Office 2010 Home And Business Key The Raw Story

Obama first president to acknowledge non-believers
In a myriad of firsts, one of the more striking -- but least noticed -- was President Barack Obama's tip of the hat to religious non-believers.

Obama, of course,Office 2010 Home And Business Key, is the first African-American to win the presidency, but his inaugural was also the first time a US president has ever explicitly acknowledged not just Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus, but "non-believers" as well.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers,Office 2010 Download," Obama told the million-strong crowd.

"This inclusiveness is a signature moment in American inaugural history," says David Domke, professor of communications at the University of Washington in Seattle, who has analyzed religious language in seven decades of inaugural and State of the Union addresses, told USA Today.

"Obama's speech was 'right in the middle' of recent presidents in the number of references to God � more than Reagan,Office 2007 Ultimate Key, fewer than George W. Bush � according to Domke's tally," the paper said.

But "you could hear beneath it all references to God-given promise, God's calls on us, God's grace on us, and the frequent use of 'shall' in that King James-ian English of the Bible and early translations of Jewish prayer books," Marvin Kranz, an American history expert told the paper.

His acknowledgment of atheists drew praise from those used to being ignored.

"For the first time in modern history,Office 2007 Professional, in front of a worldwide audience, and without missing a beat, the president of the United States acknowledged that nonbelievers are Americans, too," Reason Magazine wrote Tuesday. "Is it a plausible suspicion that Mr. Obama got wind of the statistics that say that unbelievers make up between 3 and 10 percent of the Unites States� population, which makes them one of its largest �minorities,Office 2007 Professional Plus Key,� and thus decided to include them in his speech?"

"But for those of us used to be ignored as a constituency," the magazine continued, "to not be recognized but in the most intimate of gatherings, to only be discussed negatively, and to be the group against which most other groups could be united in unconditional disdain, why he did it is secondary."

A professor quoted by USA Today said that the president's speech was in keeping with his legacy.

"Yet in its rhetoric and references, and in Obama's 'almost musical delivery,' the paper wrote, "it was thoroughly expressive of a black and Christian man, even as it stretched wide to cover all Americans,' quoting Eddie Glaude, professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J.