The following article is from Sam Harris, a neuroscientist with a major in philosophy, and the author of the book "The End of Faith"
The God of the Blue States (12/04)
by
Sam Harris
"According to several recent polls, 22 percent of Americans are certain that Jesus will return to earth to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next fifty years. Another 22 percent believe that he will probably do so. This is likely the same 44 percent of Americans who go to church once a week or more, who believe that God literally promised the land of Israel to the Jews, and who want to stop teaching their children about the biological fact of evolution. As the world saw on November 2nd of last year, believers of this sort constitute the most cohesive and motivated segment of the American electorate. Most of these people were never in danger of being swayed by Senator Kerry’s better grasp of public policy, of the English language, or of tangible reality.
It seems, however, that many liberals and secularists in the United States have drawn the wrong lesson from the 2004 election. Many are now thumbing scripture, wondering how the Democratic Party can best ingratiate itself to the legions of men and women in the American heartland who select their politicians mainly for their adherence to religious dogma. Clearly, it was not enough for Senator Kerry to testify to the profundity of his faith at rote intervals during the final weeks of the campaign. While he repeatedly assured his countrymen that he prays daily, and keeps his bible at the ready, he could not compete with a sitting President who was content to fuel his campaign on the vapors of faith alone. More than 50 percent of Americans have a “negative” or “highly negative” view of people who do not believe in God; 70 percent view it as important for presidential candidates to be “strongly religious.” In the aftermath of the 2004 election, it seems all but certain that we are destined to witness a sickening surge of piety among liberal Democrats.
....
Because it is taboo in our country to criticize a person’s religious beliefs, the debate over questions of public policy – like gay marriage and stem cell research – inevitably gets framed in terms appropriate to the 14th century. The belief that certain books were written by a supernatural deity (who, for reasons difficult to fathom, made Shakespeare a better writer than himself) leaves us powerless to talk sensibly about social policy, or to elect genuinely reasonable men and women to our highest offices. It is astounding that in the year 2004 one perfect impediment to holding elective office in the United States is a failure to endorse religious myths. How is it that the absurdity of this situation does not bring civilized men and women, hourly, to their knees? Those who are attuned this absurdity owe it to ourselves, and to future generations, to resist willful and wanton unreason wherever we find it. Unreason is now ascendant in the United States – in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Secular liberals should not feel the slightest temptation to cater to the intellectual poverty of the American electorate: only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 65 percent believe in the literal existence of Satan. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world. We pretend otherwise at our peril."
Seriously Read the whole article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/science/01evo.html?oref=login&oref=login&oref=loginI'm getting really sick of hearing suggestions that democrats should roll over and let christian fascists have their way on gay rights, abortion, school prayer, evolution, and stem cells.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(122 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
