Hitchens – God Is Not Great XXX
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I am continuing in my extended review of Christopher Hitchens book “God Is Not Great,” and his defense of atheism in chapter 17. Last time, I looked at how Hitchens deftly attempted to shift the blame for the secular evils of the twentieth century onto religion effectively arguing that Christians are to blame because they did not do enough to prevent the evils committed by atheists. But there is a deeper issue here, one that is a problem for all groups, theists and atheists alike.
As I wrote earlier pointing to the evils committed by atheists, is not so much an attack against atheism per se, but rather atheist’s reasoning. As I wrote in Christianity and Secularism, it is “to point out that any system that involves people can be directed toward evil. I am sure neither Charles Darwin nor Karl Marx intended evil to come from their works. Still, they planted the seeds for the greatest evils in history.” (pg 118)
The key issue here is that good and bad people can be found in and out of religion. While history has show that secular regimes have been by far the worst, that could change. Not all religions are the same. The 20th century evils could be eclipse by radical Islam if its adherents can acquire the weapons of mass destruction they are seeking.
Nor is it impossible that in the future a radical form of Christianity could appear that could be a similar threat. One of the surest ways to run into problems is to focus too much on the evil in other groups, while assuming your own group is somehow immune. The danger from evil is ever present and history has clearly shown that being religious or an atheist is not an automatic safeguard.
This is nothing new. As Jesus pointed out in Matthew 7:3, we can see the speck in the eyes of others, while missing the beam that is in our own. Instead of pointing to the past evils committed by others as an example of how bad the current group is, we should instead focus more on current evils and how to stop them and how to prevent evil in the future. This is not to say that we should ignore past evils, we shouldn’t. We should learn from them, not in an us-versus-them way, but seeking the common traits, traits that can appear in any group, so that we can avoid them.
We should also focus more on the beam in our own eye. One of the easiest ways to fall into evil, is to think you are immune. For Christians, this means acknowledging the great evil that has been done at times in the name of Christ. But for atheists, it also means acknowledging the great evil done by atheists. Neither can just blame it on the other.
It is a simple fact that criticism from within a group will be far more effective at limiting evil than criticism from those outside, as criticism from others is often confused as an attack. While I could be wrong, I believe that if Muslims in general were to be as outraged over those who target and kill the innocent in the name of Allah, as they have been over cartoons of Mohammad and stories about alleged mishandling of the Koran, there would be a lot less terrorism. Likewise, if it were not for the clear and consistent condemnation of the few who have bombed abortion clinics or murdered abortionists, not only by the majority of Christians, but by all anti-abortion groups , I believe there would have been more bombings and murders.
One of the reasons I believe that the teachings of Christ are so important is not because it automatically makes me a better person, but because it teaches that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). In addition it teaches that we have hope. While we are saved by grace, that only begins a process of discipleship in which we should continually strive to be more like Jesus.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Stimulus Plan?
As Obama puts his mark onto the presidency he continues to enjoy high approval ratings, but cracks are beginning to appear. That the stakes are very high as can been seen in an article in the Christian Science Monitor. The headline warned of “risks to opponents” of the stimulus plan, and most of the article was written in terms of the 2010 elections.
For example, the article claims “Obama’s plan is popular in the 13 states that are expected to have competitive races for US Senate in 2010.” Furthermore Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who conducted the poll, said, “I think the message of having zero Republicans voting for the plan was an immense error,” and “I think it will be seared in peoples’ consciousness.”
It is always gives me the warm fuzzies to have Democrats so worried about the welfare of Republicans. But the simple fact is that looking at polls on how people view the stimulus plan now, so as to divine how they might vote in 2010, is not only meaningless, it is down right silly. This is because how people vote in 2010 will be based on conditions in 2010.
Now I oppose the so-called stimulus bill for one very simple reason, I do not think it will work and will in fact make things worse, probably a lot worse. One of the things that bothers me the most is how the major media just lets Democrats make things up, such and the claim that this is the worst economic situation since the Depression. Things are certainly bad, but it is just a matter of record that things can be and have been a lot worse, even since the depression.
The Misery Index is measurement of how bad things are, and is a combination of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. It is currently at 7.29%, and likely to go higher. But for example, it is still lower than most of the post war period. In January 1968 it was 7.35% and rose to 21.98% in June of 1980. It did not drop down below our current level again until July 1997.
Now the current rate is so low because the inflation rate had dropped to virtually nothing. If we look at simply the unemployment rate by itself, it is currently 7.2 percent. While high, it was higher in early 1990s, and through most of the 1970s and early 1980s, peaking out at 10.8 percent. So when they say this is the worst economy in 50 years, or the worst economy since the great depression, Democrats are simply making things up.
Unfortunately the Democrats have created somewhat of a trap for themselves and more importantly for us. While certainly not the entire picture, a key aspect of any economy is confidence. This is particular true in the current downturn as a large part of the current problem is a loss of confidence in the financial markets. Thus Bush and McCain were correct, at least economically, to try to reassure people about the underlying health of the economy. But the Democrats seeing an issue, pounced and portrayed them as out of touch and not understanding people’s pain. It was to the Democrats’ advantage politically to paint the economy as worse than what it really was, and it worked.
The problem is when people have a negative outlook about the economy, they hold back on spending. As more and more people and companies hold back, the economy slows down even further, causing even additional problems, which then cause people to hold back even more. The economy enters into a downward spiral.
Unfortunately Obama is still talking down the economy. Perhaps it is because he sees it as being in his own interest to scare people about how bad things are, as it will help him pass his programs; or perhaps he believes the current problems will be blamed on Bush rather than on him; or perhaps because of his inexperience, he simply does not know any better. Whatever the reason, His doom and gloom rhetoric is certainly not helping things.
His alleged stimulus package may be popular at the moment, and people are understandably willing to give the new President the benefit of the doubt, but this will not last forever. When 2010 comes people will not be focused on how Republicans did or did not support support the Stimulus package unless it fails. If it succeeds, the the economy will be doing very well and people will be focused on other issues and Obama and the democrats will get the credit regardless of any Republican support or lack thereof. The only way the people will really focus on the stimulus package, is if it fails, especially if it is seen as making things much worse.
Given that the CBO says that only about 20% of stimulus plan dollars will even be spent this year, it is not likely to have much of a stimulus, at least any time soon. Spending dollars years from now is hardly likely to help the current problem. Perhaps the reason Democrats are so worried about the Republicans’ lack of support, is that they will be held completely responsible for the stimulus plan they wrote and passed.
All Will Be Made Clear
We have an anti-glare coating on many of our windows. It works very well at cutting the glare from the sun and has the added benefit of providing privacy, as people looking in are effectively looking into a mirror. However this is only during the daytime. At night the mirror effect is reversed. As a result, at breakfast we often start looking into mirror, but as the sunrises the mirror effect fades and the landscape behind our house becomes clear.
Obama is like our anti-glare coating. As a candidate, he was effectively a mirror. His campaign speeches were full of phrases like ‘hope’ and ‘change’ with little actual specifics. With virtually no record or accomplishments, Obama has been the quintessential empty suit, into which people poured their hopes and dreams. When he said, “change you can believe in” the emphasis was in reality on the word ‘you.’ Supporters believed the change he would bring would be the change they wanted. While they look to Obama, they saw themselves.
This continues even today, as it still remains a topic of great discussion on the nightly new programs exactly what Obama will do, as supporters and critics alike attempt to read the tea leaves of his various actions and statements looking for clues.
But the sun is now rising on the Obama presidency. As campaign rhetoric now changes to policy statements, the mirror effect will likewise begin to fade; who Obama is and what he will actually do will, for better or for worse, now be come clear. As this happens, a few will undoubtedly find that Obama is just what they thought he was all along. But no doubt the majority will find what the radical left has already discovered, that the change he brings is not exactly what they expected. How could it be otherwise? As a candidate he could be all things to all people. As a President, he must actually make decisions, and take actions. He can no longer vote present.
Critics, on the other hand will no longer be fighting the phantom of expectations and hope. While Obama has so far not turned out to be quite as bad as some feared, choosing, for example, a cabinet virtually indistinguishable for one Hillary Clinton might have chosen, he is still on the left. The tea leaves all point to a bigger, more powerful federal government, with the corresponding loss of liberty that this must entail. As these policies and programs are proposed and enacted, their pros and cons can be assessed.
We face difficult economic times, but despite the media hype, this is not the worst economy since the Great Depression. When Reagan took office the economic situation was far worse than it is now. Reagan saw government as the problem and sought to reduce government’s stranglehold on the economy.
I would hope that Obama would take the same approach, that his solutions will be based in a decentralized, market based programs that encourage choice and liberty. Historically such solutions have been demonstrated to be the most effective.
However, the tea leaves seem to indicate that Obama sees government as the solution, not the problem, and as such he will look to more centralized, command and control based solutions. Historically, such approaches have not only been ineffective, but have often only further exacerbated the very problems they seek to solve. In addition such approaches, by their very nature, come at the expense of liberty.
Another issue here will be the Congress. Based on the various tea leaves, it appears now that the Congress controlled by Reid and Pelosi is to the left of Obama, and certainly farther to left than the vast majority of Americans. They will also have a major say in what laws are actually passed, and thus how the public will ultimately view Obama’s presidency. Obama’s claims to unity seeking bipartisan support has already been dealt a blow by Pelosi’s new rules for the House that effectively lock Republicans out of the process.
So the sun is rising on the Obama presidency. As the literary detective Hercule Poirot often said ‘all will be made clear.’ and clarity is a good thing.
Hitchens – God Is Not Great XXIX
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I am continuing in my extended review of Christopher Hitchens book “God Is Not Great,” and his defense of atheism in chapter 17. As I pointed out last time, given how he has attempted to attack religion in the first sixteen chapters, this is pretty much a no win situation for Hitchens, as he has put himself into a box he cannot now escape. Still that does not deter him from trying, and what follows is a highly selective view of history, in which he attempts to justify his claim that these secular regime, hostile to at least traditional religions and boasting of their scientific foundations, were in fact actually religious rather than secular.
Much of Hitchens’ supporting evidence is inconsistent and is at best little better than “grand conspiracy theory ” type thinking that attempts to find the sinister hand of religion pulling the string behind these otherwise benign atheist fronts. But some of the problems that run throughout this chapter can be seen in a couple of revealing quotes. On page 241, Hitchens acknowledges that “Many Christians gave their lives to protect their fellow creatures in this midnight of the century, but the chances that they did so on orders from any priesthood is statistically almost negligible.”
This sentence alone is would be enough to fatally damage Hitchens claim. He attempts to write off these Christians who died to protect others, not to mention the many others who likewise risked their lives without dying, as acting “in accordance only with the dictates of conscience,” hoping thereby to exclude the influence of religion upon their actions. But does religion consist solely of following the orders of a priesthood?
It is just a fact that many Popes throughout history have condemned persecution of the Jews by Christians, and that within Christian Europe , the further a Jew lived from Rome, and thus the influence of the Church, the more they were at risk from persecution. This does not absolve Christianity from guilt when it comes to the persecution of the Jews, nor should it. But if Christians acting in direct contradiction to the dictates from the Rome, can still be seen as religious in their persecution of the Jews in the Middle Ages, how can Christians risking their lives to save Jews in the 20th century, be seen as secular, simply because they were nor explicitly ordered to do so by a priesthood? The double standard implicit in Hitchens’ argument is staggering.
Ultimately, Hitchens’ argument ignores the role of religion in shaping one’s conscience, and one’s sense of duty to our fellow creatures. Are we really to believe that these Christians who risked their lives to save others, did so completely independent of Biblical teaching such as Lev19:6’s, command not to stand idly by the blood of your neighbor, or Jesus’ teaching concerning the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).
And of course, in a nice little sleight of hand, Hitchens deftly diverts attention away from just whom these fellow creatures needed to be protected from. So what we have here is Christians risking, and in some cases sacrificing, their lives to save their fellow human being from atheist regimes that sought their extermination, and Hitchens wants us to conclude from this that atheism is free from blame and that religion was actually the culprit. Talk about turning things upside down.
From here Hitchens further attempts to make his case by claiming that “those who invoke ‘secular Tyranny in contrast to religion are hoping that we will forget two things: the connection between the Christian churches and fascism, and the capitulation of the churches to National Socialism.” (pg 242)
This is a classic example of a seemingly devastating point that is really quite meaningless. Fascism, in the mid-1930s was a large an popular movement with many supporters even in the United States. Given the size and popularity of Fascism and number of Christians in Europe, it is hardly surprising that there were some connection between some Christians and Fascism, and in fact there were some Christians who were strong supporters of the fascists. But that hardly makes fascism a religious movement or Christianity responsible. To put this in perspective it is also a fact the same could be said about Jews, but would anyone seriously claim that Fascism was therefore a Jewish movement?
The simple fact is that if you look the major leaders of fascism, and communism for that matter, they were atheists who were seeking to apply the principles of science to the governing of society. The intellectual roots of these movements were solidly grounded, not in religion, but in the dialectic materialism of Karl Marx, the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin, and philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly on the death of God as an idea that should have any influence us. These leaders, both political and intellectual, saw religion at best as merely a tool to be exploited to achieve their aims, and at worst a competitor to be eliminated.
As for the capitulation of the churches, this sadly is true, and it is a major mark against the church that it did not do more to resist such evil. But however bad the churches failure, and it was bad, it was still a failure of omission. Thus Hitchens argument is in reality that the Christians, not atheist are responsible, because the Christians did not do enough to stop the atheists. A very strange argument indeed.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Looking Forward – Obama
We have a new President, and I wish him the best. As a solid conservative, many have questioned the sincerity of this statement. They do not believe that as a conservative I can be hoping for President Obama to succeed.
Now with my sense of justice, there is a part of me that desires to treat Obama exactly as the Left and Democratic leaders treated Bush. But I will resist such temptations. For me the wellbeing of the country comes first. I want the country do to well, even if it means Obama will get the credit which he undoubtedly would.
Perhaps the best way to explain this is to point the last campaign. I have been a strong critic of John McCain for years. Other than Ron Paul, he was last on my list of candidates in the primary, and I believed that if nominated he would go down to defeat. If elected, he would be worse than Bush. Yet when he won the nomination, I supported his candidacy and really hoped that he would win.
This was not because I was just being a loyal Republican. Frankly, from strictly a Republican party point of view, I believe that electing Obama will be better for the party than McCain, as McCain would have divided and split the party. I supported McCain and truly hoped that he would win, because, right or wrong, I believe he would be better for the country than Obama.
But now we have President Obama. So in the same line, I truly want him to succeed, at least in the sense that in four years the country is doing well, even though it would mean his almost certain reelection. That is my hope. But like McCain, my expectation is a lot different.
As for my expectation, what will the Obama presidency bring? The best I can say at the moment is: uncertain. I , like many others, am not at all sure what President Obama will actually do. Even during the campaign there was considerable uncertainty. Candidate Obama was very clear on such vagueries as ‘hope’ and ‘change’ but the closer he came to any sort of specificity the more likely his comments were to be followed by a string of caveats, exceptions, and nuances. In short, no matter what he does as president, his supporters can probably go back into the hours of sound clips and find statements that will allow them to claim “see, that is what he said he would do all along.” Still, it is telling, and reassuring, that since he won the election, those most upset with Obama have been those on the left who wanted the most radical change.
Still a few things seem can be gleaned. Despite all the campaign rhetoric, it currently seems that other than a few cosmetic changes, many of Bush’s policies on the war will remain in unchanged, and this is a good thing. One possible exception to this would be the patriot act and coerced interrogations, which have proved every effective in preventing terror attacks. Still once Bush is out of office the calls for their repeal will probably lessen, as much of this was driven more by an irrational hatred of Bush than any actual objective analysis of the policies themselves, so again this remains uncertain.
It seems certain that there will be at least some pullback, if only for show, and therein lies one the biggest gambles of the Obama presidency. Bush did what seemed impossible and prevented another attack on American soil after 9/11. In doing so he set a very high bar. Many still believe it is only a matter of time until we are hit again, and given the country’s growing complacency about the war on terror, they are probably correct. Thus Obama is taking a huge risk betting that he can back off on the war in some areas without another attack. I hope he is correct, for if we are hit again, he will not be able to say that he did everything possible.
On the domestic front, all the attacks we have heard from the democrats for the past eight years about the deficit and their calls for a balanced budget will now quietly be forgotten, though this was hardly unexpected. Candidate Obama looked to be a Big Government liberal, and the current financial crisis is showing that assessment to be correct. The size and scope of government will explode, with a corresponding loss of liberty to the people. One thing that most on the left simply do not understand is the simple fact that increased government always comes at the expense of liberty. The more government, the less liberty.
Obama is betting that the increase in government will do more good than harm. History is strongly against this idea. It is now pretty clear that Hoover’s attempts to use government to avoid the depression only ensured it, and that FDR’s use of government to end the depression only extended and deepened it. Thus we may be looking at a repeat of history where Bush’s massive bailouts serve as the pretext for Obama programs. I have heard Obama supporters claiming that we cannot look to the past because this crisis is new and unlike others, that we are in uncharted territory. Therefore Obama’s plans will work despite the evidence of the past. Again I hope he is correct.
On perhaps my biggest issue, judges, I can only hope that no Supreme Court judges leave the bench, particularly no judges who reject the concept of a living Constitution. One of the few areas where I heard Obama speak without hedging or caveats is on judges. He clearly supports the idea that judges should see the Constitution as a living document, one where judges are free to rule based on what they think is right, not limited to what the constitution actually says.
There are a lot of other areas, but the closer one gets to details, the more the uncertainty grows. These I will address in the coming years as the details become clear. But one big thing has changed. Obama can no longer vote present. He will have to make the tough decisions, and will have to take responsibility for the consequences. He is betting big that the war on terror will remain as it is now a secondary issue, and that his massive spending will improve the economy. I really hope he is right, just like I really hoped that McCain would win. But, deep down, I have a lot of nagging doubts.
