by Daniel Pipes, in a major article, Obama’s Muslim Childhood, published by the Washington Times, does a major service to the truth by putting his name behind it.
He concludes:
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Discovering the Truth
In conclusion, available evidence suggests that Obama was born and raised a Muslim and retained a Muslim identity until his late 20s. Child to a line of Muslim males, given a Muslim name, registered as a Muslim in two Indonesian schools, he read Koran in religion class, still recites the Islamic declaration of faith, and speaks to Muslim audiences like a fellow believer. Between his non-practicing Muslim father, his Muslim stepfather, and his four years of living in a Muslim milieu, he was both seen by others and saw himself as a Muslim.
This is not to say that he was a practicing Muslim or that he remains a Muslim today, much less an Islamist, nor that his Muslim background significantly influences his political outlook (which, in fact, is typical of an American leftist). Nor is there a problem about his converting from Islam to Christianity. The issue is Obama’s having specifically and repeatedly lied about his Muslim identity. More than any other single deception, Obama’s treatment of his own religious background exposes his moral failings.
Questions about Obama’s Truthfulness
Yet, these failings remain largely unknown to the American electorate. Consider the contrast of his case and that of James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces. Both Frey and Obama wrote inaccurate memoirs that Oprah Winfrey endorsed and rose to #1 on the non-fiction bestseller list. When Frey’s literary deceptions about his own drug taking and criminality became apparent, Winfrey tore viciously into him, a library reclassified his book as fiction, and the publisher offered a refund to customers who felt deceived.
In contrast, Obama’s falsehoods are blithely excused; Arnold Rampersad, professor of English at Stanford University who teaches autobiography, admiringly called Dreams “so full of clever tricks—inventions for literary effect—that I was taken aback, even astonished. But make no mistake, these are simply the tricks that art trades in, and out of these tricks is supposed to come our realization of truth.” Gerald Early, professor of English literature and African-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, goes further: “It really doesn’t matter if he made up stuff. … I don’t think it much matters whether Barack Obama has told the absolute truth in Dreams From My Father. What’s important is how he wanted to construct his life.”
How odd that a lowlife’s story about his sordid activities inspires high moral standards while the U.S. president’s autobiography gets a pass. Tricky Dick, move over for Bogus Barry.
@ catarin:
There will always be ‘groups of people’ prepared to believe anything and everything about Jesus. So?
If the doctrine of the Virgin Birth represents a historical fact, Catarin, then Jesus had no capability to father children — because he would have had only HALF the number of chromosomes (those from his mother) that are had by the rest of us, who were conceived & born in the usual way.
Moreover (and again, IF the Virgin Birth account is accurate), then Jesus was not born of the lineage of Original Sin, and would have thus had no need to reproduce himself — since Original Sin [viz., in its original understanding] meant, among other things, the loss of immortality — which loss generated the consequent need to reproduce (offspring constituting the nearest physical equivalent to immortality).
Accordingly, a virgin-born Jesus would have had no need for sex
— and, given the cosmic economy of nature, no overriding DESIRE for it either.
Bottom line:
If the Virgin Birth is true, then Jesus had no wife.
If the Virgin Birth is NOT true, then there’s nothing special or extraordinary about Jesus
— he’s just another first-century Jew who had a way with words
In which case, who gives a shrying shtup whether Jesus was, or wasn’t, ‘married’?!
Assuming the “Big Bang” is a fact.
— That’s yet to be established; thus far, it remains a commonly held hypothesis (not even a theory).
Agree with Catarin. This is why the GOP is a no hoper. Obama is a muslim..as if that has any bearing on what people want.
To those of you who are determined to make a Muslim out of Obama, you sure are determined to misrepresent the facts. This information comes from the Washington Post. Obama attended St Francis of Assisi Catholic school for grades 1-3. On the registration form his father’s religion was indicated as Muslim. I don’t think a first grader would seek a correction, probably because it was his mother registering him and this caused her no alarm. He attended part of a year at Busuki school, which was government sponsored and educated many of the children of foreign officials. It did have a mosque. Christian and Muslim students attended Islamic classes there, but I wonder how much of the Indonesian language he could understand. He was a typical kid in class–he horsed around a lot. I would guess Obama knew more about the Catholic religion than he did about the Islamic religion. Under ordinary circumstances his early education would be a plus.
Now I see I spelled hieroglyphics wrong in the above post. Sorry.
@ yamit82:
To Yamit’s tales I can add there was an ancient time when Jews and Arabs drank and had meals together. Sometime before the common era, Jews and Arabs joined up to fight a common enemy. And before the troubles began many Jews and Arabs were friends and worked together.
This looks like a good place to insert some news:
After 40 years the University of Chicago has completed a dictionary on the Egyptian Demotic language of ancient times.
While the Pharaohs wrote in Hyroglyphs, this language was of the common people who kept records of taxes and transactions and other events. The Greeks named it Demotic, coming from demo, the people. It was also on the Rosetta Stone, along with Greek and Hyroglyphics, which made the dictionary easier to assemble. Very few Demotic scripts have been translated, which means there is a huge amount of scripts to be worked on, and maybe, just maybe, there may be mentions of the Hebrews in them.
A researcher from Harvard has come into possession of papyri written by southern Egyptian Christian Copts from the 4th century CE that says Jesus had a wife. More research needs to be done but some scholars have authenticated it. The researcher says this doesn’t prove Jesus had a wife, only that there was a group of people who believed he had a wife. What a comeuppance to the Roman Catholic Church this could be. The Gnostic Gospels written by the Copts were discovered buried in Egypt in the 1940s. The Catholic Church thought it had destroyed every copy c. 200 CE.
You know when you’re adjusting a radio you sometimes hear static? Scientists on the History Channel say that is the sound of the Universe moments after the Big Bang.