Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Is the U.S. a Christian or a Muslim Country? President Obama Weighs In!

While on his last trip to the Middle East President Obama told the world the U.S. is not a Christian country. That surprised many in the U.S. because our roots are definitely Christian. Then in an interview yesterday with French television's Canal Plus, President Obama said:
"...one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

So, I'm trying to understand his message. It almost sounds like he's saying we're not a Christian country, we're a Muslim country! Can I possibly be understanding this correctly? What do you think?

5 comments:

Clif Guy said...

The president either misspoke or is misinformed. Fewer than 0.15% of all Muslims in the world live in the United States. There are more than 50 countries with more Muslim population than the US and more than 20 countries that have at least 10 times more Muslim population than the US.

If that's not convincing, in percentage terms the US is much lower ranked. Less than 0.6% of the US population is Muslim. By contrast, there are 15 countries whose population is 99% or more Muslim and 45-50 countries that are majority Muslim.

(Sources: CIA World Factbook as of 2007, Adherents,com, Wikipedia)

Ranked either by total population or by % of population, the US is nowhere among the world's largest Muslim countries. Conversely, the US has the largest population of Christians in the world. The president could learn that by a quick call to the CIA or an even quicker browse of Wikipedia. :-)

Nick Nicholaou said...

I agree, Clif! The part that mystifies me is why he feels it necessary to tell the world:
1. We are not a Christian country.
2. We are a Muslim country.

Really, I'm mystified!

Dean Lisenby said...

I agree with Clif. I'm also concerned that I can't find the text you and another friend state.

Where did Obama say we were not a Christian country?

We do have lots of Muslims here. We also have lots of lost people here too.

Regardless, I glanced through the speech text found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/04/obamas-middle-east-speech_n_211217.html

and was unable to find the text you reference.

I hear the spirit of your post but want to see where he stated we're not a Christian country.

Help me find that statement.

By the way, I can't believe I'm defending him.

Dean

Nick Nicholaou said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nick Nicholaou said...

Good point, Dean. I should have referenced his March 6th press conference in Turkey. Here's a link:
http://bit.ly/jVWgL