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Barack on Faith

• Posted by Theresa on March 5th, 2007 filed in Book Review, Believe It or Not

I have been reading Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope.

Definition of audacity: boldness; fearless daring; intrepidity.

Synonyms of audacity: nerve, spunk, grit, temerity,

Definition of hope: the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best

I like what he has to say on a lot of things and I would like to share some excerpts on what he has said about faith:

What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals must be subject to argument and amenable to reason…

I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or invoke God’s will and expect that argument will carry the day. If I want others to listen to me, then I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all…

Almost by definition, faith and reason operate in different domains and involve different paths to discerning truth. Reason - and science - involves the accumulation of knowledge based on realities that we can all apprehend. Religion, by contrast, is based on truths that are not provable through ordinary human understanding - the “belief in things not seen.”…

Politics, like science, depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on common reality. Moreover politics (unlike science) involves compromise, the art of the possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It insists on impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing…

So the best we can do is to act in accordance with those things that are possible for all of us to know, understanding that a part of what be know to be true - as individuals or communities of faith - will be true for us alone.

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