Obama gave a historic speech accepting the nomination for the Democratic ticket and nobody is talking about it. Why should they? Obama is old news. And Obama gives great speeches all the time. Palin, on the other hand, there is something new, something juicy. It’s all about Palin.

I’ve already posted about how Sarah Palin is absurdly underqualified to lead the country. She’s underqualified to be the Mayor of a major American city, let alone leader of the country. Setting that aside, however, is there any evidence as to what kind of leader she would be if she were President?

To being with, Governer Palin is completely clueless about science. She does not believe in climate change, sued to stop polar bears from being put on the endangered species list, and thinks creationism should be taught in public schools. She’d be a disaster for the environment and for science education in our country. These things are disturbing, but not surprising considering her religious background.

The one thing that is getting very little play in the blogosphere is the fact that Sarah Palin is a member of the Assemblies of God sect of Pentecostalism. Three beliefs of this group particularly disturb me are:

  1. Speaking in Tongues
  2. Faith Healing
  3. The Rapture

First, the whole speaking in tongues thing. This phenomenon (also known as glossolalia) is just plain freaky. People literally just start to babble incoherently and think that it’s a gift from the Holy Spirit. Here is an example. Ask yourself, would you want a President who actually does this?

This is not miraculous and it’s not even what the Bible claimed happened at Pentecost. The “gift of tongues” was supposedly the giving of the ability to speak previously unknown foriegn languages for the purpose of preaching, not the ability to babble gibberish that nobody can understand. Anybody in the world can babble nonsense syllables. Sarah Palin has been doing this her whole life. Does this not concern you?

Next, faith healing. I have been to a Benny Hinn revival. I have read books about supposed miraculous healings. There has never been a confirmed miraculous healing. Ever. There have been many cases of people who have died because they believed their cancer was cured by a charlatan faith-healer and so refused further treatment. There are always cases in the news of children who die because their idiotic parents seek faith-healing instead of real medical treatment. Unlike the tongues (which is just silly and delusional), this is a belief that is dangerous and irresponsible.

The idea of a President who speaks in tongues and believes in faith healing is less comforting to me than one who believes in leprechauns. At the very least these beliefs demonstrate a strong commitment to irrationality.

Then we have the Rapture. AoG churches are big on the Rapture. The Rapture is the idea that any moment now Jesus is going to take all his devoted faith-healed-tongue-speaking followers and bring them to heaven, leaving the rest of us to the Devil.

Why take care of the environment when the Rapture is coming? Why save the polar bears? Why do anything intelligent to take care of the Earth?

People with delusional beliefs that comfort them are everywhere, and I suppose that’s just going to have to be OK, but when they have delusional beliefs that might negatively impact an entire population of a country, it’s a bad thing.

We can’t have a Charismatic-Christian who speaks in tongues, believes in faith healing, is looking forward to the Rapture, believes in Creationism and doesn’t believe in climate change science in charge of our country. It would actually be worse than Bush and given McCain’s age, this is a distinct possibility if they win.

McCain/Palin – Even worse than Bush/Cheney

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