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| I'm really tired of people mixing religion and politics.Why does it matter what religion our president is? Can you tell me what religion Sam Walton professes, or Bill Gates, or Fujio Cho? No but here you are, happily reading my blog on your Windows PC, then driving to Walmart in your Camry. These people lead far-reaching entities whose decisions affect the world over, but you don't know what religion they are. And it's not because the information isn't out there- you simply don't care. I'm betting you also don't care what Dick Broadhead's religion is. You couldn't care less what faith Michael Jordan or Kyle Singler belongs to. You also probably don't care about the beliefs of our other state leaders- can you tell me the religious affiliation of Bill Bell, or Condi, or Zalmay Khalilzad? Why does religion suddenly suddenly matter when it's the president's?
If you're going to be obnoxious about something, at least be consistent.
I disagree completely with people who argue that we need to elect a president who stands for "our" values. If history has taught us anything, it's that morons are born regardless of gender, color, race, and especially creed. There have been great Christian leaders, and there have been terrible Christian leaders, just as there have been great and terrible Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Unitarians, Atheists, Hippies, Jedi, and Flying-Spaghetti-Monster-ists. The efficacy of a leader was determined not by any particular zeal and piety, or lack thereof.
Look at the history of the United States. We extol the values and ideals of our Founding Fathers, not realizing that some of the greatest among them like Jefferson and Franklin were deists, none of whom by today's standards we would consider Christian. We then trumpet the importance of Christian Values in the White House, forgetting that every president of this great nation, from Washington to Bush, has claimed to be a Christian, with results ranging from Lincoln to Harding. Speaking of still-president Bush, have we already forgotten his legacy? If I would say anything positive about him, it is that he is a man of such religious conviction, but I then interject that he has done more harm to the name of Christianity than anyone in recent memory with his executive bumbling, done in the name of Just War and Righteous Cause.
What bugs me even more is the recent phenomenon of examining under a microscope the church a candidate attends. The media made a hubbub over some prior sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor at Barack Obama's former church, so much that Obama had to denounce his former spiritual mentor and friend. Now for some reason it's a big deal that Sarah Palin attended a Pentecostal church, which is led by (yet another) outspoken and controversial minister. It became such a huge issue that Wasilla Assembly of God shut down the part of their website that archived the pastor's past messages.
Pastor Moon- please tone down your sermons, because they could affect the political aspirations of our congregation
members.
Sure, these lost sermons would MAYBE tell you what the majority of the congregation at that church believes, but what would it say about Palin herself? Personally, I've been to GMM for almost 8 years now, but I disagree with plenty of Pastor Moon's beliefs (I cringe every time he mentions gay marriage from the pulpit). I would like to think that people attend a church not so they can nod in agreement in unison with the pastor and his entire congregation, but perhaps because they share a common vision, or because that church is a place that enables them to effectively worship God.
Of course I'm being naive.
As a matter of fact, people attend their particular church for lots of reasons, like convenience, or friends, or charismatic leadership, or familiarity, so the beliefs of the head of the church someone attends can in fact say very little about what a person actually believes. One church, two church, red church, blue church- tell me instead what the candidate is doing at church. Are they a consumer Christian, content to let themselves be "fed", enjoy the company of others, ok-see-you-next-Sunday? Or are they involved in the body, serving its needs, contributing to its mission, ask-not-what-your-church-can-do-for-you-but-what-you-can-do-for-your-church? America has plenty of church-goers: almost 2/3rds of Americans claim they frequently attend church. What I'd rather have is a church-doer.
Anyways.
People like to point out as examples of good political leadership those great biblical rulers like King David or the Judges that led Israel into times of peace and prosperity. Dare I claim low sample size? In any case these were Elect people leading the Elect Nation of God. Hopefully we wouldn't have a president with the audacity to claim the same for the US today. Remember what I said about the Founding Fathers? America is not a Christian nation founded on Christian virtues! Heck, we used to think that black slaves counted as 3/5ths of a person.
If you pay close attention to the Bible, what brought good to the nation of Israel wasn't that they had a leader who was a Godly person who did Godly things. It wasn't even that everyone in the nation decided that collectively, they would be Godly people who did Godly things. It always began with individuals crying out to God, in humility and repentance- God I am a sinner! I've done terrible things! I do terrible things all the time! There are people all around me who do terrible things, but I'm more terrible because I know better! Forgive me!
What candidate would dare say that?
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| http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/notebook?page=notebook/onthemark0901
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3562873
"About an hour before Duke kicked off against James Madison at Wallace
Wade Stadium on Saturday, two men jumped out of an airplane and
parachuted into the stadium to deliver the game ball. One problem: The
men were supposed to jump in North Carolina's Kenan Stadium, which was
about eight miles away. The men quickly ran off the field at Wallace
Wade Stadium when they realized their mistake and never made it to
North Carolina."
"UNC assistant athletics director for promotions Michael Beale told the
Observer that the plane had decided to cancel the jump into Kenan
Stadium due to bad weather. A break in the clouds, however, revealed a
stadium and the jumpers made their leap after all. They didn't realize
that they were over the wrong stadium until it was too late."
Fail.
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| Sarah PalinI don't understand why, when your major criticism of Obama is that he lacks sufficient political experience, you would then pick a VP candidate with less than 2 years of political experience.
Oh wait I know why.
The FIRST time I heard Sarah Palin's name being tossed around as a
candidate for
VP was literally this morning. But as soon as I heard the word "Sarah", I
somehow knew you would pick her as the nominee. Why? Because "Sarah" means that the
person has a vagina, and it made way too much political sense to
have a woman on your Republican ticket.
You're obviously continuing your campaign to sway disaffected woman voters and former Hillary supporters who are still sour over losing the primary (mostly because Hillary's campaign manager was a flaming idiot, but I digress). You've decided that those voters are JUST spiteful enough to elect someone ideologically and politically different from what their original candidate stood for, JUST to "send a message" to... someone... about how displeased they are.
And the sad thing is?
ITS GOING TO WORK.
FOUR MORE FUCKING YEARS.
goddamn.
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| I'm kinda pretty
and pretty damn smart
I like romantic things like music and art
and as you know I have a gigantic heart
so whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy dontIhaveaboyfriend?!
Fuck!
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| http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2534499/Beijing-Olympic-2008-opening-ceremony-giant-firework-footprints-faked.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/12/AR2008081201567.html?hpid=topnews
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/columns/story?id=3535638
The Chinese government is more fake than a Korean pop star.
In other news, I don't care about the medal count, because half of them are in pseudo-sports like synchronized diving, shooting, and rhythmic gymnastics. Ok sure they take strength, stamina, and agility- my WoW character has all those attributes and you don't see me clamoring for a medal.
All I care about is that we re-take our rightful place on top of the basketball universe. It irritates me to no end how the US invented the sport, but the "International" rules are so different from the NBA's.
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