By Selwyn Duke
Now that Barack Obama has decided to be for the Ground Zero
mosque before being implicitly against it (perhaps), discussion about his faith
has once again reached a fever pitch. To
many, his stance proves he’s a Muslim, with a recent poll showing that almost
20 percent of Americans hold that opinion; to others, it just reflects a desire
to be faithful to the Constitution (now, that would be change). The truth, however, is a bit more
nuanced. Obama is not religiously
Muslim. Culturally, though . . . well, that’s
a different matter altogether.
In reality, calling Obama a “Muslim” gives him too much
credit. As G.K. Chesterton once said, “We
call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought
thoroughly and to a definite end.” The truth,
however, is that few people have thought thoroughly and to a definite end. And Obama is no exception. He hasn’t even thought matters through enough
to understand the folly of statism. Even more to the point, he is a moral
relativist, a position the antithesis of any absolutist faith. Inherent in Islam is that belief that Allah,
not man, has authored right and wrong and that, consequently, it isn’t a matter
of opinion. Thus, Obama cannot truly
believe in Islam — or in Christianity or Judaism, for that matter (he could
perhaps be a Buddhist, but Buddhism isn’t truly a faith but a way of life).
Oh, and since some will ask, how do I know Obama is a relativist? It’s simple: Virtually all leftists are, as the
denial of moral reality that is relativism lies at the heart of liberalism.
Speaking of relativists, this matter of Obama’s “faith” much
reminds me of Adolf Hitler and paganism. Like Obama, Hitler sometimes feigned a
belief in Christianity, but in reality he held the religion in contempt. He believed it was “the greatest trick the
Jews ever played on Western civilization” and lamented that it was not a
warrior creed like Islam or the ancient Germanic paganism with which the Nazis
wanted to replace Christianity (I
wrote about this here). Yet, while Hitler’s second in command,
Heinrich Himmler, certainly believed in the ancient pagan myths — going so far
as to launch expeditions to the Far East to prove them, à la Raiders
of the Lost Ark — it’s silly to think that the leader himself viewed them
as anything but a utilitarian device. He
wasn’t quite that romantic.
But what about culturally?
For sure, Hitler preferred seeing Swastikas and runes (respectively, pagan
symbols and letters) to crosses and crèches, rebuilt Germanic pagan temples to
churches. That was where his passions
lay. (If some are upset at a comparison
between Hitler and Obama, know that I’d never call the president a National
Socialist. He’s an international
socialist. Also, Hitler was patriotic.)
Obama also has passions, and there is no question as to where
they lie. As journalist Todd Fitchette wrote
in “The un-faith of Obama”:
he continues to openly praise Islam;
he bows to Muslim leaders; he claims that the Muslim call to prayer is “the
most beautiful sound in the world;” he regularly quotes from the Koran and
cites it for directing his life . . . .
In the past year alone he made a big
deal out of hosting a celebratory dinner to open the month of Ramadan — held in
the state dining room; he refused to attend the 100th anniversary of the Boy
Scouts (an avowed Christian organization), and, refused to attend the National
Day of Prayer because he claimed to do so would be offensive to non-Christians.
Then there is that king of Freudian slips, when Obama
matter-of-factly said
to interviewer George Stephanopoulos, “You’re absolutely right that John McCain
has not talked about my Muslim faith,”
and didn’t seem headed for a correction until Stephanopoulos interjected. (Note: This doesn’t contradict my assertion
that Obama has no real faith. Nancy
Pelosi has spoken of her Catholic faith, but, also being a relativist, it can
be nothing more than part of her cultural tapestry.)
And are Obama’s passions surprising? He spent some of his formative years in the
world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, where he was registered as a
Muslim in both schools he attended and sometimes prayed on Fridays in a
mosque. Moreover, there is another
factor, one most people don’t consider.
As many know, there once was a great boxer named Cassius
Clay. He converted to Islam in 1964,
seemingly bothered that Jesus was portrayed as “a white with blond hair and
blue eyes,” as he put it, and took the name “Muhammad Ali.” Of course, the irony of this is that, despite
being intensely aware of his slave roots, he rejected the name of an
abolitionist (Clay) and took the name of a slave owner (Muhammad). It also perhaps eluded him that Christians
were the first ones to outlaw slavery while Muslims give black Africans rope
and chains to this day.
But I mention this because Ali’s path is a common one in the
black community; it is why we’ve long had the Black Muslims and why Islamic
names are so common among American blacks.
Many blacks have bought the bill of goods that Christianity is the white
man’s religion, the faith of oppressors.
And they embrace Islam as part of a rejection of “white” society.
Obviously, being part of this milieu could only have reinforced
Obama’s affinity for things Muslim and antipathy for things authentically Christian — of which
Western Civilization is one. And if
Americans hadn’t been brainwashed with political correctness, they would have
understood this. With foreign and domestic
Muslim influence, attendance at a Black Liberation Theology, pseudo-Christian
church and alliances with ex-terrorists and declared communists, Obama
perfectly fits the profile of an America hater.
The wolf never really wore sheep’s clothing; it’s just that Americans
had wool pulled over their eyes.
As for Obama’s eyes, they cannot look heavenward when they’re
so busy looking down on little people who “cling to guns and religion.” I sense that Obama is a certain kind of
person, one much like Hitler — who wanted to create a new German pagan religion
with himself at its center — in a particular sense. This type of person essentially says the
following to God, “The Universe just isn’t big enough for the two of us.” And his little world certainly isn’t, filled
to all corners as it is with his bloated, power-hungry ego. This, by the way, has been acknowledged by
more honest secularists. For example, Friedrich
Nietzsche, the 19th-century poster boy for atheism who is rumored to
have been a philosopher (in reality, he is someone who helped discredit the field),
once said through his version of Zarathustra, “If there were gods, how could I endure
it to be no God? Therefore there can be
no gods.” I have a feeling that Obama
cannot endure it to be no god.
It is, again, unwise to give Obama too much credit. Good
faith is defined as “an act of the will informed by the intellect,” and any
kind of faith requires submission to
something higher than yourself. Obama is
neither that intellectual nor that humble.
But all humans have passions, and his aren’t hard to discern. He is anti-American, anti-western,
anti-Christian (the traditional variety), anti-white and anti-life. He is more comfortable dining with Bill Ayres
than the Queen of England, more internationalist than nationalist, and perhaps
more at home in Dar al–Islam than Dar al-Harb. He has lived
abroad and traveled much, but he is a lover of nations like a Casanova is a
lover of women: He has known many but loves, and is faithful to, none — not
even the one to which he should be married.
He is a cultural traitor, and, as Cicero said about traitors two-thousand
years ago, “A murderer is less to be feared.”
To quote Chesterton again, he once said, “There was a time
when men weren’t very sure of themselves, but they were very sure of what the
truth was. Now men are very sure of
themselves but not at all sure of what the truth is.” The latter describes Obama. If he does have faith, it is in himself. And that is a faith terribly misplaced.
This article first appeared at American Thinker
© 2010 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved
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