Yahoo! news posted an article in which Presidential candidate Barrack Obama made the following comment; "But don't give people some sort of religious litmus test because I don't want somebody to question my faith and I'm certainly not going to question somebody else's," he said.
A president is nothing if not a decision maker and objectively good decisions are based on logic and sound reasoning. How can society improve itself if the underlying presumptions of our previous decisions are not questioned? Imagine if those opposed to the Civil Rights Movement claimed that we couldn't "question their belief system" that blacks are somehow an inferior class of citizens. This line of reasoning would be thoroughly condemned by most all people today, yet when we apply it to religion, as Barrack Obama did recently, this absurdity would be argued by some to be one of rationality and the summit of religious and human tolerance.
The hidden premise in Mr. Obama's reasoning is that his faith cannot hold up to "questioning?" After all if your religion could stand up to scrutiny, why wouldn't you welcome the questions? Even worse, is that he refuses to question another's religion. The obvious conclusion not stated here is that Mr. Obama's faith/religion provides no better alternative to any other and therefore he cannot provide a single reason why you should believe as he does as opposed to say, drinking the Kool-aid.
In other words, if your faith can't handle questioning, and you refuse to question another's, then you really provide no reason to believe your own faith or to reject any other. If no one else should believe as you do, then why should you believe as you do? Surely this is a question not posed to those who adhere this absurd school of philosophy.
By his statement Mr. Obama admits that he is not a Truth seeker. After all Truth is found through questions, reason, and dialogue. But when it comes to religion, Barrack Obama takes a strike on all three.
All Truth seekers must be willing to accept any and all scrutiny that others apply to their belief system. After all, if it can be shown that their belief system has contradictions or nonsense within it, then it can't be Truth since Truth cannot contradict itself. And if we refuse to scrutinize other faiths, we provide not a single reason to for anyone to believe as we do. If we scrutinize belief systems other than our own and we cannot find contradictions in them, then we should in turn, scrutinize our own beliefs diligently as well. This is the very duty of the Truth seeker.
Barrack Obama is not alone in this belief. Many others like him would rather live in their own ignorance, than truthfully seek that which is Truth, even if it is difficult and humbling to do so. Unfortunately for those who genuinely seek Truth, people who reason like Mr. Obama can actually become President and influential.
(This is in no way a statement of support for Hillary Clinton, John McCain, or any other opponent of Obama's campaign. It would be hard to argue that any politician in America today would have disagreed publicly with the statement made by Mr. Obama. Thus the Truth seekers election dilemma continues.)
In other words, if your faith can't handle questioning, and you refuse to question another's, then you really provide no reason to believe your own faith or to reject any other. If no one else should believe as you do, then why should you believe as you do? Surely this is a question not posed to those who adhere this absurd school of philosophy.
By his statement Mr. Obama admits that he is not a Truth seeker. After all Truth is found through questions, reason, and dialogue. But when it comes to religion, Barrack Obama takes a strike on all three.
All Truth seekers must be willing to accept any and all scrutiny that others apply to their belief system. After all, if it can be shown that their belief system has contradictions or nonsense within it, then it can't be Truth since Truth cannot contradict itself. And if we refuse to scrutinize other faiths, we provide not a single reason to for anyone to believe as we do. If we scrutinize belief systems other than our own and we cannot find contradictions in them, then we should in turn, scrutinize our own beliefs diligently as well. This is the very duty of the Truth seeker.
Barrack Obama is not alone in this belief. Many others like him would rather live in their own ignorance, than truthfully seek that which is Truth, even if it is difficult and humbling to do so. Unfortunately for those who genuinely seek Truth, people who reason like Mr. Obama can actually become President and influential.
(This is in no way a statement of support for Hillary Clinton, John McCain, or any other opponent of Obama's campaign. It would be hard to argue that any politician in America today would have disagreed publicly with the statement made by Mr. Obama. Thus the Truth seekers election dilemma continues.)
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