We are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists.
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Misquoted in similar letters to the editor to the San Angelo Standard-Times, 2008-07-29 and the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, 2008-07-29, and many identical posts under different names to various online news sites, quoted in "Obama and the “Christian Nation” Quote", Factcheck.org, 26 August 2008
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President Obama actually said, in his keynote address to Sojourners magazine's "Call to Renewal" conference on 2006-06-28 (see above), "Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation — at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."Barack Obama
Compared to the number of Muslims and Christians on this planet, not to mention Hindus and Buddhists, Jews are a handful of people. They're a tiny percentage of the population. Nearly half of them live in Israel, a country the size of a county, and more are being driven there every day, especially from Europe, where it has become fashionable to use the Israeli government's behaviour as an excuse for the kind of open anti-Semitism we've become used to hearing from Muslims. At anti-Israel demonstrations in Europe you're likely to hear calls for Jews to be gassed. We've even had the spectacle of a Dutch member of parliament in the front line of such an event. In Sweden, Israeli athletes can no longer even compete without being attacked by violent mobs because the police can't, or won't, protect them. Hate crimes against Jews outnumber those against Muslims, and many of them are carried out by Muslims for no other reason than they've been taught from childhood to hate Jews. Meanwhile, day in and day out, we have to listen to their endless hypocritical horseshit about Islamophobia. It's enough to make you want to throw up.
Pat Condell
Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation — at least, not just; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers. And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.
Barack Obama
I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later and refer to a remark made by one of the Latin historians. Some Christians were persecuted in Rome through error, they being 'mistaken for Jews.' The meaning seems plain. These pagans had nothing against Christians, but they were quite ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or other they hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I not assume, then, that the persecution of Jews is a thing which antedates Christianity and was not born of Christianity?
Mark Twain
I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later and refer to a remark made by one of the Latin historians. Some Christians were persecuted in Rome through error, they being 'mistaken for Jews.' The meaning seems plain. These pagans had nothing against Christians, but they were quite ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or other they hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I not assume, then, that the persecution of Jews is a thing which antedates Christianity and was not born of Christianity?
Samuel Langhorne (Mark Twain) Clemens
I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here — Muslims, Jews, Christians — all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.
I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.
Yes, it's odd, having a rock star here — but maybe it's odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was... well, a little blurry, and hard to see.Bono
Obama, Barack
Obama, Michelle
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