"... On Jan 23, 2:45 pm, Slip Disc <[email protected]> wrote: ..."
> It may have been immensely preferable for you, gruff, but a non > religious ceremony would have sent a stark message which essentially > would have been the wrong message. The ceremony was just another in a > long line of presidential ceremonies. The right thing to do in this > climate of chaos is not to throw a wrench into the workings but to > give people the sense that things are relatively calm. I agree that an inauguration without a religious invocation would have sent the wrong message to the nation, but only because we are such an intensely religious nation. Far more so than any other developed nation, much to my disappointment. I'd prefer this nation be more secular than it is but that is not in my hands to control, though I do my small bit to spread the atheist word. > Radical changes may take place in the future but to use a inaugural ceremony > to make a statement seems to me, bad timing. That segment of the > ceremony was so insignificant and probably forgotten 10 minutes later > by the majority of people. It is no longer a news tidbit in the least > sense and I think it's a dead issue. On this I disagree. This nation elected Obama because radical change was needed from the policies and practices of the Bush regime and while our new President made some radical statements in his address (radical compared with the last eight years anyway), he was not so stupid as to ignore the requirements of a very religious population. If he had not had a religious invocation -- as much as I would have liked it -- it would have been too radical a departure I think and would have continued to be a large issue throughout his term(s) of office. > Personally I doubt > that a man of his intelligence give much thought to god except as a > vehicle for political credibility. Agreed. > I would not be surprised if he is an atheist. That would please me very much indeed but I doubt we'll know for certain until well past his time in office, if ever. It will be a most memorable day when this nation elects its first publicly admitted atheist. > Therefore I would agree with chaz that the choice is not > indicative of Obama's personal views but more so, as politicians go, > indicative of his ability to perform as a top notch politician, none > of which I personally have any use for. I'm not of the mind that all politicians should be tarred with that broad a brush. There are good politicians and bad ones, but politicians are a given. From the very first government any humans ever organized -- probably back in the dark corners of their caves -- there have been politics and politicians. Humans are political animals, always have been and as far as I can see always will be. Politics is part and parcel of our nature and I doubt we could ever separate from it. > First there were the squawking gay proponents and now it's the > squawking atheists. In this type of political arena there will always > be some group that will squawk, no matter what the decisions are. As > it has been said "you can please some of the people some of the time > but you can't please all of the people all of the time". I apologize for any unwarranted squawking I may have committed, but being a political animal I have been known to squawk quite loudly from time to time. <grin> > I hope you are pleased with my post, at least some of it, lol. All of it, my friend, all of it. /e --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
