Does anyone here believe that we are Christians because our parents are Christians?

I believe that the answer to this question would be an unanimous NO. Muslims, however, believe that children in Muslim families are Muslim. A debate is going on whether the Democratic nominee for President is a Muslim because his step-father was one and because when he was a 1st through 4th grader he lived in Indonesia, the country which has the largest Muslim population in the world. There are differing accounts on whether he might have accompanied his father to Fri. prayers or occasionally a service at the mosque. What difference does that make? I haven't found anything to suggest that his mother was a practicing Muslim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama


Barack Hussein Obama II[1] was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Obama, Sr., a Black Kenyan of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham, a White American from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student.[2] They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.[3] Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw him only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.[4]

After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979.[5] Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for several years and then back to Indonesia for her fieldwork. She died of ovarian cancer in 1995.[6]

Punahou School, once known as Oahu College, is a private, co-educational, nonsectarian college preparatory school located in Honolulu in the U.S. State of Hawaii. With about 3,700 students attending the school, in kindergarten through the twelfth grade, it is the largest independent school in the United States.[1]

Founded in 1841, Punahou School was originally a school for the children of Congregational missionaries serving throughout the Pacific region. It was known as Oahu College from 1859 to 1934. Before plans were made for a new middle school complex, America Online founder and Punahou School graduate of 1976 Steve Case donated ten million dollars. [13]

In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes that he "was not raised in a religious household." He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents (whom Obama has specified elsewhere as "non-practicing Methodists and Baptists") to be detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known." He describes his Kenyan father as "raised a Muslim," but a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his Indonesian stepfather as "a man who saw religion as not particularly useful."

The way I understand his life, he was not particularly interested in religion until:

In 1991, Obama joined the church [Trinity United Church of Christ] and walked down the aisle in a formal commitment of faith. Wright later married Obama and Michelle Robinson and baptized their two daughters.

Bottom line. Obama had a very difficult childhood in which his mother divorced his father two years after their marriage and he only saw his father again once before his father's death, His mother then married a man from Indonesia who was a Muslim in name only and moved to his homeland, Indonesia. Both his father and his step father became atheists. His mother was an atheist. Obama's religion was based on the influence of his maternal grandparents and his own beliefs. He professed Christianity and joined a Christian Church.

How can anyone call this man a Muslim? It's simply not true.

 

How many babies a day did George Bush kill? How many innocent Iraqis did he murder?

 

Back on target. Those who call Obama a Muslim are simply not in touch with the facts of his life.

 

Actually they are on topic. I think my original question was misleading. The point I was making is that just because Obama's father and step father were marginally Muslims at one point in their lives does not mean that he is a Muslim. Some here are trying to make that point and I'm arguing against it.

I won't argue that many if not most Christians were strongly influenced by their parents. I certainly was.

What I'm not especially trying to prove here is that Obama is an authentic Christian or for that matter that John McCain is or is not an authentic Christian. I do believe that Obama's work for the poor on the south side of Chicago would indicate that if he's had an authentic conversion experience. I believe that McCain's opposition to abortion could be viewed in the same way.

My primary point is that there's no evidence that Obama is a practicing Muslim.

 

I do believe that Obama's work for the poor on the south side of Chicago would indicate that if he's had an authentic conversion experience.