1 in 5 Americans Think Obama Is Muslim

Posted by majestic on August 19, 2010

Most of the news media seem to think this is a bad thing. Personally I think it’s great – a significant number of Americans voted for a man they thought was Muslim when electing their president. Story from NPR:

Americans increasingly are convinced – incorrectly – that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and a growing number are thoroughly confused about his religion.

Nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009, according to a poll released Thursday. The proportion who correctly say he is a Christian is down to just 34 percent.

The largest share of people, 43 percent, said they don’t know his religion, an increase from the 34 percent who said that in early 2009.

The survey, conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and its affiliated Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, is based on interviews conducted before the controversy over whether Muslims should be permitted to construct a mosque near the World Trade Center site. Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center there, though he’s also said he won’t take a position on whether they should actually build it.

In a separate poll by Time magazine/ABT SRBI conducted Monday and Tuesday – after Obama’s comments about the mosque – 24 percent said they think he is Muslim, 47 percent said they think he is Christian and 24 percent didn’t know or didn’t respond…

[continues at NPR]

Posted in: Muslims, Obama

Ninure

The real question remains, “Why should it matter?”
emperorreagan

~56% of the voting age population turned out to vote in 2008. Obama won ~52% of the vote. Your silver lining is pretty tarnished. The people who believed Obama was a Muslim in 2008 AND voted for him is most likely an extremely small group (given that a smaller portion of the population thought he was a Muslim at that point AND the people who are most likely to label him a Muslim are the people most strongly opposed to him).

I would bet that if you made a Venn diagram, the groups “voted in the 2008 election” and “believed that Obama was a Muslim” would fall almost entirely in the “did not vote for Obama” portion of the diagram.
Connie Dobbs

Can we get a correlation between that and the number of Americans who think the sun revolves around the earth?
Vox Penii

Obama's not a Muslim, you idiots.

He's a shape-shifting reptilian, just like Disinfo favorite David Icke says.

Duh.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Spencer-Weedman/1092656515 Spencer Weedman

This man knows too much.
Gemmarama

oh come on. surely all that gang really worship mithras or molloch or somesuch?
http://disinfo.com Majestic

Disinfo favorite!?! Not.
Ehmkec

2 in 5 Americans ( but not the same 1 in 5 that think Obama is a Muslim ) think that the 1 in 5 that think Obama is a Muslim are racist. Whew…
A Bad Joke

1 in 5 Americans are also clinically retarded. Point?
A Bad Joke

I think its the same crowd that thinks the Matrix is real. I wonder when you-know-who will come in and blame this on Marxist Space Lizards.
http://www.theamericanbookofthedead.com Henry Baum

Yeah. The 20% who think Obama's a Muslim are the same 20% who think Sarah Palin's a genius.
Gemmarama

gay feminist immigrant muslim marxist space lizards from mexico.
Liam_McGonagle

Some good points already made here. But maybe also worth considering is how little the average U.S. citizen knows about HIS/HER OWN religion.

These Tea Partiers are all worked up to create a white “christian” nation for a white “christian” people, like Sarah Palin advocates, have probably forgotten the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37, where Jesus praised the compassionate behaviour of the outsider over the cowardly, self-centered behaviour of the more traditionally “pious” man who ignored the wounded traveller altogether.

If these people were less concerned with power trips than the wisdom of the central figure of their own tradition, maybe they'd be better equipped to deal with the complexities of the real world. I understand that some Jewish traditions consider Jesus to have been a wise rabbi, and frankly for me, even as a Christian, that's good enough.
http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

We can thank the unbiased and fair reporting of Fox News for keeping this alive…as well the Neanderthal branch of the GOP (which is getting larger every day as they bow to the Tea Gods and use fewer syllables to communicate).

For my money, Obama is just the usual Chicago politico with lobby cash lining his pockets while he toes the corporate line and keeps America a happy place for defense industry/insurance companies/banks and more…but keeping everyone screaming about fake trivia accomplishes what purpose??? Yeah…it keeps all the spotlights trained on the trivial…while the same old BS continues unabated.
Earbudcontender

I'm the favorite!!
Earbudcontender

I was going to post the same thing. But since you can't say retaaaarted in NJ I'll say 1 in 5 America and philosophically sleeping and are easily persuaded by any meme broad casted on fox news. Most people just want something to happen to them.
Earbudcontender

Dood the Matrix is real!!! For me it's a dream come true, i've always wanted to sleep all day and still be productive, supporting something bigger than myself.
Tuna Ghost

I'll have you know Marxist Space Lizards are taking jobs from hard working americans, also they're muslims too
Astoria_italia7

What can i say about those people who think Obama is Muslim? The same phrase Steven Colbert used to describe Sarah Palin which was “F**KING RETARDED.” We just have to take that phrase and make it plural. That suits them just fine
Adam

The headline should instead say, 1 in 5 Americans want to think Obama is a Muslim. These same people simply don't want a black president. If he was half Indian, the same 20% would say they believe he's a Hindu (but the shit wouldn't stick as easily, cos Hindus aren't at war with America)

Adam, Phnom Penh
David Frost

The world definitly just keeps getting dumber.

I keep remembering the documentary “Right Feeling Wronged in America” by Alexandria Pelosi, when the one guy started shaking and saying he “knew” Obama was the anti-christ.

I knew the right wingers had a weak grasp on reality and that was one of the issues…I just didn't know the human race had dumbed down that much.
Polymorpheous

it doesn't matter what his religion is.
it never did.
this is about fear.
the left and right are very afraid of each other.
bad things happen when people are afraid.
Connie Dobbs

Get a job in the corporate world. You'd never be able to tell the difference.
APR

“Why should it matter?” is an important question. This is like the birth certificate controversy, which generates a lot of arguments but does not affect our day to day lives. Solving these questions does not put bread on the table. These issues may be deliberate distractions so we don't pay attention to things that matter.

On the other hand, When he was Barry Soetoro, living in Indonesia, his religion was listed as “Muslim.” If he now claims to be Christian, then, by Islamic law, as an apostate he is to be put to death or, perhaps, imprisoned until he re-accepts Islamic faith, depending on who is interpreting their holy book. This might have security implications for the White House.

Islam is intolerant of non-believers. This website sums up the faith nicely: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ As an anti-theist, in my opinion, Islam is the worst of the worst.
Liam_McGonagle

Sure.

Listen, the Birth Certificate thing does NOT generate a lot of arguments. It generates precisely:

One Fact: The President is a natural born citizen of the United States. The State of Hawaii has officially certified that the certificate published online showing him as having been born in the United States is in fact correct and complete. http://www.webcitation.org/5iGGBysud http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2009/...

One LIE: Though repeated constantly, some Andrew Breitbart wannabe who's never been to Hawaii much less worked as official spokesperson for the State of Hawaii Health Department, posting bologna on the web does NOT constitute an argument, since there is no basis in fact. Just one lie. Repeated endlessly to the sad, sad people too confused by a world they can't get to grips with emotionally to get in touch with reality.

So you've pretty much kekked yerself right at the beginning of your argument. I could go on to demonstrate that FactCheck.org has already shown conclusively that the President has NEVER been recorded in ANY official document as “Barry Soetoro”. But many of the smarter people on this forum will have already seen that, and you probably wouldn't even look at it. Oh, what the hell–we can spare the bits–Net Neutrality isn't dead just yet. http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/was-obama-born...

Nice note that you end on, too. Although straightforward enough it also is a little skimpy on facts. You don't seem to notice that type of cruely is more a function of frightened radicals across all demographic descriptions, equally applicable to “White Power” groups calling themselves “christian” as it is to Israeli ultra-orthodox “Haredi” who refuse even to teach their children matematics because it deviates from a single minded pursuit of their racialist vision of God. Lynchings in Southern U.S., anti-Catholic riots in old Boston and New York, etc., etc.

Why are you so frightened APR? Does your sense of well being really depend THAT MUCH on whether there is an old white man in the Oval Office? I mean, I do recognize that your writing makes you seem rather dim, but surely your own mother loves you?
Librisnanon

Why does it matter if he is a Muslim, we should love people of all faiths!
APR

Gawd, what a troll … Feed em, I guess …

In my opinion it doesn't matter where Obama was born. There are so many other stupid things the government does, the Constitution being shredded and so forth, the place of his birth is a trivial pursuit. Why do you seem to care so much? You seem to be sucked into the same distracting controversy.

Obama is not black or white, rather he is human. You assume too much about me. Obama's mixed parentage is a step in the right direction, in my opinion, to eliminate racism by mixing people up as much as possible. All race identity is racism.

Why are YOU frightened (of all the other religious nuts)? I never said I was. All religions suck pretty much equally, but Islam currently wins the body count. My hypothesis is that he might be in extra danger if some nut takes apostasy from Islam seriously. His personal claim of Christian faith may be an insult to some in the Islamic faith. Of course, there are plenty of Christian nut jobs in this country that present an equal threat. It's just that the Muslims have a clearer record.

I have read it would be easier for a child molester to be elected into the oval office than an atheist. We are a backwards species. Trolls like yourself are proof of that.

Arguing on the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics …
David Frost

I've said this a million times and I'll say it again…the followers of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris are every bit of as much of closed minded dogmatists that blindly follow there masters without question as the absolute most hardcore religious fanatics that they claim to be against and have all the same issues in fact checking.

This idea that if all beliefs in the supernatural where wiped from the face of the earth that the world would somehow be transformed into a utopia is pretty nieve, and while I agree that people in church can be negetive and pretty weird at times, human nature causes evil some excuses for people to act out things of that nature are just stronger than others.

I'm glad people aren't quite stupid enough to bow before Dawkins and his (anti)religious cult yet, even if they are retarded enough to believe that Obama is a muslim.

And if you think Dawkins' cult has all the answers to life check out the documentary in this link
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7760032...
Gemmarama

i think the problem is that people confuse ORGANISED religion, faith and belief.

the gnostics believed there were three kinds of people: hyclics, who only lived purely in the material world; psychics, who were spiritual but followed an organised religion; and pneumatics, who were truly enlightened. i have more respect for someone who worships a god than someone who worships mammon. what they feel is real enough, they're just giving it the wrong name.

however organised religion is a crock of shit. we have the romans to blame here. the romans were just bastards. pagan sun-worshippers themselves, they observed the rise of christianity with intererest and exploited its potential as a tool for social control.

oh and you shouldldn't give too much credit to rod liddle. read some of his newspaper columns and you'll get the gist. in 2009 he caused great controversy in this country by stating that afro-caribbean men are responsible for most of the crime in london, and that all they have given us is “rap music and goat curry.” and in january he admitted responsibility for a string of racist and misogynistic comments posted on the website for millwall football club. pinch of salt required…
David Frost

Yeah this is the only thing I've seen by Rod Liddle so I've never really beeen exposed to anything like that. In the US the people we usually make fun of in journalism are Glenn Beck, Bill O'Riley, Sean Hannity, etc. It depends on political side though, the other side hates Rachel Maddow and Keith Oberman.

But yeah as far as organized religion goes, I think any time you say that no one has any right to disagree or think differently you run into a pretty asinine way of existing toward your fellow human beings. I've never heard that about gnostism though thats an exellent point. I always looked at it as there are three kinds of people in life 1) conformists-do whatever is popular with very little thought, 2) ant-conformists-people who take what is popular and rebel against it with very little thought, and 3) non-conformists-people who think very deeply and independantly about everything and come to conclusions which may or may not be similar to others. I try to be the third type.
Haystack

1 out of 5 Americans don't know that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not the other way around.

I think the news should spend more time talking about what smart people think.
David Frost

True true…thats an idea, but I think they wanted to get a pretty general demographic.
NEO2012

He was born a muslim morons! Wake up and stop with your CNN/MSNBC educations and actually research something on your own!
Gemmarama

jesus, which stone did you crawl out from under? at least have the decency to use proper grammar, and enough with the exclamation marks already…
Gemmarama

jesus, which stone did you crawl out from under? at least have the decency to use proper grammar, and enough with the exclamation marks already…
Anonymous

That’s nothing compared to the amount of people who though Iraq has WMD’S. Talk about dumb. What’s really dumb in my opinion is the amount of people who to this day don’t realize that Reagan raised their taxes and cut taxes to the rich. He took their deduction for interest on credit cards and car purchases from mainstreet, that was a tax increase. Talk about dumb! McCain told people he was going to tax them on their employer paid health insurance as income and they still voted for him and criticize Obama for his healthcare plan. Talk about dumb. People are so dumb they actually think the tea party isn’t the republican party and Palin is speaking at most of their gatherings. How goofy is that!
A National Healthcare plan would save every citizen in America thousands of dollars per year and they don’t want it and think the country can’t afford it when poor as Cuba is they have it, France, Germany, England and Canada has it. Republicans call it socialism and people here complain about it when we pay enough in taxes to have it. Talk about dumb!
Here is something really dumb! People in this country think blacks are the real drug dealers. How about that? They actually believe their is a drug war going on in this country. The reality is it takes tons of drugs to supply the United States. There has to be warehouses full of drugs to supply this country with drugs. Drugs must come into this country by the plane and boat loads and stored in warehouses for distribution. Then they see a teenage kid being chased and handcuffed wih a bag of weed or a couple of rocks of cocaine and actually believe a drug bust just went down. How dumb is that when billions of dollars are being made in the sale of drugs. And here’s a kid who can’t even afford a car being busted as if that’s going to put a dent in the drugs being sold in America. Nothing in this country surprises me. If the republicans win control of the congress again after what Bush did to this country that is proof that Americans are stupid and will believe basically anything even if the truth is right in front of them.
Anonymous

By the way Obama’s religions doesn’t matter whatsoever. This is an indication of just how dumb Americans are. Republicans psyche Americans into voting against abortions and gays while the real issues they should be voting for goes ignored. This is reason America is in the state it’s in and why Rush Limbaugh makes millions a year, none of this is by coincidence. And most Americans think this is all a big coincidence. Wall Street CEO’s got bonuses and it was all a coincidence. Talk about dumb.
Now the republicans are going to use immigration and muslim hatred to get back into office. Nevermind they tried to halt unemployment checks and people with pre-existing illnesses from getting insurance if they changed jobs and lost their insurance. Nevermind McCain was planning on taxing their health care benefits. Just vote to keep the mexicans out who are all ready in and vote to stop a mosque from being built. Nevermind the fact that the supreme court has stated that foreign entities can finance our politicians and not have them tell where the money is coming from. Which means Al Quiada or the Taliban can finance a candidate for public office and the candidate doesn’t have to tell where or who the money is coming from. Nevermind all of that lets vote against Obama because we’re not sure whether or not he’s a muslim no matter what he tries to do to help mainstreet out.

1 in 5 Americans Think Obama Is Muslim

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