Liberals express fear of an imagined conspiracy to impose a brutal Christian theocracy upon the nation.
Liberals see themselves as entitled to regulate public discussion, because they have conflated their own religion of socialistic atheism with the supposed objectivity of the physical sciences. This combination of historicism and scientism leads them to the unquestioning certitude that they alone represent political and social truth.
Liberals are offended and feel threatened by all expressions of spiritual religious faith, which they perceive as evidence of a theocratic conspiracy and therefore sufficient grounds for banning Judeo-Christianity from all public discussion.
Opposition by Christians and religious Jews to abortion, fetal stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, and the hedonistic license of sexual promiscuity is equated by liberals with medieval ignorance and abolition of modern science.
Robert Reich, President Clinton’s Labor Secretary, wrote:
The underlying battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernist fanatics; . . . between those who believe that truth is revealed solely through scripture and religious dogma, and those who rely primarily on science, reason, and logic. Terrorism will disrupt and destroy lives. But terrorism is not the only danger we face.
Randall Balmer, a professor of religious history at Columbia, is sure that Christian conservatism “hankers for the kind of homogeneous theocracy that the Puritans tried to establish in seventeenth-century Massachusetts.” (see Ross Douthat’s essay).
Liberals contend that spiritual religion is fictional ignorance, Karl Marx’s opium of the masses imposed by the rulers to oppress the workers, which must have no role at all in political life. They fail to recognize the uniform lesson of history that societies survive only when they are united by common traditions and common precepts of morality. As Abraham Lincoln noted in 1858, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Atheistic materialism, unfortunately, is not a unifying set of traditions and morality. It is merely the Darwinian doctrine enunciated by Thomas Huxley that there is no such thing as sin, that human life is merely survival of the fittest, with no meaning beyond self-indulgence. A world dedicated to nothing more than every-man-for-himself, in-your-face “doing your own thing” is inherently Thomas Hobbes’s war of all against all, in which life is nasty, brutish, and short.
Traditionalists merely wish to sustain the ethos that underlay the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution from the 18th century until the 1930s. They may attempt to persuade liberals of the error of their ways, but that is hardly the liberals’ imagined theocracy.
The liberal jihad, in contrast, leaves traditionalists with no choice but to surrender their faith or fight. The jihad seeks to impose atheistic religious doctrine upon all of public education and politics and to scourge all expressions of of Judeo-Christian religious belief that are not confined to the closed quarters of churches, synagogues, or private homes. As under the sharia of Islam, Christians and religious Jews are tolerated, so long as they keep their faith private and pay their taxes to support teaching atheistic materialism in the public schools.
The liberal jihad also has the full backing of the Federal and most state judiciaries and the benefit of unending propaganda from the self-designated mainstream media, including taxpayer-financed NPR and PBS.
Quietly keeping religious faith as a personal matter is not an option for traditionalists. With public education controlled by the doctrines of atheistic materialism, we already have three generations of citizens who have been thoroughly indoctrinated in the gospel of materialistic social-justice. It’s as if the body snatchers of the 1978 movie were replacing the souls of our children with alien, amoral sensuality.
The gray-beards of today’s liberalism were, in the 1960s, the anti-establishment rebels on college campuses who perceived the entirety of existing society – from New Deal liberals to Republican conservatives – in C. Wright Mills’s expression, as the power elite. Student anarchists of that era added a guerilla-tactic edge to the normal rebelliousness of youth. Even Tom Hayden’s Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) became too tame for the violent wing, who split off into the Weatherman underground of bank robbers, murderers, and bombers.
From the perspective of those rebels, who are today’s politicians, judges, and educators, even the bland society of the 1950s had to be obliterated, under the impetus of solidarity with the “black colony” in the United States and Vietnamese freedom-fighters in Southeast Asia. That militant spirit remains the subtext in today’s paranoid reaction against any questioning of the gospel of atheistic materialism.
Ross Douthat in his essay on the First Things website concludes:
What all these observers point out, and what the anti-theocrats ignore, is that the religious polarization of American politics runs in both directions. The Republican party has become more religious because the Democrats became self-consciously secular, and the turning point wasn’t the 1992 or the 2000 elections but the putsch of 1972, when secularist delegates — to quote Phillips, quoting Layman — suddenly “constituted the largest ‘religious’ bloc among Democratic delegates.” . . . it’s the second half of the story, the Republican reaction against the Democrats’ decision to become the first major party in American history to pander to a sizable bloc of aggressively secular voters . . . So the rise of the Religious Right, and the growing “religion gap” that Phillips describes but fails to understand, aren’t new things in American history but a reaction to a new thing . . . The hysteria over theocracy, in turn, represents an attempt to rewrite the history of the United States to suit these voters’ prejudices, by setting a year zero somewhere around 1970 and casting everything that’s happened since as a battle between progress and atavism, reason and fundamentalism, the Enlightenment and the medieval dark.
viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/
Read more articles by Thomas E. Brewton
Good article.
Leftists so thoroughly misunderstand people of faith that it is breathtaking. Most have probably never even talked to a religious person, for if they had they would know that religious people are for the most part generous, caring, hardworking, and tolerant. Prima facia evidence of the tolerance of people of faith is the flourishing of the leftist agenda.
Only leftists use terms like "theocracy." It is a buzzword used to incite fear. Religious people have no intent to establish a theocracy. But like most things put forth by leftists, "theocracy" is a quick way to label, stereotype, and dismiss those who disagree with them.
The real irony, however, is how religious leftists are themselves. Does it occur to them that opposing religious people that they are imposing their own morality, albeit a non-theological one? Their non-god theology requires lock-step adherence (ask Joe Liberman) and unquestioning loyalty. To be a leftist there are certain words you cannot say, certain vehicles you cannot drive, and certain places you cannot live.
It is also ironic that leftists don't want religions to tell them how to live, what to believe, or how to act. They are, however, perfectly willing to tell religious people how to live, what to believe, and how to act. They are happy to interpret Scripture, tell us what Jesus would do (he wouldn't drive an SUV, and he really likes it when people don't judge), and impose their values on others.
The religion of the leftists is truly illogical, ineffective, and untenable. But it does have one thing going for it: It gives permission to hate, impugn, and ridicule people of faith.
Comment by Rich Sherlock | July 25, 2006
I believe you're right - they "express fear," but I believe it's a straw man opponent. They're certainly not afraid; they're on the offense. They'd like to have the people with unformed opinions to be very afraid of the idea of marauding Christian Sunday school teachers and rioting Jews all demanding religious conformity.
Every entity with a large amount of control drives toward a monopoly and therefore has to eliminate all competition. It's a natural dynamic. Jews and Christians are imprisioned and killed in idealogy-based governments like China, the former USSR, and Muslim controlled countries because competition against their ideologies come from those who are active in their beliefs.
The same is true in education today in that it's mostly far left-leaning in ideology, embraces the idea of indoctrination through neo-Deweyism, and they are active in purging from their members those who disagree.
Their tactics are cold and calculated against their indoctrinees as well. A health class technique for example is to begin a safe sex course by asking the class if there is anyone whose belief system contains the idea that sex before marriage is wrong. If one brave kid raises his or her hand, they're met with 'that's fine for you to have that belief but do not impose that belief on anyone else in this class.' The kid was not trying to impose the belief of course, the instruction was really to the rest of the class.
When the anthropology departments of many colleges teach the concept of 'inner city anthropology' they claim that gangs and generations of unwed teenage mothers are natural events as are all activities of South American indigenous tribes. Of course Christian missionaries have been destroying these cultures from their perspectives as are inner city churches.
They just can't take criticism. The more power they get the worse it gets. Plan on it.
Comment by LI Mike | July 25, 2006
Amen!
Comment by Joseph | July 25, 2006
I think the only thing more contemptible than a true liberal (One who actually believes the nonsense he utters) is a rich Republican libertine. The only reason liberals are listened to is there's a small chance they're looking out for the little guy's economic status (i.e. the poor). As we know, most liberals race or class-bait, but don't believe a syllable they howl. Somebody who feels no obligation to noone but himself and what allow what didn't seem to affect his wallet any? Damnable. We are our brother's keeper but we teach him to fish. No free fish. We believe that every soul has God-given gifts to share for the benefit of all with honest supply and demand forces determining what we earn. The married couple who sacrifice to raise their offspring should be cherished and lavished with every tax benefit. I'm conservative because it fits my Faith best. Should Conservatism morph into Liberalism and vice versa, I should be (choking down the wretch) a proud liberal. Still, I'll be building Frosty in Hades before that happens in my lifetime.
Comment by Joseph | July 25, 2006
Doesn't matter what they're called. There is a political spectrum from left to right, and these people are leftists.
They do want to tell us how to live our lives, Dan. Does your car have airbags, does it use unleaded gas, do you have to wear a helmet when you ride a motorcycle, does your toilet flush 1.6 gallons, do your taxes get deducted from your paycheck, can your child bring his Bible to school, can you pray at graduation or before football games or have a Bible club at school?
Dan, what's the speed limit on your street? does your car have 2.5 mph bumpers and a third brake light? What happens if you don't pay your property taxes after three years? What happens if you don't file a tax return? Can you own a gun in D.C.? Yes, thanks go out to "progressives."
Christians and progressives have little in common. Christians, when moved to compassion, will give of their time and finances freely and sacrificially. Progressives will take someone else's money from them, forcibly with the power of government, and give it to another and call it compassion.
Government cannot be compassionate. It takes no compassion to spend other peoples' money.
By the way, I'll take my Bible, Koran, or Book of Mormon anywhere I feel like, sir. It's none of your business. And I will pray to Oden, Allah, Jehovah, or Mother Earth at any time, at any place, and in any manner I choose. Keep your laws off my religious freedoms and we'll have no trouble.
Comment by Rich Sherlock | July 25, 2006
I don't care if you have faith or not. I really don't. Good for you.
But what right do you have to LEGALLY impose faith-based criteria on anybody?
Support your faith, be happy to be part of it, but remember that the Kingdom of God is not on Earth. Don't try to build it.
It would be hypocritical of me not to condemn, also, the atheist attempt to impose THEIR doctrine in everybody. Just as, legally, they must have the right to abstain from religion if they choose, so too must you have the right to worship in your own way. That includes members of ALL religions.
Incidentally - where in the Constitution does it say 'this country was founded by Christians'? What type of Christians? We know that many of those who drafted the Constitution differed in their religious opinions, just as Pentecostals differ with Catholics. If we are to interpret the document in the (alleged) manner that the drafters intended, which method of interpretation should we use? Is it an Episcopalian document? A Deist document? Quaker?
Perhaps, if we DO interpret the Constitution in the manner its authors intended, as many conservative Christians argue we should, we should recognise that, if it was intended to support a CHRISTIAN nation, they perhaps would have written that? Instead, the closest thing we get to ANY religious comment is the opposite - that religion should have no official part in the state. According to the rules of the Conservative Christian Constitutional interpretation, we find little evidence to support the idea of an explicitly Christian document.
That said, the essay itself is cogent and well-argued.
Comment by alex | July 25, 2006
I am in the process of reading "The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation of Law, Religion, and Loyalty." by Stephen L. Carter, a liberal Crhristian professor at Yale Law School. I strongly recomend it and his other work "Culture of Disbelief" for everyone interested in discussing what role religion should play in our society. He basicly argues that our society needs to take seriously the beliefs of the various Christian groups and recognize their very important role in our society.
Comment by DF Lickiss | July 25, 2006
Alex, as a devout non-Christian I have never seen a Christian try to impose their views on me. Yes I have been asked by the Jehovah's Witnesses to read their magazines but who hasn't? There is no grand conspiracy by Christians to impose their world view on the world. The Christians are adamant about not allowing the secularists to forcibly convert them. I truly believe that if the issues like the attempt to remove the phrase “under God” from the Pledge, efforts to tear down the Mt. Solidad cross were stopped, and abortion was returned to the control of the State governments, the majority of the Christian Right Wing would disappear. It is a reactive force responding to being attacked.
As for the Constitutional references to Christianity you won’t find any in the final draft but if you read the notes of the convention and the private journals and letters of the men who wrote it you come a way with a clear understanding that they didn’t need to put such words into the Constitution. Christianity was so strongly woven into our society at the time that it was a given as much as the fact that the sun rises in the east. The First Amendment was to protect the different official State churches from Federal interference; it was never intended to create a “wall of separation” between the government and religion. The only reference to such was found by Justice Black, an anti-Catholic writing to end state support for private Catholic schools, was a single letter by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson opposed the idea of the government supporting churches but never serious entertained the idea of preventing religion from having an influence on the government. See Philip Hamburger’s book Separation of Church and State for more information.
Those of us who are not Christians have to accept that we live in a nation founded upon Christian principles and the Christians still make up some 90% of the population of this nation. We have to live with the fact that we are a distinct minority; atheists are about 1% of the population. We need to be remember that it is to the diversity of Christian sects that we owe our freedom to believe as we see fit.
Comment by DF Lickiss | July 25, 2006
This nation was founded on principles at the time universally acknowledged
to be Christian. The Declaration of Independence states that our "inalienable
rights" were given to us by our "Creator," that "nature's God" has entitled these
rights to us. The modern revisionist fantasy that the majority of the founders
were Deists (those who acknowledge a god or higher power, but who believe
that this being is largely apathetic toward human affairs) is disproven by the
conduct and correspondence of the men involved. What gave the Left the right
to hijack the values and morals of this country? By what authority did they
deny divine authority? They are the true usurpers, not the Christians who
built and maintained this nation.
I find it intriguing also that the Leftist paranoia about the establishment of
a "theocracy" is prevalent in their media ("V for Vendetta," "Escape from L.A," to
name two), but the most bloodthirsty and ruthless regimes in modern history
were either markedly athieistic (Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba)
or anti-Christian [and anti-Jewish(Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Nazi Germany,
Iran, the Taliban, etc)]. Christianity is the best friend anyone in America
has.
Comment by Lane Russell | July 25, 2006
Ha! Dan, you can't be serious.
First good laugh of the day though!
We have to keep those Christians beaten down or before long we'll be STONING people for violating the Ten Commandments!
Comment by LI Mike | July 26, 2006
Dan - let's be reasonable. It's not a contest to agree that the culture of the day was strongly Christian when The Declaration of Independence was signed, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were enacted, and it doesn't seem to me that those Christians then did anything when they certainly had the chance, to put anything together like enactment of the Ten Commandments along with STONING if there was a violation.
I can't stop laughing at that!
Would you seriously suggest to Washington, Adams, Lincoln, Ronald Reagan or some of the other great leaders we've had that they should disqualify themselves since they were men with Christian beliefs, faith, and first commitment to principles that came from that belief and personal faith? I'd suggest we're all benefactors of their faith and the principles to which they were committed.
Comment by LI Mike | July 26, 2006
I hope Df and Lane can here the Hallelujah Chorus where they are because I think I see The Founding Fathers in the front row!
Comment by Joseph | July 26, 2006
You're right Dan. When it comes to making certain kinds of points I don't belong in the same room with you; such as:
"Dobson and the born again crowd would have all ten commandments enacted as laws, with only one punishment for an infraction. So unless you are looking forward in taking part in legal murder (i.e. stoning) keep your beliefs where they belong, in your heart and your home."
I'm just having fun Dan. You have to admit that your caution to the rest of us is kind of a stretch. Do you know any born again Christians?
I remember when Newt Ginrich was getting all the really tough press. I'd ask people I'd casually talk with here in NY if they liked or disliked him. Most said they didn't like him. Then I'd ask them why not and most of those in so many words would say they weren't sure but they were sure they didn't like him. Maybe that's the case with you and the born agains. If you get a chance why not try to get to know one?
Who knows, you might get a good laugh out of that statement too! I'm still cracking up.
Comment by LI Mike | July 26, 2006
Mike, be nice to Dan. He is simply making the point for us, that leftists do not understand religious people, probably because they don't know any. Leftists simply rely on the left wing party line as to what religous people are like. Leftists engage in the same sort of mental process as bigots do, that is, they create a caricature and repeat it to themselves and others of like mind until it becomes truth.
One thing he said is particularly telling, calling religious people anti-1st amendment. The very amendment that enunciates free (unfettered, unrestricted, unlimited) exercise of religous liberty is being used as a bludgeon to beat religious people for being too public in their beliefs! Maybe Dan can tell us where in the Bill of Rights where it says that the free exercise of religion can only occure in private?
On other thing, Mike. Dan is probably a product of the public school system, which does a marveous job of indoctrinating our youth and sanitizing them of eeevil religious influences. Dan is simple ignorant of any aspect of history that is religious (except, of course, things like the Crusades and the Salem witch trails, which are taught without fail).
If he were really interested in knowing about religious people, if he were intellectually honest, he would research using sources other than leftist websites. That's why he says what he says regarding Dobson and others. He probably has never gone to the original sources.
He throws out an unsubtantiated charge about these people, then complains when you don't refute him the way he wants. Never will he offer evidence of his claims, the charge itself is enough.
Comment by Rich Sherlock | July 26, 2006
the far left and the far right are both full of crap. the government should keep its nose out of people's business. that said, it has been my experience that many devout christians want to push their beliefs on everyone else and if you dont believe in god, they pity you and assume you're going to hell. see, i don't believe in hell, so that is just absurd, and i dont need anyone's pity. and if im going to send my child to a public school, as everyone should be able to do, i dont want him/her to be learning about religion - anyone's religion. i think if you want to raise your children wiht the church, do it on your own time, send them to catholic school, but i intend to let my children choose their own beliefs.
Comment by agnostic_nyer | July 26, 2006
I think liberals love to ridicule fanatics (and what fanatic would ever admit, especially to themselves, that they are such). Genuinely religious people tend to be humble, do not impose their values on anyone except themselves and generally seem to have a great concern for the common good of all those around them.
I am a liberal, and I have a great respect for the genuinely religious in our society, the ones who just get on with living according to their ideals, inviting others to follow their examples, not their words.
Fundamentalists on the other hand seek to diminish and ridicule those who do not agree with them, and they lack the humility needed to realize that faith does not equal proof. Fundamentalists contemptuously seek to belittle all 'non-believers' sometimes to the point of violence, and ironically I think this behavior springs from an intense insecurity and sense of self-doubt. Fundamentalists never offer evidence, only strength of feeling. On the basis of their unverifiable beliefs they often seek to meddle with the lives of others.
I do not believe in God by the way, having been brought up a Catholic and then spent years as an agnostic. I know a little bit about religion and have many wonderful, and humble, genuinely religious friends. I happen not to share my friend's metaphysical beliefs, though I naturally feel inclined to adopt many of their ethical positions, primarily their concern for the common good of all human beings.
Religion is a personal experience and a personal choice. Anything that even vaguely looks like a theocracy is chilling to all those who understand the real nature of religious belief, and who genuinely value this nation's liberal tradition of freedom of word and action.
So for instance, the day you can prove to me that Yahweh is the one true god and that Moses was his prophet, is the day I will agree we should have the ten commandments in our courtrooms. Until that day, the good liberals of this country will always see such stunts for what they are, an attempt by one group of people to slowly impose their exact view of the world on another, if only symbolically at first. Secularism does not equal atheism, quite the opposite, it simply recognizes, with humility, that religion will forever be a matter of personal choice, and that no one yet can say for sure that their way is the one true path.
Fundamentalism of any type is simply un-American.
One last thing, having read the posts here I just have to say again, where are the 'intellectual' conservatives?
Comment by Max Godwin | July 27, 2006
Mr. Goodwin. I've taught Special Education classes before. Teaching for both for Gifted/Talented and Functional classrooms. The Functional students don't understand why they do what we ask them. They understand consequences/rewards but they never comprehend how the exercise of virtue in a task is as, or more important, than the desired outcome itself. The G/T kids astound you with the depth and breadth they recognize in an everyday task, occurence, or established fact. The latter group simplify the difficult by intuitively discerning the matter and offer insights as to how it can be manipulated to achieve a desired effect. G/T kids don't enjoy fantasy, but reason attached to integrity and insight. I love them both but the Functional kids don't seem to understand what's so 'intellectual' about the G/T kids, either.
Comment by Joseph | July 27, 2006
Being in the NYC area I have some liberal friends. They most often can carry their intellectual weight and usually can either back up their statements or they'll admit they might have stretched it a little, got a little carried away as we all do.
Sometimes people will make a very dramatic conclusion for effect but then they can tell you how it's a metaphor and shows someone else's contrary point is a non-sequitor.
I enjoy those kinds of honest debates. They're not personal and I'll sometimes change my point of view. I genuinely enjoy seeing how others think.
I had a printing plant and it cost me more than $100,000/year to get rid of chemicals back when we had to make negatives. A VERY liberal friend of mine challenged me on my point that most regulatory agencies overstep their boundaries, create all kinds of problems as they expand their budgets and control, and so my friend brought up environmental waste disposal costs.
He asked me if I'd dump it down the drain if it was voluntary. Knowing what I know about it I said no, I'd pay to have it disposed of properly but I'd probably pay less with the different dynamics. He agreed on that point, but he got me when he asked if my competition would pay as I would, and my answer being no he asked if I thought it would be fair that they'd then have less expense and could charge less than me with lower costs.
I'm trying to remember in that discussion if he called me white trash or goombah.
Comment by LI Mike | July 27, 2006
I think "Long Island Mike" could take "San Francisco" Dan in the manly arts. Uh-oh! I put "man" and "art" in the same sentence! I've done with Christian Theology (Sorry, Dan, I know your unfamiliar, i.e ignorant) describes as "putting you in the occasion of sin." Now Dan will have all sorts of "Brokeback Mountain" sighs all day! Sorry, Man! If you could just stop thinking of meatballs in trailer parks that might be a good start!
Comment by Joseph | July 27, 2006
Wow, leave the computer for twenty-four hours, and what a
fascinating array of correspondence! Ad hominem attacks from Dan
(By the by, Joseph, it's bad form for anyone to mock someone like
in post #23–Max keeps asking where are the intellectual
conservatives, let's not give him any ammo), misunderstanding from Max, all on the examples of a few who give the heathen good reason to curse God's name. Aren't we all adults here?
As a fundamentalist myself, I have no "pity" for anyone who has no religious faith. That's a choice everyone must make themselves, and everyone is welcome to make it. But I must say, honestly, you guys, who among us is the least rational? I who believe in a God I can't see, or you, who are offended by a God in whom you do not believe?
From the tone of Max and Dan's posts, I would speculate that neither one would come to believe in God, even if He were to present Himself to them personally. There are myriad excuses for people who want no authority higher than themselves, and I say you are all welcome to them. I myself am convinced, and being convinced, I seek not to convince. So those among you who are trying to usurp my right to freely and publicly exercise my own religion, who are you trying to convince? Me, or yourselves?
If you are worried about my attempting to proselytize you, you can relax. My God's instructions are explicit: 13And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet (Matt 10:13-14) . Nothing in there about laying siege, killing infidels until they convert, or any such thing; if they're not interested, youmove on. And if you worry that I think you're going to Hell, once again, relax. I don't care what you do or where you go, neither do I claim to know what will happen to you between now and your death. Believe me, I have more important things to worry about. Besides, what do you care what I think, right? You don't believe in hell.
But for the sake of everyone's sanity, please do not cast this conflict in the false dichotomy of faith vs. reason. The Christian faith is reasonable, more so than that of its antagonists, and those who find the Christian faith offensive are not arguing for reason, but for their own faith in I know not what.
I realize that Max and Dan and others will disagree with me on this, and that's fine. If you want to post responses in defense of your position, I will not object. However, can we please refrain from things like, "Brokeback Mountain," "I could care less if terrorists crashed a thousand planes into L.I., they would be doing us a favor," "where are the 'intellectual' conservatives," and "You anti-1st Amendment nutbars…" etc. This is childish and does not contribute to communication or understanding.
Comment by Lane Russell | July 27, 2006
Dan said "keep your bible at home(not in court, school{unless privately funded}, and strip clubs) and we’ll have no trouble.
"
That's nice, I'll keep my bible at home. You keep your Kant, Adam Smith, Michael Moore, Marx, Dante, Norman Vincent Peale. and Morality for Dummies at home.
Comment by Yaakov Watkins | July 27, 2006
Sorry, having trouble dealing with this editor. Christian and Jewish thought are the theoretical foundation of Western civilization. The Talmud underlies much of American jurisprudence. To deny the impact of the first 5 books of the Bible on current American law would be to deny reality.
And the next question is: What makes your system of morality not a religion, and my system a religion? The founding fathers would have thought me insane for raising the question. Religious standards and morality were the same. Your standards, whatever they may be, should be subject to the same restrictions as mine.
Comment by Yaakov Watkins | July 27, 2006
Max Goodwin must be a brilliant man. He can reach into the minds of people he hasn't met and divine their intentions, their fears and their goals. Fascinating.
He is perfectly willing to define the parameters of my belief never having met me. He says that religion is a personal choice. If that is true, then I am not religious. I believe that G-d objectively exists. My inability to prove his existence to Goodwin is either a function of Goodwin's capacity to absorb the proof, my ability to provide it, or G-d's unwillingness to play Goodiwn's games
Come, do you really think that in the 3,318 years, 8 weeks since we recieved the 10 commandments, nobody has raised these questions? Nobody has wanted to get out from under the tiresome burden of religous morality? These are old issues. Those who are intellectually honest would look in the library for the answers to these questions rather than assume that, because the answers haven't magically popped into their heads that they don't exist.
I think Goodwin's intellectual position deserves ridicule. Or does that make me smarter than Goodwin? Or stupider? However, it certainly doesn't, as Goodwin claims, make me a fundamentalist.
Having been raised as a Catholic (a religion I do not profess to) Goodwin has all the religious education a child needs. (presumably) Has he learned Catholic views on adult questions from an adult perspective? If a child stops religious education at the age of 12, he is no more an expert on that religion than a middle school graduate is on physics. I don't know about the Catholic religion, but mine is certainly too complicated to be grasped by a child attending religious school one day a week up through 8th grade. I suspect however, that Jesuits would take strong exception to the idea that Goodwin has an educated opinion.
I don't object to Goodwin disagreeing with me. I don't object to him thinking ill of me. I just object to his ideas being subject to fewer restrictions than mine because mine are called religious.
Comment by Yaakov Watkins | July 27, 2006
The writings I have seen by many liberal writers indicate that the denial of
reality does not pose a problem for those of this mindset.
Comment by Lane Russell | July 27, 2006
Lane, my apologies to all the sane among us. It is tiring accepting the stripes of the good fight without wanting to dish some out yourself. I prefer the sublime to the slime but if a commie-sodomite attacks me in the sewer, I sometimes want to throw some of the refuse back at the aggressor. I don't think Liberals should go unassailed. They get their news from "The Daily Show", so it's not like they read at all. Liberals like one-liners and humorous charicatures, so I give 'em some…Can't we just call it charity?..:) I'll try to do better….:)
Comment by Joseph | July 28, 2006
Joseph, mate–it only takes one slip. Ayuh, I kennit your point–it's a pain in
the backside to try to keep to the high road, but I get my guts in a twist when
someone who cannot tolerate the fact that thinking people will not always
swallow the party line can come up with nothing better than kindergarten
playground trash-talking, it's like watching pro wrestling. When someone who
has previously demonstrated the facility for rational discussion does it, I
just don't expect it, like watching C.S. Lewis respond in kind to
Triple H's ranting. There's just something fundamentally wrong with it.
Comment by Lane Russell | July 29, 2006
C.S. Lewis debating "Thriple H"! Now that's a visual!
Comment by Joseph | July 31, 2006
Liberal kooks attack religion and the Boy Scouts, support wacko environmentalism and NAMBLA.
The attack on religion is politically motivated. The 1960's Democrat counter culture hippies are history
professors, judges, lawyers and politicians. The politics are the same for the Boy Scouts and NAMBLA,
Democrats are angry that their first ammendment rights are being denied and should have access
to children. RELIGION stands in their way on this issue and many others!
Comment by WILDWEST | August 10, 2006
Moral standards and religious standards are not the same thing. You can believe that murder and incest are destructive, for instance, and should be prohibited, without believing in the blatant metaphysical speculations of any particular religious system.
That means I can believe murder is wrong, for instance, without actually being a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew or a Buddhist. I also don't have to believe in UFOs, goblins, fairies, or the Loch Ness monster in order to think helping poor and disadvantaged people is a good idea, a moral idea.
People who cannot separate religion from morality are either unable, or unwilling, to think for themselves, they always seem to need some higher supposed authority to tell them what is, and is not, a good idea. They can't seem to work it out for themselves.
Comment by Max Godwin | August 21, 2006