I too agree with the separation of Church and State. So why does Pelosi and Biden continually bring up religion in politics?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-09-10-biden-abortion_N.htm

Kinda of funny, on the tragic 9-11 memorial there is absolutely no mention of it on this left wing progressive socialist democrat site other than a plug against religion.

So how do you people commemorate 9-11? Flag burning? Burn of effigy of Bu$h/Chenney? Spit on a soldier? Think up new ways to trash Palin?

Pathetic.

Don't forget that 35% of Democrats think that Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance.

The spin is that the poll question was ambiguous, however, Micheal Moore efforts seem to have paid off with Dems thinking "Bush Knew".

Don't forget Senator Durbin (Democrat, Illinois) insinuated that our troops acted like Nazi thugs on the Senate floor and Kerry (Democrat, Mass. and 2004 DNC Presidential Nominee) insinuate our troops terrorize Iraqi women and children. But, remember "we support the troops!"

Durbin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7FaSEQ-fKc

Kerry: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/face_120405.pdf

There are endless other's.

<hr/>

Back on topic: What if one's Religion IS the DNC Party, what then?

Thanks for the tip about 9/11. I forgot about it, just as all of us left wing progressive socialists did about three minutes after Bush and Cheney bombed the World Trade Center. We've been so busy burning flags and effigies that we forgot to spit on a soldier, though, so thanks for the reminder.

Palin is so smart and knowledgeable that it's hard to think of any bad things to say about her. Maybe we should just repeat the bad things you say about Obama. Did you know Palin is a secret Muslim? She wants to teach kindergardners how to give blow jobs, too.

You Republicans sure are good at debate.

Hey Steve-o, the better question would be "how do republicans celebrate 9/11?"

If you could pry yourself away from Lars long enough to actual do a little homework, you would know:

McCain voted against the Webb amendment calling for adequate troop rest between deployments.

McCain voted against an amendment that would provide $20 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for health care facilities.

McCain voted against increasing Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes.

McCain voted to table an amendment by Senator Dodd that called for an additional $322,000,000 for safety equipment for United States forces in Iraq.

McCain urged other Senate members to table a vote (which never passed) to provide more than $1 billion for National Guard and Reserve equipment in Iraq related to a shortage of helmets, tents, bullet-proof inserts, and tactical vests.

McCain voted against increasing the amount available for medical care for veterans by $650,000,000.

As opposed to what Obama did in the Senate for Veterans?

13 addressed the Needs of Veterans and the Armed Forces:

• Improve Benefits (117)
• Suicide prevention (479)
• Needs of homeless veterans (1180)
• Homes for veterans (1084)
• GI Bill enhancement (43)
• Military job protection
• Dignity in care for wounded vets (713)
• Housing assistance for low income veterans (1084)
• Military children in public schools (2151)
• Military eye injury research and care (1999)
• Research physical/mental health needs from Iraq War (1271)
• Proper administration of discharge for personality disorder (1817, 1885)
• Security of personal data of veterans (3592)

Senator Obama has sponsored or co-sponsored 570 bills in the 109th and 110th Congress.

Senator Obama has sponsored or co-sponsored 15 bills that have become LAW since he joined the Senate in 2005.

Senator Obama has also introduced amendments to 50 bills, of which 16 were adopted by the Senate.

His record is in fact quite impressive for a junior Senator from Illinois.

Most of his legislative effort has been in the areas of:

• Energy Efficiency and Climate Change (25 bills)
• Health care (21 bills) and public health (20 bills)
• Consumer protection/labor (14 bills)
• The needs of Veterans and the Armed Forces (13 bills)
• Congressional Ethics and Accountability (12 bills)
• Foreign Policy (10 bills)
• Voting and Elections (9 bills)
• Education (7 bills)
• Hurricane Katrina Relief (6)
• The Environment (5 bills)
• Homeland Security (4 bills)
• Discrimination (4 bills)

But that's OK Steve-o, you just go on blathering away - the Dems have real work to do.

What if all churches had to pay property taxes as well as state income tax on all the revenue (other than donations) they receive? I bet that alone would pay for single-payer healthcare.

And why is it that only those churches targeted by the Justice Department for violating the seperation of church and state during the 2004 presidential election were deemed "progressive" churches?

Jeff Alworth asked, "...one question: why the hell aren't Dems running on single-payer health care? It's the ultimate wedge issue and would probably be the poltical bonanza for the Dems in '08 what Social Security was for them in the 30s."

The same answer to the question, "Why did Obama change his position on NAFTA even though it could cost him the election?"

Isn't it clear that DP elites would rather lose the election than to challenge their corporate brethren?

Damn, I'm so confused. I'm don't know if I should be marching around with a flag pin on my FDNY uniform, putting lipstick on pigs, or writing up some "analysis" to post on Portland Indymedia about the ways the Democratic Party plotted to blow up the Twin Towers amd lose a string of elections.

Mr. Walls said, "Damn, I'm so confused."

We finally agree.

To my mind the issues are narrower, having to do with the government acting in ways that tend to establish religion (e.g. enforced school prayer), imposing particular religious doctrines as public policy, and the relationship between public provision of social services and religious organizations as providers of such services.

YES!! Thank you, Mr. Lowe. The issue is NOT whether society ought to be secular.

But public policy should be informed by moral and ethical values, and for better or worse, for most people in the U.S., that involves religion.

Again, bang on. Unfortunately, for some religious folks, the very idea of morals and ethics NOT informed by religion (and not handed down by a higher power) is absurd.

Mr. Kershner, if I ever become so cocksure of myself as you, so convinced of my fundamental rightness and righteousness, and of the fundamental wrongness and venality of everyone who disagrees, then I'm going to hope for an intervention from people who care.

Jeff- there's a huge difference between universal health care and "single payer".

McCain is an old man who's trying to get some momentum. His choice of Palin was to grab the religious right, which was key to how Dubya usurped of power. But old men are often unable to keep up with trends. The religion in politics experiment is failing. He's riding the receding tide. He may have recently gotten higher up the beach, but it is still receding.

What Americans may be finding, in our very diverse religious environment, is that all Christians are not alike, no matter how emphatic some may decry that they are non-denominational.

It can just as easily be said the non-denominational are anti-denominational as the proposition that they have no conflict with other interpretations of their faith diminishes the proposition that one faith might have that they are more faithful to a tradition they deem holy. The non-denominational generally believe those traditions are somehow less then holy, or meaningful.

As noted above, government has not shown equal favor to all faith-based movements. It seems to be distributed to the churches that support the Adminstration. I believe we do not realize the extent to which the pulpits have been coopted into supporting the Republican ambitions, but I have seen the TV reports of how trailers were parked in the lots of some churches for the people to view multimedia presentations of the Republican campaigns.

A selected segment of the chuches received this special attention, or agreed to allow it, but the majority of chuches were not involved, and they probably are now waking up to the truth of the matter, that this Administration finds some churches more christian then others. I actually heard one representative challenging the "orthodoxy" of another. As someone raised as an Orthodox Christian, I was appauled. It was as though the speaker had no clue that Christianity came from the Middle East and is not an American-made faith. Although he had made his own faith American.

Progressives in the blogosphere tend to be secularists. They tend to not even understand the question about religion and politics because they don't have a working knowledge of religious denominations and their history and teaching. It's one thing to use government to impose religious beliefs and doctrines on others. It's another to bring religiously inspired values and ideas into politics and the advocacy of public policy. It's important not to confuse the two. Many people are progressive in their outlook because of their religious outlook. The speeches of Martin Luther King that inspired policy in civil rights and social justice are framed in the Christian tradition of the Hebrew and New Testament Scriptures. The social policies of Hillary Clinton are inspired by the social gospel of the United Methodist Church. The Fabian Socialism of England was inspired by in large part by the social justice movements of Christian Evangelicals. You can't ignore that.

What is different about some sectors of the religious right, is an historical revisionism that tries to state that the founding fathers intended a theocracy of sorts, when in truth the founding fathers and earliest European settlers of this country had been fleeing the historical effects of the 100 years war and the various religious wars and persecutions in Europe. The secularist progressive has frequently developed an antipathy toward Christianity equating it with the fundamentalist aberration that we see on the religious right, which is a relatively new development in our history coming out of the anti-modernism and xenophobia of the late 19th and early 20th century in the U.S. If people in the blogsphere want to talk about religion and politics, then inform yourselves first.

We all get to talk about religion and politics whether we are informed or not. The truth can be seen without complete information some times. It is absurd to draw a conlusion, based on the tendencies of progressive bloggers, that they are not informed. We're the educated ones and we probably are. But the truth of the matter is, we are entitled to be in the discussion reagrdless of whether we are informed or not. Information is 95% opinion anyway.

@ Gregor

So in other words, uninformed opinion is what matters. Well I suppose that's the bulk of the blogosphere and talk radio. Which means that most of it is worthless bloviating.

Surveys have been done on Daily Kos and Americablog and 2/3 to 3/4 of the users are secularists so I was trying not to base my assertion on uninformed opinion.

One reason why the advocates on the left (and I consider myself of the left) get marginalized is because they don't care to inform themselves and simply react out of their own prejudices to people of religion, which makes them ineffective and marginalizes them.

So people on the left may go ahead and bloviate their uninformed opinion and prejudices and continue to marginalize themselves, if that's what brings satisfaction. And as a consequence they will continue to lose elections.

Bill R. wrote, "So in other words, uninformed opinion is what matters."

In my words, uninformed opinion should not be dismissed out of hand. That's prejudice. People on the left get marginalized by people on the right. Marginalization is an action the right takes to protect themselves from uncomfortable discourse that questions their faith, or challenges the powers that be.

You are spot on when you say, "Well I suppose that's the bulk of the blogosphere and talk radio. Which means that most of it is worthless bloviating." It may take a full hour of someone's ranting before one hears a single decent observation or conclusion, so I keep listening. I think we ought to put TV on the list with blogosphere and talk radio.

Back to the topic of the post...thanks to Bill R. for his useful comments about the role of religion in thinking about social issues. I regard religion as no less deserving of criticism than any other social phenomenon ("criticism" meaning in the sense of "careful consideration"). Unfortunately, in this society, religion is most commonly treated either with contempt or with kid gloves. If the only question that one can safely ask another person about his religion is along the lines of "what do you believe?", then I'd say we're not being terribly grown up about the topic.

"When our elected representatives are sworn in, they place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution, they do NOT put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible!"

-Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law professor from American University

@Jeff I wish that you were representative of the blogosphere. I have been both a Buddhist(Zen) and a Christian. The overwhelming number of comments I see from posters is aggressively hostile to any sort of organized religion. The surveys that I referenced I believe are accurate. As soon as these posters see any reference to anything religious, it's like a red flag in front of a bull, especially if it's Christian. There doesn't seem to be a willingness on the part of many to make the distinctions I refer to and to associate all Christians with the religious right. I just wish many posters would confront their own stereotyping and learn a little.

A small point, Jeff. In your last sentence you state that "they drifted away from their beliefs." It would seem that they drifting implies a lack of intent, carried by the wind, so to speak, and their beliefes suggests ownership. While I would not put words in your mouth, I would suggest that these secularists no longer felt their beliefs were in accordance with the religion in which they had been involved. They simply left that particular community.

Gregor said, "McCain is an old man who's trying to get some momentum...But old men are often unable to keep up with trends."

McCain is one of the worst presidential candidates in my lifetime based on his positions on issues and his apparent ignorance and stupidity. This continuing ageist bigotry is insufferable, however, and I wonder why others are not equally outraged.

I am not one who would challenge Obama on the basis of his relative youth, although I could reasonably claim that the more life "experience" one has, the more qualified a person is to be president.

I recommend that BO posters who agree with Gregor and other ageist bigots think about the relevance of the ages of past presidents to their failure to end our policies of racist, imperialist, corporatist dominance over much of the world. If you decide that age is so important, then maybe you need to amend what's left of the Constitution to say that only a person between the ages of 50 (not too young) and 70 (not too old) should be allowed to run for president.

@ Jeff

"Christians seem to have a chip on their shoulder as if they're somehow an oppressed minority. ..Combine the martyrdom with the aggressive black/white worldview and the belief that non-believers are not only going to hell, but are active agents of satan, and it's hard to imagine them to respond in any way but with bitterness."

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Jeff, this statement points to your own sterotyping. The description you give here describes the behavior and doctrinal outlook of a small group of fundamentalist Christians and attributes it to all Christians. It suggests to me you are misinformed about who Christians are in their diversity.

There are Buddhists who chant for new cars and cruises to the Caribbean. There are Buddhists in Sri Lanka who want to annihilate the Tamil people and oppose the peace process. Buddhists throughout the East believe women are inferior and can only attain to enlightenment when they are reborn as a male. The monastic rule of Theravadin Budddhist monks, the Vinaya, is highly misogynistic, and states that monks who touch a woman are tainted, even if by accident. Women are never allowed an equal standing in the Asian Sanghas.

As someone who has studied and practiced Buddhism I understand these people do not represent the essence of Buddhism. I wish that you might also find a way to liberate yourself from stereotyping about Christians. The Christians I know are mostly in favor of social justice, gay rights, and opposed to war. They have a universalist approach to spiritual theology. This is not unusual for those of the progressive side of Protestant and Roman Catholic practitioners. So try getting past some of your own stereotyping and inform yourself.As a Buddhist you might not appreciate someone projecting unfair stereotypes on your spiritual path.

Geez, Harry. Ageist bigot! That's harsh, but there is a thread in your accusation that I need to admit is right. I was slamming him for being old. That was wrong of me. But really, in this context, the "old" thing was meant to be related to how parents are older then they're children and don't appreciate their music. It's not necessarily for seniors. If you found it offensive that I referenced age, I am sorry for offending you.

Let me just state that, regardless of any reference to age, McCain is not keeping up. He has not entered the 21st century. By his own admission, he does not even know how to e-mail and, from his wife's anecdotes, he seems to find it an annoyance, probably from lack of understanding or experience. He sounds like Archie Bunker! [Okay, now I have dated myself.]

Truth be told, we just bought out first personal computer. It's not even a laptop, I'm that far behind. But even worse, I do not own a cell phone and, grumble, grumble, I don't really want one. But I'm not running for POTUS [<--okay, guess I caught up a little with that one!] Whoever does I expect to be up to date on technology, especially in the age of the web. This media is changing the world rapidly. The world has changed already and John McCannibal doesn't even have a clue.

Harry, you are right. It's his own personal shortcoming and I should not have related it to age. I shoud not have related it to anything. On its face, he's just not aware of the world in which he lives and, much like Sarah Palin, he doe snot think that should in anyway disqualify him from being the one to run it.

Gregor: Good for you that you're able to admit to your bigotry, and that you're able to apologize.

I was not just commenting on your post, however. There has been a concerted effort among DP elites to attack McCain and Nader for their age, and it should be no more acceptable than any other form of bigotry.

Furthermore, although I was in the right place at the right time when I received computer instruction, I see no reason to suppose that a lack of internet sophistication should in itself disqualify anyone from office. McCain would be a terrible president even if he became completely computer literate. Obama's computer skills have not kept him from turning his back on the Constitution or from threatening Iran with nuclear annihilation.