It is painful to watch

I was watching 60 Minutes last Sunday and there was a man talking about his economic difficulties and how that would impact his selection of a presidential candidate. This fellow said that he was unlikely to vote for Barack Obama because he is a Muslim and would not be sworn in using the bibble. He said that that aspect troubled his deep inside. The point of asking him was to highlight some of the smearing that is occurring in the campaigns.

His words made me grit my teeth in anger at his intolerance. He was subdued about it but does not mask the vile hypocrisy. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe in one of the Ecumenical Councils the bishops decided that anyone who did not profess or adopt xeanity was evil and should be killed. You would think that something this significant would have been recorded somewhere.

Some might say that not all xians are that way but they are wrong. Tolerance certainly does not appear so in the history of xeanity. After all, Constantine the First had to adopt xeanity as the religion of the Roman Empire or the xians would have ripped the place apart. I think that there is a distinction about tolerance. If you enact the philosophy, then tolerance is possible, but not guaranteed. If you join the religion, then you cannot be tolerant. If you were, then you would disagree with all forms of proselytizing, despite it being done for the good of the individual, from the proselytizer's point of view.

This ignorant clown should be happy that Obama has a religious text to hold dear. If he knew anything beyond his third-grade coloring-book education, he would know that izlam shares many aspects of xeanity because they both borrow from the Jewish traditions. Izlam regards Jebus as a prophet, just not as significant as Mohamed, because you have to root for the home team. It should comfort this guy that Obama has drunk some kind Kool-Aid®, even though it is not his own favorite flavor.

Frankly, it does not matter one sliver of a whit if the future president eats hearts out of live babies. Can that person run the country with a fair, unbiased, even hand? Right now it is not. I wish that I could find an editorial that I saw a few years ago that touched on an atheist president. Why is it so bad to have person in that job without a religious filter occluding their vision? The president is not our pastor-in-chief. The president is not our national cleric. The president runs one-third of our government, and our government is not a theocracy.