In the current race for the presidency, it has become clear that among the candidates who might be suitable, the Villagers are supporting Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the Democratic side and Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain on the Republican side. All of them have made the proper obeisance to the Village gods.
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It is hard to understand American politics without having a clear idea about the nature of how power is controlled and the important decisions made.
The first step to understanding is to not take seriously divisions along the lines of Democrat-Republican or liberal-conservative or left-right. While such terms may be useful in limited contexts, they are mostly used to distract people from seeing the real action, similar to the way that magicians Penn and Teller distract you without you even realizing it so that you do not see how the trick is really done. A good example of issues that are meant to distract was the infamous Terri Schiavo affair. (This is why I always say that it is not the things that politicians strongly disagree about to which we should pay close attention but the things that they agree on.)
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As the interminable political primary season drags on, I have to say that the Republican race has proved to be far more interesting than the Democratic one. We have the drama of Mitt Romney trying to fend off unease over the issue of his Mormon religion and worrying about how his switching of positions to pander to the Christianists in the party will play out, serial philanderer Rudy Giuliani having to deal with one sex and money and corruption scandal after another, Ron Paul irritating the rest of them and the media with his constitution-based attacks on war mongering producing a remarkable response for someone considered a nobody, the once great hope Fred Thompson sleepwalking through the primaries, media darling John McCain looking more and more like a has-been, and those lovable scamps Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter (can anyone tell them apart?) falling over themselves in seeing who can hate immigrants the most. As if that was not enough fun, for the last debate they brought in surprise contestant Alan Keyes (yes, Alan Keyes!), an egomaniac of such giant proportions compared to whom even the insufferable Giuliani comes across as modest and self-effacing.
But the latest development is the sudden vaulting into the top tier-ranks of Mike Huckabee. In many ways, he was always a natural to lead the pack because he had, on the surface, few of the negatives associated with the others and all the positives. He was a southerner, a former governor, a Baptist preacher, and has long held the kinds of views that the religious right wants its leaders to have on issues like abortion and gays. He may not have been as hard line as they might have wished on issues like not raising taxes or hating immigrants, or as enthusiastic about supporting the Bush wars and torture that the crazies in his party would like. But these drawbacks were merely matters of degree and one would have thought that given the strong negatives of the other choices that Republican primary voters had, he would have been the one they liked most. So the surprise for me is not his rise in the polls but why it took so long.
But what is really interesting is the reaction to his rise from the power brokers of the Republican Party. They have responded with alarm and brought out the long knives, trying to cut Huckabee down. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum piles on, essentially calling him a moron and even obliquely suggesting Huckabee of being a kindred spirit of Scientologists.
So why all this angst about this southern Bible thumper, who seems to be very similar in background and views to George W. Bush, the president the Washington insiders love, even if he will go down as the worst president in US history and whose current approval ratings are in the sewer?
Kevin Drum at the blog has the best explanation that I have seen so far for this Huckabee hate fest among leading conservatives:
There are a variety of ostensible reasons for this: lack of foreign policy bona fides, too compassionate for their taste, too willing to consider spending money, etc. But I think the real reason is simpler: as with blogosphere conservatives, mainstream conservatives are mostly urban sophisticates with a libertarian bent, not rural evangelicals with a social conservative bent. They’re happy to talk up NASCAR and pickup trucks in public, but in real life they mostly couldn’t care less about either. Ditto for opposing abortion and the odd bit of gay bashing via proxy. But when it comes to Ten Commandments monuments and end times eschatology, they shiver inside just like any mainstream liberal. The only difference is that usually they keep their shivering to themselves because they want to keep everyone in the big tent happy.
But then along comes Huckabee, and guess what? He’s the real deal. Not a guy like George Bush or Ronald Reagan, who talks a soothing game to the snake handlers but then turns around and spends his actual political capital on tax cuts, foreign wars, and deregulating big corporations. Huckabee, it turns out, isn’t just giving lip service to evangelicals, he actually believes all that stuff. Among other things, he believes in creationism (really believes), once proposed that AIDS patients should be quarantined, appears to share the traditional evangelical view that Mormonism is a cult, and says (in public!) that homosexuality is sinful. And that’s without seeing the text of any of his old sermons, which he (probably wisely) refuses to let the press lay eyes on.
John Cole, a conservative who has watched with dismay the Republican Party pandering to the religious extremists, also lists some of the nasty things that are being said about Huckabee and enjoys a moment of schadenfreude:
I simply can not tell you how much I am enjoying this. The GOP has been pandering to these stupid bastards for years, and every time I pointed it out I was called “anti-Christian” or something or other. Those of us who saw what the party was becoming were told to shut up, that it was good politics.
Enjoy your new GOP, folks. And here is something else to think about – are the evangelicals going to support Romney or Giuliani if you do manage to trash Huckabee enough to secure the nomination for them? Will the eye for an eye crowd learn to forgive and forget? Have fun!
Next: Meet the Villagers: The real political divide in America
POST SCRIPT: Torture
One of the most depressing phenomena of recent times is how so many people who should know better are willing to defend the use of torture, using legalistic quibbling to justify barbaric practices that would have been unhesitatingly condemned if the identities of the torturers and the tortured were switched.
Tom Tomorrow as usual says it most concisely.
The absurdity of ‘defending Christmas’ in the US of all places reached a new low when the US House of Representatives actually passed a bill on December 11, 2007 “Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith”. (Thanks to Ross for alerting me to this.)
The text of the bill starts by listing all the reasons why Christianity is so wonderful (“contributed greatly to the development of western civilization”, yadda, yadda, yadda) and then goes on:
Whereas many Christians and non-Christians throughout the United States and the rest of the world, celebrate Christmas as a time to serve others: Now, therefore be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives–
(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;
(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;
(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;
(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;
(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and
(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.”
The vote on the bill was 372 in favor, 9 against, 10 voting ‘present’, and 40 not voting.
Christians around the world can sleep better tonight knowing that the US Congress is working feverishly to respect them as deeply as it is humanly possible.
I do not for a minute think that Bill O’Reilly or the other hypervintilators fear that there is a genuine war on Christmas. It would not surprise me in the least if they themselves were not very religious at all but simply going through the motions. I think the whole issue of claiming that Christianity is under siege is cynically drummed up by urban sophisticates like them because they think that riling up the yahoos and hicks on some emotional hot button issue will keep them in the public eye and makes for good ratings, which is the only thing they really care about.
(Actually Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), the sponsor of the above bill, might really believe all this stuff. He is not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, if you catch my drift.)
But the tragedy is that the people who get riled up don’t realize that this is just a game for O’Reilly and his fellow travelers who laugh all the way to the bank even as they exploit this petty issue. They think that this is real. Witness what happened on a New York subway on December 7.
On Friday, Four Jewish subway riders who wished other people Happy Hanukkah were pelted with anti-Semitic remarks before being beaten, New York police and prosecutors said.
. . .
The four were on a train in Manhattan on Friday night, during the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, when they were approached by a group of 10 people who offered holiday greetings. The victims responded, Happy Hanukkah and were assaulted by the larger group, police said Tuesday.
Another report gives more details of what happened:
The altercation erupted when Adler and his friends said “Happy Chanukah” to a group yelling “Merry Christmas” on the Brooklyn-bound train.
Adler told the New York Post that one of his attackers rolled up his sleeve to display a tattoo of Jesus Christ.
“Happy Chanukah. That’s when the Jews killed Jesus,” the attacker told Adler.
The assaulting group consisted of ten people aged 19 and 20, with a long career fighting for Christ ahead of them. The only redeeming feature of this story is that a Muslim student on the train sprang to the aid of the Jewish students, although he ended up being beaten too.
Yes, fighting to save Christmas is great fun (and profitable) for those who exploit it as long as people realize that it is not to be taken seriously. But of course, O’Reilly, Gibson, and their ilk cannot be blamed for those morons who don’t realize that it is all a big joke can they?
POST SCRIPT: Impeaching Cheney
Congressman Robert Wexler and two other members of the House Judiciary Committee are calling for impeachment hearings on Vice President Cheney. They received over 80,000 signatures on their petition in just four days and are looking for more.
To read about it, go here and to sign the petition go here.
It is this kind of action that is necessary these days to signal support for politicians who are willing to go beyond platitudes so please take the time to check this out and sign if possible.
My, how time flies. What with one thing and another, I realized that it is already past mid-December and my fellow atheists and I have forgotten all about starting our annual war on Christmas. I really do apologize. I have had a lot of things on my mind lately but I’ll get on it right away.
You know what war I mean. All of us for many years have been plotting secretly in our underground cells with just one goal in mind: to destroy Christianity by undermining the very foundation of that religion: the Christmas holiday. The way we do that is by sending greeting cards or wishing people well with religiously neutral phrases like “Happy Holidays” or “Compliments of the Season” or simply wishing for peace on Earth and goodwill to all, without invoking Jesus or Biblical verses. By using such language our goal was to try and create a time of year when the whole world might be united around the secular ideas of peace and goodwill, anchored by a celebration that originated in a pagan celebration of the winter solstice.
We also try to destroy Christianity by encouraging people to not take part in the traditional orgy of spending vast amounts of money and resources on ‘gifts’ that have ceased to become gifts in the sense of genuine and spontaneous gestures of affection or response to needs, and have now become the obligatory filling of almost extortion-like expectations which often leads to disappointment and anger and resentment because the gift wasn’t good enough or not what was expected or because someone else was given something better.
Another part of the atheist plan to destroy Christmas was to discourage people from gluttonous eating and drinking and to simply spend time socializing with friends and family.
The plan was going along well until it was discovered a few years ago. Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson of Fox News, clever people that they are, saw through our plan. They realized that once people start thinking beyond their own religious tribe and in terms of our common humanity, that was the first dangerous step on the slippery road that led inevitably to humanism, agnosticism, and atheism.
Being manly warriors for god, never braver than when they are facing down imaginary enemies, they started a counter-offensive, wreaking vengeance on those stores and shop clerks who do not use the short list of approved language such as “Merry Christmas” and do not festoon every display and image with the nativity scene and Biblical phrases, such shibboleths being necessary parts of proving that they share warrior Bill’s fervor for the Christian god and Jesus.
But is it me or have others also noted that O’Reilly and others seem to have run out of steam on this issue? This year I do not hear the same level of hysteria on their part as in previous years. Are they tired from their strenuous efforts of previous years and handed the baton on to others? Have they declared victory and moved on to other issues that promise better ratings?
Whatever the reason, it looks like the enemies of atheism are weak right now. So this is the time for all of us atheists to increase our efforts in the war on Christmas. Make sure you attend the secret cell meetings to plan our next offensive. You know the time and place. The secret password this week: When the guard at the door says “O’Reilly is a nitwit”, you respond “And so also is Gibson.”
Be there or be square!
POST SCRIPT: And they thought Harry Potter was bad
As if the religious nuts did not have enough to worry about with all the magic and sorcery in the Harry Potter books, now along comes the film The Golden Compass based on the first book of a fantasy trilogy by Philip Pullman, an avowed atheist who views C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series as religious bilge.
Thanks to the flap created by the usual religious hyperventilators, I have now heard of a book, film, and author I had not heard of before but is now definitely on my list of films to see.
In the first post in this series, I looked at the main arguments made by John J. Mearsheimer and Steven M. Walt in their book The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy. In the second post, I described how they defined the lobby and how it works. In this last post, I look at how their book has stimulated a closer examination of the work of the lobby and the policies it advocates.
In the previous post, I described the main thesis of University of Chicago professor of political science John J. Mearsheimer and Harvard University professor of international affairs Stephen M. Walt in their book The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy.
So who or what constitutes the ‘Israel lobby’? Well aware that criticism of the Israel lobby will immediately result in the lobby trying to label them as being anti-Semitic, Mearsheimer and Walt go to some lengths to deflect that charge. They point out that it is wrong to identify the Israel lobby as a Jewish lobby. Not only are non-Jews key players in the lobby, the Israel lobby very often pursues policies that are not even supported by a majority of American Jews. They provide statistics and surveys that suggest that substantial majorities of American Jews disagree with many of the policies advocated by the lobby.
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Most political observers have by now heard of the book The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy by University of Chicago professor of political science John J. Mearsheimer and Harvard University professor of international affairs Stephen M. Walt. It is an expanded and updated version of their much-discussed March 23, 2006 article in the London Review of Books, and the working paper on which that article was based. The two authors gave talks at Case on September 26, 2007 as part of their book tour. The earlier articles and the current book have sparked considerable controversy and in this and the next two posts, I will try to present the main arguments made by the authors.
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In his comment to my earlier posting on Romney and Mormonism, Jared says “[Mormon founder Joseph] Smith wasn’t just a con man (which is basically how he started). He came to really believe the things he made up, and was probably insane.”
This is an interesting point worth exploring. The founders of religions tend to make extraordinary claims such as god talking directly to them, having the power to work miracles, and so on. If we dismiss this as impossible, the remaining options are: Did they genuinely believe the things they said (i.e., they were delusional at best and psychotic at worst)? Or were they outright charlatans, cynically using tricks and smooth talk and their personal charisma to fool the suckers?
Christopher Hitchens in one of the best passages his book God is Not Great (2007, p. 165) discusses this point:
Professor Daniel Dennett and his supporters have attracted a great deal of criticism for their “natural science” explanation of religion. Never mind the supernatural, argues Dennett, we may discard that while accepting that there have always been those for whom “belief in belief” is a good thing in itself. Phenomena can be explained in biological terms. In primitive times, is it not possible that those who believed in the shaman’s cure had a better morale as a result, and thus a slight but significantly higher chance of actually being cured? “Miracles” and similar nonsense to one side, not even modern medicine rejects this thought. And it seems possible, moving to the psychological arena, that people can be better off believing in something than in nothing, however untrue that something may be.
Some of this will always be disputed among anthropologists and other scientists, but what interests me and always has is this: Do the preachers and prophets also believe, or do they too just “believe in belief”? Do they ever think to themselves, this is too easy? And do they then rationalize the trick by saying that either (a) if these wretches weren’t listening to me they’d be in even worse shape; or (b) that if it doesn’t do them any good then it still can’t be doing them much harm? Sir James Frazer, in his famous study of religion and magic The Golden Bough, suggests that the novice witch doctor is better off if he does not share the illusions of the ignorant congregation. For one thing, if he does take the magic literally he is much more likely to make a career-ending mistake. Better by far to be a cynic, and to rehearse the conjury, and to tell himself that everybody is better off in the end. [Mormon founder Joseph] Smith obviously seems like a mere cynic, in that he was never happier than when using his “revelation” to claim supreme authority, or to justify the idea that the flock should make over their property to him, or to sleep with every available woman. There are gurus and cult leaders of that kind born every day. Smith must certainly have thought it was too easy to get innocent wretches like Martin Harris to believe everything he told them, especially when they were thirsty for just a glimpse of that mouthwatering golden trove. But was there a moment when he also believed that he did have a destiny, and was ready to die to prove it? In other words, was he a huckster all the time, or was there a pulse inside him somewhere? The study of religion suggests to me that, while it cannot possibly get along without great fraud and also minor fraud, this remains a fascinating and somewhat open question.
Hitchens also makes the point that at the time of Smith, there “were dozens of part-educated, unscrupulous, ambitious, fanatical men like Smith in the Palmyra, New York, area at that epoch, but only one of them achieved “takeoff””, partly because “Smith had great natural charm and fluency: what Max Weber called the “charismatic” part of leadership.”
I suspect that Smith’s story is fairly typical of that type of person and applies to the story of Jesus, Muhammad, and the Old Testament Jewish prophets. All of them also lived in times that were more credulous of the claims of people possessing magical powers. Remember that the arts of magic and mind-reading have been around for a long time, available to con men to use to impress people eager to believe in the existence of mystical unseen powers that could be harnessed by a chosen few. The founders of the older religions are likely cut from the same cloth as Joseph Smith except that those stories have had a much longer time to get cleaned up by their followers once they realized that the rewards promised to them (like the second coming of Jesus) were not going to occur in their own lifetimes but in some indefinite future. They had to dig in for the long haul and get their followers used to the fact that supernatural events were no longer to be expected as everyday occurrences.
There is the possibility though that at some point these “prophets” may have begun to wonder to themselves, “Can it really be this easy to fool all these people? Surely they must realize that I am a fraud?” From there, their thoughts could easily shift to “Maybe these people were meant to be fooled. Maybe god does exist and is shutting their eyes to the fact that I am using trickery in order to use me to achieve some larger purpose.” Thus, after deluding others, they become (at least partially) self-delusional, believing their own nonsense, thus making themselves even more effective as “prophets” while retaining enough of a sense of reality to avoid making a “career-ending mistake.” Like good magicians, they would restrict their displays of “supernatural” power and “revelations” to carefully controlled situations where they could set things up in advance, sometimes with the aid of accomplices, so that the gullible would be impressed, all the while persuading themselves that they were doing it all for the greater good or for god, not just for themselves.
That is the most charitable gloss that I can put on the founders of religions. The only alternative is that they were totally cynical frauds.
POST SCRIPT: Bart Simpson, prophet
“The little stupid differences [between religions] are nothing next to the big stupid similarities.”
In his speech, Mitt Romney said that faith absolutely does belong in the public sphere saying, inexplicably, that “freedom requires religion”, a statement that makes no sense whatsoever, but was just blatant pandering to religious sentiment.
Given his remarks, a close examination of his own faith is now fair game. People should ask him if any and every faith (including, but not limited to, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny) belongs and if not, what exactly he believes in and why his faith should be on his ‘approved’ list and the others not. It will not, however, strike most religious people that such questions should be asked because those kinds of questions presuppose a sense of rational inquiry about the nature of faith. Religious people tend not to think is those terms because doing so is dangerous to faith itself. As the TV character House said, “Rational arguments don’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people.” I suspect that such questions won’t be asked by mainstream reporters either because they will open up uncomfortable questions about the rationality of the nature of the beliefs of Christians, Jews, and Muslims too.
Last Friday’s posting on Mitt Romney and Mormonism opened up a very interesting discussion in the comments, along with some useful links to more information.
Mike Pirnat provided a link to a funny South Park clip on Mormonism.
It follows pretty much what I described before except in one detail. Christopher Hitchens wrote that during the translation sessions, the scribe Harris was prevented from seeing Smith and his book and magic stones by a blanket strung across the kitchen. The cartoon gives a different version (which I have also heard) that the book and stones were hidden inside a hat and Smith buried his head in the hat in order to see the translations. Which version is true? I don’t know. Maybe both, that he put his head into a hat and also stayed behind a blanket. Who knows, this divergence may form the basis for another doctrinal schism in the Mormon Church. I am not saying that Mormons are more prone to hair-splitting doctrinaire conflicts than other religions. That basis for a split would make as much sense as the doctrinal causes of the schisms that plague all the denominations, sects, and factions within Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
I heard that even the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not immune from such divisive tendencies, with a sect called the Reformed Church of Alfredo splitting from the main body, and that further tensions exist caused by whether Parmesan or Romano should be the holy cheese used by the Pastafarians. And I won’t even get into the Marinaran heresy. I must say that I am disappointed. I had hoped that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was better than the other churches. Why can’t they all get along?
Jared provided a link to a PBS Frontline special on the Mormons. (The documentary is four hours long and split into 26 digestible chapters of about 10 minutes each. It is generally very sympathetic to the Mormons. For some reason, chapter one had only audio on my browser.) Jared adds that “It’s much more accurate than the cartoon you posted, which emphasizes elements in [M]ormon mythology that are more than obscure and don’t really work into the main stream theology as held by most members.”
But isn’t that how religion has worked? They usually start out with an enormous number of extraordinary claims mainly because the followers expect some big end-times event to be imminent. Both Jesus’s and Joseph Smith’s disciples expected the second coming in their own lifetimes. And then as time goes by and nothing happens and scientific advances and rational thought make their beliefs increasingly untenable, religious apologists slowly erase the more embarrassing elements from their history and reconstruct a narrative that is more acceptable to modern times. In the case of the Mormons, some revisions come in the form of “revelations” from god received by the church elders at convenient times. The origins of Christianity and Judaism and Islam were very likely filled with even more bizarre beliefs than the ones they currently have.
Jared adds, “Unfortunately for Romney, he is a very good [M]ormon. This means he is very authoritarian and probably homophobic. And sexist.”
This raises an important point. If faith is so important to Romney and he firmly believes that faith belongs in the public sphere, what exactly is Romney’s status in the Mormon Church and what does that status require him to believe?
Jesus’ General is a hysterically funny satirical website but on occasion the good General writes serious posts (the products, he says, of his ‘inner Frenchman’). It turns out that the General was once a Mormon in good standing whose family were very high up in the hierarchy and so he knows a lot of things that the general public is not aware of which enables him to describe the kinds of beliefs that Romney is likely to have.
In addition to his public statements proclaiming his religiosity, Mitt holds a temple recommend. They are only issued to the faithful. As a high priest in the Melchizedek Priesthood, he holds the highest level of priesthood a Mormon may hold. He’s also served as a bishop and a stake president (leadership positions serving areas roughly equivalent to parishes and diocese). He is unquestionably a faithful Mormon.
Mitt is a member of a very dogmatic sect. Dissent is not allowed. The late N. Eldon Tanner, a councilor to the prophet, once preached “When the Prophet speaks, the debate is over.”
. . .
As a High Priest in the Melchizedek Priesthood, Romney believes he receives revelations from God. He believes God directs him to do the things he does, and he never makes an important decision without asking God for guidance and receiving a revelation first.
. . .
The lesson Mormons, including Mitt, take from [the story of god asking Nephi to cold-bloodedly murder and behead Laban, a powerful official, in order to get his “Brass Plates”] is that the greater good may require the violation of important laws, in this case, theft and murder. It’s a lesson that is stressed in Sunday classes for adults and children as well as the weekday seminary classes Mormon teens are required to attend. It’s an important scripture and doctrine.This is why it is critical to discuss a candidate’s religious beliefs. It gives us the best insight we can get into how someone like Mitt would govern. He’s the type of leader who would believe that his actions are condoned by God and are not subject to Earthly laws like the Constitution.
Sound familiar?
So there we are. Mitt Romney should be asked a lot of questions about his faith, as should anyone who does not believe in the separation of church and state and says that faith belongs in the public sphere and that his or her faith is important to him or her.
POST SCRIPT: Mormons and Pascal’s wager
For those not familiar with it, Pascal’s wager is the desperate Hail Mary attempt by religious people to persuade skeptics that they should believe in god as a kind of insurance policy. It goes like this: If you believe in god and it turns out that there is no god, then you are no worse off than having been as an atheist. But if you do not believe in god, and there is a god, then you are doomed to everlasting hell. So isn’t it better to play safe and believe?
This argument is so ridiculous that I am sure the readers of this blog don’t need me to spell out all the reasons why. But here is a South Park clip that illustrates just one counterargument..