Presidential candidate Barack Obama has stronger support among less religious Americans than rival John McCain, a survey revealed.
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(Photo: AP/Jae C. Hong)Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill, left, shakes hands with supporters at a town hall style meeting in Powder Springs, Ga., Tuesday, July 8, 2008.
The survey, conducted by The Gallup Poll and released Tuesday, found 55 percent of Americans who say religion is not important in their life backed Obama, compared to 36 percent for McCain. The reverse was true for Americans who said religion was important in their life, with 50 percent to 40 percent preferring McCain over Obama.
This correlation is most clearly seen in the segment of Americans who are white and identify themselves as either Protestant or some other non-Catholic Christian tradition. Among these believers, McCain beats Obama by a 36-point margin, 63 percent to 27 percent. The two candidates were essentially tied among those in this group who say religion is not important in their life, with McCain at 46 percent and 45 percent for Obama.
But exceptions to the correlation between religiosity and support for Republican McCain occur among Hispanic Catholics and black non-Catholic Christians. Among white Hispanic Catholics, Obama beat McCain by a large margin even among those who said religion is important in their life.
Obama received 57 percent support among religious Hispanic Catholics, compared to McCain’s 31 percent. The Illinois senator, who is vying to be the first black U.S. president, won by an even larger margin among those that said religion is not important in their life, 63 percent to 30 percent.
Preference for Obama over McCain was even more dramatic among black non-Catholic Christians. Ninety percent of this group’s religious voters supported Obama, versus 4 percent for McCain. The number was slightly raised among the group’s non-religious voters, with 92 percent for Obama and four percent supporting McCain.
The finding that religious voters prefer a Republican candidate is not new. Evangelical Christians, who are viewed as highly religious, have traditionally been stalwart voters of the Republican Party – although that idea is being challenged this election year.
Younger and moderate evangelicals have been more open to Obama’s candidacy than in past elections towards a Democratic contender. Many find his emphasis on social justice issues such as poverty and Darfur appealing. The Obama campaign has also aggressively courted religious voters with initiatives explaining how Obama plans to put his faith into action.
Experts have predicted that Obama could gain as much as 30 to 40 percent of the evangelical vote this fall.
The Gallup poll for this survey questioned 95,000 registered voters from March through June of this year.
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hlerwin- It sounds like he was writing about Hitler.
Still, what is obnoxious depends on the person drawing the conclusion. To the religious leaders Jesus was quite obnoxious when in fact they were the ones who were. The question would then be...who does God view as obnoxious?
In the spirit of full disclosure, jester and others, I need to post something else Walker Percy wrote:
"Question: Who is the most obnoxious, Protestants, Catholics or Jews? Answer: It depends on where you are and who you are talking to - though it is hard to conceive any one of the three consistently outdoing the other two in obnoxiousness. Yet, as obnoxious as are all three, none is as murderous as the autonomous self who, believing in nothing, can fall prey to ideology and kill millions of people - unwanted people, old people, sick people, useless people, unborn people, enemies of the state - and do so reasonably, without passion, even decently, certainly without the least obnoxiousness."
That part of Percy is true, as well.
Barack has been talkng about his faith much more so than Senator McCain. Senator McCain didn't show up for the faith forum in PA, but Senator Clinton and Obama did. One thing that is striking about the Lord from reading the Bible is that He doesn't give weight to one sin over another except for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which is when God intervenes directly in the life of people in the form of a miracle and someone tries to define the miracle as a Satanic occurrence. The Pharisees tried to do this to Jesus, and that is where you have the famous " a house divided against itself cannot stand." Matt 12:25 The Lord does give greater weight to a Christian virtue over all others and that is Love. Remember Luke 7:45-48 The women who wiped Christ's feet with her hair, Christ said " For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much." 1 Peter 4:8 says " Above all keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins." 1 John 4:8 " He that does not love has not come to know God, because God is love."
So, the less religious are less concerned about religion, including Obama's wavering faith.
itsallaboutjesusnotme.blogspot.com
Sounds like this individual has some very real issues. One can hope they get the help they need.
ccccc (as known by numerous other aliases as well) is flagging me in retaliation for flagging him. He was posting comments that were inflammatory and using language that was not acceptable. So I flagged him, and contacted CP to inform them of his behavior. Apparently, they booted him, but he seems to be back under anothr alias.
I told him that he could get his message across without using the remarks that he was, and all I wanted him to do was tone it down, but he continued on and even got worse.
Daniel Paul
The CP technical staff has known of this person for some time now. The introduction of his massive flagging came in the early part of March 08 where he went and flagged every comment on every page that appeared on the CP home page. He went by the names danny2, danny, first. They barred these three names and restored all comments and deleted all comments made by him. He continues to change his name. He has gone by dddd, cccccccc, God, xxxx, yyyy, Dwen, Howard, oldguy, asdfg, GeorgeXX, GeorgeX, ERVs, Jerry2, Jerry, danny2, danny, first, BobC, BobCu, and a bunch of other names that I don't remember right off hand. He is forever changing his name. CP apparently isn't queing off the right information to know that it is the same person. When you can register with CP they ask for a lot of personal information. All this can be falsified. You have to give an email address. You cannot use one that is already registered with CP. So giving a fake email addresses is the key. CP doesn't verify the email address and they let you sign on with the ID you want to use. Perhaps CP aught to first verify the email address before allowing someone to post.
Perhaps it's time to let the webmaster know and that person can be blocked by IP address.
it looks like cccccccc (now dddd) is making good on his threat to delete all of star2's and Prophet's posts.
Whose the immature child who keeps flagging Prophet? Grow up!
walker percy didnt sound like he cared about anyone.
looks like flagging wars have begun again.
about an hour before you SUPPOSE to go to bed...yah!
i know! thats the best time to drink it!
yeah yeah yeah yeah
jester, a mountain dew man and a krispy kreme man all in one, you are truly a man of God, I keep trying to tell my wife that real Christian men only drink dew, but she tells me only if they stop drinking it before 6:00PM! I don't get what she means?