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Focus on Obama unfortunate and unproductive
In the wake of his weekend rally, Glenn Beck kept up the drumbeat of criticism about President Obama's religion, calling it a "perversion" and saying that America "isn't recognizing his version of Christianity," which Beck characterized as "liberation theology."
Despite critique of Obama's Christianity, a recent poll showed that nearly 20% of Americans believe falsely that the president is Muslim.
Why is there so much attention on Obama's religion? Does it matter what religion the president is?
America takes religion seriously. Those who are most deeply steeped in it sometimes take it so seriously that they have trouble ascribing alternate motivations. How could someone's conclusion be different from mine unless that person is wicked, stupid, or of a faith that brings him to such misguided conclusions?
The focus on the President's religion is unfortunate and unproductive. Religion is the one test that the founders explicitly kept out of consideration for holding office. An honorable person who takes an oath to uphold the constitution will do so. The mindset of conspiracy mongering is pernicious as well as foolish. It arises on the left and the right from a lack of empathy. One simply cannot understand the infuriating tendency of other people to disagree with what seems so clear to me.
The internet allows us to read only those who agree with us, trapping the polity in an echo chamber of like-mindedness. Your faith does not determine you political views, nor does your background. Everyone deserves to be judged on what they say and do, not on some nefarious lurking conspiratorial intent that only this or that blogger, talk show host or pundit has discovered. As a nation we are well into our third century and should be old enough to know better.
By
David Wolpe
|
August 30, 2010; 10:33 AM ET
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Posted by: mwpalmer | August 31, 2010 3:08 PM
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We should know better than to be naive, too: Corporate media, beholden to oil intersts, who fund.. Guess what? Lots of 'astroturf' Religious-right oriented anti-gay and apocalyptarian stuff.
"The Family" in Washington doesn't even particular hide itself well, or the single big oil interest family that funds a lot of the BS 'think tanks' (mostly the same people with the same sources spawning lots of different names' that feed them,)
There most certainly *are* religious conspiracies: the mistake is not thinking they are first and foremost concerned with anything but themselves.
We *do* know better than this. That could end up being the crying shame about what's been going on while we're debating.
Posted by: APaganplace | August 30, 2010 3:11 PM
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Well said, Rabbi Wolpe.
However, about being “old enough to know better,” it would seem that societies tend toward increasing disorder with time. Indeed, the further we are removed from our Founding Fathers, the dumber we become.