Is Barack Obama A Total Liar?

The article by Daniel Pipes cannot give stark evidence of Barack Obama’s Muslim identity. For example, in the 4th paragraph, Pipes stated “Obama’s Kenyan birth father: In Islam, religion passes from the father to the child.” On the other hand, in Obama’s fact sheet, it is written that his parents divorced when he was two and he lost contact with his father, who returned to Kenya. If his father was missing, how could he possibly preach or help developing Obama’s religious character?

With his mother’s marriage to a Muslim Indonesian man, Lolo Soetoro, Barack Obama’s religion changed directly into Muslim. Since his mother is an atheist, there is no other religion in the family apart from Islam. It makes it easy to understand why Barack Obama was registered to schools as a Muslim, noting that atheism is banned in Indonesia.

In the school documents, Obama’s religion might be written as “Islam”, but there is a possibility that it was just a status because of his family. In my opinion, one can be categorized as a Muslim if one has Islamic faith, believes in the Prophet Muhammad and other essential Islamic doctrines. On the other hand, one is not a real Muslim if one is registered to schools as a Muslim but has not accepted those dogmas yet. The latter situation matches with Obama. Let’s say, if we meet a family of farmers, does it mean that all members of the family would grow up into farmers too? No. Has a son of a farmer, who is an architect, ever been a farmer? No.

In the news accounts, Obama used his personal Bible for his senator swearing in. He also belongs to the Trinity Church. In fact, he has ever even shared his personal relationship with Jesus in public. If Obama is a Muslim, he wouldn’t have bothered making a long sharing speech about him and Jesus because psychological essence, it is not an easy task to lie about one’s personal experience, especially in front of millions of people.

In the article from Smoothstone.Blogspot.com, Pipes included only quotes which indicate that Obama was indeed a Muslim. From that light, it is clear that Pipes is biased. Furthermore, there is a rumor, as posted in Snopes.com, that the whole Obama’s religious issue started from one persuasive email made by his anti-supporters.

Now, whether or not we believe that Obama is no muslim and also his suitability for US presidency is entirely up to us.



Resources:

Smoothstone.Blogspot, Barack Obama’s Muslim Childhood, Daniel Pipes, May 03, 2008 ed. , viewed on 21/05/08
<http://smoothstone.blogspot.com/2008/05/barack-obamas-muslim-childhood.html>
Snopes, Who Is Barack Obama?, viewed on 22/05/08
<http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp>
The Jakarta Post, What if Barack Obama was Muslim?”, Tom Plates, viewed on 22/05/08
<http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/05/19/what-if-barack-obama-was-muslim.html>
Times Online, Barack Obama, I’m No Muslim, Tim Reid, January 16, 2008 ed., viewed on 21/05/08
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3194740.ece>
Urban Legends, Barack Obama Muslim, viewed on 22/05/08
<http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_barack_obama_muslim.htm>