And I just couldn’t in good conscience vote for a person who doesn’t believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other ninety five percent of us suffer from some form of mass delusion.
(Palmer Joss from the movie Contact)
Carl Sagan, who authored the novel on which the movie is loosely based, died before the production of the film Contact was complete. And while the film is fairly true to Sagan’s humanistic and atheistic outlook, the scientist was nevertheless fascinated by the the human mind’s need to seek out the mystical properties of the universe. It’s not that Sagan hated religion as some atheists demonstrate on a regular basis. He hated its dogmatic approach to seeking and explaining universal truths – something that offended his scientific soul to no end. More than anything however, Sagan railed against the impact of religion on politics in America, seeing the self-evident danger of connecting the zeal of the true believer in religion with any political movement or politician.
Now it’s not often that I rise in defense of a belief in the supernatural, the mystical, or simple faith in a power greater than ourselves. Being something of a befuddled atheist, I tend to look at the impact of religion on politics and how the threads of religious belief have been woven into the very fabric of our society rather than examining the efficacy of a belief in God itself. But Sagan was much too broad in his condemnation of the confluence of religion and politics in America. He consistently ignored the fact that most of the mass reform movements in America have been animated by religious fervor; abolition, temperance (which affected the nascent womens’ rights movement), “prairie” populism, civil rights, and the moral basis for the anti-war movement of the 1960’s.
The positive impact of those reform movements on American life can sometimes be described as uneven at best. The temperance movement was allied with anti-immigrant forces. The “prairie populism” of the late 19th century was hijacked by large eastern money interests and manipulated for their own ends. The civil rights movement has degenerated into a lobby of special pleaders, no different than those who advocate price supports for wheat. And the moral underpinnings of opposition to Viet Nam morphed into the moral absolutism of the new left. Nevertheless, religion’s impact on our politics has been a plus over the years, supplying a moral basis for change as well as animating and inspiring some of our most important historical figures.
Religion and politics in this country are joined at the hip. But that doesn’t mean that our citizens are drunk with it – the “drug” that Communists believed religion to be. Americans look with an equally jaundiced eye at politicians who profess their faith too vigorously as well as those who give short shrift to any kind of religiosity. Part of this is certainly due to our Puritan roots, a movement against the outward manifestation of religion, reacting against the rites and rituals of the Church of England. But it also reflects the eminently practical side of the American citizen; the majority of us don’t think about religion that much and when we do, we tend to be surprisingly tolerant of how someone else worships their god.
That there is intolerance in America of other religions among a significant percentage of the population is born out in FBI statistics of hate crimes directed against people based on their religious beliefs. But what is truly remarkable is that there so few incidents to record. Out of a little more than 8,800 hate crimes committed in America in 2005, there were 1407 victims of crimes based on religious bias. And out of those victims, by far and away the largest group offended against were Jews (364). The next largest religious sect targeted were Muslims – 89. This is down from more than 500 Muslim victims of religious based hate crimes in 2001.
I might note that there was exactly 1 atheist who was victim of a hate crime that year. And the number of hate crimes against Protestants and Catholics totalled 54. So much for persecution of us atheists.
What these statistics don’t tell us is how many American citizens stared in disapproval when a Muslim woman walked by in a Chador. Or how many people razzed a Hasidic Jew for their distinctive facial hair (payoth). Or how many articles skewering Scientology as a scam and a farce were written. Or how many websites are on the internet that write the most laughably ignorant screeds against a “Papal Conspiracy” or even how anti-Catholics have latched on to theThe DaVinci Code to prove one nefarious thing or another about Catholicism.
Committing an overt act of aggressive violence against a practitioner of a particular religion is one thing. It is the intolerance visited upon religions in the form of a lack of respect for custom and beliefs that I believe to be a more significant problem in that this aspect of bigotry is not only becoming more common, but also more acceptable to both sides of the political spectrum.
In fact, both right and left are increasingly using religion as a political club, attempting to “prove” one horrible thing or another about their opponents. What makes this a matter of curiosity to me is that not all religions are targeted. For the left, it is Christians (or more generally, historical Judeo-Christian beliefs) who have borne the brunt of some of the most vile, hate filled speech imaginable. On the right, it is the simple minded attack of equating the entire Islamic faith with terrorism and/or world conquest while raising the specter of collusion in this fantasy by the left.
This is not to say that there should be no criticism directed against the followers of these religions for their stupidities or villainies. I have taken both Christians and Muslims to task for their excesses and their fake piety on many occasions. It is not criticism that is intolerant but rather the gratuitous, unthinking, unreasonable, shallow critiques that are passed off as “analysis” or “the way things really are” that reveal a profound bigotry disguising itself as political commentary.
Both sides are equally guilty of this calumnious behavior although, perhaps being a conservative, I see the left’s gratuitous Christian bashing as more obscenely casual than the sometimes laughably earnest efforts on the right to connect the left to Muslim extremism (while denigrating the entire Islamic faith in the process).
Trying to prove that the left is sympathetic to Islamic extremists is fairly simple – as long as you ignore the facts and concentrate on the left’s lack of enthusiasm for fighting the War on Terror the way that many of my fellow conservatives believe it should be fought – by bombing any number of countries who are clear enemies of the United States or who don’t speak out vigorously enough against the Islamists in their midst. In this case, it is simply a matter of using illogic to make the charge that since liberals don’t condemn the Islamists loud enough or often enough, they somehow support them – a bit of sophistry that understandably infuriates the left.
And always present in these charges is the belief that the left is somehow complicit in what many conservatives refer to as the “dhimmification” of America – the belief that by being too tolerant of the Muslim faith, we are actually playing into the Islamist’s hands and readying ourselves for domination by Muslims. What my conservative friends mistake for submission is no more than a strain of Political Correctness toward religion that manifests itself in many ways – including bending over backwards not to offend evangelicals:
Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).(HT: C & L)“In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.’”
Having said all of this, there is ample reason for criticizing the left’s myopia regarding the real threat of Islamic extremism and their apparent sanguinity in the face of Islamists using their favorite talking points when criticizing the United States. This doesn’t make them supporters of the extremists nor does it make them any less patriotic. It only reveals them to be the useful idiots of the Islamists, a charge they refute by trying to point to all the ways in which the Islamists resemble religious conservatives. This is a laughable argument that fails to address the fact that a tape from al-Qaeda can sound very much like many a diary that appears on Daily Kos or many columns that appear in Raw Story or on Juan Cole’s ever more conspiratorial-minded blog, Informed Comment.
On the other side of the coin, it has been shocking to watch over the last few years as the left has thrown off all restraints and attacked the Bush Administration and their supporters using some of the most nauseating anti-Christian invective imaginable. It isn’t enough that the left denigrates the use of devout Christian beliefs by the Bush Administration to advance a political agenda (such as the above example regarding the Grand Canyon). Such criticism (if carefully done) is valid and necessary. The problem has been the stomach turning way in which not only the beliefs of evangelicals and Christians in general have been denigrated, but also the lifestyle, the manners, the customs, and concerns of these folks which have been turned into fodder for ruthless parody or outright hate filled rants that reek of cultural and intellectual superiority:
But there is one number that stands out among the rest as absolutely unbelievable. Twenty-five percent of Americans believe that Jesus Christ will return to earth in 2007. TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT! IN 2007!These people are nuts. There’s no polite way of saying it. If I sound superior, too bad. Sanity has its advantages.
If some of the famed cultural warriors of the right want to take me on and defend their cherished Christian cohorts, step on up. I’ll take every one of them on and win very, very easily.
Here’s my plan for victory – wait till 2008. When Jesus doesn’t come – again, for the 2,007th time – I will be proven right. Will the people who believed he was coming in 2007 change their minds? Of course not. They’ll just say he’s coming in 2008. And on and on it goes.
I will gladly step up and defend the 25% of Americans who believe in the second coming of Christ – a belief that many protestant denominations teach is imminent and that their congregations should expect Christ’s return at any time.
How “sane” the author, Cenk Uygur, of this vicious, anti-Christian piece actually is can be gleaned from this jaw dropping passage:
You people are seriously disturbed. You think a magic man is going to appear out of the sky and grant you eternal bliss. If the man’s name was anything other than Jesus, that belief would get you locked up as a psychotic. And the fact that you have given him this magic name and decided to call him your Lord doesn’t make it any more sane.Imagine for a second if instead of Jesus, some psycho was waiting for a magical creature named Fred to come save him this year and suck him up into the sky. Now, who doesn’t think that man needs serious counseling and perhaps medical supervision? Now, you change Fred into Jesus, and you have 25% of the country.
Sometimes the world scares me. It is full of psychotics who go around pretending to be rational human beings. You think that’s offensive, then prove me wrong. I dare you. Show me Jesus in 2007 and I’ll do whatever you demand of me.
It should go without saying that it is not “psychotic” to believe in the tenets of any religion – the operative word being “belief” which denotes that which cannot be empirically proven but rather “a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing,” according to Dr. Johnson. And as far as rationality is concerned, I suggest Mr. Uygur read Thomas Aquinas for proof that reason and faith can, in fact, compliment one another. Indeed, as Pope Benedict recently elucidated brilliantly, reason is the basis for belief in God.
Why then, should the author stop at poking fun at The Last Days? For a “sane” and “rational” person, the idea of the son of a dead carpenter rising from the dead is ludicrous, the height of idiocy. Everyone knows once you’re dead, you’re dead. And what about all those “miracles?” Helping the blind to see and the lame to walk? You’ve got to be kidding. Except that this belief has animated and inspired scientific giants, none more prominent than Isaac Newton whose faith in God and that dead son of a carpenter led to discoveries that are universally recognized as the greatest in the history of science. “I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily,” he wrote. And there is absolutely no difference between his beliefs and the beliefs that Mr. Uygur so sickeningly describes as “psychotic.”
This is but one example of the left’s despicable attack on people of faith. To find others, I suggest you Google up “American Taliban” – an outrageous, exaggerated phrase that seeks to tie the religious political right in America to the murderous tyrants who bullied the Afghanistan people until they were overthrown by American arms in 2001.
Intolerance is not confined to those with religious beliefs. As Mr. Uygur proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, the disease can manifest itself even among “sane” and “rational” bigots on the left. And the air of insufferable superiority and condescension by the Uygur’s of this country is so ripe that the stink of their ignorance permeates our politics to the point that rational discourse regarding the very real threat of religious influence affecting reason and science in society is impossible.
For I actually agree with some of the left’s critique of the religious right and their drive to impose their beliefs on the rest of us, although I think the threat is vastly overstated for purely political purposes. And the religious right’s intolerance of gays, of the teaching of science that contradicts dogma, and of the “godlessness” of the political opposition all contribute to a coarsening of political dialogue.
And it isn’t just the hard, evangelical right that exhibits this kind of intolerance. Many of my fellow conservatives, in their zeal to prosecute the War on Terror, much too often use too broad a brush in condemning Islam and, by extension, the left itself for what they see as failures to stand up to the extremists or worse, sympathize with their goals. The fact that moderate Muslims are too eager to play politics with Islamism by piggybacking their grievances on the attention garnered by the terrorists doesn’t mean that they support violence. They should be roundly criticized for their moral blindness not for the fact that they share a general belief system with the murderers.
I regret to say that even though many conservatives may deny it, their criticisms of Islam as a religion that seeks to enslave the rest of us smacks of the same kind of prejudice and ignorance exhibited by the left toward Christianity. It has the same out of control feel to it – as if by its very shallowness, it can cover a multitude of sins, both real and imagined. Both critiques should be rejected for what they are; muddled thinking born out of a desire to score political points rather than objectify the nature of the threat – be it radical Islamism or radical Christian fundamentalism.
I don’t expect any of this to change anytime soon. The echo chamber here in Blogland is a powerful instrument that enslaves adherents to a particular worldview and will brook no opposition. Apostasy on both sides is punished severely. One wonders if we’ll ever be able to get back to a place where we can all view the intersection of religion and politics with a wary but welcome attitude, seeing the moral underpinnings supplied by religion as a plus for our politics while recognizing the dangers of using politics to trash the belief systems of others.
UPDATE
Frank Martin (of the excellent blog Varifrank) in the comments points out that the National Park Service does indeed gladly give the age of the Grand Canyon on its website.
What’s more, it appears that the group of park employees who sent the letter, vastly exaggerated their charge that the age of the Canyon could not be disseminated to the public.
What they’re bitching about is that a book that posits the notion that Noah’s flood caused the Canyon to be formed is still on the shelves after a year of dithering by Park bureacrats. I can’t tell if this is bureaucratic stupidity or the imposing of religious beliefs by Bush appointees on scientific questions. Whatever it is, the book should be taken off the shelves, especially after a directive stating that Park bookstores should be akin to schoolrooms rather than libraries was handed down.
And I can’t find anywhere in the linked letter where they actually say no one is allowed to give the true age of the Canyon (about 550 million years). It appears that Frank’s belief that this is simply more BDS on display is correct.
12:23 pm
I appreciate the article, but I got lost regarding Mr. Cenk Uygur’s comments. You saw no difference in Sir Isaac Newton’s declaration that the Bible was divinely inspired and those that believe Jesus Christ will return IN 2007!! Despite Mr. Uygur’s sniping ugliness in attacking Christians overall, believing you know the return date of Christ is both anti-Biblical and silly. If you cannot see the difference between a general statement of belief and a stated knowledge of what diety will actually do this year, then some remedial logic is in order.
And for a lot of the people mentioned, religion and politics do not intersect, they intertwine. Lots of people on the left and the right are evangelical zealots about their political beliefs, forgetting that politics is the art of the possible, not a Crusade.
12:31 pm
As I mentioned in the article, many Protestant sects – including 7th Day Adventists – preach that Christ’s return is “imminent.” The poll question was whether the responder believed that Christ would return in 2007. The two are not incompatible at all, although the number of 25% seems a bit high.
And my point about Newton had to do with his belief in a literal take on the Bible being the word of god not that he believed the second coming was imminent although it was not out of the ordinary for many Christians at that time to believe that Christ would return in their lifetimes.
The thread that ties them together – that it is not any more “psychotic” to believe in a second coming this year than in the dead rising from the grave – makes Uygur out to be the bigot that he truly is.
12:34 pm
Rick,
You can count me among those see American leftists as currying favor among Islamists, but not for the reason you cite. If their passive support of Islamists simply proceeded from an abiding belief in the tenets of multi-culturalism, I would agree with you. However, when they bandy about the term “religious right” as a pejorative and decry the onset of an American Christian theocracy – all evidence to the contrary – it isn’t unreasonable to count this as tacit support of America’s enemies. They would have everyone believe that I, as a conservative Christian, am as big a threat to this country as someone who tells third graders it’s OK to kill Jews or straps bombs to retarded teenagers and promises them 72 virgins in the hereafter.
That’s why I keep returning to the asylum. For what it’s worth, I don’t always agree with you, but at least you can dispassionately and intelligently challenge those who disagree.
12:40 pm
so the park service not permitted to discuss age of grand canyon?
http://www2.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/grca/
I have to conclude one of two things from this cursory examination of the facts:
1) once again anti-bush bias has blocked the use of common sense and logic, not to mention 10 seconds of research to check an easily verified fact or two
or
2) we all know that bush is a crazed-jesus freak, so who cares if its true or not – just print it.
12:46 pm
The stricture appears to apply only to the Grand Canyon park itself. Your link (fascinating reading, btw) was to the Interior Department’s website.
What they’re doing selling a book about Noah’s flood being the cause of the Canyon is another question.
12:51 pm
Actually, after reading that letter more carefully, the PEER people are being alarmists. While their point about selling the creationist book is valid, their criticism that the age of the Canyon can’t be taught is specious – an exaggeration.
As you said FM, BDS rearing its ugly head. I will update a clarification.
1:26 pm
You refer several times to the “dead carpenter’s son”. Unless you are referring to the Merrivingians, you would be correct to refer to the return of the “dead carpenter”, not his son.
1:30 pm
Agreed. And I edited the copy to reflect that.
1:49 pm
An interesting survey of attitudes toward religion, politics and the mixing thereof.
http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=153
The degree of blind faith is a function of extremism, not of either political ideology or religious persuasion. Hate, intolerance, authoritarianism and over-reliance on dogma/doctrine are characteristic of both the far left and right.
Will a representative of the “religion is the bane of all civilization” sect, with a dysfunctional sense of superiority desperate as it is false compensating for the suppression of their own spirituality, in woeful denial of the havoc their own ego wreaks upon the world, be stopping by to attempt to assert there was perfect peace on earth before religion?
Anyway, everyone has faith in something.
Chip
2:06 pm
BDS - Bush Derangement Syndrome
Symptoms include the compulsion to treat people who merely voted for the man as criminals, taking the “How Could 58 Million People Be So Stupid” bumper sticker seriously, and not showing up to Christmas dinner at a conservative relative’s house.
Chip
2:14 pm
Your assuption that all non-atheist, non-jew and non-islamic religions are Christian is not an accepted fact. Christians do believe that Jesus’ return is imminant, but you must not apply conventional knowledge to that statement. God is Spirit, and a relationship with Him through Jesus is spiritual and understanding of that can only be known by revelation through the Holy Spirit. As Christians, we are to live daily as though Jesus may return at any moment, and the Bible tells us to embrace that as a spiritual reality. How we import that spiritual reality into our daily lives is important – but we must maintain understanding of the spiritual relationship – not so much the physical.
Yes, I should live each day, each moment as if the return of the Savior is at hand. I must believe that His return is imminant – but, I must also embrace the realities of the phyiscal world He created and not let my knowledge of it overexcite my realationship with the Father through Jesus.
I must be ready for a face to face encounter with Jesus at any moment, for his return is imminant, but is that today? tomorrow? next week, next year or hundreds of years away? No one knows the exact time or season, but I know he’s coming and it does not matter when if I have the right relationship established, I’m ready.
4:20 pm
Simmering on the back burner…
I’ve been thinking about this for a while – not terribly long, perhaps a few weeks – and this post from my blog-brother Rick Moran appears to be what I needed to get off my rear end and actually write.
5:24 pm
Firstly, not all Evangelicals believe that the earth is 6000 years old. There are plenty of us who can fit science and Scripture neatly into a rational theory of Divine creation. The trick comes in understanding that God is as much an artist and poet as an engineer.
Secondly, as regards the superstitious “Fred” being sucked up into the sky, I would argue that it is more rational to believe in some divine being – ANY divine being – than not to do so. Click on my link for the short version.
8:16 pm
I rather liked the post and what you were trying to say Rick, I just wanted to interject that one little bit.It was a minor point on my part and it shouldnt distract from what you were trying to say.
I would also add that there are plenty of books offered in the same bookstore that offer hopi and navajo religious beliefs on the age and creation of the Grand Canyon, many of which are as laughable as the creationists need to establish the date of the eath at 6,000 years old. I’ve never heard any complaints about those creation theories by “park staff”.
Its interesting to note that while european christian creationists are almost always met with laughter by the all-knowing,all-seeing “rational” public, indigenious culture creation theories are often held by the same group to be in high esteem and worthy of note.
As a scientist, I just sit and wonder what all the fuss is about.
(...Sorry for the off topic diversion, and thanks for the kind words.)
10:45 pm
Take a look at this article from the Washington Post.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/anthony_m_stevensarroyo/2006/12/
atheist_wannabes_vs_agnostic_t.html
“Dogmatic Atheists and Cuddly Agnostics
I never met an atheist I could like. Surely, somewhere on this planet, there is a friendly atheist, but I haven’t bumped into one yet.
The atheists who have crossed my path are obnoxious. They create the world in their own image and likeness, where only they are right or reasonable, and everyone else is either a fool or fanatic. (Any atheist who doubts him/herself enough to benefit someone else’s opinion is not a dogmatic atheist, but an agnostic: see below).
You can’t have a dialogue with dogmatic atheists. Because they are so sure they know everything, they never listen to intelligent people. They are mirror images of the religious fundamentalists, who—despite their dogmatism—at least have their enthusiasms in the right place. The worst thing for society would be to let any of them have power over the body politic. Scratch a dogmatic atheist and you likely will find a wannabe Robespierre or worse.”
Substitute the word “Jew” for “atheist” in this article and tell me whether or not you think the Washington Post would have printed it.
This article has been up since December 27 and despite numerous calls to take it down as bigoted, it’s still there.
11:02 pm
I’m an atheist and I don’t care whether or not the book in question is in the park store as long as it is kept with the other mythological books. I would be against it being shelved with the scientifically accurate books though.
I would like to point out this piece of bigotry also:
http://www.robsherman.com/information/liberalnews/2004/0204.htm
“At a news conference in Chicago on August 27, 1987 (not 1988 as has been reported elsewhere), which I covered as a fully credentialed journalist, I asked Vice President Bush several questions. In response to one question, Bush said, “I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.””
” Today, I contacted the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. I asked if there was any chance that such documents could possibly exist; if they did exist, was there any chance that the documents would be stored at the Bush Presidential Library”
“A team of archivists went to work on the matter right away. Within a couple of hours, they had found the documents. They are archived as Item # CF01193-002.”
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/
11:16 pm
“not showing up to Christmas dinner at a conservative relative’s house.”
I know plenty of families where differences in politics has caused a major rift and the problem lies with both parties, not merely those on the left.
Hell, look at the Civil War, it divided brother against brother and father against son. And this wasn’t just not showing up to Christmas dinner, it was people shooting and killing each other. And what was it really but politics?
So which side was the guilty party, the Confederate or the Union?
12:34 am
Secondly, as regards the superstitious “Fred†being sucked up into the sky, I would argue that it is more rational to believe in some divine being – ANY divine being – than not to do so.
So, where did the divine being come from?
It’s turtles, all the way down.
1:09 am
Submitted for Your Approval
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… here are all the links submitted by members of the Watcher’s Council for this week’s vote. Council li…
11:12 am
[...] Right Wing Nut House, “Religion and Politics: Intolerance Is Growing†[...]
2:42 pm
My own personal argument against the existence of a supreme being goes as follows.
If we stipulate that an intelligent designer designed our universe and us then it it seems logical to conclude that the intelligent designer must be more complex than are we.
If it required an intelligent designer to design a being of our level of complexity then how can it be that an intelligent designer came into being without an even more complex intelligent designer to design him/her/it?
That’s my argument in a nutshell, the whole idea of an intelligent designer leads to an infinite number of ever more complex entities, each of which requires an even more complex entity to design it.
I think that Ockham’s Razor can be used to cut this Gordian Knot of infinitely ever more complex designers. The short version of Ockham’s Razor can be stated thusly: “When given two equally valid explanations for a phenomenon, one should embrace the less complicated formulation.”
OK, that’s my take on a supreme being. I would be interested in hearing criticisms, elaborations or whatever thoughts you might have on the subject.
6:52 pm
Jonathan (#17),
Your comments are relevant w.r.t. rational disagreements, but not so in the context of BDS.
Cheers,
Chip
10:32 pm
Chip:
I guess you guys have totally forgotten the Clinton years.
“America Held Hostage” comes to mind pretty quickly.
I haven’t listened in quite a few years but I listened to talk radio during most of the Clinton years (mostly Boortz cuz he was local to me and he’s pretty entertaining even if you disagree with his politics) and I recall it was all Clinton hate, all the time. I quit listening when I finally realized it was just designed to p*ss me off whether I was right or left. If right, it reinforces what you believe and encourages anger at “lieberals”, if left it just angers you because of it’s unwarranted vitriol aginst about half the population.
How did the bumper sticker go? Something like “Screw the President and her husband too”.
I guess you could have called it CDS - Clinton Derangement Syndrome. And it was no more rational than what we see with some on the left today.
Matthew 5:44But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
The great majority on the right claim to be Christians, some of them vociferously so, but an awful lot of them never seem to have read the Sermon on the Mount.
I am an atheist now but I had an excellent religious education.
12:07 am
Ah, but which came first, Jonathan – the turtles or the elephants?
12:21 am
I think turtles have been around a lot longer than elephants.
I was wondering if anyone would get that.
7:27 am
I thought you guys would be interested to know that over at Balloon-Juice.com they are using BDS to refer to Republican derangement in favor of Bush.
From the left leaning perspective Busheviks do seem rather cult like. I mean face it, Bush does sound like he’s a couple of french, err.. freedom fries short of a Happy Meal. And yet he’s been treated by the right as just slightly less august than Jesus the Christ Himself.
Speaking of freedom fries, I wonder if any righties now regret pouring gallons of French wine down the sewers? Seeing as it now appears the French were right all along and invading Iraq was a singularly stupid thing to do.
My son-in-law (a former Marine as am I) thought I was a fool and coward (though he didn’t say it to my face) for predicting pre-invasion that Iraq would turn out to be a disaster.
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.â€
Mark TwainSIL now listens to my opinions with considerably more respect than he did four years ago.
Once he started listening to me I told SIL that anyone with a knowledge of the history of the region could have made the same prediction as I. Iraq was’t even a nation until 1920 when the French (hmm.. remember them?) and British carved it out of the Ottoman empire without paying any attention to the politics of the various factions in the region. In fact it was standard procedure in the British Empire to play various wog factions off against each other, that’s how a relatively few Brits could control nations of tens of millions. The Brits had the advantage of a thousand years of vicious European political infighting, they went through wog political structures like a hot knife through butter.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
Mark TwainThat’s one of the many reasons that electing an intellectually incurious, brain damaged (from thirty years of drug abuse) non-reader to the Presidency was a remarkably foolish thing to do.
Bush may well be getting verbal briefings from staff but he reads little and probably very slowly. I can read about ten times as fast as anyone can talk and can hence absorb much more information in a given time period than even the best aural learner. That’s the advantage that good readers have over non-readers, they just know a whole lot more if they are intellectually curious.
“As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
HL Mencken“No leader should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no leader should fight a battle simply out of pique. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Hence the enlightened leader is heedful, and the good leader full of caution.”
Sun TzuI wonder if Bush has ever even heard of Sun Tzu?
[Eric Shinseki] is famous for his remarks to the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee before the war in Iraq in which he said “something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” would probably be required for post-war Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz publicly disagreed with his estimate.”
snip“On November 15, 2006, in testimony before Congress, USCENTCOM Commanding General John Abizaid said that General Shinseki’s estimate had proved correct”
“The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.”
Sun Tzu1:29 am
The Council Has Spoken!
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… the winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are Religion and Politics: Intolerance…
2:48 am
Rick,
I just noticed that you briefly mentioned Scientology in your piece above. I found this quote from L Ron Hubbard here.
Kind of says of Scientology what some are claiming the Koran says about deceit being acceptable practice.
I don’t know enough about either Scientology or Islam to have an opinion of the truth of any claim about them, I’m just posting this as information to consider.
2:52 am
Congrats, Rick.
8:24 am
The Council Speaks
VotesCouncil link2 2/3Religion and Politics: Intolerance Is GrowingRight Wing Nut House2The Mysterious Mr. RitterAmerican Future2You Keep Using That Word…Andrew Olmsted1 2/3Hidden Truth About Arafat RevealedRhymes With Right1 1…
12:29 pm
[...] The winning Council post is Right Wing Nut House’s “Religion and Politics: Intolerance Is Growing.” My “Mysterious Mr. Ritter” captured the runner-up spot. [...]
12:55 pm
[...] The Watcher’s Council has announced its picks for the most outstanding posts of the preceding week. The winning Council post was Right Wing Nut House’s post, “Religion and Politics: Intolerance Is Growingâ€. Second place honors went to American Future’s post, “The Mysterious Mr. Ritterâ€. [...]
5:09 pm
Watcher’s Council results
And now… the winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are Religion and Politics: Intolerance Is Growing by Right Wing Nut House, and The Blogosphere at War by The Belmont Club. All members, please be sure to…
1:32 pm
As an aside, I think the quoted “age” of the Grand Canyon as 550 million years is misleading. Readers should be aware of this when debating the larger issues discussed in Rick’s excellent post and the ensuing discussion.
By age, do we mean the canyon’s present appearance, when it started to form, or the age of the oldest rocks exposed at the bottom?
The answer to the first is that it’s current appearance is fully modern..it’s as old as yesterday.
The canyon began to form with the uplift of the Colorado Plateau and subsequent incision of the Colorado River. This started some tens of millions of years ago. (I could look it up but am feeling lazy.)
The oldest rocks in the canyon are Precambian and far older than 550 million years. I’m guessing that the 550 million years figure is from the date of the beginning of the Cambrian Period, represented at the base of the Tapeats Sandstone (the bottom rock formation of the outer canyon).
Anyway, sorry for the somewhat pedantic diversion, but I think it’s important to have an understanding of the minutia, here.
9:53 pm
The Coalition of the Willing
As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what we consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… though I don’t actually vote unless there happens…
10:40 pm
Watcher’s Council Results
The winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are Religion and Politics: Intolerance Is Growing by Right Wing Nut House, and The Blogosphere at War by The Belmont Club. Here is where you can find the full…
7:21 pm
[...] The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is yours truly for “Religion and Politics: Intolerance Is Growing.” There was a tie for second with Andrew Olmsted’s “You Keep Using That Word…” and American Future’s “The Mysterious Mr. Ritter” sharing runners up honors. [...]
12:32 am
[...] Well, the allegations that the Bush administration had been muzzling park employees from telling tourists the true age of the Grand Canyon have been proven false. The first indications that these claims were at the very least dubious were provided by Rick Moran of the certifiably sane Right Wing Nuthouse (scroll down the linked post until you reach Moran’s update), and were confirmed by the indefatigable Michael Shermer, skeptic extraordinaire. So we conservatives can rest easy now, right? This casts a shadow of doubt over all those claims of a “Republican/Bush War on Scienceâ€, and we can now safely dismiss them as mere ideological jousting, correct? [...]
8:14 pm
[...] Religion and Politics: Intolerance Is GrowingRight Wing Nut House [...]