Obama’s change
Author: Nathan | Filed under: America, Books, Events, Fitness, History, Hobbies, Thoughts | Tags: American president Obama, Barack Obama, Obama change, President of The United States of America | 7 Comments »
One thing I know about Obama is that throughout the next four years, we will have no lack of rousing speeches in times of difficulty. His inaugural address was inspiring. The kind of speech that if all its declarations were carried out perfectly, would heal the nation in next to no time. It certainly drew a crowd and numberless raving Obama fans. I did not vote for Obama, but I really hope he does what he says he will do. His record does not assure me that he will succeed as president, but then again records only go so far. He may surprise me and I am hoping he does.
Something that I have struggled to understand though, is the fierce loyalty that many people have for this man. None of them knows how his presidency will unfold, yet they act as if The Savior Himself has just assumed the country’s highest office. I suppose such loyalty is admirable, but he hasn’t done anything yet. He has given hope for sure, but as the next four years unfold, I will need more than that to shower him with the praise that so many others do.
I understand that everybody shows excitement or anticipation in different ways. Personally, I will offer my loyalty to the new president and then observe and process what I see before I offer praise. I never have been the type to fall over myself trying to catch a glimpse of some public figure. Instead I try to ask what it is that inspires such wild reactions in their followers, and if it is admirable, then maybe I can model myself after it. But that “something” has to be admirable.
In Obama’s case, he has some big promises to keep; a big mess to fix. He’s not a rock star because he has promised to enact change – he will be deemed worthy of my admiration when he shows me he will uphold the constitution at all costs, strengthen moral values as much as he is able, and keep the promises he has made to reform broken Washington. Even then I won’t be tripping over my feet to see him as tears fall from my eyes, but I will respect him.
The bottom line for me is that he is our president and he has my support. But great presidents have proven themselves by actions in tough times. Promises are ok, but we demand more now that Obama has assumed the office. As far as I’m concerned, the honeymoon is over and it’s time to bring that change.
Tags: Barack Obama, President of the United States, Obama change, American president Obama
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“they act as if The Savior Himself has just assumed the country’s highest office.”
…you mean like the Mormons did when Joseph Smith ran for president?
“but he hasn’t done anything yet”
…being the 1st African American president? Uhhhh….
“he has some big promises to keep; a big mess to fix”
…yeah a mess that your Republicans made…
“he will be deemed worthy of my admiration when he shows me he will uphold the constitution at all costs…”
…like Bush did with a unilateral war and torturing detainees?
“…strengthen moral values as much as he is able…”
…like how Bush values little embryos that don’t even have a nervous system more than the adults suffering with degenerative diseases that could be helped by stem cells?
“…and keep the promises he has made to reform broken Washington.”
…well your beloved Mitt Romney promised the same thing.
“Even then I won’t be tripping over my feet to see him as tears fall from my eyes”
???? Some people are really affected by the defeat of a prejudice that has been in place since our nation’s inception. I bet you would “trip over your feet to see him as tears fall from your eyes” if it was Thomas S. Monson…
News flash: The evangelical right that controls the republican party HATES Mormons. You probably only vote Republican because of abortion and gay rights anyway. Two insignificant parts of this last election.
dwankel,
“…you mean like the Mormons did when Joseph Smith ran for president?”
Wow. Let’s compare apples to apples here. Show me where Joseph Smith during his presidential campaign received anywhere near the adulation that Obama has received and maybe I’ll begin to consider comparing the two. Obama got enough to get elected. Joseph Smith was killed by a mob. Somehow those two cases don’t ring similar.
“…being the 1st African American president? Uhhhh….”
It’s about works, not about race. I appreciate Martin Luther King Jr. because of what he DID, not his skin color. I appreciate Newton because of what he DID, not his skin color. You need to get past the skin color and focus on presidential acts.
“…yeah a mess that your Republicans made…”
Don’t presume to say MY republicans.. I voted libertarian. Don’t ever assume that I voted republican just because I didn’t vote for Obama.
“…like Bush did with a unilateral war and torturing detainees?”
Again, you should know better than to assume. To assume that people voted against Obama because they favored such things only makes you look presumptuous and ignorant.
“…like how Bush values little embryos that don’t even have a nervous system more than the adults suffering with degenerative diseases that could be helped by stem cells?”
Nobody is taking about Bush’s values. I’m talking about Obama’s. Get over Bush already.
“…well your beloved Mitt Romney promised the same thing.”
And who is to say that Mitt Romney wouldn’t have made good on his word. We’ll never know, so why even bring it up. Now you’re just sounding ridiculous.
“???? Some people are really affected by the defeat of a prejudice that has been in place since our nation’s inception. I bet you would “trip over your feet to see him as tears fall from your eyes” if it was Thomas S. Monson…”
????????? The defeat of prejudice is a very good thing. I never said anything about that, so don’t assume I’m not for it. The issue is that Obama is not a rock star and people need to stop making fools of themselves just to catch a glimpse at him. He’s a man. That’s it. And where did the Thomas S. Monson thing come from? Does somebody here have issues with Mormons much?
“News flash: The evangelical right that controls the republican party HATES Mormons. You probably only vote Republican because of abortion and gay rights anyway. Two insignificant parts of this last election.”
You know what? I very much dislike the evangelical right. That’s why I didn’t vote for Mike Huckabee. Again, I don’t vote republican. I also don’t vote democrat. I vote my conscious and whoever I think will do a better job at the presidency. People like you who are hung up on party divides are why America is falling behind.
And one more thing. Don’t assume that gay rights and abortion rights go hand in hand with republicanism. A great many democrats and independents also reject them. Open your eyes and look around you. Get over the republican and mormon thing and maybe you’ll start to see things as they really are.
If you’re going to come to my blog and take quotes from my post, at least make coherent arguments that relate to what I say. When you bring in your prejudices and put words in my mouth, you really look misinformed and uneducated.
N. Blair wrote: “you really look misinformed and uneducated”
N. Blair wrote: “I vote my conscious”
Your “conscious”? Oh, you mean CONSCIENCE? Ouch. That backfired.
Ironic that you left the root “science” out of that word. Because that is exactly what you need a bit more of.
Nice quote by Thomas Paine (1737-1809) on the main page there. You know, back when Paine was alive, nobody really knew how to keep poop out of their drinking water. People just dropping dead from cholera and the like and everyone is just standing around scratching their head. So, doesn’t surprise me you are probing that epoch for rhetoric to support your archaic positions.
Try this one…maybe a bit more contemporary:
“Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening called the moon? …when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the ignorant of their fellows. So it is in regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain,” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 271).
- Joseph Smith (1805 – 1844)
But for me, I prefer the following:
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. ”
Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996)
But if you prefer colonial America:
“The priests of the different religious sects … dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight, and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Correa de Serra, April 11, 1820
Courtesy link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
Ah yes, Sagan the infant fondler and his theories of minor accidents. Nice source.
You’ll have to pardon me for the grammatical error. I guess when all else fails, go after the grammar. Gets them every time.
But really, there you go with your assumptions again. You really can tell a lot about a person by the quote he puts on his blog’s front page. For example, Paine lived in a time before water purification was perfected, therefore, wisdom drawn from his epoch will only support archaic positions. Not our modern sensibilities. Yeah, I can’t believe that whole revolution thing he helped start. I mean, what was that all about? Maybe it had something to do with establishing liberties necessary for enlightened individuals such as Sagan and dwankel to believe as they choose. But maybe not. I mean after all, they didn’t even know how to get the poop out of their water.
I would then conclude that no prominent political figure from that time period could be taken seriously. That includes those who spoke of things like priests of differing religious sects dreading the approach of daylight. Or guys who talked about the duperies of the day. Those kinds of opinions don’t belong in modern, sophisticated discourse, right?
I guess when it comes down to it, I’ll take Jefferson, Paine, or Washington over your infant fondler any day of the week. If your style is putting people like him on a pedestal, that’s fine. It’s your call. If your style is thumbing through Journal of Discourses to find that one quote about the people living on the sun, go on ahead. Be sure to read the whole volume while you have it open though. Unless of course that quote came from that one anti-mormon website and you didn’t bother to find in the actual book.
But if it’s your style to come here, tout science as the only solution, and rattle off some Joseph Smith quotes in an attempt to make people of faith look “archaic”, then you should really do better than Sagan with a little grammar lesson tossed in for fun. It’s fun reading your comments and all, but the whole “I smarter than you because you Mormon, me Godless critic of religion and republicans” thing is really tired. Come up with something that we haven’t heard before. Something original. I’m sure you have plenty of quotes from prominent atheists and/or early mormons up your sleeve, but who cares. We’ve heard them before and we don’t care.
Courtesy challenge: Find the grammatical error hidden somewhere in this comment. It will be fun.
Infant fondler? I have no idea what you are talking about. Could you let me in on that? I have never heard about that in regards to Sagan. I am honestly curious.
But while we’re on the topic of the characters of those we trust and revere…
Could you please explain the following to me:
Why Joseph Smith is a prophet when he utters demonstrably false statements like the one about the sun I stated before?
Why has the papyrus Smith used (found in New York in 1966) to make the Pearl of Great price been shown to have nothing to do whatsoever with Moses or any of the characters within the text? It is actually an unrelated funeral text as verified by modern Egyptology.
Why Joseph explicitly prohibits polyandry in D&C 132 but then turns around and marries multiple women already married to other men? What was it 33 wives in all?
What would you say if the current prophet of your church commanded that your sister or wife join him in plural marriage because an angel with a sword forced him to? (This was Joseph’s excuse for many of the polygamous marriages he entered into…a sword-wielding angel made him do it). Good enough reason for you to give up your wife?
Why did Emma Smith not know anything about polygamy when Smith initially started taking wives…and consummating those marriages?
How can you trust a man who believes he can see buried treasure in the ground by peering into a seer stone in the bottom of his hat? He never actually found any. Those were the same stones used to “translate” the Book of Mormon.
Why could Joseph be tricked by a cunning critic into thinking he could translate the so-called Kinderhook plates when they were nothing more than a fabrication? One of these plates still resides in a museum in Chicago.
Are the similarities between mormon temples and masonic rituals coincidental?
Why did your church leaders get duped by the murderer Mark Hoffmann and all his forgeries?
Why did the mormon church start building a multi-bilion dollar shopping center right before the greatest financial crisis since the 1930′s? God (who apparently cares about how many earrings mormon women can wear and about what underwear his chosen people can wear) can’t send a little memo about not wasting his church’s money in a broken economy?
If your church leaders can control the weather and make it rain (http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/FaithMatters/story?id=6614455&page=1) why didn’t they stop Hurricane Katrina or the tsunami that struck Asia a few years ago?
These ARE NOT anti-mormon questions. They are backed up by historical documents and journal entries from people of the time. They are common sense questions. They are simple questions stemming from the history of your church. How can someone esteem Smith as a prophet? They deal with the claims that you all make. I honestly wonder how you reason through all of this. I just can’t.
I understand how people can be skeptical of science. But what is so comforting about it is that it only moves forward when it can be disproved. The reason we don’t drill holes in the heads of psychotic patients anymore is because it has been proven to be ineffective–even harmful, obviously. Turns out that the idea of doing that to let out the evil spirits isn’t based on any fact but superstition mixed with vain tradition. The hospitals now all use medications known to alter the chemical in the brain. That happened not because it was “revealed” to anyone but because it has been proven through repeated trials verified by multiple committees of experts. Some drugs may fall out of favor as new advances are made.
Religion clings to things even if they have been shown to be false. You immediately refer to that quote I shared as anti-mormon. Why? Your prophet said it…the anti people didn’t make it up. They are just the ones asking for an explanation.
But I suppose you summed it up in your last sentence: “we don’t care”. I guess it is possible to want something to be true so bad that even evidence that would call into question the very tenets of your faith becomes meaningless.
Fact is, if the engineer who manufactured the airplane you are about to board had a history like Joseph Smith…you wouldn’t get on that airplane. You would surely want some verification of his capabilities in his self-professed role as airplane engineer. If his ability to make an airplane had repeatedly failed (like the factual failings and inconsistencies I mention for Smith) you would cancel the flight.
You may not agree with Sagan or any other atheist but I would think you would respect their ability to prove what it is they argue. As for religion, I would be interested in why you are so sure of God and his prophet Joseph Smith with the countless inconsistencies that it is obvious your church wants to sweep under the rug as they struggle to become more mainstream. Not in a condescending way…I am really curious.
Now, one last question. Help me understand this…
The Pearl of Great Price states that God creates worlds without number with children as numerous as the sands of the sea.
Jesus is the Savior of the entire human race. Mormons teach that people who don’t know about Jesus go to spirit prison.
So there are other humans on countless other worlds in our universe.
Yet, we know that many of the stars we see in our sky are no longer there. They burned out billions of years ago.
So, the people who inhabited those solar systems are long dead and have been waiting for Jesus to die on our planet up in spirit prison (which only occurred 2000 years ago) for billions of years.
And so the story of Jesus (which all the zillions of these other children of God have to hear in order to go to heaven) must now contain an explanation of how Jesus was crucified on another world billions (if not more) of miles away from their own in a far corner of the universe.
What if they have no concept of outer space or the universe. Or space travel. or stars and planets. Or any of the principles of astrophysics we all take for granted. I mean, we only discovered our heliocentric universe a few hundred years ago.
So Jesus is essentially an alien for every other planet except ours.
Does any of this make any sense?!?
Can you understand why people trust science more than religion? Can you at least find it in yourself to understand why people choose to call people like yourself out when you are obviously so sure of yourself.
If you got a severe illness…you would go to your doctor (Scientific Method) instead of your pastor (Personal Revelation from God). Just look at the track records, reproducibility, and validity of these to dichotomous spheres.
You question how I can reason through all of this? Reason would tell me to disbelieve everything I can’t see. It would tell me that unless I can fully comprehend something with my finite mind, I must discredit it. Fortunately, there is a force higher than reason.
If you are honestly curious, then here is where I would start. Read what we have read, learn what we have learned, and try to understand what we have tried to understand. All of it. Not just the critical, but everything else. Joseph Smith’s life story and his writings and motives, not just his involvement in polygamy. Testimony of witnesses who later came to dislike Smith the man. Differences in practices and doctrines. The complete standard works. How members of our church view our prophets and leaders. In other words, context.
I don’t know your background. I don’t know if you have been a mormon at one time and left, if you know people who are mormons, or if you know about mormons only what non-mormons and/or critics have told you. What I do know is that arguments about what we believe are pointless. You will never understand us unless you can begin to see the world through our eyes. If you try, you may find that we understand a good amount of science, philosophy, theology, and many other things. We are not ignorant, lemming-like, or blind. Many of us have been schooled at the best universities in the world, have learned the same things you have learned, and yet view the world very differently than you do. Incidentally, there are even a few scientists in our church who have reconciled their faith with the scientific method.
Is it possible that these people simply know something that you do not? Is it possible that they have chosen faith and God in addition to their limited understanding of science and man? I think it is possible, and not because they “want something to be true so bad”ly. Now, you have implied that the science precedes the truth. That religion must be held accountable to science. We believe differently.
My point is this. You are welcome to search out answers to your questions from mormons who feel that proof will change your mind. Or you could even look and see what mormon scholars have said about the seer stones, masonic rituals, etc. They are good reads, as they will give you their version of the science that you need. The problem is that they don’t know everything. You and I don’t know the truth of everything. The history books don’t know the truth of everything. We believe that truth comes from one source, and He is not obligated to show us proof when we don’t believe something. Faith precedes the miracle (read that one too).
I have my theories about polygamy, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and all the other “controversial” issues that arise. The difference between you and I, though, is that my faith is not affected by my ability to reason them out. I do the best I can, then I take the rest on faith. I have had so many things happen to me that I attribute to my faith, that I am not shaken if you tell me that your “facts” disprove my faith. That is what I mean when I say I don’t care.
So to continue a previous thought, I hope your curiosity leads you to attempt a sincere understanding of things you can only speculate about now. I can promise you that your questions will never be answered by reason alone. If you need to reason it out for it to be true, I can’t help you. I can only encourage you to try to resolve your doubts at a different level than you were at when you couldn’t reason through them. That’s Einstein.
I hope you find what you are looking for.
Thanks for the correspondence.