I agree to some extent, as I has stated in previous blogs, that I am someone cynical about the idea of any politician being able to change or reform much of anything in Washington. See here and here.

As far as raising taxes on the upper income percentages of working households, you can see my statements about that here. There are some things that Senator Obama proposes that I am not 100% on board for, but I quite like several of his plans as well. I could not, in good conscience, vote for McCain, especially not now that Palin is on board. I wouldn’t have voted for him before, but now, I feel that I should do all I can to keep them out of office. :)

From the video portion of the speech I gave, he was speaking only to the religious/Christian crowd, and did include the New Testament in the point of “which part of the Bible should we use to guide our public policies?” bit. The point behind that is, of course, that the Bible is open to interpretation. One sect may take it all 100% literally, another make take it all as figurative language and simply use it as a guide book. If we actually tried to base public policy on the Bible alone, or Christianity alone, it would be quite a folly. As Senator Obama stated in his speech, he lives by the values of his faith, but urges that we should make our public policy decisions, those decisions that effect people from all faiths or lack thereof, by logical means. Make those decisions based on the universal values we all agree on, not those that are just outlined in a particular holy book.

As an example, if you think eating pork is wrong, being Jewish or Muslim live it in your day to day life, be the best Jew or Muslim you can be, but it wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the populace to try to pass legislation banning pork.

If you happen to be Pentecostal and think all women should wear dresses, would it be right and good to try to force the rest of the women who do not think that way to start wearing them? Of course not.

This extends to many social issues that end up being hot button items in elections.

The fact is, that pushing a legislation because “the Bible say it’s right/wrong” is errant. It’s not fair, and it’s not right. If logic determines that whatever you are wanting to legislate is actually right or wrong, as in, said thing is either harmful or beneficial on a basic, human level for everyone regardless of belief, then by all means, that is perfectly fine to push. Due to how our laws are written and haven’t been changed, nor will be changed IMO in my lifetime, I don’t see our government rescinding seperation of church in state, in that the government is making religious decisions for the people. There are some laws that people find offensive to their religion, but there are caveats in any system. Take for example the need for people who wear head scarves because of religion. They might feel that the government is infringing on religion by making them remove the scarf for a driver’s license photo. While it might be against their religion, identification has been deemed as important in this country, for security and safety reasons. Thus, in order to live and function in this society, I feel that they should have to remove any face coverings for the photo. This is just an example, but you see where I am going with that.

People use gay marriage often as an example of something they feel is wrong based on religion. If the government legalizes gay marriage, that doesn’t mean they are going to force every male to have a sexual relationship with another male. They may see it on TV, or see gay parents at PTA meetings, but no one is forcing them to BE gay, any more that my aforementioned lack of legislation banning pork products. A Jewish person might have to see a McRib advertised, but no one is shoving a rack of ribs down their throat.

If you haven’t already, I would encourage you to read the first part of the speech, which I couldn’t find a video for, but I provided a link to in my blog. The first half of Senator Obama’s speech was directed at progressives who think religion has little or no value and has no place in government at all. It stepped on my toes a little bit, but it gave me a lot to think about where faith and politics are concerned.

Obama ‘08!
:)

In my opinion, he is largely a talker of politics and nothing is going to change under him, especially with even more spending and even more taxes.

However, that doesn’t get me going nearly as much as these sorts of speeches. For one example: contorting Christianity by quoting the Old Testament is ridiculous. Christianity = teaching of Christ. The new testament is a new covenant. He could have been talking about the Jewish… but not Christians.

He seems to try to share the mockery of Christians and standard, acceptable ethics that the latest generations revel in trying to go against. They want to “buck the system” soooo badly, just because they can’t stand any sort of restrictions, any responsibility for their actions, and any control over themselves. It’s a “blame him, sue her” country, or at least this general mindset is what is leading us further in that direction. Bastardization of culturally-accepted ethics and morality is what is causing this- AND the majority of the division/strife going on now.