What are your thoughts on people treating Obama as if he is the messiah?

He’s not the messiah, I just think he’s better than what we’ve had for the last eight years. That alone is enough to make people celebrate. ;)

Hyperbole much?

Trepidation.

From the little I know and have read about Obama, nothing demonstrates to me that he is in any way comparable to a messiah or something akin to that. In my opinion, he should be recognized as the articulate and intelligent politician he is but not elevated to something that he isn’t.

I have not see or heard anyone refer to Mr. Obama as the messiah in any way other than sarcastically. I have heard those who back McCain use the term messiah but I haven’t heard a single person refer to it in any but a mocking way. I also have not seen anyone treat him as if he were the messiah, although I have an idea what that would look like, I’m not really sure what it might entail.

Not a Messiah, but surely intellect and deliberation are traits that as a country we would want to portray? We cannot flag wave, pom-pom cheer, or pray our way out of bankrupting the free world. praying may help, but not as an entire solution

I think many Democrats are justifiably enthused by the prospect of having a reasonable a shot at the presidency, but I don’t think anyone really sees him as a messiah. My guess is that this story was dreamed up to draw sneers from the religious right by insinuating that Obama is conceited enough to encourage, or play into, such an overboard characterization of himself. I see no substance in it and, in my view, this is just the sort of desperate attempt at soft-core character assassination that we have come to expect from the Republicans.

Ask me after the crucifixion. Oh, wait – the Republicans are already doing that.

SIGH* Can we say big media?

He’s going to deliver us from the publicans.

The only people I hear using “Obama” and “Messiah” in the same sentence are those who ask “Why are people treating Obama like the Messiah!?!?”. I’ve yet to see anyone actually do this. Only people asserting that some undefined “other” people are doing it.

Usually the people asking the question (in person) are the same people who think Obama is a ‘secret Muslim’. Way to churn out that information republican hate machine!

It’s a subtle attempt to fire up people who would be offended by him being referred to as a messiah. The only thing I’ve seen from an Obama supporter is Oprah saying, “He is the one” and that was more likely a racial suggestion saying that a viable African-American finally has a chance at winning the US Presidency.

He’s also a Muslim, a terrorist sympathizer, etc. depending on the crowd being addressed.

Here’s a blog where a Republican calls Obama a Baha’i.

When did you stop beating your husband, judyprays?

Even accepting the premise, which I don’t, I have the same problem as I do with people who treat anyone as the Messiah. They are all somewhat deluded. Ain’t no one gonna help us. We gots to help ourselves.

If Obama is elected, he is still going to need a lot of help and support to get our agenda accomplished.

How do you feel about people who parrot leading questions instilled in them by pundits?

MrItty hit it on the head. The only people who refer to Obama as the Messiah are the ones who just don’t get his appeal and can’t understand why people could legitimately think he’s got something to offer them.

It’s kind of funny that we Godless liberals are suddenly supposedly following the second coming ala Obama, don’t you think?

Just face it, there’s a huge swath of America who thinks trickle down economics was the biggest anal rape of the common man in the history of our nation. We long for another FDR style populist to actually look out for the needs of the common man and the middle class, instead of emphasizing the every need of big business and the robber barrons who pilot the ships of Wall Street.

Many of us also long for a politician who doesn’t resort to personality based attacks (like say, “my opponent is THE ONE”, “he’s a celbrity just like Paris Hilton”, “they treat him like the Messiah”, “he pals around with terrorist”, “he wants to redistribute your wealth”, “he’s no Joe the Plumber”, etc. etc. etc.). It’s extremely refreshing to have someone who runs his campaign based on the issues, and not based on an attempt to scare everyone away from his opponent. It’s great to have someone running for the office who makes well measured decisions (like picking someone with 3 1/2 decades of foreign policy experience to be his running mate) instead of someone who acts impulsively and solely for political reasons (by say picking an unknown, unexperienced fundamentalist evangelical right wing religious nut job as a running mate to shore up the base and increase fundraising).

Some of us are looking for a President who for once doesn’t suck up to the religious whack jobs, but who governs using thinks like logic and reason. Some of us would like to see a President who really does care about the environment (because he doesn’t believe dinosaurs roamed the earth with man 5,000 years ago in direct conflict with everything science has taught us for centuries).

I for one am completely 100% unapologetic about my full and enthusiastic support for Barack Obama, because I have read his policy positions, I have examined his background and his record, and I think he’s the kind of person I have always hoped we could have for a President, but never thought we’d be able to because our system has been so corrupted by narrow minded assholes who just want to shit on everything by belittling and demeaning great people who want to change things, by oh, I don’t know, saying that we just think he’s the second coming.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17927102/

Funny.

http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/

Funnier.

“You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn’t care anything about. That’s a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking.”
Louis Farrakhan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OowxMcVTjTE

Frickin hilarious!

http://www.obamaformessiah.com/

Now THAT’s funny!!

When Morgan Freeman comes over to greet Obama, the senator begins bowing down both hands in worship. “This guy was president before I was,” says Obama, referring to Freeman’s turn in Deep Impact and, clearly, getting a little ahead of his own bio. Next, a nod to Bruce Almighty: “This guy was God before I was.” (Okay, more than a little ahead.) But Freeman is eating it up. Leaning in, he tells the senator to win it. “I will,” Obama replies. “That’s why I’m running.”

jholler, It wouldn’t surprise me if every link you posted was backed by republican dollars.

Come on now, bodyhead…open mind! (I don’t think Farrakhan is Republican funded….)

jholler, you just beat me to it.

The simple fact is that there are some nut jobs out there who think of Obama in messianic terms. Even people who don’t like Obama realize that those people are nut jobs—but that doesn’t mean that those people don’t exist. It is also true that many (and probably most) depictions of Obama as messiah are by people who do not like him. Again, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t nut jobs out there who actually think of him in messianic terms.

this is a funny cartoon

Sure there are people who think of Obama in Messianic terms, just like there are people who are convinced that aliens are stealing all the left socks. My thoughts on those people are that the lunatic fringe is not worth discussing.

@fireside, it’s also worth noting that Sarah Palin’s supporters that are deliriously and hysterically enthusiastic have not been accused of treating her like the second coming (which she believes is right around the corner). I think that this Obama-messiah situation is just the result of a desperate conservative movement grasping at any personal attack they can get their hands on. The left feels no such desperation, as their ticket doesn’t consist of (a) a huffy septegenarian who’s staring death in the face, and (b) a clueless jingoist. And to top it all off, they apparently can’t stand each other.

I’m sorry that all my answers today have such a b*****y tone today. :( I’m making this my last answer of the day.

@tonedef – seems like a good note for you to end the day on.

@dalepetrie – it’s always my right socks that go missing. Maybe my aliens are dyslexic?

@fireside,
That IS funny! I hope if the democrats lose, Palin stays in the media for some reason…I like looking at her.

@dalepetrie
Well, your first answer was “The only people who refer to Obama as the Messiah are the ones who just don’t get his appeal….” That would seem to contradict what I was saying. Perhaps your first answer should have been that “those people” are the lunatic fringe and aren’t worth discussing. It seems like that would have done a better job of answering the question at hand.

Oops..I meant if the democrats WIN.

If you look closely at the first two sites presented to us by Jholler you find that the first is from an art student trying to make a splash with his outrageous “Chocolate Jesus.” The second is the website is put up by a novelty t-shirt company—cafepress—trying first to manufacture and then hype this whole “obama is messiah” thing. If you go to the main part of your sight, you find “McCain,” “Joe The Plumber” and “Obama Biden, Now That’s Scary!” t-shirts.

http://www.cafepress.com/

To be fair, they shit on everybody, but hey, they’re just trying to make a buck.

http://shop.cafepress.com/elections08

And like I said….they’re funny!

@jholler
Funny like Rush Limbaugh is funny? The obamamessiah.blogspot.com looks like one of those shrines the cops find when they finally catch up to the stalker/serial-killer they’ve been looking for.

If you took it at face value, you would get the sense, “Gee, there’s really a lot of different grass-roots people trying to promote Obama as a religious figure.” But, in fact, it is just some guy’s money-making deal, and he doesn’t personally believe in any of it.

aidje – I stick by both of my answers. On one hand there are those who dislike Obama. They try to paint him as Messianic to his supporters. That’s intellectually dishonest. They don’t believe him to be a Messiah, any more than the people they claim are treating him as a Messiah believe this. That’s just lying political scumbaggery. My second answer is that yes there are some people who truly do believe this, just like there are people who will believe in ANYTHING, and THOSE people are the lunatic fringe who deserve no further discussion. The difference is symantics. My first quip doesn’t contradict yours because I say those who “refer to him as”, and you say those who “think of him as”. I don’t think those who push the relationship are saying they believe Obama to be Messianic, but they are misinterpreting (in most cases either deliberately or out of a slavish adherence to Republican talking points) the thoughts of the Obama supporters.

Capice?

@dale: lurve for “scumbaggery”!

I’ve actually received more than one e-mail that makes an argument for Obama being the Anti-Christ.

Like, literally, The Anti-Christ.

Now I’m confused. He can’t be both, right?
Why would the internets lie to me?

Shocking: this did originate from the republican hate machine

This rumor came from a McCain advert as seen in this Time article

An actual email I got from a republican friend

I don’t hear the sound of any jaws dropping.

hey monty…humor.. That’s all.

@dalepetrie
My point is that your first answer seems to say that there is absolutely no one who thinks in those terms (because, as you pointed out, the ones who speak in those terms are not actually thinking in those terms). Rather than answering the question, you said that its premise was untrue. The premise is often exaggerated, to be sure, but it is not untrue. I’m simply defending the OP’s premise, since—but for one word from Malakai— it took 18 answers before someone actually answered the question rather than attacking the premise. No one was actually saying what they thought—they were just saying that the subject of the question didn’t exist.

I take that back: the 18th answer didn’t answer the question either. It was, like my answer, a defense of the premise. The OP still hasn’t got an answer, but only an argument about whether or not the phenomenon exists in the first place.

@aidje: nobody will answer the question because doing so implicitly condones the claim contained therein. See @daloon’s first answer.

@aidje, When did you stop beating your wife?

Stop arguing about the premise of the question and just answer it. Have you stopped beating her or not?

A loaded question (like this) will always get answers (like this).

@jholler
No, jaholler, it isn’t all “just good clean fun” although you may be naive enough to believe it.

Have you ever heard of “dog whistle politics”? Its originally an Australian term that refers to a message that is broadcast to the general public which contains a special coded message within it that only a target audience picks up on. Well, that’s what’s going on here. The Time article cited by bodyhead (above)lays out the mechanics of how this works:

It’s not easy to make the infamous Willie Horton ad from the 1988 presidential campaign seem benign. But suggesting that Barack Obama is the Antichrist might just do it.

That’s just what some outraged Christian supporters of the Democratic nominee are claiming John McCain’s campaign did in an ad called “The One” that was recently released online. The Republican nominee’s advisers brush off the charges, arguing that the spot was meant to be a “creative” and “humorous” way of poking fun at Obama’s popularity by painting him as a self-appointed messiah. But even this innocuous interpretation of the ad — which includes images of Charlton Heston as Moses and culled clips that make Obama sound truly egomaniacal — taps into a conversation that has been gaining urgency on Christian radio and political blogs and in widely circulated e-mail messages that accuse Obama of being the Antichrist.

… the phrasing and images could just be dismissed as a peculiar coincidence. After all, it was Oprah Winfrey who told an Iowa crowd that Obama was “the one!” But, he insists, “the frequency of these images and references don’t make any sense unless you’re trying to send the message that Obama could be the Antichrist.” Mara Vanderslice, another Democratic consultant, who handled religious outreach for the 2004 Kerry campaign, agrees. “If they wanted to be funny, if they really wanted to play up the idea that Obama thinks he’s the Second Coming, there were better ways to do it,” she says. “Why use these awkward lines like, ‘And the world will receive his blessings’?”

If you look at obamamessia.blogspot.com you find the exact same artwork as used in the Obama as Anti-Christ campaign.

What’s really humorous is that all this is so transparently desperate as we come down to the wire.

Actually, many of these are thoughts that people have about the subject of people treating Obama as if he is the messiah.

Also, Supermouse answered in 6, so I’m not sure what you were counting.
I also see Mritty, bodyhead, myself, daloon, dale…where did you come in again?

Oh, with the line, “jholler, you just beat me to it.”
But nobody answered the question?

I respectfully disagree in that I think I have given an answer, so I’ll rephrase…

Q: What are your thoughts on people treating Obama as if he is the Messiah?

A: Depends on why they are treating him this way.

If they are treating him like he’s a false Messiah, my thoughts are that these people are intentionally reading too much into the beliefs of his followers and what I think about these people is that they should get a grip and actually concentrate on issues rather than the politics of personality and personal destruction, I dislike these people immensely.

If they are legitimately enthusiastic about their support of Obama, they are probably legitimately in awe of his well thought out positions and oratory skills and certainly do not worship him in Messianic terms but do hold him in incredibly high regard and I think these people are simply excited about what he represents in regards to the future of this country. I admire these people and count myself among them.

If they genuinely view Obama in truly Messianic terms, then I believe they are part of the mentally ill lunatic fringe and my opinion of them is that they should be ignored.

That’s as clear as I can make it.

Hey Monty….I still think the whole phenomenon is funny, regardless of which side it comes from. Thppptttt.

Ignorance and desperation.

Im the messiah and so is my wife

( I know, I know, I tweaked the exact quote a bit)

@tonedef
dalepetrie’s last answer does not in any way condone the idea that this is a widespread phenomenon.

@bodyhead
Yes, I know what a loaded question is. This one is not entirely loaded, since there is indeed a fringe that thinks and talks that way. It seems like most of the people in this thread would rather flat out deny that than simply say, “Those people are crazy and few in number.”

A closer analog would be, “What do you think of people who beat their wives.” If that were the question, then I would think people were being silly if they were only answering as if they were being accused of beating their wives, or as if it were implied that most men beat their wives. If this question actually followed the format of the archetypical loaded question, it would be more like, “Why do Obama’s followers think of him as the messiah?” In that case, your defensiveness would be quite warranted.

@dalepetrie
Good answer. (I see how you had some of that information in your previous answers, but I like how that one sums it all up concisely and in a clear format.)

@fireside
You’re right. I missed daloon’s second answer when I counted. The rest of those, I maintain, are mostly saying things like, “Republicans just want you to think that people think that way.” There’s no reason to pretend that there aren’t nutjobs in the world. It’s okay if they like some of the same things as you, too. It doesn’t mean anyone is accusing you of being a nutjob.

1. I have not see or heard anyone refer to Mr. Obama as the messiah in any way other than sarcastically
2. I’ve yet to see anyone actually do this.
3. The only thing I’ve seen from an Obama supporter is Oprah saying, “He is the one” and that was more likely a racial suggestion saying that a viable African-American finally has a chance at winning the US Presidency.

I get your point but I think the general consensus was that since nobody has actually seen much evidence of this, they didn’t have thoughts on people treating him that way. The only things I saw in the way of evidence for the premise were the blog postings that were quickly shown to be the work of propagandists.

what about Farrakhan’s statement?

@jholler – good point. I guess I have always considered him to be on the outer fringes of sanity.
Here’s Obama’s position on the man.

How is disputing the premise of a question not an answer to the question?

A response and an answer are two different things?

@Nimis

An answer is a response, but not all responses are answers.

But then not all questions have factual or positive yes-no answers. Indeed, a question like “What’s the difference between a duck?” or, “Did you enjoy the end of the world?” Are logically defective questions, where the only possible answer is a response pointing out the defect.

In this case, people are legitimately responding to the dishonest and trolling form of the question because it begs a key fact at issue—namely, whether anyone actually regards Obama as a messiah. Here, quibbles over whether the original question has been “answered” or not are beside the point, because the questioner has, wittingly or unwittingly, raised a second question, namely why do people attempt to portray Obama as egomaniacle by spreading the lie that people are treating him as a messiah?

If you follow the links below, you will find that this whole “issue” has been manufactured as part of a sophisticated smear campaign.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1830590,00.html
obamamessia.blogspot.com

It’s a lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie. And that is my final answer.

and it’s still funny!

@aidje, maybe I should have just answered the question.

Q: What are your thoughts on people treating Obama as if he is the messiah?
A: My thoughts are that anyone treating anyone as a messiah should be locked up in a mental institution.

Furthermore, in my personal experience no one I’ve talked to thinks like this. I don’t typically choose to associate with crazy people. I challenge you to find one person who thinks Obama is the messiah. (Keep in mind, this person would have to think only Obama is the messiah. You could find a crazy person who thinks everyone is the messiah.)

again…Farrakhan. (I would also count Oprah’s reference to “the one”, but I guess she
Could be speaking either racially or in the jet li sense. )

Technically, Farrakhan says “You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn’t care anything about. That’s a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking.” as seen here

Some Christians believe that we are all instruments of God. In this comment I find nothing to back up your view that Farrakhan thinks Obama is the messiah. Please provide a link that proves it.

Being enamored with someone and thinking they are the messiah is completely different. Even thinking that God works through someone (just like Bush said God wanted him to go to war) is completely different then thinking someone is the messiah.

You can’t just say, “Fred thinks he’s the messiah.” Use links and facts to back up your point of view. The challenge to find one person who believes this is still open.

People still take Farrakhan seriously?

Wouldn’t his mother have to be Jewish for Obama to be the Messiah?

bodyhead, you’ve provided the link for me. You seriously hear that statement and don’t think Farrakhan was alluding to Obama with the last sentence, when the rest of the quote was about him?
Laureth, Obama’s church of 20 years recognized Farrakhan with some kind of lifetime achievement thing for speaking truth, among other things.

Www.sweetness-light.com/archive/obamas_mentor_gives_farrakhan_his_award

oh, and he’s the national representative for the Nation of Islam, not Christian.

@jholler
Oh, give it a rest you bottom-feeding Republican mouthpiece. If you had bothered to read the link you cited you would have found that the award was given by Trumpet Magazine, which is an ecuminical journal devoted to bringing black Christians, Jews and Muslims together!

jholler, I’m befuddled because you don’t seem to understand my last response. Obama (an instrument of God) will bring about change (universal change).

When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking

This could be taken two ways. It could either be taken that the Messiah is speaking (a metaphor) because more young people are getting involved in the political process.

OR

It could be taken (as a metaphor) to say that the Messiah (Jesus Christ) is speaking through Obama and using him as a tool of change (we are all God’s instruments).

I guess everything is open to interpretation. You choose you interpret your political adversaries in the craziest way possible without any regard for reading comprehension or religious metaphor (which ministers constantly speak in).

That being said, lets say you’re right. Lets disregard all truth and logic and say you found one person who thinks he’s the messiah. Find one other. As of 2007, America’s population is 301 million. That means that .0000003% of the population think that Obama is the Messiah. More .0000003% of the population think they are Napoleon.

I’m officially stating for the record that more republicans think Obama is a Muslim terrorist then democrats think he is the messiah. These are both nonsense statements. One political party has a whole lot more people to straighten out.

I don’t believe Obama is a muslim, a terrorist, OR the Messiah…you asked for one person who said he was, I showed you one person who said he was. Now you say “find one other”. No. I interpreted Farrakhan’s (whom I truly believe is dangerous) statement the way it struck me and lots of others. If I were trying to defend Sen Obama, I would probably not choose to see it that way. I am obviously not a democrat, but I’m not a republican either. I lean more toward republican ideology because I am a conservative, but I’m not so closed-minded to think that the RNC is the answer to all our problems. That being said, I don’t trust Sen Obama. Something about him strikes me as being a mouthpiece for something larger. Maybe it’s his endorsement and backing from George Soros, who appears to stand against almost everything I hold dear, maybe it’s leftover islamophobia from the year I spent in Iraq trying to keep radical fundamentalist muslims from killing me and my friends. (I’ve already stated I don’t believe he’s muslim, but the name and the constant insinuations prod the subconscious, and isn’t that where a phobia comes from?) I concede that he is an excellent orator, and that the DNC has finally figured out how to market the agenda they tried and failed to implement with Kerry and Gore. Maybe it’s his closeness to Sen Kennedy, whom I feel was never held accountable for Mary Jo Kopechne. Whatever the reason, I do not trust him. He may very well be our next president, and ergo my boss, and if so I will try to adjust my point of view.
Now, that being said, I don’t think John McCain was the RNC’s best choice either. I definitely respect his service and sacrifice to our country, both during his time in Vietnam and his 2+ decades of service in the Senate, but I do not agree with his views on many issues.
Montyzuma, the award given was the “Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright , Jr. Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer” award or some similar naming depending on which source you look at. As the Rev Dr Jeremiah A Wright was Sen Obama’s pastor for a couple of decades, I think it was valid to point out that the man who spoke of Sen Obama and the Messiah in the same breath (is that neutral enough?) was lauded by a man whose opinions Sen Obama valued enough to listen to for 20 years. Do you really come here for two sided discussion, or just affirmation? Name calling…wow. Grow up.

jholler, That was the most intelligent thing I’ve seen you write yet.

I was saying find another because I disagree that you’ve found one. You don’t seek another because that shaky Farrakhan reference is the best example in the media and even that can’t be proven. You won’t seek another because there is no existence of this phenomena.

We aren’t debating the fact that Farrakhan is dangerous. We’re in full agreement there. I would actually take that one step further and say that any church that preaches a political or social agenda is dangerous. (Every one I have been to does this in some form. I am of the opinion that all organized religion is dangerous but we aren’t debating that.)

You, of course, realize that in your response you list the reasons that you don’t like Obama. We aren’t debating that. I fully believe that you don’t like Obama. You admit your subconscious prejudice against him and only 4 sentences out of your political diatribe have anything to do with the debate at hand.

All you are saying is you can’t find another person who’s words you can contort into such a way as to have this ludicrous meaning that you’re inserting into them.

I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. You think this phenomena exists and I do not. You interpret one persons words one way and I another. You’re a smart guy. You know deep down Farrakhan can’t possibly believe that.

And just for the record, I’m a hardcore conservative and I carry a gun. This puts me in more with the republicans then the democrats. (Well it actually puts me more in with the Regan era republicans and not the GOP of today. The GOP today isn’t fiscally conservative as we go tremendously into debt, they aren’t working on less government interference with business as they bail out the banks at 700 billion and we’ve been following a guy who’d rather go with his gut feeling then on hard facts.)

@Monty, enough with the personal attacks. It makes your argument (which is good) seem weak.

For Farrakhan to actually believe that Obama is the Messiah, wouldn’t he also have to believe that the Mahdi had already returned? Why hasn’t he ever pointed that person out?

“more republicans think Obama is a Muslim terrorist then democrats think he is the messiah”

You’ll see no argument here. Case in point: I got a forward just yesterday from someone who doesn’t know how to apply discernment to emailed rumors.

Agreed aidje, I spoke with three different people in the past two weeks who think Obama is a ‘secret Muslim’ and he’s just pretending to be Christian… and when he gets in office he’ll do something like 9/11 to the country. It’s disgraceful.

I just noticed the question…“What are your thoughts on people treating Obama as if he is the Messiah”...nothing about saying he is. That could open up a whole different side of this argument…it would be a lot more subjective than fact-based, though.

If I treat someone like they are an asshole, it’s because I think they are an asshole. Our debate isn’t really a stretch.

If it’s any consolation, I’m not treating him like the Christian messiah… instead I’m listening to him.

@jhollar
I am sorry you were insulted by being called a Republican. I just don’t know what came over me. I apologize.

Now, back to the issue. The award was given by Trumpeter Magazine, it was presented (i.e., handed to him) by Rev. Wright, whom we know is given to extravagant rhetoric, at an occasion (an awards ceremony) where extravagant praise is both customary and expected.

If I was being given the Nobel prize and, as King Gustav was handing it to me, he made some remark in the emotion of the moment about how he considered me “like a son,” would you then claim (some years later)that I consider myself descended from Swedish royalty? And, on that basis, I should not be president?

By the way, in the Old Testament tradition the term “messiah” could be applied to a prophet, an earthly king, or any “deliverer of the people.” Indeed, the Jews were expecting a temporal ruler who would deliver them, by military means, from Roman occupation. It is in this sense that Farrakhan, a Muslim, uses the term as an apt metaphor expressing the hopes of Black people that Barack Obama will deliver them from racial discrimination. (This is not an vain or illegitimate hope, since an Obama victory will go a long way toward symbolically burying the idea that a black man is not good enough to be president.)

It is only in Christian theology that the term “messiah” has come to be identified exclusively with Christ, who has come to be identified as God Himself. It is therefore cynical and dishonest for the Republicans to upset devout Christians by presenting Farrakhan’s use of the term “messiah” in a way that could be mistaken for its Christian usage.

Nonetheless, they do helpfully remind their audience that Farrakhan is “anti-semitic and anti-White.” Which has nothing whatsoever to do Obama, not that it matters to their audience, since both of them are black. And that’s the real point being made here. Farrakhan is a scary activist black man, and he speaks approvingly of Obama.

Here we are one week from the election and the official Republican website is trying to turn out born again Christian voters by touting “signs” that prompt them to identify Obama as the Anti-Christ. This would be funny if playing on people’s end-of-the-world anxieties weren’t so desperate and cynical. And the truly disgusting thing about it is not only that the Republicans think people are stupid enough to fall for it, but that many actually will.

http://777denny.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/nation-of-islam-leader-louis-farrakhan-calls-obama-messiah-civil-rights-icon-compares-sen-mccain-to-segregationist-gov-george-wallace-obamas-birth-records-questioned/

This has got to be an all-time low for American politics.

Here is the rest of the quote:

“You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn’t care anything about. That’s a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking.”

“Brothers and sisters,” Farrakhan said, “Barack Obama to me, is a herald of the Messiah. Barack Obama is like the trumpet that alerts you something new, something better is on the way.”

Guess they decided to ignore the very next sentence when they made the You Tube video.

@ fireside – “they” have the biggest case of “filter ear” I have ever seen.

Selective hearing, selective seeing, and selective believing.

thanks fireside, that clears
It up a little. I still believe the award was not just given by Rev Wright, but named for him as well. If I’m not mistaken, his daughter decided who would receive the award. Wright and Farrakhan are two radically racist high profile figures who have openly endorsed Sen Obama, he himself may not be, but the company you keep reveals something about you. Oh, and I’m not offended, just want to make sure the labels I receive are accurate. :-)

GIVE ME A BREAK THIS QUESTION STILL ISN’T GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND!

/unfollows

Who’s trying to change minds? I thought we were just talking for the sake of talking…isn’t that what we’re doing?

The author of Exodus, Leon Uris wrote in a book called Jerusalem, Song of Songs (with his wife Jill) that the Jewish people in Biblical times were not very technologically adept, even by comparison with other tribes 2,000 years ago. Maybe persons who expect a Messiah in our time are thinking like those persons who were not as technologically adept, yet instead in our own time….

oops i left out a comma and my vanity insists I tell you that