Religion and politics--why am I dumb enough to bring them up?

[catsittingstill]

Well, because someone else did first.  There is an article on the Newsweek website by a guy named Jaques Berlinerblau asking why secularists are not up in arms over Barak Obama's religious musings.

I'll put most of this behind the cut.

A lot of it is just, in my opinion, poorly thought out.  He says:

These pious musings have not aroused as much as a peep of protest from nonbelievers and Church-State separatists. (Compare this to the former governor of Arkansas who enraged Secular America when he suggested that we amend the Constitution to God’s standards).

Well, duh.  There's a world of difference between a candidate having personal religious beliefs and a candidate proposing to amend the Constitution to bring it into line with his personal religious beliefs.  How did you overlook this?

This absence of outrage goes a long way in demonstrating how thoroughly secularism in this country is entwined with, and supportive of, political liberalism.

Well, if you don't buy into religious conservative arguments in favor of oppressing women and gays, increasing inequality in this country, and using government power (and frequently government tax dollars) to promote religion, um, what other values are there that favor those things?  In the absence of many good reasons to be socially conservative, we naturally tend to be socially liberal. 

True, Obama did give a fleeting nod to the godless in his address. He urged Americans to “come together as Protestants, Catholics and Jews, believers and non-believers alike.” But anyone familiar with his rhetoric knows that Obama is perennially resolving seemingly insoluble American dialectical tensions (Red States/Blue States, Pro-Choice/Pro-Life, Yankees/Red Sox, whatever).

That fleeting nod to the godless (an indication that he doesn't think we can't be citizens, like, for instance, Reagan did) is far more than we will get from anyone who is polically conservative.  And someone who can resolve seemingly insoluble American dialectical tensions is perhaps just what we need after the present administration.

Obama’s speech—it wasn’t his best and much of it was rehashed—was filled with a variety of theological ideas (and ambiguities) that we will be discussing for months if he wins big tonight. One is that God has a plan—a plan that is apparently centered on America (but what about Canada?) Another is that the divine plan only comes to fruition if all citizens pitch in and do their part (but what about nonbelievers who won’t get with the program?).

Well, as a godless person, I am prone to evaluate plans the way I evaluate anything else--on the basis of reason and evidence.  If Obama has a good plan that will work, I don't care if he thinks he got it in communion with God, I'll be happy to pitch in and do my part.

So the short version is that the reason secular people also tend to be liberal is that most of the push to be socially conservative comes from a bunch of rules dreamed up by bronze age nomads.  If you don't buy into the supernatural nature of the rules, some of them look pretty silly, and some of them look downright mean. Discarding them, however, makes one socially liberal.  Social liberals are generally okay with working with religious liberals who have also discarded the silly and mean parts of the bronze age rules to achieve a common goal.  Like electing a president whose values come close to coinciding with our own. 

Comments

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Oh, Cat, I'm sorry, I didn't mean you — you're not one of those extremists at all. I'm talking about the people with an atheism litmus test for public office just as limiting as the mainstream's (deplorable) faith litmus test. I'm talking about the people who jump from the sensible observation that most religions have some rules that are petty and mean to the conclusion that anyone who hasn't abandoned religion must be petty and mean, or at least stupid. I saw some comments along these lines on the post that you linked to, and they troubled me.

If I've come across as tarring the secularist camp with a broad brush, I apologize, as that was not my intent. I meant, rather, to draw a line between secularists who are interested in making common cause with sensible religious people for the sake of our shared liberal values (such as yourself, if I read you aright) on the one hand, and those who think "sensible religious people" is a contradiction in terms on the other.

I guess I am trying to find my place in this conversation, as a person who is on the one hand devoutly (if eclectically) religious and on the other hand in strong agreement with the secularist agenda and world-view on essentially all points (i.e. of science and policy) except for the whole bit (which not all secularists insist on, but certain notable ones certainly do) about all religion being bad and stupid.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I beg your pardon; I think I may have over reacted a little.

There are indeed some people who sometimes express the view that anyone who is religious is petty or mean or stupid or some combination. I think that in part this is due to a natural reaction against those religious people who say that anyone who isn't religious is immoral or stupid. Such people are hopefully rare, but they occasionally cluster on the internet, and the things they write about atheists---well, it's very hard for anyone to *stay* reasonable surrounded by unreasonable, and sometimes unreasoning, people.

In my, admittedly limited, experience, most atheists/secularists, if not presently being harrassed, don't despise religious people. They may, on the other hand, think that *religion*, the set of memes, is bad--tends to produce bad results when present at high copy number in a given society.

I'm having trouble imagining anyone seriously proposing an atheism litmus test for public office. I mean, it just wouldn't be practical. Sure, if there was an "out" atheist running for public office (not that I expect to see that in my lifetime--the American electorate is more prejudiced against atheists than just about any other minority group) I'd vote for her, unless there was some good reason not to. But I don't think I've ever seen anyone propose that only atheists be allowed to run. Atheists vote for religious candidates pretty much all the time. It could happen, I guess; there are all sorts of unusual views represented on the internet. But I have a hard time imagining that any noticeable fraction of atheists or secularists would support it. Do you remember where you saw this?

For what it's worth, if you're religious and agree with most of the secular agenda and world-view, you're probably a religious liberal. It's okay to disagree with parts of what you perceive that agenda to be. It's not like we have to agree on some kind of creed. :-)

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble imagining anyone seriously proposing an atheism litmus test for public office.

I had remembered one of the commenters to the WAPO blog you linked saying or implying that they, personally, would never vote for a religious candidate, that's what I was referring to — although I can't now seem to find a comment that unambiguously means that, so I may have imagined it.

you're probably a religious liberal

I knew that :-). What I wonder is, in a conversation that, despite the presence of moderate voices, is defined in terms of a face-off between the anti-religious and the anti-liberal, where should religious liberals stand? I suppose the answer could be, depending on the moment, "well out of the way" (too late for that) or "over here, with the sensible people, in a conversation that doesn't have to be defined that way".

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think "with the sensible people" is probably your best bet.