5 Faith Facts About Unabashedly Irreligious Bernie Sanders

[struggle4progress]

Religion News Service
By Lauren Markoe
Posted: 04/30/2015 10:13 am EDT
Updated: 04/30/2015 10:59 am EDT

... Sanders has one grown son, Levi, from his first marriage, and three grown stepchildren from his current marriage to Jane O’Meara Sanders, the former president of Vermont’s Burlington College. Raised Catholic, she said in a 1996 interview with the Burlington Free Press that she still practices Catholicism “in my own way” ... He scored a solid zero from Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition in its most recent scorecard ... Brooklyn-raised Sanders was born to a Polish Jewish immigrant father whose family was mostly wiped out during the Holocaust, and a mother who was the daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants ... Sanders spent several months in Israel on a kibbutz ... Sanders said he finds himself “very close to the teachings of Pope Francis” ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/30/bernie-sanders-faith_n_7174514.html

[SMG]

1. Bernie Sanders on Religion

So what?

[Sherman A1]

2. Perhaps

because it will be discussed in the media during the upcoming campaign. I personally could care less about his religious views, but there are those (perhaps the many commentators on cable media needing to fill air time) that will find it necessary to delve into them.

But, that's just a guess on my part.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Perhaps the OP has it out for Bernie?

He seems determined to struggle against progress and settle for yet another corporate stooge.

[struggle4progress]

4. I rather like Senator Sanders and agree with him on many things. I also happen to think

he has approximately a snowball-chance-in-hell of being elected president

A major part of the logic behind that conclusion is simply that my experience teaches me that people with whom I most agree seem to be unelectable

Naturally this conclusion does not please me much, and I would rather prefer to reach the opposite conclusion, but there's something to be said for trying to be realistic -- though psychologists warn us not to go overboard in that direction

The material in the OP seemed appropriate to this DU group: Sanders is a rather non-observant Jew, whose second wife is a rather non-observant Catholic, and he rather likes the stances of Pope Francis. Under the standard conventions of this group, we might have expected, in response to these revelations, a thunder of accusations that Sanders was an apologist for and enabler of the Spanish Inquisition. But since the atmosphere today seems not conducive to that particular storm, I suppose we will resign ourselves instead to scattered "corporate stooge" bird droppings

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Right.

You like him so much that you posted three times YESTERDAY attacking him.

Here, here, and here.

[struggle4progress]

8. The following seem to me to be indisputable facts:

(1) third party candidates don't have much chance in the US;
(2) candidates, calling themselves socialists, currently have almost no chance of winning elections anywhere in the US; and
(3) a successful presidential campaign typically requires extensive campaign experience, which one is unlikely to obtain in the smaller states

Sanders' five unsuccessful campaigns, on the Liberty Union ticket, illustrate (1)

The number of professed socialists now holding local, state, and federal office provides evidence for (2)

And (3) perhaps explains the fact we've never had a President from NV, NM, NE, WV, ID, HI, MA, NH, RI, MT, DE, SD, ND, AL, VT, or WY

[cbayer]

7. I think you are right. They will push it, but I suspect he will maintain that it's not

an important issue.

[cbayer]

6. This is a good thing, imo.

I hope to see more politicians say "it doesn't matter" or "it's none of your business" when asked about their religious beliefs.