" [Atheist] Lobdell says that he came to religion in 1989, when "I was 28 and my first son was less than a year old. I had managed to nearly ruin my marriage (the second one) and didn’t think I’d do much better as a father. I was profoundly lost." A friend suggested that he needed God in his life, and recommended that he attend one of those "mega-churches" that are devoid of either intelligence or barakah, but which rake in millions by fleecing their flocks.
"Now, if this were the only kind of religion that existed, I can assure you that I would be an atheist, probably a militant one. Again, the intellect can only assent to what it believes to be true, and for mine to assent to Paul and Jan Crouch, or Bennie Hinn, or Joel Osteen, or Tammie Faye Baker, I would have to be brain damaged (and I don't intend to give the brain-damaged a bad name). I don't even consider these people religious per se, any more than I consider most of what calls itself art to have any right to the name. Yes, some religiosity inevitably gets tossed into the mix, and I am quite sure that many decent people get involved in this kind of thing, but their decency -- or God's mercy -- protects them from becoming completely lost and deceived. I place these people in same category as Deepak Chopra and his ilk. Just two sides of the same coin mint. ..."
“There are conversations right now to arrange a meeting to talk with folks about how this policy can be nuanced,” said Joel C. Hunter, a Florida megachurch pastor who has grown personally close to Obama and advised his White House on religious issues. “This is so fixable, and we just want to get into the conversation.” ....
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Noooo kidding.
"The left confuses their contortions with "nuance," but nuance is simply the left left brain's feeble attempt to keep reality at bay, which inevitably seeps in through the walls, ceilings, and floorboards."
Here:
"Unintelligent people are usually just plain wrong, so we don't have to worry much about them. On the other hand, in order to attain truly deep stupidity, one must generally be of above average intelligence. Therefore, in a certain very real sense, intelligence does not vary inversely with stupidity, but directly with it. Not for nothing has it been said that so much philosophy is simply "error on a grandiose scale."
A prime example of deep stupidity and grandiose error is Marxism and all of its many polluted streams, branches, creeks and crocks. That variants of this falsehood still proliferate on the left today means that, as always, intelligence alone is no unknowculation against evil, darkness, and error. Hardly.
For conservative "classical" liberals, we are generally faced with an odious choice between the stupid party and the evil party.
We generally align ourselves with the former, since the former is at least susceptible to our influence, whereas the latter is not.
[.............]
"...the fundamental truths are always accessible, but they could not be imposed on those who refuse to take them into consideration."
Among other responses, truth engenders a dynamic sense of veneration -- a sense of the sacred. And this is why you will have noticed that the left attempts to surround so many of its moldy lies with the penumbra of sanctity. But the sanctity is entirely bogus -- it readily slides into the sanctimony that is intrinsic to the left. In a perverse way, this sanctimoniousness answers the human need for the sacred, but in an alternatively crudely sentimental or authoritarian manner enforced by the many varieties political correctness. (You will notice that the left's confusion of sentimentality with moral/religious depth is just as evident as their totalitarian mind control; they are not opposites but complementary -- like Hitler's sentimental love of dogs.)
This is why the left doesn't really have ideas but icons -- including "iconic ideas." It is an insidious and sinister process, because there is great psychological pressure on all us of to bow down before these false gods, as if they were actually sacred (for example, the many fawning MSM tributes to "the Goreacle"). And there is absolutely no symmetry in this.
For example, if a conservative steps in one of the left's many sacred cowpies, there is a good chance that his career will be ruined. But if a leftist offends what is actually sacred, he will be praised as someone who "speaks truth to power."
It is inconceivable that the media would trot out some moral equivalent of Christopher Hitchens to blast Martin Luther King on the occasion of his death because of the latter's embrace of dangerous socialist ideas. For one thing, few conservatives are so tasteless, not to mention enraged.
The point is that nearly every one of the leftists's core beliefs is not a proper idea but an icon, whether it is manmade global warming, being "for the little guy," affirmative action, abortion, homosexual behavior, "peace," "progress," multiculturalism, diversity -- in fact, "progressive" is the quintessence of a meaningless icon, since it bears no relationship to progress and promotes economic and social policies that ensure not just a lack of progress, but regression. For example, the "peace movement" can only bring about more war, just as affirmative action can only bring about harm to blacks.
And this is why it is so easy to be a conservative, because you no longer have to contort yourself with so many lies in order to be thoroughly consistent, both internally and externally. The left confuses their contortions with "nuance," but nuance is simply the left left brain's feeble attempt to keep reality at bay, which inevitably seeps in through the walls, ceilings, and floorboards. ........."
Deep Stupidity and the Medicine for a Nightmare ~ Robert W. Godwin, Ph.D (forensic clinical psychologist)