So far, Obama’s path to the presidency vaguely mirrors Siddhartha Gautama’s path to Buddhahood. For example, the Buddha achieved enlightenment, or awakening, by escaping the cycle of reincarnation, or samsara, through a middle path that enabled him to cease generating karma, which chains the human soul to this substantive plane of reality. All while sitting there, under a tree.

Barack Obama roughly approximates this, first becoming an Illinois state senator by escaping a normal election cycle. Then, he acquired enlightened political judgment by refraining from doing anything substantive – thereby freeing his mind from reality. All while just sitting there, not accomplishing much. Alas, his far-left voting record was anything but a middle path, but he compensates with middle-of-the-road rhetoric.

Obama might in fact turn out to be the Buddha – that is, if his approach to foreign policy ever amounts to anything. Many Buddhists believe that simply being in a Buddha’s presence, or even just looking at a picture of him, can help his devotees achieve awakening. Obama and his devotees hope something similar will happen to evil totalitarian dictators, just by gracing them with his presence.

Sure, that portrayal of Buddhism is overly simplistic, but then again, so is Obama’s foreign policy.

It's doubtful Shi'a Muslims would mistake Barack Obama for the Twelfth Imam, who has been long hidden but will suddenly emerge to bring peace and justice to the world. Obama urges us to submit not to God, but to almighty government. Instead of giving alms as righteous Muslims do, we will pay the government to do our charitable work for us. In Obama’s version of Sharia law, anyone who makes over $150k a year will be the dhimmis, second-class citizens who must pay an extra tax, since capitalists are the real infidels in dar-al-Obama. No, the sheer thought is enough to get us all to pray five times a day – that Obama not become the prophet, er, president.

Obama’s actually more of a New Age guru. Hordes of Europeans hoping for something they can believe in were fortunate to sit at Obama’s feet when he uttered deeply mysterious, esoteric knowledge like, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” (That’s Obama 3:16, for those who need the scripture reference.) And hearing his soaring rhetoric at the Democratic Party convention, many loyal delegates reported having ecstatic, out-of-body-experiences and seeing the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

Or maybe he’s a voodoo shaman, since he wants to magically shrink the federal deficit by expanding an already bloated federal bureaucracy. He’s also been sticking pins in a George W. Bush doll, hoping to put a whammy on John McCain.

Yes, the feeble tools of metaphor are all we humans have to describe the transcendent, the divine. But if Obama isn’t the Messiah, the Buddha, the Prophet, or the next quantum leap in human evolution, what sort of eschatological religious figure is he?

Let’s see… He uses religious language with ease, but functionally posits the secular state as the world’s savior. He claims he doesn’t think government can solve all our problems, but it’s difficult to find one aspect of human life for which he doesn’t offer some government-funded solution. He wants a sprawling federal bureaucracy to annex all spheres of our culture.

In rocky economic times, he wants to institute policies that will ensure the economy slides into recession. He wants to micromanage the spending patterns of millions of households across America and raise taxes, which will raise unemployment by hamstringing entrepreneurship.

Faced with terrorism financed by oil-rich rogue states, he’s weak on foreign policy and doesn’t want the US to drill on our own territory – even as a stopgap measure to help us fund research and development for alternative energy.

He postures and bloviates on the world political scene with no real influence on policy, and can’t tell the difference between our allies and those who wish to destroy us.

It all adds up: if Obama isn’t the Messiah, he very well may be the second coming of Jimmy Carter.