There is nothing at all about faith that says it cannot be insane. I.e., something can both be faith and be insane (OBL being a very relevant example of that). They are not exclusive of one another. This is someone who wants to mix politics with faith, and that should never be left alone. Its not "to each her own when her fundamentalist style of faith has a potential effect on the whole world. It becomes my business due to her wish to have power.

If she was not a pentecostal, not an evangelical end times believer, and she kept her faith personal - well sure that would be none of my business. But that is not who she is, so it is everybody's business.


And i will continue to begrudge this woman regardless. She is incredibly dangerous.

Andrew

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“...corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

-- Derrick Jensen

Not just a christian. Obama is a christian, but he is not a fundamentalist end-times believer. There is a difference - or so many moderate Christians have tried to explain to me...


Andrew

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“...corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

-- Derrick Jensen

I do. If Obama ever insinuates that god is blessing the insane violence of something like shock & awe i will be the first to call him a friggin' lunatic.

Andrew

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“...corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

-- Derrick Jensen

Can someone on the right help me out with this one? How is it that the largest religious group in the country, Christians, are so easily "persecuted" in this country. Are we so far removed from our not so distant past that we've forgotten what systematic persecution of a disenfranchised minority looks like ( I don't just mean racial minorities here btw, gender, economic, religious, ethnic, etc.). Every American President has been Christian. 90% of Congress is Christian, and I bet that's underestimating. Christians have their own media, music, television programming, universities, private schools, not to mention thousands upon thousands of churches across hundreds of denominations.

So how, exactly, have they managed to make themselves the "victims" in American society. When was the last time a Christian lost a job opportunity due to his/her religion. Can we say it's anywhere near commensurate to th enumber of Muslims who have lost out on a job opportunity because of his/her religion? I don't think so. I have no problem with people of faith. What bugs me is this faux victimhood/persecution complex people have. Christianity isn't under attack....from anyone and its place as the pre-eminent religion in this country is entirely unchallenged. So why all the hullaboo. There are people in this country who aren't Christian and they may find it a little creepy when a potential President insinuates that their partisan policies are directly directed by God. I find Obama's "instrument" comments equally wierd. But what Obama has demonstrated is a tolerance for other faiths and value systems I have not seen in any Republican candidate.

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Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president he’ll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys’ network in Washington.' I’m not making this up. This is somebody been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s gonna take on the old boys' network,” he said. “In the McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting!- Obama, 9/17/2008

Show me one media outlet that is calling Obama a muslim friend or a terrorist...this should be good.

I want to be clear. When you say "they" in terms of smears on Sarah Palin do you only mean the words of Obama and his campaign? Or do you include the leftwing blogosphere? If you're including the blogosphere I don't think I have to prove that there are some pretty horrible smears out there about Obama. This is the rub of the hypocrisy of the "media bias" claims. The vast majority of the "smears" are from internet groups like the Daily Kos. Why is Obama responsible for them, but McCain et al are not responsible for the words of Larry Sinclair?

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Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president he’ll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys’ network in Washington.' I’m not making this up. This is somebody been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s gonna take on the old boys' network,” he said. “In the McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting!- Obama, 9/17/2008

HOLD ON A MINUTE: We've got liberal democrats on the floor of the house stating that "Jesus Christ was a community organizer, while Ponchas Pilot was a govenor". All of a sudden religion is important to these democrats, ha.ha.ha.

When it's convenient, the far out-left-wingers of the democrat party "uses" religion when it's to their benefit."

Any other time, it's time to take down the religious statues, it's time to take the words out of the "pledge of alligiance" it's time to trash our tradition, & our Christian upbringing.

But when Barack Obama is fighting for his "politicial" life, hey, "compare him to Jesus Christ."

Being a RC by (and of) convenience, I don't know what an "end-times" Christian is. Please fill me in and then let me know how that applies to Palin (whatever it is).

Don't Republicans do the same thing? By linking their political stances to Christianity they claim that any attack on them is an attack on "faith." There's nothing biblical about alot right wing Republican ideology. At best, it's an interpretation of the bible, no more or less valid than a more liberal interpretation of the Bible. Republicans have been acting. a. fool. politicizing religion in unprecedented ways over the last decade. They actually seem to think that God is so limited as to only back their unrderstanding of him. It's pretty low when you think about it. And pretty anti-Christian if you ask me. Most notably, the notion that God loves the lowest sinner as much as he loves the most faithful, because His love is limitless. So why have the Republicans been allowed to act like God chooses political sides and backs their policies over others. It's jacked up. And saying so isn't an "attack" on faith. It's an attack on the politicization of faith, and that's fair game.

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Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president he’ll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys’ network in Washington.' I’m not making this up. This is somebody been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s gonna take on the old boys' network,” he said. “In the McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting!- Obama, 9/17/2008

Certain Evangelical Protestant sects believe that the "end times" (the Second Coming, etc.) are near at hand. They have certain specific beliefs about how the "end times" will unravel, involving events such as "the Rapture" (the removal of "saved" Christians from the world prior to all kinds of bad shit happening), the coming of the Antichrist, etc.

I actually don't know of anything to indicate that Palin is an end-timer. Not all Evangelicals are equally obsessed with the Apocalypse. But I will say that the reason end-timers in politics are disturbing is that they tend to see events that are potentially devastating in worldly terms as acceptable and even desirable, in that they are signs of the end. It gives people like this a tendency to be more accepting of war and violence than is healthy for the country. Palin in her comments about the troops needing to be on a mission from God is exhibiting a similarly disturbing attitude for a similar reason, whether or not she should be called an end-timer.

Thanks for that. I don't understand that view. That view creeps me out, as a matter of fact. I have too much faith in humanity to take that kind of view to heart.

I see TS has defined 'end times' adequately.

Ill tackle your second question.

Palin was baptized at the Wasilla Assemblies of God when she was 12, and she remained their until 2002, and still worships at an associated church in Juneau. The Pastor at Wasilla is a fanatic about the "end-times".

"He preaches repeatedly about the "end times" or "last days," an apocalyptic prophesy held by a small but vocal group of Christian leaders. During his appearance with Palin in June, he declared, "I believe Alaska is one of the refuge states in the last days, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to the state to seek refuge and the church has to be ready to minister to them..."

"...Kalnins has, of course, preached on a bevy of topics ranging from humility to "overcoming bitterness." But the more controversial remarks reported above were not out of the norm, appearing in numerous sermons spanning the four years of available recordings."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_123205.html

for more reading:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=10167

Sarah Palin and Dominionism

Sarah Palin it appears now, was chosen very carefully as she comes out of the very fundamentalist evangelical circles that the CNP uses to mobilize and shape America’s political agenda.

Palin reportedly drew early attention from state GOP leadership when, during her first mayoral campaign, she ran on an anti-abortion platform. Normally, political parties do not get involved in Alaskan municipal elections because they are nonpartisan. But once word of her evangelical views made its way to Juneau, the state capitol, state Republicans put money behind her campaign. According to researcher, Charley James, "Once in office, Palin set out to build a machine that chewed up anyone who got in her way. The good, Godly Christian turns out to be anything but."

The religious background of Sarah Palin is not unrelated to her bid to take the nation’s second highest office. She herself has been extremely vague about that background. Given the details, it becomes clearer perhaps why.

Sarah Palin has spent more than two and a half decades of her life as a member of an Alaska church which is part of a fanatical Christian-named cult project that is sweeping across America. Palin comes out of the most radical stream of US Born-Again Evangelism known as ‘Joel’s Army,’ an offshoot of what is called Dominionism and sometimes also called the Latter Rain cult or Manifest Sons of God. The movement deliberately attempts to remain below the radar screen.

A Dominionist soldier in McCain’s Army

Sarah Palin is a product of an extreme fringe of the American Evangelical movement known variously as the Third Wave Movement, also known as the New Apostolic Reformation, or as Joel's Army, a part of what is called Dominionism. Until 2002 according to their own website, Palin was a member of Wasilla Assembly of God with Senior Pastor Ed Kalnins. Online video clips of Palin speaking from the pulpit of this church are revealing. Curiously, between the time this article was begun on September 9th and the 11th, the video was removed without explanation:

(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20712.htm.).

But of course one could argue as many did with Obama that a candidate should not be held responsible for the views of their pastors. Fair enough. But at this point i think it is important for Sarah Palin to come out strongly and forcefully against views held by her pastor Ed Kalnins and the church where she grew up. So far she has not done this. And people have the nerve to think she is being unfairly attacked for her religion whereas Obama was essentially forced to disparage and criticize an old friend in public.

I'll lay off on Sarah when she clears this matter up publicly. Until then she is the picture of insanity. Her ties to the extreme right wing christian movement in the US are very creepy.

Andrew

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“...corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

-- Derrick Jensen

Holy Shit! How did these "insane" wackos ever get elected?!?

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Obama Low Effort Wealth Spread. I can't believe it's not earned!

Good point especially since two of the people you mentioned are rated two of our greatest presidents.

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"Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy." -fortune cookie

I don't know, but as soon as they appear on a ballot that I'm voting on, I'll start caring about what they had to say in this regard.

Until that point, quotes from past presidents do nothing to obviate the fact that it is likely Palin holds extremist religious views, and that these might factor in to someone's choice when casting a vote. Like you. Or me, for example.