Comments on: Religion in the Presidential Debates

By: Avi Chapman

Avi Chapman — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 03:00:34 +0000

Actually, Obama mentioned it at least once. That was during the final debate. He was responding to a question about how well Biden would do as President. He concluded with something to the effect of ‘…he would do quite well if something, God-forbid, happened to me.’

By: Aditya

Aditya — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:07:11 +0000

It really is unfortunate how much religion has become a big thing in the US, and how important candidates’ religiosity is. I’m thankful that this hasn’t been an issue in Canada (although the fact that the country seems to be able to be led astray by conservatism is equally annoying) – this is a step in the right direction for the USA, although I must wonder as to how much support McCain would lose if he follows the “religion is a private matter” thing through to its conclusion.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 22:33:16 +0000

Personally, I think this is a strong argument for having a similar forum in four years. It gets all the God out of the way. Then, we can move on to topics that actually matter during the real debates.

I disagree 100%. The point is that “God” shouldn’t be in the way. Period.

As you quoted in an earlier post, “the best way to hurt the Republicans was to form a group called Atheists for McCain.”.

This shouldn’t be the case. But as long as forums like Saddleback are still around, it will be.

By: Loren Petrich

Loren Petrich — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:55:29 +0000

And it’s lucky that they didn’t probe further into Obama’s beliefs, because if it turned out that he believes in some liberal theology, the fundies and sort-of-fundies would be livid about it.

I mean theology like Martin Luther King’s (he doubted or rejected Jesus Christ’s virgin birth). Or John Haught’s (he once claimed that Jesus Christ’s resurrection was too great an event to be captured by something so crass as a camera). Or Paul Tillich’s (God is the Ground of Being, is being-itself, not a being, and God’s existence can neither be meaningfully asserted or denied). Or John Shelby Spong’s (need I say more?).

Paul Tobin on Liberal-Modernist Theology; he tries to make sense out of Paul Tillich’s views. And John Haught stated his position on JC’s resurrection in his Salon interview.