The Most Disturbing Words in Obama's Hiroshima Speech

To me, the most disturbing words contained within President Obama's Hiroshima ceremony speech are these:

"How easily we learn to justify violence in the name of some higher cause. Every great religion promises a pathway to love and peace and righteousness, and yet no religion has been spared from believers who have claimed their faith as a license to kill."

The implication here, is that the destruction of Hiroshima and/or the war in the Pacific were done in the name of religion.  Obviously, this a backhanded apology.  But, I hardly think that Harry Truman based his decision to bomb Hiroshima on a religious belief.

This isn't the first time that Obama implied that war and murder occurred for religious reasons.  Note this excerpt from his 2015 White House Prayer Breakfast speech:

We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic, a rising tide of anti-semitism and hate crimes in Europe, so often perpetrated in the name of religion.

So how do we, as people of faith, reconcile these realities -- the profound good, the strength, the tenacity, the compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religion for their own murderous ends?

Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history.  And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

Essentially, these words seem to expose the President's belief that religion is at the core of  all wars in the world.  He ignores the fact that most wars are a result of either imperialism or hatred.  It was Japan's imperialistic goal to have control over the entire Pacific region that drove them to try and get us out of the way by attacking Pearl Harbor.  Religion had nothing to do with it.  In fact famed Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamotto said it best about Pearl Harbor: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." No mention of religion in those words. And, it was Hitler's same desire to have expanded nationalist rule in Europe that drove his war.  Again, religion had nothing to do with it.  According to British historian Alan Bullock, "Hitler was a rationalist and materialist 'who believed neither in God nor in conscience'".  His goal was simply the creation of a Third Reich with himself as dictator.

In my opinion, Obama's words seem to either expose his deep-seated and unfounded hatred of religion; or perhaps, that he, himself, is trying to hijack religion as a means of explaining his own reticence to go to war to confront the evils in the world such as ISIS or Al Qaeda.

References:

Text of President Obama’s Speech in Hiroshima, Japan: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/world/asia/text-of-president-obamas-speech-in-hiroshima-japan.html

Remarks by the President at National Prayer Breakfast: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/05/remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast

Religious views of Adolf Hitler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler

Yes Mr. President, Slavery and Jim Crow Laws Were Horrible.but...

At the recent National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama decried the fact that many horrible things were done in the name of Christ.  In this country, he specifically referenced slavery and Jim Crow [laws] as an example. 

While it is true that southern white ministers preached that blacks were less than human, there were numerous ministers -- mostly in the north -- who preached to abolish slavery.  People like John Wesley and Henry Ward Beecher are famed for their opposition to slavery.  We fought the Civil War over slavery.  But, Obama and a lot of Democrats always seem to ignore the fact that the Civil War wasn't just a war between the North and the South, it was a war between anti-slavery northerners and pro-slavery southern white Democrats who were mostly Christian.  Also, the President who drove that war was both a Christian and a Republican.  And, that President, in his second inaugural address, said this about slavery; the bible (Christianity); and the war between the North and the South:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's  faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered.

So, he questioned how those in the North and in the South could read the same bible and, yet, those in the South could believe in slavery ("wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces"). Thus, Abraham Lincoln, by his words, is explaining that there was a deep religious divide in this country over the issue.  A fact that Obama didn't state or want you to know.  Instead, we are left with the impression that all Christians in this country, condoned slavery. 

Also, after the war, and during the period known as the Reconstruction, it was the southern white Democrats who, in state after southern state, passed segregationist laws known as Jim Crow.  A fact that a Democrat like Obama never wants to admit but, instead, through that omission, wants to make his audiences think that he, as a Democrat, is talking about Republicans and Jim Crow. Again, southern white ministers took no stance against Jim Crow laws.

References:

At Prayer Breakfast, Obama Decries 'Distortions':  http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/prayer-breakfast-obama-decries-distortions-faith-justify-violence-n300786

PBS: Jim Crow Stories: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: Democratic Party: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_democratic.html

Jim Crow Laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

The Abolitionist Movement - The Tumult Of Reform:  http://www.libraryindex.com/history/pages/cmxyrbgl6u/abolitionist-movement-tumult-reform.html

Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address Saturday, March 4, 1865: http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html

Obama Equates The Islamic State to Catholicism

At the annual National Prayer Breakfast,  President Obama said this about the Islamic State: "brutal, vicious death cult". As usual, he never once called them Islamic extremists or terrorists.  Now, they are simply a type of "cult".  Then, he went on to talk about the fact that there are other terrible things going on in the world in the name of religion.  But, what has a lot of people upset are the words that followed those remarks:

"And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."

By saying that, he basically gave Christianity (specifically Catholicism) the moral equivalency of the Islamic State.  Make no mistake about it, this was a direct and  quite intentional slam against the Catholic Church.  An institution that most liberals, like Obama, hate because of its stand on gays, abortion, and same sex marriage.

This is not the first attack on, or proof that, Obama is at war with Catholics.  His mandate for contraception availability under ObamaCare was a direct hit against the Church's stand on contraception and and the morning-after pill.  He could have used his pen to give Catholic institutions an exemption to the mandate but, instead, he prefers to wage war with the Church in our courts over this mandate.

But, don't just think its Catholics that he doesn't like.  Remember his "clinging to their guns and bibles' comment.  In essence, President Obama pretty much doesn't like Christianity at all.  This, even though he claims to be one.

References:

Obama calls ISIS ‘brutal, vicious death cult’: http://nypost.com/2015/02/06/obama-calls-isis-brutal-vicious-death-cult/

OBAMA’S WAR ON RELIGION: http://www.catholicleague.org/obamas-war-on-religion-2/

America's Most Biblically-Hostile US President - WallBuilders: http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=106938