Right wing candidates score brownie points by babbling about "Judeo-Christian" or "traditional" values. Sometimes they churn out the whole enchilada to the cheers of orgasmic crowds who are none the wiser that they're being had.
This reli-culous window dressing is most of the time used as a generic dividing line to isolate liberalism, secularism and Islam from the audience. Cheering said speaker is therefore absolution from all evil deeds and thoughts, comfortable in the knowledge of not being the bad guy. Bad news are in store.
The incompatibility and sometimes open contrast between the two religions are for everyone to see (but check this one out anyway). The smokescreen conceals a mixture of totalitarian agendas, ignorance or just plain naivete. How many times have we heard "traditional" and "Judeo-Christian" mentioned as arguments to ban abortion, discriminate against large swathes of the human populace, push an agenda or demean an opponent? Isn't the hawk who brags about his christian credentials guilty of the mortal sin of vanity?
The values that hold the Western world together and made it prosperous are values of respect, hard work, charity, loyalty, honesty, ambition and individualism. We can surely find them in Christian and Jewish texts, but these are eggs laid by the chicken of REASON. The same chicken that laid the whopper we call Liberty.
The same Liberty that built the free societies of today and is the founding value of the United States. The Liberty to own what is yours, to live as you please, to relate to others the way you want and to not be harmed. Advocates of traditional values who want to remove, for instance, the right of two people to enter into a contract of mutual relationship and commitment should be barely audible over the screeching of their own hypocrisy.
"Play with mortals and leave the saints alone" says the priest in Act I of La Tosca. It's time to use our God-given power of Reason to cut through the BS and stand up for those values and beliefs which really make men great. God might be glad to have time off from petty mortal politics.
3 comments:
"Reason" leads to charity? On what basis? What of the "charitable" act of putting "lesser animals" out of their misery? I ask because it was "reason" that led some of the uglier regimes of the previous century to do just that to races, political groups, the disabled and other social undesirables of their choice. Read any of the original libertarian leaders who actually set up the nation states that have given us such liberty today and they will almost unanimously agree that you have to have a higher authority (God) to even realize that liberty is "good" to begin with. It is also why you have Christians/Jews (as opposed to other religious groups or militant atheists like PZ Myers)not turn violent or nasty upon reading posts like this -- we realized long ago that a culture of liberty isn't only good, but it is the best environment to lead people to Good! Cheers!
Unfortunately, everyone has their own idea of what 'good' is supposed to be. Expect that ambiguity helps lead to some absolute truth at times. Liberty helps one to find the truth but it seems that not everyone is capable of this. (real conservative)
Which is why I did not discount a higher authority. If reason is God-given, one must defer and account for his actions.
Yet I still doubt God gave us the Defence of Marriage Act or he cares about it.
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