Thursday, March 06, 2008

Is or was Obama a Muslim?

Search on msn search on obama muslim and this is the first sponsored hit:
Barak Obama Muslim Myth - get the facts
takes you to

http://www.barackobama.com/factcheck/2007/11/12/obama_has_never_been_a_muslim_1.php
"Barack Obama Is Not and Has Never Been a Muslim. Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ. "

but this doesn't square with

"Patrick Sookhdeo, whose writings Chuck discussed on Tuesday, makes an interesting point about why Barack Obama is so reluctant to acknowledge that he was born into a Muslim family, prayed at the local Mosque, attended Muslim schools as a child, participated in weekly religious classes to study the Koran, and was registered as a Muslim when he attended both Roman Catholic and public schools during "

There is no section or web page evidently rebutting whether is is or is not the antichrist, which he has also been accused of being on the internet.

If you ask me, his official campaign statement appears to be misleading if not outright false.

OBAMA IS NOT AND HAS NEVER BEEN A MUSLIM(Headline sounds like am not and have never been a member of the communist party doesn't it?)
Open Letter from Religious Leaders Supporting ObamaLos Angeles Times: The Rumors About Obama Are "False And Vile." The Los Angeles Times wrote in an editorial, "That the rumors are false and vile is self-evident...Presidential candidates of both parties have a duty to denounce not only the smear against Obama but the bigotry that underlies it." [Los Angeles Times, 12/3/07]
Obama Spokesman Robert Gibbs Issued A Statement Explaining That "Senator Obama Has Never Been A Muslim, Was Not Raised As A Muslim, And Is A Committed Christian." "Obama's campaign aides have emphasized his strong Christian beliefs and downplayed any Islamic connection. The Illinois senator was raised 'in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother,’ his chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement in January after false reports began circulating that Obama had attended a radical madrasa, or Koranic school, as a child. 'To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago,’ Gibbs' Jan. 24 statement said." [Los Angeles Times, 3/16/07]
Obama "Beckoning" Felt At Trinity United Church Of Christ, "Submitted Myself To His Will, And Dedicated Myself To Discovering His Truth And Carrying Out His Works." Obama said, "So one Sunday, I put on one of the few clean jackets I had, and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called "The Audacity of Hope." And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life. It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn't fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn't suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works." [Speech, 6/23/07]
Barack Obama Is Not and Has Never Been a Muslim. Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ.
Obama's Step-Father Saw Religion "As Not Particularly Useful," But Followed "A Brand of Islam" That Made Room for Animist and Hindu Faiths. Obama wrote in the Audacity of Hope, "When my mother remarried, it was to an Indonesian with an equally skeptical bent, a man who saw religion as not particularly useful in the practical business of making one's way in the world, and who had grown up in a country that easily blended its Islamic faith with remnants of Hinduism, Buddhism, and ancient animist traditions." Obama wrote in Dreams from My Father, "Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths." [Audacity of Hope, p 204; Dreams From My Father, p 37]
Obama Found Faith During Community Organizing Days. "It was at Trinity United Church of Christ here, in the late 1980s, that Senator Obama says he found religion. Raised in a secular household, with ancestral roots running from Islam to Baptist to atheist, Obama had grown up a skeptic. But Mr. Wright's blend of scripture and social action resonated with Obama, then a young community organizer in black neighborhoods ravaged by steel-mill closings." [Christian Science Monitor, 7/16/07]

September 14, 2007Obama the Apostate? by Anne Morse
Patrick Sookhdeo, whose writings Chuck discussed on Tuesday, makes an interesting point about why Barack Obama is so reluctant to acknowledge that he was born into a Muslim family, prayed at the local Mosque, attended Muslim schools as a child, participated in weekly religious classes to study the Koran, and was registered as a Muslim when he attended both Roman Catholic and public schools during his youth: The danger of violating Islamic apostasy laws.
Sookhdeo--himself a Muslim convert to Christianity--writes (type in "Obama" under "Keyword"):
In the last months, U.S. Senator and presidential hopeful Barak Obama has shunned public attention on his Muslim background, and repeatedly deflected questions about his family and childhood association with Islam....Meanwhile, reports about Obama's Muslim parentage and education have circulated in the news. ...Obama's spokespeople address the public's interest in more information about Obama's connection with Islam as if there was nothing to discuss, and no need of further exploration.
After his press office first claimed that "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim [and] was not raised a Muslim," and calling contentions that he had been "malicious and irresponsible," Obama's spokespeople changed their tune in response to Sookdheo's reporting. They now claim that "Obama has never been a practicing Muslim," although as a child he had spent time in the neighborhood's Islamic center.
The question of whether Obama converted from Islam to Christianity is a serious one because, as Sookhdeo writes,
As Senator Obama perhaps knows, because of Islam's Apostasy Law leaving the Islamic faith is not a light matter. Aside from the obvious political calculations about how having a Muslim background might negatively impact a candidate's likelihood for success in the United States, could a concern about apostasy be one reason for Obama's persistent downplaying of his Muslim background? If Obama confirmed publicly that he was born and raised a Muslim--even as a very nominal one--but left the Islamic religion of both of his fathers and chose Christianity, it would surely be unpopular with Muslims.
Even worse,
Sharia forbids an adult male Muslim from leaving the religion upon penalty of death. The four major Sunni schools of Islamic law expressly prohibit Muslim women and children from doing so as well....Both the Maliki and Hanbali schools prescribe death for a child who leaves Islam and does not return at the age of maturity.
"While Obama now lives in the freedom of the United States," Sookhdeo says, "he is at the same time under the judgement of the apostasy law, a disturbing mandate of an unreformed system of sharia now being agitated for and/or implemented around the globe." If Obama "believes this judgement upon him and others is repugnant, will he speak out for religious freedom, and say that the Apostasy Law has no place within Islam or the modern world and must be changed?"
Good question.
Interestingly, Obama shares his apostasy status with master terrorist and Grecian-formula enthusiast Osama bin Laden. Osama was declared an apostate by Spanish Islamic scholars.

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