Monday, September 22, 2008

Internet Lies About Obama

People are spreading absurd nonsense about Obama all over the Internet, and it crops up in some people's conversations and letters to the editor. We must fight this at every step of the way, no matter who we intend to vote for. It debases our political process and poisons people's minds. Fortunately, I think most folks sniff out this stuff for what it is, but people's fears and prejudices can open them up to all kinds of propaganda.

http://www.factcheck.org/mobile/article.php?id=702

Dr. John Tisdale is a dangerous demagogue, clearly. (Below is an email that quotes him and is part of an Internet chain mail. I hesitate to even reprint it but I think we have to expose vermin to the light of day.) To call Obama a "Muslim" is an absurd lie. To misquote him is also devious. This Dr. Tisdale is no follower of Jesus Christ, but rather of the deceiver (also known as Satan). Anyone who talks about Revelation in those terms is nutty. Such interpretations of the Bible have been around forever, and they always point to some great Fear of the interpreter. They are no more reliable than National Enquirer stories on Nostradamus.

Obama is quite right. The U.S. is not "just" a Christian nation. So what? And what's so terrible about Canada or France? The nations in the most turmoil are nations where one religion is too powerful, where religion has political and governmental power. The U.S. is a secular nation, with freedom of religion, and that is what the Founders intended. The right wing Christian fundamentalists who have tried to take over this country (using the foolish Republican Party that has forgotten its roots in Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower) are as dangerous as radical Muslims are to their countries, and radical Hindus to India and Sri Lanka. Our coins say "In God We Trust," not "In Jesus we trust" or "In Christianity we trust."

This shows how desperate people are to defeat Obama. They were also desperate to defeat John Kerry and slimed him with that Swift Boat nonsense. John McCain would not stoop to this level, I'm sure--but some of his supporters probably wink at it, knowing that in a fair and honest contest, he has little chance of winning.

BELOW IS FROM AN EMAIL. PLEASE NOTE THAT IT IS TOTALLY AND UTTERLY BASELESS, DISTORTED, ABSURD. I WILL PUT DISCLAIMERS BELOW EVERY SO OFTEN BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO GIVE THIS ANY CREDENCE. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

You have to ask yourself, why would Barack Obama make the statement that
"We are no longer a Christian Nation?" What would be the underlining reasoning
or purpose in making such a proclaimation? Are people asleep?? Did he happen
to forget about all those Christian church steeples out there?

Isn't this an interesting choice of words and an unbelievably bold declaration in
a country and time whose blessings and beliefs were born from Biblical teachings?

What happens when you begin diluting a nation with different languages, different
beliefs, and different ideologies? You get a country that is torn apart and a country
that is divided among itself. In other words: Chaos! Don't be lieve it? Look at Canada.
Look at France. Look at any people that ever promoted more than one language, one belief
system, or one ideology. Read your history books. If people want change from what we have
now, they better think twice!! A divided Republic is a Republic in turmoil!

Do Obama supporters question or even fathom one bit the seriousness of what he is
truly standing for in America? Do they know what kind of "change" he is talking about?

Does anyone know about or understand what kind of martial-law power that a President
has in the event of a major national emergency? Do we want to hand that kind of power
over to a LIBERAL MUSLIM with a questionable record and an extremely liberal and limited
past? A man whose very economic advisors are the red-faced liberal misfits causing
major corporations to fail and leaving taxpayers with the burden to bail them all out?
HELLO, ANYBODY OUT THERE WITH THEIR EYES OPEN?

My head doesn't stop shaking in disbelief at these facts!! It's incredible!

NOTE: THE EMAIL YOU ARE READING IS BY A CRANK, A FANATIC, A DECEPTIVE DISTORTER OF THE TRUTH. I AM NOT ENDORSING IT BUT EXPOSING IT.

Does he want change? Yes, he wants change alright. And we are going to get it if we don't
wake up and start praying.

They say a Democracy goes through a series of "phases" and one day, eventually dies out.
In my country, I don't know about you, but I'm not quite ready to let it go just yet.

Please read below:

AGAIN, READ THIS IN THE CONTEXT OF WHAT I SAID AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS POST AND READ THE FACT CHECK WEBSITE, LINK ABOVE.

Subject: Message From: Dr. John Tisdale


This will make you re-think: A Trivia question in Sunday School:
How long is the beast allowed to have authority in Revelations?

Revelations Chapter 13 tells us it is2042 months, and you know what that is.
Almost a four-year term of a Presidency.

All I can say is 'Lord, Have mercy on us!'

According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is: The anti-Christ will
be a man, in his 40's, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with
persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says
that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace,
and when he is in power, will destroy everything..

Do we recognize this description??

I STRONGLY URGE each one of you to post this as many times as
you can! Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media outlet..do it!
I refuse to take a chance on this unknown candidate who came out of nowhere.

From: Dr. John Tisdale
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As I was listening to a news program last night, I watched in horror as Barack Obama made the statement with pride. . .'we are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . .' As with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never thought I'd see the day that I'd hear20something like that from a presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this man say with pride that we are no longer that. How far this nation has come from what our founding fathers intended it to be.

I hope that each of you will do what I'm doing now--send your concerns, written simply and sincerely, to the Christians on your email list. With God's help, and He is still in control of this nation and all else, we can show this man and the world in November that we are, indeed, still a Christian nation!
Please pray for our nation!

YES, PRAY FOR ANY NATION THAT WOULD LET SUCH LIES AND INSINUATIONS DETERMINE THEIR CHOICE OF A LEADER. AGAIN, DO NOT SPREAD THE ABOVE NONSENSE, BUT WHEN IT REARS ITS UGLY HEAD, EXPOSE IT FOR WHAT IT IS.

1 comment:

Kara said...

I also received this email but unfortunately have been forwarded so many times that I could not all of the email addresses were saved. Nevertheless here was my response (BTW from South Bend here, wonder if this is an Indiana thing):
Well, the bottom line is this guy says "to think our forefathers fought and died for this to be a christian country" shows just how little he knows about history, and how quickly people forget the past. Maybe this guy should go back to school and read a history book. The fact is the english who came to "the new world" came in part to make money as corporations sent by queen elizabeth I, some came to be indentured servants and make a better life for themselves, and in part the english puritans came to escape religious tyrranny, which was hundreds of years of ideological warfare between the catholics and the protestants. People were burned at the stake, and people were not allowed by english law to practice their religion as they saw fit even though they all described themselves as christians in one way or another. I see his type of commentary as just more ideological tyranny. And in fact, not everyone who came to america came for ideological reasons as he suggests. At the same time that the english were settling New England, many spanish explored what is now mexico, florida, and the american southwest, largely to claim land and resources for spain. They did send missionaries as well as conquistadors but would I say that these people "fought and died for this to be a christian country"? That was not their primary purpose. What about my forefathers, are they a part of this country's history? The slovaks, the irish, and german immigrants who came to this country just to find hope of a better future for themselves and their families, where they were coming from places where there was starvation, in the case of the irish, or economic and political oppression in the face of looming communism, and the unrest leading up to what was to become world war one in the case of my slovak great-grandparnts and the rest of the massive wave of eastern european and italian immigrants who came to the united states during the first half of the twentieth century? They came in search of the american dream, a promise that barack is trying to restore to this country, as he says, regardless of your ancestry or religious background, acknowleging the fact that we are not a nation of conservative christians, but a diverse nation that needs to learn a bit of tolerance for each other if we are all to live in peace and retain some hope for the future. It is clear to me that people that react with fear to barack's words are merely feeling the absolutism of their own ideologies being threatened, and his words of tolerance are lost on them. Maybe they want to return us to the days in england, in the 1500s and 1600s when the english protestants came to this country, when the catholics were burning protestants at the stake merely for defining what it is to be christian slightly differently from them. Seems to me like not much has changed. Too bad people aren't better educated to know their own history. And besides, this description of the antichrist that is supposedly paraphrased from the bible, could apply just as well to bono, to oprah, I mean name your humanitarian leader, there you could apply this description of the antichrist. Pretty much what I think is Dr. John Tisdale is a massive idiot and he's probably not even a dr. unless it's dr. of being completely retarded. OH, and speaking again of our forefathers, what about the black slaves that came to this country? Are they americans today? Who's forefathers was it that fought and died to make this a christian country exactly? Also, was this a grade school teacher below that thought this was "interesting" my god, is this how stupid our public school teachers are today? Did she not go to college? People like this make me ill.