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by Robert Weissberg –<\/p>\n by Robert Weissberg –<\/p>\n
The candidacies of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, Bible-affirming Christians, predictably have ignited the liberal media’s zeal for exposing their allegedly odd if not wacko religious beliefs (see here<\/a>). \u00a0Support for some version of creationism, a faith in the efficacy of prayer, and actual belief in scriptural condemnation of homosexuality (among other religious views) are taken as prima facie evidence of presidential unsuitability.\u00a0 To be sure, millions of Americans (assumed to be ill-educated trailer-court denizens with rotting teeth and beer guts) may share these odd inclinations, but, at least according to liberal pundits, holding them betrays a lack of intellectual sophistication plus an aversion to modern science. \u00a0Such antediluvian fundamentalism should, say the experts, have gone extinct with the Scopes Monkey Trials<\/a>. <\/p>\n Ironically, liberal attackers are guilty of far greater unscientific dogmatism, sloppy thinking, and mind-boggling confusion but fail to notice it thanks to a manufactured respectability that deters — if not forbids — close inspection. \u00a0 Worse, judged by the unforgiving standards of science, the liberal creed may be far wackier (and factually incorrect) than any assertion about God creating the world in seven days. \u00a0The war between secular liberalism and evangelical fundamentalism is a battle between competing dogmas, not science versus religious hokum.<\/p>\n What is this weird liberal creed?\u00a0 Unlike the orthodox Christian rival, it is not yet officially codified, but its major tenets are easily discerned. \u00a0Just regularly read the New York Times <\/em>or watch CNN.\u00a0 Let’s begin with Conviction I<\/strong>: what I call Liberal Creationism or, as the oft-invoked clich\u00e9, people are the same all over.<\/p>\n According to this gospel, modern humans emerged roughly 180,000 years ago in Africa and eventually populated almost the entire globe.\u00a0 According to evolution, via mutations and selective breeding, humans adapted to varied conditions.\u00a0 For example, in colder climates, white skin and blue eyes facilitated vitamin D absorption. So far, so good.\u00a0 But, though evolution tells us that traits most valuable for survival are more susceptible to change, the human brain remains fixed despite thousands of years of evolutionary pressure in widely unlike settings.\u00a0 Yes, pygmies<\/a> in central African may be anatomically unlike Swedes, but the brains are identical.\u00a0 So, send the pygmies to Sweden and enroll them in Swedish schools and provide all the benefits of Swedish society, and after a generation or two they will be just like Swedes, albeit a bit shorter and with a darker complexion (or send Swedes to central Africa and they will become blond, blue-eyed “pygmies”).<\/p>\n It then follows, according to this Liberal Creed, that those differences in educational attainment, income and social status, and even crime rates and other pathologies must be artificial.\u00a0 If third-generation pygmies living in Sweden lag behind their taller countrymen, the only explanations are discrimination, racism, lack of opportunities, and similar fixable environmental obstacles. \u00a0Going one step further, since all people have the same brains, equality of intellectual accomplishment is human nature. \u00a0A multi-billion-krona initiative by the Swedish government to bring pigmies up to the Swedish average in income and education does not contravene nature; it is a social engineering enterprise to restore, not reverse the human default condition of equality. \u00a0And, the Liberal Creed tells us, this will be accomplished only if Swedes are willing to make the effort.<\/p>\n This, then, brings us to Conviction II<\/strong>, the wonders of Diversity: though all groups share the identical brain, it is beneficial to have lots of people around who differ by outward appearances — in skin color, hair texture, facial features, bone densities, body shapes, even selective susceptibility to diseases.\u00a0 The Liberal Creed is, sadly, a bit hazy on how all this synergy works, but rest assured: if one needs to build a better spaceship, one should assemble a team of engineers that includes a few Hispanics, lots of women, some blacks, a handful of Asians, perhaps a Polynesian or two, and a few white males.\u00a0 The ultra-orthodox Liberal Creed might add a few gays and disabled.<\/p>\n Conviction III<\/strong> concerns immigration and might be called the Doctrine of Benign Filtration.\u00a0 Here’s how it works.\u00a0 First, all immigrants coming to the US — no exceptions! — can make a valuable cultural contribution, things like good Vietnamese or Mexican restaurants. \u00a0For this reason, it is important that cultural heritages — everything from language to the celebration of religious holidays — be preserved.\u00a0 This conservancy is what makes the US such a vibrant multicultural mosaic.\u00a0 But, and this is critical, while the good elements (e.g., the food, religious festivals) will survive assimilation, bad features of a culture — for example, religiously sanctioned wife-abuse — will be (mysteriously) weeded out. \u00a0Again, how this selective adjustment is to occur is unclear, perhaps just as Rick Perry’s prayers will miraculously end the Texas draught.<\/p>\n And now we come to Conviction IV<\/strong>: the Almighty.\u00a0 Don’t believe liberals claiming to be secularists.\u00a0 They have a god, and this is, rest assured, a God that will put all rival deities to shame.\u00a0 In a nutshell, this god of the Liberal Creed is all-knowing, all-powerful, and combines the best features of the vengeful God of the Old Testament with a Santa Claus on steroids.\u00a0 To invoke the Newspeak vocabulary, let’s call this deity Fedgov.<\/p>\n Fedgov’s power is breathtaking. \u00a0Among other miraculous powers, it can provide low-cost universal health care without bankrupting the nation; bestow college degrees on all youngsters regardless of intellectual ability; abolish race-related gaps in academic achievement and income, eliminate the lingering vestiges of racism, sexism and discrimination; solve the problems of poverty; provide unlimited quantities of “green” energy; end festering economic inequality; supply decent housing and healthy nutrition to all Americans; and otherwise bring a liberal heaven on earth. To be sure, Fedgov may require more than just a single day of rest after accomplishing all this, but it is possible.\u00a0 It just requires faith and a willingness to allow Fedgov to work its miracles free from Tea Party obstruction (perhaps Tea Party “atheists” should be burnt at the stake to please Fedgov).<\/p>\n It is impossible to exaggerate the cosmology’s weak empirical underpinnings.\u00a0 In many instances — e.g., eliminating poverty and myriad inequalities — Fedgov has always failed despite spending hundreds of billions.\u00a0 Elsewhere — e.g., low-cost universal health care — the prayed-for miracle rests solely on deceitful accounting.\u00a0 And like the fervent Creationists, Fedgov environmentalists want to ignore libraries of scientific evidence and inescapable economic principles in their confusion of “ought” with “is.”<\/p>\n But, more is needed that just drawing parallels between Liberal and Christian Fundamentalism.\u00a0 Better would be to turn the tables on orthodox liberals with “gotcha” questions just as they try to embarrass Michele Bachmann.\u00a0 A few samples useful for upcoming TV debates:<\/p>\n President Obama, your administration has taken several steps to diversify the federal workforce.\u00a0 Can you offer any scientific evidence that a diverse workforce, whether in government or private industry, provides any economic benefit that outweighs the bureaucratic costs?<\/p>\n Vice President Biden, why should the federal government continue to pour hundreds of billions into anti-poverty programs when the evidence strongly suggests that trying to uplift the underclass is futile and only breeds further dependency?<\/p>\n President Obama, what evidence do you have that after two generations, immigrants from Mexico can fully assimilate into American society and become less dependent on public welfare?<\/p>\n Needless to say, few questions of this type will elicit scientifically sound answers.\u00a0 Most will reflect moral imperatives — e.g., Fedgov ought <\/em>to try to eliminate income inequality.\u00a0 Other responses will cherry-pick evidence, just as Creationists have their favorite facts.\u00a0 In the final analysis, debates may return to an earlier era of religious strife — my Faith is just better than yours.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n HT: American Thinker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Robert Weissberg – The candidacies of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, Bible-affirming Christians, predictably have ignited the liberal media’s zeal for exposing their allegedly odd if not wacko religious beliefs (see here). \u00a0Support for some version of creationism, a faith in the efficacy of prayer, and actual belief in scriptural condemnation of homosexuality (among … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[72,123,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leftism","category-religious-left","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}