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > He’s never, as far as I remember, made God a big deal in any of his speeches besides the obligatory “God bless America” at the end. Well, he just blew that argument out of the water. [http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2012/02/02/obama-uses-jesus-push-tax-hikes](http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2012/02/02/obama-uses-jesus-push-tax-hikes) “I actually think that is going to make economic sense, but for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/118 "2012-02-02T17:10:39Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Being a Muslim isn’t bad in and of itself. Lying about it in order to get elected would be bad. It means you can’t trust what he claims. > > It would be equally dishonest to claim one was Christian in order to get elected, while being a secret atheist. I wouldn’t give him a pass on that - many atheists apparently would. > Regards, > Shodan It is common for a group who is oppressed by the majority to lie to pass. Not just atheists - my great aunt lied about her religion to get a job in the 1930s. And this was about being Jewish in New York. I could also bring up those Republicans who lie about not being gay. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/119 "2012-02-02T17:20:55Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > It is common for a group who is oppressed by the majority to lie to pass. Passing is something you do in your private life. We’re talking about lying for political gain here. As an atheist I’d certainly be upset if I found out Obama had been lying for a couple of decades about being religious. Not just because it would show he’d been misleading people and that he wasn’t trustworthy, but because it means he passed up a chance to do something for other atheists and for religious discourse in favor of getting elected and in the process signalled that other atheists should just lie about their opinions to get ahead instead of standing behind them. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/120 "2012-02-02T18:06:26Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > As an atheist I’d certainly be upset if I found out Obama had been lying for a couple of decades about being religious. Not just because it would show he’d been misleading people and that he wasn’t trustworthy, but because it means he passed up a chance to do something for other atheists and for religious discourse in favor of getting elected and in the process signalled that other atheists should just lie about their opinions to get ahead instead of standing behind them. He wouldn’t have passed up a chance to do much of anything for other atheists, because he wouldn’t have been elected dogcatcher. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351.md?page=7)