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.
I could do without Beck preaching.
It is interesting to see the conservatives out protesting. When has there been a time in our history when conservatives have turned out in the hundreds of thousands to protest or rally?
The contrast between the media’s coverage of conservative and liberal protests is rather remarkable.
The founding father’s, children of the enlightenment that they were, insisted upon the separation of church and state for very good reason – that way lies the Teleban.
Morality does not come from religion (a very modern creation), this is like saying that wealth is generated by government (an easy mistake to make considering how much money they throw around).
The successful virtues of Northern European culture that enabled much of modern civilization caused the Reformation, not Christianity itself.
This move towards Christianity in the US is very disturbing and there will be a great many unintended consequences, similar things happened to the Roman Empire towards the end.
There is no “move toward Christianity in the US.” Glenn Beck is a Mormon. The movement is back to the Deism of the Founders, not toward a theocracy.
Pete, where in your opinion does morality come from? I don’t disagree with your comment about religion, but I was wondering which of the two terms was the subject of the phrase “a very modern creation”
“Capitalism relies on values that it did not create and cannot replace.”
F. A. Hayek
Back to Deism? Won’t fly. Deism could work in the past for the same reason that bland mainline Protestantism worked when we were young. Because the culture was largely Christian, and most people accepted much of Christian morality and values.
Now that old Christian culture is pretty much gone in America, and orthodox Christianity and Judaism are under ever-increasing attack. It’s becoming an open fight. Positions of neutrality or aloofness will soon become untenable and absurd.
“The founding father’s, children of the enlightenment that they were, insisted upon the separation of church and state for very good reason – that way lies the Teleban.”
good allah some folks out there are stupid. let’s build a mosque in ground zero to celebrate an islamic victory and burkas for the wymin and then worry about christers inflicting theocracy. the political left are some of the stupidest people in the galaxy.
“Glenn Beck is a Mormon.”
And the second “m” is not silent…
Pete, where in your opinion does morality come from?
The origin of morality is fairly obvious from an evolutionary perspective. Indeed many animals have been noted to exhibit behavior which I would have to describe as moral.
Within modern society one might be fairly philosophically safe in saying that morality ultimately comes from the people.
Banning tele sounds like a good idea. 😛
This move towards Christianity in the US is very disturbing and there will be a great many unintended consequences, similar things happened to the Roman Empire towards the end.
To expand a bit on what Rand said, there have always been some Americans moving toward religion while others move away. Over time, the net advantage seems to be modestly toward the away side, but the margin is not large. We unchurched are still very much in the minority and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
I have long since learned that merely rejecting Christianity does not, by itself, render one either rational or wise. Many do so only out of a sense of alienation from their ancestral (American/Christian) culture – an alienation often acquired via uncritical immersion in the currently debased milieu of the academic so-called “liberal arts” – and are otherwise quite ready to take up any of a wide variety of substitute superstitions as replacements. Many of these substitute superstitions have nothing more to recommend them than the fact they have non-“white” and/or non-American origins.
Even those who truly reject all religion, regardless of race or color, so to speak, do not automatically succeed to the status of rationality or wisdom thereby. Many are often willing, even eager, to substitute a non-religious system of nonsensical belief as a replacement for the rejected theism; Marxism, in one or another of its seemingly infinite flavors is most often called to serve in this capacity in our present age.
There are, of course, many non-Christians who have embraced both some alternative theism or supernatural belief system and some dialect of leftist belief in combination. California is veritably gravid with such people.
As to the fall of the Roman Empire, Christianity, per se, is only weakly implicated. Rome was always a more fragile proposition than, for example, modern America because its economy rested, crucially, on slave labor. So long as the ruling classes were firmly resolved to both keep the slave population in check, internally, and to expand/maintain the Empire against external challenges both from competing imperia (Carthage) and the always-present aggressive tribal barbarians (Germans, Gauls) on its periphery, the Empire could survive. When this resolve faltered, the Empire fell.
This is, indeed, something to keep in mind, given that aggressive tribal barbarism is once again on the march. Sadly, the modern Left, in all of its religious, superstitious (“spiritual”) and atheistic components, is much more similar to the end-stage Romans in its irresolution – even collaboration – in the face of concerted barbarian aggression than are the allegedly scary Christians who are, these days, to be found quite disproportionately among those standing watch atop the palisades.
Banning tele sounds like a good idea.
Indeed. 🙂 For some reason I always get confused with the “Come mister telly man telly me banana” song when ever I write Taliban/Taleban.
Come Mister Taliban, Taliban the Afghan
Daylight come and the Predator drone
Come Mister Taliban, Taliban the Afghan
Daylight come and the Predator drone
It’s Hellfire, Hellfire, Hellfire, BAM!
Daylight come and the Predator drone
It’s Hellfire, Hellfire, Hellfire, BAM!
Daylight come and the Predator drone
@Pete – the philosophical ramifications of “morality comes from the people” would require a longer and better stated response than I could give here. Let’s just say that in our society, there’s enough ignorance of the basics of logic and reason that what passes for “morality” is merely political correctness and environmentalism.
As for Rand’s point, he’s exactly right; most conservatives (and I can speak for Mormons here; I’m a Mormon, grew up in Utah and the whole nine yards) really want to agree with the Libertarians, but way too often they’re nutcases. Well, the ones who are willing to run for office are nutcases, anyway.
My put is that America has never been a Christian nation (thank Ghod!) but that the values often associated with 18th century Protestantism – thrift, humility, hard work, respect, etc. – are part of our foundation. All well and good, and as Pete points out and evolutionary biologists are discovering all the time, large portions of this are baked into our brains as the ultimate root of moral behavior.
But what gets my back up with the talk of America being a “Christian” nation is that many who espouse this line aren’t willing to live and let live with those nonbelievers (such as me) who are moral by just about everything they believe in, except that we don’t worship their god. Maybe growing up (reading subversive literature such as Heinlein’s juveniles) in a small town on the buckle of the Bible belt canalized a mistrust of the holier-than-thou types that I will carry with me forever; if so, I will carry it proudly. Long live Jefferson’s wall of separation!
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.
“the political left are some of the stupidest people in the galaxy”
rambling on about the “political left” is intellectual laziness. Name the policies and principles which you disagree with, and make arguments as to why. Just lumping everyone into two camps and choosing one of them is nothing more than tribalism.
Of course this is, or was, a Christian nation. When I was a boy in the 50’s, no respectable person supported divorce, adultery, open homosexuality, “free-love,” drugs, pornography or abortion. And contraception was still under-the-counter. Those are all Christian moralities, not pagan.
Many school days and many public events started with a non-denominational Christian prayer. I remember people being shocked by the first “celebrity atheist.” There were no non-Christian politicians, except a few Jews.
Naturally people’s actual behavior often fell far short of the ideal, but that’s true of most systems.
Because the public accepted Christian basics, these were not problem issues. Once Christian principles were discarded in public life, people naturally fought back. And this was portrayed, absurdly, as a “rise” of Christianity, or of the “Christian Right.” Or, insanely, as the coming of “theocracy.”
But the people who pushed back never moved in their positions at all. They just kept on believing things that Americans had always believed.
Also, the separation of church and state was never a separation of church and politics. Jefferson on the campaign trail was intensely Christian.
@Pete – the philosophical ramifications of “morality comes from the people” would require a longer and better stated response than I could give here. Let’s just say that in our society, there’s enough ignorance of the basics of logic and reason that what passes for “morality” is merely political correctness and environmentalism.
Morality does not necessarily mean good morality. 🙂
That morality ultimately comes from the people is a naturalist position, as per Hume and science in general. The philosophical ramifications thereof are closely related to those of the right to freedom of thought (a moral “right” I would take quite seriously), and so forth. If you think morality ultimately comes from elsewhere and would presume to act on such thoughts – I would ask that you think again.
Here is a typically Hume quote that I came across when I could not find the one I was looking for 🙂
“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous”
Of course this is, or was, a Christian nation. When I was a boy in the 50’s, no respectable person supported divorce, adultery, open homosexuality, “free-love,” drugs, pornography or abortion. And contraception was still under-the-counter. Those are all Christian moralities, not pagan.
Considering that in 1954 the pledge of allegiance was modified to include the words “under God”, I suspect you are right – the US of your youth in the 50’s was indeed to some extent a Christian nation, or at least becoming that way. 🙂
Was overt racism a Christian value too?
John’s list of what wasn’t “respectable” in the mid-’50s reminded me of the “morality” in the small town I grew up in during the ’60s and early ’70s – about 60 miles away, there was another small town that featured steak-and-spaghetti restaurants serving strong beer (forbidden in our dry county); said restaurants catered to Baptists and Church of Christ members who didn’t want to drink alcoholic beverages in their native small town (our version of what-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas). :-/
As I have here several times before, I strongly recommend Steven Pinker’s marvelous The Blank Slate for anybody interested in rational investigation of the evolution of our strong human nature. Pinker shows the core problems with having morals be external, as Pete was also alluding to above. For those who have read it, or Thomas Sowell’s related work A Conflict of Visions, you can probably guess that I subscribe to the Tragic Vision (using Pinker’s terminology).
“Was overt racism a Christian value too?”
Absolutely not. The ideal is from Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians: “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female.” Something Christians have rarely lived up to.
“or at least becoming that way.” We were that way from the beginning. Actually, adding the “under God” was a sign that Christianity was slipping away. No one previously had worried about the matter; it was just assumed that everyone agreed.
“Of course this is, or was, a Christian nation. When I was a boy in the 50’s, no respectable person supported divorce, adultery, open homosexuality, “free-love,” drugs, pornography or abortion. And contraception was still under-the-counter. ”
The nation was hypocritical.
Ronald Reagan got Divorced n 6-29-1948 without career implications.
“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. ”
If you replace America with the Republican Party, then you are correct.
Republicans are older, whiter less attractive,,,,,
Actually, believe it or not, Trent, racism wasn’t approved of in the Fifties in much of the country. Where do you think the Civil Rights movement came from? Do you think enlightenment that all men were brothers suddenly came to a chosen few Americans when the sun rose on January 1st, 1960? 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.
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. “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men…” (quoting from memory – always dangerous 🙂
Andrea, would you agree it was before the 50s? I mean, the argument is being made here that the US was *founded* as a Christian nation. So, if that’s true, it seems reasonable to say that at some point racism, which was an open and accepted social practice, was at some point a Christian value.
If you deny that overt racism was ever a Christian value, and admit that at some point overt racism was widespread in the US, then the US wasn’t ever a Christian nation because, if it was, the Christians of the Christian nation just ignored their Christian values and decided to be overt racists anyway – meaning that the state completely failed to encourage or enforce those Christian values. So neither the people, nor the state, were Christian.
So, simply, if you want to claim that the US is or ever was a Christian nation, you have to accept that overt racism is a Christian value.. along with any other widespread social value which is offensive to Christian values.
You’d have better luck arguing that the US *became* at least a little more Christian when the state and it’s people rejected overt racism as unjust.
Just because some people at a rally say something about God, doesn’t mean we are moving toward a theocracy. The Christians in our country are in no way comparable to the Taliban. If someone holds that belief, it says more about them than it does about Christians.
Where does morality come from? It is not some innate virtue possessed by all humans. It is a social compact, and it varies from culture to culture and person to person.
Is it wrong to laugh at someone who falls over skateboarding? How about an old lady who’s walker slipped out from under her?
Religion standardizes morality. In the absence of religion we have the rule of law which performs the same function. And then there is political correctness.
I didn’t say anything about Christians. But. Racism is not and never has been a Christian value. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of Christianity knows this; you don’t have to be a Christian to find it out either. However, Christians are human, therefore sinners, therefore capable of holding wrong beliefs that come from their culture and ignorance. But there is nothing anywhere in the Christian creed or Bible that supports racism. If there was why would so many blacks have converted to Christianity? (And I don’t mean the Reverend Jeremiah White version either; I mean standard Protestant or Roman Catholic Christianity.)
By the way, I’m not a Christian, just someone who was 1) more or less raised as one (Methodist, mostly) and 2) who has read a book or two and who thinks for herself instead of going with the current fashionable propaganda. You should try that some time.
cthulhu: that doesn’t hold if the minority happens to be one that wants to cause harm to other citizens.
“So, simply, if you want to claim that the US is or ever was a Christian nation, you have to accept that overt racism is a Christian value”
That’s a silly argument, and you would not apply to to any other thought-system. It’s like saying that since the Soviet Union always had a certain amount of private economic transactions, it wasn’t a communist state, or that private enterprise is a communist value.
No system lives up to all its ideals. But the Christian anti-racist element was part of America from the beginning, and soon became a mighty movement leading to the war that claimed more American lives than all our other wars combined.
sigh. I just made a logical argument and you completely failed to follow it.
Let’s try again.
People are claiming the US was founded as a Christian nation, which, by definition, means that the state and the people hold Christian values.
It’s a historical fact that the people of the US have held widespread beliefs that are against Christian values for as long as there has been a US.
To reconcile this contradiction you have to either change your definition of “Christian values” or you need to admit that people in Christian nations don’t act like Christians. Choose!
Either way I’ve defeated any possible purpose you might have had for claiming that the US was, should have been or should be a Christian nation, because historical fact is that the people of the US haven’t been very Christian.
It’s simply impossible to claim that “social decay” is the cause of all the nation’s ills and that the US should return to being a “Christian nation” and “bring God back into politics” and any other stupid empty rhetoric you might care to make, because the historical fact is that social life has been incredibly more immoral in the past.
There is nothing logical about your argument. Well, it’s full of logical fallacies, but that doesn’t mean it’s logical.
whatever.. God forbid you think.
One fallacy predominant in your argument (in the past many Christians were racists, therefore Christianity is a racist faith) is the Guilt By Association fallacy. Example number 2 is especially illustrative of your use of it.
“Either way I’ve defeated any possible purpose you might have had for claiming that the US was, should have been or should be a Christian nation, because historical fact is that the people of the US haven’t been very Christian.”
By that argument Iran is not a Moslem nation.
Actually, by that argument America is not a capitalist nation or a democratic nation.
Again, you, and lots of other people, would not apply that kind of thinking to any other system. Only to Christianity. And maybe to Judaism in Israel. Because those two faiths contain the truth, and that’s what you nihilists are afraid of. And by your fear you testify to their truth.
“whatever.. God forbid you think.”
You know, just repeating what I said to you in my earlier comment but in a way that implies I don’t think at all rather than, as I said, you should think for yourself — well, that’s not exactly going to get me on your side now is it? Which makes me think that you, like most internet arguers, don’t really want to have people come over to your way of thinking or even to educate other people. You simply want to argue just to argue and then to be disagreed with so you can feel sorry for yourself for being so smart while everyone else is so stupid. Sorry, I’m not playing that high school game.
You are quite free, of course, to dislike religion. I agree with you that no one should be forced to believe something he does not want to. I agree that our country should not be ruled by one religious body, or even an alliance of religious institutions. In other words, I believe that church and state should be separate. But what you are not free to do is to make false claims about a religion based upon your fear and dislike of it. You get your own beliefs; you don’t get your own facts.
Trent,
What do you want Adrea to say, that Christians are racists or that America is not Christian? Possibly there is another answer that lies in a direction you are not trying to steer toward.
Christians are not perfect, they don’t always live up to their ideals nor do they claim to.
Was it the religion that made people racist or the European culture they brought with them?
Surely you would concede that there is more behind a person’s or a societies behavior than religious beliefs.
I think this statement was correct, “the Christians of the Christian nation just ignored their Christian values and decided to be overt racists anyway”
That does not mean that neither the state nor the people where not Christians, just that they were not perfect.
You don’t have to accept that racism was a Christian value but you do have to acknowledge that it was widely practiced.
Where does the racism in Australia come from religion or culture? Is overt racism an Australian value?
No one is perfect. All countries and cultures have dirty hands.
As a Christian and libertarian-leaning fellow I have to say that I don’t “get” the whole Glen Beck rally thing. I admit I have not followed it closely, but does it really mean that the nation is “returning to God” simply because there is a grass-roots movement to return to principles of limited government and free enterprise market principles, and oppose an instrusive leviathan nanny-state/welfare state that racks up economy-crushing debt and taxation policies? I don’t think so.
Nor do I care, as far as public policy is concerned. Atheists and followers of other religions can support those policies regardless of their attitude toward God. I want the government to run the military, put police on the streets to keep people from robbing or killing me, and (perhaps) pave the roads. That’s it. If people want to turn to God, they should go to church. And I hope that they do, as individuals. But I think many of these folks are confusing the secular realm with the sacred realm, a distinction which is indeed a product of Christian doctrine.
Also, I should add that I don’t consider Glen Beck or Sarah Palin as being the great communicators we need to articulate the principles of limited government and free enterprise in a venue like this. Heck, I’d prefer Ann Coulter or Limbaugh personally. Where is Ron or Rand Paul? Surely there are better intellects as well as better communicators for the cause out there than Beck or Palin.
I type too slow and you guys are moving along at a nice clip.
Trent wrote, “To reconcile this contradiction you have to either change your definition of “Christian values” or you need to admit that people in Christian nations don’t act like Christians. Choose!”
The answer is simple Christians don’t always act like Christians and Christians would be the first people to tell you that.
Trent said, “It’s simply impossible to claim that “social decay” is the cause of all the nation’s ills and that the US should return to being a “Christian nation” and “bring God back into politics” and any other stupid empty rhetoric you might care to make, because the historical fact is that social life has been incredibly more immoral in the past.”
That’s a long trail you want people to follow to get to that point, especially since you wanted to troll several posts to get there. If you had said just that last paragraph, most everyone would agree with you.
Christians have just as much right as anyone else to be involved in politics. And as you pointed out, if they lived up to their values things would be better.
The Christians in our country are in no way comparable to the Taliban.
That is definitely exactly the kind of thing that one religion would say to another, especially fundamentalist ones in a world devolved to tribalism/religionism.
One of the things that bothers me about religions in general is their unwillingness to take responsibility for their more extreme elements, indeed moderates often seem to exploit the fundamentalists so as to bolster their own congregations. Nothing like an our religion verse their religion away game to build support for the home team.
Where does morality come from? It is not some innate virtue possessed by all humans.
Actually to some extent it is, human beings are not born tabula raza, basic game theory is wet wired in. Even religiosity has been found to be inheritable to a limited degree.
There really is little doubt as to why religiosity has been evolutionarily selected for, often shared beliefs/culture are far more important to a society than the truthfulness of those beliefs. But in this more enlightened day and age, one would hope that there were more honest, moral and beneficial ways of achieving cultural cohesion and support. Can we please claim back our morality and virtue without the side order of religion?
I also dispute this: “…the historical fact is that social life has been incredibly more immoral in the past.” Actually, people have been more oral, and less moral and everything in between, in the past, just like now. I do agree that the belief that we should return to some imaginary “way of the past” is simplistic, but so is the idea that we have to reject everything people believed in the past simply because they weren’t perfect.
I will ignore pete’s comments because I can’t argue with someone who is incoherent. This sentence — “That is definitely exactly the kind of thing that one religion would say to another” — is ridiculous. Religions don’t talk to one another, they are concepts.
And it’s “tabula rasa.” Why do people treat the internet as if spelling, grammar, and syntax aren’t necessary?
Saudi Arabia is an Islamic country. India is mostly Hindu. Would anybody argue otherwise? Yet, that’s an abstraction, not everybody in those countries are. To say this is a christian nation is the same thing and it’s silly to argue otherwise.
Reason is unreliable, but it’s all we’ve got. Even if your reasoning is perfect, it depends on foundational elements that may not be true. Were the principles of our founder sound?
Does the present administration hold to those principles?
When you go down the wrong road it often makes sense to turn around and go back to where you made the wrong turn. It seems a lot of people think we’ve made a wrong turn somewhere from the road our founders put us on.
Frankly, I don’t want Glenn or Sarah or anybody else preaching religion to me. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t examine where we left the path.
Pete,
I don’t think the Christians want to take over the country, do away with elections, due process, start chopping people’s heads and hands off, stone women for adultery and not men, throw acid on the face of girls who go to school, make women wear sacks over their heads or any of the other things the Taliban inflict on their population.
Christians are nothing like that, nor do they want to be.
I don’t know if religions need to take “responsibility” for the crazies but they should condemn them when they act contrary to the religions core beliefs. The same could be said for any group, even liberals and atheists.
I would agree that to some extent there is morality in all people but it is not a constant.
Some people think stealing is wrong regardless of the situation and some think its ok if you don’t get caught and others think it is ok if your family is starving. Bribery is considered wrong in our society but that is not true in much of the world.
Is there morality without religion? Sure.
I’ll quote myself, “Religion standardizes morality. In the absence of religion we have the rule of law which performs the same function. And then there is political correctness.”
Is secular morality better than a morality determined by a religion? I don’t think either are superior to each other.
Pete,
I should of re-read your first comment, I don’t think you were comparing Christians and the Taliban in the way I wrote about in my last post.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t examine where we left the path.
This strikes me as a rather important question – and one that seems to apply much the world over.
I might suggest a loss of competitive advantage. That is, the US is losing its competitive edge. The rise of big government, which is inherently monopolistic and anti competition, might be a reasonable starting point.
It is very noticeable that there is a strong drive in China, India and much of Asia towards economic success. A vitality, hope and will to power that no longer seems prevalent in the US or Europe. In the East, bureaucracy seems to be more a servant of the economy, in the West, it seems to be becoming its master.
As a recent plot in the Economist suggested, for most of the last 2000 years India and China have dominated global GDP. One has to be suspicious that the global economy is to some extent slowly returning to the historical norm.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t examine where we left the path.
This strikes me as a rather important question – and one that seems to apply much the world over.
I might suggest a loss of competitive advantage. That is, the US is losing its competitive edge. The rise of big government, which is inherently monopolistic and anti competition, might be a reasonable starting point.
It is very noticeable that there is a strong drive in China, India and much of Asia towards economic success. A vitality, hope and will to power that no longer seems prevalent in the US or Europe. In the East, bureaucracy seems to be more a servant of the economy, in the West, it seems to be becoming its master.
As a recent plot in the Economist suggested, for most of the last 2000 years India and China have dominated global GDP. One has to be suspicious that the global economy is to some extent slowly returning to the historical norm.