Is obama right about religion

I watched this video today. IS there any truth to what Obama is saying about religion and the Bible?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep2u4xvYhjw&feature=related

Our President is trying to group all beliefs as one corporation of verious beliefs..but what God's Word says is there is only one way and that is Jesus Christ..having studied and hold a Ph.D in Religion, I also taught in Seminary and the one's that leave Jesus out are not the same as those of us who believe what scripture teaches. Waht we believe does matter

Sparky

But I dont know much about Obama. I know that God put Obama there for a reason.
Not sure what that reason is but God knows. Its a good reason.
We all need to Keep Praying for Him.

Personally I tend to agree with Obama.

I don't think laws should be made with religious motivation, and I believe that politics and religion should not mix.

I don't think Christians should try to influence public policy through government. Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran enforce religious values via government policies, which I do not agree with.

We shouldn't seek to impose our Christian values on the rest of society - people have their own free will and should be able to make their own choices, short of hurting others. If we want the rest of society to uphold Christian values, we should evangelise more so that more people become Christians.

Thats what I think anyway.

Hey sharp I know your not from the usa but if you were you would notice that our system is based on the premise of old testiment leadership. The three systems and what not. Now I don't know alot about it but I do know that it was based on those same principles.

Another thing for you guys to chew on. Nowhere in the bible (Specifically revalations) does it talk about the United States being a world power in end times. It doesn't really even talk about the east. I believe that this period of time could very well be the end of America as we know it and the start of end time prophecy!!! Crazy huh?

Even if im wrong we still need to be ready for when Christ comes back and takes up his church.

I saw this speech back in 2006 when he gave it. During the presidential campaign, this speech got passed around by people saying that Obama was mocking the bible, etc. I liked the speech back in 2006, and I still like it. I'm not sure where the controversy is within the speech. He's being straightforward and honest about the problems with reconciling religion and politics. It was a smart and thoughtful speech.

I would also suggest you watch the speech in its entirety. I did some hunting but couldn't find it: I know it was at least 20 minutes, but probably longer. I did find the full text of the speech on the website of the group (Sojourners) that hosted the event where Obama gave the speech. I apologize for taking up a bunch of space, but I'll post it here so everyone can read it.
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Barack Obama speaks out on faith and politics: 'Call to Renewal' Keynote Address

Sen. Barack Obama
Office of Sen. Barack Obama 6-28-2006

Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here at the Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America conference, and I'd like to congratulate you all on the thoughtful presentations you've given so far about poverty and justice in America. I think all of us would affirm that caring for the poor finds root in all of our religious traditions - certainly that's true for my own.
But today I'd like to talk about the connection between religion and politics and perhaps offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often bitter arguments over this issue over the last several years.
I do so because, as you all know, we can affirm the importance of poverty in the Bible and discuss the religious call to environmental stewardship all we want, but it won't have an impact if we don't tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America.
For me, this need was illustrated during my 2004 race for the U.S. Senate. My opponent, Alan Keyes, was well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and godless.
Indeed, towards the end of the campaign, Mr. Keyes said that, "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved."
Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, his arguments not worth entertaining.
What they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take him seriously. For he claimed to speak for my religion - he claimed knowledge of certain truths.
Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, he would say, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.
Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.
What would my supporters have me say? That a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? That Mr. Keyes, a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the pope?
Unwilling to go there, I answered with the typically liberal response in some debates - namely, that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.
But Mr. Keyes implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer didn't adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and beliefs.
My dilemma was by no means unique. In a way, it reflected the broader debate we've been having in this country for the last thirty years over the role of religion in politics.
For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest gap in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called red states and those who reside in blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.
Conservative leaders, from Falwell and Robertson to Karl Rove and Ralph Reed, have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.
Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, some liberals dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith.
Such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when the opponent is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people, and join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.
We first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. Ninety percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people believe in angels than do those who believe in evolution.
This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.
Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily round - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.
They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down a long highway towards nothingness.
I speak from experience here. I was not raised in a particularly religious household. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, I did too.
It wasn't until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma.
The Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me; they saw that I knew their Book and shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed a part of me that remained removed, detached, an observer in their midst. In time, I too came to realize that something was missing - that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart and alone.
If not for the particular attributes of the historically black church, I may have accepted this fate. But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn to the church.
For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today. Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; it is an active, palpable agent in the world. It is a source of hope.
And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship, the grounding of faith in struggle, that the church offered me a second insight: that faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts. You need to come to church precisely because you are of this world, not apart from it; you need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in your difficult journey.
It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.
The path I traveled has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans - evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at a turning point in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives them.
This is why, if we truly hope to speak to people where they're at - to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to their own - we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.
Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons will continue to hold sway.
More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord," or King's I Have a Dream speech without reference to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.
(cont....)

PART 2:

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical. Our fear of getting preachy may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.
After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man.
Solving these problems will require changes in government policy; it will also require changes in hearts and minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturer's lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we have a problem of morality; there's a hole in that young man's heart - a hole that government programs alone cannot fix.
I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws; but I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation's CEOs can bring quicker results than a battalion of lawyers.
I think we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys, and give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished. But my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman's sense of self, a young man's sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence all young people for the act of sexual intimacy.
I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith - the politician who shows up at a black church around election time and claps - off rhythm - to the gospel choir.
But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize the overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of "thou" and not just "I," resonates in religious congregations across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of America's renewal.
Some of this is already beginning to happen. Pastors like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers and activists like my friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality. National denominations have shown themselves as a force on Capitol Hill, on issues such as immigration and the federal budget. And across the country, individual churches like my own are sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, helping ex-offenders reclaim their lives, and rebuilding our gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
To build on these still-tentative partnerships between the religious and secular worlds will take work - a lot more work than we've done so far. The tensions and suspicions on each side of the religious divide will have to be squarely addressed, and each side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration.
While I've already laid out some of the work that progressives need to do on this, I that the conservative leaders of the Religious Right will need to acknowledge a few things as well.
For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. That during our founding, it was not the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of this separation; it was the persecuted religious minorities, Baptists like John Leland, who were most concerned that any state-sponsored religion might hinder their ability to practice their faith.
Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
And even if we did have only Christians within our borders, who's Christianity would we teach in the schools? James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage so radical that it's doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application?
This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
This may be difficult for those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of the possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.
We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.
Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion.
But it's fair to say that if any of us saw a twenty-first century Abraham raising the knife on the roof of his apartment building, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that are possible for all of us to know, be it common laws or basic reason.
Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires some sense of proportion.
This goes for both sides.
Even those who claim the Bible's inerrancy make distinctions between scriptural edicts, a sense that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ's divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.
The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.
But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase "under God;" I certainly didn't. Having voluntary student prayer groups using school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs - targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers - that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems.
So we all have some work to do here. But I am hopeful that we can bridge the gaps that exist and overcome the prejudices each of us bring to this debate. And I have faith that millions of believing Americans want that to happen. No matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith used as a tool to attack and belittle and divide - they're tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon. Because in the end, that's not how they think about faith in their own lives.
So let me end with another interaction I had during my campaign. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following:
"Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you."
The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be "totalizing." His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of President Bush's foreign policy.
But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my Web site, which suggested that I would fight "right wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." He went on to write:
"I sense that you have a strong sense of justice ... and I also sense that you are a fair-minded person with a high regard for reason ... Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded. ... You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others ... I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."
I checked my Web site and found the offending words. My staff had written them to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.
Re-reading the doctor's letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in reasonable terms - those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.
I wrote back to the doctor and thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own - a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.
It is a prayer I still say for America today - a hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. It's a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the months and years to come. Thank you.

*NOTE - THE FOLLOWING IS NOT WRITTEN IN RESPONSE TO ANY PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL, IN THIS THREAD OR ELSEWHERE. IT'S SIMPLY MY FEELINGS ON THE TYPICAL ARGUEMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS DISCUSSION.*

The truth of the matter is this. The debate over religious motivation in politics is about discerning and then IMPOSING on the country what is ''right'' and what is ''wrong''. I grow so tired of that tired old line, ''We shouldn't impose our view on other people''. What on earth do you think laws are?? We decide what is ethical and what isn't, and then impose it on EVERYONE - complete with penalties for excercising a dissenting viewpoint!


So where are we supposed to derive a definition of what's right and wrong?

There are two distinct options - you will will support whichever YOU BELIEVE is right.

A) God's values (no change over time)
B) Man's values (changes with what feels good)

In making laws, you will ultimately stand behind one or the other. For pitty's sake, please make up your mind and stand accordingly.

OOOOOOOOH, but who are we to say what God's values are and then force others to obey that interpretation?

Do you actually believe what you claim to believe, or is it just a fun little game to you?
Is the Bible the word of God? Do you believe in the discerning power of the Holy Spirit? Do you believe that Spirit resides in you? Do you feel morally obligated to live according to what God says is right? Follow this logic with me for a second and see if you still hold the viewpoint you did.


- We need laws to live by (I'm not going to defend this statement because God felt it necessary to give us HIS law).
- In my country (and in most others), someone is going to make them - and impose them.
- You are given the priviledge and responsibility, as a citizen of your country (if democratic), to elect the people who make the laws.
- If you have even a speck of greymatter in your head, you will attempt to elect someone who will strive to make laws that most closely represent your view of what's right and wrong.


Congratulations! You have just imposed your religious convictions (or lack of them) on EVERYONE else! You have interpreted, to the best of your abilities (hopefully), God's values AND man's values, voted in order to have your decision between them imposed on everyone else, and have implicitly endorsed judgement (do you like to use that word?) on anyone who disagrees!


If someone says they don't like to impose their views on anyone else, then they should be opposed to all voting except in cases of global unanimity (which doesn't exist)
- Otherwise they are playing hypocritical games.

If they favor imposing man's view via legislation over God's, they should be honest about it.
- Otherwise they being decietfull.


Personally...

if I, my family, friends, church, countrymen, future generations, and any other nations that the U.S. defends or fights against are all effected by the governing laws of the nation and by the governing, decision-making people therein,

... my vote and the strongest appeal I can make toward others, in love, to do the same...
will always be to impose God's view (as best in my feeble mind that I can see it, interpret it, and understand it) on the nation that I love. Not for my sake, but for theirs.


President Obama, during his time as a senator, and now more so as a president, has consistantly voted to abolish anything he encountered that honors God, and to promote anything that God is decidedly against. He has demonstrated during every step of his political enterprize (put mildly) a special zeal towards expelling what I understand God's view to be. Whether by his own abilities or someone else's, he speaks with elloquent and pursuasive words, but his words are exceptionally contrary to his actions. (For example - watch - if he is about to do something generally viewed as unacceptable, he usually holds a big, showy, pre-emptive press conference to specifically announce that he is not about to do that thing, which would be humerous if people didn't gobble it up and willfully ignore what follows. If legislation is actually evil, it will be casually burried in a 10-million page legislation package, labled ''Economic Stimulus'', ''Health Care'', or ''Approve Immediately If You Love Puppies'' which he will bullwhip through congress, insisting there is not time to read it - in fact, if you question it, you're a radical whacko, and more than likely a serious threat to national security). I do not have respect for him. I vehimently disagree with his political views - a discernment/judgement which this democratic REPUBLIC was constructed to allow and protect.

God judges a man's heart, but we may judge the placement and fervor of his convictions where it is our responsibility to do so.

Pray for him, as we are called to do.


If you disagree, or call this ''just another man's view'', what can I say?
Those are my two cents.

Love in Christ,
Nathan

Well I'm not going to listen to all six minutes, but let's take a snippet of what he says, then ask the question, "Is he right?"

"Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation..at least not just..we are also a Jewish nation....a muslim nation...a buddhist nation...and a hindu nation..and a nation of non believers........."

That's something he said from the speech. Now let's look at it and ask, "Is he right?"

He seems to be asserting that we are no longer JUST a nation made up of Christians. He's asserting that in the United States we have both Christians, Jews, Muslims, buddhists, hindu's and non-believrers.....

He's asserting that this nation has many views now....

Is it true that the United States has Christians, Jews, Muslims, buddhists, hindu's and non believers?

I'd think it's pretty accurate to make that assertion.


He also asks.............my paraphrase

And even if we had only Christians in our midst, and expelled every non Christian from the usa..who's Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would it be James Dobson's or Al Sharptons...???

He seems to be pointing out that even amongst Christians there are differences of opinion. So if there are differences in opinion, who gets to decide what is taught?

Those are some thought provoking questions to me.

I think Barack Obama is morally bankrupt on abortion, gay rights, taxes and gov't spending. But if we're just talking about the above comments from his speech, I'd say he makes some observations worth thinking about.

And I'm listening to his argument against our stance on abortion. He's fulla it on that. *rolls my eyes* I think God's law against murder is enough on that You can scientifically prove it's murder of a human life.

So even if he dont wanna listen to the Bible, he can listen to simple science that says it is a human life in the womb and abortion ends that life.

I mean it has human DNA at the early stage of a human life. In most instances the baby in the womb has brain waves, heart beat and feelings. So aborting it is the taking of a validated human life. If that's not clear, then folks are morally bankrupt beyond repair almost.

Ok so I listened to it all. I gave!

To me he seems to be saying..."Hey we have all these different beliefs in the United States. Which belief gets to decide what is taught?"

Does majority rule? If so, does that mean Hindus get to dictate to Christians what is taught if the Hindus are the majority? Does it mean Muslims dictate if they're in the majority? Does it mean Christians dictate if they're in the majority? If atheists become the majority, do they dictate?

Since there are so many beliefs, do we need to make sure that minority beliefs are protected? What if Christianity becomes the minority belief? How can we guarantee our belief is protected?

How does a free society function with sooooooo many differing beliefs, without oppressing those of a minority thought? How does it stop everything from being majority rule?

If you're in the majority now, would you pass the same laws if they could be imposed on you, someday if you happen to be in the minority?

To me these are just legit questions.

As a Christian, I think it's our job to make our case to those who don't agree with us. Its our job to fight on the personal, church, local, state and national level for our values.

But we should also be aware that not everyone agrees with us, and while we're on this Earth, we need to find a way to coexist with people in a free society who don't agree with us, so we don't have religious war after endless religious war.

What I object to is religious groups punching above their weight in terms of their influence over public policy. I have a problem with situations where any group, whether or not they are religious, single-handedly dictates a government's viewpoint on an issue from a minority position. For example, in Australia, the union movement has an influence over the governing centre-left political party that is disproportionate to the union movement's popularity and membership in society. As a result the industrial relations system is disproportionately skewed towards union interests.

I don't object to Christians voting based on our personal convictions and views - I do this myself. But sometimes I think we tend to think that our votes are worth more because our views about society are based on Godly principles. The influence that Christianity has over a country's government should be commensurate with its size. I don't claim to be an expert on american politics, but Obama appears to have a mandate to enact some very morally questionable policies, a mandate given to him by the people who voted him in. If the nation is unhappy with the way he is governing they will vote him out of office - that's how democracy works.

I would love to live in a truly Christian nation where laws come straight from the New Testament. However, forcing such a system on a nation that is predominantly non-Christian isn't going to change hearts. People are still going to want to kill unborn children, smoke marijuana and fornicate, whether the law allows them to or not. It would only affect their ability to sin, not their desire to do so. All it would do is make us feel warm and fuzzy and safe in the knowledge that people are forced to behave like us, even if they don't want to.

Christian lobby groups are savvy, educated, organised, and very difficult to ignore, because they campaign on issues of morality. As Christians we take the moral high ground on every issue, and rightly so! But this makes us Christians a group that politicians often go out of their way to appease, because Christians are usually a force to be reckoned with and politicians can disagree with us at their own peril. I don't know why Christians are often so concerned with, yes, imposing our beliefs on society, through influencing the legal system and public policy, desiring that everyone acts like we do, when the real objective is to spread the message of Jesus through evangelism.

Very well-written! I believe we have an obligation to approach it from both angles One is the moral imperative, the other is the spiritual commission We have resonsibilities to both, but the latter is obviously the higher priority.