We've had this discussion before. Please show me where Palin wants to mix religion with government, and don't just blather platitudes. There's nothing wrong with a President who believes in God, or even puts his/her faith in God. You seem to prefer a President who lies about religion (Obama) if and when it's politically expedient. I find it fascinating that you'd prefer a dishonest President to a religious one.
If you could step away from your very personal disdain for Christianity or religion in general, maybe you could be objective about this. So far, you're not.
http://atheism.about.com/od/sarahpalinreligion/tp/SarahPalinReligionScience.htm
When John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his vice-presidential running mate for his presidential campaign, an unusual amount of scrutiny and criticism ensued. This is partly because Sarah Palin was an unexpected choice and partly because Sarah Palin comes with a lot of negative baggage — at least if you support secular government, reason, and science. For the conservative evangelicals, Palin's support for creationism, Christian Nationalism, and religious warfare are most welcome.
1. Sarah Palin's Religion: What Do Sarah Palin's Churches & Pastors Preach?
In principle, the sermons preached in a politician's church shouldn't be a political issue, but religious believers themselves insist on making their religion an issue so those sermons and teachings can't be ignored. If politicians are going to present their religion and religious beliefs to the voting public as part of their qualifications for office, then we should dissect everything taught by their religion and in their churches to see what constitutes the foundations of their worldview.
What Do Sarah Palin's Churches & Pastors Preach?
2. Sarah Palin & Holy War, Religious Crusades
In a speech to high school kids at her church, Sarah Palin said: "Pray...that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [our military men and women] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we are praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." Do we need leaders who believe they are following God's plan when invading other nations, especially Muslim nations? Some say that Palin was merely expressing hope that politicians are following God's will, but shouldn't they follow the will of the people? Either way, Sarah Palin is a politician expressing more interest in obeying what she thinks her god wants than in serving the interests and will of the people she represents.
3. Sarah Palin Supports Censorship and Banning Books
According to former Wasilla mayor John Stein] says that she became mayor, Palin sought to inject her religious beliefs into her policy. For example, some conservative Christians in Wasilla objected to the language in some of the books in the public library, so she "asked the library how she could go about banning books." Librarian Mary Ellen Baker was aghast and apparently was unwilling to support Palin's censorship efforts because news reports from the time say that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor.
4. Sarah Palin & Creationism: Sarah Palin Supports Creationism, Intelligent Design
Can anyone rise to a position of power or influence within the Republican Party without first avowing opposition to basic science in the name of religious ideology and anti-intellectual superstition? That seems unlikely and Sarah Palin, vice-presidential nominee chosen by John McCain, reinforces this impression through her defense of creationism against evolution. Although Palin never had much of a chance to put her desires into practice, we have clear evidence of what she wanted.
Sarah Palin Supports Creationism, Intelligent Design
5. Sarah Palin on Sex Education: Sarah Palin Pushes Abstinence-Only Education
Sarah Palin opposes schools teaching children anything about any form of contraception. In accordance with the 2008 Republican Party platform, she supports only teaching children abstaining from sexual activity, despite acknowledging the fact that "more than 3 million American teenagers contract sexually transmitted diseases" and the need "to help teens make healthy choices." John McCain agrees, voting to increase funding for abstinence-only programs and to cut funding for family planning and teen pregnancy prevention programs. If Sarah Palin wants America to live under abstinence-only rules, it's legitimate to ask how well that's worked out for her family. As it turns out, not so well.
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The Car Wreck that is Sarah Palin and the National Day of Prayer
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/2499/
The following is a slightly altered transcript of Rev. Gaddy’s commentary from an upcoming broadcast of State of Belief.
Originally, I intended to devote my commentary to tributes to
Benjamin Hooks and to
Dorothy Height, admired courageous civil rights leaders who died this past week. Each exemplified the best of efforts aimed at helping our nation move closer to a realization of the full promise of our Constitution. Dr. Height had marched against lynching as a teenager. As she developed as an activist, her vision of freedom was as large as all women, as well as all African Americans. She understood that in this democracy there should be no boundaries around freedom or hierarchies of privilege.
So my plans for today’s commentary changed. Frankly, following the news this past week gave me the sensation of watching a car wreck while holding my breath in anticipation of learning how many people had been, or would be found, injured by the crash.
Enter Sarah Palin, the driver at the wheel of a political vehicle that has catapulted out of control. Obviously Sarah Palin does not know enough about the road of democracy or the rules for driving it.
Frightened people looking for a quick fix for their fears and alleviation of their anxieties are being hurt by a distorted version of American history and a perverted vision of the future. This past week in Louisville, Kentucky, the former governor of Alaska told a crowd, in response to a federal court ruling that a government celebrated National Day of Prayer was
unconstitutional, that “America needs to get back to its Christian roots.”
Sadly, Sarah Palin cannot distinguish between fanciful images of revisionist historians and actual facts documentable in the chronicles of the nation’s archives. She has turned a deaf ear to George Washington who
asserted that “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion,” and to his successor John Adams—who knew the Constitution better than Ms. Palin—when, after signing a treaty with a mostly Muslim nation, repeated Washington’s comment
almost verbatim.
I suppose the popular speaker would have us establish one religion over all others—hers, of course—and subject our nation to the possibility of the kind of violent political wars that were averted here because of the wisdom of our founders. But, of course, she seems to consider guns more friend than weapon as she shouts, “
Reload.”
Palin has thrown what we used to call in West Tennessee “a conniption fit” over the federal judge’s decision that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. While many of us applauded a judge who seems to understand the First Amendment’s religion clauses, some political pontificators and bandwagon religionists rushed to microphones to decry the further moral ruination of the nation.
Setting aside all Constitutional arguments for a moment, I am always suspicious of people who seem not to understand the theology of prayer and who seem preoccupied with support only for prayers that attract public attention rather than prayers offered to God in solitude. Palin said she finds a ruling such as this “mind-boggling.” That is precisely the reaction I have to her alarmist rhetoric that seems sensitive to nothing more than grabbing another headline in her next
high-paying talk.
Palin did get one thing right in her Louisville speech. She said the Founding Fathers were believers. That is a true statement. Many of them were deists, but few of them were Christians by Palin’s narrow evangelical definition. However, the larger truth is that these were people, regardless of their religious identity, who had witnessed the abuse and violence that emerge when institutions of religion and government became entangled.
Palin and her followers represent danger to religion and government. They understand neither the freedom for everybody at the heart of real religion nor the religious freedom assured by the Constitution.
The American people do not need the President of the United States to
tell them when to pray or what to pray for. By definition prayer is personal and volitional. But neither do the American people need Sarah Palin stirring a revolt to get rid of the very principles that have assured efforts to guarantee civil rights to everybody and made our nation great.
It is, indeed, like watching a car wreck that has just happened or is about to happen. It is time for more of us to scream, “Watch out!”
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Want more?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...rfai=C2ZaINvrjTP6TEpPIM4Sc4OgBAAAAqgQFT9C2FIM
Less bright people shouldn't be taken seriously just because they are religious.
Religion doesn't make them any smarter in fact less smart would be more accurate.
