"I'm afraid Obama is going to change our country into a Muslim country," said Melody Edwall, 51, a manager for an air carrier who lives in Colorado Springs.

I'm surprised this dingaling can manage her bowels, let alone an air carrier.

Mike, I'm a liberal Democrat too, but I think you speak way too soon. This isn't the end of Christian influence in politics, it's the beginning. If/when McCain loses, their next step will be to form an overtly Christian party, with Sarah out front, and I think they will put the Republican Party out of business.

Middle America feels under attack from Godless Muslim Terrorists, and they see having gotten stuck with the "liberal" John McCain as their candidate as another in a long line of insults they won't willingly suffer again. The Christian Right has always taken a back seat while fiscal conservatives drove, but that ride has now gone off the cliff.

"Should places like Colorado, and Ohio, and North Carolina and Virginia -- all states with more than their fair share of evangelical Christian conservatives -- go blue on Tuesday, it will be a clear sign that the sun may be setting on the political influence of fundamentalist churches like New Life."

We can only pray.

but also, when all the paranoia, all the fear mongering, all the hysterical scenarios whipped up the the psychologically disturbed underbelly of the Republican slime machine turns out not to be prophetic - when all their loudest, most strident leaders turn out to be false prophets, and the mainstream Protestant/Catholic denominations turn out to be the truer prophets, will those who claim to be the followers of Jesus seek after the truth, which was there all along, or will they continue to follow those who say "Lord! Lord!" but don't know and don't want to know the Jesus of the Gospels?

Likely some will, but no matter what the shift in religious truth or even scientific reality, there will always be those who cling to the false worldview they share with a number of other, equally psychologically dysfunctional folks. After all, there are gatherings of folks who still believe the world to be flat (which is the picture painted by the Biblical creation story, though the "creations science" folks don't seem to want to push things that far).

There are also prominent scientists who have never made it past Newtonian Physics to discover the miraculous things allowed by the theories of quantum mechanics or the latest discoveries in subatomic particle physics.

Probably the best we can hope for is the admission on all sides of every issue, that no one has the full picture or complete understanding of anything. We humans are simply too limited in our own internal computing power, not to mention our ability to take in and comprehend all relevant data on the subjects at hand.

It is when we refuse to acknowledge our limitations and insist that "my" point of view is completely, totally, unassailably right and correct that we run into the kinds of troubles we've lately had whether in politics, science, or church denominations.

I think I love you.

As many Salon voters have noted in other threads, the Republican Party has played the evangelicals. They've had plenty of time and power to clobber abortion rights and gay citizens. They didn't because these issues have evangelicals voting red. And many of the evangelical pastors have played their congregations, using them to amass wealth, which is a God-damning sin in the Bible. Likewise, the evangelicals think they're playing Jesus, saying his name, but coveting wealth and voting for war.

As a Christian and as a Pastor, I can only hope Obama does win, if for no other reason (though I do have others), than to answer these people making these outrageous claims about him. He is not Muslim. He is a Christian. He isn't a socialist. He's actually positioned himself to be fairly centrist, albeit to the progressive side. America is hardly going to be destroyed by his presidency if he is elected. This woman in a previous post reminds me of the woman at the McCain rally a few weeks ago who said Obama was an "Arab." It's so sad that we have people who believe the mistruths being told about Obama.

I, for one, will appreciate that his presidency would bring a wider Christian viewpoint into the public arena. We are not a nation of (only) right-wing Christians, though some recent presidents have acted as though we are. And it's time that the right leaning Christians accepted the reality that Christianity is a wider tent (or bigger ark, take your pick) then they have believed. And then they need to not be freaked out by it.

"He wants it to be this one big -- I don't know -- it's not America. It's going to be something else, and I don't know what it's going to be."

Well, that's real specific there, Jethro. These people are the Borg, they don't even have their own opinions anymore. They don't even know why they oppose him. The brainwashing has run too deep. If tommorrow their pastor magically changed his mind and decided Obama was the second coming of George W. Bush, they would all beleive it. American christianity is a joke and churches like this one are why. I hope one of President Obama's priorities after the economy is to crack down on the tax exception status of places like this. If these places want to be political ads, make them pay for the air time like everyone else. As for them coming to their senses after Obama doesn't convert anyone to islam, don't count on it. Somehow they will spin it in their own minds that the great republicans protected us from his un-Godly policies.

So, all of these folks have decided that in vitro fertilization is wrong if creation begins at conception?

They must make that choice. Embroyo's are created via the in vitro procedures, and these same embroyo's are routinely destroyed -- not via abortion which they oppose, but via clinical destruction.

Can't have both ways. Can't have IVP and support anti-abortion measures if you believe that creation beging when sperm meets egg.

Sadly, these folks who believe that Obama is a Muslim (and as Colin Powell mentioned what's wrong with being a Muslim?) will also campaign against a woman's right of choice while supporting IVP.

sigh.