I have had this conversation so many times
First, from the Saddleback Forum:WARREN: Now, you’ve made no doubts about your faith in Jesus Christ. What does that mean to you? What does it mean to you to trust in Christ? And what does that mean to you on a daily basis? What does that really look like?
OBAMA: As a starting point, it means I believe in - that Jesus Christ died for my sins, and that I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis. Yes, I know that I don’t walk alone. And I know that if I can get myself out of the way, that I can maybe carry out in some small way what he intends. And it means that those sins that I have on a fairly regular basis, hopefully will be washed away.
In discussions, many of which involved Sarah Palin's religiosity, I have brought up this quote as evidence that Obama too is a religious nut, that he believes (to put it in easy to understand language) that "a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."
Now, perhaps this is the case, in which case I am surprised that my many atheist friends are so ga-ga over the guy. But invariably, when I bring this up, I am told that "of course this is a lie" and "I bet he's a closet atheist" (or "a closet agnostic") and "this is the sort of thing you have to say to get elected".
Let's take these in reverse order:
(3) "this is the sort of thing you have to say to get elected". No. It's possible you have to affirm theism in order to get elected. But I am pretty sure that Bill Clinton never made pronouncements about Jesus "dying for his sins" in 1992. If it's a lie, it's quite an uncessarily detailed one.
(2) "he's a closet atheist". "What," I always asks, "makes you believe that?" "Oh," people tell me, "if you look at his background, he's got to be one." I interpret this as "he's educated, so he's got to be an atheist", which is a complete non sequitir to me. I know lots of "educated" Christians. Some of them even went to Harvard Law (and others of them claimed to have attended Columbia). While Obama might in fact be a closet atheist, the only justifications I've heard amount to self-congratulation on the part of my atheist friends and colleagues.
(1) "of course this is a lie" OK. Your savior is a big, fat, liar. What else is he lying about? "Oh, politicans all lie, and of course he's not lying about anything 'important', like his associations with Ayers or whether he heard sermons at his church or whether he was a member of the New Party or whether he believes in 'redistributive justice' or so on." Um, yeah. Also, how do you know Palin's not lying about her religious views? "Ummm...."
The most charitable explanation (and the one I subscribed to until everyone started arguing with me about it) is that Obama is a Christian nut who believes that Jesus died for his sins (and, by extension, that I, having publicly renounced the holy spirit on multiple occasions, am going to be tortured in "hell" for several eternities). Probably Palin believes this too, but at least I can see faint traces of a libertarian streak in her.
The alternative to my explanation is that he's an especially craven liar, which may be par for a politician, but hardly represents "CHANGE".
OBAMA: As a starting point, it means I believe in - that Jesus Christ died for my sins, and that I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis. Yes, I know that I don’t walk alone. And I know that if I can get myself out of the way, that I can maybe carry out in some small way what he intends. And it means that those sins that I have on a fairly regular basis, hopefully will be washed away.
In discussions, many of which involved Sarah Palin's religiosity, I have brought up this quote as evidence that Obama too is a religious nut, that he believes (to put it in easy to understand language) that "a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."
Now, perhaps this is the case, in which case I am surprised that my many atheist friends are so ga-ga over the guy. But invariably, when I bring this up, I am told that "of course this is a lie" and "I bet he's a closet atheist" (or "a closet agnostic") and "this is the sort of thing you have to say to get elected".
Let's take these in reverse order:
(3) "this is the sort of thing you have to say to get elected". No. It's possible you have to affirm theism in order to get elected. But I am pretty sure that Bill Clinton never made pronouncements about Jesus "dying for his sins" in 1992. If it's a lie, it's quite an uncessarily detailed one.
(2) "he's a closet atheist". "What," I always asks, "makes you believe that?" "Oh," people tell me, "if you look at his background, he's got to be one." I interpret this as "he's educated, so he's got to be an atheist", which is a complete non sequitir to me. I know lots of "educated" Christians. Some of them even went to Harvard Law (and others of them claimed to have attended Columbia). While Obama might in fact be a closet atheist, the only justifications I've heard amount to self-congratulation on the part of my atheist friends and colleagues.
(1) "of course this is a lie" OK. Your savior is a big, fat, liar. What else is he lying about? "Oh, politicans all lie, and of course he's not lying about anything 'important', like his associations with Ayers or whether he heard sermons at his church or whether he was a member of the New Party or whether he believes in 'redistributive justice' or so on." Um, yeah. Also, how do you know Palin's not lying about her religious views? "Ummm...."
The most charitable explanation (and the one I subscribed to until everyone started arguing with me about it) is that Obama is a Christian nut who believes that Jesus died for his sins (and, by extension, that I, having publicly renounced the holy spirit on multiple occasions, am going to be tortured in "hell" for several eternities). Probably Palin believes this too, but at least I can see faint traces of a libertarian streak in her.
The alternative to my explanation is that he's an especially craven liar, which may be par for a politician, but hardly represents "CHANGE".