One of my favorite troublemakers, mynym at Into Good and Evil, has a nice short piece on the Nazi socialist’s view of church and state, as contrasted with Alexis de Tocqueville’s view that a state that supports rather than supresses religious life leads to national prosperity.
The key is, we must be careful to not let atheistic, materialistic scientism claim the entire ground as far as truth-telling goes, and we must be careful in our zeal for truth unfettered by supertition that we dont’ suppress religion.
Also, we must put away the false notion that "all religions are equally true or untrue, and we can not support one over the other." We must see this canard for what it is – intellectual foolishness, cowardice, and stupidity. Some religions obviously lead away from values we cherish – like life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness (I can hear the pro-gay readers sharpening their retorts about how xianity supresses their equality and pursuit of happiness).
Regarding just how we legislate moral issues, the answer seems clear. Some things are obvious (race and gender equality, the evils of slavery, child prostitution, murder, etc.), while others are arguable (legalization of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, gay marriage, polygamy, governement support of questionable (or any) art, govt support of faith-based organizations or schools). These latter must be handled carefully, with enough legislation to allow personal choice, but not so much that we are officially sanctioning such things. I admit, however, that each of these "gray zone" matters is not easy to grapple with. But that’s why we have blogs ;)
You people are just down right scary.
What “you people” are you talking about? And what is scary?
Conservatives with good intellectual arguments are scary – it means that their ideas have to be taken seriously, rather than ridiculed sanctimoniously.
"You people" are the people who claim Christianity, but in no way follow Christ's admonition to "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
And tell that coward mynym, (who has shut off his comments,) that this is why I think Benjamin Franklin is an atheist:
I never said Jefferson was an atheist. Benjamin Franklin, on the other hand, was intelligent enough, and progressive enough to understand that lightning might be electricity, and not the destructive fire used by God against his enemies. He went on to prove it, and developed the lighting rod to protect structures against lightning strikes even though many of his contemporaries warned that he was working against God’s will. (His will being that he destroyed people’s homes with lighting strikes, burn to the ground.)
He didn't put much stock in the God of his time.
Much how you appear to view “scientism”.
And don't worry about calling me out, I am finished with "you people". Pseudo-Intelligentsism and all.
Well, Jamille, um, welcome to wholereason.com. That's quite an intro you have made.
BTW, you are probably right that Christians need to love their neighbor better (however, they're not doing too bad right now in Louisianna – without the Xian relief agencies and churches, they would be a lot worse off right now).
But don't forget the GREATEST commandment, which is to love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Jesus said "if you love me you will obey me." That not only includes "helping widows and orphans" but "preaching the gospel (of Christ's kingdom) to every creature."
I'm not sure why mynym turned off commenting at his site, but he does have a point in his post, which is that if we live by scientism and supress religion, we often end up with fascism. Also, there is a scary parallel between the current anti-religious fervor in science and fascism.
"In the name of purity, we must put religion in its place, with all other silly, unverifiable superstition. We don't need it for morality, and we sure don't need it for scientific ethics or as a framework for scientific study." I understand the need to not let religion or superstition keep us from verifiable science, but a deistic world view may actually be correct, and if so, will lead us to better science.