<p>What SPECIFICALLY is so bad about what Wright said? The snippets I hear in the news aren’t so bad once you get past the tone and focus on the content. And why is Obama distancing himself (he had around 20 years to do this; why do it now?)? Could it be that Obama is <em>GASP</em> just as calculating as mrs. Clinton? And what are the odds that somebody raised by 3 agnostics/athiests would convert to Christianity? Could this be another “calculation”?</p>
<p>Wait…now you want to criticize him FOR distancing himself from Wright’s statements?
I remember reading about a guy who hated Christians so much that he held the coats of a crowd that was stoning a Christian to death. And yet, this guy himself converted to Christianity and became a big leader. Of course, maybe he was just in it for the money.</p>
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<p>I was raised by an atheist (who was the daughter of an atheist) and an agnostic, in a secular Jewish environment. I’m now a practicing Christian. It’s not as rare as you might think.</p>
<p>Let’s say McCain does endorse Hagee’s views…</p>
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<p>Don’t know. I suspect, for someone living in the US, the odds are not too long.</p>
<p>What are the odds that somebody raised in a fundamentalist Christian faith who was educated (or at least schooled 
) in that religion’s elementary school (1st-8th grades) would be an agnostic who goes to a very liberal Christian church? What are the odds that someone raised in a mainstream Christian faith, someone with two very active-in-the-church parents and born-again sisters, would become an atheist?</p>
<p>What are the odds that someone raised in the Jewish faith would eat pork as an adult? Or someone who was a fundamentalist (radical) Muslim and dedicated to dying for the cause (and did) would be in a bar drinking alcohol?</p>
<p>And what about Catholics practicing birth control?! WHAT are the odds of THAT?!!!</p>
<p>Geez. Not a news item at all that people find their own way spiritually, and many many many times, that includes moving from whatever religious belief in which they might have been raised or not adhering to tenets of whatever faith they otherwise practice.</p>
<p>The Obama threads are getting kind of silly now, aren’t they?</p>
<p>“Wait…now you want to criticize him FOR distancing himself from Wright’s statements?”</p>
<p>Yes, I never criticized him for once having been close to Wright.</p>
<p>@booklady</p>
<p>That is anecdotal evidence. I’m not saying that it is impossible, just highly unlikely.</p>
<p>@owlice</p>
<p>You can’t compare going from no faith to having faith to going from faith to having no faith. By far, going from having no faith to faith is much more common than the other.</p>
<p>@mini</p>
<p>Who’s to say he doesn’t? he has already made it his campaign focus to fight the “Muslim terrorists” abroad.</p>
<p>I don’t think you read my original post. I am making the argument that even if Obama does completely endorse Wright’s statements that I hear in the news, there’s nothing bad about it.</p>
<p>Read in context, Wright’s statements were both sensible and, in some ways, courageous. Doesn’t mean I agree with them, or that anyone else does. We already know what Obama thinks of them - so I don’t see the point of your original post.</p>
<p>Obama’s a walking sleeper cell. He’ll get elected president and he’ll throw off his Christian supercape and show that it was a costume and that underneath he’s a Muslim supervillian. And then he’ll moot a proposal to change the Pledge of Allegiance line to “One nation under Allah” following which he’ll declare war against a country as a distraction from the fact that he’s not going after Muslim terrorists. He will declare torture rules okay. He’ll ignore the will of Congress and the People and use fear as a means to eliminate our constitutional liberties.</p>
<p>Oh wait, 'cept for the Muslim cape and Pledge of Allegiance part, Bush has done all that.</p>
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<p>I could introduce you to quite a few highly unlikely people…</p>
<ol>
<li> You forgot some really important parts of the hypothetical:<br></li>
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<p>What are the odds that somebody raised by three agnostics/atheists would convert to Christianity if he married a practicing Christian? Quite high, at least 50%, probably higher.</p>
<p>What are the odds that somebody raised by three agnostics/atheists would convert to Christianity if he were an African-American living and working in an African-American community? Very high.</p>
<p>What are the odds that somebody raised by three agnostics/atheists would convert to Christianity if he harbored political ambitions? Probably around 75%.</p>
<p>What are the odds that somebody raised by three agnostics/atheists would NOT convert to Christianity if he were an African-American with political ambitions, living and working in an African-American community, and married to a practicing Christian? Almost nil. Maybe there’s someone like that somewhere.</p>
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<li> My former rabbi, to whom I owe 1,000 debts of gratitude, was (and is) very active politically, and used to say controversial things all the time. There was a period when his phone number and address were secret, and he had to keep changing numbers and homes, because he regularly got death threats from right-wing groups. His sermons would not have made the kind of YouTube fodder that Wright’s did, because of the more restrained, scholarly style that prevails in most synagogues, but they were no less incendiary relative to the mainstream. He was also a gifted teacher, enormously learned, and personally compassionate and generous. He was completely beloved in my congregation, notwithstanding that on any particular issue at any particular time 75% of us disagreed with him, some from the right and some from the left. Debate was fervent, endless, and entertaining. No one in the congregation felt he or she was endorsing all of the rabbi’s views simply by membership and attending services.</li>
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<p>A lot of Wright’s statements are accurate, but not politically correct. MLK jr. had made similar statements, of course you don’t hear about it in history books that give the diluted version of his life.</p>
<p>Didn’t Wright say that White people made AIDS to kill black people?</p>
<p>That was one statement of many that noone will defend, but a lot of the other things on the clips had merits.</p>
<p>My mother is an atheist, my Dad often got the urge to go to church for Christmas and Easter, but seemed completely indifferent the rest of the year. I got involved in Ethical Culture, my older younger brother became a devout Episcopalian, my youngest brother is not religious at all.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS, that Obama really needed to convert given the community he wanted to be part of. That doesn’t mean I don’t think his Christianity is only motivated by politics.</p>
<p>Not that it makes the statement more correct, but in the clip I saw, he said that the government, not “white people,” made AIDS.</p>
<p>I think its ironic that by Payne refers to the government and “white people” interchangeably</p>
<p>Hanna, good point on the AIDS segment.</p>
<p>I personally have a problem with Wright’s criticizing the use of the atomic bombs in WWII. That type of Monday morning quarterbacking is something I do not respect at all. Fifty years of hindsight and thousands of pages of research criticizing decisions made in the fog of war (a war where we were not the aggressor!)?</p>
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Even more ironic than that is the fact that the government is substantially more African American than the general population, making Wright’s claim even more ridiculous.</p>