[RitchieAprile]

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

[CapitalistCrusader]

The fallacy in this piece is that morality requires religion.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Both of you. [drumroll] [cymbal]

[Dilbert San Diego]

Some food for thought from Dennis Prager.

I guess what he’s saying is, will we still have any semblance of conservative values/family values in our culture, if we abandon relgion?

Will conservative policies such as certain tax cuts, downsizing government, empowering parents with school choice, among others, succeed, if the people involved do not live their lives within a faith tradition?

I don’t have answers, but this article is food for thought.

[DungeonMaster]

Prov 9:10
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

[dfwgator]

I’m not the most religious person by any stretch of the imagination. But I do know the consequences of abandoning our Judeo-Christian heritage. Something will move in to fill the void, and it won’t be the Secular Humanists.

[Pelham]

Good ol’ 60’s liberal Dennis Prager.

His idea of “leading conservative writers, columnists and thinkers” is the likes of George Will, Charles Krauthammer and publications like National Review, City Journal, Commentary Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.

Which is not a surprise, because neoconservatives are liberals at heart, and Mondale’s 1984 speechwriter Charles Krauthammer is a kindred spirit.

[snarkpup]

As Eric Hoffer points out, people who are frustrated are prone to joining mass movements. He also points out that those who are prone to joining mass movements tend to join only one at a time. (I call this the Hoffer Exclusion Principle.) The two largest mass movements in America are The Left and Organized Christianity. Thus, those in America who are prone to joining mass movements will tend to be involved with one of these, but not both. Prager seems to understand this Exclusion Principle, but not the emboldened part.

As a corollary, one way to "cure" someone from being involved in a particular mass movement is to substitute another one, which is what Prager is suggesting as a cure for Leftism. But Hoffer also points out there is danger in simply substituting one mass movement for another. It's like fighting a fire by throwing on a different kind of gasoline.

There is another way: Eliminate the feelings of frustration that drive people to mass movements. Philosophers, economists and others have been trying to solve this puzzle for millenia. There are two kinds of solutions: 1) Empowering individuals by establishing the right conditions (e.g, liberty and capitalism) and 2) helping people improve their own minds so that their response to their conditions does not create unwarranted frustration (e.g., philosphy and unorganized religion).

The conservative pundits that Prager is curiously criticizing are persuing this other way, which could be called Enlightenment—in both the classical European and Eastern senses.

[doldrumsforgop]

that is an oxymoron, as one cannot be conservative and not be socially conservative.

like calling a white dog black, it just don’t work.

[wardaddy]

George Will is not a God believer

Does Praeger know this?

Praeger was raised religious but does he practice Judaism

He’s virulently anti Trump which is why he wrote this

Funny

We were Godly till Trump came along

Coulda fooled me

And both Kraut and Will....Jew and Christian born are not practicing today

What a thin screed

[wardaddy]

Yes

I know

I should have read further

Slap me

[vpintheak]

Trumpeters, take note.

[x]

The vast majority of leading conservative writers, just like their liberal colleagues, have a secular outlook on life. With few exceptions, the conservative political and intellectual worlds are oblivious to the consequences of secularism. They are unaware of the disaster that godlessness in the West has led to.

Is that really true, though? Some prominent conservative talking heads are converts to Catholicism (or Eastern Orthodoxy). Some of them are mainstream Protestants or Jews. And Evangelicals get published in conservative periodicals.

Even Krauthammer, who doesn't believe in God, isn't "oblivious" about the problems of secularism. He's quoted as saying that he didn't believe in God, but he feared him. There is a "secular right" group out there, but I don't think it's accurate to say there's no concern about increasing secularism in conservative publications.

[GenXteacher]

Atheists are the children of Marx and the enemies of America. Our whole system of government is predicated on the idea that natural rights are granted by God, and presumes a culture of broadly Judeo-Christian ethics. Any attempt to substitute something else will cause our system of government to fail.