Sadly, most protestant chruches reinforce this view among their congregants. How many times have we all heard, in church, "The devil votes against you, God votes for you, then you cast the deciding vote."?
First, if you believe people are born good, you will attribute evil to forces outside the individual.
Not necessarily, and I certainly don't see how this follows. Good people take their eyues off the ball all the time and get seduced by the pursuit of worldly effects, whereas the pursuit of the Kingdom, which reflects in our experience as Truth, Love, and cause and effect, is the real ballgame.
Some people get so attracted to power, money, or some other worldly good that it replaces God, violting the First Commandment. This is a product not of their nature, not of outside forces, but of their choices. The good news is that at every moment, you get to choose atgain and make a change if needed. Unfortunately, power and money can be addictive for some people, just as alcohol is.
Washington Sen. Patty Murray, former President Jimmy Carter and millions of other Westerners believe that the cause of Islamic terror is poverty. They really believe that people who strap bombs to their bodies to blow up families in pizzerias in Israel, plant bombs at a nightclub in Bali, slit stewardesses' throats and ram airplanes filled with innocent Americans into office buildings do so because they lack sufficient incomes.
Do they really believe this, or is it simply conveient for them to try to make others believe it?
no amount of money will dissuade those who believe that God wants them to rule the world and murder all those they deem infidels.
True. But I'm not sure that bin Laden really believes this either. He's just a hater who has taken religion as a cloak for his hatred, just as liberals try to dress up their hate as "compassion."
Second, if you believe people are born good, you will not stress character development when you raise children.
Again, not necessarily true. The good in the child still has to be developed and nurtured to keep the child strong, which is the best way to keep the child from being distracted by worldly good instead of the Higher Good.
But you will not teach them that the primary struggle they have to wage to make a better world is against their own nature.
No, it's the ongoing effort to refeal the truth of their nature in the face of a world that too often encourages all of us to take the easy choice.
Third, if you believe that people are basically good, God and religion are morally unnecessary, even harmful.
Now this is a downright silly statement. To believe that the nature of man is good is to believe that it reflects the goodness of God, because God is Omnipresent and thus is within us all. God is all in all. God is all there is. There is no spot where God is not. Thus, we are expressions of God.
Why would basically good people need a God or religion to provide moral standards?
A good question if you are a believer in duality and separation. I think it can well be argued that that God is too small. Does a God who would condemn 80% of His creation to eternal damnation make any sense?
Therefore, the crowd that believes in innate human goodness tends to either be secular or to reduce God and religion to social workers, providers of compassion rather than of moral standards and moral judgments.
Tends to be, but it's not logically required, yet that is what Prager argues above.
If the goodness of man comes from being part of God (as a drop of water is to the ocean), then one of the ways to put the Kingdom of God first is through individual choice, which implies individual responsibility.
Fourth, if you believe people are basically good, you, of course, believe that you are good -- and therefore those who disagree with you must be bad, not merely wrong.
Huh? If you believe that people are intrinsically good, then you must believe that those who disagree with you are bad? Doesn't anyone see the logical contradiction there? I thought Prager was smarter than that.
Now, some people on the left especially are so seduced by the false god of power over others that they are willing to do harm to others to maintain their own power. I would say that is true of most of the liberal leadership. They have no intention of helping; that would put them out of work. But I don't think it's true of most liberals (the "regular people" Sen. Edwards pays lip service to.) I think they simply work on feeling instead of giving issues much thought and the liberal leaders are able to take advantage of that emotive way of looking at things. That is why they have dumbed down education; to encourage emoting instead of thinking.
You also believe that the more power that you and those you agree with have, the better the society will be. That is why such people are so committed to powerful government and to powerful judges.
Again, it's amazing how Prager seems to think he knows what other people think. This does not necessarily follow logically. Good people often have disagreements about things. We need to have an agency with power to resolve these disputes. But because people have free will and often make inappropriate choices, it is a very bad idea to give yourself and/or your friends any power you wouldn't want others to have. Individual responsibility is the key here, and powerful government undermines individual responsibility.
If the West does not soon reject Rousseau and humanism and begin to recognize evil, judge it and confront it, it will find itself incapable of fighting savages who are not noble.
"In the modern world, the task of the humanist is to remind man of his spiritual reality." -- Irving Babbitt (one of Russell Kirk's mentors, BTW.)
As is the case throughout this essay, this does not follow logically from the premises. It is simply asserted. Why couldn't people believe in the basic goodness of all men and still fight those who misuse their free will to cause havoc and harm others? Isn't that what good people should do?
A disppointing lapse from Prager's usual clarity.