Globally Rational

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Paul Peterson wrote a great article on his blog a couple of days ago.  I won’t do him an injustice by just repeating the whole post here, so I’ll just link to it (click here) and give you an excerpt:

I mention all of this only because of the phrase “anti-christian propaganda”. Facts are not propaganda. Facts sometimes lead a person to believe things that are anathema to a given creed or belief. That is the opposite of propaganda. Christian institutions have historically doled out there fair share of propaganda in the name of the faith. Should I conclude from this that they can dish it out but they can’t take it?

I think I’d like to expand “Christian” to “Christian/Muslim/Jewish/others.”  I don’t have a problem with monotheistic religion (I call myself “Muslim”), but I’ve noticed many of my people use religion as an excuse to dismiss facts as “propaganda” seconds before they start spewing a counterargument filled with propaganda.  Read Paul’s article; I would have written about it myself if I’d thought of it first.

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There are plenty of social issues that are important in politics these days.  Everybody seems to be highly concerned with what everybody else is doing.  With these issues, I like to ask myself “is it really worth the effort to oppose an issue that some people care so dearly about?”  Some examples:

• Gay marriage - I agree that homosexuality defeats the original purpose of marriage, which exists (from an evolutionary perspective) for the purpose of procreation and to ensure that all children grow up with their two original parents.  So, gay marriage doesn’t make scientific sense… but why would I really care?  Allowing it would make many same-sex couples very happy and it wouldn’t really affect me in any practical way.  Just because it defeats the purpose of marriage doesn’t mean that I should prevent them from doing it… sure, I think it’s a pointless idea (if you look at it scientifically), but if they want to do it, why would I stop them?
• Abortion - I can understand that the issue here is whether or not a human life is being destroyed.  However, it seems like that should be a question that can be effectively answered only by an expert scientist in the field rather than by a politician.  Why can’t we just get a consensus from the scientists and then leave the issue alone?
• Immigration - Sure, we need to worry about securing our borders.  But what about the people who come here legally and go through the full quota process?  Why do we have to make life difficult for them?
• Religious polygamy - If polygamy were widespread, then it would be a problem for obvious reasons.  But as long as a group of consenting adults is happy (assuming that no sexual abuse is going on), why do we feel the need to separate innocent children from their caring polygamist mothers?  They’re not really threatening our society; they just have a certain preferred way of life.  Why do we let the government get involved in religious issues?

A lot of it (i.e. gay marriage, abortion, polygamy) comes down to religious issues.  Although the term “separation of Church and State” is thrown around all over the place, it seems like people generally ignore it.  Why was it such a big deal that some people thought Barack Obama might be Muslim?  Why does the government think of marriage as a holy bond between a man and a woman?  Sure, religion has a place in a person’s life; honestly, I wouldn’t even mind it if the US declared itself to be a Christian nation.  But as long as we maintain the concept of “religious freedom,” we cannot make policy decisions that involve religious values.

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Everybody involved with American politics has been hearing a lot recently about Jeremiah Wright, the radical leftist pastor at Barack Obama’s church. What I ask is this… why is it that these sorts of statements are a major issue, but we don’t care about the fact that John McCain (among others) vies for the support of radical right-wing religious leaders like Pat Robertson

I won’t make any comparisons between Robertson and Wright; I’ll let you do that yourself. However, here are some things that Robertson has said over the course of the last few years (to give credit where credit is due, I got a lot of these from Wikipedia):

• He said, “You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.”
• The acceptance of homosexuality could lead to hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombings and “possibly a meteor.”
• He repeatedly spoke in favor of Charles Taylor, a Liberian war criminal with whom he is said to have had some business dealings.
• Speaking about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, he said “I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”
• When Ariel Sharon (former Israeli President) had a stroke, Robertson said that it was God’s way of seeking retribution for the fact that Sharon considered giving some land back to the Palestinians.
• He has repeatedly denounced Islam, including saying that “Islam, at its core, teaches violence” (which is obviously not true… Islam never taught me any violence, for instance). He also called Muslims “Satanic” and made various other radical statements.
• He named 101 liberal American professors and accused them of being “racists, murderers, sexual deviants and supporters of Al-Qaeda.” He also said that they are “communists, they are radicals, they are, you know, some of them killers, and they are propagandists of the first order”. Honestly, I’m not sure how an Al-Qaeda supporter can be a Communist… and he seems to ignore the fact that he himself is a propagandist.
• He predicted a terror attack on US soil in 2007, a tsunami (or a hurricane) in 2006 (there were no hurricanes in the US in 2006), and Doomsday in 1982.
• He accused “pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians” of contributing to the 9/11 attacks (this statement was made 2 days after the attacks).

I’m not saying that Robertson is any better or worse of a person than Wright… but to me, these statements seem just as radical as the ones that have been all over the news recently. Meanwhile, Republican leaders aren’t bothered at all for getting support from these evangelicals; Obama has been hassled a lot for having supporters like Wright and Louis Farrakhan.

Is Wright really any more radical than Robertson?

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People often tell me that Muslims deserve the treatment they get because we tend to produce more extremists than other religions. Let’s disregard all other factors (for example, the fact that Christian extremists have been common in the past, just not today) and take a look at one of the many incidences where a Jewish rabbi calls for extremist action. I don’t have a problem with every Israeli just because a few of them call for atrocities… so why do people have a problem with all Arabs just because a few of them do the same?

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