Pajamas Media

102 Comments

1. RE:

Thank you for an excellent article.

So how can we expect to have an honest debate with people that are incapable or unwilling to be honest with themselves? The situation seems ripe for Charles Krauthammer to come up with another clinical name for this condition, something along the lines of his accurate isolation and identification of ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS)’. Or, perhaps they are related mental afflictions in that both BDS and Obama worship are heavily invested in the blind acceptance of a deliberate mythological narrative as truth and have taken a religious leap of faith into the secular humanist abyss from which pride and ego prevent any return.

At any rate, we are witnessing a form of insanity in our midst and we are being harmed by it.

Sep 1, 2009 - 3:36 am 2. moron:

Hey, have you forgotten the overwhelming attraction of Obama??? Obama is black!! That trumps reason every time with hard core liberals!! Actually, it eliminates reason from the equation with a hard core liberal. If a hard core liberal has an iota of reason to begin with.

Sep 1, 2009 - 3:47 am 3. Stephen Rittenberg:

Outstanding article. I would add one point re: Paglia. She has been consistently Arabist in her leanings and regularly sounds like Pat Buchanan on Israel. Yes, she’s brilliant and entertaining, but she’s no friend of the Jewish state.

Sep 1, 2009 - 4:35 am 4. David Thomson:

David Solway conveniently ignores the elephant in the room: abortion! Alan Dershowitz and Camille Paglia are both committed existentially to an atheist, secularist culture. They are utterly contemptuous of traditional moral values. Dershowitz has also long shown an inclination towards self-delusion when it comes to those he favors. He apparently was one of the first attorneys to assist Ted Kennedy to lie his way out of the Chappaquiddick mess. The Harvard law professor has also performed similar services for Michael Jackson and Bill Clinton. He truly is a man who knows how to deceive himself.

Jews who are Jews in name only threaten Israel’s very existence. They would not hesitate to throw the country under the bus. Advancing the cause of practical atheism is deemed a much higher priority. Abortion is the secular sacramental value that truly binds them together. The Orthodox Jewish communities are Israel’s best allies—along with the Evangelical Christians. At the end of the day, the more secular Jews could really care less. They prefer to bow down to the altar of the abortionists. Barack Obama is their secular high priest.

Sep 1, 2009 - 4:46 am 5. TennesseeVolunteer:

They are leftist, ‘elite’ liberals first. They are libs first and Jewish second. They can afford to be since they don’t have rockets and suicide bombers harrass and attack them like all of the citizens of Israel. If they lived in Israel for a couple of years, or lost a relative to the rockets (God forbid), they would see things differently.

Sep 1, 2009 - 5:02 am 6. Terry Gain:

Paglia has compiled a veritable not-to-do list, providing convincing reasons to cashier this president ASAP. And yet, as we have seen, she does not suffer “buyer’s remorse,” and indeed claims at the outset that she “will continue to support him.” How to make even a modicum of sense of this species of cognitive dissonance?

It’s not so hard. For liberals, given their adulation of him, to deal with the reality of Obama requires an admission against ego.

@1 Re

I’m no CK but at least six months ago I coined the term to describe this phenomena. It’s called OBAMA ARRANGEMENT SYNDROME . The syndrome requires that people interpret or ignore events in a manner that reinforces their preconceived, and rigid, notions about Obama.

Sep 1, 2009 - 5:09 am 7. Rashputin:

These folks and many like them grew up watching their parents make excuses for Stalin or the Soviets, and excuse every dictator in the third world. They followed that with an education by the same sort of people, those who are expert at making excuses in order to never abandon their preconceptions. That’s a common failing of leftist intellectuals who are prone to believe some elitist will eventually lead them all to the promised land of a socialist paradise in spite of all those that have gone before having failed.

A few years ago I read a book about Germany pre-WWII and how Jews reacted to Hitler. An amazing number of people and groups were making excuses for him, explaining that he was just pandering to the wing of his party from which the SA was drawn, that he his anti-communism was only a means to allow him to introduce long needed socialist policies, so on and so forth. These are the same people who quietly reported to the earliest trains to the camps. They were still arguing among themselves over whether they would be resettled in Poland or were actually going to be secretly deported. It seems like there is nothing that has happened or possibly could happen that will break the elitist intellectual habit of automatically making excuses rather than shedding a preconception. The Jewish left has generations of experience with making excuses as well as generations old preconceptions. As such they are the liberal elitists least capable of recognizing some forms of tyranny. Barry, con man that he is, knows they’ll make excuses for him even faster than he can for himself.

Regards

Sep 1, 2009 - 5:31 am 8. Terry Gain:

David Solway conveniently ignores the elephant in the room: abortion!

Good for you David Thomson. There are only two things wrong with abortion. Firstly, the killing of innocent and totally vulnerable human life is fundamentally evil. Secondly, those who can rationalize abortion as something other than evil have perfected the art of self-delusion and are capable of rationalizing anything.

Sep 1, 2009 - 5:45 am 9. flying squirrel:

Denial is a preexisting condition for all. We wish that what we wish were really true. Only a rough interview with the facts can truly educate. (”What, like a bullet can undeceive” Melville)
America is an ongoing experiment. We try things to see what works. The electorate decided to try Obama, and they-we- will learn from the results. Too many do not remember that the last experiment with Carterism was a failure and could not anticipate “welcome back Carter” would likewise fail.
I anticipate that in a couple of years, tutored by experience, these two intellects will be doing a Steve Martin: ” EXCUSE ME! I FORGOT that acting like a doormat only gets you stepped on.”
As I’ve said before, nothing conservatives say can persuade like what liberals actually do once they are in power.

Sep 1, 2009 - 6:17 am 10. Anita from Italy:

In his book “The case against Israel’s enemies” Alan Dershowitz as he himself admits was one of the biggest supporters of Jimmy Carter since 1976 and none of his anti-Israel behavior has convinced Desrhowitz of the contrary. It took him more than 30 years to change his mind and only after reading Carter’s outrageous and false book “Peace not Apartheid”. Be patient, he’ll get there. A free advice in case Mr. Dershowitz feels 3 decades are a too long time to wait since he’s no young boy , a flower called Chestnut Bud (from the Bach flowers) is given to people who do not learn from their own experience.

Sep 1, 2009 - 6:40 am 11. tanstaafl:

…a presidential image, behind which lurks a very different sort of beast — the Wizard of Oz in reverse. Prior political commitments and who knows what deeply nurtured personal aims can be extremely effective blinders to the corrugations of the real.

Israel these days shouldn’t count on those shifting Washington DC sands.

At all, if possible.

Camille Paglia says of Obama’s senior advisor David Axelrod, a “wily fox” who could “charm gold threads out of moonbeams.”

Didn’t she see this fool over the airwaves, just prior to April 15, trying to discredit the tea parties ? As part of this administration’s strategy to completely control the American dialogue through distortion, dissembling and outright fabrication, apparently it is one of Axelrod’s assignments to repeat the Big Lie, over and over and over.

Camille Paglia seems to be between a rock and a hard place in trying to assess this administration. She gravitates to liberalism but some cell keeps firing, deep in her midbrain, that something is hugely amiss.

Paglia made some very astute observations on Liberals in another a Salon article, several months before the one you cite.

They blew me away in their accuracy.

Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of
government power.

…For the past 25 years, liberalism
has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent.

Sep 1, 2009 - 6:43 am 12. Mr Lucky:

4. David Thomson. “Alan Dershowitz and Camille Paglia are both committed existentially to an atheist, secularist culture. They are utterly contemptuous of traditional moral values.”

Mr. Thomson, are you implying that all atheists are contemptuous of traditional moral values? Would that include anyone who does not adhere to your system of morality?

Sep 1, 2009 - 6:53 am 13. tanstaafl:

…BDS and Obama worship are heavily invested in the blind acceptance of a deliberate mythological narrative as truth and have taken a religious leap of faith into the secular humanist abyss from which pride and ego prevent any return.

The Liberal Mind today is invested in a Narrative. Facts & truth only get in the way of chosen Narrative and, thus, need to be ignored, dismissed, explained away, no matter what kind of monumental stretch is needed to discredit the facts and support the narrative.

And much of the American public (which should be laughing itself silly over this insult to Reality) seems to be confused.

Which confusion helps grease the way for the BGPG, big government power grab, because, after all, poor, widdle you (the Narrative) needs a Big Brother, n’est-ce pas ?

This is the Clear and Present Danger, more insidious and destructive, in its way, than the out and out killers who live to slaughter infidels, Americans, & western culture.

Sep 1, 2009 - 6:57 am 14. Terry Gain:

Mr. Thomson, are you implying that all atheists are contemptuous of traditional moral values? Would that include anyone who does not adhere to your system of morality?

Mr Lucky,

You have to be lucky to survive when you can’t read, or think.

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:09 am 15. jeff:

Paglia did the same with the Clintons: gushing about them in 92, then blaming their many miscues on their staff, & finally – when the Clintons turned out to be exactly what they had always been – expressing deep dismay. She also has no grasp of economics (but then, the opposite of a liberal isn’t a conservative, it’s someone with a simple grasp of how a market economy works)

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:12 am 16. Lynn:

There should be a world meeting between all the powerful leaders of the world. They should finally, once and for all, admit that the Jewish People have a long history of living in the Middle East. They should admit that they have been driven out of, let in, driven out of, let in, driven out of their homeland ad nauseum for centuries.

The majority Arab/Muslims who occupy most of the Middle East should agree to set aside a small sliver of land where the Jewish People can live in peace, practice their faith, govern themselves with autotomy and without threat of annihilation. The world can think of it a reservation and we could honor it as a place for the people who have contributed much to our civilization, but been persecuted horribly for the crime of existing.

Obama would agree because he after all is half black and knows what it’s like to be taken from his homeland. Democrats would agree because they after all say they are for the down trodden, and the Republicans would agree because they are after all Lincoln’s Party.

There, the Jewish People can finally unpack their bags. Wait a minute…

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:16 am 17. A Lale:

‘And yet, when it comes to the international figure who may well represent the most serious threat to Israel’s well-being and perhaps even to its survival — by whom I mean not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but Barack Obama — Dershowitz assembles his, shall we say, The Case for Obama.’

How did that sentence ever make it past the editors? It may well be the worst sentence I have read this year.

I agree with the substance of this piece, but fighting through the god-awful syntax is unnecessary pain.

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:28 am 18. misanthopicus:

RE #12/Mr Lucky RE #49/David Thomson. [...] Mr. Thomson, are you implying that all atheists are contemptuous of traditional moral values? Would that include anyone who does not adhere to your system of morality? [...]‘

By challenging David Thomson’s perfectly true point, you delivered a perfect illustration of moral relativism, Mr. Lucky.

And here’s more on your answer: while morality doesn’t have the inflexible rigor of geometry or of other disciplines that describe fundamental physics regularities, it still was/is fairly uniform across cultures and times.
Elders abuse was/is generally frown upon, from pygmys to Inuits to Indians; dishonesty is disaproved, and correctness is appreciate (yes, even berbers use to respect the terms of their deals), betrayal of the group is uniformly disapproved, while the need of cooperation amongst the members of the group is a postulate, sexual restraint is generaly encouraged and debauchery is generally derided, etc, etc.
While there sure are variations across the spectrum of the planet’s populations, one can correctly say that what you question as “system of morality” is actually a world-wide, remarkably uniform collection of views that regulate the humans’ intrractions – i.e. simply there isn’t such thing like an “alternative system of morality”.

And now a corollary of this – the justified view that homosexuality is not a good thing and the homosexual marriage is bad idea, too, is also one of the commonest elements of this universal, intricate moral mesh that keeps the “tribes” of this planet in the, alas! quite precarious stability we all live in.

Frankly, it’s not that difficult to dismiss the “moral underpinnings” of the “when Woodstock generation meets the hip-hop generation” -

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:36 am 19. Thomas:

For most of you – who were born in this land and don’t have international experiences – all these Dershovitz like figures appear to be baffling enigma…Kenneth Roth, the Jewish HRW boss asking money from Abdullah against the “other” Jews? What a scandal! – you may say.

Not at all surprising for us with Eastern European historical roots. This way they operated ever since the 1917. Russian revolution.

During the 1967 Arab-Israeli war they supported the Soviets and the “progressive” Arab freedom fighters against Israel, “the bourgeois lackey of the American Imperialism”….etc”
At that time I was still behind the Iron Curtain so I clearly remember how the Communist Jews vociferously spawned Marxism-Leninism.

They cling religiously to their ideology no matter what and only a 1956 type Hungarian or 1968 type Czech popular uprising forced them out of power. Now they represent less than 10% of the voting population in E. Europe, no wonder many immigrated to the US and took over the government and other major institutions.

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:36 am 20. A Lale:

‘The leverets of the liberal-left have rolled over for the sonic boom of a teleprompter cyborg and the pixelled surface of a presidential image, behind which lurks a very different sort of beast — the Wizard of Oz in reverse.’
Did somebody buy you word-of-the-day toilet paper? ‘apostolic charade’? Are you writing for an internet punditry website or a doctoral thesis committee? Sheesh. Its not like the point you are making is new or deeply insightful.
‘How else to account for the unctuous immunities we are often willing to accord people who advance agendas that conflict with our professed beliefs and congenial principles?’ Seriously, is that the clearest way to state that thought?

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:44 am 21. Thomas_L......:

Good article. It’s not unlike giving a ten year old the keys to the Porsche and hoping he learns how to handle it before he wrecks it. But isn’t he cute behind the wheel?

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:44 am 22. Frank Logan:

Flying Squirrel #9 has it nailed. “Denial is a preexisting condition for all. We wish that what we wish were really true. Only a rough interview with the facts can truly educate”

The lesson is that there is an objective reality, and your job in life is to get as close to it as you possibly can.

Relatively few liberals ever have that rough interview with the facts, because generally, they seldom take risks. A Profit and Loss Statement doesn’t care if you are liberal or conservative, black or white, male or female, religious or secular. The objective reality is that your revenues must exceed your expenses or you are toast.

Testing your ideas leads to life experience resulting in common sense. Something missing in most liberals, I know.

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:46 am 23. Trainwreck:

Rashputin: “The Jewish left has generations of experience with making excuses as well as generations old preconceptions. As such they are the liberal elitists least capable of recognizing some forms of tyranny. Barry, con man that he is, knows they’ll make excuses for him even faster than he can for himself.”

Horowitz wrote a great book about the role of Jews in the left wing over the last 100 years, and how essentially the religion of many of these Jews is secondary or an afterthought, whereas their real religion is the progressive movement to a socialist utopia. It is sad that throughout history, Jews have been their own worst enemy. While elite Jews were out to make a new Soviet Man and uplift the masses, ordinary Jews were thrown into gulags; when elite Jews enabled the communists and Nazis to collapse the Weimar republic, ordinary Jews in Europe were doomed. Now in America, elite Jews are throwing their co-religionists under the bus in their own country and Israel to burnish their left wing credentials and usher in a PC MC socialist utopia.

The Jews are analogous to the whales: despite being hunted to near extinction, many are determined to beach themselves on some socialist utopian shore, and take a number of their fellow whales with them.

Sep 1, 2009 - 7:54 am 24. Regards:

“Horowitz wrote a great book about the role of Jews in the left wing over the last 100 years, … “

Thanks for the comment and info on the book. That’s another one I’ll be buying and only after reading it wondering why I keep spending what little discretionary income I have on book instead of Scotch.

Regards

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:11 am 25. urbanleftbehind:

Didnt Paglia nearly have a Meg Ryan-style orgasm over Sarah Palin last year?

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:14 am 26. tanstaafl:

Now in America, elite Jews are throwing their co-religionists under the bus in their own country and Israel to burnish their left wing credentials and usher in a PC MC socialist utopia.

Such Jews (and, reportedly, there are large numbers of them in America) seem to be in the grips of some elaborate death wish.

What is wrong with their heads ?

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:17 am 27. Meryl:

“Mr. Thomson, are you implying that all atheists are contemptuous of traditional moral values? Would that include anyone who does not adhere to your system of morality?” (Mr. Lucky)

I have never understood what source of information/ideals athiests use to develop a “system of morality”. Since the very phrase “system of morality” supposes the existence of right and wrong and God is excluded as a source….where? what? Cabbage? Personal experience? Grandparents’ cooking pot? Watching cats play?

What on earth (literally/exclusively) is the source of information from which a “system of morality” is devised?

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:18 am 28. scythe:

Brilliant Analysis of the Obvious. So glad you wrote this. I have read Paglia’s recent columns and they are nothing short of hypocritical and self delusional. The contradictions in her logic and her painful attempts to make sense of it all without implicating Obama only diminish her intellectual prowess. I think she has severely tarnished her reputation. You can add the former Mayor Edward Koch to your list. The Mayor will rail against anything he disagrees with, mildly or severely, but in the end he always explains it away so he can continue to support a left winger.

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:21 am 29. goy:

- It never ceases to amaze how people who should know better, erudite intellectuals who write with precision, flair, and lucidity and are capable of acute reflectiveness, can nevertheless lend their support to Barack Obama.

It shouldn’t amaze anyone. In fact, pretending that it’s “amazing” is part of what has pushed the Republic to the brink of ruin.

There’s a perfectly rational reason for this phenomenon and clinical research correlating psychology with ideology demonstrates why this happens.

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:25 am 30. frank grimes:

dershowitz has his moments.here he is repeatingly slapping the head of,argueably the world’s most useful idiot-noam chomsky:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULvJrb5lKu4

(14 parts total)

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:26 am 31. tanstaafl:

“system of morality”

Post-modernism & deconstructionist thinking have been teaching our little Leftoids, for decades now, that “morality” is a function of what they think it is, IOW, a matter of opinion.

We can see the results of decades of brainwashing in all the Left’s cute little arguments (most glaringly, cf Obama’s abortion stance) relative to morality.

Leftists can’t conceive that moral standards might exist in some absolute sense, i.e., outside their little brain f@rts about them.

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:35 am 32. Calvin Ball:

The dirty little secret is that when Jews secularized in Germany in the 19th century, they struck a Faustian bargain. Lose the Jewish religion and identity (including Yiddish) in exchange for a more normalized relationship with society. Then society double-crossed them.

Now, there’s a hatred for western civilization buried so deeply in the Jewish psyche that most of them don’t even realize it. They won’t let it out unless they think that there are no Goyim listening, but it does come out sometimes.

Dershowitz’s problem is that while he still desires Israel’s survival, he, at some very deep subconscious level, wants America to burn. He’s not that atypical. There’s a pathological desire to get even. This is also why such liberals can look the other way when Blacks engage in outrageous behavior; the deep, visceral hatred isn’t toward them; it’s only toward whites. And lower-class whites, in particular.

The Orthodox have managed to avoid this trap, because they never had the expectation of equality and assimilation to begin with. That, and they really do believe in God, unlike most Reform Jews, who attend temple for primarily social reasons.

The secular Jews are trapped in a psychology of severe hatred for the white Christian working class, and can’t verbalize exactly why. They just simply hate. And most of them have absorbed this narrative to the point where in their minds, their Israeli cousins are just more white rabble, to be destroyed along with all the flyover trash in the US.

Obama represents deliverance from whiteness (which requires some psychological gymnastics considering that he’s as white as he is black). He represents the repudiation of everything that they hate.

And every one of them will deny to their deaths that they’re hateful.

Sep 1, 2009 - 9:03 am 33. Ruvy:

There should be a world meeting between all the powerful leaders of the world.

And while they’re all in one room, they should be blown to smithereens. We don’t need the scum to solve our problems.

There, Lynn, fixed it for ya!

Sep 1, 2009 - 9:27 am 34. Mongoose:

The term “Liberal as used today–a euphemism for various forms of Left-wing, collectivist tyranny–cannot hold the “Good”.

There is no such thing as a good or decent Liberal. There may be those that are well socialized and so appear decent and good, but this is merely a matter of conditioning. Manners are not morality. There may be decent and good “useful idiots” who do not understand how they are used, and who do not really understand what they are supporting, but they are not true Liberals. They are fools. There are no “good” Liberals. Even the “useful idiots” must have some sort of moral deficiencies in order to be used so badly by the Left.

The “crisis” of liberalism is not Obama, it is Marxism. It is treason. If these so called “good liberals” were to ever actually become possessed of true morality they would have to denounce there former false religion for the profound evil that it is.

IT is doubtful that this will happen.

Sep 1, 2009 - 9:28 am 35. Wil:

The cause of these mental short circuits in otherwise perceptive and clear-headed liberals, is that Obama is a half black, left-liberal Democrat. Realization of this fact permanently realigns most of the synapses in the brains of all liberals. Logic, truth, reason, facts, and clarity are all effectively and permanently destroyed in this mental state. Thus, it serves no useful purpose to talk or to listen to them.

Sep 1, 2009 - 9:33 am 36. Ruvy:

The dirty little secret is that when Jews secularized in Germany in the 19th century, they struck a Faustian bargain. Lose the Jewish religion and identity (including Yiddish) in exchange for a more normalized relationship with society. Then society double-crossed them.

Now, there’s a hatred for western civilization buried so deeply in the Jewish psyche that most of them don’t even realize it. They won’t let it out unless they think that there are no Goyim listening, but it does come out sometimes.

Close, but no cigar. Jews developed their attitudes of hatred for non-Jews while living under their heel and while they lived under their heel – as they still do in America, they censor themselves. It really is that simple. Listen to Israel National Radio sometimes. There, Israeli Jews don’t censor themselves.

Sep 1, 2009 - 9:37 am 37. Mongoose:

people who should know better, erudite intellectuals who write with precision, flair, and lucidity and are capable of acute reflectiveness,

Are you serious? What a joke. They are no such thing. Garrulously and glibly spitting out left-wing, Sunday-supplement bromides is not the work of “erudite intellectuals who write with precision, flair, and lucidity and are capable of acute reflectiveness”.
It is the work of left wing, psuedo-intellectual hacks who write for an audience almost as vile as they are.

The flair they have are on the legs of the blue jeans they save as momentous from way back when. Seriously now.

Do you really think that Palhia “scholarship” will survive her death by even 30 years?

You spend too much time at the front tables at Barnes and Nobles. Go back to the classics section, you might find something worth reading.

Sep 1, 2009 - 9:38 am 38. Trainwreck:

#32:
Reform judaism, which was created in Germany, was part of this Faustian bargain. Go into any reform synogogue in America today and you will feel that you have stumbled into a Democratic party headquarters/new age neo-hippie retreat. The oftentimes female rabbi frequently delivers a sermon on social justice mixed with PC and environmentalism, sometimes mixed with invocation of a genderless deity (to use the masculine pronoun to describe G-d is an affront to feminism).

In America, Washington himself delivered an address to Jews welcoming them as a fabric of American life. Jews should kiss the ground that the Founding Fathers walked upon. I cannot understand why so many Jewish elites want to burn down the house that has sheltered and nurtured their ancestors for over 200 years.

The conservative movement arose in America in reaction to the excesses of reform Judaism; unfortunately, it too has been a victim of the Jewish elitists with their PC MC socialist inclinations.

To become orthodox is equivalent to a Protestant deciding to become Amish, difficult to do for many Jews in modern life. Unfortunately, that leaves Jewish people who believe in America and who are right of center politically with absolutely no voice in the Obama-loving, PC MC socialist-leaning Jewish leadership, who, like the Kapos of olde, seem to be leading the Jewish people here and in Israel on a one-way trainride to the ovens to curry favor with their leftists gods.

Sep 1, 2009 - 9:44 am 39. Rashputin:

27. Meryl:

Nietzsche explained well what most atheists do. He said that having declared God dead, like murders they then went through the pockets of the corpse deciding what to keep and what to discard. He further concluded that atheists had to create their own, new, hard values, and develop a new race of man (the root of the superman idea Hitler embraced and altered to suit himself). Until they did, he said, they were living on morality based on a belief in God, just shedding or claiming what they chose as the situation required instead of facing the reality of denying God.

I think he was the most honest atheist I’ve read, others attempting to explain away their reliance on existing morality or rationalize their lack of morality. While I don’t think atheism is a reasonable reaction to or explanation for reality, I do think those who proclaim it could be honest with themselves and admit the true situation as Nietzsche did. Someone being an atheist doesn’t prove that they lack morality any more than being a particular denomination of Protestant would. Like many of those calling themselves Christian while denying Christ, they adopt a morality rather than build one for themselves. Unlike the philosophers who went through the pockets of the dead and stole what they liked, average folks just pick up something they like at the pawn shop and don’t worry too much about where it came from.

Regards

Sep 1, 2009 - 9:45 am 40. Mr Lucky:

First, I am an atheist. So…

14. Terry Gain.

“Mr Lucky,

You have to be lucky to survive when you can’t read, or think.”

Thank you. vivo, Now and Then and Moho et al. have had an impact, I see.

18. misanthopicus.

By challenging David Thomson’s perfectly true point, you delivered a perfect illustration of moral relativism, Mr. Lucky.

I believe in moral absolutes. I don’t agree that they are derived from a supernatural realm.

27. Meryl.

What on earth (literally/exclusively) is the source of information from which a “system of morality” is devised?

I will refer you to Ayn Rand and her explanation of morality. I agree with much of what she says on the subject of the basis of morality.

31. tanstaafl.

“system of morality”

Post-modernism & deconstructionist thinking have been teaching our little Leftoids, for decades now, that “morality” is a function of what they think it is, IOW, a matter of opinion.
“Leftists can’t conceive that moral standards might exist in some absolute sense, i.e., outside their little brain f@rts about them.”

If you are referring to me. I certainly am not a leftist. Again, I believe in moral absolutes. Read my question again –

Mr. Thomson, are you implying that all atheists are contemptuous of traditional moral values? Would that include anyone who does not adhere to your system of morality?

There is no condemnation of Mr. Thomson’s “system of morality”, nor is there an explicit statement rejecting an absolute morality. Mr. Thomson’s “system of morality” could well apply to one or to all. The issue from my viewpoint, is the blanket condemnation of those who appear to be less moral because there is disagreement as to whether there is higher power which imposes morality on humankind, or that humankind can by the power of reason and intellect derive a moral system that is objective and applicable to existence.

Sep 1, 2009 - 9:47 am 41. garyj:

Dershowitz is a whiny kvetch. Nothing he has said or written is of any import.He makes dumb ad hominum attacks on his critics.Yet because he is slobbering liberal the MSM poses him as a great intellectual. Presumably his intellect appeals to the Oprah Winfrey audience. I can’t comment on Paglia being not that familiar with her.

Sep 1, 2009 - 10:10 am 42. misanthopicus:

RE #40/Mr Lucky RE # 18/misanthropicus: [...] I believe in moral absolutes. I don’t agree that they are derived from a supernatural realm. [...]

Wrong, mister Lucky – I didn’t say anything about “moral absolutes derived from a supernatural power”.

My description of the situation was very clear: “[...] while morality doesn’t have the inflexible rigor of geometry or of other disciplines that describe fundamental physics regularities, it still was/is fairly uniform across cultures and times. [...] While there sure are variations across the spectrum of the planet’s populations, one can correctly say that what you question as “system of morality” is actually a world-wide, remarkably uniform collection of views that regulate the humans’ intrractions – i.e. simply there isn’t such thing like an “alternative system of morality”. [...]

I took the low road of anthropology in arguing in this matter, and I intentionally made no intimation of higher forces ordering humans to act so, but not so – if one thinks that Moses received some conduct orders from god, or other major religious trajectory-setters believe the same, that’s fine for me.

I described morality as a rather streamlining phenomenon, in which humans’ instincts, drives and tendencies are culturally adjusted for the common benefit of the larger group – and here, what’s disturbing for lefties (who are quick to accuse their pe-oponents of religious fanaticism), is the fact that the phenomenon I describe is universal and that it gives the human conduct a commonality which makes an “alternative morality” a juvenile utopia (or an attempt of undermining normalcy – for you now to offer a definition of an “alternative normalcy”).

Sep 1, 2009 - 10:11 am 43. David Thomson:

“Dershowitz is a whiny kvetch.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Alan Dershowitz normally is extremely brilliant and insightful when dealing with the defense of Israel and terrorism. It is difficult to find anyone better. However, he comes totally unglued when the subject turns to the cultural wars. Dershowitz may be suffering from a guilty conscience.

You understand nothing concerning present day liberalism and the Democratic Party until the subject of abortion is brought into the discussion. Abortion defines liberalism from the beginning to the end. One is allowed to compromise on a number of issues—but not abortion!

Sep 1, 2009 - 10:27 am 44. Calvin Ball:

36, linky no worky. But I think that it’s not fair to compare Israelis to secular American Jews, because Israelis, or at least most Israelis (if you could excise Tel Aviv), despite living under constant threat, at least feel some sense of empowerment over their own destiny. Feeling empowered makes a difference in how anyone sees the “other”. But the Tel Aviv moonbat crowd might was well be American secular liberal Jews.

Sep 1, 2009 - 10:38 am 45. Lynn:

Ruvy, Ruvy, Ruvy,

There ya go trying to solve the world’s problems by blowing up the world’s problems. Geez, what about the fallout.

Sep 1, 2009 - 10:46 am 46. Ruvy:

36, linky no worky.

Try this link instead, Calvin.

I agree with a lot of the rest of your comment above. But you should be more specific in isolating the villains in the piece. The secular elites in Tel Aviv who run most of the media and industry and who sorta own the government, might be more clear…. They comprise the “People’s Republic of Tel Aviv”.

Sep 1, 2009 - 10:58 am 47. arhooley:

17. A Lale:

Heh, it’s true, Mr. Solway should have left out “The” in “The Case for Obama.”

But I generally find Solway to have a Pagila-esque energy in his writing. “How to make even a modicum of sense of this species of cognitive dissonance?” “Obama himself chose this gang of mountebanks.”

I like it.

Sep 1, 2009 - 11:11 am 48. Boots:

“One is allowed to compromise on a number of issues-but not abortion!”

Add to that the “right to die”, a la the dehydration death of Terri Schiavo. It’s not a coincidence that HR 3200 contains numerous regulations encouraging/forcing (depends on your interpretation of the bill) the elderly and disabled to receive ‘end of life’ counseling. At the time Ms. Schiavo was still alive but being killed by dehydration, I could not believe the cruel jokes being told & repeated endlessly about her fate. The punditry would launch the joke into the public square and everyone else would laugh & repeat it. Another way to soften the population up to what is really the gruesome death of an innocent, just like abortion.

Sep 1, 2009 - 11:11 am 49. Will:

Are there good Liberals,really ??

Sep 1, 2009 - 11:17 am 50. uncommon sense:

What you see with Paglia and Dershowitz is no different than from GE/NBC, losing money by the minute, but getting even more desperate. Its simple really. They are all ideologues, and there communist ideology trumps everything. Paglia isnt mad at WHAT Obama has done, shes mad that hes FAILING to do it. Ditto Dershowitz, whos been teaching lawyers how to use the constitution to destroy the constitution for years. The old KGB/NKVD agents of the USSR would tell you that of the motivations for spying,ideology was the best one. Dont forget the left is tyrannical, they have to impose there agenda by force. Paglia and Dershowitz arent “good liberals”. They are part of the problem, not the solution.

Sep 1, 2009 - 11:22 am 51. Snake Eater:

Well, at least Michelle is still pretty.

Sep 1, 2009 - 11:49 am 52. NMSC:

I honestly believe it has more to do with race than anything. I’ve found this with many, many, liberal intellectuals and Paglia and Dershowitz seem no different. Otherwise very smart thinkers who, without realizing it, are programmed to lower their expectations of brown people and excuse them from any personal responsibility in this very patronizing way. I know it seems ridiculous, but I can offer no other explaination for this phenomenon.

Sep 1, 2009 - 11:51 am 53. David Thomson:

“I honestly believe it has more to do with race than anything.”

Race guilt ranks a close second. Barack Obama would not be president today if he were not a “man of color.” Nevertheless, abortion still remains the number one issue. The secularist agenda has dominated Democratic Part politics since the 1972 George McGovern presidential campaign. No candidate can be successful unless possibly running for a U.S. congressional seat. U.S. Senate and especially presidential nominations require a hard line pro-abortion advocate.

Sep 1, 2009 - 12:07 pm 54. Mr Lucky:

42. misanthopicus.

“…while morality doesn’t have the inflexible rigor of geometry or of other disciplines that describe fundamental physics regularities, it still was/is fairly uniform across cultures and times.”

I agree with you that cultures past and present morally have a great deal in common.

Would you agree that most cultures have and have had a very strong religious component in their makeup?

Doesn’t the statement “I described morality as a rather streamlining phenomenon, in which humans’ instincts, drives and tendencies are culturally adjusted for the common benefit of the larger group…” imply that morality is fluid, indeed, as you say “culturally adjusted”? I believe that morality is absolute. I will add that humankind may or have all the answers yet, but generally we do creditable job.

I asked 4. David Thomson two questions. He chose not to answer. Ok with me. And I really have no quarrel with you. My thinking in general is that resolving conflict or disagreement by moral condemnation is not a good thing. I do think that conflict and disagreement can be a good thing, otherwise we still might be living in caves.

Yes, it was presumptuous of me to assume that you might not believe in a higher power, or that morality can only be derived from that higher power. But I hardly described anyone as a religious fanatic, nor would I characterize our disagreements as juvenile. And maybe “your system of morality” was a poor choice of words on my part. I was not my intention to denigrate those who place their moral compass in a different place in contrast to where I find mine.

Sep 1, 2009 - 12:09 pm 55. vonschtead:

Lynn (#16)

“Obama knows what it’s like to be taken from his homeland.” WTF???????????????????

Is he a time traveller that was captured by Arab slavers in the early 1800’s and shipped to an American Plantation? I think not.

He was born in America after slavery, after Jim Crow and used white guilt to get ahead despite his blatant anti-americanism, anti-semetic and hatred of all who oppose his agenda.

Sep 1, 2009 - 12:11 pm 56. David Thomson:

“Mr. Thomson, are you implying that all atheists are contemptuous of traditional moral values? Would that include anyone who does not adhere to your system of morality?”

I think it is safe to say that probably 95% of all atheists are contemptuous of traditional moral values. As matter of fact, I suspect the number one motivation for atheists is the need to rationalize away their sexual promiscuity! The Judeo-Christian moral consensus must dominate our society—if we are to survive. The irony is that I am personally something of a theological modernist. Am I a hypocrite? Whatever, I just refuse to indulge in irrational and immature silliness.

Sep 1, 2009 - 12:19 pm 57. goy:

Mr. Lucky, I’m enjoying your comments.

I think you’d appreciate reading the work of atheist, self-described liberal academic and moral psychology researcher, Jon Haidt. He’s done some very fundamental and very revealing work in understanding the relationship between ideology and morality. Neither is he contemptuous of religion as a function of his atheism, nor is he very tolerant of the left’s general lack of moral diversity. An odd duck to say the least, but a fascinating one who may very well have provided a sort of ‘Rosetta Stone’ that explains the left’s fascination with socially suicidal ideology.

IMHO, moral relativism makes for interesting philosophical discussions and absolute morality is, simply, what works to make for sustainable societies – made up as they are of flawed human beings with innate, Darwinian proclivities for self-preservation selected over millions of years.

I think it’s interesting how the left wields Darwin when they want to attack religion as a moral basis for, well, anything, yet they completely disregard Darwin’s observations when it comes to understanding human nature and human development. Must be related to doublethink.

Sep 1, 2009 - 12:26 pm 58. Calvin Ball:

I think it’s interesting how the left wields Darwin when they want to attack religion as a moral basis for, well, anything, yet they completely disregard Darwin’s observations when it comes to understanding human nature and human development. Must be related to doublethink.

I think it’s interesting how the left worships the idea of a self-organizing universe, but can’t comprehend a self-organizing economy. What’s even weirder is the way they will insist that the universe, and all things in it are self-organizing, and humans should minimize all impact, and then pass laws that prevent species from going extinct, regardless of the reason.

All you can do is shake your head, and recognize them as self-hating humans.

Sep 1, 2009 - 12:44 pm 59. David Thomson:

An atheist who embraces Darwin—should embrace traditional moral values! The evidence, for instance, is very clear that the nuclear family is the best model for the purpose of raising children. Abortion is a direct attack on the human species. This devaluing of prenatal life weakens the existential bonds that unite all societies.

Sep 1, 2009 - 12:52 pm 60. Ruebacca:

The liberal who has Obama pegged is Jesse Jackson. They will all come around to JJ’s opinion eventualy.

Sep 1, 2009 - 12:54 pm 61. Hyphenated American:

The article says: Dershowitz insists that Israel should not be allowed to become a “wedge issue,” that the question should not be partisanized. Identification with the “liberal” wing of the political spectrum is necessary, it would appear, in order not to cede the anti-Zionist field to the hard left and to show that affiliation with what is known as liberal “progressivism” is by no means inconsistent with support for Israel. His fear is that Israel may become “a cause of the right wing alone” and thus “anathema to liberals.”

If you think about this quote, it becomes obvious why Dershowitz is doing what he is doing. His whole life Dersh was a “progressive”, a well-paid, admired liberal. And now, at the end of his life, you expect him to admit in front of everyone that liberalism is anti-semitic, and that he is leaving it?! It’s impossible for an old man. Therefore, all facts be damned – he must try to pretend that liberalism and zionism are not in conflict. And I am sure he is doing this unconsciously.

Sep 1, 2009 - 1:02 pm 62. goy:

@58. Calvin Ball: – All you can do is shake your head, and recognize them as self-hating humans.

Well, that’s not all we can do, since that will only allow our social woes to worsen. We can also teach. The more vocal lemmings who infest boards like this one are beyond teachable, but millions of people out there – some of whom you meet every day – are quite capable of maturing, morally. I’ve had the happy experience of taking an active part in this process on numerous occasions. It’s a rewarding endeavor, on multiple levels.

The first thing is to recognize that moral adolescence is the developmental state most susceptible to the empty promise and specious rationale of socially suicidal, leftist ideology. The second is to recognize that this state can exist in an individual of any age. The third is to learn how to address this phenomenon through education.

Rather than constantly whining, bellyaching, feigning perplexity, “marveling” or being “amazed” at the behavior of self-described “liberals” (actually, leftists), organizations like PJM might consider making the effort to understand that behavior better and spend more time eradicating it than they do complaining about it and ridiculing it.

Bill Whittle is one of the few at PJM who does this consistently and well – and he was doing that long before PJM came along.

Sep 1, 2009 - 1:07 pm 63. Calvin Ball:

Go into any reform synagogue in America today and you will feel that you have stumbled into a Democratic party headquarters/new age neo-hippie retreat. The oftentimes female rabbi frequently delivers a sermon on social justice mixed with PC and environmentalism, sometimes mixed with invocation of a genderless deity (to use the masculine pronoun to describe G-d is an affront to feminism).

And it’s all peace, love and hippy beads. Until you get them talking about flyover whites. Then, if you could bottle the hate, and sell it for a nickel a bottle, you could get rich.

Sep 1, 2009 - 1:16 pm 64. David Thomson:

An occasional individual can be an atheist and we can basically shrug our shoulders. But there is no such thing as a viable society comprised of mostly atheists. It is inherently impossible. Nihilism will be the inevitable result. If nothing else, a belief in God serves the valuable purpose of the “useful lie.” Christopher Hitchens had better hope that he remains the exception—or the Islamic militants will easily defeat the political entities of the West.

Sep 1, 2009 - 1:20 pm 65. CrossBow33:

Mr. Lucky, You rock!

Mr. Thompson, 95%…??? Really? Based on what research? Appears you are indulging in, well, you know.

Sep 1, 2009 - 1:25 pm 66. Mr Lucky:

My God, atheist makes typo!

“I will add that humankind may or have all the answers yet, but generally we do creditable job.”

Should have read “I will add that humankind may not have all the answers yet, but generally we do a creditable job.” This would be more consistently stated as “I will add that humankind may not have achieved moral perfection yet, but generally we do a creditable job.”

56. David Thomson. “The Judeo-Christian moral consensus must dominate our society—if we are to survive.”

Does the Judeo-Christian God work by moral consensus?

“I suspect the number one motivation for atheists is the need to rationalize away their sexual promiscuity!”

Am I missing out on something?

57. goy. I’ll take a look at Jon Haidt. Thanks.

Sep 1, 2009 - 1:30 pm 67. Craig S. Maxwell:

Dershowitz a “good liberal”? Alan Dershowitz defended the obviously guilty O.J. Simpson. “Good” people do not defend murderers. Alan Dershowitz is not good.

Sep 1, 2009 - 2:23 pm 68. oldguy:

I’ve heard the term “Court Jews” used to describe people like Mr.Dershowitz. Oven Jews seems a better description.

Sep 1, 2009 - 2:31 pm 69. garyj:

David Thomson, I enjoy your comments and I probably share a similar world view as you but I have to disagree that Dershowitz argues brilliantly for Israel. Granted he argues for Israel but not in my opinion brilliantly. There are much better. Melanie Phillips turned his logic inside out in a recent series of articles in the Jerusalem Post.He poses as a spokesman for Israel but not a very good one.

Sep 1, 2009 - 2:41 pm 70. garyj:

I’m sorry it might have been Caroline Glick instead of Melanie Phillips.

Sep 1, 2009 - 3:01 pm 71. tanstaafl:

Interesting, Calvin #32

I came to realize, during the OJ trial, that Alan Dershowitz was extremely conflicted about something.

I knew not what, but I recall also (odd thought) when he got his hair permed into small, tight curls.

Before a lot of men were “perming” that is

Sep 1, 2009 - 3:10 pm 72. digitalis:

Mr. Calvin Ball: Brilliant and Honest!

Sep 1, 2009 - 4:07 pm 73. frank grimes:

Craig S. Maxwell:“Good” people do not defend murderers”

so who defends them?

Sep 1, 2009 - 4:35 pm 74. David Thomson:

“I’m sorry it might have been Caroline Glick instead of Melanie Phillips.”

No, you are probably right the first time. Alan Dershowitz bluntly told Melanie Phillips that abortion dominated his priorities. I also own his The Case for Israel. it’s a well done piece of work. Dershowitz has his act together until the issue of abortion nudges itself into the tent. He is first, last, and foremost, a secular humanist.

Sep 1, 2009 - 4:38 pm 75. AtheistConservative:

“I believe in moral absolutes. I don’t agree that they are derived from a supernatural realm.”

As a fellow atheist I understand taking offense at theists characterizing us as amoral. But, like any other belief system, I firmly believe that we have to be willing to self-critique. And atheists/agnostics simply do not do this.

Too many people become atheists as an offshoot of their juvenile rebellion. And too many atheists get wrapped up in the self-importance of their ‘rejection of religion’ to ever consider issues of morality. They become lost, having no moral guide, and either become nihilists or get pulled into some secular religion like statism, Communism, or – god forbid – global warming hysteria.

I definitely stand in solidarity against blanket condemnation of atheism. But we need to realize that atheism is a reaction, not a belief system. My morals were created through the religious-tinted teachings of my parents; it was my own decision to reject the supernatural aspect and keep the lessons. Rather than reject religion as a whole – the reactionary, Dawkins-esque “Flying Spaghetti Monster” jackass method currently popular – we need to teach respect for religion if we want respect for our lack of religion.

Sep 1, 2009 - 4:55 pm 76. Mr Lucky:

64. David Thomson. “If nothing else, a belief in God serves the valuable purpose of the ‘useful lie.’”

Are we entering the time of the Great Tribulation?

Is David Thomson a straw man?

Sep 1, 2009 - 5:54 pm 77. joel:

Alan D. helped to defend O.J. Simpson. He suggested the approach of putting the police on trial, not O.J. In front of a black jury, it worked. He volunteered to help out, I believe, just for the notoriety.

Alan D. is scum. I wish I knew him personally so I could tell that to his face. Scum. Scum. Scum.

There. I hope you now understand how I feel about Alan D.

Sep 1, 2009 - 6:04 pm 78. Calvin Ball:

75, excellent. Very well said. You put your finger right on the problem with most secularists and atheists – they’re still stuck in juvenile rebellion mode, and are too uncomfortable in their own moral and intellectual skin to be comfortable coexisting with theists. In my experience, most die at a ripe old age not ever having progressed beyond that phase.

You have someone like Stephen Weinberg, making sweeping statements about religion being the cause of all atrocities, and then you wonder why theists are so suspicious of and hostile to atheists. Weinberg’s a very, very smart guy, but very much like Dershowitz (relating back to this thread), he simply hasn’t thought the whole thing through all of the way.

Sep 1, 2009 - 6:41 pm 79. Shyannie:

I’m really amazed by the quality of the comments here. So often, in other forums, it’s like screw this or screw that. People’s minds aren’t open, and I rarely learn anything. This is different, and fascinating. I’m not really up on Dershowitz, but I am a Paglia fan. She writes like an angel-or more muscularly than that, I suppose, but anyway-I’ve noticed her praising Sarah Palin’s toughness and femininity, but I don’t really understand where her support for Obama comes from. I mean, I think she is reflexively a democrat, but, given her standards, Obama comes off as a weak sister, at best. I think this really has to do with race, or half-race, anyway.

Sep 1, 2009 - 6:54 pm 80. dubrovnov:

As brilliant, sophisticated and educated as Alan Dershowitz is, he apparently has never outgrown his goyim complex. Republicans and conservatives are all goyim, and he can never be a part of them. Liberal Cristians are good gentiles. The Democratic Party is his synegogue. He will never change.

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:37 pm 81. Meryl:

39. Rashputin…thanks for those comments, something to chew on.
40. Mr. Lucky…referral to Ayn Rand as a reference point re morality: I recently dived into (and nearly choked on!) Atlas Shrugged. I had noticed an increase in references to the book and its ideas and had never read it.

I found it interesting (and I freely admit, overwhelming) that the “morals” were so stringently drawn along the fault lines of human failures and that, secondly, their application was absolutely merciless when played out in detail in the lives of individuals. Because I am a Christian, I find it very confusing/difficult to take seriously a concept of morality that has no element of mercy in it.

Attempting to adhere to a rigid moral rule (even a self-imposed or self-created one) with no option for failure/restoration truly seems to be based on an assumption of perfect performance because no provision is made for anything less. Toward the end of the book, I thought the individual loneliness portrayed in each of Ayn Rand’s characters was truly painful, even in those who were “succeeding”.

In Christianity both the rigid standard (God’s holiness) and the reality of failure (man’s performance) are acknowledged and dealt with. Your reference to Ayn Rand does help me understand a little better how this whole area is approached from an atheistic point of view.

With regard to the question some have about “whether there is a higher power” the thing I always think of there is simply this: if there is, that higher power isn’t waiting around for us to vote on “its” existence or come to some definition. If “it” is a higher power….then it IS a higher power regardless of our perceptions or responses. God’s name for Himself, “I AM THAT I AM”, would be an ad agency’s dream come true they had come up with it! Thanks for the discussion.

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:37 pm 82. Aubrei:

Liberalism and Zionism are not diametrically opposed and Dershowitz is exactly right on this, however what worries me is that Obama is somehow seen as the litmus test for who is allowed to be considered liberal, are you forgetting all of the Independants and Hillary supporters who didnt drink the BaraKoolaid? Look, Dershowtiz is working tirelessly to bring Zionist apologia to a wash of leftist collegiates and he has to be seen as relevant in order to do so! I am afraid he simply cannot be against Obama if he wants to appear remotely relevant to these types of people. This is why I sympathize with him and feel the row with Philips to be unfortunate and distracting.
Conservatives need to learn to allow for a buffer zone, between the whole anti-American, anti-semetic, Marxist sympathizing radical left and the middle-Left to middle-Right and stop trying to convert Dershowitz. I repeat, he is a buffer zone! Accept him! And move on.

Sep 1, 2009 - 10:12 pm 83. arhooley:

#75 Bravo from a fellow atheist or agnostic (I’m not sure).

Sep 1, 2009 - 10:18 pm 84. Michael, London:

Paglia writes with ‘élan’ and brilliance?? How’s this for elegant prose then:

‘Obama has barely begun the crucial mission that he was elected to do’.

‘DO’? That he was elected to… DO!?

That’s awful writing. Ugly and sophomoric. He was elected to ‘do’ a mission. Ugh.

Sep 2, 2009 - 1:46 am 85. David Solway:

Dear Michael 84

You’re right about this one. I too noticed the infelicity of the sentence but decided to give her a pass on it. We all stumble over a sentence from time to time, especially when we’re serving up fast-food writing. Look at the books.

Sep 2, 2009 - 3:46 am 86. vivo:

27. Meryl:

“I have never understood what source of information/ideals athiests(sic) use to develop a “system of morality”. Since the very phrase “system of morality” supposes the existence of right and wrong and God is excluded as a source”

Right and wrong have NOTHING to do with ‘God’.

They stand alone.

U don’t believe it?

U r rgt, Im wrng, Im rgt, u r wrng.

See, we don’t need god here.

42. misanthopicus:

“I described morality as a rather streamlining phenomenon, in which humans’ instincts, drives and tendencies are culturally adjusted for the common benefit of the larger group ”

U finally said something true and intelligent!!

Congratulations.

Sep 2, 2009 - 3:56 am 87. tanstaafl:

…if there is, that higher power isn’t waiting around for us to vote on “its” existence or come to some definition. If “it” is a higher power….then it IS a higher power regardless of our perceptions or responses.

There’s the fly in the ointment of religious debate.

Opinion making on all sides of the equation might make I AM smile and shake ITS head.

We’re limited by what we’re able to grok with the machinery we have, and “truth” may lie outside our analytic capacity, just as theories of the origin/nature of the universe cannot be set in concrete as definitive.

Some physicists become less hostile to notions of I AM as they enter more deeply into the mystery. Albert Einstein never took it upon himself to declare the universe wholly mechanical.

I read Chris Hitchens, God is Not Great. He offered a lot of good reasoning for a purely scientific view of life, but his taking issue with religion (and its infighting and capacity for poisoning through competition with competing “belief” systems) should not be confused with God.

In the same vein, we use the terms climate change and anthropogenic global warming interchangably, and they’re altogether different. Although climate is changing, it always does, the hysterics would have you believe that human carbon emissions are the reason climate is changing, for which there is no proof whatsoever.

I was raised with little or no “religious” influence and still have a bedrock set of values, which I don’t follow out of fear of retribution but because they’re there.

I like to think we’re radio receivers…and that our minds are wired up to something bigger than the confines of our skulls…

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best…

“We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us organs of its activity and receivers of its truth.”

Sep 2, 2009 - 6:43 am 88. Mr Lucky:

75. AtheistConservative and , 78. Calvin Ball.

I posted this on PJM several weeks ago. There are several minor edits.

I am an atheist. I won’t smack down anyone because of his or her beliefs. When those beliefs become action, then possibly there might be reason (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Saddam etc.) to proceed. I will say this about Dawkins – I don’t agree with much that he says when he moves into the political realm. I have read The Ancestor’s Tale, and know of him, and while I find the science interesting, I would say that the ridicule of believers is unnecessary and counterproductive. Remember Alinsky’s Rule 5 – Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. I think we all might do well to reflect on Rule 5 as well. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Yes, some of those damn atheists can be quite annoying.

I have always been a non-believer. I have studied The Bible, parts of the Koran, many religious tracts and books, and have had an active interest in religion since I can remember, and still do. I have had many in depth conversations with believers over the years, and will say that I have learned much from all these experiences. I have never ridiculed believers; I have made my share of jokes and comments, hopefully in good-natured way, and if I become aware of offense, I apologize. After all, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I have always encouraged others around me to be strong in their beliefs, again, while trying to be aware of blatant evil being acted upon. If individuals reap benefits from their belief system, then we all prosper; if there is damage, then the suggestion would be to find a mentor who believes likewise and/or to look within and without and be honest with oneself.

I must say that I have never felt what others have experienced, that conversion, the light, the belief or faith that believers talk about. To say I have would be dishonest, I can’t be false in this, it’s too important to myself and to the believers who really do believe. I would be bearing false witness. Don’t misinterpret, I am not agnostic, or New Age, I don’t believe in higher powers or in the spirit world in any form. And I am not incomplete, I just see that others have chosen a different path, allowing themselves to believe, and that that is valid, just as my philosophical makeup is valid.

From my point of view, only a single person can be religious/spiritual. Once groups are formed, then religion becomes political. This does not negate the religious/spiritual element, and of course people have the natural right to form groups, this is a good thing, while bearing in mind that any political group has the potential for unwanted coercion. Maybe this could be a reason why some react negatively to some religious systems. I choose not to join, not out of fear, disgust or because I desire a feeling of superiority, but because as stated above, it would be false.

I maintain the viewpoint that there is room for all of us, we should respect each other as the default, and above all, recognizing that honoring this wonderful existence that we all take part in is very, very important. There is common ground.

Sep 2, 2009 - 7:09 am 89. goy:

@88. Mr Lucky: – From my point of view, only a single person can be religious/spiritual. Once groups are formed, then religion becomes political.

Well put. I’d apply one small tweak to an otherwise sound-looking algorithm.

Only a single conscious person can be religious/spiritual. Once groups are formed, then religion becomes social. Once groups come into opposition, then religion becomes political.

This isn’t an inherent facet of religion, either. It’s a facet of tribal behavior – something our species has selected for since it appeared on the planet. In my observation, when socialists and rabid atheists ridicule, criticize or blame religion for historical maladies involving religion, what they’re really railing against is tribal behavior that happened to rally around a particular framework of religious dogma. As Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Saddam, Pol Pot, Che, Castro, Robespierre and numerous other murderous – secular – tribal leaders have demonstrated, religion is not a required ingredient for this phenomenon.

Sep 2, 2009 - 7:32 am 90. Thomas:

@82. Aubrei:

By saying this:
…”Liberalism and Zionism are not diametrically opposed”
you are profoundly mistaken.

Some of the major pillars of Cultural Marxism (”Liberalism”) is “multiculturalism”, obliteration of the concept of “Nation States”, anti-religion etc….all these tenets are in direct opposition to the very idea of a Jewish National Homeland.

Apparently you never heard of the ideology of Theodor Herzl – the founding father of Zionism – which is a sine qua non to enter a trenchant conversation as per this subject.

Neither you learned about the Yevsekstiya***

While on individual level it’s is possible to hold two, completely opposing views simultaneously – remember the saying that “there are no atheists on a falling aircraft” – but in the real life it leads to an irresolvable conflict.

It’s is impossible to hold both fire and water in the same mouth as Dershowitz attempts to do outside of the Las Vegas Showbiz.
==============================================================================
****Wiki:
“To rival the Zionists, the Soviets created the Yevsektsiya, it was the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist party.

Yevsektsiya members were people of Jewish origin, however, they were hostile to traditional Jewish culture and instead sought to assimilate Jews into the new Soviet society. In line with official Soviet doctrine, Yevsektsiya was deeply opposed to “Jewish cultural particularism” and Zionism, labelling it a form of “bourgeois nationalism”

Sep 2, 2009 - 7:34 am 91. Calvin Ball:

Some physicists become less hostile to notions of I AM as they enter more deeply into the mystery. Albert Einstein never took it upon himself to declare the universe wholly mechanical.

Not to go off into the OT weeds, but actually, he was the one most resistant to quantum indeterminacy. In that sense, he did lose the argument by insisting that the universe is more “mechanical” than it really is.

Sep 2, 2009 - 8:49 am 92. Calvin Ball:

89., it kind of depends on how you define “religion”. If you broaden your definition to include ideologies and dogmas, then yes, religion is the cause of all conflict in the modern world. Is AGW a religion? It has certain features of a religion. In fact, it has certain features of a cult.

I think it’s fair to say that when some ideological tribe starts acting like a religious cult, lots of people will die.

Sep 2, 2009 - 8:55 am 93. Anonymous:

73. frank grimes:

Craig S. Maxwell:“Good” people do not defend murderers”

so who defends them?

Answer: People like Alan Dershowitz.

You welcome,

Craig S. Maxwell

Sep 2, 2009 - 9:29 am 94. Craig S. Maxwell:

73. frank grimes:

Craig S. Maxwell:“Good” people do not defend murderers”

so who defends them?

Answer: People like Alan Dershowitz.

You welcome,

Craig S. Maxwell

Sep 2, 2009 - 9:29 am 95. Charles R. Williams:

Give Paglia and Dershowitz another 6 months. They’ll come around. Maybe they’re not ready to be thrown off of Obamessiah’s wagon train. I suspect this is especially true of Paglia. She must establish her left-wing bona fides by bowing before the king so she can plunge the knife in deep.

Sep 2, 2009 - 9:50 am 96. Donna V.:

Tanstaafl wrote:
Camille Paglia seems to be between a rock and a hard place in trying to assess this administration. She gravitates to liberalism but some cell keeps firing, deep in her midbrain, that something is hugely amiss.

So true. The cell that keeps firing in her brain is the one labeled “common sense.” That little nugget of sense is why I keep reading her. Otherwise, she’d be just another leftist academic who writes more entertainingly than most.

I think her common sense wars with the old ’60’s radical in her. Paglia is the girl with kaleidoscope eyes when she looks back at her Woodstock generation. Oh, she’s admitted that some that old hippie stuff was silly, but she can’t bear to question the basic assumptions of that era, because that was her era. I know a lot of older boomers who are like that – they are far too emotionally invested in the 1960’s to admit that their generation did an awful lot of damage. It’s an article of faith with them that they were the most idealistic, creative, coolest bunch of romanticists to ever grace the planet and everyone who came after them was pitiful and materialistic and grasping in comparision. (As a younger boomer, born in 1959, I’ve been hearing about the Incredible Super Fab ’60’s from the older ones since 1976 or so. I’m really, really, really tired of those people.)

So it’s no wonder Paglia contradicts herself and says something strikingly insightful in one paragraph and strikingly stupid in the next. Everytime her innate common sense struggles to get out, the ’60’s hippie in her comes along and stomps on it.

Sep 2, 2009 - 3:06 pm 97. Calvin Ball:

96, Donna, and when you dare to criticize the ’60s, they drag out the civil right movement. Well, it’s not entirely clear that they even got that right. It certainly could have been done a lot better. With all of the attention and treasure that’s been thrown at that, we should be living in Utopia right now.

Nope, they accidentally got part of the civil rights thing right, but overall the ’60s were 99-44/100% percent unadulterated dooky. They could have elected Goldwater, but they blew it.

Sep 2, 2009 - 3:58 pm 98. Donna V.:

Calvin: Writer Joe Queenan (a boomer himself) once pointed out what is obvious, once you think of it: MLK, Bobby Kennedy, the Freedom Riders and most of the people active in the Civil Rights movement were NOT boomers, but people who came of age in the ’40’s and 50’s. The oldest boomers, those born in ‘46, were still in high school at the time of the March on Washington. All they did was watch the Civil Rights movement on TV. Now they make it sound like they personally faced down troopers at Selma.

Boomers WERE old enough for the post-MLK era – the era that ushered in Black Power and the Panthers. Boy, that was a fun time, wasn’t it? A real riot.

Sep 2, 2009 - 4:26 pm 99. Donna V.:

P.S. Same for the music. The Beatles, the Stones, the Who, etc. were war babies who were at least a few years older than their boomer fans.

Well, us younger boomers never had to worry about being emotionally invested in our era. I knew the 1970’s sucked at the time – not because I was such an incredibly smart 18 year old, but because I had a hard time finding even a crappy summer job in 1977.

Sep 2, 2009 - 4:36 pm 100. dck:

This debate seems entirely self-indulgent, to me.

…NO ONE, even in America, is quite sure who Barak Obama really is. Can Dershowitz prove, definitively, that Obama is even a U.S. citizen? Can Dershowitz say, absolutely, that Obama is more Christian than Muslim? If not, if there are ambiguities here, then it is important to ask:

1.) Is Israel in a strong enough position to give Obama the “benefit of the doubt” to suit American politics?

2.) What are the consequences of serious error here? Can Israel afford those consequences?

3.) Is Professor Dershowitz willing to risk those consequences on the centrality and correctness of his argument?

I suppose we need intellectuals to raise questions but thank God other sorts of minds make vital decisions.

Professor Dershowitz should concentrate on the Law: He was right on Scooter Libby and courageous to speak out.

Sep 3, 2009 - 1:26 pm 101. dck:

…and Paglia?

I’m been increasingly disappointed in her for some time.

I’m not sure what the problem is there. Maybe nothing fails like success.

Sep 3, 2009 - 1:32 pm 102. Aubrei:

#90,Thomas wrote: ” Some of the major pillars of Cultural Marxism (”Liberalism” is “multiculturalism”,”
Okay, hold it right there. Liberalism is NOT the same thing as cultural Marxism. Apparently, you’re framing this from an American pop-conservative type of reference, the kind favored by Ann Coulter, where everything left of Right is “Liberal” including Marxism and Communism. Huh?! All of this is factually incorrect. Liberals are capitalists, not communists, nor socialists. And classical Liberal philosophy favored smaller government and greater individualism, much as modern conservatives do today. I see no conflict here with a national Jewish identity. Linking Liberalism to Marxism or Communism or anti-religion etc is simply erroneous. Also, contrary to the way you characterized “multiculturalism” as being anti-nation state, multiculturalism as it is promoted today, while does prove detrimentary to the main nation state, however it actually tries to set up states within a state, nations within nations, it actually encourages seperatism.

Sep 4, 2009 - 1:42 pm

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