Posted on 06/19/2006 5:46:52 PM PDT by jexus
In thinking about Coulters' new book, I am reminded of the grand review by Whittaker Chambers of "Atlas Shrugged" by the conservative atheist Ayn Rand. He begins:
"Since a great many of us dislike much that Miss Rand dislikes, quite as heartily as she does, many incline to take her at her word. It is the more persuasive, in some quarters, because the author deals wholly in the blackest blacks and the whitest whites. In this fiction everything, everybody, is either all good or all bad, without any of those intermediate shades which, in life, complicate reality and perplex the eye that seeks to probe it truly."
Now, when I comes the "The Jersey Girls", I give Ann a great hurrah, I dislike them as heartily as she does and her comments are well overdue and seem to have made the liberals go wild in fits and spasms because of the truth that she reveals.
What is distressing to me is her sad, moronic description of Darwinism, a simple rehash of creationist claims which are an embarrassment to thinking people. Many works exist that deal with the issue, a good starting point may be the decision of the Republican Judge Jones in the Kitzmiller case. Just beware of getting your science from a columnist.
That leads here to asert that religion is essential to the conservative cause, or perhaps that anti-religion is essential to the liberal one. Check out Michael Crichton in his essay "Environmentalism as Religion" and many others.
I am a Republican and conservative because,-- I oppose Pseudoscience, Epistemic relativism and those disciplines or schools of thought whose truth claims are prompted by the political, ideological and moral commitments of their adherents.
I believe in the great ideas of the Enlightenment, which our founders encased in our constitution. That includes both a hatred of tyranny from an aristocracy and was also deeply suspicious of the power of the churches.
I am for liberty under law, for private property and pluralism. I think these ideas are worth defending by not only intellectual expression but also with military might if need be.
Call me Godless Ann, but call me a conservative.
Who are you?
And why should I care?
By the way, both questions are rhetorical.
What is the difference between you and a libertarian?
Libertarian's can't win a national election.
Call you a libertarian
Me and you are in the same situation. You are not alone here.
Ann is right.
Conservatism in the political sense has nothing to do with a belief in God or certainly in special creation. They often go hand in hand, but they're not particularly related.
Let's not forget who we're fighting in the War on Terror. They feel compelled to kill us in the name of their god.
"Conservative Atheist"... ya right.
How about LIBER-freakin-TARIAN.
Come on, if you have to start off with a blatant falsehood, the rest is a waste of eye-work.
You said:
"Let's not forget who we're fighting in the War on Terror. They feel compelled to kill us in the name of their god,"
Yes that is the point. If they are liberals I am at a loss to explain their ideas on the equal rights for women amendment among other things.
Republicans are big tent, they welcome atheists.
Amen.
Me three!
In his Farewell Address of September 1796, Washington called religion, as the source of morality, "a necessary spring of popular government," while Adams claimed that statesmen "may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand."
from:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06.html
As for the beloved "enlightenment" of secularists everywhere --I suggest you study the horrors that unfolded from that age.
I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book, which I'm reading from back to front in my weird way. I thought Coulter's synthesis of "Darwiniac" faith was pretty good. What she's saying is that Darwin didn't prove anything any better than the explanation we have for how things are from the Bible. I, too, have a lot of trouble with the idea that a system as complex as a mammal (at any stage of evolution) happened by accident. The more you think about it, the more unlikely it seems. Like the mathemeticians who say it is theoretically possible (and they even say they have theorms to prove it) to flip a coin heads a million times in a row or mutliples thereof. I'd just like to be there for the first 10,000 throws to say I saw it.
Bah!
Ayn Rand was passionate about her Christophobia, etc.
Ann Coulter is funny and outrageous for entertainment purposes.
Surely you can see the difference between irony and philosopy?
I believe in the great ideas of the Enlightenment, which our founders encased in our constitution. That includes both a hatred of tyranny from an aristocracy and was also deeply suspicious of the power of the churches.
One of the great ideas of the Enlightenment was Theism. A glib but not entirely meaningless phrase is "the God of the Philosophers". Godlessness, aka "atheism" was thought of as, to get all technical, "off the wall", and my unscholarly impression is that Thomas Paine was considered, well, not parlour company, but acceptable because he was on the right side. (I am very open to correction on this, and am not looking so much for a fight as for information and, ah, "sharing" if you'll pardon the expression.)
I do wonder how one can embrace the ideas of the enlightenment without embracing at least a Deist kind of theism. You are obviously mo' better edumicated than I in philospohy and so forth, but I do wonder how one can eschew relativism without being SOME kind of Theist.
That may be too big, clunky, and messy for Free Republic.
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