Faith is incompatible with American ideals
So I'm watching "In God They Trust", Tom Brokaw's thing on NBC tonight, and I'm getting royally pissed off -- and anger, as we know, stems from fear. The parade of subhumans espousing the virtues of using faith alone to justify government policy represents the most serious threat to the principles on which our state is based.
Let me reiterate these, for those of you who may be a bit fuzzy on this: reasoned analysis. It is historically demonstrable that no individual can be known to be good or evil, wise or foolish, knowledgeable or ignorant, capable or incapable; that, barring such awareness, we can grant nobody power that cannot be limited or revoked. It is historically demonstrable that we understand the world through observation, testing, and analysis -- not prayer or divine inspiration. Religious adherents throughout history have justified evil by citing some allegedly divine source, and it is historically demonstrable therefore that religion cannot be relied upon to evaluate action. Individuals are therefore known by their actions, and their actions are known by their effect on other individuals.
The effects on faith-driven policy are also historically demonstrable: harm to individuals. Be it faith in God, Gods, or some not obviously mystical ideal (facism/naziism, Marx-Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism, etc.), faith has always led those with power to injure, rob, and kill individuals who express a different conclusion based on faith -- or failed to express with sufficient stridency the faith of those in power.
So I say to you: believe, if you wish, in an omnipotent god or gods, invisible blue monkeys, or self-aware rocks, but if you base your policy positions on faith, you are not fit to be American, and you should shut up and stay home -- and if you can't do that, GET THE HELL (AND HEAVEN, AND ALL YOUR OTHER UNFOUNDED DOGMATIC RUBBISH) OUT OF MY COUNTRY.
Oh, and if y'all are still reading this, please refer to other of my posts which elucidate my positions on faith v. reason, morality, law, religiouos oaths, non-mystical religions, gay marriage, and abortion.
Let me reiterate these, for those of you who may be a bit fuzzy on this: reasoned analysis. It is historically demonstrable that no individual can be known to be good or evil, wise or foolish, knowledgeable or ignorant, capable or incapable; that, barring such awareness, we can grant nobody power that cannot be limited or revoked. It is historically demonstrable that we understand the world through observation, testing, and analysis -- not prayer or divine inspiration. Religious adherents throughout history have justified evil by citing some allegedly divine source, and it is historically demonstrable therefore that religion cannot be relied upon to evaluate action. Individuals are therefore known by their actions, and their actions are known by their effect on other individuals.
The effects on faith-driven policy are also historically demonstrable: harm to individuals. Be it faith in God, Gods, or some not obviously mystical ideal (facism/naziism, Marx-Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism, etc.), faith has always led those with power to injure, rob, and kill individuals who express a different conclusion based on faith -- or failed to express with sufficient stridency the faith of those in power.
So I say to you: believe, if you wish, in an omnipotent god or gods, invisible blue monkeys, or self-aware rocks, but if you base your policy positions on faith, you are not fit to be American, and you should shut up and stay home -- and if you can't do that, GET THE HELL (AND HEAVEN, AND ALL YOUR OTHER UNFOUNDED DOGMATIC RUBBISH) OUT OF MY COUNTRY.
Oh, and if y'all are still reading this, please refer to other of my posts which elucidate my positions on faith v. reason, morality, law, religiouos oaths, non-mystical religions, gay marriage, and abortion.
posted by heavynettle at 19:56
4 Comments:
I am especially frightened by justifications for the intrusion of religion into public life by reference to the perceived religiosity and acquience to religious principal of the Founding Fathers. The argument goes something like this: Christians founded the country, so they must have inteneded for (Christian) religion to be central to the nation's legal and ethical foundation. Nevermind that the founding fathers were explicit in their efforts to found something larger than themselves, disagreed with each other on most issues, and held a suite of values alien to anyone alive today: if I'm a Christian and they were Christians, then they must have thought exactly like I think and no further examination is necessary to justify anything that I do other than to say I do it based on the CHRISTIAN VALUES ON WHICH THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED.
There are so many flaws and holes in this and similar expressions of ignorance (it's not an "argument" or "case" in any sense), it's difficult to pick a rip in fabric to tear away first. But I suspect even the folks expousing this nonsense don't belief it; they are merely looking for a way to enhance their current--and very temporal--political power. If you assume people are basically stupid and ignorant, then you can believe they really believe their drivel on its on merit. But I think most people are pretty smart, but they're also ruthless liars in search of short-term gain/power at any cost.
First principals are rarely checked or reviewed in the pursuit of political power, which explains why the same administration seeking to outlaw abortion by returning the issue to the states is simultaneously fighting to squash Oregon's assisted suicide law, California's medical marijuana law, and is so stead-fastly in favor of the death penalty. And speaking of the Christian Right's infatuation with the death penalty, what do you supposed Jesus's view on THAT would be???? Seems to me he would be in a unique position to comment on the issue of state-sponsored execution from several perspectives. But the Christian Right never brings that up; because the death penalty is not about Christianity, it's about power, retribution, and the rule of law through fear. (I personally support the death penalty, but I find it impossible to understand how a "Christian" could--the New Testament is supposed to replace the Old Testament ["eye for an eye"] just like the Constituion replaced the Articles of Confereration, or did I miss something?)
Well-reasoned first principals are the only things keeping us from the chaos of contradictory impulses. At times we will knowingly break with our principals; but when we do we need to admit our inconsistency and understand why we do it.
I'm reminded of the great Soviet brain locker, with the frozen brains of all those "good Soviets"; as well as of the articles I have read describing the surprisingly powerful role ideology, as opposed to simple Realpolitik or the pursuit of power, in the leadership circles of the USSR. They didn't just hide behind Marxism: they believed it.
Similarly, consider how Judaism survived. Imperial occupation and persecution operated as a crucible, burning away any pragmatic Jews who realized the benefit of converting to the religion of the state. Historically, individual reason and pragmatism are not traits arguing for the survival of an ethnic, linguistic, or religious group -- such that a group identity survives only when there are enough knuckleheads who see the world irrationally enough to cling to an irrelevant idea in the face of opposition.
I remember also a comment made about our current President by a friend of his: "He's not in bed with the Religious Right; he is the Religious Right".
It is not accurate to say that the members of the Religious Right don't believe what they espouse to get power. That might be said of elected officials who have to pay lip service to the sensibilities of the religiously minded, but Jimmy Swaggart and the Bakkers aside, the folks who are trying to subvert our Constitution and destroy our country are doing it because they believe that no state is valid that does not proclaim the Word of their God. Reasoned debate cannot penetrate this fog, and derision, scorn, or other negative reinforcement only strengthens the notion that they are following the narrow and thorny path of righteousness. These are animals that cannot be other than they are, and they should be put down.
As for your discussion of the founding fathers, well put. After all, if they were unanimous in the details of their faith, why did they forbid the federal government from declaring it?
I would point out, though, that the sub-humans typically assign validity of an idea based on who articulates it, not on the idea's merits. To say our Founders said this or that is to tell us only about them, not about truth. That's why the subhumans spend so much time saying that Washington was a Christian, or that Jefferson was -- both inaccurate assessments, but ultimately irrelevant: we owe allegiance, and our officials swear allegiance, to the written Constitution, not the faith or ideas that may or may not underly it. Political discussion of how to change that Constitution must be based on the merit of the ideas, not whether Jefferson or Washington might have thought they were good.
Oy, this stuff makes me tired.
George Will included this quote from Jefferson in his column (Grand Old Spenders) in the Post today:
" 'It does me no injury,' said Thomas Jefferson, 'for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.' But it is injurious, and unneighborly, when zealots try to compel public education to infuse theism into scientific education. The conservative coalition, which is coming unglued for many reasons, will rapidly disintegrate if limited-government conservatives become convinced that social conservatives are unwilling to concentrate their character-building and soul-saving energies on the private institutions that mediate between individuals and government, and instead try to conscript government into sectarian crusades."
Here, here.
As much as I appreciate the irony, I rarely find it really satisfying to make assumptions about what a Christian should be, or should think he should be. Let's face it: Christianity is a club. It's a way of surrounding oneself with persons only of one's chosing -- both in the school cafeteria sense and the ethnic cleansing sense. Most Christians haven't the faintest idea of the historical (that is, meta-Biblical) aspects of the Bible -- ask somebody protesting gay marriage or gay adoption what toevat (Hebrew) or bdelygma (Greek) really means -- it isn't "abomination", and it applies to eating lobster as well as . . . well, you know. All these idiots know is that there're some things they think are gross, and they get to hang out only with those other folks who think such things're gross as well.
Anybody gets annoyed when someone we are forced to give money to says or does something with which we disagree. I heard some brainless bitch complaining to Sean Hannidy today that folks were calling the decorated pine on her (state university) campus a "holiday tree". Idiot. It's a Tannenbaum. I'm offended that a nation that banned Tannenbaeumer in the 19th century has the audacity to call them Christmas trees now.
The issue for true Americans, of course, is whether a position is logically defensible, and rationally necessary and proper. Religion cannot tell us this, faith cannot serve as a guide. A true American must be a materialist, whatever god or gods he or she believes in -- non-materialists, whatever they call themselves, are just subhumans unworthy of American citizenship.
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