Do you know what drives me crazy? I am a Christian. I believe in one God, the father, the almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, and of all things seen and unseen. I believe in one lord and savior, Jesus Christ, . . .
And yet I have far more in common with Rachel Maddow than I do with the yahoos she's making fun of for their "prayercast" efforts to defeat healthcare reform. Health care reform that will save tens of thousands of lives and provide security against bankruptcy - medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States -is opposed by Christian leaders.
How did we get to this point?
Joe
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The Years Of Writing Dangerously
9 years ago
5 comments:
I think Sens. Brownback and DeMint and Rep. Bachman would doubt if you really are still a Christian given you're inability to recognize that American exceptionalism and economic freedom are the main underpinnings of Bible-believing Christianity (God would have destroyed America already if not for the few just men, like the yahoos praying for the Senate to reject Health Care Reform). Secular intellectuals like Maddow and liberal Christians like you (part of the lukewarm Church that Christ will spit out) are akin because you are of this world AND in it. Repent.
Maybe you'd appreciate this profile by David D. Kirkpatrick from the NY Times Magazine on the leading Religious Right thinker Robert P. George from Princeton:
The Conservative-Christian Big Thinker
You may appreciate how George is trying to change the line of argument from strictly/largely faith-based assumptions to what he argues are plain rational reasons for treating gay and lesbian relationships differently.
Bilbo,
I do like appreciate the effort to move the argument away from faith based premises. However, I find most of George's moral arguments terribly unconvincing.
For example, take the argument described in the article against embryonic research. The Author explains George's thinking:
"But the argument for banning abortion and embryo-destructive research is “straightforward,” George told me several times. In his most recent book, “Embryo,” written with Christopher Tollefsen, George tells the story of Noah Benton Markham, rescued from Hurricane Katrina by a team of policemen in boats. Noah was an embryo frozen in liquid nitrogen on a hospital shelf. Later implanted in the womb of his biological mother, he will turn 3 next month. Science shows that you remain the same human with the same DNA as a teenager, a toddler and an embryo, George argues. The only moral debate, he says, is whether you deserve legal protection at each stage of your life."
Where to start?
There now exists a person named Noah Benton Markham. He is 3 years old. George argued that "Noah was an embryo frozen in liquid nitrogen on a hospital shelf."
Was "Noah" truly in the freezer all that time? When Noah recounts his life story, is it sensible for him to talk about the time he spent in the freezer?
Personally, it seems rather obvious to me that Noah was never in the freezer. The entity that later developed into Noah was in the freezer, but that entity was not Noah at the time. Noah simply was not in the freezer - no one was.
This is the central question on the abortion issue - the status of fetal life. We all agree that if and/or when a "someone" exists, ending that someone's life without justification is immoral. What we disagree about is when a "someone" exists.
Notice how George argues - he begs the key question, i.e. he assumes what he needs to prove. He assumes that the embryo was a "someone." He does this by citing to a now existing person and tracing him back to his origins as a frozen embryo. This argument convinces many people, but it simply sidesteps the main opposition premise - that an embryo is not (yet) a someone and thus cannot be a "victim."
True, the opposition's premise might be wrong - but if George thinks it is wrong he should explain why, not simply assume that he's right. My argument in favor of the opposition premise is that mental life is a necessary condition for being a someone, and there is no reason whatsoever for us to believe that embryos have a mental life, ergo . . .
Now, I'm just a coutry bumpkin philosopher, not a fancy Harvard trained one. But Goerge's argument seems pretty lame for a scholar of his reknown.
I suspect that George is a fine legal scholar - Christians tend to reason like lawyers. But what I've just shown you is the typical quality of George's moral thinking - and its not very good. His arguments on gay marriage are equally faulty - but I lack the time to go through them here.
He's a great example of a scholar who makes social conservatives feel good about their convictions. That's why they like him.
Joe. H
Bilbo,
Just because I don't have the time doesn't mean no one has the time. Here's an example of the weakness of George's argument. Notice the quality of the argument.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-frank/gay-rights-and-the-natura_b_399322.html
By the way everyone, Bilbo was being funny when he urged me to repent. He's just as rational and enlightened as I am.
Joe H.
Actually, the fact that George can confidently and without hesitation assert that "Noah was in the freezer" illustrates just how much ideological Kool-Aid he, the Catholic Bishops, and the Dobson crowd have drank.
What esle, besides an intense desire to preserve an ideological presupposition, could lead someone like George to confidently assert as fact, an implication which appears to be the final premise in a reductio ad absurdum refutation of that very presupposition?
That reductio would run like this: (1) the premise that embryo's are "someones" who can be victimized implies that when an embryo is in the freezer, someone is in the freezer; (2) of course, (1) is absurd; therefore (3)the premise must be wrong.
In one sense, I admire people who bite the bullet and accept the implications of their controversial premises. But to embrace them in this manner seems to border on ideological insanity.
Am I missing something here? I'm asking that sincerely?
Joe H.
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