Aug 21, 2010

Barack Obama's Religion

I just listened to an npr podcast and after listening to it, I'm just curious. So I thought I'd try a little experiment.

What religion is our president?

You don't have to participate. But I'm curious as to what kinds of answers this question would receive amongst my friends and family.

10 comments:

Janell said...

I'm not certain what faith Obama subscribes to, and I honestly don't care about his religious views. I don't understand why so many people on the Internets are so riled up. :\

Unknown said...

yeah... it's interesting, isn't it.

Putz said...

i know for a fact that he is a christian

merrilykaroly said...

Protestant of some kind? Baptist?

Unknown said...

Yeah... that's right. (hop nobody else reads these before responding so I don't ruin it all! Haha.)

B.O. says he's Christian and went to a church called Trinity. He's a seldom-attender these days, according to newsy type people.

For some reason a lot of people think he's Muslim, and I'm wondering why. Not that I object to the idea of a Muslim president, just that I wonder if it all stems from talk radio/rightish news stations or if there's some basis behind some people's reasons?

Donnell Allan said...

Yeah. There are two sickening aspects to this whole matter. (1) that he is "accused" of being a Muslim and (2) that being a Muslim is a deemed a terrible thing to be accused of. It's a sad commentary on the attitudes of many Americans, I'm afraid.

Mr. Bigg said...

He is our president. Enough said!

Unknown said...

btw... I hope nobody thinks that, in posting this, I'm trying to start some kind of debate. I'm not. I'm simply curious. I already know that my gradmother who doesn't blog is pretty sure Obama's a Muslim. And I know my mother-in-law might also feel this way, though in general she's more of the illuminati persuasion (that 7 families rule the world and anyone not a part of them are their puppets).

This is pure curiosity.

Josh said...

I think one of the reasons people give that he is Muslim is that his dad was Muslim. Another reason is that people claim he has called himself a Muslim in the past.

Either way it really doesn't matter. I think some people want to know his religious beliefs because they think being Muslim is a terrible or dangerous thing for America and others want to know just to know.

I think most people just want to know more about who their president is to get an idea of how he thinks. But honestly I don't really know or really care at this point.

Obama doesn't appear to be a very religious man no matter what religion he prescribes to. (But I may have come to that conclusion falsely) Does his strong/weak religiousness matter, not really. Especially if he upholds the first amendment.

Unknown said...

I just had an interesting thought, after reading Josh's response to this.

I wonder if "Muslim" is like "Jewish" in that, if you're born it, you are it. There's a cultural aspect that is almost stronger and more pungent than the religious aspect of it... it's almost like a racial designation.

And his wife is most definitely hard-core protestant, her family is. B.O probably was raised that way,too, when he was living in America, by his southern Ma. :)

So maybe he's both in a sense.

Would it bother people (some of you) or I guess I should say, DOES it bother you that our president has Muslim ties, at least.