Obama on Religion

[barking_iguana]

Via Eric Vieth at Dangerous Intersections, via Reddit

Given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians within our borders, who’s Christianity would we teach in the schools? James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Levitacus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage so radical that it’s doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application?

This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

This should be nearly universal sense, at least among those with enough interest to be politically active, but it isn't.

Also, it should be old news that Obama has this sense and can express it more than most anyone out there, but I've seen his positions misrepresented. When he points to effective American rhetoric, such as that of Lincoln and King, and says that those ideas were expressed in religions terms—and that they had to have been expressed in religious terms—Obama is right. As the senator says explicitly, it was often religion (despite my conclusion that religion is built on a foundation of vacuum) that led the speakers to their positions. But also (though this he doesn't say explicitly) to most Americans, the language of religion is the language of morality; one cannot invoke one without using the language of the other. At least not if one wants to reach a general audience and have resonance.

But at the same time (literally, as it's in the same speech that chemoeletric and others so objected to) Obama says

I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology - that can be dangerous. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith. As Jim has mentioned, some politicians come and clap -- off rhythm -- to the choir. We don't need that.

In fact, because I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics, and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without pretending that they're something they're not. They don't need to do that. None of us need to do that.

It's a good speech, as all of his general speeches, the ones he gave before his campaign got going, were. I'm still leaning to Edwards. But one of the jobs of the President is to be the Civics-Teacher-In-Chief. In my 35 years following national politics, I've seen no one else with as much potential to fill that role well.

Comments

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

[I]f I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Okay, then, let’s see him, or anyone else, do it; not talk about it, but do it.

But also (though this he doesn't say explicitly) to most Americans, the language of religion is the language of morality; one cannot invoke one without using the language of the other. At least not if one wants to reach a general audience and have resonance.

Ordinary Americans are not as primitive as it may seem, and talk ethics all the time in non-religious terms, as long as no one tries to insert religion gratuitously into the conversation. For example, once when I served on a criminal jury, twelve of us deliberated for two or three days without inserting ‘God’ at all.

Maybe there are parts of the South where the people don’t work this way; let the ‘Republicans’ have them.

Nevertheless there is no harm in speaking about people’s religions factually, for instance to note that ‘God’ exists, and that ‘God’ exists in every one of us, in a different way for each individual.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

What’s more, at the time I was not yet even an atheist, and had no need of ‘God’ to tell me how to be an American juror.

[avram]

Why do you want to see Obama seek to have abortion re-criminalized?

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Because it floats my boat.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

More seriously, this points straight at something. Dvd once wrote, and it is true for many people, that pro-choice people don’t think an abortion is a good thing to have, but frankly I don’t give a damn, if the abortion is ‘typical’. What bothers me about it is only that it is a serious medical procedure and it is good to avoid serious medical procedures, which can have serious complications; also there may be psychic trauma of some kind, and this is a difficult problem.

So what argument can Obama make? Why does he talk about a thing that seemingly does not exist? Let him show me this argument that cannot be.

The idea that American ‘morality’ has to be in religious terms is another one of those things that can be said and to many people sounds nice, but which in actual life, not talk about American life, is contradicted more often than not. To assert the truth of this falsehood is to fail to see how advanced a people we are, as Americans, and to help keep those same Americans from realizing how advanced they are, and to keep them from learning of their own heritage, wherein the chief ethical document—the Constitution—leaves out religion, except to protect it from the government.

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

I don't actually think Obama wants to recriminalize abortion. I think he was speaking hypothetically.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Of course he was, but he used a sweet-sounding impossibility as an example of what he is after. It doesn’t sound sweet to me, because I know it is nonsense.

There is a more general reason for me to count this as nonsense than just the impossibility of convincing me there is an important problem in aborting a wormlike human embryo-fetus, apart from the danger to the pregnant woman, which is her business and her doctors’. This is my observation that religion-versus-science roughly corresponds with a dichotomy between methods of ‘knowing’: namely, faith versus testing and observation. Obama asks religious people to quit using religious methods of ‘knowing’ when engaged in debates about public policy; if you can get them to do this, fine, but this isn’t making arguments ‘accessible to people of all faiths’; it is asking people to give up their faith by degrees (which in itself is a good thing).

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

Obama asks religious people to quit using religious methods of ‘knowing’ when engaged in debates about public policy; if you can get them to do this, fine, but this isn’t making arguments ‘accessible to people of all faiths’; it is asking people to give up their faith by degrees (which in itself is a good thing).

I think Obama is asking religious people to quit expecting everyone else to use their particular way of 'knowing', not to stop using it themselves. I don't take on someone else's faith if I quote the Bible to prove a point to a Christian. I'm simply using their language to convince them. Obama is asking the religious fanatics to use the universal language of evidence to convince the public, rather than their private language of faith. What they think in the privacy of their own brain is irrelevant, except as it's revealed in their words and actions.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

There is no translation of language from ‘faith’ to ‘science’. If this is what Obama asks for, let him publish the method by which to do the translation—at which he will fail. Neither can the language of ‘science’ be translated, in general, into the language of ‘faith’. There are a few exceptions—for example, when I say ‘God’ exists within us, which is scientifically true and at the same time overlaps with some religious beliefs, but it is not possible in general.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Does anyone want to do Barack Obama a favor and give the translation, into a form accessible regardless of faith or non-belief, the following: ‘Abortion is murder in the eyes of the Lord’.

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

You're so insistent on missing the point that there's no reason for anyone to try to answer this.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Whether a person not myself can do it or not has nothing to do with whether or not I agree with a point. It is a non sequitur.