Hillary Clinton Reveals How The Bible Made Her Who She Is Today

[Joe Magarac]

This is from before the current news cycle, but it's not ancient and I'm catching up.

Hillary Clinton Reveals How The Bible Made Her Who She Is Today
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/16/hillary-clinton-bible_n_5500041.html

Well that settles it. Us Bible believers <snicker> better vote for Hillary.

At the risk of appearing predictable, the Bible was and remains the biggest influence on my thinking. I was raised reading it, memorizing passages from it and being guided by it. I still find it a source of wisdom, comfort and encouragement.

Let me guess. She looked at the Book of Job and said "If I were in charge, I could devise even better loyalty tests".

[Autumn]

1. I read the bible, cover to cover I thew it away and THAT made me who I am today.

[Joe Magarac]

2. + 1 thumbs up n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Cool stuff in the Bible

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

Acts 4:32

[freshwest]

53. That was actually cited at the YSA. I liked it, but also had some inkling of the social context. n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

54. What is YSA?

And Friedrich Engels wrote glowingly about the early Christians. Jesus was indeed a small c communist.

[freshwest]

58. The Young Socialist Alliance:

The Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) was a Trotskyist youth group of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United States of America. It was founded in 1960, although it had roots going back several years earlier. It was dissolved in 1992.[1] The membership peaked in 1971 at 1,434...[2]

The YSA achieved substantial influence in the anti-Vietnam War movement between 1965 and the early 1970s, including near complete control over the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, a national campus organization with a peak membership of some 100,000...

The organization went into rapid decline with the end of the war in Vietnam in 1975. By 1980 its membership had fallen to 468, of whom only about 275 were not also members of the Socialist Workers Party.[2] The YSA formally dissolved in 1992. Two years later the Socialist Workers Party created a new youth organization called the Young Socialists...[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Socialist_Alliance

I was involved with the YSA at my university, after SDS fell apart, which I got into during my high school years:

SDS: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main representations of the New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969.

SDS has been an important influence on student organizing in the decades since its collapse. Participatory democracy, direct action, radicalism, student power, shoestring budgets, and its organizational structure are all present in varying degrees in current American student activist groups. Though various organizations have been formed in subsequent years as proposed national networks for left-wing student organizing, none has approached the scale of SDS, and most have lasted a few years at best.

A new incarnation of SDS was founded in 2006.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_a_Democratic_Society

After that I worked with the SWP:

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a far-left political organization in the United States...[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_%28United_States%29#Formation_of_the_SWP

We were all into non-violence training and we went from coast to coast in the mobilizations. We worked on this year around. I was very involved with unions and the SWP in my area and we did carry the district in a presidential election. Some time later I blew them off. I'll explain in mail to you if you want to know, but not here. I found SDS to be correct about almost everything but sexism, but was able to move past it, since I wasn't vulnerable to demands.

I still agree with most of the things cited in the SWP entry, sans the international concerns. The farmworkers and other groups mentioned in that piece were very much a part of my life for some years, especially the war, racism, etc.

Engels wasn't perfect. And well... anyway. Some other time. I later became the president of the Young Democrats at my college and volunteered since my early teens to do phone banking for them and canvassing. I was in all civil rights matters in my city and union matters in my state after I left college and worked.

Virtually everything we worked for was taken away in the following decades. The state I came from is unrecognizable to me, nothing like it was now, and I see things solidifying in a bad system that too many agree with.

I support democratic socialism and it's part of the CPC Sanders is in. But this nation is so much farther to the right and their power has grown so immense I don't have the luxury of a purist. I'm sticking with the Democratic Party because it can get things done and save lives. We need to get a firm majority elected and a Democratic POTUS.

Probably went off topic there.

[sufrommich]

4. So? nt.

[Fuddnik]

5. Cut the crap! We know she's a secret Muslim!

[tularetom]

6. You can tell that's pre-Sanders vintage Clinton

Back in the days when her media gurus and focus group testers were still telling her that all Americans were raving religious loonies and if she wanted to be president she would have to talk like a fundamentalist wack job.

I guarantee you won't hear any bible blather out of her as long as Sen Sanders is still in the race and talking about wealth and income inequality. If she survives the primaries, she'll be back to Bible Girl trying to win over all the loons she's currently ignoring.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

22. I am sure Senator Sanders would have no problem with Madame Secretary quoting the Book Of Acts

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

Acts 4:32

[cherokeeprogressive]

31. I'd stuff every one of her "town halls" with people asking questions about her faith.

[bigtree]

7. so, we're knocking on folks for their faith/religious beliefs now?

..is this just for Christianity, or should we start ridiculing all religions for the purpose of our political debate here?

I would defend anyone's right to be an adherent, or defend persons of religious faith in the same manner. I don't believe either should be ridiculed in our political debate unless those beliefs are directly related by the individual or group to discriminatory, hateful, or hurtful acts or rhetoric.

[Bonobo]

8. Why not?

If a person told you they believe that a magical zombie will determine how your soul spends the afterlife, I think many others besides myself would be uncomfortable with them having the military might of the U.S. At their fingertips.

You can disagree but many would agree with me. That means it is open for discussion.

[Cali_Democrat]

18. So you would have been uncomfortable with FDR as commander in chief during WW2. nt

[rock]

35. As well as every president since then?

[Bonobo]

44. Did he actually believe in magic?

If so, yes.

[Cali_Democrat]

45. Upthread you referred to a "magical zombie"

FDR believed in the same magical zombie that Hillary believes in.

So you wouldn't have been comfortable with FDR as commander in chief, correct?

[Bonobo]

46. Yeah, if he believed that THAT magical zombie had the power to make your soul fly on white puffy

clouds FOREVER, thus rendering this mere 70 years of life a relatively minor affair, then yes, I would be uncomfortable.

[Cali_Democrat]

47. LOL...

[sufrommich]

9. It smacks of the anti Catholicism whispering campaign

against the Kennedys. The levels some will sink to is interesting.

[bigtree]

11. it's just bull

...candidates have been expressing their faith for decades, including Kennedy. Just stating her own beliefs isn't knocking anyone elses. That's a made up standard of the op's which is purely crap.

The insinuation in the op is that merely stating one's religious beliefs, as Hillary did, has some sort of negative meaning or is related to something we should reject or abhor.

edit: misunderstood your post. Sorry (first cup of coffee)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. It' s just bull ...candidates have been expressing their faith for decades, including Kennedy

“Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah -- to ‘undo the heavy burdens, and [to] let the oppressed go free.’"

- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

[Maedhros]

23. Personally, I wish everyone would keep their religion private.

I'm instantly suspicious of politicians that promote their "Bible cred" - means they're pandering to the Christian Right.

[sufrommich]

24. She wasn't "promoting" anything,she was asked a specific question.

She also listed John Grisham, Toni Morrison and Walter Isaacson as her favorite writers. The article also makes clear that she mentioned numerous books as her favorites but doesn't include their titles in the article.

[bigtree]

30. so you're claiming all religious expression is 'pandering to the Christian right?'

...are there no progressive notions of Christianity you can think of?

This is a rather reprehensible line of political attack. Your statement is both intellectually vacuous and factually incorrect.

[Maedhros]

32. Progressive Christians generally understand Matthew 6:6

5"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 7"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.…

Conservative Christians are generally the ones who need their candidates to swear the Christian loyalty oath.

I'm pretty much immune to whatever outrage you manufacture, so rail against me all you want if it makes you feel better.

[bigtree]

33. you're the one with fake outrage against an innocuous expression of religious belief

...her statement has zero to do with any 'swearing of a Christian loyalty oath.'

Truth, in this matter has taken a back seat to your reprehensible political attack on Hillary Clinton's religious expression/belief.

[Maedhros]

34. Not outraged.

I prefer that candidates don't bring the Bible into their stump speeches. I explained why.

Keep lashing out. It suits you well.

[bigtree]

36. you didn't make that comment in a vacuum, you lashed out in a political fashion

...at Hillary Clinton based on a religious expression of hers, defending that criticism of yours by contrasting a progressive expression of religion with your view of a conservative one. You certainly didn't mean to suggest she took a progressive stance. It's as if you think no one could see your comment accusing her of 'pandering to the Christian Right.'

[Maedhros]

37. I stand by my comments.

For the record, I don't think Hillary is capable of taking a sincere Progressive stance.

We have historical evidence of her pandering to the Right:

In 2004 many polls were published showing that America was a "Christian nation," with all the attendant Sunday-morning talk show pomp-and-circumstance and the right-wing radio gloating. Thus, when confronted with the gay marriage issue, Hillary pandered to Christian Conservatives (note the use of Christian Conservative phrasing):

https://www.catholicvote.org/video-hillary-clinton-marriage-is-sacred-bond-between-man-and-woman/

“I believe marriage is…a sacred bond between a man and a woman….a fundamental bedrock principle that it exists between a man and woman, going back into the midst of history, as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization. And that it’s primary principle role during those milennia has been the raising and socializing of children for the society into which they are to become adults.”

In 2011, after a brutal air war campaign that reduced Libya to a smoking ruin and plunged the African nation into a downward spiral of misery and chaos, all based on trumped-up lies about "genocide," Hillary pandered to jingoistic American Exceptionalists who get a vicarious rush from the imposition of American military might. Note the paraphrasing of Julius Caesar, not thought of as history's greatest progressive:

[bigtree]

38. I'm not surprised

...as reprehensible and demagogic as those comments were.

Attacking her for a disassociated religious expression is a slimy political tactic.

[Maedhros]

39. Well, that's me - a reprehensible demagogue.

But "We came, we saw, he died" is in no way reprehensible, and Hillary is in no way a demagogue.

[bigtree]

40. I frankly don't know who the hell you are

...but I do know that attacking someone for their religious expression and projecting the worst of your imagination onto it is a pathetic practice of politics. You live with that.

[Maedhros]

41. I am, indeed, a mystery to you.

I didn't attack Hillary for her religious expression, per se, but for her pandering to the Right.

[sibelian]

25. People can have whetever religions they like - when POLITICIANS start talking about their religion

it becomes a matter of political debate.

It would be a great deal easier to treat Christianity as something above ridicule if people identifying as Christians were less in the habit of exhibiting ridiculous behaviour.

[Indepatriot]

10. How do you make an atheist? Give a smart 10 year-old a copy of the bible....

[RussBLib]

12. The Bible sure helped me to be what I am today..

...an atheist, and I look askance at someone who waves the Bible proudly over their heads and claims to be a believer.

It smacks to me of intellectual dishonesty.

Strike against Hillary.

[femmocrat]

13. I have always heard her referred to as a "staunch Methodist".

This article seems to agree with that description:

Hillary Clinton grew up in a Methodist household, she taught Methodist Sunday school like her mother, is a member of a Senate prayer group, and regularly attends the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington. Hillary Clinton can be placed in the moderate to liberal wing of American Christianity, but she appears to share a number of attitudes with more conservative American Christians. Clinton's liberalism is a relative matter: she's more liberal than many in America, and certainly more liberal than the Christian Right, but she has a long way to go to support truly progressive stances when it comes to religious debates.

http://atheism.about.com/od/hillaryclintonreligion/a/ClintonReligion.htm

[Sancho]

14. Is there some kind of planned attack today? Just asking...

All of a sudden a bunch of irrelevant Hillary bash attacks show up on DU with low post counts?

I have no idea who people are, but what difference does this make? Everybody comes from somewhere. Bernie lived in a kibbutz, Hillary was Methodist, etc.

If you want an issue, check out the Supreme Court!!! Six Catholic and 3 Jewish!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/supreme-courts-lack-of-re_b_5545989.html

If the post is an attack on Protestants, maybe there's a group for that. If the OP is Hillary history, then so what? Some people get inspiration and insight from the Bible (Hillary would not be the first), and others get their values from the latest summer blockbuster movie.

[Cali_Democrat]

15. FDR was a man of faith....

Looks like DU just threw him under the bus along with JFK...in order to attack Hillary.

SMH

[freshwest]

42. Expunged like the GOP would. Sorry, FDR.

But I don't think Sanders would do that.

[Joe Magarac]

51. Historical context: A Christian. A Democrat. Not a Jew. Not a Communist.

But FDR did not go in for litmus test Bible thumping at all.

Neither did Republicans in that era (such as Unitarian Herbert Hoover).

Some southern Democrats, maybe.

[PatrickforO]

16. My father is long dead, having passed in 1983. Still, there are some memories

of him that influence my behavior and outlook to this day.

Dad was not a religious man, but was a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason, and I can remember as if it were yesterday when he had the talk about religion with me.

We lived out in the relatively affluent suburbs at the time, and it was maybe 1963 or 1964. As a family we never spoke much of religion, but Dad always had a curious (to me) reverence for peoples' beliefs, whatever those might be.

Well, there were quite a few Jewish kids in my school, and it amazed me (remember I was all of 5 or 6 years old) that they did not celebrate Christmas or Easter. So I precipitated this conversation which has stuck with me these 50 or more years by asking if I have to respect peoples' religion, then why are there different religions? Is there one I should respect more?

Dad, who was hot tempered at best, and many times flew into unpredictable rages, this time sat and answered me thoughtfully.

He told me that everyone needs to do their own spiritual study and find their own path. He said my path would be different from others, but that I should respect theirs too. He said the main thing is that I should never try and make other people believe like I do, and that I should not allow someone to do that to me.

So, I say this to all of you: It seems fashionable among some progressives to scoff at the bible or religious beliefs (very easy in fact with the crazy wing of the GOP base), but I'm reminding everyone that we should try to be respectful. I know it is difficult, but if someone says the bible has inspired them in some way, we should take that at face value, not scoff or try and convince them about our own ways of believing, but just live and let live. In the words of that bible, we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

That said, I can't resist a funny story: Later in the same conversation, Dad warned me not to fall prey to religious cons. He said that when I got older I might decide to join a church. He said that the leaders in this church might ask me for money. He said they might ask me for a lot of money. So, he told me, here's what to say: OK, here's what I'll do. I will throw my money up in the air. What stays up there is God's. What comes back down is mine.

The funny thing, is that later in life I DID join a church, though I'm not a member any more. When they asked me for a tithe, I told them the story above and they were NOT amused.

[freshwest]

43. Your dad sounds exactly like mine in every way. Died in 1964.

[Sheepshank]

17. So tell me exactly why I should give a flying fuck.

Has she announced that she will govern and make laws based on biblical principals like Santorum has said or Cruz?

Her religious background is not some secret new reveal. It's been known for decades.

What a weird thing to complain about. And fwiw I identify as atheist.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

20. Exactly

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. Every president has been a believer or has held himself out as such.

It's odd to single out Hillary.

[OKNancy]

26. Jimmy Carter! He is super religious

A good man who uses religion for the right reasons.

[ann---]

27. Here's one more reason I will not vote for her

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-jewish-donors-israel-119705.html

Hillary Clinton to Jewish donors: I’ll be better for Israel than Obama

[DemocratSinceBirth]

29. At least she didn't shout down Palestinian supporters and tell them to shut up

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) got into a heated confrontation with constituents during a town hall in his home state this past weekend. After a woman in the crowd asked Sanders about a Senate resolution that condemned Hamas but “said nothing” about Israel’s “massacre” of Palestinians in Gaza, the senator became defensive, fighting off angry residents with shouts of “Excuse me! Shut up!”

http://www.mediaite.com/online/excuse-me-shut-up-bernie-sanders-defends-israel-from-town-hall-hecklers/

Regardless of how one feels about the conflict one must admit he displayed a saddening lack of empathy.

[no_hypocrisy]

28. Hillary is or was a member of the D.C. Christian Group, The Family

She may well believe in what she says.

And it explains her allegiance(s).

a/k/a the Foundation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_%28Christian_organization%29

[okasha]

57. That is false and has been debunked multiple times.

Find a new canard.

[wyldwolf]

62. Certainly you can do better than spread that BS.

[no_hypocrisy]

64. My references

'Family': Fundamentalism, Friends In High Places
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106115324

Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics


Jeff Sharlet on Hillary Clinton's Relationship to "The Family

Please show me yours.

[dsc]

48. guess we should undo the Civil Rights movement

since it was brought to us by a bunch of reverends. Maybe we should undo many of the progressive era reforms while we are at it as those were brought to us by a bunch of religious people.

[wyldwolf]

63. First, learn the difference between facebook and twitter. Second, learn math and the methodology

Your Post title: She has a million fake facebook friends too, LOL
Article headline: Hillary Clinton Allegedly Has More Than 2 Million Fake Twitter Followers

You're off by about 1 million and referencing the wrong account. Additionally, read the disclaimers:

Each audit takes a random sample of 5000 Twitter followers for a user and calculates a score for each follower. This score is based on number of tweets, date of the last tweet, and ratio of followers to friends. We use these scores to determine whether any given user is real or fake. Of course, this scoring method is not perfect

So, essentially, if you follow more people than follow you, have let several weeks go by without tweeting, and haven't tweeted much, you account will be flagged as fake.

LOL

Exactly.

[bravenak]

50. I don't think I care.

I'm used to everyone around me being religious. I'm usually the only atheist.

[99Forever]

55. Not surprising.

Coming out as an atheist is political suicide in this fucked up nation. So they all pander to the gullible religious crowd.

My issues with HRC are far more important and relevant than this drivel.

[restorefreedom]

56. first she tried to be "liberal"

to compete with bernie.

now she is pivoting to the right to get the religious crazies and it isn.t even primary season yet.

this poor woman is grasping at anything to connect with someone now that she is on a sinking ship.

sad.


edit: never mind. this is old news. she is still wearing her progressive attire, for now.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

59. Jesus was a small c communist

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

Acts 4:32

[Nye Bevan]

60. Barack Obama is a self-described born-again Christian.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thedudeabides/obama-on-faith-the-exclusive-interview/

I wonder whether this cost him many votes.

[Shoulders of Giants]

61. Politicians have to say this stuff to get elected.

Whether she really means it not, we will never because of that.