Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

If the Creator hated you Brad then why did he send Jesus to save you whilst you were still sinning against him which he hates?

This of course applies to everyone.
From my reading of the situation here in Australia it seems that most evangelicals in the US are not of the scholarly type thus they embrace creationism and hunting ( non-food) which on any understanding has no biblical foundation.

They were used by the Whitehouse for an issue , same sex marriage, which i essentially a state issue.

By the way In Kings soloman is a classic economics study.

Highly regulated workforce, large budget and current account deficit ans severe asset slaes to fund it.

Yes, this is another area in which language fails
and communication stops.

I don't "hate" fundamentalists; if I did, they would know for certain I "hate" them because they would have to hide from me. It's like the word "survivor" on the show Survivor: meaningless because everyone survives; nobody dies and is eaten by crabs on the beach. The show would be much more riveting if the contestants actually killed each other as in "Lord of the Flies". Maybe Fox could take a show this direction.

Had a born-again Messianic Jewish friend, now an acquaintance I don't like being around, who told me both of my sweet grandmothers, both Christians in their own way, were burning in Hell for eternity because they had not been born again.
This was offered matter-of-factly, even cheerfully.

What can you say to folks who think like that? I didn't tell him my best guess was his grandmothers
no longer existed at all. It's not polite.

So here we are with them running the government.
There is no political appeal to these people. They cannot be reasoned with. And they're so nice, they really are.

Believe me, if I start mistaking the voices in MY head for God's word, this country will have a Waco times infinity. Well, one of the voices. The other one provides play-by-play from old Yankees games.

It would be funny if the voice inside Osama Bin Laden's head was the same one inside of Pat Robertson's head. Sort of a voiceover for shitheads.

Oh, sorry, am I being religiously incorrect?

Real Christians are people who understand that, by following the precepts of Christ, Buddha, Shankara, and others, a lesser soul may be transfigured into the original mind of God. That is all, or All. They do not compel other people to follow their precepts, since that is finally counter-productive.

All three of these teachers gave a large amount of ethical teaching, but again, it is for YOU to follow, not to make someone else follow.

(A different issue from self-protection! Like: terrorists will kill you, if they get a chance. The question is how to neutralize (capture or kill) them, without using policies that create more. So I am not a pacifist, and someone who is not a total pacifist can still be a real Christian. So then the question is, how should those policies change.)

Jesus’ commandments APPEAR to be Evangelicalism and Social Compulsion, because of his rhetorical style. They are almost entirely NOT. All his commandments are injunctions upon one’s own direction in interior life. His narrative style was complex, and he allowed that he was speaking in parables, with a different meaning for the pneumatic elect. He may have been limited in speech by the metaphysical concepts available in Aramaic, i.e. more or less the Old Testament concepts, as yet unaligned by the patristic writers. Thus we may characterize a variation on the typical style of gurus who demonstrate the Devotional Way, i.e., intially, casting love upon an Object of god: “love for Me, believe in Me” etc.

Evangelicalism by contrast is outer-directed, results-orientated. Sometimes it is the first stage on a self-directed path to God. But it never works, in the end. Despite its hot and bothered throes, the Way of Evangelicalism becomes a diversion from expanded consciousness, and only leads to a few psychological buzzes and tremors. This is because finally the self gets in the way.

Karl Rove’s genius is to whip up these PRE-adepts. For the simplest precept to follow is not-killing, and abortion is more than fair game. (Trouble is, the rest of Christendom’s learned that the trouble for the woman is worse. So it has to be her decision.) They haven’t learned that MAKING OTHERS follow a spiritual law won’t get you, or them, to the beatific vision. In some situations it could actually prevent it. THAT can only happen by inner direction.

As for sex outside of marriage and homosexuality, it is clear from every mention of it in the Bible that the underlying point is that lust is another permanent impediment to god-consciousness. But the liberal attitude would be that the ancient injunction against these specific acts, for the guidance of social policy, is no more intelligent than banning the consumption of shellfish, or the wearing of cloth made of two different threads (Leviticus). Even Paul said that following the Law is not enough, nor is it strictly necessary.

Bush and his voters are not genuine Christians. They themselves broke an ethical commandment: lying about their opponent. They will not hear of this sin, claiming no doubt something like “expedience,” but of course it will prevent their entry into the kingdom of heaven.

I often agree with Kleiman but in this case I think he and just about everyone else forgets the context of the debate: a set of laws which govern our country setting limits of influence of the state on the church, and the church on the state. In other words, we live our political lives in a secular state.

Our public and private lives can be conducted as we wish, within the law, and with full tolerance for the rights of others. If, for instance, we can find nothing within the law (not the bible but The Law) which justifies our refusal to recognize gay marriage, then those who cling to the notion that their god would not allow gay marriage will just have to eat it.

We, in turn, are bound to tolerate things which may be equally repulsive to us -- like flaunting of their beliefs by radical theocrats and Christian cults. But we should not be excoriated for refusing to tolerate their attempt to subvert the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Our laws bind us; the respect we have for them and for our fellow citizens is shown in our political lives. Yes, liberals have gotten a mite vocal and snotty about the cultists but that's because the cultists are trying to subvert the American social contract, turning our public arena into one dominated by specific religious beliefs.

All of which serves to engage our attention and divert it daily proof that our elected leaders are multiple murderers. Which, if the god they are so sure of existed, he would rage against them -- according to their very own scripture. The absence of lightning bolts striking them may be final proof that he doesn't exist and a good reason for you and me and Mark Kleiman and just about every other thoughtful citizen to deal with them as they should be dealt with.

This is probably not the right forum for this important topic. For a good starting point for thinking about this issue see Paul Kurtz on "The Limits of Tolerance:"
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/kurtz_16_1.2.html

I'm perfectly happy to be reasonable and polite to those who think I'll burn in some sort of supernatural 'hell' for being an unbeliever, as long as they're willing to be reasonable and polite about my saying that the basis of their own religion is little more than a fiction. So far, so good. But I'm quite aware that this has not usually been the case historically. Still, the current administration seems more intent on looting the nation's social safety net than with religious crusades, but I'm not sure that's an improvement.

It is our civic duty to promote tolerance of religion and religious difference. The state must be blind to religious belief, and the public must encourage the state to act accordingly. The alternative is chaos.

But in a forum like this, where the objective is to discover the truth and where the risk of coercion is low, we can be more honest.

Belief in the god described by Christianity, Islam or Judaism is very clear evidence of feeble-mindedness. That some liberals refuse to be so feeble is hardly evidence that they are not "good". It is merely evidence that they are sane. If you are sensible, you lose your faith in the Easter Bunny by age 10 and in a fanstatical "God" by 20. It is part of becoming an adult.

This view may strike some as "arrogant". But I am willing to argue it rationally. What is actually arrogant is to put one's own biases into the mouth of an invented god and then to describe that god's opinions as infallible. That such arrogance can pose as pious "humility" is truly laughable.

My opinions does not matter much, I know. But if I and others like me seem disparaging of religious belief, it is because we are. Certainly we ought to be.

http://www.bopnews.com/archives/002333.html#2333

Constitution Restoration Act of 2004

"The logic of the bill, as described by its supporters (including luminaries like Alan Keyes and Roy Moore) rests on what they perceive to be solid Constitutional ground. Their interpretation of the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.") applies only to Congress. In other words, it does not restrict state governments."
...Kevin Brennan

Gerard wrote:

"Belief in the god described by Christianity, Islam or Judaism is very clear evidence of feeble-mindedness"

Yeah, its the evangelicals and only the evangelicals that are bigots. No bigotry here in the "reality based community." No adolecent rage masquerading as philosophical sophistication. No willingness to deny the dignity of large swaths of humanity. No projections of one's own insecurities onto others. Just good clean reality based empiricism.

So refreshing to find discourse free from the feeble-mindedness of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gahndi and John Kerry, for that matter.

I think you might both be falling into a false dichotomy where you ought to see a continuum, and the terrible thing is that this tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy over time.

I know from direct experience that most American evangelicals, and even most fundamentalists (essentially a subset of evangelicals) are perfectly nice people when dealing with others on a face-to-face basis. Get into a conversation that veers into theology and you suddenly end up in an unfamiliar realm. But the vast majority of them seriously mean it when they profess to hate the sin and love the sinner, and they're basically Arminian (they believe it is possible to save sinners), and even if their actual concept of sin includes my entire worldview and is baffling and scary to me, I can appreciate that.

Where the worst of them can go astray and become hateful is when thinking about people who are not actually present, such as Carl Sagan or a bunch of distant gay people in another state. The person fades and is replaced by a malign symbol. But that's not characteristic of religion alone, I'm sorry to say, it's human nature. And we all know liberals are capable of this as well.

The evangelical's one-right-Christian-way is at odds with the American ideal of liberty in the pursuit of happiness. When was it decided that to be a normal American is to be a God fearing Christian? And when was it decided that public affirmation of Christian beliefs would be synonymous with the creation of a theocracy? And since when is a pluralistic society considered hostile to religion? And who decided that evangelicals should be the arbiters of American values? And what, exactly, is wrong with being a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan, pagan or secular and with them having *their* public affirmation of *their* beliefs?

On the other hand there is something very wrong with a group of people who see themselves as inherently superior to those around them. Where is it in the bible that Christ says "And ye who believe in me shall fill thyself with self-righteousness and treat non-believers with condescension"?

To me the recent demands that liberals be nicer to conservatives have a bullying feel. they're presented as election strategies, but I think that there's more to it than that. Conservatives aren't nice to liberals, and they aren't offering to start.

Tolerance doesn't really mean loving one another, just avoiding violence.

These so called evangelical or fundamentalist Christians are not Christians but the army of Anti-Christ as foretold in Revelations. The false prophets abound in these times of trouble (Tim LaHaye, Falwell, Robertson, Bakker) and easily lead astray those who should be the flock of the lamb.
George W. Bush is the Anti-Christ, the face of the Beast, 666. He has come in a form attractive to the multitudes and speaks of redemption without works, that wealth (Mammon) will purchase salvation without tithing or giving alms to the poor. He mocks the least of us, the sinners and the poor, as do his followers. By railing against the government that delivers services to the least among us he mocks Jesus, not least the dictum that one cannot serve God and Mammon both. By making his profession of faith a campaign point he mocks Jesus of Nazareth's teaching to hide one's professions and demonstrate faith in Him through works and deeds. By putting people to death (in Texas) and murdering hundreds of thousands in genocide by aerial bombardment, skullduggery, rumour, and deprivation (Iraq, Haiti, Venezuela, Darfur) he is become Death, the fourth Horseman. Plague and Pestilence are no doubt sure to follow. Bloodlust, vanity, vengefulness, usury, ego-these are the sins of our nation. God save us from least to greatest.

PW, we in the US do not live in a "secular state." In a *real* secular state, there isn't "In God We Trust" on the money, and "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. In a *real* secular state a party led by a member of a sect of a sub-5% minority religion can win a national election and when she decides not to serve (because she is foreign-born, not because of her religion), she can then choose a member of another sub-5% minority religion as Prime Minister. Remember that people *applauded* when Newdow said that an atheist could not be elected to public office.

While I don't have statistics to back it up, I'm willing to bet that the number of prominent office seekers declaring themselves atheists or agnostics who've actually won election is extremely low.

On the other hand, those who've openly displayed their devout faith, it seems to me, have never paid for it at the polls, at least in any statewide or nationwide race.

So, remind me again who's being persecuted and who's intolerant and unaccepting of difference?

Ravi wrote "In a *real* secular state a party led by a member of a sect of a sub-5% minority religion can win a national election and when she decides not to serve (because she is foreign-born, not because of her religion), she can then choose a member of another sub-5% minority religion as Prime Minister."

By that he meant to imply that India is a secular state. Time to get a reality check, I think. India does not use "IN GOD WE TRUST" but does spend huge amounts of public money to send Muslims to Mecca every year, it discriminates among people based on their religion (separate laws for Muslims), it reserves privileges based on religion. What the heck is secular about that? Merely pointing to the outcome of particular round of horse-trading following a farcical elections in India as the clinching argument that India is secular is laughable if the reality were not so deplorable.

I think we are just a bunch of very smart animals, and that nonsense of religion is a hindrance to our further progress.

The sets of "very smart animals" and "those who are religious" are two mutually exclusive sets.

The river trip...brings to mind (flimsy connection though it is) "At Play in The Fields of the Lord"...the movie version, with the excellent Kathy Bates.

I read today that Wisconsin is the latest state to float away...it aims to teach "various theories" of evolution in its schools, because- as CNN reported: "The science curriculum 'should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory,' said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin."

When there's so many other fun ones to choose from, ok, I see. Could they enter the alternate ones into the Science Fairs too? Or will they have to have special fairs for the alternate theories? Uh oh, school budgets would sky rocket out of control--be blasted to high heaven, if you will.

To me fundamentalists pack their fair share of "sheer hatred and contempt" as well as liberal interpretationism, into the word "theory"---- as in the "theory of evolution". It's sort of problematic isn't it- this use of the word "theory"? When an average journalist (or school superintendent) can rhetorically twist and toss it about as a flim-flam notion poised for imminent disproof. Can we update the word "theory" to reflect the years of research by hundreds of scientists so it doesn't play so well in the hands of the creationists?

And I like the "mediators" too, who diplomatically suggest that all sides seek a compromise and simply say that first there was the big bang then He came along and put all the little creatures around.

Many, many letters have been written to Wisconsin apparently...shall we rest assured?

You and Mark both miss the point completely. Secularism is not about putting limits on anyone's ability to publicly affirm their beliefs.

Our Constitution chartered a government to advance the COMMON good and it enumerated a set of powers for that purpose and that purpose alone. Fundamentalists can publicly affirm their hateful beliefs all they want. They just can't use the government to do that because it's not part of the government's function of advancing the common good.

Apply the test of reversing the positions:

"We claim that we are merely carrying out the Constructionist program of getting the heavy hand of the judiciary off lawmaking, but that's not really a very convincing claim given our own actual beliefs and practices, and given the sheer hatred and contempt the usual conservative commentator can pack into the word "Liberal."..."

Can anyone point me to a conservative source that displays the above kind of introspection?

This thread has certainly done a good job of showing that the behavior deplored by the quoted author is in fact, a flaw of liberal and conservative alike--the demonization of those who don't agree with us.

I assume Buford T. Coltrane has his tongue in his cheek when he wrote that above. But he has a point. The extreme form of US fundamentalism is not just fundamentalism, it is dispensationalist fundamentalism. A good case can be made that this is a heretical brand of Christianity that is very unChristian. An extreme form of Dispensationalism holds that God has divided history into water tight compartments, each one of which is a special deal God makes with mankind, and when mankind refuses or messes up the deal, God deals a new hand, and humankind's job is to unequesioningly obey the literal truth of some sacred document that is interpreted in conformance with the current deal. Some of the extreme forms of dispensationalism have shocking implications. For example, that modern Christians should not pay much attention to Jesus' earthly teachings, like the parables or the Sermon on the Mount (or Plain, depending on which Gospel you are looking at). Jesus' mission on earth was to lead the Jews as the Messiah, and the Jews wouldn't obey and rejected Jesus. So, time for a new deal. Jesus was crucified and became Christ, and the whole idea of 'imitation of Christ" etc, is today just a misguided road to Hell. Your job today is to believe the correct dogma of redemption through Christ and get ready for the Second Coming and Apocalypse. So forget this Buddha-Jesus-Lao Tzu-Gandhi syncretist religious wisdom stuff, that is a loser road going straight to Hell. You should want to be a winner and go to Heaven, and convert as many as you can so they can go to Heaven too.

A theologian named James Barr (a good old-fashioned liberal Presbyterian) wrote a very good book on the theology of US Christian fundamentalism, called "Fundamentalism" It might be out of print, but anyone seriously interested in what fundamentalism is should get a copy and read it. The history and theology of this stuff is all described there in detail.

I sometimes wonder if many people can believe such outrageous stuff. But I have seen it. When I was in high school, all of sudden Bible studies were drained of any passages from Jesus' earthly teachings. It suddenly became all Paul all the time, and the dogma of redemption through faith. The spiritual or any other significance of that redemption was kind of secondary matter. It was important that you believed it, since your job in the grand scheme of things was to unquestionably obey the revealed word of God. Me, being perverse, it just launched me on the path of reading Godless historical Biblical criticism which turned me into a very very liberal Christian. I just could not stomach banishing Jesus' earthly teaching from anything that claimed to be Christian.

And shortly after 9/11 I saw liberal and a conservative Protestant ministers on a major network new outlet debating the religious significance of our response. The liberal Christian was all full of namby pamby stuff about "understanding" what happened the difficulty of thinking through what the proper response should be in the light of Jesus' teachings. The conservative would have none of that junk. He said that Jesus was coming back, and he wasn't going to be nice guy this time. He was going to fix things up for good and if you weren't on his side you were trouble, and if we had to kill a lot of people to prepare the way for that, and in order to be on the right side, that would be what Jesus wanted us to do.

So, why I should respect, either in my civic or religious life, an extremist group that I consider heretical, I do not know. The have the right to say what they want, but they do not reserve any special treatment or respect for their views. When I hear too much Apocalypse from some one to find out if some one is a dispensationalist and try to get them to realize that they are wrong. My religious beliefs are deserve just as much respect as anyone elses.

So here is on non-secular non-atheist who does not like modern US fundamentalism, much of which I consider either dispenstationalism or crypto-dispenstationalism. Do I have to to tip-toe around their outrageous beliefs too?

On the issue of religion in the schools, mentioned above in another As I have said before, I do not mind teaching alternatives to evolution in high school as long as the curriculum (textbook) includes an honest criticism of both positions using the normal standards of science. In fact, if honestly presented, it would be a good exercise in critical thinking for the students. I have no doubt that evolution would win hands down. But I have a feeling that such a text would be just as objectionable as one that left "intelligent design" and such mumbo-jumbo unmentioned, I don't think it would be acceptable at all to fundamentalists.

I can't type so good when I get hot and bothered up about something...

So, why I should respect, either in my civic or religious life, an extremist group that I consider heretical, I do not know. The have the right to say what they want, but they do not *deserve* any special treatment or respect for their views. When I hear too much Apocalypse from some one *I try* to find out if *he/she* is a dispensationalist and try to get them to realize that they are wrong. My religious beliefs are deserve just as much respect as anyone else's

Since I posted a diatribe, I suppose I should explain the point. The point is that with some fundamentalists, there is no common point of reference with anyone who does not share beliefs 100% Not even a liberal Christian. You can talk about the Bible, and different ways of interpreting it until you are blue in the face to try to persuade them that there are different ways of thinking about things, and it does no good. Your interpretation does not jibe with their interpretation (which they see as the obvious plain literal meaning of the text), and that does no good. You can try to persuade them that their literal plain obvious meanings depend on all sorts of non-Biblical assumptions, and that goes nowhere either.

I mean, Sistani, sitting over there in Iraq is a broad minded ecumenical liberal compared to them. I've read his internet site, and that is not a joke.

Some people expect you to talk with them 100% on their terms, or there is no reason to talk at all.

It is very very difficult to be a good broad minded liberal with some types of people. Sometimes it is impossible.

Gerald, I'm with you most of the way, until you suppose that the religious are religious because they are all feeble minded. I think that might be one reason, why some are or remain religious, but there are many reasons why various people become religious, or remain religious once indoctrinated, er, educated in religion as children. Fear of death, confusion about the meaning of life (if any), laziness, lack of time to really think about it; but mainly, lack of facts. Few have time, interest or energy to study the origins of the bible, or modern criticism, or secular ethics, or science, once past 18. Life is too busy.

On analogy, consider the accountant (or economist!) who has little knowledge of the foundations of mathematics. Every day this accountant must fill little numbers into little blanks, move decimals, add, subtract, and use fractions, with little thought that our whole number system rests on dubious foundations, that most theories about numbers are filled with contradictions, or that there are simple math operations whose validity cannot be proved. Do we demand the accountant take a class in philosophy of mathematics? That they give up their "childish" numerical Platonism, that The Numbers are not really out there somewhere?

I grant, the analogy fails, in that naive number theory does not lead the accountant into killing in the name of Zero, or whatever. But my point is, most people have to get on with their lives, without taking the time and energy to question what they were raised on, and they get defensive when questioned about their bedrock beliefs about souls, angels, creators, lawgivers, ultimate justice for the bad people who seem to get away with it, and the afterlife. They rarely have the advantages of a vocabulary and alternate theories to explain their origins, ethics and meaning-of-life, and the one they do have seems good enough to get by on, so why bother about it?

I used to spend a lot of time asking myself, how can 'they' believe all that rot? And I used to think they must be feeble-minded, too. But now I suppose that it's all they've got, they got it as children, and it gets them by. They don't have to fear death, or lack of meaning; they have a story, and they have something quick and simple to tell their children.

Let me add, too, that a lot of religious people are more sceptical than they let on. Many do not hew to the "party line" and they have their own private doubts about this or that part of the story.

Religious doctrine sometimes seems like a whole, so that if you believe in god, then you must believe in the whole shebang: souls, angels, heaven and hell, ultimate justice, religious 10-commandment ethics, etc.

But I find many religious people, when not driven into defending their faith, actually believe in a variety of non-conformist positions, and are sceptical about this or that bit of childhood teachings. For example, I know some who believe there is no hell, and everyone will eventually get to heaven (because that is the only way they can square it with god's goodness and mercy). Others claim they are "basically Christian" yet find a way that god allows some killings (war, self defense, etc). Others will take some things literally, yet other parts as fairytales (and thus can combine belief in god with scientific evolution and the great age of the earth.)

So my point is, not every believer takes it all in; some struggle with parts of it here and there, and try to find an uneasy consistency that they can hold in their hearts. When confronted, like in a debate, they might claim to hold to some supposedly coherent set of tennets, but they themselves don't believe all of it with the same strengths. Thus it is wrong to suppose there is a monolithic set of Christians with a monolithic set of beliefs.

A few random comments. My first experience with fundamentalists was when I was about five or six years old. I was still afraid of dinosaurs coming out of the woods beyond my bedroom window when a young fundamentalist gave me something else to be afraid of -- burning for the rest of my life in the fires of hell. My atheist parents were able to douse those imagined fires, but I never forgot how much fear is built into that religion. It's very sick, and does terrible things to young (and not so young) minds.

My second comment concerns Steven Jay Gould. He saw more clearly than most educated persons of my generation how deeply rooted the psychological resistance to the idea of evolution is in the United States. I recall a ong conversation we had about this some twenty years ago in which he argued that the problem wasn't the 'monkey trial' debate (he had just come back from testifying in Arkansas), but the deep fear of the empirical approach that it represented.

I have believed for a long time that religion would do us in. We simply don't have the moral and intellectual stamina of an Andre Gide.

Gerard -- No. I don't think it's "feeblemindedness." I think it's enfeebled emotional development.

I lived for a long long time in Europe and it struck me, coming back here, that this is a country where people don't seem to grow up (or want to). The need for a religion which represents the "strict father" just underlines this. The alliance of a strict-father religion with a strict-father government is what's happening here.

We're dealing with people (on both sides of the political fence) who, when they talk about the moral distintegration of America, often give examples from TV. When you ask them why they don't turn the TV off (take peppered thumb out of the mouth), their reaction is one of disbelief and puzzlement.

So... we have here people who aren't talking about integrating their own lives; they're talking about imposing themselves and their needs on others. Psychology of the tyrant child.

Insisting upon reason in public discourse does not equal contempt for the faith that animates spiritual life. That insistence, moreover, is not contempt for faith or fundamentalism, but rather a decent respect for the often opposing articles of faith that characterize religious belief in this country.

Kleiman has made up the liberal he needs in order to make his dubious point. There's nothing new in that. The dominant political party in this country has made up the liberal it needs in order to hold on to power (with only 51% of the vote, let's not forget).

The religious right has proven willing to abandon Republicans in the past, under the right conditions. We cannot anticipate that religion (or the intolerance that passes for religion in the hands of politicians) will go away as an issue. The question is what to do about it. It would be dangerous, but I think honest, to "do a Clinton" on the politicians who play to religion despite their own transgressions (Henry Hyde, George Bush,…). It worked on Livingston, and could work again. Go after them and make it part of the daily conversation that they aren't real Christians. I know that there has been a very strong tendency among religious voters to forgive those who pander to them ("we are all flawed, but I like how my guy badmouths faggots and ragheads."), but we need to try. A similar pattern could once be observed among union members, but in the end, they began showing less single-mindedness in voting. If religion is going to be an issue, then religious issues need to be turned into wedge issues to drive religious voters away from the anti-constitutional, freedom-hating, free-spending, deficit-loving, pledge-breaking party of hypocrisy. The fact that Jesus called on his followers to abandon riches and follow him will not make many religious voters uncomfortable about their own lives, but they certainly should look askance at the gaggle of millionaires, who claim to be good Christians, and who lead the GOP. Halliburton was the right headline, but the text needed a more religious tone - Mammon, Mammon, Mammon.

The fact that Jesus urged tolerance is a harder nut to crack, but surely, not every self-proclaimed Christian has failed to understand the message of the New Testament. Let's try to get Jesus back into religion.

The average evangelical Christian "in the street" is much more tolerant than the average evangelical TV preacher would lead one to believe. Cf. Christan America? What Evangelicals Really Want.

One writer put his views of evangelicals (and others who believed in the triune diety who burns some poor folks for eternity):

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.

1. That there is one only God, and he all perfect.
2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.
3. That to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion. These are the great points on which he endeavored to reform the religion of the Jews. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.

1. That there are three Gods.
2. That good works, or the love of our neighbor, are nothing.
3. That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit in its faith.
4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.
5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save.

Now, which of these is the true and charitable Christian? He who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus? Or the impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin? Verily I say these are the false shepherds foretold as to enter not by the door into the sheepfold, but to climb up some other way. They are mere usurpers of the Christian name, teaching a counter-religion made up of the deliria of crazy imaginations, as foreign from Christianity as is that of Mahomet.

The writer? One T. Jefferson. (Yeah, THAT one) I like his style.

Seriously - I see no point in not making these people deal with the absurdities in their bad ideas. As Brad points out (or at least begins to - and which Homer above ignores), there is simply NO REAONABLE WAY of arguing that the Creator is epitomized by love while consigning the damned to hell for eternal torment. We rightly consider human torturers to be the worst of criminals. Our disgust and revulsion for such heinous criminals is appropriate.

Just how is ETERNAL torment a loving act? To conclude that it is defies all reasoning - the concurrent holding of belief in a loving God who ALSO eternally torments certain hapless souls is an absurdity on every level. (Likewise, as Jefferson asserts, with the 3-in-1 god "deleria")

Jefferson and many others asserted during the founding days of our nation that religious folks need to THINK and REASON about their beliefs. This was a cornerstone of revolutionary thought, a logical result of the entire Enlightenment. What reason can anyone proffer now to avoid such argumentation now when faced with similarly poor thinking on the part of the modern-day equivalents to Jefferson's "usurpers"?

I agree, Democrats need to do a better job addressing cultural issues. We need to identify them early and be PROACTIVE. Kerry using the word lesbian in the debate did not help him.

A better answer:
The Democratic Party is strongly committed to the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment to practice your religion as you see fit.

No matter who you are, there are Americans that disagree with your religious beliefs. The Democratic Party will always fight for your right to practice your religion in your place of worship as you and your fellow believers see fit, regardless of what others might think. This includes the right of your religion to set standards for marriage or other sacraments. The government should not interfere with the practice of religion in America. To make America a place where everyone can freely practice their own religion, we encourage all Americans to show curtesy to those who hold religious beliefs that differ from their own.

This puts everyone in the same boat.
Religious voters often feel their beliefs are threatened.
We are all committed to the First Amendment.
Religious beliefs are best protected in a climate of tolerance for all beliefs.

A couple of weeks ago, we heard again the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector at their prayers. The Pharisee stood in the center of the Temple, raised his hands, and prayed, I thank thee that I am not like other men, I fast, pray and do right. The Tax Collector stood in a corner, unable to raise his eyes to heaven, and prayed, O God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

It seems to me that the evangelicals sound a lot like the Pharisee, and not at all like the Tax Collector.

'But what is the appropriate reaction when X tells Y that the Creator of the Universe hates them, and is going to condemn them to an eternity of torment unless they behave as X says they should? Is it moral to simply stand by? To allow X to preach to Y without let or hindrance or even complaint?'

Sadly that isn't ironic satire.

Yes it is it moral. One of the single most important principles of liberalism is that it would be immoral to let or hinder X.

Mr. Delong,

I am a huge fan of yours, so I come to you with this:

Matt Yglesias writes:

The Democrats need to do what they can to take advantage of their status as a marginalized opposition party. They need to make the Republicans own the IRS, the tax code, and everything else about the government that's hateful or inefficient. It is, after all, the Republicans' government and the Republicans' tax code. While Bush is dragging his feet, appointing commissions, and trying to outsource the work to them, Democrats need to produce their own tax reform plan -- a plan that, since it has no chance of being implemented, can afford to be utopian and not get mucked up by business interests or other petty realities of actual governance -- and flog it mercilessly. The Republicans have all the power, so the Democrats must make them the party of government, and make themselves the party of reform. There are plenty of liberal economists around Washington and in academia who are more than capable of devising a reasonable, progressive tax reform plan much more quickly than the GOP is willing or able to move.

No matter what one thinks of Matt, this is indeed brilliant.
A Utopian tax reform, never meant to pass but written to beat the GOP over the head with and to help galvanize the idea that Republicans don't give a damn about the little guy.

Could your brilliant self and a few of your brilliant friends come up with something quickly?

I will beg if I have to. . .

I've read all these comments, and as an agnostic who is nevertheless open to spiritual matters but firmly opposed to government-santioned religion, let me say this: I think Christmas and other public displays and even comparative religion courses (not in science class) in high school are fine and should not be prohibited.

And I understand the feeling of condescension or contempt the heartland (a demagogic term) feels is directed toward them.

But I think we are somewhere further along the timeline, here folks. jml's point that "there is no common point of reference" is spot on. The religious demagogues in the Republican Party will not settle for a mild return of their faith to the public square. These people are radicals; they are revolutionaries.

Interestingly, the libertarian wing of the Republican Party has gone down a similar but secular path. They too are radicals and revolutionaries, spawned by the atheist Ayn Rand.
There will be no compromise: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a just tax system will be abolished. Anything less will not be accepted.

So what to do? I'm a nutcase in this regard. When folks want to fight, I say, let's fight and I'm happy to use the enemy's choice of weapons.

To combat the fundamentalist religious demagogues in the Republican Party, I'm all for Buford Coltrane (great name for a leader) taking the tongue out of his cheek and starting a virulent, massive religious movement on the Left along the lines of his comment. If the flames of Hell are so attractive, light them here and now.

To combat the fundamentalist libertarians in the Republican Party, I think it would fun as hell to start a massive, virulent tax revolt at all levels of government, one that Howard Jarvis and Grover Norquist would love, except it will be 1000 times larger. Defund the Abu Gharaib murderers, defund the Iraq war, defund all of it. Destroy their hated government.

A massive anti-government, anti-liberal rhetorical edifice has been purposefully, demagogically, and effectively advanced by the Republican Party over the past 30 years. It worked.

Co-opt it. Increase it exponentially. Translate it into harsh, fucking reality. Let's see how much they like Apocalypse and Revolution.

Let's do it though before Bush gets his C.I.A. and F.B.I. purge done and his thugs in there. Why do you believe he's doing that?

I suspect they are cowards. But if they are not, it will be exciting.

Now, I need to go empty the dishwasher and check the stock quotes.

The take-home message is to never go camping with total strangers. But it could have been worse--corporate types(think advertising) could have been on the trip.

This is one of the few pieces of Scripture that still moves me, and it is one definition of Christianity that we liberals should keep in mind when dealing with haters:

James 1
26. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

(Kinda like the passage that Kerry quoted on works rather than grace.)

Brad is right on the general point: the left doesn't need to pander to haters. We need to reframe the debate.

The same is true of the principle of religious tolerance. Again, everyone knows this is a moral principle.

No, it's a utilitarian ethical principle.

Two Seventh Day Adventists came to my home. The older one realized I was about ready to call the sheriff to have them ejected, and literally had to pull the younger one away. The younger one believed I could be tricked into joining their church, and was determined to be the one who tricked me.

If I ever have that knd of experience with a liberal, THEN I will start to worry.

2 things: 1) Being a Buddhist I object when my religion is lumped in with the cloud being people's - the Buddha held strictly to the RBC party line! No deviation - birth and copulation and death - that's all the facts when you come to brass tacks! So! Stop it, or I'll still vote liberal! 2) If these dogs of war want some respect from me - how about giving some back? The very word "liberal" has been so vilified by these slow-learners that we search the country every couple of years and still can't find a guy with the courage to use it to describe himself and his supporters! So! Stop it, or I'll continue to speak to them as I would children led by an adolescent (which I think they are.)

Funny, I thought it was the religious among us who have the strongest objections to the fundamentalist drive to turn the Bible into a 17th rate science and history textbook, not to mention lottery picker.

Those of us who regard the Bible as an inspired work on the subject matter of salvation, and regard with horror the fundamentalist attempt to make it all things for all topics, are probably a lot more intense in our opposition than non-believers. Those people are abusing our Holy Scriptures, after all.

It ain't a magic 8 ball, folks; it ain't a science or history book, and it is not an almanac predicting the major events of 2005. Using the Bible unfortunately requires 'hard work', a term which has also been badly abused in the recent past.

Is it permissible any longer in America not to have to flout my religion? Do I have to worship as you do? How Christian do I have to be to be a Christian?

A freind is a nursing student and as part of her practicum she visited a Christian school to teach a class on dental hygene to 4th graders. On bullitin board
was a time line:

1776-Christian States of America Founded known by some as the United States of America
19th Century- Missonaries expand westward
20th Century-nothing
21rst Century-Restoration and Rapture
One wonders about the science curriculum. This raises a second question: Does history matter?\

"A better answer:
The Democratic Party is strongly committed to the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment to practice your religion as you see fit." ---Bakho---

There is just one flaw with this idea. Evangelicals practicing their religion as they see fit means everyone in the US needs to be converted to the evangelical way. They even see it as a sin to fail to act to convert those around them. This has been clearly revealed in today's news stories revealing the coordination of the church leaders with the Bush campaign. There is, sadly, no middle ground and no diversity which is acceptable to the evangelicals.

Lawrence:

I suggest root canals for all. No painkillers either. God will protect.

Do I really think that? Well, no, but Rapture for all (inaccurate biblically) signs bring out the black sarcasm in me.

"does history matter?"

Not until it's too late.

Religious tyranny is where the religious right is headed, well on the way, and we ought to fight it with all our might instead of giving in to it as we've been doing for the past two decades. When, for example, the Catholic Church can buy up hospitals all over the country, and there are some areas now that have only Catholic-owned churches, and then deny reproductive services to women (and not just abortions), that's religious tyranny.

Found on Metafilter (and very good), Southern Conservativism explained from the inside - at
http://www.livejournal.com/users/wayfairer/456769.html
e.g.
"...you begin to filter your environment as a conservative christian based on what you can easily categorize. Once you have identified, say, George Bush, as one of Us, it's much easier to disregard negative news about him because the Media is one of Them, and the two things can be easily canceled out in your mind. "

Let's not overestimate the power of these characters -- only 23% of the voters are white Evangelicals; 5% out of that voted for Kerry; and half of Bush's voters told the exit pollsters (AFTER the exit polls had been recalibrated to eliminate their early mild pro-Kerry bias) that they support gay secular civil unions with all the legal rights of regular marriages. (One-quarter of Kerry's voters opposed this.) And when the creationists briefly took over Kansas' school curriculum, they were roundly thrown out of the state education board by the voters in the next election -- with the support of Kansas' GOP governor.

If liberals indulge their own tendencies toward excessive self-righteousness by smugly concluding that 51% of the American people are insane religious bigots and that All Is Lost, they're going to miss opportunity after opportunity to form alliances with moderate Bush voters (of which there were a hell of a lot) to stymy the plots of the religious extremists (and of extreme Republicans of all types). In particular, they'll miss the opportunity to set up such an alliance in the 2006 elections.

More later.

I wonder why this guy thought Carl Sagan in particular was going to hell? Because as a scientist he didn't believe the Biblical account of creation? Because he was Jewish? Because he may have been an nonbeliever (Sagan was famously private about his religious beliefs)? All of the above?

Maybe the guy still believed in the medieval theory of the flat earth with the stars as pinpricks on the sphere of heaven, and was offended by Sagan's riff about billions and billions of stars.

GoneGambling-Your gambling adventure starts here...

Sagan was pretty much unafraid to say that science was truer and more reliable than any religious belief and basically made no bones about calling religion a pile of superstition.

http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_CSagan.htm

has a pretty illustrative set of quotes from Sagan which are basically to the effect 'religion is bunk'.

I certainly have no doubt that Sagan would have been happy to see religion wiped out. (Not in a violent kill them all way, mind you, as he wasn't a violent man, but in a 'abandonment of religion' sort of way)