Aside from that, all I’ll say about your comment is that Obama never said that we are not a nation of Christians. He said that we are no longer just a Christian nation. While the majority of Americans may be Christians, we also have a good number of Americans who are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other religions. Are we to presume that they are any less American due to their religious preference?

So who are you calling stupid? Can you not read? Last I checked, reading comprehension was something we learned in junior high school.

Hey Uncle Lenzy!

I am writting this email with great humility and I hope it doesn’t come across wrong. You know I greatly respect you. But I watched this speech in its entirity when he gave it at the Call to Renewal Conference given by Sojouners Christians for faith and Justice. Here is a link to an mp3 of the speech given without the editing of whomever posted that doctored up clip on youtube. Obama is not perfect no one is but when it comes to religous freedoms he is not this anti-christian/muslim in disguse that others or trying to make him out to be. So please before we start taking the bait of the people who gave us George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lets dig deeper to see if its really true.

Click on the link to hear for yourself the enitre speech
http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060628_Sen.Barack_Obama_Podcast_Call_to_Renewal_Keynote_34.mp3

I would be happy to discuss this or any other issues concerning Sen. Obama. And not to say I agree with all his positions but a wiseman told me that if two people agree on everything one of those people isn’t thinking at all.

Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination?

I think the key word in what Obama says is ’suggests’. He’s not saying that Leviticus definitively says that slavery is ok, merely that there is some suggestion of it. Nor is he saying that shellfish is indeed an abomination, merely that there is some suggestion of it. This is just common sense stuff.

Leviticus 25:44-46 (New International Version)

44 ” ‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.

45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.

46 You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Over a good number of year, slavery is something that Christians neither accepted or condemned. And slavery is all over the Bible. That is a fact. Now, people have debated for ages about whether God condemns slavery or not. Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, once said, “[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.” Granted, he’s wrong, but that didn’t stop people like him from distorting what the Bible says to suit their purpose. Would you qualify Davis as being a ‘nut’?

Leviticus 11:11-12

11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.

12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

So…if I eat anything that doesn’t have fins and scales then it’s an abominable act? Eating a lobster is an abomination? Really? Granted, I won’t ever say that someone who believes this is a ‘nut’, but to say that Leviticus ’suggests’ this isn’t much of a stretch.

How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith?

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Again, ’suggests’ stoning.

Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?

I go into detail about this on another blog post. Has anyone actually read the Sermon on the Mount? These are passages that have influenced some of the greatest pacifists of our world, people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others. Passages that say “love your enemy” and “turn the other cheek”?

Question: In what passage of the Sermon on the Mount or any other passage in the Bible does Christ condone war? Seriously. If war goes against the teachings of Jesus Christ then why wouldn’t it be considered a radical departure from what Christ taught?

Ash, I’m sorry but I just don’t see how this is belittling anyone’s religious beliefs. Obama makes some very valid and fair points. Everyone is entitled to believe what they want to believe. That’s what makes America the country that it is. And ‘religious nuts’? Trust me, there are plenty of them out there. Some of them are called ‘terrorists’. But you don’t find a whole bunch of people getting offended when you call them ‘religious nuts’, do you?