Instapundit has a roundup of links, including a good sampling from ReasonTV. I have to say that, not being religious (in either worshipping God or the State) it’s not my cup of tea, and I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to attend, but neither can I imagine that I would have felt in any way uncomfortable there.
I agree that it was Tocquevillian. Much as my fellow non-religionists want to get upset about it, the fact is that this is a fundamentally (though not fundamentalist) Christian nation in its history and culture, and when the political class pushes too hard against those core values — the golden rule, thrift, virtue, self reliance — there’s going to be a revolt. That’s, finally, what we’re seeing this year. I’m sort of glad that McCain didn’t win, because he wouldn’t have turned up the heat under the pot anywhere nearly as quickly. With Obama, Pelosi and Reid, the frog finally noticed that things were getting a little too warm.
[Update a few minutes later]
Commenter “John” has it right:
That is most of America. Most of America is not attractive or cool. Most of America is white and older. Most of America is patriotic and religious. Unless and until Libertarians figure out a way to talk to these people, they will always be a fringe movement.
Yup.
[Monday morning update]
I can see November from the Washington monument.
And it’s not a pretty sight, if you’re a Democrat and/or statist.
Is secular morality better than a morality determined by a religion? I don’t think either are superior to each other.
I would probably argue that secular morality is more responsive and up to date. Religion tends to cement in and rigidify a given morality, binding it to the past. This is good in some circumstances, like if society is changing little from one generation to the next or if some apparition comes along that disrupts base morality (like a Stalin or a Pol Pot), but in these fast changing and generally improving times, it is probably not a good thing.
Historical morality also tends to get used to justify the Luddite in people. I for one wish to be able to adhere to a higher level of morality that a higher level of civilization enables. Indeed, working to enable a higher level of civilization is a highly moral act for this very reason. Greater wealth does enable greater morality.
I remember a tale from the age of chivalry, knights bound for the crusades were in danger of foundering when crossing the English Channel. So they threw many of their supplies and all the women over board – religious priorities. A historical perspective (and religions are rooted in history) tends to take the shine off any religion.
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Religions are fleeting, mutable and very mortal, but morality will go on forever so long as there is some intelligence around to wield it.
We do not establish a state religion precisely so that the religion can be part of the political discussion and so we do not rule any part of the human condition out of public discourse.
We are not a “christian nation” in the sense that we have an official religion; we are a “christian nation” in the sense that the dominant demographic is christian. The irony is, Pete, the virtues of Christianity enabled the Reformation; they are not mutually exclusive no matter what the revisionists of the “Enlightenment” would have had us believe. It was the belief in a single God outside of the normal flow of time, omnipresent not only in all places but in all times, that allowed for Europeans to explore the concept that the physical world is governed by unalterable laws, which is a necessary assumption that other cultures did not share before it was demonstrated. It was the Christian belief that the body was no longer sacred after the soul departed that led to the first laws allowing the dissection of human corpses in the 1200’s, leading to great advances in anatomy and medicine; even in ancient Greece this was outlawed. It was the church that protected early scientists from state persecution by making university professors minor clergy because church courts were more tolerant of new discoveries than the “Mike Huckabees” of the late Middle Ages: statesmen claiming religion to oppress and control without the sanction of the Church (Galileo ran afoul of the Pope on other, more political, grounds than is usually remembered today).
Mr. Waddington, the logical formulation that “If we were a Christian nation then we would do Christian things; we had racism and slavery, which were not Christian; therefore, we were not a Christian nation” doesn’t hold up in the reality of politics, because humans do not behave in the micro sense according to the simple logic of the macro sense. Every society is not a single thing, but the manifest behavior of all of its citizens and, in an era of greater cultural diversity between the states, there will be different local optima in what values are interpreted in different ways. Christianity is highly fragmented in how it is practiced and secular culture is highly fragmented in how it is practiced; to suggest that the interplay between these two highly fragmented groups must manifest in any particular way, and any other disproves the correlation is weak.
Wow, that was long and probably boring. Sorry.
See, what annoys me is that Andrea still seems to think that I’m trying to argue that Christians are racist. Even though I rewrote my argument to take out the specific language about racism Andrea continues to miss the point.
See, what annoys me is that Andrea still seems to think that I’m trying to argue that Christians are racist.
Trent, what annoys me is that you occasionally say dumb things. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
It may be best for you to stick to writing about space and steer clear of your insights on Christianity, the founding principles of the United States, and the Hippocratic Oath.
“Also, I’ve been distinguishing between the Libertarian party and libertarian thinking by calling myself a ‘small-L libertarian’. I recently discovered Eugene Volokh’s essay about why the Libertarian party should disband and found that he said much better than I can what I’ve been thinking for a while.”
Me, too. I think libertarians should act like socialists in the 1920s and ’30s. The socialists, repacking themselves as ‘liberals,’ pretty much abandoned socialists political parties, and instead infiltrated and eventually became the dominant driving ideological force in the Democratic Party. Libertarians should strive to become the dominant driving ideological force in the Republican Party, and radicalize the Gop in the direction of liberty as the socialist “liberals” dadicalized the Democrats in the direction of statism.
It may be best for [Trent] to stick to writing about space and steer clear of your
insightsignorance on Christianity, the founding principles of the United States, and the Hippocratic Oath.Indeed.
Andrea says: cthulhu: that doesn’t hold if the minority happens to be one that wants to cause harm to other citizens.
Captain Obvious strikes!! Sorry (well, not really) for the snark, but this was one of the more inane statements in this whole thread. “Causing harm to other citizens” is not a right that the state protects, whether it’s the majority harming the minority or the other way around; sounds like you need to go back and reread your Hobbes…
“I would probably argue that secular morality is more responsive and up to date.”
Morality and supreme courts: both are better when they don’t have a finger in the wind.
There’s merit in this line of thinking. AFAICT, Libertarianism as a political movement seems to have started in the 60’s and became a place for pot-smoking anti-war folks who were not socialists. Maybe not the case, but the image has stuck. It seemed to hit its highest mainstream point with the Prez campaign of otherwise successful and mild-mannered businessman Harry Browne. It seems like the party passed away with him in ’06.
The good thing about religion being removed from goernment, is that people wont be able go back in time and blame everything on the religion instead of the society that practiced it.
I think when people start feeling superior to each other they start to justify certain behaviors, usually derogatory, toward those they feel superior too.
I don’t see secular morality as better or worse. Just because secular morality can shift so easily, isn’t necessarily an advantage. If your morals can change over night, then they must not be very important.
And now off to play in the dirt, next time we better be 12 beers deep when this topic pops up 🙂
I might suggest a loss of competitive advantage.
Agreed. If we had a sane congress this alone would be enough to have the president impeached. This is a security issue. We can not defend ourselves for long without a solid economy. Add to that his actions with regard to the actual military security of this country and he would have been run out of town long ago.
I for one wish to be able to adhere to a higher level of morality that a higher level of civilization enables. … Greater wealth does enable greater morality.
I’m sure you could come up with examples, but I have to disagree. The principles that are the foundation of morality do not change. Lack of wealth does not mean lack of morals.
You may or may not believe in the existence of a creator. Perhaps you grant the creator exists but is immoral? Perhaps you believe in a moral creator but wonder how he could create such an immoral world? It’s not uncommon for people to blame everybody but themselves… free will has it’s downside.
If we do have a moral creator that cares for us, is it possible he gave us instructions about right and wrong that don’t need to be revised the wealthier we get?
Morality and supreme courts: both are better when they don’t have a finger in the wind.
Political winds sure, though I would still want them to follow generational trends.
Morality is at heart a science (same philosophical base), with a process of continual improvement at the theoretical level. There are no absolute statements of morality just as there are no absolute statements of science. Absolute statements infer something else.
A basic working understanding of morality is kind of necessary if one is to avoid jail – this is not true for science. This encourages a simplified “boolean” version of morality that is easier for everyone to understand but which is necessarily an over simplification and hence wrong. In science we can say that we do not know – a position that is less accepted with morality.
This is at heart my problem with religious morality, when it resorts to absolutes and denies theoretical improvement it becomes fundamentally wrong. For example, at the literal level, the bible is no more a text book on morality than it is a text book on science. Many are quite aware of this and do not read such books literally – but others do.
Could a person get a better sense of our best theoretical understanding of morality from reading the law or from reading the bible? I would say by far the former, though it may be a less interesting read.
If your morals can change over night, then they must not be very important.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
Unfortunately far too often, morality advances one funeral at a time.
Captain Obvious strikes!! Sorry (well, not really) for the snark, but this was one of the more inane statements in this whole thread.
So cthulhu, if you have a problem stating the inane and obvious, can you explain why you wrote:
A note to Andrea: part of the role of government is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. This is one of the key reasons the Founders rejected a true democracy in favor of a republic.
Are you equating prohibition of alcohol to tyranny? Or are you equating Christianity to tyranny? Because the Founding Fathers view of tyranny was the excessive taxation by the British that took too much from the colonist with a minority voice in government and gave too much to the majority voice in government. The Founding Fathers weren’t rejecting Christianity when they rejected true democracy, because the two concepts have no relation. Now that may seem obvious to you, and it should, but if it is obvious, I go back to my questions. Are you equating prohibition of alcohol to tyranny or Christianity to tyranny?
Pete said:
Morality is at heart a science (same philosophical base), with a process of continual improvement at the theoretical level. There are no absolute statements of morality just as there are no absolute statements of science.
Huh? How can you say one can “improve” morality if you also say there is no pre-established standard?
This is a security issue. We can not defend ourselves for long without a solid economy.
The security issue, while significant around the edges, is unlikely to threaten the fundamental survival of the US anytime soon. But a lack of economic prosperity has many other serious long term consequences – the long term economic demise of the US is something to be desperately avoided.
If we do have a moral creator that cares for us, is it possible he gave us instructions about right and wrong that don’t need to be revised the wealthier we get?
As far as I am aware at the higher levels of Christianity, God is not everything (he is not me for starters :-), God can not know everything, this means God is fallible. It is “In God we trust” not, “In God we have faith”, this is a very important distinction.
Only an infallible God could know absolute moral truth. Hence understanding morality is still the responsibility of the individual (though hopefully with outside guidance). Absolute positions infer doctrine, not morality.
Like science, morality applies to the rich and poor alike, however the prosperous are able to devote far more time, resources and intelligence to its study, development and practice. Wealth enables moral options not otherwise available to the poor, hence it enables the option of greater morality. There was a very moral Maori chieftain, he would not eat his friends unless he was very hungry – options.
Huh? How can you say one can “improve” morality if you also say there is no pre-established standard?
Like science, morality is not based upon absolute axioms. This does not prevent its continual development. One plus one equaling two is just a theory, a very good theory, but not an absolute. If we took the theories of science as doctrine, then it would not be science – same with morality. Morality is not doctrine – doctrine is doctrine.
Not sure what you mean by the higher levels of Christianity but there do exist a number of distinctions between the various Christian faiths that are considered essential versus non-essential. Essential beliefs, as you might expect, are pretty much non-negotiable for salvation and the non-essential beliefs are distinctions between different faiths but really no more than talking points.
Examples of essential tenets of Christianity include Jesus’ virgin birth, the actual resurrection of Jesus from the dead, Jesus being God incarnate, Jesus’ atonement for sin, and salvation by grace through faith. Examples of non-essential beliefs include types of baptism and whether the rapture will occur before, during or after the tribulation period.
These are not arbitrary beliefs; there are many different denominations in the Christian faith, and those essential beliefs are those with which virtually every denomination agrees after nearly 2000 years of Bible study and debate. For example, Baptists and Catholics may disagree on the concept of purgatory, but neither group would question a person’s claim to be a Christian based upon that person’s position on purgatory. On the other hand, both groups would definitely question a person’s claim to be a Christian if that person did not believe that Jesus was actually raised from the dead.
So, as a Christian I believe that morality is an absolute based upon God’s idea of right and wrong, that God is perfect and knows everything and is all powerful, and that our sense of morality is based upon being created in God’s image.
So, as a Christian I believe that morality is an absolute based upon God’s idea of right and wrong, that God is perfect and knows everything and is all powerful, and that our sense of morality is based upon being created in God’s image.
That is a very literal interpretation, and an interpretation that a number of fairly well studied Christians of my acquaintance would I think be quite uncomfortable with.
And with enough wordplay, Buddhism is Islam, Christianity is atheism, and we’re all Communists. I weep for semantics.
Rural libertarians know how to talk to rural people.
It is the urban libertarians, who paradoxically insist on living in the most socialist/collectivist jurisdictions in the country, whose primary libertarian issues are gay marriage, legalization of all (including hard) drugs, ending don’t ask don’t tell, atheistic banishment of any symbols of faith from the public square, anti-war in all cases, and free immigration, that turn off the majority of the country, who offend even a lot of democrats.
Rural libertarians focus on issues that appeal to rural folk: ending welfare (corporate and inner city), home schooling, 2nd amendment (free concealed carry everywhere, relegalizing/detaxing class III weapons, castle doctrine, flying armed, etc), property rights (logging, mining, anti-eminent domain, etc), ending government licensing of all marriage, parental rights (anti-DHS) and jive with Republicans a lot more except for a few things like medical marijuana and pot legalization.
And with enough wordplay, Buddhism is Islam, Christianity is atheism, and we’re all Communists. I weep for semantics.
It is a little more than that – one foundation allows every belief to be systematically questioned, analyzed and if desired – reformed, the other, not so much.
Trent, et al. Discussion of what is or is not a “Christian” value assumes that there is such a thing as “Christianity.” As one raised in a crazy sect, I can tell you that American “Christianity” is so fractious that it makes the Muslim faith look monolithic. My own particular cult privately held that there are no other “true Christians” (its public face is quite different).
I would venture to say that Catholics are not considered Christians by a very large segment of America, and that many of the little subchapters of the various denominations similarly hold that the other subchapters of their denomination — along with all other denominations — are not “true” Christians.
Overt racism was a government-supported institution in this country until the mid-60s, and I remember it vividly. It still exists in little pockets here and there. As an atheist today, I would still not ascribe it to Christianity of any flavor…
I suspect that saying that the US is a country founded on the values of Christians is a bit like saying that the US is a country founded on the values of white people. While there is some truth in both statements, both statements are wrong, offensive and not constructive.
For one culture, group or religion to claim a set of virtues as their own property is annoying.
IF only this,
“…the Christians of the Christian nation just ignored their Christian values and decided to be overt racists anyway”
had said,
“…SOME OF the Christians of the Christian nation just ignored their Christian values and decided to be overt racists anyway”
Not all the Christians were, nor supported racism and slavery. Historically the abolitionist WERE Christians. John Brown studied to be a minister, before he went off the deep end. But because Brown and his followers advocated murder and insurrection, doesn’t mean that all 19th century Christians of the Christian nation just ignored their Christian values and decided to be overt insurrectionists anyway.
I was raised as a Catholic, I’ve been in and out of my faith over the years. I attend a protestant church now, mostly because my wife was raised Baptist. So I’ve been all over the map. My findings are, as with most religious beliefs, people run from cold, to luke warm to on fire with zeal. And in both directions politically.
Hells bells Pelosi AND Kerry are both practicing Catholics and are raving libs, with many Christians as followers. On the other end, Beck, ME…conservatives. Somebody’s got to be wrong.
But to attempt to pigeon hole just WHAT or who is or is not a Christian is im-poss-ih-bull. Are we a Christian nation? Were we ever? I’m betting only Christ has the answer.
Leland said (in part, and this is really the only part I am responding to): Are you equating prohibition of alcohol to tyranny? Or are you equating Christianity to tyranny? …
I wasn’t equating Christianity to anything: Andrea originally said:
“…If the majority of Americans had wanted official discrimination against blacks to continue, it would have continued. Of course, that was before the government became so powerful it didn’t have to listen to the majority.”
To which I replied: “part of the role of government is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.”
To which Andrea replied: “that doesn’t hold if the minority happens to be one that wants to cause harm to other citizens.”
To which I replied: “…’Causing harm to other citizens’ is not a right that the state protects, whether it’s the majority harming the minority or the other way around…”
Simply a discussion of the problem of the tyranny of the majority, not really related to the “Xtian nation” thing.
And just one more thing for me in this thread: I’m not concerned that the Christian majority in this country wants to use Leviticus for the justice code, or force atheists to walk around with scarlet “A”s on their heads, etc. But the whole “Christian nation” thing does worry me about such topics that always come immediately to the fore as:
Prayer in schools – try getting harangued every Monday by your third-grade teacher and classmates because you didn’t raise your hand when asked “who went to church yesterday?” and don’t know the Lord’s Prayer, and this was well after the SCOTUS prayer decision;
Teaching of evolution – not trying to start a religious war :-), but how any reasonably intelligent, thinking person can deny the overwhelming evidence for evolution by natural selection is beyond me; but this is always one of the very first targets of local politicians that prominently identify themselves as Christian.
You get my drift. And yes I know that Islam in particular is inimical to science, but this thread wasn’t about how Glenn Beck claimed the US was an Islamic nation…
Anyway, I’m really not wanting to get under anybody’s skin here, but I’m trying to illustrate what gets under my skin, using examples that I have personally experienced.
Hmm. I was in third grade in 1970, and I went to public school, and no one in school ever harangued me, or even asked me, about going to church or knowing the Lord’s Prayer. This was in Miami, Florida. It sounds to me like your community had a problem, or your school, not Christianity in general.
As for the majority/minority thing, here is all I am going to say about it. I pointed out that by the 1950s a great number of people in the US had come to disapprove of racism. This gave impetus and strength to the Civil Rights movement and enabled its members to get the laws holding blacks down to change. This could not have happened if the Civil Rights movement did not at that time have the growing consensus of the country behind them that their aims were correct. This time the “majority” was right.
You came along with some barely related bit about our laws being set up to protect minority groups from the majority so as to prevent discrimination against people who had unpopular beliefs etc. from being abused by those in power. This really had very little to do with my subject, but I merely pointed out that holds only as long as that minority wasn’t harmful to the country as a whole (such as, the minority of Muslims who want to blow up buildings and kill people to further their beliefs; or more pertinent to this conversation, that minority of white people in power who wanted to continue discriminating against black people). Well, you came back with a snippy bit about “Captain Obvious” even though you are the one patronizingly lecturing me about something I already know and have known since elementary school. Then in your last comment with me as the subject you simply repeat yourself in slightly different words as if that will make what you said any more relevant. It is not. Unless you think that anything a majority of the people want is by default bad simply because a majority of people hold it. Of course you couldn’t believe that because it would mean you were either insane, or just another comment troll who likes to argue to see himself argue. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and call you simply confused and badly educated.
I went to public school, and no one in school ever harangued me, or even asked me, about going to church or knowing the Lord’s Prayer.
Andrea, your experience is like mine in Texas.
In addition, I was taught evolution in school just like I was taught communism and islam in school. I took it as a sign that my teachers and schools wanted me to think for myself rather than only expose me to certain beliefs approved by the majority. I use beliefs rather than facts, because I’ve noticed that many who consider such things “facts” have no understanding of theory and science.
http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2010/08/greater-danger-islamic-or-christian.html
Yep, I was taught about Communism and evolution too. Not that much about Islam, or religion in general, but I believe there was an elective in high school where you could study the major religions. (Many years later, when I embarked upon a later-aborted effort to get a Bachelors in Humanities at the University of Central Florida, I took two of the religious “thought” studies courses, Christian Thought and Islamic Thought. Oddly enough, it was in my Islamic Thought class on September 11 2001 that we got the notice that they were shutting down the schools and sending everyone home. You can guess what we had all been talking about before that!)
cthulhu Says:
August 30th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
“… how any reasonably intelligent, thinking person can deny the overwhelming evidence for evolution by natural selection is beyond me…
There is overwhelming evidence for some of what falls under the rubric of Evolution. But Evolution is much more than one simple concept, and encompasses a wide territory of factual evidence, logical inference, and pure speculation, which is all bound together to produce the Creation Myth of the religion of Secular Humanism.
Rob, I read the article to which you linked with interest, but sadly I found the writer to offer an opinion against Christianity with absolutely nothing of evidence in that article to support that opinion.
Oh sure, he wants all of the ‘qualities’ of Christian, conservative, red state folks to do the heavy lifting to keep him safe from the Islamic horde. He just expresses fear that once the Islamists attack us, the political will of America will take an immediate and strong shift to the right (you think?!) and the next set of political leadership will install a Christian-based dictatorship.
Based upon what? The same Christians that disagree on Biblical interpretation so much that they have fractured into hundreds of Protestant denominations are suddenly going to galvanize to the degree that they will overthrow a constitutional republic? Not gonna happen.
cthulhu,
I think your third grade experience is appalling. But you ASS-U-ME that all classes were like that then. How could that have been? You mention one year, I’m guessing 2nd and 4th were different? Does that mean there was a I huge Christian inquisition that year? I’m 56 and I don’t remember that in my life, nor in my studying history.
Hell, I went to Parochial School and questions like that weren’t asked, by, Nuns or Priests. And we did have non-Catholic kids there too, so there was the opportunity to point out differences or prosthelytize.