Andrew Stuttaford fires back on my behalf

At Freddoso:

Freedom, Faith, and Postwar Europe [Andrew Stuttaford]

David, you write that "one grave consequence of post-war Europe's loss of faith is its approaching demographic extinction." Putting aside the question as to whether Europe is heading for "demographic extinction" (I don't believe that it is) I think it's important to point out that birth rates are now falling just about everywhere across the globe. There is little or no evidence to suggest that this can be linked to any loss of faith in Europe, or for that matter, elsewhere. Rather it is a by-product of modernity, and it's one that's very welcome too.

Journalists should be history majors

David Freddoso:

To the debate over Krauthammer's piece, I'd add a Steynian note. One grave consequence of post-war Europe's loss of faith is its approaching demographic extinction. The Italians are on pace to be as dead as the Romans. The Russians are headed there even faster. Can you be free if you don't exist? Or even worse, if you end up under Islamic law?

I'd also point to pre-war Europe, whose loss of religious faith (it's not like it started in 1960 — try 1660) had ghastly ideological consequences — Communism, German National Socialism — that led to countless deaths.

I agree with Ramesh — Romney's statement isn't that absurd.

Typically shallow historical analysis by the religious. If communism were the result of a loss of faith then why did communism take root in Russia, the most highly religious and backward nation in Europe. Indeed its religiosity set it apart so much that many across the Atlantic didn't even consider it to be part of Europe, and its exclusion from the EU is a testament to this attitude's survival. Until 1917 it was ruled by a monarchy whose claims to divine right were supported by the Russian Orthodox Church and believed by many of the people who were kept in a kind of serfdom that despite 19th century reform efforts by Alexander II, was not substantially different from it medieval predecessor. And this monarchy had as much contempt for the lives of its subjects as the Communist regime that followed.

National socialism was never atheistic, there is no case to make that Hitler was an atheist, and it specifically appealed to Antisemitism cultivated by the Catholic Church and dominant Protestant sects. Enough of this. How much intellectual shabbiness is required to take two opposed ideologies that couldn't stand each other's existence, and attribute them to the same nebulous cause?

And while they bemoan the demographic decline of Europe they fail to mention that the Islamic world's population is increasing far faster than even America's yet is far poorer and lives under theocratic oppression. Shall we then take their example and reduce ourselves to poverty and religious backwardness for the sake of demographic expansion? It apparently has never dawned on Freddoso that poorer, less educated societies (and people) are consistently more religious and have higher birthrates. The Economist puts out a fact book that compiles these, often jaw-dropping, stats. Does this then confer some virtue on their poverty and ignorance? After all such widespread ignorance and poverty as seen in Africa and the Middle East is the quickest way to raise the birth rate, though at the expense of any semblance of freedom for women and the brutalization of men. "How can you be free if you are poor and ignorant?" will then be the question that replaces Freddoso's. Is it asking too much to expect that religious people will evince even a modicum of intellectual honesty and constructiveness on this point or will they be constantly blinded by heartache over the approaching nadir of their influence.

Ironically he pinpoints the loss of religious faith as having begun in 1660. This is incidentally a little more than a decade after the treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War, and established a rather delicate and short lived peace but effectively ended the period of international warfare in Europe on at least explicitly religious grounds. This war decimated the population in Germany by as much as 20 percent and claimed around 5 million lives in a Europe with less than 100 million people. This of course leaves out the countless wars rebellions and massacres that tore the continent apart for the preceding 300ish years, which he predictably does not mention.

Weirdly though he doesn't seem to notice that while pinpointing the beginning of religion's decline in 1660, he lives in a world where Europe's population has maybe quintupled (a conservative estimate) since then and has only started declining in the last 5 years though he still manages to claim the loss of faith since 1660 and more recently after World War II is the culprit. Religious people like Freddoso have the unseemly habit of making huge statements that make little sense but and need considerable unpacking, but have the advantage of sounding right to those who want to believe them.

Coda: Notice again that apologists for religion advocate for it without mention to whether or not it is actually true.

Going to Church can make you kill people

Ii must confess to breathing a sigh of relief when I found out that the maniac who shot up Pastor Ted "I'm completely straight" Haggard's former flock was not a secular Jew atheist biologist. Instead as one may have been prone to guess, he was the product of a strict, religious upbringing and home schooling. No quicker way to drive someone crazy with hate for their religion than force it on them as children. This is admittedly a rather dark example of schadenfreude, but I don't care. Sorry flymorgue.

"A neighbor, Cody Askeland, 19, said the brothers were home-schooled, describing the whole family as "very, very religious."

See how necessary religion is for morality!

Matthew Murray lived there along with a brother, Christopher, 21, a student at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla.

Oral Roberts University! Another fine example of the high ethical and educational standards of Christian education. I suggest a Google news search. It will keep you busy for a month reading tales of stupidity, graft, and sleaze. All under the auspices of Jesus Christ Savior of Mankind. (JCSM)

"I was just expecting for the next gunshot to be coming through my car. Miraculously — by the grace of God — it did not," she told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Solipsism is never very becoming. Unfortunately for two sisters the next bullets went through their bodies, ending their lives. But I am sure God withheld his grace to fulfill his mysterious, inscrutable plan, which we filthy mortals can't hope to understand. If I were the mother of one of these victims I might be inclined to administer a good kicking to this twit.

About 7,000 people were in and around the church the time of the shooting.

7,000! What a waste of man-hours.

New Life, with a largely upper middle-class membership, was founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, who was dismissed last year after a former male prostitute alleged he had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with him. Haggard admitted committing unspecified "sexual immorality.

HA!

This story is a sad example of the stifling morass of stupidity surrounding religion. From the home schooled and brainwashed gunman to the almost victim spouting selfish grotesque drivel about how she escaped by the "grace of god" while two people lay dead, to the pathetic life story of the victim Phillip Crouse, a former skinhead who probably felt saved from plotting his own spree against the cursed people of Ham by this ridiculous melange of consumerism, spirituality, self-help, and mawkish bourgeois sentiment.

What would have been prevented this was not more faith in public life but a bit of education. Instead of locking their children up to be homeschooled, isolated, inundated with superstitious, mind shrinking nonsense, and forced to endure personality engineering with all the compassion of Paris Island, it might have helped to try and teach them not to fear and loathe the entire modern world so they would have been able to see a place worth going to when the comfort of fantasy land they were living in disappeared.

Going to church can make you very stupid (aka: Sherri Shepherd watch.)

Truly.

Religion is child abuse

For those who take such objection to the notion that religious instruction constitutes child abuse I do wonder how they would answer two questions. If this had happened as a result of anything but religious belief would the judge have allowed it, and would there be any reason not to label the boy's indoctrination as child abuse. Its a filthy lie that kills and, unlike history's other great fantasies, we applaud it.

I agree with every word

Marcus Ross and hilarious irony

Marcus Ross has a phd in paleontology from the university of Rhode Island. The only problem is he is a young earth creationist who was granted that phd because he wrote a dissertation which disproves everything one would need to believe to be a young earth creationist. How he resolves the cognitive dissonance as reported in the NYT is the sweetest irony:

'At the conference I asked Ross whether he still believes what he wrote in his graduate thesis. His answer confirmed him as the product of the postmodern university, where truth is dependent on the framework: “Within the context of old age and evolutionary theory, yes. But if the parameter is different, portions of it could be completely in error.”

So now to justify their nonsense creationists are making common cause with the only group of intellectuals who can rival them in the dubious category of bullshit artistry, post-modernists. This isn't new. I wrote about a Harvey Mansfield column defending religion when he claimed:

Atheists today angrily hold religion to a standard of justice that the most advanced thinkers of our time, the postmoderns, have declared to be impossible. Some of those postmoderns, indeed, are so disgusted with the optimism of atheism that, with a shrug of their shoulders, they propose returning to the relative sanity of religion.

It is a bit of poetic justice that I get to watch religious people attempt to salvage dignity for their beliefs by allying themselves with nihilistic nonsense developed by people who don't share their beliefs, despise them, and who rarely offer anything but obscurantist gibberish. The liberal university may yet be a friend to religious conservatism.

Its getting old but not the least bit less hilarious

Another preacher has plead guilty to public indecency and DUI. Oh the catch is he was caught wearing a miniskirt and offered to have sex with the arresting officers. But of course the problem isn't that Christian beliefs breed sexual anxiety, repression, and self loathing. The problem isn't that people like this man who may not have felt quite at home in their church had to overcompensate to defeat the inner demons by becoming a preacher and radio evangelist. And the problem certainly isn't that his community made him feel so tortured about his impulses that booze was the only way he could quell the fear of hellfire while pathetically and perplexedly seeking some kind of outlet. No no, the problem is that we're fallen and need God's grace. Yes.

Story: http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/10816901.html

The Great Separation endures even here... barely

Mark Lilla's essay at Cato Unbound serves as a starting point for the interpundit sniping of internet discourse at Cato Unbound. Andrew Sullivan and others have offered reactions. I will focus on one important passage:

What we seem to have forgotten is how unique the circumstances were that made possible the establishment of the American compact on religion and politics. Perhaps now is the time to restore the much needed concept of American exceptionalism and remind ourselves of some basic facts. The most important one that set our experience apart from that of Europe was the absence of a strong Roman Catholic Church as a redoubt of intellectual and political opposition to the liberal-democratic ideas hatched by the Enlightenment – and thus also, the absence of a radical, atheist Enlightenment convinced that l’infâme must be écrasé. For over two centuries France, Italy, and Spain were rent by what can only be called existential struggles over the legitimacy of Catholic political theology and the revolutionary heritage of 1789. (Though the term “liberalism” is of Spanish coinage, as a political force it was weak in the whole of Catholic Europe until after the Second World War.) Neither side in this epic struggle was remotely interested in “toleration”; they wanted victory.

Looking beyond Europe, we note other things missing from the American landscape, quite literally. For example, there were no religious shrines to fight over, no holy cities, no temples, no sacred burial grounds (except those of the Native Americans, which were shamefully ignored). There also was a complete absence of what we would today call diversity: America was racially and culturally homogeneous in the early years of the republic, even if there were differences – in retrospect, incredibly minor – in Protestant affiliation. Yes, there were a few Catholics and Jews among the early immigrants, but the tone was set by Protestants of dissenting tendencies from the British Isles. The theological differences among them were swamped by the fact that everyone spoke the same language, cooked the same food, and looked to a shared history of persecution and emigration. It was a homogeneous country, and what comes with homogeneity, along with some troubling things, is trust.

I am forever amazed by the claim, or rather unsubstantiated assertion, that the values of 20th century democracy can somehow be traced to Christian principles. If anything, it can be traced to Christians existing in fear of each other. The separation was possible only because the similarities between these different groups were substantial enough to give hope that coexistence was possible if they simply relegated the differences to the private sphere. This homogeneity is no longer the case. Forgetting the racial, economic, cultural, and historical differences it is patently obvious that the mere theological differences are large enough that the kind of trust necessary to believe that one's fellow citizen will exemplify the kind good faith that will prevent grabs for power, is no longer possible. We are no longer talking about differences between Anglican and Presbyterians or Catholics and Lutherans. It might be said that these groups have histories of acquitting themselves murderously towards each other. This chastened them though. The groups vying for power now have greater theological differences and no history of violence to make them reticent to attempt coercion. The only proper response is not the provincial (in Lilla's terms) reassertion of the classic separation of church and state, a bourgeois secularism, but in the destruction of their intellectual pretenses and the removal of the mantle of respect they claim in our discourse.

To the highlighted selection, I am baffled by the claims I have read on Catholic blogs that the Catholic Church somehow bears responsibility for the emergence of the values of the contemporary West. After developing a theology to inculcate servility and submission to the Holy See in Europe, they have the audacity to claim that the story of the emergence of modernity is not the story of our wresting the reins of temporal authority from the Church but instead its full ideological realization. This is absurd on its face, and even a scanty survey of philosophy and literature after 1300 will confirm this. I won't go into the history of it but would simply put one question to the believers: Can you name any example of the Church, in an official, sanctioned capacity, acting in belhalf of a democratic movement and against a theocratic/monarchical/autocratic one before 1917? I don't think it can be done.

Quote for the Day

"What influence have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of Civil authority, in many instances they have seen the upholding of the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberty of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, needs them not." -James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments

The religious were much more openly hostile to democratic movements in Madison's time than now. The rise of Marxism accounts for this. If democracy was hostile to religion in consequence then Marxism was hostile to it in practice, and the Catholic church tentatively cast its lot with the less pernicious enemy. The ease with which they can abandon any alliance with democracy or affable relations with open societies, and take up a cosy stance with totalitarians, is easily seen in with the Lateran Treaties with Mussolini, the Concordat with Hitler, (which included adulations given on his birthday) and its endorsement of Franco's invasion of Spain.

In a sane world this all might have shamed them and reduced them to ignominy but people who believe they have a tin can on a string to the creator of the universe are rarely so self-conscious. I was reminded of this gem from Madison upon reading an article in Reason about the Danish cartoon controversy and was given to pondering Joseph Ratzinger's reaction to the deluge of rioting and violence enjoined upon the foreign embassies and citizens of Denmark:

In response to several requests on the Holy See's position vis-à-vis recent offensive representations of the religious sentiments of individuals and entire communities, the Vatican press office can state:

1. The right to freedom of thought and expression, sanctioned by the Declaration of the Rights of Man, cannot imply the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers. This principle applies obviously for any religion.

2. In addition, coexistence calls for a climate of mutual respect to favor peace among men and nations. Moreover, these forms of exasperated criticism or derision of others manifest a lack of human sensitivity and may constitute in some cases an inadmissible provocation. A reading of history shows that wounds that exist in the life of peoples are not cured this way.

3. However, it must be said immediately that the offenses caused by an individual or an organ of the press cannot be imputed to the public institutions of the corresponding country, whose authorities might and should intervene eventually according to the principles of national legislation. Therefore, violent actions of protest are equally deplorable. Reaction in the face of offense cannot fail the true spirit of all religion. Real or verbal intolerance, no matter where it comes from, as action or reaction, is always a serious threat to peace.

So the problem is not rioting, arson, and murder. The problem is blasphemy. And so bereft is he of any appreciation for the importance of free speech that he thinks not only should blasphemy be shunned, it should be banned. I know of no other way to read the statement, "The right to freedom of thought and expression, sanctioned by the Declaration of the Rights of Man, cannot imply the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers" as anything other than approval for the destruction of free speech. For there is no such thing as limited free speech. The problem is not that Muslims cannot conduct themselves within the bounds of civil society when offended. The problem is not that every expression of Muslim outrage is underwritten with either a threat or an act of violence. And the problem is not that a peaceful country had its security threatened. The problem is that in a free society people have the audacity to treat religion as they treat any other set of ideas, and mock it. The problem is that blasphemy is not a crime. I don't see how they can be confused as allies when they seek to subject our freedoms to the selective reactions of the faithful.

A Waste of Time and Resources

Such was Sam Harris' assessment of the mass Shiite pilgrimage to a nearby holy site shortly after the liberation of Baghdad. The march included fanatical displays of religious zeal such as pilgrims flagellating themselves into bleeding near-corpses and the requisite murder of a few Sunnis along the way. Now were my country to be invaded and rid of a murdering sectarian thug, its infrastructure badly damaged, and the rule of law quite precarious I don't think my first impulse would be to whip myself into a state of near catatonia. Truly a waste of time and resources.

In this spirit I couldn't help but think that a similar verdict could be justly rendered to the Bureau of Prisons' effort to compile a list of acceptable religious texts, as reported in today's New York Times.

In their wisdom they have seen fit to convene a panel of religious "experts" (which is about the same as being an expert in the metaphysics of Bambi) and-after having once removed all books deemed inflammatory, then replaced them-given this panel of "experts" (their designation as such has incidentally upset some others who won't have their say) the task of compiling a list of appropriate material.

I don't see the value in giving books, which have been known to incite violence in the simple minded and desperate, to people who are simple minded, desperate, and known to be violent. Much more the thought has doubtlessly not crossed their minds that rather than give prisoners books claiming to be the dicta of the creator of the universe, we should maybe educate them in the ethical thinking of those people whose thoughts form the basis of civil, western democracy. After all I have never heard of someone being incited to violence when reading too much Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Montesquieu, Kant, Hume, or John Locke. Too advanced for the prisoners? Well maybe the confusion will keep them sedate. Unfortunately no. The main concern of people like Moses Silverman, quoted in the Times, is that we not "throw the baby out with the bath water." My opinion on what we should be throwing out need not be repeated.

Much less why are my tax dollars being spent to compile a list of appropriate commentary on genocidal fairy tales for criminals? I am sure that even the most extreme crimes committed by these men pale in comparison to the incitements of the god of the Old Testament and Koran. And I am sure that not even the most schizophrenic and delusional amongst them can dream such insanity as to be found in the Book of Revelation or such vitriolic babbler-on-the-street-with-sign like prose to be found in the letters of Paul. There really is no separation of church and state, and apparently men who have lost the right to decide when they leave a 5x10 cell retain their right to the scribblings of religious demagogues.

Quote for the Day- Mark Lilla

"In the West people still think about God, man, and the world today- how could they not? But most seem to have trained themselves not to take that last step into politics. We are no longer in the habit of connecting our political discourse to theological and cosmological questions, and we no longer recognize revelation as politically authoritative. This is testament to our self restraint. That we must rely on self restraint should concern us." -Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God

With some notable exceptions I think this is true even here in this most Christian of Western democracies. But it expresses more eloquently (and for me in embarrassingly fewer words) what I tried to say here. The separation of church and state we have in this country is fragile, and is held in place by an all too amendable constitution. Sometime I wish that religion at this country's founding had been mixed with state. There would have been two possible outcomes: The stultifying effects of theocracy would have been so embarrassing in the face of an advancing Europe that to salvage national pride, which has always been hyper-sensitive to condescension from across the Atlantic, we would have forcibly dispensed with it. The other more likely outcome would be that a church would have been nationalized and become an ossified, corrupt, petty, and bureaucratic arm of the sate thus neutralizing its ability to inspire religious fervor and zealotry. After all no state has an interest in breeding fanatics and as with European national churches all religious fervor that threatened governmental authority would be easily neutralized. This would have been the more likely scenario, and it is what I hope is happening now though less formally. We can only hope that George Bush has become such a symbol of the infusion of religion and politics that the religious groups that have supported him will sink with his presidency. I am possibly being too hopeful. I do often wish though that at the Republic's birth we could have had church and state united and have been judiciously done with it when we saw where it took us. This also the reason why I don't fear a takeover of evangelicals or the fashionable fundamentalists as I think they should be dubbed. The results would be so hysterically and comically disastrous for the country and their movement that they would be forever discredited.

The Classic Separation

My article on Muslim outrage over the Swedish cartoons depicting Muhammad might lead the reader with justice to believe that I am a passionate defender of the separation of church and state. I am this and as long as people's minds remain so intractable and unimaginative that they prefer the comfort of a millennia-old book written by people with no understanding of the natural, it will remain one of the cornerstone guarantors of freedom. As long as people derive their beliefs regarding ethics from books which cannot be said to admit of tolerance and open debate then there really is no other way to limit their ability to reflect the barbaric prescriptions of these books in our laws than to say they can't in our founding documents.

What shouldn't be assumed is that I think the separation of church and state found in Western societies is a especially strong defense against theocracy. But through over two centuries of political discourse it cannot be claimed by any impartial observer that religion has not been used as an explicit qualification for office in the minds of voters or that political beliefs have not been directly derived from those beliefs. Indeed it cannot even be a reasonable expectation that secular and religious beliefs are distinct things. If a person believes they know the mind of the creator of the universe it is impossible that they would not want to petition the government to enact laws as such. Laws of which the creator of the universe would approve.

And alas the Constitution can be changed. There is nothing other than public consensus which keeps our government separate from our churches.. Even in this country that separation is tenuous. The separation of church and state reflects the bourgeois, aristocratic values of the 18th century deists who wrote it. Religious fervor was an ungentlemanly thing indicative of a lack of education, cultivation, intellect, breeding, and an excess of "enthusiasm," a word they never tired of using. Religious participation was a social grace and a sign of conformity. And the matter was walled off as strictly private precisely so few of them believed it and knew politically imprudent to say so and thus they created a convenient prophylactic. Their separation of church and state cannot account for a person who actually believes they know the mind of the creator of the universe and believes it wrote one of our holy books. Such a person cannot by definition allow religious dogma to be separated from the law because the books themselves forbid that t be. They do not believe that religious temperance and tolerance are virtues and indeed are unable to. Any unpacking of the beliefs of a so called religious moderate will reveal that his notion of a god is so vague and so shrouded in metaphysical contortions that it bears no resemblance to anything believed in by those such as those Muslims offended by the Swedish cartoons or the people who advocate teaching pseudo-scientific ignorance in American schools.

The separation of church and state is an impoverished notion, and can contain nothing but tepid bourgeois religious belief. The aforementioned values with which religious fanaticism was incompatible were paramount concerns of 18th century gentlemen and more than that their republicanism (they were not democrats) was aimed at preventing people who didn't share these values from gaining power. If you don't believe this then do some reading on the type of men they envisioned occupying the electoral college, itself a relic of classist republicanism.

But alas such people can take power. And they can alter our constitution and the respect and politeness which have been inculcated in our nation towards them is a result of our belief that our government was, by force of our Constitution and the insistence that religion is private, (a singularly American notion) immune to theocratic ambitions. It is not and that is why religion must be confronted, humiliated, and discredited with the only weapon we have and should have at our disposal; free speech.

Hitchens vs. Meacham (who is a ponce, though a kindly one)

For an instruction in the intellectual buffoonery of religious liberals Jon Meacham rarely fails to provide. Great lines from Meacham include, "I believe in God for the same reasons I believe in love." Great, very insightful. Astonishing intellectual rigor. Great lines from Hitchens, "You've been very adept at quoting people. I'd like to know what you think." If you want even better examples read the sit that Meacham moderates On Faith, which I read during masochistic fits.

The glint in the eye of the religious

Rod Dreher has a review up of the recent essay in the New York Times by Mark Lilla, The Politics of God. Though I wanted to I haven't read the essay as I didn't get a chance before it was put under the protection of Times Select, but from what I have gleaned second hand it takes a decidedly favorable view of the West's separation of church and state. Thus, Dreher is obliged to give it a pan gentle enough to meet with approval in the dew-eyed estimation of an audience attracted to a man who styled under the folksy moniker "Crunchy Con," as if that were supposed to be some clever example of "owning the insult."

In a telling sentence Dreher goes the path that all the faithful travel when attempting to approve of separating religion from government when he inveighs that he would not like to live in a theocracy:

in part because there's no telling whose Theos will be the source of authority.

Ah yes. So I think I may safely assume that if there were only someway to guarantee that it would be Dreher's "theos" in charge then there would be no problem. I doubt he would agree to this either, at least publicly, but the statement lies there lacking any qualifier so I can't help but think it didn't give Dreher much pause to write it. But it is unfortunately an oft found attitude among the religious that they don't value secularism for it own sake but merely because they can't guarantee their own control over the theocracy. Without going into an extended study I should think that the economic and social progress of Western secular societies should give him some reason abjure theocracy.

I can't remember from whom I heard it but the view that, "It is characteristic of the radical that he views power as a good thing so long as it is consolidated in his own hands," seems applicable here, as well as regarding religious believers generally. I could also substitute the word "totalitarian" for "radical" and it would I think, be even more appropriate for after all a belief system predicated on constant, divine, eye-in-the-sky supervision can't help but be so. They don't value our rights, and they don't value the society we have created. It is a society in which they must begrudge us a secular government out of fear for their own fantasy. When they begin to be a bit more popular though just see how separate they keep their religion from their ideas about governance.

Quote for the day

"What! A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my family; I tell you to get rid of that beast, and you ask me, What shall we put in its place!" -Voltaire on religion.

Republican retreat from reality

The most base, petty, and irrational type of pandering to religious bigorty and sexual anxiety? Opposition to birth control. Not abortion, simply birth control. And you wonder why academia doesn't support republicans?

The World's stupidest fatwas

More good news about how intelligently religion makes people act. I don't know how you can see this as an indication of anything but that the religious leaders of the Middle East are almost totally insane.

Ross Douthat continues to annoy me

Taking from Andrew Sullivan I noted the conclusion of Brownback's stump speech at the Iowa straw poll. Well Ross Douthat has taken issue with our alarm over it and again takes the line of apologists for those who seek to blurr the line between church and state.

First:

Yes, indeed: Today, 15 percent of the vote at the Iowa Straw Poll; tomorrow, majoritarian theocratic tyranny. (Hitler came to power by democratic means, you know ...)

Yes so lets just ignore the growing sectarian nature of our politics and not wonder if this is at all worrisome. The Hitler reference is a pathetic and transparent attempt to paint people who actually might believe that in a pluralistic society arguments should be made in secular terms and that leaders should avoid florid, sectarian proclamations in a spirit of making the rest of us feel confident we won't end up living under a government guided by religious principles we neither share nor believe nor understand, as hysterics. I believe Godwin's Law states, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." Well Douthat seems to have just preempted what will be the conclusion of the irrational argument spawned by this.

I would go on, but it would just be the usual tedious argument about how Andrew misunderstands American history, American religion, and the intersection thereof, and how he's trying apply a continental model of faith and politics to a context where that model has never applied, and so and so forth. Instead, I'll punt to Larison:

Yes we all know the historical argument that because religion has never been legally interwoven with politics it has been allowed to grow and thrive without becoming a humiliatingly (for it) arm of the state, and that as such expressions of faith by American politicians do not reference an age of theocracy everyone is happy to have behind them. But apparently Douthat doesn't think there is any danger in our political discourse taking on an increasingly sectarian tone, and as he noted those who do are hysterics. He really seems open to discussion.

He ends by approving of Brownback's statement as a legitimate expression of faith, if a bit vulgar. His closing line is more revealing of the knee jerk piety afflicting Douthat when he says of Sullivan, "with its snobbish overtones and arm's-length distaste for Mother Teresa (!), is the most unfortunate - and revealing - part of the whole post." Is he oblivious as to the reassessment of Mother Teresa that in the years since her death? It is another post entirely but i will conclude by linking to some sources that should give a fair minded person enough doubt of her holiness to at least not punctuate a reference to some one's distaste for her with a childish exclamation point.

Here
Here
Here
Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict
Here

The Age of Endarkenment

My quarrel with religion comes from a variety of angles. For one these dogmas balkanize humans into warring sects and a brief scan of their histories shows that the history of religion is that mostly of humanity's ignorance and misery. Also I also despise the religious way of thinking which allows that beliefs without evidence are somehow respectable. This type of wish thinking is much harder to eradicate in the human race and even in Europe as religious dogma loses significance a host of other pseudoscientific beliefs rise up in their place such as acupuncture, New Age therapies, homeopathic medicine, and holistic treatments (on which Seinfeld actually had a hilarious episode), and all other such vague "spirituality" which I have always thought were simply excuses for a lack of imagination and curiosity.

A pharmacologist from Britain comments on the rise of these phenomenon which are not only fraudulent and ineffective but corrupt our way of thinking and detract from real medicine and science. Our "tolerance" for these beliefs because of people's emotional attachement to them has pernicious effects.