Dnsycnt,
Despise is a powerful word. What I don't understand is how someone can go from not having any or little info about a person, listen to the rantings of the loyal opposition and arrive at despising someone.
Actually, it was more the ranting of the Loyal Followers that first disturbed me.
To follow your apparent rationale', any American of faith would be disqualified from public office. With all due respect, I think we might have more to fear from people who think like you do.
Yes, because believing Dinosaurs walked the earth 6,000 years ago is the sign of a rational person.
How is distrusting those who follow the lunacy of young earth creationism suddenly a sign of hating all people who believe in a god? "He's a Disbeliever who distrusts people who believe in talking snakes, so he MUST hate all religious people!!!!!!!!!"
She also believes we're in the End Times, and she will see Judgement Day in her lifetime. Yet I'm an evil oppressive dangerous person because I don't want to hand her nuclear weapons?
I find it hilarious how people rant and rave about how terrible Obama is and how he should have distanced himself from his church so long ago, and how he's guilty by association, but when it comes to Palin The Great, everything is liberal hogwash. Never mind her crazy tongue speaking church that has the stance that we are in the end times. Never mind the many people she has known who have validated her agreement with such nonsense. Never mind that fact that she has yet to refute a belief in young earth creationism and the End Times being now.
I have no problem with religious people being in office. I know lots of religious people. They can be good hearted, intelligent individuals. What I have a problem with is people who have had their reasoning faculties poisoned by complete nonsense such as young earth creationism, or the false sense of persecution that is the End Times.
If you are going to despise someone for their millennial views,
do your homework and at least get it right.You have her eschatology (or Assy of God) eschatology incorrect. They are pre-millenials who believe in a pre-tribulation pre-millenialism, illustrated in band #2:
Since there has been no rapture*, PTPM, is NOT in the "end times" as described in Revelations. There may be talk be individuals who think that time approaching and eschatology may be a topic of interest to them,
but the requirements for the beginning of PTPM have yet to be fulfilled.
So, it seems your derision is misplaced on to people who find the end times an interesting/frequent topic for discussion, but whose actual belief requirements preclude us from being in them. Probably a common problem for folks who are generally ignorant of the various strains of Christian eschatology, find Christians kinda icky, and are too lazy to do their homework before unleashing their antipathy.
Not to worry, though! There are some folks on whom you can direct your sneers who fit the bill...
There
is a group of wacky types that
not only believe we are in the End Times (millenium), but that we have had multiple anti-Christs over time and will likely see more of them. Which group might that be? Well, that is doctrine for the ~1 billion Roman Catholics. Oh, you might want to add some of the largest of the Protestant denominations, too (Anglican, Reformed, Lutheran). grampster is correct, if your religious test were enforced, the majority of Americans would be ineligible for public office.
These folks adhere to amillennial eschatology, band #4 in the illustration. What that means is that adherents to AM eschatology believe we are in the end times, already, in a symbolic millennium that will end when God wants it to end with the last judgment.
Here is a listing of all the POTUS with their religious affiliations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidential_religious_affiliationsI would note that there are PTPM, AM, & likely other millennial beliefs represented. Both pre- & post-nuclear age.
How many other than Truman (Baptist--PTPM, like Assy of God) have lit off nukes in war? You think Truman went nuclear due to his PTPM eschatology?
I could rip your post apart on other grounds, but I grow weary and will end with this last point:
Whatever her beliefs, for you to get all wound up would require that
you think she will not honor her oath of office and will place her eschatology before that oath and the COTUS.
If you had investigated her record as governor, you would have found instances of her doing what was constitutional under the Alaskan constitution rather than what she preferred to do.
Feh.
* Seen any Christians suddenly go incorporeal, leaving behind all their stuff for you & the others to scratch your heads in confusion? If not, no rapture has occurred.