It seems like lately there has been a lot of talk of Barack Obama. He should be in the news considering he is one of the most popular and revolutionary (at this point) democratic candidates in a long time. He is the first black president, though in Africa he would probably be considered a white candidate, and he represents hope and change for Americans in terms of domestic and foreign policy. This isn't why he is always on the news though.
Lately on the news there has been a lot of talk about "X percent of people think Obama is Muslim," with followup stories on why people think the Democratic candidate is Muslim. Could it be that his name is weird, like many Muslim names are to Americans? Could it be that "Obama" has 4/5 same letters as "Osama?" Does it matter?
I don't care if Barack Obama is Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, Taoist or Jewish. The American constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." in the First Amendment. We have a long standing tradition that the American president should be Christian, but this is more of a reflection of the fact that many of the people who have emigrated here in the past 500 years have come from countries that were at some point conquered by the Romans and are, thus, Christian.
The founding fathers were not Christian, but Deist, which essentially means they were Christian without the dogma and bureaucracy. They knew that the country would be better off if religion, on of the most sensitive subjects to most people, were left out of the political arena. I believe they were right. I can respect a man of any religion, or of no religion, and the government should do the same.
Why are Christians so concerned about a Muslim?
Christianity and Islam are both Abrahamic religions, and come from the same roots. Christians and Muslims pray to the same God, have similar schisms (Sunni-Shiite, Catholic-Protestant), and share many of the same values. Likely, many Christians and Americans are afraid of Muslims because they don't understand the religion and they think that the terrorists who come from Muslim countries reflect the mainstream of followers of Islam.
Whether Barack Obama is a Muslim or not is of little dispute or consequence. He is not trying to fool anyone, and he shouldn't have to. Our media is so concerned with what church our candidates go to and defect from that they lose the plot of the real important issues, like health care and the current shitty economy. We have had a "strong Christian" president for almost eight years now. If that is the measuring stick people use at the voting booth then they should be hoping Obama turns out to Muslim or McCain turns out to be an Eskimo Witch Doctor.
religion is always one of those areas that everyone makes a big hoopla about during the debates, but not necessarily a determinant for how people elect the president. people need to get over what obama is or isn't and focus on the more important issues.
ReplyDeletehe could be a jehova's witness for all i care - if he can better the economy, it doesnt matter who he prays to at night.