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Title: Can Atheists Be Good Conservatives?
Source:
The American Conservative
URL Source: http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_08_28/article14.html
Published: Aug 28, 2006
Author: Heatehr MacDonald
Post Date: 2006-09-06 12:20:35 by Loopy
Keywords: None
Views: 248
Comments: 17
Upon leaving office in November 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft thanked his staff for keeping the country safe since 9/11. But the real credit, he added, belonged to God. Ultimately, it was God’s solicitude for America that had prevented another attack on the homeland. Many conservatives hear such statements with a soothing sense of approbation. But others—count me among them—feel bewilderment, among much else. If God deserves thanks for fending off assaults on the United States after 9/11, why is he not also responsible for allowing the 2001 hijackings to happen in the first place? Skeptical conservatives—one of the Right’s less celebrated subcultures—are conservatives because of their skepticism, not in spite of it. They ground their ideas in rational thinking and (nonreligious) moral argument. And the conservative movement is crippling itself by leaning too heavily on religion to the exclusion of these temperamentally compatible allies. Conservative atheists and agnostics support traditional American values. They believe in personal responsibility, self-reliance, and deferred gratification as the bedrock virtues of a prosperous society. They view marriage between a man and a woman as the surest way to raise stable, law-abiding children. They deplore the encroachments of the welfare state on matters best left to private effort. They also find themselves mystified by the religiosity of the rhetoric that seems to define so much of conservatism today. Our Republican president says that he bases “a lot of [his] foreign policy decisions” on his belief in “the Almighty” and in the Almighty’s “great gifts” to mankind. What is one to make of such a statement? According to believers, the Almighty’s actions are only intermittently scrutable; using them as a guide for policy, then, would seem reckless. True, when a potential tragedy is averted, believers decipher God’s beneficent intervention with ease. The father of Elizabeth Smart, the Salt Lake City girl abducted from her home in 2002, thanked God for answering the public’s prayers for her safe return. When nine miners were pulled unharmed from a collapsed Pennsylvania mineshaft in 2002, a representative placard read: “Thank you God, 9 for 9.” God’s mercy was supposedly manifest when children were saved from the 2005 Indonesian tsunami. But why did the prayers for five-year-old Samantha Runnion go unheeded when she was taken from her Southern California home in 2002 and later sexually assaulted and asphyxiated? If you ask a believer, you will be told that the human mind cannot fathom God’s ways. It would seem as if God benefits from double standards of a kind that would make even affirmative action look just. When 12 miners were killed in a West Virginia mine explosion in January 2006, no one posted a sign saying: “For God’s sake, please explain: Why 1 for 13?” Innocent children were swept away in the 2005 tsunami, too, but believers blamed natural forces, not God. The presumption of religious belief—not to mention the contradictory thinking that so often accompanies it—does damage to conservatism by resting its claims on revealed truth. But on such truth there can be no agreement without faith. And a lot of us do not have such faith—nor do we need it to be conservative. Nonbelievers look elsewhere for a sense of order, valuing the rule of law for its transparency to all rational minds and debating Supreme Court decisions without reverting to mystical precepts or “natural law.” It is perfectly possible to revere the Founding Fathers and their monumental accomplishment without celebrating, say, “Washington’s God.” Skeptical conservatives even believe themselves to be good citizens, a possibility denied by Richard John Neuhaus in a 1991 article. I have heard it said in the last six years that what makes conservatives superior to liberals is their religious faith—as if morality is impossible without religion and everything is indeed permitted, as the cliché has it. I wonder whether religious conservatives can spot the atheists among them by their deeds or, for that matter, by their political positions. I very much doubt it. Skeptical conservatives do not look into the abyss when they make ethical choices. Their moral sense is as secure as a believer’s. They do not need God or the Christian Bible to discover the golden rule and see themselves in others. It is often said, in defense of religion, that we all live parasitically off of its moral legacy, that we can only dismiss religion because we are protected by the work it has already done on our behalf. This claim has been debated ad nauseam since at least the middle of the 19th century. Suffice it to say that, to many of us, Western society has become more compassionate, humane, and respectful of rights as it has become more secular. Just compare the treatment of prisoners in the 14th century to today, an advance due to Enlightenment reformers. A secularist could as easily chide today’s religious conservatives for wrongly ignoring the heritage of the Enlightenment. A secular value system is of course no guarantee against injustice and brutality, but then neither is Christianity. America’s antebellum plantation owners found solid support for slaveholding in their cherished Bible, to name just one group of devout Christians who have brought suffering to the world. So maybe religious conservatives should stop assuming that they alone occupy the field. Maybe they should cut back a bit on their religious triumphalism. Nonbelievers are good conservatives, too. As Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has advised, it should be possible for conservatives to unite on policy without agreeing on theology.
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#1. To: Burkeman1 (#0)
I'd be interested in your input. While I agree with most of what you write day in and day out, I fall into the author's category. And I agree with her. I read this over the weekend and thought of you.
Bump.
What's a good conservative and why would an atheist want to be one?
Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.
A dutiful piece to her owners.
"Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right?" -- Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) Source: A Treatise on Political Economy, 1803 "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." -- John Morley (1838-1923) Source: Critical Miscellanies pmlmao! they're bored?
"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. I am frankly disgusted at people like John Ashcroft who "thank God" for protecting America. America- to God, is nothing but a fleeting nation- a spec of time in his grand design. To think that God is "Watching" over this country is frankly heretical, but utterly unsurprising given the self centered narcissism that many American "conservatives" are in the grips of. There was a time when "Atheisists" scared me. They don't any longer. Indeed- I find most to be more decent than these political religious assholes and rapture nutting heretics who infest the GOP today. Reichwinger propaganda is always trying to scare people - and the big bad "Atheist" is at the top of the list. The fact of the matter is that my faith doesn't rest upon your lack of it. The reason why these nutters "fear" Atheisists is their faith is about as deep as a pot hole puddle - that is why they are always clamoring for the government to protect their feeble "faith."
So, who or what is the absolute final arbiter (or author, if you will) of what consitutes right or wrong, good or evil? What is the standard by which moral or immoral behavior and choices is measured? What distinguishes an animal killing its prey to feed itself from a man killing another man to supply himself? What distinguishes the killer from the killed (aside from survival of the 'fitest')? Are they not both intent on survival, as is the animal and its prey? From where does "morality" spring, on what is it based? Is there an absolute (unarguable and consistently applicable without exception to all humankind) definition of "right" and "wrong"? How is such a definition derived? What is its authority and authenticity? If morality can be had without religion, can choices be made without conscience? Or is irreligious "morality" merely whatever one deems it to be, i.e. situational ethics or moral relativism?
(The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only true good news)
Do unto others is about all that is needed...
Geez man, I didn't say anything our first president didn't. ;)
Indeed it can, and over at LP, "TakeNoPrisoners" maintains that all religious people are of the highest moral character and absolutely positively incapable of even the tiniest little white lie. They ALWAYS tell the truth in ALL matters. Yes, atheists can not only make good conservatives but have a higher moral standard judging by the pond scum floating around.
Press 1 to proceed in English. Press 2 for Deportation.
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?
Likely happier and with less guilt about them and more money from not having to support religious workers. Its also a matter of degree. When one is convinced that one is personally favored by their deity, they tend to go off and do stupid things. Muslim homicide bombers are a good example of that, as are many cult leaders and wacked out preachers. There are good religious people out there, but there are too many who fail to realize that it is possible to go "too far" with things. Side note: A good friend of mine blew his brain away with steroids some years ago. He has no conscience anymore. None. No religion would be able to do anything with that. So, he became a philosopher, mostly so he could write his own "program" to be able to tell right from wrong. He is about as atheist as you get and makes the Republican right look like a bunch of liberals.
Press 1 to proceed in English. Press 2 for Deportation.
I agree with Franklin's point though. Does religion make some men bad, or does it keep many men from behaving even worse? A good friend of mine blew his brain away with steroids some years ago. He has no conscience anymore. None. That reminds me of my uncle. He's not bright enough though to be a philosopher. Post-roids he has fixed upon Jesus as his fuhrer. A lot of ex-cons who have "found Jesus" are the same way -- essentially still fascist/criminal personalities, a strict ethical code with no underlying moral values.
There is the crux of the matter - obedience without understanding needed. Perhaps we should amend the statement to be "religion makes many bad men from behaving even worse" - there is a place for everything. Perhaps strict religion is needed in these cases.
Press 1 to proceed in English. Press 2 for Deportation.
Atheists would make better conservatives. They must base their opinions and conduct on a cautious and considered reason for which they alone are responsible. The option of blindly following some dogma and relying on Big Daddy to bail them out on Earth or in some Hereafter is not available to them.
...who or what is the absolute final arbiter (or author, if you will) of what consitutes right or wrong, good or evil? It's not a bearded fairy who lives in the clouds.
#2. To: Loopy, Burkeman1, all (#1)
As Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has advised, it should be possible for conservatives to unite on policy without agreeing on theology.
#3. To: (#0)
#4. To: Loopy (#0)
Brophy: "But professor it is really nece--"
Professor Lilolman: "It is 'nece.' I know what is 'nece.' Don't tell me what is 'nece.' I tell you what is 'nece.'"
#5. To: lodwick (#2)
#6. To: Alan Chapman (#3)
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."-- Thomas Paine
#7. To: Loopy (#1)
#8. To: Tauzero (#4)
morality can be maintained without religion
#9. To: Starwind (#8)
What is the standard by which moral or immoral behavior and choices is measured?
#10. To: Starwind (#8)
Brophy: "But professor it is really nece--"
Professor Lilolman: "It is 'nece.' I know what is 'nece.' Don't tell me what is 'nece.' I tell you what is 'nece.'"
#11. To: Tauzero (#4)
Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.
#12. To: mirage (#11)
Brophy: "But professor it is really nece--"
Professor Lilolman: "It is 'nece.' I know what is 'nece.' Don't tell me what is 'nece.' I tell you what is 'nece.'"
#13. To: Tauzero (#12)
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?
#14. To: mirage (#13)
What really hit home for me was when my Croatian limo driver complained about having to learn Spanish.
#15. To: Tauzero (#14)
A lot of ex-cons who have "found Jesus" are the same way -- essentially still fascist/criminal personalities, a strict ethical code with no underlying moral values.
#16. To: Loopy (#0)
#17. To: Starwind (#8)
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