steveblock.com » Religion and Politics

It’s Just A Theory

steve — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 00:03:17 +0000

bq. The advances of science have not been accepted gracefully. They have been denounced by the church and resisted by the populace. The leaders of scientific discovery have been vilified, harassed, persecuted, tortured, imprisoned and executed. But the weight of evidence and practical results piled up by science is invincible — something that many of today’s fundamentalists still haven’t learned.

— C. W. Dalton, “The Right Brain and Religion”

bq. The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.

— Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_

Intelligent Design?

steve — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 17:03:29 +0000

bq.. Telegraph: “For God to create the universe he would have to be hyper-intelligent. But intelligence only evolves over time. Is that about the strength of it?”

Dawkins: “It’s worse than that, the argument for God starts by assuming what it is attempting to explain — intelligence, complexity, it comes to the same thing — and so it explains nothing. God is a non-explanation. Whereas evolution by natural selection _is_ an explanation. It really does start simply and become complex.”

p. — Sunday Telegraph (UK) interview with Richard Dawkins, Sept. 26, 1999

Somehow This All Seems Familiar

steve — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 20:50:18 +0000

bq. The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.

— Adolf Hitler, Berlin, February 1, 1933

bq. The so-called religious right of the Republican Party — the Christian right, they call themselves, although in my view they are neither Christian nor right — is after a totalitarian state.

— Edward Albee, interview in Progressive August 1996 issue

Deja Vu All Over Again

steve — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 04:06:53 +0000

bq. However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”

— Barry Goldwater

Kerry Finally Goes on the Attack

steve — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:38:01 +0000

Frankly I have grown tired of all the politics surrounding both President Bush’s and Senator Kerry’s Vietnam-era records. It was thirty years ago, and whatever happened then is really not relevant today. People can change a lot, even in a few years, and thirty is a lot of years.

It was therefore refreshing to watch John Kerry speak yesterday with a strong attack on George Bush’s anti-terror and Iraq strategies. It was high time to come out on the offensive rather than continue to fend off attacks on his Vietnam War record. The speech was excellent, and given strongly. If you think Kerry seems weak, just watch him speak. Even “the transcript(Kerry speech transcript)”:http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0920.html comes across with strength.

Bush responded, though I have not been able to find the transcript of his remarks. My impression of Bush’s response was much less favorable, both in content and speaking style. If this is any indication of how the debates will go George Bush is in trouble.

George Bush the Hypocrite

steve — Fri, 03 Sep 2004 02:45:00 +0000

I am watching President Bush’s speech and I can hardly take it. Even in politics, especially presidential politics where half truths, outright lies, and spin are the norm, this is just too much. He has just claimed, by marking himself as different than Kerry, that he is in favor of smaller government and less spending.

This is ridiculous.

George W. Bush has spent more money than any other president before. He has pushed record budgets through congress. He has increased the amount of debt that this nation holds by amazing amounts.

George W. Bush has increased the size of the government. The GOP claims to be the party of smaller government, but which party voted in Homeland Security? Which party pushed the Patriot act through?

George W. Bush is a liar, and nothing but the pure and simple fact that he is president would let me call him President Bush.

Is the US a Christian Nation?

steve — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 03:25:54 +0000

Some would have us believe that the United States was founded on the principals of Christianity, and that the US is in fact a Christian nation. We see this tendency in the addition of the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and the controversy surrounding the (now defunct) lawsuit to remove those words. Interestingly the Pledge was originally “written by a Baptist minister(Pledge of Allegiance – A Short History)”:http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm, and contained no references to God at all. Similar tendencies are seen both in law and in public discourse, where it is not uncommon to hear the claim that we were founded as a Christian nation stated by those who wish to inject religion into the government.

“Here(The Founding Fathers and A Question of Faith: American History 101)”:http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon179.htm one can see in the original words of some of the most influential men in the infancy of the United States that the US was indeed _not_ established as a Christian nation. The common tendency to assert that the United States _is_ a Christian nation would likely have greatly upset many of those men who are most respected in our short national history.

Caucus Results

steve — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 03:45:00 +0000

Here are the results:

# John Kerry: 38%
# John Edwards: 32%
# Howard Dean: 18%
# Dick Gephardt: 11%

Source: CNN

Guys like Kucinich had little or no showing.

Interesting Development

steve — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 09:25:00 +0000

In a long discussion that eventually turned to Michael Moore (he sucks, confirm/deny) and politics I and others as well witnessed a strange thing. Kyle Poorman—local pacifist and all around good guy—exploded into a huge rant, something far out of character for him. At the same time I was not even remotely angry; fairly out of character for me as well.