Flying Spaghetti Monster Rules!

With sauce!

I don’t care either as long as that separation is clear and absolute.

An article from 9/2007 (before the current dust up) that’s worth a look.

http://www.motherjones.com/new…..rayer.html

I think the whole “religious” issue is a slap in the face to every American. I’m so sick of “his pastor said this and that, he must agree with him because he hasn’t publicly stood up and said, ‘you’re EVIL,’” I could puke.

Religion is supposed to be IRRELEVANT in our government and it sure as shit is irrelevant to me. As long as animal or human sacrifice isn’t involved, I don’t give one flying shit what religion any politician is, UNLESS they use their religion (ala Chucklefuck or Clusterfuck) as a guide to making public policy.

Talk to me about getting the FUCK out of Iraq YESTERDAY, and we have something to talk about. Talk to me about church or Jesus or religion, I’m walking away.

McLie has bought into the belief that the religious right can command their pews to the voting booth and that this is such a huge number of votes that sucking up to them and twisting yourself into a pretzel is worth it.

Most people, even the pundits (not quite people) can see this crap.

I suspect it will be a big failure unless they see they will really get something like prayer in school or a ban on abortion, or the 10 commandments in signs at every intersection.

The moral majority might sit this out. There are few down tickets loonies to get them to the polls.

Politicians are such whores. They’ll do anything for money and power.

Jane, I presume you’re limiting that to Democrats. If you open that question up to republicans, well, do you want them alphabetically or grouped by church?

Boxturtle (And give me LOTS of time to type)

I totally agree with this post and Jane. Ones spirituality and/or religious belief and affiliation is personal, not our business and should have nothing to do with how we choose a leader so long as they are effective in their leadership. It’s ALL about the separation of church and state. And it was never an issue, till the Bu$hites took over, blurring those lines and giving American religious extremists a voice in our governance.
Good job Jane, thanks for this!

CNN’s Roland Martin is actually listening to Wright in his entirety and doing actual journalism.

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/200…..11-sermon/

…I’m sure he’ll be fired any day now.

Apparently, McCain sought out Hagee’s endorsement:

http://www.editorandpublisher……1003728364

I listened to Wright’s analysis of what America has done to blacks in this country and it rings true.

Blacks have been fucked over since they were hauled over here as slaves and it still goes on.

America is a racist society despite the many individuals who are not.

Don’t pray in my Government, and I won’t laugh in your church?

From what I can tell, there’s very little that separates Bush’s beliefs from that other Waco ranch owner David Koresh, as shown here:

http://freewayblogger.blogspot…..idian.html

(obligatory semiotic blogwhoring)

The moral majority was thought of as a 50 state strategy… a way to swing close states over to the Rs.

They went full on media with their televangalism and mega churches.

Marx told us that religion is the opiate of the people and the Rs proved it.

People love their drugs. Don’t they?

Who is the Flying Spaghetti Monster candidate?

Freeway,

You are a great American!

If it’s just a matter of someone’s personal religious beliefs, as long as they are committed to a separation of church and state I frankly don’t see any reason why I should care.

Bingo.

But of course, the wingnuts don’t believe in such a separation, so now they won’t vote for Obama, because he obviously hates whitey.

Oh noes!

Who is the Flying Spaghetti Monster candidate?

You can have it, you asked first!

Boxturtle (Touched by his noodlin’ appendage)

If it’s just a matter of someone’s personal religious beliefs, as long as they are committed to a separation of church and state

I wouldn’t go that far. If someone believes that the end of the world will be brought on by a major attack on Iran, I’d say that is highly relevant, regardless of the politician’s view of church/state separation.

This is a point very well taken where it comes to McCain, of course, Jane. And I agree with you regarding Obama…there’s way more to him than his preacher. And I don’t think the Clinton’s are overly religiously influenced, nor do I think they owe any religion any particular allegiance. But are you saying that Hillary does not pander? I would really like to know why she has espoused a position in favor of making flag-burning illegal. I always thought of the idea of flag-burning as protest as a position protected by the Constitution, and I always thought that the left knew this instinctively. Don’t get me wrong; I would never, ever advocate burning a flag for any reason, but I never burned my bra nor advocated the burning of draft cards either. This is kinda like a matter of “I may not agree with what you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it.” I consider the act of flag-burning tantamount to dumping however many pallets of tea the early patriots dumped into the sea at the Boston Tea Party. I think this is an example of pandering, but maybe she does really believe in it. I believe, though, that Hillary has acquired quite a rep for pandering, and there are reasons for that. I’m sure others here can think of lots more examples of pandering by more than one candidate, too. I guess that’s what politicians do.

The Evangelicals whored their parishioners to the Republican Party. They are reaping what the sowed with this backlash from both the left and the right. The only way to keep your religion from being vomited on is to quit trying to stuff it down other peoples’ throats!

IM VOTIN 4 DA CANDIDATE HOO BELIEVEZ IN DA CEILIN KAT

What Ann Said.

The flag burning amendment is particularly odious because it punishes people who use symbols to make a point as opposed to bombing people.

This is dangerous Big Brother stuff and those who support it are laying the foundation for full on fascism.

Another reason to step away from Ms power hungry Clinton

And haven’t enough of these true believers been exposed to be complete con artists to discredit the entire evangelical “movement”. What a bunch of money grubbing lying perverts!

How can they be even thought of a moral leaders?

These people have a moral compass that points in one direction – MONEY

Clinton (H) is very affiliated with right wing Christians, just a lot more quietly than the repubs.

Dare ain’t no Ceilin Kat, yoo fool! Itz all ’bout da CanOpner!

jane says-”John McCain has twisted himself into a morally pliant pretzel trying to please every religious right loon who stumbles along, so there are good reasons to question who he is associating himself with because they have had considerable influence over his decision making process in the past. ”

reminds me of that saying–you gotta stand for something or you’re gonna fall for anything.

i don’t think he has religious or spiritual beliefs, he just believes in war, that’s his philosophy that’s his belief.

war and conflict 24/7

(and can i add how SICK it made me to see lie-berman and mccain, in unison, kissing the wailing wall????????????????)

sacrilege. hope they got a germ.

and did they go to gaza or the west bank? any palestinian neighborhood?????

no, don’t answer.

————–

OT

jane and firepups–

I mentioned Firedoglake on our little local 1 hr. call-in show, viewpoint, this morning, people are constantly wanting information and clarifications of things in the news that are posted here every day……..so, if you see new names, possibly not trolls, but locals from here……lot of politically involved people call in, from all different walks of life and political views, but most are civil about it.

just thought i should give a warning. don’t know if anyone will join in or not.
============

Hillary’s Prayer: Hillary Clinton’s Religion and Politics

News: For 15 years, Hillary Clinton has been part of a secretive religious group that seeks to bring Jesus back to Capitol Hill. Is she triangulating—or living her faith?

….

Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. “A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation,” says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. “I don’t….there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer.”

I think religion might motivate the GOP base who according to Primary state voting totals have either been sleeping or defected to our side. After all in how many states has our second place finisher Hilary or Obama beat McCain’s vote total in that state?
The GOP has to believe that their lower primary turnout is based on their base being uninspired which is a good argument as anyone who has listened to John McCain give a speech can attest.
Attacking Obama on religious grounds the GOP thinks will inspire their base.
Lets wait and see, considering how the MSM has made Hilary out to be the AntiChrist all these years well if her running can’t frighten the GOP into voting I’m not sure what will.

I’ve always been troubled by Hillary Clinton’s culture warrior stuff regarding video games, but haven’t seen any evidence that this was a position she changed to please any particular religious group. As someone who has watched it over time I think she really just believes it.

This article by Barbary Ehrenreich about Hillary’s religious involvement was a bit disturbing, but I’m also skeptical about some of its claims: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..92361.html

WOW!

But this makes sense. I don’t even know if she believes in this shit but as long as she can get some brownie points she plays.

These people disgust me.

Thanks for the info.

from the same artice ….

When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian “cell” whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

Clinton’s prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or “the Family”), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship’s only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has “made a fetish of being invisible,” former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.

short thread, eh?

McCain: The lord said unto me, “Kill them all and let me sort them out!”

i don’t care what a politician says they believe – about religion or anything else. in almost all cases, i think trying to discern any aspect of their character or personal beliefs is a sucker’s game.

what i care about is what they do (not why they do it)… because what they do is what affect us, and because i can independently verify their actions. i can’t read their minds to figure out what they really think and i can’t read their hearts to figure out what they really believe.

“If you can show me how a candidate’s personal religious beliefs have affected their political positions or their voting record, I’ll pay attention.”

Jane,

It’s sheer opinion, but I think Jimmy Carter may have tried to follow his religeous beliefs with regard to some policies. His elevation of “human rights” as a world wide issue came, I think, at least partially from his religeous beliefs. Although, I think he felt “human rights” were at the core of all of the worlds great religions. I beleive he tried to personally live his religeon more than most other people do, but he had a full understanding of separation of church and state and never tried to impose religeous dogma on state matters.

As more of a pragmatist, I occasionally got irritated at what appeared to be imposition of moralistic values rather than pragmatic interests. Nevertheless, I admire him very much as a person.

I think the Left needs to figure out how to handle it when the MSM sets the news-cycle agenda to suit the propaganda of the Right.

This week has been All Reverend Wright, All the Time. How can the left redirect such a phenomenon? Progressive targets guests on Fox or MSNBC or CNN are sandbagged if they stray from the assigned sensationalistic topic in an attempt to address actual issues.

How can the Left reclaim the agenda from the Right when the Right controls the media?

hey- about the hillary being involved with right-wing christian groups-

i went to a bible study at the baptist church here……..because i wanted to learn what they think, what they believe, etc…….was one of the most informative things i’ve ever done.

i learned a lot.

so, i wouldn’t take that information about hillary the same way you all have.

It wasn’y his pusuit of human rights that got him in trouble with his own party, it was telling politicians that they couldn’t drink booze at White House functions! That’s when it all fell apart!

How can the Left reclaim the agenda from the Right when the Right controls the media?

new media. the blogs and liberal radio

and forgot to add—

just because i was at this baptist bible study, doesn’t mean i agreed with them, just meant i was there to learn about/with them……..

but it could have been taken differently if i was running for office.

just sayin’.

I think this religious issue is one sided McCain is getting a pass from Pat Buchanan, Tweety, and Pumpkinhead all Catholics about his Pastor calling the Church a great Whore.
But the news has been nonstop Obama’s pastor is an issue. Why? perhaps because it gives the media an excuse to say bad things about Obama.
But again John McCain is not being held to the same high standard by the media. Sure we assume its because Obama is a Democrat but being African American with an African American pastor does have something to do with it too!
The media is desperate to make race an issue Obama’s young supporters many of whom are White are a lot less racist than my generation. This scares the crap out of the media’s self important racist Memes.

I will add just one other factor. MSM is Lowest Common Denominator (LCD)subject magnification. It is designed to deliver eyeballs to a channel. It is not set up to do “investigation, truth, and reporting.

It is still true that the easiest way for some channels to hold their eyeballs is to pander to the basest fears of the populaton that watches that channel.

I go to a Methodist church (I’m actually a Congregationalist, but both of our churches are UCC members) and we’re currently taking a Sunday-morning course (We watch a lecture, discuss it, watch some more, etc) called Living the Questions. “…video & internet-based small group exploration of progressive Christianity featuring premier religion voices of our day.”
Well, the latest chapter in the series explains how “Rapture theology” and the series explains why it’s a heretical, unChristian type of belief. So I thought “Ooh! My sister and brother-in-law both really enjoy those Left Behind books. This means I get to tell them they’re both heretics!”
Now, my sister and brother-in-law are both very progressive and we get along quite well, so I wouldn’t want to cause any unnecessary antagonism, so I though about how I’d explain to my eleven-year-old niece why I just called her mom a heretic.
Problem is, heresy is a very relative term. It means different things to different people. It means nothing to a non-Christian and not a whole lot to a non-progressive Christian and the meaning varies with different strains of Christianity.
So, you’re right. If someone really subscribes to “Rapture theology” then I probably have a lot of political disagreements with them anyway (The fact that my relatives like the Left Behind books doesn’t necessarily mean they subscribe to the theology behind them).

Check out this Link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..92361.html

It details how close and secret Hillary has been with the very conservative Capitol Hill group known as the “Fellowship,” aka The Family. These are the folks who put on the National Prayer Breakfast, and espouse the the belief of power and faith. They create and use “cells” to consolidate or use “power” to influence government to their religious beliefs.

“McLie has bought into the belief that the religious right can command their pews to the voting booth and that this is such a huge number of votes that sucking up to them and twisting yourself into a pretzel is worth it.”

Actually, it’s true from my experience. My extended family includes at least seventeen fundamentalist Christians. Their pastors, including youth pastors, tell them that true Christians will only vote Republican and fourteen of the seventeen have avowed their belief in that assertion. Any attempt to discuss the issues is off the table. Just as they mindlessly and zealously defend the “absolute truth” of the Bible, they will defend the “only Republicans are true Christians” mantra.

Excellent post, thanks.

IMO, within Xtianity, the fundies are usually the worst at exploiting wide spread ignorance of the history of Xtianity. CS Lewis’ MERE XTIANITY is dated, but still an excellent examination of what doctrines all Xtians share. IMO the Jesus Seminar is the best avenue into the actual history of the post Easter church and who Jesus of Nazareth was.

So much for “Republican family values,” they of course ignore that of the three remaining candidates, only McCain is married and divorced. IOIYAR

I agree with Jane, and I could care less what a politician’s religious beliefs (or lack of them are). I certainly haven’t seen where our current President’s supposed strong faith in God made him a better leader when it came to dealing successfully with the challenges this country faces.

It’s the GOP that has rammed the importance of the religious beliefs of political leaders down our throats for the past 20+ years. If they insist on talking about Obama’s religion vis a vis his church and pastor then we must force them talk about John McCain’s religious beliefs, too, and apparently they are very uncomfortable with that because McCain can’t decide if he’s an Episcopalian or Baptist and admits he has never been born again. What’s worse, he has been allowed to get away with merely describing his beliefs by saying “I am a Christian and that’s all I have to say about the matter.”

If we can force them to confront all the candidates fairly on this subject instead of letting them get away with the hypocritical act of putting Obama’s repeated explanations of his faith under the microscope for dissection then we just might be able to get religion off the political table for once.

Sadly, the truth is that for many congresscritters their conscience often demands that they align their proposals and their votes with their personal religious convictions. Witness House Resolution 888, a deplorable Xtian revisionist-history mash-up (sorry, no link, but a Google search under “Chris Rodda” will get you there) that is so fallaciously religion-soaked it is pathetic. Yet, imagine if this bogus resolution passes, as it probably will. Although non-binding, it will be set in the record and people will believe it as truth, even though it is simply one falsehood stacked upon another. James Madison would be rolling in his grave over this faith-based legislative stupidity.

That’s why it’s important to keep a watchdog eye on the religious aspect of our political leaders. Without doing so, everyone’s “liberty of conscience” is at risk.

How about if the sacrifice is W or Darth?

craz3z at 47–

there is a derogatory phrase used by some in the xtian world to describe that.

mccain is a ’church shopper’

I agree with the Constitution…that there be “no religious test” for political office. I will try and judge people on their actual policies and whether those are good for the country and the people as a sum…in the long term. So, in terms of whether a person is of this, or that religion…I don’t worry. In fact some Presidents, like Nixon (who was, I believe, a Quaker) would have benefitted from a bit more influence from his faith.

Many people feared that Kennedy was going to be influenced by the Pope’s dictates. At that time (and still) the Church expected that Catholics would act in a Catholic manner in their decisionmaking. The issues then were contraception and divorce, now it’s abortion (funny how Iraq wasn’t something raised, although Pope John Paul II certainly considered the invasion a sin).

Kennedy, who struggled in the Primaries in some states because of this controversy decided to face the issue head-on in his speech in front of an Evangelical Ministers Association in Houston, after polling suggested he was behind Nixon also because of the religious questions that were being passed around in cheap mass-produced pamphlets. The speech, and passages therefrom were successfully used to reduce the impact of the doubts of Kennedy’s independence.

JFK Speech Regarding Politics and Religion

BTW Fox (yuck!) just did a poll that showed only about a third of Republican voters actually thought that Obama shared the positions of Wright. So that’s about 30% of 30% (i.e 10% of the public). Throw in another 10% from independents…and you have the 20% hard core supporters of Bush. Most of these would be very unlikely to be swayed to vote for Obama in any case. Their “belief” is already established. Most likely believe that Obama is a fundamentalist Muslim, too..and find the contradiction that he’d follow the tenets of a Christian preacher not the least contradictory.

it matters because they alienate me and millions of others when they cuddle up to haters and “exgays” to get religious votes.

it matters because we’re not all Christian and “called to serve” and “committed” and all that “faith” stuff excludes us Jews and Muslims and Hindus, etc.

it matters because it smells of GOP stuff, which is not what Democrats should be encouraging.

it affirms the false view that religious people don’t vote Dem when they do and always will.

it matters for many reasons.

“If you can show me how a candidate’s personal religious beliefs have affected their political positions or their voting record, I’ll pay attention.”

Obama specifically attributes his faith for his position against equal marriage rights.

A black minister who is sometimes outraged by injustice! My God, what next!

and there’s stuff about our taxpayer money going to religious schools instead of public schools–i don’t know if either have been clear on that.

and have they both promised to kill faith-based funding? i think not.

It is hypocritical to go after McCain’s odious ties to a right-wing white Christian preacher, while giving a pass to Obama’s longer and closer ties to a radical black Christian preacher. He could have walked away like Oprah did, but he didn’t. He only came forth when the issue became public and he was losing public support; and even then he danced around the specific issue about his judgment and sacrificed the grandmother who raised him instead of taking responsibility for his own adult actions.

Nobody knows why Oprah stopped going to Trinity. She has never said why, and the whole subject came up as a result of speculation by a gossip columnist in a Chicago paper years after the fact when Obama began his run for the presidency and the subject of Trinity first came up. It’s been picked up by right wing blogs and repeated on message boards (the usual suspects), but you won’t find any statement from Oprah to that effect from any legitimate news source. Who knows if she even goes to church anywhere anymore? Besides, if she felt that strongly about it why hasn’t she disassociated herself from Obama?