damn, they're dropping like fly's... and they aren't n00bs either
Posted on 02/26/2014 3:05:25 PM PST by Notary Sojac
Yesterday, in response to one of the many brouhahas that CPAC seems always to invite, Brent Bozell issued the following statement:
The invitation extended by the ACU, Al Cardenas and CPAC to American Atheists to have a booth is more than an attack on conservative principles. It is an attack on God Himself. American Atheists is an organization devoted to the hatred of God. How on earth could CPAC, or the ACU and its board of directors, and Al Cardenas condone such an atrocity?
The particular merits of the American Atheists group to one side, this is a rather astounding thing for Bozell to have said. In just 63 words, he confuses disbelief in God for “hatred” for God — a mistake that not only begs the question but is inherently absurd (one cannot very well hate what one does not believe is there); he condemns an entire conference on the basis of one participant — not a good look for a struggling movement, I’m afraid; and, most alarmingly perhaps, he insinuates that one cannot simultaneously be a conservative and an atheist. I reject this idea — and with force.
If atheism and conservatism are incompatible, then I am not a conservative. And nor, I am given to understand, are George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Anthony Daniels, Walter Olson, Heather Mac Donald, James Taranto, Allahpundit, or S. E. Cupp. There is no getting around this — no splitting the difference: I don’t believe there is a God. It’s not that I’m “not sure” or that I haven’t ever bothered to think about it; it’s that I actively think there isn’t a God — much as I think there are no fairies or unicorns or elves. The degree to which I’m confident in this view works on a scale, certainly: I’m much surer, for example, that the claims of particular religions are untrue and that there is no power intervening in the affairs of man than I am that there was no prime mover of any sort. But, when it comes down to it, I don’t believe in any of those propositions. Am I to be excommunicated from the Right?
One of the problems we have when thinking about atheism in the modern era is that the word has been hijacked and turned into a political position when it is no such thing. The Oxford English Dictionary defines an “atheist” as someone who exhibits “disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god.” That’s me right there — and that really is the extent of it. No, I don’t dislike anyone who does believe that there is a God; no, with a few obvious exceptions, I am not angry at the religious; and no, I do not believe the devout to be in any way worse or less intelligent than myself. Insofar as the question inspires irritation in me at all it is largely reserved for the sneering, smarmy, and incomprehensibly self-satisfied New Atheist movement, which has turned the worthwhile writings of some extremely smart people into an organized means by which a cabal of semi-educated twentysomethings might berate the vast majority of the human population and then congratulate one another as to how clever they are. (For some startling examples of this, see Reddit.)
Which is to say that, philosophically speaking, I couldn’t really care less (my friend Andrew Kirell suggests this makes me an “Apatheist”) and practically speaking I am actually pretty warm toward religion — at least as it is practiced in America. True or false, American religion plays a vital and welcome role in civil society, has provided a number of indispensable insights into the human condition, acts as a remarkably effective and necessary check on the ambitions of government and central social-planners, is worthy of respect and measured inquiry on the Burkean grounds that it has endured for this long and been adopted by so many, and has been instrumental in making the United States what it is today. “To regret religion,” my fellow Brit, conservative, and atheist, Anthony Daniels, writes correctly, “is to regret our civilization and its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy.” I do not regret our civilization, its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy. And I do not regret religion either.
Constitutionally and legally, America is a secular state, and the principle that the government should be strictly prohibited from making distinctions between myself (an atheist) and my fiancée (a Catholic) is one for which I would fight to the death. (David Barton and his brazen historical revisionism can go hang: This is a republic, dammit.) But nations are not made by laws alone. Suppose we were to run two simulations. In one, America develops full of mostly Protestant Christians; in the other, it develops full of atheists or Communists or devotees of Spinoza. Are we honestly to believe that the country would have come out the same in each case? Of course not. For all the mistakes that are made in religion’s name, I am familiar enough with the various attempts to run societies on allegedly “modern” grounds to worry that the latter options would have been much less pretty indeed.
None of this, however, excuses the manner in which conservatives often treat atheists such as myself. George H. W. Bush, who was more usually reticent on such topics, is reported to have said that he didn’t “know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic.” “This,” Bush allegedly told Robert I. Sherman, “is one nation under God.” Whether Bush ever uttered these words or not, this sentiment has been expressed by others elsewhere. It is a significant mistake. What “this nation” is, in fact, is one nation under the Constitution — a document that precedes the “under God” reference in the Gettysburg Address by more than seven decades and the inclusion of the phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance by 165 years. (“In God We Trust,” too, was a modern addition, replacing “E Pluribus Unum” as the national motto in 1956 after 174 years.)
Indeed, given the troubled waters into which American religious liberty has of late been pushed, it strikes me that conservatives ought to be courting atheists — not shunning them. I will happily take to the barricades for religious conscience rights, not least because my own security as a heretic is bound up with that of those who differ from me, and because a truly free country seeks to leave alone as many people as possible — however eccentric I might find their views or they might find mine. In my experience at least, it is Progressivism and not conservatism that is eternally hostile to variation and to individual belief, and, while we are constantly told that the opposite is the case, it is those who pride themselves on being secular who seem more likely and more keen to abridge my liberties than those who pride themselves on being religious. That I do not share the convictions of the religious by no means implies that I wish for the state to reach into their lives. Nevertheless, religious conservatives will find themselves without many friends if they allow figures such as Mr. Bozell to shoo away the few atheists who are sympathetic to their broader cause.
As it happens, not only do I reject the claim that the two positions are antagonistic, but I’d venture that much of what informs my atheism informs my conservatism also. I am possessed of a latent skepticism of pretty much everything, a hostility toward the notion that one should believe things because they are a nice idea, a fear of holistic philosophies, a dislike of authority and of dogma, a strong belief in the Enlightenment as interpreted and experienced by the British and not the French, and a rather tenacious refusal to join groups. Occasionally, I’m asked why I “believe there is no God,” which is a reasonable question in a vacuum but which nonetheless rather seems to invert the traditional order of things. After all, that’s not typically how we make our inquiries on the right, is it? Instead, we ask what evidence there is that something is true. Think, perhaps, of how we approach new gun-control measures and inevitably bristle at the question, “Why don’t you want to do this?”
A great deal of the friction between atheists and conservatives seems to derive from a reasonable question. “If you don’t consider that human beings are entitled to ‘God given’ liberties,” I am often asked, “don’t you believe that the unalienable rights that you spend your days defending are merely the product of ancient legal accidents or of the one-time whims of transient majorities?” Well, no, not really. As far as I can see, the American settlement can thrive perfectly well within my worldview. God or no God, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence are all built upon centuries of English law, human experience, and British and European philosophy, and the natural law case for them stands nicely on its own. Thomas Jefferson, who penned the Declaration, was not a religious man in any broad sense but a Deist, and his use of the term “Nature’s God” in laying out the framework for the new country was no accident. Jefferson was by no means an “atheist” — at least not in any modern sense: He believed in the moral teachings of Jesus; his work owed a great debt to the culture of toleration that English Protestantism had fostered; and, like almost all 18th-century thinkers, he believed in a prime mover. Nevertheless, he ultimately rejected the truth claims of revealed religion (and the Divine Right of Kings that he believed such a position inevitably yielded) and he relied instead on a “Creator” who looked like the God of Deism and not of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
As David J. Voelker has convincingly argued, Jefferson
rejected revealed religion because revealed religion suggests a violation of the laws of nature. For revelation or any miracle to occur, the laws of nature would necessarily be broken. Jefferson did not accept this violation of natural laws. He attributed to God only such qualities as reason suggested.
“Of the nature of this being,” Jefferson wrote to John Adams in 1817, “we know nothing.” Neither do I. Indeed, I do not believe that there is a “being” at all. And yet one can reasonably easily take Jefferson’s example and, without having to have an answer as to what created the world, merely rely upon the same sources as he did — upon Locke and Newton and Cicero and Bacon and, ultimately, upon one’s own human reason. From this, one can argue that the properties of the universe suggest self-ownership, that this self-ownership yields certain rights that should be held to be unalienable, and that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. After all, that’s what we’re all fighting for. Right?
Undoubtedly there are many atheists who believe in Liberty and Unalienable Rights. There are clearly some on this very forum.
I don't see any need for knee-jerk antagonism of such People...
damn, they're dropping like fly's... and they aren't n00bs either
As the GOP flounders and the TEA Party brings more on board, I expect to see a lot more long time ‘conservatives’ come out of their respective closets and scream bloody murder.
They felt entitled to twist the GOP into the Democrat Party and they ‘feel’ entitled to do it here and every right wing site, other group and church as well.
No one wants to call their online buddies out on their bullXhit. Which is partly how we lost so much ground to the libs. But one need only see whats going on to see the truth.
not that far from existentialism, the message of existentialism, unlike that of many more obscure and academic philosophical movements, is about as simple as can be. It is that every one of us, as an individual, is responsible—responsible for what we do, responsible for who we are, responsible for the way we face and deal with the world, responsible, ultimately, for the way the world is. It is, in a very short phrase, the philosophy of “no excuses!” Life may be difficult; circumstances may be impossible. There may be obstacles, not the least of which is our own personalities, characters, emotions and limited means or intelligence. But, nevertheless, we are responsible. We cannot shift the burden onto God, or nature, or the ways of the world. it is up to us to decide what we are to do with what nature gave us—whether to go along or fight back, to modify or transcend nature.
Yup. Pretty close. The only difference I see, if you can even interpret it as a difference is that a conservative acknowledges God even as he takes responsibility for his actions...IE does not ‘blame God’ for whatever.
100%
Yes, even the still pictures I found of dragons only had one or two out of dozens that showed them breathing fire.
Don’t spend too much time on it, my friend. I have “enough” for now, anyway.
His reasoning itself presupposes the existence of abstract, universal and invariant things his atheism cannot account for or justify.
It's not that he is unable to reason or moralize. He does that plenty in the article, it's just that his atheism precludes him from being able to give a coherent philosophical explanation of that fact.
Cordially,
A Fire Gecko From Fallout: New Vegas?
Oh sure....sacrifice Boone just for a picture with a pyrogekko...HEARTLESS!!!
You work for the Enclave don’t you....
;)
“And British North America was only minority Presbyterian.”
You need to read David Hackett Fischer’s ‘Albion’s Seed’ and get an education. The Scotch Irish were Presbyterians and were a very large portion of the original American populace.
Migration
From 1710 to 1775, over 200,000 people emigrated from Ulster to the original thirteen American colonies. The largest numbers went to Pennsylvania. From that base some went south into Virginia, the Carolinas and across the South, with a large concentration in the Appalachian region; others headed west to western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and the Midwest.[22]
Transatlantic flows were halted by the American Revolution, but resumed after 1783, with total of 100,000 arriving in America between 1783 and 1812. By that point few were young servants and more were mature craftsmen and they settled in industrial centers, including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York, where many became skilled workers, foremen and entrepreneurs as the Industrial Revolution took off in the U.S.[citation needed] Another half million came to America 1815 to 1845; another 900,000 came in 1851-99.[citation needed] From 1900 to 1930 the average was about 5,000 to 10,000 a year.[citation needed] Relatively few came after 1930.[citation needed] At every stage a majority were Presbyterians,[original research?][dubious – discuss] and that religion decisively shaped Scotch-Irish culture.[23]
According to the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, there were 400,000 U.S. residents of Irish birth or ancestry in 1790 and half of this group was descended from Ulster, and half from the other three provinces of Ireland.[24]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_American
“In fact the bulk of the economic bases of the European ascendancy post 1600 were not Calvinist.
Check your industrial history.”
‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ is a book written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the first time by Talcott Parsons in 1930.[1] It is considered a founding text in economic sociology and sociology in general.
In the book, Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism. This idea is also known as the “Protestant Ethic thesis.”[2]
In 1998 the International Sociological Association listed this work as the fourth most important sociological book of the 20th century.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism
They were not a majority in British North America even in 1790.
Even your sources say this.
Native English, including Catholics as well as COE, Catholic and COE Irish, Germans, etc. Were the other elements in the white population,
A. Weber was wrong. He was influential but is no longer considered accurate, or at least overstated his case. Note that during the times of the peak influence, if any, of the Protestant ethic, the most highly developed parts of Europe were yes, the Netherlands, but the other was Northern Italy. No surprise why the great powers spent so much effort fighting to control both of them. And etc. On the counterfactuals. The English “ironmasters” who drove the literal nuts and bolts of the industrial revolution were COE for the most part, not Calvinists or Presbyterians. The richest most advanced parts of Germany from the reformation to this day, and the drivers of the German parts of the industrial revolution are Catholic.
B. And, most critically re Calvinists, the vast majority of the European Protestants whose work ethic he praises were not Calvinist but Lutherans, who have always dominated in Europe.
...With this background we shall not be surprised to find that the Presbyterians took a very prominent part in the American Revolution. Our own historian Bancroft says: "The Revolution of 1776, so far as it was affected by religion, was a Presbyterian measure. It was the natural outgrowth of the principles which the Presbyterianism of the Old World planted in her sons, the English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvinists, and the Presbyterians of Ulster." So intense, universal, and aggressive were the Presbyterians in their zeal for liberty that the war was spoken of in England as "The Presbyterian Rebellion." An ardent colonial supporter of King George III wrote home: "I fix all the blame for these extraordinary proceedings upon the Presbyterians. They have been the chief and principal instruments in all these flaming measures. They always do and ever will act against government from that restless and turbulent anti-monarchial spirit which has always distinguished them everywhere."2 When the news of "these extraordinary proceedings" reached England, Prime Minister Horace Walpole said in Parliament, "Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson" (John Witherspoon, president of Princeton, signer of Declaration of Independence).[snip]
J. R. Sizoo tells us: "When Cornwallis was driven back to ultimate retreat and surrender at Yorktown, all of the colonels of the Colonial Army but one were Presbyterian elders. More than one-half of all the soldiers and officers of the American Army during the Revolution were Presbyterians."3
[snip]
We shall now pass on to consider the influence which the Presbyterian Church as a Church exerted in the formation of the Republic. "The Presbyterian Church," said Dr. W. H. Roberts in an address before the General Assembly, "was for three-quarters of a century the sole representative upon this continent of republican government as now organized in the nation." And then he continues: "From 1706 to the opening of the revolutionary struggle the only body in existence which stood for our present national political organization was the General Synod of the American Presbyterian Church. It alone among ecclesiastical and political colonial organizations exercised authority, derived from the colonists themselves, over bodies of Americans scattered through all the colonies from New England to Georgia. The colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is to be remembered, while all dependent upon Great Britain, were independent of each other. Such a body as the Continental Congress did not exist until 1774. The religious condition of the country was similar to the political. The Congregational Churches of New England had no connection with each other, and had no power apart from the civil government. The Episcopal Church was without organization in the colonies, was dependent for support and a ministry on the Established Church of England, and was filled with an intense loyalty to the British monarchy. The Reformed Dutch Church did not become an efficient and independent organization until 1771, and the German Reformed Church did not attain to that condition until 1793. The Baptist Churches were separate organizations, the Methodists were practically unknown, and the Quakers were non-combatants."
CALVINISM IN AMERICA
Cordially,
That's a good one..! I have given that question some thought...
I believe "morality" is what tells us what is right and what is evil. In other words, what is moral....As believers we strive to do the right thing in order to save our immortal soul....
The Godless, on the other hand have no Immortal soul...Therefor, In to days workplace businesses are require to give classes in "ethics" in order to keep the Godless from stealing and banging each in the hallways....
So, I guess you could say ethics is for the Godless..
Good moral conduct is for the true believers...
This could be all wrong...! :(
This does not answer the demographic question of whether British North America was majority Presbyterian, and for what its worth the argument attached amounts to Presbyterian special pleading, with obviously selected points of evidence. The majority of the the signers of the Declaration were NOT Presbyterian, nor were most of the leadership of the Revolution, and probably not the manpower of its armies either.
Diamond’s post #236 dispenses with your latest bit of nonsense.
I’m curious to know whether you are an acolyte of Ayn Rand.
“and for what its worth the argument attached amounts to Presbyterian special pleading,”
Diamond quotes British officials who condemned the American Revolution as a Presbyterian Rebellion and you try to dismiss it as “Presbyterian special pleading”.
Evidently in your counterfactual world Revoultionary era Presbyterians were able to put words in the mouths of their foes.
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